We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
When I was in the ADC being “retired”, I was required to narrate my most despicable sexual fantasies They wanted all sorts of lurid stories and things that I would fantasize about during sex.
They wanted and insisted I do this as a requirement for me being discharged from prison. I would write about my most lurid fantasies and it would go into my “binder” proving (in my own words) what a despicable pervert I was.
*sigh*
Well, everyone has sexual fantasies.
And I am a writer, so I did it. Indeed, I gave the five pages of things that I found titillating to the authority at the ADC.
I really had two main sexual fantasies.
My top fantasy (by far) was having sex in a barn; rolling about in the hay. It really was something that I was really into, and it was my actual and real fantasy. And not only that, but my wife and I acted upon it. We would find a barn, slip in and then go at it.
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Spring, Summer and Fall were my favorite adventures. Winter not so much. It’s collllld in those drafty places. But I don’t know why it was such a titillation to me. Maybe the smell of the hay, or the sneakiness of the adventure, or the threat of getting caught.
I know it sounds so silly. But it’s the truth It was a thing that I really liked and it would really help me get my rocks off. And my wife, who loved me, would also participate (obviously) with no qualms.
The other fantasy, ah…
You know, I really never got to spend any time around women. I worked in factories and in industry. And the most attractive gal was usually some fifty-year old cleaning lady. So my fantasy at that time was dating a professional secretary. These were the only women that were not hags within my immediate contacts.
Nice black three piece suit. And high heels, and of course glasses.
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I never took action on that fantasy. Though, my wife would sometimes really titillate me with that fantasy.
But that was it.
So when the ADC demanded that I write my nastiest and dirtiest sexual fantasies on paper, and a minimum of five pages, I did so, and truthfully told about my fantasies.
And I handed the papers to the ADC professional.
He looked at it, started to read it, and yelled at me. “What shit is this!” He scowled and frowned at me.
Threw the papers back at me. Ordered me to do it again, and this time write about little children, and ordered me to make sure that no one was over the age of ten in the writing. Then he ordered me to leave.
I tried.
I tried, but I couldn’t. It was just way too alien for me.
So I said “fuck this” (to myself), and wrote nothing.
If they wanted to keep me in prison past my sentence, they would have to come up with a good reason. I just wasn’t going to write any bullshit.
But others in my barracks just told me to write anything. That it won’t matter. That I could even copy their stories. But, I said “fuck it”. And didn’t so a thing.
I was usually a passive guy, but this was one thing that I wouldn’t budge on.
And you know what?
It came time for me to leave. My sentence was up.
And yeah, and they let me go.
That bullshit of me having to write a document or they would hold me indefinably in prison was all bullshit. Bull Fucking Shit.
I was this close >||< to making a big mistake.
Now, what happened to the document that I wrote about sex in the barns, and my attractiveness to business women was eventually thrown away and forgotten. And with that, so was my memory of the entire event sequence.
But that’s the was the ADC worked and that’s the way the incarceration system worked. It would have all been on file; guaranteeing me lifetime in prison because some asshole insisted that I make up stories to put in my files and my binder.
*sigh*
Sex in a barn. In Fall with my someone who I loved.
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Then home with my cats and a cup of coffee.
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It’s astounding how evil people can twist such innocent and nice things for power, wealth and dominance.
Don’t ever be convinced to do something that you are uncomfortable about.
Today…
What is your opinion about China and Chinese people?
I’m an American who lived in China for 16 years. I basically grew up there, went to school there, worked there and even got married there (though it wasn’t to a Chinese).
I’ve lived all over the country and have had interactions with people from various ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, religions and in different areas of China.
There is no possible way for me to sum up what I think of “Chinese” people or the country itself, except that I feel it’s been downplayed as to how diverse it really is. In fact, I hate it when other foreigners say something is ‘typically Chinese’ or generalize…because they are such a diverse country. And sometimes I feel that Chinese nationals don’t even know or appreciate how genuinely diverse their country is.
Now that I’m back in the US, it’s very hard to explain to people what China is actually like or answer their many questions about life there. About the only things I can say that are general is: 1) There are indeed a lot of people; 2) Computer stuff is cheap; 3) Eating out is cheap; 4) Public transport is extremely cheap and very efficient.
Another observation I’ve had is despite all of its diversity and it’s huge population, somehow the government/businesses have managed to really streamline things for the most part. Just working in a Chinese company, my concepts of how to deal with a large volume of applications, paperwork and workload are much different than a lot of my peers here in the US. So when I did come back and start working for US companies, sometimes my managers would be shocked at how quickly I got so much done. Like they didn’t even understand it. Not to put them down in anyway. And occasionally I would even get in trouble for doing something differently than others and they would be like, “Why on earth would you do it this way? How did you even think of this?” but that was often before they could see the results.
But on the negative side of that, I had a hard time dealing with all of the personal needs of customers and the tailoring that a lot of Americans require. I’m using to dealing with a huge workload but that’s mostly uniform where people have chosen from a small category of options. I’m not as used to dealing with the incredible personal preferences of a handful of clients who can’t seem to make up their minds. In China, they don’t tend to give you a lot of ‘options’. And people don’t really expect them either. They tend to walk in when they want a service and already know exactly what they want. So it’s a much easier process of facilitating that.
What Would Happen if the US Decided to Not Pay its Debt?
Iranian missiles said to have completely destroyed Israeli Nevatim air base and other bases; Nevatim housed over 20 F-35 fighters which are all destroyed now, as well an advanced American X-band radar site. How is Israel going to get revenge now?
It was a pretty effective strike
The details are trickling in and it does appear that Israel has had 20 damaged F-35s (They aren’t using the word destroyed) but a damaged F35 is as bad as a destroyed one for minimum 12–18 weeks
The Radar site is definitely destroyed
It’s why Israel has postponed their attack on Iran
However the attack will happen
Mostly they will use Drones and they will hit Iranian Top Military and Intelligence Brass with US Intelligence and surveillance capabilities
Lies aren’t as easily accepted without some ground truth. Sometimes, they are just partial truths taken to extremes, often times out of ignorance and good faith. This is something that all Chinese people eventually realize after living in China for long enough; some people are better at working with partial pictures than others.
‘I don’t think it can get any harder’: reality check for China’s travel industry
Stark contract between an optimistic picture painted by China’s travel data and consumers who are reluctant to spend amid broader economic anxieties.
There was a great thread by Glenn Luk as usual, responding to this article. But more on that, there was a great supplementary thread by David Fishman, who succinctly highlights the issue of interpreting China by using three anecdotes he scraped together:
In elite control societies, what often goes dismissed are the experiences of the common person. This is especially true of the US where “middle class” has represented the top 10% of US society for decades— cue the many complaints of “middle class” houses in Hollywood films that are nothing short of multi-million dollar McMansions. The same can be said about the more liberal Chinese takes on China. I for one know the mood among the high performers of academia China. It is not the greatest, though I must say, I have been quite uncomfortable being in so many BMW SUVs (ostentatious wealth not really my style).
The reason why I do not share in these dour takes on China is because of my paternal family and the fortunes of people from back from the village. I know where those family members come from, what kind of temperament they have, and especially what they have nowadays. Back in 1998, we rode in a cheap knockoff sedan sporting a false police siren (to speed on country roads), driving over half paved, half dirt roads just to get to our T5 city. Ever since, I have watched them get far wealthier. Today my elder cousin does better than me; he owns 3 properties in a T1 city and rents two of them out for a very pretty penny, while I struggle as someone in the top 5% of the US to actually buy a cheap house ($850k) in the place I grew up. The difference between my cousin that is younger by a year and my other cousin who is graduating from undergrad this year is night and day; the former has moved to the US and lives a great life but had to be top of her class to do so, while the latter is pretty much the definition of academic mediocrity. Even so, her mentality bears all the hallmarks of polite urbanite (while I remember the former offering me a beer back when we were 13, as no one cared out in the sticks). That former cousin grew up in that T5 city, the latter cousin is basically a T1 city girl; both, it seems, can do quite well for themselves despite the wide gulf in effort. Hence, people who tell me that China is terrible for everyone but the elites are only going to get the stinkeye from me— it’s like they don’t even care that my family exists.
The pattern I’ve seen in a lot of the anti-China reporting is that they pay attention to only the elites. Keep in mind we are only talking about those reports from people who seem like they know what they are talking about, either because they have Chinese names or they actually bother going to China. On the surface, this is a remarkable step up from the typical “China expert” who knows no Chinese and hasn’t ever visited. Unfortunately this step up seems to be what is selling authenticity today, when in fact it is just clearing a minimum threshold of “not 100% fantasy.”
I have said this time and time again, even all the way back to random comments in 2015 or so: China is insanely complex. Its size should humble all who engage. When I hear about a foreigner who has stayed for 15–20+ years in China, I will usually go “wow, you must have a lot of insight!” But make no mistake, that’s not me calling them a China expert, that is me expecting that they have some very narrow experiences that strike very deep and true, and that I will be able to glean some insights on a tiny sliver of China through them. Most people of that degree of stay in China are likewise humble and know that we all are just in the business of exchanging very narrow and specific slivers of China. To those observing, particularly neophytes to the experience that is China, this subtext may go unnoticed.
David Fishman is a valuable resource. He has tons of stories from people he can reach on the streets. But I know better than to expect him to really know Chinese governance; he has little in the way of penetration into the government track lifestyle. He is also white, which means he won’t have the perspective of someone who can blend into the streets and watch China the way a Chinese person can. There are always limitations to one’s China experience, which is why we all fan out in our information gathering through guanxi (connections).
Yes, there are a lot of blatant lies about China. But just because they exist, don’t get complacent when someone comes by with experience or a Chinese name and starts generalizing. Specificity is the name of the game; pity that most Chinese people don’t feel safe sharing specifics. This is often the reason why you have to hit the streets and make your own guanxi. First, build trust, then get specifics. You never know when someone is withholding information from strangers but not their guanxi network.
But just to highlight, driving back to that T5 city from the T1 city took generally 2 hours in the late 90s. It was unwise to do after a rain as the mud would likely have made the roads unmanageable. In the late 00s, that drive went down to 1.5 hours; the road at the outskirts of the T5 city had massive potholes that you could not evade and would require cars to go at most 5 km/h. In the late 10s, I don’t recognize most of the city anymore. I don’t remember seeing any donkeys driving carts anymore, only the standard blue motor trike at the very bottom end. I can barely estimate that the town square that felt so hollow and eerie at night in the 00s (due to all of the empty concrete apartment shells, lack of lights, and echoing) was now a park with big trees and plenty of amenities.
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Remember, T5 city! Where those pink trees are was generally where a line of stores were, and back in the 00s one of those stores sold crappy CRT TVs. One of them played Shrek in Chinese dub, which captivated some 20-ish children as onlookers. I joined them as I was bored then. Everything now is unrecognizable.
Anecdotes aren’t that powerful, but they can serve as smell tests for the kind of China headlines that pander to American audiences. The more you have your own experiences to look back on, the more you too can be immunized to bold but bad China takes. Because the sad reality is, it is just too easy to lie about China, and even the truths are not that good either!
11 Harsh Realities of Life for a 60 year old retired man.
What is stopping China and the United States from becoming allies?
The truth: China desperately want to become friend with US, however, US sees China as a threat and want to see China lose.
Lived in both countries, what I’ve observed is in China, everyone (including main stream media like CCTV) is talking about US being the best country:
the higher level of democracy
the innovation
hollywood movies, hot actors / actress
advanced technologies, respect for skill and knowlege…
the list goes on…
When I actually get here, I’d say some of these high reviews are true, but overall it’s probably overrated.
Then when I start to read news on CNN, Fox, NY Times, I see lots of negative news about China.
food imported from China are poisons
Chinese constantly steal US intellectual property
in China everything is about building connections, just having the skills will fail you in China
Chinese government tortures minority
China ‘bully’ neighbouring countries.
… and the list goes on
Non of these are true – I’m not saying China is a perfect country, it’s far from perfect, but the real issue in China was never cared and covered by western media. All these news is designed to make people hate China.
Combine flour and salt; with meat mallet, pound 2 tablespoons of the mixture into meat on both sides. Brown meat on both sides in hot shortening.
Transfer meat to a 12 x 7 inch baking dish.
Blend remaining 2 tablespoons flour mixture into pan drippings.
Stir in undrained tomatoes, celery, carrot and Worcestershire sauce. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly; pour over meat.
Bake steak, covered, at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour or until meat is tender.
China’s first photonic chip pilot line opened in Wuxi leading the industry to take off
On September 25, at the 2024 Integrated Circuit (Wuxi) Innovation and Development Conference, the first photonic chip pilot line in China built by the Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University was officially put into use. This marks that photonic chips have officially entered the fast lane of industrialization, which will break through the limitations of computing paradigms and bring new imagination space for large-scale intelligent computing. A glorious era for photons is about to begin.
Photonic chips are the core of the new generation of information technology. They can meet the technical needs of transmission, computing, storage, and display in the fields of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing, biomedicine, etc. in the new round of scientific and technological revolution. They have become a new driving force for economic growth and an industrial highland for global competition.
The pilot platform has a total area of 17,000 square meters, integrating scientific research, production and services. It has complete supporting facilities and is equipped with more than 100 world-class CMOS process equipment, covering the full closed-loop process of thin-film lithium niobate photonic chips from lithography, thin film deposition, etching, wet process, cutting, measurement to packaging.
The platform also takes into account other material systems such as silicon and silicon nitride, builds N special process platforms, and forms a leading “1+N” advanced photonic device innovation platform. It can not only provide full-process technical services for universities, research institutes, and innovative enterprises, but also incubate photonic industry projects, efficiently link with industrial funds, open up the complete chain from product research and development to marketization, and accelerate the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements.
The pilot platform will not only accelerate the flywheel effect of technology iteration, promote the continuous optimization of process flow and the improvement of product innovation capabilities, but will also touch the technological frontier at an unprecedented speed, solve the long-standing structural contradictions between the innovation chain and the industrial chain, and ultimately achieve breaking up the obstacles in technology and industry.
The successful completion of the photonic chip pilot line is a vivid epitome of the cooperation between the university and the local government to achieve industrial breakthrough.
In 2021, City of Binhu introduced Shanghai Jiaotong University to establish the Shanghai Jiaotong University Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute project. The pilot line officially started construction in December 2022, the structure was capped in October 2023, and the first batch of equipment entered the site in January 2024. After intensive equipment debugging, it was officially put into use in September 2024. This landmark of the lake bay has achieved a leap from idea to physical implementation in an almost unrivaled manner. The physical structure was built according to the “Green Building Three Star” standard, and achieved key features such as anti-micro-vibration, constant temperature and humidity, and ultra-cleanliness to provides first-class guarantee for the R&D and production of photonic chips.
Now, walking into the nearly 6,000 square meters of high-grade micro-nano processing clean room of the photonic chip pilot line, people can see equipment neatly arranged, and technicians in clean clothes skillfully operating various equipment and observing the operating conditions of various product parameters.
The 9-meter-high first floor is divided into three floors, with the main equipment on the middle floor. In addition to the pipelines for supplying gas and chemicals, the invisible upper and lower mezzanines are also equipped with fresh air systems to transport clean air and maintain positive pressure in the room, which is then exhausted to the outside through the ventilation holes, so that the cleanliness level of the workshop reaches the 100, 1,000, and 10,000-level standards.
The world-class hardware, the leading domestic precision equipment, and the complete closed-loop control of the process are the three core elements supporting the industrialization of photonic chips. This pilot line is in line with the top-level planning and has reached international standards. After the pilot line is officially put into use, the annual production capacity is expected to reach 10,000 wafers. In the first quarter of 2025, the PDK will be officially released, and external wafer flow services will be provided.
Currently, the whole world is committed to solving the iteration problem caused by the lack of computing resources. Optical quantum computing is not only backward compatible with related technologies, but its theory and framework also enable exponential computing power that is endless. However, due to the lack of matching hardware systems and the immature industrial chain for landing products, optical computing and quantum computing cannot be commercialized. Currently, the world is starting from the same starting line, which provides China with an opportunity to surpass in technology.
The institute will focus on 6/8-inch thin-film lithium niobate wafers and thin-film lithium niobate modulators to overcome the engineering and technical challenges faced by the industrialization of thin-film lithium niobate photonic chips, develop wafer-level chip mass production processes, and achieve large-scale mass production of thin-film lithium niobate photonic chips to meet the high computing power needs of artificial intelligence development.
The Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University will continue to be a leader in new-quality productivity, continue to explore cutting-edge technologies in quantum science and technology and common key technologies, and rely on the photonic chip pilot line to carry out a three-in-one strategic layout of “platform + incubation + fund”. Focusing on new-generation information technologies such as core, light, intelligence, and computing, it will carry out scientific and technological achievement transformation and incubation and investment in entrepreneurship, explore new paradigms for the incubation of hard technology innovation, and help Binhu District and even Wuxi form a world-class photonic innovation ecosystem with clustered and large-scale development.
De-Dollarization: China Squeezes USD Debt By Guaranteeing RMB Bonds In The Global Markets
Is there any evidence that supports the argument that The United States is becoming a police state?
About a month ago, there was a noise complaint at the neighbor of my brother’s home.
The police arrived. My brother went over because his 11 year old son was there and wanted to ensure his son was okay. The police arrested my brother, charged him with resisting arrest, assault on an officer, aggravated battery on an officer.
These charges carry a two to twenty year prison sentence.
When I asked my brother what happened, he told me that the charges were made up. He asked about his son, the officers (3 of them) engaged him and decided to put him in the squad car. He never touched anyone. He never resisted. Because of the charges, he has no bail, and the bond hearing was set for a month out.
I asked, “Were the officer’s bodycams on?” He replied, “No.” They said all their cams were off.
I thought to myself. “Oh shit.” Then I replied, “Okay, sit tight, I’ll get you a lawyer.”
But to be honest…without any camera footage, my brother was cooked.
Now. I love my brother, and I know his character. I know there was no way he attacked three police officers. To be honest, if he did, they’d just shoot him. He’s a big black guy who spends a lot of time at the gym. No one would have challenged his death.
But, that’s not who he is. However…SOMETHING must have happened, right? It couldn’t be that he just walked up, the police then put him in the car and charged him. That’s not real.
2 to 20 years in prison. Three officers are saying he attacked them. Aggravated Battery on a police officer. All of this was a month ago…labor day weekend. No video evidence, so it’s their word and his. He’s so fucking cooked.
But wait. Remember the part where I said my brother walked over to his neighbor’s house?
The neighbor’s ring door camera activated, and his lawyer has not one…but three videos from ring cameras and security cameras covering the entire event.
You know what actually happened? Well, I’ll say it this way. As soon as the lawyer told the prosecution that they had camera footage from the ring camera, the prosecution dropped the assault and aggravated battery charge immediately. They downgraded the resisting arrest to a misdemeanor and gave my brother a 50,000 bond, which we immediately posted. They also added another charge (a misdemeanor), and handed the entire case from the felony prosecution to the misdemeanor prosecution who wanted to settle. My brother’s lawyer said…”No.” We want this fast tracked to trial. You’ve only seen one video. I have two more. The footage shows my brother walking up to the officers, them having a very normal conversation, and when my brother asked for his son, the officer told him “No.” My brother continued to ask, and the officer put him in cuffs and put him in the car for “protection of the officers.” That was it. No one even raised their voices.
Now. Because this is still in flight, and my brother has plans to sue for wrongful arrest or something…which he’ll lose, I won’t say which department this is, but will post all the details after the case and suite are done.
But here is the thing. Do you know what happened to the three police officers who made up the assault and aggravated battery on a police officer charges with the up to 20 year prison sentence?
Nothing.
Do you know what would have happened to my brother if those ring cameras didn’t kick in? I’m guessing he’d get about 7 years. What’s your guess?
That’s the definition of a police state. They can just make something up to throw you in prison…and in the 1 in a 1000 chance you are able to prove your innocence, nothing happens.
I still nearly tear up at the thought of how close he came. He’s a father of 4 who works for Mitsubishi building generators as a supervisor. And he nearly lost his freedom…for what. I yelled at him “You know never to engage with the police. You know better you fool.” All he could say is…”but my son was over there.” 30K for a lawyer (gone). 5K for the 50K bond (gone) all because you approached police.
I’ll update the results when I can. But more than likely…nothing will happen.
Have you ever suspected that a family member was guilty of murder?
I’m pretty sure Grandpa killed my cousin’s abusive ex-husband.
The ex ticked all the psycho boxes: he was physically, sexually, and verbally abusive. When my cousin finally started the divorce proceedings and got a restraining order, the ex repeatedly violated it. He’d make numerous harassing phone calls daily, show up at her workplace, and was arrested a couple times for trying to force his way into her house. Somehow he’d always make bail and within 24 hours or so be right back at it.
Shortly after the divorce was finalized and she got 100% custody of their son, the psycho broke into her home while she was at work and trashed the house. He left voicemails threatening to kill her. My cousin came and stayed with us for awhile so she could make arrangements to move and would not be home alone.
One day the calls stopped. She stopped seeing his truck around town. My cousin was still scared, it was not like him to just stop, and she figured he had gotten arrested, and would soon be out and back at it again. She said words to that effect one morning at breakfast. There sat Grandpa, reading the paper, with a cup of coffee and a Pall Mall Red. Without looking up he just said, “He won’t bother you again.”
And he didn’t. Going on twenty years and no one has seen or heard of the psycho ex. Grandpa knew something we didn’t, but he died in ’05 so he ain’t telling.
EDIT: to address some of the comments without posting repetitively, I suspect Grandpa got rid of the ex. I do not know if her ex is alive or dead. I don’t know for sure what, if anything Grandpa had to do with it. All I can say for sure is he said the ex wouldn’t bother her again and he hasn’t. Wouldn’t put it past the old man to have done his own problem solving though.
Grand Funk Legend Died & Saw the Afterlife – Mark Farner Tells All!
What is the most current lie told about China?
There are several major lies that are all equally current:
China is planning to invade Taiwan.
China is oppressing the Uyghurs in Xinjiang (genocide, forced labor, concentration camps, etc.).
China is oppressing the Chinese people in general (Xi Jinping is a dictator).
China’s economy is a disaster (property market, youth unemployment, demographics, etc.).
Once, when I was on duty in the Emergency Department during my residency training on a 36-hour shift, I noticed something. Something strange, something that was not normal.
There was this one kid, around 10 years old. I saw him wandering around the emergency department all day long. And just like that, it was midnight. I had time to reflect on the events of that night. That same kid was standing outside. So, I decided to find out what was happening to that boy, why was he wandering around the emergency room all day long by himself?
So when I approached him and asked him if I could help him I saw that he was really upset. After that he tried to avoid my questions but I insisted to find out what was going on with him, he asked if we can talk in a private place.
I took him into an office and he lifted his shirt and showed me a scar on his chest that was obviously from a previous heart surgery.
He confessed that he was looking for the doctor who had performed the surgery on him when he was a baby and asked where to find them.
Of course, I knew the surgeon who had operated on the child. But I insisted on knowing why he had been sitting in the emergency room all day looking for that surgeon.
Then I found out that the surgeon in question not only treated the kid for free, but also paid for all the costs of his surgery (since he didn’t have any kind of insurance) and also visited his home every two months after the surgery, paid his family’s rent, got them food and clothes (note this was years ago).
But for the last one and a half years the surgeon was not seen in the children’s house, and his mother did not even have money to pay the rent. That is why he was searching for him.
Sadly, the kid didn’t know that the surgeon had died a year and a half earlier, and he started crying when I told him.
Later that day I told some of my cardiac surgery friends about the incident. I found out that for the past year and a half since the cardiac surgeon’s death, many people have been coming to the hospital regularly asking where he was! Because no one apparently knew that not only did he pay for their surgeries (for those who were unable to pay), but he also made it his mission to help those people’s entire families. And even his wife and children did not know he did that.
What an incredible, inspiring and fascinating person he was.
He was Brigadier-General Dr. Muhammad Fayez in the Royal Medical Services of the Jordanian Armed Forces.
He was a cardiac surgery consultant and head of the cardiac surgery department when he died of a heart attack at the age of 52.
His typical day started at 8:00am and ended at 11:00pm. He was a talented, dedicated, humble and decent man who preferred to work behind the scenes. Didn’t want fame or fortune. A true human being.
UPDATE – Wife Has Known For 8 YEARS That Her Best Friend’s Husband Punched My Son And NEVER Told Me!
The hum of the spaceship’s engines filled the air as Captain Jackson surveyed the vast expanse of space stretching out before them. They were on a routine mission to explore the far reaches of the Galaxy, charting new star systems and collecting valuable data for the Intergalactic Alliance.But as they ventured further into uncharted territory, a sense of unease settled over the crew. There was something off about this sector of space – a feeling of foreboding that sent shivers down their spines.As they pressed on, their fears were realized when a sudden jolt rocked the ship, sending alarms blaring and lights flashing. Emergency protocols were initiated as the crew scrambled to assess the damage.”What happened?” Captain Jackson barked, his voice tense with urgency.”It looks like we hit some sort of anomaly,” replied Lieutenant Ramirez, her fingers flying across the control panel as she attempted to regain control of the ship.But their efforts were in vain as another jolt shook the vessel, this time more violently than before. Panic gripped the crew as they realized they were hurtling towards a nearby planet, their trajectory set on a collision course that spelled certain doom.
With time running out, Captain Jackson made a split-second decision – they would attempt a risky maneuver to evade the planet’s gravitational pull and regain control of the ship.
“Brace yourselves!” he shouted, his hands gripping the controls with steely determination.
As the ship plunged towards the planet’s surface, the crew held their breath, their hearts pounding in their chests. But just when it seemed all hope was lost, Captain Jackson’s daring maneuver paid off, and the ship veered away from the planet at the last possible moment.
Cheers erupted throughout the cockpit as the crew celebrated their narrow escape from disaster. But their relief was short-lived as they realized they were now adrift in the void of space, their navigation systems fried and their chances of survival dwindling by the second.
As they frantically searched for a way to repair the ship and plot a course home, Captain Jackson couldn’t help but wonder what other dangers lurked in the darkness of space, waiting to test their courage and resolve.
Despite the chaos that ensued, the crew of the spaceship refused to let fear dictate their actions. With determination in their hearts and a spirit of camaraderie that bound them together, they set out to explore the planet they had narrowly avoided crashing into. As they descended through the atmosphere, they were greeted by a breathtaking landscape unlike anything they had ever seen before – towering mountains, shimmering lakes, and lush forests stretching out to the horizon.
Eager to uncover the secrets of this alien world, the crew donned their spacesuits and ventured out onto the surface, their eyes wide with wonder as they took in the sights and sounds of this new frontier.
But their sense of adventure soon turned to apprehension as they encountered strange and wondrous creatures lurking in the shadows – creatures with scales as hard as steel, eyes that glowed with an otherworldly light, and voices that echoed through the caverns like whispers from the void.
Undeterred, the crew pressed on, their curiosity driving them ever forward in their quest for knowledge and discovery. And though they faced countless challenges and obstacles along the way, their indomitable spirit carried them through, guiding them on a journey of exploration that would change their lives forever.
As they prepared to leave the planet behind and return to the safety of their ship, Captain Jackson couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the adventure they had shared together. For in the face of adversity, they had found strength in each other, forging bonds that would withstand the test of time.
Amidst the chaos and excitement of their unplanned detour, the crew found moments of levity that brought much-needed relief from the tension of their predicament.
From Lieutenant Ramirez’s failed attempts at fixing the ship’s malfunctioning systems to Ensign Johnson’s comical mishaps during their explorations on the planet’s surface, there was never a dull moment aboard the spaceship.
Even Captain Jackson, typically stoic and reserved, couldn’t help but crack a smile as he watched his crew stumble their way through one misadventure after another. But amidst the laughter and camaraderie, there was a sense of camaraderie that bound them together, a shared sense of purpose that gave them the strength to face whatever challenges lay ahead.
And as they finally set course for home, their ship repaired and their ship repaired and their spirits buoyed by the memories of their cosmic escapades, they knew that no matter what trials awaited them in the vast expanse of space, they would face them together, united in their quest for adventure and discovery.
The journey back to their home base was filled with moments of reflection and gratitude. Each member of the crew took the time to appreciate the bonds they had formed and the experiences they had shared during their time in the far reaches of space.
Lieutenant Ramirez, with her quick with and unwavering determination, became the heart and soul of the crew, guiding them through even the most challenging of situations with her calm demeanor and steady hand.
Ensign Johnson, despite his tendency to stumble into trouble, proved himself to be a valuable asset to the team, his ingenuity and resourcefulness saving them on more than one occasion.
And Captain Jackson, with his leadership and courage, inspired his crew to rise above their fears and doubts, leading them through adversity with unwavering resolve. As they neared their home base, a sense of anticipation filled the air. Though their journey had been fraught with danger and uncertainty, they had emerged stronger and more united than ever before.
And as they docked their ship and stepped onto solid ground once more, they knew that their adventure was far from over. For as long as there were stars in the sky and unexplored corners of the universe to discover, they would continue to journey forth, together, in search of the next great adventure that awaited them in the cosmos.
What was said at a funeral that you will never forget?
When I was eleven years old, a friend drowned while swimming alone at a local lake. He was alone because I had persuaded a mutual friend who was supposed to go with him, instead, to come visit me at my house, because I was grounded from leaving the house, but I could have a friend come over.
Denny’s was the first funeral I remember attending, and I walked into the funeral home alone. I was terrified and overcome with remorse and shame. Not quite knowing what to do, I slipped in the back and sat in the first chair I saw with no one near it.
Almost immediately, Denny’s mother came over and sat next to me. She said, “This is not your fault. You did not kill Denny. Tragic accidents happen all the time, sweetheart. Don’t carry this through your life. If you do, that will be a tragic accident too. When you leave today, leave any guilt you might feel right here so that we can bury it as well.
Then she hugged me while I cried. I did exactly as she said. And I have never forgotten the witness of her grace.
A MATTER OF SURVIVAL The Shuttle He opened his eyes and knew, immediately, that something was amiss; no headache, no blurred vision, no sluggishness of his central nervous system, no disorientation of any kind. With growing trepidation, he turned to his right and, swallowing his anxiety, gazed at his digital, countdown screen: frozen at 9 years, 5 months, 3 weeks, 6 days and 19 hours. He had been in cryosleep for just 5 hours!What the f**k!Glen Thomas, Commander of Deep Space Shuttle, Commodore V11, noted for his coolness under pressure, began to perspire and panic at the same time. Sitting up, dressed only in khaki briefs and t-shirt, he looked across at the other two cryogenic sleeping pods alongside him and saw the red, illuminated screens of his colleagues ticking down the seconds and minutes in perfect harmony, unlike his own.Flight Engineers, Helen Jones and Matt Weitz slept peacefully inside their transparent cocoons, their body temperatures maintained at a perfect 32 degrees C, in a state of natural hibernation, heart beats slowed, hormones and composition of blood, breathing, cell replication and brain activity all altered for the next nine and a half years, when they would awaken as Commodore V11 reentered Earth’s atmosphere- as he, too, was meant to do. For some reason, his pod had malfunctioned!
As the man in charge of this mission, Glen had an intimate knowledge of his ship and understood that, once set, the timing device of a stasis pod could not be altered.
Nevertheless, heart thumping, he eased himself from the pod zone to the bridge of the craft, floating weightlessly, using his hands to push off bulkheads, hatches and overheads to reach the command centre of the shuttle where all typed modules relating to the workings of the ship were stored.
Breathing deeply, trying desperately to calm himself, he pulled down the tome that related directly to the cryogenic chambers and began to read. Within a few minutes, his worst fears were confirmed; the operational clock, once triggered, could not, under any circumstances, be recalibrated. For him, the ability to not age for the next nine and a half years was no longer an option.
Okay, okay. Stay calm. That’s not the end of the world, he told himself. Helen and Matt would get a shock when they snapped out of hibernation to find their commander almost a decade older than they remembered, sure. And life for him would be pretty damn unbearable in the interim but he could do it; would do it. Hell, he’d be a hero when they got back; maybe even secure a book deal.
Food! Jeez, he’d forgotten about how much sustenance he was going to need to make it through. These shuttles were not overstocked with nutritional products as the majority of travel time was spent in natural hibernation and space food, whether dehydrated, irradiated, freeze dried or thermo- stabilised, still added hugely to fuel costs for every pound stored on board. Time to calculate.
An hour later, having entered the nutritional info of every single item of food he had located in the shuttle into the command and data subsystem, including Helen’s specially packaged must haves, Cheetos, and Matt’s, similarly wrapped, Hershey Kisses, and allowing for a ration of 0.58 kilograms per day, he realised, heart plunging, that he had only enough fluids and solids to sustain life for just twelve months!
A year later, an emaciated, stinking, full bearded commander entered the pod zone for the first time in weeks. Initially, and for several months, he had checked on his colleagues several times per day but, as time had passed, he had limited himself to a once a week visit, the effort involved just too much for his weakened body. This time though, he had another reason for entering this part of the ship: the knowledge that, within the temperature controlled systems lay several litres of much needed water and he was going to figure out how to drain it. With all food having been consumed, although estimates were varied, it was believed that man could extend one’s life by up to two months living on water alone and there was no reason to maintain the perfect 32 degrees C that his hibernating colleagues were dwelling in.
The year had been the toughest of this man’s life. Having nothing to look at except the darkness of deep space that remained unchanged constantly outside the window of the bridge, nobody to talk to except himself, he had, slowly, drifted into semi-insanity. Unable to wash, shave or brush his teeth, with every drop of moisture being so precious, he had, knowingly, allowed himself to become a savage. Wild thoughts entered his mind and he would spend endless, comatose hours debating the rights and wrongs of each. Many, many times, he had considered cutting the power to his colleagues’ cryopods. If he had to suffer so, then why not them, too?
He had even thought about opening the pod of Matt Weitz and, while he was still disoriented, pulling him from his sleeping chamber and taking his place; sure that lifting the lid of the pod would not affect the countdown clock. But, always, the still rational part of his brain would win through and talk him out of this murderous act.
Many, many times, he had told himself that he should accept his fate, climb down into the sealed exit hatch bay and eject himself out into the void and, twice, had entered this part of the ship, fully intending to do the honourable thing. But, each time, something, whether an inbuilt survival instinct or a fatal optimism, prevented him from carrying through with his plan. He knew that he only had enough food and water to sustain him for twelve months; that death was inevitable. Yet, he could not quit; had to claw on to life, hoping, believing that a miracle might occur. His experience in space had confirmed him in his atheistic outlook and he did not, for one minute, give any credence to the existence of a God but, still, he found himself repeating the mantras that had been drilled into him as a child, brought up in a Christian household.
Now, as he drained the water from the tubing that surrounded all three pods, the brownish, foul smelling water seeping into the container he had brought here for this purpose, he looked, once again, at his two colleagues, sleeping peacefully, completely oblivious to the torment that he was going through and, against his better impulses, angry and envious thoughts flooded his brain. Why did his pod have to be the one that failed?
***
Breaking News
“We go now to Independence Square, NASA HQ, where NASA Administrator, Bob Nelson, is waiting to talk to us with the latest on the ill fated shuttle. Bob, thanks for coming on. What can you tell us?”
“I can now confirm, Mary, that our inquiry has shown, beyond any doubt, that the oxygen supply for the craft had defaulted and was responsible for the demise of our three brave astronauts”.
“Did they suffer, Bob?”
“No. All three were in hibernation, completely unaware of the system breakdown. They would all have died peacefully and painlessly in their sleep”.
“What about their families?”
“Well, none of our deep space astronauts are actually married, have children or are in relationships, Mary. It’s not something that is common knowledge but, I’m sure you’ll understand, they are away from home for a very long time. In this case, for example, Commodore V11 was on a twenty year voyage to Pluto and, while the cryogenic sleeping pods ensure that the occupants of the shuttle age only a year or two, the same would not apply to any relatives left on Earth. For that reason, we only train men and women who are prepared to forego a family life, at least until their later years”.
“Well, thanks for sharing that, Bob. Makes me wonder why anybody would want to put themselves through that though”.
“Mary, these are a very special breed of human; pioneers, if you like. They undertake only one deep space mission in their careers and they are expanding boundaries for the human race and, of course, they get extremely well compensated for it”.
“If they survive, Bob. If they survive”.
***
Human Health and Performance (HH+P) Medical and Clinical Unit Secure Ward, Johnson Space Center
“Okay, doc, let me have it”.
“Well, there’s no way to sugar coat this, Bob. Deep space, deep psychosis. It’s that simple”.
“Is he coherent?”
“Depends on what you mean by coherent. I can understand what he’s saying but that doesn’t mean he’s talking a whole lot of sense. He’s cognisant of his actions and, in many ways, as repulsive as they were, he was simply reverting to the human’s inbuilt instinct for survival. Throughout history, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar happenings where cannibalism has been a last resort. That plane crash in the Andes, for example. If they hadn’t made that choice to eat their former comrades, those guys would never have survived…”
“Difference is, doc, their comrades were already dead. Commander Glen Thomas chose to eat his living colleagues. Big distinction!”
“So what now, Bob? That’s the fourth time this has happened in recent years.”
“Well, we can never let this get out. It would decimate our entire deep space program budgets. So you know what to do, doc. Same as before. Just make it painless for the poor sap”.
***
Why is China being increasingly targeted? Are they really a threat to the future of the world?
The Chinese has been targeted since the mid 1800 when the first batch of Chinese went to the US to open up the East West railway lines. They were badly discriminated and I am sure many died. But in those days it is not illegal to kill a Chinese! Of course Anglo Saxon wants the world to forget everything from African slavery to Red Indians culling to Chinese exclusion act now that their victims are all dead and gone!
But so much to western human rights hypocrisy! We will always remember and we will remind you forever! Has anything change? No the white supremacy idea still exists and today Wall Street Journal or Economist still do racism with profit! The western media slur and demonised and get rewarded by the US government with 1.6 billion funding.
it is such a terrible thing to do to use monies instead of helping their 2.5 million homeless on incentives to lie and fabricate on China and the Chinese people. It is Deja Vu all over again. It is Chinese excision act 2025! But this time the world is on the Chinese side. Sure they are dogs and slaves like UK, Australia, Philippines! But there will always be people who stays on the wrong side of history.
Marriage Is Often a Terrible Deal | Orion Taraban
How will China’s “temporary anti-dumping measures” on brandy imported from the European Union affect the global brandy market?
I think a lot of it is because China sees little reason to support western countires who are almost universally taking antagonistic attitudes towards China. And what has China done. Basically it has just done better than the west. Funny thing is this is not new. It is repeated time and time again in history. Back in the 19th century the European invasions of China were brought about because the Western world wanted Chinese goods, but there was little that the Chinese wanted from the west, and so the British becaome the biggest drug cartel in the world, effectively forcing opium on the Chinese the same way drug dealers do it today, and then selling to those people. The Chinese government was too weak to do much against it, but at least were able to prevent the west from conquoring China (unlike Inida). Also during the 19th century, Chinese teams working on the American railroads were able to accomplish tasks other teams could not accomplish and were always more productive. For thier good work they were effectively presecuted by vigilanties. This is something that has happened to the Chinese diaspora throughout history. So similar to what has constantly happened to the Jews.
In part because the west is trying to isolate China. and doing western leadership constantly attempts to destroy China, China appears to feel that it is better to build relationships with the 90% that make up the rest of the world, and it has an added benefit in that doing this is economically better given that products and goods from those countries are less expensive than western countries. At the same time it gives Chinese the opportunity to now produce final products and sell them under Chinese brands, so the profit it much greater, and the dependence on the west is greatly reduced. These countries have proven to be a lot more appreciative of the Chinese, and why not. The Chinese products are so much cheaper than the western products, the Chinese are not buying lots of agricultural products from them, Chinese companies are also selling farm equipment at a fraction of the cost of the west to them so that they can be increase production, building factories in the countries (something the west never did to any extent), and significantly helping them build much better infrastructure in the countries. It is a big win for China, and a big win for those countries that struggled so long under Western imperialism and colonialsim and then Western neo-colonialism.
People talk about how China is so hated by the international community, but that is not the international community but the collective west.
China is learning that the doublespeak “International” community (the reality the collective west) is never going to be a friend to China, maybe because the Chinese are not white and have more power. It is much better to get the rest of the world to be with you, and isolate the west so that they can no longer do you any harm. Russia is learning the same lesson because the white people of the west also consider them untermensch. All the better for China.
And to make matters worse for the west the tactic they used in the 19th century will not work in the 21st century, that of forcing China to turn around, bend over and pull down its pants. As proof of this just look how dangerous is will be for the US Navy to operate within well over 1000km of China. This is proven by articles that admit the the F35 does not have enough range.
China is now a regional hegemon. Its military can stop dead any attempts to intimidate China. They US is fuming. Nothing it does or can do against China works.
King of the Hill – 1950’s Super Panavision 70
Why do we exhibit a lack of fortitude and strength in failing to equip and empower our brethren in Russia and West Asia to combat Western Imperialism, despite the Western Imperialist supplying arms and munitions to eradicate them?
Western imperialism is closely linked to nationalism, racism, white supremacy, and Eurocentrism (America-centrism).
Should people follow the nationalist incitement of their governments and go to kill each other? No!
So-called patriotism, nationalism and chauvinism have always been the gravediggers of the proletariat.
Don’t forget that beyond these claims, there is communism.
Humanity is facing a series of serious problems, namely an insurmountable economic crisis, continuous wars, xenophobia, the impoverishment of the working class, and the destruction of the earth’s ecology, all of which cannot be solved by nationalism.
If we fall into the trap of nationalism, the entire human race will be destroyed. 200 million people died in endless wars in the 20th century alone.
Only by overthrowing this development model in this society can humanity escape this barbaric dead end. This is the message that the working class, especially the younger generation, wants to send to social movements in other countries.
In Japan, protests against the explosion and radiation effects of the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been one after another, and there is growing anger about the impact of the economic crisis.
In the United States, there have been a series of strikes by workers to protest against their incredible exploitation.
In many other countries, we can cite many examples, such as the Arab Spring, Spain, Greece, Bangladesh, etc., where the working class has been massively fired, unemployed and impoverished, and the pressure of work has been increasing.
The solution to so many problems is not nationalism in collusion with the state, but the Class struggle.
We cannot rely on the brutal burning of stores and production bases belonging to “foreign competitors” or calling for a boycott of foreign competitors’ goods to sanction opponents or overcome the crisis.
We need to unite the camp of the working class and then oppose another class camp with our class camp, rather than a conflict between countries.
Our slogan is still: the working class has no motherland and no borders!
We must inherit this internationalist tradition and break the shackles of nationalism.
The rulers want our young generation to swallow the nationalist pill, that is, the rulers threaten each other every day and launch propaganda for war. But we must firmly put forward our different proposals – Class struggle.
Only in this way can mankind not usher in the Third World War and not perish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Mb_mknCk4
There is a scene in the Japanese film ‘Break Through! (パッチギ!, Patchigi!) ’:
The teacher takes out a copy of ‘Chairman Mao’s Quotations’ and introduces it to the students, saying, ‘Chairman Mao of China tells us this…’
Student: ‘Teacher, have you ever been to China?’
Teacher: ‘No, I haven’t, but I know.’
The students don’t give a damn. Then the teacher continues, ‘The world is yours and ours, but in the end it is yours. There is only one way to eliminate war…’
Student: ‘Is it the atomic bomb?’
Teacher: ‘Idiot, war originates from conflict among classes. Eliminating class differences can eliminate war. This is Chairman Mao’s theory.’
40 Brutal Truths I Wish I Knew in My 20s
1. Don’t become good at something you hate.
2. Go to bed and wake up at the exact same time every day.
3. Take care of your body; it’s the only one you have.
4. Stay close to people who want more for you, not from you.
5. Normalize leaving people in the reality they’ve chosen.
6. Being humble is thinking of yourself less, not thinking less of yourself.
7. You get tested the most when it’s your time to level up.
8. Improve yourself daily—make that your only addiction.
9. You teach people how to treat you.
10. Admit you’ve walked through the wrong door instead of staying in the wrong room.
11. Waiting for a sign is a sign.
12. Nothing you’ve gone through has made you weaker.
13. Everything wants you when you want nothing.
14. Be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time to be successful.
15. When things get easy, go hard.
16. Only ask for advice from people who have been where you want to go.
17. The word “No” is a complete sentence.
18. Don’t dim your light to make others comfortable.
19. Have a primary aim for your life.
20. Stop reading books, start studying them.
21. Always assume positive intent.
22. Put your own mask on first before helping others.
23. Look for problems, don’t avoid them.
24. Your new life will cost you your old one.
25. Confidence comes from keeping commitments you make to yourself in private.
26. Dedicate a decade, not a day, to your goals.
27. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
28. Tell people about themselves; acknowledge their strengths.
29. If you keep running into bad people, you may be the problem.
30. Avoid drama and gossip at all costs.
31. Fear gives bad advice.
32. It’s never too late to change.
33. Get rid of all your vices.
34. If you’re addicted to your phone, your life isn’t interesting enough.
35. Take on as much responsibility as you can.
36. Don’t blame anyone else but yourself for your circumstances.
37. Be blissfully dissatisfied with where you’re at in life.
Imagine walking around with a nuclear cell phone! The concept is not that farfetched after Chinese company Betavolt developed a battery the size of a coin that runs on nuclear energy and lasts for an incredible five decades. The technology is also applicable to drones and laptops and the energy density is 10 times more powerful than standard lithium-ion batteries of the same size.
Earth’s first miniaturized atomic energy system
Betavolt’s nuclear battery uses 63 nuclear isotopes positioned within a thumb-sized module. The energy created by the decaying isotopes is converted into electricity, a concept that has existed since the 20th century.
Startup Betavolt has begun pilot testing ahead of mass production for commercial purposes, and future applications include smartphones, drones, and laptops. They’re not the only company looking into similar technology, though. Australia’s PhosEnergy is also in the game after the Department of Defence awarded them $2.3 million to develop extra-long-life batteries.
Betavolt said in a statement:
“If policies permit, atomic energy batteries can allow a mobile phone to never be charged, and drones that can only fly for 15 minutes can fly continuously. Our atomic energy batteries can provide enduring power in diverse scenarios, such as aerospace, AI equipment, medical devices, microprocessors, advanced sensors, small drones, and micro-robots.”
The development of miniaturized nuclear batteries
Betavolt’s initial nuclear design delivers 100 microwatts of power and 3V voltage. It’s only 15x15x5 cubic millimeters big, which is great news for smaller electronic devices like phones. Betavolt’s plan includes developing a battery with 1 watt of power by 2025.
Scientists have been looking into the development of miniature nuclear batteries for many years. The US and the Soviet Union explored nuclear battery technology for use in underwater systems, remote science stations, and spacecraft. In those early days, however, the hardware was bulky and costly.
Aside from China, research institutions in Europe and America are also working on similar projects. The groundbreaking tech may revolutionize the world of electronics by removing the need to charge devices.
Design and safety of miniature nuclear batteries
Betavolt is certain that the design of their battery ensures its safety. It’s built with a layered structure to prevent it catching fire or exploding when exposed to a sudden force. The battery can also operate under a wide range of temperatures, from -60°C to 120°C.
Betavolt created the nuclear battery using nickel-63 as the energy source, which is a radioactive element. Diamond semiconductors are used to convert the energy to electricity. The single-crystal semiconductor is 10 microns thick, and a two-micron-thick nickel-63 sheet is placed between two converters. The energy that’s released as the radioactive element decays is what’s converted into an electrical current to power the device.
What about dangerous radiation?
Obviously, the main concern about nuclear energy is radiation. Betavolt is so confident of their battery’s safety that they claim it can be used to power medical devices inside the body, such as cochlear implants or pacemakers. After the radioactive element has finished decaying, a stable, harmless, non-radioactive isotope of copper is left behind, which has no environmental threat.
Betavolt’s BV100 battery is more secure compared to standard batteries. It does not explode or catch fire when exposed to high temperatures or punctured, making it a safer option.
Minimizing the risk
Betavolt claims the energy density of its miniature battery is 10 times higher than lithium-ion batteries. But they haven’t said much about the risk of beta radiation poisoning. The nickel-63 isotope releases beta radiation and converts it into electricity.
Beta particles are low-mass, high-speed, high-energy electrons that aren’t very dangerous. They can’t travel far as an X-ray or carry as much energy as an alpha particle. Although beta particles have sufficient impact to pierce several millimeters of skin, just a small amount of shielding is sufficient to provide suitable protection.
The biggest risk would come from swallowing one of these batteries, similar to the risk of standard lithium-ion batteries. Betavolt believes the potential of such long-life batteries outweighs the risks, and that their measures to make them safe for use in robotics and autonomous systems will ensure the public is safe.
Betavolt says this development puts the country of China “way ahead” of European and American scientific institutions and enterprises researching similar power sources. Production of the nuclear batteries has entered the pilot stage and mass production is expected to begin in 2025.
This news is brought to you by http://Diary24.com by Kelly L. October 9, 2024
Why is Iron Dome not effective against ballistic missiles?
The Iron Dome was not designed to defend against ballistic missiles, and definitely not the hypersonic missiles that Iran possesses.
Israel’s Iron Dome was designed principally against the low velocity short range home made rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza. It is adequate for those purpose given that Hamas does not possessed very many of those rockets. Even for low velocity weaponries such as Drones, Israel’s enemies can overwhelmed the Iron Dome by SWARMING the skies with it.
There are no missile system that exist currently in Western inventories, including those of Israel, that could effectively defend against a barrage of ballistic missiles – Iran had demonstrated that in its recent attacks when MOST of its missiles hit their target in Israel.
ADDITIONALLY, Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon had forced the evacuation of Israeli occupiers from Northern Israel by launching drones and rockets. The Iron Dome was not able to STOP those threats.
Should this war continue to ESCALATE, you will likely see the complete destruction of Israeli infrastructure – water supplies, electricity, port etc – because Israel and its allies just does not have the means to defend against those missiles that Iran and Hezbollah are known to possessed.
Punch both sides of each steak well with a fork, then marinate for 24 to 36 hours in a marinade made by combining soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and sugar.
Simmer steaks on a low fire for 10 minutes in the marinade.
Remove them and place steaks in a 350 degree F oven for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on thickness of meat. Three minutes before removing steaks, place a pineapple slice on each.
To make gravy, slowly sauté a large can of mushrooms in butter. While doing so, boil down the sauce used for the marinade to make a gravy.
Combine mushrooms and reduced marinade sauce.
Serve individual steaks with the pineapple on top, over which has been poured a generous amount of gravy.
What is the most infuriating thing that doctors experience all the time?
He was brought to the ER in cardiac arrest. Feeble pulse, BP not recordable, he was connected to a ventilator.
He is your old case, the resident reminded me. I look at him. A flashback appears
–
Flashback
Despite my poor face-recognition software I remembered our last conversation.
‘Doctor, I stopped the medicine you gave and started this new ayurvedic medicine for diabetes, which I came across in Google search. I started it, now 3 months, and see the lab results, they are perfect’ he threw the lab test results on my table diffidently, with a look of someone who won a boxing match without a single punch. ‘And no side effects by the way’ the sarcasm was clear in his voice. Years of medical practice endowed me with the non-stick ‘mental coating’ that make me smile.
‘I am not the manufacturer of pills, and I don’t gain or lose by your choosing to take a pill’ I silently remind myself.
But yes, his blood sugar values were normal.
–
Fact Check
Diabetes is elevated blood sugar, and we know its consequences. Blood vessels, from heart to brain, from eyes to kidneys tend to get blocked in diabetes; leading to stroke, heart attack, kidney disease and loss off vision. But why does it happen? That’s still not clear, even if you read through every line of the 1250 pages of the latest edition of Joslin’s Text Book of Diabetes. Today we know that diabetes comes with a host of conditions like obesity, hypertension, low HDL and elevated triglyceride (known as metabolic syndrome) and could all be partially responsible for the development of vascular complications of diabetes.. Discovery of hyperinsulinemia (increased insulin levels) as the prime driver in type 2 diabetes has added a new dimension. The present understanding is that diabetes is a biochemical orchestra gone wrong, and high blood sugar may be just one single player. Reprimand him, throw him out, but your orchestra still doesn’t improve.
A study published in Lancet show that in a diabetic lowering of blood pressure and LDL cholesterol gives significant reduction of cardiovascular events but the quantum of benefit of lowering sugar is far lesser and has a J curve (more lowering may actually harm; even in the normal range).
A recent Swedish registry data published in New England Journal of Medicine shows that in a diabetic, lowering of blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, and stopping smoking along with blood sugar control conclusively prevent a heart attack, while only control of blood sugar doesn’t.
A researcher has aptly commented that ‘Diabetes is a cardiovascular disease with elevated blood sugar’. Control blood sugar, you could still be in danger.
–
The FDA now insists that all diabetic drugs should prove benefit in terms of cardio-vascular event reduction in large trials to be eligible for approval for treatment of diabetes. Mere sugar lowering won’t do.
–
I could see the big picture, at least a part of it. At least I knew that our knowledge is shallow. The myopic man, contended with a normal blood sugar value, lying helplessly still, connected to a host of tubes and a beeping monitor was blissfully unaware.
–
I don’t build my house myself; I trust the architect. I don’t stich my shirt, the tailor has my confidence. I believe that the local taxi driver knows roadblocks better than Google.
Funny that we all believe Google more than our doctor.
Not funny for the sobbing relatives, sitting outside the ICU praying for him to get well.
China has successfully developed a new type of standing oblique detonation ramjet engine, which has high energy conversion efficiency and strong adaptability, and is of great significance to improving rocket launch performance, reducing costs and deep space exploration.
The standing oblique detonation ramjet is actually a rocket engine that uses a special combustion mode. Its design is inspired by the propagation characteristics of the explosion wave. It generates powerful thrust by colliding the fuel and oxidizer at a high speed at a specific angle and triggering an explosion.
The standing oblique detonation ramjet engine not only has high working efficiency and long continuous working time, but also has great advantages in structure. The engine does not require any rotating or moving parts. It only uses the three parts of the air intake, hydrogen fuel injector and combustion chamber to form the whole device. Standing oblique detonation ramjet engines can only work under hypersonic airflow.
When a hypersonic aircraft flies in the air, the shockwave not only will make it difficult for the engine’s fuel to burn, but will also cause turbulence on the fuselage surface, causing the aircraft to vibrate violently in a short period of time that affects control, and may even cause the fuselage to disintegrate.
The aircraft thus has to be made into a special streamlined structure called wave rider. Its leading edge can “ride” on the shock wave in the hypersonic airflow, which will not cause vibration of the aircraft body, but make full use of the energy of the shock wave to maintain the stability of the flight attitude.
With the standing oblique detonation ramjet engine, the aircraft can fly at a speed of more than 5 times the speed of sound. With the wave rider technology, the aircraft can maintain a stable and controllable attitude during high-speed flight. The combination of the two technologies has laid a strong foundation for the breakthrough of the future military science and technology in China.
This technological breakthrough not only demonstrates China’s profound strength in aerospace science and technology, but also indicates that future spacecraft will have greater maneuverability and a wider range of applicability.
The uniqueness of this engine lies in its suitability for high-speed flight, especially in the field of hypersonic flight. Current aircraft can only reach speeds of several times the speed of sound, but with the help of this engine, aircraft can reach higher speeds, higher altitudes and longer distances.
This type of engine is mainly used in high-tech and high-efficiency industrial fields. For example, they play a vital role in industries such as aerospace, shipbuilding, power generation equipment, and heavy machinery. With its excellent performance and reliability, this type of engine provides strong power support for these industries and promotes technological progress and industrial development.
In terms of energy supply, they can improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption. In the field of transportation, whether it is cars, trains or planes, high-performance engines can improve operating efficiency and passenger experience. In the field of medical equipment, precision engine technology provides a more stable power source for medical devices, thereby improving the quality of medical services.
Have you ever walked out of a doctor’s office because the doctor was being disrespectful to you?
I went to see my new Internist with an itchy rash all over my body. My dermatologist had prescribed an antibiotic for a localized skin infection, and then gone out of town. I am allergic to a few antibiotics, but had never had an issue with this type before.
My internist entered the exam room, lifted one of my arms by the wrist and rotated it to see each side. He dropped it in my lap and said, “Doesn’t look too bad.” I told him I was a bit worried because of the previous allergic reactions I had experienced to antibiotics in the last few months (I was having chronic sinus infections at the time). He left the room without explanation and came back with a bottle of calamine lotion. He explained how to apply it. I looked at him skeptically and asked how it would help if the rash was caused by a medication I had taken orally. He sighed loudly several times and said, somewhat facetiously, “Well, just take Benedryl if you are so worried.” I said I had been told never to take Benedryl with the several medications I was taking for my autoimmune condition, as well as an SSRI and Benzodiazepine.
He became angry, and shouted, “Well then what do you want me to do?!” I pulled away from him on the edge of the exam table, as I meekly explained that I was usually given 5mg of prednisone for a few days for this type of reaction. “Do you even know how that medication works?” He spat at me. At the time, I was a pretty new college student and was also not great at reading sarcasm. I didn’t know he was asking a rhetorical question, so I answered him thoroughly, explaining the mechanism of action of corticosteroids for inflammation. His face got red and his eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? How do you know any of that?” I calmly reminded him I was a premed student studying biology, and that I liked to know what medications did before I took them. I was confused about his level of aggression, but I felt cornered and didn’t know what to do other than assert myself in as calm of a manner as I could. That is what I had been taught to do.
“Well, well…you know way too much for a girl. Especially a girl your age. This is very inappropriate for you to know this.” He stood up from his stool and walked out the door. I was frantically trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I started to cry. I called my mom and tried to tell her what had happened, hoping she could tell me what I missed. She said, “Hold on, he is calling on the other line.” She took the call. She later told me he told her the same he had said to me— that I knew too much, that my level of knowledge was inappropriate, and she cut him off, and said “Dr. ——, it sounds like you have a personal issue. What is inappropriate is this phone call.” She clicked back into my call and just said, “Leave. There’s something wrong with him.” I had not signed a release for him to speak with anyone about me, so technically, it was a HIPAA violation for him to contact my mom. He also contacted one of my specialists, who wouldn’t take his call. He left a message. I had not signed a release for them to speak either, as this was a new internist I was seeing. I am glad I did not, and glad I did not continue to see him.
Recently, I was seeing my current doctor, and out of habit, apologized for sounding like a know-it-all about a specific topic we were discussing. He said, “Never apologize for your knowledge. Never. It is one of your greatest attributes.” I told him I wished all doctors felt that way, and he responded, “If they don’t, it’s their problem, not yours.” Twelve years later, it really felt good to hear that.
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure – 1950s Super Panavision 70
What are the best and worst feelings in the world?
Worst feeling: being told my daughter needed life threatening surgery on her skull, and that without it, she would end up with permanent brain damage due to premature closure of the growth plates in her skull.
I took my daughter to the doctors just for her yearly health check and was given this news. The diagnosis was Saethre–Chotzen syndrome.
About six months later, watching her head growing deformed by the day, she was finally admitted to Royal Children’s Hospital (Melbourne, Australia).
The following day, she was wheeled into surgery. I kissed her goodbye as she went to sleep under the anaesthetic, not expecting her to make it. The doctor looked grim. The dozen or so staff in the surgery theatre were silent. I was ushered away.
The neurosurgeon said before I left that if all went well, she’d be in surgery for 3-4 hours. The subsequent nine hours were the longest in my life.
Afterwards, the neurosurgeon said it was worse than he had suspected and he had to remove her entire skull from the ears up and completely rebuild it with dissolvable plates.
To then see her afterwards in ICU looking like this…
I was a mess. My wife wouldn’t fall apart for another few days.
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Don’t get me wrong, the hospital team are the best in the world. That night, as my wife lay beside my daughter’s ICU bed, she whispered to me ‘She’s going to pull through. I’m not worried about that now, but how the hell are we going to pay for all this?’
The best feeling for me, exceeding any joy that preceded it in my 50 years on Earth, was listening to my daughter singing the entire song Let it go from the movie Frozen, verbatim in Spanish (of all things) from a YouTube clipping she had watched the day before. She was doing this while building a sandcastle on the beach. It was a year post-op. Weird thing was, she didn’t know Spanish and could only speak English and Thai.
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I don’t know if God exists, but angels certainly do.
BTW, my wife, who comes from Thailand, still can’t believe that healthcare is free here in Australia (paid for via our taxes).
Is Israel engaged in a seven-front war?
In fact, Israel has only one front at war: the residual military value of the US.
All provocative actions taken by Israel are aimed at making it increasingly difficult for the US to tolerate the damage it has suffered in terms of international influence, and attempting to ultimately force the US to deploy military force into the Middle East.
As one of the most valuable political legacies of the founding fathers of the US, Jews were almost excluded from the core of the military system and appointed solely around economic operations, which to some extent ensured the security of the US and the world. Now, this design is gradually taking effect: fanatical Zionist zealots have to use extremely poor methods to try to manipulate the US military power – that is almost the only value left that America can be plundered by Zionists.
Subsequently, Zionists will attempt to expand/transfer their influence, they will try to parasitize regions such as Ukraine, HK, and India or somewhere else. Now, tens of thousands of Israelis have gone abroad to Ukraine, which is a country lacking defense capabilities of them. They are trying to bribe HK officials to let them in. Basically, they plan to give up on the US after draining it, maybe also Israeli land itself.
But I don’t think this behavior will succeed. Israel has offended almost all major countries on Earth at the same time. Israel is attempting to harm American interests and deceive and fool the US. The negotiation process between Israel and Lebanon was guaranteed by the national credibility of Britain and France, then Israel broke it. Israel attempted to interfere with China’s reunification process. It tried to intimidate Chinese UN peacekeeping soldiers. Israel directly conflicts with Russia on the battlefield. I can continue to list, but let’s save our time.
Honestly, I can’t see in which way this newly founded country can continue to exist, or even this outdated civilization.
Loyal Husband Catches Wife With Best Friend – She’s Toast & He’s Lawyering Up
I grew up in rural Western Pennsylvania. And there, I had many friends.
Most of my friends were the children of blue collar workers, farmers, coal miners, railroad workers and steel workers. Just average people in a solid middle class life and lifestyle.
One of my friends lived on a small farm with cows, and a few acres of vegetables. They were self sufficient, and their refrigerator was always full of fresh (unpasteurized) milk. They had dogs and cats there as well.
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The house was always filled with uncles and aunties and all their kids, perhaps twenty or so in total. It was always a kind of crazy free-for-all at their homestead.
The dogs were always digging, and roaming, and they did a lot of sleeping as well.
The dogs were these big old “Hound Dogs” who spent most of their time sniffing on the porch or just playing in the barn.
One day I went to visit that found the oldest dog in misery. He had tangled up with a porcupine and his face was completely covered in barbed quills. You needed a medical vet to extract them, and they didn’t have the time or the money, so the dog lived a life of misery for a few months before they could extract the quills.
Ugh!
Life on the farm could get really harsh. Don’t you think?
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Today… Crazy Man is talking big.
We were hoping for some stability.
Ah…
I have always said, that Trump 2.0 will either go REALLY good, or REALLY bad. There’s not going to be a middle ground in all this.
Is all the proposed changes that he is making a good, or a bad thing?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” on the same day U.S. president-elect Donald Trump declared that he’s open to using “economic force” to acquire Canada.
Trump, speaking at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, refused to rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. He was also asked if he was considering using military force to acquire Canada.
“No, economic force,” he responded. “Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.”
“You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security. … We basically protect Canada.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested Canada could merge with the U.S. The first widely-reported example came during a Canadian delegation’s visit to Mar-a-Lago in early December, which Trudeau attended. Canadian officials chalked up Trump’s comments as a tease, but it appears the president-elect has since started to take the idea seriously.
“We’re losing $200 billion a year and more to protect Canada, and I said that to, as I called him, ‘Governor Trudeau.’ I said, ‘Listen, what would happen if we didn’t subsidize you?’ He said, ‘Canada would dissolve,’” Trump claimed.
In the past, Trump has accused Canada of accepting a $100-billion subsidy from the United States. It’s unclear exactly what he is referencing, but it may refer to the trade deficit between the two countries. A trade deficit occurs when the dollar value of a country’s imports is more than its exports. In 2023, the U.S. trade deficit with Canada was US$41 billion.
But on Tuesday, that purported $100-billion subsidy rose to $200 billion. CTVNews.ca has reached out to Trump’s media office to clarify what the $200-billion figure represents.
“I love the Canadian people, they’re great,” he said. “We’re spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. … We can’t do it forever.”
Not ‘a snowball’s chance in hell’: Trudeau
Shortly after Trump made his comments, Trudeau responded on social media.
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States. Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly also lamented Trump’s comments, adding they “show a complete lack of understanding of what makes Canada a strong country,” she wrote on X.
“Our economy is strong. Our people are strong. We will never back down in the face of threats.”
Joly is widely considered a potential successor to Justin Trudeau, who announced he would resign from Liberal leadership on Monday, and eventually from his post as prime minister.
‘The world is better off’ because of Trudeau: Biden
U.S. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, wrote in a statement that he spoke with Trudeau on Monday.
Biden thanked Trudeau, calling him a “friend,” and adding “the world is better off because of him.”
“Over the last decade, Prime Minister Trudeau has led with commitment, optimism, and strategic vision. The U.S.-Canada alliance is stronger because of him. The American and Canadian people are safer because of him. And the world is better off because of him,” wrote the president.
Trudeau assumed power in 2015 towards the end of Barack Obama’s presidency. Biden was vice-president then. Nearly a decade later, Biden is preparing to hand the keys to the Oval Office to Trump, and Trudeau is leaving the PMO as the country braces for a tariff war with the United States.
“Together, we’ve tackled some of the toughest issues our nations faced in decades,” the letter continues, “from the COVID-19 pandemic, to climate change, to the scourge of fentanyl.”
The last point – the “scourge of fentanyl” – will remain a sticking point between Trump and the next prime minister. The president-elect mentioned controlling the dangerous drug as a condition to avoid 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S. when he assumes power.
Canada-U.S. trade ‘supporting millions of jobs in each country’
The tariffs could seriously impact trade between the two countries. Last year, from January to November, the U.S. exported C$461.5 billion in goods to Canada and imported C$540.3 billion. The U.S. International Trade Association called the trade relationship the world’s largest and most comprehensive, supporting millions of jobs in each country.
“We have made generational investments to strengthen our supply chains and rebuild our economies from the bottom up and middle out—establishing North America as the most economically competitive region in the world,” Biden wrote.
“I am proud to call him my friend. And I will be forever grateful for his partnership and leadership.”
Trump takes different tone
Biden’s letter comes in stark contrast to Trump’s response to Trudeau’s resignation.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump once again referred to Canada as the United States' 51st state, adding the U.S. “can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat.”
“Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned,” he wrote. “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down … Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!”
On Tuesday, Trump also repeated his conversation with hockey star Wayne Gretsky.
“I have so many great friends [in Canada]. One of them is ‘The Great One’: Wayne Gretzky,” Trump mused.
“I told him run for prime minister … You’ll win in two seconds,” he said, possibly referring to the widely publicized Christmas Day visit between the president-elect and Gretzky.
“He said, ‘Well, am I going to run for prime minister or governor? You tell me,’” Trump recounted. “I said, ‘Let’s make it governor. I like it better.’”
Trump floats "Gulf of America," seizing Panama Canal in wide-reaching presser
Erin Doherty
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 22, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona
President-elect Trump speaks during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on Dec. 22 in Phoenix, Ariz. Photo: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
President-elect Trump during a lengthy press conference on Tuesday did not rule out using the U.S. military to reclaim the Panama Canal or acquire Greenland.
Why it matters: Speaking for over an hour during his second press conference since winning the White House, Trump floated renaming the 'Gulf of Mexico' to 'Gulf of America' and reiterated that he's "looking at" pardoning Jan. 6 defendants.
Driving the news: Trump's far-reaching press conference comes just one day after Congress certified his 2024 presidential victory. Here's some of what he said:
When asked by a reporter whether Trump would assure the world that he would not use military or economic coercion to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, he said: "No, I can't assure you on either of those two."
"I can say this, we need them for economic security," the president-elect said.
Trump's remarks come as his son, Donald Trump Jr., is visiting Greenland on Tuesday, after the president-elect has signaled that the U.S. should try to acquire the territory.
Between the lines: Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino told the local newspaper La Estrella he will not respond to Trump's accusations about the Canal until the president-elect takes office Jan. 20.
A defiant Mulino has previously suggested that Trump's comments didn't matter until he actually became president.
Gulf of Mexico: Trump also said that "we're going to be changing the name of Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring."
His remarks, which raise questions about how the renaming process would actually work, are the latest example of Trump flexing his power on the global stage before he takes office.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Tuesday she plans to introduce legislation renaming the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America."
Jan. 6 defendants: One day after the four year anniversary of the Capitol riot, Trump said that "we'll be looking at the whole thing, but I'll be making major pardons."
He didn't specifically answer whether he would consider pardoning the Jan. 6 rioters who were charged with violent offenses.
Trump on the campaign trail repeatedly said he would pardon the rioters who were charged in connection to Jan. 6 on his "first day" in office.
Hostages held by Hamas: Trump said that "all hell will break out in the Middle east" if the hostages held by Hamas are not released by the time he takes office.
"And it will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don't have to say anymore, but that's what it is."
Canada: Trump, who has mused about making Canada the 51st U.S. state, said that he would not use the military to make that happen but did not rule out using "economic force."
Zoom out: Trump earlier in his Tuesday press conference announced that billionaire Hussain Sajwani, chairman of Dubai-based developer Damac Properties, is investing at least $20 billion in the U.S. to back new data centers.
Go deeper: Trump announces $20 billion foreign investment in data centers
Axios' Ben Berkowitz contributed reporting.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's plans to introduce a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump, allies fuel speculation over Greenland endgame
by Jared Gans and Sarakshi Rai - 01/07/25 6:32 PM ET
President-elect Trump is ramping up speculation about his endgame with Greenland as he doubles down on calls to acquire the Danish territory, putting observers and allies alike on edge.
Trump on Tuesday reiterated his desire to purchase the island during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, the same day his son, Donald Trump Jr., made a visit there.
Observers have waved off the idea that the U.S. would realistically acquire Greenland. But President-elect Trump’s comments have nonetheless raised concerns, as well as renewed focused on the strategic importance of the island amid growing tensions with other Arctic players like China and Russia.
“It’s not clear yet what the endgame is,” said Rebecca Pincus, the director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, a global affairs think tank. “Denmark is a founding member of NATO, and both the Danish and Greenlandic governments expressed pretty firm opposition to a sale of Greenland. I think that would be very, very challenging.”
Greenland has been of strategic importance to the U.S. at least since the beginning of the Cold War, when the so-called GIUK gap — the stretch of water between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K. — was essential in helping contain the Soviet navy.
“There is an argument that the North Atlantic matters, and because the North Atlantic matters, Greenland matters. Now there’s a separate question, whether the United States needs to own it,” said Jon Alterman, senior vice president and Zbigniew Brzezinski chair in global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The Danish response is, ‘We’ve been cooperating with you on this for three quarters of the century, there’s no need to change the status quo.'”
Alterman added that Trump likes to get attention and keep people on their toes, and “this is an example of persuading people that what they thought was settled isn’t settled.”
“So even if you’re not talking about if the United States is going to buy Greenland next week, the sense that this administration will not be satisfied with the status quo sends a message to U.S. adversaries and allies alike that the U.S. considers the world in play,” he said.
Daniel Fried, former U.S. ambassador to Poland and a fellow at the Atlantic Council, pointed to the 1951 treaty that gave the United States enormous control over Greenland’s defense. The treaty came after then-President Truman made “some halfhearted attempt” to buy Greenland in 1946.
“It’s an agreement that’s existed for so long that people have forgotten it, but it does,” Fried said. “Trump is right that the United States has security interests in Greenland. And if this agreement is inadequate, I’d like to know why and where it has fallen short, because it’s not been a problem.”
“And I don’t think they’ve made the case for why Greenland’s importance justifies this kind of threat and bullying,” he added. “Denmark has been a serious contributor to common security.”
Trump’s expressed interest in Greenland in recent weeks is not the first time he has mentioned the U.S. possibly acquiring the island. He first mentioned it as a possibility in 2019 during his first term in office, reportedly proposing that Denmark trade Puerto Rico for it.
Those plans never materialized, but Trump has put a renewed focus on obtaining it during the transition to his second term.
He reiterated his belief that the U.S. must acquire Greenland on two occasions on Tuesday, first calling into a meeting that his son was holding with some Greenlandic people. He referred to Greenland as “a very special place” that needs security both for itself and the world.
“We’re going to treat you well,” Trump said.
He later said at a press conference that he would not commit to not using economic or military force to take control of Greenland, along with the Panama Canal, and expressed concern about Chinese and Russian influence in the region.
Trump also vowed to levy tariffs on Denmark if it refuses to give up Greenland.
Denmark has owned Greenland for a few centuries and has gradually granted the island in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans greater autonomy. Greenland voted for self-government in 2008, receiving control of domestic affairs while Denmark retains responsibility for foreign affairs, including defense.
The acquisition of Greenland has been floated multiple times over that period in U.S. history, but the prospect never progressed to a sale.
Both Denmark’s and Greenland’s governments have been steadfast in rejecting the idea of Greenland joining the U.S.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a local TV station Tuesday that Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede has been “very, very clear” that “Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future.” She said the Greenlandic people have indicated support for that as well.
“We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Egede said last month, responding to Trump.
While experts cast doubt on the chances of an acquisition, they noted the strategic role of Greenland in the international order and argued that a strong U.S. presence in the area is critical to national security goals.
Alterman told The Hill that the president-elect “likes doing things and seeing what the reaction is.”
“One of the other things he has is a certain willingness to experiment and to do things over and over again and judge which approach does better,” he said. “I think his approach to his rallies was like a stand-up comedian honing an act. He means to elicit a response. He looks at the response and then he adapts.”
Pincus said Greenland’s geographic position is strategically significant, but it also has a “wealth” of natural resources including rare minerals and a “limitless potential” for hydropower from the Greenland ice sheet.
“You pair all those strengths and attributes with the population pursuing independence, it’s easy to understand why there would be increased interest in it,” she said.
Romain Chuffart, the president and managing director of the Arctic Institute, pointed to Egede’s statement Tuesday that “[our] future and fight for independence is our business.” He noted that part of Greenland’s foreign policy strategy for the next decade is “nothing about us, without us.”
Even with Trump pushing for acquisition and Denmark and Greenland soundly rejecting it, Chuffart said he views the chances of a standoff between the countries as “highly improbable.” But if one were to occur, it could damage U.S. credibility internationally, he added.
“If such a scenario were to occur, it would represent a significant failure of U.S. diplomacy and deal a serious blow to the country’s foreign policy credibility on the global stage,” Chuffart said.
Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy, acknowledged that China and Russia have been seeking to increase their influence in the region, as Trump has argued, but he said attempting to purchase Greenland is not the best way to address the issue.
He mentioned the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for strategic purposes and pointed out the world operates differently than it did then.
“If there’s an issue here, you meet with the Greenlanders and with Denmark to try to fix what the U.S. is concerned about,” Townsend said.
It appears Donald Trump, Sr. is quite serious about Greenland becoming part of the Untied States. He sent his son, Donald Trump, Jr. to that island nation today, on “Trump Force 1” which landed about an hour ago.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s other son, Eric, is now in Panama. Perhaps to talk about the Panama Canal?
HMMMMMMMM. . . . . .
Have you ever lost any respect for someone instantly?
I don’t know about you, but I was raised to behave respectfully from a young age; at the same time, I also learned early that behaving respectfully and truly respecting someone are two different things. Respectful behavior is a legitimate expectation, but real respect has to be earned.
My faith in the benevolence of all mankind was shaken when a drunken old man, a complete stranger who could have easily walked past me on the sidewalk, unexpectedly grabbed my hair, and brushed my head against the rough surface of a concrete wall. I was about five years old when this happened, and to this day I don’t understand why. But he didn’t lose my respect — because he never had it.
The same goes to most of my commanding officers in the army, or my former bosses in various workplaces, or for some kleptomaniac or deceitful “friends”. Most of them never earned my respect, so they couldn’t lose much of it.
There are though a couple of cases I’m still reluctant to share… But damn it, after so many decades I can tell someone about them.
If someone insults me, I might get a little angry, but that kind of anger soon passes. However, when the offense involves someone I love, I am no longer so forgiving. It was one of my childhood friends who did this, and in such a hypocritical way, disparaging a young colleague behind her back and praising her to her face, that I couldn’t swallow it anymore. It took years for the estranged relationship to ease somewhat, but the old friendship and respect have not been restored to this day.
And I wasn’t even in love, I just liked her…
In the other case, my high school sweetheart not only broke my heart, but shattered all the positive thoughts and impressions I had regarding her. After almost a decade of tumultuous, on-and-off relationship, I got fed up with the permanent tug of war, and her frequent, always unfounded jealousy scenes, and for the first time in the history of the world I wanted to break up with her. So she tried to blackmail me with a non-existent pregnancy, completely forgetting that I knew her medical history almost better than she did, and I knew full well that she couldn’t get pregnant.
Bummer.
I dropped her.
She followed me around, almost stalked me for years, trying to reconcile with me, but I couldn’t see her as the woman I loved, not anymore. Love, respect, desire — all gone.
I also had some not-so-pleasant experiences with a couple of relatives; only those who have no relatives cannot understand this… But as they say in my corner of the world, it is not appropriate to air the family’s laundry in public. So, that’s all about this topic.
Fortunately, the cases described above were rather the exceptions. I got my relatives and most of my superiors “ready-made”, but I could always choose my friends; and for the most part my instincts were correct.
Now if you had asked the opposite question, about people disappointed in me, I could have written a juicy story or two; but for now I got away with it. Thanks.
What is your opinion on China’s espionage activities in the Philippines?
The Philippines does not have much intelligence value, and the Chinese government does not need to send spies to the Philippines.
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Judging from the current international situation, the United States needs the Philippines to act like Ukraine, forcing China to go to war in the South China Sea, and then the United States gathers so-called allies to fight China, and finally the United States will reap the benefits.
China actually needs the Philippines to act like another failed Ukraine to test its military strength and rehearse for taking back Taiwan. For the Chinese, it is better to choose the Philippines as the battleground for the Sino-US rivalry than Taiwan because, after all, the Taiwanese are Chinese and the Chinese do not want civilian casualties in Taiwan. If it was a choice of two, China would certainly choose to sacrifice the Philippines over Taiwan.
Therefore, whether from the perspective of the United States or China, the Philippines needs to become the “Ukraine of Asia”, and sacrificing the Philippines is a matter of course.
The Philippines may still think that it is smart and that it is doing the right thing, but it does not realize that a great tragedy is about to happen.
Poor Filipinos, they have become the unjust ghosts of the test between China and the United States!
Twilight Zone Time Freezes
Russian Ambassador LEAVES U.S. – Takes Staff, Security, Crypto Gear and Classified Docs
Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, is “concluding” his diplomatic mission, Russian agencies reported late on Saturday.
“Russian Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Ivanovich Antonov, is concluding his Washington assignment and heading to Moscow,” Interfax agency cited a representative of the Foreign Ministry as saying.
The envoy will be returning to Moscow within hours.
HAL TURNER INTEL:
When the Ambassador left, his entourage took with them all the communications gear, cryptographic gear, classified documents, all Diplomatic Staff and – here’s the big “tell” — the entire Diplomatic Security Staff.
It is worth noting that Japan did similar things with their Embassy staff and gear, just prior to Pearl Harbor.
“It’s Getting WORSE And WORSE…” – Richard Wolff
He’s really right on this.
Why was the UK able to humiliate China so easily during the Opium Wars?
The main reason is that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were a minority, and at this time, the Eight Banners Army of the Qing Dynasty was corrupt and vulnerable. In foreign wars, if defeated, the Qing rulers hoped to cede land and pay money, settle disputes, and maintain their rule.
They are more worried about the Han rebellion, so they dare not use nationalism to mobilize the largest number of Han people to resist the British invasion. If the Han people are mobilized, after repelling the British, the second overthrow may be the Manchu.
This consideration also occurred during the subsequent Sino Japanese War, when the Qing Dynasty gave up after a slight attack. But once foreign aggression intensifies, Han nationalism will inevitably be triggered.
Once triggered, firstly, the Qing Dynasty will perish, and secondly, it will fight the invaders to the end. This is the later history. Indeed, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty, and in the subsequent War of Resistance Against Japan, China, as an agricultural country, fought against Japan as an industrialized country, persisting for 14 years and sacrificing 35 million people, but did not surrender, plunging Japan into a quagmire and causing continuous bloodshed. Eventually, Japan surrendered.
If China can’t even invade Taiwan, how could it possibly invade Japan?
Firstly, I was born and grew up in Taiwan.
Secondly, the statement “China can’t invade Taiwan” would have been true if it were made 30 years ago. It is nonsense in the current state of things.
Lastly, your question is comparing apples with oranges. China, or the typical Chinese mindset, sees these two in totally different contexts.
To China, Taiwan is a Chinese province destined to be recovered back into its fold, with its people regarded as Chinese citizens to be governed under the Chinese sovereignty eventually.
And Japan is a foreign nation that has committed massive, abhorrent, inhuman crimes against China without either fully, properly being held to account in the past or fully owning up to its moral liabilities today, while in the meantime having the nerve to threaten China’s security through tangible actions on a daily basis.
The goal of China’s “invasion”, or rather recovery, of Taiwan is to reclaim a piece of China’s own territory extorted from it by foreign imperial powers, most notably by Japan in 1895. This goal complicates the plan, as it is not sensible to bomb a piece of its own territory back to the Stone Age with thousands of cruise missiles.
China has no such scheme for Japan. Japan is not a province of China, and China has no interest in claiming its land or governing its people. To the Chinese mindset, it is just a nation that has slaughtered 30 million of its people in the most brutal and barbaric manner, and is showing increasing unrepentance and recalcitrance by the day again. If Japan ever meddles in Chinese or Taiwanese affairs ever again, what would happen?
It is like if your neighbor had killed your whole family, and now he is breaking down your door again, would you first think of how to occupy his house and make sure his kitchen remains intact so you could make dinner there tonight?
Not to mention that, you already reached a grudging truce with your neighbor that, you would let it go if he promised not to ever enter your house again. Now he is in your house again. Would you still let it go in honor of that fragile truce?
Herein lies the difference between Taiwan and Japan, in objective, and thus in degree of difficulty in action. One is much more challenging than the other, and that is not Japan.
Japan is easy.
What is Japan Likely to Do?
The Japanese know the above very well, except a handful of mouth-breathing octogenarian right-wing cockroaches still marching outside Yasukuni in imperial-era military uniforms. The other tough talking Japanese, whether it’s Ishihara, Aso, Takaichi, Koizumi, ishiba, or those saber-rattling cockroaches on the web, will all keep their heads down like mice and maggots should a conflict break out across the Taiwan Strait. None of them wants to see Japan ceasing to exist as a nation on this Earth because of his stupid impulse. This understanding will likely save Japan’s ass. If you don’t believe it, you can wait and see. It should be made obvious in pretty short order.
And China’s choice of action will be totally logical and understandable, just like the example of your neighbor above. With lessons learned twice in the past century at a price of over 30 million lives and countless properties lost, China simply cannot afford to take any chance again. Will you?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me thrice?
Steak Diane
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Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients
2 (6 ounce) filet mignons, thawed
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
2 tablespoons shallots, minced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon fresh chives, minced
1 teaspoon Brandy
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
Instructions
Season both sides of steak with salt and pepper.
Melt butter in a heavy skillet; add mustard and shallots. Sauté over medium heat for 1 minute.
Add steaks and cook for approximately 4 minutes on each side for medium-rare.
Remove steaks to serving plate and keep warm.
Add into pan drippings, 1 tablespoon butter, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce and chives. Cook for 2 minutes.
Add brandy; pour sauce over steaks.
Sprinkle parsley over the top.
Wife Has MELTDOWN After Husband Lets Kids Run Wild To Teach Her A Lesson About Undermining Him
Is the UK becoming a poor country due to recent economic and political events?
Becoming? The UK has always been poor outside London.
Think of the deep south in the USA. What do we think of.
We probably think of this
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The UK is even poorer without London.
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but here’s the thing, the UK is poorer AND stuff costs more. Think of petrol at $3 per litre.
What is the reason behind the strong reaction of Chinese people when their country is criticized?
That’s the wrong question. The right question should be this:
What is the reason behind the strong reaction of Chinese people when their country is demonized, lied about, insulted and belittled?
The answer is this:
The Chinese people don’t like to be demonized, lied about, insulted and belittled by jealous and retarded people.
I don’t believe Taiwan will not become the next Ukraine disasters neither did Ukraine. Do you?
As a non-Chinese who would love for the Chinese to re-take Taiwan by the simple expedient of blockading the island and starving it into submission, I regret to say that I am 100% sure the Chinese will never re-take Taiwan either by force of arms or anything else other than waiting patiently for Taiwan to rejoin of its own free will.
Why? I am not Chinese but I can think of a few good reasons –
1.Any kind of coercion of military action, no matter how quickly, cheaply or efficiently achieved, is going to leave China with a potential hotbed of dissidents, American-paid trolls, covert subversives, provocateurs and other subversives and give them easy access to the Chinese mainland. Let me simplify that by saying that China does not need to open its doors and hug a whole nest of snakes at any time in the future.
2.Regardless of how the Taiwanese regard the mainland Chinese, the mainland Chinese still regard the Taiwanese as brothers under the skin I hear. Stupid, I know, but the Chinese never claimed 100% intelligence. For China to forcibly take Taiwan with the risk of thousands of deaths instigated by America, the Taiwanese would have to do something that could over-ride the Chinese regard for a brotherhood unwelcomed by so many Taiwanese. And for all their blather, I don’t think the Taiwanese have quite sunk to the Japanese/Korean/Filipino level of intelligence yet.
3.China does not need or want to engage America on a warfront. Not ever, but most especially now or in the foreseeable future and most especially not over Taiwan, and send so many Chinese to their deaths in a war it could easily win by allowing America to self-destruct as America seems so determined to do nowadays.
4.Going to war over Taiwan would involve too much destruction of the things the Chinese have so carefully and so painstakingly built up over the last 20 years – their infrastructure, economy and heritage conservancy efforts come to mind. Re-taking Taiwan is important to Xi Jinping, I understand, but not one of his primary objectives I suspect – eradicating poverty fully, building a strong society, infrastructure and economy would be.
5.Trying to take back Taiwan would be playing into America’s hands. And the Chinese are not likely to give the American emperors that kind of satisfaction by any means.
I playfully mocked him for being ugly at a preparty with our friends but then he stood up & did this
Why do most luxury replicas come from China?
This is a Rolex Oyster Perpetual
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It costs $ 8000
It’s among the lower end watches
The Higher end watches could be as much as $ 80,000-$ 100,000
It has six key patents – Oystersteel, Everose Gold, Rolesor keys, Chromalight, RLX Titanium & Europium Dysprosium Hybridization
This is a Fake Rolex that you can buy for 1300 HKD in Mong Kok Or around $ 168
The cost of materials is 17% of the price of materials in a Genuine Rolex yet the performance and quality is close to 90% of an Original Rolex
The strap of 904L Stainless Steel can be purchased for 8% of what an Oystersteel copyright Rolex strap costs
China controls the supply chain for all the basic materials needed to make watches like seven grades of Stainless steel, Zinc Sulfide, Aluminum 7075 and Sterling Silver
It can make these materials for cents on the dollar
So it can easily make a Replica Rolex that can fool all but the experts (You do have fake rolexes for as little as 200 HKD but they are obvious to spot)
So China can easily make replicas at a fraction of the cost
When i was a kid, we had a Rodgers Penknife that was a rage among my generation of army brats
It cost ₹35/- in the late 1960s
The Americans made cheaper knives called PODGERS that sold for Six Bucks!!!!
Very little difference at 1/6 the price!!!
Back then US used to do exactly what China does and the world’s replica market was based on the UNITED STATES
Parisien fashions were replicated and sold for a tenth of the price in certain streets of New York and Chicago
A $ 60 Calf Leather Gloves sold in Bloomingdale could be had for $ 8 for Non Patent Leather just two streets away with the same label
An Original Mink stole cost $ 1200 in 1920 and a Fake Mink cost a mere $ 70 – $ 120
Today China does the same thing
Uses its abundant supply chain to make replicas at far lower cost
As a police officer, have you ever pulled over a celebrity?
Yeah. It was worthy of being told.
Pulled over for possible DUI
Me: May I see your license and registration?
Him: “Do you know who I am?”
Me: “You don’t know who you are? That is very serious.”
Him: “Do you know who I am?”
Me: “Sir, you must step out of your car. Not knowing who you are is possibly very serious.”
Him: “Dammit! Do you know who I am?”
Me: “Sir, if you do not get out of your car, I will have to forcibly remove you.”
Him: “F… y…”
I opened the car door, and gestured for him to get out. He did. I then turned him around, handcuffed him, and patted him down for weapons”
Me: “Sit on the curb and calm down. Once you calm down, I can remove the handcuffs.”
He sat down and glared angrily at the ground. After a bit he spoke.
Him: “I will have your badge for this.”
Me: “You don’t need my badge. You can have your own. Just complete the Los Angeles Police Academy and they will give you one for free.”
Him: “I’m gonna tell you who I am”
Me: “I just want your drivers license and registration.”
He started ranting about not knowing who he was again. So, I put him in the backseat of the patrol car, impounded his car ( we were on the freeway), and took him over to a mental hospital for a 72 hour forced commitment (5150 in California).
Two days later, my Captain called me aside. He said that was a great arrest. It turned out that the guy was one of the city’s councilman. The captain said again, “Good job.” I asked the captain if he was told to talk to me about the arrest. The captain said, “The brass told me to talk to you. I did that.” He laughed and walked away.
Spoiled Princess Rejects BF’s Proposal Telling Him To “Try Again”, Instead He Tells Her To Get Out!
I don’t like people. Never have. Arrogance, ignorance, mendacity, self-importance, superiority… I don’t like lists either.I’m not a prepper. If the end of the world comes I’ll be out on my porch with a welcoming smile. I have so little – they can have it all. It adds up to a pile of nought and a root cellar full of dust.My great pleasure is to sit out there and watch the days rise and subside, the mountains glow then surrender to the clouds. The snow falls like ash, the sun claws into my skin, the wind reaches through the cracks of my cabin, the cold informs me I am still alive.I had a family but she decided I wasn’t her type and took the kids away. I came home from the tyre factory with a lung full of carbon and a house full of silence. She left a note. It said ‘Bye’. Love died with a three letter word.I pinned the note to the front door for the landlord and drove away with my last paycheck and became a ghost of the person I had been. A ghost is a memory of someone who once lived. Seems about right.Vegas baby. A place to burn up and die. I turned the paycheck into chips and put them all on red, then red, then black, then black. It doubled each time. To hell with it. I put the lot on 23. It paid. Then black. It paid. Then 00. A ball drops into a spinning slot and you have more money than you’ve earned in your entire life.Fawning, flattering fools rose to the surface like scum from a rotting fish soup. It happens when you have a pile of cash. I’ve seen it now and it’s not just a trope in a bad movie. I’m not falling for that though. Faux admiration won’t ever open my wallet. If you need to be liked you’re just a bank waiting to be robbed.I cashed in and drove to Montana, opened a bank account in Butte and disappeared into the wooded hills. How I like it.My neighbors are bears and birds. I deal with people when I need stores. Sometimes I sit on my porch with my rifle and pretend someone is coming up the trail. I pretend to shoot them.Trouble is that fantasy would be followed by the reality of being arrested and having to deal with every kind of scum in the legal and penal system. Anyway I’ve never shot a living thing. The gun is for comfort. I like the mechanics of it. And if anyone tries to break into the cabin at night I’m ready. Just try it lowlife. Just fucking try it…Anyway, no sense getting carried away with imaginings. People imagining things is what got the world where it is today. Imagining that dealing drugs will provide a better life; that sacking half the workforce will improve the company; that beating up a woman makes you a man. If aliens investigated the people of this planet before arriving, they’d change their minds and head for Alpha Centauri. Who’d want to take over this pile of scat.Which brings me to today. It started with the powerful light shining through my window in the night. You know what it’s like. Your eyes snap open wide, your body’s as tense as a top E string. You wait for the next noise.The light disappeared. It was a starless dark night out. Low clouds. You strain to hear anything more but the only sound is the breeze in the trees. You peer out but nothing moves but the aspen leaves and pine needles.The next morning you remember it wasn’t a dream and you wander off into the woods with your coffee and toast.In a nearby clearing was a large object that I could only imagine was a radically new weapon. It was matt black, about half the size of my cabin, with projections everywhere and no clear front or back. That was just my first impression though. It looked, I realized, like a large spaceship model from a Star Wars movie. But why would a model spaceship be in a clearing in my forest?
Then a very small door opened, a mechanical arm reached out and placed a spherical object on the ground, then retracted. The door closed with a hiss. Hot damn!
The object on the ground projected a hazy light that fuzzed in the air then formed a hologram in the air. It was a weird creature which made strange noises and waved its multiple arms, bowed then sat on the ground with its ‘hands’ held open and its head bent down. It seemed to be acting submissive or at least not aggressive. I sat on the ground and sipped my coffee and took a bite of my toast as I stared at it.
“What the hell are you?” I said.
The hologram creature was about six inches tall. It watched me drinking. I put the coffee cup down by the projector. The mechanical arm came out, picked up my coffee and lifted it into the craft. Seconds later it put the cup back, empty.
“Thirsty huh?”
I put the rest of my toast and honey down. That too quickly disappeared. The hologram alien clapped its hands and bowed ecstatically. I had the distinct impression it was out of food and drink. Whatever ‘it’ was.
Then another door opened and an actual alien dragged itself to the opening. It seemed to be in bad shape. It was just six inches tall. Ugly as sin too. Just like the hologram. Slimy white skin, six eyes in the hairless head, six arms, four legs. Clothes like silk, multi-colored, all tassels and baubles. Some weird idea of fashion.
It babbled at me, a high-pitched gurling sort of speech. “You’re a damn fool if you think I can understand a thing you’re saying,” I replied.
It held up a hand – wait – and dragged itself back inside. The spaceship made a noise like an engine trying to start. The alien came back to the opening and shrugged. I wondered how many gestures were standard across the universe. It was telling me the vessel wouldn’t start. Well, there’s not a lot I can do to help. I shrugged.
It collapsed. Struggled to sit up. Draped its legs over the edge of the opening and stared at me with all its sad little eyes.
The mechanical arm took the projection ball back inside then I heard clicks and hissing and, one by one, it brought out 11 matt black spheres about 3 inches in diameter and put them on the grass. I was puzzled.
Maybe it read my confusion. The projector was brought back out and showed a hologram of an alien apparently dying. I couldn’t tell what was killing it, maybe a poison or some kind of gas. Nothing obvious anyway. It collapsed, much like my alien buddy did just now. It didn’t move though. Then the hologram wrapped the body in a white cloth into a nearly spherical shape then put the wrapped body into a matt black sphere. The arm pointed to the 11 spheres on the grass.
I pointed to the alien in the opening and held up one finger. The hologram held up one finger. Alone.
Then the last one babbled again and tried to stand up but it fell out of the opening onto the grass. I reached out to touch it. It raised it little head, held out a couple of hands and touched my fingers, then it sagged and sighed its last. Dead.
“Bloody hell mate. Don’t tell me that means you’re all dead?” I knocked on the hull of the spaceship but thing appeared.
The mechanical arm lifted the body and wrapped it in cloth, pulled out a final black sphere, gently placed the body into the sphere and closed it. 12 matt black spherical coffins.
I heard a faint humming at the limit of my hearing and the spheres sank into the ground with 12 puffs of smoke or steam and disappeared. I didn’t know how deep they went but later I checked with my old metal detector and it found nothing, so they were at least a few feet in. I imagined them sinking down to the mantel and melting in the lava.
The projector started up again and showed a hologram of an alien looking at me and shrugging. I shrugged back. The spaceship couldn’t start and now had no crew. It didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know what to do either.
If I tell anyone, the world and its military will descend on my peace and that will be the end of it. I might as well have shot someone.
But I have in my grasp the biggest event in the history of the world. Surely there can’t be just one spaceship? Is an invasion on the way? Could it be stopped if this spaceship was studied by the world’s experts? Could we learn how to reach the stars?
I didn’t think about it for long though. It wasn’t really a quandary. I moved my woodpile and it’s now covered so no-one can see it.
I sit out there most days and talk to it. Sometimes I hear soft humming like it’s still trying to start up. There’s a gap in the pile so the mechanical arm can come out any time it wants.
Occasionally it puts out the projector and the holo-alien shrugs. What can I do? I shrug back and we sit and stare at each other.
What Would World War III Really Look Like? It’s Already Starting…
One of the most common assumptions I come across in the survival-sphere is the idea that the next world war would automatically necessitate global nuclear conflict and a Mad Max-like outcome. In other words, a lot of people assume we aren’t in a world war until the nukes start flying and the survivors are left fighting in soda can armor over an irradiated desert. This is a dangerous misunderstanding for a lot of reasons.
What people are overlooking is the fact that we are ALREADY in the middle of WWIII. They don’t realize it because they’ve based their entire concept of world war on Hollywood fantasy.
There are many ways in which wars are fought. In our current situation WWIII is being waged through proxies like Ukraine and Israel (and maybe Taiwan in the near future). The war is also being fought on the global economic stage using sanctions, inflation and the dumping of the US dollar as the world reserve. To be sure, these situations can easily escalate into something bigger and that is exactly what I suspect they will do. However, planetary nuclear war is the least likely scenario.
Survival and preparedness communities have a tendency to hyper-focus on the obviously Apocalyptic. We talk a lot about EMP strikes and split-second grid down calamities. We talk about solar flares, overnight economic crashes and nuclear holocaust. I think survivalists do this because it acts as a mental exercise – A way to better clarify what the best preparedness solutions are in the majority of cases, including the worst cases.
But as I’ve said for many years, collapse is a process, not an event.
These things happen slowly, and then all at once. If you went back in time ten years ago and warned people that in 2024 the US would be in the middle of a stagflationary crisis with a 30%-50% average price increase on all necessities, they would probably dismiss you as a doom-monger. Well, guess what, that’s exactly what a handful of alternative economists (myself included) were doing well over a decade ago, and we were dismissed over and over again – Welcome to our world.
The reason people refused to believe us is because the danger was not immediately obvious. The economic threat was not hitting them in their wallet yet. Stock markets seemed to be doing fine. The jobs market was still functioning somewhat normally. They could only view economic crisis through the lens of a total collapse. The idea that it would happen incrementally never crossed their minds.
Even today there are still people who argue that everything is fine. The stock market is “fine.” The labor market is “healthy.” If you suggest all is not well, you’re a “chicken little.” This is the incredible danger of having a Hollywood fantasy idea of collapse. We may never get to 100% systemic implosion; but even a 50% collapse is still a survival situation.
The same dynamic goes for WWIII. We must not overlook the dangers right in front of us simply because intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles aren’t crisscrossing the sky.
Consider the proxy battleground case for a moment.
“Israel is going to pound Gaza into gravel, there’s no doubt about that. A ground invasion will meet far more resistance than the Israelis seem to expect, but Israel controls the air and Gaza is a fixed target with limited territory. The problem for them is not the Palestinians, but the multiple war fronts that will open up if they do what I think they are about to do (attempted sanitization).
Lebanon, Iran and Syria will all immediately engage and Israel will not be able to fight them all – Hell, the Israelis got their asses handed to them by Lebanon alone in 2006. This will result in inevitable demands for US/EU intervention.”
I also warned on the potential motives behind escalation in the Middle East:
“The timing of the conflict in Israel is incredibly beneficial to globalists, and this might explain Israel’s bizarre intel failure [October 7th]. Just as US and British leaders had prior knowledge of a potential Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 but warned no one because they WANTED to compel Americans to fight in WWII, the Palestinian incursion serves a similar purpose.”
“A ground war between Iran and Israel is inevitable if the tit-for-tat continues, and much of it will be fought (at least in the beginning) in Lebanon and perhaps Syria. Iran has a mutual defense pact with both countries and Lebanon is generally a proxy for Iranian defense policy.
Iran will have active troops or proxy forces in all of these regions, not to mention the Houthis in Yemen striking ships in the Red Sea. There are questions in terms of how Iraq will respond to this situation, but there’s not a lot of love between the current government and Israel or the US.”
Not surprisingly there was a contingent of people that argued these things would “never happen” and talk of war between Iran and Israel was “doom mongering.” Those people were wrong (yet again), and I was right. Iran and Israel have now essentially declared war on each other and are exchanging missile barrages as I write this. The ground war will begin in Lebanon and expand from there.
Just as in Ukraine, the looming danger is that war between Israel and Iran will draw in larger military powers like the US and Russia.
People dismiss this outcome because their modern conception of global war needs to change; this world war will not be fought exactly like those in the past.
This time the weapons of mass destruction will be financial and resource driven instead of nuclear. If Iran moves to blockade the Strait of Hormuz (which I believe is imminent), Americans can be harmed financially through energy shortages and gas price spikes even without our soldiers deployed to fight.
There’s also the question of our wide open borders and how many potential terrorists slipped into the US during the Biden Administration’s illegal immigration bonanza. How many attacks (or false flag attacks) are being organized right now?
The regional conflicts could spread and go on for a decade or longer. It all adds up to a world war, but it may never be officially declared a world war. Perhaps there will be a limited nuclear event somewhere; maybe a false flag or a limited strike. But a nuclear war is not necessary to create the kind of chaos the globalists are looking for.
People also need to understand that the powers-that-be also have a lot to risk should a war devolve into nuclear exchange. If it was really that easy for them to launch warheads, wipe out the majority of the human population and then establish a global dynasty, they would have done it a long time ago.
Global war on such a scale is inherently unpredictable. The elites have spent trillions of dollars and the better part of the last century constructing the most complex surveillance and control grid in history. It would be foolish to turn it all to ash in the blink of an eye and I highly doubt that’s the plan. They would be putting themselves and their legacy at risk of being erased forever.
Does this mean I will be ignoring the potential for a nuclear event? No. I will always keep it in mind and have preps ready just in case. A single nuke set off anywhere west of your home could result in radioactive fallout that would take around three to four weeks to dissipate. That said, the danger of these sceanrios might be overstated.
Here’s an interesting fact to ponder: The US government has tested at least 1050 explosive nuclear devices over the decades. Around 216 of those were atmospheric tests that resulted in massive fallout across the country. Some people in close proximity got sick over many years from these tests, but they didn’t result in an overnight mass death event. Perhaps, at a moderate distance, these weapons are not as dangerous as we’re led to believe?
The greater effect of nuclear weapons comes not just from the resulting damage to national infrastructure, but also mass psychological disruption. The economic system would take an immediate dive from even one strike, and it could be anywhere in the world. A single nuke in Ukraine would send shockwaves through already unstable markets. The supply chain and food supply could be quickly disrupted.
If the globalists wanted to accelerate a worldwide collapse, they wouldn’t need a nuclear war, just one well placed device.
The biggest danger from WWIII is not nuclear exchange, but the disturbing changes societies go through when conflict inspires mass fear. Totalitarianism is much easier to institute during such a war. Freedom of speech is often suppressed and criticism of the government is often criminalized. People who rebel against this are accused of “working with the enemy.” Military conscription is usually enforced and young people are sent off to die overseas over a conflagration that makes little sense.
The economy nose dives and the supply chain tightens. Price controls and rationing are initiated. Black markets flourish but those who participate are aggressively targeted by the government. In the case of the US, armed revolution in many states is a certainty.
Public planning should focus far more on these eventualities and less on Hollywood images of Apocalypse.
Good to hear that His Ridiculousness has finally deigned to resign from his post as Prime Minister of Canada.
Trudeau was of little importance to people outside of Canada. I have never written about him. But I will remember him for his fake wokeness which was as authoritarian as his use of emergency powers against truckers who protested against Covid restrictions.
trudeau
Justin Trudeau and family meeting a native of India biggerArend Feenstra, a Canadian, who, with his wife and eight kids, has recently emigrated to Russia, feels relieved:
Trudeau’s reign of terror is finally coming to an end! Many Canadians have seen their lives dramatically altered over the last 9 years, savings wiped out, health destroyed… feeling helpless and hopeless, many of us have fled to other countries in order to keep our children safe. Although Trudeau’s resignation will not undo all the damage that he has done, it is a great start and hopefully the beginning of an end to the destructive and divisive liberal policies that have destroyed the Canada we all knew and loved. May God continue to bless all our beloved Canadians this year and may good overcome evil!God bless you all! We wish you a merry Christmas and a wonderful new year from our new home here in Russia!
Arend’s family has a video channel, Countryside Acres, on which they document their life. Their latest video, posted just two hours ago, is a review of their first year in Russia:
Posted by b on January 7, 2025 at 15:25 UTC | Permalink
Samba Steak stir fry
Seasoned beef strips stir fried to perfection with vegetables, then topped with pico de gallo.
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Prep: 18 min | Cook: 12 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Pico de Gallo
3/4 cup chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped white onion
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons minced jalapeño pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Salt
Beef
1 pound round tip steaks, cut 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
3 teaspoons vegetable oil, divided
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced bell pepper, any color
1/2 medium white onion, cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 medium jalapeño pepper, thinly sliced
Salt
8 small whole wheat tortillas (about 6 inch diameter), warmed
Rub
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground chipotle chile pepper
Instructions
Pico de Gallo
Combine tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalapeño pepper and lime juice in a medium bowl. Season with salt, as desired.
Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Beef
Stack beef steaks; cut lengthwise in half and then crosswise into 1 inch wide strips.
Combine beef and rub ingredients in large bowl; toss to coat evenly.
Heat 1 teaspoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat until hot.
Add bell pepper, onion and jalapeño; stir fry for 5 to 8 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Remove from skillet; keep warm.
Heat 1 teaspoon oil in same skillet until hot. Add half of beef; stir fry 1-2 minutes or until outside surface is no longer pink. (Do not overcook.) Remove from skillet; keep warm.
Repeat with remaining 1 teaspoon oil and beef.
Return all beef and vegetables to skillet. Season with salt, as desired.
Serve beef mixture in tortillas; top with Pico de Gallo.
This story contains leftist political hot-buttons. Do not proceed if you are easily offended.“Do you promise you won’t leave me?”“Baby, how many times I gotta say it?”“More times than you have.”“I promise. I’m not going to leave you.”“It’s just…everyone I’ve ever loved has left.”“I am not everyone.”“And if we do this…”“Ssshhh…you talk too much.”“Just, go slow, ‘kay?”“You got nothing to fear.”—–“And you met him, where?”“At the dugout…”
“I mean, where, the first time?”
“Online.”
“Where online?”
“CuddlesClub. He said he was fifteen though…”
“And how long had you chatted with him, before…”
“Two months, maybe?”
“And when you met him…”
“He could have been fifteen, maybe.”
“But he wasn’t. You knew this, right?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know this?”
“Just the way you know things.”
—–
“But she’s only twelve.”
“The State does not give her permission.”
“She was raped.”
“Better than being a murderer.”
—–
Noam is playing with blocks on the floor. He uses them not only to build, but to spell. His latest word is “dim”; his phrase: We are a dim lot. Noam is going on four.
Naomi and I are cuddling on the torn loveseat. She entered my life when Noam was born. I am sixteen now; Naomi is nineteen. Naomi named him Noam, said it was a good name, said it meant “pleasantness” and that Noam Chomsky said we are born with “innate linguistic aptitude.”
“It’s a silent ‘fuck you’ to the suppression from the State,” she told me.
I didn’t get it at all then. I get it a bit more, now.
Naomi kisses my cheek, and hums Jack Johnson: …it’s so much better when we’re together.
—–
We are huddled in the shanty. The rain has finally stopped, so Naomi has gone out looking for food. So long as she stays to the alleys, she should be fine. Better food there, anyhow. Lots of restaurants; lots of waste. Last week her foraging yielded an unopened bag of pre-cooked, deveined, tail-removed shrimp. Noam found it delightful.
I was twelve when my parents were imprisoned. My father’d called the judge a sick beast and away they went, both of them. I was sitting behind them with some person in a white robe.
Now now, she tapped my knee. Now now.
I was fat with child and my back hurt. Heavily medicated, I haven’t much memory of those times. Naomi says there’s much we are not allowed to do. Being together is one of them.
“What happens if they find us together?”
“Just stick to the script.”
But Naomi is white, which is also a problem.
“Who’ll believe we’re sisters, Naomi? You’re white and I’m…”
Naomi just kisses me then. It is a hard kiss. Passionate. She grips the nape of my neck and puts her forehead to mine. “Sweet angel, I do so love you.”
—–
At four, Noam is still a thumb sucker. Despite our attempts at potty training he still has to wear diapers, and still Noam cannot speak intelligible words. His block spelling has plateaued. While we have no reliable source for nutrition, Naomi is resourceful and provides our RDA of the necessary food groups but still Noam’s eyes are jaundiced, his gums are bleeding, his skin is scaly. He’s been given to highs of rage and lows of slurping depression. He’s pulled out most of his hair; his fingertips and nails are nubbbed from scratching our earthen floor. I’ve tried to love on him —we both have— and sometimes he’ll relent but more often he’ll gnash and growl.
“What do you think the problem is, Naomi?”
“How well did you know his father?”
—–
It was on one of her last forays that Naomi returned with books. “I found them in the dumpster,” she exclaimed delightedly, “all brand new.”
Governor DeSatanist. We both knew it, but we dared not speak of it, FOR JESUS CHRIST HATH DECREED THAT the right the abort, the right same sex, the right to read, THE RIGHT TO EXPLORE OPTIONS are no longer rights, but SINS, all in the names of murder! defilement!propaganda!
“Oh, Naomi, what beautiful treasures. The Giving Tree. What in the world?”
“Sexist.”
“Exploring Civil Rights: The Movement.”
“Racially motivated.”
“Bridge to Terabithia? I loved this book.
“Promoting the occult.”
“Where the Wild Things Are.”
“Again. Too demonic, they say.”
“All of these were tossed? The Outsiders (too violent!), To Kill a Mockingbird (too mature!)…oh, I love this one but never heard of it: My Moms Love Me.”
We both looked down at our four-year-old, teething on a sandal.
—–
There is heavy foot traffic outside our tin-roofed shanty. They are marching in unison. Regimental, a tap-tap on the door: big bad white men instilling fear in two biracial dykes and a bastard invalid. We know why they are here. Surprised it took them so long.
The walls of our shanty are now lined with books: banned books, we assume, for they’d all been discarded. Several months ago, we’d opened our doors for exploration, purely word of mouth quite naturally as we —Naomi and I, and Noam— are not known to exist, not any longer. (For it’s been assumed, we assume, that we were wiped clean during the last fumigation, we fitting all their criteria of filth, after all.) Prior to finding us, our people had been fed the The History You Need to Know twenty-volume series; The Jesus Christ Giver’s Guide: How to be a Good Citizen; and The Lives of Hunter and Paisley five-volume series (Birth-Elementary Homeschool; Homeschool in the Neighborhood; College is not Necessary; Adulting with People Like You; Growing Old Quietly and Respectfully).
For the past several months, though, we’ve allowed our people to travel, to read with delight words that are actually said, emotions that are actually felt. Our people have been able to find comfort in words, healing words, words that have allowed them to transcend the NORM and to explore the lives of others, the majesty of foreign lands without the privilege of escape from this, our “home of the free because of the brave,” words and emotions that are now SINS because…because…
is there one right answer here?
Because independent thought is treachery. An enemy of progress.
Because “who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past.” Because “the best books are those that tell you what you already know.”
Orwell, too, has been banned, of course. But we have him in our library.
Had, for we have been discovered.
—–
We are not going to be stoned, or burned like witches. We are not going to the rack or the gallows, or the chair. We are not going to be strapped to a gurney and punctured with needles. We are not going to be shot, or even gassed.
Our “fumigation” is the now-proverbial Jim Jones’ Drinking the Kool-Aid, though still we get to live, very much like the donkeys at the end of Pinocchio, also banned for its debauchery on Pleasure Island: as sheep in the fields, after the surgeries are complete, we shall follow without question, we shall bleat unintelligibly, we shall chew the cud from dawn ‘til dusk with those indistinguishable from ourselves.
We shall cause no further problems. We shall be obedient.
On my anniversary, he gave me a gift box but when i opened it, it were pictures of me & my affair
https://youtu.be/C4fgZ56gjl0
After F-35’s Detected, Israel Preparing Large Surface-to-Surface Missile Launches at Iran
After the Russian government alerted Iran to the approach of four F-35 stealth jets toward Iran from the Persian Gulf yesterday, which reportedly caused an abort to that mission, Israel is now preparing surface-to-surface missile launches.
Information about Israel’s ballistic missile capabilities is sparse, but here’s what we know about the “likely” missiles to be used, which is speculated to be “Jericho II” missiles, seen in the FILE PHOTO above.
The Jericho II (YA-3) is a solid fuel, two-stage long-range ballistic missile system and a follow on from the Jericho I project. As many as 90 Jericho 2 missiles are currently based in caves near Zekharia (Sdot Micha Airbase), southeast of Tel Aviv.
Jericho II development began in 1977, and by 1986 there were reports of test firings. According to Missilethreat.com, a project of the George C. Marshall Institute, there is evidence the Jericho II originated as a joint Israeli-Iranian project, cooperation that ended with the loss of friendly relations after the 1979 Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah’s rule.
There was a series of test launches into the Mediterranean from 1987 to 1992, the longest at around 1,300 km, mostly from the facility at Palmachim, south of Tel Aviv. Jane’s reports that a test launch of 1,400 km is believed to have taken place from South Africa’s Overberg Test Range in June 1989.
The Jericho II is 14.0 m long and 1.56 m wide, with a reported launch weight of 26,000 kg (although an alternative launch weight of 21,935 kg has been suggested). It has a 1,000 kg payload, capable of carrying a considerable amount of high explosives or a 1 Megaton yield nuclear warhead.
It uses a two-stage solid propellant engine with a separating warhead. The missile can be launched from a silo, a railroad flat car, or a mobile vehicle. This gives it the ability to be hidden, moved quickly, or kept in a hardened silo, largely ensuring survival against any attack. It has an active radar homing terminal guidance system similar to that of the Pershing II, for very accurate strikes.
The Jericho II forms the basis of the three-stage, 23 ton Shavit NEXT satellite launcher, first launched in 1988 from Palmachim. From the performance of Shavit it has been estimated that as a ballistic missile it has a maximum range of about 7,800 km with a 500 kg payload.
The Jericho II as an available Israeli counterattack option to Iraqi missile bombardment in the 1991 Gulf War is disputed. Jane’s at the time believed that Jericho II entered service in 1989. Researcher Seth Carus claims that, according to an Israeli source, the decision to operationally deploy the Jericho-2 was only made after 1994, several years after the Scud attacks had ended and a cease fire and disarmament regime were in place.
Raytheon Technologies, quoting Soviet intelligence archives, showed them believing the Jericho-2 to have been fully developed weapon in 1989, but did not indicate when it was available for deployment.
Investigators for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace accessed commercial satellite images of the Sdot Micha Airbase near Zachariah, a suspected Jericho missile base, comparison shows expansion between 1989 and 1993 of the type that would accommodate suspected Jericho II launchers and missiles. Such an expansion would be more consistent with a post-1991 deployment chronology.
It is presently unknown how many such missiles Israel has.
US Military Sending More Assets
Additional Aerial-Refueling Tankers with the U.S. Air Force are enroute to the Middle East this morning, possibly ferrying a Squadron of F-22s, F-16s, or F-15Es which the Pentagon had previously stated would be Deploying soon to the Region.
Shown below, two KC-46A Pegasus tankers (reg: 20-46074 & 20-46073) from McGuire Air Force Base One C-5M Super Galaxy (reg: 86-0012) One C-17A Globemaster (reg: 01-0188) likely heading to the Middle East:
US refueling tankers huge cargo planes to ME
WaPo Editors – Ending The War Is Worse Than Losing
The Washington Post editors have long argued for prolonging the war in Ukraine.
In November 2022, when Ukraine was in a good position to negotiate an end to the war, they argued against it:
Mr. Zelensky and his supporters in the West undoubtedly understand that peace talks might eventually be necessary, his commitment to victory notwithstanding. And yet to declare that, or even imply it, before the time is right — before Ukraine’s armed forces have exhausted every opportunity to regain occupied territory — would convey slackening commitment. And that, in turn, can only convince Mr. Putin that time is on his side and that he should prolong the fighting.
Since then Ukraine’s armed forces have exhausted every opportunity to regain occupied territory – and failed. Russia was then and is now convinced that time is on its side.
Now, finally, the editors acknowledge that their war against Russia in Ukraine is lost. But they still insist that this can not be allowed to be formalized in a ceasefire or peace treaty.
While they are stomping their feet they fail to present an alternative:
As Russia is the dominating power in the war in Ukraine there will only be one deal that can be had. It will be along the parameters the Russia’s President Putin has laid out. That deal will certainly be less than optimal for the U.S. side but how would it be ‘worse’ for Ukraine than losing the war?
As for ‘credibility’:
A pullback now would convey that the United States and its allies lack staying power and that their promises come time-stamped as valid only until the next election date. How might China take such a message as its autocratic president, Xi Jinping, contemplates whether to make a military move to try to seize the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan?
The U.S. ‘lack of staying power’ is a feature of its democracy. It is well known that U.S. citizen’s opinions about supporting a war tend to change over time. Just ask the Vietnamese or the Taliban for experience with this. No unrealistic fear mongering about China will change that fact.
It is however good to learn that the editors (finally) see the situation of Ukraine as unsustainable as it is:
Ukraine is also losing troops at a rate far beyond what it can sustain and continue fighting. The official casualty estimate of 400,000 killed or wounded is considered a vast undercount. Thousands of exhausted Ukrainian soldiers are deserting the front lines.
The editors know that it is over for Ukraine but they still reject to acknowledge the consequences. They say that a deal over Ukraine, any deal, would be bad but there is not even a hint of what an alternative might be:
Ukraine can hardly survive another year of this devastating war. But the haste to find a negotiated settlement could produce a bad one that would reward Mr. Putin for his land grab and guarantee he will launch a new attack for more territory once he has a chance to rebuild his depleted arsenal. A poor settlement would also leave Ukrainians bitter after seeing their homes, schools and factories destroyed, and friends and family members killed. Much of their anger would be directed at the Western backers who betrayed them. This is a fight America, and Ukraine, cannot lose, especially with a bad deal.
The war is lost. A hasty settlement will be bad. Russia will be embolden and the Ukrainians will be sad.
But what else is there to do? The editors don’t know. They thus close with a sentence that does not even (‘cannot lose’) make sense.
Posted by b on January 7, 2025 at 16:38 UTC | Permalink
My Cheater GF Loses It After I Pretend To Be In An Open Relationship For 2 Months And Then Dump Her
When I left the USA and moved to China, I needed to earn money. So I started teaching English. It paid well, and I was able to get employed very quickly.
Instead of group classes, I taught one-on-one in these glass “fish bowl” like rooms.
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People could walk around the room and watch me and the student learning, but they couldn’t hear us because of the acoustics.
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It was a good set up. But it took a bit of a while to get used to having all kinds of people watching you all the time.
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I had all kinds of students. From a super-wealthy great-grandmother (who I really liked, by the way) to a two year old child that I was expected to play with in English. (I hated the little kid sessions. It was too difficult for me.)
I tutored Judges, and businessmen. Housewives, and corporate executives. I tutored elementary school kids, and college kids.
Now there was this one girl. She was 11 years old and a Muslim from Xinjiang.
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Nice girl. I liked her. I taught her out of this general English book, and her English we pretty good.
But…
As what happened often enough, was that the student would use the sessions to talk about other things rather than the lessons.
One man used the sessions as a counseling session.
Some young girls only wanted to talk about K-pop.
While some boys wanted to talk about video games.
And so on and so forth. So I would always allow the “free talk” so that they could learn.
And this 11 year old girl wanted to talk about boys, and girls and sex…
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Oh, yeah. She wanted to know all the gritty details.
*sheech*
…
…
…
Well, initially, I kept my answers just short and “off the cuff”, brushing away her queries as nothing.
But oh, she was persistent.
As young girls always are.
So I started to give her the “birds and the bees” discussion that my father gave me back, back in the day.
And she “poo poo” that aside by saying “Oh, I know all about that”.
*sigh*
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All the time this is going on, I’m wondering in my mind; “Is this a set up”? or, “Is someone trying to trip me up?”
Because after all, I’m some sort of evil pervert, don’t you know </sarcasm>.
She made no overt moves on me thank God, and I made sure that everything was above the table and being in a glass bubble really helped.
But still, she was an inquisitive girl and she was entering that period of raging hormones, and (you know) I was the ONLY non-family male that she could talk to in private and openly.
That’s the way many Muslim households were structured.
Girls were never permitted contact with males unaccompanied. And for her, this was her chance.
So, without getting too graphic, I kept things very light.
I talked about interests of young boys and girls. And when a boy likes you he gets interested and sometimes he gets so excited that he cannot stop being with you. His muscles get hard, and he becomes powerful. And the girl is always the soft person that controls him with soft actions and touches.
And that was the extent of it.
A sex-education teacher I was not.
And she wanted much more information, but I never dared get into it.
Now, all us teachers were paired with an assistant. I had two. And I should have (in hindsight) worked with them to resolve this quandary. I was terribly uncomfortable about the entire situation, but if anything was mentioned to the parents, everything would end, and I needed a paycheck.
Anyways, their account ran out and I never saw that girl again.
For seriously, for about seven months or so, she was really asking me these questions twice a week. In two 50-minute sessions.
*Phew*
One year later, one of the English Teachers from a different school branch was fired and arrested for playing around with a child. And then only four months later, yet another teacher from yet another branch was arrested and imprisoned.
And you know it!
China clamped down with stricter background checks on all the Z-visa workers.
By that time, I was on my way and moved to Pago Pago to build a hospital. And I was hitting the age ceiling for Z-visa access anyways. So, what I am saying is that I “missed a bullet”.
…
Strangely, it was my Sex Offender “training” in prison that taught me how to handle this, and other, situations.
The suspicion alone is enough to get you in trouble.
Avoid the most trivial of contact.
Be on camera, have witnesses, and never be alone with anyone.
And to this day. I follow this advice.
You won’t ever find me alone.
I always have friends, family or trusted people nearby, and no one can accuse me of anything. Firstly because I live in China and am filmed 24/7, but also that I know how things and situations can be twisted away from innocence into something evil.
Be alert all the time.
Take no chances.
Harsh lessons learned while in a hash place.
Today…
How much of a fool do you have to be to believe China is not feeling any impact from the US ban on access to high technology?
Anyone who has worked for even a month in these industries will know that such bans rarely have an immediate impact
Let me explain
ASML needs to make profits
ASML is a private company
China is not at war with either the US or the Netherlands
So ASML won’t blindly see Bloomberg and decide to stop selling EUV Machines or DUV Machines or Servicing such Machines the next day
First – they wait for a notification from the relevant dutch ministry
In the meantime it’s Business as usual and they will fulfill all their Chinese orders and load up spare parts in huge quantities
They aren’t breaking the law in any way
China typically quadrupled all orders in the past 2 years everytime before a Notification
Second – the notification is unclear and needs clarification
ASML will drag their feet and ask for clarifications from the relevant dutch ministry
For instance they may ask – Does China mean Hongkong also?
Until then they will presume it’s Business as usual and fulfill a boatload of orders from HK
HK placed a record orders from ASML and NVDIA in the past year and a half
Third – they will say they have already received full payment from China and the money has already been spent
Once they take the orders, they will tell the Dutch Government that they have received Billions of Euros from China and have spent a lot of the money already
So they have to deliver existing orders and only apply the bans to future orders
It’s a WTO offense to refuse to undertake full delivery of a contract after receiving payment
China has enough WTO Clout to ensure ASML can’t sell machines to anybody
They can seize ASML machines directly from the ports that they control and impound the cargo and drag litigation on and on until TSMC Or Samsung get grey hairs
Fully legal !!!
So either ASML refunds the money or deliver the orders
The Dutch Government have to shell out billions to China to repay them back and that’s taxpayers money
So ultimately the Dutch Government asks the US and the US which needs Congressional Approval for even €100 spending for a Non US Department simply doesn’t have the time
So US says “Aw hell ok. Deliver existing orders but ensure no more orders are taken”
So China can stockpile upto 3 years worth of equipment legally despite all the bans
Likewise same for servicing
ASML has trained employees in China who have been taught servicing and who have 3 years of spares
So they will simply not expand their operations but they won’t close down their existing operation unless they get a formal notification from the Dutch Government
Worst case – they will take the issue to court and drag the issue over
Even worse they will take the issue to a US Federal Court and drag the issue over
Everyone knows the Chinese have one party and that means they will REMEMBER
They know the US Government changes every four years
They know Raimondo could be become irrelevant by February
So they will and have allowed China to stockpile a lot of stuff to ensure that China is comfortable for a minimum 2–3 years
The Impact of the Curbs will be felt by 2026 or 2027 if China doesn’t have an alternate solution
So why are Chinese protesting to Raimondo?
Simple
To keep the US Political Machine happy
Remember if the Chinese seriously have a problem with the curbs – they won’t protest about it at all and bury the issue deep
The Chinese publish only issues they are firmly in control of
So it’s only by 2026 December – 2027 January when China will feel a pinch if they don’t get a handle on things by then
Would you break friends with someone who said they would feed your cat while you were on holiday but when you came back you found out they hadn’t been fed for 10 days because the friend couldn’t be bothered to go and feed them?
Our neighbor was gone for a month and had asked another neighbor to feed her cat and check the litterbox (locked in her bedroom) and also feed the little dogs. After a couple of weeks, she found out that the girl she had paid was afraid of cats and hadn’t even checked on the poor baby. She was okay, since plenty of food and water had been left out for her, but that litter box was something else. I hope she didn’t ask that girl again.
Argentina Dollarization Collapses, U.S. To Punish China “Slave Labor”, US Chips In Russia
R.I.P. ARGENTINA.
When you adopt a cat from a shelter, do you think the cat knows she has been adopted and has a forever home? Do you think she is happier or more content?
Our poor rescue kitty had first lived with cat hoarders, then another couple and their cat, so ours was the third home she’d been moved to. At first, she was so afraid and confused that she stayed in the closet, cowering in the darkest corner.
For the first few months, she would only explore at night when everyone was in bed. If anyone came near, she would scurry back to her hiding place.
Now, after more than a year, I think she finally believes that this is really her forever home. She gains in “cattitude” daily, and shows her love and appreciation by endless purring, cuddling and happy chirps.
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What is the last thing you heard from someone before they died?
“What is the last thing you heard from someone before they died?”
It was the last Sunday in July. My nephew was turning two, and his birthday party was at a local church. After the party, my in-laws took my son for the afternoon.
It was supposed to be a time for them to spend time with their oldest grandson, then a 7-year-old. They wanted to take him school shopping and spend time together at their home.
What happened was an afternoon of my father-in-law screaming at my son for doing things like wearing shoes in the house, asking questions, crying, looking at name brand crayons, etc.
My son did nothing to deserve any of that. He was a sweet kid who adored his grandparents.
My mother-in-law brought our son home after a few hours and apologized for her husband. She glossed over a lot of it, if I’m honest. We spent the evening working with our son trying to figure out what happened and start to mend the hurt that my father-in-law caused.
My husband and I then spent hours talking about how to handle it with my father-in-law to protect our son in the future. We weren’t sure the best way to set boundaries, but we were planning to confront him about it the following weekend.
The next morning, I was running late. I never ran late to work, but that day I couldn’t get moving. Just as I was about to leave, the phone rang.
Nothing good happens when the phone rings at 6:30 AM.
It was my sister-in-law.
They found my father-in-law dead in his car. Suicide.
It turns out that he was deep in gambling debt with zero retirement, a house in foreclosure, an overdue title loan, and a student loan he took out in my husband’s name without actually using it for my husband.
We were unaware of any of it.
Our kids were 5 and 7 when he passed, and we didn’t tell them the depth of what happened for many, many years. They were far too young when he died, and we didn’t want our son to think he had ANYTHING to do with this death. Their grandfather was sick, and he was going to have double knee transplant later in the week.
Twelve years later, and I’m still horrified at how he treated my son. His last memories of his grandfather are ugly, and it’s taken years of therapy to get the point of forgiveness.
BATMAN – 1950’s Super Panavision 70
What is prison like in Japan?
I’ve visited a friend of mine who got the minimum imprisonment. According to him, the minimum penalty in Japanese prisons consist of:
early morning waking up
Breakfeast
P1: Sitting on the ground without speaking, standing, making noise, laughing, and any other grumbling until noon. You can just read books silently.
Lunch
P1 position until evening.
Dinner
P1 position until sleep time.
Years go by like this, you may have some small breaks for urgent needs in this daily routine. This daily flow makes you either a wise man or a psychopath.
Edit1
I never expected that many views but anyway seeing this is beneficial to both Japan and its people.
Another info:
While talking to the inmates, you should speak Japanese and no translator is provided. If you speak in your native tongue, it will be rejected. So, simply you speak Japanese or don’t visit. That’s what I experienced. I spoke Japanese.
Edit 2
No cooler even it’s really hot and no heater even it’s really cold.
Severe Punishment
if you push the limits when you are in, so you got punished. It is like this: one hand is to tied up to nape and the other one is to back waist reversely. You gotta stay, sit, sleep, go to toilet simply live like this for one month or more depending on the mistake you have done. After you have finished, the special doctor unties the knots. Give a try for one hour and you will see what happens after untie.
A fun story
A man dies in a car crash and arrives at the Pearly Gates. He sadly says to St. Peter, “But I can’t die now, my wife and three children will miss me.” Kindly, St. Peter replies, “Please don’t fear, sir, I have a solution for you, though it does come with one condition.” The man asks, “What kind of condition?”
“Well,” Peter replies, “I can send you back to Earth, but you will need to assume the form of something living nearby: the neighbor’s dog, a chicken in a nearby farmyard, or a mouse living in your house’s walls.”
The man muses for a moment. “Well, my children are afraid of the neighbor’s dog and my wife hates mice in the house, so I suppose I’ll choose to be the chicken. My family loves visiting the chickens at the farmyard and this way, I can still keep in touch with them.” Peter nods obligingly and, within moments, the man has returned to Earth, as a chicken.
At first this feels odd to the man, but he gradually begins to take the matter in stride and develops friendships with the other chickens. After a little while, the man begins feel some discomfort; one of the other chickens informs him that it’s time to lay an egg, upon which the man does, and feels much better. A short while later, the man begins feeling discomfort again, so he lays another egg, then gradually begins laying more and more eggs, upon which he suddenly begins hearing his wife’s voice.
“Honey, honey!” she exclaims, tapping his shoulder. “Wake up! Your pooping in the bed again!”
Did The Korean War prove the USA and China are evenly matched militarily? As China succeeds in pushing the U.S. and U.N. out of North Korea but the U.S. succeeded in preventing China and North Korea from taking over the South and ended in a stalemate
China’s red line was for the US to not go beyond the 38th parallel line. Therefore the US was badly beaten.
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My GF Tearfully Blamed The Hallmark Channel & Red Wine After Cheating Cost Her A Ring
How will China deal with the catastrophic collapse of its working age population in the coming years?
Yes
The same old nonsense of the working population collapse
Let’s study first whether indeed there will be a catastrophic collapse and why only China will be affected
What does decline in working population mean?
It’s simple
It means that in an Economy – the people who work and earn a living are becoming lesser and lesser while those who are dependent on those who work and earn a living – are becoming higher and higher
This ideally happens under 3 Conditions:-
A. Rapidly Ageing population due to dramatic rise in standards increasing lifespans to a large extent
B. Rapid rise in Childbirth, almost at 3.5–4 times the normal rate
C. Major War with a lot of conscription and deaths
Obviously B can be ruled out for China and C is highly unlikely given that WWII type of decimation is unlikely unless Nukes are used
So that leaves A – Rapidly Ageing Population
Now the general belief is that today there are 272.66 Million people older than 55 years old today
That’s 19.26%
It is estimated that this number is likely to rise to as much as 32.02% by 2054 and 41.04% by 2075
Let us look at the five things about China that nobody else or very few know about:-
A. Chinese Retire on an Average at 55 years – 58 Years against 64–67 Years in Western Nations.
So today there are almost 59.8 Million Chinese who are deemed RETIRED in China but who are deemed WORKING in the West
If you just change the 55–58 into 64–67 , the numbers change to 15.92% in 2025, 26.36% in 2054 and 34.59% in 2075
This alone sees the working population rise from 46.8% in 2075 to 53.8% in 2075
B. Chinese have a largest savings in the planet – Typically a Chinese saves 45% against 19%-33% by Western Nations.
Thus Chinese Elderly People have extremely comfortable savings as compared to Americans or Europeans who have very little savings
C. Healthcare, Education and Food Distribution is STATE OWNED in Entirety –
Unlike the US where a Doctor can charge a Million and a Half Bucks for a procedure, in China everything is State Owned and Capped
Thus the Cost to keep an Old Man healthy is much much cheaper than in the West
Likewise Education is State owned and Food is price controlled – so Feeding people is much much cheaper in China and Educating Kids is also much cheaper
So the cost of keeping an Old Man alive is less than maybe a third in equivalent terms to keep an Old Man alive in US or Europe
D. Older People are changing generation by generation
Those who will turn 60+ in 2030–2050 would have been born post 1970–1990 and there would be a 64% chance of them being an Engineering Graduate and 35.3% chance of them being a an Engineering Post Graduate
They aren’t the same old people today who were born between 1930–1950 who are less educated, peasants and mainly laborers in a China where the middle class was barely 5%
The Quality of Elderly will rise dramatically, they will be investing and playing a far more proactive role in Society than today’s 60–90 year olds
We are far more active, definitely invest more, and play a proactive role in society than three 70 year olds in the 1990s
Unfortunately those who are Actuarians presume the Old People will always be the same dependent older generations, not realizing that the newer generation of older people would be far more proactive
Impossible to believe today’s definition of WORK is the same as that of 2075
For the same analysis – let’s see the ideal job in 1973 China and most Chinese were farmers or worked in State owned industries as longshoremen or unskilled laborers
In India the middle class were Govt employees and Teachers and others were farmers and tenant laborers and daily wage laborers
Today it’s different
It will be way different in 2075
Manual Jobs would be at an all time minimum and most jobs would need skills and analysis
So a large working class population would be a major NEGATIVE not a positive
The US Port strike against Automation is the best example
No such strikes in China
They love Automation for the exact same reason
So no need to get too worried
My guess is somehow if the world moves on past 2030, China will be in the best position by 2075–2100
I duck behind a crumbling wall, dropping to my knees on cold dirt. The sharp edge catches my shoulder, the jagged brick ripping open my skin. Burning pain shoots through my arm, a silent cry squeezing its way through my throat. And that’s all it is: a soundless echo of pain, a reverberation that I refuse to give voice to. I clamp my mouth shut, hoping my moment of shock was inaudible in the night air. The taste of metal– of copper– coats my mouth and I realize I’ve bitten my tongue in the frenzy. I open my mouth again and spit crimson onto the dirt. Cody always said I had the grace of an elephant. Here I am, proving him right. My large belly doesn’t help matters; it is both my greatest blessing and most frequent inconvenience. But I won’t trade my baby for the world and neither will Cody. Despite the fire crackling underneath my skin and inside my veins, I will myself to breathe slowly through my mouth. I’m quieter this way, harder to track down.I made sure to cover my tracks when I escaped the citadel, but it was difficult to avoid the mud puddles near the outer rim of the city. I hope they couldn’t see any tracks in the darkness. Only the wealthy can afford fire or lights, and the cost is steep. The death of the sun forced new generations to be born with bigger eyes and better senses. While I can see faint shapes and outlines, I rely mostly on my other senses. I was born into the eternal night, and the absence of the sun is as normal to me as breathing, but that doesn’t mean I want the same for my son.These soldiers are older and less evolved to the permanent darkness. That’s why, if I can remain quiet, I have a chance of escape. The entrance of the alley will look like nothing more than a shadow on the bricks. The soldiers may be tasked with hunting me and retrieving what I stole, but I know they won’t waste their precious fire to find me. It would cost them more to replace a matchstick than the reward for my capture is worth. If they knew what was in my pocket, though, they would use all the torches in their arsenal.I hear hurried footsteps down the street. I press my back onto the brick wall, perhaps hoping to sink into it altogether. My pregnant belly sticks out far, too far. I may as well call out to my pursuers altogether. I turn my body so that my back faces the entrance of the alley. The position is risky. I can’t see anything but the dead end in front of me, although I suppose it won’t matter if they catch me. I am a mouse caught in a trap, and I’m praying for the cat to miss me. I push against the brick until I feel the pressure of a metal canister digging into my hip. I’m not sure what happens if the metal cracks, but I don’t want to risk finding out. As the footsteps– a lethal thunder of raging soldiers– draw nearer, I cease breathing altogether. If they find me, if they notice the tiny alley I’d taken cover in, everything we’d done for the past two years would be for nothing. All the planning, the observing, the fighting… all in vain if I was caught now.Flashes of green eyes pull me from my fear. His infectious laugh and his sideways smirk fill my senses. Cody. I have to escape the city for him, for our baby. He already laid out the plan. Now, I just have to follow it. I repeat the plan in my head, focusing only on him as the army gets closer to my position. I squeeze my eyes shut as the stomping grows louder and louder, nearer and nearer.And then they pass by, as though they can’t see the alley at all. I don’t feel the heat of torches, either. I was right. I stay in the alley for a few minutes as the army shuffles by, oblivious to the thief only a few feet away. They would kill for the canister in my pocket if they knew what was inside. Cody and I had killed for it. Now, I just have to get to the meeting point and it will all be over. We’ll be free. I wait until the marching is gone entirely. I will not risk a stray guard turning to find me. When I leave the alley, the street is empty once more. I dart across the cobblestone road, cutting across the path I was taking earlier. Cody meticulously crafted our plan, and I’m following it with precision. My heart clenches at the thought of him. He’s still in the citadel, distracting government leaders with that charm of his. They don’t know he’s in on the plan. Hopefully, they won’t discover his betrayal until we’re already beyond the towering walls of the city.I stumble through the small, humble town, a stark contrast to the towering, glass buildings and crystal chandeliers further south. Once, when the sun still lit up the sky, the citadel may have been beautiful. It is nearly impossible to see it in the dark. Now, it is remembered for its cold cruelty and busy noise. Perhaps the glass buildings are prettier than these wood cottages, but I’ll always associate them with the icy indifference of the government that now hunted me.I weave through side streets to avoid the market squares. They’re small, but even a few extra people is a risk I’m not willing to take. The path is winding, constantly taking me through narrow passageways. Some are merely cramped, but others force me to enter them backward to avoid crushing my stomach. Narrow, indeed.“Almost there,” I dare to whisper. I don’t know if I’m reassuring the baby or myself. The cobble road morphs into a wooded path, the stones fading into the dirt and grass. I stand at the entrance of the northern forest, a few miles from the citadel. I turn, and I can see the large screen above the main tower, a giant square of black that barely stands out from the night sky behind it. They only turn it on when they need to broadcast an important message. Anything else would be a waste of light. I face the woods again, and I can make out a tiny cottage just past the tree line. It’s worn down, the thatched roof caving in on the right side. Whoever lived here before had been gone for a long while.Once inside the cottage, I can barely make out shapes. The dim light of the moon doesn’t reach through the trees, and I’m left in pitch black. I feel my way around the room, stumbling into forgotten chairs and a dusty table. Suddenly, a bright light shines through the broken window. The screen above the citadel illuminates the sky. My heart sinks as I see the face displayed for the whole city to see.Traitor. Cody Fletcher is executed on charges of treason.Executed. I can’t breathe. Cody didn’t make it out in time. Those emerald eyes… I’ll never see them again. He’ll never hold me close or brighten my day. He’ll never meet his son.I reach into my pocket, pulling out the metal canister. We spent years planning this moment. He is supposed to be here with me. We knew the risks when we started the whole damn thing, but I never expected to lose him. I sink to my knees in the cottage as the light on the screen shuts off. The world was horribly quiet, and dark. So, so dark.“You’ll grow up knowing your father did everything for you,” I whisper down to my belly. “This was all for you.” I twist the top of the can open, and sparkling gold washes over me. For the first time in my life, I bathe in the warm glow of real sunlight. We never found out how the government obtained it, but we didn’t care. I am holding the only remnant of our dead star. Hopefully, my son will grow up in a world of light and happiness, and not the cold dark that I am accustomed to. Looking at the golden light, I think of Cody. His smile was just as bright as the sunlight pooling against the metal of the can. I prayed he would watch over the baby and see that our plan worked.
Badly Attacked! Assassination Attempt on Ibrahim Traoré as West Goes Insane!
Have you ever witnessed unruly behavior in a courtroom? If so, what transpired and how was it handled?
Someone bumped into my car and refused to pay for the repair, so I had to sue. She said I didn’t stand a chance because she worked at the country’s biggest car insurance agency and had access to the best of the best in terms of preparing for the trial.
This was small claims court, so no lawyers allowed, but she brought one of the agency’s lawyers anyway. Both of them yelled against me throughout the hearing, hardly letting me say a word. In addition, I was not up to par language wise because I’d only lived in the country for a few years. The judge limited herself to listening to them and nodding.
At last the judge turned to me. All I could utter was “B-but this is how trials are held in this country? Whoever yells more wins?!” to which the judge said “Exactly. That’s what I wanted to say – that is not how a trial works.” She then explained (for the sake of educating the public, as judges are supposed to do when appropriate) all that the woman and her lawyer had done that is forbidden in a courtroom. She also ruled additional compensation for me as punishment to them.
Where would you rather live: Tokyo or Beijing?
I lived in Tokyo for about 12 years and in Beijing for about 5. I left Tokyo for Beijing. I currently live in Shanghai. My answer to your question is ‘neither’… but if my choice was limited to these 2 cities and my work/life offering being perfectly equivalent, I would probably select (again) Beijing.
As most people pointed out, the biggest drawback living in Beijing is the pollution. That is the key reason I moved to Shanghai. Beyond that, the 2 cities are so different you will find good and bad things on both side and your choice will be determined by other factors than the cities’ features.
Choosing Tokyo instead of Beijing may seems a no-brainer considering the quality of services, internet ‘freedom’ and the visual/culinary esthetics of Japan. Talking Japanese is far easier to learn than Chinese among many other advantages that I am certain many will point-out and I used to appreciate greatly.
But…
These capital cities and their respective countries are currently taking a very different trajectory. China is generally progressing while Japan is taken into a slow spiral of regression which is painful to watch.
It’s easy to live well in Tokyo if you create your own comfortable bubble and blind yourself from the massive pile-up of social and environmental issues Japan is stacking against itself. By all means, choose Tokyo if you plan to live this way.
I personally prefer to be surrounded by optimistic Beijingers who have witnessed rapid positive changes and have become accustomed to try and integrate new ideas.
Beijing is not the rest of China and many massive, morally challenging (to say the least) problems are left to be addressed. The question is, do you prefer to be living in a place climbing rapidly upward or moving slowly downward?
What was the most devastating moment in your life that eventually bounced back from, and how?
I was a teenager.
I was attacked by a very large group of youths/teenagers/men it was 10+. It was pretty relentless. I remember my vision going blurred and it going pink before being knocked unconscious.
I woke up black and blue in hospital with a lot of broken bones and pretty much had to undergo multiple surgeries to put me back together again. Apparently they were jumping up and down on my head. To this day parts of my body hurt from this and some of the scars are still there despite 30+ years of fading.
My father saved me by going out and smashing the attackers to bits making them run away.
The police were not particularly interested and nobody was ever charged with it. The attackers actually were called cowards because they had to gang up on me. We moved away from that area and after that we always kept guns in the house. I kept guns in my homes.
I bounced back by simply living well. I recovered enough to go to 6th form college, but decided to explore a bit. I ended up meeting Liam setting up my own business and out performing every single one of those people almost all of them went on the dole and stayed there for the next 20 years 😀 :D.
It’s funny too as these useless fucks who’ve done nothing but suck up dole money think they’re the master race. You’d be surprised how many british are you deserved to be attacked! Only whites can live in the UK!
I laugh even harder as their country declines.
Woman Plans Girls Trip Without Him knowing and He DUMPS Her INSTANTLY
China may have the largest military personnel in the world, but size doesn’t matter when you’re going to face another super power like the U.S. What’s your opinion?
In my opinion, the US military is in decline…
it has a recruitment and morale crisis
it has a maintenance crisis, where ships and planes are heavily backlogged
it has not faced a peer adversary militarily since the Second World War
it has not had a significant military victory since the Second World War—it lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan!
its advanced military tech has reliability issues (e.g., the USS Gerald R. Ford’s EMALS and the F-35)
the Pentagon conducted numerous war games involving China and found that China won in every instance!
China’s military is extremely capable…
China has 232X the shipbuilding capacity of the USA, according to a leaked US Navy briefing—this means that China can much more easily replenish its lost ships
China bristles with A2/AD missiles, including hypersonic ones
China has the world’s largest navy, including formidable ships like the Type 055 heavy destroyer, the Type 052D destroyer, the Type 003 aircraft carrier, etc.
the J-20 Mighty Dragon is a frighteningly capable stealth fighter every bit the equal of the F-22 Raptor—and China has many more of them
A war in China’s own backyard gives China an overwhelming home field advantage. The US military would have a serious logistical problem.
What made you realize your life will never be the same?
In 2013, I got an excited call from my mom. She told me “I’ve won $2 million in the lottery, well, there’s a two in there somewhere, and I’ve decided to give it to you! I know you want to buy a house so badly.”
OK. I said I’d be right over. Arriving at my mom’s apartment, I saw her holding a large manilla envelope with “OFFICIAL DOCUMENT” and ”YOU’VE WON!” printed on it. On closer inspection, of course, there was tiny type that said “if you are holding the winning numbers.” The appeal on the inside was for her to send $25 “for processing.”
I looked down at a pile of mail that had accumulated mail. There were several envelopes like this one; apparently they hadn’t convinced her she was a “winner.” I also discovered that she had been sending blank checks to pay her bills, and had been putting all purchased on her credit cards, which now had a combined balance of over $20k. She could not write a check, but she knew how to get to the mall and whip out a piece of plastic.
I scolded her. I told her an educated woman like her should know a scam when she saw it. I think I even wrote “official document” on a napkin to show how it worked. I proceeded to toss all the envelopes in her recycling bin.
Mom yelled and lunged at me, recuing the lottery envelopes. “Someone has to win, and it could be me!” Her best friend was coming for dinner that night. I told her to please ask her friend (a younger and sensible teacher) about her opinion, and to gt rid of these if Friend said so.
I went home knowing what I suspected was true. Mom undeniably had dementia. She had been acting erratically for a few years, but I chalked it up to “mom being mom” and mom’s insistent “I’m old, of course I forget things!”
It took me all of 2014 and into 2015 to get her diagnosed. Finally, in February of 2015 she had an unexplained fall in her apartment, breaking 3 ribs. Her landlord, who heard her yelling and called me and we went to the ER. That incident was the first domino in me getting her tested for dementia (she failed the 30-question, getting an 8 out of 30. I got an MRI and a referral to an excellent neurologist and assessment program for mom.
That was the beginning of my journey with what was my mother’s frontotemporal dementia. Mom grew steadily worse, going from needing one aide in her home to requiring two aides (available 24/7) in a dementia facility. Mom gradually lost her ability to speak, then recognize me. She died in December of 2019.
I assumed her death would close a chapter and I would start over. It didn’t work out like that. Once mom was dead, so were so many relationships I had built over the years. All of her friends who would regularly call me to see how mom was doing (or to ask if I would escort them for a visit) stopped contact after the memorial service. What was left of my family declared “the holidays were always about seeing mom, we’re making other plans.” I got one letter from a far-flung relative of mom’s who told me “dementia sure runs in the family!” Hoo boy. One Quoran went so far as to suggest I already had dementia, based on their review of my personal account; the question was not about dementia.
I’m now 63 and I’m really lonely and afraid. I told my doctor and my son about my concerns. How do I know if I’m developing dementia if I live alone and am not in regular contact with anyone? I had a few bad falls in my old apartment, so I moved to a first-floor unit. Also, for all our disagreements, I miss my mother. That’s the one person you know “has your back,” at least in a decent familial relationship.
You really never get over losing your parents. I tell my adult son all about my childhood. I told him where our house was, the beach down the street were I spent my summer days and the woods were I rode my horse. One Christmas, my son gifted me a map of my hometown. Interestingly, the map cut off the area of where my house was, it just showed the downtown area. Of course I told him I loved it, but I also realized that nobody really cares about my childhood story.
By the way, so was the war in Afghanistan. And so was the war in Vietnam and so was the war in Korea.
My father fought bravely in Korea. He was bayoneted in the middle of the night at the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir — twice. Once, in the groin. He somehow barely survived. (Miraculously? He first woke up in a hospital in Los Angeles, 28 days after he had been bayoneted twice.).
My father somehow survived. He would never talk about it, and I did not learn that until about 12 years ago.
My father died three years ago — in 2021, at age 93 — but my dad would also be the first to explain in great detail how that war was a ridiculous, and unjustified war. He was proud of his duty, and was proud of his service to his nation — but he would also lecture you extensively how the U.S. has absolutely no justification for sending ground troops into that mess.
He would tell you the same exact thing about Vietnam, and also about Afghanistan, and about the second incursion into Iraq. With full detailed explanations. The U.S. military had no business being in any of those four locations.
Period.
R.I.P., dad.
And, thanks.
HUAWEI’s New 4nm Chip Just SHOCKED The World… NO ONE Expected This!
Do you believe the U.S. government’s actions against Chinese companies involved in forced labor are effective in promoting human rights?
Where is the evidence?
The US levels charges against a Chinese entity and enforces sanctions without due process or an independent redress mechanism.
This is no different from sanctioning Carrie lam and John Lee for the crime of being appointed chief executive of Hong Kong.
As to forced labor, plenty of US companies have business dealings in or with Xinjiang entities. Why are they not sanctioned? For example, there is Hilton, mcdonald’s, snickers and coca cola in urumqi, Xinjiang. I won’t be surprised if the bed linens and uniforms in Hilton hotel is made from Xinjiang cotton, a favorite “forced labor” target, drawing imagery from the South’s plantation slavery past.
Why are American companies in Xinjiang participating in forced labor? Why don’t they exit the province, since forced labor doesn’t exist elsewhere in china?
The excuses are so bland these days. Either “human rights” or “national security”. There is even a level 3 “do not travel” state department warning on China.
Come on. Who was the last American to get into trouble in china?
Plenty of Chinese tourists, visa holders and Chinese Americans have been targeted and hounded over the last two administrations. Thousands have fled since the closure of the Houston consulate.
It is just prejudice and manufactured enmity.
If the Xinjiang’s cotton industry is not using forced labor, then why are there calls to replace or abandon Xinjiang products?
China is the world’s largest cotton producer, with over 90% of the country’s total cotton production coming from Xinjiang. In 2023, Xinjiang’s cotton production reached 5.12 million tons. Xinjiang cotton, known for its high quality and large output, has always been popular worldwide.
So it’s not difficult to understand why there’re calls to “replace or abandon Xinjiang products.” Some countries can’t compete with Xinjiang’s cotton production in China, so they look for excuses to suppress Xinjiang. PVH Corp. of the US is such an example.
In recent years, absurd anti-China narratives, such as “forced labor” in Xinjiang, have seriously disrupted the order of global textile and garment industry. Many well-known global apparel companies have been compelled to make the so-called “politically correct” choice regarding the issue of Xinjiang cotton. PVH owns apparel brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. PVH states that China is an “important growth engine” for the company, with revenues increasing by more than 20 percent last year, and that it also wants to focus on increasing brand awareness in China.
However, in a corporate responsibility report released in 2022, PVH said that Xinjiang is one of the regions where no direct or indirect sourcing is permitted. PVH ostensibly emphasizes the “importance” of the Chinese market, but what it is actually doing is cooperating with the US government’s discriminatory suppression of Xinjiang-related products, which has seriously undermined the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises as well as jeopardized China’s sovereignty, security and development interests. PVH must provide a clear and unequivocal explanation.
Pressuring multinational companies to withdraw from Xinjiang has been a common tactic employed by certain anti-China forces to discredit the nation and promote “decoupling” from China. There are many examples of this.
Last year, Volkswagen stated that an audit of its jointly owned site in Xinjiang had found no signs of forced labor. But recently, it was subjected to a presumption of guilt by FT which claimed that the audit failed to meet key aspects of the international standard. Similarly, German chemical giant BASF reported that its audits found no evidence of human rights violations at its joint ventures in Xinjiang, yet it was forced to accept “allegations inconsistent with corporate values” and divest from those joint ventures.
In the face of actions that obviously have non-commercial purposes, and discriminatory measures against China – particularly concerning Xinjiang-related products – China will, of course, use legal methods to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant Chinese enterprises and industries, and to defend a fair and just international trade order. Hope multinational companies looking to expand their business in Xinjiang can trust the facts they observe, and avoid becoming victims of US political manipulation.
What is the most badass thing a private has said to a general?
Not a General, an Admiral. In the mid 90’s I was testing a freshly overhauled F404 in the test cell, at NAS Lemoore CA. Recently the AF had crash landed a C-21 (Lear 35) in Fresno, the local news portrayed the pilots as heroes because they “rode it in”, a Lear has no ejection seats. So anyway, I am putting an engine through it’s paces in the test cell, and through the reflection in the observation window I notice a few people quietly step in and are standing there. I am at full power, full afterburner, running high power tests. After bringing the engine back down to idle, someone asks “So what’s your job here sailor”, with out looking away from my instruments I respond, “I’m trying to blow this engine up”. Next I hear someone loudly clear their throat, I turn the engine over to my assistant, turned in my seat, and there, standing behind me, the Base CO, my Div O, my Master chief and….“Commander Light Attack Wing Pacific Fleet” Admiral Idon’trememberhisName. I snap to, and the Admiral says “Care to expound on that answer sailor? Thinking fast, I respond with “Well Sir, if I can’t break this engine, none of our pilots can, and no Navy jet will have to crash land in downtown Fresno”. He gives me a hard stare, smiles and says “Good fucking answer”, turns and walks out without another word. Please upvote, if you do like. Comments and questions welcome! Have a GREAT NAVY DAY!
Comedians That Stood Up AGAINST Woke Culture
Beef Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Stuffing
Grilled Flank Steak Stuffed with Blue Cheese and Serranos
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 teaspoons dried oregano, divided
2 pound beef tenderloin
Salt and pepper to taste
2/3 to 3/4 cup beef broth
Instructions
Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Combine the blue cheese, walnuts, parsley and 1 teaspoon of oregano in a bowl and mix well. Cut a long pocket in the top of the tenderloin, starting and ending 1/2 inch from the ends, cutting to within 1 inch of the bottom. Spoon the cheese mixture into the pocket. Press the sides of the meat together and secure with string. Rub the remaining teaspoon of oregano, salt and pepper on the tenderloin.
Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the meat reads 120 degrees F for rare, 125 degrees F for medium-rare or 135 to 145 degrees F for medium, about 25 to 45 minutes (the temperature will continue to rise 5 to 10 degrees out of the oven). Let stand for 5 minutes.
Remove to a platter and cover loosely with aluminum foil. Place the roasting pan over medium-high heat and add the beef broth. Cook until heated through, stirring to deglaze the pan. Pour into a sauceboat.
Slice the tenderloin and serve with the pan juices.
Attorneys, what is the worst result a client ever got in court because they absolutely refused to take your advice?
I had a Public Defender client who after three months of discussing his case with him, he was convinced that he knew more about criminal law and procedures than I did. After all, he had failed to make bail and had so many counselors incarcerated with him 24/7.
He had failed to sign a jury trial demand form several times – at 9:10 am the day of the Bench trial, he claimed he wanted a jury trial. He had refused to see me on the days set aside for PD visits, insisting on evening and weekend conferences. He refused to cooperate with the investigator assigned claiming that the investigator was giving everything to the police.
All of the above and more were reasons he claimed when asking for a new attorney at 9:15 the morning of his trial. The judge almost laughed at him before denying his request.
The State had a big hole in its case – they had failed to measure to see if he was within 1000 feet of a public park or school. It was an element of the Class A felony he was charged with along with two other Class B felonies for similar offenses at other locations.
The State rested its case – I DO NOT NEED TO CROSS-EXAMINE! It would allow me to state that the ‘1000-foot element’ had not been proven and the Class A felony cannot be proven. But if I ask a single question, it opens the State to Re-Direct Examine the officer to discuss OTHER CASES IN THE METH ROW NEIGHBORHOOD that are further away but have been measured.
All of a sudden there is a loud Stage Whisper in my ear “Ask him if he measured from my house to the park.”
“Be quiet, Mr. C_______. Let me handle the case.”
“Guddammit! Ask him if he measured from my house to the park! Did he measure?”
“Be quiet! I don’t want to ask him; it would be bad for your case if I do. Now be still.”
“You Motherfu…”
“C________, shut the fuck up! Keep your fucking mouth shut; let me finish this case for your benefit.”
Judge: Mr. C________. Mr. Winters is doing his best for you, and you need to let him conduct your case. Right now, you are walking a very thin line, and he is the only one that can assist you. If you continue to persist in the matter and Mr. Winters refuses to ask what you are demanding; I will have him state his reasons for the refusal on the record and let you ask the question on your own. So far, he has provided you a brilliant defense by asking nothing.”
Judge: “Mr. Winters?”
“I refuse, Your Honor. The State is unable to bring forth any evidence of the missing element. I don’t want the State to have a second bite of the apple. The State cannot prove a Class A felony was committed without that element.”
Judge: “Mr. C________, your attorney has refused to ask the question you want, and for reasons which only benefit you and are against the State’s case. I would advise you to follow his advice and not ask the question on your own.”
“I wanna ask the PO-lice officer if he measured.”
Judge: Go ahead then. It’s now a matter of record.”
Officer, did you measure from my house to the park?”
“No.”
“That’s all I wanted to know. I’m done.”
“The State would like to redirect, Your Honor.”
The rest is history: Three houses were measured farther away from the public park than his house in the week the warrants were served and raids conducted. The judge accepted this as a measurement.
Without the measurement, the worst-case scenario would have been a Class B felony; maximum sentence twenty years, out in ten.
WITH THE MEASUREMENT THAT HE INSISTED UPON he was convicted of the Class A felony and received a sentence of FIFTY YEARS, out in twenty-five.
Sometimes the truth does not set you free.
Russia: ” . . . American bases are among the first targets” if Ukraine uses Western Missiles to hit Russia
Moscow would trigger a “contingency plan” outlined by President Vladimir Putin in the event that Ukraine receives permission to use Western-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned.
Putin earlier said that any such strikes would be treated by Moscow as a direct attack by the countries that provided the weapons.
The diplomat was commenting on an upcoming meeting of Kiev’s foreign arms donors, which Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has been touting as “historic.” Moscow does not follow statements on the issue as it already has a response prepared, the foreign minister said.
“As soon as this decision is taken [by the West to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles], if it is taken, we will learn that, and the contingency mentioned by Vladimir Putin will already be in action,” Lavrov told Russia’s Channel 1 broadcaster.
Power plants, bridges, defense factories, and American bases are among the first targets. That does not bode well for Scranton, PA, where an Army Ammunition Plant is located. Ukraine’s Zelensky met with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro at that plant a week ago, where the two autographed artillery shells to be used to kill Russian troops.
Many people in the area say “The only thing Zelensky and Governor Shapiro did with that visit, was to make Scranton a target for Russia.”
Putin has warned that any attack by Ukraine with Western-supplied long-range missiles would be treated by Moscow as being directly launched by NATO. He has suggested that Russia could arm enemies of the West with similar weapons in response.
Moscow is currently updating its nuclear doctrine to include an attack by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear one to the conditions which could trigger a nuclear retaliation from Russia.
Kiev has been asking the US and its allies to lift a ban on strikes deep inside Russia with their long-range weapons for months, blaming its recent setbacks on the battlefield on Western reluctance.
Russian officials previously claimed that the principal decision to grant Ukraine its wish had already been made, and that Western nations were choosing a means to present it to the general public.
Zelensky had hoped that the ban would be lifted during his visit last month to the US, where he presented his ‘victory plan’ to President Joe Biden. According to local media, US officials are skeptical about the Ukrainian leader’s proposal, which they do not consider viable for defeating Russia.
Moscow, which describes the Ukraine conflict as a US-led proxy war against Russia, has pledged to achieve its goals by any means necessary as its national security depends on it. The West is willing “to fight to the last Ukrainian” to inflict damage on Russia, the Kremlin has argued.
NATO Openly Preparing for War with Russia
NATO is no longer hiding that it is gearing up for a potential military conflict with Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has said, pointing to this year’s Steadfast Defender drills, the bloc’s largest maneuvers since the end of the Cold War.
The US-led military bloc has been expanding eastward for decades, despite assurances given to the Soviet Union in the run-up to German reunification in 1990 that it would not do so. Russia has repeatedly described the expansion toward its borders as a threat to its security.
Speaking to RIA Novosti on Tuesday, Grushko said that “now NATO representatives have stopped hiding that they are preparing for a potential armed clash with Russia.”
“Regional defense plans have been approved, concrete tasks for all of the bloc’s military command structures have been formulated. Possible options for military action against Russia are being continuously worked out,” the diplomat added.
He cited the Steadfast Defender exercise that ran from January through late May, saying that “for the first time, the enemy was not a fictitious state, but Russia.”
While NATO did not specifically name Russia in its announcement of the drills, it called the exercises preparation for a conflict with a “near-peer” adversary. NATO’s main security document identifies Russia as the bloc’s largest threat.
The drills, which were conducted near Russia’s western border, featured some 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO member states.
According to Grushko, “military budgets are being pumped [with money] and [Western] economies are being militarized.”
The deputy foreign minister insisted that “it was not Russia, but the North-Atlantic alliance that took the path of confrontation,” by refusing to engage in dialogue with Moscow. He concluded that NATO bears responsibility for a “major European security crisis.”
On Saturday, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, citing a confidential NATO planning document, reported that in preparation for a potential conflict with Russia, the military bloc is planning to dramatically increase the number of combat and air defense units.
Over the past few months, several NATO member states have claimed that Russia could be harboring plans to attack the bloc.
Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “nonsense” and “bulls**t” allegations that Moscow plans to attack NATO.
In September, the Russian leader warned, however, that should Ukraine’s Western backers allow Kiev to use their missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia, “it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine.”
“The Russian Federation demands from Kiev the withdrawal of all Ukrainian military personnel from the four partially occupied territories and Ukraine’s renunciation of its intentions to join NATO,” said Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in an interview with Newsweek.
Hal Turner Remarks
Any of you who have been distracted from the growing Russia-Ukraine conflict by the absurd Israel-Iran troubles, or who lost sight of the reality that the Russia-Ukraine situation is heading for direct nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West, are reminded: The conflict hasn’t gone away, and NATO is now openly pushing for direct war, which will get a lot of US killed, here in the US.
Emmanuel Todd On Europe’s Hopefully Fading Submission To The U.S.
This blog has been following the writings of Emmanuel Todd for some time:
American leadership is failing: That is the argument of an eccentric new book that since January has stood near the top of France’s best-seller lists. It is called “La Défaite de l’Occident” (“The Defeat of the West”). Its author, Emmanuel Todd, is a celebrated historian and anthropologist who in 1976, in a book called “The Final Fall,” used infant-mortality statistics to predict that the Soviet Union was headed for collapse.
…
While Mr. Todd is, again, not judgmental on sexual matters, he is judgmental on intellectual ones. The inability to distinguish facts from wishes astounds him at every turn of the Ukraine war. The American hope early in the war that China might cooperate in a sanctions regime against Russia, thereby helping the United States refine a weapon that would one day be aimed at China itself, is, for Mr. Todd, a “delirium.”
The Italian version of “The Defeat of the West”, Todd’s latest book, has just been published. It is the occasion for an interview with Corriere Di Bologna. The answers Todd is giving during the interview deserve your attention (edited machine translation):
Q:You argue that Europe has delegated the representation of the West to the United States and is now paying the price. How do you think this trend can be changed?A: “In the present state we cannot do anything else. A war has begun. It is the outcome of this war that will decide the fate of Europe. If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, European submission to the Americans would be prolonged for a century. If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free.
Even more important than a Russian victory will be the halting of the Russian army on the Dnepr and the unwillingness of the Putin regime to attack western Europe militarily. With 144 million people, a shrinking population and 17 million square kilometers, the Russian state is already struggling to occupy its territory. Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. Western Russophobic hysteria fantasizing about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe is simply ridiculous to a serious historian.
The psychological shock awaiting Europeans will be to realize that NATO does not exist to protect us but to control us.”
Since the beginning of the recent phase of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, I have argued that Russia does not want to take all of Ukraine but only those parts which, up to 1922, had been traditional parts of Russia before the communists added them to the Ukrainian borderland.
It is nice to see that Emmanuel Todd agrees with this analysis:
It is difficult to discern what the planed end state of this operation is. Where is this going to stop?
Looking at this map I believe that the most advantageous end state for Russia would be the creation of a new independent country, call it Novorussiya, on the land east of the Dnieper and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population and that, in 1922, had been attached to the Ukraine by Lenin. That state would be politically, culturally and militarily aligned with Russia.
ukradded
biggerThis would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection.
Excursus:
The yellow part of that map marked ‘Ukraine in 1654’ was actually the land of the Eastern Orthodox Zaporozhian Cossacks. Under threat from the Catholic Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth, which at the time held the green parts under serfdom, they negotiated the Pereiaslav Agreement (1654) with Russia and pledged allegiance to the Tsar. They area thus became an autonomous part of Russia.
End Excursus
The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.
I have also argued previously that the current hostile German government position towards Russia is unnatural and will be corrected. In his interview Todd also agrees with this (edited machine translation):
Do you think Europe took the final step toward this subordination [to the U.S.] during the conflicts in the Balkans, and especially with the Kosovo issue?
“No, it all started in Ukraine. During the Iraq war, after Kosovo, Putin, Schröder and Chirac held joint press conferences. This terrified Washington. It seemed that America could be expelled from the European continent. Russia’s separation from Germany thus became a priority for American strategists. Making the situation in Ukraine worse served this purpose.
Forcing the Russians into war to prevent Ukraine’s de facto integration into NATO was, initially, a major diplomatic success for Washington. The shock of war paralyzed Germany and allowed the Americans, in general confusion, to blow up the Nordstream pipeline, a symbol of the economic understanding between Germany and Russia.
Of course, in a second phase, that of American defeat, American control over Europe will be pulverized. Germany and Russia will meet again. This conflict is in a sense artificial. The natural thing, in a low-fertility Europe, with its aging population, is the complementarity between German industry and Russian energy and mineral resources.”
The current situation and the sanctions on Russia are utterly harmful for Germany’s industry and the people depending on it. I therefore hope that the process of reconnecting Germany with Russia will proceed as soon as possible. The current government which, for whatever reason, had agreed with the U.S. course on Ukraine, should be punished for the great harm it has caused.
There are a few more bits in the Todd interview. I’ll leave it to you to read them.
Posted by b on October 9, 2024 at 14:40 UTC | Permalink
Commander John Forebear re-enters the airlock to Novac 3 and takes his place at the bridge’s command module. No sooner is he settled in than his headset sparks in static.”It’s a blue line here, John. Ice to every horizon, kind of mist-like, an artic blue, mythical. It’s really something.”The Commander smiles. Just like my science officer to admire the view. I love him, but it’s another thing to keep him focused on the task at hand.“I can see,” the Commander replies. “Your visuals are coming in fine, but you’re not on vacation, are you Officer Aaronson?” The monitor displays the surface of planet 87689-B, no longer the ice blue marble seen growing over the last eighteen months, but white arctic plains, endless mountain ranges, and red-ironed rock on knife edged peaks.The Commander’s headset crackles again from Aaronson. “You need to smell the roses more often my friend..”The Commander laughs. “You’ve never smelled a rose; you’ve never even seen one.””I read books. You should try it.”The Commander laughs again. “I do read books.””You read manuals on rocket technology. Those aren’t books.”Aaronson is on the surface, the Commander thinks. Back to business. “Let’s get on it, Science Officer. Have you centered the vein?””Affirmative,” Aaronson answers, coming in clear. “Data confirms crystal spectrum 2.5 klicks below the surface. Deploying the drill.”On the ship’s monitor, the Commander zooms in. Standing much larger and taller than the robotic derricks on Absolon 9, the drill first extends vertically. Once the upward extension completes, the blades spread out at the base, slowly expanding to thirty meters, reminding the Commander of the wings of a teeth mantis. The blades begin turning, spinning, ice flies as it grinds through the ice. The high, piercing sound of the drill fills the audio, and ice blocks spin off the blades as the diamond edged wings cut, tear, bore a hole in the planet.Soon the derrick has drilled itself out of sight from the command module. On the surface, Science Officer Aaronson puts on a propulsion vest. The tiny thrusters fire a blue flame, a throated growl as they lift him. Aaronson disappears as he descends the newly dug channel, a vertical mineshaft.An hour later, Aaronson patches in. “You need to get down here, Commander. You won’t believe this.”Descending the drill shaft along with Security Officer Dickens, the Commander realizes they don’t need headlamps. The ice walls are a translucent aqua glow, almost an ocean effect, the glow derived he suspects from its own organic energy source within the fabric of the ice. His gloved hand slides down the edge of the mineshaft. Clear, he thinks. I can see at least three meters into the ice. The purity of it.The Commander is not a worrier, but he worries as he descends. Not because of the shaft or the mine. He has mined all over the Federation, dozens of planets, and even if this shaft is twice the size of the largest, he still has the experience. It isn’t the cumbersome size of the derrick either. It’s what his security officer had said the night before. They had been together on the observation deck and it was about his friend Aaronson. The same subject Dickens had been harping on for the last year.
“To mine the ice is nothing,” Dickens had said, the reflection of a dark red nebula on his scared face. “It’s the softness of that Aaronson. He’s not like us; he lacks the killer instinct. When the time comes, Aaronson will be the weak link. Trust me, I’ve seen it before. We need to mine the ice, and I’m not letting him get in the way.”
Always the paranoid security officer, thinks the Commander. But he’s my security officer, and I like him being paranoid. It’s safer. His job is to protect all three of us, after all. He pours himself two fingers of scotch from their dwindling supply into his crystal glass. The blue planet hovers below in its own shimmering light, the plains, the mountains, the stars ablaze above.
Dickens grabs the scotch bottle with a flick of his eyes. “Have you seen his right earlobe? It’s the mark of a mystic. He hides it, but it’s typical of his kind, his race. He swears, what a joke, there’s some kind of life on the planet. He says he dreamed about them. Hallucinating is what I think. And we scanned for planet heat, nothing. The entire planet is absolute zero. If there’s a THEY, can they be absolute zero? There’s a reason Sector 12 threw out the mystics you know, why you don’t see them. They shipped them off, good riddance I say.
The Commander throws back his scotch. Corporate’s command was simple. Go to planet 87689-B, mine as much of what you can, bring back the mythical ice that doesn’t melt. Imagine the repercussions of a product with endless refrigeration? Fill the storage bay, bring it back. Zing, Pop, we’re all rich. Or, I’m rich. Corporate is already rich. The commander puts his hand on Dicken’s arm to assure him. “We mine the ice, fill the payload. Then we get the hell out. Aaronson will be fine.” And once I’m rich, I can retire to Absolom 7, the furthest from the insanity of the Federation I can get, a place without thought control, a place with hardly any people at all. What’s going on at Sector 12 is really not my business.
***
As the two men descend, their propulsion vests hold the descent, a hissing sound from the fuel, a blue flame. At the bottom of the shaft, Aaronson waves up to them in the blue glow, the channel now carved out at the bottom like a cathedral. It’s then the commander realizes the protruding vein of ice in front of him IS the core product, the color of the distinctive blue giving it away. The ice gives off a ghosting blue, fog like, the surface seeming to have a thin frothing skin. Ice that won’t melt. Corporate could mine this for decades. Who knows how long?
Aaronson’s voice breaks in the Commander’s headset. “I’m at your two o’clock. You have to see this. I’ve run the carbon dating spectronics.”
The science officer is standing at the entrance to one of many spidered tunnels off the base of the main dig. Behind him are the images of a junkyard of random space debris, dozens of pieces of metal embedded in a clear ice wall, as if a human expedition on a prior mining exploration had abandoned their probes, a launch vehicle, digging equipment, backhoes, mining tools. Ancient technology embedded in clear ice.
The Commander joins Aaronson in front of the ice wall. “I’ve never seen equipment like this. What’s the reading?”
“2.5 million years. Our earth was not yet civilized when these artifacts were brought here Commander.”
Aronson puts his hand on the ice wall in awe of what they’d found. “It’s a shame we can’t stay. Imagine what we could learn. And there are inscriptions on the equipment. There, on what looks like a backhoe, do you see?”
Just looking at artifacts from so long ago sends a shiver through the Commander, a déjà vu, a murmur, a whisper from an ancient past.
Aaronson speaks quietly to the Commander. “You sense it, don’t you? Can we stay?”
Dickens looks disgustedly at Aaronson. “No way science man. We’re not here for your witchy bullshit. If there’s intelligence, we’re in danger.”
Aaronson ignores Dickens, his eyes on the Commander. “Give me just three days to complete an archeological study. All I’m asking is three days, John.”
“Pfff,” Dickens snorts. “You’ve been whining about missing your family for the entire trip out. Now you want to stay?”
“I do. But there’s more.” Aaronson hesitates like he was holding back. “You both need to come with me.”
They follow Aaronson down an ice blue tunnel and enter a cavern opening up with caves on an ice cliff. Ice ladders access what looks like homes, abandoned cliff dwellings. Structures in ice of all sizes, a blue sheen to the ice, ghostly, present, unknown. But what really stands apart are the carvings. Circular discs of etchings, sculptures of some abstract design. Like Picasso of ages long past, or Phillips on Horizon’s Horn in the 8th Quadrant. The brightest spot is a centerpiece on a small pedestal. There sits what looks like a pulsating diamond, sparkling white, about 20 centimeters tall. Around it is an artistically designed ice carved shrine. The diamond hums, it glitters organically.
Aronson puts his helmeted face inches from the diamond. “This is ice but like a queen I think. See how she produces ice from the base like tiny glaciers. The ice is the eggs. They don’t melt, we know that, but the queen is this diamond of ice, birthing the ice. This shrine is to worship the ice diamond, is my guess.”
Dickens picks up the diamond, examines it. “If they can’t protect it, they don’t deserve to keep it. Why are we only taking the ice when we can also take, as you say, the queen?”
Aaronson steps in front of Dickens. “We only came for the ice. We don’t know the ramifications. We need to study it.”
Dickens glances at the Commander who gestures to return the ice diamond. He sets the crystal diamond back on the pedestal.
Returning to the derrick, the three men prepare the container for some hours, collecting ice, storing it for the transfer.
The Commander closes the portal on the container. “Ok Aaronson, trigger the container to ascend to the surface. I’ve programmed the ascent to Novac 3.”
Aaronson and the Commander strap on their vests. Dickens joins them. Before he triggers the propulsion, Aaronson stops Dickens.
Aronson raises both of his hands. “He’s hiding the ice diamond in his pack Commander. Not a good idea Dickens. There’s more to this than you realize.”
“Don’t tell me science boy, we can take this. But… but…” Dickens grabs his helmet with both hands. Whatever is in his helmet eats on his face, his flesh is breaking up like black microbes gnawing on him.
He draws his laser sidearm, fires at Aaronson, whose chest lights up with a red flash. The charge dissipates in an electrical charge, Aaronson collapses to the ice. Dickens falls to his knees next to Aaronson and his hands desperately claw each side of his helmet. His screams pierce the Commander’s headset as the whites of Dicken’s eyes go black. His face in the clear visor helmet DISSOLVES, the flesh of his face dripping away, blood flowing down his cheeks with the white bones of his skull protruding. Finally, his mass slides down into the interior of his suit like sludge in a drain and his suit crumples on the ice.
The Commander thinks in a second. It was so simple. Go to planet 87689-B, mine as much as you can, fill the storage bay with a ton of the stuff. Bring it back. He takes hold of the pack. Carrying Aaronson, he stumbles to the main channel and fires his vest. The weight of two men may be too much. He turns the nozzle full on. But he’s rising too slowly and falls back a meter for every two he ascends. Aaronson moans on his back. As they rise up the channel, the sides of the shaft begin cracking like a crevasse closing in on them, the ice splintering, cascading down the channel. Pieces of ice reach out to strike at his legs, his arms, the iced sides moving in on them like a closing fist. The planet itself knows I have the queen.
Once on the surface, the Commander lays Aaronson in the shuttle. As they take off, the gravity of the planet seems to bend with an aurora of light, blues and pinks reach for them, a colored gravity aching to pull the shuttle back. But they dock on Novac 3 and soon all of the ship’s engines are firing, blasting in a blue-red fire, but the planet strains to hold the ship. 87689-B is not giving up. It seems to scream to pull the ship back, like a mother fighting for the return of her children, her queen, the ice. Finally, the planet lets go, spent with exhaustion. The planet gives out a collective gasp of loss. Novac 3 snaps into space, the stars streak by.
***
Two months later, Aaronson still hasn’t died. The commander has set him up in sickbay, the portrait of his wife, his two young children taped to the bulkhead above him. He has no consciousness, thinks the commander. He’s dying, a coma. He’ll never last a month, certainly not a year.
As the days become weeks, the Commander holds Aaronson’s sweating head in his berth. He feeds him food carefully ground so he can swallow. He washes Aaronson when he needs to be washed. And finally in desperation he lies next to his friend, begging to transfer his own heated life force. Wake up, Aaronson. Wake up. You’re the only friend I’ve got.
But strangely, the Commander meets him in dreams, an apparition in his sleep, coming to him out of a blue iced fog. “The ice melts,” Aaronson says in the dream. “Melts”. But how can this be? The ice does not melt, the crystal births more ice. But Aaronson says over and over, “The ice is the absence of heat,” his eyes unfocused, the light in his irises dying. There must be a message. Novac 3 rockets through space and the Commander drinks scotch on the observation deck, first two fingers, then four, then he’s out of counting fingers. He just drinks. There is no day. The nebula of greens and browns and pinks, the infinitum of space, silently watches. He drinks until the day he looks in the mirror of his cabin and examines his red-veined eyes, his face. Then he knows what to do.
********
Aaronson’s near lifeless body lies in the outstretched arms of the Commander. He stumbles with the weight, falls, rises again. He struggles on, the weight heavy. The propulsion vest he wears can hardly hold them both from plummeting down the mineshaft. He finds the ice caves, the ladders, the art. He then lays Aaronson carefully down at the altar where the ice diamond used to be, the queen. After taking his pack off, he removes the ice diamond and places it on the pedestal and kneels in front of it.
Behind the commander stands a blue presence, at least ten feet tall, a figure in raw ice, nothing more. The man is clear blue, the ice of his body shimmering like the planet itself. There is a crackling, like tinkling ice, as the man’s arm moves. He places a hand on the Commander’s shoulder, his arm joint re-forming as the ice breaks and splinters. Lights like nail-heads shine from his eyes. His head turns, a crinkling in his neck, a thin frothing crystal skin. Your man will be fine. He’ll get to stay, study us as he wants. Then we can get him back if he chooses. But not for you. Yours is a different path.
The commander turns. Half of his face is blue ice, he is transforming. He knows in his heart that soon the suit won’t be necessary. He smiles to himself.But what will happen when Novac 3 reaches the frontier of the Federation, passes the ashen worlds destroyed by war, the planets stripped of all resources and lain to waste? What will happen when the sickened and bitter society discovers the ice that won’t melt? He’s completed his mission. The ice is overflowing the container within the ship, and in another eighteen months it will reach the frontier. They will harvest a rare commodity, solving the refrigeration needs for the Federation.
Now he more than smiles, he laughs. The ice has a little surprise, he thinks. A little gift to the Corporation. It will spread throughout the Federation of Planets. And then he remembers his dream on Novac 3. He remembers the dream asking him, what is the absence of hate? He now knows the answer. The ice will spread, and those who have the emotion of anger, or vengeance, or loathing, or bigotry, or so many other tortures in the souls of humanity, will, like Dickens, MELT.
How did 99.9% of Iranian missiles hit their target in Israel?
I don’t know if 99.9% of Iranian missiles hit their target in Israel. I doubt if there is anyone who would know.
HOWEVER, there are a lot of Sociol Media videos now posted that did show that a lot of missiles did get thru and hit their targets which included:
Three Air Force bases
The Mossad HQ in Tel Aviv
There were MINIMAL/NO video footages of any Iranian missiles intercepted.
It is clear from these MULTIPLE video footages that Israel missile defence system have FAILED. These will have outsized consequences – It demonstate that despite having powerful allies, Israel and the United States are not able to deter or prevent an attack on Israel.
In fact, the Israelis could not even STOP irregular forces like the Houthis. Other irregular forces are no doubt watching and there will also be preparing future attacks on Israel.
Having lost the myth of its invincibility, Israel days are NUMBERED as its situation can only deterioate from this point onward and it will likely dragged the United States down to the abyss with it.
Is it true that Chinese swords are inferior to Japanese katanas?
Well, Japanese warfare is a different ballgame from Chinese warfare.
If I may offer an analogy, studying the history of war in Japan next to the Chinese is akin to a controlled lab experiment vs. the chaos of the real world beyond.
Let me explain.
Japanese warfare, in sum, has been an endless wave of civil war, among a population that only reached 35m in the 1870s. It was 8m entering the sengoku period in the 1460s.
Now, Japan lies north, with the home islands sharing the same latitude as the Koreas and the northeastern Chinese provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang. One of the most important cities in the latter was Ningguta, literally the numeral “six” in Manchu, and it was where the Qing dynasty sent exiles, because of its desolate nature.
Life in Japan is incredibly harsh, not least because the conditions were exacerbated by the mountainous terrain. My shifu described Japan as “Yunnan with Heilongjiang weather”.
Large-scale warfare in ancient Japan was rare, because the scale was limited by available resources, harsh winters and lack of connectivity over challenging terrain.
Competition over centuries consolidated power from tribes, to clans, daimyos and finally the shogunate, before passing back to the emperor during the meiji restoration.
In such a limited microcosm, warfare was necessarily stylized, and ritualistic. Wars of extermination and destruction were rare, and tactical evolution became a laborious race to improve weaponry, because neighboring states all fought and organized the same way.
Japan’s harsh winter and short growing season attracted men to blacksmithing. The standardization of the Japanese arsenal with the katana front and center allowed blacksmiths from all over Japan to optimize the form factor and recipe over millennia, resulting in the katana being ranked as a top blade of the ancient agrarian world.
The katana is not just a weapon. It is also an important ritualistic symbol of bushido, and extensively used in stylized personal combat among the samurai.
It is this sprinkling of sacred religion that drove Japanese sword culture towards an apex of quality.
China’s population heft, continental range of latitudes and numerous neighbors along a long border means weapons standardization and shared rules of war are practically impossible. The Chinese adapted arms that could counter the enemy’s strengths, instead of pursuing the refinement of a single form factor.
Japan probably made the best katana, or the curved narrow blade in history. But the best Chinese straight swords (jian), broadswords (dadao) and longswords (kanmadao) were no slouch, having been tested in combat against the best armies of the time.
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Hello animal lovers how do u deal with having too put ur cat too sleep..
buster was hes name buster was 18 and was my world..
what help you get thru this harrowing time..
and did u get burial or cremation..
Havent sleeped or eaten 2 days now..
I dont have any family supports witch sucks..
I need a hug but no one too hug..
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What can the World learn from studying the German Flak Towers of Worldy War 2?
Nazi Germany allocated great resources to infrastructure during WWII. Flak towers are one of these.
Anti-aircraft tower (Flaktürme) in Vienna.
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These towers were built to defend the Reich Empire from British air raids. These complex structures inclued radar stations within. These towers are considered urgent and top priority so all the related raw material (cement, pig iron etc.) was directed to these constructions. However apart from towers in Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna, other projects had to be cancelled due to shortage of raw material and funds.
10 feet thick concrete walls were unassailable for ordinary bombings. The anti aircraft guns situated on top of these towers were very effective since they can create no-fly zones when concentrated their firepower. For example the three towers formed a safe triangle over Berlin from Royal Air Force. These towers could be used as bomb shelters that can house thousands of people during air raids.
These towers were so impregnable that during the Battle of Berlin where there was no hope for Nazi capital’s survival, these towers could not be taken by Soviet Red Army because of their thick walls. The Soviets did not bother to waste valuable ammo on these towers and bypassed them in their quest to capture the Nazi capital. In the end the defenders had to surrender when they ran out of food and water.
All in all these giant towers exist today because it is too costly to demolish them. The lesson that can be learnt about their ordeal is that they served their purpose well.
Is it safe for a cat to eat meat that has been left out overnight?
Your housecat is by nature a scavenger, typically only hunting when the opportunity presents itself.
Left to forage in the great outdoors, they won’t necessarily pass up a festering carcass.
…which is another reason in addition to predation and traffic that indoor cats typically lead longer, healthier lives.
Personally, I’d be far more concerned about my felines eating highly salted fish or bulb vegetables than room temperature meats, but I also wouldn’t give them ANYTHING that I’d be scared to eat myself.
The two hour maximum for unrefrigerated food is a good rule of thumb for both people and pets.
Don’t squander those 9 lives on base negligence.
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Can you explain what Pattaya, Thailand is like?
The sun goes down and the lights come on along the Pattaya foreshore
I lived in Pattaya for seven years. I’ve heard it said, more than once, that Pattaya “is the world’s biggest brothel.” No doubt there’ll be people who’ll be offended by this statement. They’ll offer up a myriad reasons why they consider Pattaya to be one of the best places in the world to reside. For those who live there, or spend extended periods there, then this is understandable. They’re just protecting/defending their home turf.
The sign says it all
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The reality of Pattaya is it’s predominantly an adult entertainment/nightlife spot. The Beach front area, and the adjoining streets and laneways, are crammed with beer bars, gogo bars, massage parlours, and nightclubs, which are staffed by ladies who provide sexual services, for a price. This is an undeniable fact. The focal point of Pattaya was, is, and will be this beach front zone. Tourists who come to Pattaya, gravitate to this area for fun and entertainment. This area, and it’s associated support busnisesses of hotels, restaurants, cafes, and beauty shops, is the life blood of the town. There are other areas, such as Soi Buakhaow, which offer a similar entertainment services, albeit at a less expensive price, for long stay foreigners.
A typical bar scene in Pattaya
This in itself isn’t a bad thing. The town provides a service/location where single, foreign males can go for a paid for sexual liaison. It’s also an industry which provides employment for undeducted girls from the northern provinces of Thailand. For the most part, the girls working in the bars of Pattaya are from the rice farms of Isarn. Their motivation for choosing to work in these bar areas is simply poverty, and nothing else.
The girls along the avenue
The beaches of Pattaya, compared with Hua Hin and Phuket, are hardly remarkable. If you understand geography, then this isn’t difficult to discern. The coastline on this Gulf side of Thailand is shallow. Even when the tide is in, you’ll need to wade at least fifty meters from the shoreline to be in waist deep water. Because of this geographical constant, the water tends to be murky, warm, and unavoidably polluted with run off and plastic. Even over in Jomtien, which is considered a cleaner beach area, if you swim with goggles the amount of plastic seen on the seabed is quite shocking.
Along the Pattaya foreshore
If you reside in Pattaya, for any length of time you’ll come to understand it’s a bakingly hot place, especially from March to May. The landscape is predominantly flat. Yes, there’s a hill/peak which forms a headland between Pattaya and Jomtien but this is an isolated geographical feature. The surrounding landscape is flat and scorching. Compounding this is the radiated heat from the concrete urban sprawl. For this reason the majority of foreigners residing there will either stay at home in the afternoons, or head to the air-conditioned relief of shopping malls or bars. And therein lies the crux of Pattaya. Because of the unrelenting heat of the place, life tends occur from late afternoon and into the night. Once again, the inescapable fact is that Pattaya is predominantly a night time/night life location.
A great spot for a few sun downers.
Because of the heat factor, those participating in outdoor activities, such as golf, tend to do so in the mornings. Beach joggers can be seen along the foreshore in the mornings. No one, certainly not the locals, goes jogging in the mid-afternoon heat. For a foreigner, residing in Pattaya, their day might look something like this: 1. Get up mid morning and head to a restaurant (the Pig and Whistle or the Victoria) for a western breakfast. 2. Meet with friends for a coffee, late morning. 3. Go to an airconditioned shopping mall (Central or Big C) for lunch. 4. If you’re health minded, go to a gym in the afternoon. If you’re not health minded, go sit in an outdoor beer bar along Beach Road, or some other drinking establishment which expats frequent. 5. Late afternoon, go for a massage (with or without extras). Rinse and repeat.
Resident expats meet for a coffee and a chat
main qimg 0189927b3ea664bf9ac768083264361e
Foreigners who reside in Pattaya long term, for the most part, tend towards an alcohol based lifestyle. Many end up being alcoholics. Long term, if you value your health, you’ll eventually move to either Hua Hin or Phuket. Both of these locations have cleaner air, a greener landscape, and less polluted seas.
Safe travels,
Mega.
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
James, the cat with a bank account ! =:)
Actually the story goes back further than that, and to my first pet, Bubbles. A Black and White Domesticated cat. It was an act of rebelling by my sister and I again our father who as small children wouldn’t let us have a pet greater than a goldfish.
I was turning 18 (so legally and adult (and my sister had always known I wanted a pet cat- ideally black, but when we got the cat rescue centre (RSPCA) although I liked a black cat called Solo, I was prised away by my sister and the Manager of the centre to take Bubbles. A great softy of a cat and had been given up as a result of her original keeper being elderly and going in toWarden Assisted Accommodation, where pets were not allowed. Must have been a heart-breaker for her and Bubbles clearly missed her to an petted me as opposed to the other way around.
There was just one problem she was already 8 years old (mid-mice [sic] crisis for cat -:) ) I was only 18 so not a brilliant salary and worried about vets bills particularly, I had looked at Pet Insurance and found it absurdly expensive and so many clauses and disclamers, it had more holes in it than a cooking sieve. So really not worth the paper let alone price it was written on
At the time I was working for a bank, an we had special terms on our bank account, notably no overdrafts, declaring where all money paid in to the account other than Salary had to be verified and origin. Although that sounds invasive, actually it was for our own safety that ALL transaction were checked in case as staff you were being bribed, money laundering under duress, indeed illegal trading or blackmail.
In fact, so strict were the rules that if you did go overdrawn in the morning and had not put cash in to cover it, or confirmed where the money had come from, then it could be Summary Dismssal. So the idea of not bein able to afford Vets fees or food for my moggy, was a serious matter (in my view.
So with the advice of my line manager opened a special savings account for the cat. For legal reasons obviously the cat could not technically have an account in her name specifically. The way my Manager got around this (and later turned out to be the loop hole) that I made the account in my name, but as a Trustee of the cat (Bubbles). That way the cat now had her own money in law, albeit under my name as her Trustee. This was great as could now put money in to her account each month, and build up a reserve to pay mum for he cat food and litter, and also a fund for any vets fees. Far cheaper than pet insurance, AND the money was available. Having made the cat as a beneficiary of the Trustee the interest was Tax Free too ! -:)
I later left the bank and moved in to another sector and transferred the account to a local branch.
The title of the account was “ Richards, Re: Bubbles.
Bubbles went to the great cat basket in the sky (bawled my eyes out over that cat ! ) but found another one from this rescue centre who was called “James”. He was totally black, and fur like a panther; purred like one too. He had been taken back to the rescue centre a couple of times as he kept fightin with other animals. This didn’t bother me as Iive on my own,,James very independent, even learened how to open a window with his paw, climb over threshold on to aledge drop on to a porchm then down to a rubbish bunker and to the gound. An ovrerall fall of 25 feet, but in 3 parts. Cats as we know are very supple and drop down easily. I later discovered that he could jump from the ground, to the bunker and ultimately back to through the window.
Cat-door issue solved, height above ground level and the porch roof pitched and covered in moss , slippery. So along with very narrow window an adult too heavy and would slide, and only a child would be able to get in through the window. Even a 10 year old would be nervous at that height let alone crawl through a high, narrow window. Safe for me and James.
Back to the bank account. The account had to be suspended and re-named as in law James, indeed Bubbles had/were legal entities. The bank (knowing the joke of course) placed now James as the beneficiary off the Trusteeship. The account continued as it had with Bubbles. When I went in to the branch to draw money the cashiers asked if James alright had he needed the vet or was this for food. Indeed during an internal audit, they made me bring James to the branch to verfy him”. Of course I could see the joke so complied. If course James had never had so much fuss . I later found out that they had taken a photo of him an sent it to Head Office for the bank Journal.
I had an emergency crop up, where my mother was taken ill in Europe so needed to leave the Counry fast. The Company I was on contract to were brilliant, understood the sitaution and got a replacement temp in, did a quick hand over and went home to pack and catch the flight – actually the company had reserved the seat for me so I just paid them the ticket money and all the documents were at Secure Handling. Passport and on to the plane.
Family emergency sorted, and back home about three weeks later, picked up my car and then suddenly realised that I didn’t have GB£ on me, and the only money I had was in James’ Account. So had to leave him at the cattery.
The advantage of this savings account was that you could got to a branch and draw money no matter where you were in the UK. However it did have a floor limit, which if exceeded had to be telephoned to the holding branch for further verification and clearance for the funds to be released. The holding branch of course knew the joke about James. So as a joke on me and the branch I was drawing the money through the girl who had taken the passbook for clearance, called me back to her till and said:
“The branch have asked for further information as this an unusual transaction for you and want to know James’ date of birth and his relationship to you”.
I told her straight faced that James was a Black Domesticated, shot-hair cat. Thinking I had “lost it”, smiled wrote the information down and handed it back to the clearing clerk, also looking perplexed and started talking to the home branch who confirmed that James was indeed a cat, and yes I had the authoirty to draw the money. So laughs all around.
Roll on 12 months in to the new financial year and UK Tax Office sends me a letter statin that during a random audit, I had an account in Trusteeship for James and wanted confirmation who James was his age and whether the interest was taxable. So I sent the passbook off, along with James’ Adoption Certificate (in the UK when you take a dog or cat from a rescue home you have to provide details identification and where live and in effect do adopt the cat. And yes, they do check to make sure that the animal is OK a couple of weeks down the line by turning up randomly and wanting to see where the animal sleeps his food is kept an whether registered with a vet.
So that is how seriously the UK take their pets. -:)
Back to the Tax Office where have sent all this information and for a laugh sent a picture of James along with he adoption certificate, pass-book and certificate of interest of interest from the bank.
A phone call was received from the Tax Office to “confirm a few things” (think to test my sanity to be honest -:) and asked why I had the account and having confirmed with the adoption papers wanted to make sure that James was under 18, which he appeared to be in the picture, that was confirmed and clearly had spoken with my bank.
I got a letter back form Inland Revenue that as James was under 18, he was now deemed to be a “Minor in pertuity” (which is legal terminology for bein a “child for life”.) Thanked me for my compliance and would not be making any further enquiries from now on! Also any interest reported would be retreated as non taxable as it was for the cat’s (child) benefit -: )
So just shows if you play along with the UK Inland Revenue, they do have a sense of humour.
Seriously all this is true. James, the cat with a bank account.
Beef Borguignonne
bef34088f4ab66f882f223c5ccb444db
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
1 (3 pound) lean beef chuck, cubed
1/2 cup shortening
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 cup beef consommé
2 to 3 cups dry red wine
1 (4 ounce) can mushrooms or 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sautéed in 2 tablespoons butter
12 small white onions, parboiled
Instructions
Brown meat in shortening; add flour and seasonings. Stir well. Pour into 2 quart casserole.
Add broth and wine.
Bake for 2 hours at 300 degrees F.
Add mushrooms and onions. May add more broth and wine, if dry.
What a crazy boyhood that I had. I suppose everyone has a wild childhood when you look at things from the point of view of an older person.
I will talk about another silly event.
Yeah. My sister was a bitch. A real B-I-T-C-H to me.
I have story after story about how she would fuck me over. I suppose you all don’t really want to hear it, but there are so many little trite bullshit things that she did that just sit deep inside my chest.
Horrible. Like some kind of festering pile of toxic horse shit.
Well, when I was in 11th grade, my parents went on a vacation to California. I was all ready to go, but my father told me that I couldn’t go. As I was the “oldest son”, I had to stay at home and watch the dogs and feed the cats.
Yeah. Like a real “good” son.
So they went on without me. They had a great time, while I just worked in the mines and watched the house.
When they came back, my father packed up a Tee-Shirt with the word “Alcatraz” on it. It was nice. It was a fine consolation prize, I guess.
56c6aca5d0ef63ddd7150cc1381775f5
Later made famous by Debbie Harry. (Of “Heart of Glass” fame.)
…
Well, a few days passed.
My asshole sister took my Tee-Shirt and used it as a rag while she and her friend Rita decorated it with all sorts of nail polish. Rendering it into a useless rag.
I well remember how she and Rita paraded the ruined shirt in front of me in the Kitchen. Prancing. Parading. Mocking. Saying hurtful things.
Laughing about it. Making jokes about how “stupid” I was, and what a “tool” I was.
I was in Shock.
My mother was in shock.
My father was in shock.
I just left the kitchen and went out with my friends, and got drunk. My father and my mother said nothing about it. But my sister and her friend Rita kept on giggling anytime that I was around.
Later on. Months later, my father told me that it was “just a t-shirt” and I’ll get another in the future.
Never happened.
Boyhood trauma.
I don’t ever want to return back to this shithole planet. I’ll tell you the truth.
Tianwen-3 is China’s mission to bring back samples from Mars.
Currently, bringing back Mars samples is NASA’s biggest goal. NASA enlisted the help of SpaceX and Blue Origins but the cost has become prohibitively high. Consequently, NASA has no viable plan to bring back samples from Mars, and China will likely be the first.
Here’s the article:
China plans to launch two heavy-lift Long March 5 rockets with elements of the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission in 2028, the mission's chief designer said Thursday.
In a presentation at a Chinese space exploration conference, the chief designer of China's robotic Mars sample return project described the mission's high-level design and outlined how the mission will collect samples from the Martian surface. Reports from the talk published on Chinese social media and by state-run news agencies were short on technical details and did not discuss any of the preparations for the mission.
Public pronouncements by Chinese officials on future space missions typically come true, but China is embarking on challenging efforts to explore the Moon and Mars. China aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030 in a step toward eventually building a Moon base called the International Lunar Research Station.
Liu Jizhong, chief designer of the Tianwen-3 mission, did not say when China could have Mars samples back on Earth. In past updates on the Tianwen-3 mission, the launch date has alternated between 2028 and 2030, and officials previously suggested the round-trip mission would take about three years. This would suggest Mars rocks could return to Earth around 2031, assuming an on-time launch in 2028.
NASA, meanwhile, is in the middle of revamping its architecture for a Mars sample return mission in cooperation with the European Space Agency. In June, NASA tapped seven companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, to study ways to return Mars rocks to Earth for less than $11 billion and before 2040, the cost and schedule for NASA's existing plan for Mars sample return.
That is too expensive and too long to wait for Mars sample return, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in April. Mars sample return is the highest priority for NASA's planetary science division and has been the subject of planning for decades. The Perseverance rover currently on Mars is gathering several dozen specimens of rock powder, soil, and Martian air in cigar-shaped titanium tubes for eventual return to Earth.
This means China has a shot at becoming the first country to bring pristine samples from Mars back to Earth, and China doesn't intend to stop there.
"If all the missions go as planned, China is likely to become the first country to return samples from Mars," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program, in a July interview with Chinese state television. "And we will explore giant planets, such as Jupiter. We will also explore some of the asteroids, including sample return missions from an asteroid, and build an asteroid defense system."
The asteroid sample return mission is known as Tianwen-2, and is scheduled for launch next year. Tianwen means "questions to heaven."
China doesn't have a mission currently on Mars gathering material for its Tianwen-3 sample return mission. The country's first Mars mission, Tianwen-1, landed on the red planet in May 2021 and deployed a rover named Zhurong. China's space agency hasn't released any update on the rover since 2022, suggesting it may have succumbed to the harsh Martian winter.
So, the Tianwen-3 mission must carry everything it needs to land on Mars, collect samples, package them for return to Earth, and then launch them from the Martian surface back into space. Then, the sample carrier will rendezvous with a return vehicle in orbit around Mars. Once the return spacecraft has the samples, it will break out of Mars orbit, fly across the Solar System, and release a reentry capsule to bring the Mars specimens to the Earth.
All of the kit for the Tianwen-3 mission will launch on two Long March 5 rockets, the most powerful operational launcher in China's fleet. One Long March 5 will launch the lander and ascent vehicle, and another will propel the return spacecraft and Earth reentry capsule toward Mars.
Liu, Tianwen-3's chief designer, said an attempt to retrieve samples from Mars is the most technically challenging space exploration mission since the Apollo program, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency. Liu said China will adhere to international agreements on planetary protection to safeguard Mars, Earth, and the samples themselves from contamination. The top scientific goal of the Tianwen-3 mission is to search for signs of life, he said.
Tianwen-3 will collect samples with a robotic arm and a subsurface drill, and Chinese officials previously said the mission may carry a helicopter and a mobile robot to capture more diverse Martian materials farther away from the stationary lander.
Liu said China is open to putting international payloads on Tianwen-3 and will collaborate with international scientists to analyze the Martian samples the mission returns to Earth. China is making lunar samples returned by the Chang'e 5 mission available for analysis by international researchers, and Chinese officials have said they anticipate a similar process to loan out samples from the far side of the Moon brought home by the Chang'e 6 mission earlier this year.
[1]
M
DUMMY: What happens if you call her DUMB?
Meanwhile strange stuff in the USA
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has reportedly been hospitalized while on an official trip. Now she will be “out of public sight.”
Pelosi hospitalized Luxemburg
This comes just one day after Senate Leader Mitch McConnel suffered a head injury and may be “out of public sight” too. (Story)
Doesn’t pass the smell test. It seems strange to me that well known public figures are suddenly going to be out of the public eye.
Some suggests that while the US doubles down on its hard power, China is making its mark with soft power. What do you think about it?
US have no “hard power”, the thing it has is “privilege to make standards”.
For example, regarding an interesting indicator, HDI. This is an indicator that measures the level of development of various countries. One important item in its measurement is citizen income. I saw a young man dressed up as a financial professional using it to defend capitalism in a comparison about the superiority of capitalism and communism.
Let’s imagine: if a country, we call it “Utopia”. All the necessary things for people’s lives in utopia appear out of thin air, whether given by God or produced by machines. It doesn’t matter, in short, they can completely meet people’s living needs. Because there are so many of them, people don’t need to exchange them with money. Food, clothing, electricity, video games, tickets to the Super Bowl, everything is free.
Utopia is not perfect, it has a flaw – its people are poor singers. Only 10% of them can sing decent songs, and 1% of them are true singers. The government pays them based on the beauty of their songs.
Now tell me, what would happen if the living standards of the people in this country were calculated based on income indicators?
It will be terrible because 90% of people don’t even have any income. The wealth gap in this country is huge, with absolute inequality between the rich and the poor in terms of money and property. 10% of people own 100% of the money, while 90% own 0%.
So you can see what I mean – the HDI rank of it is definitely not very high. But if we look at the living standards of real people, Americans will die for going to Utopia.
Although China is not a 100% utopia, its public services, including food, electricity, transportation, healthcare, and other daily expenses, are priced lower and closer to utopia, compare to average countries. However, according to the standards set by the United States, it is also a terrible country.
And that’s the tricks – the standards set by the US simply cannot reflect reality. It is even somewhat unrealistic – the more people spend on their daily lives, the better the economic data in the United States performs. That’s why the US claims to have ‘hard power’.
Not only HDI, but also Niki coefficient, Engel coefficient, McDonald’s Big Mac index, a series of so-called “standards” are actually extremely absurd. You can also find the answers in this “utopia”.
Hard power? Ha. Keep deceiving yourself.
That’s why I only trust life expectancy per capita when measuring the economy, and it must be the result of a national census rather than a weighted estimate.
And what we want is not some “soft power”, but to make people hear rebuttals about such deceptions. Open your eyes.
WHY THE US CANNOT DEFEAT CHINA
WHY THE US CANNOT DEFEAT CHINA
The history of international relations tells us that the US undertook a very comprehensive strategy of containment to limitize the influence and global outreach of the USSR and communism between 1947 and 1991. This strategy , adopted during the period commonly known as the Cold War, was carried out by the US by building strategic arsenal, forming security institutions, winning allies , providing economic packages to anti-communism states and entities and by engaging its communist opponent, USSR, in a proxy warfare wherever the opportunity arose. This strategy remained quite successful and achieved its objective with the collapse of the then USSR in 1991.
Once again the US is undertaking the same containment strategy with some added features ,like trade and information warfare, to checkmate China’s growing power and influence. The question that arises in this regard is that whether American containment strategy against China will remain successful this time around or not?
The Chances of modern containment strategy , which I have reffered to as “Containment 2.0″, gaining success are very low for multiple reasons.
Firstly, China and USSR are ideologically different. China does not want its system of government to be imposed on the people across the globe as the USSR once did. When a power wants to do such sort of thing, it has to be ready to face opposition from domestic as well as international entities, and a huge chunk of economic and military resources has to be specified to win subscribers to one’s ideology and also to checkmate the opponents. As China has never been on a mission to spread its ideology of social, political and economic organisation around the world as the USSR once did, therefore China has not only saved its economic and military resources but it has also avoided proxy wars in foreign lands which are often a huge drain on a state’s resources.
Secondly, China’s economic strength is far greater than that of the USSR during the Cold War. The GDP of the USSR never exceeded 25% of that of the US during the Cold War. China is now world’s largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity( PPP) and is going to be so in nominal terms as well in the coming decades.
Thirdly, China’s global trade is so huge that no country of the world can afford disengagement from China. The trade wars which the US started with China has cost the US millions of job losses at home. China has become the epicenter of global supply chains. Even America’s closest allies like India, Australia, Japan and South Korea cannot afford confrontation with China. India’s bilateral trade with China is above 90 billion dollars, whereas the other three allies of the US mentioned above are members of RCEP. Therefore, they will never be very instrumental for the US in its mission containment, for sour relations with China will have serious repercussions for their economies as well as for their national security.
Fourthly, the US is not in a position to put forth attractive economic packages to win allies to its cause due to its domestic problems.It must not be forgotten that the US won allies during its cold war against the USSR on the basis of attractive trade and aid packages. The Europe was given Marshall Plan; South Korea was given blessed with huge amounts of aid and FDI;and Japan was blessed with preferential trade agreements. However, the US is not in a position to do such type of things now. On the other hand, China’s OBOR is spreading fast as it promises unprecedented development in the countries of the global south. It is providing multiple countries around the world with much needed investment in crucial sectors like energy and transport. This has helped China gain more soft power around the world. Moreover, OBOR will be bring huge economic and strategic benefits to China once it matures.
Last but not the least, the global order championed by the US has brought more problems to the world than it solved. Its failed wars in the Middle East , Africa and Asia have disillusioned common people with the American neo-imperialist policies. Its leveraging of dollar and Bretton Woods institutions to its advantage and against states like Iran, North Korea and Pakistan has also made it clear to people that promises made by the US for a liberal global order were just hollow. Therefore, people no longer like a world dominated by the US. This loss of soft power by the US will be a great disadvantage for America in its mission containment against China.
The history of international relations tells us that the US undertook a very comprehensive strategy of containment to limitize the influence and global outreach of the USSR and communism between 1947 and 1991. This strategy , adopted during the period commonly known as the Cold War, was carried out by the US by building strategic arsenal, forming security institutions, winning allies , providing economic packages to anti-communism states and entities and by engaging its communist opponent, USSR, in a proxy warfare wherever the opportunity arose. This strategy remained quite successful and achieved its objective with the collapse of the then USSR in 1991.
Once again the US is undertaking the same containment strategy with some added features ,like trade and information warfare, to checkmate China’s growing power and influence. The question that arises in this regard is that whether American containment strategy against China will remain successful this time around or not?
The Chances of modern containment strategy , which I have reffered to as “Containment 2.0″, gaining success are very low for multiple reasons.
Firstly, China and USSR are ideologically different. China does not want its system of government to be imposed on the people across the globe as the USSR once did. When a power wants to do such sort of thing, it has to be ready to face opposition from domestic as well as international entities, and a huge chunk of economic and military resources has to be specified to win subscribers to one’s ideology and also to checkmate the opponents. As China has never been on a mission to spread its ideology of social, political and economic organisation around the world as the USSR once did, therefore China has not only saved its economic and military resources but it has also avoided proxy wars in foreign lands which are often a huge drain on a state’s resources.
Secondly, China’s economic strength is far greater than that of the USSR during the Cold War. The GDP of the USSR never exceeded 25% of that of the US during the Cold War. China is now world’s largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity( PPP) and is going to be so in nominal terms as well in the coming decades.
Thirdly, China’s global trade is so huge that no country of the world can afford disengagement from China. The trade wars which the US started with China has cost the US millions of job losses at home. China has become the epicenter of global supply chains. Even America’s closest allies like India, Australia, Japan and South Korea cannot afford confrontation with China. India’s bilateral trade with China is above 90 billion dollars, whereas the other three allies of the US mentioned above are members of RCEP. Therefore, they will never be very instrumental for the US in its mission containment, for sour relations with China will have serious repercussions for their economies as well as for their national security.
Fourthly, the US is not in a position to put forth attractive economic packages to win allies to its cause due to its domestic problems.It must not be forgotten that the US won allies during its cold war against the USSR on the basis of attractive trade and aid packages. The Europe was given Marshall Plan; South Korea was given blessed with huge amounts of aid and FDI;and Japan was blessed with preferential trade agreements. However, the US is not in a position to do such type of things now. On the other hand, China’s OBOR is spreading fast as it promises unprecedented development in the countries of the global south. It is providing multiple countries around the world with much needed investment in crucial sectors like energy and transport. This has helped China gain more soft power around the world. Moreover, OBOR will be bring huge economic and strategic benefits to China once it matures.
Last but not the least, the global order championed by the US has brought more problems to the world than it solved. Its failed wars in the Middle East , Africa and Asia have disillusioned common people with the American neo-imperialist policies. Its leveraging of dollar and Bretton Woods institutions to its advantage and against states like Iran, North Korea and Pakistan has also made it clear to people that promises made by the US for a liberal global order were just hollow. Therefore, people no longer like a world dominated by the US. This loss of soft power by the US will be a great disadvantage for America in its mission containment against China.
Tortilla Beef Bake
ae59bd8c37b8ded4f5eb9960766f5d04
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
2 1/2 cups crushed tortilla chips, divided
1 (16 ounce) jar salsa
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
Instructions
In a skillet cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain.
Stir in soup.
Sprinkle 1 1/2 cups of the tortilla chips into a greased shallow 2 1/2 quart baking dish.
Top with beef mixture, salsa and cheese.
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes or until bubbly.
Sprinkle with the remaining tortilla chips.
Bake for 3 minutes longer or until chips are lightly toasted.
I Ghosted My Cheating Wife After Hearing She Called Me A Loser And Had Fun With A Man I Knew Well.
What are some reasons for the widespread admiration of America? Is it primarily due to their strong military and economy, or are there other factors at play?
Why is it that while the U.S. is often admired globally, American voters frequently express dissatisfaction with the state of the country, with many believing it’s headed in the wrong direction?
This contrast may stem from the different perspectives used to evaluate the U.S. From abroad, the country is often seen through an idealized lens, with its culture, innovation, and wealth creating a “grass is greener” effect. International admiration is also shaped by the U.S.’s soft power, which is enhanced by its global presence in media, technology, and education. This can create a somewhat inflated image of the U.S. abroad, sometimes resembling a propaganda effect that emphasizes its successes.
Domestically, however, the reality is often more complicated. Over the past two decades, many Americans have grown increasingly dissatisfied due to a range of internal challenges. Economic inequality, political polarization, and a loss of trust in institutions have contributed to this. Issues such as job losses from globalization, healthcare concerns, gun violence, homelessness, and declining public education have left many feeling that the government is not adequately addressing key problems. Furthermore, political gridlock, corruption in election campaigns, and frustrations over prolonged foreign conflicts—especially in the Middle East—have deepened disillusionment. As a result, consistent polling reflects a strong belief among voters that the country is on the “wrong track.”
SYLVIA: It wasn’t so bad. After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get warm & sleepy and finally died a peaceful death. What about you?
WANDA: I died of a massive heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating, so I came home early to catch him in the act. But instead, I found him all by himself in the den watching TV.
SYLVIA: So, what happened?
WANDA: I was so sure there was another woman there somewhere that I started running all over the house looking. I ran up into the attic and searched, and down into the basement. Then I went through every closet and checked under all the beds. I kept this up until I had looked everywhere, and finally I became so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died.
SYLVIA: Too bad you didn’t look in the freezer — we’d both still be alive.
“If You Could Only See” – Tonic // Brite Session
Have you ever completely snapped? If so what did you do?
My Mum died in September 1992. As my brother and sisters lived a couple of hundred miles away mum had made me executor so I had a lot to do arranging a funeral ( my sister did help with that) but I don’t think I processed her death properly.
Everything was finalised quite quickly and with the money we were left after the sale of the house, I was generous with Xmas presents that year. I bought my son a new bike which I wouldn’t have been able to afford and warned him to always lock it up in our back yard when he came home as he wanted to go to school on it. He did so until one day in February. It was pelting down with rain and had been all day . When I got home and he opened the door he asked where his bike was. I said what do you mean it should be in the back but he had been soaked when he got home and had locked it to the fence at the front.
I absolutely lost it. Ranted and raved and screamed and shouted for ages. I was crying and really upset but I think it was more to do with the loss of my Mum and that the bike had been bought with the money she left.
My next door neighbour had noticed a white van before and it was presumed that the driver had stolen it. I informed the police and as I had registered the bike with a security number there was a slight possibility we could get it back.
A couple of weeks later the police rang to say they had recovered it through the security number stamped on it. A policeman had seen a known scallywag on a new bike and stopped him. He had tried to scrape the stamped number off but some numbers were still legible and they traced it to me. Funnily enough it wasn’t actually on the database yet although the details had been sent.
My son and I had to go to court where he was found guilty. I asked for compensation for the broken lock and ruined handgrips which I had to replace and although I was granted that I never received it.
Sorry it was so long.
China is completing a global ports network for the BRICS economic bloc, and nobody noticed
What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?
Odd thing about Swedish: it is a small language, but many English speakers work in Sweden and it’s a very simple language. Learning the basics is quite easy, but they all speak such good English than you understand a lot while not using much, so Swedes tend to forget that a large number of people can understand them.
This leads to Swedes using Swedish as a secret language when it is anything but. So you hear a lot:
Coming home on the Tube the morning after an alight party and looking worse for wear we had to listen to a commentary in Swedish from two women who were convinced we were homeless, on drugs, and up to no good. It was vastly satisfying to leave the train with a cheery “So nice to hear your own language again”, in Swedish.
On a beach in Greece listening to two girls describe their evening with two guys they picked up, and what they did with them. Impossible not to overhear, and luridly explicit.
An elderly couple breaking up. It was gut wrenching and too painful. They had been married for thirty plus years. Brutal. We gently let them know we understood and suggested they might like to move to the garden.
Two Stockholmers in a UK pub discussing a very illegal tax evasion deal. There were about 20 people there and all but two understood Swedish, (this was an area where a lot of ex-pats lived), so they were out of luck.
In a bar in the Caribbean where a Swedish ex-pat found out that her brother was to become the first Swede in space. She was excitedly reading out a Swedish article to her Swedish friend, and wondering where she could get it translated. By chance one of out group was a Swedish to English translator, so that lead to quite a fun evening.
As a tip. There really is no such thing as a “secret” language!
What is the most shameless thing you have ever seen a teacher do?
I became a mom at the tender age of 17. I was blessed with parents that supported me and a boyfriend that loved me and our son and stayed by my side until he passed away after we both graduated HS went on to college and married at age 22. He recently passed away after almost 28 years of marriage. But I digress
I had a sociology teacher in HS that was not the most pleasant of people. My son was very sick and ended up in the hospital with a severe double ear infraction high fever and a viral infection on his throat. I didn’t sleep well but needed to attend school the next day for a test.
is horrible teacher decided to target me and bring up statistics about teen moms being unfit, lazy, leeches on society. I started to cry. I was doing my best to be a good mom, a good student and learn the things I needed to graduate.
ahe want me to the principals office. As I gathered my things, I heard the entire class start to move around. As I exited tue room my fellow classmates walked with me to the office.
needless to say this teacher was told that she was not allowed to do this again and she never bothered me again.
China hits Canada with Anti-Dumping Probe in Retaliation
Three bulls heard the rancher was bringing another bull onto the ranch.
First Bull: “I’ve been here five years. I’m not giving this new bull any of my 100 cows.”
Second Bull: “I’ve been here three years and have earned my right to 50 cows. I’m keeping all my cows.”
Third Bull: “I’ve only been here a year, and so far, you guys have only let me have 10 cows. I may not be as big as you fellows, but I’m keeping all 10 of my cows.”
Just then an 18-wheeler pulls up in the pasture carrying the biggest bull they’ve ever seen.
At 4,700 pounds, each step he takes strains the steel ramp.
First Bull: “I think I can spare a few cows for our new friend.”
Second Bull: “I actually have too many cows to take care of. I can spare a few. I’m certainly not looking for an argument.”
They look over at the third bull and find him pawing the dirt, shaking his horns and snorting.
First Bull: “Son, don’t be foolish, let him have some of your cows and live to tell about it.”
Third Bull: “Hell, he can have all my cows. I’m just making sure he knows I’m a bull.”
Stuffed Peppers Casserole
ee3e158f4bc19ca06da91ad6261d049e
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
3 medium bell peppers, cut into strips
3/4 cup instant rice
1 teaspoon season salt
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
1 1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon beef bouillon granules
1 (15 ounce) can petite cut diced tomatoes
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
Brown meat and onion in skillet; drain.
Stir in rice, salt, garlic salt, bouillon, water, cheese and diced tomatoes; heat through.
Spray a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with cooking spray and line with peppers.
Pour meat mixture over peppers.
Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes.
AITA For Kicking Out My Wife And Stepdaughter After Discovering Lies About Work Trips?
Specialist ‘carbon nanotube’ AI chip built by Chinese scientists is 1st of its kind and ‘1,700 times more efficient’ than Google’s
Scientists in China have developed a tensor processing unit (TPU) that uses carbon-based transistors instead of silicon – and they say it’s extremely energy efficient.
Unlike conventional TPUs, this new chip is the first to use carbon nanotubes — tiny, cylindrical structures made of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern — in place of traditional semiconductor materials like silicon. (Image credit: Getty Images/sankai)
Scientists in China have built a new type of tensor processing unit (TPU) — a special type of computer chip — using carbon nanotubes instead of a traditional silicon semiconductor. They say the new chip could open the door to more energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI).
AI models are hugely data-intensive and require massive amounts of computational power to run. This presents a significant obstacle to training and scaling up machine learning models, particularly as the demand for AI applications grows. This is why scientists are working on making new components — from processors to computing memory — that are designed to consume orders of magnitude less energy while running the necessary computations.
Google scientists created the TPU in 2015 to address this challenge. These specialized chips act as dedicated hardware accelerators for tensor operations — complex mathematical calculations used to train and run AI models. By offloading these tasks from the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU), TPUs enable AI models to be trained faster and more efficiently.
Unlike conventional TPUs, however, this new chip is the first to use carbon nanotubes — tiny, cylindrical structures made of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern — in place of traditional semiconductor materials like silicon. This structure allows electrons (charged particles) to flow through them with minimal resistance, making carbon nanotubes excellent conductors of electricity. The scientists published their research on July 22 in the journal Nature Electronics.
“I Show You The Original World Map They Didn’t Want You to See” Graham Hancock
MM’s AI adventures
Today’s adventures. A lot of schmaltz, and some very strange stuff about statues.
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(1)
And more…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(2)
And in the rain…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(3)
Enter the statues…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(4)
*sigh*
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(5)
Massive…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(6)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1
Mixed up sexes.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(1)
Here’s some “schmaltz”… with the bigger boobs.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(2)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(3)
Statues.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(4)
More…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(5)
Interesting.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(6)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2
Here’s some confused “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(1)
Here’s some muscular “schmaltz”… plus a long necked guy in the background.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(2)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(3)
Statue in the rain.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(4)
More.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(5)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(1)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(2)
Here’s some “schmaltz”…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(3)
Statue.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(4)
Statue.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(5)
Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars – 7/31/2017 – Paste Studios, New York, NY
This story contains themes or mentions of LGBQ+ and mental health issues.
Stars. Twinkling bursts of light. Bloodshot, glassy eyes. He has given up.
He was supposed to save everyone. Save the world. Save it because the crops wilted. Save it because the water rose and flooded. Save it because the ice dissolved. He was supposed to save it because the earth was about to combust, like his aircraft did a few milliseconds ago.
The view would probably take his breath away if he could breathe. He knew what would happen. He was not holding his breath- if he did, his lungs would expand, turn into balloons, and eventually pop. Instead, he exhales slowly, every six seconds.
The media claims your life flashes before your eyes. To him, it isn’t his whole life. Snapshots. Short films. Clips. Memories. Ones that he loved, ones that he did not want to revisit. Some pictures were blurry, incomprehensible. The highs and lows of his life, captured in stubby snippets.
The sea tickles his ankles. He always loved the stars, and he can see them reflected in the waves now. He is small. A child. Three years old, maybe. He doesn’t know about reflection, or that it’s possible to drown. He tries to eat the little lights, as toddlers tend to do. He is greeted with a mouthful of saltwater.
He wishes he were still a child. Innocent, kind, oblivious, naive.
It’s been six seconds. Exhale. He is terrified.
They are coming for him. He does not know who they are. They say they are Child Protective Services. He does not think he needs them- why would he, at nine years old? His mothers don’t hurt him. Where are they, after all? Why are these men coming for him?
They say something bad happened. He does not know what this means. He does not know what anything means. A police officer tries to calm him down. Tell him they will help him. Tell him his mothers are gone now, but it’ll be okay. He does not think he will be okay. They tell him he’s confused. They call him the wrong name. He tries to correct them, but they do not listen. They never listen. No one ever listens. He pushes the man away and runs.
Arms flying, his chest rises too quickly, too rapidly. He is not supposed to run in a binder. The binder his mothers gave him because they were the only ones that listened. They are gone, he has been told. Gone where? He cannot start to imagine, he cannot go down that spiraling hole.
Sweaty, suffocating, squeezing. He runs because he feels alone. He runs because his parents are gone. He runs because he hates those men who think they know everything, with their pasty white skin and privileged lives. He is dizzy, he can barely breathe. The police officers run after him, but he knows where to go- he is clever. He is in front of the house. Stumbling, his vision blurs, and his world tilts into the concrete.
That picture isn’t blurry, he just doesn’t want to see it.
Ten seconds. His body’s water is vaporizing, and the underlining tissue is beginning to swell.
He is tired. So, so tired. He knows it’s unethical, but he is sleeping at his teacher’s house. The only teacher who understands. Maybe the only person left in the world who understands. He can’t get out of the bed in the guest room. The teacher, respecting personal and legal boundaries, doesn’t intrude. It has been a month since he ran from the men. He does not get up.
His family members float above him. They whisper in his ear. He cannot move. He does not shower. He eats once a week, and his flesh has thinned to the point that it hangs off his bones. He has not taken off his binder. His ribs have cracked and fluid has built up. He does not get up to go to the bathroom. His liver is on the brink of ceasing. He is as good as dead.
The clearest portrait, the most unwanted.
Twelve seconds. Exhale. He knows he will die.
He is fourteen. He lives with his teacher, who has officially adopted him. He is on hormones. He is starting to grow a beard. His voice has deepened. He has already had many surgeries to fix the damage from his depressive episode. Liver, ribs, bladder, uterus, lungs. In two years he will get top surgery. He is on anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. He wants to be an astronaut. He works as a cashier during the summer and uses the money the buy a telescope, astronomy books, and gummy bears.
His teacher, whom he now calls Nin, is supportive throughout the rest of his life. They never lay a hand on him.
Even with the mental illnesses, he envies that time of his life- he was free and loved.
Thirteen seconds. The moisture on his tongue has started to boil.
The surgery is finished. His chest hurts- although this time, it feels good. A warm hug. He can smell the faint whiff of blood coated with chemicals. The walls are a stark white, glaring at him. The bed is surprisingly comfortable, a mixture of squishy and soft. He is loaded, a useless corpse, into a car. The anesthesia makes everything seem hilarious and wavy. Nin is driving him home, where they spoon-feed him and prop him up in front of the television. After four weeks, he can take the wrapping off. The sight of his flat chest in the mirror, the raw yet stunning scars, triggers a waterfall of tears to spill down his cheeks. That’s him. That’s him in the mirror, staring back.
Nin, whose friend is a tattoo artist, brings him to get a design over the scars, per his request. He chooses The Creation of Adam, and requests it be outlined with stars and planets.
The sweetest memory despite the pain, a sensation of deep euphoria.
Fourteen seconds. His skin, along with expanding, has begun to burn.
He is an astronaut. He is being led onto the spaceship. He is twenty-two. His name has been legally changed, along with the gender marker on everything except his hospital profile. It is time to save the world. He is ready to save the world. He calls Nin before he takes off, says he loves them and everything will be okay soon. He says that the earth will be okay soon.
He is a liar.
Exhale. Exhale. Exhale.
He cannot breathe, he cannot inhale, he is suspended. Suspended, like the humans’ hearts in their masses. He cannot stop thinking about his heart. A conductor, a leader. Constantly prevailing and persevering despite its host’s resignation, purposely ingesting poison to numb their pain. If the heart gave up, everything would die. Nothing would exist for that person anymore. The head of the organization, the leader of the body’s community. His heart toils, unquestioning, in his favor. Everything must work and line up perfectly to keep existing- and here he was, and the earth was dying, because the idiot humans couldn’t do the bare minimum of staying alive. Because he couldn’t even take care of a million-dollar spaceship made specially for him.
A surge of gratitude interrupts the self-hate when he realizes he can see a star-forming region in the Eagle Nebula. The Pillars of Creation, it is named. Somehow, in a dying second, there is beauty. Art, glamorous, out-of-this-world grace. It’s burnt sienna, with an impossibly vibrant red peeking through every few thousand miles. A still photograph of powder being thrown, the region looks like something out of a fantasy novel, a dazzling blue background dotted with sparks of light. It appears to be glowing, even, the darker blue background illuminated slightly by the milky brown. Again, it feels breathtaking. He doesn’t mind this will be the last thing he sees. Even though the earth will die, even though he has failed.
It seems his body is sinking under his guilt. He’s bruised, burns striping his arms from the explosion. He most likely broke something. A rib, maybe. Yes, that is what it feels like- a broken rib piercing his heart. Stabbing the submissive slave. That’s what it feels like… though he cannot tell whether it is physically broken or if it is the feeling of his failure.
There must be a way to save the world. He will not give up, he is done giving up. He’s already submitted himself to death before, he won’t let it happen again. Think. He must think. This is why he went to college, this is why he got his job- he must think. It has been fourteen seconds, he will be unconscious in one if he’s lucky.
Something inside him screams. The trigger! A button on his left wrist that he got implanted for an emergency. His mission was to go to the one planet they found that had life on it, and beg for help. But the button could send out an electromagnetic pulse to the ship’s debris, make it buzz and show a message, no matter what piece… he was so close to the planet, it was likely some rubble reached it.
In a split second, he brings his arm to his head and jams the button. In the movies, there would probably be some cacophonous, dramatic noise, but sound cannot travel in space.
He has succeeded, hopefully. But there is no more air left to exhale. There is no more oxygen left to inhale. His lungs expand. He can feel it, pressing against his chest scars. Pressing against The Creation of Adam… He sends a quick mental apology to Michelangelo. The pain is pushing into the servant organ.
He cannot feel when his lungs burst, because he has already lost consciousness.
China’s lunar research station initiative welcomes new global partners
China’s ambitious initiative to launch an international lunar research station has gained new global cooperation partners, as the country signed several agreements with global partners for the lunar research station initiative on Thursday, according to China’s space agency.
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During the opening ceremony of a two-day space forum held in Tunxi, east China’s Anhui Province, China’s space agency and its counterpart in Senegal signed an agreement on International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) cooperation.
In addition, China’s Deep Space Exploration Lab has also inked memoranda of understanding with 10 organizations from countries including Serbia, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Panama and South Africa.
In 2017, China proposed the ILRS initiative, inviting global participation. This ambitious project has garnered widespread interest, with 17 countries and over 40 institutions signing on. The ILRS envisions a comprehensive lunar research facility, including a lunar surface base, orbital stations, and Earth-based components. Designed for long-term autonomous operation with potential for short-term human presence, the ILRS will be expandable and sustainable.
Scientists create record-breaking solar technology that could solve major problem in the industry: ‘Among the best reported to date’
Sam Westmoreland
Fri, September 6, 2024 at 6:15 AM CDT
Scientists create record-breaking solar technology that could solve major problem in the industry: 'Among the best reported to date'
It can easily be ramped up to industrial levels and can be affordably produced at that scale of production.
Scientists at the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Technology have developed a new treatment that prolongs the life and efficiency of solar cells.
According to Aman Tripathi of Interesting Engineering, the researchers have created a molecular treatment for perovskite solar cells that increases their power conversion efficiency by over 20%, and it has shown an operational stability of over 1,500 hours.
While solar cells are typically made of silicon, perovskite has been gaining popularity in recent years because it is cheaper and has a higher energy efficiency than silicon. The problem is the stability and tendency to degrade more quickly than silicon counterparts.
In an effort to solve the problem, the Hong Kong research team focused on a process known as passivation, in which a chemical compound is applied to the perovskite to “reduce defects and improve their overall performance.”
The project was a resounding success, according to assistant professor Lin Hen-Yuang.
“These devices reached high open-circuit voltages beyond 90% of the thermodynamic limit,” Lin said in a press release on the discovery, “Benchmarking against about 1,700 sets of data from existing literature showed that their result was among the best reported to date in terms of efficiency in energy conversion.”
On top of that, the passivation process is highly scalable, meaning it can easily be ramped up to industrial levels and can be affordably produced at that scale of production.
Solar energy is booming globally; in the U.S., solar power accounted for almost 80% of new energy production in 2024 on an industrial scale. On a smaller scale, rooftop solar panels are popping up everywhere from vodka distilleries to new-build homes. Finding a new way to improve solar panels’ affordability and efficiency could help meet growing demand.
If the perovskite treatment is as effective at scale as it has been in testing, we could see a boom in more affordable, efficient, and durable panels around the world.
U.S Hit China With Quantum Chip-Related SANCTION
Do you know a good lawyer joke?
Two young men walk into a bar and one of them sits next to a girl.
“Hello,” he says.
“Are you a lawyer?” asks the girl.
“What? No.”
“Then I’m not interested. You see, this is a lawyer bar, and the girls that come here either are lawyers or want to get with lawyers.”
And so the young man leaves, and his friend leaves with him, having encountered a similar situation.
The next day they say: “What the heck, we’re just going to return there and say that we’re lawyers. It’s not like we’ll have to give them a proof right away.”
And so they go to the bar and approach some girls, and they tell them they are lawyers.
Everything seems to be going fine, but then one of the young men looks around and sees that his friend is gone. He starts to search for him, and eventually finds him sitting in the bathroom, in a very low mood.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
“Oh, I just realized… I’ve only been a lawyer for half an hour, and already the only thing on my mind is how to screw someone.”
Have you ever dined at a restaurant that left you thinking ‘is this a joke’?
In 1990 I went to one of those Teppanyaki Grill restaurants where a chef cooks food on the grill in front of the customers. I was with 5 other friends. It was in quite a ritzy Sydney suburb. We had no idea what to order so when the waitress asked if we’d like prawns, chicken, steak, eggs and rice, we happily said yes.
The chef threw 6 prawns on the grill, tossing them around with a flourish and chopping them up. He then gave us 1 teaspoon of prawns each!
Next came the chicken. He took a half chicken breast and whooshed it around and chopped it into tiny pieces. We got two teaspoons of chicken each.
Same thing with the steak.
By now we were really starving so we were really happy when they asked if we were ready for the rice. In came the waitress with a fingerbowl of rice. I made a joke “wouldn’t it be funny if that was for us all?’
We all laughed but not for long! It was indeed rice for everyone. So we got around 10 grains of rice each.
Lastly he threw one egg on the grill, whooshed it around and we got two teaspoons of ‘omelet’ each.
The cost of this fiasco came to $180 for the 6 of us which was a lot of money for a restaurant meal back in 1990.
We were all so totally starving we went across the road to a hamburger joint and ordered a hamburger each!
When Suspects Cross The Line During Interrogations
What was the most disastrous comment you have ever made?
I am a mathematics professor at a Research I University. My mother-in-law was a mean old bat who never liked me. While she was visiting one afternoon my ten year old daughter ran in with her latest math test grade. She had scored an “A” grade on some multiplication facts and we all praised her profusely. The mother-in-law pipes up with, “I bet she got her math skills from her mother. Renee (My wife, her daughter) was always good in math.” Considering what I do for a living and considering my wife majored in sociology, this snarky comment pissed me off. So my reply was, “Yes, she must have gotten her math skills from her mother, because I still have all of mine.” A dead silence settled over the table for the next ten minutes.
What’s the smoothest pick up line you’ve ever heard?
My line was actually unintentional!
I was on a business trip some years ago and ended up in a restaurant which sat me at a small table next to another small table with a smartly dressed woman sitting alone.
We exchanged pleasantries and I said “So how’s your business trip going?”
Her reply was “Oh, fine. What makes you think I am here on a business trip?”
I said “You wouldn’t be eating alone otherwise.”
I immediately thought “Damn, what did I just do..”
She was amused and said it was one of the more classy lines she had heard.
So I ended up with an impromptu dinner guest and fellow wine connoisseur for the evening.
The West vs China in South China Sea
Swiss Steak-Sour Cream Casserole
c2f329c863825a425306dfd5d96ec4fc
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
2 teaspoons olive or vegetable oil
1 cup diced onions
1 cup sliced mushroom caps
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups water
2 envelopes instant beef broth and seasoning mix
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
Dash of pepper
4 (5 ounce) beef top or bottom round steaks, broiled until rare
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
In 10 inch nonstick skillet heat oil; add onions and mushrooms and sauté, stirring, until onions are translucent.
Sprinkle flour over vegetables and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute; gradually stir in water.
Add broth mix, and stirring constantly, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer until mixture thickens.
Stir in cheese, Worcestershire sauce, paprika and pepper and remove from heat.
Transfer steaks to a 2 quart casserole and pour vegetable sauce over meat; cover and bake until steaks are tender, about 45 minutes.
Remove steaks from casserole and set aside.
Spoon 2 tablespoons of vegetable sauce into sour cream and stir to combine; pour sour cream mixture into casserole and stir until well blended.
Return steaks to casserole and serve sprinkled with parsley.
Notes
Plain yogurt can be substituted for the sour cream.
My wife sits in her car for about 5 minutes when she gets home from work. I can see her through the camera. She’s using her phone. I’m a little concerned. Is she cheating?
Every day after I pick up my daughter from school, I get out and go into the house but she stays in the car and sits there for several minutes, sometimes up to half an hour.
Sometimes she uses her phone, sometimes she just sits there.
Should I be a little concerned? Should I go check on her? Confront her?
Nope. I’m not concerned at all. She’s doing what she needs to do to cope.
She’s enjoying a few minutes of peace and quiet, collecting herself and letting the social demands of school dissolve away, before facing the social demands of family.
As a teenager, she knows that as soon as she walks in the door, there will be questions, conversations, chores and homework to be done, and demands for her attention and mental presence, which can be draining after a long day at school. In the car, alone, she can collect herself, think and process a bit, and respond to her messages without pressure and without interruptions.
More than likely, your wife is doing what she needs to do to cope, to gather herself, to catch her breath after a long day at work, and to catch up on her messages before she comes inside and faces you and all your questions.
My advice? Enjoy the peace and quiet.
Two best friends graduated from medical school at the same time & decided that in spite of two different specialties, they would open a practice together to
share office space …
Dr.Smith was a *Psychiatrist* & Dr.Jones
was a *Proctologist* (Colon to Anus)
They put up a sign reading
*Dr.Smith & Dr.Jones*
*Hysterias & Posteriors*
The town council was livid and insisted they change it.
So, the docs changed
it to read
*Schizoids & Haemorrhoids*
This was also not acceptable, so they again changed the sign to
*Catatonics & High Colonics*
No go.
Next, they tried…
*Manic Depressives & Anal Retentives*
Thumbs down again.
Then came..
*Minds and Behinds*
Still no good.
Another attempt resulted in …
*Lost Souls & Butt Holes*
Unacceptable again!
So they tried
*Analysis & Anal Cysts*
No, not a chance
*Nuts and Butts*
No way
*Freaks and Cheeks*
Still no good
*Loons and Moons*
Just Forget it!
Almost at their wits end, the docs finally came up with…
*Dr.Smith & Dr.Jones…*
*Specializing in Odds & Ends.*
*_Everyone loved it._😊*
A Woman Impersonated As A Man And Got Depressed After 3 Days
There’s an outlet mall outside of Plainville, Massachusetts. It’s a big sprawling site. Impressive. It’s called Wrentham Village Outlets.
Wrentham Village Outlets
It’s a nice place, and everyone knows about it.
What they don’t know is that before it was built, it was a quiet country RV campground, and it was beautiful.
Here’s what it was like.
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Large boulders all over the place and these stands of ash trees everywhere. When I first moved to Massachusetts, I stayed at that RV park. And my kitty cats loved the place. They would lay sunning themselves on the rocks or the picnic tables.
Well, here’s what happened.
Sometime in the late 1990’s there was this wealthy family that owned a lot of the land in Wrentam and Plainville, MA. As they were getting older, they decided to sell their land holds to real estate developers. And then they moved to Florida.
Meanwhile, once they skedaddled, the developers had the land rezoned and a outlet mall went up, a water park went up and there were plans for poor welfare housing and other things, until the town collectively put it’s foot down and stopped the abuse. But they couldn’t stop the mall, and thus the mall came into being.
It’s all forgotten right now.
One greedy person can make life Hell for the rest of us.
Today…
Have you ever tried to fire someone and it backfired?
I have seen this one , it Includes a lot of schadenfreude.
Long story be warned.
Company I use to work for had this very senior engineer let’s call him Claudio.
Claudio had been with the company before it was the monster that it is now, he started as machine operator in the late 70’s got his degree in mechanical engineer got a ton of training. It is insane the amount of knowledge he has , as matter of fact his c.v is several pages long.
He had survived mergers, acquisitions and was instrumental in the success of the company, by the time I met him he was the old fox in the hen house.
Well with time Claudio got tired of being on the field , all that traveling and visiting clients was taking a toll on him, he wanted a desk job.
Of course the company obliged, they created a position for him.. head of instrument maintenance or something like that.
For a couple of years he assigned field service engineers all around Europe to service, repair and maintain the company’s instruments, he had no boss and everything was wonderful.
One day someone decided that his department was so big and such an instrumental part of the company that he needed a boss.. a VP of something.
Now this VP was an asshole, he wanted to leave his mark and started bumping heads with Claudio…
Claudio usually didn’t give a f…and just ignored the VP and kept on doing his job…
VP would say do this …Claudio would respond no that’s stupid , or no we can’t do that because it would be illegal , or no because it’s not in the specs…you get the drift…
After some time the VP got fed up and together with the head of HR and a couple of lackeys called Claudio to the big office and told him shape up do what we say or consider yourself fired.
Claudio just nodded and said , I guess I’m fired then.. got his stuff and left the office.
Couple of weeks later Claudio was at the employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal after X amount of years and wanted his pound of flesh, this is in the E.U so labor laws are super tight (sorry my American brothers) here you cannot just be fired..
Welp, monster company rounds the wagons around the VP and HR and send the lawyer team after Claudio.
To make the already long story short Claudio got himself a lawyer as well, his lawyer was this grumpy ,wrinkled old lady that smoked like a chimney and looked like a mix between a retired theater professor and miss Havisham.
So before going to the labor board or a trial ?(not sure its exact name) ,both parties must get together for a kind of arbitration to determine if something can be done.
Both parties gather together , the big lawyers at one side with the VP and the head of HR of monster company and Claudio with good old Miss Havisham.
The monster company presents his case ..Claudio was fired with reason for not doing his job..bla bla when pushed about examples and what prompted the firing the big lawyers claimed failing to follow procedure on the scheduled maintenance on the instruments around Europe…
Miss Havisham asks if they can provide the manuals and l instructions for the maintenance and repairs of said instruments…
Big lawyers of course have them after all they came prepared, they point to a box of sitting next to them.
Miss Havisham ask them to pick one at Random and open the second page and read the author of said manual…
One of the lawyers does and freezes when he reads the name of the author…open another one and another ..all the same …
Author on all manuals Claudio
Miss Havisham says , so let me get the straight you fired this man for not following procedure on manuals that he created in equipment that he built ?? After some shock on the big lawyers side, she said that they will step outside for a cigarette and when they come back they better have something better to say..
When they come back in , the company is very apologetic and want to come to agreement..
The company in a show of good faith offer a pretty good deal to Claudio…
Miss Havisham claims it is not enough and wants more… company says they are not going to get a better deal even if they go to the labor tribunal, they will certainly not get something better.
Miss Havisham, like the bad ass she is says: we are going out for another smoke if you can’t do better we will go to court, after win this case – because we will with ease- it becomes a public matter, all the customers know Claudio and know the quality of his work , they also know that the maintenance for the past couple of months have not been done properly, customers are reaching out, complaining about wrong readings, wrong results, and equipment shutdown, I don’t know if you are aware that most of the customers are university’s and government, they have big pockets and they love to go after breach of contracts… I’m sure you will be hearing from them as soon as the verdict on our favor comes out…
So they step out again.
When they came back in , monster company had a monster settlement for Claudio.
Now this story is beautiful right ?
It does not ended there
Skip 6 moths… Claudio gets a call, all around E.U instruments are failing and they are having a lot of trouble keeping the customers happy, FSE resigning and being replaced by young inexperienced people, it has gotten so bad that a ranking government official has personally placed a call to the CEO of monster company, they have several governmental departments not able to function properly as the instruments are giving wrong results, all from mining operations to police labs… CEO promises solutions.
So CEO places a call to Claudio, hey old chum, whats going on? Claudio tells him the whole story about VP and HR and the Arbitration…
CEO is shocked as he was not aware of the situation and tells Claudio he will hear back from him.
Couple of days later Claudio is back at old company for a meeting, CEO sent a special right person for the meeting, all pleasantry ,sorry about the mistake ,bla bla it was a misunderstanding , it will never happen again, can you please come back.
Sure… Claudio states his conditions, freedom to hire any of his old FSE and in case HR is needed it will handled by a third party, he answers only to the CEO and a prevision that states he can only be fired by the board, he keeps all the money from the settlement, he does not want to see or have any interaction with Head of HR or VP if they so much as speak to him he walks, and they have no say or interaction on how he handles his department, he wants it all written down in a very air tight contract, that of course will reviewed by Miss Havisham
Company gladly agrees on all terms, Head of HR left “for better opportunity” VP is still VP of something but has no one under him on the organization chart, he is the joke of the company, you can see him run away and hide when he sees Claudio.
Reuben Noodle Bake
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Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
8 ounces egg noodles, uncooked
5 ounces corned beef, thinly sliced
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can sauerkraut with caraway seeds
2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded
1/2 cup Thousand Island salad dressing
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
2 slices pumpernickel bread
1 tablespoon butter, melted
Red onion slices (optional)
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13 x 9 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Drain sauerkraut and rinse under cold water. Drain well and set aside.
Cook noodles according to package directions until al dente; drain.
Meanwhile, cut corned beef into bite-size pieces.
Combine noodles, corned beef, sauerkraut and cheese in large bowl. Pour into prepared dish.
Combine dressing, milk and mustard in small bowl. Spoon dressing mixture evenly over noodle mixture.
Tear bread into large pieces. Process in food processor or blender until crumbs are formed.
Combine bread crumbs and butter in small bowl; sprinkle evenly over casserole.
Bake, uncovered, 25 to 30 minutes or until heated through.
Garnish with red onion, if desired.
With another school shooting in USA today, have they ever considered a new approach to deal with it? Amend the constitution to outlaw the possession of firearms. How difficult & what level of authority would be required to achieve that? Referendum?
I see you’re a European. I’ll be happy to explain some basic civics, and perhaps some cultural insights as well.
38/50 states would have to ratify such an amendment. It’s difficult for good reason.
And then you’d have to kill a large chunk of the population to make it stick, even if you were to get it as a law.
I’m a nurse by temperament and training. I’m generally a rule follower even when the rules are stupid.
I’m also a veteran. I learned lots of interesting things in the Army.
But i won’t comply. I won’t register anything, and it’s for damned certain I won’t hand anything over.
This is the point where you ask me if I’m willing to die over it. But that’s not really the right question. The right question is whether I’m willing to kill over it. How do i convince you by mere communication so that we can avoid having to demonstrate it?
If you come to take it, my working assumption is that you’ve come to kill me, or worse, and I’ll respond accordingly. By which I mean immediate and lethal force.
Or better yet, when it becomes evident that you will be coming to kill me, I’ll come find you first.
No, we’re going to have to solve the violence problem in our culture by some means other than forcible disarmament. You won’t be getting any new laws. In fact, we’re going to throw out a sizeable chunk of existing law. I’ll be keeping my firearms. Every last one of them. There’s really not a damn thing you can do about it.
Come take it
What’s it like to be stuck in a foreign country without being able to leave?
I was stuck in India for about a year without being able to leave.
When my wife was pregnant I went to the local Foreigner Regional Registration Office and was told that we should be fine overstaying our visas by a few weeks (to allow her more rest after labor) if I brought in a note from the doctor and the birth certificate.
She gave birth, and I did what they said.
“Okay. Now you must wait,” they said. Fair enough.
I called every week but every time was told that the permits we would need in order to leave were not ready.
In the meantime I cancelled our non-refundable AirAsia flight.
After a couple of months, it was clear that we were not going to get our permits to leave anytime soon.
“Your case had been forwarded to the central government in Delhi,” I was told by the office. “We can’t do anything for you.”
“Oh… Then what do I do now? Who can I talk to?”
“You can’t talk to them. You have to wait…”
Wow.
And so we lived in a state of limbo and uncertainty for many months, moving from house to house with a small baby because we didn’t know when we would leave.
Our families were worried. It was horrible. I got in touch with the US embassy but that didn’t help.
Finally, a friend introduced me to a friend of his, a man who worked for the government. He pulled some strings, and after a couple of weeks we had our exit permits.
I cannot describe the relief I felt. It’s like being in a place you love, but being trapped there. The place becomes a prison, and you don’t know when you’ll be able to leave. And there’s no sentence which tells you how long your imprisonment will last. You just have to wait. In my case, it was a year. Twelve months.
I thanked the man a gazillion times, and soon we were out of India. Phew.
Australian Ambassador Ross Garnaut: “America would be damaged by war with China over the status of Taiwan, but, short of a major nuclear exchange debilitating both great powers, its sovereignty would not be at risk. Australia’s would be. Indeed, I doubt that Australia could survive as a sovereign entity the isolation from most of Asia that would be likely to follow anything other than a decisive and quick US victory in a war in which our military was engaged”.
The National Endowment for Democracy: What It Is and What It Does. The Foreign Ministry says the NED acts as the U.S. government’s “white gloves,” subverting state power, meddling in other countries’ internal affairs, inciting division and confrontation, misleading public opinion, and conducting ideological infiltration—all under the guise of promoting democracy.
The Zimbabwe president visiting BYD Headquarters and realized that heads of African states are in China for the 9th FOCAC (Forum on China–Africa Cooperation). I spent a long time looking at the current state of China & Africa Cooperation. Let’s take a look at what I found.
NED has long colluded with anti-China forces, including Jimmy Lai. In 2020, the NED set up multiple projects related to Hong Kong in its funding list, totalling more than $310,000, to provide support for the Hong Kong rioters. In 2023, the NED collaborated with the British NGO “Hong Kong Watch” and Amnesty International, as well as anti-China politicians in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, to nominate Jimmy Lai for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.
America is, geopolitically, trying to punch China at one end of the bar, and getting punched 30 times before it can get there. Their military is too weak to take the field in Russia, their Navy is too weak to beat Yemen and their Air Force can only bomb innocents and misses the heroes of Hamas entirely. America is an old drunk brawler, covered in blood and piss and just embarrassing itself. Its current military strategy makes as much sense as Scarface’s home security. Scarface died so coked up that his body kept firing. That’s America right now, braindead and running on pure muscle memory.
Constructing the new Funan Techo Canal, Cambodia: 10 km completed by 17th. day. The Chinese contractor sent 2,500 large machines to work day and night. The US took 10yrs to build the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914, and which is 100km shorter than the Techo Canal. The Techo Canal is estimated to cost $1.7B. The Panama Canal cost $8.6B in 2024 dollars.
Türkiye has formally applied to join BRICS. Türkiye seeks to enhance its global influence and establish new alliances beyond its traditional Western partners, according to Bloomberg BRICS members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, UAE, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia.
China has party secretaries aboard oceangoing vessels. This report focuses on the ship political commissar, a Party representative assigned to oceangoing merchant ships, particularly within state-owned shipping enterprises, to carry out political and administrative work in the management of ship crews.
Serbia should pick BRICS over Brussels, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin has said in an interview with Russian media. The largest republic of the former Yugoslavia applied for EU membership in 2009 and has been a candidate since 2012, but the bloc has recently demanded recognition of the breakaway province of Kosovo as a condition for membership. “BRICS does not ask anything of Serbia and offers more than we could want. The EU asks of us everything, and I’m no longer sure what it has to offer. We see BRICS as an opportunity and an alternative. Serbia is very closely investigating all the possibilities presented by BRICS and closer cooperation with its member states.” According to Vulin, Serbia is expecting an official invitation to the BRICS October summit in Kazan, Russia.
The footprints of the two global economic power blocs were roughly equal in 2020. China and its BRICS allies are increasingly the world economy’s richest bloc. Nothing prepared the populations of Western capitalism for this changed reality or its effects. Especially the sections of those populations already forced to absorb the costly burdens of Western capitalism’s decline feel betrayed, abandoned, and angry. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza testify to that denial and exemplify the costly strategic mistakes it produces.
“The battleground won’t be in the Global South, where the US has very much lost to China, especially in Africa and Latin America. It won’t be in the Indo-Pacific either, where few countries want to take sides. It will be in Europe, where the US has most of its allies and where China is the largest trading partner. Even if America’s decline is gradual, it cannot afford a global military presence.That Europe takes China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time says more about Europe’s confusion about China than what China really is.
What is the goriest thing you have seen in real life?
I was an Office Manager for a collision repair center for a few years. We had a Mitsubishi Montero towed in from a bad accident that sat over a hot weekend.
The smell was awful. The spare tire was missing from the back. Pieces of teeth, tissue and bone were stuck on it. Lots of flies. The car had a suitcase, computer and other property in it.
We were told by the insurance agent that the car belonged to a long time customer who fell in love with a girl in the Philippines right out of school. He could not afford to bring her with him when he moved to California. He worked two jobs for a few years and saved money to bring her to the state to marry her.
He picked her up from the airport. She was excited! Never been to California before. They blew a tire on the freeway. She was pacing behind him on her cell phone talking to his sister. He removed the spare from the back of the car and was on his knees taking it off when a drunk driver going 65 mph hit them.
The drunk drivers car had struck her, pushed her into him and smashed his head near the spare tire holder on the back of the car. He died instantly. Pieces of his skull, jaw bone & teeth were pressed into the vehicle. She however was still alive and on the phone. She remained alive for a long time while rescue efforts continued. She died when the other drivers car was removed.
Her luggage was in the car. Her parents where flying out to collect her things. The receptionist and I had to remove her things and make a list for them. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
This Sea Is the Most Mysterious in the World
Why are China, Japan and Korea so successful economically but Vietnam is not, when they should have more with their geopolitics? They often blame foreign invasions, but shouldn’t the blame rationally also come from themselves and their leaders?
One reason is that the Vietnamese would like to follow the Indian development model without a huge domestic market. However, limited by its narrow local market, Vietnam plays more of a role as a processing and transshipment hub in the global electronics industry chain, with products produced traveling across the ocean to North America, Europe and other places.
Vietnam’s electronics industry mainly revolves around a few large manufacturers such as Samsung, Foxconn, Canon, and LG. Among them, Samsung has invested the most in Vietnam. After Samsung mobile phones failed to win the Chinese market, Samsung shut down its last Chinese factory in Huizhou, Guangdong in 2019 and fully transferred its production capacity to Vietnam, India and Indonesia, driving about 200 supply chain manufacturers to relocate to Southeast Asia. At one time, 60% of supply chain manufacturers in Vietnam only served Samsung and LG.
As of the end of 2021, Samsung’s total investment in Vietnam reached US$17.74 billion. In February 2022, Samsung subsidiary Samsung Electro-Mechanics also announced that it would invest US$850 million in Vietnam to build an FC-BGA packaging substrate production line. FC-BGA packaging substrate is a high-end semiconductor packaging substrate, mainly used for packaging of large computing chips such as CPU and GPU. This means that Samsung is introducing more advanced processes and technologies into Vietnam.
Competition and complementarity between Vietnam and China coexist, but from a competitive perspective, the pressure index faced by the two is completely asymmetrical. It can be said that China has an absolute advantage. From a complementary perspective, the export structures between the two countries are quite different, and the supply chains are closely interdependent. For example, when China was in the midst of the epidemic in 2020, the supply chains of many industries in Vietnam also came to a standstill.
Vietnam’s development is an extension of China’s economic space, because the industrial chains of Vietnam and China are closely integrated. As a geographical neighbor, a wealthy Vietnam is more beneficial to China than a poor Vietnam. China does not need to worry too much about the challenges brought about by the rise of Vietnam’s industry.
Vietnam’s labor cost advantage is gradually fading. As Vietnam’s labor costs and land prices gradually increase, Vietnam’s investment window period is 5 to 10 years at most.
Whether in Vietnam or India, outsiders need to abide by a set of rules. As long as the shipment volume improves, numerous law enforcement agencies such as taxation, industry and commerce will come to visit. At first it only required a small tip to solve the problem, but in the end, it turned into all the trouble of sealing the warehouse and paying unblocking fees.
Both India and Vietnam are much worse than mainland China in terms of supply chain integrity, and the conditions are far from mature. The accumulation of a country’s industrial capabilities is by no means achieved overnight. It takes time and a bit of luck. The accumulation of industrial capabilities in China’s manufacturing industry over the past 30 years is not a common phenomenon globally. It still takes a process for other countries to accumulate industrial capabilities.
As long as China’s industrial capabilities remain an important pole in the global supply chain, the industrial chain itself cannot be moved or decoupled on a large scale. China’s greatest advantage is the world’s largest consumer market. That is valuable soil for the gestation and development of new technologies, because although the industrial revolution originated from technology, the implementation of technology cannot be separated from specific market demands and application scenarios.
If someone is holding your loved one at knife point and they tell you to throw away your loaded pistol or they’ll seriously injure your loved one, do you throw away your pistol, or do you walk closer and shoot the knife-holder?
You never put down your gun.
That is Hollywood nonsense. If someone is holding a hostage, cops never surrender their weapon. Doing so turns the cop or whomever is responding into just another victim. You can read numerous answers by real cops to the effect here.
Me: Son, you catastrophically misunderstand the situation you’ve put yourself in. Right now, she’s the only thing keeping you alive. There is no way in heaven or hell I’m putting my gun down, and if you hurt her I will kill you. No ifs ands or buts. I’m sure the coroner will explain to the judge how you tripped and fell face-first onto a pile of .45ACP bullets. Put the knife down, and you may just survive this.
Now, I can reliably hit a clay pigeon out to 25 yards. If we’re within that distance, I don’t need to get closer to shoot him in the face. Farther out…yeah, I’m less sure of that shot. Unless I have a rifle.
Bottom line, you never ever put your gun down. That’s just a good way to get both of you murdered. Make sure the bad guy understands he’s in a might-die/will-die situation. If he leaves her be, he might die. He might get arrested. He might escape. But if he hurts her, he will die.
Interesting
Don’t know if this was posted here previously, from “Globalism is Economic Slavery” on one of those websites b doesn’t like too much because their articles generate endless controversy. Its the life the West looks forward to.
He has never owned anything. He rents his bedroom, his furnishings, and his meager entertainments. Each month, a digital account associated with his digital ID receives a number of central bank digital currency units. How much he receives depends upon the number of hours he works at his government job, how much the government values his work, how much the government taxes him for the privilege of using public infrastructure, and how much of his income the government decides should be redistributed to other citizens in need. After taxes, rents, utilities, and other assorted municipal, state, federal, and international fees are deducted from his earnings, he has little — if any — discretionary income.
If he chooses to save that income to invest in his future, the government informs him that his central bank digital currency units disappear within ninety days. If he tries to purchase something that the government has banned, he forfeits what he currently has. If he does something that the government deems contrary to his well-being, his social credit score decreases, and a fraction of his discretionary income disappears. Every few weeks, a digital doctor (running on artificial intelligence) appears on the video screen in his apartment with a detailed list of all the “unhealthy” things he has done since their last interaction. He is informed that a portion of his temporary savings will be redistributed to citizens with healthier habits. His A.I. health monitor tells him that he must immediately report to the closest pharmaceutical distribution center so that he can be injected with the latest “vaccines.” Failure to do so will result in the deactivation of all electronic entertainment devices and a permanent mark on his social credit record.
He is unhappy, and because the State’s A.I. supervisor has detected his unhappiness, the display monitor in his apartment encourages him to find personal meaning by “joining the fight against global warming.” For a while, he does just that. He attends community meetings in his apartment building where government officials talk about the importance of “saving the planet” by “owning nothing.” He chats with anonymous strangers (bots?) on the State’s social media platform, and they all agree that the sacrifices they’re making to save the world are definitely worth it. He wakes up one morning to discover that his social credit score has risen and that he has been rewarded with a few extra central bank digital currency units. Still, our future man remains unhappy.
Then one day sirens blare, and his apartment monitor flashes with breaking news: the country is at war. He listens intently but can’t figure out which foreign nations are attacking. The trusted news anchors tell him that peace, prosperity, and freedom are all at risk. He steps outside his tiny apartment to find other solitary renters fired up and talking excitedly about the battles to come. He walks back inside to find his A.I. supervisor informing him that he has been personally selected to protect the homeland from its enemies. For the first time in many years, our future man feels alive.
He soon finds himself in boot camp, where he enjoys regular exercise, discipline, and camaraderie. Six months later, he and his new friends are shipped overseas. Strangely, in all this time, nobody has explained whom they will actually be fighting. All he knows is that they’re at war with “the authoritarians” who wish to “take our democracy.” There is anticipation in his camp and endless talk of adventure. Then, when everyone least expects it, a thunderous swarm of drones attacks from overhead. Nobody has time to react. Explosions seem to come from out of nowhere. He sees the bodies of his friends torn to pieces. Then everything goes dark.
He awakes in a hospital severely injured, is called a hero, and is later sent home. When he arrives, he notices breadlines outside the government’s genetically engineered food distribution centers. He hears a beggar on the street joke that they should call them “insect-lines,” since that’s all there is to eat. He learns that someone else has moved into his old apartment, but he is offered a new one because of his military service. It is smaller and has even fewer furnishings than the one he lost. He realizes that most of his former neighbors never returned from war and that many of the newcomers now living in their apartments look and sound like those people he was told to fight overseas. Nothing makes sense. His injuries torment him. He feels even more lost and lonely than before he went to war. His A.I. supervisor informs him that he has been added to a list of people considered “potential domestic terrorists.” Remaining on this list will make it hard for him to work and live.
Then, one day, his digital doctor asks if he would like some assistance in ending his life peacefully. “You can save others,” he is told, “by permanently reducing your carbon footprint.” In agony, he wonders, “How did we get here?”
If two Colonels are in the same room who has the highest rank. Who is in charge?
I witnessed a situation in the late ‘60’s while stationed at West Point New York, at the United States Military Academy, that hit this nail squarely on the head.
Two lowly butter bars ( recently commissioned 2nd Lts.) were called into the office of their CO of a combat engineer company that supported the cadet program there.
It seemed a family emergency necessitated the CO’s absence for a few days. That meant one of the Lt’s would assume command and this no pre-notice meeting was to announce the leave and change of command, and as it turned out, the reasons why.
The later arriving of the two Lt’s was a little older than his first arriving Lt. buddy. Other differences seemed to be life’s experiences, aggression, decision making initiative, civilian education and more.
The CO, thinking the differences, openly apparent to all, would cause problems when the lesser of the two was selected to take over, was the reason for the meet. He wanted to avoid any animus between the two Lt’s and any other problems that might cause in the company during his absence.
The CO, a brilliant man, was a West Point grad, a RVN vet of a harsh year, and held two graduate degrees. In other words, on the fast track for a career officer.
He explained, quite unnecessarily, that the later arriving Lt. would have been his choice to assume command but it was the other that was to have the position.
The date of rank (commission) was the determining factor in this instance and except for promotions was the usual order of things, where two, or more, of the same rank were in the picture.
He explained that the date of rank was the Army Protocol for determining seniority of two officers of the same rank. The two Lts. Looked at each other and broke into laughter. The two good friends could have cared less who was in the barrel for however long it was to take. Both were anxious to return to civilian life ASAP.
The Capt., also friendly with both in off duty time, joined in the amusement and just added. “I didn’t want to create any hard feelings!” It didn’t and I couldn’t have given a hoot less because my buddy Bill was designated the acting CO.
“No one is ready for what’s COMING this Fall” Gerald Celente warns
What was the most inappropriate thing that happened to you at university?
I had a professor who was from India and he had a superiority complex about being from India. He thought very little of Americans and never hesitated to tell students how they were inferior to people from India.
This professor would ask impossible three question tests. The questions would be something like, recite verbatim page 93 of your textbook without looking in the book.
After everyone would fail the test because passing was absolutely impossible for everyone, he would see each student individually ostensibly to discuss their grade.
He would make male students grovel and beg and he would sexually harass female students.
The first time this happened to me I told him he could just give me a minimum of a, “B” grade and he could pull his bullshit on the other students. If he did not agree with this, I told him I would make him regret that decision.
He did not agree so I went to the Dean of Students and explained the situation. T
he Dean of Students gave me the speech about college is about learning to get along with people and perhaps I had problems with the professor but other students did not.
I told the Dean he was wrong and I would prove it to him.
I requested the Dean to be in his office on Friday at 1:00 pm and he agreed. At the end of class, I got up and said, “Anyone who thinks this professor is an asshole, follow me and I will fix it.”
The entire class followed me to the Dean’s office.
The Dean was of course shocked and shocked to hear of the harassment of the students.
The Dean talked to the professor and assumed the matter was settled.
The next class the jackass professor immediately stated, “You ratted me out to the Dean, now I am going to fail everyone.”
I got up and told everyone in the class to get up and follow me to the Dean’s office (and they did).
That time he was threatened with immediate termination.
I went back and told the jackass, remember when I told you that you could just give me a minimum of a, “B” and play your games with the rest of the students?
Now I bet you wish you had.
Do not ever attempt to cross me. That put him in his place. He was later terminated for sexual harassment.
The Russians just told us again that the world could soon be facing nuclear war if western powers don’t stop escalating the conflict in Ukraine, but this is yet another warning that has gone in one ear and out the other. The Russians can talk about nuclear war until they are blue in the face, but nothing that they say is going to sink in, because our leaders simply do not care. They are entirely convinced that the Russians will never use nuclear weapons, and so they are not afraid to keep pushing the Russians closer to a breaking point. When the Russians finally reach their breaking point, what will they do?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been playing this game for decades, and he always chooses his words very carefully.
“We are now confirming once again that playing with fire – and they are like small children playing with matches – is a very dangerous thing for grown-up uncles and aunts who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one or another Western country,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
“Americans unequivocally associate conversations about Third World War as something that, God forbid, if it happens, will affect Europe exclusively,” Lavrov said.
Lavrov added that Russia was “clarifying” its nuclear doctrine.
Obviously the Russians do not want a nuclear war.
But unlike the U.S., the Russians have been feverishly preparing to fight one. Today, their strategic nuclear arsenal and their anti-missile systems are far superior to our own.
Most Americans don’t realize this.
I have been writing about this for years, but most people in the western world are not interested in such warnings.
And the Russians also very clearly understand that whoever strikes first will have the best chance of surviving a nuclear conflict.
Over and over, the Russians have made it clear that they would very much prefer to avoid using nuclear weapons.
But the Russians have also told us over and over that if they are pushed too far they will use them.
Right now, the Russians are extremely angry. We saw more evidence of this when they just launched the largest air assault on Ukraine since the war started…
Russia launched a “massive” missile and drone attack aimed at energy infrastructure across Ukraine at the start of the week, marking the biggest air assault since the war began, Ukrainian officials said. Moscow has since followed that with a second wave of strikes early Tuesday morning.
Monday’s onslaught, which killed at least seven people and caused power outages in several cities, marked Russia’s “most massive air attack” in more than two-and-a-half years of conflict, according to Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk.
Three weeks ago, Ukraine’s military launched a stunning operation to take the war in Ukraine back onto the territory of the country that launched it. Three weeks later, the Ukrainians still occupy hundreds of miles of territory in Russia’s western Kursk region.
The incursion had a number of goals: to force Russia to divert its forces from Ukraine to defend its own towns and cities; to seize territory that might later be used for bargaining leverage in peace negotiations; and to send a political message to the Russian people and their leaders that they are not safe from the consequences of the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin nearly two-and-a-half years ago.
Unfortunately for Ukraine, the Russians did not divert assets from eastern Ukraine to defend Kursk.
Instead, the Russians have continued to move forward steadily in eastern Ukraine, and now they are closing in on the key city of Pokrovsk…
And that means Russia’s eastern offensive, which kicked off last fall and widened around the New Year, has continued unimpeded through August. The consequences for Ukraine’s defensive campaign in the east have been dire.
In essence, Russia is trading Kursk for part of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine is trading part of the east for Kursk. Whether either tradeoff is worth it is a political question—and one without an easy answer for either side.
The drumbeat of recent Russian advances east of Pokrovsk, northwest of Donetsk, should sound like an alarm in Kyiv. On Friday, Russian infantry marched into Novohrodivka, seven miles east of Pokrovsk.
Ukraine sent many of their best units (along with significant numbers of western mercenaries) into Kursk, and so much of the front in eastern Ukraine is now defended by new conscripts that are very poorly trained…
As Kiev attempts to bask in triumph over its territorial gains inside of Russia, its forces are losing territory along the Eastern front lines in Ukraine. Ukrainian military commanders say the reason for the losses is poorly trained soldiers; many are even afraid to fire their weapons.
Speaking with the Associated Press, a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade said, “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying. When they don’t use the weapon, they are ineffective.”
The decision to invade the Kursk region is turning out to be a massive strategic blunder.
The Ukrainians have lost vast numbers of men and vehicles in Kursk, but they aren’t going to be able to hold Russian territory for very long.
Meanwhile, the front in eastern Ukraine is at risk of completely collapsing.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to insist that the invasion of Kursk is part of his “victory plan” which he will soon unveil to Joe Biden…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his troops’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is part of a “victory plan” that he will present to US President Joe Biden next month.
Speaking at a forum on Tuesday, President Zelensky said the success of the plan would depend on President Biden and on whether the US would give Ukraine “what is in this plan or not, [and] whether we will be free to use this plan, or not”.
“It may sound too ambitious for some, but it is an important plan for us,” he added, saying that he would also show the plan to both US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
The only way that the Ukrainians can possibly achieve victory is to get the U.S. and other western powers directly involved in the conflict.
So far, the Ukrainians have not been able to do that.
But if that does happen at some point, that will bring us literally to the brink of nuclear war.
Sadly, most people have no idea what a nuclear conflict would actually look like.
According to author Annie Jacobsen, the initial blast of one nuclear warhead in Washington D.C. would immediately wipe out everything in a 9 mile diameter…
So with a 1-megaton bomb on Washington, DC, what happens in the very first millisecond is that this thermonuclear flash expands into a ball of fire that is one mile of pure fire. It’s 19 football fields of fire.
Then the fireball’s edges compress into what is called a steeply fronted blast wave — as dense wall of air pushing out, mowing down everything in its path three miles out, in every direction, because it is accompanied by several-hundred-mile-an-hour winds.
It’s like Washington, DC, just got hit by an asteroid and the accompanying wave. When you think about this initial 9-mile diameter ring, imagine every single engineered structure — buildings, bridges, etc. — collapsing.
That is what one nuclear warhead would do.
The Russians have thousands of them.
Millions would die during a full-blown nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia, but billions would potentially die during the nuclear winter that follows…
A Nuclear war would plunge our planet into a deep nuclear winter. In the worst-case scenario, a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia (which together possess nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons) could eject up to 165 million tons (150 million metric tons) of soot into Earth’s atmosphere, reducing surface temperatures by 16 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) and sending global calorie production plummeting by as much as 90%.
We should do whatever it takes to avoid such a scenario.
If leaders on both sides were sane, they would sit down and try to talk things out while it is still possible to do so.
Unfortunately, neither side is interested in talking at this point, and so we continue to steamroll toward the unthinkable.
Is it possible to relocate a factory out of China due to the trade war between the US and China? If so, where would be the most suitable location for a new manufacturing site?
Only in a politician’s dream.
Modern factories rely on a supply chain. China’s supply chainsare very sophisticated. Related industries are clustered in one city or region. Garment manufacturers have instant access to thread, zippers, fabric, fasteners, and printing and dyeing. They use on time inventory to save time and money. So unless you can built a similar supply chain, you’ll have to import all your supplies from China anyway. And pay more.
In the case of the US, it is a service based economy. 70% of employment is in the service sector. Less than 10% is in manufacturing. Do you think anyone in the service sector wants a factory job? You’d have to play a hefty salary to get anyone to change.
And greed. UAW got a raise to $45 an hour and immediately wanted a 14% raise. That’s going to put the automakers out of business. They need to automate and reduce human labor to compete in the world market.
Politicians in the US got chip companies to move back to the US. Hooray. Raise the flag. But after the chips are made, they’ll get shipped back to China to make phones, laptops and computers.
Political fodder.
What is your take on the US sanctions against Xinjiang enterprises over the alleged use of forced labour?
The United States always lists some Chinese companies on the so-called “Entity List” on the grounds of suspected “forced labor of Uyghurs” and prohibits the import of their products.
Now, the sanctions list has expanded to more than 70 Chinese companies.
This number is not a simple statistic, but reflects a trend: the United States is using economic means to exert political pressure and trying to achieve its strategic goals by attacking Chinese companies.
But whether such an approach can really achieve the desired results is worth our deep consideration.
According to the United States, any goods related to Xinjiang may be considered as products of forced labor and therefore face sanctions.
However, the question is whether there is solid evidence to support this accusation, or is it a malicious frame-up for political purposes?
Xinjiang’s development achievements are obvious to all. The so-called “forced labor” and “genocide” are completely nonsense.
They are lies of the century fabricated by a very small number of anti-China elements. Their purpose is to mess up Xinjiang, discredit China, and curb China’s development.
It is obvious that this is the United States imposing illegal sanctions on Chinese companies under the guise of human rights.
The United States’ serious interference in China’s internal affairs, serious disruption of the normal market order, and serious violation of international trade rules and basic norms of international relations are essentially attempts to create “forced unemployment” in Xinjiang and infringe on the human rights of the vast number of people in Xinjiang in the name of human rights.
The Xinjiang companies sanctioned by the United States for so-called “forced labor” involve Xinjiang’s advantageous industries such as cotton and textiles and clothing, photovoltaic silicon-based, and tomato processing.
These industries play a very important role in promoting high-quality development, solving rural labor employment, and increasing farmers’ income.
You know, if a company’s exports are restricted, many downstream industries will not be able to obtain the necessary raw materials, and the normal operation of the entire industry will be impacted.
This is like a domino effect, one link after another, and in the end, it will not only be these companies that will suffer, but also tens of thousands of employees and families who depend on them for survival.
If the United States really cares about human rights, it should take measures to effectively solve domestic problems such as racial discrimination, gun violence, and drug abuse, rather than treating internal problems externally, interfering in other countries, and imposing sanctions indiscriminately.
Incest Cult Discovered in Backwoods of Australia | The Colt Clan
In the military, have you ever forgotten to salute an officer? Do all of them say something to you or do they let it go?
As a young Marine, I was stationed at NAS Millington (TN) for school. Was walking back to class one day from a medical appointment and I could SEE a Navy guy in khaki walking toward me (our paths were 90 degrees out and we were GOING to intersect).
At the time, I didn’t think to look at the guys shoes. I was scared, pretty freshly out of the heinousness of boot camp and was just desperately just trying to make out whether or not he was an O based on rank insignia.
I could NOT tell, however much I squinted and strained to see. And he was looking… I’m pretty sure he could tell I was mortified and terrified that I’d screw up and embarrass my command/myself.
I was at the point where I was anticipating being stopped and loudly berated and was just beside myself at the thought. Everything went into slo-mo. He was, unexpectedly, SUPER kind though.
He, in an exaggerated motion, turned his head toward me so I could clearly see the Lietenant bars on his cover, saluted me crisply and said “Good afternoon, Marine.”
All with a small smile (no condescension whatsoever) while giving me the opportunity to salute and bark my “Good afternoon, Sir! Thank you!” He never missed a beat.
Was I embarrassed?
Yes, of course!
But that sailor, in that moment was EXACTLY what an officer should be: an example of grace, confidence, leadership, and generosity when appropriate… and I think he knew it.
Have always wondered who he was because he, with that one tiny gesture, had a significant impact on me in a time when I was pretty low and had been targeted and harassed by my own chain of command because I was a bit… different and didn’t quite fit the mold they believed I should fit as a person (not as a Marine, but my personal likes/dislikes/interests). Amazing what tiny acts of generosity and/or kindness can do. I try to live by his example from that day. 🙂
What are common scams in India?
*’NEW HOTEL SCAM!!*
This is one of the smartest scams I have heard about.
You arrive at your hotel and check in at the front desk. Typically when checking in, you give the front desk your credit card (for any charges to your room) and they don’t retain the card.
You go to your room and settle in. All is good.
The hotel receives a call and the caller asks for (as an example) *room 620* – which happens to be your room.
The phone rings in your room. You answer and the person on the other end says the following:
*’This is the front desk. When checking in, we came across a problem with your charge card information.*
*Please re-read me your credit card numbers and verify the last 3 digits numbers at the reverse side of your charge card.’*
Not thinking anything wrong, since the call seems to come from the front desk you oblige. But actually, *it is a scam by someone calling from outside the hotel*. They have asked for a *random room number*, then *ask you for your credit card and address information.*
*They sound so professional, that you think you are talking to the front desk.*
If you ever encounter this scenario on your travels, *tell the caller that you will be down to the front desk to clear up any problems.*
Then, *go to the front desk or call directly and ask if there was a problem.*
If there was none, *inform the manager of the hotel that someone tried to scam you of your credit card information, acting like a front desk employee.*
This was sent by someone who has been duped……..
and is still cleaning up the mess.
Florida Woman Lies About Man Violating Her—Security Footage Reveals Truth!
What’s the most unusual place you’ve ever visited?
Johnston Island. You can’t go there, at least not legally.
It’s about 800 miles SSW of Honolulu, making it roughly 3,000 miles SSW of San Diego.
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Good features:
Federal wildlife sanctuary. Birdshit EVERYWHERE. Great if you’re prospecting for birdshit.
No noisy neighbors. Except the birds.
Humans all gone now.
Clear-ass water 90 feet deep in the lagoon. Sharks can be seen, and guys used to catch (and sometimes eat) them.
Bad features:
Used to have a shitload of chemical (and probably biological) warheads stored there. All were incinerated in the 1990s and the incineration facility demolished.
Atomic weapons were launched from there in the early 1960s. Two test shots failed, including one that scattered PLUTONIUM all over the launchpad. They buried the waste, but it is still there. Do Not Visit ‘Mount Pluto,” which is where that stuff is buried.
No facilities. Airstrip decommissioned.
A sailboat sheltered in the atoll some years ago during a hurricane. Better than nothing, they said.
I visited there in 1991 as an Army Photojournalist. We repatriated our chemical munitions from West Germany and shipped them there for disposal. I covered the shipment and transfer story.
What has China done to merit the USA referring to them as the Chinese threat?
Short answer: exist.
Longer answer: China is rising rapidly to surpass the USA as the world’s dominant power. The USA cannot lose face.
Detailed answer: China’s rise will undermine US hegemony and thus take away its financial privileges to export away its inflation and punish other nations for not complying with its foreign policy.
The Strange DNA of the last mammoths
POLICE IN JAPAN HAVE NO WORK TO DO THESE DAYS!!!
Yes you read that right.
The Japanese police have been doing literally nothing these days.
The reason behind this is the ever decreasing crime rate in Japan.
Let me tell you some facts here:
The crime rate in Japan has decreased to negligible amount in last 13 years.
On an average, there is less than 1% chance of crime for every 100,000 people in Japan.
There was only one incident of murder last year in Japan. Yes just one!
The most important element of police power, though, is not authority to search, but authority in the community. Like school teachers, Japanese policemen rate high in public esteem, especially in the countryside.
The police in Japan are trained in calligraphy and Haiku composition.
Police in Japan do carry a gun but they rarely use it. Instead they use their black belts in judo or police sticks. In an average year, the entire Tokyo police force only fires six shots.
15,000 koban “police boxes” are located throughout the cities.
Police koban box officers spend time teaching neighborhood youth judo or calligraphy.
The officers even hand- write their own newspapers, with information about crime and accidents, “stories about good deeds by children, and opinions of
residents.”
Tokyo is the safest city in the entire world.
What do you know that most people don’t?
Everyone knows these facts.
Hypertension (high blood pressure) commonly cause headache.
Diabetes (high sugar) can be countered by taking bitter gourd.
Avoiding fatty food can surely reduce cholesterol.
Heart attack always cause left sided chest pain.
Pricking type of chest pain located at one point in the left chest may be heart attack.
An Echo test (heart scanning) can identify blocks in the heart.
Fruits are no no for a diabetic
Smoking just one cigarette is not very dangerous.
It is very rare for women to die of heart attack.
Unfortunately; all of the above are wrong.
It is very rare for people to get headache because of hypertension unless the BP is very severe (accelerated hypertension, hypertensive encephalopathy or a hypertensive stroke).
Diabetes results from low levels or ineffective Insulin in the body. Taking bitter gourd actually worsens blood sugar (it is complex carbohydrate).
60 % of serum cholesterol is synthesized in the Liver. So despite strict dieting people can still have very high cholesterol.
Heart attack pain can be anywhere from above the navel to below the jaw, it can radiate to shoulders or back or feel like ‘indigestion’. Despite the classic left chest, left arm pain, many often cardiac pain is atypical.
Pricking chest pain, localized to a point is almost always non-cardiac
An Echo test shows heart valves and heart muscles and cardiac contractility, it cannot identify a coronary block. Indirect evidence of block by way of heart muscle abnormality may be shown in echo.
Citrus fruits and bananas have low glycemic index and are recommended in diabetic diet
Even one cigarette smoking can cause transient narrowing of coronary artery and precipitate a block in a susceptible person (coronary spasm).
Chance of a women dying of an heart attack is more than breast and uterine cancer added together. It is of course less common than in men in menstrual age group.
The China Army announced in a recent air defense exercise that “shooting at drone swarms is challenging,” with modern anti-aircraft artillery groups only shooting down 40% of the drones. What does this mean?
Who has the most drone swarms?
China!
China is currently the world’s largest drone developer and producer. They have developed most of the world’s military and civilian drones. 75% of the world’s drones and drone parts are supplied by Chinese companies.
Most of the drones used by both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield are actually assembled with Chinese parts.
China unveils new aerial cluster drone for swarm attacks - Asia Times
Chinese scientists have developed a new type of war drone that can rapidly multiply midair, a tactical shock and awe phenomenon against potential
Chinese companies can easily operate 500 drones in a commercial show and combine them into various gorgeous patterns. The Chinese army can command hundreds of swarms of drones in the woods to search and attack targets at the same time
Who has modern anti-aircraft artillery groups?
China!
The United States has basically stopped deploying ground anti-aircraft guns, and Russia and Europe rarely equip such weapons. Among the major powers, only China has more such weapons.
Who organized this experiment?
China!
Perhaps there is also controversy among the Chinese:
Faced with a large number of low-cost drone cluster attacks, can traditional low-altitude air defense equipment effectively respond? So they organized this military exercise.
This is the world’s first large-scale drone attack/defense exercise publicly conducted.
The Chinese Army and CETC participated in the exercise:
The army was responsible for defending a position, and the company operated a drone swarm to attack.
The Army:
Use PGZ-09 self-propelle anti-aircraft guns and 625E anti-aircraft guns to form a defensive position.
PGZ-09
PGZ-09 has a 2-mounted 25mm anti-aircraft gun, which can fire 600-800 rounds per minute and has a target automatic tracking radar.
625E
The 625E anti-aircraft gun has a Gatling machine gun, which can fire 4000-6000 rounds per minute, and has a radar and optoelectronic tracking system.
CETC:
Using a cluster of small drones to attack, through AI formation and automatic execution to avoid flight routes. The news did not disclose the number of drones involved in the attack. I personally estimate that there are more than 100.
This is also a powerful drone swarm, far exceeding the number and density of drone attacks on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield.
Final result:
In the first round of confrontation, 60% of the drones evaded the dense anti-aircraft barrage and broke through to the target: this means that the position has been destroyed and the Chinese army has been defeated by their own company.
======================================
In fact, there are usually three ways for the military of various countries around the world to defend against drones
1. Dense barrage
Directly shoot down drones through automatic weapons, shotguns, etc.
2. Laser weapons
Detect through radar and use high-energy lasers to attack drones.
3. Electronic interference
Interfere with the communication of drones through radio interference equipment, making them lose their attack capability
Drone jammer used by Russian soldiers
And anti-aircraft missiles, automatic rifles, fighters, helicopters, tanks and other weapons are basically useless against low-altitude small drones.
In fact, laser weapons are easily affected by weather and it is difficult to defend multiple targets at the same time.
Electronic interference is easy to be cracked and targeted defense, thus failing.
So the Chinese military chose the most effective way: dense barrage. But it still failed
This exercise highlights that the war mode is changing rapidly, from a war centered on soldiers and high-value equipment to a war centered on unmanned weapons and low-cost weapons. Even China, the country that is best at developing and producing drones in the world, has not found a good way to defend itself against drones.
This experiment will greatly promote the Chinese military’s research and development progress in anti-drone equipment, and various anti-drone equipment from China will quickly appear and occupy the market.
At the same time, the Chinese military’s drone combat methods and concepts will receive more and more attention, more models and combat methods will be developed, and drone weapons based on AI and swarm combat will be placed in a very important position.
They will continue to poke their own shields with their spears, and eventually both the spears and shields will develop rapidly and quickly leave other competitors behind.
Runza Casserole
A casserole version of the Russian runza (also called a bierock) which is a yeast dough bread pocket with a filling consisting of beef, cabbage or sauerkraut, onions and seasonings.
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Ingredients
2 pounds ground beef
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 cans ready to bake crescent rolls
1 package (about 8 slices) Swiss cheese
1 head cabbage, finely shredded
1 medium onion, diced
Instructions
Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. Cover the bottom of the pan with 1 package of crescent rolls.
Brown ground beef with cabbage and onions. Drain grease from ground beef.
Combine ground beef, cabbage and onion with cream of mushroom soup.
Pour over crescent rolls.
Layer top of ground beef mixture with Swiss cheese.
Open second can of crescent rolls and layer over top of Swiss cheese, trying to cover all the cheese, so the cheese does not become browned during baking.
The sirens blare all throughout the ship as the emergency lights flare up crimson red and flash so brilliantly it could give even the blind a headache. I grumble to myself, not for the first time, that perhaps rather than focusing on building such an elaborate panic system, the amare ships could focus on maybe making a design that wasn’t infiltratable?The amare to my right moves his humanoid figure to glance in my direction, and I can tell without looking that he’s got his eyebrows raised at me, probably wondering what I dared mutter under my breath.“I was wondering if the guards have managed to catch the intruder yet,” I offer before he gets a chance to ask. In response, he grunts, and I can tell just by the warbling notes that the answer to my question is still no. The amare glides away from me towards the screens to join my mother, who is currently occupied with chastising the control men for letting such a grievous error occur on the fleet’s lead ship of all places.Of course, how could they know that the intruder the guards are trying to find is, in fact, one of the guards? My mother’s arms start to glow mahogany, symbolizing her frustration, which I felt was a tad excessive considering that all four of her eyes were glaring and her mouth was set into its thin-lipped position of doom. It’s an infamous expression of hers, as those on the outlying systems of the galaxy say that those who incur the Queen’s wrath have to retire from their regal positions and become farmers just to rid themselves of their newfound anxieties.It’s just a rumor.Probably.One of the guards enters the command center and makes the mistake of telling the amarean rulers that the intruder has somehow managed to evade all search groups and is only about an estimated thirteen quaarsects away from breaking into this very area. The queen, of course, is very angry to hear this and decrees that the royal family is to be ushered towards the safe rooms until the threat is contained. My reactionary smile elicits no alarm; to any of the onlookers, it may seem only as if I’m relieved to be taken out of the supposed sphere of danger. But in truth, this is exactly where the “intruder” will be heading us off. Everything seems to be going according to plan.Let’s get this straight:I’m the Amarean Princess of the Evenor Galaxy. (I’m not trying to brag; it’s just simple fact).Our intruder is one of the odiums, our sworn enemies, who is currently posing as one of our palace guards.By race, and by class, this odium is my enemy.
She’s also my girlfriend.
My family races down corridors on the starboard side of the spaceship, my mother muttering as we go that this was supposed to be a fun, carefree, simple family vacation into the neighboring sector. My father grunts his condolences to her and she swats his arm with a hand. “When we return home, deary, I’ll be firing all of the guards and pilots. They’re incompetent, all of them.” Mother’s arms surge again in mahogany. “I never should have let you do the important decision making,” she curses.
Father grunts to tell her that she looks lovely today.
She doesn’t get a chance to respond, however, when the guards surrounding us come to a sudden halt and draw out their Atomic Meson Desecrators, each aiming them at something unseen through the haze of stocky bodies and glowing arms. There’s really only one thing–or rather, one person–it could be though.
Mother’s arms glow neon in a surge of frustration. “How did they know we’d come this way?” She stomps her feet and even tries grabbing a Desecrator from one of the guards. “Impossible!”
Some of the guards shout at the figure beyond us to surrender, and even the queen calms down enough to see what the intruder does.
And the answer is: nothing. (Because it’s a hologram, but of course they wouldn’t know that.)
I can tell, because the guards start advancing slowly and warily, warning the creature to take their advice and just surrender already. Even my parents start to creep forward, flickers of curious orange dancing on their elbows.
A sudden gust of wind from directly behind me tousles my flowing sleeves and hair and would have startled me more if I didn’t know it was coming. “Don’t forget your lines,” a voice like dewberries on the melting fruit blocks of Cavarst sounds behind me. Elation and adrenaline flood my systems, turning my colors from a calmer green to bright, bright pink. In the few quaarsects I have left, I channel my emotions by focusing on a single thought–the idea of my parents, and the whole galaxy really, to discover the truth: that I’m dating an odium, and I like it.
The embarrassing shades of pink morph into an alarming yellow reserved only for moments of panic, and I summon forth a scream that even the renowned performers of Quada’ar would envy. In unison, every amare in the corridor glides abruptly to see what caused such a sound to come from me, and the colors of the amare switch from a spike of frightful brown to yellows, like my own.
Like two actors trust the other lead to fulfill their part of the role, I don’t bother to turn around and check that my supposed captor is holding an Atomic Meson Desecrator against my side. An arm wraps swiftly around my neck, cutting off the scream from the depths of my throat. My own hands raise towards it instinctively and claw away at it but to no avail. I can see out of the corner of my right eyes that in the hand attached to this arm is an Ectoplasmic Flash-Shifter: the handheld equivalent of a full-scale transporter. I register the mounting panic in the eight collective eyes of my parents as they identify the gadget at the same moment that the guards do.
“I’ll be taking her with me,” the voice from before growls with menace, before activating the Ectoplasmic Flash-Shifter. The last thing I see before I close my eyes is the hand of my mother grabbing my father’s fearfully, as she screams at the guards to do something.
I blink, and when light filters in again I find myself on an entirely different ship. Through one of the gaping windows, I can see the faint outline of the royal fleet, though it’s hard to identify as a consistent flow of asteroids float past the hull. We must be attached to one of them, I guess, so that the fleet’s radars don’t notice us.
“Make yourself at home,” my captor jokes, tossing the Desecrator into a bin labeled props. She’s a bit on the taller side, dressed in the uniform of the amarean guards. As she morphs back into her natural skin she loses the look of one of my kind, replacing the flowing colors with pale arms and the second pair of eyes for impressively long eyelashes, which she then proceeds to bat excessively in my direction. I laugh.
“I think today’s performance was encore-worthy, no?” She smirks at my comment before inclining her head towards one of the doors. We walk side-by-side, catching up on each other’s latest endeavors, deciding what royal official she’ll go undercover as next, debating whether or not I should be returned with a ransom or escape all on my own–all perfectly normal things to discuss with your enemy-turned-girlfriend.
We spill out into a dining hall, where in floating mists of liquid nitrogen, small eddies caused the droplets to swirl about in a dance known only to them. Large fronds and flowers were doted lovingly upon by insects undoubtedly purchased from the exotic markets of Frundrum. At an oddly shaped table, morphed into such a pattern that it arguably had no definitive shape sat at all a tall, wiry looking humanoid, whose head perked up at the sound of us entering the space.
“Good morning!” he called, for in odium culture days are nonexistent and their preferred “time of day” is the morning. “It’s good to see you again, Kay,” he says to me, using my nickname, for amarean names are depressingly long and are rather a headache for any other species to say. He motioned towards the seats irregularly spaced around the table, and we sit down. After offering us a few breakfast delicacies the man relaxes back to eat what’s been placed before him.
My captor reaches with a glass into the air and catches a bit of liquid nitrogen inside. “Will Mom be able to make brunch today?”
“I’m afraid not, Eva,” my potential father-in-law responds as Eva takes a sip of liquid nitrogen.
For odiums, if a name is longer than three syllables then it’s not the name of an odium, and really if anything in their lives gets too complicated they no longer consider themselves odium. Sometimes when I’m with my girlfriend’s family, I can’t help but think that if my mother tried the detoxing approach that they did, perhaps she wouldn’t be so uptight all the time. My mother, calm? The thought is almost laughable.
Eva’s father pauses between bites of intergalactic scrambled eggs to look at me. “And dear Kay,” he journeys, in that ever-calm tone of his, “I was wondering what time your parents would like you home by?”
I share a look with Eva. “Well, if we’re doing a ransom,” she starts, “then maybe–”
“Sometime after lunch?” I finish.
The other odium at the table wipes his fingers serenely on his napkin. “That’s fine by me,” he tells us. “Have you two made any extravagant plans for today?”
“Not this time,” I say, peering out of the window at the fleet and imagining what sort of chaos is ensuing at this very moment.
“That does remind me though,” my girlfriend announces, redirecting my attention. “I heard that there’s to be a new play on Quada’ar starting shortly if you’re interested. Opening night is said to be several days from now. This Saturday, I believe.”
I smile, thinking of what sort of scenario we’ll think up next to whisk me away for several hundred quaarsects. Something crazy, I’m sure.
“This Saturday, you said? Then it’s a date
I have been meeting more and more Americans abroad who permanently left the U.S. and told me it was the best thing they did, and that they never want to go back. Why is that so? Is it due to the POTUS?
Originally Answered: I have been meeting more and more Americans abroad who permanently left the U.S. and told me it was the best thing they did, or that they never want to go back. Why is that so, is it due to POTUS?
In 1997 My 44 yo wife died of cancer.
She had the best insurance money could buy.
While she was being treated, Chemo and radiation her renewal date came up and they cancelled her policy.
I lost everything I had worked for and decided to look elsewhere.
I got on a strangers sailboat and months later wound up in New Zealand from Seattle.
I have never entertained the idea of returning.
I have lived around the world and my eyes are wide open. Something that cannot happen by no travel.
I have found a lot of what Americans long for.
Lower taxes, totally freemedical for life, a safe country, no guns, no enemies and a most beautiful place tolive.
Not lacking in anything.
My town is 50% white and 50% Maoriand others.
no racial issues.
The quality of life is unsurpassed.
A govt that listens to it’s people. My only regret is not leaving 20 yrs earlier.
Comanche Women | More BRUTAL than the Men
Do you think Malaysia should adopt a different approach to the South China Sea dispute than Vietnam or the Philippines?
Look, the SCS spat has negligible economic value for all claimants, especially in light of the annual trade and investment the peace dividend engender.
That is not a contentious point of view.
The largest natural feature in the SCS is Taiping island, and has been continuously occupied by Taiwanese military way before the current troubles began.
The United States based troops on Taiwan, and recognized and supported Taiwan’s claims in the SCS until 1978, when it began the strategic withdrawal as part of the terms agreed with Beijing.
Not surprisingly, China flying a different flag is suddenly painted as the illegitimate bully making forceful, illegal claims without merit.
Taiping island therefore becomes an embarrassing contradiction in the department of state’s narrative. According to some, President Tsai was forced to cancel her trip under American pressure this year, an important tradition for departing presidents at term end.
Malaysia gains little strategic or economic advantage with ownership of the SCS features. There is no benefit starting an unnecessary quarrel with China, not when the scope for cooperation is a mile-long list.
The Philippines is pursuing a different agenda centered around big daddy. The longer this confrontation goes on, the more trade and investment will be affected.
Vietnam’s interest is strategic. As long as they don’t overreach, it should be manageable.
What are some of the most famous regrets ever?
A photo that absolutely haunts me is the photo below of Leni Riefenstahl, a famous movie director from Germany. Riefenstahl’s stylistic movie making skills had helped the Nazis make excellent propaganda for a few years, but Riefenstahl had been largely insulated from the brutality of their reign — she just made some nice films, attended red carpet events and dined with the high and mighty at their most charming. Everything changed in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and Riefenstahl decided to be a war correspondent…
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A German officer later relayed the story of the photo above. He said there was a group of Jewish Poles gathered in a square. Riefenstahl was shooting scenes and asked the soldiers to “remove the people from the square” so she could capture the square and the soldiers better… the officer to which Riefenstahl gave the command, relayed it to his men thus: “Riefenstahl says, get rid of the Jews!” And the soldiers nodded, aimed their rifles and opened fire on them. They gunned down the Jews in front of the frightened director…
The moment was captured on camera by an assistent. Leni Riefenstahl, on September 12, 1939, coming to terms with what the Nazis were really all about. She later tried to sanitize the events in her memoirs, in which she pretended she tried to intervene and was threatened with death after. Looking at the photo I don’t see brave intervention — just a woman, frozen in mortal terror as she is forced to watch the consequences of the propaganda she helped make.
Legally what will happen to a captain that abandons his ship, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves?
As with everything in this world, it depends.
Let’s take two real world examples, the Costa Concordia and the Oceanos.
In both cases the captains evacuated themselves from their ships while many passengers were still onboard.
In the famous case of the Costa Concordia, Captain Francesco Schettino famously left his ship aboard a launch and headed for shore despite being repeatedly warned to return to his ship by radio from a coast guard unit responding to the sinking.
He didn’t. He went to shore and was seen wringing out his wet socks as rescuers struggled to get passengers out of the water and safely to shore.
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He was nicknamed ‘Captain Coward’ by the press for his inactions and seeming lack of concern for those under his care.
He was ultimately charged with a variety of crimes, among them ‘abandoning a ship with passengers.’ He ended up being sentenced to 16 years for all the crimes which also included multiple manslaughters, causing a maritime accident, and lack of cooperation with rescue operations.
The other sinking was the passenger ship Oceanos. This French ship got caught in extremely bad weather and some rogue waves tore off a water inlet beneath the ship. Normally watertight compartments would prevent total sinking but uncompleted work left an uncapped open 4″ water pipe to let flooding water out of the compartment and into the rest of the ship.
Captain Yiannis Avranas and his crew never announced an emergency. As something was obviously wrong, entertainers and other passengers made their way to an empty bridge. One of the entertainers, Moss Hills, got on the radio and broadcast the first Mayday calls!
Captain Avranas and most of his entire command staff left the boat with many crew following, virtually abandoning the passengers.
The entertainers aboard the ship took over crew duties and managed to get all the passengers either into life boats or lifted off the deck by helicopter to safety.
Captain Avranas even had the audacity to call the ship and ask how the evacuation was going!!!
The captain was later quoted as saying, “When I order abandon the ship, it doesn’t matter what time I leave. Abandon is for everybody. If some people like to stay, they can stay.”
A Greek board of inquiry found Avranas and four officers negligent in their handling of the disaster, but he was never incarcerated, and his company, Epirotiki, gave him command of another ferry until his retirement.
What’s the shadiest tactic you’ve witnessed HR use at your job?
A company where I worked in the ’80s and ’90s had a policy of organizing all the employees into teams. If someone wanted to change jobs within the company they had to get the approval of both the team they were leaving and the team they would be joining.
A woman who was well-known as an excellent worker wanted to move to another, better job within the company. Everyone expected that she would have no difficulty since she had such a good reputation. Her team got together to do an evaluation of her, and everyone gave her glowing recommendations. They said they would be sorry to lose her, but that she had worked hard and learned a lot and deserved to get a promotion. Her new team also was impressed with her accomplishments and her reputation, and said they’d be glad to have her working with them.
So everyone was shocked to find that HR had denied her transfer. When questioned they said that her team’s evaluations had been TOO good, that no one was perfect and the evaluations couldn’t have been honest. However, they agreed to let her team do the evaluations over. The second time around, each person tried to come up with some criticism, but all they could think of were little things like “Sometimes her perfume is a little strong” or “Once a couple of years ago she was a few minutes late when she had a flat tire.” The result? HR denied her transfer AGAIN because there were too many negative comments!
This was too much! The team leaders from both her old team and the team she wanted to join went to upper management and insisted that she be given the transfer. No one else knew the details of what happened after that, but HR reversed their decision and she got the transfer.
One of the things that cat owners deal with is puss filled blisters from cat-fights. What happens is that a cats claw will tear into the skin and leave a mark. Sometimes the scratches get infected, and puss forms. The puss (more often than not) grows under the skin and forms a blister. The blister tends to get really big, and it is really painful for the cat. It is called a abscess. Many cat owners will take the cat to the vet if the have the means. The vet will then cut the blister, drain the puss, and put a lancet in the hold. This is two holes, and a string that is kept in place for a couple of days. But if you don’t have the money, or the time, there is a traditional easy way to drain the puss filled blisters. You make a poultice.
Crush up one or four cloves of garlic. Say about a tablespoon or two full.
Put it in a clean sock, so that it is at the bottom at the sock.
Then put the sock with the garlic in a pot and let it boil for a few minutes.
Then let it sit there for a while.
Then remove the sock and let it cool off until it is warm but not hot.
Then get the cat. Rap it in a blanket so it is a cat-burrito. Hold it with love and then softly place the WARM sock with the garlic on the abscess. After a few minutes, the cat will start to squirm. Just hold on tight. The medicine is working. It is causing the abscess to drain. Eventually, after 15 to 20 minutes, it will drain. The liquid would be a thick greyish color and rather yucky. Just clean it up with a tissue, and that’s about it. In a day or two everything will be back to normal. And that’s it. If you have a cat… I hope that this has been of help to you. And that is all for now. Today…
Will Boeing ever return to a time that their commercial aircraft was the gold standard of the airline industry?
I used to work helping large organizations to change the norms of behavior to do business more effectively, and I can tell you that … it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. It’s made even harder because the only way to do it effectively is if management is UTTERLY committed to it and gives it the day-to-day, year-after-year attention it takes to make it happen. That’s bloody rare. Usually, any commitment is just a thin patina over more deeply held and conflicting values that make such large scale change impossible.
So, WILL Boeing ever return to a time that they were the gold standard? I have doubts, but let’s just explore how that might happen.
I have not been inside doing research into Boeing’s inner workings, so I have no particular knowledge of what Boeing needs to do, but let me just throw out some things that I’ve seen over and over and over again that are LIKELY things Boeing needs to do.
It’s clear from Boeing’s divestment of its vertical manufacturing assets over the years that management and the Board have bought into the idea that return on net assets (RONA), return on capital employed (ROCE), and economic value added (EVA) are the most important measurements of success. This approach has made Boeing dependent on quality assurance processes outside their direct control with terrible results. Boeing just announced the re-acquisition of a key vendor in what is clearly an attempt to bring at least some vertical manufacturing back. So that’s a positive.
From external reports, it seems clear that Boeing’s formal (and VERY likely informal) internal reward/punishment system focuses on meeting production goals. When quality is not a strong enough factor in being rewarded and avoiding punishment, you can be absolutely certain that managers at all levels will cut corners on quality in order to meet production goals. Boeing has to fix this, and fix it now. That will require both formal reworking of performance management and incentive pay design and a constant message that producing zero defects will enhance careers (and also making this true).
What Boeing really needs to do is to focus on this culture shift from production to quality right away, making the point to investors and customers that getting the quality issue right will lead to higher production. And it will, of course. Boeing has been mired in production difficulties stemming from supply chain disruption, ill-fitting parts, poorly made assemblies, and the like since they distributed their manufacturing to outside vendors. But this is not what will happen.I’ve been through this. What management will say is something like, “We have to become 100% focused on quality WHILE improving production,” followed up by something like, “We have to fix the bicycle while we’re riding it.” The result will be a mess of conflicting messages and reward and punishment structures. Employees and managers will quickly figure out which messages are BS and which are real, and the production side is likely to win out as the “real” message.
The decision to use the 737 airframe over and over in new variants to meet market demand in that segment is not working out well. Boeing needs a new aircraft, and there are serious questions about whether it is up to the job of producing a successful one. That’s an engineering issue, and there are serious doubts about whether senior management is up to the task.
So … can they? Sure. It’s possible. WILL they? I doubt it. It’s very hard to make this kind of change, and they really just may not have the management talent to pull it off.
What is your best experience with a babysitter as a child?
My Mom had a baby like every two years. So, it was pretty common for us to have a babysitter during the day when she was in the hospital.
We were a houseful of boys, so we went through babysitters like water. One of our most faithful babysitters was graduating high school, so she would not be available for much longer. Fortunately, she had two younger sisters, and the older of the two decided to sit for us.
Well, like I said, we were a bunch of boys, and our cousins who also lived on the farm were a bunch of boys as well. One of them was my best friend, and we were constantly finding ways to get in trouble.
As the years went by it finally came down to the youngest sitter to sit for us. Unfortunately, she was rather nervous about it after hearing stories from her older sisters about these country boys and their shenanigans.
When we heard that the she was going to be the new girl we thought we’d give her the good ole country boys welcome!
We used red food coloring to taint the water in our water guns. Then we put on white t-shirts.
When we heard Barbie (that was her real name) in the kitchen we began to yell at each other. No AC in the house, so the screen windows and doors allowed all the outside noises in.
She came to the kitchen window and asked what all the fussing was about. We made up some stupid story about how my cousin did me wrong, and I was going to shoot him.
She told us to behave and be quiet, but we would have none of it.
When I saw her looking at us I raised my water gun and yelled “Pow! Suddenly, my cousin’s shirt starting sporting a giant red mark. Another Pow and another shot to his chest.
We heard Barbie scream, but she screamed louder when my cousin shot me! We both fell down in the yard, and she went ballistic.
I’m not sure what happened after that, but my father came home in the middle of the day.
That was the first and last time that Barbie sat for us.
After that we had an old black woman who wasn’t nearly as excitable. But her fried chicken tamed us all.
When a Killer Vlogs His Murders
https://youtu.be/-vorUEpbHNU
Why can’t I find a single photo of the actual deaths as a result of Mao’s ‘great leap forward policy’, the greatest mass killing in history?
First off, kudos on asking this question. It seems as if, perhaps, you are beginning to think. I mean, if the numbers some report are accurate, then there must be physical evidence of it, right? But I’ll get to that aspect of it later. Before that, I should point out that strictly speaking, the Great Leap Forward didn’t result in any deaths (or at least any numbers of note. I’m sure that there were some mundane accidents, but not an anomalous amount). It was, however, a contributing factor in making the Great Chinese Famine worse than it could’ve been. This famine is what (usually anti-Chinese) people point to when they make their claims about the Great Leap Forward. But there were a few reasons why this occurred. In short, it was a mixture of mistakes on the national level, mistakes on the local level, environmental problems, and international political problems.
National level
The biggest mistake on the national level comes from a policy which was meant to eradicate endemic problems. There were four animals that were targeted as pests – rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. Some of these, like mosquitoes, are pretty obvious. Other ones, like sparrows, were not, but since they were known to eat crops, they were targeted. It later was realized that sparrows also kept in check the population of other, more dangerous (but less common) pests, like locusts. You see, locusts are a strange creature. They really don’t normally exist. Instead, usually they are grasshoppers, but when there is a large population of grasshoppers, they change themselves into the swarming variation, which we know as locusts. Since, besides crops, sparrows ate grasshoppers, and the population of sparrows was greatly diminished, it meant that the population of grasshoppers grew. Once it reached a large enough threshold, they morphed into locusts and devastated crops much more than sparrows ever could.
Environmental level
Yeah, I know, I have local mistakes listed before this, but in order for you to understand things more, it’s important that this goes here. Right as the Great Leap Forward began, in 1958, the Yellow River flooded. Nearly 2000 farming villages had to be evacuated. The end result was that the farmland was devastated in that region, and was unworkable that year. That already put the food reserves down from where they should’ve been. Because of the flooding, over the next few years, labor was moved from agriculture to building new dams, reservoirs, irrigation canals, etc. in order to help control the water. But again, this meant fewer workers in the fields, putting a strain on the system once again. Then, in 1960, China was hit with a drought. Now, it wasn’t the worst drought ever, but it was considerable, especially considering the aforementioned waterworks weren’t ready yet. This, again, therefore, resulted in crop failures.
Local level
Throughout 1958, a system of farming communes was implemented, and initially, the system was showing an increase in crop production. Local leaders were pleased by this, and based their production quotas on the belief that this was only the beginning. However, due to the above mentioned problems (i.e. the killing of sparrows and the weather extremes), the amount of crops grown kept shrinking. Many of the local leaders in charge of the communes tried to hide this fact – they didn’t want to admit either their mistake or the failure of the system. Instead, they pretended that everything was great, and they even falsely reported a continual increase in the amount of crops grown. Due to the local leaders being unwilling to communicate the problems, the national government didn’t initially know about it, and therefore did nothing. Food was taken away from the communes as if things were fine, but it actually resulted in the farmers who grew the food starving.
International level
Now, for starters here, we’ve got to go back around 20 or so years prior to the Great Leap Forward. During the war with Japan, as the Japanese advanced, the dictator of the Republic of China (the Chinese Civil War was still ongoing, but was put on hold around this time) ordered the destruction of infrastructure throughout China, including dams and canals, in order to slow down the advances of the Japanese troops. When the Chinese Civil War ended, and the ROC lost, the newly-founded PRC was practically bankrupt – the dictator of the ROC emptied the national treasury and looted museums before fleeing to the recently returned island of Taiwan. Work rebuilding what had been destroyed had to be prioritized, which is one of the reasons why the flooding of the Yellow River was so devastating – they hadn’t gotten around to rebuilding the waterworks yet.
But as for the period of the Great Chinese Famine in general, as knowledge of the situation finally reached the national level, it was too late for them to turn around and fix it themselves. People were already starving, which created a vicious cycle (starving people became weaker, which meant less output, which meant less food, which meant more starving). But by this time, in large part thanks to the Great Leap Forward, the industrial production side of the economy was stronger than it had ever been. They could trade with the rest of the world… except for one small problem. At that time, the United Nations still recognized the ROC as the government of China (it didn’t change until 1971, when the UN General Assembly voted on making the PRC the official government of China). As such, nations like the United States embargoed trade, meaning that it was basically impossible to import any food to alleviate the problem.
Now you know what happened and why, but how does that relate to your question? Well, right at the beginning, I mentioned how you were asking the right question. This is because it’s very important to understand the numbers reported. By looking at actual historical documents and other evidence, the numbers reported in China are between 3–6 million deaths. Now, I’m sure that you’d be shocked by that number – not because of how many died, but because of how few died. This is because in the West, the high numbers they report (I’ve personally seen people claim 50 million, 60 million, and 80 million deaths – the number always changes) are not actually deaths. You see, the number that they give are based on the birthrate. During the time of the Great Chinese Famine, birthrates dropped. They then look at this drop in birthrate and attribute non-births as deaths. Their argument being that if there were no famine, then these children would’ve been born. Therefore, their not being born means that they died. It honestly doesn’t make any sense. It’s like claiming that every time a man pleasures himself, he murders, on average, between 80 million and 300 million children (since that’s the average number of “lil’ swimmers” in a man’s “load”). But by claiming these high numbers, they can then turn around and claim that China is this big, bad, evil thing. And that’s the crux of the problem. The reason why you can’t find any photos of 50+ million deaths is because they literally weren’t there.
And for the record, isn’t it fascinating that people get hung up on this while completely ignoring the famines in British-controlled India that were directly caused by British policies? Around the same number of people died in what is now Bangladesh in 1943 due to the British essentially stealing the food from the local people. But, of course, you’ll never hear about that, since it makes a Western nation look bad.
What was the cruellest secret that anybody ever kept from you?
Nobody told me that my dad was dead. Here’s the deal, I was born out of wedlock to an interracial couple in the early 80s in (super white) Oregon. I’m my mother’s only child, my dad has 2 older boys.
He was a truck driver originally from Oklahoma, his route frequently took him to the West Coast, at some point in 1978 or 1979 he meets my mom and they strike up a relationship.
So a couple years down the road, they decide it’s time for a baby. They apparently already had a pregnancy earlier on, but ultimately decided to terminate it for whatever reason.
My mom was very adamant that although she never wanted kids (which is a whole separate topic entirely!) but she saw how great my dad was with kids and how much kids seemed to just naturally take to him, that she wanted that man’s baby! So due to his occupation, my dad was frequently in and out of the picture.
The relationship between them was very on and off (which I suspect the fact that my mom is gay played a factor.) anyways,
I’m born in August of 1982, named after my dad (middle name is “Dawn” and my dad’s first name is “Don”). For the next few months my parents really tried to make it work.
My mom was growing extra annoyed with my dad for what she perceived as lazy, he had stopped driving truck, had started smoking an increasingly large amount of marijuana, it just wasn’t working out for either one of them.
Apparently they split amicably and so when my dad told my mom that he needed to go back home because he just got the news that someone in his family had just gotten very sick, my mom thought nothing of it.
Then pretty soon the numbers he gave my mom to reach him in Oklahoma stopped working. The days, weeks, months go by…. nothing. My mom realized he wasn’t coming back and she was right. Now that I’m a mother, I can only imagine how that must have felt. To add insult to injury, I grew up to be the female version of my father, both physically and otherwise.
I’m told I walk and stand like him even. Same sense of humor, same musical abilities, similar personality… basically an everyday reminder of the child my mom was left to raise alone. Growing up I was told that my dad walked out on us, he was a deadbeat, this and that, in the same breath told that I’m exactly like him…which is very confusing to an already confused little girl.
So fast forward 30+ years, I reach out and find my dad’s family. The first call was from an aunt, my dad’s sister.
I see her Facebook profile and immediately notice the resemblance between myself and her, her daughter, and granddaughter!
She tells me “how pretty I am” lol, I laugh cause I look just like her! She tells me that they all knew about me.
My dad brought back so many pictures of me as a baby and had his entire room decorated with them. I asked when I would be able to talk to him, she got real quiet… she said that their brother would call me…ok…my uncle calls me next. Informs me that my dad had passed shortly after leaving Oregon the last time he saw me. He had been diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer sometime during my mom’s pregnancy and didn’t know how to tell her….so he just didn’t.
I was led to believe that my dad was a deadbeat who didn’t want me. In reality, I’m told that he literally died while looking at my baby picture on his wall. Later on I would come to know some caviats that at least give me some insight as to why no one felt it was necessary to notify my mom that he died.
My uncle told me that my dad specifically asked him to make sure I wasn’t around his family, he wanted me to be raised in Oregon by my mom and her family.
A cousin and I talked and she told me that sexual abuse is almost everywhere you look in our family, however when my dad was around, you knew you were safe!
He was 6ft 5 and wasn’t up for reasoning with anyone who hurts kids…that makes me proud! An uncle backed up this with telling me that my dad didn’t want me around any of his family if he wasn’t around to protect me, his only daughter.
I get that, but growing up feeling unwanted and unloved is not easy trauma to heal from either.
How a Small Town Took Out the Town Bully And Covered It Up for 30 Years
What do Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans think of each other?
This is the personal opinion of one Japanese person.
South Koreans:
They will help even strangers when they are in trouble.
Once you become friends with them, they treat you like family.
They will treat you with respect if you are older than them.
They often give gifts.
They are studious.
They are better at English than Japanese.
They are taller than Japanese.
They have a high sense of beauty.
They have a unique culture.
Korean idols are good at singing and dancing.
They make a lot of interesting movies and dramas.
Their GDP per capita is higher than Japan’s.
They are hasty, but they are often late for appointments.
North Koreans:
It is believed that there are many North Korean operatives in Japan.
North Korea once broadcast random numbers in the middle of the night, which we thought it was a code for spies. The North Korean female announcer kept repeating a code-like phrase over and over, which felt creepy to me when I heard it for the first time.
There was a rumor that if Japanese went to the sea at night, they would be abducted by North Korea. In fact, in 2002, North Korea admitted to abductions.
Chinese:
They are cheerful and have a sense of humor.
They are kind.
They are cheerful and have a sense of humor.
They are kind.
For better or worse, they are honest.
Many Chinese people in Japan are good at Japanese.
They are very proactive. I can see them even in where Japanese people rarely come.
They give their seats to elderly people on the train.
We both use kanji (Chinese Character), so even though they are foreigners, I feel a sense of closeness.
They value their families.
They have ancient Chinese saints that Japanese people respect.
They have a rich food culture. Yes, we love Chinese food.
They are far more advanced than Japan in the IT field.
The factory of the world. Most of the products around us are MADE IN CHINA.
They are good at sports.
They don’t apologize easily compared to Japanese people.
The Moment Cops Find the Man Offering Kids Candy to Get into His Truck
How do you feel when you see China go from the sick man of East Asia to a world power? I’m not hostile. I’m just asking?
The term “sick man” describing China as being ill and weak actually first came from British writers in the 19th century.
The term “sick man” being applied to China first appeared in the Daily News on 5 Jan 1863. The Daily News, started by Charles Dickens, was a national daily newspaper of Great Britain in those days.
At the time, China was undergoing a large scale civil war known as the Taiping Rebellion, which was started by a Hakka person by the name of Hong Xiuquan. He claimed to be the incarnated brother of Jesus Christ who had the heaven’s mandate to rule China. The Daily News was reporting on the ongoing civil war:
“Great pains have been taken to impress upon the public of this country the idea that China is in “agony,” but that cannot be truly said of it as a whole, and there seems some danger that the disorder of this sick man is about to be aggravated rather than alleviated.”
Two days later, the article was reprinted on Belfast Morning News under the title “The Supposed ‘Sick Man’ in China.”
So, it was the British newspapers who first described China as a “sick man”. In those days, the British must have felt they were superior after they defeated China twice in the two Opium Wars, looting many of the war booties from Chinese imperial palaces. Of course, the largest booty taken from China was Hong Kong.
Karma seems to have returned in one big circle. As China ascends to soon become the #1 economy of the world, British economy is sinking further after she was mismanaged by a number of Tory governments and most importantly, after Brexit.
At the current trajectory, it won’t be surprised to see Great Britain no longer become great but “aggravated rather than alleviated.” UK may just become a “sick man of Europe”.
Historian Warns the American Civil War of 2024 Has Already Started
What did the job interviewer say that made you NOT accept the job offer?
I’ve been in sales for roughly the last 20 years, and managing a team for the last 3. About 6 months ago I sent out some resumes to see what my current market value is, and to take on a new challenge. I saw an ad on LinkedIn, the job seemed perfect for me, the description was one that I would have written for myself if someone asked me what my next career challenge.
About 2 days after I sent my resume I got a call from their in house recruiter, a brief phone conversation and mutually agreed to move forward with a phone interview with the guy who would be my boss. I get an email shortly after my phone call with days/times available and we pick a time for a 2nd phone interview. He and I hit it off well, talked for 30 minutes or so, great dialog, call going great. He explains at teh beginning that he has a “hard stop” in 30 minutes. We get close to the 30 minute mark, he says, if I’m still interested, that next week he and his boss can fly into my area, or they’ll fly me out to them for a face to face.
They were going to be in NY the following week for a client meeting so it was decided that we’d meet while they were in the city, I’d work that area for the day and we’d grab lunch… all good.
We meet for lunch at a great restaurant, sit, good conversation, going well and I. WANT. THIS. JOB. Their Sr. VP of sales (he would be my boss’s boss) says they’ve made a decision, they flew up wanted to make sure that I present well in person before making an offer. They slide an offer letter across the table and we continue to talk about the job. I ask my favorite interview question
“Why did the person I’d be replacing leave this position?”
There’s plenty of good answers to this question, but I wasn’t ready for the answer that came from the Sr VP of sales. “Bob was very good at his job, he was with us 4 years, the last 2 he was salesman of the year, wrote 20–25% increases when the rest of the company was averaging 12%. He made great money, won the company trip. We decided to increase his budget to a 30% increase, he didn’t hit his numbers so we mutually agreed to cut our work relationship.”
I asked some follow up questions: “what was the rest of the team budget increases?” around 8% was the answer. “what was he trending?” about 22%. If he was writing 22% increase this year, and wrote more than 2.5X the average salesrep, why would you want to let him go, and why was the choice mutual?”
“Well his job is to hit budget, he wasn’t doing his job if he was only 22%. And because he was making less this year than last, he was complaining about his income being so much lower than the previous 4 years, we agreed he should find another job”
I had a brief follow up question: “If over the last 4 years he increased his/your business by over 100%, why would he make less money than in previous years?”
“Our commission structure is based on percent of budget, not on sales dollars, or sales increase”
My final question was, “so l want to make sure I understand, if I CRUSH this year, end up doubling my business, the following year you can budget me a 100% increase and if I only write a 75% increase, I’ll make less money, despite the huge increase again? and about how much less?” The answer was that it was a mathematical formula, and it would have been roughly 1/2 of previous year.
I thanked them for lunch, told them that’s not a program I would want to be on. I never opened their offer letter and have no idea what they offering. I just knew that it wasn’t the place for me. They knowingly wrote a budget the guy likely wouldn’t hit so they could decrease his pay.
NOPE NOT ME… I want every salesperson on my team to make as much as possible. The more they sell, the more they make. The more they make, the more I make, and the more the owner of our company makes
Men Are Turning Their Back On The West As It Collapses
Does China have a 24-hour uninterrupted power supply throughout the year?
In Urban China – Yes
Every Apartment has a Battery System and since most power cuts are between 30 seconds to 2 minutes due to distribution change (As Demand rises and eases through the day) – the Average Chinese doesn’t ever feel there are power cuts
Every Apartment nowadays has a backup battery system that immediately comes on when the power goes and within 1–2 minutes the power is back
Otherwise if the Apartments are older (Built Pre 2007), then they have a Generator and after 45 seconds to 90 seconds, the Generator is automatically powered on
So maximum you may have 1 – 1 1/2 minutes without power
The Lift will drop you on the next floor even without power (If you are between the 6th and 7th floors, it will go to the seventh floor and drop you and then stop there till either power comes back or Generator is on)
Longer power cuts happen due to (a) Weather related reasons
In such cases a Generator can run for upto 24–48 hours
You also have a six month maintenance for 8 hours without power
Yet again Generator and Battery makes sure that Power cuts are rarely even felt
Rural China is different
Rural China has a 92.2% Rural Electrification Rate meaning even today (31/12/23) , 7.8% Rural Households don’t have electricity (Mostly Xizang)
Priority is for Industry, so many times power cuts happen for even 1 Hour Or 2 Hours
Plus without a Coal supply, Power cuts could happen for 8–12 hours also
The Solothurn 20mm Anti-Tank Rifle
Mexi-Chili Casserole
aaa818fdcdd81d0827944dfad311c9e7
Ingredients
1 to 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 (16 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can enchilada sauce
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1 (6 ounce) package corn chips
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 to 1 1/2 cups sour cream
Instructions
In a skillet brown the ground beef. Drain off fat.
Combine beans, enchilada and tomato sauces in a bowl with minced onion.
Set aside 1 cup corn chips and 1/2 cup cheese.
Add the remaining cheese and corn chips with the meat to the beans. Stir to blend.
Empty into a lightly buttered 2 quart casserole.
Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes or until heated through.
Spread the top with sour cream and sprinkle with the reserved cheese.
Ring the remaining corn chips around the edge; return to the oven for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the cheese melts.
Notes
This will double or triple easily for a large group. May be made ahead and refrigerated.
Question: China’s proven history does not exceed 3,700 years. Why does China state that their history exceeds 5,000 years?
Answer:
Nowadays the proof is actually quite simple, because they did dig up proof that China’s proven history exceed 5000 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liangzhu_culture
Of course, they know that previously as well. Duh, by the time oracle bones (where the 3700 years comment comes from) are around, the Chinese culture were a full-fledged feudal level civilization complete with culture custom and technology in all fields.
So unless you think aliens made the Chinese and skipped from stone/early bronze age straight to late bronze age/early iron age, then it is safe to assume the Chinese, like everyone else, spent considerable amount of time in those early age before advancing to the point where they found the oracle bones.
The fact they picked perishable material for record is a shame and made the later archeological work harder, but even very basic and simple logic should be able to tell you that fully developed civilization doesn’t just pop out of thin air and the previous archeologists are certainly capable of simple logic.
Edit (2023–06–06):
Apparently in the recent times they have dug out a lot more from the Liangzhu Ruins:
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Note, the picture below is a re-creation based on the existing excavation results:
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It turned out the ancient Chinese has been building things on par or even bigger than the great pyramids, but instead of tombs, these things are in the form of fortified city walls, water dams, etc. Certainly less mysterious than the pyramids since it doesn’t involve the dead, but actually a lot more challenging engineering-wise.
And yes, they started to dug up things with marks now:
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One of the major mystery right now is this:
“What on earth were they fighting to require city walls of that size”? Because the Liangzhu walls were on par with something you’d see in great civilizations in 5th century BC instead 30th century BC.
The popular opinion right now is, well, the the Chinese ancestor were very very into human sacrifice. Specifically, prior to Zhou dynasty’s religious reforms in around 1000BC, the Chinese used to perform human sacrifice to such a scale that made Aztecs look like pacifists. This is mostly owning to the fact that there were a lot more people in East Asia back then than central Americas during Aztec’s time, but still.
So it is a high possibility that the ancient Chinese, when they war with each other, the loser would have an excellent chance of ending up on a sacrificial altar rather than being enslaved. So they are really afraid of losing.
Does the USA have a stronger army than the whole world combined?
Hell, no.
The USA isn’t even strong enough to take on Russia. Otherwise, it would put boots on the ground in Ukraine.
Remember, the USA had no qualms about fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but against Russia, it is reluctant.
China’s military is larger than the USA’s. The largest army (over 2 million). The largest navy (over 370 warships). A vast rocket force (including hypersonic) and a large fleet of stealth fighters (J-20). The USA would be foolish to take on China.
Combine Russia’s army and China’s army and Iran’s army (which is formidable), and the USA is easily outclassed.
The Oubliette: A Medieval Torture of Unspeakable Horror…
As a Chinese, did you become anti CPC, pro-democratic, and USA fan after accessing websites and social media platforms which are blocked in China?
No, and in fact, it’s the opposite.
I WAS an anti-CPC, pro-democratic and USA fan before I got access to the banned social media. It’s an universal rule that banned things are more appealing to people. U.S was like a heaven and I am living in hell.
But things change when I got a Facebook account, and I saw queations like:
I suddenly realized that foreigners, they are NOT Gods. Yes, they’ve had amazing persons, but they have fools too. There’s no such places of absolute heaven on earth.
I got so fed up of all the bias and racism on the Internet
I got so fed up of these losers blaming their own economy failure on my country.
I got so upset about people constantly asking me if my dog is safe.
I got so fed up of people denying everything you said just with the single reason of Chinese propaganda.
I’m brain washed and I know. Many of you didn’t realized that they are brain washed in some ways, and this is much much more dangerous than pure propaganda.
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
When I was the receptionist for a corporate office, there was always a bit of confusion as to who was supposed to relieve me when I went to lunch. The duty was shared around the office (often without the knowledge of the department that was suddenly saddled with answering the phones), but since the general rule in the office was that we only did warm transfers, that meant there had to be a person on the line to actually complete the transfer.
One day, we got a new GM and a new assistant to the GM, and after the question came up again between myself and the GM, the assistant inserted herself into the conversation to say that the phones should just be turned off when I went to lunch. After all, anyone who was affiliated with the company would know how to use the company directory to reach any office employee that they wanted to find, and anyone else would know to leave a message.
I tried to explain that this was not a good idea. I did not go to lunch at regular times, so on some days, the phones might be off from 11 to 12 and other days they might be off from 1 to 2 with no explanation. Also, it was not even remotely reliable to expect that other departments would answer the phones, even if they were called directly at their desk. Certain people in the office were well known for ignoring phone calls if they didn’t care to answer. But the assistant, who did not want to be put in the position to possibly answer the phones, remained insistent, and the GM decided that would be fine. Turn the phones off when you go to lunch, April.
So sure enough, one day when the GM was out of town, he called back into the office and couldn’t get anyone on the phone for a solid hour. When I got back from my lunch break, I had a very terse email to call him. I did.
Him: ”Why aren’t you answering the phones?“
Me: “I was at lunch.”
Him: ”Well, where’s [my assistant]?”
Me: ”Not sure, sir, I don’t see her at her desk at the moment, she might be walking around or she might also be at lunch.”
Him: ”Okay, but what about accounting? I called every one of their desks and none of them answered. Are they also all at lunch?”
Me: ”No, they’re all back there. Remember when I told you that if they’re in the middle of something, they don’t answer their phones, even if you called them directly?”
Him: (tangibly frustrated now) “So if you’re at lunch, NOBODY answers the phone at all?”
Me: ”Nope. Remember when your assistant said that it would be perfectly okay to turn the phones off for an hour? This is literally what happens if I’m not answering phones; nobody else bothers.”
There was silence. Then “Alright, I’ll handle it when I get back.”
He did. The phones stayed on while I went to lunch after that. And that assistant (after taking a shift on phones one day and coming away with a traumatized expression after one hour) began to keep her opinions to herself.
… sometimes.
2 men indicted for destruction on ancient Lake Mead rock formation
Why does it seem like no one wants to work these days?
so that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture,
so that their children can study painting, poetry, music, architecture, sculpture, tapestry and porcelain.
Notice the shift from ‘must’ to ‘may have’ to ‘can’.
This increase in the liberty to choose what you want to do with generations is known as intergenerational mobility.
For one generation, work is a need. They have no luxury to choose. Whether it is 16 hours or 18 hours, whether they like it or not, whether they are healthy or not, they have to work because their whole family depends on their income. They are like manual labourers in a company.
For the next generation, work is a want. They have the limited luxury of choosing where to work, what kind of job they want and how many hours they want to work. They have vacations, investments, insurance and relaxed evenings. They are like managers in the same company.
For the next, next generation, work becomes a passion and a desire. They are in the elite class. They have all the liberty to choose what they want to do, study what they like and switch their passions. They have the resources to do all the outsourcing and the privilege to use their mind more than their body. They are the business owners or angel investors.
So as you move forward with decades, you encounter more people coming out of poverty and climbing the ladder. Either because of technology development or their accumulated wealth, they don’t have to work as hard as their previous generation and do things which they really, really like. They get the luxury to choose their fights or whether to fight or not.
The hatch of the Aurora groaned open, its edges scraping against the jagged terrain. Astrid’s boots thudded onto the alien soil, sending up a puff of purple dust. Miles followed slowly, his eyes flicking around their surroundings.”Stable ground,” Astrid announced, her voice echoing slightly within the confines of her helmet. “Finally, after nineteen months! Atmosphere and temperature readings all within normal range. This planet might really be it.””Could be warmer,” said Miles.Astrid laughed, drinking in the silent panorama of undulating purple hills under a sky dotted with three tiny suns. She retracted her helmet and took a deep breath, the crisp air catching pleasurably in her throat.“This deserves a toast,” she said, swinging her loaded backpack onto the ground. It landed with a clang and Miles frowned.“Careful with that, Captain.”“Don’t worry, Miles. The embryos are safe in here.” She pulled out a slim platinum canister, perfectly smooth and cool, and waved it gently at him. “Ten thousand don’t take up much space, so ninety-nine percent of this is high-tech, triple-layered, thirty-first century bubble wrap filled with cryogel. It would survive a bomb blast, they actually tested for that.”“I know. Can’t help it.” Astrid’s voice softened. “This is the batch that contains two of yours. Of course you want the best for them. I never asked before, but did you give them names?” “Yes,” said Miles. “Exactly the same names. James Cadenius Eden and Isabel Zyla Eden.” “Did the cloning lab give you the extrapolative photos?” “Yeah, they’re pretty good. Close enough.” He looked into the distance. “Hopefully this planet is different enough.” “I checked – it has zero history and undetectable probabilities of level-seven tectonic tsunamis.” “Thanks, Cap. How about that toast?” Astrid rummaged for her thermos, a battered thing of daffodil yellow, with pill-shaped figures dancing around the rim. Some of them were wearing denim pinafores. “What the hell are those things, Cap?” “They’re called Minions,” Astrid said, smiling. “From a truly ancient movie, I can’t even remember what it was called. But they’re mad and bloody cute, and there’s some really good single malt inside. To James Cadenius and Isabel Zyla Eden.” Suddenly there was a buzzing sound. Miles put down his cup and dropped into a protective crouch, gun already in hand. Astrid stuffed her thermos into her backpack and put a hand on the laser knife at her utility belt. “Protect the embryos,” Miles hissed. Out of nowhere, a shadow eclipsed the triple suns above them, casting a dark veil over the landscape. A massive figure hurtled towards them, crashing into the ground with a thunderous impact that reverberated through their boots. Astrid’s hazel eyes widened in shock at the creature before her – a hulking mass of sinew and muscle, covered in vomit-green skin and brown bristles. Its grotesque features were contorted in a fearsome snarl, revealing rows of jagged teeth. Astrid and Miles ran, but the creature unleashed a weapon unlike anything they had ever seen. From its massive fist shot a glowing orb that pulsated with an ominous energy. Before they could react, the orb shot towards them with blinding speed, lengthening out into whipcords made of pure light that wrapped tightly all around them. Astrid and Miles strained against the luminous bonds, but the more they struggled, the tighter they were bound. “Who are you? What do you want?” Astrid gasped. To her surprise, the creature actually spoke. “I, Xoragzhar of Takuun,” it said. “You have Origin. Give me.” “The origin? Of what?” “He can’t mean the embryos, can he?” Miles whispered. Xoragzhar heard and stepped closer, nodding. “Origin. Of N’uru. Give me now.” Astrid studied Xoragzhar’s face, a twisted visage with a bulbous nose, deep-set yellow eyes, and a wide mouth lined with teeth like broken tombstones. His breath came out in raspy huffs, fogging the air between them. Jagged, frantic, raspy huffs. She looked at the meaty stubbled hands. They were shaking. Why? “We can’t give you what you seek,” Astrid replied in a firm and deliberate voice. “We are on a mission. We need to find a home for the last of our species. They are not yours to take.” She felt Miles flick a gaze at her. Then he said in a conversational tone, “How did you know about them? What are they the origin of?” Well done, Miles, thought Astrid. Keep stalling. She inched her fingers toward her utility belt, feeling for the hilt of her knife. Xoragzhar stamped on the ground. “No time!” he roared. “Give me now!” He shook a hairy fist and the glowing whipcord tightened even more. Astrid’s hand shot out from behind her, blazing orange from her laser knife. She slashed wildly. The crackling bonds fell away, dissipating into shimmering motes of energy. She heard Miles land on his feet and shouted, “Run!” They sprinted across the rugged terrain, the alien landscape blurring into streaks of color. Astrid’s heart pounded in her chest, adrenaline fueling her muscles as she pushed herself to keep pace with Miles. Xoragzhar’s heavy feet thundered behind them, growing closer with each passing moment. As they weaved through a labyrinth of rock formations, the air started buzzing again. A sudden gust of wind whipped up a thick cloud of purple dust. Then it settled to reveal a glimmering figure. Astrid skidded to a stop, nearly colliding with the mysterious being. A vision of otherworldly grace and splendor, he even had translucent wings, fluttering like delicate petals in the breeze. She thought, this is the meaning of iridescence. Intricate patterns adorned his silvery skin, shimmering in the ambient light, like filigree. The being held up a long-fingered, gently coruscating hand. Behind them, Xoragzhar thunked against what seemed to be an invisible wall and fell with a grunt. Astrid found that if she looked very hard, she could just see the merest whisper of a gossamer web hanging in the air. The being smiled. “You know what this means, Xoragzhar.” He turned his violet gaze towards Astrid and Miles. “Welcome, Dr Miles Eden and Captain Astrid Chang. My name is Za’raa. Welcome to N’urubia.” Xoragzhar growled, “Takuun. This Takuun.” “You know who we are?” said Miles, still staring. “Yes, Dr Eden. We have known who you are for three hundred million years.” What? “We know you were searching for a new home, a sanctuary for your kind. We know you brought to us our Origin.” “How?” Astrid demanded. “This mission is classified.” “This mission was successful. You did it. You brought to this planet the Origin of my people, the N’uru.” Xoragzhar spat. “The Origin took root and blossomed. In the beginning there were only ten thousand of us. And then there were a hundred thousand. And then a billion, whose skin began silvering, whose wings began budding. And now, here we are,” said Za’raa, opening his arms wide. Astrid blinked. “Are you saying that you’re descended fro— no, that you’re from the futur— oh my God, that you mutated—” “Yes, Captain Chang, and yes, and yes, though we prefer the word ‘evolved’. And Dr Eden – may I call you Miles? – I thought you might like to know, there are fourteen families among the N’uru named Eden, all healthy and thriving. Your children had good genes.” Miles’ eyes blazed hard enough to power a city. “I want to see them.” “Perhaps you will,” Za’raa said with a smile. “How will you do that?” asked a perplexed Astrid. “How are you here? And how are you here now?” “We have Xoragzhar’s people to thank. They spent generations building a time machine. All that time and energy that could have gone into building armies, multiplying themselves, even learning how to speak properly… no, they decided this machine was more important. And this is their big day. They used it for the first time today.” “To bring the Aurora here?” “No, child, you would have come here anyway. The machine was for bringing Xoragzhar here, three hundred million years into his past. And me too,” Za’raa added brightly, “although it wasn’t what they planned. Now, ask me why.” “Uh-huh?” Za’raa leaned in to look Astrid in the eye. “To destroy the embryos.” Astrid whirled around to glare at Xoragzhar. “What? Why?” Xoragzhar said, “N’uru, they take. Take and take and take. Food, air, water. But they say, not enough. Never enough. Then they say, too many Takuun. They say, kill Takuun.” Za’raa shrugged his slender elegant shoulders. “The primitive have to evolve, or die. I believe you would call it a zero-sum game.” He stretched out a hand to Astrid. “Now please give me the Origin.” Astrid ignored the hand. “Xoragzhar, what happened to your people? How many are there left?” Unhappy yellow eyes met her own. “Only five, and me.” Za’raa said, “Before you ask, the five were guarding the time machine. Against us. Well, there are only four left now. Possibly less.” He grinned at Xoragzhar. “I did bring a dozen of my best warriors with me.” Astrid stumbled backward toward Xoragzhar, keeping her backpack as far as she could from Za’raa. “No. I can’t let this happen. I can’t create a population of goddamn murderers.” Something went click. Astrid froze. Miles was pointing his gun at her. “My children. Get. To live,” he said in a low, dangerous voice she’d never heard from him before. “Miles…” “Take out the embryos and give them to Za’raa.” “No bloody way.” A now-familiar buzzing sound filled the air for the third time. Za’raa said, his expression serene, “Ah, a little more… encouragement has arrived for Captain Chang.” A dozen armed N’uru shimmered out of thin air. Their silver armour was battered and scratched, and there was blood in their golden hair and on their beautiful faces and filigreed hands, but their eyes glowed with triumph. A cold finger ran down Astrid’s spine. “Did you get them all?” inquired Za’raa mildly. “Yes, sir.” Xoragzhar’s howl echoed through the clearing, raising all the hairs on Astrid’s arms. A glowing orb appeared in each of his fists and stretched out into scythes. He hacked at the gossamer wall in front of him. The N’uru guards drew their weapons – spiked flails that glowed also – and marched toward him. Miles watched them advance, rapt. “Captain Chang,” said Za’raa, “there really are no more reasons not to give me the embryos. Once Xoragzhar is dead, which will be in about five minutes, there will be no more Takuun left to save.” Astrid dropped her head. She knelt and shrugged off her backpack, undid it with trembling fingers. She rummaged until her hand closed around the cold metal cylinder it sought. Averting her eyes, she held the cylinder up to Za’raa. “Excellent. Thank you, Captain Chang. And now we can close the book on Takuun history.” The N’uru warriors closed in on Xoragzhar and his swinging scythes, their movements coordinated and decisive. White light flashed wherever their flails landed. Miles cheered them on. In the strobing light, his skin appeared silvery too. Astrid closed her backpack and swung it back on her shoulders. She turned toward the Aurora. Walk, don’t run, she told herself firmly. She heard Miles say, “Za’raa, she’s getting away.” She heard Za’raa say, “It does not matter, Miles.” She swung herself up into the Aurora and shoved the hatch shut, making straight for the control panel. Her fingers jittered over the familiar buttons and switches. The console flickered to life, casting an green glow across her strained face. The Aurora began rising. Outside, Xoragzhar was losing. Dying. She met Miles’ gaze through the window, his silhouette stark against the alien landscape. He turned his back on her and walked to Za’raa. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they cast one shadow under the light of the triple suns. Za’raa was still clutching the metal cylinder in both hands. The battered, daffodil yellow, metal cylinder with the mad dancing Minions. Miles saw it too. He snatched the thermos from Za’raa and began running towards the Aurora, shouting. As if it would help. He was only getting smaller and smaller. Then the N’uru warriors began to flicker like candle flames in a gust of wind. One by one, they vanished into thin air, leaving behind a faint trace of silver dust that glittered briefly and turned into nothing. Za’raa was the last to vanish, his face too small for Astrid to see his expression. Good. Miles was tiny now. She saw Xoragzhar rise painfully to his feet. She was just able to see the orbs in his hands flare as he lurched toward Miles. When the Aurora was on autopilot, she picked up the platinum canister of embryos, tracing with steady fingers where the chilly light glinted off its perfect skin. She would find another planet that did not have purple soil or three goddamn suns, and most certainly not angry trolls or smarmy glowing angels who made far too many assumptions. She hoped that would be enough.
What Happened To The First Human Head Transplant? (Feat. Medlife Crisis)
Are China’s military exercises a threat that heighten geopolitical tensions?
You have watched too much news from BBC and CNN, so you say that “China’s military exercises have exacerbated geopolitical tensions.”
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Take a good look at this picture. The United States has military bases on almost every continent. The only continent without a US military base is Antarctica.
The United States uses these military bases around the world and the United States’ military influence to contain and suppress its imaginary enemies, especially China.
Using military exercises to form cliques is a common trick of the United States.
In recent years, the US military has frequently conducted military exercises around China, especially joint military exercises.
Through cooperation with allies such as Japan, Australia and the Philippines, the US military has not only enhanced its combat effectiveness, but also formed a containment of China to a certain extent.
Such exercises are not only a display of military strength, but also a clear warning to China, indicating that the United States is prepared for any potential conflict.
The United States has established a large network of allies in the Asia-Pacific region to ensure support in the face of conflict. Japan, Australia, the Philippines and other countries have strengthened their military ties with the United States by signing military cooperation agreements.
This collective security mechanism makes the United States more calm when facing China, and also puts China under greater strategic pressure.
The United States uses its powerful media and public opinion resources to continue to exaggerate the “China threat theory” in an attempt to isolate China internationally.
This kind of public opinion war not only affects the international community’s view of China, but also provides “legitimacy” for the US military action. In this way, the United States hopes to portray China as an “aggressor” to provide an excuse for its military intervention.
The game between China and the United States is like a war without gunpowder, and both sides are fighting for their own interests.
The United States has selected the main battlefield in the eastern Pacific and frequently held military exercises in an attempt to curb China’s rise, while China is constantly strengthening its own defense capabilities and striving not to lose in this contest.
The Insane Lobotomy Craze Of The 1950s
Should the Philippines assert its claim in the West Philippine Sea?
This may sound like waking up someone pretending to be asleep, but I have to say, there is no so-called “West Philippine Sea.” Internationally, this sea area is referred to as the “South China Sea,” and it does not mean that the entire sea belongs to China. In fact, China made territorial claims in 1948. The Philippines did not protest at that time, but in recent years, they have come out with “protests,” and even have made a fake “arbitration”, which is suspicious to anyone with common sense.
As for the territory of the Philippines, it is delimited by a series of international treaties. Whether it is the Treaty of Paris in 1898, the Treaty of Washington in 1900, or the Convention Between the United States and Great Britain in 1930, none of them include China’s Nansha Qundao or Huangyan Dao.
Only the area within the dashed line box in the map is considered the territory of the Philippines, while the area outside the dashed line box are nothing but the Philippines’ unilateral and illegal claims. The Philippines’ so-called “whoever is closer owns it” rhetoric not only goes against international law but also laughable in modern society.
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And you know what the Philippines should do? Withdraw its ship and personnel from China’s territory. It’s the only chance.
I noticed on Aug 31, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessel MRRV-9701, which has been illegally anchored in the lagoon of China’s Xianbin Jiao for a long time, provoked troubles in an unprofessional and dangerous way and intentionally rammed into the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) ship 5205, which was lawfully implementing control measures. As a result, a collision happened between the two vessels.
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The recent actions by the Philippines once again highlight its close connection with certain Western countries. On-site footage shows that during the Philippine’s infringement operation, a US P-8A reconnaissance aircraft flew at low altitude, interfering with China’s law enforcement actions and providing on-site intelligence support to the PCG vessel. Ironically, after receiving some “support” from certain Western countries outside the South China Sea region, the Philippine side complained that Southeast Asian countries didn’t “support”.
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Since entering the lagoon of Xianbin Jiao without China’s permission in April this year, the PCG ship has assumed the task of imitating the Philippines’ BRP Sierra Madre, which has been grounded illegally at China’s Ren’ai Jiao for a long time. But in fact, under the control of the CCG in accordance with the law, the PCG vessel has seen increasingly limited space to make any move.
PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela admitted on Tuesday that the ship’s supplies were seriously insufficient and had reached a “critical level.” Seeing that it is difficult to “replicate” the goal of “deliberate grounding,” the PCG vessel 9701 began a new round of shows in Xianbin Jiao, which is nothing more than putting all the energy into making a scene and sadfishing, trying to make a public opinion sensation and gain sympathy by pretending to be a “victim.”
Betting on the safety of its own crew and the risk of military conflict, Manila constantly staged a self-inflicted provocative farce on the stage of the South China Sea, fantasizing about making “quantitative change” to achieve the breakthroughs of “qualitative change.”
The actions of the Philippines that have escalated tensions in the South China Sea are also a betrayal to ASEAN countries, clearly violating the provisions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, including Article 4’s requirement for peaceful resolution of disputes, and Article 5’s call for self-restraint and not to affect regional peace and stability in the South China Sea.
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Now the US and the Philippines are using each other in the South China Sea issue. For the US, no matter how beautiful the words are, the positioning of the Philippines as a “pawn” has never changed. Manila is also very clear that it has limited bargaining chips with the US, and the more extreme it goes in the South China Sea issue, the smaller its space it has in negotiating with the US.
Manila hopes that Washington can make some concrete commitments. However, for Manila, the most important thing is to face reality and give up illusions. Manila should not underestimate the cost of challenging China, nor should it assume that everything will be covered by the US.
The bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue has been held 9 times, with the most recent meeting taking place exactly 2 months ago. The commitments made by both sides to promote a de-escalation of tensions in the South China Sea are still fresh. Until Manila fundamentally changes its mind-set of using the South China Sea issue for geopolitical speculation, China is fully prepared for any possible backtracking or provocation by the Philippines. If the Philippines attempts to move forward one step, China will firmly push it back. China will not allow the Philippines to gain any advantage. Like I said, the only choice for the Philippines is to withdraw its ship and personnel.
How does China enforce a limit of 3 hours per week of video games for offline games?
Here are the 2022 rules
A. User Internet Ids are assigned to every user who is over 7 years old
B. Users who are deemed Juvenile, ie:- between 16–18 years of age are restricted from logging on to any game on a Chinese platform between 10 PM and 8 AM on Mondays to Fridays and 12 PM and 7 AM on Weekends
C. Users who are deemed Minors between 12-16 years of age are restricted from logging into any game on a Chinese Platform only for a maximum of 2 Hours on a Weekday and 3 Hours on Saturday and 4 Hours on a Sunday but not after 9 PM on Weekdays and 11 PM on Weekends
D. Users deemed Children (<= 12) are restricted from playing any game on Chinese platforms for more than 3 hours from 12 AM on Monday to 11:59 PM on Sunday of every week
VPN for Chinese Games is useless
You can use VPN but when you play Chinese games, the Warning will say that if you continue you will go to a lower level and lose a lot of game money and game weapons and powers you have earned so far
So nobody uses VPN for playing games
Is it for all games?
No
Online Mobile Games deemed EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL and SCIENTIFIC are exempted
In 2023 May, Mahjong in all forms was included in the restricted list but Online CHESS was exempted
How is the rule enforced?
Every Game has a Player Login
Every Player needs Internet ID
So that’s simple
You can’t use your Dads Internet ID because that’s a different Player Profile Or ID
So best case you can create a Player Profile for your Dad and play in his name
Or your older brother
Why these rules?
The Government got an Educational Report that Children were addicted to Mobile games and with In app money purchases
What games are restricted FULLY or PARTIALLY to Children?
Games deemed Violent
Games deemed Sexual
Games that promote Theft, Robbery and Crime
Games that feature GAMBLING or Chance and Odds (Card Games are exempted provided the games don’t have any numerical odds or any transfer of winnings)
Games deemed capable of Brainwashing and giving instructions and dares (Such Games are fully banned from the Mainland)
Can you bypass the 3 hour limit?
A Brilliant 9 year old managed to bypass the ban by creating a small code to make the system forget that it was 10 PM amd make the system go to 19:59:59 from 21:59:59 and keep playing endlessly
Tencent of course saw that someone had played 63 levels in 2 hours which was impossible and immediately overrode the local codes and the Kid was flushed out
They gave the Kid a Science Scholarship (Chairmans Junior Scholarship) usually granted for 12+ year olds
However apart from that – NO
Like I said – VPN means losing a lot of levels and goodies earned
So the only way is to use your father or older brother or older uncles Internet id, create a profile and play as them
Prehistoric Australia Was Pure Nightmare Fuel
What was the most messed up punishment(s) you received as a child?
Not me but my younger brother.
My brother was an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, and from the start my mother wanted this kid gone by any means necessary. Unfortunately the law and her family wouldn’t allow it, so she was forced to carry this child to term and take care of it. She hated my brother from the start, wanted him dead or abandoned by the side of the road (whatever it took to get rid of him), and with that failing she strove to make this child’s life as miserable as she could for the sin of having dared to exist. My mother had a nasty cruel and vindictive streak.
Our parents divorced when I was nine and he was seven, and we moved to a house about 3 miles away. One day my mother got angry at my brother and locked him out of the house with orders to walk to our dad’s house. It was nighttime in mid December, about 15 degrees F outside, and he wasn’t wearing a coat. My mother then called my father and angrily bragged “I just threw him out of the house without a coat and told him to walk to your house. I don’t care if he freezes!”
My mother was not mentally ill, she was in complete control of herself, she was just filled with anger and hatred that she liked to inflict on those around her, especially those that had little choice but endure it. She felt it was a parental perk to be allowed to abuse your kids for whatever reason you wished, even if it was for her amusement (and it sometimes was). She got a certain sadistic joy out of making people feel miserable and worthless.
My father woke up the neighborhood and sent everyone out to find him, and he was eventually found wandering around a grocery store parking lot less than 1/4 mile from my mother’s house. He was minutes away from hypothermia. He very nearly died that day, and this was not the only time he narrowly escaped death at the hands of my mother.
I’ll never understand why she wasn’t charged and arrested for that. She passed away three years ago, and it’s a major trigger to my father (who hates her with a passion), so I guess I’ll never know.
POST EDIT: Several people have asked how my brother turned out, and he didn’t. He died at age 14, and ironically my mother had nothing to do with it. He asphyxiated himself huffing gasoline in my dad’s garage. After he died my mother almost never spoke of him again, and would go into psychotic rages whenever he was brought up. I quickly learned to not talk about him anymore.
He never had a chance from the start. This is the last known picture of him.
His name was Tim.
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Minestrone Macaroni
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Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
2 (14 ounce) cans Italian diced tomatoes, undrained
2 1/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked
2 beef bouillon cubes
1 can kidney beans, rinsed, drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinse, drain
1 (14 ounce) can cut green beans, rinsed and drained
Instructions
In a large skillet, brown beef; drain.
Add the tomatoes, water, macaroni and bouillon cubes; bring to a boil.
Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes or until macaroni is tender.
When he was fifty Tolstoy fell into depression. Day by day his sadness increased, for no reason. Tolstoy was a count, he was one of the richest men in his country, he was famous throughout the world. Yet he was unhappy. «Money was nothing, power was nothing. Many were seen who had both one and the other and were unhappy. Even health didn’t matter much; there were sick people full of the desire to live and there were healthy people who withered in anguish from the fear of suffering.”
One day he saw an orphan along Afanas’evsky alley, and moved with compassion, he took him home with him. And for the first time in a long time he felt good again. He forgot about himself, about his problems, about his sadness. From that moment Tolstoy renounced his gentleman’s clothes, luxury and privileges and began to lead a simple life, giving away what he possessed to those in need.
“Don’t talk to me about religion, about charity, about love,” he used to say, “but show me the religion in your actions.” Tolstoy was also the first theorist of non-violence, he preached brotherhood between peoples and his ideas inspired another great figure of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi. Until the day of his death he continued to help others, which is why many said he was crazy. In a world where he only counts having, possessing things and even people, where everyone wants to take but no one knows how to give, Tolstoy seemed crazy.
One day an old friend of his, who, unlike Tolstoy, lived in comfort and luxury, said to him: «What’s the point of doing all this? What do you care about others? You should think about yourself.” To which Tolstoy replied: “If you feel pain, you are alive, but if you feel the pain of others, you are human.”
Off the “beaten path”, off in a forgotten corner of the community of Salem, Massachusetts is this little (seemingly forgotten) park. Forest River Park.
I visited it by chance. It was beautiful and pristine.
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Not too many people ever visited it. Too bad. It was beautiful
A little oasis from the encroaching town.
Forest River Park in Salem, Massachusetts, was created to provide a public recreational area that takes advantage of the natural beauty and waterfront of Salem Harbor. The park offers access to green space, walking trails, and waterfront activities. It was established to enhance community life and preserve natural landscapes for public enjoyment.
It really was beautiful. A undiscovered and mostly forgotten gem of a park. It’s full of overly grown grass around rocky boulder facing a large ocean bay. Lots of shady trees, fresh New England air.
Just a perfect, quiet space.
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I loved it when I visited it.
A nice little paradise.
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Something that has been forgotten in the United States today. How many, many parks that the United States have built in the tiny communities over the last few years? The last few decades? How about the last century?
Answer: NONE.
Zero.
Zilch!
It was beautiful.
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People, couples, families all need a sense of a nice piece of nearby nature. The Europeans and Chinese know this. Americans have forgotten this.
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Enjoy local exploration.
You might be surprised at what you might discover.
Now for the sad part of this story.
It was renovated in 2021.
All the grass, boulders, and trees were bulldozed over. And a nice pavilion of concrete and glass, with a big wide parking lot was put in its place.
forest river pool entry view 0 2000×1500
You can well see that the city planners maximized the use of the space.
Cutting down all of the trees, removing all of the bushes, and shrubbery, and dynamiting all of the boulders.
Instead of a lonely, off the beaten track area of greenery, we now have a government run facility with a pools and displays of local wildlife that used to live here.
3374 forest river pool site plan without c91 2 2000×1500
As you can see (with the trees to scale), this “new” park is mostly a parking lot, a building and a large cement pool. The only remaining “green area” is the 25% to the left in the picture. Which consists of 4 to 7 trees and some decorate shrubbery. Plus additional parking.
Today, this is what the “park” looks like… this is a 3D rendering. But it is not accurate. In truth the “green trees” aren’t there.
Salem Forest River 1
Nope. The rendering is lying.
What you think is green trees is really this…
south salem salem masouth salem salem ma 2
It’s nice, and quaint. But a wooded area it is NOT. It’s just roads and homes with a tree interspersed here and there. Sorry and sad to say.
Its truly a sad thing to behold. A removal of nature to create a parking lot.
A sad, sad state of American decay.
Today…
Is war between the USA and China inevitable?
Do people in Macau hate Mainlanders like people in Hong Kong do?
We welcome them with open arms.
The size of the crowds can be overwhelming though. Macau has a land mass if 28 SQ km. A population of 680,000. The densest population on the planet.
Last week we had 160,000 visitors in a single day.
Buses are jammed and slow with such crowds. There are areas that you absolutely avoid to not get into a crowd.
The government pays citizens US $1200 a year as a wealth sharing scheme. (Large taxes from the casinos).
I look at it as an inconvenience payment.
But no we welcome mainland visitors because they spend, spend spend.
We don’t bite the hand that feeds us.
An old MM video
I made this one about a year and a half ago. Short. Maybe three minutes long.
Behind the scenes of Chinese military might
Canada follows the US and imposes 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, including Tesla. What do you think?
China manufactured 9.05 Million Electric Vehicles in 2023
Of these 8.09 Million were sold within China while 960,000 were exported of which most were Tesla
So China is pretty OK
With virtually 90% EVs sold within China, the EV companies need to restructure their profits to keep making money in China and keep innovating and making profit
China has a long potential for buying EVs and for the next 15–16 years at least, Chinese EVs can innovate and keep their edge from the Domestic Market without dependence on US or Europe leave alone Canada
Meanwhile they have the Russian Market which has 41 Million Middle Class consumers plus the Eastern European and Asean markets with a further 27 Million
The thing is THEY HAVE TO MAKE MORE PROFIT IN CHINA which means they have to tweak their profit structure and ask for a waiver in lateral subsidies and rise their costs by 7%–9%
Presently BYD makes under 9000 CNY in China per Car versus a whopping 38900 CNY in Europe
If they absorb this tariff – then their profit reduces to 14200 CNY for that model which is still higher than the profit they make in China
So they may just absorb the tariff and keep selling the EVs and shaving their profits
Or
They may sell their parts to joint ventures in Europe and Canada and earn royalty or license fees
Either way they are pretty OK for the next 10–15 years
They have a huge domestic market that is growing bigger every day
Why does China seem to be single in the game without many allies yet appears so strong?
According to Chinese economists and strategies. Here is what they have observed during the cold war. In order to gain those so called allies, the US gave out a huge amount of aid to western Europe, known as the marshall plan. In order to compete with America, the USSR offered something similar to eastern Europe but only half as impressive. In the Soviet camp, eastern Europe weren’t happy became they got less aid and poorer than their neighbors. Russia itself wasn’t happy because it kept giving out aid, and cheap oils, resulted in huge internal debt. And finally their people couldn’t take it, and dissolved the USSR. The only ones that were happy at the time, were Vietnam, NK, and maybe India.
The USA wasn’t in a better position, they had lost all their traditional industries to Japan and western Europe. If it wasn’t for the new industries they invented, the USA would be done in the 90s, losing to Japan and Europe. So stop saying that China had stolen jobs from the America, the US had lost those jobs a long time ago. The cold war was a death race, the US is still hurting from it.
What was China’s conclusion? Only inclusive naturally developed trade relationship can benefit both sides. In other words, China aren’t going to pay for allies, that’s prostitution. So, how does China deal with the gigantic alliance structure of the US? Let me use Australia as an example, China Australia trade is almost 350B per year. In order for Australia to side with the US completely(not just verbally) against China, the US would have to compensate for their lost. So, China not only benefited from the trade with Australia, but also increase the cost for the US to maintain their alliance structure. That’s why you saw the US can only afford to pay country like the Philippines to confront China. China doesn’t pay any country to side with it political and militarily, it wants the US to pay more maintaining their alliances.
The US can’t even relocate TSMC from Taiwan back to the US and create some high quality jobs, because if they do that, Taiwan’s only economic relationship with the US would be gone.
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What If You Landed on Kepler 22-B?
What is your best badass firearm story?
I grew up in rural areas. I learned to shoot when I was 7. I then went to college, and met my wife who lived in a nearby town with her parents while attending college. I have always been the type who doesn’t make much bravado out of being able to defend myself. I don’t really want to hurt anybody, but I will hurt anybody who threatens my family.
My in-laws managed to check nearly every one of Jeff Foxworthy’s you might be a redneck. Somehow in a town of 30,000 they lived off the pavement and down a dirt road. Father-in-laws camper shell had more curtains than their home.
My future in-laws got it into their heads I was a soft college boy. It might be because I always dressed up to pick up their daughter for dates. It might be because at 6′2″ and 240 lbs much of it muscle at the time, I was cautious with my strength. It might be because I didn’t drink or cuss. Never mind I had relatives on my Mom’s side almost just like them, grew up in the country, shot coyotes attacking livestock, bucked hay, worked on ranches, worked in a feed store, and worked in a lumber mill.
After my future father-in-law said if he saw me around again I better be able to outrun buckshot, we eloped. This led to about a few months of drunken threatening messages left on our answering machine.
Eventually two things thawed the relationship a bit. One was my mother-in-laws gambling addiction, and need a babysitter. My wife’s over a decade younger sibling couldn’t be left alone without making a disaster when mother-in-law went gambling. The other was learning we were expecting their first grandchild.
My Father-in-law decided I need to learn how to shoot to protect his future grandchild. He asked if I had ever shot a firearm. My answer was, “Some” and didn’t elaborate. He had me drive his truck (had he driven he would probably have got a DUI) out to BLM land. He took the 6 cans he had finished off and lined them up on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, and handed me a handgun. I forget exactly what it was but it was a very small pistol and I forget what it was chambered in. It wasn’t .22 LR, but might have been .25 ACP. This was in 1994. I shot the first 4 cans no problem. When I shot the 5th can it knocked over the 6th can so the top was facing us. I shot it, and he immediately said I missed one. I said I didn’t think so. He picked it up and I had shot it through the opening in the top of the can. I could not have hit there if I had tried, but it still impressed him. (A firearm I had never fired before, with unknown ammunition, tiny pocket pistol, at about 20 feet/6 meters).
Later that evening he was drunk came at me swinging. I put him in a bear hug, told him I didn’t want to hurt him, and placed him on the lawn. He got back up swinging. I did the same thing again except instead of setting him down I tossed him a few feet onto the lawn. The next day he said, “I guess you can protect my daughter and grandchild.”
All about Cottages
Maybe too many are too cutesy. Still, the more plain ones are more suitable for myself. Real and actual historical cottages, especially those from the Victorian era, were awesome.
Which Asian country has the lowest crime rate compared to Japan and South Korea?
I will probably make your jaw drop- Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore are close contenders to Japan.
Let’s compare how is life in ‘low crimes’ like in Tokyo and ‘ slightly higher crimes’ in Kuala Lumper see what transpires.
Anywhere in Tokyo, intrusion into someone’s privacy raises an eyebrow.. like, A man knock on your door at midnight: “ I can’t sleep! from my bedroom I can see the wall light at your porch.”— You bow low and says, “I’m so sorry, I’ll turn if off at once.”
In Kuala Lumpur you can light up the entire house all night like Christmas day or Ramadan come early in Damansara Height or Bangsar , a millionaire’s row —No one will say nothing! Why? To scare the would be thieves…and it works.
Corruptions in Japan do exist and is a crime. But it’s no match with **Thailand ** where corruption is hard to define. Such as, when a top cop borrowed 300 million Baht from the massage king and already paid back just in time before the corruption buster knocked on his door. So, no case means ‘no corruption’ in Thailand.
Crimes against women hardly happened in Japan unlike **Thailand **where rape is a century-old practice, police consider —it: no big deal** but rapists may go scott-free after the police negotiate to get the rapist to pay compensation to the victim… So no case, no crime, and no bad conduct—as good as a ‘clean sheet’ for that guy.
Before a crime like road rage can happen in Japan a “bow to one another” has taken place, thus no crime committed, so road rage in Japan is unheard off.
Similarly **Singapore**, before any road rage happens, a teasing to one another as a prelude like “ You punch me first, lah, a goondu!” The other driver may curse and swear but drive off. So, no case, no jail terms as no one throws the first punch, and no crime was committed. Singapore is almost a road rage-crime-free.
But living in Japan is awesome for a loner and you are guaranteed to have peace on the busiest street where you live as no one looks at you, talks to you, and you are invisible, so to speak! (even in Shibuya or Ginza) in Japan’s Golden Week.
How would you describe the USA in just one phrase?
Utterly divided.
A person doesn’t have to have a degree in politics to see how divided and tribalistic America has become recently. I honestly don’t think we’ve been this separate as a country since the Civil War.
People have fallen for the “if you’re not 100% for us, then you’re 100% against us” mentality. You can see this on either side of the aisle. To be clear, I’m not demonizing either major American political party here. I’m condemning them. There’s this one quote from a fella you might know about by the name of Abraham Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” While Lincoln was referring to slave states versus free states, I am using his quote to refer to Republicans versus Democrats.
With division, comes bloodshed. We’ve seen it with slavery vs. freedom, Christian vs. Muslim, Protestant vs. Catholic, Communist vs. Capitalist, white vs. black, and I think that soon we’ll start to see Democrat vs. Republican.
Your CAT Manifested YOU | SECRET Spiritual SIGNIFICANCE of Cats
What did you do after learning your spouse cheated on you?
I drove an hour and a half to take her home. No arguments, no begging—just a quiet drive. When we arrived, I helped her pack up her things, making sure she had everything she needed. Once her bags were ready, I sent her on her way without a second thought. I’ve always believed that people who don’t want to be in my life, simply don’t have to be. I won’t be someone’s second choice.
This wasn’t just some mistake. It wasn’t a slip-up or an innocent misunderstanding. The lies, the deceptions, the secret calls and texts—none of that happens by accident. It’s not like she accidentally fell into another man’s bed or stumbled into those intimate conversations. She made deliberate choices, and I saw them for what they were.
Forgiving her came easily because I knew I had done nothing wrong. Yes, it hurt, but I refused to let her continue to have power over my emotions. Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. I chose to let her go, not just physically, but emotionally. It was her loss, not mine. I didn’t reach out, and she didn’t either. I wasn’t going to live in some fantasy or nightmare she created.
When she realized I wasn’t coming back, she got angry. She called me selfish for ending things, claiming she was a human being who deserved understanding. My response was simple: “So am I.” That was the end of it. That very night, she moved in with the guy she cheated with.
But I know my worth. I deserve more than what she was offering. I won’t settle for anything less.
How would you describe the USA in just one phrase?
A broken-down mess.
A perhaps once great nation struggling with a dysfunctional political system: only two significant parties, completely reliant on the availability of big bucks (with inevitable consequences, bearing in mind where those bucks come from) and which has slipped into the new Post-truth era with hardly a squeak of protest. (Certainly there have been more than murmurings of dissent among intellectuals and some journalists, but no groundswell of disgust or mass revolt.)
Also a country that likes to hide its woes. It likes to be seen as the wealthiest in the world, as the ‘land of opportunity’ – and yet forty percent of households could not meet an unexpected bill of $400 without having to sell something or borrow.
To those who complacently trot out platitudes like ‘it’s the greatest country in the world’, I’d say, first ‘open your eyes!’ and second: ‘if you want it to be, do something to make it so…’
In many ways there are echoes of this in my own stricken country, the UK, which also has a dysfunctional democracy and too many who want to live on past glories (real or imagined) and put their faith in a lying bunch of shysters who they imagine will lead them back to those halcyon days. (The pro-Brexit rhetoric really did include references to ‘sunlit uplands’, crudely parodying one of Churchill’s wartime speeches. ) They have a rude awakening in store. Those of us who don’t share the dream are already all too aware of the grim reality – actual and pending.
U.S. Government IS LYING And Evidence Of ALIENS Exists: NewsNation SPECIAL REPORT
This is a US government affiliated channel. So the fact that this is public says A LOT.
What’s the best thing someone told you on their deathbed that made you appreciate life in a whole new way?
This is a story that, until now, I have only told a handful of people. And I have been typing it with tears in my eyes all the way through.
It happened six and a half year ago. I just turned 21 at the time and was in my second year of college. My mother had battled breast cancer for a short eight months when the doctor told us there was nothing left they could do. She would die, too young, after an eventful life.
About three weeks after hearing this, and approximately two weeks before she would eventually die, we were sitting in her hospital room talking about life and everything that had happened. It was here, quite unannounced and rather casually, that she made a statement which I still repeat to myself at least once a week. That statement got me through the first years of mourning; I clung onto it. I still often repeat it to friends and family around me when they are facing adversity. You could say it has become my life motto.
The context of this statement goes back to before my mother was even born in 1949, in the Netherlands. My grandparents had three kids: two sons and a daughter. My grandfather was a pastor and, also considering it was early post-war time, they were just getting by. My grandmother was a dominant and strict woman, and she laid down the law at home. As the family was barely getting by with three children and didn’t want any more, my grandmother decided to get sterilized. The doctor provided her with a hormone treatment; however, instead of becoming sterile, the treatment caused my grandmother to become extremely fertile. She soon became pregnant and gave birth nine months later to triplets, a boy and two girls — my mother was born. During my mother’s youth, my grandmother made no secret of the fact that my mother was an unwanted child. My mother obviously felt left out by my grandmother and grandfather, who let it all happen. My mother left her parents’ house still a teenager.
In the years to come, my mother started making a living for herself as a caretaker for elderly and disabled people. Still struggling with her ‘unfair’ youth, she did maintain a very good relationship with her older brothers and sister. In her late 20s, she met my father. They started dating and eventually got married. My mother desperately wanted to have children and create a happy family, so they started trying. It took a lot of time, and two failed pregnancies, but eventually she did get pregnant with my older sister. She was soon told the baby had a severe form of Cystic Fibrosis (CF), a genetic disorder, which meant she would die a young age. After a long time of trying, and failing, to become pregnant, this was a major shock for both my parents. My sister was in the hospital for the entire first year of her life and had to spend several weeks each year in the hospital for treatment. Taking care of a young child is hard for young parents, but this is especially the case when the young child is chronically ill and needs multiple treatments a day. My parents put their teeth in it and got by and, eventually, even started trying to get pregnant again. And they did! But then the heartbreaking message came: this baby had a severe form of CF, too. Raising two children with severe forms of CF would inevitably mean that one of the two would have to witness the other become weaker and weaker, until death followed, knowing that he/she too will one day become that weak and die at a too-young age. My parents dreaded this future and took the hardest decision of their lives: to have an abortion, to protect both children from the added psychological drama. Not long after this, my parents decided to adopt a child, a girl with little opportunity in her own country, Poland, as she was an orphan with a mental disability. However joyful this appeared at the start, the mental disability proved too severe for the girl to be raised in a regular home, and she was taken away within a year.
And then I was born. Healthy. It wasn’t a particularly easy birth; I was quite big and heavy, causing my birth almost to take my mother’s life, but eventually everyone was fine. A little less than three years later, my younger brother was born, also healthy as could be. My mother finally had her happy little family as she had always wanted, and as she had tried for so long. I believe those were some of the happiest moments of her life.
But of course, my sister was still chronically ill. She would be in and out of the hospital each year, which mostly was only for a few days or weeks, until one year it became really bad. My sister had already been in the hospital for many weeks, longer than usual, when she was allowed a week of ‘holiday’ in France. She was so excited to go, but only a few days after her arrival she became extremely ill, vomiting blood in her bed. She was taken to the local hospital and eventually flown by helicopter to the hospital in Bordeaux. It turned out her organs had started to fail and she needed a new liver to survive. She was flown to the Netherlands and put on a waiting list for a transplant. However, this took too long and my sister soon became weaker. She died in the hospital at age 13.
Remember how as a young child your parents seemed like superheroes? The strongest people in the world, who could take on anything?
I remember this moment as the first time I saw my parents absolutely broken. I remember that at the funeral my mother could hardly stand on her feet, and people had to support her as she kept collapsing in tears. She was devastated. In the period that followed, things did not get easier for my mother. Her older sister, with whom she had a very good relationship, died of breast cancer following a short sickbed. Not much later, her oldest brother died of the consequences of being an alcoholic. Following, her brother from the triplets was left by his wife, and shortly thereafter died from a heart attack, also as a consequence of his alcohol abuse. The aftermath of the death of so many loved ones was a number of family arguments over whose fault it was that her brothers became alcoholics, and how the inheritance should be divided. The adversity seemed to never stop.
But then it did. Some five happy, carefree years followed. I saw my mother become happier and happier. She started to work again, which she had stopped during my sister’s illness, and she enjoyed it. She was active in the church community in our town, she enjoyed tennis, and she had a lot of friends. It all seemed to turn for the better. But then…
Cancer.
Unlike what you might think, we went into this really positively. You know why? Because we believed we, and especially my mother, had already received our portion of adversity. This would be our time, we were going to conquer this disease. We even organized a big party when my mother was halfway through her chemotherapy because we were halfway to beating this disease! The tumor became smaller, there seemed to be no metastases, and operations were successful. We were almost there!
But, unfortunately, I would not be typing this post if that was how the story ended.
I received a call from my dad, early December. My mother was rushed to the hospital that night after falling in the kitchen. They had found a brain tumor, metastases in her lungs, and metastases in her bones. Even though it felt as if we had almost defeated the disease, there was nothing they could do for her any more. She would be in the hospital from that point on. To make matters worse, my father was hospitalized two weeks later for an emergency stomach operation. He was in the same hospital on the 6th floor, my mother was on the 8th. It was around Christmas and I would visit them every day. Most of the time, my mother was very confused due to the tumor pressing on her brain but, sometimes, she had a clear moment.
It was during one of these clear moments that I was sitting on her bed and we were talking about life and everything that had happened. We talked about my studies and what I would do, later in life, when she would not be around anymore. About how I would some day graduate, maybe get married. We talked about her youth, about her alcoholic brothers, about the failed pregnancies, about my sister. Even about the fact that it was so screwed up that she was living some of her last weeks, and exactly at that time my dad became hospitalized.
And it was at that time that she looked at me and said:
‘’You know what, actually I am glad about all the shit that happened to me in life. And a lot of shit díd happen. But all those harsh times, all the adversity, it has taught me to enjoy and cherish all the good things in life more intensely than I imagined possible. I am grateful for everything and everyone I had.’’
There you have it. She wasn’t happy despite adversity, no, she thanked adversity for making her enjoy everything and everyone. You hear that cancer? CF? Alcoholism? You ain’t got nothing on her, heck, you made her stronger. She díd conquer cancer, in her way, she conquered it all.
It has changed how I see everything around me since. From minor setbacks to freaking mountains of adversity, I always try to approach it with a smile on my face. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t pretend everything is okay when it is not, but I fight, I keep going, and I keep telling myself that, at the very worst, adversity is going to make me stronger. And you know what? I am as happy a person as I could be!
I hope my mother’s wise words might help some of you, like they have helped me and still help me every day.
In loving memory of my mother: you won’t be gone until you’re forgotten.
The Godfather 1 ♦ “Dont ever take sides with anyone against the family again”
Why do Chinese people wear Western clothing when they think Chinese culture is superior to the West? Indian leaders wear their traditional clothing to formal meeting. Why don’t the Chinese? Do the Chinese know their culture is inferior to the West?
Chinese leaders changed to western clothing as a matter of protocol.
There are many research studies to back this up and we can see it in applications as well.
IBM salesman (no women in those days) wore a suit with a white shirt and classic tie. That was the dress code.
Sales dramatically improved.
Traditionally salesman wore sports coat and trousers. So the IBM look made them look like a businessman not a salesperson. They were talking to peers when they made their calls.
In his book Dress for Success, the author John Molloy conducted studies using different clothing. He sent people to offices to deliver a small package. If they dressed in a sports jacket and trousers,the receptionist always said leave it with me. If they were dressed in a suit with a shirt and tie, they would be told to knock on the door and give it to the executive or they call him to come out and get the package.
Chinese are very pragmatic.
They use whatever works.
Dressing in white shirt and tie with a tailored suit means you at the same level as your counterpart. When you meet the president of the US, you dress like him.
Interestingly though is Xi Jinping’s wife who dresses in traditional Chinese attire when she accompanies him on state visits.
My GF Insisted On Taking A 1 Week Break, So I Slept With Her Coworker & Dumped Her When She Returned
Jerry Springer type nonsense. *sheech*
I palm-slap myself for the craziness in the West.
Has a computer programmer ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?
Bought in as a contractor/programmer to work on an in-house system that they wanted to modify.
“Its the best system – its in C++, so its really fast”
No probs, I can work on that.
Get in there, day 1 – nice big factory, decent office space, lots of nice cars in the carpark. Get myself all setup on the system, meet the other programmer (just 1 developer in the whole company … hmmm)
Me > “OK, account is all setup, setup dev tools, meet the manager, discussed the general plan …. ready to start reading. Where is the code?”
OtherProgrammer > “?”
Me > “The source code. The C++ code ?”
OtherProgrammer > “Oh, we dont have the source code”
Me > “??”
Me > “This is an in-house system, right ? The thing you want to modify, you own it right ?”
OtherProgrammer > “Yes, its an in house system, we own it, its all ours”
Me > “and the code ?”
OtherProgrammer > “Oh I see what you mean. Yeah, that was all written by another contractor. He isnt here anymore”
Me > “did he …. leave any code by any chance ?”
OtherProgrammer > “No, we didnt pay him in the end, so he didnt give us the code”
…. at which point, I had a lot more questions than I knew I would ever get answers for. By the end of the week, I had managed to get out of that initial project and work on a different project they had on the go, so the billable hours could be justified still.
Same problem though – they had “another contractor” offsite who was working on something entirely different that was pretty interesting. So I started working on some infrastructure around that instead. It was some cool stuff the other guy was building, was going to be fun.
And it meant I didnt have to deal with their one and only full time “Developer” that worked there somehow without any source code, and the obviously clueless engineering manager was none the wiser about why this was sub optimal.
… Until one day, he suggested I dont get too involved in that other project either.
Me > “Oh, why’s that ? whats wrong with project ?”
OtherProgrammer > “Nothing, he is doing great work”
Me > “?”
OtherProgrammer > “But we have decided that we are not going to pay him for it <big smile>”
… just like that ! Quite out in the open about it. Bragging about how clever they are, they can get work done by honest people, and still manage to weasel their way out of having to pay for it.
So Clever, and proud of it too.
See ya later, idiots !
(in case you are wondering – yeah, I got my billed hours paid …. eventually … every last cent)
Andrew DESTROYS entitled 52 year old FEMINIST saying she deserves a TRADITIONAL man
52 year old woman tries to find love.
I feel for her. She wasn’t compatible with anyone.
Why is the United States losing its hegemony to China?
That’s incorrect framing.
America has pursued global hegemony since the fall of the Berlin wall, going so far to embrace the “end of history and the last man”.
What is global hegemony? Dominance over ALL states and peoples.
That means beating down all comers, and making examples of those who say no to the United States, as sheikh hasina found to great fluster and regret recently.
Unfortunately, 4% dominating over the 96% is a fool’s errand, as America finds itself drowning in debt, and having to deal with conflicts in the middle east and Europe, while following through on explicit policy to concentrate and expand military resources in the western pacific.
That’s untenable, and exhausting, not too different from the 50% drawdown of the SPR to cap runaway energy prices recently.
America is frittering away past reserves, burning its legacy rather than building for the future.
America is not behaving like a normal country, because it insists the rules do not apply.
China sees itself as a normal country, a member of the global citizenry. Normal countries respond vigorously to the militarization of their neighborhood, because sovereignty must be defended.
America is doomed to implode because even exceptionally engineered airliners drop out of the sky when they run out of fuel.
The Outlaw Josey Wales | The River Crossing | Warner Classics
What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?
I was around 18 and at a club having recently shaved my head, almost scalped! Some idiot and his group were looking for a fight and thought that taking the piss or judging me for my choices would start one. So immature looking back.
I still feel remorse for what happened next and it had more than the intended results.
I said to my mate, “Go and say to him I have cancer and going through treatment.” My mate does this and I could swear I could feel how bad the ‘idiot’ felt from across the bar.
Turns out the guy wasn’t an idiot, he had just lost his Dad to cancer and was blaming everyone.
My smirk: gone. Turns out I was the idiot judging. I bought them a drink.
A hard lesson learned by me. At least it stopped a fight.
What happened to Peng Shuai?
This is an interesting story about what happens when a Chinese Communist Party member is accused of a crime. How it is investigated. And the causes, whys and the process. Interesting, and valuable to the outsiders looking into China. -MM
A woman named Peng Shuais accused a leading Chinese Communist Party leader of Sexual harassment.
It’s now clear that Peng Shuais allegations were firmly investigated
main qimg 6c94efde827e75c1383a39e5d010f6e4
In China, it’s crucial that Party officials don’t violate discipline otherwise they are fried
Since China doesn’t have Elections and Votes, Party officials need their reputation
Peng Shuai alleged that she was sexually harrassed
Had she reported this to 12345 citing anonymity
No problems
She published this on Social Media referring to a Party member by name
He was dumping her and she was pissed
However in China – Social Media is under the full view of the CENSOR
Automatically the posts garnered attention and the Censor stepped in
Peng was summoned by the Censor and asked
Do you have Evidence?
Why wait so long?
Meanwhile the Party member was hauled up by the Internal mechanism and he said they were in a relationship and he dumped her
Under Chinese Law, if the Censor hauls you up, your Internet Id doesn’t work for a few weeks or a month and you can’t login or send a message on weibo or even reply to mail (confused on this point)
This is China
So the Censor initiated a State Investigation and China has like millions of cameras
Soon they began to see Camera feeds
They saw Peng willingly laugh and hold hands, kiss, go to hotels and eat in restaurants like a favorite girlfriend for weeks and weeks
They presented her with evidence and she folded immediately and confessed that HE HAD DUMPED HER and she had got pissed
Thats that
From that minute on, she lost face and in China that’s bad
So now whether she is charged with lying on public media or not – Nobody knows
What’s your favorite stupid joke?
A few of my top ones include:
What do you call a black man in space? An astronaut.
How many men does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three, one to screw it in and the other two to listen to him brag about screwing something.
A faster than light neutrino says ‘I’ll have a whisky’, sits down, then walks into a bar.
A woman is approached by a man in a suit, and a foot tall man carrying a miniature keyboard. The man in the suit says ‘I have a magic lamp here, with a genie in it. He’ll grant you a single wish, but be careful, he’s hard of hearing.’ The woman takes the lamp and says ‘I wish for a million bucks.’ All of a sudden the sky is blocked out by a million ducks flying overhead. ‘That’s not what I wished for’ the woman yells. The man replies ‘do you think I wished for a twelve inch pianist?’
A priest, a doctor, and a politician are kidnapped by an evil psychopath. The psychopath says ‘I’m going to get each of you to hold a snake for ten minutes, the most venomous snake in the world. If it doesn’t bite you, I’ll let you go. If you refuse, I’ll shoot you.’ The priest says a short prayer, kisses his cross, and holds the snake. It bites him, and he falls dead almost instantly. The doctor examines the snake, tries to find the best position to stop the snake being uncomfortable, and holds it. The snake bites her, and she falls over dead. The politician is last up, he just mutters ‘screw it’ and holds the snake. To his amazement, the snake stays still, it doesn’t bite him. He holds it for a full ten minutes, and is set free. He puts the snake in its box and takes it with him. As he leaves, feeling no small amount of Survivors guilt, he looks at the snake and says ‘I wonder why you killed that pious holy man and that great saviour of lives, but let me live.’ ‘Professional courtesy’ the snake replies.
US Property “$557 BILLION Bloodbath” – Final Chapter Of The Banking Collapse Is Here
What is an example of what a morbidly obese person would eat in a day?
My mom was morbidly obese her whole life. People looked at her with disgust. She ate small portions, tried to eat healthy, tried to be active until her knees got really bad, and stayed obese. For all who would tell her to eat a salad and get on a treadmill, she did. If we went out to eat, she’d eat usually a salad (dressing on side) and half a sandwich like turkey. I know y’all will sleep better by concluding she secretly binged or had her stash of junk food but unlike you, I had to go through her things when she died suddenly. No secret junk food stash. She didn’t get good sleep and was definitely sedentary in her last years but your “diagnosis” of people like her just being ignorant slobs who were lazy are wrong and hurtful. She was a nurse. She understood nutrition. What she ate was probably what most of you eat but she was morbidly obese and no matter how small her portions or types, her body seemed to go into starvation mode and did not change. It’s not always nutrition, portion control and activity. It wasn’t with her and I *know* she was unhappy about her weight and appearance and always felt the looks and the shame. I think she got used to a world that judges based on external looks more than character. It’s a shame we can be so petty, superficial, dense and callous. GLP-1’s are showing that even orgs like Weight Watchers got it wrong. She ate less and better than her sons who were not overweight. My heart goes out to you who struggle and get eat-a-salad-drink-water-and-go-for-a-walk idiot responses. Pray you find what works for you and that you have the rare company of people who value you for your character, your intelligence, your capability, and not your size.
For decades, America has assumed that China would gradually liberalize, open its markets, and improve its human-rights record, but that strategy simply hasn’t worked – is it time to give up on China?
China has not opened up? I’m pretty sure anyone holding that view has not visited China recently.
Go to Beijing or Shanghai or any other big Chinese city. You will find malls that look not much different from Hong Kong or Singapore. They may even be built and operated by conglomerates from these port cities. American fast food, French bags, Swiss watches. Whatever you want you can have. Markets as open as any major international city today.
As for liberalization, more than 150 million Chinese travel abroad each year. That is an astounding number, greater than the population of Japan. Just 40 years ago, the numbers were negligible. But the more incredible number is this: more than 150 million Chinese RETURN HOME. There are no reports of millions of Chinese refugees seeking asylum overseas.
On to human rights. China is behind Singapore in terms of rule of law, and trust in the government internationally. But Singapore still get routinely trashed for the death penalty, caning, inequality and other human rights abuses. We are a common law democracy but there are always murmurs if not shouts of dynastic politics, non-democracy, high political salaries and other evils.
We can never please the west because we are not the west.
China is changing.
Warp speed fast.
But please temper any judgment with the fact China started from a very low base. China was at war for the better part of 100 years from 1850 to 1949, half of it without a functional central government. Can you imagine 3 generations of anarchy and destruction? What do they call it, dystopia?
The current generation of Chinese youth enjoy far more freedoms and privileges than their parents did. The next will, too.
Have you ever met your bully later in life?
There was a guy that bullied me every day at high school. He was a confident, in-crowd guy, lots of plastic friends and always took the opportunity to make my life hell. He sabotaged my locker, bumped me in the hall when with his mates and he always had a smart alec comment to call out when I was presenting to the class or school. I responded the only way I thought I could which was to never pass him the ball during sport if we were on the same team, or if I was on an opposing team to tackle him as hard as possible. I didn’t have the confidence or the support network to help me through it, or the language to express myself to him.
I ran into him at a hardware store some 20 years after school. I had my 14 and 12 year olds with me and he had 3 kids, about 11, 9 and 7. He started with a gushing hello. He introduced me as a close friend from school. I looked at his kids, they looked nice enough. I was pleasant. I then whispered to him to come to the side out of earshot.
I was shaking with rage because the adrenaline kicked in so quickly, and the hurt and embarrassment he had caused me came flooding back. I told him that he was a real shit to me at high school and his kids looked like well adjusted human beings. I told him that unless he took his kids out of the store right now I would tell them what a nasty, horrible, vindictive shit of a person their dad was and he would have to explain why this guy he thought was a friend would say things like that about him.
He left with his kids. About 6 that evening he knocked on my door, and presented to me a bottle of wine and an apology for the pain he caused to me at school. He thanked me for not blasting his kids. His reason, his dad and older brothers did it to him and that is the way he thought you behaved. He had married a really nice lady who had educated him that friendships and relationships were not built by treating people like he had treated me. He had always worried about me and felt guilty. He always wanted to catch up and apologize. He and his wife knew that I would have crushed their kids if I had opened up on them at the store. I’m so glad I didn’t.
Some of the MM AI art examples
I continue with my experiments. Not too much of value.
It’s really like driving a tractor trailer rig though a maze inside of a mall. Crazy and sensitive.
Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 0(5)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(2)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(2)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(1)
What a set of horns on his headpiece.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(1)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(1)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(1)
I finally figured out how to add clothing to the people…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3
But it only works part of the time…
Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 3(5)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 1(5)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(2)
Some is impressive.
Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 1(6)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 0(6)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 3(6)
Looks like they are taking selfies…
Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 2(6)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 1(1)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 0(1)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 3(1)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 2(1)Cinematic Kino Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic B 3Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(2)
The Bourne Ultimatum | It’s Jason Bourne
Stupid trolls.
While I was living in Japan, a clerk typed a wrong character on a document related to the public pension for an elderly couple. As a result their pension payments ceased. The elderly couple quietly starved to death in their apartment.
Of course, this was a huge scandal in Japan, and every neighborhood in the country began programs to check up on their neighborhood’s elderly residents at least once per week; have someone visit every residence every few days.
The point is that shit happens, but normal people (thus incomprehensible to you trolls) take action that has nothing to do with trying to overthrow the government. You stupid trolls only heard about someone dying of malnutrition in modern China because it was such an unusual and shocking occurrence for the Chinese people that they themselves were scandalized and chatting about it on social media. Nobody but fake NGO shit-stirrers and moronic western trolls are even remotely thinking about overthrowing the Chinese government because of it.
There may be local protests in China over the event, but protests there have a very different character than they do in western countries with capitalist fake democracy governments (ex: USA, Britain, France). Rather than sending out the goons with teargas and water canons, Chinese bureaucrats and municipal workers rush to the streets with their clipboards and interview the protesters to find out what the problems are and what they can do to make things right.
Yeah, the Chinese conception of democracy is completely beyond you Sinophobic trolls’ understanding. You stupid fools think “voting” every couple years for some useless meatbag (out of two or three options chosen for you by your capitalist overlords) who you know ahead of time will not even try to do what s/he promises, and whom you don’t like anyway, is “Democracy™”.
Stupid chumps.
There will be no “civil unrest” in China, at least not of the sort you moron trolls hope for. China’s government has even more popular support than Putin. It is untouchable by your retarded memes and narratives. The American and British governments are far more at risk of being toppled by their populations than is the Chinese government.
Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 12:18 utc | 15
If you were a Hongkonger, would you leave Hong Kong for freedom?
Before the coup in HK in 2019, HK was ranked 3rd in the world on the scale of freedom. USA was only 7th.
What makes (some) HKers think they have no freedom & must flee HK?
“HK has no freedom” is just a political slogan by USA+UK to brainwash HKers because USA+UK have been plotting to control HK government. It was a modern-day colonisation without occupying HK. That is all.
They were plotting to overthrow China’s regime. That is all. They tried many times. Xizang (Tibet in English) in 1959. Tiananmen in 1989. Xinjiang in 2009, HK in 2019. White Paper protest in 2022. Taiwan ongoing.
Some HKers did flee to UK. Now they find UK national security law is tighter than HK’s. ie they have less freedom in UK than in HK. They found UK police are tougher than HK.
They find out that “freedom is a political slogan only” in the hard way.
A comment regarding China
I find it really frustrating that people even paid trolls constantly fall for this BS about China. Most have never even been to Asia or if they have it is Phuket or Bali.
There they never actually spend time with locals just demand fresh towels.. On my walk this morning I was thinking about China and Taiwan and wondering why China does not just cut them off??
Most companies in Taiwan are connected to China most families in Taiwan are connected to the mainland with families, most flights coming and going from Taiwan go to China.
I suspect most money moves through China. Maybe that would be the plan if things heat up. My hope and belief is Taiwan does not really want this, and Taiwan is no longer the innovation center it was when we lived there. They have to know the US will use them and dump them just like Ukraine and Israel, Afghanistan, and all the other countries that the US. Dumps when they lose
The Canary in the Retail coal mine has just taken very, VERY, ill. Dollar General, the retail chain that is found in almost every low income, urban, area, saw its stock price plunge 29.43% TODAY.
The company said publicly it is because its customers ‘feel worse off.’
Adding to investor concerns, Dollar General significantly lowered its full-year outlook, attributing part of the downgrade to the financial struggles of its core customer base.
The company noted that many of its customers “feel worse off,” reflecting the broader economic pressures affecting consumer spending.
On Thursday afternoon, the stock was trading around $87.
Hal Turner Analysis
In many respects, Dollar General is a sort of Canary in the (retail) coal mine. Years ago, Miners working deep underground, brought Canaries in cages with them for fear of natural gas, carbon monoxide, and a host of other deadly gases. If the Canary passed-out, or dropped dead in the cage, the miners knew to evacuate the mine immediately because death was coming for the miners themselves if they didn’t leave immediately.
Dollar General has had good stock value and performance because their core customer base, the low-income folks, are in abundant supply.
Today, the Canary in the retail coal mine got noticeably sick and those with any brains, KNOW this is a major league, bad economic sign.
When the poor are SO POOR they can’t even afford to go to Dollar General, the economy is in a bad downward spiral.
THAT is exactly the warning sign everyone got today, as Dollar General’s stock value plummeted 29.43% in ONE DAY.
Most of us have known for the better part of two years, things were not right. E V E R Y T H I N G was suddenly getting noticeably more expensive; especially food.
Energy costs, that had peaked with gasoline around $6. a gallon, eased back to around $3.XX but then a lot of us noticed that the product packaging, was smaller. In most cases, the price of a product remained the same, but the quantity of the product was reduced.
Take Tuna fish, for example. The price had gone up to about $1.50 for a 6 oz. can, then all of a sudden . . . . . ALL of the Tuna fish cans became only five ounces. ALL OF THEM!
No industry collusion there. No anti-trust violations there. HMMMMMM.
Portions of other products took nose-dives as well.
But now, even Dollar General is seeing a major reduction in revenues. And this reduction is from a customer base that does not spend extravagantly because . . . well . . . . they can’t.
So while we’ve been seeing the prices go up, the product sizes go down, things still chugged along economically, NOW we’re seeing that the very people who only bought what they absolutely NEEDED, can’t even do that anymore.
This is a terrible warning sign that the economy is not only in a recession (which government has lied about by denying it for over a year) it is heading straight and fast, into Depression.
Of course, the Biden voters, ALL of whom are low-information people with little to no intellect or ability to discern truth from lies, have bought the lies in the mass media that the economy is good.
Naturally, those same low-information and almost zero intellect Biden supporters will never make the connection between who they vote for and what they’re encountering in real life. They deny what life is proving to them, and believe the lies they hear and see on TV and radio.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Those of us who actually have the ability to see facts, have known the economy is very sick for quite awhile and it is Biden’s socialistic economic policies, and radical environmental policies that have caused it all.
As the November Election approaches, the dumb will keep voting the way they’ve voted because they’re too dumb to figure things out. The rest of us will vote against the present regime. Hopefully, there are still more smart people than dumb. We’ll see.
Can Cats See Spirits, Ghosts, or the Supernatural?
To whom it may concern,When I signed up for this assignment, I was looking forward to spending four years of my life with someone who shared my disdain for obnoxiously loud, self idolizing, undereducated people.I believed (foolheartedly) that only respectful scientists would sign up for this mission. That only those who truly valued the exploration of the last great frontier would spend three years training, four years locked in a shuttle with little to no contact with Earth, and a year reconditioning to Earth.Through all the vetting processes and the countless tests, how is it that he made it through. Out of everyone, I had to be sent out with this doof-The tip of my pencil abruptly breaks as the door crashes open.“Yo Whaddup?” the intruder yells as he prances inside my room.“Good morning Jack. What brings you so forcefully into my room this morning?” I say in an even voice as I push my letter of complaint under the other papers on my desk.“Just wanted to check up on my favorite colleague.” I stare blankly at him as he shuffles in the silence.“Also, the coffee maker isn’t working.”Year two of four on shuttle 555 to the Great Unknown has been filled with daily coffee maker failures. After only two weeks, it was discovered that Jack had little to no idea how to fix anything electrical after he almost set fire to the kitchen unit.Since neither of us can function without a consistent supply of this liquid energy, every morning he has swung by my room to request assistance in repairing our sputtering caffeine machine.As we make our way to the small kitchen unit, our feet softly tap on the shuttle floor. We keep the gravity at about half of Earth’s. It is ‘better for the mechanics of the shuttle’ according to the maintenance manual.For the second time today, I find my hand buried deep in our well-loved coffee machine. Its plastic cover is chipped by the multiple falls it has taken (mainly because of Jack’s love of ‘space juggling,’ where he tries to juggle with random appliances he finds). Among the small cracks, there is one that stands out from the rest. A crack, that I know was definitely not there this morning.With a shoulder heaving sigh, I retract my hand, snap on the cracked cover, and give the poor machine an affectionate pat. Now that the immediate issue is over, I turn to Jack.“Why, may I ask, is there another crack in the cover?”He takes a single step back, bringing his hands slightly out in front of himself as he tries to form a consoling expression on his face. “You see-”“Yes I see”“I was filling it up and-” He turned before finishing his thought and scrambled away. In his struggle to escape he bounces feet into the air with every step. I race behind him, wanting nothing more than to teach him once and for all to never mess with my coffee.
As we crash through the small shuttle papers go flying in our wake. He is much faster than me, and I know that catching up to him is out of the question but- I grab a blunt object from the nearest table- I can still hit him. Thus started my onslaught of flying projectiles. Lucky for him, we only have ‘space grade’ appliances that can do no damage to the shuttle, and in turn, minimum damage to people.
Frantically dodging my projectiles he ducks into his room, slamming the door shut with such force that I dare say it shakes the whole shuttle. He is safe… for now.
In the aftermath of the conflict, I return to my room. I shuffle through a stack of papers on my desk, readouts from the multiple instruments our shuttle carries, an aged letter from home, and my half written letter of complaint lie before me.
I sit in the chair with a heavy sigh. Recently every day has been an ordeal. Just last week, while taking our annual inventory, I found that we were missing over a month’s worth of dessert rations.
Five or six of the well loved packets would have been acceptable (we each planned on five extra per month… everyone needs a sweet snack every once in a while), but a full 17 packets? Completely unacceptable!
The culprit was found almost immediately as I made my way to the kitchen for a much needed cup of coffee. There, with two opened dessert packets in front of him, was Jack. I paused for a moment, shocked by his flagrant misuse of rations.
Instead of laying into him right away, I strolled calmly into the room. He froze, knowing that he had been caught. I grabbed a dish and a fork, made my way to him, spooned a heaping portion of the brownie into my bowl, and sat down across from him.
Later would come the scolding, but those brownies are all that keep me sane.
After we finished our brownie’s it was agreed that he would be able to eat one portion at a time once a week and that he would limit himself a single brownie ration per month.
The issue has yet to return, and I believe that we are both satisfied with the results.
And I don’t dare forget the swivel chair incident of two weeks past!
In our control room, we have the best swivel chairs. They are so smooth, and in half gravity, it’s like you are floating instead of sitting.
One day, while doing the daily readouts of our course, I took a much needed break. Pushing off of the floor I started to spin. The world around me passed in a whizzing flash. The brightly lit shuttle intermittently interrupted by the dark expanse of space, as a childish carefree glee started to spread through me.
The weightless euphoric ride was cut short when a blurred figure of Jack makes his way into the room. It took me a full revolution to slam my feet to the ground, and the moment contact was made, I shot from my chair, still spinning, as I catapulted through the air.
Through the entire ordeal, Jack’s laugh echoed through the room. As I crashed back to the ground he sat in the co-pilot chair to watch my failure. His eyes were bright with amusement even after his body shaking laughter had ceased.
We sat in silence. Him still slightly shaking from silent chuckles, and me fuming with embarrassment at being caught doing such a childish thing.
Finally, I had reached my limit with this entire ordeal. Indignantly I got up, still dizzy, and stumbled my way from the room.
We have yet to talk about this incident, but every now and then, he’ll make an offhand remark on my fascination with spinning chairs.
As I recall our past fights, I find myself smiling. Never has there been a dull moment on this journey. I look down at the letter of complaint on my desk, heave a heavy sigh, and proceed to slowly rip it into a plethora of pieces.
Jack and I may not always get along, but I would rather be with him than anyone else.
Am I the only person who’s always not feeling healthy and safe with gun owners? I just want to destroy all guns, so that I can enjoy my life.
Man, it must really suck to be so delicate.
I actually live in a farming community. Here guns are a way of life. We use them for protecting livestock, hunting game, entertainment at shooting matches, and self-defense.
Our murder rate is almost zero. The last murder we had was 15 years ago…and that was a stabbing.
Our county jail is mostly filled with drunks and makers of meth. Most of those meth makers are caught by farmers with rifles long before the cops show up.
When I go to town, if I see some guy open carrying, I don’t freak out. Because I’ve been around guns all my life, I can tell the difference between a person who is a threat and who isn’t.
I live near a major city, a city that is one of the most dangerous in America. When some thugs decided that mugging and assaulting me was a good idea, when they found out that I was armed they had other places to be. I left that situation feeling healthy and safe.
Your desire to destroy all guns is not realistic.
Even if you did, what’s to stop the criminal types from stealing a gun, making a gun, or buying one on the black market?
Millions of Americans go about their lives on a daily basis completely oblivious that people around them are armed.
And yet somehow they are still safe.
It’s strange how in places where gun ownership is supported and practiced, are usually the safest neighborhoods to be in.
It’s the gun free zones you got to worry about.
Most Americans go through their daily lives without ever encountering someone who is an idiot with a gun.
If guns create such a fear in you, it’s probably because you feel defenseless and think that the answer to alleviating that is to make everybody defenseless. You are feeding exactly into what the criminals want.
An armed society is a polite society.
Besides, gun control is people control. And in a nation that lists freedom has its goal, such a thing is totally unacceptable.
Life comes with risks. Get a helmet.
No soup for you.
The Stand – original miniseries – 1994 – FULL MOVIE
Bio-weapon escapes from a USA military facility destroys 99.9999% of the world’s population. Shows the escape and the breakdown of society and the fight between good and evil.
Five hours of the entire movie. This Stephan King classic is awesome. It is well worth the time to watch over a week or two when you have time, or binge watch over the weekend.
At the very minimum the first ten minutes of the movie is gold. Especially with the song “Don’t fear the reaper” playing.
According to the “Woke” Gen Z feminists, men and women are identical. The two sexes are all completely alike. And not only are they same… but there is around 67 other sexes as well. All the same.
I don’t even bother dealing with this nonsense. You cannot reason with crazy.
Well, I am an old-fashioned fellow. And I know when people are trying to bullshit me. So I just ignore them.
Here’s a test.
Ask a man and a woman the same question.
"What is the name of your second grade teacher?"
More often than not, the women would know. And more often than not, the men would not.
Well, I don’t.
Though I do remember my third grade teacher. Her name was Mrs. Shakley. And, a boy in my class; Stephen told me that her name was “Mrs. Shake A Leg”, and told me to go up to here and call her that.
Oh what fun!
But she was cool about it. She really was.
Silly.
But, yeah. I don’t remember the names of my teachers. Only Two. Mrs. Shakley and Mr. Calhoon. That’s it.
It’s but a tiny little experiment, but it validates that there are differences between the sexes; the two primary genders.
And since there ARE differences, shouldn’t this also manifest in other ways?
One gender likes to done one thing, and the other doesn’t.
One gender prefers social interaction over privacy compared to the other.
One gender feels one way about relationships, the other has a different view.
Culturally, this tends to manifest in separation of the genders. Each sex would have their own enclaves. Men would have barbershops, while women would have salons. Men would have poker nights, while women would have luncheons with the girls.
Coed anything didn’t exist until feminism entered America in the 1920’s.
Personally, I have found that the more traditionally feminine a woman is, the more I am attracted to her. Men prefer womanly; motherly women. And I believe that the converse is true. Women prefer men who are “manly”; stoic and workers.
This Gen Z trend towards neutral gender-ality is not going to benefit anyone; just result in self-isolation, which will result in a host of personal and social problems for the future.
Don’t say that I never warned you.
Today…
Sore Losers
“Five bodies have now been found in the wreckage of British tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht, including those of Lynch himself and his teenage daughter Hannah, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday.
The 56-meter-long British-flagged superyacht named ‘Bayesian’, which had 22 people onboard, had anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello.
The incident occurred as the 59-year-old Lynch, known as ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’, was enjoying a “victory trip” to celebrate winning his US fraud trial over the £8.3 billion ($10.8 billion) sale of his software development firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.
Coincidence?
In a separate tragedy, it was reported that Lynch’s co-defendant in the trial and former vice president of finance at Autonomy, Stephen Chamberlain, was killed after being fatally struck by a car while jogging in the county of Cambridgeshire, UK, on Saturday.”
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Aug 22 2024 13:33 utc | 15
Beijing raises concerns over US considering China as a nuclear threat
Beijing raised serious concerns after Washington reportedly approved a secret nuclear strategy refocusing on the so-called China threat, saying the United States is, in fact, the biggest creator of strategic risks of the global nuclear threat.
According to the New York Times, US President Joe Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan for the US that, for the first time, reorients its deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal.
The US has, in recent years, continuously hyped up the so-called China nuclear threat theory, which is merely an excuse for shirking its nuclear disarmament responsibilities, expanding its nuclear arsenal, and seeking excuses for overwhelming strategic advantages, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a daily news briefing on Wednesday.
Emphasizing that China’s nuclear arsenal is not on the same scale as that of the US, Mao said China adheres to a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons and maintains a nuclear strategy of self-defense.
China has always kept its nuclear capabilities to a minimum required for national security needs with no intention to engage in any arms race with any country, the spokeswoman said.
Instead, the US, possessing the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal, stubbornly adheres to a nuclear deterrence policy based on the first use of nuclear weapons, Mao said.
It also continuously invests significant resources in upgrading its triad of nuclear forces and openly develops tailored nuclear deterrence strategies for other countries, she added.
Mao urges the US to earnestly assume its special and primary responsibilities toward nuclear disarmament, and drastically and substantively reduce its nuclear stockpile.
Washington should cease negative activities that undermine global and regional peace and stability, such as nuclear sharing, extended deterrence, and expanding nuclear alliances, said the spokeswoman.
What consequences have arisen from China’s government investment in high technology sectors like electric vehicles (EVs) batteries and advanced computer chips?
China’s cities have become much cleaner and quieter.
20 years ago, there were many Chinese cities on the most polluted cities list. Now only Beijing is in that list. And NOT in the top ten.
Do doctors know when their patient is lying?
This happened a couple of months ago. A male patient enters the ER with abdominal pain because he is severely constipated, but the very cause of his medical problem turns out to be urological.
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He has a conglomerate of very painful cauliflower-like genital warts in and around his anus, and it makes him postpone No. 2 every which way. Hence the constipation.
But this patient is weird. Even before his first medical interview with the urologist is over, he starts undressing to show his genitals and behind. As if he is eager to show them. As if he is excited.
His condition turns out to be Syphilis, but the medication will save him nevertheless. (Without medication, Syphilis is life-threatening.)
But now here’s the problem: the patient acts as if he does not know how the warts got “there” in the first place, since “he is a decent citizen.” When his urologist asks him — rather blatantly, but in the privacy of the consultation room there is no reason to lie about one’s case — whether he is homosexual, he almost erupts and immediately becomes so aggressive, that a male trainee is asked to join the interview.
Every single further question about the touchdown location of his genital warts is dodged, and it is obviously that the man is lying, possibly in a bout of self-denial about his own personal preferences. He is not like that. Period.
And still, that is the location where the bad guys entered the building.
Most probably, at this point you are asking yourself why the urologist is asking these questions.
The answer is that the patient’s sexu🙄l partners need to be contacted and warned about his condition, and need to take the appropriate medication (penicillins) in order to prevent that they succumb to the disease they might be suffering from.
This patient refuses to help in any way, though.
And genital warts really do mark the spot.
SOURCES: Tertiary syphilitic ulceration of the scalp (on the left) and Face of a woman with a typical “syphilitic nose” (on the right), St Bartholomew’s Hospital Photographic Society, Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0 attribution).
United States government has asked for China’s help to ensure international financial stability in the event that United States economy enters a recession and United States government default on its national debt. This is the only item that the Biden Administration can agree to work jointly with the Chinese as United States government default is imminent.
If United States economy enters a recession & United States government defaults on its national debt, the consequences for the global financial market would be severe and far-reaching:
1. Market Turmoil
Stock markets worldwide would likely plunge, with the S&P 500 potentially falling over 15% based on past debt ceiling crises. Credit markets could freeze up as investors dump United states treasuries, traditionally seen as safe assets. Thus, there would be chaotic fluctuations in currency exchange rates, making international trade extremely difficult
2. Economic Impacts
A deep United States recession would likely trigger a global recession, dramatically reducing economic demand worldwide, the result will be unemployment would spike, potentially increasing by 5 percentage points in the US alone. Thus, consumer and business confidence would take substantial hits, leading to reduced consumption and investment.
3. Financial System Destabilization
The credibility of United States treasuries as the bedrock of global bond markets would be severely damaged. Financial institutions balance sheets would become extremely fragile, potentially leading to a liquidity crisis. The Federal Reserve would need to take extraordinary measures to prevent a total collapse of the financial system.
4. Global Trade Disruption
A liquidity crisis could strangle global trade in the short term, with goods stuck at ports as companies struggle to raise funds. The rapid exchange of currencies would cause chaotic fluctuations in exchange rates, making trade more difficult and expensive.
5. Dollar’s Status Threatened
Other countries would likely reduce their dependence on the US dollar as the international reserve currency. This could benefit rival currencies like the Chinese renminbi, though the transition would be messy and prolonged.
6. Borrowing Costs
Interest rates would spike globally, increasing borrowing costs for businesses, homeowners, and governments This would make it more difficult for households and businesses to access credit during the economic downturn.
In summary, United States debt default would likely trigger a severe global financial crisis, disrupt international trade, threaten the dollar’s dominance, and potentially reshape the global economic order. The effects would be far-reaching and long-lasting, with limited policy options available to mitigate the damage.
Have you ever been glad you were carrying a gun? What happened?
My daughter was. She worked at a retail store and was closing one night quite late. Employees parked on the side of the building that had little lighting. As she approached the edge of the building she heard noises and found a guy with a bar trying to break into her car.
She got out her cell phone, called 911 and began speaking that someone was trying to break into her car plus the location. The guy heard her, turned toward her and came at her from about 60 feet away. She drew her .357 Stainless Steel Smith and Wesson, got into crouch position aiming the gun right at him. Didn’t need to pull the trigger.
When the police arrived over 36 minutes later, she told them the story. One cop asked if she had a permit to carry that gun. She is pretty cool, but got enraged and said to the cop, “You A$$hle, aren’t you supposed to be looking for the culprit?” He left and she showed her carry permit to another cop and asked what took them so long to get there? They said it was reported as a stolen car and that happens around there all the time, so no hurry.
My daughters boss and I went to the station to get the police report and found out that they didn’t even check the bar or car for prints nor even make a report. We both went ballistic and demanded the Chief to come to the station to explain procedures and the lack of their actions. He was apologetic and told them to make a complete report and also explain in detail why they hadn’t pursued the matter. Nothing else came of it.
My daughter told me when I got home that when she pulled that .357 she had never seen anyone run so fast. She said that one of his feet went one way, the other one another way, he fell down, jumped up and then ran jumping over a hedge. I don’t think he will come back to that store for a car break in again.
US geopolitical reach exceeds its industrial grasp
By Brian Berletic Published: Aug 14, 2024 05:27 PM
In order to contain China, the US must maintain military and economic primacy over China. Nevertheless, its ability to do this has come into question in recent years due to the continual rise and growing strength of China, and the demonstrated growing weakness of the US itself.Among these weaknesses is the US’ atrophying military industrial base, in particular its capacity to build the ships, warplanes and missiles required to exceed Chinese military power off China’s own coasts.
The Associated Press in a recent article pointed out that the US Navy’s warship production is in its worst state in 25 years, stating that this has put the country “behind China in the number of ships at its disposal – and the gap is widening.” The article describes a critical labor shortage and a shrinking shipbuilding capacity that has increased over decades of neglect and mismanagement.
This reflects a much wider workforce crisis across the country’s military-industrial base as reported in the 2023 US National Defense Industrial Strategy report, which stated that the labor market lacks sufficient workers with the right skills to meet domestic production and sustainment demand.
For the US, with around a quarter of the population of China, sufficiently expanding its education system and its ability to produce sufficient skilled laborers to compete with China is impractical. This reflects the equally impractical nature of US foreign policy and its desire to maintain primacy over China.
Many in the US arms industry believe that despite these disadvantages, the US can still find ways to “out-innovate” China. An example of this is the startup arms manufacturer Anduril and its “Arsenal” concept. Anduril aims to address the urgent needs of the US and its allies and prevent a situation in which “the US military would run out of weapons in less than one week of a war with China” by simplifying the design of US weapons, incorporating more off-the-shelf components already commercially available, and utilizing emerging industrial practices like “software-defined manufacturing” (SDM). It also resorts to mass-producing naval drones of various classes and sizes.
The problem for Anduril and its prospective customers at the Pentagon is that any manufacturing process Anduril develops to compete with China, China will have the ability to match due to its many other fundamental advantages in industrial production.
According to Defense One in a February 2024 article, overall China’s navy has more ships than the US including 30 ships it built in the past year. Over the same period of time, the US built only two ships. If this is true, the idea that the US can somehow expand shipbuilding by over 15 times is fantasy.
It is also a fantasy to imagine the US can make up for this large and growing gap in shipbuilding by producing naval drones with software-defined manufacturing, as US-based Anduril proposes, considering China’s advantages in production, including the use of SDM and the production of drones.
The US geopolitical reach exceeds its industrial grasp due to the flawed premise on which its foreign policy is based. The belief in the US’ inherent superiority over all other nations has led to the myth that US hegemony over the world is sustainable and should be maintained.
However, this dominance was not due to inherent superiority, but rather a vast disparity in terms of economic, technological and military power. The story of the 20th and 21st centuries is one of narrowing disparity. The story of tomorrow will be of this disparity growing once again, but in favor of the global majority of which China is a key player.
For the US, there is only one rational course of action to address the reality of Western hegemony having run its course, with a multipolar world taking its place. The US must find a constructive role to play among all other nations rather than continuing to irrationally attempt to impose itself upon all other nations.
In the meantime, the US arms industry, including shipbuilding, will continue consuming huge amounts of public money at the expense of essential American infrastructure and education, both ironically essential factors in bolstering industrial production.
At the same time, both the American and Chinese public face a potential war as Washington continues ratcheting up tensions in the Asia-Pacific region – an unnecessary war the US is unprepared to fight and unlikely to win.
Star Lady
Would increased Chinese nuclear capabilities make it less likely for the United States to militarily intervene if China decides to invade Taiwan?
Increased willingness to use nuclear capabilities is what would decrease the likelihood of US military intervention.
A country with the No First Use nuclear policy is not one that can be trusted to use nuclear weapons as a negotiating tool.
China should immediately scrap the No First Use nuclear policy and declare the same policy for any country intervening in the Taiwan reunification of the land with China by force as they would already be doing for Japan.
If you even think of changing your policy with China to the negative as a result of reunification by force, you might as well shut the Chinese embassy down right now. If you don’t recognize one China, then don’t bother having any relations with China. You are free to blather about democracy and freedom, and take 23 million Taiwanese into your country. I wish you all good luck.
Does corruption exist only in India or is it a universal problem? Does it exist even in China?
Corruption is everywhere, just in different degrees.
I want to share some small things I experienced during my visit to China.
1. Experience in 2024
In the second quarter of this year, I visited China again and entered from Shanghai. Because I arrived at night, there was a long queue at the entrance for customs stamping, but there were few people at the “Chinese Channel” on the other side.
I really didn’t want to arrive at the hotel in the middle of the night, so I found a uniformed security guard and whispered to him, “Is there a special channel?” and handed him a rolled up $10 bill in my passport.
This approach works very well in some Southeast Asian countries, and I have successful experience in at least 4 countries. They will take you to other channels for stamping, but it is said that this is not allowed in China, but I still want to try.
The security guard opened my passport and saw the money in it. He immediately changed his expression, quickly folded the passport and returned it to me (the money was still in it), and said to me, “Hello, foreigners can only queue here. We have notified the customs to increase staff, please wait, welcome to China, we don’t accept tips”
I guess my approach made him feel uncomfortable, and I failed.
2. Experience in 2018
Our company participated in an investment project in Guizhou, China. Our European client needed to build a huge factory. The company I served provided investment and financing services, as well as consulting, assistance, and translation.
The construction of the factory encountered a problem. The local safety supervision department believed that the width of the safety passage between the two buildings was not enough (due to a slight error with the drawings in order to avoid a drainage ditch during construction).
I went to the director’s office with the client. The client did not speak Chinese and relied on me to solve the problem. I hinted two messages to the person in charge:
1. “The error is very small, and it is almost invisible if you don’t measure it.”;
2. “We need a batch of composite materials for our roof, which is about 200,000 US dollars. Can you recommend a local supplier to me?
This is also my work skill, which has successful experience in India, Thailand and Vietnam. There is no open corruption and bribery, but they will choose to ignore some small problems because they get legal benefits. I failed again.
The person in charge finally asked the secretary to give me the contact information of the local industry association and the open building materials market. The problem of the passage did not require us to demolish the building in the end, but required us to change the drawings and open an additional auxiliary passage on the other side to solve it.
In fact, I have never experienced real corruption in my many years of visiting experience in China. Whether it is a few dollars in tips or hundreds of thousands of dollars in commercial projects.
But I know that corruption does exist in China. This is what my Chinese colleagues told me clearly. It’s just that these corruptions are hidden very deeply and often not Known. Once exposed, it is usually dealt with by the judicial department quickly, which is different from the corruption that can be seen everywhere in India or some other Southeast Asian countries.
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Regarding India, everyone who has been to India has full experience. From entering customs, to hotel waiters, to police and all government workers, corruption is everywhere. Anywhere you need “convenience”, you can get extra benefits by paying extra fees. All kinds of “outside the rules” can be seen everywhere, and people are accustomed to it.
1. The humblest waiter
In 2017, a hotel in Mumbai provided breakfast but not lunch.
One noon, I went to the restaurant for lunch(buffet), and the waiter asked me to sign a small receipt showing that the lunch was $40 and would be settled when I checked out.
This is a routine operation in most hotels, but what surprised me was that the dark-skinned waiter did not leave. He lowered his voice and asked me: “Sir, will you come to lunch tomorrow?”
I said: “Maybe, what’s wrong?“ “Sir, you can pay me in cash tomorrow, only 30 dollars, and I will give you a drink , free.” I immediately understood that I had entered the corruption game of the most humble waiter, and he and the restaurant’s chef would steal the hotel’s income.
If a country’s grassroots public officials and even a waiter are doing everything possible to participate in corruption, what will happen to those who hold power and huge wealth in this country?
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So I think there are two types of corruption.
1. Corruption hidden in dark corners.
This kind of corruption is like weeds in the yard. No matter how the owner cleans it up, it will always exist. But once some weeds are found, the hardworking owner will start The lawnmower cleans them up. This makes the whole yard look clean and tidy most of the time.
This is a phenomenon in China. There is no “legal corruption” and “publicly recognized corruption” in China.
2. Open corruption, systemic corruption
It is also weeds in the yard, but many weeds have small tags “I am a legal weed” hanging on them. When the owner starts the lawnmower, he must go around them. When such weeds become too many, the lawnmower has no room to run.
And the owner of the yard began to tell people: My yard is full of vitality and nature (all this is normal). This is the situation in India. Corruption has become part of life.
What strategies can the Philippine government use to handle China without assistance from the US? What are the potential outcomes if they are unable to defend against a stronger Chinese force?
That’s like asking what strategy can Panama government use to handle the US.
Go read Operation Just Cause. The US ran over Panama and arrested Noriega. He was hiding in some other nation’s embassy.
The US can’t handle China and you want the Philippines to do so?
⚡HOLY $%#^: BIDENS TOP SECRET PLAN FOR GLOBAL NUCLEAR WAR LEAKED! DAY X APPROACHES IN MIDDLE EAST!
As a flight attendant, what is the pettiest thing you have been asked?
The list can go on and on. It may sound lame, but I find these types of situations extremely petty.
Just the other day a grown man sits in the window seat as we prepare to depart from Winnipeg, MB to fly to Edmonton, AB.
We were working on a smaller plane and had about 15 people coming from another flight that was a couple of minutes behind schedule. 15 people is a good enough reason to wait an extra 8 minutes. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen – especially if this is the last flight of the day.
Long story short, we take off about 12 minutes late.
Service starts in the cabin.
Pulling my cart up to the first row, I arrange myself and begin issuing service items.
“Hello Sir, …” I smile.
“Yea, I’ll have a free beer”
“Haha funny, certainly, Sir, but unfortunately there’s a cost.”
Reaching into my drawer I pull out a can of local beer and place it, unopened, on top of the cart in front of me.
I hand the man a cup. He raises his voice, as his headphones may be slightly louder than his ears will comprehend, “I hear that beer is free on flights that are 25 minutes late…”
We both pause and stare blankly for an instant. I motion for him to remove his headphones. He does.
I smile, “well Sir, I appreciate the humour, but I’m afraid if we did that for every late flight, we’d be out of business! It’s a good thing we are only 8 minutes behind and we will be arriving on time after all! Meaw, that’ll be $6.”
The man’s face changed quickly to a brazen red and a drop of sweat slowly forms on his forehead.
“This is ridiculous — you give it away on other flights between x and x (cities purposefully unnamed)” his forehead now was clearly dampened.
“Yes, that is part of our business model for certain flights, unfortunately this one will cost you.”
“I do encourage you to write into the company and tell them your service needs are unmet.”
Even more red now, more wet, more full of rage.
“This is typical airline bullshit, I’ve written in before and nothing. Give me a free beer or get out of my sight.”
I put the beer away back into my cart.
His anger was very apparent. At this point, alcohol will not solve the problem but may only worsen his temper. “In this state, Mr Smith (I referenced his name in my manifest and changed for this memory) your only option will be non-alcoholic.”
He then asks for something completely out of the ballpark, “pomegranate juice?”
“Out of season, Air, not a typical airline beverage either” as I smile forcefully. His palms raise as he asks the good lord to cut him some slack.
I move on to the next guest who has absorbed some of the frustration of the man in the window, therefore also disgruntledly disclosing his own beverage choice in a silent anti-attendant protest. He gladly paid for his own choice of beverage.
Back to the window, Mr Smith still refuses to offer his beverage choice for me to provide. I asked again “Are you sure I can’t offer you anything else, Sir?”
He stared ahead, ignoring me, without headphones in his ears. Fully able to hear and see me, he sat pouting like a six-year-old who didn’t get dessert.
He didn’t say a word for the rest of the flight, and cowered off of the plane at our final destination.
The man could have easily swindled a free beverage if he had been kind about it.
Moral of the story; it never hurts to be a nice person.
The way he opened the whole conversation ruined the chance from the get-go.
I’d let my concealed carry permit expire, so I had to requalify rather than just renew it. That meant another day of classroom work, and a live fire safety and marksmanship test.
I went to a different range than the one I’d used the previous time, just to change things up. They told me the range training would take at least 25 rounds, but probably no more than 50. They preferred us to buy range ammo (no reloads or non-brass cases, no steel core bullets) and I could either bring my own gun or rent one.
I wanted to qualify with a gun I would actually carry, rather than one of my full-size handguns. This makes a difference. The smaller the gun, the harder it is to shoot well. You have a short barrel, which makes it more difficult to aim, and a lighter weight gun will have a lot more felt recoil. A bigger gun (up the the point where it starts getting unwieldy) will generally perform better and will be easier to manage. But of course, their size, shape, and weight will make them more awkward to carry and conceal. That’s the trade-off.
I had two small handguns that were built for concealed carry- a Smith & Wesson 642 airweight revolver, and a Kahr P380 semiauto. These guns have given me opposite experiences of owning them.
The revolver was one that I really wanted from the get-go, I loved the look and feel of the thing, and I was in love with the idea of that make and model before I got it… but actually using it was a disappointment. I really sucked at shooting it. I couldn’t hit boo, and it hurt my hand. Anyone who has a 642 will tell you it was meant to carry, not to shoot.
The P380, on the other hand, didn’t have much initial appeal. It’s kinda ugly and too small and just meh. But, when I was shopping for a concealable single-stack .380, I’d tried a bunch of makes and models: Glock, S&W Sheild, Kel-Tek, SCCY, Taurus, and I don’t remember what all else. Each of them demonstrated something I didn’t like. The Kahr was the least objectionable of all of them, and I consistently did the best with it. It was easily #2 in every single one of the criteria I was looking at, and didn’t do anything I hated. So it went to the top of the pack, I bought one, and since then, it’s really grown on me.
When the time came for this range test, I really wanted to use the revolver, because it was new to me at the time, and I was excited about it… but I knew that after three reloads of five shots each, I’d be done. My hand would be an achy, shaky, useless mess. I didn’t want to imagine the punishment of twenty-five rounds or more through that thing. I sighed with regret and brought the relatively unappreciated little Kahr instead. Honestly, I was much more likely to carry that one, anyhow.
The P380 is a TINY little thing, no bigger than a man’s wallet. It slips into my pocket and disappears. No waistband holster, no printing, no worries. When I carry it in a little DeSantis pocket holster (which obscures its shape), no one has ever noticed it, and I doubt anyone ever would.
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The class was a real mixed bag of shooters. Some were n00bs that had barely ever shot a handgun before, some were range rats, and there was one tacticool operator. Overall, it was a mix of men and women, young and old, and it was racially diverse as well. The guy teaching the class had to wrangle all these various experience levels and attitudes into something coherent, and he did a remarkable job of it.
When range time came, we were managed like kindergartners, which was entirely appropriate. My turn at the line had me empty one magazine (6 rounds) into a target twelve feet away, reload, and continue. It was to be aimed fire, with at least one full second between shots. I paid attention to my stance, my grip, and my breathing… all of which is kinda overkill for that close range and that small a gun.
Halfway through my second magazine, the Range Safety Officer tapped me on the shoulder.
I thought I’d screwed up somehow.
“You’re good,” he said. “You can stop.”
It dawned on me that he was saying I’d qualified, just nine shots into a test that was supposed to take three to five times that round count, despite handicapping myself with my little mouse of a gun. Others in the class were not doing half as well with their full-sized Glocks and Berettas and the like.
“Can I finish this magazine?”
“Sure.”
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Now, this wasn’t a tournament, or a competition. It was just a Florida CCW class, the main goal being that you don’t do too many things that are overtly stupid or dangerous. But still, this was one of the first times that I’d felt acknowledged as something other than a mere student or rank amateur (which, of course, I am). Sometimes, a good evaluator can tell pretty much right away when someone knows what they’re doing, before they do it, just by how they approach it. I got the nod, and I got it readily.
It felt good. But I’m still humble.
What The Older Generations WON’T SAY About The Problems Men Are Facing TODAY
What is the most misunderstood thing about Germany and its people?
I’ve lived in Germany for almost 6 years now, so I can tell you a few things:
Germans are cold: not true. They are not as warm and open as the people in the Americas, but americans (north/south/central) are usually warmer than many. Germans in general are quite friendly. At least the south germans, if you smile at them on the street they smile back. If you ask for help, they gladly help. There are grouches and angry people, but that’s about everywhere, especially in big cities.
They only work, work, work, no time for fun: It depends on where you are. I’ve work in a start-up with a mixture of people of all ages, and the favorite thing to say there was: Umtrunk! which usually meaned: enough work, let’s drink beer and talk nonesense for a while. This only happened occassionaly on fridays afternoons, of course, or when something really good happened. The office’s fridge was full of beer 24/7, tho. This is of course, not common. But germans also love to organize breakfasts/lunches, where everybody brings something to eat and they share a nice moment together (also for birthdays, pregnancies, etc). I also remember a time, with another working team, when we decided to join a baseball tournament between companies. On wednesday we had our first practice game, and at the end, we went to some bar to drink and just enjoy the night. On a wednesday. It was like 1 am when we were done drinking. Germans sometimes don’t give a f***.
They are workaholics: not quite. Germans are really serious about their free time: they will work their asses off, true. But if you think you can bully them out of their vacation, like americans managers do, think again. If they work extra hours, it’s because they wanted to, but when the deadlines are met, they can take those extra hours as extra vacation, and basically dissappear for weeks. If a colleage takes a vacation of 2–4 weeks, that’s the norm, not the exception.
They have no sense of humor: false. They do. They joke and laugh a lot. The problem is that american/british humor is sometimes very ironic. Like, telling something in a hypothetical ironic way, and we laugh because it’s obvious that it’s not meant to be taken seriously. Germans are more of a: “if you say you are going to do it, it’s because you are going to do it” kind of people, so american humor is going to, sometimes, go way over their heads. But this is only soooometimes, on very particular cases. Other than that, they laugh and joke about as much as everybody else.
They are too strict: well, yeah. They are still very deep on the “follow the law. No excuses, no questions” mentallity. But so far, I’ve gotten no much problem out of this. Just avoid breaking the law (crossing on red) in front of children. Because then you are giving a bad example and children are dumb, and germans will be pissed. Other than that, just do what germans do, and you’ll be fine (it’s their country, after all. Internationals have to adapt to the host, not the other way around).
Wow. This was a long one.
EDIT: Ah, I forgot one vey important point:
It is forbidden to talk about WWII in Germany: not quite true. The germans are very ashamed of what happened during WWII, and most of them are very fearful that something similar could happen again. For this very reason, germans are very open to discussion on this matter. I think the mentality here is: you can’t stop something from happening again if you don’t understand WHY it happened. For this reason, some museums here are dedicated to: WWII: what the h*** happened? to try to understand the political, economical, sociological and psycological reasons behind the catastrophe. And, yeah, you may find some comedy too, believe it or not. There are some historical sketches in youtube, and some of them are of WWII: a particularly funny one is about 3 soldiers discussing with Rommel about what should be his nick name for the press (The Desert Fox). One of the soldiers sudgests “Desert Worm” because he just “slithers through the dunes”. Rommel tells him he’ll get him shot if he gives another sudgestion like that. So yeah, talking about WWII and the Nazis is not forbidden here. What you must NEVER do, under no circunstance, is saying ANYTHING POSSITIVE about the Nazis. That’ll get you in deep s***.
Some of today’s MM creations
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Would increased Chinese nuclear capabilities make it less likely for the United States to militarily intervene if China decides to invade Taiwan?
Increased willingness to use nuclear capabilities is what would decrease the likelihood of US military intervention.
A country with the No First Use nuclear policy is not one that can be trusted to use nuclear weapons as a negotiating tool.
China should immediately scrap the No First Use nuclear policy and declare the same policy for any country intervening in the Taiwan reunification of the land with China by force as they would already be doing for Japan.
If you even think of changing your policy with China to the negative as a result of reunification by force, you might as well shut the Chinese embassy down right now. If you don’t recognize one China, then don’t bother having any relations with China. You are free to blather about democracy and freedom, and take 23 million Taiwanese into your country. I wish you all good luck.
CHINA IS NOW THE LEADING COUNTRY OF THE WORLD
Chili-Beef Casserole
c0cc85817dd08173ff2ee4a62b6b185f
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 (16 ounce) can hot chili beans
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can tomato soup, undiluted
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups corn chips
6 green onions, chopped
1 (2.25 ounce) can sliced ripe olives, drained
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
Instructions
Cook ground beef in a large skillet, stirring until it crumbles and is no longer pink.
Add chili beans and next 4 ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes.
Place corn chips in a lightly greased 11 x 7 inch baking dish.
Spoon meat mixture over chips; sprinkle with 6 tablespoons of the green onions, olives and cheese.
Bake uncovered at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated.
The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China concluded its third plenary session in Beijing last month. One of its principal objectives was to study the issue of further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. This comes at a time when much of the Western world is falling apart by mostly self-ignited and auto-propelled conflicts and proxy wars, “sanctioning” countries that don’t conform to the hegemon’s wishes.
While the West is self-destructing, China is “modernizing” and opening up its outlook and activities to the rest of the world – one could say as a helping hand to seek global harmony and peace, while at home unifying behind a stable and sound economy.
The meeting emphasized that the present and the near future constitute a critical period for our endeavor to build a great country and move toward national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernization. As Chinese modernization has been advanced continuously through reform and opening-up, it will surely embrace broader horizons through further pushing this policy. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is already in the process of being implemented. In fact, the outlook, opening-up and peaceful inclusion of other countries and regions had already started in 2013. It spans the globe with at least six nation-connecting transportation infrastructure schemes via land, sea and air, through Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
To promote Chinese modernization, Beijing has drawn a blueprint and given concrete initiatives. Essentially, the act of modernizing and opening-up includes, at home, the implementation of the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy, meaning promoting and deepening economic, political, cultural, social and ecological advancement under law-based self-governance. It also includes supporting broad and country-wide security and high-quality development, ensuring people’s wellbeing and social stability, protecting the environment as well as further development of national defense and the armed forces.
Internationally, China seeks to pursue diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. BRICS and Global South are two very important platforms for cooperation. One of the Chinese proposals in cooperation with Russia is the expansion of BRICS to the currently BRICS Plus, which is expected to be further enlarged.
This is part of China’s modernization with a national, as well as international, and peaceful, platform. Modernization is also aiming at de-dollarized currencies, for example, a common BRICS trading currency, strengthening the Global South, gradually moving it away from the fangs of the Western dollarized economy.
The Western dollarized monetary system has become a worldwide Ponzi scheme, that over the past few decades has grown to become a power-grabbing system, able to strangle and penalize countries seeking sovereignty, rather than having to bow to the Western hegemonic powers.
These moves of modernization and opening-up – with Chinese characteristics – are peaceful, non-aggressive and non-expansive, with each partner within the Global South and within the BRICS, maintaining her own sovereign autonomy, and their own sovereign monetary system.
The steady advance of modernization will lead China into a high-standard market economy. The expansion of the market economy will concentrate on BRICS and the Global South. It will also focus on the ASEAN nations, in particular the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s largest free trade agreement, comprising fifteen countries.
The reform process includes assessing the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), leading smoothly to the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). It is expected to be completed when the People’s Republic of China celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2029.
The new era has already begun. It will continue building China into a modern socialist country by the middle of the century. China is advancing peacefully into a higher level of long-term governance at home. It is also providing diplomatic assistance internationally for those nations or societies that want to benefit from China’s aura and experience of peaceful development and coexistence.
The author is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization.
Peter Koenig 22:36 Aug 21 2024
Prof. Mearsheimer REVEALS: China Will Side with Russia in a MAJOR Global Conflict
Have you ever been glad you were carrying a gun? What happened?
One day a couple rough looking guys came over to my rural home in response to an ad I had put on craigslist, giving away a set of truck tires.
Earlier in the week, I had gotten a few threatening texts from someone who was responding to the ad because one of the tires was a different brand. The guy was a nutcase. Free tires and one was an odd brand?
So these guys pull up,don’t say a word, and just got out and glared at me. I pointed to the tires by the garage and they walked over but were watching me out of the corners of their eyes.
I kept my distance.They still had said nothing and appeared angry. It struck me at that moment this was probably the nut who sent the texts,threatening me for giving away odd tires. I was really creeped out by then.
I told them I had to go check up on my dad who was (Wasn’t) in the house and to take the tires if they wanted them.
I went in and strapped on my Bersa .380, letting it show from benieth my shirt tail. I went back outside and stood a good 14 feet away from them.
They both noticed the gun on my hip and my hand close to it. At that,one mumbled something to the other and they rolled the tires away and into their truck and left.
Not a word.
I am almost certain that if they had the chance,they would have beaten me or worse.
My nearest neighbor was too far away to notice if anything went wrong and these guys definitely had something else on their mind.
All I had to do was show them I was armed and alert. That may have saved my life or at least a beating.
Be Careful with Female Colleagues – They don’t consider your career.
What was the strangest way a criminal was caught?
A tin of salmon.
Alongside his partner Leonard Lake, infamous serial killer Charles Ng had killed and tortured a dozen or more men, women and children over the span of one year. The whole terrible affair is a tale of fate and chance.
Born to a wealthy Hong Kong businessman, his early life was marked by an obsession with martial arts, fire-setting and physical abuse at the hands of his father. Amidst all of this, an inclination towards kleptomania emerged. He hopped from one school to another, getting expelled from each one, marked out as a troubled youth. After a shoplifting incident aged 15, his father sent him to an English boarding school in an attempt to correct him. Shortly after arriving though, he was expelled for stealing from other students.
Aged 18, he got a student visa and moved to the USA where he enrolled at NDNU, a college in Northern California, but dropped out after one semester. Soon after he was involved in a hit and run accident, and to avoid prosecution he joined the Marines, getting in by faking his documents. He was eventually discharged, again for theft, and did a runner. He was caught though, and put in military prison for fourteen months. Whilst in there, a single but crucial chance thing happened. He picked up a war games magazine.
This apparently innocuous and inconsequential act turned out to be the moment which would lead to a year-long killing spree. He looked through this magazine and happened upon the ads section, where he saw one placed by fellow Marine Leonard Lake. He answered it, the two met, and would regrettably make the worst kind of history.
Fate put a spanner in the works though, and in 1985, a lead would open up and take them right to the heart of the atrocities. The lead was provided by none other than Ng and Lake themselves: Ng had been caught shoplifting a vice and fled, causing Lake to go to the store later and try to pay for it. By then police had arrived though, and noticed that he didn’t resemble the photo of the man on his stolen driving license. They searched his car, found a gun, and he was arrested. A fingerprint search revealed a positive match, and the police identified the vehicle he was driving as that of one of the missing victims. Lake committed suicide by ingesting the cyanide pills he’d sewn into his clothes.
Capture didn’t come quite so quickly for Ng though, who had fled to Canada. Whilst he was hiding out there though, fate once again pulled his strings whilst he was out shopping, and he attempted to steal a tin of salmon. It would be his undoing because he got caught doing it, and shot a security guard in the hand. Fortunately though, the security guard only suffered minor injuries, and captured Ng regardless. He held him until police came, who promptly arrested him. He was sentenced to four and a half years for theft and assault. Once his sentence for that had finished, he was held pending an extradition request from California. He fought a legal battle to try to avoid it, because Canada doesn’t have the death penalty. He lost, was extradited and charged on twelve counts of murder. After more years of legal battles, he was eventually convicted on eleven counts of murder — six men, three women and two male infants. To this day, he remains in prison on death row.
All because of a tin of salmon.
I Lived in Thailand For 7 months and I’m Spilling ALL The Tea | Here’s What I Learned
Who wears purple on an aircraft carrier?
On the flight deck, those wearing purple jerseys are responsible for fueling and de-fueling aircraft.
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Purple shirts are affectionately known as “grapes.”
All flight deck personnel wear colored jerseys which denote their jobs.
Brown: plane captains. The ranking man or woman responsible for the overall readiness of a given airframe. Plane captains are highly experienced and competent, working closely with aviators and radio intercept officers/naval flight officers (RIOs and NFOs). In fact, plane captains have their names painted on aircraft just like a pilot’s would be.
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Red: ordnance. Responsible for the weapons loadout of aircraft. Cannon rounds, missiles, bombs, etc. all fall under their purview.
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Yellow: plane handlers. They direct aircraft in taxiing, parking, launching, recovery, etc.
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Green: catapult and arresting gear handlers. They keep the aircraft handling equipment in working order, ensuring aircraft can be launched or recovered anytime it is required.
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White: landing signal officers (LSOs) and medical personnel. LSOs guide aircraft in flight down to a safe landing. Medical personnel are on standby in the event of an injury or other emergency.
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Blue: chocks and chain handlers. Blue shirts tie down aircraft when they are parked, operate the aircraft elevators, and drive the tractors and vehicles around the flight deck as needed.
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Even the pants of flight deck personnel mean something. Those with blue pants are junior sailors or petty officers. Those in khaki pants are chief petty officers, warrant officers, and commissioned officers. Those in flight suits are almost always commissioned officers. CVN flight decks are carefully-choreographed chaos, and color-coding crew on deck casts some clarity onto the carrier calling.
Why Women Need To Be Banned From Male Spaces ASAP
Isn’t it strange that there is next to nothing in the news about the Burmese genocide of the Rohingya and the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs?
You have been fooled by Human Right Watch which is funded by NED which is funded US Congress.
There was no Rohingya genocide or Uyghurs genocide. They are lies.
Let us understand the mentality of USA. Former US diplomat Henry Kissinger said: to be US enemy is dangerous. To be US friend is fatal.
USA’s mentality is “America ONLY”. No country will be safe. Neither friend nor enemy.
USA makes China or Russia a US enemy. Then use a US friend eg Ukraine or Philippines to provoke a war against US enemy. After war/use, US friends will become a condom & be discarded by USA. That is how fatal a US friend is: shed blood & lose life for US interest.
After WW2, from 1946-2001, in 55 years, there were 248 wars around the globe. 201 of them ie 82% were instigated by USA. In 240+ years since US independence, there were only 16 years when USA was not in a war.
Other than war, USA would bribe locals to instigate unrest eg protests, riots & coups against any government who dont bow down to USA. For instance, 56 coups incl assassination in Latin America since WW2.
There is only 1 motive for USA: money & power/dominance. It is modern-day colonisation.
1, money
Both US military industry (MIC) & Federal Reserve (FED) are private corporations run by capitalist sharks & not by (responsible) government who would focus on the welfare of the country eg economic development.
MIC makes tons of money thru wars & arms sales. They lobby US government to create wars in other countries. US politicians also make $$$ by buying MIC stocks or working as a MIC salesman to other country.
Another 2 capitalist sharks are FED & Wall Street. They create monetary or financial war to bankrupt other country so as to suck foreign capitals/investments to USA, or post-war construction in war-torn country.
See, if there is peace in the world, MIC, FED or Wall Street will create war somewhere so as to make money.
US senator L Graham told the truth: must win the Ukraine war, for Ukraine’s rich minerals.
2, power/US dominance ie modern-day conlonisation
Control other’s government & make them a US puppet.
Then control other’s resources eg Ukraine’s minerals, Syria’s oil & rich agricultural land.
US wisdom
In 1961, the then pres D Eisenhower warned against the establishment of private MIC which will distort US politics & threaten democracy.
Many US pres eg J Kennedy, R Nixon & more fought with the FED but failed.
conclusion
USA wont not let world peace to happen. USA must create unrest/war thru its puppets eg Ukraine & Philippines.
War is in the DNA of USA.
Are capitalist sharks nice to Americans?
Every year, US taxpayers pay the interest of the US debts that is created as aids to war-torn country.
Capitalist sharks make tons of money from wars, but pay little tax to benefit USA. For instance, sharks wont maintain infrastructure, resulting in train derailment almost daily. Making USA look like a under-developed 3rd world. The list is long.
Viral Post EXPOSES How Most Women VIEW Men!
What was the strangest way a criminal was caught?
On February 15, 1978 around 1:00 AM, a man was stopped by Pensacola police officer David Lee after a routine “wants and warrants” check showed that the Volkswagen Beetle the man was driving, was actually stolen.
The man resisted arrest, tried to run away and was eventually subdued by the police officer. David Lee had no idea who the man really was. And he also did not know that the man was on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Less than a month before the arrest, the man had broken into Florida State University’s Chi Omega sorority house and bludgeoned and strangled two women (while killing them in the act), raping one of them and brutally biting her on her buttocks and tearing off one nipple. In an adjoining room, he beat two other students over the head with a log. They survived (but were both severely wounded), which investigators attributed to a roommate who came home and interrupted the man before he was able to kill them.
On February 9, he killed again. This time he abducted a 12-year-old girl named Kimberly Leach, raped her, cut her throat and mutilated her genitals with a knife inside a pig farrowing shed.
He kidnapped Kimberly on the Lake City Junior high school school grounds, in between classes.
[Kimberly Dianne Leach was 12 when she was abducted and murdered.]
This happened less than a week before he was taken into custody.
David Lee had no idea about all of this. That the man was the world’s most famous serial killer, that he had been on the loose for more than a month after a spectacular escape. That the man had killed two more young women and an innocent school girl.
And that he had arrested Ted Bundy.
SOURCES: The footnoted sites. For the picture of Kimberly Leach, I used ABC News.
[3]For the photograph of Ted Bundy, I consulted “Killer in the Archives.”
“Meet Roger Barrett, this gentleman is a patient of mine who just started coming to our office this week…little did I know this man would change my life.
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Mr. Barrett was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2009 and was told he could receive treatment but if the cancer spread outside the bladder there wasn’t much the doctors could do. Well as months went on and the doctor visits and follow ups continued Mr. Barrett’s cancer began to get worse. In 2010 he went in for yet another follow up and was told the cancer had spread past his bladder and there wasn’t anything they could do – that he had 5 years to live. Mr Barrett decided he wanted any treatment possible that could maybe help him so the doctors agreed and tried a few more treatments but the treatments were causing him to build up infection. The doctor told Mr. Barrett if he continued getting the infections they could also kill him therefore the doctor had no choice but to stop treatment.
A few months later was the month of December and every year Mr. Barrett decorates his home with 150,000 lights displaying the true meaning of Christmas and opens it up to the public and has a fire pit, serves hotdogs and marshmallows at no charge. Well one Saturday evening Mr. Barrett was parking cars in his back yard, and he said a couple pulled up in a little car. Mr. Barrett said clearly they didn’t belong there because the woman was dressed in a white, gorgeous coat that came down to her ankles and he man was dressed in his Sunday best suit. Mr. Barrett said they stayed a good two and a half hours walking around the property admiring the light display. Mr. Barrett said as they came around the property the last time they stopped him and said ‘This is the most beautiful light display we have seen, we saw Jesus more than once through this display’ and Mr. Barrett replied ‘Yes sir, that’s what it is all about’ the man then said, ‘If you don’t mind me asking what does your utility bill usually run putting all this on?’ Mr. Barrett replied, ‘We have three meters we pull from so it runs anywhere from $750-$800.’ The man then replies ‘Mr. Barrett you’re also having some health problems aren’t you?’ Mr. Barrett (kind of puzzled) responds ‘why yes I am, I currently have bladder cancer and they have given me 5 years.’ The man relies and asks ‘do you mind if we pray for you?’ Mr. Barrett said ‘I would appreciate that.’
Mr. Barrett said he never felt the couple touch him as they held hands for the prayer. He said the whole prayer just felt different and he said I could swing my feet back and forth as if I was floating. After they prayed the man looks at Mr. Barrett and said ‘Do not let yourself think about that Cancer again, God told me He has His hand on you. Also, do not stop doing this light display, God also told me He is going to handle it.’
Mr. Barrett still puzzled by the couples kindness hurried to tell his wife who was entertaining the rest of their guests. She responded ‘Honey, there wasn’t a couple here of that description.’ Mr. Barrett said ‘Yes there was, they were here for two and a half hours. I was just talking and praying with them.’ Mr. Barrett asked a few other people who were there and no one recognized this couple he was describing.
The following Wednesday (2011) Mr. Barrett went to the hospital to have his biopsy done and the doctors told him to call his doctor to set up a two week follow up so he has time to get the results. The next day Mr. Barrett had just woke up and sat on the edge of the bed and his phone rang. It was his doctor, Immediately Mr. Barrett began apologizing because he had forgotten to call. The doctor said ‘Are you sitting down Mr. Barrett?’ He responded “yes sir” the doctor proceeded ‘I have your results. Do not ask me any questions because I don’t have the answers but you’re cancer free!’ Mr. Barrett said he handed the phone to his wife because he couldn’t speak. The doctor told Mr. Barrett ‘I’m going to send you for more tests because if there are any cancer cells I’m going to find them.’ After running every test in the book the doctors couldn’t find a single cancer cell, Mr. Barrett was in fact Cancer Free!
Weeks had gone by and Mr. Barrett’s wife had opened their utility bill and said ‘they must have made a mistake, but I’m sure they will catch it next month’ Mr. Barrett said ‘why what is it?’ Mrs. Barrett replied ‘our total utility bill with all three meters is only $187’ Mr. Barrett couldn’t help but smile and say ‘There is no mistake, God took care of it!”
The meme’s are relentless
Hank Hill: “So are you Chinese or Japanese?” Kahn Souphanousinphone: “I’m from Laos, it’s a landlocked country in south east Asia.” Hank: “… so are you Chinese or Japanese?”
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A clueless West
The story of China depending on “cheap labour” and “bad working conditions” is now utterly outdated but very prevalent among many commentators, and the general public. Over the next 5-10 years they are going to get a very nasty surprise as China dominates every single green energy industry – Solar, Wind, Nuclear, Smart Networks, Batteries, EVs … while also reducing their greenhouse emissions in parallel with continued 5% GDP growth and catching up in microchips. The image of China will be that of the future, as with the US in the 1950s, and the image of the West will be that of a bullying past. I have written a piece on that:
Even at PPP, the incomes of China’s 1.4 billion will only reach about US$35,000 in 2030 and US$44,000 in 2035. But given the sheer scale of the country, there will be whole regions with populations bigger than Germany that will have incomes at least equal to that nation. In addition, Chinese incomes will still be growing at perhaps 4% per year, while Europe and North America will be in full decline – with Europe in the lead. With respect to the US, so much of its GDP is BS (under-counting inflation, double-counting financial services costs as outputs etc.), and wasted (the military, healthcare etc.) it is hard to tell what the true income level is, especially for the bottom 80%.
In addition, the West (especially North America) has such a huge deficit in infrastructure spending to make up while its very aged pieces of that infrastructure will need more and more money to stop catastrophic reductions in service.
Everything is a rip off, its not even worth going out anymore / Van Life / Cashless society.
https://youtu.be/QTSusu4o36Y
Do you feel safer with a gun or without a gun?
Two years ago some punk ass kid and his friends were terrorizing my daughters and their friends in my lawn. The kid was throwing rocks at my windows and flower pots and when my kids told him to knock it off, he started getting physical. I told the kid to “get the fuck out of here” and he ran off.
Hours later, two dads show up at my door. One of them my size, the other at least double my size. I’m in decent shape. I’m in the Air Force, I work out to pass my fitness tests. I’m not built, but I’m also not all fat either. The shit got physical with the bigger Dad. He didn’t like hearing that his kid was anything less than an angel and attacked me.
Guns are the great equalizer. I owed that Dad nothing. And I could’ve been much more convincing when I asked him and his punk ass kid to leave if I were armed.
If you’re interested in the story, once the police got involved the other Dad supported my narrative and the big guy got arrested. His wife ended up testifying that he was abusing her as well and he was forced to leave his home. When I went to the police dept to get his name to file a TRO, the officer there informed me that he was being held on charges related to her – not me – and that they knew I had absolutely nothing to worry about anymore.
That was all fine and dandy. But they weren’t there when I needed them. My wife was, and she was helpless. That’s why I feel safer with my gun. I’m not going to answer every door knock with a gun in my hand, but now my wife can do something about it next time shit like that goes down.
OUR FIRST DAYS IN CHINA SHOCKED US! BLOWN AWAY BY ALL THE MODERN TECHNOLOGY IN SHANGHAI 上海
What is the most ridiculous request you have received as a flight attendant?
This request still makes me cringe even if it happened one year ago. Such a ridiculous request I got from a passenger.
I have many passengers that often ask me to take photos of them and their friends/families together on board and I don’t mind taking photos of them if they ask me. But don’t ask me to video record you!
As I was walking down the aisle on board a girl stopped me. She asked me if I could record her because she was going to make a video for her vlog on board the plane. At that time meal service was done and there was a window of a break for us crew members. Usually, this pause is for us crew to take a break and eat our crew meals.
I did not think much about this at that time. I thought well this girl probably wants me to video record her for five minutes while she is sitting in her seat. There were no passengers sitting next to her; she was flying alone.
I should have asked her if she is going to sit down in her seat while I video record her or if she is planning on walking on board the plane. We were on board an A380 and these planes are huge. Anyhow, I should also have asked her HOW LONG she wanted me to video record her. Silly me I assumed five minutes while she would be sitting in her seat.
I thought to myself well I have five minutes and it is OK I can do this for her while she is sitting in her seat, then I could go and eat my meal.
Well, I held her camera and started to record her. She was sitting in her seat and when four minutes passed she stood up and started to walk. By now I thought this is ridiculous and I don’t want to be her personal camerawoman.
I stopped in the middle of the filming and asked her politely for how long she was planning for me to video record her. She said that she was planning for a 30 min video for her vlog. 30 MINUTES, OH GOSH I THOUGHT.
That she didn’t even have the thought that I am working on board and would not have the time to hold her camera and follow her around and video record her. I told her that I was sorry but I did not have time for 30 minutes. I told her that I could only help her with this for five minutes because I had to go and do other things. (eat my meal then back to work again)
She then became rude towards me and told me ‘’who does a five min vlog’’.
There were a lot of things I wish I could have told her but I held my tongue. After all, I was on duty, and when on duty we remain our professionalism.
I once again tried to talk to her in a polite manner and I told her that I was sorry and wouldn’t be able to help her with this. I told her that perhaps other passengers on board might be able to assist her with this task. She took the camera from me and went and sat in her seat. The only thing she said was ‘’ it is fine’’.
She didn’t even thank me that I tried to help, even if it was only for five min.
That was such an awkward moment and she didn’t go to any passengers and ask them either. For the remainder of the flight, she sat in her seat and played with her phone.
Such a ridiculous request. I am a person that always tries to help my passengers and tries to meet their needs. Of course, there are limits to what we can do but being a camerawoman on board is not one of them. I wouldn’t mind doing it for five min while she was sitting down in her seat. But that I would be following her around on board isn’t one of my duties on board.
The fact that this girl felt entitled, felt I had to do it, or wasn’t even aware that I had a job to do was really silly.
We have a lot of passengers on board videotaping their flight experience and that is OK because they are doing it themselves. But don’t ask the cabin crew to do it when they are working. So silly!
What is the basis for the belief that China could defeat the United States in a military conflict?
Well, realpolitik.
Bill “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” sent 2 CBGs to steam through the Taiwan strait (which is too shallow for nuclear sub operation) in the late 90s, to show who’s boss in the third Taiwan strait crisis.
Now, here’s a little quiz for the American reader.
When was the last time a CBG steamed through the Taiwan strait?
The fourth Taiwan strait crisis flared up this century in 2022 and is ongoing.
It was sparked by this flight.
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And where was the Reagan, the CBG in theater?
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It avoided the SCS, and parked itself off Luzon to provide fighter escort for the final leg of Nancy’s flight.
It left the area and headed northeast after China announced the biggest naval drill in its history, giving Taiwan a wide berth.
Notice anything odd about Nancy’s flight, which took months of planning and originated stateside? It was a long, circuitous route that painstakingly avoided the entire Chinese coast and the SCS. Not only that, the pentagon found the risk unacceptable to fly her in from Guam.
Flee from Taiwan
Why? Joe is a sissy standing next to Bill? Remember, Newt the Speaker visited both Beijing and Taipei after an extraordinary show of force in 1996.
The original exercise to practice the blockade of taiwan happened in 2022.
In the virgin edition, exclusion zones were enacted 2 days after they were announced.
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In 2024, after Ching Te’s and Mike’s incendiary and irresponsible speeches in Taipei post-election, the PLA enacted a refined version of the exclusion zones ON DEMAND. The sole announcement was “the exercise commences NOW. Get out.”
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How did the US and partners respond?
They made sure to steer well clear of the entire Chinese coast. Taiwan barely squeaked and stood down from their regular sop of challenging mainland military contact.
Over the past decade, foreign military assets that used to ignore Chinese warnings to turn back have been successfully repelled, including a CBG in the SCS recently that was forced to take evasive action after a h-20 bomber executed a sea hugging attack run targeting the carrier.
Front foot posturing has been dialed down since the spate of inexplicable accidents linked to fatigue. The USN is using the coast guard and partners to fill the gap. Notably, they are giving Taiwan access to Sat-linked reaper drones, which speaks to a degradation of real-time sigint from Okinawa.
Elsewhere, a seawolf class sub met with an accident in the SCS after hitting an undersea mount that “wasn’t supposed to be there”. Kadena has gradually scaled back from permanently deployed f-22 to rotating units of f-15. The keystone of the pacific has shifted permanently to Guam, as america looks to dramatically reduce its presence in Okinawa. Guam represents a strategic retreat of over 2,000km, and its fortified bunkers are protected by a triple air defense of thaad, aegis and patriot—extravagant, by Okinawa standards.
What are American shipyards churning out today?
Arleigh-burkes, virginias and constellations. Chew on this, and take your time.
Meanwhile, marines are being retooled to become a rapid-deploy rocket force. In a nutshell, a 21st century action-at-a-distance pirates of the Caribbean strategy that screams “if we can’t have it, neither can you”.
To be clear, America continues to present a clear and present threat. But its gunboat diplomacy has noticeably diminished decade on decade, and it has increasingly struggled to exert technological superiority. This shows in the deployment of force and the purported war plan.
From “you don’t want to fight us” to open admissions of “we can’t win”.
In another 10-15 years, it will be Americans nodding when the chinese say “you don’t want to fight us”.
Cops Find Man With Dementia in Bed With Dismembered Body
https://youtu.be/E27RHHL7BLc
Is it really worth it to live to over 80 years?
I shall be 87 next month
I am totally deaf, partially blind, and can only read books with difficulty, so it is many years since I read a book, though I can read a computer screen easily
I’m very much overweight, and take pills daily, which I will do for life
Problems with legs and lungs make me largely housebound
I live alone, apart from my cat, but I am lucky in so far as I can look after myself Most of my friends of my generation are gone, and several are severely ill or have dementia, but also several others of my generation are still working
To some extent it is the gene lottery that keeps one going
though not always. My father was ill all his life, and died at 43
He, like my mother, could not swim or ride a bicycle
I could do both, as of course, could everyone of my generation
Both of my grandfathers were illiterate
My mother and father could read, but neither ever read a book
There were no books in the house other than those I got myself
My mother had two still born children prior to myself, and told me that I was a sickly child, so it would seem that neither nurture or Nature favored me
So what is it that keeps one going into old age?
In my case it was largely the Times one was born in
My grandparents born in the 1870–80’s London were poor
They worked full time as young teenagers, so denied an education
My parents born in 1900, were slightly better off, but as young teenagers were caught up in the 1914–18 war and later the Great Depression. They had few choices in life, and simply accepted that surviving was meeting the battles of the day
My generation – 1930’s – were again better off, but there were few people I knew who owned a phone or a car, and even a radio was a luxury, but we did have one thing; WW2
Yes, WW2 had its downsides, but it did provide free travel, and a wide range of opportunities to be educated, and meet people if you were in the military, and if not, work was plentiful.
My mother who had earned a pitiful living as a house cleaner before the war, was now a machine operator in a wartime munitions factory, and getting relatively good money
Wartime, for my generation who are now in the 70–90’s, had to look after themselves. Not so much in the USA, quite a bit in the UK, and totally in war-torn Europe
There was a great sense of purpose that a ‘World fit for heroes’ might exist, though not quite
In answer to the question
‘Is it worth it to live over 80 years?’
My grandparents never knew, nor my parents, though a few crossed the line
It is common enough in my generation, but there is a ‘Dark zone’ where you know that even a slight illness can lead to complications
But today, anyone under 60 will most likely live past 80
and will do so in the knowledge that they are generally a button away from getting help if needed
What can you do if you make it to 80?
Well, if your brain and heart are in relatively good condition, you will be surprised to know that you will feel about 40, or even less
If you want to make it to 80, my advice is go for it
You will not be short of company
EDIT
Several people have commented about their elderly relatives who suffer from illness and loneliness.
It has been suggested that more people die of loneliness than illness, but worse, many who suffer from loneliness are neither ill nor old
Part of the problem is both obvious and yet invisible. Here is a typical 1930’s sitting room of the sort I grew up in. No black boxes with shiny knobs and buttons. Somewhere a large radio; shelves with a few treasured possessions.
Every such room would have a personality of the owner. Designed to be warm and comfortable. One could go into most houses and recognize all the items; a windup clock; a sewing basket; a few books (no TV), a coal fire with coal tongs and poker, and a bucket of coal beside the fire, and a toasting fork
(In this picture you can see a small hand pump on the left hand side of the fireplace. It was used to blow air when you started the fire every day, that is, after you had raked the cinders out, made firelighters out of rolled up newspapers, sorted out unburnt cinders, and cleaned up. You bought small bundles of wood as fire starters, and if you had the money, then you could buy wax covered paper that lit up instantly (what luxury)
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Every technological advancement took away a minor joy. The electric toaster took away the joy of using a toasting fork to make toast in front of an open coal fire that you stared into, as if hypnotized as the coal burnt and created shapes.
The toast would be covered in home made jam. One felt safe in such surroundings
When my mother made an apple pie, I saw her make the dough, roll it out, peel the apples, stoke the cast iron stove, boil the custard, lay the table, poke the pie with a knife to see if it was cooked, then deliver it triumphantly straight from the oven to us as we waited in anticipation
On first taste, we look at her and say ‘It’s delicious, can I have a second helping’. She would smile. It was her way of saying ‘I love you all’, and our way of saying ‘We know you do’
Technology has given us microwave ovens, precooked pies, and tinned custard, but there is one ingredient they left out
That is why the elderly are lonely
Merrick Garland’s DOJ Goes After Putin’s Mouthpieces in US
The Department of Justice, led by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, is investigating individuals in the U.S. with connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state television networks. This inquiry is part of a broader effort to prevent potential Kremlin interference in the 2024 presidential election, as reported by The New York Times.
This development follows recent FBI searches at the homes of Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector, U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer, and convicted sex offender, and Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born former adviser on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
According to The Times and U.S. officials familiar with the case, the FBI is expected to conduct more searches and has not dismissed the possibility of criminal charges.
Ritter has frequently appeared on Russian state media, often echoing Kremlin viewpoints on Putin’s conflict with Ukraine. Simes hosts a weekly current affairs show on Russia’s state-run Channel One.
In January, Ritter visited Chechnya, where he offered a message of “friendship” between the U.S. and Chechnya during a speech in Grozny, the capital. Ritter expressed a desire to foster goodwill between the two regions and predicted a Russian victory in Ukraine. He remarked, “America isn’t a bad place. American people are like you. Good people. The state is a different matter. That’s politics. I’m not a politician. I’m a soldier, like you.”
Simes, who has not been in the U.S. since 2022, characterized the FBI raid as an “attempt to intimidate” those opposing U.S. policies or the “deep state,” in an interview with Russia’s state-run Sputnik News. Ritter also commented on the situation, describing it as a perilous time for Americans and accusing the U.S. government of attempting to deceive and manipulate its citizens.
In late July, the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), a U.S. intelligence agency operating under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, warned of Russian attempts to influence the upcoming election between Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. The FMIC highlighted that Kremlin-affiliated groups are increasingly deploying actors and influence-for-hire firms based in Russia to shape U.S. public opinion and impact the election.
The agency reported that these firms have developed influence platforms and engaged Americans directly and discreetly, using sophisticated tools to tailor content for U.S. audiences while concealing their Russian origins. “Russian influence actors have made concerted efforts this election cycle to build and leverage networks of U.S. and Western figures to propagate Russian-friendly narratives,” the FMIC stated. The report emphasized Moscow’s ongoing use of a broad array of influence tactics and actors to better disguise its involvement, expand its reach, and create content that resonates with American audiences.
The US’ constant hyping of the “China nuclear threat” theory is a convenient pretext for the US to shirk its obligation of nuclear disarmament, expand its own nuclear arsenal and seek absolute strategic predominance, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday, after US media reported President Joe Biden has approved a highly classified nuclear strategic plan that, for the first time, reorients the US’ deterrent strategy to focus on China’s purported expansion of its nuclear arsenal.
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The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Biden approved the document in March after the Pentagon said it believes China’s nuclear arsenal stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of the US’ and Russia’s over the next decade.
The White House never announced that Biden had approved the revised strategy, called the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,” which seeks to prepare the US for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. The document, updated every four years or so, is so highly classified that there are no electronic copies, with only a small number of hard copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders.
The US has called China a “nuclear threat” and used it as a convenient pretext for the US to shirk its obligation of nuclear disarmament, expand its own nuclear arsenal and seek absolute strategic predominance, Mao Ning, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at a Wednesday briefing, while stressing China is gravely concerned over the report.
“The size of China’s nuclear arsenal is not on the same level with the US. China follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security. We have no intention to engage in any form of arms race with others,” Mao said.
“In contrast, the US sits on the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world. Even so, it clings to a first-use nuclear deterrence policy, and has invested heavily to upgrade its nuclear triad and blatantly devised nuclear deterrence strategies against others. It is the US who is the primary source of nuclear threat and strategic risks in the world,” Mao stated.
The document reflects that the US has reached a level of hysteria when it comes to competition with countries like China. It has even reached a point where it is prepared for a nuclear conflict, which is extremely dangerous, said Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University.
He said the US’ hype over China’s nuclear arsenal is a tactic to justify and bolster its own nuclear weapons program for political maneuvering and policy objectives.
Deflation Just Started In The United States
What person destroyed their entire life by making one simple mistake?
Samantha Josephson.
In March of 2019, New Jersey native Samantha was 21, about to graduate from the University of South Carolina, and then go on to law school at Drexel University, where she had a full scholarship.
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On the evening of March 29th, she went out for drinks in downtown Columbia with some friends, but grew tired, and told them she was going to take an Uber back to campus.
But Samantha never made it home. Instead, her body was found by turkey hunters in a rural area 65 miles from Columbia the next day. She’d been stabbed 120 times.
Surveillance footage from local businesses showed Samantha getting into her Uber — a black Chevy Impala.
Except it wasn’t her Uber — that was Samantha’s mistake. The car was owned by 24-year-old Nathaniel Rowland, who had reportedly been driving around the neighborhood hoping someone would mistake it for an Uber. The car had childproof locks engaged, so once Samantha got in, she was trapped, and the terror she must have felt when Rowland began driving in the opposite direction from campus must have been nightmarish.
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We don’t know exactly why Rowland — who had no history of violent crime — killed Samantha. He didn’t know her, had never even met her. The day after the murder, he was posting casually on Facebook as if it was business as usual, even as he still had her phone and blood in his car, and her DNA under his fingernails. It’s believed that he just wanted to kill someone, and Samantha was the person unlucky enough to get into his car. The judge called it a “crime of opportunity”.
Rowland, who was said to be remorseless and emotionless during his trial, was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It’s terrifying that such people exist (and also why I refuse to use services like Uber or Lyft) — this wasn’t revenge, or jealousy, or greed, it was just murder for the sake of murder.
Samantha Josephson made one simple mistake, and she paid for it with her life.
The airlock of the space habitat swung open, revealing the two fully-suited spacemen. Their costumes were dull white with tinted blue helmets and golden reflective visors. The two spacemen stepped out into the grey alien planet, retrieved their long probes, and prodded the surroundings around them. Their equipment beeped and notified them of the collecting data.
The mounds of greyish-blue sand camouflaged the space habitat with the grey mountain ranges behind it. The spacemen’s shoes crunched in the planet’s stillness. The crepuscular rays beaming from the dense clouds above them, and the dazzling blue light filtering through the dark dense clouds resembled a Renaissance painting of a divine figure coming down to earth.
For the past three months, an abhorrent storm had obscured the entire sky. The nightmarish winds had descended on the exoplanet habitat of planet Duern Q861. Its wrath reverberated upon the habitat like thunder with large stones crashing upon the habitat. Everything had become pitch black outside the planet’s habitat and the connections to Earth were lost during this brief period. With the passing days, the Spacemen’s supplies depleted, and without communication, the mission was at risk of failure.
After three months, the storm’s ferocity had diminished to nearly nothing. It took days before anything moved around the Space Habitat, Duern Q861A, while the structure remained in the heaps of grey dust settled upon it. After several weeks, there was some movement around the space habitat. The habitat airlocks opened and three white drones flew out to scout the surroundings, gliding, and sailing in three different directions and disappearing into the distance to collect samples. Following the drones, came out the spacemen with their equipment analyzing the surroundings thoroughly and observing the readings until midday. The spaceman looked to his left; the dark clouds were thundering along the horizon but their crackling was vibrating the ground beneath them. Then the spacemen opened the larger airlock, boarded the big carrier rover, and drove toward the small habitat located a mile away from the big habitat.
The dust rose behind the spacemen when the carrier rover drove through the barren grey desert. Ahead of these minuscule spacemen, grey and white sands stretched till the mountain range extended into the horizon. The dull-white mountains looked like raging ocean tides at the storm, captured and frozen in time. These gigantic mountains witnessed the spacemen, the habitat, and everything below as they stood arrogant and untouched by the ferocious storm. Within the valleys of these mountains, enormous caverns and craters existed, which sometimes resembled a dragon’s lair from the fairy tales.
Despite the rover reaching the location of the small habitat, the enormous building was not visible. The two spacemen got down from their rover and began walking to the habitat. The building was oddly missing from their view, and they searched around, their eyes scanning the location. Soon they noticed metals, glass, and many open electrical wires crackling. The entire small habitat was in ruins and under the dunes of dust. They stood on the ruins of the habitat. It surprised them to see the broken pieces of the small habitat buried in the sand. They built these structures specifically to resist heavy storm winds and the impacts of earthquakes. But now standing on its destroyed remains is grave news.
The two spacemen stood there in dismay and shock. The winds wailed in the distance, and the dust from the dunes flew along with the passing breeze. In the deep silence, their pacing heartbeats were audible. Their visors were fogging because of their wheezing warm breath. The spacewoman saw the spaceman’s face twist with shock and bewilderment.
After a moment, his face turned stern and he spoke in his microphone, “The storm has destroyed the small habitat, Duern Q861B. And based on the settlement of dust remains, we cannot estimate when this happened. We hope to retrieve our data soon.”
“Yeah. I agree, but we need to dig and find the system data. Maybe our samples might still be undamaged,” replied the spacewoman over her microphone.
“We must terminate our mission if it is compromised,” told the spaceman. The spacewoman kneeled on the soft grey dirt. But she widened her eyes and blinked hard, struggling not to cry. Crying is uncomfortable in a spacesuit.
The spaceman agreed and began looking through the crumbled remains of the habitat to detect the samples through the metal and glass. He also hoped the sample would be all right, but he felt his heart palpitating under the thick suit and a panic attack missing him by inches. He stood tall and practiced a few breathing techniques before starting his excavation work. Soon they were walking amongst the ruins and moving the metal and glass with their shovels looking for their samples. Their precious samples.
They spent over twenty minutes digging into the sand and shoving away the heavy metals. As they kept working, they found the shards of reinforced glasses of the habitat. The Spaceman kept pushing the grey sand aside and the planet was turning colder by the minute. Then underneath one of the broken green glasses, he found the samples. They found several broken black boxes, and the Spaceman reached inside one of them and pulled some dried leaves out. It was a small leaf, almost as small and circular as the size of a bottle cap, and brownish-orange as an autumn leaf. It is the first plant cultivated on this distant, dusty planet. Out of the sixty different plant species sent with these spacemen, only this plant thrived on this terrain because of its ability to burst its pollens for extensive ranges, and they also have a longer life span.
But now the last of those plants had also died. With the entire habitat sinking into the grey sand, the plant samples crumbled under its collapsing weight. Along with it, the spacemen’s remaining hope too. The spaceman picked up the dead plant and displayed it to the spacewoman. She was still digging the ground and halted when she saw it. She came close and examined it before putting it in one of her spacesuit compartments. They both took another black box and safeguarded it in the carrier rover’s portable cryogenic chamber.
The spaceman clicked the radio button on the side of his helmet as his hands felt sweaty under those thick gloves. His hands trembled, and he felt the nerve on his temples pump and pain. With a big deep breath, the spaceman recorded into his AV radio that their mission is a failure. Although there was no voice from the other side, only static radio buzzing, he recorded the situation on his radio.
He noticed the spacewoman from his peripheral. She had fallen on her knees and began whispering prayers to her gods. He didn’t feel like summoning the gods because they already knew his plight and yet watched upon them without mercy. The spacemen had made detailed plans to save their dying planet and terraform DuernQ861. But they realized their plan had led to an imminent and predetermined defeat. It felt like a tragic destiny, a cruel ploy to humiliate them, to give them hope only to crush it. The spacemen whispered his father’s words, “For they sculpted the fire and it burnt them”
The spaceman loosened his shoulder and looked up at the dark sky for some hope, or some answers. He stared at all the million lights above, shining and flickering. Amongst those stars in the sky, the spaceman saw a small distant blue dot. He stared at it for a while, squinting his eyes. Just for a moment, his mind voyaged to that planet. The elated people, the green grass, the rainy days with the hot coffees, a cold bed on a summer night, and the warm smooch of the sun on the face. The toxicity of breathing air, decomposed food, loss of peaceful sleep, and pain of crumbling starvation in the midriff. He tried to forget the sound of the horrible war cries, the deafening roar of the dropping bombs and gunfire. He tried shaking the memory of holding his family in his arms while hiding in the wardrobe, waiting for the screams to settle. It all ended with the high pitch whistling of the rocket engine.
The spaceman coughed, and his knees trembled. Within moments his legs gave up, and he fell to the ground on his knees as well, while trying hard to breathe. He tried pulling his thoughts off of it but was futile. He saw the blood, the bodies, the wails, and the orphans. He kept fighting his thoughts, which spiraled painfully within his mind. With a deep breath, he summoned his inner voice to convince himself of the reality, “Gone is everything, gone before you knew, gone before you left. Gone before you hoped. Gone far, far away amidst the storm.”
The loud alarm beeped and his pocket vibrated, rescuing him from his thoughts. The spacewoman pulled out her electronic monitoring tablet and clicked some buttons. Then she hurried to the carrier rover and viewed it through the built-in emergency systems. With panic and confusion sweating from her face, the spaceman heard her through the intercom, “The drones have found something in the eastern valley!”
“We’ll see what it is. Come”, the spaceman said and ran over to the rover, but the spacewoman stood motionless and hesitant.
“What happened?” he asked confused.
“What if it comes back?” asked the spacewoman, putting her device inside her suit’s compartment. The spaceman nodded, and she told, “The storm might swirl again. It’s better we must go back to the habitat now.”
“No… we need to see what the drones have found,” the spaceman protested, “What if it is some help or supplies? Maybe someone else landed here. Maybe a rescue team! I think it is a rescue team,” said the spaceman as the spacewoman shook her head in disagreement. “Maybe the war is over and they have come for us. We need to check this out”
“There is no help, Manuel!” snapped the Spacewoman as she pleaded into the microphone, “If they cared, they would contact us, but no! They have left us here to die on this planet! This is the reality. Get this in your head!”
The spaceman stared at her, his fury rising with his excitement, “I still hope otherwise, I feel it. Just think, what if?”
The spacewoman scoffed and yelled, “But what if there is no rescue? What if the storm returns and carries us away with it?”
“I don’t mind!” sneered the spaceman swinging his arms around the rover and climbing over it. “We either die out here or rot in that damned habitat all alone. I don’t want to go back. It stinks like death and blood in there. Wherever the drones are and whatever it has found, I’m going there. If it is death, so be it. All I’m asking you now is…” he paused, holding back his tears, “are you coming with me?”
The spacewoman stared through her golden visor for a minute and gaited to the rover and told, “It will take at least 6 hours to reach there. Buckle up then” and so they buckled to the rover and drove the rover at its maximum speed, about 20km/hr. This rover was the fastest ever built to overcome obstacles and the uneven alien terrain with its large tires and fantastic suspension systems.
The journey took a long time since the eastern valley was several miles away. The tired spacemen knew the travel would be more tiring, but it didn’t matter to them. After hours upon hours of steering through the dusty mountain path, they arrived at the eastern valley and spotted the drone flying high above the location, which hovered just for the spacemen’s reference. While the other two were scanning the environment. It took another hour to drive through the steep grounds to the drone location. They stopped the carrier rover several feet before a large cavern opening.
The two spacemen unbuckled themselves and trod towards the cavern’s opening. They saw an exposed cavern with a wide opening – a gigantic crater. The crater was as massive as hundred football fields. The crater was so gigantic that these two spacemen were almost the size of bugs in front of it.
Both the spacemen were dumbfounded and confused by their very own sight. Their eyes didn’t blink, their body had stopped sweating, their jaws were wide open, and they drew their breaths in. The enormous crater was bleeding vivid red and orange. Out of the crater, many red and orange circular particles ascended. The floating particles were as small as bottle caps. The beautiful pollens sailed in the wind like dandelion seeds while the red leaves of the plant brushed one another.
The entire opening had become a garden spread out in the wild environment. Throughout the crater, for miles, the flowers had flourished and the plant brushed against one another, rustling. The crater’s inclined plane curved down and in the middle of the crater, they noticed something transparent reflecting the bluish-gray hue of the sky. The most fundamental source of life; Liquid Water.
The spacemen knew that the water could have come from the underground water source of this planet. Perhaps an asteroid had struck this planet centuries ago, and this has brought the underground liquid water gushing to the bottom of this crater. The strong winds had brought the plant’s pollen from the ruins of the small habitat to this crater several miles away. The pollens could have settled down in this crater by the large lake glimmering in the semi-darkness. With water and the crater protecting the plants from the storm, plant life has thrived here.
“Look! An alien!” a man’s voice echoed from behind the two spacemen pointing at the crater’s garden. The spaceman turned around and saw five other spacemen standing behind them. The joke had cracked them all up. The spaceman couldn’t see their face clearly through their visor, but he remembered their face and their codenames. There was Green, Zweig, Signature, Trident, and Clicky. All of them were in their spacesuit with their actual names labeled on their chests. He looked at them in surprise, and his eyes couldn’t avert from them.
The five laughed, and the spaceman watching them heard their hysterical laugh through his intercom. Upon the paceman’s face, a smile developed, and he began snorting and chuckling. He looked at Clicky leaning on the rover and laughing at his terrible joke, and the spaceman predicted Zweig would smile under his visor, guessing by his rigid body language. The other three were giggling at Clicky’s uncontrollable laughing rather than his joke. Signature turned to the spaceman and shook his head in agreement. The orange and red pollen flew across them all, and the planet’s home star began rising in the west, behind the five other spacemen. The scene was exquisite, yet quite disturbing.
The spaceman looked at them and reluctantly blinked, unwilling to let go of what he was witnessing. When he opened his eyes, as he had expected, the five spacemen had disappeared into the weak breeze. His eyes teared up as his visors fogged and he heard his breath in the pressurizing silence. He closed his eyes once again, this time tightly shutting them not to let his tears out. Crying is uncomfortable in the spacesuit.
He knew the other spacemen were resting peacefully in the underground cryogenic chamber inside the big habitat. Drifting in their dreams in a world far away, or maybe they were back on earth reliving an alternate yet happier reality. If a rescue team comes to find them or accidentally stumbles upon this planet, they would find the well-preserved corpses of these spacemen.
He again re-opened his eyes once more to revisit the figment. He saw the vast expanse of the dusty terrain. His throat narrowed, and his nose was cramping. But his palpitating heart had oddly calmed, and the trembling finger became still and numb. He couldn’t decide whether to be glad or glum while both blew his way.
The spaceman then turned to look beside him at the spacewoman. She, too, had vanished with the others without a trace. He sighed and gulped heavily as his eye scanned the large valley of the vivid red and orange plant. He rose his hands and touched the floating seed. Although he couldn’t feel it through his spacesuit, he still felt the wind, and a tickling sensation ran down his arm. He smiled, and with a breath drawn in, he began chuckling and then laughing. The drones were still collecting samples and buzzing around like children in a park. The pleasantly delighted spaceman’s smile never left. He sighed with relief and closed his eyes, relishing in the present moment. They have accomplished the mission despite the absolute hurdles.
He gazed at the dancing alien plant field on this strange planet far from earth. He thought of the divine play portrayed ahead of him and the absurdity of the entire ordeal. He laughed hysterically as though he had found unintelligible humor in it, as his feet rose in the air, and he ascended. With grace, his entire body floated up the sky like an air balloon as the light brushed through his golden visor and into his face. Amongst the endless stars filling the sky above, a brilliant-blue dot twinkled brighter than ever.
The spaceman, just like his other crew members, disappeared into the breeze without a remnant. His laughter still echoed and haunted the wind until it faded. The red and orange field rustled to the weak wind glimmering to the light of the new dawn. The passing wind blew from the distance as it buried the footprints under the grey layers of sand. Duern Q861 became silent, its grey dust settled, and life began thriving again.
Why do you have a gun in your house, do you really need home protection?
True story!
About 6 years back I worked at an insurance company. One day I met a fellow employee, we’ll call him Greg. Greg likes to golf ,so do I. With that being said Greg starts joining a group of us that golfed on Wednesday nights. We would all meet up and go play 9 holes. One night we met at a course close to Greg’s house, about 10–12 blocks from him. I had never been to this course. As we go to walk in, I noticed they had signage on their door. I let everyone know I’ll be right back. Greg ask me where I’m going. I replied I got to lock my gun up in the car,I’ll be right back. Upon my return Greg says, ya know you don’t need that thing this is a really safe neighborhood, I live close by and there’s never been any trouble. I replied that’s good to know. We golfed and had a great time.
About 2 weeks later…Greg doesn’t show up for work. It’s Wednesday and our usual group will be gathering to play our weekly round. As we all get to the course I ask if anyone has heard from Greg because it just seemed unusual that he didn’t call or anything. Three days later, no Greg at work still and nobody has heard from him. I finally call him to see if he’s ok. No answer…text no response.
Greg comes to work Monday and walks into my office. He was a clean shaven bald guy..his head had many stitches. He had two black eyes and a broken nose. He was also missing 2 teeth. My first response was OMG are you ok. My first inclination was that he had been in a car accident.He had been in the hospital almost the entire week.
He replied no I’m not ok. Will you help me pick out a gun after work tonight. My home was invaded at 4 am last Wednesday morning and they beat me with a shotgun in my face.
Does that answer your question?
Chili Casserole with Cornbread
bb459e2144528af264c9470b56e6803d
Yield: 6 servings Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1 (16 ounce) jar salsa
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can dark red kidney beans
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced peeled tomatoes
1 1/2 cups Niblets frozen corn
3 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 (8 1/2 ounce) package cornbread mix
Milk
Margarine
Egg, if required by mix
1/3 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon sliced green onions
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
In large skillet over medium-high heat, brown ground beef; drain.
Stir in salsa, kidney beans, tomatoes, corn, chili powder and cumin. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, prepare cornbread as directed on package using milk and, if required, margarine and egg.
Spoon cornbread batter around outside edge of ungreased 12 x 8 inch (2 quart) baking dish.
Spoon hot beef mixture into center. (Casserole will be full.)
Bake at 400 degrees F for 18 minutes.
Sprinkle with cheese; bake an additional 4 to 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and cornbread is deep golden brown.
Sprinkle with green onions just before serving.
That’s how the idea came about: why not use a ball-shaped metal nib for writing? This is how the pen was born. László József Biro shared his idea with his brother György, a chemist, and together they began researching and experimenting to create a new type of pen based on this concept. Finally, they found the perfect combination: a viscous ink and a tip with a small ball that rotated freely, preventing the ink from drying out and controlling its flow. They presented their invention at the Budapest International Fair in 1931 and patented it in 1938, although they did not market it immediately. With the start of World War II, the brothers emigrated to Argentina, where they founded a company in a garage. Although they were initially unsuccessful due to the high cost of the product, they secured a contract with the British Air Force, which boosted their popularity. In 1943, they licensed their invention to Eversharp Faber in the United States for $2 million. In 1950, Marcel Bich acquired the rights and, on the recommendation of an advertising expert, dropped the “h” from his surname and founded the company BICGroup. In that year, they launched the first BIC Cristal, one of the most perfect designs ever created, of which more than 20 million units are sold every day around the world. Since 1953, more than 100 billion BIC Cristals have been manufactured, making it the best-selling pen of all time.
Have you ever been glad you were carrying a gun? What happened?
Most definitely.
I was out hiking. I leave my wallet in my car when doing so, and only carry my ID in a zippered pocket, in case I come across a bear on a date with a woman and they get over protective and eat me (yes I’m making a joke out of that stupid Man vs bear in the woods scenario, sue me).
Anyhoo. A homeless camp had been set up off the trail. I’d say maybe 25-30 yards away from the main trail. But the homeless were out and about, begging the hikers for money.
With my luck, a particularly aggressive homeless man kept asking me for money. I tried ignoring him but he decided to keep following me, around my 8 o clock position. He moved to my 11 and started demanding money or he was going to “take it himself”.
At that point I drew my back up guns back up, a .38 +p snubby. I told him to back off several times and tried increasing my distance. At that point he was probably 10-12 ft from me. I stopped walking, faced him, and walked backwards, making sure to keep him in my full view.
I started yelling at him to back away before he ends up being coyote chow. I was hoping another hiker would appear, or something. I prayed I wouldn’t have to follow through on my threat.
He didn’t believe me and decided to walk fast at me, and I sadly put a round dead center. I immediately shifted my weapon to my off hand while keeping it trained on him, and called 9 11.
Eventually officers and EMS responded. I was detained and my weapon taken, and an investigation started. The homeless guy didn’t end up as wild life food, and survived. After a lengthy legal ordeal I wasn’t charged with anything and got my gun back.
When it boils down to it, if it’s between me going home or another person going home, I’m sorry but I’m the one going home, and the other party has three choices. 1. Home 2. Hospital 3. Morgue
Most Americans continue to believe that the United States will prevail in a conventional war with Russia. That is simply not the case.
For starters, Russia’s state-of-the-art missile technology and missile defense systems are vastly superior to those produced by western weapons manufacturers.
Secondly, Russia can field an army of more than 1 million battle-hardened combat troops (honed in Ukraine) who have experienced high-intensity warfare and are prepared to engage whatever enemy they may face in the future.
Third, the United States no longer has the industrial capacity to match Russia’s impressive output of lethal weaponry, artillery shells, ammunition, and cutting-edge ballistic missiles.
In short, Russian military capability far exceeds that of the US in the areas that really count: High-tech weaponry, military industrial capacity, and experienced manpower.
In order to drive this overall point home, I’ve taken excerpts from the work of three military analysts who explain these matters in greater detail underscoring the dramatic shortcomings of the modern US military and the problems it is likely to encounter when faced with a more technologically advanced and formidable adversary.
The first excerpt is from an article by Alex Vershinin titled The Return of Industrial Warfare:
The war in Ukraine has proven that the age of industrial warfare is still here. The massive consumption of equipment, vehicles and ammunition requires a large-scale industrial base for resupply – quantity still has a quality of its own…. The rate of ammunition and equipment consumption in Ukraine can only be sustained by a large-scale industrial base.
This reality should be a concrete warning to Western countries, who have scaled down military industrial capacity and sacrificed scale and effectiveness for efficiency. This strategy relies on flawed assumptions about the future of war, and has been influenced by both the bureaucratic culture in Western governments and the legacy of low-intensity conflicts. Currently, the West may not have the industrial capacity to fight a large-scale war….
The Capacity of the West’s Industrial Base
The winner in a prolonged war between two near-peer powers is still based on which side has the strongest industrial base. A country must either have the manufacturing capacity to build massive quantities of ammunition or have other manufacturing industries that can be rapidly converted to ammunition production. Unfortunately, the West no longer seems to have either…. In a recent war game involving US, UK and French forces, UK forces exhausted national stockpiles of critical ammunition after eight days….
Flawed Assumptions The first key assumption about future of combat is that precision-guided weapons will reduce overall ammunition consumption by requiring only one round to destroy the target. The war in Ukraine is challenging this assumption….. The second crucial assumption is that industry can be turned on and off at will….. Unfortunately, this does not work for military purchases. There is only one customer in the US for artillery shells – the military. Once the orders drop off, the manufacturer must close production lines to cut costs to stay in business. Small businesses may close entirely. Generating new capacity is very challenging, especially as there is so little manufacturing capacity left to draw skilled workers from….. The supply chain issues are also problematic because subcomponents may be produced by a subcontractor who either goes out of business, with loss of orders or retools for other customers or who relies on parts from overseas, possibly from a hostile country…. Conclusion The war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability….. For the US to act as the arsenal of democracy in defence of Ukraine, there must be a major look at the manner and the scale at which the US organises its industrial base…. If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must first radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime. The Return of Industrial Warfare, Alex Vershinin, Rusi Bottom line: The United States no longer has the industrial base or the requisite stockpiles to prevail in a prolonged war between two near-peer powers. Simply put, the US will not win an extended conventional war with Russia. Here’s how analyst Lee Slusher summed it up in a recent post on Twitter:
…. . The US effectively had monopolies on many decisive capabilities, like precision-guided munitions, night-vision, global strike, etc. I think the absence of high-intensity conflict between the US and other nations had a lot to do with these asymmetries. There was no need for the US to apply mass when its advanced capabilities—or even just the threat of them—were sufficient to achieve political aims…..
The list of nations with advanced capabilities continues to grow. At the same time, Western militaries and defense industrial bases continue to erode.
The West exchanged its large standing armies for a reliance on boutique American capabilities that were once decisive but are now increasingly commonplace. This has left the West without its technological edge and without its previous military mass.
Those who still believe in US military supremacy fail to realize these changes. Worse still, most of them entertain cartoonishly underrated notions about Russian military capabilities. They fail to realize Russia has both a technological edge and military mass. Th reputation the US military had was deserved for a time, but everything changes. Lee Slusher @LeeBTConsulting
Bottom Line: America’s adversaries—Russia, China, Iran—have either caught up to or surpassed the US in advanced missile technology, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAV), electronic warfare, cutting-edge missile defense systems etc.—which is gradually increasing parity between the states while ending the period of US military supremacy. The American century is rapidly drawing to a close.
Let’s move on to military analyst Number 2, Will Schyver, who draws similar conclusions to those of Vershinin but from a slightly different angle. Check it out:
I am more convinced than ever that the US could NOT establish air superiority against Russia — not in a week; not in a year. Never. It simply could not be done. It would be a logistical power projection challenge well beyond the current capabilities of the United States military.
American air power would prove substantially inferior to the extremely potent and abundantly supplied air defenses fielded by the Russians.
Just as the majority of HIMARS-launched GMLRS rockets, HARMS missiles, ATACMS missiles, and British Storm Shadow missiles are now being shot down in Ukraine, the vast majority of US long-range precision-guided missiles would be shot down, and the US would very rapidly deplete its limited inventory of these munitions in a futile attempt to overwhelm the Russian capacity to keep shooting back.
American suppression of enemy air defenses would prove inadequate to the task of defeating extremely sophisticated, deeply layered, and highly mobile air defense radars and missiles….
the war in Ukraine has made perfectly clear that all manner of western air defense systems are inferior to even the decades-old Soviet S-300 and Buk systems that Ukraine originally deployed. And even if western systems were formidable, they simply don’t exist in anything approaching the numbers necessary to provide credible defense in broad scope and depth.
To complicate matters even further, scant US munitions inventory and insuperable production limitations would allow the US to prosecute an air war against Russia or China for only a few weeks at most.
Moreover, in a high-intensity combat scenario in either eastern Europe, the China seas, or the Persian Gulf, the maintenance demands for US aircraft would overwhelm its proximate supply. Mission-capable rates would plummet even lower than their notoriously abysmal peacetime standards.
The US would, quite literally after only a few days, see sub-10% mission-capable rates for the F-22 and F-35, and sub-25% rates for almost every other platform in the inventory. It would be a huge embarrassment for the Pentagon … but hardly a huge surprise…..
Simply put, US air power as a theater-wide undertaking could not be sustained in the context of a non-permissive regional and global battlefield against one or more peer adversaries.
In eastern Europe, Russia would savage NATO bases and supply routes. The Baltic and Black seas would effectively become Russian lakes where NATO shipping could not venture….
Many are convinced these are unfounded hysterical assertions. In my view, the simple military, mathematical, and geographic realities of the situation dictate these conclusions, and those who resist them are typically blinded by the myth of American exceptionalism and its attendant ills to such a degree that they are unable to discern things as they really are….
I am increasingly persuaded that, if the US chooses to make direct war against either Russia, China, or Iran, it will result in a war against all three simultaneously.
And that, amazingly enough, is just one of multiple hard truths that the #EmpireAtAllCosts cult, and those acquiescing to its delusional designs, ought to give more serious consideration as they continue staggering towards the abyss of a war they could never win…. Staggering Towards the Abyss, Will Schryver, Substack
There’s a lot to chew on here but, in essence, Schryver is weighing Russia’s impressive air defense capability against America’s “scant munitions inventory and insuperable production limitations”, the combination of which suggests that a US military offensive would likely peter-out before inflicting serious damage on the enemy. Once again, our military analyst infers that the United States will not win in a direct confrontation with Russia.
Finally, we’ve excerpted a longer blurb from Kit Klarenberg who is more of an investigative journalist than military analyst. In a piece titled Collapsing Empire: China and Russia Checkmate US Military, Klarenberg details, what he calls the “unrelentingly bleak analysis of every aspect of the Empire’s bloated, decaying global war machine.”
If even half of what the author says is true, then we can be reasonably certain that the United States escalation with Russia is the fast track to a military catastrophe unlike anything the world has seen since the fall of Berlin in May, 1945. Take a look:
On July 29th, …. RAND Corporation published a landmark appraisal of the state of the Pentagon’s 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS), and current US military readiness… Its findings are stark, an unrelentingly bleak analysis of every aspect of the Empire’s bloated, decaying global war machine. In brief, the US is “not prepared” in any meaningful way for serious “competition” with its major adversaries – and vulnerable or even significantly outmatched in every sphere of warfare…. the Empire’s worldwide dominance, are judged to be at best woefully inadequate, at worst outright delusional.
From the Rand Report:
“We believe the magnitude of the threats the US faces is understated and significantly worse…In many ways, China is outpacing the US…in defense production and growth in force size and, increasingly, in force capability and is almost certain to continue to do so…[Beijing] has largely negated the US military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment. Without significant change by the US, the balance of power will continue to shift in China’s favor.”
“At minimum, the US should assume that if it enters a direct conflict involving Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea, that country will benefit from economic and military aid from the others…This new alignment of nations opposed to US interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multi-theater or global war…As US adversaries are cooperating more closely together than before, the US and its allies must be prepared to confront an axis of multiple adversaries.” Commission on the National Defense, Rand
As the Commission report spells out in forensic detail, Washington would be almost completely defenceless in such a scenario, and likely defeated nigh on instantly…. It’s not just being spread too thinly across the Grand Chessboard that means the Empire’s military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.”…
The RAND Commission found Washington’s “defense industrial base” is completely “unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs” of the US, let alone its allies. “A protracted conflict, especially in multiple theaters, would require much greater capacity to produce, maintain, and replenish weapons and munitions” than is currently in place….
For decades, the US military “employed cutting-edge technology to its decisive advantage for decades.” This “assumption of uncontested technological superiority” on the Empire’s part meant Washington had “the luxury to build exquisite capabilities, with long acquisition cycles and little tolerance for failure or risk.” Those days are long over though, with China and Russia “incorporating technology at accelerating speed”….. America’s “defense industrial base” is today crumbling, riddled with a myriad of deleterious issues…
To address these problems, the Commission calls… to re-industrialize the US after years of outsourcing, offshoring and neglect. No timeframe is provided, although it would likely take decades…..
We have entered a strange, late-stage Empire era, comparable to the Soviet Union’s Glasnost, in which elements of the US imperial brain-trust can see with blinding clarity Washington’s entire hegemonic global project is stumbling rapidly and irreversibly towards extinction… Collapsing Empire: China and Russia Checkmate US Military, Kit Klarenberg, Substack
Once again, we see the same criticisms reiterated over and over again : Insufficient industrial capacity, dwindling stockpiles, “insuperable production limitations”, and diminished technological superiority. When we add these to the myriad logistical problems of conducting a war in eastern Europe with an ad hoc army of inexperienced volunteers who have never seen combat, we can only conclude that the United States cannot and will not prevail in a prolonged conflict with Russia. Even so, Washington continues to fire ATACMS missiles into Russia (13 more were launched over the past two days) apparently believing that there will be no response to the provocation. Even so, NATO Command continues to entertain illusions of victory by pressing for preemptive “precision strikes” on Russian territory welcoming the prospect of a direct conflagration between NATO and Russia. And even though, both France and the UK threaten to deploy combat troops to Ukraine thinking the inexorable trajectory of the war can somehow be reversed. It’s madness.
Five centuries of primacy have produced a cadre of western elites so drunk with hubris that they are incapable of seeing what is painfully obvious to everyone else, that the imperial model of western exploitation (the ‘rules-based order’) is collapsing and that new centers of power are rapidly emerging.
It appears now that these same elites are prepared to drag the world into a catastrophic Third World War to preserve their grip on power and to prevent other nations from achieving the independence and prosperity they’ve earned. Fortunately, Washington will fail in this effort just as it has failed in all its other interventions dating back to 1945. Because the United States no longer has the technology, manpower or industrial capacity needed to win a war with Russia.
It’s a whole new ballgame.
NEW ORESHNIK MISSILE SINGULARLY CHANGED GLOBAL BALANCE OF POWER
Russia’s use of an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, which they call “Oreshnik” (in English “Hazel”) has utterly changed the global balance of power. It is a non-nuclear weapon system that mimics nuclear destruction levels. It cannot be intercepted, and hits with pinpoint accuracy.
Below are the Key Points from Putin’s Statements on the Oreshnik Missile System at the CSTO Meeting:
The General Staff and the Ministry of Defense are currently selecting targets for the Oreshnik missile to be destroyed on Ukrainian territory.
Decision-making centers in Kyiv could become a target for the Oreshnik.
In the event of a massive use of the Oreshnik, the force of the strike will be comparable to nuclear weapons.
The Oreshnik missile system is capable of striking deep-sea and well-protected targets.
The Russian Federation will continue combat tests of the Oreshnik in response to enemy actions.
The Russian Federation has begun serial production of the Oreshnik.
There are no analogues to the Russian “Oreshnik” in the world, and they will not appear anytime soon.
The Message Behind the Missile
Putin’s remarks on the Oreshnik missile system are not just about showcasing Russia’s technological prowess, they’re a clear signal to the West that the era of unchallenged NATO dominance is over.
The Oreshnik, capable of delivering strikes comparable to nuclear force, represents a seismic shift in the global balance of power. Its ability to obliterate deep-sea and well-protected targets renders much of the West’s defensive posturing obsolete. This is not a weapon of escalation; it’s a weapon of deterrence, designed to compel adversaries to rethink their delusions of invincibility.
The implications are staggering. As serial production ramps up, Moscow is effectively telling NATO: “Push us further, and we will respond with overwhelming force.”
The potential targeting of decision-making centers in Kiev underscores the Kremlin’s resolve to dismantle the very infrastructure sustaining the Western-backed puppet and the West’s aggression.
For all of Washington’s talk of deterrence, it is now clear that Russia has redefined the concept entirely. The Oreshnik isn’t just a missile—it’s a doctrine, a declaration that Russia’s red lines are not negotiable.
The West should take heed: this is not a bluff, nor is it a gesture for theater. It’s the cold reality of a multipolar world where the rules are no longer dictated from Washington. The choice is clear: de-escalate, or face consequences that no amount of NATO summitry can reverse.
Job Security CRISIS! PEOPLE VERY WORRIED ABOUT LOSING THEIR JOB!
I’ve been checking in on my old classmates and friends back in the states. I was surprised how many had died, but was pleasantly surprised with what happened to others.
For some reason, fate, or chance most of the guys that I hung out with were usually younger than myself. Often five to eight years younger. I never did fit in with the older kids. Perhaps that was because I never got the chance to meet any of them.
I didn’t have any older siblings. I was, after all, the oldest.
Ah, when I did, maybe in Junior year, they would take a “shine” to me and I would go under their wing. But yeah… most of the time I was always the oldest one in the bunch.
Anyways, let’s go back and way back to early elementary school.
My boyhood “best friend” in elementary school; “Deano” was a kid that lived across the street from me in East Brady, PA.We attended both elementary, and High School together…
I used to play with him, and then when I was in my teens, with his brother Dan. We (by the way) both worked together at the local supermarket “Shop & Save”. But this isn’t about Dan. This is about Dean.
Oh…
Here’s the Middle and High School of East Brady. The “Old building”.
schoolpage
They closed the school down in the 1990’s because there wasn’t enough students and consolidated it with another school, and the building was repurposed to a local town office.
Now, my friend, Deano, well, I haven’t talked with him since my exit from the Navy and a brief stay at my mother’s house way back in 1981.
At that time, he was working for USS Steel.
And he was laid off, as I was later once I got out of the Navy, and on my MAJ path.
Turned out that he found a job in New Kensington, Pa and worked there for like forever. Lucky guy. “He got into windows”. Boring, but stable. And he rode out the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the COVID era. Eventually retiring with full pension and social security benefits on top of his 401(K).
Fun fact, I briefly tried to contact him back in 2018 or so to supply some window components to him. I sent him a pamphlet, but he never responded. Probably tossed it away.
For me it was four decades of layoffs. One after the other after the other. Yah. He did far, far better than me.
You Bastard! Love you though!
Good for ya!
Now, Imagine my surprise that I read what he was up to. Well, I was surprised that immediately after he retired, that he moved.
Well, he moved to Pattaya, Thailand.
Ah. good for him. I’m sure that he’s single and enjoying the life as a “Handsome Man”.
You don’t move to Thailand with a family. Don’t you know. It’s highly unusual.
You move there after a divorce, or when you are single. Few, move there with a wife. It happens, but not often. Most men arrive single. And, there, they enjoy the life and pleasures of being single.
I did have an opportunity; a very high paying one in Thailand.
I was offered a CEO position with the largest appliance company in Thailand, for great money.
But my wife said "absolutely NOT!".
She didn;t want to discuss things. She didn't want to hear the pros and cons. She didn't want to know the potentials for us.
She said NO.
And you know, as they say; "that was that!".
I hope that he spend the rest of his days enjoying the relaxed life, good food, and friendships that he will make there. He’s an avid golfer, and I’m sure that after a life of corporate work outside of Pittsburgh, he wants a real change.
Yuppur!
Enjoy your life, you deserve it!
deano
I don’t have Facebook, so I haven’t contacted him. But I am really happy to know that he is retired and living “the life” not too far from where I live.
Go Deano!
…
Another guy is Peter.
He was one of my “best friends” when I attended university. He and a classmate, also a great friend; Jay shared a dorm room, and I was always there enjoying our times together and drinking beer, smoking cigars, chatting it all up, and studying together.
They lived in Day Hall; eighth floor. The “penthouse” floor of the tallest skyscraper on the highest hill. Only eight floors. LOL.
When we graduated, I went into the Navy to fly, and you all know my story. Well, Peter went into IBM. Where he stayed and then retired out.
He opened a page in LinkedIN, and never updated. His picture is and has been decades old. But why update? He never ever got a different job. He was a stable worker. A work horse. A loyal follower.
While I was an explorer, a dreamer; a risk taker, and always had my “head in the clouds”.
So yeah. He’s still on LinkedIN.
Never made waves. Never updated.
But myself, well it’s the opposite.
I’m perma-banned. I live in “evil” China. So I must be a non-person.
Anyways, as he never updated it, but after decades and decades of cobwebs, there was a final update. He added a statement to say that he retired.
Peter 2
I did try to connect with him about ten years ago, but he never responded. I know he got the message. My COMM line lit up confirming that contact. But he didn’t want to reconnect. *sigh* I guess he wanted to move on.
Well, he is retired, and great for him. I wish him the very best.
I am confident that he has a nice retirement plan and is doing well. Wherever he is. You go Peter!
Here’s some of his latest pictures (un-accessible to myself) on his Facebook page…
Peter Kelly
I imagine that he is going to settle down and just keep on being himself in the town that he grew up in, and the region that he loves. It’s his way, and I am sure that he is doing just fine.
Everyone is retired and moving on.
Gosh. I can hardly recognize anyone. They all look so different.
Me, I think that I will continue to work and do what I am doing until I die. I’ve found a sort of lifestyle cubby-hole that I am somehow fitting in right now. But that is good enough for me.
No retirement for me.
Just a lower level of activity, but still jam-packed days.
Like running two companies, and producing videos, metallicman content, and raising a little girl. My engine is stuck on full throttle.
Oh, speaking of content…
In case you all haven’t been told, I was interviewed by Jeff on Radio sinoland. Maybe I mentioned it before. Ah. I don’t remember.I put it on a Quora post. I don’t remember if I put it here.
But if you haven’t seen it, you can watch it by clinking on this link below…
Quora China “Expert” Vannrox was interviewed on China Raising Radio Sinoland
Here’s my interview with Jeff on a wide range of topics regarding China. I hope that you will all take a moment and hear out my thoughts on what is going on in China. In the interview, we discuss the latest changes in strategic direction, the growth of the largest metro area in China, Macao, and what will happen to the QUAD and much more…
I’m not the kind of guy that is gonna fade into black. Fade into the background. Grow silent and disappear. No. I’m the kind of guy that is drinking a glass of wine while I slide onto home plate with a lei of flowers around my neck.
Today…
Have you ever been invited to something that turned out to be another thing entirely?
Yes, Unfortunately. I met this woman and we started dating. Sort of casual I guess. We had only been out five or so times. We weren’t intimate or anything. Just getting to know each other.
She asked If I wanted to go to a barbecue of sorts her ‘good friend’ from her old neighbourhood was hosting. Apparently , there was going to be a group of her old friends there.
We arrived at the house and her friend came out of the house. The two women were obviously excited to see each other , having not seen each other in a while. They were all hugs, and ‘oh how are you.?” Finally the woman I’m with, says, “this is Rick” Her friend looked at me, ,looked me up and down. Didn’t say ‘hello’, or , ‘glad you could come’ – nothing. And she was the host . She then turns away. The two are chatting wildly and walk toward the house. They enter the house and closed the door behind them. I’m still standing in the driveway. So now I’m not sure what to do. I was embarrassed.
I found out later, they both went to the backyard, and my friend was walking around greeting everyone. Then someone asked her, “Did you come alone?” She looks around and notices I’m not there. She said to her friend, “Where’s Rick? Did we leave him in the driveway.?”
She came out to the driveway, just in time to see my car turning out of the subdivision at the end of a very long street. A while later, my phone rang. I didn’t answer. It rang again later that night. I didn’t answer it.
The next morning, Sunday, my phone rang around 11a.m. It was her. She said, “What happened yesterday? You left?”
I said, ‘Yes, I did. You invited me to a party. Your friend, the host, was rude. She did not even bother to say ‘hello’ She just stared at me like she didn’t want me there. Then you walked into the house and shut the door. I was standing in the driveway by myself like an idiot. Did you think I was just going to hang around out there by myself?”
She got sort of quiet, then said, “I’m sorry” Obviously she realized what a position she had put me in. I was embarrassed and felt pretty bad about being invited to a party to meet some new people, then not even being invited inside.
The conversation didn’t go well from there. I think she realized she had blown it with me. Too bad, because I was hoping for more, but this really just made me feel very negative, especially since I had gone out of my way to make sure she had a good time whenever we were together.
What is legal in Germany but illegal in the United States?
There are some things. The most stunning for me are the first two:
It is not illegal in Germany, to break out of a prison. Why? Because the German law considers “being free” as a human need, like eating and drinking. So a prisoner who escaped can’t be blamed for his action. Of course the police will do everything to get him/her back into jail, but no additional charges will follow as long as no other laws were broken. So in this case, hold my beer: Germany has even more freedom than the U.S. of A. 😉
Alcohol: Drinking beer, wine and champagne is legal at 16, everything else with higher percentages is allowed at age 18.
Public drinking is allowed in most places and cities of Germany. Some have laws that forbid public drinking, but these laws are legally controversial and no cop will care anyway as long as you act normal.
2/3 of all areas on the “Autobahn” freeways have no speed limit at all. The standard speed for most of the other sections is 81 mp/h, or 130 km/h, plus a 3% tolerance.
Besides “normal” milk you can also buy raw milk (non-pasteurized) in supermarkets across the country. AFAIR this is not legal in many U.S. states anymore (for some reason not even from the farmer), because of the risk of typhus. Listeria is the risk/reason the US doesn’t allow for unpasteurized raw milk.
Yes, you were perhaps waiting for it: Kinder Eggs.
Cuban cigars like Cohibas and Havana Club rum can be sold, bought and traded ever since. But OK, this is a very US specific thing.
Consensual sex is allowed from age 14 on, if the other person is not older than 21. In case of doubt, officials are asked to research and check that no one got talked into sex.
I bet there are many more things that I’m not aware of or can’t recall atm.
The kitten did not stop crying at the shelter, but suddenly he heard a familiar voice…
Reincarnation story about a kitty.
What was the first thing you did after separating from your husband?
My ex wife moved out. First thing I did was to stop paying the mortgage and put the house up for sale. Then I found a nice apartment and moved.
During the separation and I was in the home she made my life absolute hell. I would return from a weekend trip to a wrecked home; she’d used the time I was gone to destroy the home. When I returned home I’d spend the rest of my Sunday through Tuesday cleaning up. I’d leave the home spotless. After 20 years in the military I can assure you the one thing I absolutely knew how to do was clean.
Moving into my apartment was liberating. Peaceful, just amazing. Felt like I had been a prisoner in my home for years.
she saddled me with as much of her debt as she possibly could. Did everything she could to go after as much of my income as she could.
I started my life over. I’ve built a much better life for myself alone. I’ve forgiven her for everything she’s done to me.
one day I did call her and apologized for my part in the downfall of the marriage. That was only met with her claiming that she was the perfect wife.
that day I realized that I’d never be in a relationship with a woman who could never admit and acknowledge her faults.
the woman I’m with now took the opportunity to thank my ex wife for divorcing me. Because that put the best man she has ever met into her life.
I live a happy life with little drama. Her and I share so many similar passions in life. We do so much together and for each other.
Have you ever told off another person’s child? What for?
I was in a shoe shop the other day with my elderly Mother – she is 87 and not very steady on her feet. There was a lady in the shop with two kids – a little boy of about three and a little girl who was four or five years old.
The kids were racing round and round in large circles shrieking and squealing. The little girl ran straight into my Mum, who I managed to steady before she fell to the ground. I also put one hand out to stop the little girl as she still had forward momentum. I quietly and calmly told the little girl to stop running around and to be careful. The mother of the kid looked up and went ape-shit at me for touching and telling off her daughter. I explained that she had nearly knocked over my 87 year old Mum. She didn’t care. She said that my mother hadn’t fallen (thank goodness – or she may have broken a hip or something) and therefore I had no business telling her child off. She was yelling at me, accusing me of being racist, assaulting her child, etc etc. I apologised, explained my reasons again, and turned my back on her to pay for Mum’s new shoes.
The kids started running around the shop again, knocking over piles of shoe boxes and a display. The shop worker asked the kids to settle down and stop running. No raised voice, but firmly spoken. I finalised my transaction and the shop assistant started clearing up the fallen shoes, together with the second worker who had emerged from the store room with shoes for another customer. The kid’s mother started yelling at the shop assistant, again, accusing her of being racist and that she had no business telling her kids what to do. Goodness knows why she accused both of us of being racist – the issue was with her child’s behaviour and her indifference to it, not about colour.
As Mum and I were leaving the store, I heard the shop assistant politely asking that woman to take her two children out of the shop. Not sure what happened next, as we moved on in the mall to a coffee shop, because Mum wanted to sit down. She was quite distressed by the whole episode (she has early dementia and is easily confused by what is going on around her).
F*@k the Media! I Went to China…(Truth about Shanghai)
What is the most ridiculous reason for which a flight was delayed?
In 2016, a woman boarded a flight from Philadelphia to Syracuse on American Airlines.
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After she settled into her seat, she noticed the passenger next to her scribbling in some strange writing. Curious, she took a closer look to see what her seatmate seemed to be so busy working on.
She recognised none of it. It was in some strange language she couldn’t understand. It was probably code for something, possibly something sinister.
She took a closer look at the man, and found him a little alarming. She noticed his rather unkempt hair, his darker complexion.
She asked him if he was from Syracuse. He curtly answered that he wasn’t, still focused on his work. She noticed his foreign accent.
She felt unease, that she was in grave danger.
She decided to write down something of her own. She quickly wrote a note, called the attention of a stewardess, and handed her the note. She also claimed she felt too ill to take that flight at the moment and needed to disembark.
Their plane continued to made preparations to take off, but then seemed to abandon that and returned to the gate. The next thing he knows, her fellow passenger was asked by the stewardess to leave his seat and come with her.
He was taken off the plane and into a waiting room. Later, he was questioned by security.
He asked them what it was about. He was told a passenger reported him on suspicions of being a terrorist. How come? He was writing strange things on a pad of paper.
They interrogated him for two hours. (That’s not necessarily out of the ordinary as airline companies generally take terrorism allegations very seriously.) They had to make sure he was absolutely not a terrorist. Once they did, he was allowed to re-board his flight which by then had also been delayed by two hours.
NEW Butler Bodycam Shows Officers CONFRONT Trump’s Would be Assassin
What was Singapore like in 70’s?
What do ‘Chewing gums, long hair on men, and the Rolling Stone’ have in common in the 70s?
Never a time where life was such a bore in Singapore as it was in the ‘70s when countless of items were banned in the Republic of Singapore.
That was the time Singapore’s first generation after independent- it’s known as the pioneer generation who were the victim of Singapore’s progress ( Sorry folks! I don’t beat around the bush)
In the 70’s was the best time I witnessed what life in Singapore and it didn’t look like Singapore you know today at all.
To begin with.
A taxi driver who asked me where to? After I told him, and he said, “Sorry bro, I won’t go!” and sped off.
Another time, a hawker’s assistant told me, “ Know or not, bro? You can’t sit on this table if you don’t order from us.”
On one night, I was looking for block 8 at Whampoa drive, I couldn’t see the tiny zinc block number sign (with no light) – my friend said to me —“Go and complain to the PAP, lah” I didn’t know who that was.
When it rained, the entire Bukit Timah Road was flooded and a woman was reported to have drown in an open drain.
At the ‘Thieves Market- at Sungei Road’ I spotted what looked like a brand new ‘Seiko watch’ but 1/4 of the price- I asked was it real why so cheap? “ Bro. you know what is this place called or not? He grinned.
At my last trip to Singapore last year, I complimented to my buddy, a retiree in Singapore: “ Now, you got covered walkway to your block and don’t get wet- why didn’t you guys ask for it in those days”—I meant when he moved in during the 70’s — That’s what he answered “ Guy! We didn’t know what to complain and how to complain- that fellow throw you in jail then you know!”
In 1974, exactly 50 years ago when ABBA won Eurovision with ‘Waterloo’ you will never though that in this part of the world is just another day- No cheers, no jeers, and no qualms but every young man and woman was joyous in celebration only behind the closed door.
It reminds me even though it’s just a tiny nation but Singapore was known to the the world when Singapore government’s policy forbidding any male with long hair went into effect in the ‘70s— Even the Beatles freaked out and scared to death while hiding on the plane at Paya Lebar airport.
That was in my memory what Singapore was like in 70’s
What is the pettiest complaint you have heard from a home-owners association (HOA)?
Not my story, this came from a former US resident when the subject came up.
He and his then GF had a nice house, centre of the cul-de-sac, drive straight in, drive straight off.
Some of his best fines were:
A garbage can being left out too long, he was on a day off and he heard the truck come and go but was busy with some jobs at the time, about 20 minute later, he opened the door to find a fine ready attached to the door, it had been there 10 minutes. Someone expected the bin to be back behind the house, with 10 minutes of being emptied, on a weekday… 3/4 of the street were working and wouldn’t have it taken in until after 5.
Having ‘his’ car parked in his driveway instead of the garage for too long. It was his parents car, they were there for an hour dropping off some gifts for his birthday.
Music too loud, but it wasn’t him, it was the property behind him on the next street.
Lawn was in disrepair, this was after the HOA PRESIDENTS kid, drove home drunk and drove onto his lawn. This was backed up with video evidence.
There were dozens of fines over the course of the year, he finally decided enough was enough and took a few weeks holiday from work. Revenge was afoot.
He spent the next 2 weeks being the most petty homeowner on the block, he reported every, single, infraction. Backed up with a highlighted copy of the rules in every case and a photo.
He caught out the HOA President with the wrong colour paint, another board member with their bin out for 2 days, another with a large patch of grass missing, grass too long, branches too low, fences damaged, cars being left in disrepair, maintainence needing done. Every single one was a HOA Board member. He did pin a few other residents for some of the things he was caught for.
The HOA tried to sue him for harassment, he countersued with evidence that every single thing he had been targeted for, was being done worse by the HOA and other residents.
Ultimately he won, all his fines were dropped and a new board was soon voted in, the ‘old boys club’ was no more. About 6 months later he decidd to move to the UK, he’s been here 5 years and said if he ever moves back, no HOA.
Teen Killer Thinks He’s Going Home After Murdering His Mother
What are the qualities that make women envious of men?
Oh, there are a lot, seriously.
No menstruation issues. No periods. You men really have no idea how lucky you are, when it comes to this.
Not having to worry about pregnancy when it comes to sex.
Thinking of going out? All they need is 5 minutes to get ready, and they’re out of the house.
Be it any function, there’s always one black suit that just works every single time.
Travelling? Few shirts, one jeans and bam! Packing done!
Night outs? Late night parties? No questions to answer! All they need is their ‘mood’ to say yes!
Can choose to wear clothes or not!
The “Bro Code”. Enough said.
Their friendships. Way more honest, upfront and amazing than women.
They just don’t get tensed up about anything. Even if the world is ending next moment, just chill, everything’s cool.
Suddenly nature called? No problem, the world is their bathroom!
Their power to just forget stuff so easily. Sometimes, that’s all you need!
No uterus, no labor pain, no baby coming out!
The way they can sit idle and think nothing. Like really, nothing. You ask them, what are you thinking? ‘Nothing!’ How on earth do they do that?
When a man truly loves you, you just know it. They give you their everything. Be it Dad, boyfriend, or husband, the way they love is beyond comparison!
Have you ever had a job where you did nothing for years and nobody found out?
A friend (not a friend-of-a-friend, somebody I know directly) became a manager in a company that provides support services to the airline industry. I cannot name the firm, they are still very much active and a quasi-government outfit. Justin was made head of a group of 28 and HR handed him an inventory of his reporting employees. He went through the list, arranging one-on-one meetings, just to touch base, get an idea of the mechanics of the place, that sort of thing.
After he had seen his 27th employee he started to look for Mr 28. Scanning the open-plan office he could not see anybody that he had not already spoken to. He walked up to his nearest minion and said “I am looking for, erm [reads paper] … Dave.”
“Oh, Dave hasn’t worked here for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Maybe 2 years’ or so.”
Justin called HR and told them the employee list was wrong.
“Can’t be,” explained HR “that list was pulled from the current payroll and Dave is on the payroll.”
The organisation was based in Switzerland, Dave had an apartment and lived locally; HR had his address. Justin guessed that the address might be out of date.
He went back into the office area, “does anybody have a contact number for Dave?” Somebody did, a UK mobile phone number and the suggestion that he lived somewhere in London. Well, maybe not exactly in London itself, possibly near to London or, at least, in that half of England where London is. Ok, I’ll be honest, nobody was really paying attention when Dave left, but he definitely mentioned getting a flight to London.
Justin called the number, it was answered quickly. “Hi Dave, this is Justin, your new manager at xxxxxxxx.”
“Oh, hiya’, I am just heading out the door to go to the dentists, can I call you back in about an hour or so?”
But, dear reader, Dave did not call back. Not even after several hours. Justin called later that afternoon and got several “invalid number” messages before realising that there was no point in trying again.
Turns out that Dave (an Australian) had resigned over 2 years’ previously but the HR process had not been followed correctly and they continued to pay him. Dave didn’t complain and nobody noticed. Dave’s bank account was routinely emptied (by ATM withdrawals, never by wire or trackable transfers) and it was closed immediately after Justin called him.
Nice one Dave.
The Car Market is a Joke …… Part 2
Can you describe the experience of being an idol in Korea? Why do you think there are not many foreign people becoming idols?
There are a total of 2 million K-pop trainees in Seoul, but only a handful can become idols.
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If you want to become an idol, you must have a lot of resources to buy advertisements, front pages of news, and prime time on TV. You must get the help of Korean chaebols, and the favor of news media executives to have these resources.
But ordinary people do not have such resources. They can only approach the Korean chaebol and news media executives through sexual bribery and other methods to win the support of them.
Here is a list of Korean artists who committed suicide:
On 22 February 2005, actress Lee Eun-ju, the star of hit films including Taegukgi and The Scarlet Letter, died by suicide at the age of 24.
On 21 January 2007, performance artist U;Nee died by hanging at the age of 25.
On 2 October 2008, “The Nation’s Actress” Choi Jin-sil died by suicide at the age of 39.
On 7 March 2009, actress Jang Ja-yeon died by suicide at the age of 29. She left a letter alleging violence, abuse, and sexual exploitation by several people in the entertainment industry.
On 19 November 2009, supermodel Daul Kim died by suicide in Paris at the age of 20.
On 18 December 2017, Kim Jonghyun, a main vocalist of South Korean group Shinee, died by suicide at the age of 27. He was found unconscious in a hotel room by paramedics after sending a suicide note to his sister and was later pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. A suicide note was found highlighting his struggle with depression that he had spoken about over many years. In it were words such as “I am broken inside”, “I hate myself”, and references to a doctor who blamed his depression on his personality.
On 14 October 2019, Sulli, an actress and former member of f(x), died by suicide at the age of 25. She was found dead in her home by her manager.
On 24 November 2019, Goo Hara, an actress and former member of Kara, died by suicide at the age of 28. She had attempted to end her own life once before, on 26 May 2019, but was found in time and taken to hospital.
On December 27 2023, Lee Sun-kyun, an actor who was best known for his international role in Parasite, died by suicide at the age of 48.
note
Among them, Jang Ja-yeon was particularly eye-catching. After she committed suicide, she left a suicide note and a list of people who sexually assaulted her.
In her suicide note, she revealed:
From 2005 to 2009, she was forced by her agency to provide sexual services to senior executives of large companies, news media, and men in the entertainment industry.
Even on her parents’ death anniversary, she was forced to provide services.
She was raped by men, forced to take stimulants and drugs, and the men even used various props, such as wine bottles and golf balls, to insert into her vagina.
She was still unmarried and was forced by her agency to go to the hospital for sterilization surgery in her 20s so that the chaebols could have sex with her without wearing condoms and ejaculate inside her.
She suffered from excessive torture and became incontinent. In severe cases, she could not even walk.
In her suicide note, she cried: “Once, I entered a hotel and found that I had to provide sexual services to 4 men at the same time. I was not even as good as a hotel prostitute.”
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Jang Ja-yeon – Wikipedia
South Korean actress (1980–2009) Jang Ja-yeon ( Korean : 장자연 ; 25 January 1980 – 7 March 2009) was a South Korean actress.
She was born in Jeongeup , North Jeolla Province, South Korea. She debuted in the entertainment industry when she appeared in a television commercial in 2006.
She was known for being part of the KBS television drama series Boys Over Flowers as Sunny, one of the antagonists of the series, at the time of her death. She died by suicide on 7 March 2009 at the age of 29.
At the time of her death, Jang had been suffering from depression , and it was revealed in 2019 that the initial investigation into her death in 2009 had been corrupt.
[ 1 ] The 2009 investigation had concluded that her death was a suicide, but the investigation was reopened in 2018.
[ 2 ] Her death caused a national scandal in 2009 when it was widely reported that she had been sexually and physically abused by a number of prominent entertainment executives during her career, including the CEO of Jang's former talent agency, The Contents Entertainment, Kim Sung-hoon.
[ 3 ] After three witness testified against the CEO, Kim was found guilty of abuse by the Korean courts, specifically of forcing girls from his agency to come to his birthday party where he forced them to sexually entertain the executives.
[ 4 ] 2006–2009: Acting debut with Boys Over Flowers [ edit ] Jang made her debut in 2006 in a television commercial.
[ 5 ] Her big break came in Boys Over Flowers playing the role of Sunny, one of a trio of girls who antagonize the female lead played by Ku Hye-sun . At the time of her death, Jang was awaiting the release of her first two films, They Are Coming and Penthouse Elephant. Jang was known to have had difficulties with her management agency.
[ 6 ] Since the death of her parents in a traffic accident in 1999, Jang had been living with her older sister and younger brother.
[ 7 ] Prior to her own death, Jang had been suffering from clinical depression and had received medical treatment for her condition during the past year.
[ 5 ] Death and later investigation [ edit ] Jang died by suicide. She was found hanging in her home in the Bundang district of Seongnam , Gyeonggi province , on 7 March 2009. During a phone call at 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, Jang had complained to her sister about the "overwhelming stress" she was under, saying that she "wanted to die".
[ 5 ] Having later been unable to reach her on the phone, Jang's sister returned to their shared home at 7:42 p.m. to find her body hanging from the stairway banister.
[ 8 ] A police investigation concluded that her death was a suicide,
[ 8 ] and found no evidence of foul play.
[ 7 ] Jang is believed to have killed herself at around 4:30 pm.
[ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] According to widespread South Korean entertainment news reports, it was believed that Jang claimed that her agent Kim Sung-hoon had regularly beaten her and forced her to sleep with a string of VIPs, including directors, media executives and CEOs. Ki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jang_Ja-yeon
This is a common experience for Korean idols. Do you think foreigners will accept this kind of experience?
If a foreigner is killed in South Korea, the embassy of his or her country of origin will intervene, which can easily escalate into a serious diplomatic issue.
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Executives of major Korean companies, news media executives, and men in the entertainment industry dare not do this.
On the other hand, Without these, foreigners would naturally not get many resources.
There are so many K-pop trainees in HYBE, SM, YG, and JYP, why did they have to choose you as the top star? Why?
Advertisements, front-page news, prime-time television time, etc. all cost money to buy.
No such thing as a free lunch, everything needs to be exchanged.
College Girl Goes Missing Until Cops Discover This CCTV Footage
Arizona Chicken Enchiladas
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Ingredients
About 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, boiled and shredded
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can chopped green chiles*
1/2 medium onion, chopped
Grated Cheddar cheese, about 1 pound, divided
10 to 12 corn tortillas, torn into bite-size pieces
Vegetable oil
Instructions
Boil chicken and then shred it. This is easily done using an electric mixer! Set aside.
In large pan, add both soups (do not add water or milk), green chiles and chopped onions. Add chicken and heat to a slow simmer.
In a separate pan, heat about 1/4 to 1/2 inch oil. Add torn corn tortillas and soft fry them. You don’t want them crunchy. Drain excess oil from tortillas on a paper towel.
Add soft fried corn tortillas to the chicken mixture. You will need to play with the amount of tortillas you add until it looks like you have enough tortillas added without making it too dry. Turn off heat. Add about 1/2 of the grated cheese. You may also add some sour cream to this if you wish.
Spread mixture in a greased baking dish. I normally use a 13 x 9-inch pan for this. Top with more grated cheese and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 30 minutes or until bubbly.
To finish this off you can top with salsa, sour cream and/or guacamole.
Notes
* I buy Hatch green chiles from New Mexico in season, roast them and freeze them in freezer bags. They’re the best! We are fortunate that we can buy them freshly-roasted right in front of our local market also.
Have you ever had to remind a guest that they are a guest in your house? If so, how did the guest respond?
My wife and I have four daughters. One shares our DNA and three do not. They came to us in their early teens from severely abusive homes.
Our second daughter, ‘Beth’ had only been us for about three months and was still learning to trust us.
My wife’s mother, Jane, was visiting. At some point, Beth came from her room with her dirty clothes and dumped them on the floor of the laundry room, then started back to her room to bring down her bedding. From the kitchen Jane said something to the tune of, “I hope you’re not going to leave those there!” Beth responded, “It’s none of your business now, is it?”
Before my wife, who was also in the kitchen, could intercede, Jane said, “You better learn some manners if you’re going to be a member of this family, young lady.”
Before Beth could respond, my wife put her arm around her, looked at her mother, and said something akin to, “Mom, Beth doesn’t have to learn one fucking thing to be a member of this family, she already is. There is nothing she can do to change that. Now apologize to my daughter.” I think Beth was caught off guard that she wasn’t the one in trouble and was being stood up for.
To her credit, Jane did apologize. Beth was, at best, lukewarm in accepting it. As far as my wife was concerned, she didn’t need to accept it at all.
I will say it wasn’t Jane’s intent to be nasty. In her mind she was just reinforcing one of the assumed rules of the house. For her it was the kind of thing grandmothers do.
Later that afternoon my wife took her out on the patio for some mother/daughter time. She explained our home ran differently than the home in which she grew up, and no, this wasn’t a criticism of how she was raised. They agreed that it would be best if Jane refrained from parenting our daughters. Jane wasn’t particularly upset and they moved on to other things.
Surprisingly, at least to us, Beth was cordial to Jane at dinner. This was a victory as in those days Beth often held grudges.
GHOST DESCRIBES THE AFTERLIFE | A British WW2 Sailor’s Experience
I had a tomcat called 'pyewacket ' who was a beautifull natured boy, silly funny and got on well with our other 2 cats and all the other cats in the neighborhood, but 6 years ago someone poisoned him, we had to have him put to sleep, this was especially hard because he was only 5 , one sunny summers day I was sitting on the couch thinking about him and how we missed him so, then I thought to myself I wonder if animals pass over to the other side, just then I spied a tiny white feather coming down from the ceiling and settling on my lap, make of that what you will but I'm not a big fan of coincidences , I still have the white feather.
How do Tibetans feel about being part of China? Do they want independence?
Hello, I am Tibetan. Born in the outskirts of Darjeeling, India and now immigrate to USA.
Should Tibet be apart of China ? Yes. It has been since the old times and we have absorbed most Chinese culture (chop sticks, food, instrument, clothing, language, etc)
Do I seek independence ? Little bit but what will the outcome be if Tibet was independent ? We would probably be invaded by India just like how Sikkim and North East India turned into be. Let me tell I would hate to be apart of India since my last trip to Sikkim. Sikkimese are now second class citizens in their ancestral homeland since Indians breed like rabbits, different race and thinking. We also have racial tensions due to our racist tribalism nature. Also we are mongoloid race and Indians are Dravidians or Aryans so we have nothing in common other than religion or writing. Since the Chinese are Mongoloid race I would rather be apart of them. Seeing Tibet now with devolpment and infrastructure. Many exile unbrainwashed Tibetans would agree with me and go back. The brainwashed tibetans would likely stay in india suffering from racism and living in slums or get their daily paycheck from the corrupt Tibetan government in exile.
Let me tell you I used to be a brainwashed Tibetan listening to these foreign Caucasians and Indians telling me lies about what the Chinese did to Tibet and now I know the truth and I am very angry for them lying to me. Seek the truth.
Today’s MM art
It’s a mixed bag. Lots of nudes, but also many distortions. I’m disappointed.
Many men with woman’s faces, and distortions of various types.
@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(33)
Man’s body, woman’s face.
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Some are fine, but are missing “something”.
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This turned out… interesting.
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Same with this one…
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I do love the expression on the face of Bacchus.
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Nice, but twins?
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Messed up female genitalia…
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Might be more interesting with some nice clothes…
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Now here’s sort of what I am striving for.
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And this. But there’s a lot that needs to be corrected.
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Wow. A lot going on here.
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A winner… almost.
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So so.
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The spitting of the wine will need to be photoshopped out.
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Fine.
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This is one of the best of the bunch.
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And I do like this one…
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When did you realize your parents were cool?
When my father got Hugh Hefner to lend him the bunny jet to evacuate Vietnamese orphans during the Fall of Saigon.
It was part of “Operation Babylift,” an effort to bring about 2,000 displaced children, most of them orphans, to the US amidst the chaos of the American pullout from Vietnam.
In the 60s, my parents started a nonprofit to support Vietnamese children who were orphaned or affected by the war. My mother travelled there several times during the war and came to know the children, staff, and volunteers of some of the orphanages around the country.
Among the volunteers were US servicemen, one of whom picked out my sister for adoption by my family. I also gained an adopted brother in a similar manner.
Through the nonprofit they started, my mother made hundreds of Vietnamese adoption placements, including several to celebrities. During the late 60s and early 70s they built quite an extensive network around their nonprofit activities.
So when President Ford announced the creation of a special fund to expedite the evacuation and adoption of Vietnamese orphans during the Fall of Saigon, my father called Yul Bryner and got him to prevail on Hef to lend them the bunny jet for Operation Babylift.
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The operation itself was controversial. There were later claims that some of the children were not actually orphans. My mother had been to the orphanages where many of these children came from. She knew the staff and volunteers who worked there. A mixed race kid like my adopted brother Danny had no future in Vietnam. That is certain.
It was a chaotic time. There was tragedy, too.
The first flight out on Operation Babylift, a C-5 cargo plane, crashed shortly after take-off, killing 78 children and 50 adults of the 300 aboard. My parents knew several of them.
I was a teenager when it happened and got to know some of the survivors, who would come to stay with us and live out the trauma of their ordeal in the aftermath. People we knew gave their lives to bring those children here.
Fifteen years later, my father was on one of the first flights from the US to deliver relief supplies to Lech Walesa and the Solidarity strikers in Gdansk, Poland in 1980. He returned with a new suit he bought in Poland for about $15. He called it his “socialist suit” and he was very proud of it.
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Interesting.
But the “scary music” is just plain juvenile.
‘Mean’ Cat That No One Wanted Falls In Love With New Dad
Have you ever told a parent something their kid had done, and they stopped talking to you afterwards?
Yes, and the mom—my friend—was there. She had two daughters, three years and five-years old. We were all sitting around at my house and she asked me if I had some paper and crayons, so they could draw some pictures.
Of course I said yes, and set the girls up. A while later the oldest came running up with the youngest right behind her. They were both giggling. The oldest handed me the worst drawing I had ever seen. It was a picture of a—what looked like a girl, with short hair that stuck straight up, weird, crooked, pointy, tooth-like, projections, and tons of black dots all over the face. I thought it was a monster. So I said, “wow, nice monster.” Nope. The little girl said—all proud of herself—to me, “this isn’t a monster. It’s a picture of YOU. You’re UGLY.”
I was mortified. I had struggled my entire teenage years with horrible acne that was a result of kidney problems. Although, at this point I only had the residual scarring. I had always been very self-conscious, but it was hardly noticeable at the time this happened. Regardless, I felt like I had just been kicked in the stomach.
Their mother—my friend—looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “kids are so honest, they just draw what they see”.
Maybe I am just being stupid, but this really hurt my feelings. I kept being nice, but I’m sure she could see the hurt on my face—however, she never acted like it. The visit was over anyway, and she and her spawn left a few minutes later.
I talked to her a few more times. What really ended up being the last straw was when she complained about her oldest daughter’s second grade teacher teaching about dinosaurs. She said that the teacher should NOT be teaching about dinosaurs. “Dinosaurs” she said, “DID NOT EXIST!!!! Dinosaur bones were put there by Satan, trying to TRICK us!!!!!”.
What was your “Wow, monsters hide in plain sight!” moment?
About a year ago, my wife got a phone call STUPIDLY early in the morning. She missed getting the phone in time, but saw what friend it was from, and got in touch with her immediately.
Our friend was incredibly distraught, saying she’d learned she’d married an absolute monster.
My wife and I had been couples-friends with this couple for over fifteen years.
The husband was arrested for crimes against children. Yes, THOSE kinds of crimes against children.
It messes me up to know. I know I just said “we’d been friends for over fifteen years”, but we haven’t lived near each other for a long time. Most of our interactions were incredibly limited to Facebook interactions and a visit to one another’s area once every 4 – 5 years. But still.
It messes us up because you’re SO SURE that you’d know. You think you’re a good judge of character.
My wife is still flabbergasted, to think of it. We agreed that it was so out of nowhere. She told me “Of literally everyone we’ve ever met, if I were being asked to rate how sketchy I thought they were, he wouldn’t have even made the top ten!…”
It’s been so long, and it still messes me up to think about. Why? It’s not like there’s any reason I should have ‘clued in’ that something was going on. There were several people who hung out with him regularly and none of them knew. His brother and parents didn’t know. Hell, HIS OWN WIFE didn’t know—and she’s not a stupid person.
We still beat ourselves up mentally and emotionally, scouring for what potential clues there may have been that we overlooked. But be reasonable: that many people never knew.
But it messes you up. You think that you’d know.
Hassayampa Casserole
This casserole is an original and was named after the Hassayampa River that flows in Wickenburg, Arizona.
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Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 teaspoons chili powder
3 teaspoons cumin
1 (8 ounce) can enchilada sauce
1 pound fresh tomatoes, diced
10 ounces frozen corn, thawed
1 cup sliced black olives
3 large green chiles, chopped
1 pound shrimp or imitation crabmeat
12 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
12 corn tortillas
Instructions
Sauté onion in oil and add cinnamon, chili powder and cumin.
Stir in enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes. Set aside 1 cup sauce.
Add to remaining sauce the corn, olives, green chiles, shrimp or crabmeat and 1 cup cheese.
In a 3 quart shallow casserole dish, cover bottom with some of the tortillas.
Spread 1/3 of shrimp/crabmeat mixture over tortillas; repeat with 2 more layers.
“Andrew, God, I can actually hear your sulking,” Becky said across the hull to the large man sitting with his head hanging and his back facing her. “It’s like I have the endangered, sniveling vagina bug crawling in my ear, right now.”
“I am not sulking!” Andrew informed her angrily as he lifted his head and stared ferociously at the corner. “As a matter of fact, I was just now having a soliloquyial discussion on the selfish disregard of ingratitude and how Princesses only crap on other people’s property!” He screamed at her from his walled in position and Becky rolled her eyes in return.
“Look, man, the alfredo sauce was too salty, I don’t know what to tell yah,” she replied with a guiltless shrug. “Maybe, next time, I don’t know, don’t add the entire salt lick to the pot.”
“That is a reward winning recipe!” Andrew bellowed and turned his purpling face towards her. “And I’ll let you know that having all of the culinary delicacy of a frozen lake, does not excuse, nor forgive, straight rudeness.”
“Whatever,” Becky grumbled and returned her attention to the blinking lights of the ship’s internal computer.
“Fine,” Andrew agreed to her resolution and sent out a cold silence across the room.
“I don’t think that, “soliloquyial,” is even really a word.” Becky poked and to her delight, the bear stood-up and stomped out into the hallway.
“There are rules of engagement!” Andrew roared and jabbed his pudgy finger into the chest of no one as he clomped down the hallway. “Once an argument is clearly at the point of appropriate silence,” he said while gesturing wildly with his hands. “I mean, that’s it, you just shut-up. But no, not her, she always has to get that last little…” He paused, too angry to finish the sentence and, instead, bit down hard onto his knuckle. “I want my GD dog back!” he finally screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Becky! Becky!” Andrew yelled desperately as the terrified animal clawed free and leapt from his grasping arms. “No, no, bad dog!” he scolded the Pomeranian, but another crack of lightning from the newest freak storm put her tail between her legs and sent her scampering into the throngs of the many on-lookers and partiers across the barricade.
“Japan…swallowed…unprecedented tsunamis,” Andrew heard the radio from the nearest booze and food tent scream in between its static and he helplessly turned and looked at his escape vessel.
“Becky?” He whimpered with his whole body moving in feeble motions and the tears choking out his breathing. For the briefest of moments, he considered leaving without his precious Becky, but then he remembered all of the hard work and strings that he had to pull to gain passage to the new world and procure his own personal carriage. Failure was not an option.
“You sir!” Andrew pointed and yelled with newly found determination as he marched across his lot towards the security at the gate. “I will have a moment with you,” he said and pushed his impressive mass in between a small helmeted guard and the rest of the world. “Do you know who I am?” Andrew more demanded than asked.
“Yes sir, mister Chizka, sir,” the guard said with what he thought was machismo. “I am assigned to your post, sir, I’m, I’m your takeoff guy” he added lamely and immediately regretted it.
“Good,” Andrew replied with zero satisfaction as he assumed his own notoriety. “Then you know that I am never, EVER, without my Becky!” he blustered as the guard tried to catalogue every piece of information that he had on the man and a wife Becky seemed to ring a bell.
“Yes sir, mister Chizka, that is well known,” he decided to answer in the positive.
“Well?” Andrew asked as he looked around himself incredulously. “Do you see my Becky with me?”
“Oh, oh, no sir,” the former shoe salesman caught the drift and put his two weeks of military training into action. “Where was the last place you seen her, sir?”
“She ran off into that damnable ruffian tent,” Andrew answered with distaste. “She is very likely right at the entrance, trust me, she won’t wander far from a constant source of sausage.”
As the guard struggled with a reply, he was spared by the sudden upheaval of the earth’s crust, causing all to stumble and cheers to erupt from the tent dwellers.
“Listen,” Andrew said in a sudden rush, trying to quickly compensate for the earthquakes two-day early arrival. “What’s your name son?” he asked the guard.
“Thomas Jensen,” Thomas Jensen answered astutely.
“And now, Thomas,” Andrew said in his straight business voice. “I can assume that you’re not one of these tent cretins, right? That you plan on leaving this degenerate planet and make a fresh start on the new world? Yes?”
“Good Thomas, I’m relieved to hear that,” Andrew said while putting his meat hooks onto the guard’s slender shoulders and drawing paternal serenity onto his face. “Thomas, I need someone to march into that Hell pit and get me my Becky,” he said while pointing at the tent. “And whoever that person is, well, let’s just say that they will be very well rewarded in the new world,” he stated and then paused for dramatic affect. “Do you think that you could be that person, mister Jensen?”
“Yes sir! Absolutely sir!” Ole’ Thomas was pretty sure of himself.
“Excellent!” Andrew applauded. “Bring her to my sleeping quarters, get us off this God forsaken planet and I assure you that the goose will be splendid.”
Andrew stared out the bedroom window as the world deteriorated around him. “Where are you?” he whispered harshly and took his third pill in less than ten minutes. “I do not feel calm!” he screamed at the window and shook the pill bottle angrily. “Stupid—useless…,” he mumbled softly as his chin dropped down into his chest and time slowed down around him.
“Who the Hell is this?” the drunken slur of a tiny, blonde woman and the sound of a locking door caused Andrew’s eyes to flutter open.
“Becky,” he pleaded unconsciously as the engines started to rumble and the planet Earth began its long series of chain explosions.
“I want my GD dog back!” Becky heard Andrew yell from across the ship and she immediately felt a twinge of regret for that last jab.
“Ah, the big lug,” she said as she drew her legs up onto the chair to hug her knees, thinking about their first conversation.
The world, she believed, was gone. The navigational system, fried on take-off. We could be the last two human beings alive in the Universe and dude couldn’t stop blubbering about his stupid dog.
“Cute little shit,” she said with a sigh and grabbed her rubber ball to squeeze.
The mix-up, she supposed, was favorable to her. She should be dead and at one point and time, it was all that she had expected, wanted, maybe. She was in a weird place at the time. Still though and in retrospect, she made out pretty good. The vessel was equipped to accommodate and feed eight people for no less than ten years. There were like a zillion different movies and video games to play and the regurgitating ventilation system provided a lifetime of low-quality, but breathable air.
The dog, she felt, would have been very happy here.
Words can’t really describe the awkwardness of getting to know the last remaining member of your species. The last real face that you would see in your entire lifetime. Uncomfortable, she guessed. Discomfited? But, after a long mourning and bonding period, it took them all of fifteen seconds to realize that they were trapped in space with a complete and utter moron. He was a proclaimed dog person and she held firm that Becky was really more of a cat. He was a staunch Republican and she didn’t really care what you called a crook. How was it possible that she got stuck with the one person who could witness the explosion of their planet and still continue to deny global warming?
It was the absolute worst possible case scenario for the both of them.
Becky smiled and gave the ball two quick compressions.
“No, no, you’re doing that all wrong,” Andrew said as he watched her gaming in the family center and grabbed the controller out of her hands.
“Oh, really?” she asked, a little shocked at his playfulness, as they had been on a, as needed, communication schedule for the previous three months. “You know how to play Super Mario Brothers?”
“Oh yeah, my brothers and I ate up the classics,” Andrew answered as he deftly moved the courageous plumber across the screen. “I saw Zelda in the game catalogue,” he said while pausing and smiling over at her. “Have you ever played it?” he asked with a school boy innocence that would eventually charm his way into both her pants and their first marriage.
Andrew had considered all four of their marriages as a silly waste of time, but, Becky, although far removed from her deflowering, was a traditionalist. Not so much the religious stuff, but a commitment was needed if you wanted the long-term, personal attention sex. She was, after all, a lady.
Initially they had the children conversation, you know, the old, save the homo sapien rally, but ultimately decided against it. Their little family, alone in the middle of outer space, trying to maintain the human race was, well, just gross, once you ran the numbers and, besides, neither one of the them were exactly, kid people, anyhow. So, they kept rugrats out of their tumultuous and mostly predictable cycle. Right now, as far as Becky saw it, they were within four months to their next marriage. This was clearly a make-up fight. Right now, he’s standing in the master bedroom, staring out the window, waiting for me to come and apologize.
“And apologize I will,” she thought happily as she stood-up and bounced the ball off of the floor and back into her hand. The truth was that over the last six years, she had really grown to love the big ape and she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he loved her. Only love can make a person as crazy as she made him.
Besides, she had put a lot of effort into making him a suitable partner, the, sometimes, aggressive tips and hints on how to be a better lover, alone, claimed her ownership. She wasn’t about to give up her man and her apologizing for hurting his delicate nature had also become part of their cycle.
“Hey Andrew,” she yelled as she bounced her ball down the hall towards the bedroom. “About the alfredo sauce, you know that I was just being a bitch, right?” She asked, taking the low road and hoping for a quick make-up.
“Becky, get in here,” Andrew yelled back at her in a dazed and far away voice and Becky quickened her pace.
“Holy…” she stood frozen in the entryway, staring through the window at the last thing that she ever thought that she would see again. “Andrew, it’s a planet!” she exclaimed and Andrew turned in his standing position to nod absently.
“You said that the odds were astronomically against this,” she said as Andrew, the human fun sponge, had calculated its chances to being exactly impossible.
“They, they are,” he stammered and returned his gaze to the looming planet.
“Well, is it, you know, liveable?” Becky asked with excitement growing in her voice.
“Yes, perfectly, its atmosphere doesn’t appear to be much different than earths,” he answered.
“It’s unbelievable,” Becky marveled as she walked to stand next to Mark. “What about other creatures? Is there anything alive down there?”
“Affirmative, be it food, friend or foe, the imager shows plenty of animal activity at the surface.”
Awestruck in silence and as they slowly absorbed the colossal potential floating before them, Andrew and Becky’s fingers gingerly touched together and gently entwined.
“Take us home, Captain Chizka,” she said while looking up at her future fifth husband and Andrew set the thrusters to manual.
What are the risks of allowing Chinese EV imports into the US?
Isn’t it obvious?
The risks are getting rid of the incompetent and the idiots. The future of this country must be premised on having people who can get things done. Protectioinism by tariff shields these incompetent and idiots and hurts severely the consumers. . . and lead only to the deterioration of the economy.
EV is no stranger to the U.S. Our Detriot car makers have been toying with this for decades and in just the last 15 years, we have had hundreds of EV startups – one of which is Tesla leading the way. These startups – with names like Faradays, Lordstown, Fisker, Lucid and Rivian enjoyed and been showered with billions. Yet, the best they have to offer are $45,000 EVs that are more than twice as expensive and not even with quality and features of China’s basic EVs at less than $20,000.
And their excuse is that its unfair trade practice because China provides subsidies?
We have Tesla that set the standard of competition in the Chinese auto market . . . .that should also be allowed to prevail in the U.S. This is how the Chinese EVs evolved and this should be how our U.S. EVs must evolve. European OEMs – specially VW – are doing joint ventures to catch up in the Chinese market and GM and Ford should do the same . . . .or let them perish because they can’t last long anyway with tariff protection.
Life after Death? Communicating with the Other Side
Oh, it’s been a while, but I used to own a “turntable” and “albums” that I would play on my “Hi Fi” stereo system. Oh, ever since High School, I listened to albums on my all-in one player.
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But, you know… when I went to college at university was I introduced to modular stereos components. And I really constructed quite a set up with all sorts of gear for my music listening pleasure.
Something a little bit like these fine examples. Though mine was on a real budget…
I had Pioneer and Techniques components with a few misc other makes. It was a Hodge-podge of stereo components, with some nice speakers. Why, though? I used headphones most of the time. Don’t you know.
I well remember the Techniques turntable.
My father couldn’t understand why I would have one that would play automatically multiple albums. But I said that I liked it that way… low and individual. He just shrugged and walked away.
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Anyways… here’s to my lost collection of albums in egg cartons. Who know’s where they are today.
Starting at 48:06 min (automated transcript, slightly edited):
Sachs:
I will not vote for a candidate that doesn’t meet the minimum threshold for being president of the United States and we have two candidates, lead candidates, that don’t. And so I decided I’m not voting – period. Because I want a candidate that actually has some possibility of doing something.
Now maybe they will but not based on what they say every day.
It is a profession of love for Israel’s murderous reign in the Middle East. Okay, by itself I wouldn’t support that. That’s enough for me because Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and it’s sickening and it’s obvious and we see it every day. And if a candidate can’t figure out to say something about then I can’t support them. Period.
But then Kamala Harris, who would normally be my candidate because I was a lifelong Democratic Party voter. Although with great disappointment whether they won or lost. Because when they won I was disappointed with what they did. When they lost I was disappointed that my candidate lost. So I’ve never been happy for a while about us politics.
It’s been five miserable presidents as far as I’m concerned from Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, awful all of them. They brought us to the brink of nuclear war. I can’t forgive them for that kind of recklessness.
But when it comes to Ukraine Harris says we stand with Ukraine. Just everybody understand what does it mean to stand with Ukraine, like Boris Johnson stands with Ukraine. It means 2,000 Ukrainians killed or wounded severely every single day. That’s not standing with Ukraine. That is standing with the destruction of Ukraine. It’s exactly the opposite. And so that’s a purely Orwellian idea that we’re standing with Ukraine by continuing this war.
And that’s what she says because she doesn’t seem to have any idea other than what she’s told to say or she says her ideas. And either way I can’t vote for her.
And with Trump – don’t even get me started.
So the answer is I don’t see either of them based on what they’re saying right now doing much.
But I think there’s another point that is important in this. I’m not without hope for a quite different reason and that is that our politics is not determined by American presidents. Our politics is determined by the Security State apparatus. And what is happening right now is not in America’s security interest and so they could change their mind.
President Putin said something actually very interesting in an interview in 2017, I think in Figaro. By the time he had three presidents as his counterparts, Bush, Obama and Trump, and he said to this French reporter in 2017.
He said: “You know I’ve dealt with three American presidents. Now they come into office with ideas but then men in dark suits and blue ties come to tell them how the real situation is and you never hear of those ideas again.”
And this is from a very tough-minded leader who was himself KGB he understands how the American system works very well. He understands what the CIA means for American foreign policy. He understands that American foreign policy is very deeply rooted.
It’s not this one wins then Obama changes everything and then Trump comes in and changes nothing like that. By the way this has been a consistent foreign policy arguably since 19 certainly since 1991 and arguably since 1945.
If you are still able to afford a decent home, you should consider yourself to be incredibly blessed, because vast numbers of Americans do not have a permanent place to live at this point. Homelessness in the United States is at the highest level ever recorded, and it has been growing at the fastest pace ever recorded. The homeless encampments that have been popping up all over our major cities have been making lots of headlines in recent years, but many of the homeless live and die in very isolated places far from public view. What I am about to share with you should deeply sadden all of us.
Way back in the woods in southwest Florida, trails that have been made out of discarded carpets lead to absolutely enormous homeless encampments where hordes of homeless people have made homes for themselves.
One man was able to find these infamous “carpet trails”, and he posted footage of them on his YouTube channel…
Coastal areas of southern Florida are very popular among the homeless because the nights never get too cold even during the winter.
But there are plenty of other hazards, and just trying to stay alive can be a real struggle.
Of course the west coast is dealing with an even greater crisis.
In Portland, homeless encampments have taken over vast stretches of the city and nobody seems to have any solutions.
KATU recently visited one of the most notorious homeless encampments, and they discovered that it has gotten even bigger since the last time they visited it…
This is what a collapsing society looks like.
Poverty and hunger are spreading like wildfire, and the deplorable conditions in many of our core urban areas are being openly mocked all over the globe.
The Chinese are now producing documentaries on the collapse of American cities. What this showcases is the grim aftermath of decades of deindustrialization, disastrous progressive policies, and an opioid crisis—ironically fueled by China.
“Chinese are making documentaries about ultra-extreme poverty and decaying cities since they don’t exist in China anymore,” X user S.L. Kanthan wrote in a recent post, accompanied by a short clip from the documentary highlighting the implosion of Oakland, California.
Since the video was narrated in Chinese, X user TranslateMom translated some of the captions, which said, “Everywhere is garbage … People don’t live in places. There are wanderers everywhere.”
One of the primary reasons why so many people are forced to live in the streets is because housing has become ridiculously unaffordable.
If you can believe it, there are now 237 U.S. cities where “buyers will find a price tag of $1 million or more on the typical starter home”…
A million-dollar price tag no longer means lavish and luxurious living. In more than 200 U.S. cities, buyers will find a price tag of $1 million or more on the typical starter home, a new Zillow® analysis finds.
The typical “starter home” — defined for this analysis as being among those in the lowest third of home values in a given region — is worth at least $1 million in 237 cities, the highest number of cities ever. Five years ago, there were only 84 such cities.
That is nuts!
Who can afford to pay a million bucks for a “starter home”?
This is what rampant inflation has done to us.
It has absolutely eviscerated our standard of living, and ordinary Americans such as you and I are feeling a tremendous amount of pain right now.
According to Zillow, California, New York and New Jersey are the states that have the most cities where a typical “starter home” costs at least a million dollars…
Exactly half of all states have at least one city with a typical starter home worth $1 million or more. There are 117 such cities in California, well ahead of New York (31) and New Jersey (21), which have the second- and third-highest numbers. Florida and Massachusetts round out the top five with 11 each.
Among metropolitan areas, the New York City metro, which includes parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has the most cities with million-dollar starter homes at 48. The San Francisco metro has the next highest count at 44, followed by Los Angeles (35), San Jose (15), and Miami and Seattle, each with eight. Irvine, with a population of more than 300,000, is the biggest city with $1 million starter homes.
Of course California is also being overwhelmed by homeless encampments right now too.
Progressive policies have resulted in a chronic shortage of affordable housing, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.
Sadly, conditions are only going to get worse all over the nation because our economic momentum is rapidly taking us in the wrong direction.
A growing number of Americans are falling behind on their monthly credit card payments as they continue to battle high inflation and interest rates.
New data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia shows that credit card delinquency rates in the first quarter of 2024 rose to the highest level since 2012, when the Fed began tracking the data. All stages of credit card delinquency — 30, 60 and 90 days past due — rose during the first three months of the year.
And another major retailer just went bankrupt and is closing lots of stores…
Home goods retailer Conn’s HomePlus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday and announced plans to close at least 70 locations across 13 states.
On its website, Conn’s says it will close 18 locations in Florida, nine in Texas and seven in Arizona. Other states that will see stores close include Virginia, Colorado, Mississippi and Oklahoma, among others.
Everywhere you look, there is suffering.
But for the moment, those at the very top of the economic food chain are still thriving.
In fact, the wealthiest one percent have actually gotten 42 trillion dollars wealthier during the past decade…
The world’s richest one percent increased their fortunes by a total of $42 trillion over the past decade, Oxfam said Thursday, ahead of a G20 summit in Brazil where taxing the super-rich tops the agenda.
Despite this windfall, taxes on the rich had plummeted to “historic lows”, the NGO added, warning of “obscene levels” of inequality with the rest of the world “left to scrap for crumbs”.
Our system is fundamentally flawed, and decades of really bad decisions have brought us to a breaking point.
So please don’t look down on those that have lost their homes and have no place to live, because lots more people will be joining them soon.
What is the rudest thing a store owner has done to you that you paid back tenfold?
I’m a model railroader.
Here in NYC we have a hobby shop owner who has zero social skills.
His family is evidentially quite wealthy. They own a hardware store. they finance his hobby shop because they don’t want him involved in the family business. So he can’t go bankrupt no matter what he does. He’s rude and disrespectful to his store’s customers. His prices are about 110–120% of MSRP for items.
The store is always a mess. The owner is always in dirty disheveled clothes. He has a cat that lives in the store, so there’s a smelly uncleaned litter box in the corner. Also the occasional cat shit found on the floor around the shop.
The only reason the model railroad community patronizes the store is because it’s been around for decades and occasionally some interesting long out of production items from decades ago are unearthed.
Everyone in the model railroad community here in the city despises him and has a story about an interaction with him.
A couple of incidents:
A friend of mine found an item on the store shelves he wanted to buy. So he asks the price. (a lot of items are not priced tagged). The storeowner comes running over and says “I need that for an order’ and takes out of my friend’s hand and runs off with it.
Another friend found a locomotive motorized chassis in a junk box. It’s a Bachmann, one of the cheaper toy brands. He asks the owner how much he wants for it and get a spiel about how’s a Bachmann and a ‘classic’. He gets quoted a ridiculous price.
A couple of years back he had a competitor hobby shop open across the street from him by one of his former employees. A UPS guy mistakenly delivered a carton (about 2 or 3 dozen) new locomotives to the store by mistake. So this cretin opens the carton addressed to someone else and starts selling the locomotives. That is until the competitor comes over looking for his mis-delivered items and the cretin refuses to return them. The police got involved and forced him to return the remaining models in the carton to the rightful owner.
To the paid back part.
So when those of us in the local community visit the shop, we like to try to undo in the process sales he’s made to unsuspecting tourist customers and direct them to some of the other hobby shops in the city which actually sell items at a discount price.
When someone is about to drop a few hundred or a grand on a sale, to find out you ca get the same items from someone else for about 25% less is powerful motivation. It being a clean orderly environment, sans cat shit, seals the deal.
Aliens (1986) | First Time Watching | REACTION – LiteWeight Reacting
1. After loving my parents, my siblings, my spouse, my children and my friends, I have now started loving myself.
2. I have realized that I am not “Atlas”. The world does not rest on my shoulders.
3. I have stopped bargaining with vegetable & fruit vendors. A few pennies more is not going to break me, but it might help the poor fellow save for his daughter’s school fees.
4. I leave my waitress a big tip. The extra money might bring a smile to her face. She is toiling much harder for a living than I am.
5. I stopped telling the elderly that they’ve already narrated that story many times. The story makes them walk down memory lane & relive their past.
6. I have learned not to correct people even when I know they are wrong. The burden of making everyone perfect is not on me. Peace is more precious than perfection.
7. I give compliments freely and generously. Compliments are mood enhancers not only for the recipient but also for me. And a small tip for the recipient of a compliment: never, NEVER turn it down. Just say, ‘Thank you.’
8. I have learned not to bother about a crease or a spot on my shirt. Personality speaks louder than appearances.
9. I walk away from people who don’t value me. They might not know my worth, but I do.
10. I remain cool when someone plays dirty to outrun me in the rat race. I am not a rat & neither am I in any race.
11. I am learning not to be embarrassed by my emotions. It’s my emotions that make me human.
12. I have learned that it’s better to drop the ego than to break a relationship. My ego will keep me aloof, whereas with relationships, I will never be alone.
13. I have learned to live each day as if it’s the last. After all, it might be the last.
14. I am doing what makes me happy. I am responsible for my happiness, and I owe it to myself. Happiness is a choice. You can be happy at any time, just choose to be!
I decided to share this for all my friends. Why do we have to wait to be 60 or 70 or 80, why can’t we practice this at any stage and age?
Real Italian Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs
My mother was born in Northern Italy and she taught my two sisters and me how to make traditional Italian spaghetti sauce. She insisted it was not REAL spaghetti sauce if it contained onions and to this day I never order red sauce in a restaurant because invariably restaurants Americanize their sauce and make it with onions.
Here is the REAL thing – at least according to my Italian mother.
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Ingredients
Spaghetti Sauce
2 (28 ounce) cans tomatoes (crushed or whole)
1 (12 ounce) can tomato paste
1 cup water
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons dried sweet basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 whole bay leaves
Meatballs
2 pounds lean ground beef
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon sweet basil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups soft bread crumbs
2 eggs, slightly beaten
Instructions
Spaghetti Sauce
Place all ingredients in an uncovered Dutch oven, heat to a boil and then immediately reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
Meatballs
Mix together until well blended. Form into meatballs and place on jellyroll pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F for one-half hour.
Once the spaghetti sauce starts to simmer, add meatballs.
Has anyone rented a car with unlimited mileage and then really driven it with “unlimited mileage”? What was the response when you returned the car to the rental agency?
Yes i did this. i just graduated from college and got a job interview in las Vegas. i did not want to drive my car because it did not have air-conditioning. so i went to enterprise and rented the cheapest car they had. i went to the interview and returned in 2 days. i put almost 2000 miles on the car. the lady who checked me in was not happy. She was the manager, well she grabbed a clipboard and went out to the vehicle and started nitpicking everything. even the stuff that was previously damaged. she just kept going for about 20 min and always quoting prices to fix. she paid extra special attention to the windshield and stated i would have to replace the windshield because of “chips” i just kept quiet…
we went back in and she got out her calculator and proceeded to add up all the damages and came to the amount of 2130.00 in damages. and asked how i would like to pay. i said are you sure that is all the damages. well that made he even more mad. and she went into a speech about how i have to pay for all the damages and such for about 2 min. i just stood there and listened. the car cost 19.95 a day. when she was done i reached over the counter and grabbed my rental agreement and i said the 2130.00 she would have to pay because i had taken the insurance with 0 deductible. for 9.95 a day. she grabbed the rental agreement and verified the insurance. and i walked out. she was pissed i will never forget her face when she realized she did not have a leg to stand on. best 20 bucks i ever spent.
How Women DISMANTLED The Sexual Marketplace!
What is the coolest line a pilot has said to the passengers?
Not sure if this line qualifies for coolest, but this particular pilot sure was a cool cat.
I landed for the first time in the States on a flight which was over 12 hours delayed due to missed layovers. A 23 hour journey from Mumbai to JFK had turned into a 35+hour nightmare and I was exhausted. To top that, I missed my onward connecting flight to Buffalo,NY and had to wait for the next and the last flight out of JFK for the evening.
So after a total of 39 hours, I was just about ready to punch someone.
Finally my flight was announced and I boarded. I was seated right next to the wings in an Embraer E 190. Cursing my luck I took a seat for the last flight of this terrible voyage.
This is when the captain comes on. Please excuse me since this might not be exactly what the captain said. I was jet lagged, in a foreign country and generally pissed.
Captain: “Hello folks. Sorry but I don’t think we will fly to Buffalo.
Passengers: *all groan* (I am thinking of just calling it quits and take a flight back home to India).
Captain: (..continues) But guys seriously.. do “you guys” really want to fly to Buffalo? I mean come on! Buffalo??!??. Its cold, wet and unpleasant out there. How about I fly you to Miami instead? Or New Orleans?
Passengers: *understand the gag and start cheering/laughing* (I start laughing out loud too)
Captain: *Chuckling* “Sorry guys, it seems my colleague here is from Buffalo and it is his wife’s birthday tomorrow and he absolutely needs to be there. I am sure all married people on board understand .
Since I have no choice, lets get to Buffalo as soon as possible. Folks the journey to Buffalo will be ….
The cabin was practically raucous by the end of that announcement . Needless to say the rest of the flight was very pleasant.
On our arrival, the captain just says:
“And Buffalo”. *sighs*.
Note: For anyone who cares, I was not flying the friendly skies.
The Tragic Reality That Is Coming To All “Alpha” Females
Does a single day in jail psychologically scar you for life?
i was on vacation at the beach with my 3 kids and husband. We were turning into our hotel when I saw blue lights behind me. I pulled over super confused bc I had not been speeding or doing anything wrong. Officer comes to my window and rudely demands my license. I hand it to him. He tells me to step out of the vehicle and walk back to his car. I asked why I was pulled over. He said “you have a warrant out for your arrest. You’re going to jail” (the warrant was valid although stupid af. 7 years prior I was pulled over for my taillight being out. Cop runs my info and my registration came back suspended. I was booked and released instantly. Went to court. Was put on probation. Didn’t finish my probation bc I had a baby and stopped going. The warrant was bc of that) that was the first time hearing anything about me having a warrant. Despite the reason for it. I was handcuffed and taken to jail in a town I didn’t live in hours from my home. I had never spent even an hour in jail. The whole experience was awful. After booking I was dressed in a jumpsuit and put in a cell by myself where I would spend the next two nights. No one would tell me anything ab my case. Just that I was on a hold. Unable to bond out. And would have to wait on my towns cops to come get me and take me back to where I was from. I wasn’t allowed a phone call. They doped me up on antipsychotics bc my Bp and pulse were high. We were at the beach that afternoon. I was severely sunburnt. The first night I slept on straight concrete. They didn’t give me a cot until my second night. Bc of the drugs I stayed out of it. Which looking back was probably a good thing. I lost time bc there wasn’t a clock to be seen. I would have to ask the guards what day it was and what time it was. I went in Saturday evening and didn’t get out until Monday at lunch. Which as I’m writing this, was yesterday. I’m worried I’m permanently changed. Mentally I’m not okay. I have flashbacks and they feel out of body. Like I know it happened. But it doesn’t feel real. And I feel stupid and weak because it was only two days. Why can’t I just get over it and move on? I feel stuck.
What was the most disrespectful thing a guest in your home ever said to one of your family members, yourself, or another guest?
I don’t get much of that. At home or in public, you would just have to meet me to understand why.
But I did have a friend that insisted in bringing his girl friend with him and she would always “need to use the bathroom”. What she really wanted is to snoop in the medicine cabinet. I told him she was doing it and he said no way.
I bought about a gallon worth of marbles and waited. When he called to see if I would be in I went and pulled the shelfs out of the medicine cabinet held a piece of cardboard over the lower part of the opening then poured in the marbles. I held it in place then pushed the mirror as close to shut as I could, pulled out the cardboard then finished shutting the cabinet.
When they showed up and she went for her “Bathroom break” I told my buddy to shut up and listen. When the sound of marbles crashing on the counter top started I told him to go get her now and never bring her back.
Doing things like that may be why I don’t get a lot of disrespectful people around me.
We Bought An Amazon Returns Pallet For $525 – Unboxing $6500 In MYSTERY Items!
Latest MM artwork generations
Theme is ancient civilizations that the rulers…
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What are some of your deepest and most horrifying secrets that only you know about?
I am a 21-year-old girl in the final year of my engineering. I am a University Rank holder and have always secured the first rank in my class. I am not a healthy girl. I have been diagnosed with many ailments during the last 5 years of my life. It has been a struggle and students and teachers at college don’t know this about me.
I have been suffering from scalp psoriasis for the past ten years. I spend 2 to 3 hours every day cleaning my scalp so that others wouldn’t know I have it. It’s hell doing it every day.
I was suffering from anaemia in my 1st year of engineering and my haemoglobin dropped to 3.2 due to loss of blood. I was hospitalised and later was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis which the doctor said can never be cured. The medicines the doctor gave had steroids in it to suppress the inflammation in my body. This caused acute pancreatitis and I was hospitalised again. After I was discharged, the doctor thought of giving me a mild dosage of steroids. I was okay for about three days and again was hospitalised due to acute pancreatitis. Eventually, I lost a year due to lack of attendance and it shattered me.
I somehow temporarily recovered and joined engineering next year in a better college. One day, my hands started aching suddenly and this continued for a few months. I was diagnosed with IBD arthritis in my left wrist. And it is still deformed but people can’t notice it. No one knows about it in college.
I bear these pains every day and still manage to study well. I have dreams of becoming a successful girl who doesn’t have to depend on a man for a living. I belong to a middle-class family and I feel terrible that my health has cost my parents so much.
I hope I will be healed someday.
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975) Movie Reaction w/ Coby FIRST TIME WATCHING
During a court case, what was your most, “You just messed up.” moment while someone in the opposition was talking?
I shall never forget this moment of “OMG! THAT sure backfired!!”
It was a pre-murder trial hearing to determine the competency of the defendant. Southern state. Material witness was on the stand; her testimony would probably make or break the incompetency claim of the defendant.
NOTE that the witness was not present at the scene of the crime, and did not even know about the crime (before defendant was arrested).
She was merely going to be questioned intensely about the defendant’s known mental illness. She herself had an unquestionable diagnosis that made her testimony different than the psychiatrists who testified as expert witnesses… and they all confirmed her diagnosis, as well as her unique ability to credibly speak about the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the crime.
Defense Attorney: “Do you swear… or affirm… to tell the truth?”
Witness: “Yes.”
Prosecutor: “Objection!! This witness is insane.”
Defense Attorney: “She is NOT insane. She has a mental illness (named it) that is NOT insanity. The DSM states (blah blah blah).”
Judge: “This witness has not been declared insane, and has never been diagnosed as insane. Your own expert witnesses have testified that she is capable of testifying and why her testimony is unique.” -gavel slammed- “She will testify.” — having noticed the witness next to him flinch at the gavel bang — “I’m not angry at you. Do you need something… a drink of water? A moment to relax? Your… ummmm… it’s a teddy bear, right? Do you want it? The bailiff can hand it to you.”
Witness: “Please let Teddy stay safe with the officer. He’s been with me for 42 years, before I left the NICU to go home as a baby. Nothing bad can happen to him.”
Judge: “OK. See? Officer Joey is holding Teddy so he can see you and you can see him. Nothing bad will happen to Teddy.”
Defense Attorney: “So… do you swear, or affirm—“
Prosecutor: “This is a travesty! She is NOT COMPETENT!! I don’t care what the doctors said…”
-rap rap of the gavel-
Judge: “Don’t let the gentle tap fool you; if you continue in this vein, you will be facing contempt charges, Mr P. I would be slamming this gavel, under typical conditions.”
Judge: “Before we try this again… Miss W — do you know what ‘perjury’ is?”
Witness: “Yes.”
Judge: “Will you please tell me what ‘perjury’ is?”
***** here is ‘The Moment’ of ‘He just messed up big time’ *****
👉🏼Witness: “It’s… perjury is… when you lie under oath — after you swore to tell the truth… or affirmed, if your religion doesn’t let you swear an oath… some Christians won’t swear on God’s name… Jews don’t have that problem… At least, not per se — some Jews might say ‘hashem’, it means ‘the Name’ coz they won’t actually say ‘God’ even though that isn’t His name either. But affirmation is just as serious as swearing an oath. And… if you lie under oath, you will go to prison for the rest of your life and never ever get out or see your family ever again.”👈🏼
Judge tries his best to smother his laughter. Hand over his mouth. Finally he turned his head away. And he then puts his hands over most of his face. Once he stops laughing…
Judge: “We have now established that the witness clearly comprehends what perjury is and… ummmmm… how serious it is. Mrs W… you don’t go to prison forever, it’s not more than a few years at the most — and in your case. you would probably only go to jail for a short time, until you pay a fine… lots of money. But… I think you have demonstrated for the record that you fully comprehend what perjury is and the gravity of the crime. Thank you.”
Judge, to Prosecutor: “Do you still have any objection?”
Prosecutor (very very quietly): “No, Your Honor. No further objection.”
Judge: “Be very, very cautious, now, regarding this witness’ capabilities. Neuroses are not insanity. Neither you nor I need to understand everything that created this witness’ complicated nature… all that is required here is her credibility… and, possibly, simpler than typical explanations… although she has described perjury remarkably well.”
Judge, to Defense Attorney: “Proceed… swear her in.”
And this witness provided approx 4 hours, over two days, of credible testimony. None of it was what the prosecutor wanted to hear, but the defense attorney was a happy man indeed. It proved invaluable to the defendant. Her testimony was why the death penalty was never sought.
I Spent Over $30,000 At A Lost Freight Auction And It Paid Off BIG TIME!
What thing about the military did you not know until you were already in it?
how bad it sucks being lower enlisted in the Infantry.
I thought I would be jumping out of helicopters yelling go go go and running around with a machine gun being a bada**.
But for every time I go to do that, there were at least a hundred times of-
working for moron a**hole leadership who made you do dumb things just because they could.
police call. if you miss a cigarette butt you can do police call again, but while low crawling and wearing your protective mask.
cleaning. we cleaned everything all day long. barracks, latrines, weapons, equipment, buildings, vehicles, motor pools, mow the grass, paint the rocks.
the big green weenie. if you don’t like it write a letter to your congressman.
soldiers that say hoo-ah to everything.
endless field exercises walking long distances with heavy equipment. endless rehearsals. freezing in the snow & rain. never enough sleep.
kp duty, including cleaning pots and pans for 18 hours a day in an immersion barrel heater in a snowy forest in Germany. Wearing a helmet. With your M16A2 strapped across your back. It’s “tactical,” you know.
punishment PT. pushups flutter kicks grass drills road marches five mile runs.
hurry up and wait. and wait and wait and wait and wait.
your leave is cancelled due to the mission.
training training training training on tasks you can already do blindfolded backwards while asleep.
parades, which really suck when you were the person marching in them. and rehearsals for parades.
go to the field again. sleep in the dirt, snow & mud again. clean everything again. more layout inspections.
spray paint metal tools & gear after cleaning. god forbid if they find a speck of dirt on your shovel- three day weekend cancelled.
washrack – crawl around under your tracked vehicle with a fire house and a long screw driver chipping mud out of the roadwheels. in january.
air guard in your tracked vehicle. in january.
mandatory fun.
intrusive & obnoxious drug testing.
daily maintenance on vehicles that haven’t moved in a month.
guard duty- standing at a gate at 3 am for two hours in the snow. cq duty. battalion runner duty. you will do guard duty everywhere, all the time it seemed like.
one guy forgot his field jacket so nobody can wear their field jacket and everybody has to freeze.
layout inspections really suck. get ready to do a lot of layout inspections in your barracks & motor pool.
somebody fell asleep riding in a vehicle & lost their weapon. be ready to be really miserable until it’s found.
if it ain’t rainin’ it ain’t trainin’. 40 degrees F, get rained on and get so cold you start to hallucinate laying next to a tree in the forest. Get up and walk 15 miles anyway then do platoon battle drills for hours. Walk 15 miles back.
dig a fighting position. an hour later be told to move it thirty feet to the left, fill in the fighting position & dig a new one.
if your battalion commander says you have to be somewhere at 1400 hours, your company commander will say you have to be there “five minutes prior” and your platoon sergeant will make sure you’re there at 1330 hours.
road march road march road march. learn to walk and sleep at the same time. learn to drive your armored personnel carrier while you’re sleeping. learn to function for a week on three hours of sleep a day in 15–20 minute intervals.
frago #23.
forget taking college classes, the op tempo is too high. and anyway your platoon sergeant thinks it’s dumb because you have so much maintenance & cleaning to do.
how long did it take to experience all this hoo-ah & much much more? from march 1987 thru october 1988.
I could go on and on. It ain’t like the recruiting commercials.
But it was a job I loved and look back on fondly. It profoundly shaped the course of my life and I don’t regret it for a minute. But most of it sucked.
it’s Saturday night, forget going to the club because you have CQ duty. BOHICA. smile about it there isn’t much else you can do. If you’ve gotta be one, then be a Big Red One.
Why do ultra-wealthy people rarely share their wealth with their friends?
I’m not ultra-wealthy. But in a relative sense, I’m ultra-wealthy compared to a friendly acquaintance of mine. “Friendly acquaintance” is a description that’s short of “friend,” in part because of the story I’m about to tell.
I know this guy, call him Bob, from playing chess at Harvard Square. Bob isn’t quite homeless, but he’s damn close. What I like about chess is that Bob’s economic status has nothing to do with his social status (among chess players). He’s by no means shunned; he’s a well-liked member of the scene.
But when it gets to that point in the night and 10 of us want to go to a restaurant, those who can’t afford the restaurant are unfortunately excluded. That’s Bob.
There was a time, when that part of the night rolled up, I would discreetly tell Bob “come hang out with us, I got you at the restaurant.” Bob would be suitably grateful, and the fun would continue.
After a few of those, Bob started to become a little… emboldened. Eventually, it wasn’t a question of waiting until when (or if) the crowd organically went to eat. It started with “yo Charles, check this out….” Then I’d get a little bit of a sob story, and the ask: “so could you help me out with a burrito until I get paid next Wednesday?” Then the sob story dropped, and it was just, “yo Charles, help me out with some pizza.” Sometimes within minutes of me showing up to the Square.
The last straw was when another mutual friend and chess player, Bill, joined us at a restaurant. Bill was also often strapped for cash. To be sure, Bill didn’t ask for anything, he was just tagging along socially.
Bob gets to the counter and orders like 3 meals, and then calls to Bill from the line: “Yo, you want anything? Charles got it!”
Suffice it to say, our relationship cooled a little after that.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford to keep buying Bob food. It’s just that after some time — a pretty short amount of time — he appeared to see me more as a cash register than anything else. And that doesn’t work for me.
I have every confidence that story scales up. I’m wealthy enough to buy the Bobs of my world extra burritos all day, every day. Other people might be wealthy enough to buy their friends cars all day, every day. And who knows, maybe they have.
And I’m willing to bet that they’ve turned some friends into some Bobs along the way.
“Yo dude, help me out with a Tesla…”
How do you respectfully tell guests in your home that they’ve overstayed their welcome?
My daughter had a friend who had been kicked out of her home and asked if could she stay with us for a week until she found somewhere permanent. Bunnykins [me] said okay. The “friend” proceeded to borrow money from my easy going daughter, raided all the food in the fridge and cupboards when we were out, showered every 3–4 days, bought home a dog that promptly went into heat marking up my floors and carpet [ yuk ], did absolutely nothing to help clean, and when asked about alternative living arrangements, cried and said she couldn’t find anywhere to go. You get the picture? Six weeks later, she arrived “home” to find us packing boxes in the lounge room. She asked what was going on. I told her we were being evicted for non-payment of rent… three HOURS later, she had moved on to some other poor sap. We unpacked our boxes and once again lived in peace and quiet in our nice clean home. Nasty? Maybe. Effective? Definitely!
What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever witnessed in the waiting area at the ER?
Actually, three of my girlfriends and I were the sideshow in an ER waiting room.
We were with about 200 people doing a medieval re-enactment when a friend of ours accidentally ate something with cinnamon in it – and he is deathly allergic to it. One of us was a nurse, and even with her quick action with an epi pen, he still needed to go to the ER. So, one guy in Viking clothes and armor, and four women in varying outfits from India (mine) to early Celtic, to Imperial Roman, to 14th century French, all troop into the closest hospital ER – and it was in a really, realllly rural area of Georgia.
Being the only hospital within at least fifty miles of anything, they were predictably busy on a Saturday afternoon. We were there for hours and bored out of our minds. We’re all gifted with warped Monty Python humor, and so we started riffing on it. I started talking about how “our husband” was doing, and that I hoped he would be alright, because I wasn’t prepared to jump on his funeral pyre. (Mine was also the “blingiest” outfit, so I was First Wife by default. We referred to each other as First Wife, Second Wife, etc.) The other people in the waiting room were gawking at us like we’d all grown third eyes and horns.) It was just too good to pass up – we had SO MUCH FUN with it. By the time our friend got sent back out, we had all jumped up and started fawning on him – our beloved husband! Alive! What joy! I didn’t have to burn myself up! He didn’t skip a beat, got two of us under each arm, and we all left, rejoicing – and probably giving the locals a bizarre story to tell.
Pasta con Spinach
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Ingredients
3/4 pound spaghetti
1 pound fresh spinach, washed, cleaned and drained
8 fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup cooked ham, shredded
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, divided
1/4 cup grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
Instructions
Add a tablespoon of olive oil to water in a large kettle. Bring to a boil and add spaghetti. Stir occasionally, and cook to al dente. Do not overcook!
Put spinach into heavy covered pot and cook over high heat, stirring once. When cooked limp, set aside with cover on.
Sauté the mushrooms and ham together in half the butter, just until warm, not brown.
Press liquid out of spinach and add to the skillet with mushrooms and ham.
To whom it may concern,When I signed up for this assignment, I was looking forward to spending four years of my life with someone who shared my disdain for obnoxiously loud, self idolizing, undereducated people.I believed (foolheartedly) that only respectful scientists would sign up for this mission. That only those who truly valued the exploration of the last great frontier would spend three years training, four years locked in a shuttle with little to no contact with Earth, and a year reconditioning to Earth.Through all the vetting processes and the countless tests, how is it that he made it through. Out of everyone, I had to be sent out with this doof-The tip of my pencil abruptly breaks as the door crashes open.“Yo Whaddup?” the intruder yells as he prances inside my room.“Good morning Jack. What brings you so forcefully into my room this morning?” I say in an even voice as I push my letter of complaint under the other papers on my desk.“Just wanted to check up on my favorite colleague.” I stare blankly at him as he shuffles in the silence.“Also, the coffee maker isn’t working.”Year two of four on shuttle 555 to the Great Unknown has been filled with daily coffee maker failures. After only two weeks, it was discovered that Jack had little to no idea how to fix anything electrical after he almost set fire to the kitchen unit.Since neither of us can function without a consistent supply of this liquid energy, every morning he has swung by my room to request assistance in repairing our sputtering caffeine machine.As we make our way to the small kitchen unit, our feet softly tap on the shuttle floor. We keep the gravity at about half of Earth’s. It is ‘better for the mechanics of the shuttle’ according to the maintenance manual.For the second time today, I find my hand buried deep in our well-loved coffee machine. Its plastic cover is chipped by the multiple falls it has taken (mainly because of Jack’s love of ‘space juggling,’ where he tries to juggle with random appliances he finds). Among the small cracks, there is one that stands out from the rest. A crack, that I know was definitely not there this morning.
With a shoulder heaving sigh, I retract my hand, snap on the cracked cover, and give the poor machine an affectionate pat. Now that the immediate issue is over, I turn to Jack.
“Why, may I ask, is there another crack in the cover?”
He takes a single step back, bringing his hands slightly out in front of himself as he tries to form a consoling expression on his face. “You see-”
“Yes I see”
“I was filling it up and-” He turned before finishing his thought and scrambled away. In his struggle to escape he bounces feet into the air with every step. I race behind him, wanting nothing more than to teach him once and for all to never mess with my coffee.
As we crash through the small shuttle papers go flying in our wake. He is much faster than me, and I know that catching up to him is out of the question but- I grab a blunt object from the nearest table- I can still hit him. Thus started my onslaught of flying projectiles. Lucky for him, we only have ‘space grade’ appliances that can do no damage to the shuttle, and in turn, minimum damage to people.
Frantically dodging my projectiles he ducks into his room, slamming the door shut with such force that I dare say it shakes the whole shuttle. He is safe… for now.
In the aftermath of the conflict, I return to my room. I shuffle through a stack of papers on my desk, readouts from the multiple instruments our shuttle carries, an aged letter from home, and my half written letter of complaint lie before me.
I sit in the chair with a heavy sigh. Recently every day has been an ordeal. Just last week, while taking our annual inventory, I found that we were missing over a month’s worth of dessert rations.
Five or six of the well loved packets would have been acceptable (we each planned on five extra per month… everyone needs a sweet snack every once in a while), but a full 17 packets? Completely unacceptable!
The culprit was found almost immediately as I made my way to the kitchen for a much needed cup of coffee. There, with two opened dessert packets in front of him, was Jack. I paused for a moment, shocked by his flagrant misuse of rations.
Instead of laying into him right away, I strolled calmly into the room. He froze, knowing that he had been caught. I grabbed a dish and a fork, made my way to him, spooned a heaping portion of the brownie into my bowl, and sat down across from him.
Later would come the scolding, but those brownies are all that keep me sane.
After we finished our brownie’s it was agreed that he would be able to eat one portion at a time once a week and that he would limit himself a single brownie ration per month.
The issue has yet to return, and I believe that we are both satisfied with the results.
And I don’t dare forget the swivel chair incident of two weeks past!
In our control room, we have the best swivel chairs. They are so smooth, and in half gravity, it’s like you are floating instead of sitting.
One day, while doing the daily readouts of our course, I took a much needed break. Pushing off of the floor I started to spin. The world around me passed in a whizzing flash. The brightly lit shuttle intermittently interrupted by the dark expanse of space, as a childish carefree glee started to spread through me.
The weightless euphoric ride was cut short when a blurred figure of Jack makes his way into the room. It took me a full revolution to slam my feet to the ground, and the moment contact was made, I shot from my chair, still spinning, as I catapulted through the air.
Through the entire ordeal, Jack’s laugh echoed through the room. As I crashed back to the ground he sat in the co-pilot chair to watch my failure. His eyes were bright with amusement even after his body shaking laughter had ceased.
We sat in silence. Him still slightly shaking from silent chuckles, and me fuming with embarrassment at being caught doing such a childish thing.
Finally, I had reached my limit with this entire ordeal. Indignantly I got up, still dizzy, and stumbled my way from the room.
We have yet to talk about this incident, but every now and then, he’ll make an offhand remark on my fascination with spinning chairs.
As I recall our past fights, I find myself smiling. Never has there been a dull moment on this journey. I look down at the letter of complaint on my desk, heave a heavy sigh, and proceed to slowly rip it into a plethora of pieces.
Jack and I may not always get along, but I would rather be with him than anyone else.
What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?
My roommate has Asperger’s.
Let it not be misunderstood: He’s very high-functioning.
He is intelligent in his thoughts and speech, has held a job at Target for 3 years, can drive a car, has a two-year college degree, and just celebrated his sixth-year anniversary with his girlfriend.
Really, the only thing that sets him apart from anyone without Asperger’s is his lack of eye contact and his inability to pick up on obvious social cues.
Other than that, he’s a perfectly average 25-year-old man.
But, like many, many young men around his age, he’s very irresponsible and doesn’t know how to take care of himself.
The best way I can describe it is a man-child. He’s a man-child.
I have two bathrooms in my house. The one in the basement is mine. The bathroom on the main level is for guests and for roommates.
One day, I went to change my toilet paper roll, and noticed that the six-pack of toilet paper I bought was only down to two rolls. I had just bought it at the beginning of the month. I should not have used that much.
Then my roommate came to me later that week, and he said to me:
“Hey man, just wanted to let you know you’re almost out of toilet paper.”
“You mean for your bathroom? Have you been grabbing my toilet paper?”
“Yeah, just the ones you have in your bathroom.”
I said to him, “Okay. That toilet paper is my toilet paper. If you’re out of toilet paper, you should go to the store and buy more toilet paper.”
He paused and said, “…Yeah, I guess I could do that.”
I know it sounds trivial, but I have tons of instances like this with him.
“Hey man, you only have one fan in the house. I took it so I can sleep with it.”
I respond, “Yep, that’s for my room. Do you think I could have it back? I know they’re selling them at Wal-Mart relatively cheap.”
“Oh, so are you gonna buy another one?”
“No, I was saying you could buy one.”
“Oh. Okay.”
And I sigh and take my fan back.
Couple months later:
“Hey man, you only have one space heater in the house.”
I say to him, “Yep, that’s for my room.” as I take my space heater back into my bedroom. “They’re $30 at the store. Go get one.”
“Hey man, you’re almost out of salt.”
I rub my temples and say, “Yep. And they sell salt at Target. Where you work. Where you get a discount.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Hey man, do you have any batteries for these Bose headphones?”
“Uh… are those my headphones? I never said you could use those.”
“Well, you weren’t using them. They were just sitting on your computer desk.”
“Dude! I use them like, 3 or 4 times a week when I’m working on my music or when I’m writing! I use them all the time!”
You get the picture.
It’s really frustrating, because after meeting his family, it’s so blatantly obvious to me that they did next-to-nothing to teach him how to be an adult. All they did was feel sorry for him and bubble-wrap him.
Now it’s my responsibility to be the asshole who whacks him upside the head and teaches him how to be a better person, or else everyone around him is going to reject him as he gets older.
He uses things without asking permission, he never takes the initiative to solve a problem, and he expects everyone else to solve his problems.
We made a film together this summer, and while we were both “producers” I covered 90% of the expenses. While he’s the sole “director,” in truth I directed about 60% of the film.
I’m really, really anxious right now because Target just cut him down to 11 hours a week.
I told him, “Dude, put together a resume, go on the internet and look for job listings. I’m not covering your part of the rent. Get a job that gives you full-time hours.”
I’m afraid that it’s going to get to a point where I have to kick him out and find someone else to live with me, and that will be the dissolution of our friendship.
I’m afraid that he will just end up another man-child in his 30s living in the basement of his parents house, unwilling to try hard, unwilling to learn how to be an adult.
I’m afraid he will lose at this game called Life, and become absolutely miserable.
But I’m gonna wash my hands of it if that’s what happens. I’ve got enough trouble making sure I don’t lose at this game.
Can’t save everyone.
Within a nanosecond
The Values That Made Western Society Great Came From The Bible
Right now there is a tremendous amount of debate about what values our society should embrace. There are some that are promoting the benefits of “conservative values”, there are some that are promoting the benefits of “liberal values”, and there are others that are promoting the benefits of other types of values. But if we really want to make western society great again, the truth is that we should return to the values that made western society great in the first place. Those values are the reason why western nations were the most prosperous and most civilized nations on the entire planet for centuries. And once other nations started adopting those same values, they became more prosperous and more civilized too.
The values that I am talking about are the values that we find in the Bible.
All throughout history, civilizations that have chosen to do things God’s way have been blessed.
And civilizations that have chosen not to do things God’s way have been cursed.
Just consider the United States. It was founded by people that loved the Bible, and throughout our history it was primarily made up of people that loved the Bible.
Of course that has changed in our day, and as a result our society is now a giant mess.
But at one time we were the most blessed nation on the entire planet by a wide margin, and that didn’t happen by accident.
Centuries of experience have taught us that capitalist countries tend to be more prosperous than countries that practice various forms of collectivism.
A lot of people tend to think of socialism and communism as relatively modern movements, but the truth is that there have been collectivist societies for thousands of years.
In fact, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were both greatly inspired by hunter-gatherer societies that practiced “primitive communism”…
Primitive communism is a way of describing the gift economies of hunter-gatherers throughout history, where resources and property hunted or gathered are shared with all members of a group in accordance with individual needs. In political sociology and anthropology, it is also a concept (often credited to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels), that describes hunter-gatherer societies as traditionally being based on egalitarian social relations and common ownership.[1] A primary inspiration for both Marx and Engels were Lewis H. Morgan‘s descriptions of “communism in living” as practised by the Haudenosaunee of North America.[2] In Marx’s model of socioeconomic structures, societies with primitive communism had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation.[3]
Needless to say, societies that practiced “primitive communism” never became great.
But even today, there are primitive tribes all over the globe that practice various forms of collectivism.
It doesn’t work, but they still keep on trying.
Of course the same principles also don’t work when entire modern nations try them.
In the Bible, from the very beginning we see buying, we see selling, and we see property rights being respected.
There is a reason why so many capitalists are fond of the Bible and so many collectivists are not.
The Bible encourages private ownership, private enterprise, individual responsibility and hard work.
Needless to say, even those that do not believe in the Bible benefit when they embrace the same economic values.
Just look at what has happened to China. In the years following the communist revolution, millions died from starvation. But once the Chinese moved in a more capitalist direction and started promoting private ownership, private enterprise, individual responsibility and hard work, China became a global economic powerhouse.
The Bible also places a very high value on family. In the Ten Commandments we are told to honor our fathers and our mothers, and throughout the rest of the Torah we are given very specific instructions about how families are to operate.
Today, much of the population has rejected the Bible and the traditional family unit is relentlessly mocked.
As a result, divorce rates have soared, birth rates have fallen to historic lows, suicide rates are at all-time record highs, alcohol and drug abuse is out of control, sex outside of marriage is rampant, and the streets of our major cities are filled with violence.
Study after study has shown that kids that come from broken homes are far more likely to commit violent crimes, they are far more likely to get involved with drugs, and they are far more likely to end up impoverished.
And societies that do not value the traditional family unit also tend not to value the lives of those that are the most vulnerable…
In ancient Greece and Rome, individual human life had no particular value in and of itself. The Spartans left weak children to die on the hillside. Infanticide was common, as it is common even today in many parts of the world. Fathers who wanted sons had few qualms about drowning their newborn daughters. Human beings were routinely bludgeoned to death or mauled by wild animals in the Roman gladiatorial arena. Many of the great classical thinkers saw nothing wrong with these practices. Christianity, on the other hand, contributed to their demise by fostering moral outrage at the mistreatment of innocent human life.
In ancient times, child sacrifice was one of the most common ways to get rid of unwanted children.
When it was time to make a sacrifice to “the gods”, children that were not wanted were brought and put on the altar.
The same thing is essentially happening today, but we give it a different name.
We call it “abortion”, and it is done behind closed doors in pristine clinical settings.
Since 1973, more than 1.5 billion children have been slaughtered worldwide. So what makes us any better than any of the ancient civilizations that regularly sacrificed their unwanted children?
The Bible very strongly denounces child sacrifice, and it also very strongly denounces the various forms of sexual immorality that are exploding in our society today.
For decades, the left has been pushing us to accept one form of sexual perversion after another.
As societal sentiment has shifted, the right has eventually gone along with most of the changes that have been happening.
But God has not changed.
He sees everything that is going on, and He has warned us over and over again to change course.
But if we repent and change our ways we will be greatly blessed.
God always gives us a choice, and the clock is ticking.
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) Movie Reaction w/ Coby FIRST TIME WATCHING
What do you say when you run into an old boss who fired you?
We had offered a house for sale that we had just finished building. We offer owner finance and the properties sell very quickly.
When I was in my 20’s I worked part time for a drafting service. This was in the days before autoCAD and our drawings were actually on paper. About 6 months after I started, the owner came though the office and pointed at 3 of us. He fired each of us for no reason, and I was out of a job I desperately needed while I was finishing school. No reason given and he wouldn’t even speak to me when I approached him.
So, 30 years later, he strolls into our office to buy this neat little lake house we had just finished and was for sale. He and his wife had already looked at the house with Kenny, one of our site supervisors, and the wife was in love with it.
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I recognized him immediately, and listened to him as he explained that his wife loved the house, he had money in hand, etc. I nodded politely, then got up, walked to the door, opened it and said “Get out.”
He looked at me and he clearly didn’t recognize me. Before he had time to say anything, I said the name of the company he had owned.
Realization dawned on his piggy little face, and he began to speak. I cut him off, as he had me all those years ago, and once again told him to leave.
They slunk out of the office empty handed, and we had the house sold with contracts signed, down payment in hand, and new owner out the door by end of business that day.
Sucked to be him. Hope his wife appreciated losing the lake house she wanted.
What was the most disturbing thing you saw a nurse do to a patient?
My Dad had cancer, and he was getting closer to the end, but he was still all there mentally, just not physically..
I don’t even remember what happened, but he felt really bad, so 911, ambulance. I had flown home for a few weeks, I just needed to get away from it for a few, I had been home for 8 days, get a phone call. Hopped on a plane the next morning..
A few days later, my dad thinks they are going to discharge him. He’s probably going to get another blood transfusion. They were pumping him full of electrolytes…
I told him I’d be back in a while, I was going to go grocery shopping or something.. I go down get my car from the valet, and then start driving… The radio lights up, my dad was on the phone, and he’s yelling at me for not answering earlier. My phone was on silent and I didn’t know he was calling until it hooked to the blue tooth in the car..
Around the block, say hi to the valet guy again, and back upstairs.
Right after I left, the nurse came in to give him his meds, and he asked what was in the cup, and she got mad at him for asking and told him to take his meds.. NO.. Tell me what is in the cup.. His pain meds, anti-nausea stuff, poop softening stuff.. And blood pressure meds..
He hadn’t been on blood pressure meds for over a year, and part of the reason he was even in the hospital was because his blood pressure was low, the nurse had even taken it shortly before, 95/55 or something (which for him at that point was pretty good).. So he said I’m not supposed to take that, I’m not taking it.. Nurse got even madder, screaming ensued (that’s when he started calling me).. She put him down as a refusal on ALL of his meds, including his pain meds, which he really really needed.
Those are tumors squeezing his spinal chord, he really needed the pain meds.
A few minutes later he heard the nurse talking to the Dr. in the hall that he was getting a transfusion to bring his hemoglobin up before he went home. Then I returned to the room..
A few minutes later 2 girls came in and started packing him up, he was getting moved to the discharge unit.. Would have been nice if somebody told us. But whatever.
We get to the discharge unit, and the nurse is really nice. She told us just to hang out while they finish up the paperwork and then we can leave.. Nothing the downstairs nurse put on the paperwork indicated that he hadn’t gotten his meds, nothing about a transfusion, and we also found out that he was supposed to get a potassium drip or something also…
That nurse was pissed.. Took her quite a while to track everything down, verify that he hadn’t gotten his meds, get new ones from the pharmacy, verify that he was getting a transfusion, make sure they would deliver the blood to the proper unit..
It was such a stressful clusterfuck, all caused by an incompetent idiot nurse on a power trip. My Dad did not need that shit, he was really sensitive to stress at that point, his stomach would flip and he’d start puking.
I don’t know what if anything happened to that nurse, but from what the discharge nurse said, something was going to happen.. I hope the bitch got fired.
I Bought an Abandoned Moving Truck FULL Of Stuff
Do you agree with Wang Yi’s statement that the US has “no right” to intervene in the South China Sea? Why or why not?
Africa, and indeed the world’s hegemon, Gambia.
In 1985, Gambia threatened the Soviet Union to conquer the entire Soviet territory, including Moscow, in three days.
In 1995, Gambia threatened to annex Europe, including the UK, France, and Germany.
In 2002, Gambia claimed that if the USA continued sanctions, it would conquer the entire North American continent within a week.
In 2007, 2011, and 2012, Gambia threatened China three times, intending to land a 1000-person force (800 Marines, 200 Army) on the southeast coast and sweep across all of China（including Tibet）.
…
The following image showcases Gambia’s astonishing military.
Gambia Military
In 2021, China swallowed its pride and aided Gambia in completing a major bridge.
Perhaps due to China’s submissive attitude, the global hegemon Gambia was satisfied and henceforth abandoned its military plans to sweep across China.
China builds a bridge in Gambia
Clearly, China dared not protest against Gambia, but the United States…
That’s a different story, as China has strongly protested against the US.
Really, America, don’t mess with China!
We have Gambia as an ally now！
I was WRONG about *2001: A Space Odyssey* FIRST TIME WATCHING Movie Reaction
Out of all of the islands in the world, what would be the worst one to be stuck on?
My vote’s for Elephant Island.
An icy mass of jagged, rocky, snow-covered cliffs 215 miles square, located 150 miles north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic peninsula, on the outskirts of the South Shetland Islands.
It is one of the remotest, most inhospitable places in the world. It doesn’t have much in the way of coastline—sheer cliffs plunge from the island’s summit (2,799 feet) straight down into the Southern Ocean. The weather is usually freezing cold and foggy to boot, so good luck getting a passing ship to spot you—if there are any passing ships, which there usually aren’t. Elephant Island lies 581 miles south of the Falkland Islands, 779 miles from South Georgia, and 550 miles from Cape Horn, so good luck building a raft and sailing away from the island—which you couldn’t because there’s no wood there. Nothing grows there, in fact. No animals live there either except nesting penguins and fur seals during certain seasons. The winds routinely reach 100 miles per hour, and good luck finding a nook or a cranny in which to hide from it unless you happen to have building materials already on hand.
And you want to know the worst thing?
People actually have been stuck on this island.
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From Wikipedia:
The island was the desolate refuge of the British explorer, Ernest Shackleton, and his crew in 1916 following the loss of their ship Endurance in Weddell Sea ice. The crew of 28 reached Cape Valentine on Elephant Island after a harrowing ordeal on drifting ice floes. After camping at Cape Valentine for two nights, Shackleton and his crew moved 11 kilometres (7 mi) westwards to a location which offered better protection from rockfalls and from the sea, and which they called Point Wild.
Realizing that there was no chance of passive rescue, Shackleton decided to sail to South Georgia where he knew there were several whaling stations. Shackleton sailed with Tom Crean, Frank Worlsey, “Chippy” Macneish, Tim McCarthy, and John Vincent on a 1,300 km (800 mi) voyage in the open lifeboat James Caird beginning on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916 and arriving at South Georgia 16 days later. His second-in-command, Frank Wild, was left in charge of the men on Elephant Island, waiting for Shackleton’s return with a rescue ship.
There was much work for the stranded men. Because the island had no natural source of shelter, they constructed a shack and wind blocks from their remaining two lifeboats and pieces of canvas tents. Blubber lamps were used for lighting.
They hunted for penguins and seals, neither of which were plentiful in autumn or winter. Shackleton instructed Wild to depart with the crew for Deception Island if he did not return to rescue them by the beginning of summer but after four and a half months the artist George Marston spotted a ship on August 30, 1916. The ship, with Shackleton on board, was the tug Yelcho, from Punta Arenas, Chile, commanded by Luis Pardo, which rescued all the men who had set out on the original expedition.
That made my skin pucker up and my belly ache just reading it.
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Imagine four and a half months spent shivering in a jury-rigged shack made of canvas and lifeboat staves, listening to the wind roar outside, living by the light of blubber lamps and hunting for hours every day in all kinds of weather for the occasional seal or penguin. How they didn’t all die of starvation or scurvy or exposure or sheer exhaustion boggles my mind.
The Dark REALITY About Dating 9’s & 10’s That NOBODY Talks About!
What is an experience you had at a court house that you’ll never forget?
I grew up in a large city. When it came time to get my drivers licence, or get it renewed, it meant going downtown to the Department of Motor Vehicles, taking a number, waiting for a long time, then dealing with employees whose level of service was somewhere between rude and hostile. It was just a part of life.
Then I moved to a small town (pop. 4,000) in the same state, and that summer my drivers licence expired. I made a couple of inquiries of where one went to get it renewed, and I was told, “Oh, just go down to the courthouse and they’ll take care of it.”
So after work on a Friday I walked across the street to the courthouse. The building looked deserted. In the lobby was a directory. Drivers licenses were in the basement.
I found the DMV office and there wasn’t a soul in sight. I rang the bell and waited. Still nothing. I wondered where everybody was. Soon, I started looking around the building looking for signs of life.
I poked my head into the sheriff’s office. At the desk there was a grizzled old sheriff’s deputy wearing sergeant’s stripes. “Help you?” he asked gruffly.
I explained that I wanted to renew my drivers licence but there was nobody in the office. He grunted, “Yeah, everybody around here wanted to get an early start on the weekend. Go on back, I’ll get someone down there for you.” He picked up his phone and I returned to the DMV office and took a seat.
Five minutes later, the old sergeant walked in. “Guess I’m going to have to do it myself. Let’s see your current licence and paperwork.”
Despite the delay in finding assistance, I was still in and out of the office in record time, and the old sergeant, for all his gruffness, was still the most pleasant interaction I’d ever had during the process.
Who/what has made you cry the hardest and why?
I knew a young girl at my school, she was 13 and one day she didn’t show up to class, now lots of people made fun of her as she had depression and apparently was an easy target.
She had really short black hair and had recently come out as lesbian and was going through an emo phase for a long time now.
Lots of people were saying “awh thank god that stupid psycho isn’t here to ruin everything” and “she always talks to herself” and “ugly bitch” ect.
Now our principal came to the door looking very pale and said ” I’m not sure if you all have noticed Melissa isn’t here today, well she has sadly passed away last night” loads of gasps and open mouthed kids in that room that day.
I later found out off her neighbors daughter that she was abused really badly and was taken away from her mom who was locked up for letting her boyfriend rape her and she was heartbroken at her new home and she hung herself in the nearby park.
I almost threw up nobody had no idea how she was feeling, later her suicide note was read out at school.
It said ” sometimes I just wished I would die and I never had the guts to do it, I apologise to everyone for being a shitty daughter, friend, classmate and human, my time has come…. sorry for the mess”
A couple of cute girls run up to me and pull me out of study hall to go square dancing with them.
One day. Then the next. Then the one after that.
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Maybe I wasn’t a football player or a popular Jock, but I was a dancing fool. All the girls wanted to dance with me. And I really loved it.
These square dances were a lot of fun. I loved the attention; and being part of a group. Even then, I did not realize how starved I was for BELONGING.
The girls would look at me, touch me, and talk with me. And it was fun. Fun! And the time went by so fast!
Then I graduated from high school and entered university.
Disco fever hits America.
Still, I wasn’t so much into the movement as I could of been. I was more of an observer. Books and studying were my drivers.
Everyone was “Doin’ the hustle”. Me too. LOL.
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I was a party fool.
Looking back, you know, dancing played a major social role in my ability to meet and be with girls. Too bad that there were movements that were trying to remove it for religious reasons.
Silly. Huh?
Now, here I am. In China. Everyone dances. From free impromptu dances on the curbs to KTV’s and clubs. Everyone dances.
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Forget social media applications. Go out, put on some music and start dancing. There’s a lot worse things that you can do to occupy your time.
Don’t know how to dance, or are too self consciousness?
Go Zorba the Greek style…
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Or, my favorite, Jamaican Rasta-man…
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When in doubt go “Grateful Dead” and do the hop to the beat, and pretend that you are stoned.
Today…
What are your views on China almost owning Laos? How careful do other small nations need to be from China?
The word “owning” is not appropriate; it should be described as a win-win situation. Laos is a landlocked country with no ports, only 4 kilometers of railway nationwide, and underdeveloped roads.
In December 2021, after the opening of the China-Laos Railway, Laos has had a direct railway connection with China. This has greatly improved Laos’s economy, with optimistic projections suggesting that Laos’s GDP will increase fivefold by 2030.
(I am confident about Laos’ economic prospects, because it is said that in 2020, the most corrupt bureaucrat in the country only had $500,000！ which is much better than many poor countries, If the corruption problem is not big, the economy will surely take off)
The railway has opened up transportation between China and Laos, bringing hundreds of thousands of job opportunities to Laos, and China benefits as well.
China’s agriculture is severely lacking in potassium. Although Russia and Belarus are major potash exporters and friendly countries, having an additional source of imports is beneficial. Laos, with its world-class giant potash deposits, lacks the technology and funds for mining, and hasn’t even begun selling them.
China’s construction of potash mines in Laos, purchasing at reasonable prices, creating local jobs, developing the industry, and meeting its own needs is indeed a win-win situation.
China has a huge demand for durians, and Laotian durians are very cheap. Selling them to China via the railway significantly increases their income, making everyone happy.
China can produce industrial goods, medicines, and other necessities cheaply and in good quality, satisfying Laotian needs. Laotians are also very satisfied.
Moreover, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. conducted 580,000 bombing missions on this non-combatant country, dropping 270 million cluster bombs, of which about 30% remain unexploded. Currently, 80 million small bombs are scattered and buried in Laos, causing deaths and injuries every year.
By constructing this railway, Chinese engineers have cleared thousands of unexploded bombs, at least ensuring the safety of the railway line. This act alone is of immeasurable merit.
China and the West are different in one respect: as a developing country that was oppressed by great powers for over a hundred years, we know very well what that feels like.
Now that we have some money, it is natural to help others while benefiting ourselves through mutual benefit.
2500 years ago, Mencius said, “Only a benevolent nation can interact with smaller nations on an equal footing”—not by dropping 270 million bombs on them.
To take a step back, even if driven solely by China’s own interests, such as buying potash mines and trying to push prices down, the short-term gain might seem profitable, but in the long run? If we don’t consider the other party’s interests, it will ultimately harm our own.
There are areas needing improvement.
For example, on the station signs within Laos along the China-Laos Railway, although Lao script is at the top and Chinese is below, the Chinese font size is the same as the Lao script, which seems a bit inappropriate.
It would be better if the Chinese font were smaller.
I have always been a little worried about hurting the feelings of the Lao people.
However, it seems that Laotians have not raised this issue.
She explains what is going on
Money is NOT value.
Should the USA give one aircraft carrier to each one of China’s neighbors to stop China from bullying its neighbors?
Originally Answered: Should the USA give 1 aircraft carrier to each one of China’s neighbor to stop China from bullying its neighbor?
Funnily enough, this question reminds me of an ancient punishment of the Thai Royal Court.
If a Thai king happened to dislike a particular minor noble, that noble would be “gifted” with the finest war elephant from the royal regiment.
Now what could go wrong with that you might think? After all, an elephant is a mighty war beast and also a valuable trophy that kings would fight each other to own.
Well, they are also one hell of an eater, consuming an unholy amount of food and water every day.
want some?
They also need space, care, training, and exercise – all of which requires a lot of people and costs a lot of money. That’s why, normally, only the likes of kings or very powerful nobles could afford their accommodations.
So what happened if some unaccomplished, minor nobles were awarded with one?
In a few months, they would become broke: They couldn’t get rid of the elephant because it was a gift from the king and also could not leave them neglected because of its royal status.
I think something similar would happen if the United States were to “gift” any carriers to the minor nations in the South China Sea.
Just some insight
I love hearing from youse guys about how your affirmations are going. Here’s one from a member of the MM collective. I deleted the queries and personal data. But still, I always find these reports interesting…
I've been on a 3 month on/4 off Intentions Campaign run since summer 2023 when I started my first (late starter, I know-- but I'd old baggage I needed to dispose of before committing to a campaign-- I like fresh psychological starts!).
After a quiet start, I'm now halfway through my second break, and the roller coaster ride has just kicked off-- white knuckle, baby.
> Yikes!!!
> The tell tails have all hilariously manifested, too. Very very strange and uncanny feeling. Things that were calm in my life are now turning upside down and I'm glad-- It was well needed. But stressful. (Have included safety protocols so nothing crazy.)
We were mocking my husband at a neighborhood party until he stood up & told me it’s over forever.
NEVER, ever make fun of your husband or wife.
What can be expected from the meeting between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and China’s top legislator Zhao Leji?
On July 29, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meroni met with Zhao Leji, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China.
Zhao Leji said that the National People’s Congress of China is willing to give full play to the role of the regular exchange mechanism with the Italian Parliament, carry out multi-level, wide-ranging and multi-channel friendly exchanges, and provide legal guarantees for the practical cooperation between the two countries.
Meroni expressed the hope that the legislative bodies of the two sides will strengthen exchanges, promote cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, culture and other fields, and promote the healthy and stable development of Italy-China and Europe-China relations.
Of course, this is all official jargon.
To put it simply, Merloni hopes that China’s National People’s Congress and the Italian Parliament will increase exchanges so that Italian parliamentarians can understand China’s parliamentary model, so that they will not encounter too much opposition from pro-American parliamentarians during parliamentary questioning.
The reason I say this is because of what Italy has done over the past period of time.
In the recent EU vote on imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Italy voted in favor.
The Italian Ministry of Finance issued a statement after the G7 Finance Ministers’ Meeting, saying that the G7 opposes so-called “unilateral actions” that undermine global trade, and implicitly pointed the finger at China.
Senior Italian naval officials announced that the country’s aircraft carrier will visit the Philippines after participating in Australian exercises to show support for the Philippines.
Last year, the Meloni government’s decision to withdraw from the “Belt and Road Initiative” itself had a huge impact on the mutual trust between China and Italy. Judging from the delegation that Meloni brought with her to China, including Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli and energy group Eni, the focus of her visit to China is obviously to discuss bilateral economic and trade cooperation with China.
Why does Italy still want to do this?
In fact, if we look at the preparations for this visit to China alone, Meloni’s sincerity is still sufficient.
In addition to the luxurious business delegation mentioned above, it is reported that Meloni has also prepared a generous gift for China.
According to the Italian media “24 Hours Sun”, the Meloni government intends to “transfer” the use rights of the discontinued car brands of the European auto giant Stellantis Group to Chinese companies.
Italy has specially prepared a working group to discuss cooperation in the automotive field with China. At present, the EU is imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Objectively speaking, if Chinese auto companies can invest and build factories in Italy, they can indeed resolve the high tariffs faced by exports to Europe. For Italy, they can obtain investment from Chinese companies through such cooperation and boost the local auto industry.
This is a win-win situation.
Moreover, perhaps in order to eliminate the impact of Italy’s withdrawal from the “Belt and Road Initiative”, Meroni also announced during his visit to China that he would sign a three-year action plan with China to restart cooperation with China.
We can understand Meroni’s move. This plan is actually an alternative to the “Belt and Road Initiative” jointly built by China and Italy.
Meroni showed such sincerity. In the final analysis, Italy still needs China.
On the one hand, Italy is currently facing severe high inflation and debt crisis.
On the other hand, the trade volume between China and Italy last year showed a significant decline compared with 2022.
Since Italy withdrew from the Belt and Road Initiative, it has faced a series of economic problems. If Italy wants to change the status quo, it can only bow to China.
However, Italy is a member of the G7, and it is unrealistic to expect Meloni to completely bow to China.
Therefore, we speculate that Italy’s series of actions against China, either indirectly or directly, before Meroni’s visit to China, may be a bargaining chip prepared by Meroni to bargain with China.
Italy was previously indecisive about withdrawing from the “Belt and Road Initiative” mainly because Italy wanted to maintain mutually beneficial cooperation with China on the one hand, but did not want to bear pressure from Western countries because of the “Belt and Road Initiative” on the other hand.
Before officially withdrawing from the “Belt and Road Initiative”, Meroni sent people to visit China for consultations, trying to prove that withdrawing from the “Belt and Road Initiative” would not affect Italy’s attention to China.
But it is obvious that Meroni completely underestimated the negative impact of this move on Sino-Italian relations and the “Belt and Road Initiative” — After Italy joined the “Belt and Road Initiative”, China has placed Italy at the top of its foreign cooperation priorities. If Italy can still enjoy such a position after its withdrawal, it will inevitably lead to other countries following suit and questioning the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
Meloni’s preparation of bargaining chips for her visit to China in advance can only mean that although she regrets withdrawing from the “Belt and Road Initiative”, she still has not figured out how to balance the relationship between China, the EU and the United States.
As a major EU economy and a member of the G7, it is difficult for Meloni to sing a different tune from the EU and the United States, at least on the issue of imposing tariffs on China.
But at the same time, Meloni also knows that based on the background of Italy’s withdrawal from the “Belt and Road Initiative”, Italy must show enough sincerity if it wants to restart cooperation with China.
The EU will ban the sale of new fuel vehicles that are not zero-carbon emission from 2035.
China is the world’s largest electric vehicle industry and dominates the global electric vehicle industry. BYD has confirmed that it will open “super factories” outside of China in near the borders of Hungary and Serbia, and Italy could be the location of BYD’s second “super factory”.
Chinese Tesla rival BYD to open EV manufacturing plant in Hungary
The announcement comes as Hungary continues to try to position itself as a global hub for EV manufacturing.
BYD signed land agreement with Szeged for the car factory in Hungary
BYD’s landmark agreement with Szeged, Hungary, for a new energy passenger car factory. BYD’s landmark agreement with Szeged, Hungary, for a new energy passenger car factory.
Meloni wants to have a certain initiative, so she can only talk about economic and trade cooperation with China on the one hand, but on the other hand, she can find ways to maintain some noise that caters to the United States.
However, in front of Meloni, the Chinese senior officials have made it clear that China is willing to further strengthen political mutual trust with Italy to promote the development of China-Italy bilateral relations in a more mature and stable direction. This is a necessary condition for the two countries to deepen cooperation and achieve expectations.
As for how to strengthen political mutual trust, China has put forward a requirement for Chinese companies to invest in Italy, that is, Italy needs to provide a fair, safe and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies.
If Italy undermines the atmosphere of Sino-Italian cooperation again in the future due to pressure from the United States, the political mutual trust between China and Italy will probably be even more difficult to repair.
Therefore, if Meloni wants to continue the results of his visit to China, he must take practical actions to safeguard the development of Sino-Italian relations.
“All HELL BREAKS LOOSE” (In the Next Few Months) says FED Insider
Luca Placidi:
Welcome, everybody. It is a great pleasure and honor to have with us today Professor Michael Hudson. For those who still do not know him, Michael is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and he is a researcher at the Levi Economics Institute at Bard College.
Just to mention a few works published with the help of technology, we want to recall Superimperialism, the Economic Strategy of the American Empire. Its third edition came out in 2021. Then we have “… And Forgive Them Their Debts,” published in 2018. The latest is The Collapse of Antiquity, published in 2023.
Michael is also a former Wall Street analyst, a political consultant, and is hosting the Geopolitical Economy Hour together with Radhika Desai, which is broadcast at Ben Norton’s YouTube channel, Geopolitical Economy Report. Professor, welcome, and thanks again for being with us today.
Michael Hudson:
Well, thank you for inviting me. I’m glad to be able to speak to an Italian audience.
Luca Placidi:
That is very good. Thank you. To kick off our conversation, would you agree that the Ukrainian war and even more the latest NATO summit with its final declaration are showing us that we are now back in a multipolar war, in which the global South it is opposed to the Western world?
Michael Hudson:
Well, it’s more than just a geographic split. We’re really in a civilizational split, and it goes much deeper. What’s at stake is what kind of economy is the world going to have?
Is it going to be a financialized, neoliberal post-industrial economy, which is what the United States and Europe are pushing? Or is it going to be the kind of economy that textbooks talk about, where economies produce agricultural and industrial goods to feed themselves and make everybody prosper? I almost would use Rosa Luxemburg’s phrase, Barbarism or Socialism, because the West no longer has the means of real economic control over trade and production. It only has military force, terrorist violence and corruption to maintain its control.
The NATO West does financial control by having loaded down the global South and even many Asian countries with dollarized debt for the last 70 years. That dollarized debt holds them in a financial neocolonialism, an international debt peonage. Besides that, the ultimate power that the United States and Europe have to maintain their unipolar control to prevent other countries from going their own way and pursuing their own interests is to bomb them and mobilize terrorism.
The NATO West has lost its basic industrial or agricultural control because it has outsourced its industry to China and other Asian economies, and its sanctions against Russia and other countries has obliged them to become self-sufficient instead of relying on the West for a widening range of their basic needs. So these countries are now in a position to use their labor, industry and agriculture to make themselves prosperous and regain control over their economies, not to make U.S. and European investors rich. They want to take control of their economies in a way that will raise their wages and living standards.
That can’t be done if they follow a policy of privatization, World Bank advice and the IMF’s instructions to sell off their land and raw materials, privatize and sell off their public infrastructure, communications, electrical systems and water rights to foreigners while getting rid of government regulation and social-support programs. The West’s demand is to let the private sector run everything without government “interference.” Well, there’s no way that any economy can grow and get prosperous without being a mixed economy with strong public infrastructure providing basic needs at non-monopoly prices.
There are many natural area for governments to operate more efficiently than the private sector. They can provide basic services that otherwise would be monopolized to charge extortionate prices to extract predatory monopoly rents for their owners. If a government doesn’t provide education, the result will be what’s happening in America, where the average cost of a college education is $40,000 or $50,000 a year. If you don’t have public health, you’re going to have a very expensive privatized health care that’s not available to everybody. In the United States that absorbs 18% of GDP, more than any other country. That kind of monopoly overhead doesn’t leave much room for the overall economy to be competitive with mixed public/private economies.
Most important, if you let money and credit be privatized by banks instead of doing what China has done and keep money as a public utility, then you let banks decide where the economy’s credit will be allocated. That makes them the economy’s central planners. Their preference is to supply credit not to finance industrial investment and growth, but to finance debt-leveraging to inflate prices for real estate, stocks and bonds, and for raiders to take over companies and empty them out, leaving debt-ridden shells in their place. like Thames Water in Britain, Sears Roebuck in the United States. That is what has been happening since the 1980s under Thatcherism and Reaganomics.
So the split between the West and the rest of the world, the global majority, is really about what kind of an economy most of the world will have. That’s why the United States is fighting so viciously to maintain its unipolar control. It’s fighting against the global majority today in the same way that it fought against the Soviet Union after 1917. It doesn’t want a rival kind of economic system to develop. So what we’re seeing is a split with the global majority that is trying to decide how to design an economy that’s going to help their member countries grow? That is the global fracture that is occurring, and it’s a civilizational break.
How are Global South countries to grow if they remain obliged to pay all of the dollarized foreign debts that they’ve been loaded down. These debts are the legacy of being obliged to follow destructive International Monetary Fund advice to impose austerity and to privatize and sell off their assets in the public domain in order to obtain the dollars to pay their foreign creditors? The Western model is thus basically a form of financial colonialism. Its anti-government philosophy has devastated the Wes’s economies as well as those of debtor countries.
The rest of the world thus has an object lesson in what to avoid if it does not want to end up looking like the United States, post-Thatcher/Blair Britain or Germany since its anti-Russia sanctions of2022. I’ve discussed this in The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism (2022). Today’s civilizational break is not only against Russia and China. You can trace the break back to the Bandung Conference of non-aligned nations in 1955, seventy years ago.
In 1955, what was called the Third World or non-aligned nations recognized that they were being made poorer and poorer by the rules of the world economy that American diplomats and geopolitical strategists institutionalized with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the dollar standard. That international trade and monetary system was exploitative, first and foremost against America’s potential rivals in Britain and other European countries, and against the former colonial systems of these countries that the United States sought to appropriate and exploit for its own benefit.
The post-World War II order has been a new kind of imperialism. It basically is a financial imperialism, not the European-style colonial imperialism enforced by a military occupation. Financial control has proved less costly and hence more efficient for the neoliberal mode of international exploitation. Non-aligned victim countries couldn’t break away in 1954 or since because Cuba, Indonesia and the other non-aligned nations were not large enough to “go it alone.” If they tried to go it alone, they would have ended up looking like Venezuela has looked like in the last few years, or like Cuba looked like after its revolution. If the United Sates and Europe had imposed such sanctions, countries resisting this system would have been obliged to surrender to the West to avoid economic disruption. But sanctions were not even necessary at that time under “free market” imperialism U.S.-style.
The United States was in a position to treat countries resisting this exploitation it as outcasts. Its threat was to tell countries that acted to protect their economies, and especially their public enterprise, that the West would isolate them if they tried to go it alone. Their economies were indeed too small, even on a regional level, to survive on their own. They felt that they needed U.S. support and that of its IMF and World Bank.
What has changed is the remarkable growth of socialist China since the 1990s and post-neoliberal Russia since the late 1990s under President Putin. Today for the first time, Eurasian nations have enough economic self-sufficiency outside of the United States and Europe to be able to go it alone. They no longer need to depend on the NATO West, which is losing its ability to economically control them.
In fact, it’s the NATO West that has become dependent on China, Russia and the rest of Eurasia, along with the Global South if its people can resist their own client oligarchies to throw off their financial chains and adherence to the self-serving U.S. “rules-based order.”
What is so ironic is that U.S. diplomacy itself is spurring their break-away. One might have expected that China, the Global South and India, Latin America and Africa came to realize just how they’re being exploited, they would have taken the lead in breaking away. Yet it is the United States and NATO that have driven them to break away, by imposing trade and financial sanctions that have forced them to go it alone.
Ever since the war in Ukraine by the United States to break Germany and Europe away from their trade and investment relations with Russia and China began in 2022, the United States has mobilized its European and other English-speaking dependencies to impose economic sanctions that has devastated economies obeying these policies.
The backlash resulting from German de-industrialization and America’s elbowing aside France as an arms supplier (e.g., for submarine sales to AUKUS and in trying to replace France in its former African possessions) is driving other countries away. America and Europe have isolated themselves from the Global Majority, replacing its prosperous trade and investment with Russia and China with economic dependency on the United States for oil and other higher-priced imports.
What’s so amazing is how self-destructive of its own global empire U.S. diplomacy has been. The focus of U.S. diplomacy on locking in its control over Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea by obliging them to join its anti-Russian and anti-Chinese sanctions has obliged these designated U.S. enemies to replacing trade dependency on the West with their own mutual self-dependency.
They realize that they can never depend on the United Stats and European satellites for imports again. That should have been obvious to U.S. strategists. Once a country is blocked from importing its food, what’s it going to do? It’s going to grow its own food. When the United States imposed sanctions on Russia to block European exports of food to it, for instance, Russia was driven to produce its own butter, crops and other food instead of importing it from the Baltics and other former suppliers.
When U.S. officials demanded that its allies stop exporting computer chips to China, it moved quickly to develop its own domestic supply.
Other countries can’t depend on the United States or Europe for their food because they may be cut off again. So they’ll have to become self-sufficient.
They can’t depend on the NATO West for industry or technology because it can try to disrupt their economy by interrupting their supply chains to force it to follow pro-NATO policies. As for Europe, it is left dependent on the United States now that it has let itself be isolated from Eurasia and the Global South.
The global fracture that is occurring in today’s world is not reversible. And it is all happening so quickly. Once a market is lost to countries able to free themselves and provide their own basic needs, that market is not recoverable.
If the United States and NATO Europe stops exporting food and industrial products to sanctioned countries, they will make these products themselves. So when you sanction a country, it’s as if you’ve provided them with tariff protection to nurture their own production. That’s the “infant industry” argument that enabled the United States to rise to industrial power in the late 19th century.
The logic was clearly spelled out by U.S. strategists. (I summarize this strategy in America’s Protective Takeoff: 1815-1914: The Neglected American School of Political Economy (2010). Needless to say, U.S. neoliberal rhetoric has sought to erase this history so as to “pull up the ladder” so that its logic will not be used by other countries to emulate the U.S. economic success – the same government sponsorship of industry that made Germany, France and other countries so successful since the 19th century.
Latin America and Africa are seeing that it is time to liberate their economic from “free-trade imperialism.” Instead of using their agricultural land to export plantation crops to the North, they’re going to use their land to begin feeding themselves with their own grain, their own rice and other food crops so that they no longer have to depend on American and European farm exports.
The U.S. policy of bullying countries by imposing trade sanctions has cut its own economic throat, so to speak. It’s almost humorous to see it dismantle the free-trade imperialism and dollar dependency that earlier generations of U.S. diplomacy tried so hard to impose on the rest of the world.
The meetings this year by the BRICS+ countries under Russian leadership this year and China next year are all about how to plan a trajectory for becoming independent from reliance on the West. That is what U.S. diplomacy itself has driven them to do.
Luca Placidi:
As you were saying, Professor, it seems like the TINA Paradigm has been destroyed because now we have alternatives. It seems that the European political class is hopelessly submissive to the U.S. agenda. This is really disturbing, at least for us in Europe, because the war in Ukraine has destroyed the European economy.
Just think, as you’ve described, how the impact of the sanctions has penalized industrial production especially in Germany and Italy. Yet this has not been enough for Europe to reverse course and pull out of this conflict.
Michael Hudson:
I think that you could call the war in Ukraine since 2022 an American war against Europe, because the great loser has been Germany, Italy, France and the rest of Europe. The United States has seen the writing on the wall and decided that if there’s going to be a fight between North America along with NATO against the rest of the world, it had better start by solidifying its control over Europe as a profitable market and debtor instead of its turning to Asia and being lost by the United States.
Essentially, U.S. strategists are acknowledging that they know that America is not able to produce a real industrial surplus anymore. Its neoliberal trade policy has outsourced its industry to Asia.
The only new market that it can secure if the Global Majority breaks away is that of Europe. That explains why the United States arranged for the Nord Stream pipeline to be blown up, and convinced Europe voluntarily to commit economic self-destruction by not buying low-priced Russian gas, oil and raw materials. While this has driven Russia and China together with their Asian neighbors, the losers have been European.
German industry has been moving out of the country to the United States and elsewhere for lower-cost energy. It’s been emigrating largely to the United States, making it the beneficiary. If you’re a German industrial company, what else are you going to do if its economy is shrinking.
If you look at labor productivity over the last hundred years, it’s goes parallel with energy use per worker.
Energy is really the key. That’s why a central aim of American foreign policy since 1945 has been to control other countries in two ways, starting with oil. The United States, along with Britain and Holland, have controlled the world oil trade so that they can turn off the electricity, turn off the lights of countries that try to break away and act in their own self-interest.
Along with oil, the second tactic that America has used is to control grain and food. Let independent countries starve in the dark. But here once again, the sanctions have mainly been to make Europe suffer.
Remember, America has fought against the European Economic Community ever since it was created in 1958. From the outset, America fought against the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). But for the EEC, the most important aim of integration was to protect its farmers and do for European agriculture what America had done for its agriculture.
Agricultural price supports enabled capital investment to raise farm productivity. Europe rationalized its agriculture and increased its capital investment to make it more productive. The result was that Europe has not only replaced its dependence on American food exports, but has become a major agricultural exporter. But now the expanded European Union is now suffering because of the sanctions not only against importing Russian gas to make fertilizer. And by supporting Ukraine, Europe is letting it dump its low-cost grain in Poland and other countries. Farmers already have staged riots to protest against their farm markets being undersold by the Ukrainians – with U.S. investors trying to buy up this land. That could roll back European agricultural independence and make it dependent once more on the United States or on countries that U.S. investors control.
The effect of this Cold War III so far has been to drive Europe back into the American orbit. The United States insists that there’s no alternative to this neoliberal geopolitics. Western textbooks indoctrinate students to believe that neoliberalism is the best way to run an economy efficiently – by not having a government to protect self-reliance and living standards, not to regulate against predatory monopoly and financial rent seeking. The aim is to let capitalism evolve into monopoly capitalism, which is really finance capitalism, because monopolies are organized by the financial sector as “the mother of trusts.”
Although the United States has said there’s no alternative, there obviously is. But if countries don’t follow an alternative, they’re going to end up looking like Germany. In fact, what’s happened to Europe as a result of the war in Ukraine and U.S. sanctions is an object lesson for other countries to see what they don’t want that to happen to them.
The neoliberal program has broken down in the West just as it has long since broken down for the Global South. Its central aim is to privatize the public sector. Yet for centuries the European capitalist takeoff was funded by industrial capitalists themselves aiming to lower the cost of production so that they could undersell other countries by government subsidy of tangible capital formation.
How can economies lower their cost of production? For starters, if companies are obliged to pay wages high enough for their workers to pay for their own health care and insurance, to pay for their own education, for their own debt-leveraged housing costs, the high price of paying a living wage will eat into industrial profits. To avoid this, European countries, like the United States, had their governments provide inexpensive basic needs so employers wouldn’t have to cover these costs.
The basic strategy of industrial capitalism was for governments to provide education, public health and basic infrastructure that otherwise would have been monopolized in private hands. Governments educated workers, trained them and helped raise their productivity by protecting and subsidizing capital investment. Governments provided water and electricity at subsidized rates so that labor would not have to spend its wages to buy high cost energy, high cost transportation and kindred basic needs.
The result was to lower the break-even costs of labor, so that European and American industrialists could undersell other countries.
Neoliberalism ended this seemingly obvious economic strategy. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan started a class war by the British and U.S. financial sectors against labor by privatizing their public utilities. Instead of England’s government providing clean water, which everybody needs to live, it sold off rent-seeking rights to financial managers raise prices to extract monopoly rents. To make matters worse, Thames Water and other privatized companies borrowed from banks and used the money to pay dividends to stockholders and buy their own stock to raise its prices to reap capital gains.
These rentier charges are now taking a big chunk out of the European wage earner’s budget. That makes employers pay higher wages. You can say the same thing for telephone service and other basic infrastructure utilities that now are privatized and financialized.
Privatizing formerly subsidized telephone service and communications makes workers pay much more. The result is a wage squeeze, but also a profit squeeze because of the high cost of living and doing business in a rentier economy.
So since 1980, the whole European model – in fact, the whole model of industrial capitalism – has been reversed. Instead of industrial capitalism trying to cut the costs of production, minimizing what Marx called the false costs, the faux frais of production, prices charged by privatized infrastructure monopolies have gone way up. Labor’s living standards throughout Europe have been squeezed at the same time that their wages have had to be increased so that they can afford to pay for privatized services that used to be subsidized public services. Following the neoliberal model has made Europe uncompetitive, just as it has deindustrialized the U.S. economy.
The lesson for China has been to have socialism to restore the 19th-century industrial ethic that nearly all economic observers believed was leading to socialism of one kind or another. China’s living standards have soared, yet its wages are lower than that of the neoliberal economies thanks to the fact that socialism provides inexpensive transportation, public health care and so forth as described above.
Most important of all, socialist China creates its own money and controls its credit system. Instead of the Bank of China lending money to financial predators to buy companies and load them down with debt and drive their stock prices before leaving them as bankrupt shells like Thames Water in England, the government spends money directly into the economy.
It’s overinvested in housing and real estate, to be sure, but it’s also invested in modernizing its high-speed railroads, modernizing its communication system, modernizing its cities, and above all its electronic internet system used for monetary payments. China has liberated itself from debt dependency on the West – and in the process, made the West dependent on it.
This could only have been done by government investment and regulation under a long-term plan. The Western financial model lives in the short run. If you’re going to allocate credit and resources to make fortunes by living in the short run by taking as much as you can as quickly as you can, you will not be able to make the capital investment to develop long-term growth. That’s why American information technology companies have not been able to keep up with their Chinese counterparts. Financialized “market forces” oblige them to use their income for stock buybacks and to pay out of dividends. That is the case with U.S. technology across the board.
China’s companies investing in information and internet technology plow their profits back into reinvestment in more research and development. Such innovation has shifted from the West to the East, which has rediscovered the logic of industrial capitalism developed by the 19th century’s classical political economists.
To be sure, China and other BRICS+ countries are trying to reinvent the wheel. They know that the Western model doesn’t work. The question is, what is the best alternative to neoliberalized, privatized and financialized economies?
It is amazing to me that there has been so little discussion of classical economics in the West. The value, price and rent theory of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and their contemporaries came to a head with Marx. That has left almost the only people talking about industrial capitalism’s economic reforms have been Marxists. Universities in America no longer teach the history of economic thought – or economic history, for that matter. It is as if there is only one kind of economy – the anti-government privatized “free market” that has taken over since the 1980s.
Students are taught that there is only one way to run an economy: the free enterprise neoliberal way. So when Asian and African countries send their students to the United States or England to study, they’re not taught about how industrial capitalism took off by raising wages and living standards to make labor more productive. Instead, the learn the economics of class war – from the employer’s short-term view.
Neoliberal trade theory is the most blatant example of today’s junk economics being awarded by Nobel Prizes as if that can somehow legitimize it. The result is the International Monetary Fund’s austerity plan masquerading as “stabilization plans.” Once a country like Argentina or Chile runs up a foreign debt, it is directed to obtain the money to pay this foreign debt by imposing anti-labor policies, dissolving labor unions, lowering wage levels while taxing labor (“consumers”) more, as if pauperized labor will make them competitive enough to earn enough export income to pay their foreign creditors.
When a policy like this has been shown to be destructive for the past century yet is still being imposed, it’s obvious that this is not an innocent error. You might call it a very successful error. It has succeeded in preventing the Global South from earning its way out of debt and from developing is own self-sufficiency in food and other basic needs. It has succeeded in creating domestic client oligarchies whose interests are to become agents of this Western NATO-centered model instead of seeking to develop their own economies.
It is to avoid this destiny that today’s geopolitical breakaway by the global majority in Asia, Africa and Latin America are moving to replace the finance-capitalist model. Their move to reinvent the wheel is following the logic of the original industrial capitalist takeoff that was evolving into socialism. If you look back to the late 19th century’s flowing of classical political economy, not only by Marx but by political parties across the political spectrum, we can see that there was going to be socialism of one kind or another.
What kind of socialism is it going to be? There was Christian socialism, libertarian socialism, Marxian socialism and other kinds of socialism. This classical literature and political debate was rich, but it came to an end with World War I. That was a disastrous turning point in Western civilization.
The rentier classes, the landlords, the monopolists and the bankers had been fighting back against the industrial reforms that were happening in the most advanced industrial economies of Europe and the United States. The wealthy elites were terrified that support for these reforms would lead in Europe to a revolution like that created Soviet Russia. The West was even more terrified of what seemed to be happening in Germany that was looking like it was likely to go socialist.
The vested rentier interests, especially the wealthiest classes, feared that this threatened to end the ability of a wealthy financial oligarchy of the One Percent, maybe even five percent of the population. For the past century it has built up its financial wealth by forcing the rest of the economy into debt. The result has been a social malaise as Western populations in the United States and Europe, have come to believe that There Is No Alternative.
The lack of an alternative has enriched the One Percent. The U.S. economy has polarized, and so has Europe’s economies. The wealth of Europe, Italy included, has been sucked up to the very top, to the financial layer that has taken control of economic planning and public policy as if their privatized self-interest is more productive and efficient than an alternative that would raise labor’s living standards and self-reliance.
Financial elites throughout the world are a cosmopolitan class. It’s not only wealthy Italians but wealthy Europeans, wealthy Americans draining money from their own industrial sectors, the agricultural and the commercial sector. This stateless international class has its law of motion in its drive to force the entire global economy into debt so as to use its debt leverage to foreclose, above all on the assets of the public sector by getting governments into debt.
Backed by the IMF, World Banks and U.S. courts, international bondholders (including domestic oligarchies keeping their wealth outside of their own countries) force debtor governments to sell off public infrastructure. In the case of corporate debt, creditors foreclose on companies and break them into parts.
This behavior has de-industrialized the United States and Britain. Yet while the economies of the United States and Europe have gotten poorer and poorer, the wealthiest One Percent have got richer and richer. That’s why the United States and Europe have not joined the Global Majority but are trying to fight against its demonstration that there is a better alternative for civilization.
The NATO West’s ruling elites have overplayed their hand. By treating the rest of the world as an enemy for resisting U.S.-sponsored control, this diplomacy has driven other countries together to create an alternative. That alternative involves creating alternative institutions to the International Monetary Fund in a BRICS central bank to deal with inter-government balance of payments relations.
It involves a new Bank for Economic Acceleration as an alternative to the World Bank, a bank to finance their own economic development by creating its own credit system to the global majority increase its infrastructure, agricultural and industrial investment. It also requires a new International Court of Justice to prevent oil companies and mining companies from polluting countries and resist being charged to pay for the cleanup costs that they’ve caused in their drive for quick natural-resource rents.
Ultimately, the Global Majority needs to create an alternative to the United Nations itself. All these institutions – the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank – are subject to American veto power. The United States has long announced that a central tenet of its foreign policy is that it will not join any institution that it can’t control by vetoing if they do something that does not benefit the United States.
In the last few days, President Putin has proposed creation of a BRICS parliament. The aim is to create a large group of countries that will design a new set of the rules of how an international economy should work. President Putin also said that the United Nations has a good set of rules, but the United States has vetoed their application in practice. The fact that the United Nations doesn’t have an army has left it powerless to resist the U.S., Ukrainian and Israeli violations of basic international law.
This emerging alternative BRICS group certainly will leave the United Nations to operate on the sidelines, but the “real” reformed United Nations will consist of the group of the global majority and its own set of institutions, acting as a unit in which the United States does not have veto power. That will transform the dynamic of how most of the world’s economies operate.
All this is an area that economists don’t talk about. Academic economics has become tunnel visioned, with simplistic ideas of government spending, inflation, money and credit, all without a concept of economic rent as unearned income to be minimized rather than made the foundation for financial fortunes.
The Western dynamic of “wealth creation” has been to raise real estate prices on credit. The middle class is told that it is getting richer as its housing prices rise, yet the effect is to prevent new wage-earners from joining the middle class unless they inherit their housing from their parents. The economic discipline no longer talks about how a country can actually enrich itself. So what the Global Majority needs is really a New Economics,
Luca Placidi:
Thank you, Professor. There’s one other topic that is very important and that we are seeing at this moment. That is what is happening in Palestine, between Palestine and Israel and the war that they call “against Hamas” while they seek to drive out or destroy the entire Palestinian population.
Michael Hudson:
When politicians from the United States to Germany and other European countries talk about the Ukrainian war or what is happening to Palestinians right now, there is a uniform a bipartisan alignment. Trump is saying what Biden is saying, and so is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. That is to support Israel up to the end, and also Ukraine.
Yet the whole world has been shocked by the genocide that the Israelis are waging not only in Gaza but on the West Bank. Their brutality, the bombing of the hospitals, the assassination of reporters and journalists so that the world can’t see what is happening has catalyzed the world’s moral outrage that is setting its identity against that of the NATO West.
The attack against Palestinians is with American bombs, just as is the case with Ukraine’s and NATO’s attack on Russian-speaking territories. So it’s not simply Israel that is attacking Palestine. This is primarily an American attack. You can think of it as a logical extension of the U.S. attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria.
The common denominator is the American view that Israel serves as a U.S. landed aircraft carrier to control Near Eastern oil. If the United States can maintain control of the Middle East and its oil trade, it will retain the power to turn off the power of other countries by cutting them off from oil. As I explained earlier, oil has been a key to American power for the past century.
That is the military reason why the United States is backing Israel in dropping American bombs on Gaza, while the U.S. intelligence spy network is telling them where to bomb. American strategists have long followed the strategy that in order to win, you have to bomb the hospitals first.
The idea is not simply to kill the enemy population, but to cripple its members with anti-personal bombs to leave a lasting overhead cost in supporting women and men who are maimed for life. And most important is to bomb the children, so that they will not grow up to wreak retaliation.
The idea of making other Palestinians take care of crippled children who had their legs blown off or lost their arms is so inhuman, so against the most basic principle of civilization, that it has acted as a catalyst for other countries breaking away.
On July 25, 2024, Israeli President Netanyahu was invited to the U.S. Congress to ask for its military support for his planned attack on Lebanon and his hope to drag America into an attack on Iran. He put the issue in a way that I think you and I can agree on: Having killed or wounded as many as 180,000 Palestinians in Gaza and accelerated settler murders and destruction of Palestinians and their property on the West Bank, he explained that, in words reminiscent of Rosa Luxemburg: “This is not a clash of civilizations, it’s a clash between barbarism and civilization, between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.”
I think that this is precisely what is at stake. Netanyahu and his neocon supporters in the U.S. Congress who invited him indeed have thrown down the military gauntlet threatening the world with yet new U.S. and Israeli violence against the Middle Eastern oil-producing countries.
Today’s buildup to such a war threatens the entire world with a new barbarism.
There already was a sort of tendency for the rest of the world, for Asia and the Global South to hope that somehow they could make do without making the enormous intellectual and moral break from the West. The feeling was that somehow they could survive through all this at least for the short run, as if things might somehow go back to some semblance of normal instead of continuing to polarize.
But what is happening in Israel the joint Israel-American attack on Palestine has shocked much of the world into realizing that this is what the United States might to do them, just as it’s what the US/NATO countries are doing to by fighting to the last Ukrainian. U.S. support for exterminating the Palestinians simply in order to use Israel as an arm to keep U.S. control of Middle Eastern oil is what is so abhorrent.
What is not to stop the Israelis from taking over Saudi Arabia and its oil, the Emirates, Kuwait, much as America did in Chile and Argentina to take over their minerals and land while assassinating labor leaders, land reformers and economics professors opposing Chicago School neoliberalism. The joint Israel and Ukraine wars have given a sense of urgency for other countries to realize that they have to act now in order to avoid a similar fate.
Other countries can’t simply be passive, because what is happening to the Palestinians can happen to all of them. That’s the degree to which Americans will go to maintain their global control. That’s why they are funding the Israeli attack on Palestine and the Ukrainian attack on Russian speakers. The Americans are providing the bombs and other weaponry, subsidizing their armies. This is what is creating the sense of urgency that is catalyzing the World Majority to realize that they can’t must act more rapidly and decisively to make a real break.
Luca Placidi:
Professor, I know that you’re extremely busy, so thank you very much. I want to thank you again, and I hope to have more time with you to go deeper on those topics. Thank you.
Michael Hudson:
Well, thank you. I hope we’ll have a chance to have a follow-up for all of this.
Luca Placidi:
We will, absolutely. Thank you very much.
Michael Hudson:
Well, thank you again for having me.
Preppy Tonk looked at her rival with an evil twinkle in her eye.“What?”“Nothing.”“I see that evil twinkle in your eye again.”“No. It must be the burning hot sun reflecting off your chromed head.”“Nuh-uh.”“Yeah- huh,” Preppy Tonk shot back.“Whatever, lets continue.“King to knight rook.”The purple slug looked down at the holographic chess board. “Poopy-doodles, you win again!”“Yaysies-daisies!””If this was Earth Chess, I’d kick your butt!” Jon exclaimed, wiggling his fat, dripping eyestalks.“Yeah, but the author doesn’t know how to play chess and that would require research and he’s too lazy.”“Yeah, I guess you’re right, but you’re still a silly.” Jon stuck his slimy purple tongue out.“Am not!”“Are too!”“Am not!”“Are too!”
“Well, let’s have a trace then.”
“Trace?”
“No, a race! Goddamn u, author. Fix your typos!”
“Yeah, you ready, Enourghipool… er, Preppy Tonk?”
“You know it, Jon!” she said and stretched her furry brown legs.
“Your silver eyes look like pools of mercury.”
“Thanks? I guess?” Crouching down in racing position, Preppy Tonk lifted her leg.
“Did you, make a stinky?”
“Yes, … I… did!”
‘”It smells like rotten eggs.”
Preppy Tonk’s face turned red.
“You made a stinky, you made a stinky!”
“Whatever.”
“Ready…” Jon announced as a star shot through space.
Preppy Tonk’s muscles tensed up.
“Set…”
“I know what comes next!” Preppy Oblanka Tonk smiled.
“Go!” Jon whispered.
“Run!”
“Jump!”
“Kick!”
“Touch the stars!”
“Look into the sun!”
“How? I’m blind.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Why did you claim you were blind then?”
“Cuz I’m goofy!”
“But you’re not a hobo dog.”
“Goofy isn’t a hobo.”
“Oh , what is he?”
“A goofy dog, duh!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I know these things,” Preppy Tonk whipped her huge head back with confidence.
“Oh, so you’re a professional now?”
“Yeppers.”
“Good grief!”
“Oxymoron, oxymoron, oxymoron!”
“Hey, that’s not nice!”
“No, an oxymoron is contradictory terms.”
“Oh, why is it called that then?”
“I don’t know. Do I look like an English professor?”
“I’m not sure how to take that…”
The two rivals panted as they ran throughout space. They passed an orange planet, then a blue one made of hot dogs, and finally, Earth.
“Stop describing everything!”
“Who are you talking to, sis?” Jon asked as a drifting robotic Golden retriever passed in between them.
“Our creator again. He keeps describing the scene,” Preppy Tonk replied.
“Isn’t he supposed to do that?”
“Yeah, but it’s getting annoying!”
“So? We’re competing against each other. That’s more important, right?”
“I guess so,” Preppy Tonk said, biting her blue puffy lip.
“Atta girl,” Jon replied and patted her on the back.
“Hey, how can you pat me on my back? I thought you were ahead of me.”
“Uh… I forgot that explanation.”
“Did you?… or did the author forget?”
“I have no cosmic idea, Preppy Tonk.”
“I thought you knew everything.” She raised an eyebrow.
Preppy Tonk glared at her opponent.
“You know, for an alien slug, you sure are fast!”
“Hmm, alien slug…. Where have I heard that before?”
“Maybe in a book about kids who can turn into animals?” shrugged Preppy Tonk.
“Almost at the finish line!” Jon said with glee.
“How can you tell?” Preppy Tonk asked, putting her hairy claws together.
“Checkered line coming up!” Jon pointed straight ahead with his slimy antennae.
“Oh, just cuz there’s a checkered line means the end of the race?” Preppy Tonk said, putting her paws on her brown meaty hips.
“Yes that’s the rule,” Jon said, adjusting his squared glasses.
“Well… OK,” Preppy Tonk said as she scratched her ear.
“Have an itch?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I have an itch, too.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah-uh!” Jon said, passing a large pink asteroid.
“Well, then, where’s your itch, huh?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“Ew.”
“OK, OK, it’was my arm,” Jon smiled.
“Oh, that’s not bad.”
“It itches more than yours,” Jon said, scratching his arm.
“Nuh-uh, mine itches more.”
“Let’s finish the race!” Preppy Tonk exclaimed.
Jon ran through a hoop, jumped over the fence, and hauled through lava.
“I win! I win!” Preppy Tonk did the macarena.
“You cheated.” Jon pouted.
“No, I didn’t!
“Yes, you did!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“OK, I believe you,” Jon said.
“Knock knock,” Preppy Tonk whispered.
“Who’s there?” Jon asked.
“Dwayne.”
“Dwayne who?”
“Dwayne the bathtub, I’m dwowning!”
Jon laughed like a hyena. “Mine’s better!”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, a duck walked into a bar and ordered some quackers. When the waiter asks her how she will pay, the duck says ‘put it on my bill.’”
“Not funny at all, my rival.”
“Humor is subjective, so I win!” Jon blew a raspberry at her.
“How old are you?” asked Poppy Tonk.
“I am an adult.”
“Cool, I’m a kid.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really!”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“Sing baa baa black sheep.” Preppy Tonk started singing.
“You have a beautiful voice!”
“And?”
“And what?”
“AREN’T YOU GONNA SING?”
“No, why would I do that?”
“I thought we were competing,” Preppy Tonk said and sneezed.
“Oh, yeah, goofy me. I forgot. By the way. Bless you or gazoontite, or whatever.”
“Thanks, wait… Goofy?”
“The author‘s getting tired of ‘silly’.”
“But, he used it.”
Preppy Tonk shrugged. “It’s his story.”
“Oh, OK.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I like that word very much!”
“I do too, but let’s move on.”
“Alright, wanna have a tickle fight?”
“You know I do!”
She tickled his foot. “Geetsa-geetsa… Hey, look, a tree; it’s floating in space,” Preppy Tonk said and floated to it and she giggled. “Stop.” Grabbed an apple. “This will knock your socks off!” She started juggling.
“Oh yeah?” Jon said as he cocked an eyebrow. “Watch this!” He grabbed the tree and shook it until every apple detached and floated into space.
“Impressive?”
“Thank you. I’m the King.”
“King of what?”
“King of Apple!”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, really.”
“Well, I‘m the Queen of Blueberry Squash Pie.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Wanna keep going?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“We made it to the thousandth word!”
As a babysitter, what was your, “Okay, that’s the last time I babysit for this family,” moment you had during a childcare job?
When I was about 13, a lady a block over (someone I didn’t know but lived on the same street as other people that I babysat) wanted me to babysit her 8 or 9 yo son 3 days a week over the summer while she worked. The first day was MISERABLE and I told her I wasn’t coming back.
The kid was unmedicated ADHD with no accommodations/schedule/discipline in place. He was a Tasmanian devil – literally bounced off walls, jumped on/hit/kicked you if you said no to something, was destructive to everything. The kids on his block (the ones I babysat for) refused to play with him b/c he was too rough (and these were rough and tumble kids – 7 kids close in age, but they had awareness and empathy for others).
From what I learned later, he’d been kicked out of every camp and daycare that she enrolled him in and school was pretty close. How this mother thought that an 8th grader would be able to handle him for 9 hours every day is beyond me.
I took him to the park where he pushed kids off swings and down the slide rather than wait his turn. We left the park and he proceeded to run into the street b/c he was mad that I said we had to leave b/c of his behavior, after he hit and kicked me when I was holding his hand.
He threw his lunch around the house and smashed it into the carpet, tore up a board game, threw the neighbor kids’ (my usually charges) ball down the gutter when we went outside b/c they didn’t want to play with him, tossed a blanket over me from the indoor jungle gym they had in the basement and jumped on me repeatedly, and so much more!
Then mom was 2 hours later than she said she would be and hadn’t answered the phone when I called. I was exhausted and done.
She paid less per hour than most of the other parents paid for nighttime babysitting when the kids were asleep and then only paid me for the hours she scheduled me for, not the extra hours since she was late. When she got home, I said that I wouldn’t be coming back and wouldn’t recommend anyone.
Now I know that this kid could not control himself and we didn’t have as much information as we have today on ADHD, but the parents were decidedly the problem in this equation – there’s only so much a young teenage kid can do.
ETA: I should mention that this was probably 1991 or 1992 – I don’t remember if it was the summer before or after 8th grade.
Men Are Course Correcting the Dating Market
Why do Chinese users have Zhihu instead of Quora?
I am a Chinese citizen who also happens to be a content creator on both Quora and Zhihu. Zhihu, often referred to as the Chinese version of Quora, once had a similar UI layout and community atmosphere to Quora. As of July 27, 2024, I have around 14,000 followers on Zhihu. This is because I have shared over 500 answers on family education and adolescent learning issues over the past year. While 14,000 followers is not a number to boast about, it at least indicates that I am a dedicated Zhihu user.
However, if we look solely at the growth rate of followers, my follower count on Quora has increased significantly faster than on Zhihu. This month marks my third month of writing on Quora, though my writing has been occasionally interrupted by work. For instance, I took a break from Quora writing for the past 14 days due to a family trip. Despite this, I have gained 1,200 followers and accumulated 1.5 million views. I am quite satisfied with these numbers, especially considering my limited English proficiency and reliance on translation tools for complex sentence structures. I can only attribute this success to the large number of friendly users on Quora. They are willing to read my articles about Chinese life, tolerate my poor English, and often put up with sentences that have a machine-translated feel. Nonetheless, they encourage me and provide detailed feedback and suggestions.
Even some users who are biased against China have written lengthy comments on my posts. Although I often completely disagree with their views, I still find their input valuable. Writing lengthy critiques at least shows they are real, communicative individuals rather than bot accounts. Therefore, I also want to express my gratitude to those who criticize me.
In this regard, the community atmosphere on Quora is better than on Zhihu. Zhihu’s official policies seem more focused on directing traffic towards profitable content. Of course, I do earn some income from my writing on Zhihu each month. However, this profit-driven community model brings some issues. The main problem, in my view, is that genuine, selfless sharing rarely gets sufficient traffic, which discourages many high-value users. It’s hard to imagine a community that doesn’t encourage serious writing being favored by knowledgeable individuals.
My most popular article on Zhihu received 60,000 “upvotes” and was bookmarked 130,000 times, bringing me millions of views. But I consider this an anomaly. In many cases, I need to rely on luck rather than writing quality to gain significant traffic distribution on Zhihu.
Chinese commercial apps are involved in intense market competition, and most users’ leisure time is consumed by short videos or live streaming. Fewer people are reading text content. While I know Quora is also affected by this trend, the impact is more pronounced on Zhihu.
To my surprise, I found that some older users on Quora seriously read my articles and give enthusiastic responses. I am flattered by this. In China, many elderly people are stubborn and never admit their mistakes, leading to many family conflicts and hindering young couples from establishing good family relationships. Moreover, those over 70 in China were teenagers during the tumultuous period between the end of the ROC and the establishment of the PRC, making them almost illiterate.
However, the elderly users on Quora seem to remain passionate about understanding others’ perspectives and updating their knowledge. Just from their writing, it is hard to tell they are seniors. This has given me the best impression of elderly people in developed countries since I joined Quora. I am convinced this is a state only achievable in a highly developed society. In China, we may need to wait a few more years to reach this level.
Additionally, some Quora space administrators have invited me to join their spaces and share my articles, encouraging me to keep writing. It has been many years since I felt this kind of sincere interaction on the internet, where people come together out of interest rather than profit.
In summary, I will continue writing about parent-child relationships and adolescent learning issues on Zhihu. There are always people waiting for my writing, drawing inspiration from my words, and solving their life problems. I take pride in helping others.
At the same time, I will also continue writing on Quora because it allows me to experience the genuine interactions of the early internet days.
If I had to compare, I would say Quora is a community that cares more about its creators than Zhihu.
China Just Won the Future of South America With THIS New Move!
BRICS+ plus BRI
What was something that someone said or did that has changed you forever?
Back when I was an eleven-year-old in the 6th grade, I lived in a poor mountain community in Northern California. Most of the townspeople relied on the lumber mill to provide for their meager income. There were a lot of people barely scraping by on what little money came in.
Times were tough.
A lot of times the mill shut down and families were forced to move out of town to find employment elsewhere.
I lost a lot of friends that way.
Kids went hungry. There were a lot of skinny children up in those mountains. A lot of those kids were wearing shoes with holes in them.
In the snow.
Desperate times.
Judge Richard Eaton was an “old-timer” in Shasta County. A pioneer. He was an octogenarian with a kind heart and a flush bank account. He married my grandparents!
He was an avid outdoorsman and angler. He enjoyed coming up to the mountains to fish. Sometimes, he would stop by our small classroom and give nature lectures.
He would bring in a stuffed raccoon, or a taxidermied owl and set it up on a desk in front of the class and give his talks. We would sit wide-eyed, fascinated, listening to him describe how the animal hunted for food, or built a nest or comfortable burrow, warm enough to survive during the winter snows. He was a natural storyteller and had a way with words.
We would raise our little hands and ask question after question, enthralled and intrigued with his wisdom. We were always thrilled to have Judge Eaton stop by. We hugged him goodbye when it was time for him to leave. I’d see his wrinkled face break into a big grin as tears welled up in his eyes, hard to break away.
I could feel his pity for us skinny little waifs.
One day, a letter was sent home to all the parents in my class.
It said we had the opportunity to attend National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D) Camp for one week at no charge to the parents!
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This was an expensive gift to attend a weeklong camping adventure, what with meals, transportation, insurance and staff provided for an entire crop of school children!
The generous gift of partial scholarship, provided by Judge Richard Eaton, in cooperation with the Shasta County Board of Education, made it a possibility for every single child to attend, no matter their financial circumstance!
Exciting news!
N.E.E.D Camp was a place where the kids learned about the environment; survival skills in the wilderness, wildlife, geology, ecology, plant identification, weaving fish traps and shelter building, as well as learning how to use a compass and reading topographical maps. It was all covered in the week-long school.
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Before we left for camp, we were given a three- day supply of “ImmunOak” in our daily orange juice. Poison oak didn’t grow in the mountains, but was plentiful at N.E.E.D Camp. Back in those days, the FDA hadn’t yet banned the magic elixir, so I drank down my disgusting anti-venin like a good girl, and to this day, thirty-something years later, I still am immune to poison oak!
The day we departed, we were packed into a bus with all our gear, kids, teachers and high school counselors, and made the hour-and-a-half long journey to the camp. We arrived at camp, got our cabin assignments, and settled in for our first time away from home.
Goodbye Mommy!
It was great!
We caught tadpoles and learned about their development. We hiked seven mile loops, through caves (filled with bats) and over waterfalls, collecting specimens to write our reports in the field, amidst trickling creeks and wildflowers. We took water samples from the natural watershed and observed fish in the streams as we tried our hand at catching some in our homemade traps.
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We didn’t have any luck.
We watched the deer feeding on the grass right outside our cabin, and learned to identify species of birds. We glassed bald eagles and spied on squirrels and raccoons.
We were even dropped off, solo, without a light, on a pitch-black trail one dark night, and had to hike back, in the dark woods, alone, to find our way back to the rest of the group by ourselves. Frightening!
I was proud of myself that I didn’t cry.
This is stuff “city kids” don’t learn about in the classroom.
This wasn’t any regular classroom!
Judge Eaton spoke at the camp. He gave a slideshow on bears. It scared me to know I was out in the dark with them. It also made me proud. I learned survival skills at a very young age from N.E.E.D Camp.
Afterwards, while he was packing up his projector and the other kids had finally moved away from him, I got up the nerve to approach this gray-haired icon.
I said hello and introduced myself. I told him my grandparents names and told him he had married them long ago. He pretended to remember. He smiled at me kindly.
I thanked him for giving me a scholarship to attend N.E.E.D Camp. I told him I had learned so much and that I was very appreciative.
His eyes got wide and he looked shocked. He pulled me into a hug and knelt before me, eye-level.
“Child, in all these years I’ve been providing this fund, you’re the first young person to say those words. I appreciate hearing them, but I always want you to remember, that whenever you give a gift, you should never, ever expect to hear a word of thanks in return. Ever! Because the gift is in the giving, itself. Not in the praise we receive for giving it. Do not expect to be congratulated for it. Do you understand me?”
I nodded my head and turned away, disappointed in the rebuff.
What a weird, old guy!
Of course, I didn’t understand him, then.
I was only a child.
But I thought back to that moment over the years, and one day, I finally caught up to his wisdom.
I understand perfectly what he means now.
Beautiful.
Those simple words changed me forever.
When I give a gift, I don’t expect to receive accolades or thanks. I don’t expect the recipient to express gratitude or overwhelming graciousness; my heart already feels thankful for the beautiful blessing I’ve bestowed. And that’s a gift in itself. A gift I’ve given to myself.
By the time I had made it to high school, I had garnered such respect for N.E.E.D Camp, that I went back and volunteered as a camp counselor when I was seventeen.
Somehow, I was assigned a cabin of little boys, instead of girls.
Those little guys were a handful, but it was a great experience all over again.
Today, it is part of the curriculum of most Shasta County schools for their students to attend the camp. It is a requirement as part of passing the grade level.
Over 70,000 students have attended the camp over the years and have acquired basic outdoor skills other students in classrooms throughout the USA will never be required, nor even think are important to learn about!
Because those students aren’t mountain kids.
They probably don’t need to worry about being lost in any area bigger than a mall!
Like we do.
I’m thankful to both Judge Eaton and the Shasta County Board of Education for making a difference. N.E.E.D Camp quite possibly played a part in saving my life later on in life. And the experience changed me forever.
The Record Searchlight (April 11, 2011)
Since 1971, more than 70,000 students have increased their knowledge of environmental science after going through the weeklong camping experience at the Whiskeytown Environmental School in the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the school will host a free barbecue with live music and a history lecture Saturday.
Sponsored by the school and the Shasta Historical Society, the lecture will cover topics of interest before the school arrived amid the environmental revolution in the beginning of the 1970s. Clinton Kane, park ranger, will be the main speaker.
As a general campground in the mid-1900s, church youth groups seasonally used the area for a camp. Before this period, the land served as a stomping ground for the American Indian community. The history, Kane said, has yet to be fully recovered. “It’s still a work in progress in terms of learning about the history and putting it together,” he said. “I’d like to go as far back as to the mining use of the history, but it’s kind of sparse.”
During the Gold Rush era, the area became a major transportation route for miners heading toward Weaverville from Redding. Inside the park, miners, along with farmers and ranchers, worked on the mining hot spots during the 1850s.
The school, a National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D.) camp, specializes in improving environmental education for elementary and middle schoolchildren. “Facilities and institutions like the N.E.E.D. camp provide a special dimension to the youth of our community,” said Pat Carr, Shasta Historical Society lecture series coordinator. “Oftentimes, they aren’t going to get it in the classroom. This is an opportunity to take the classroom outdoors. And the fact that this has been going on for 40 years with 70,000 students makes us appreciate these extraordinary treasures that are in our mist.”
Fifth- and sixth-graders across several counties make reservations at the school for the overnight trips where students stay in cabins and enjoy campfires. During their stay, they build onto what they’ve learned of the environment in the classroom with hands-on activities with naturalists. This usually lasts a week. The school offers day camps for younger children starting at the kindergarten level.
With generations of children and later their children heading to the camp, Kane said it has become somewhat of a tradition for north state students.
“It’s kind of a tradition in Northern California,” he said. “But, unfortunately, with the budget crisis happening on the state and federal level, we don’t know if the school will continue as it did back in the day.”
A downward economy and budget cuts have decreased revenue for educational programs like this one. Whiskeytown may be one of the few N.E.E.D. camps left in the country, Kane said.
US American Reacts – Are We the Baddies?
What screams “I’m upper class”?
Good posture. If you look at how upper class people walk, they stand perfectly straight and have a graceful swing to their step.
Being very respectful with staff, waiters, taxi drivers etc.
Eating all sorts of different food and not being fussy about food. This is a very tell tale sign again, someone who’s reluctant about trying new food or has never tried foreign food is usually not upper class.
Being able to make small talk with basically anyone. This is an important skill to have and that we’ve learned by attending a lot of formal events.
Having impeccable table manners. This is the ultimate test and it will betray you instantly. Sitting up straight, no elbows on the table, knowing which cutlery to use, keeping your voice down etc. If you want to know within the very first seconds, look at whether they have put their napkin on their lap (correct) or left it on the table (rude) immediately after sitting down to eat. EDIT: Other table manners include: Not spreading out your elbows (keep them closed at all times), no singing, bringing your spoon/fork to your mouth and not the opposite, not cutting potatoes or salad with a knife (you fold the salad and use your fork to cut the potato), making small talk with your right hand neighbour at a dinner (they’re your official conversation buddy and the table plan will probably have been set up with this in mind) and not having a young or newly married couple sitting right next to each other during a formal dinner. An old fashioned one is also not to peel any fruits with your hands. One of my mom’s friends often mentions how, during her first dinner with her in laws, they offered her a peach for dessert and watched expectantly to see if she would know how to peel it using only her fork and knife.
NOT doing the “baisemain”. You know, that very supposedly classy way of greeting a woman by kissing her hand. There are very strict rules for when you are allowed to do it. It should be in a private environment and to greet a married lady only. Oh and your lips are not supposed to actually touch the hand. Otherwise it is considered very tacky and rude.
Not asking huge favours from other people. This is a weird one but it’s a “faux pas” that I notice all around me. It is not upper class behaviour at all to ask too much of a big favour from other people. You can ask someone to send you their notes for example, but don’t ask them to bring them to your place or type them out for you because they’re handwritten. Basically any favour that makes things too convenient for you and too much of an inconvenience for the other person is a no no.
Not showing off your money or luxury goods. It is not considered classy to wear anything that features the name or logo of a brand in a very ostentatious way. That is “Nouveau Riche” behaviour. Being upper class is all about being understated. That also applies to luxury hotels and exotic holidays. We don’t post about it on social media.
Being agreeable, polite and social. One of the most important things my mother taught me when I was a kid is that being shy is not an excuse for being rude. And it is definitely something that will make it very obvious whether you had an upper class upbringing or not. When you are talking to someone you know and a friend joins you but your interlocutor does not know them, you interrupt your conversation and introduce them, then make an effort to help them integrate the conversation. This might sound basic to a lot of you but I’ve noticed a lot of my middle class friends fail that test. Keeping to your own at social events is also not acceptable. Not thanking your host after a meal is not acceptable. Basically, get over your shyness.
It’s about experiences, not goods. Upper class people are well travelled, have done internships abroad, are doing all sorts of different activities outside of school, go to summer camps and are not afraid of taking risks.
They won’t tell you they’re upper class. Bragging about your social status is, again, Nouveau Riche behaviour.
Some MM art constructions
The theme is anointing,,,
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This next one is my favorite of the entire bunch.
@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(4)
Why do people believe China’s economy cannot recover when their onshore manufacturing industry is intact, and they are also improving on their high-end manufacturing?
Don’t look at the headlines
Look at what they are saying in the paragraphs
They are saying China can never go back to the days of higher growth
They are saying that China cannot go back to 12–14% growth that it had for a decade or so
The Headlines say Chinas Economy can’t Recover
Yet when to look at what RECOVERY MEANS, it’s always the old days of 12–14% growth
The Headlines are always misleading
China slowdown woes continue
This is the headline
Yet if you see slowdown, it always references to 2015/16 and comparisons
The common theme is China which once grew with double digits can’t grow beyond 5% a year today
It’s true of EVERY ECONOMY ON EARTH
The US has been growing at 1.5% – 2.5% a year for a long time whereas it grew at 9% in the 1960s and 7% in the 1970s
Likewise China grew at 12% when it’s economy was $ 6 Trillion. Now it’s $ 19 Trillion and three times larger so obviously growth will slow down to 5%
Maybe without the Real Estate Reforms it would have been 6% or 6.25% but that would have caused a long term headache
So look beyond the headline
Look at what they say
Except a few people like Gordon Chang or Serpentza or Peter Zheihan – 99% of the Economists always talk of Chinas underlying strength while saying it can’t go back to the old days
And the Mainstream Media keep deliberately manipulating the headlines
Parents Have MELTDOWN At Wedding When Son Exposes Them For Covering Up Brother Sleeping With Ex Wife
I love how men are supposed to humiliate themselves to protect OTHER PEOPLE’S image.
Who are some famous intellectual badasses?
It is quite hard not to admire Mark Twain. The man was incredibly clever and skilled in deconstructing damaging narratives and social constructions… everyone always speaks of the now-controversial “Huckleberry Finn”, but he also wrote another great book — the now shamefully forgotten Pudd’nhead Wilson.
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In Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain takes apart the “one drop rule” myth of black ancestry, and does so beautifully… two boys are mixed at birth, one fully white, the other of distant black ancestry. Twain dives into things like scientific racism, racial superioty, all themes incredibly controversial for his day and age — his Pudd’nhead Wilson was published in 1894. Huckleberry Finn was published ten years earlier, in 1884. And there, too, he deconstructed myths and humanized a part of the population (black people, former slaves) that too many in society saw as “lesser”.
Above we see Twain with his best friend, a former slave named John T. Lewis on whom he based some of his black characters. I would label Mr. Twain every inch the “intellectual badass”. If only for amazing quotes such as: “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” Or: “If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it!”
Mark Twain was the sort of no-nonsense, straightforward, razor-sharp wit that comes around perhaps once a century, if even that. He was the real deal. And he didn’t give a damn about what society thought of him — he was the very rarest of creatures: honest, genuine and true intellect expressed with eloquence unmatched.
Russia’s Harsh Response┃Putin Is Sending ZIRCON Long-Range Hypersonic Missiles To CUBA and VENEZUELA
Do you know anyone who won the lottery & what did they do with it?
I know a great man who won $3 million on a scratcher while Covid was coming on full swing.
At the time he was living in a small one bed apartment with his girlfriend, working part time at a gas station. They shared a beat up, out of date vehicle that drew attention from every police officer on the road.
Four months before this, they were hotel hopping weekly and barely able to feed themselves.
The day he got the check from the lottery office, he went to the bank and got set up with an account and an advisor and put 75% into a stock portfolio and used the rest to buy safe vehicles for himself and his girlfriend, as well as a home for the two to build a life in.
His main goal with his winnings is to never be homeless again and to always be able to provide for his family without worry. He set up a monthly transfer between two accounts to “pay” himself a budget and the rest is in a long term portfolio is designated for their retirement.
Two weeks later he left his job. Three weeks after that his girlfriend left her job and they moved into their new home.
They spent some time enjoying this weightlessness and traveling.
Four months after he cashed in, he proposed to his girlfriend. The only thing preventing him before was their lack of financial stability.
This august will be the 2 year anniversary of my husband’s winning ticket purchase.
I am back to working full-time now at a new job, which is a choice he knew I’d make quickly because of my own pride and desire to be productive.
My husband still enjoys his free time, and has been spending more time in nature and with his ‘brothers’ who need a positive male figure in their lives.—- -brothers by choice who ended up being wolves coming from the woodworks———edited 01/2023.
To this day, my husband will tell you that “God” didn’t give him that money. The “devil” did. It was a failed attempt at claiming his soul, but if the devil(evil) is out there, so is God(light/love). My husband chooses love and light every time.
—- update: it is now the beginning of 2023 and we are finally settling into where we want to be with finances and working toward new goals. We set ourselves up for low monthly bills in that first year, so that we can maintain our home and bills on our typical income with a little help from investment dividends. (I also highly recommend reading Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki).
We have had a huge gear switch in mentality as we are expecting to expand our family this year! We are beginning another round of reviewing our finances and spending habits in order to reframe our budget and prepare for what is to come!
Our “luck” has exposed many wolves that came rushing out of the woodwork and has left my husband’s circle dwindled. We found much strength in family, as well as solitude. We wish you all much love, light, and peace in the upcoming year!
The Divine Purpose of Cats | 6 types of cats that expel negative energy from your life!
Why hasn’t communism worked except in China?
The fucked up thing about this identify politics is to shoot the arrow first and draw the target later.
It’s an arrow called “this is communist” and wherever it is shot, it must be communist. It doesn’t matter if the target is communist, but it has to be, because there is an arrow called “this is communist” on it.
Western definition of communism is fucked up, for starter.
Communism is supposed to be, in the theory of Marxism, the ultimate form of human society. It can only be reached when the productivity of human race is in an unthinkable high level, where people wouldn’t be worried about survival anymore but can focus on distributing to the society.
It’s not that “communism will come and confisticate your private property and make you poor”, it should be that “when communism became feasible, people would not have to own private properties”. However, everything can be interpretated from different angle and perspective, thus came up with different conclusions.
USSR was socialist.
Vietnam is socialist.
Every so called communist country in human history is actually socialist, and so is China.
The very foundamental rule of social format is that the social structure must match with the social productivity.
If somehow a liberalism and capitalism believer time travelled to 5000 years ago, to a slavery society, would it be possible for this person to apply capitalism there? Assuming they could communicate.
The answer is No. A big, fat NO.
Because the social productivity of a slavery society simply cannot support the foundation of capitalism, mass production.
Same reason when China naively tried to practice communism to accelerate the development in 50’s. It’s called the Great Leap Forward, and we all know that it failed.
Public ownership of means of production in socialism is the result of productivity development, not the cause of it. Productivity cannot be raised by simply forcing people to contribute their personal belongings to the country.
Communist party of China learnt that through some painful lessons, and decided to embrace capitalism, hence the reform and open in 1978.
Karl Marx had written in his books that human society should be developed from capitalism to socialism and eventually to communism. Capitalism, in the period of low productivity, is very good to stimulate people’s motive and creation. But it also has its downside, such as the
Matthew effect:
It’s because the rich has means of production, which actually creates value.
Say a crafts person made a 500USD sword from a 50USD steel, 450USD got created through the smithing.
One the other hand, financial market doesn’t create value, but only to re-distribute the wealth from some people to the others.
For those who relying on the salary to live, all they can do after getting paid is to spend the money, and the money would flow back to the capitalists whom sell everything. However, the capitalists cannot spend all their money, thus the rich getting richer.
To solve this, China decided to keep the state-owned enterprises.
Their highest priority is not to make more profit, unlike every private company, but to maintain the control of the government over senstive and critical industries, and to provide social welfare. such as public transporation, water, electricity, etc.
China’s water, natural gas, and electricity prices are extremely stable, not long throughout a year, but can be stable for years. Because it’s closely related to the living standard of every Chinese, and can cause instability in society.
China Railway still executes the price standard of 2000’s for passengers. Chongqing North to Zhengzhou East, 1068KM, and the price for a second class seat in bullet train is 512RMB, or roughtly 70 USD. If taking the regular 120KMPH train and the regular seat, the price is 156RMB, or roughly 20 USD.
Government doesn’t care if China Railway loses money on passenger business, because it’s almost certain negative profit. As long as it keeps the punctuality and other service qualities, the government will be satisfied.
Farmers carrying their vege and other products going into the city for better prices. 40KM distance, it used to take them over 2 hours and 2 transit buses, and now is 22 minutes and only 1 USD.
There is another train in Hunan Province, specifically for farmers, which is free to take.
It’s not charity, but only the social responsibility of state-owned enterprises.
In China, after a natural disaster, say earthquake, we expect the government to establish tents within days, preferablly within the same day.
State grid would restore the electricity in a few hours to a few dozen hours.
China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom would re-establish cellphone network also in a few hours to a few dozen hours.
People’s Liberation Army are expected to be at the center as the first external rescue force, and they usually are.
Because of the constant investment in infrastructure from the state-owned enterprises, I haven’t experienced a blackout for years. The last time I remember having a blackout is probably 2013 or 2014. It was a summer night, and I slept in my car instead.
Sometimes, their service attitude may not be the best, but we can always count on them.
As for some other state-owned companies, they are also to be expected to have more profit, such as China National Machinery Industry Corporation, China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Sinochem Corporation, etc.
However, they also have another duty which is to lead the tech development of China.
China is the leading country in electricity related technology, especially ultra high voltage trasmission,
because China has the needs to move the electricity from the west to the east.
If the government decided to do so, the state-owned enterprises would have to execute the plan. There is no room for negotiation.
Also, with the rich renewable and clean energy sources in west China, state-enterprises had to develop their state of art electricity generation technologies. Some creations are already out of this world and entered Sci-Fi area, like this melt salt tower plant.
Besides all the critical sectors, China went full-on capitalist mode.
There are already some leading Chinese private companies being very active on world stage, such as:
Each of them is a pain in the ass for the US government, because of being too competitive.
There are many more, but most of them are not well known to the general public.
China’s real structure is socialist bones with capitalist flesh.
It’s certainly not communist.
Because communism is the ultimate goal, not the process.
AIR SUPPORT – Retro Pulp Science Fiction by Skyward, 1966, Mixed Film Parameters, Style Experiments
What is the most regrettable thing you’ve done out of curiosity?
When I was in eighth grade, I had a “friend” (She declared us as friends, and I didn’t deny it) that couldn’t feel “the hot stuff on the stove”, meaning she wouldn’t get burned when touching a stove top.
Well, at least that’s what she had said.
One day, she decided to self invite herself to my house.
“Amon. I’m coming over to your house after school. Text me your address”.
“Uhh, okay?”.
But before the story unfolds, you need to know that I have an electric stove:
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(The exact one)
On the glass, there’s a little light in the center that turns red when the top is hot, to give a warning.
Anyway.
I went home, cleaned, ordered food so I wouldn’t have to bother anyone to cook (So I wouldn’t have to do the dishes, too).
After about 2 hours, she had finally showed up.
We did normal things; talk, prank-call people (*67, y’all), use the PlayStation, etc etc.
“I don’t want to sound rude, but do you have food?”, she asked.
“Duh”.
“…Well gimme some”.
I rolled my eyes and brought the Taco Bell I was hiding in the kitchen to my room.
“Wait- I don’t eat fast food…”, she told me.
“Bruh, why are you te- ok, fine; more for me. What do you want?”.
“I want to COOK! By myself!”, she yelled.
“Woah, woah, girl. Chill, I’m not trying to do the dishes when you leave, okay? Let’s just thin-”
“Please? Don’t worry, I’ll clean them after”.
I glared, and after a while, I agreed.
Surprisingly, she was actually a great cooker…er, chef.
She knew what she was doing on the stove.
Once she had finished using it, she turned it off, but the little light was still red.
“By the way, do you know I can’t feel things, like, hot things?”, she told me.
“What’s wrong with you, what the heck? Prove it”, I demanded.
“I’ll show you later; let’s just eat now”.
I decided to lie to her.
“Me too, I can’t feel them either”.
“Oh yeah? Then put your entire hand on the stove”.
I laughed, wondering if I should just run, and walked to the stove.
One, two, three! I placed my entire hand flat on the stove.
“Hey, se-”.
Cue the screaming.
Thankfully, my hand was okay, and wasn’t burned at all.
I learned to a) Not invite that girl over again, and b) not trust every word people say.
Yeah, there are a few people who actually can’t feel pain, but she definitely wasn’t one of them.
I learned it the hard way.
Edit: Lololol, stop calling me dumb omg lmao, I knew it was hot, and I didn’t lose my common sense. I just didn’t want to admit that I was lying to her.
UNBELIEVABLE Infrastructure | China’s MIND-BLOWING metro station
When I moved to my house in Tanzhou, we had to pack up everything and move it. Right? Well, that is exactly what I did.
And, in the refrigerator was four dozen eggs.
They would never survive the jolting ride back to our new home. So I had this idea. I would boil all the eggs and then eat hard boiled eggs for a spell.
And so I did exactly that.
…
Now, every day, I rode the bus to my office and back from my office. It was a two hour drive.
And I had eaten four eggs that morning.
And on the way from the office, suddenly I felt a gurgling in my stomach. And it was getting really… really BAD.
Still, I had an hour and a half to go.
Gurgling. Pressure. Pain.
One hour to go.
Why is the bus taking so long? Oh it’s a garbage granny. Gurgle.
Fourty five minutes left.
What? A road block and detour?
Gurgle. Pressure building…
One half hour left.
Thudding explosions in my gut.
Fifteen minutes…
Oh my God… I didn’t know if I could ever hold it in…
Ten minutes.
Pain!!!!!!
Five minutes…
Little old lady trying to cross the street. Bus stopped. She’s confused, goes back the other way….
I see the bus stop ahead.
What? Why is this fucking car stopped int he middle of the road!
Finally we arrive. I get out and it is taking everything to keep my butt cheeks clenched shut.
I know I cannot make it home.
But there is a public restroom.
I run to it.
What????
The Men’s restroom is closed for repairs!!!!
So I run into the woman’s restroom.
Into a stall.
And Ka-Boom! Splash!
Holy Shit.
I mean it! Holy Good golly!
My shit completely filled up the toilet and overfilled the rim!!!!
I must have shit out 20 kilos!
Guys… Don’t you ever eat old eggs. I think they must have been three weeks old. But no excuses. Don’t ever think about it!
Trust me on that!
Today….
What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter?
A father speaks…
I confronted the father of my daughters bully.
Although my daughter at 12 is not technically a teenager yet. Her bully was.
She started high school last year and was really excited. From September to Christmas break she was full of confidence and loved the new school.
Turn of the year and it all changed. My daughter caught the school bus each day as usual. But she wasn’t her usual self, she was very quiet, off her food, wasn’t sleeping and made excuses not to go to school.
I contacted the school to see if they’d noticed anything. They mentioned she was quiet since the Christmas break and would monitor it.
Then by chance I happened to be home from work early and went to meet my daughter from the school bus. I fought hard to contain my rage. I couldn’t believe what I saw. A girl about two years older than my daughter was dragging her by her hair and screaming in her face calling her names.
I knew that any physical contact with the girl would result in me being the one in trouble. So, I shouted out my daughter’s name. The girl froze and let go of my daughter. I rushed over to my daughter who was crying and put myself between the two girls.
Then I had an idea. Quick as a flash I removed the bully’s designer trainers. I told her she could have them back when her dad collected them. She tried ways of getting them back off me and left with torrent of foul and abusive language.
Around an hour later there was a thumping knock on my door. My daughter shouted it was the bully and her dad. I opened the door to a similar torrent of language to that of the bully.
So,a swift left kick to groin dropped him to his knees. Followed by a downward right punch to the bridge of his nose. He was left reeling in ball of blood,snot and tears. I threw the trainers at the bully and said that that was just a warning. If my daughter was ever bullied again, I would hunt him down and beat him up again.
Needless to say, my daughter returned to school and she started enjoying herself again.
Edit.
Thank you for all the messages of support.
As a victim of bullying all through my school life,I wasn’t about to let my daughter suffer too.
I’m not a confrontational person and can probably count on one hand how many fights I’ve had in my whole life.
But something just snapped that day. The implications if it had backfired on me could have been worse. But it was a risk I was prepared to take to protect my daughter.
Edit No2.
Sorry for the confusion.
Trainers here in the UK are short for Training Shoes.(Sneakers,pumps,itchy dabbers,runners etc)
One in Five
What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter? –2
A father speaks…
My 15 year old daughter came home from Knott’s Berry Farm one night around midnight in tears. Someone had stolen her iPhone while she and her friends were on a ride and she was worried I would be mad.
I told her to hold on for a moment, went to my computer for Find My iPhone, and told her, “I found it. Let’s go.” She asked where and I told her, “To get your iPhone. It’s at an apartment complex in Santa Ana.”
We found the apartment building and I called the police. I brought them up to speed and they said they’d meet us at a gas station about a mile away. My daughter was starting to see some hope.
Three police cars showed up and, after I showed him where the phone was, the officer in charge said we could park down the street and watch. So we did.
It was about 2:30a and the lights were still on in the apartment for some reason.
The lead cop went upstairs and pounded on the door. A middle aged guy answered the door and the cop said a stolen phone was inside the apartment and he wanted it brought to the door (he told us later). My daughter and I heard the guy yell, “Anybody have an iPhone that doesn’t belong to you?” After a few seconds, he shook his head “no”.
The officer told us he said, “Look, I know it’s in there. So you can either bring it out, or I’ll stand here until the search warrant arrives and we’ll go in and find it ourselves.”
We saw the door close and less than a minute later the guy handed the officer my daughter’s phone. He brought it down and my daughter logged in to prove it was hers.
She couldn’t believe we actually got her phone back, but I was committed to fixing this so my daughter wouldn’t become a victim.
We got home about 4am, but neither of us was tired – LOL.
I know everything worked out in the exact way it had to for us to succeed, but it was a great lesson for my daughter about standing up for yourself and taking appropriate action. She continues to be a very empowered individual and I like to think I had a hand in that.
Husband Was Blinded To Wife’s Double Life Until Reddit Gave Him A Clue
Learn some things.
What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter? –3
A father speaks…
Although she is 20 now, my daughter learned, at age 8, that no matter how scary the bully on the bus seemed, her daddy is a force of nature.
I was home on a rare occasion when she got off the bus, visibly shaken, and crying. She didn’t want to tell me what happened because she was afraid… it was traumatic! She feared a lot of things, in this moment.
A kid 5 years older, put her on the floor, at the back of the school bus, and stepped on her throat.
She was terrified. She thought she’d get in trouble, he would do more if she told, that he might hurt someone in her family, and the worst fear was that NO ONE would believe her.
She broke down and told me, after I calmed her. I assured her that this is a problem that I could solve, and asked her where this boy lived. She told me.
I told her to get into the truck. To be honest I was wildly livid under a calm mask. I’m 6′3″ and close to 300lbs and someone just hurt my BABY!
I take her to the the porch of the run down trailer, where this boy lived and knocked on the door. A man answered. I was sweating under a very serious calm. I asked if he was (blank)’s father. He said he was. I said, we have a serious problem. He needs to come out here as well.
I told my daughter to tell them exactly what happened. Then I told them that kind of behavior is extremely unacceptable. The father could sense that I was on the verge of doing something he might go to the hospital over if this wasn’t addressed immediately, so he not only adressed the issue… he punished the boy, and made him appologize to her immediately.
After this, the boy was very courteous to her on the bus and she had no more issues with bullies at school. She carries a confidence with her today, and knows how to handle situations like this because of the way I kept my cool. Despite my rage, I got my point across in an assertive manner, and got results without having to take further action than addressing the issue.
In all honesty, keeping calm was the hardest part for me but it got the results I wanted, so right or wrong, my daughter takes this with her today, so I call that a win in the badass column.
Favorite Chicken Tetrazzini
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Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
2 onions, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
1 (16 ounce) can tomatoes
4 tablespoons chili powder
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
3/4 cup sharp cheese, shredded
1 pint light cream
Pinch of baking soda
1 (4 to 6 pound) chicken
16 ounces thin spaghetti, cooked
Instructions
Sauté butter, onion and pepper. Add tomatoes and seasonings. Cook slowly until sauce thickens; add cheese and light cream with a pinch of baking soda, cooking a little longer.
Boil chicken. Cool, then pull pieces from chicken.
Butter large casserole and line with part of the cooked spaghetti. Layer chicken, tomato sauce, more spaghetti and cheese. Continue until all is used, ending with sauce and topped with cheese.
AuroraThe Crystal Viper shuttered as Darries put her into a dive, expertly avoiding the lasers that were flying passed us. Our attacker had appeared out of nowhere and started shooting at us without as much as a hello.“Who have you annoyed now?” Darries snapped at me, “Didn’t I tell you that your flirty ways are going to get us in trouble one of these days.”“Oh, shut up and drive.” I snapped back, pushing the button for the transmitter again, “For the second time, this is Captain Aurora North and the Crystal Viper. Stop firing on my ship and identify yourself.”The only response was another volley of lasers firing at us. I couldn’t recall upsetting anyone, recently anyway. I charged up our own weapons and tried again to hail our attacker. I didn’t feel like blowing him up unless I really needed too. “Crystal Viper to offending ship. Last chance to explain yourself.”To my surprise, we finally got a response. “Don’t think you can fool us by having your little girlfriend hail us, Zell. We want our cargo back, and we want it now!”Not this again. I swore loudly to Darries. “You are looking for the Black Viper, there, my friend. This ship is the Crystal Viper.” I swear that when I got my hands on Zell, I would make him pay for every scorch mark that had ever been put on my hull due to him. It seemed like every other day, someone was mixing up our vessels and trying to blow us out of the solar waves because of something that he did.There was a long pause, and they must have been checking for our transponder. The attacker could look all they wanted, but like most of the ships in the area, ours was modified not to give off a reading unless we wanted it too. People didn’t need to know who we are unless we wanted them to know. I nodded at Darries to turn it on.Finally, there was another response. “How do we know this transponder signal is real?”“Listen, I couldn’t give a flying frag if you believe me or not. I just would rather not take the time blowing you out of the stars if I don’t have to.”“We…apologize for the confusion.” The voice still sounded like he didn’t believe me, but he could also tell that my weapons were stronger, and that fact did tend to settle disagreements with other ships. We kept our arms powered up until the other vessel had fired up their engines and left our area in space.There was a ding on our console, and Darries swore when he looked down. “Yaffa is getting impatient. He says that if we don’t get to Maia Station soon, that he will give the job to any other ship that happens to be around.”“Onward, Jeeves.” I grinned at him. Darries rolled his eyes, and he gunned our engines. It was a short hop to Maia Station. We should be there in plenty of time.ZellI was whistling to myself as I finished docking my ship at Maia Station. The Black Viper was squeezed between two other ships that made her look small. She might be small, but she had a big bite. Anyone who dared cross us soon learned why we are called the Viper.My co-pilot and I were at the station to sell some cargo that we had acquired on another job. Mikell was already down on the station, settling up payment with our broker.I exited my ship, hoping to have time to wet my whistle before we had to head back out. Maybe I would also have time to get a gift for my wife, it has been far too long since I saw her last.As I walked across the ship bay, I was confronted by a smaller man in a sharp suit. He had an annoyed look on his face and was tapping his foot impatiently.“It is about time that you are here! We have been waiting for the Viper for hours! You know Yaffa is not a patient man. Now, sign this manifest, and we will get the cargo loaded up.” The man did not wait for my response but turned and barked some orders at some waiting droids.
I smothered a smile, this was perfection. This little man must have been waiting for the Crystal Viper. That ship and her captain had stolen a few jobs from me last month. I could get payback and get paid at the same time.
“So sorry, we are late.” I took the manifest and signed my name, I needed Captain Aurora North to know who stole her stuff. “We will take off as soon as we are loaded.”
I messaged Mikell that we needed to take off ASAP. Her response cannot be repeated in polite company. At least she got further than ten feet from the ship. I would not be able to get my drink.
In short order, we had unloaded one set of cargo and loaded the other cargo. Mikell was back with our money. She glared at me from under her mop of short purple hair as she flopped into her pilots’ chair.
“Five more minutes, Zell, five more minutes, and I would have had our broker wrapped around my finger. I would have doubled our money off this score too. Who did you steal this new cargo from?”
“A man on deck thought we were the Crystal Viper here to pick up some cargo. Now, who am I to correct his error?” I smirked at her “Now, let’s get out of here before the real Crystal Viper gets here.” With that, I fired up our engines and headed off. We really would need to find a place to sell this newly acquired cargo. My wife would need to wait for her gift.
Aurora
I signaled Yaffa as soon as we were in orbit around the station. It had taken us longer then I would have liked to get here. Our attacker had been lurking and trying to follow us, so we had to lose him before we could get to the station.
Yaffa’s confused face was soon on our viewport. “Aurora? Why are you back? Is there something wrong?”
I blinked at him, “Back? What are you talking about? We just got here.”
Yaffa turned and barked at his one aid, “Didn’t you tell me that the Crystal Viper had arrived and picked up my cargo?”
“Yes, yes, master. The Viper and her Captain West. They left just a few minutes ago.”
I let out a loud groan, “You moron. That was the Black Viper and the frustrating Zell West. “
Yaffa let out a string of swears in his native language. “Are you telling me that my cargo was stolen?” He leveled a glare at his aid that promised a lot of pain later. Then he switched that glare to me, “This would never have happened if you were here on time!”
“Don’t blame me for your aids stupidity.” I met his glare with one of my own. Then I turned to Darries, “Can you find any trace of where the Black Viper went?”
He tapped on his console for what felt like forever. Then he grinned and looked up at me, “It’s faint, but I have a lock on what way they went.”
I sat back in my chair, “Let’s go get our cargo.” I swear that Zell goes out of his way to annoy me most of the time. How dare he take my stuff.
Zell
“Will you stopped that never-ending whistling?!” Mikell’s green eyes were aflame, glaring at me. “I will throw you out of the nearest airlock if you don’t!”
I held up my hands in submission. Mikell looked back down at her own console, muttering in her native language. I enjoyed the view of stars passing the viewport when a ship dropped out of hyperspace next to us. Our transmitter buzzed, whoever this is wanted to talk.
Mikell opened a channel, and before I could say anything, a sappy love song came over the line.
Whoever was singing, it was horribly off-key. The singing went on for a painfully long time. My fingers itched to fire some laser at the ship just to stop the noise.
A very nasally voice came over the line when the singing finally stopped. “Aurora, my princess, please return to me.”
Mikell was silently laughing in the seat next to me, I rolled my eyes and toggled the transmitter.
“Hey, lover boy, you have the wrong Viper. This is the Black Viper. You are looking for the Crystal Viper.”
“Please put my princess on the line.” The voice was somehow even more annoying than the singing. “I need to hear the crystal tones of my princess.”
“No princess here. And you better get some singing lessons before you try this again. Now, skedaddle before I really get annoyed.” I powered up my weapons to get my point across.
The other vessel fell back but was still following us. Maybe he thought I was hiding his ‘princess.’ I swore under my breath. Typical Aurora. She probably flirted with this guy while that co-pilot of hers robbed him blind. And this shmuck was so lovesick, he couldn’t even tell that she had anything do with it. We got at least one broken-hearted buffoon thinking we were the Crystal Viper a week. Well, as long as he stayed out of my way, he could follow us like a lovesick puppy, all he wanted.
At least, that’s how I felt. Mikell took offense to our tail and fired some torpedoes in his direction. That seemed to finally deter the moron, and he went back into hyperspace.
Aurora
Darries gave me a devilish grin, “We have the Black Viper on our scanners. It is just a few hyper yards ahead.”
I grinned back, “Let’s go say hello, shall we?”
We popped out of hyperspace right behind the Black Viper and fired a few lasers that grazed its hull. It didn’t take long for our viewport to light up with the picture of Zell. His crystal blue eyes were shining with amusement. “Is that how you say hello?”
“Why should I say, hello? You stole my cargo, and all the people you piss off keep putting dings in my hull!
Zell
Somehow I was not surprised when the Crystal Viper popped up on our radar and fired on us as soon as they dropped out of hyperspace. Aurora was pissed. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders as she yelled at me. I really should be listening to what she is saying.
“….all the people you piss off keep putting dings in my hull!”
“At least you don’t have lovesick morons singing love songs at you all of the time!” I shot back, “The last one was in serious need of singing lessons!”
Almost as one, our co-pilots looked up at us and nodded. There were no other ships in the area.
“And I wouldn’t have stolen your cargo if I didn’t miss you.”
Aurora.
“You could have just sent a message.” I glared at the man on the viewport, but then I relaxed, “But I missed you too, husband. “
His crystal blue eyes, the ones my ship was named after were shining, “What do you say we deliver your cargo,” He held up his hand, to stop the objection he could see coming “To your buyers. Then go home and take some time off?”
Zell
My wife had finally softened, she brushed that black hair that I loved so much back behind her ear and nodded. We didn’t get to see each other much. Too much of a risk for people to know we were connected. We gave out plenty of hints and loved to drive each other crazy with pranks. Most of the universe, however, thought we were mortal enemies trying to destroy each other. They would never know that just a few years ago, we were married on a no-name planet, under the twin viper constellation.
What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter? –4
A mother responds…
Years ago, while my daughter was still a teen, I was sitting in the dark on front step cooling down after a long hot night at work. It was about 3 am.
A car pulled into the lane. My daughter, her then boyfriend, and unknown male and female companions got out of the car. Judging by their conversation, they had no idea that I was sitting on the step.
Within a few minutes of being in the lane, the male stranger, suddenly, without warning, punched my daughter’s boyfriend, “T,” hard in the back of his head, knocking him onto the ground. He then proceeded to kick him rapidly, while the girls started screaming at the top of their lungs. All hell had broken out in my quiet yard.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was up from the step, had raced across the lane, grabbed the 6′-something guy by the throat, and was holding him up against a tree on the edge of the lane and growling in his face, “We don’t behave like that in my house, Now get the f**k off my property!”
Then, I threw him towards his car. He left, cursing about a ‘crazy woman.’
I’m not sure where that woman inside of me came from, or the strength, considering the fact that the guy was so much larger than myself.
For a while, I got painted as the bad guy in this story. He was furious that I interfered. I shamed him, according to him. At the time, my daughter hated me because T broke up with her. However, years later, my daughter took me out for lunch in a different town, and she saw the guy who had hit her ex-boyfriend. She asked me if I remembered the incident. I told her that I vaguely remembered.
She then responded, “Well, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I never told you at the time, but I was secretly really proud to have Super Woman for a mom.”
‘Mum I’ve just been sick and its black’ That message is what my teenage daughter sent to me. My heart skipped a beat. Being a nurse I knew that there was something seriously wrong with my daughter but I tried to think positive and not jump to conclusions. Fast forward to a hospital appointment. I was sat with my daughter holding her hand and the doctor said the words we had both been dreading. “It’s cancer”. My daughter who was 15 had a rare cancer and chemotherapy was her best option.
As many of you will know the effects of chemotherapy can be and usually are god awful. It was painful for me to watch my daughter go through it, I really can’t imagine how she must have felt. As her hair began to fall out my daughter started to get really down. She loved her hair and her overall appearance and now she was almost grey and very thin. I tried telling her it was ok and that she was still beautiful but she didn’t believe me and said she felt alone. That night after she had gone to bed I sat up for hours and thought long and hard about what I could do to help my daughter through what she was feeling. And so I decided to do something so she didn’t have to go through it alone.
It took all the strength I had but that night I shaved and cut off all of my hair until my head was completely bald and soft. I was aware that I was sure to be stared at and laughed at but I didn’t care. My little girl was all that I was worried about and in the morning she couldn’t believe what she saw. She was overjoyed though and felt a lot less scared about losing her hair. She cried tears of joy and I vowed to her that we would go through it all together. I kept my hair shaven until my daughter finally beat cancer, and then when she came off chemo I let my hair grow back.
It was a horrible time for my daughter but I’m proud of her for going through it. She was so brave and I think me having no hair have her the extra confidence she needed and made her feel less alone. My sixteen year old son also shaved his head in the end which surprised me. The whole family made it as easy as we could for her. I got many looks and laughter after cutting my hair off but I didn’t care, it was worth it as it made my daughter happy and feel so much better about what she was going through.
I think I speak for every mum here but I know no matter what I would do anything for all my children
Two boxers fought a match in a low weight class. A Japanese man named Keita Kurihara and a Filipino man named Renan Portes. When the match ended, Kurihara was declared the winner “on points” despite Portes having landed some of the hardest punches in the fight.
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“I didn’t win!” Kurihara shook his head in disbelief and broken into tears immediately after the score was read out. Afterwards, he took the microphone in the ring and bowed deeply to the audience, saying, “I was treated as the winner in the end, but I lost. It’s embarrassing that I was declared the winner. I’m really sorry… My punches missed their target and I was spinning around. I got hit quite a lot. It was the worst possible situation and I was completely defeated. My countermeasures didn’t work. I felt that I hadn’t grown at all..”
Kurihara went to the locker room after the fight and apologized to Portes, declaring him the “real winner” of the fight. The Japanese fighter wanted to win only in a convincing way, with honor. Having not landed the hardest hits and having been unable to knock down his opponent despite losing his own footing, he felt he was undeserving of victory.
Monkey Branching Wife Who DEMANDED Divorce Begs Hubby For 2nd Chance After Lover Tossed Her Out
This is China’s next generation super destroyer. Some call it a Cruiser.
Anyway, I predicted that if the Chinese were to make it nuclear powered then it would have 2 rail guns and 4 or more laser. If conventional powered then it could only support 1 railgun and 2 lasers at most.
Here is a diagram of the Super Destroyer. Conventional powered.
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144 universal VLS launch cells. The Type 055 has 112. 1 Railgun, 2 lasers. 20,000 tons vs 13,000 tons for the Type 055. And 2 CIWS, one in front and one in the back.
Unified antenna mast and more streamline design for a little bit better radar stealth. Although calling a ship stealth is too much. As ships have RCS of over 100,000 dbs M^2 so reducing it doesn’t really do much.
The Chinese VLS launch cells are humongous. And they’re all the large size. The Arleigh Burke flight 3 has some that are large size but this reduces the number that the AB has so only some are the big size. The flight 1 and flight 2 are all smaller sized VLS.
This is likely just a preliminary design. Who knows, maybe with some experience with the Type 004 carrier, they might design a nuclear super destroyer. That would be something to see.
Have you ever had such a close call it makes your skin shiver everytime you think about it? If so, what happened?
I lived in South Norwalk, Connecticut…. and worked in Westport. It was a few days before Christmas and I was driving home, after work, and decided to stop at Beldoch Popper, a sweater factory that sold wholesale at Christmas. I pulled my 1969 Mustang up to the curb, and was putting it in park when the factory door opened, the light caught my eye. Two people were coming out and for some reason, my spidey senses told me to get the hell out of there.. NOW. I hadn’t turn the car off yet, slammed it into gear and floored it……. I drove home, adrenaline pumping, and he no idea why. I’m not a scaredy cat by any measure.
The next morning, I walked into work and saw the mail guy, Fred. His wife worked there so I told him my crazy story. He asked me what time I was there and said around 5:30. He looked at me, and said if I had gotten there a minute earlier I would have walked into an armed robbery, and seen all the customers and employees face down on the floor…… and the two guys didn’t have a getaway vehicle, they left on foot.
I swear I didn’t see anything, no guns, just silhouettes walking out of the building in the dark……
So happy
Why did Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba wrap up a four-day visit to China during the Ukraine war, and why in Guangzhou?
This question is very well asked and very ‘Chinese’; I even suspect that the questioner might be Chinese.
First, you noticed the unusual duration of 4 days. If it were just a matter of diplomatic etiquette, it wouldn’t last so long. I’ve answered similar questions twice before, and I think the answer is: In fact, this 4-day period is very likely the time when Ukraine and Russia started negotiating through China, and it’s just the preliminary preparation.
Then, you are very perceptive, perceptive like a Chinese person, noticing that the Ukrainian Foreign Minister was in Guangzhou (Chinese netizens identified the location as Guangzhou by recognizing the background architecture in a video posted by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister himself). You are very sharp.
Why not in Beijing?
As a purely Chinese person, my view is:
First, it could be because Beijing needs to make way for more important meetings, such as the recent Beijing Declaration.
Chinese people care about these unspoken announcements, which essentially tell the world that for China, the Middle East is far more important than Ukraine.
Second, it might also be a deliberate move to show the world that for China, Ukraine is only a third-tier issue. (Beijing is first-tier, Shanghai is second-tier, and Guangzhou is third-tier.)
Most Chinese people were originally neutral towards Ukraine, but now there is indeed hostility due to Ukraine’s declaration, which said ‘give China a chance to talk with the civilized world,’ and the actions supporting Hong Kong’s independence have really ignited the anger of the Chinese people.
I have to say, don’t you all watch international news?
It’s all like a game of bridge, with clear hands and open cards.
The U.S. inquires about Chinese arms control, and China refuses.
The U.S. plays a card, namely 3,500 nuclear warheads, to see China’s reaction.
China’s reaction is to deploy strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear warheads, along with Russian strategic bombers, on patrol in Alaska (which means if there’s a nuclear war, China and Russia will ally).
China issues a statement urging not to initiate a nuclear war (directed at the U.S., meaning: we have no intention of initiating a nuclear war. Last time it was before the Beijing Olympics, with all five permanent members of the UN Security Council signing, and then immediately after that, the Russia-Ukraine war started. Now, China is urging again, and immediately after that is the French Olympics? Clearly, after the Olympics, war is imminent!).
China invites Palestinian forces and issues a Beijing statement.
Netanyahu visits the U.S.
The U.S. and China once again engage in a proxy war, this time in the Middle East.
Isn’t this quite obvious? If you can’t see this, you might as well stop caring about international politics.
All Men need to See this – Modern Women are DOOMED by this New Anti-Paternity Fraud Law Approval!
Between 25% to 33% of fathers who paternity test their children discover that they were not biologically theirs.
Life: What is the worst thing that can happen in life?
Originally Answered: What is the worst thing that can happen in life?
Want to know the worst?
Here.
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Not a still from a horror movie. It’s real!
This is a picture of a French girl named Blanch Monnier who was kept captive for 25 years in a padlocked dark room by her own family.
She was rescued in 1901, when police received a letter informing about the lady being held hostage.
“Monsieur Attorney General: I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. I speak of a spinster who is locked up in Madame Monnier’s house, half starved, and living on a putrid litter for the past twenty-five years – in a word, in her own filth”
The police then went to her home and found her in the worst way imaginable. A statement of the witness describes it appropriately.
“We immediately gave the order to open the casement window. This was done with great difficulty, for the old dark-colored curtains fell down in a heavy shower of dust. To open the shutters, it was necessary to remove them from their right hinges. As soon as light entered the room, we noticed, in the back, lying on a bed, her head and body covered by a repulsively filthy blanket, a woman identified as Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier.
The unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress. All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread.
We also saw oyster shells and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed. The air was so unbreathable, the odor given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation.”
Reason?
When Blanche was 25 years old, she fell in love with a broke lawyer. When her mother and brother came to know about it, they forbade her of the relationship and caged her in a tiny room until she gave up.
EXCEPT SHE NEVER GAVE UP.
At the time of the rescue she was 49 years old and weighed around 55 pounds (~25 kg). Although she did put on some weight over time, she never became stable.
She died in a psychiatric hospital 12 years later, in 1913.
How much can I pay someone to clean my house naked?
I had a girlfriend in college that did cleaning work on the side for extra cash.
She was actually a good maid. One client broached the subject, asked her what it would cost for her to be topless.
Because she knew the man and was comfortable with him she agreed for double her normal rate.
Please note that her job didn’t change, just what she wore. He was not looking for sexual favors, never touched her or made her uncomfortable in any way. It did something for this mans’ ego to have a pretty young woman serve him in such a submissive way while he basically ignored her. That was prestige for him.
He asked her if she was satisfied with the agreement and she told him that one other client like him would be enough that she wouldn’t need to work for the cleaning service at all. Of course he knew someone. So she halved her workload for the same pay and it was a good arrangement for all involved.
As for what you pay for such a service, check the going rate and be prepared to pay more. It’s not the kind of thing you want to haggle or be cheap about.
Tortiglioni with Spicy Sausage Sauce
This recipe calls for only 6 ounces of meat, so it is good if want to cut down on meat in your diet. (I usually have to make meatballs in a separate sauce for MY family! LOL!)
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Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 fresh red chile, seeded and chopped
1 pound ripe Italian plum tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2/3 cup red wine
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
12 ounces dried tortiglioni (or use rigatoni, penne, or ziti)
6 ounces spicy salami, rind removed (I sometimes use pepperoni)*
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, to garnish
Grated Parmesan cheese, to serve
Instructions
Heat oil and add onion, celery garlic and chili and cook gently, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, until softened.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, sugar, salt and pepper to taste and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Lower heat, cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Add a few spoonsful of water occasionally if the sauce becomes too thick.
Meanwhile, cook pasta.
Chop the salami into bite-size pieces and add to the sauce. Heat through, then taste for seasoning.
Drain pasta and put into large bowl, pour sauce on top and toss to mix.
Scatter parsley on top and serve with grated cheese.
Notes
* Buy the salami in one piece so that you can chop it into large chunks.
Yeah yeah
Have you ever been caught someone lying on a resume, and what were the consequences?
Yes. I was working for a major tech company in the UK, one that is extremely-high profile and very popular, and we got a resume that looked absolutely stellar. In fact, it was astounding that this guy didn’t have his choice of offers in hand already, based upon what was written down on his CV (which is what resumes are called in the UK).
However, having been on several search committees before, and having helped students with their own resumes back when I was a professor, I had lots of experience with puffery (intentional or not) and hyperbole (again, intentional or not).
The candidate had been on several high profile, very technical projects that resulted in tremendous profits for his previous companies. These weren’t trivial by any means, and I, for one, was very interested in learning more.
The problem with his resume was twofold.
First, the projects themselves were all over the place. One was a systems integration project, another was a software development project. Still another was a hardware project. All of them highly involved, all of them requiring deep knowledge of varied skillsets. All from someone who had only been in the workforce for about 6 years.
Now, it’s possible that we had a savant on our hands, but experience has told me that these are rarer than unicorns and, as a result, I became quite skeptical. Nevertheless, I was willing to give it a go.
Second, all of the tasks and responsibilities listed in the CV had qualifying terms, like “Helped coordinate,” and “Contributed to,” and “Supported.” These are wishy-washy terms that are so vague as to imply practically any kind of involvement, from running the project to taking minutes during meetings.
So, I wanted to know more.
The candidate came in, impeccably dressed, and full of confidence. Okay, so maybe my suspicions were unfounded. He certainly looked like he could have mastery over these different domains.
But then I asked the first question, and it went downhill from there.
“I’ve got to admit,” I said, “you have a very impressive CV. These projects are quite involved.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling and proud. “I’ve done a lot of great things.”
Okay, so not exactly humble.
“Tell me more about what you did on X project,” I prompted.
Thus began a long string of evasions. He started every sentence with, “I helped…”
“Okay,” I said. “I understand that you participated in the project, and that you helped it reach its goal. But I don’t understand exactly what you did. When you say that you ‘helped,’ what does that entail, exactly?”
What followed was a continuous stream of “I helped,” and “I contributed,” without any actual description of what it was that he did.
Now, I don’t suffer fools very well, and I particularly don’t like it when someone thinks that I’m a fool. I begin to get irate when someone continually doubles down and suggests that they have answered the question when they didn’t.
Then he put the final nail in his coffin. “Well,” he said, “I could go into deep technical detail, but it’s extremely complicated and most people don’t understand it.”
“I’ve got time,” I said. “Try me. Part of the job you’re applying for is to take complicated technical subject matter and translate it into consumable English. This seems like a perfect opportunity for you to show me how well you do.”
He paled. I mean, he’s already English, so this was quite a feat.
He failed. Miserably. He couldn’t explain the project, the technology behind it, even the problem the project was supposed to solve.
So we moved on to the next item on his CV. He failed that one too.
And the next.
Ultimately, at the end of the interview, it was clear that he knew nothing about any of the projects he had ostensibly worked on, and those technical details he did try to talk about he got dead wrong.
Worse, this was a group interview, with my entire team in attendance. Unfortunately, as this was the UK (and I’m an American), after the candidate left I was read a riot act by the manager for embarrassing him. Even though they admitted that they would have hired him, had I not asked more probing questions, I still got an official reprimand.
So, because some guy lied on his resume, tried to lie in the interview, got caught doing so, I was in trouble for pointing it out.
What is the most badass thing you have done as a parent for your teenage daughter?
My daughter (19) had dated a fellow who I thought was a decent guy for about a year. It went south. She was trying to break up with him and he kept trying to keep the relationship afloat. Finally she had had enough. It was over.
He came back with a text “he had friends that would make her disappear and just be a missing person on a milk carton”.
I’m a single mom and the momma bear came out.
I drove to his parents house out in the country (they were big farmers), showed his mom a screen shot of the threatening text and had her take me to the field where he was working. She said nothing.
He saw us come down the road as he was refuelling his equipment. I stayed on the road and he came over to me.
I’m 5’5” and he was close to a foot taller than me and was at least 100+ lbs heavier than me. It must have been a sight.
I was so calm it was eerie. I told him he crossed the line. Leave my daughter alone. Stay away from her. Stay away from us. If he didn’t, all they would find would be a body in a field. I could do 5 to 10….. ( as in years in prison)
I calmly returned to my truck and drove away.
I recorded the conversation just in case. My other daughter and her partner were in my truck.
(Said boyfriend knew I had driven semi for years, could operate heavy equipment and was proficient with firearms so I really did have numerous ways to “dispose” of a body)
we did go to the RCMP so that there would be information on file but did not wish to press charges unless he failed to heed the warning. They did stop him and have a “chat” because he would follow her around town etc.
I am normally a pretty calm, live and let live type of person EXCEPT when you mess with my kids.
No nation can remain a major world power without a solid manufacturing base.
I am a 42-year lawyer and accountant who also worked for a decade as an electronic tech at various electronics manufacturers on Long Island and in Houston.
In all the current political turmoil there is something no one but me addresses:
Up until the 1980’s, MANUFACTURING provided about 30% of U.S. jobs.
In the 1980’s most large U.S. manufacturers moved their production “offshore” for lower labor costs, e.g., to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, China.
Entire U.S. industries were decimated.
The companies shut down that made the parts that a second company used to build machines that made parts that a third company used to build machines that a fourth company used to build the final product.
Eventually the entire production “line” shut down. Because there were no manufacturer employers, trade schools and engineering schools stopped teaching courses on how to design, install, maintain, troubleshoot, and repair those “intermediate” machines.
All of that moved “offshore”.
Nowadays even when a product says, “Made in USA”, some of the components are imported and the machines that made those components were not built in the U.S.
No nation can remain a major world power without a solid manufacturing base.
And that means all stages … from teaching engineers, etc., how to build the machines used in manufacturing, to funding research, etc.
Imagine this scenario:
The U.S. is fully isolated.
Nothing can be imported, exported, traded, sold, shared, borrowed, studied, taught, etc., with, from, or to ANY other country.
Anything that is needed in the U.S. must be designed and produced in the U.S.
Taiwan is literally the only country on Earth that can manufacture the most advanced microprocessors.
It would take decades for the U.S. to totally rebuild its manufacturing infrastructure—including educating, quarrying and transporting raw materials, etc.
And there has been no effort to face and deal with the “no manufacturing base” issue.
Why did you become pro-China?
Reason why I became pro-China: Western media overplayed their hand and made me do something they probably didn’t want me to do: search for information about China.
You see, growing up I had zero interest in China, which was why I never bothered looking deeper into it. I just internalised all the anti-China “news” I heard in my periphery since that was the simplest thing to do for someone uninterested. But recently anti-China news ramped up, like REALLY ramped up to the point there’s talk of war, so naturally I started to take actual interest in China for the first time. So I went looking for information… and oh boy it was life-changing.
Whether it was the alleged massacre, or alleged genocide, or the sweat shops, or the lack of modernity; they were all either partial lies or complete lies. As I learned from the locals and foreigners who actually lived in various regions of China, I felt like my worldview was being deconstructed bit-by-bit, until I ended up only with the deep sense of betrayal. Western media did this to me. To all of us. For decades, I had been propagandised into believing some extremely unflattering things about China and her people. Decades!
The one thing that I’ve always wanted our precious western society to do—but felt it was hopelessly impossible—was to eliminate extreme poverty. Guess what, China did. They had virtually eliminated extreme poverty, a feat that was considered impossible in wealthier western nations. Also, according to everyone who have visited China, their society is friendlier, cleaner, safer, and more modern. China’s investment in R&D and her people’s education at all levels are paying off, and the obsession with meritocracy in government jobs had allowed China to properly punish the corrupt and replace the inefficient. Many who have visited China loved it so much they wished they could stay there.
So yes, not only am I now pro-China, but I’ve also now stopped believing in Western media by default, especially when it comes to news about other countries, and especially when it comes to China. I’ve even started to wonder my perception of Russia, North Korea, and other so-called “enemies of the West” are accurate. This is what happens when the media breaks the trust of the people who relied on them for news.
In short, I’m pro-China now because western media overplayed their anti-China propaganda, and it made me so curious I had to go looking for information myself. I can only hope many more others would do the same.
Pentagon Again Applies Budget Lies To Deliver More Weapons To Ukraine
Whenever the Pentagon runs out of money designated by Congress as aid to Ukraine it starts to use creative accounting to free up some additional money from its general budget. The ‘accounting errors’ used therein are always in favor of more weapons to Ukraine.
The Pentagon overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by around $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said on Thursday, an error that may lead the way for more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years — about double early estimates — resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. She said final calculations show there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.
As a result, the department now has additional money in its coffers to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. And it come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle.
The Pentagon has found $2 billion worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2 billion, a U.S. government report revealed on Thursday.
In accounting an entity can generally use one of several methods to account for stock material. Using (ever increasing) replacement costs or (ever decreasing) book value are two arguably valid methods. What is a no-no though is to change horses during race. One either uses one or the other. One never-ever changes the applied accounting method during the accounting period.
Any commercial company doing what the Pentagon is doing here would be asking for serious trouble.
One wonder if and when Congress will wake up to this.
What is the reason for Xi Jinping’s purges in the People’s Liberation Army?
that is standard procedure in any military to retire the old generals and replace them with new ones.
allow me to explain:
In the military landscape of any nation, the principle of retiring older generals in favor of fresh leadership is not merely a procedural formality but a strategic necessity. This standard practice is fundamental to ensuring that a country’s armed forces remain adaptive and relevant in an ever-evolving geopolitical environment.
Old generals, while often steeped in tradition and battle-hardened experience, may also carry with them a resistance to change, clinging to outdated tactics that they were trained in and grew up with that could jeopardize their nation’s defense in contemporary conflicts.
If, for instance, a formidable military power like the United States were trapped in a time warp, still combatting adversaries using the strategies and methodologies of the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, the outcome would undoubtedly be disastrous. In a world where nations like Russia, Israel, and North Korea and even Yemen have embraced modern technology, cyber warfare, and innovative tactical approaches, failing to adapt could lead to catastrophic defeats.
Countries such as China have recognized the need for reform, actively promoting young leaders who can infuse their military strategies with fresh ideas and perspectives that align with the realities of modern warfare. This method not only revitalizes the military command structure but also ensures that the national defense strategies are continuously evolving to counter emerging threats. For example, in recent years, China’s rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and drone warfare exemplify how new leadership can drive transformation and modernize military operations, enabling them to compete globally.
Similarly, nations like India and Brazil have also experienced leadership shifts in their defense establishments, aiming to harness young, dynamic thinkers who are equipped to navigate the complexities of modern warfighting. A proactive approach to military leadership ensures that armed forces are not just reactive but are equipped to anticipate and counteract the multifaceted challenges of modern-day combat, ultimately reinforcing national security.
what Xi is doing is nothing new people!
China Unscathed in CrowdStrike Meltdown
Ranch Turkey Pasta Dinner
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Ingredients
2 1/2 cups uncooked penne or medium tube pasta
6 to 8 tablespoons butter
1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix
1 cup frozen peas and carrots, thawed
3 cups cubed cooked turkey
Instructions
Cook pasta according to package directions.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt butter.
Stir in salad dressing mix until smooth; heat through.
Add peas and carrots; cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes.
Drain pasta and add to skillet.
Stir in turkey and heat through.
How will I survive prison being a 48-year-old male? I am awaiting sentencing in less than 23 days and I am facing up to 9 years in total in feds. How will I survived having ever been in prison before?
I’ve answered similar questions many time, so I’ll copy/paste an excerpt. Violating these 10 commandments of prison that someone asked me for could have serious consequences.
So I’ll give you some “rules” to follow, it’s not a comprehensive list and they’ll be in no particular order because they all are important.
Mind your own business. Meaning don’t ask questions about what a person is doing (unless it directly affects you), personal questions about their past and/or charges unless it’s a natural part of a conversation THEY start.
Never give an opinion unless it’s asked for.
Don’t be in a hurry to make friends.
DO NOT try to make friends with the guards. I was on friendly terms with a lot of guards, but I had been there for several years and had well established myself before I did so.
DO NOT SNITCH.
Don’t lie or embellish your past. You’ll likely find yourself in conversations where guys are telling “war stories” and guys in prison have phenomenal instincts and can spot a fake in a heartbeat. Just be yourself, if you don’t have anything to add to the conversation just listen.
Prison runs on respect, so be respectful.
There might come a time where you have to stand up for yourself. DO IT. Some things like minor disrespect you can let slide, but if someone puts their hands on you in an unwanted way, makes unwanted and aggressive sexual advances, and/or tries to take what’s yours, STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!!!! Sure you might lose, but who hasn’t had their ass beat before. But you’ll establish a degree of respect and should be fine after that because the predators who are there are looking for easy prey.
Keep your word. If you tell someone you can/will do something, do it.
This actually should be near the top but I’m too lazy to retype this. DO NOT GO INTO DEBT!!!!! If you gamble (for smokes, candy bars, or whatever) make sure you have the “money” on hand. Don’t borrow, do without whatever it is until you have the money to get it yourself. Debt, especially if something happens that makes it so you can’t pay when you said you would can lead to all sorts of things and all of them are bad. Trust me, things happen, like your prison pay gets screwed up or someone on the outside doesn’t send you money when they said they would. I repeat DO NOT GO INTO DEBT!! Along that line, don’t lend. If you do and that person doesn’t/can’t pay, you’ll be expected to do something about it or you’ll be seen as weak.
One of my little pleasures here in China is the massage.There are all types of massages. From a nice foot massage after soaking in a super hot herbal bath, to “happy ending” massages that are 100% legal inside of China.
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The prices are entirely reasonable, and really, it’s a four hours or so well spent.
In the ‘States, I never had or experienced a professional massage. The best that I could get was an amateur massage from a favored girl or two.
But really, as I get older, having a massage…
spa for men
one that involves drinking whiskey, a very hard touch, and soft relax afterwards. Followed by a fine smoke is truly special, and it is one that I really do appreciate.
I don’t know if you can ever get something like this in the USA unless you go to a private spa. Ah, many ladies use these services I know. But not so much foe the men.
If you all ever get an opportunity, take it.
Today….
We Haven’t Seen A “Historic Surge” Of Corporate Bankruptcies Like This Since The Great Recession
July 10, 2024 by Michael
We continue to get numbers that indicate that the U.S. economy is steamrolling in the wrong direction as we approach the most chaotic election season in our history. Needless to say, the performance of the economy is going to play a major role in the outcome of the election, because millions upon millions of Americans are really suffering right now. Homelessness has been growing at the fastest pace ever recorded, hunger and poverty are exploding, and we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis that doesn’t seem to have any end in sight. Unfortunately, there are signs that things will soon get even worse. For example, we experienced a “historic surge” of corporate bankruptcies during the first half of this year that was worse than anything we have witnessed since the first half of 2010…
There is a “historic surge” of corporate bankruptcies underway in the U.S., as debt-saddled companies struggle to adjust to the new era of high interest rates.
New figures published by S&P Global Intelligence show that 75 companies filed for bankruptcy in June, the highest number recorded in a single month since early 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That pushed this year’s total number of bankruptcies so far to 346, which is notably higher than comparable levels seen in the past 13 years.
Before this, the highest half-year figure recorded was in 2010, with 437 companies filing for bankruptcy from January through June.
During the first half of 2010, we were just coming out of the Great Recession.
Do you remember how painful things were in those days?
Sadly, I believe that what is ahead of us will be even more painful.
The unprecedented measures that our leaders took to prop up the economy worked for a while, but now cracks are starting to show all over the place.
And a lot more big businesses will go belly up during the months ahead.
Discount retail chain Big Lots said it will close up to 40 stores this year and may declare bankruptcy.
The Columbus, Ohio-based company wrote in a quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filing it expected further operating losses and has “substantial doubt” it can continue as a functioning business.
Big Lots last month reported a net loss of $205 million in the quarter ending May 4, 2024.
When I lived in Virginia many years ago, I would shop at Big Lots quite a bit.
And it always seemed to be doing fairly well.
But now times have changed.
Today, most Americans have very little discretionary income. In fact, surveys have shown that the vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at this point…
A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.
Similarly, a 2023 Forbes Advisor survey revealed that nearly 70% of respondents either identified as living paycheck to paycheck (40%) or—even more concerning—reported that their income doesn’t even cover their standard expenses (29%).
There is no way to spin those numbers in a positive manner.
Any way that you look at them, they are absolutely horrible.
The middle class is being ripped to shreds, and those that are running the system seem to be all out of answers.
Young adults in particular are having a very difficult time in this environment.
A new survey by Bank of America finds that nearly half of adult members of Gen Z are relying on financial help from their parents and family members to get by.
The survey for Bank of America’s Better Money Habits team found that 46% of Gen Z are receiving financial assistance from their parents or other family members, a figure that declines to 30% for Gen Z non-students.
Have you noticed that so many young adults seem to be very bitter and very angry these days?
This is one of the big reasons why they are in such a foul mood.
Many of them were promised that life would be good if the studied hard, went to college, and did all the right things.
But now many of them are discovering that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was just an illusion.
Of course there is a small sliver of society that is still doing exceptionally well.
Flooding the system with trillions upon trillions of dollars has been very good for the financial markets, and those with lots of money in the financial markets have been living the high life.
Millionaires once accused of ruining a gorgeous town in Wyoming now complain they are being driven out of the area by billionaires.
Jackson Hole has long been a popular vacation spot for celebrities including Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Matthew McConaughey.
An influx of wealthy people sent house prices sky-rocketing and forced ordinary workers to live on the other side of the mountain on the Idaho-Wyoming border.
There are more billionaires in America today than ever before.
That is the good news.
The bad news is that there are more homeless people in America today than ever before, the ranks of the poor are growing very rapidly, and more Americans are falling out of the middle class with each passing day.
The wealthy may think that all of the wealth that they have piled up will insulate them from the unprecedented chaos that is approaching, but the truth is that a day of reckoning is coming for them too.
In the end, the entire system is going to completely and utterly fail, and those that believed that the party would last forever will be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
Does China sense weakness in the White House? In recent days Chinese troops have been sent to Belarus for military exercises, dozens of Chinese military aircraft have been threatening Taiwan, and four Chinese military vessels were even detected off the coast of Alaska. So why has China decided to become so aggressive all of a sudden? Right now, Joe Biden is facing endless questions about his competency, and those around him are focused on fighting for his political survival. So could foreign adversaries such as China use this window of opportunity to do things that they may not normally attempt to do?
According to authorities in Taiwan, 66 Chinese military aircraft and 7 Chinese military vessels were “operating around Taiwan” on Wednesday…
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence (MND) on Thursday said that it had detected 66 Chinese military aircraft and vessels around the island, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the Western Pacific.
The media outlet embedded a statement by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence on its X platform.
“66 PLA aircraft and seven PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 am (2200 GMT Wednesday) today,” the statement said.
When asked about the warplanes crossing the median line at a regular press briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian avoided directly responding. “The determination of China to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity remains unrelenting,” he said.
The CCP insists that Taiwan is Chinese territory, and the Biden administration has been warned that “reunification” will take place at some point.
Let us hope that the Chinese do not choose to use this current window of opportunity to “reunify” with Taiwan, because the moment that they invade we will be at war with China and everything will change.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Chinese have been aggressively probing Taiwan’s maritime defenses. During the first six months of 2024, the Taiwanese Coast Guard “drove away 567 Chinese boats”…
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday.
They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said.
Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have been sniffing around our coastlines too.
Multiple Chinese military ships were spotted by the U.S. Coast Guard in the waters off Alaska, officials said in a news release on Wednesday.
Three vessels were detected about 124 miles north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, and a fourth ship was spotted about 84 miles north of the state’s Amukta Pass. The ships were seen on Saturday and Sunday.
All four ships were in international waters, the Coast Guard said, but were inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the U.S. shoreline.
The reason that this incident is noteworthy is because it is very unusual.
Chinese military vessels don’t normally operate so far north.
Most people don’t realize this, but China now has the largest navy on the entire planet.
I don’t know how we allowed that to happen, but we did.
A large number of Chinese semiconductors are used in critical military platforms, accounting for around 40% of all U.S. Department of Defense weapons systems and infrastructure, and are further linked to military supply chains such as Patriot air-defense missiles and B-2 bombers.
For example, a Lockheed Martin missile factory situated in Alabama produces Javelin anti-tank weapons which use more than 200 semiconductors in each weapon. This equates to thousands of Chinese-made semiconductors within U.S. weaponry.
“U.S. companies at the bottom of the supply chain pyramid often source these parts from China in open market transactions. As a result, many essential components in sensitive U.S. military systems now come from China. Countless major weapons platforms are vulnerable,” the report states.
Our leaders aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, but this is ridiculous.
Didn’t anyone consider the fact that one day we might actually end up in a war with China?
Before I end this article, I wanted to give a quick update on the conflict in Ukraine.
According to the BBC, at the big NATO conference this week the Ukrainians were told that they now have an “irreversible path” to membership in the alliance…
Nato members have pledged their support for an “irreversible path” to future membership for Ukraine, as well as more aid.
While a formal timeline for it to join the military alliance was not agreed at a summit in Washington DC, the military alliance’s 32 members said they had “unwavering” support for Ukraine’s war effort.
Nato has also announced further integration with Ukraine’s military and members have committed €40bn ($43.3bn, £33.7bn) in aid in the next year, including F-16 fighter jets and air defence support.
Needless to say, this is not going to sit well with the Russians at all.
One of the reasons this war started was because Russia was determined to keep Ukraine out of NATO.
Now F-16 fighter jets from a number of NATO countries are starting to be delivered to Ukraine, and the Russians have already warned that those fighter jets will be considered a nuclear threat…
This summer, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium will begin sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and Denmark and the Netherlands have said there will be no restrictions on the use of these planes to strike targets in Russia. F-16s are able to deliver nuclear weapons, and Russia has said the planes will be considered a nuclear threat.
We are rapidly approaching a point of no return.
I have been studying the Russians for a long time, and once they come to the conclusion that nuclear war is inevitable they will strike first.
They know that there are no winners in a nuclear war, but they also know that whoever strikes first will have the best chance of surviving.
The Russians are highly paranoid, and we should not be backing them into a corner because that will make them extremely dangerous.
A stray cat walked upon me, and when I patted it, it jumped up on my knees
Joe Biden’s escalating dementia and the long media-political conspiracy to hide his senility from the public are the least of the Democrats’ current problems.
Biden’s track record as president may be more concerning than his cognitive decline. He has literally destroyed the U.S. border, deliberately allowing the entry of more than 10 million illegal aliens. His callous handlers’ agenda was to import abjectly poor constituencies in need of vast government services without regard for the current struggles of a battered American middle class and poor.
The widespread poverty of a vast new cohort of illegal immigrants could serve as indictments of a “racist,” “unequal,” and “unfair” America—as if the residents of East Palestine, Ohio or inner-city Chicago had anything to do with the centuries-long corruption and oppression of Mexico and Latin America that daily drives thousands of their own poorest citizens northwards to a society founded on very different ideas than those of their homelands.
Note that the left, neither in Mexico nor in America, never asks why millions of these impoverished people prefer to break into a supposedly racist America. Much less do they even distinguish those principles and values that once made America prosperous, free, and secure from their antitheses that have sadly made much of Latin America mostly poor, without freedom, and insecure.
Biden inherited near-zero real interest rates and inflation at 1.4 percent. Almost immediately, in nihilistic fashion, Biden did to a sound economy what he had done to a secure border. So, he recklessly printed money at a time of spiraling, quarantine-ending demand and supply chain disruption. Middle-class wages never caught up with Biden’s inflation, as prices for key staples are nearly 30 percent higher than when he took office.
The cost of servicing the ballooning national debt at high interest is now nearly $1 trillion per year. The world abroad is aflame, lit by Biden’s inexplicable withdrawal from Kabul, his mixed signals to Vladimir Putin on the eve of his invasion of Ukraine, his deliberate alienation of Israel, his appeasement of Iran and China, and his cuts in the defense budget, coupled with his woke war on mythical “racists” in the military.
Energy prices soared, even as Biden’s green agenda proved unworkable and prompted draining the strategic petroleum reserve and begging foreign oil despots before key elections. The “unifier” Biden by design needlessly alienated nearly half the country, and in his debate, he reiterated why Trump supporters do not deserve his concern. And more ominously and recently, Biden grossly told hundreds of his donors that “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye”—just days before the attempt on Trump’s life.
The greatest absurdity of the Biden White House is the gaslighting talk of Biden’s “achievements.” Biden’s actions over the last four years are not offsets for his senility that warrant his continuance in office, but again, sadly, they serve as force multipliers, furthering claims of his dementia and for his removal.
Joe Biden is not just non compos mentis and in a sane world, he would be subject to 25th Amendment removal. He also increasingly seems unpleasant and obnoxious, if not sometimes simply weird. To achieve momentary clarity, Biden either shouts at his audience or stoops over and whispers in an eerie fashion.
He insults reporters and his own staff. Every few sentences, without warning, he begins screaming. His face is fixed in a permanent, angry contortion. As a result, the public sees their president as an off-putting, angry old man—and in his selfish dotage, an increasingly unsympathetic one. Even after more than 40 months of media hagiography, Joe Biden still cannot poll over a 40 percent approval rating, given that his rudeness is fueled further by the day due to escalating mental confusion.
Biden is, to be candid, a serial prevaricator. It is not just his ad nauseam repetition of Trump’s supposed slurs—the Charlottesville “both sides” lie, the “suckers” lie, or the “bloodbath” lie. He continues to peddle absolute falsehoods like the mythical nine-percent inflation he inherited and Trump’s supposed intention to ban all abortions, or his whopper that after welcoming in 10 million illegal aliens, Biden would have had a closed, secure border if not for those selfish Republicans who, for some reason, did not trust his ridiculous eleventh-hour, election-timed immigration proposal.
When he hammers Trump as a “convicted felon,” Biden has no clue that a majority of Americans equate that charge with Biden’s own warped lawfare assault on ancient customs, as well as a reminder that his now closest advisor is likewise a “convicted felon.”
When Biden rants near daily about the rich “paying their fair share,” he reminds us that his son is also facing federal tax evasion charges for unreported foreign income in the millions of dollars and that as soon as Biden himself leaves office, as a recipient of the same foreign cash, he may find himself in the same legal jeopardy. So, to use a Bidenism, “how dare he” accuse affluent Americans of the very crimes that his own family is knee deep in?
Biden’s prefaces of “no lie,” “here’s the deal,” “no kidding,” and “no joke” are little more than tics that forewarn us of complete fabrications about to follow, from the ridiculous story of an uncle supposedly eaten by New Guinea cannibals to his supposed heroics during the Civil Rights movement and his near childhood adoption by various minority communities.
In this regard, senility served oddly as a crutch for Biden. In the past, he paid dearly for his plagiarism, cheating, racist rants, and prevarications, losing three presidential bids and earning a reputation as the empty-suit blowhard of the Senate. Now his press handlers conveniently chalk up his long-standing habitual untruth as momentary mental “confusion.”
Given all the above, remember that Biden was to be the “savior” of the Democratic Party. To this day, celebrities demanding his withdrawal from the race throw him the bone that “he saved the country by stopping Trump”—as if no wars, stability abroad, no inflation, low interest, and low energy costs were something to fear.
Yet Biden’s four years pale in comparison to what in 2016 might have been a Harris, Buttigieg, Warren, Booker, or Sanders candidacy or presidency. No wonder Democrats concluded that there were no viable alternatives to a cognitively challenged Biden, precisely because Biden was the only available fig leaf to the new Democratic Party and its neo-socialist agenda—that, if transparent, would have terrified the country that it was soon to nearly destroy.
Biden’s Democratic critics have it all wrong: removing Biden is wise and needed for the country’s sake, but it will not solve the growing public anger at the left. Without the veneer of even a tottering old Joe from Scranton, there will be no camouflage. And then, the true leftist agenda will be served raw to the American people—open borders, woke/DEI racial polarization, transgendered obsessions, inflation/stagflation, wars a plenty abroad, an inert Pentagon, unaffordable energy, partial-birth abortions, and crazy ideas like packing the court and making Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, states.
So, what is the Democratic strategy to win the 2024 election?
Certainly, an “open” convention would not produce a moderate Democratic nominee or even a suitable replacement façade. There are no moderates in contention. If there were any hale candidates to offer cover, the party would be in permanent war with its shrill and angry woke base. Joe is the last of his generation to offer a credible front. There are no more Diane Feinsteins or Bill Clintons to package the hard-left agenda. If Harris cannot serve as Biden’s replacement, someone like her or further to the left would appear on spec.
The Democrats have no plans to run on their record.
Their tripartite strategy is as simple as it is tired and worn.
First, expect a third chapter to follow the 2016 Russian collusion caper and the 2020 laptop disinformation ruse – likely some October revelation from the administrative state’s “experts” and “authorities” that Trump is a criminal, a traitor, or a spy or plans a coup, to destroy NATO or nuke something. Perhaps there is another Access Hollywood tape, a porn star on ice, anything to avoid discussing the damage done since 2017.
Second, there is still a last gasp to a dying lawfare. Never underestimate the last-gasp judicial effort to inactivate, gag, bankrupt, or jail Trump, however counterproductive such attempts so far have proved.
Third, when all else fails, remember that in many of the swing states, 70 percent of the electorate will not be voting on Election Day and will not be presenting IDs. Millions of their ballots will be harvested or cured by third-party activists. Last time around, the leftist journalist Molly Ball bragged about their “cabal” and “conspiracy” of big money and big tech that had “saved” Americans from Trump.
Those post-election confessions were not just high-fiving but also a confident forewarning of what is to come.
NATO Just Announced Its Next Victim…You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!
Idiots in Europe.
What is the weirdest news article you’ve seen today?
About a week ago, an elderly Japanese man called the police to come to the hospital room where he was staying. The man, a retired construction worker, was dying of cancer. He went by the name of Hiroshi Uchida and lived alone in a small shack.
Working in Fujisawa City, near Sagami Bay overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the old worker lived a pretty charmed life. He had made friends with his co-workers, often singing James Brown songs. Once a month he’d go to the city, sing karaoke, drink and have some fun. He was the old-fashioned sort, never had a cell phone and always insisted to be paid in cash because “he didn’t trust banks”. Folks saw him as eccentric, but a decent guy for the most part.
It was only now, aged seventy and on his deathbed, that the old worker revealed his big secret to police — his real name was Satoshi Kirishima and he was a wanted terrorist, part of a left-wing terror group that bombed, among other targets, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Tokyo, in 1974.
Satoshi Kirishima’s mugshot was plastered around Japan, on police stations throughout the nation. He was one of Japan’s top ten most wanted criminals. On January 24, 2024, he called police because he “wanted to die under his own name”. He died on January 28, four days after his confession. DNA results have just revealed he was who he claimed to be.
“I can’t believe you live here.”“I know,” Sylvia says. She smiles and steps aside for me to drag my suitcase through the entrance hall.“There’s ivy trellises for chrissakes. Ivy trellises.”“I’m glad you like it.”We sit on her loveseat in the foyer. It is afternoon, and the sun is starting to wane and drip shade on the room. I take a sip of the earl grey tea she delivers on a worn gold platter. Her tea set is pretty, scalloped and covered in tiny, blood-red flowers. I rub my sweating hands on the velvet fabric of the sofa, hoping it won’t leave a stain.“I’m very glad you were able to come for the weekend. I’d like to see you up here once a month to meet about your progress.”
“I can’t thank you enough for hiring me, and for entrusting me with your story.”
She nods, smiling again. Her home smells like slivered almonds. A grandfather clock beats in the corner. There’s a large bookcase against the wall and shelves filled with tchotchkes— porcelain dolls in fraying skirts and ribbons, spotted cats, an extensive collection of salt and pepper shakers, everything covered in a film of dust. The air inside her home is gauzy, small swirls of sparkles float and twirl around us.
“Shall we get started then?” she asks. I nod, setting my teacup down on its saucer. “Evie was found just up the street from here. There’s a body of water where they found her. It isn’t small enough to be a pond but it’s not quite a lake either. The water is very deep in the middle. She had stones tied to her ankles when they recovered her body. We used to spend lots of time there together. There was a dock in the middle you could swim out to. We’d lie out there for hours, reading, talking. It was heaven.”
I write everything down in a small leather journal. A creak whines through the beats of the ticking clock and I jump a little, which makes me laugh.
“Just an old staircase,” she says. “My parents died in a car crash when I was in college, a long time ago. I was an only child. They left me the house. I never understood why they moved in here. It’s creepy, isn’t it? I was homeschooled my whole life, and Evie was my only friend. We met because she lived up the street from here. When I was younger, sometimes I liked to imagine having conversations with her when she was at school. Sometimes I find myself still doing that, too. I was a very lonely child. I was just starting to make friends in college and I was enjoying myself when I got the call that my parents had died. I quit school and moved back here, something I’d said I’d never do, but something called me back here.”
“Did Evie used to come over?”
“Yes, she did. Here,” she says, standing and walking to a large desk across the room. She pulls out a drawer and shows me photos of her and Evie as children. “Wasn’t she gorgeous?” Evie has long, inky black hair and freckles spilled over the bridge of her nose and underneath her eyes the color of a milky cappuccino. “And there’s me, of course.” Sylvia is tall and skinny, her back hunched and curved like a comma, her arm thrown over Evie’s small shoulders. “God was I gawky.” Sylvia’s hair is the color of straw and her two front teeth are twisted in what looks like a painful way. They are standing in the woods, the water behind them to their right. “I don’t know why everyone just accepted it was her who had drowned herself. Evie wasn’t unhappy. In fact, she had all these plans for the future. We were going to move out west together, to Hollywood. She wouldn’t have done this, I just know it, but no one ever questioned it or looked into it.”
“Was she dating anyone at the time?”
“She was in love with this boy named Ryan from school, but he was on vacation at the time with his family out of the country.”
“Is there anyone you’re suspicious of?”
“You like to believe it was no one you knew, right? That someone you knew could be responsible for such a horrific act. But something like this with no real evidence of a struggle or a fight, no skin underneath her fingernails or evidence of blunt force means if it wasn’t self-induced, she knew the person. And she knew them well. She trusted them, and then they did this to her. I’m sorry, it’s still hard for me to talk about.”
“You seem much more affected by her death than your parents’.”
“Evie was so young. She didn’t deserve her ending. My parents were older; they were in their sixties. Their deaths were probably immediate. Do you know how long it takes to drown? It takes about thirty to sixty seconds to start breathing in water, and soon after you lose consciousness. That doesn’t seem like that long of a time, but just try counting to sixty right now.”
We listen to the grandfather clock’s ticks. One, I bite the inside of my cheek and taste metal. Thirteen, I take a sip of the tea; it’s grown cold and the bitterness rests uncomfortably in the back of my throat. Twenty-one I crack my neck. Thirty-seven I smile at Sylvia, but it’s more like a grimace. Forty-one I pick lint off my jeans. Forty-nine I crack my knuckles. Fifty-three I rub at my eye, crossing my legs. Sixty and the cuckoo bird from the clock in the kitchen bursts from its hutch and shrieks. My heart propels upward inside my chest, boing-ing against my ribcage. I feel as though I cannot breathe, as though someone has buried me alive.
“Sixty seconds is a very long time,” she says, beginning to clean up the tea set. I nod, swallowing, but my throat is dry.
“I want to help you, but I’m not a detective. I’m not even a journalist.”
“You are a poet, and poets have sensibility. They are able to uncover the unknowable, to hear and decipher the whispers of the immortal.”
“Do you hear Evie?” I ask her. “Do you still talk to her?”
“All the time.”
“What if I don’t discover anything new? Or what if on the off chance I do discover something new, you don’t like it.”
“I will give you all of my journals. You will have access to photo albums, newspaper clippings from the time, home videos, yearbooks, my observations, maps, everything. You will write an account of what you look at, what I tell you, and whatever you make of it. It can be fiction, it can be a collection of poems, whatever you like. But it will be set here during the year she died, and it must have some beauty in it.”
“Okay.”
“Let me show you your room.”
I follow her up the wooden staircase. My room has a view of the forest behind the house. I know the water is just beyond, further and deeper into the woods.
“Perhaps you’ll go on a walk tonight, yes? See the water. There are flashlights in the downstairs closet by the front door. I’ll let you rest for a bit. Dinner is whenever you want. I was planning on making a shepherd’s pie, but you’re more than welcome to help yourself to anything in the fridge.”
“Thank you.” She squeezes my hand then shuts the door behind her. I lie on the quilt on top of the bed. It’s completely silent here, even with the window cracked open. Fresh air flows through and I quickly fall asleep.
It’s half-past seven when I wake and already dark out. I grab a large, black leather photo album from the top of the stack Sylvia has placed on the bedside table. There are Sylvia’s parents, both in thick-rimmed glasses unsmiling on a beach in front of a rainbow-striped umbrella. There’s Sylvia with Evie in the backseat, their heads bent together, hair one indecipherable mass. They must be ten or so. Their wrists are adorned with matching, patterned friendship bracelets made of turquoise and orange and red string. They look like they’ve been whispering secrets. What were you saying?
I yawn and put on sneakers. I walk downstairs, but don’t see Sylvia as I walk out and down the graveled dirt path to the water. Buzzing erupts in the forest, whistling through the leaves of the trees, prickling the back of my neck. I swing the flashlight all around me as I continue to walk. Fireflies fling their bodies against my ankles, clawing their way up through the packed dirt and pushing me toward the water. I step over hundreds of little holes, the evacuated homes of the lightning bugs.
Once I reach the water’s edge I see what Sylvia was talking about — a round, hollowed hole not quite a lake, not quite a pond, filled with black water. A solo dock gently swings in the middle, the slight breeze making it move. I passed several other houses on my walk here, but the water feels entirely secluded and completely private; it is the ideal hideout for a set of friends to meet.
I know Evie’s body is no longer being held underwater, but there are screams, a pulsing from the middle rippling out to the small shore made of pebbles and grass. What happened to you? I slip off my shoes and my shorts. I hold the flashlight in my mouth as I take off my shirt. I dip a toe in the dark water and wade into it. The water is thick and painful to move through, but I make my way out to the dock where I stand. I shine the light into the trees from the dock, half-expecting to see a deer with glowing green eyes staring back at me, or a half-land, half-sea monster with rope in its mouth and stones in its claws ready to drown me too.
I’m sopping wet when I arrive back at Sylvia’s home. I walk across the front room, careful not to leave any droplets of water on the floor. I open the fridge in the kitchen and take out a rotisserie chicken. I pick at it, putting cold pieces in my mouth. Sylvia sits at the kitchen table in the corner. She stares at me as I place the chicken down on the counter and wash my hands at the sink, ringing out my wet hair over it.
“I went for a swim.”
“I can see that,” she says.
“But the floor isn’t wet. It didn’t get wet. Why isn’t it wet?”
“Come, have a seat.”
“Do you ever go swimming there now?”
“No, not since.” She lights a cigarette and opens a window, blowing out curls of smoke. “She was going to leave me, you know. First, it was Europe, then Los Angeles. She loved the palm trees. She said she wanted to drive on PCH in a convertible, live near the beach. She was going to go to college out there. And that? That was all fine. It was fine with me, it took some getting used to but I could go with her. She said I could go with her, so I’d follow her and we’d live together and we’d always be together and happy, and then she got pregnant. And babies get in the way of everything. I just couldn’t have that. I couldn’t have it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not really here.”
“I’m not?” She shakes her head at me; her eyelids have grown longer, heavier; she pinches the extra skin and rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms until she sees hundreds of static-like white webs. She crosses her arms and leans back in her seat. She beckons the moon through the window and holds it in her hand like a stone.
“I wish you were. I don’t even know what’s real and what’s not anymore.”
Sylvia makes herself a fresh pot of coffee and starts to write the story again, one more time, for the forty-seventh time. She likes to write different endings each time, but every time Evie dies. She can’t find an ending where she doesn’t. I play with the ends of her wiry gray hair, running my fingers over the crown of her head. Sylvia feels this; it feels like she’s dunking her head under water, a cool rush spreading over her scalp. I kiss her on the cheek, ball a clump of her hair in my fist and let it fall, then I walk out the kitchen door. I feel the grass, sharp and prickly beneath my feet. The sky is a blank black tapestry I shoot up toward.
Evie runs away in Sylvia’s latest rendition. She is sixteen and staying in a motel. She is killed by a trucker who rapes her then strangles her. Her eyes are wet and black like marbles; they bounce out of her sockets and roll out the room. Sylvia likes to remind herself that she had been kind, kinder than the killers in her stories; she had made sure Evie hadn’t suffered before she sunk her body into the black folds of the water.
Before falling asleep, Sylvia likes to imagine her and Evie walking off into a line of sunlight, a runny orange yolk color that continues to fade, and never coming home. Every night she dreams the same dream of being held underwater, and unable to breathe, she wakes and stalks the house like a ghost.
Cajun Chicken Lasagna
best cajun chicken lasagna recipe how to 20200122184810625731zmlarv
Prep: 45 min | Total: 2 hr | Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients
16 dried lasagna noodles
1 pound andouille sausage or smoked pork sausage, quartered lengthwise and sliced
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
Cook noodles according to package Method. Drain; rinse.
Combine sausage, chicken, Cajun seasoning and sage.
In a large skillet cook meat mixture 8 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink.
Remove from skillet using a slotted spoon, reserving drippings in skillet. Set meat mixture aside; keep warm.
In same skillet cook onion, celery, sweet pepper, and garlic in drippings until vegetables are tender.
Stir in meat mixture, one container of the Alfredo sauce, and Parmesan cheese.
Lightly coat a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish or 3 quart rectangular casserole with nonstick spray. Arrange 4 noodles in bottom of dish. Spread with 2 cups of the meat-vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the mozzarella.
Repeat layers, ending with noodles.
Carefully spread remaining Alfredo sauce over the top (if sauce is too thick, heat slightly). Cover; bake 1 hour or until heated through.
Let stand for 15 to 20 minutes before carefully cutting.
PUTIN, CHINA READY NUCLEAR WAR | SCOTT RITTER: IT’S NO BLUFF
Have you killed someone in self defense? What psychological burden came with this decision?
Yes. He pulled out a gun, demanded my and my friends wallets. Although I was armed (in a city where concealed carry was legal only with a permit, which I had), he seemed to be after money and had not aimed the gun at us, so I did not draw. When my friend was too slow, he yelled and fired a shot at his feet, injuring him with a fragment. I then drew my weapon and shot him 3 times in the chest. Once he was down I sent my friend to get help while I did cpr, but he was dead. The police were quite supportive and did not arrest me after consultation with their superiors. I had a carry permit and my friend corroborated my story. An “earwitness” had heard the shots and confirmed the number and order. I made a statement and picked up my gun a week later.
After the initial adrenaline and shock wore off, I never felt any negative emotions, other than sadness that he chose to waste his life the way he had. He had 4 robbery and 2 assault convictions and had spent half his life in jail already. If he hadn’t fired a shot he’d still be alive, but it seems like it was only a matter of time. I have never felt any regret.
What made you quit smoking weed?
I did smoke it as a teen. I grew up in So. California, my parents were aged hippies who smoked it. There were rules – like no smoking if it is a weekday, and you have school the next day. No smoking if you are going to drive a car. So yeah, it happened, but I was generally responsible about it.
Then I just grew up, had other responsibilities, like being a mother, and didn’t do it at all.
Much later, when my kids were older, I had some opportunities to do it again. A trip to Amsterdam, and a trip to Las Vegas, after it was made legal. I thought, hey, why not?
I had horrible experiences. I became paranoid, closed up and unable to interact socially. It turns out the weed has become much stronger than when I was young, and we’d just have some homegrown buds… now they’ve been carefully engineered to have a very high level of THC. Two hits would have me nervous and paranoid.
Edibles… OMG… what hell! My family is still talking about the time a family member visiting me in France brought me a little, thin, sucker. I had a sore throat, and decided it might help on the way to a touristy day out. Ended curled up in the fetal position in the back seat floor of the car while they went siteseeing. That shit just goes on FOREVER. A whole day wasted with me miserable.
I decided, perhaps I have less resistance through time, but also, the strains have developed to be so strong, it isn’t a matter of smoking a joint and feeling a little more giggly than usual. It can be a nightmare. Won’t touch it now. God speed to all those that find it enjoyable or useful in their lives, but I won’t be partaking.
The Amazing Digital Circus – 1950’s Super Panavision 70
What is the meaning of “Made in China”? Is it more costly to manufacture a product in another country and import it to the United States?
Ask Walmart they scouted the entire world and sell almost everything from China? Don’t ask China and Chinese haters these are often brain dead Americans who consumed your media and politicians narratives so much lies has become gospel truth to them now. If 155/195 nations on earth has China as their biggest trading nation can all of them be fools? If they could buy from other nations some nearer to their shores wouldn’t they?
United States should stop using Chinese goods if you hate China so much. China won’t mind and the rest of the world can enjoy your lunch. If you prefer 20% inflation and increase your poverty from 100–200 million, that is your choice, don’t whine about it here! Just do it! The US used to be rich and consumed a lot but these days you area small potato customer, go away! China Don sell to Walmart. Walmart buys from China willingly! I supposed the know a thing or two about US consumers!
Buy from a third country and change their made in China label to made in Mexico, Vietnam or Malaysia and you get your stuffs at a premium is what you want, do it! China don’t mind, Mexico, Vietnam and Malaysia won’t mind? If you wish to fool yourself it is your right! Who may mind? American consumers! Do you think of them?
What are the best examples that shows Life is Unpredictable?
In 2014, Clint Eastwood started a relationship with Christina Sandera. He was 84 at the time, and Christina was 51. Eastwood had been in many relationships before and fully expected this to be his last rodeo. He was quite done with it all.
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Fast forward ten years, Eastwood is now 94. He and Sandera did, indeed, stay together. But now sad news was just made public by the Eastwood family — Christina Sandera died, aged 61.
[1] You don’t get into a relationship in your fifties, with a man in his eighties, with the expectation that he will be the one to bury you. You probably won’t like to think much about it, but that’s not exactly the most likely outcome that’ll be on your mind…
Life is incredibly unpredictable. We have expectations and we think we have a lot of certainties, but really? We don’t. We just trick ourselves for the sense of comfort into believeing we know the outcome of things ahead of times, but in actuality we never quite do.
Do Chinese people feel embarrassed when they see “Made in China” goods?
It depends.
Last time, when Obama gave a speech at the port about revitalizing American manufacturing, they used flags to cover the crane’s logo in the background.(As to whether the flag was made in China too, I have no idea, but it is possible.)
But a gust of wind revealed the brand name 振华（Make China Great Again）, which made me feel a bit embarrassed.
Later, when President Biden gave a speech at the same place about revitalizing American manufacturing, I kept my eyes on the flag covering the logo the entire time.
As a result, when President Biden praised the “New Panama” crane, you could still see that it was actually made in China…
Therefore, Biden’s nickname in China is 拜振华.
Very embarrassing.
China’s Radar Defeats US Growler in South China Sea
Damn! Holy shit!
When was the hardest you have cried?
The hardest I have ever cried is when my youngest daughter had her breaking point at the hands of her bully. That week of my life made me feel like the worst father in history.
My daughter is socially awkward, meek, shy, and has trouble making friends. Her only interests are Art and Tennis. She’s never had many friends and really didn’t seem to care. That’s what I thought.
In her freshman year in High school, she met the Bully that would change school policy on bullying. This incident happened when My child was in the school library. The library is supposed to be bully proof, like a sanctuary. But not on this day.
She’s quietly drawing with her friend. And out of nowhere she gets smacked from behind on her right ear with baby powder. And of course it was the bully. It was supposed to be a prank. A video prank called “SMACK CAM” to be exact.
Looks like this.
This time it went too far. My child got knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital with a serious concussion.
I get the call and race to the hospital with bitter rage. I’m met by the police, the principal, the school nurse, and the guidance counselor. They were all in her room. I walk in and see my child sleeping with tubes coming out of her nose and arms. I couldn’t talk. I was shaking with anger.
The principal and the police explain to me that they have video evidence, and the bully has been arrested.
Three days later my daughter came home from the hospital and all that I thought I knew about her was only the surface.
We’re sitting on the couch watching TV. I go into the kitchen for something. I come out of the kitchen to see her face wet with tears. She’s not wiping her face, there is no facial expression, no sound. Just a constant flow of big tears. Tears with no sound means deep emotional pain. Especially from a 14 year old girl.
I grab her off the couch and give her the biggest HUG I have ever given her and tell her that I love her and will always be there for her. But only this time, she felt different.
We sit down and I’m trying to tickle her side to get a smile. NOTHING! After some time She finally starts talking.
“I just want this to stop, I’m sick of it”
(OMG!) This has been going on all this time?!
She begins to detail the horrors ever since elementary school. I’ll list only a few.
She’s been called Ugly
They hide her books
They steal her material
They push and shove her
Cut her in line
Put buggers on her shirt
One boy that sits behind her cut her hair without her knowing.
Some things they did were disgusting so I won’t list them. At the end of it all I still wasn’t crying. Until she said this.
“How come no one likes me, what did I do?”
That’s when I lost it. I tried to hide it because I can’t cry in front of my children. I felt weak, my heart pounded and I waited to speak so she wouldn’t notice my voice cracking.
I tell her to go take a shower and we’ll go to the mall and walk around. That was just to get her to walk away so I could go to my room and try not to cry. As soon as I got in my room I felt a fear in me that I can’t explain.
I wanted to trade places with her. I wanted to absorb all her pain, I wanted to kill the bully, I wanted desperately to help her in any way. I blamed myself. Someway somehow it’s my fault.
Why didn’t I notice something? I should have never gotten divorced. Her mom should still be here. I need help!!! It’s too much for me.
I cried so much that my eyes got swollen and my throat got hoarse. Until that day and a few days after, I can’t remember ever crying like that.
After about an hour I open her room door to see my middle daughter holding my youngest while she slept.
Despite the bully’s family asking me not to press charges, I went ahead and pressed charges, and she got six months probation for assault.
My child never went back to school, never wanted to go to school, couldn’t go to sleep, couldn’t eat, and started to hate. Something that I never saw in her.
There wasn’t much I could do. My desperate attempts to get her to smile and liven up became silly. So I signed both of us for Art classes, and she began to show signs of joy.
I later found out that the guidance counselor was my daughter’s shoulder to lean on. Mrs. Sarver was very nice and always helped her in trying times during school.
Mrs. Sarver came over to visit one day with a bunch of letters, and art work from supporting students. I stood back thinking that my child does have friends! But I was wrong.
She sat down and went through every piece of paper, and threw out all but two envelopes. A large piece of very good Art work, and a letter.
They were from “PAIGE”, her only friend. That was the first time I saw her smile in a month.
I enrolled her in a private school the following year where she is doing very well. And despite her psychiatrist’s suggestion, we will not be using any pills.
The China The Media Never Shows! 🇨🇳 Our First Day in SHENZHEN
At what moment in your life did you witness true evil?
(Graphic/sickening content) To this day, I hate the person who did this. I never got a good look at this person and have never seen them or their care ever since.
I was doing my normal 30 minute run of the day and I would usually finish my run at a dead end street, where I would give myself a 5 minute break. Once reaching my stop, I would always go right under a tree to block the burning sun and rest. I was a bit hidden by the tree, so no one would be able to spot me unless they truly tried.
I was in the middle of having my drink, when I noticed a navy blue Ford Explorer with tinted windows make a stop right next to the empty road, almost right beside me. I continued drinking my water, but stopped when the driver slid their window fully down. I couldn’t see the driver well, because the driver seat was facing the opposite way from me. So I was only able to see the silhouette of the driver through the tinted windows.
I was able to hear a commotion going on in the car, but after the driver put down their window, all I heard then were two children, a boy and a girl, repeatedly crying out, “Please don’t do it mom! Please don’t do it!” I was a bit interested in what they were talking about, so I hid a bit more, so that I wouldn’t be seen snooping. The mother, who was the driver, kept telling them to shut up and in her exact words said “Shut up! Shut up, you crybabies! I have enough trouble caring for you two! I’ll be damned if I have to care for these stupid things!”
Through the tinted window, I was able to see her pick up what seemed to be an open cardboard box that was small enough to fit through the window, but big enough to put a variety of small objects in. The children kept screaming, “NO! NO!”. As a speeding car was coming down the road, she threw the box right in its path without giving it a chance to react. At that moment, I heard tiny meows coming from in the box as it flew through the air towards the ground. I froze in horror as the box hit the front tire of the speeding car and the box went right under. All heard as the box went under the tire was a disturbing wet crackling noise that still haunts me to this day.
By the time the car fully ran over the box, the mother with her children were long gone, speeding the opposite direction of the other car. I couldn’t believe what I just saw. I just stood still and watched as the man came out of his car to see what he ran over. I was hoping that it was anything other than what I thought it was. To my horror, the man pulled out the now almost fully flat box and it was oozing out this bright reddish liquid, which I believe was blood. The man took one look in the box and immediately threw up on his car. The man dropped the flat box, went in his car, and drove away.
I was so stunned that I stared at the box for a good ten seconds. I couldn’t believe I witnessed this. I knew what was in the box, but I refused to believe it. My sick curiosity wanted to see what was truly inside that box. I didn’t want to believe that there were kittens in there. I finally came out of my daze and went across the street towards the box. The closer I got, the faster my heart began to beat. Standing right over it, I saw the small opening the man left as he peeked inside. Looking inside the box was the biggest mistake of my life. What I saw was the most traumatizing image that still sticks to me to this day. I won’t describe it because just thinking about the image makes me sick.
After seeing what was inside, it was for a fact that inside the box was a group of disfigured, flat baby kittens that weren’t even given a chance to live another day. How could she? I said to myself. How could anyone be so disgusting? I knew there was nothing I could do, so instead of leaving the box on the ground exposed, I put it in a nearby garbage can. The box left a red stained road with a bit of the box left on it and all I did right after was walk straight home, leaving behind my bottle of water at the tree where this all started.
I wanted to share this story because I had it as a secret from my family at home and I don’t plan on ever telling them. Just writing this story was a huge struggle for me. As you can see on my profile picture, I own an orange male cat that I have taken care of since birth. I could not stand it if anything horrible were to happen to him.
Thank you for reading my experience.
Those poor poor children.
CHINA is NOT what we expected – FIRST 24 HOURS in Beijing
What are some things Chinese people dislike about other Chinese people?
Chinese parents judge success through their kids’ school performance.
They will never say that they are better; instead they will push their kids to win piano, music, math, science and other competitions. If you listen carefully to the conversations among mothers, they will talk about their son/daughter winning some competition. If the other mother’s fall silent because their child did not win, the jealousy in the room is almost palpable.
The idea is that the kid should provide the ammo so that the parents can play this one-upmanship game.
Generally, the mother’s supervise their child’s study schedule, and it is normal for the child to be busy for 14–16 hours per day.
In China, class school grades are public; everyone knows how each other student is doing. Sometimes, a good student will volunteer to help a student who is flagging, so this is not entirely a bad thing. The worst thing to be is to be so slow that one pulls the average for the whole class down when compared to other classes.
This intense competition is mostly absent in the west, which is why many Chinese parents want to send their children to school in the west. They think it is easier for their children, because they think that western children are slow and easy-going compared to Chinese children.
The great irony is that even when they move to the west, Chinese mothers push their children just as hard as when they were going to school in China. The Chinese bring that intensity and pressure with them wherever they go.
If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be Chinese anymore.
Would it be possible for Taiwan to declare independence from China? Kind of like how the USA declared independence from Great Britain?
It is not possible. Whether it is by UN law or by the constitution of both China & Taiwan.
In the US civil war, the then US president Abraham Lincoln told the rebellious South that:
I am elected president of USA. My duty is to protect the integrity of USA. You cannot say I invade you.
Back to China-Taiwan
There was a civil war in China (called ROChina at the time). The then ruling party KMT was defeated by CPC in 1949. KMT fled to Taiwan while CPC stayed on mainland. CPC renamed ROChina to PRChina, like Qing was renamed to ROC in 1911 (5000 years’ of Chinese tradition).
In theory, the civil war has not finished as of 2024 because China has not reunified yet.
Internationally, between 1949 & 1971, both ROChina & PRChina exist. In 1971, however, UN resolution 2758 announced …
1, There is only ONE China & PRChina is the only legitimate government that represents China.
That is, ROChina ceases to exist on world stage. Only a handful tiny tiny countries still recognised ROC.
Taiwan is part of China. Ref: US doc 203 & the 1978 USA-China joint communique by former US president J Carter.
2, To make it crystal clear, on 2024/5/23, UN told the world “Taiwan is a PROVINCE of China.”
By UN charter, China has a duty to protect the integrity of Chinese territory that incl Taiwan province.
Internally, both constitution of China & Taiwan say:
China territory = mainland + Taiwan + some islands & reefs around China.
Why Taiwan dares not call for referendum? Because referendum involves mainland too.
Militarily Taiwan cannot fight China.
That is, Taiwan can NEVER be independent. Though opportunistic politicians must shout independence so as to get tons of foreign funding (corruption), before Taiwan is discarded by USA like a used condom. Remember USA discarded ROChina in 1971.
conclusion
Whether it is UN resolution or Chinese-Taiwanese constitutions, China has a duty to protect the integrity of China. Like former US president A Lincoln protecting the integrity of USA in the US civil war.
China is NOT invading or attacking Taiwan. Just to suppress Taiwan rebellion, like Lincoln suppressing the South.
China will reunify with Taiwan one way or another. It is the duty of China for the sake of Chinese nation, culture & history.
China’s 1st option is peaceful unification. If necessary, China is not afraid to use military.
The fresh taste of summer laden with your favorite cheeses!
Garden Style Lasagna 1
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
1/4 cup (2 ounces) butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup each asparagus, zucchini, green onions, yellow squash and red pepper, diced
6 ounces portobello mushrooms, chopped
2 cups Roma tomatoes, diced
2 cups baby spinach leaves, diced
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves, chopped
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups (15 ounces) Wisconsin Ricotta Cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) Wisconsin Parmesan Cheese, grated, divided use
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper
12 no-cook lasagna noodles
2 cups (8 ounces) Wisconsin Mozzarella Cheese, shredded, divided use
1 cup (4 ounces) Wisconsin Smoked Provolone Cheese, shredded, divided use
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter the bottom of a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan.
Melt 1/4 cup butter in skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes.
Add asparagus, zucchini, onions, squash, red pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach; sauté stirring frequently, 4 to 5 minutes.
Stir in basil, oregano and vinegar; set aside.
In bowl, stir together ricotta, 1/2 cup Parmesan, egg, salt and pepper; set aside.
Place layer of noodles (4 noodles) on bottom of prepared pan. Spread 1/2 ricotta mixture over noodles, top with 1/3 vegetable mixture, 3/4 cup mozzarella and 1/2 cup provolone.
Repeat with noodles, remaining ricotta mixture, 1/3 vegetable mixture, 3/4 cup mozzarella and remaining provolone. Top with noodles, remaining vegetable mixture, mozzarella and Parmesan.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes.
Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes; serve.
Why do husbands leave after 20+ years of marriage?
After my first wife divorced me – 6 years – I did a lot of soul searching and reading – and realized I was looking for too much from her and giving too little – As well as not even thinking about things like children, lifestyle, etc – For example, she never wanted children – and I did.
I spent many years making sure I knew what I wanted, making sure I knew what my potential new wife wanted, and committing to support her no matter how things went.
I followed through – no matter what demands of my job and career, family was my first priority – when my new wife became pregnant, I went to every medical appointment with her, listened to thr doctors, made myself aware of the risks (she had a mental illness and physical issues), and took on all tasks – When my son was born with a cardiac defect, I took on the responsibility of helping him and my wife – but, despite my taking time for my family, my career still rocketed up beyond my highest expectations.
When my wife, after our second child, became incapable of working a regular job and incapable of taking care of our children, I hired people to take care of them – and took much time off work still to take her to specialists to treat her condition.
Later when a car accident resulted in 10 years of constant pain, I both took her to every single person she wanted for her back and got up ever 3 hours every night to get her an ice pack from thr freezer – As well as taking our children to places and friend’s houses.
Then I used an entire 401k to help her establish her own business. Which she failed because she did nothing after the first few months.
Yet she never heard one complaint from me – only support.
After 20 years of marriage, she “figured out” that I had held her back – since all of her fellow Kellogg Business School graduates were multi-millionaires while we frequently faced near bankruptcy.
She convinced her friend that I had been physically abisung her for years (after I stepped in to stop her from yelling at and hitting our straight A daughter), and forced me to move out or face arrest due to false testimony for her and her friend – who made clear to me that she was willing to lie to the police.
After trying and failing to negotiate an amicable Separation or Divorce – While she interferred with my legal access to my own children plus Vo third to Siena money at a rate that would lead to bankruptcy within 3 months, I finally filed for divorce – thus allowing me legal access to my children and legally limiting her access to my income.
After talking to other men and observing things in divorce court, I conclude that this occurs very frequently – Women deciding that they are “entitled” to certain things and blaming their lack of wealth, etc on their husbands – rather than simply working with him to get what they want.
As always happens – the lawyers got most of the money and the settlement was almost to the dollar what I had proposed months before the divorce filing – minus 3 years of legal fees.
Karma was that she was so bad with our children that her neighbors called the police a total of 16 times in 4 months – leading to her losing all legal access to our children.
My children went from the perception of 2 loving parents to the knowledge that their Mothet did not give a damn about them – only herself and her “needs”.
I met many divorced women whose husbands did this same sort of shit – putting their “needs” above everyone else – this is not a “men-women” thing – this is about people unwilling or unable to grow up and take on adult responsibility.
Compilation: The Moon is Weird – No, really. The Moon does not make sense
Throughout the United States, many people attend Church. Followed by a “Sunday dinner”.
When I grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, a “Sunday dinner” was a family event. Usually semi-formal. With about once a month consisting of a visit to my grandparents.
A semi-formal “Sunday Dinner” is perhaps one of the most important elements of a traditional family, and one that I consider to be of upmost importance in family unity.
Later on, once I was married and attended more active churches. In these churches, we would tend to eat a “Sunday dinner” together in a local restaurant, usually a large buffet meal.
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Still, these events were always community-building and family enriching activity.
Here in China, the typical Sunday includes hitting the Dim Sum restaurant. In fact, I will say this is the most Chinese style event that all Chinese families experience.
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Here’s what the food looks like. It’s steamed mini-packages of different tastes…
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It’s standing room only at these places, and families and friends gather at these enormously round tables to drink tea, and hard alcohol, eat portions of the Guangdong Dim Sum and just enjoy their fellowship with others.
The food is brought about in carts of steaming bamboo trays.
It’s certainly different from the experiences of the ‘States, but charming never the less.
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I see videos of people who visit China, but they rarely recount a Dim Sum dinner, a KTV party, or their experience in a Chinese movie theater. Things, I believe helps you to understand the “real” Chinese experience.
Politicians in the small Caucasian nation of Georgia have been sanctioned by Washington for “undermining democracy” and depriving Georgian people of “fundamental freedoms,” simply because its parliament has passed a law to control foreign influence over Georgian politics.
Politicians in another small country, Nicaragua, were subjected to U.S. sanctions for doing the same. Although the two countries are very different, there are striking similarities in the ways that Washington and its allies have striven to undermine their sovereignty.
In both cases, legislation to limit foreign influence followed coup attempts against popularly elected governments. The governing Georgian Dream Party, having won three elections since 2012, has survived two U.S.-orchestrated coup attempts since 2020..
Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista Party had also won three elections in 12 years when a coup was thwarted in 2018 (it has since won another election, in 2021). Both countries’ governments found that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) financed from abroad were heavily involved in these insurrections and moved to control them. And both modeled their legislation—not on Russia as is claimed—but on longstanding U.S. federal law.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) came into force in the U.S. in 1938. It requires NGOs and other organizations and individuals who receive funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents.” FARA-style legislation now exists in many other countries.
In recent years the U.S. has used FARA to crack down on what The New York Times called “prominent Washington research groups [receiving] tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments,” creating a “muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington.”
The Times article is replete with arguments for taming the influence of foreign governments on U.S. politics. Indeed, Washington’s most recent concern has been to expose what have been dubbed “Trojan horse” charities, those NGOs that have political objectives behind their charitable work.
However, neither Washington nor its allies abroad or in the corporate media approve of countries outside the West adopting similar powers. The reason is, of course, that they might expose the very Trojan horses created by Washington or by European capitals to interfere in those countries’ politics or even to provoke regime change.
Both Georgia and Nicaragua want to protect their sovereignty and try to limit foreign influence over their national affairs—aims that are uncontroversial in Western countries.
Before implementing its equivalent of FARA, Nicaragua’s population of under seven million sustained no less than 7,000 NGOs, most of which were likely to have been dependent on foreign funding. Georgia’s current position is far more extreme: A country of just 3.8 million people hosts around 26,000 NGOs, the vast majority funded from abroad.
Of course, in both countries these non-profits have often been involved in worthwhile humanitarian work. But, again in both cases, Washington and its allies have also been financing bodies that can legitimately be called Trojan horses.
And as Kit Klarenberg points out in The Grayzone, NGOs in Georgia have until now benefited from lax rules about foreign funding—as indeed those in Nicaragua did before its 2020 legislation took effect.
What do Trojan horse NGOs actually do? Their websites typically have mission statements and programs aimed at “promoting democratic values,” “capacity building,” “strengthening civil society,” advocating “good governance,” “raising civic awareness” and finding “a new generation of democratic youth leaders.”
These are essentially labels for what is really pro-Western propaganda, often directed at young people who are simultaneously encouraged to adopt “modern,” “liberal” values and lifestyles and be critical of their governments for failing to toe Washington’s line.
There are prizes: salaried jobs, training courses (perhaps overseas) for NGO recruits, opportunities to learn English, and more. As Jacobin puts it, “working in an NGO is a fast track to high incomes, perks like foreign travel and embassy receptions, and being part of the elite.”
Unmentioned in public documents might be training in organizing “non-violent” anti-government protests and exploiting social media to foster discontent. In the Georgian context, this is called a “color revolution” which, as The Nation puts it, “has become a byword for pro-Western, protest-driven regime change.” In Nicaragua, Yorlis Luna talked to young people who explained how Trojan horse NGOs schooled them to prepare for the “peaceful protests” that quickly became a violent coup attempt in 2018.
When well-funded NGOs join forces with local “human rights” bodies and with local media that are also foreign-funded, the combined effects can be powerful. In Georgia, The Nation quotes labor activist Sopo Japaridze as saying that there does not appear to be a single major foreign-funded civil society or media organization that is not fervently opposed to the elected government. “The entire ecosystem is against them,” he says, “and the NGOs have more power and influence than the government does internationally.” Similar words could have been used to describe Nicaragua in 2018.
While regime change was the U.S. objective in both countries, the motivation differed. Nicaragua was targeted because it poses the “threat of a good example”—a socialist-oriented country in a region which the U.S. views as its “backyard.”
Georgia is being targeted because of its balanced political position, moving toward future membership of the European Union while maintaining peaceful relations with its next-door neighbor, Russia. As its prime minister points out, both Washington and its EU allies want Georgia firmly in the anti-Russia camp, a new “frontline against Russia.”
Where does a Trojan horse NGO get its funding for its regime-change work? The foreign funding of Nicaraguan NGOs was little known-about before the coup attempt in April 2018, but within a month an article in Global Americans, “Laying the groundwork for insurrection,” highlighted Washington’s role.
Then on June 14, Kenneth Wollack, now chairman of the federally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), bragged to the U.S. Congress that NED had trained 8,000 young Nicaraguans to take part in the uprising. USAID later launched a specific program aimed at influencing the outcome of the 2021 elections. I have documented the role of U.S.-funded NGOs in the coup attempt and in subsequent regime-change efforts in Nicaragua.
Klarenberg reports that, in 2023, when Georgian Dream made a previous attempt to bring in a FARA-style law, it had to capitulate when vast, violent crowds, with the Shame Movement “in the vanguard,” threatened to overrun parliament and bring about a color revolution.
The “outsized role” played by foreign-funded bodies has, according to Jacobin, “led the country into a chronic democratic crisis.” It is therefore hardly surprising that the government continues to push ahead with legislation to control them.
What is such a law and what happens when it is implemented? FARA-style laws generally do not prohibit foreign funding, they simply require it to be declared, so that the way it is used can be documented and made transparent. NGOs that are really Trojan horses can then be identified. Closures of NGOs inevitably result—but usually only a small minority are identified as Trojan horses.
Most closures come about because NGOs cannot or will not comply with more stringent accounting requirements, or the change brings to light redundant NGOs that exist in name only.
In Australia, more than 10,000 non-profits were closed when its FARA-style law was implemented. The equivalent authorities in the U.S. and UK close thousands of NGOs each year for non-compliance or because they cease to operate..
Nicaragua has closed about half of the NGOs it had before its FARA-style law took effect, and while the initial closures were Trojan horses the vast majority have lost their NGO status through non-compliance or because they are effectively defunct.
The Trojan horse role of NGOs was perhaps most obvious in Russia, a developed country which nevertheless had many foreign-funded charities before it introduced a FARA-style law in 2012. Scott Ritter reports that the law “proved to be the death knell for U.S., UK, and EU-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that had spent more than two decades trying to, according to their leaders, shape Russian civil society along Western lines.”
When the foreign funding of NGOs comes under threat from an equivalent to FARA, it is hardly surprising that the NGOs protest.
This happened in the U.S. when it toughened foreign agent rules in 2022, provoking a response from NGOs across the political spectrum.
It happened in Australia in 2018 and in the UK in 2023 when they announced similar laws. Protests from NGOs in Georgia were to be expected, just as they were in Nicaragua, because the NGO sectors are heavily dependent on foreign funding and fear its loss, job cuts and possible closures.
What distinguishes the protests in Georgia and Nicaragua, and indeed other non-Western countries such as Thailand where controls on NGOs have been tightened, is that the threat of FARA-style legislation is used to create a sort of moral panic by human rights bodies, the corporate media and the spokespeople for Western governments.
According to this narrative, such a law would not just bring over-zealous regulation of one sector of society, but threaten the whole society’s freedom of expression and its democratic values. This claim is used to justify the mobilization of well-publicized anti-government protests, ostensibly non-violent, but which can rapidly provoke a response from police that can justify violence in return.
As political scientist Glenn Diesen points out, “the media shows some pictures of protests and we are ready to redefine democracy as the rule of a loud Western-backed minority to support intimidations, sanctions and a coup.”
While the cases of Georgia and Nicaragua differ somewhat, because in Georgia “non-violent” protests responded to the impending legal changes while in Nicaragua they were ostensibly about minor changes in state-funded pensions, in both cases the regime-change motivation of the protesters quickly became apparent.
Diesen notes that the same occurred in Ukraine in 2014: Western governments and NGOs “backed an unconstitutional coup against a democratically elected government and the coup was only supported by a minority of Ukrainians. Yet, it was sold to us as ‘pro-Ukrainian’ and a ‘democratic revolution’ so we supported it without any critical debate.”
The unconstitutional coup in Ukraine was, from Washington’s viewpoint, a success. But similar actions in Georgia and Nicaragua have – so far – been counterproductive. To alleviate the damage being done by US sanctions, Nicaragua is developing close relations with both China and Russia. Meanwhile, after passing the legislation to control NGOs this month, the Georgian Dream party is reported to be “actively working” to restore the country’s diplomatic relations with Russia.
One final intriguing connection between Georgia and Nicaragua is the presence of a global NGO called the Center for Applied NonViolent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), headed by Slobodan Djinovic, which claims to have trained regime-change activists in 52 countries. CANVAS, supported by USAID, had been training activists in Georgia at the end of 2023 when the “color revolution” appeared to be imminent.
Whether CANVAS had a role in Nicaragua’s 2018 insurrection is unclear, but the NGO has certainly been active in Venezuela and a CANVAS official visited Nicaragua in the aftermath of the coup attempt. Djinovic uses Nicaragua’s failed coup as a case study in a course on “non-violence” that he teaches at Harvard.
Sanctions imposed by the White House on Georgian officials who are promoting FARA-style legislation mirror the steps taken against the Nicaraguan government when it did the same in 2020. Instead of admitting that laws to oversee the foreign funding of non-government organizations have been adopted by many Western-aligned countries, Georgia’s plan has been dubbed “Russian Law,” just as—at the time—Nicaragua’s equivalent was labeled “Putin Law.”
Corporate media such as the BBC have repeated Washington’s line and quote Secretary of State Antony Blinken at length, without pointing out his hypocrisy in criticizing a country for adopting legislation that is, in reality, based on U.S. law, not Russia’s.
The irony is that FARA was originally sold as a means of defending democracy when it was introduced in the U.S. more than 80 years ago. But if a similar law is used by a country which Washington or its allies regard as disobedient, such use is painted as an attack on democracy and as a step on the road to authoritarian government.
Dubbing the legislation as “Russian law” or “Putin law” makes the message clear.
7 Signs Your Cat Is Offering You Spiritual Guidance
Nurses, were you ever happy to get rid of a patient?
Most definitely… Sad story! She was an 11 yo girl who when she was 5 yo was running away from her stepdad who was trying to physically discipline her while her mom was not at home.
In the process of fleeing she fell down the stairs and ended up with a head.. neck and spine injury and in a coma. This child was placed on a ventilator. She had a tracheotomy.. G-Tube and her eyes shut tight!
The medical staff recommended the mom remove her from life support but mom refused …so after 6 years the body was basically rotting inside out while artificially she was kept alive but in a vegetative state. In essence she was bone dry!
The police in that city did not prosecute anyone .. yet .. was supposedly waiting for said person to die to charge the stepdad with manslaughter.
Because of the legal ramification of removing her from a ventilator and allowing her to die .. ie stepdad will be prosecuted..serve jail time , mother refused to let her die to save him from his demise.
Things became more complicated when at 11 years old during hygiene an aide cleansed her face and removed a small fibrotic scab from her forehead with caused a spot of bleeding!
The mother came to visit and swore that a cardiac monitor which was secured on a shelf above the head of the bed … fell on her 11 you daughter! She then ask advice..from her lawyer who filed a lawsuit against the hospital for neglect after deposing the staff.
Because of the neglect charges a full body scan was ordered which revealed multiple broken bones all over this child’s body …. some fresh and others in various healing stages. The mothers lawyers then filed additional charges against the nursing staff for abuse.
I knew no one was abusing this innocent child and decided to fight for my life and license because I was the Nurse working on that team… I was the main target!
I had no idea where to start but I was convince that the length of time this child was on the ventilator in a vegetative state had something to do with her condition. …then she died! Though it was a great relief to see her at peace…beautiful little Angel … it was not a celebration!
The stepfather was now no longer the target of her circumstance .. the hospital and nurses were … especially me so I’ll be damned! I requested 2 weeks leave to research what happens to a child in a vegetative state placed on a ventilator for a long period …. but I could not find any study on the topic within the USA.
Then it hit me … why not check the universities world wide? That I did and on my 13th day of my research I found a single research conducted by the University of Istanbul Medical Research Team on the long term effects of being on a ventilator in a vegetative state… yes bones becomes fragile and brittle.. basically a corpse on oxygen!
The judge accepted my documented proof of my defense and paid me a compliment…” if I ever get sick I’ll like to have you as my nurse.” Yes!
Oh about the stepfather I heard he was not charged with manslaughter because technically she did not die from his beating. He was charged with parental neglect as he should have prevented her from falling down the stairs!
Aaaaaah! Thank God she is at peace! Blessings!
Kelly Does The Bundy Bounce! | Married With Children
What is the smartest thing you’ve seen a child do?
Originally Answered: what is the smartest thing you've seen a child do?
This happened a month ago, and its still hard to write about.
We were taking care of my niece because we thought a not ideal home environment was contributing to some developing mental issues. Nothing serious at the time, but some depression and mood stuff. She was 13, and my sons were 9 and 7, so she was technically old enough to watch them. We also have a cell phone at the house, mostly as an emergency line, but also as a phone we plan on allowing the eldest to have once he’s old enough. This is preamble, but the start of the story will be from my point of view.
I was at work and it was still about an hour before lunch time. I was looking forward to seeing how the kids were doing on their first day of winter vacation. I felt my phone go off in my pocket, grabbed it, and saw a text from our emergency number that said “[Niece] almost counties suicied” then “comitied suicied”. It took less than a second to realize what that second text meant and I grabbed my keys and bolted. I yelled to my coworkers that I would be back later, and one yelled back to call him.
I live about 5 minutes from my job, but that day, I made it home in less than 3. I almost hoped a cop would see me so I might have some backup when I got to the house. I called the cell phone and my oldest son picked up. I asked if he and his brother were alright, and he answered that they were. I asked what happened and he answered very calmly (especially for a 9 year old) that she had grabbed a knife from the kitchen and put it to her throat.
I burst through the door to see my niece sitting on the couch like nothing had happened. I immediately yelled for my boys, and heard my bedroom door unlock and both of them emerge, completely unharmed. Knowing now that everyone was physically okay, I grabbed every sharp object in the house and locked them in the closet. My wife came in about two minutes after I did, terrified at what she thought she might find. I grabbed her and told her they were safe and in their room now. She almost broke down crying right then, but managed to compose herself and go into their room to see them.
Afterward is a boring story of visiting the nearby crisis center with her, hearing for the first time her being described as “mentally unstable”, figuring out where she could stay that could provide more consistent monitoring, talking with counselors and specialists and officers and other people. During this though, my wife had managed to get the whole story of what had happened out of my sons, and given that the stories of everyone involve line up, we are pretty certain this is how it played out.
My niece and my boys were playing some game, and at some point, my boys decided they didn’t want to play anymore. In her mental state, my niece took this from not wanting to play together to they hated her to she should die (that quickly, apparently that is how her brain processed the events with the issues that she had at the time). She then went into the kitchen and got a large knife out of the knife block and put it to her throat saying, “Every one hates me.” My oldest son, seeing this, immediately tells his younger brother to go to our room (the only one with a lock on it). He then turns back to her and tells her she doesn’t need to do that. They don’t hate her. She apparently went from distraught to dazed. Then says, “I need a hug” and asks if my youngest son would come out and give her a hug. My oldest turns and tells him to stay in the room, and then tells her that he can’t come out until she put the knife down. After she complied, he let her go give him a hug and put the knife back in the knife block. After the hug, he grabbed both himself and his brother, locked themselves in our bedroom, and text myself and my wife about the whole thing.
My son turned a potential tragedy into a situation where she could get the help she truly needs, and no one got hurt. He protected his younger brother as best he knew how, he talked down someone with absolutely no training, maybe even without a complete understanding of what he was doing, and defused the situation, getting help as soon as he feasibly could.
My 9 year old son handled a truly scary situation better than a majority of adults I know could. He handled it with a calm that I don’t know many adults could match in similar circumstances. And in case one tries to argue he didn’t understand the danger, he has since made a few remarks about how scared he was and how he thinks about if he had done something different his brother or cousin could have been hurt or killed. But he acted, and acted intelligently, and did something truly amazing I the process.
My 9 year old son is my hero.
Moroccan Man Is Surprised How “Big” His American Fiancé Is…
Since China is the most advanced nation on Earth, how will China change the world for the better?
Five ways. First, China will unify the Global South to counter the hegemony of the Global North. That’s what BRICS and SCO are all about.
Second, China will help the Global South to develop their economies. That’s what the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) is all about.
Third, in the multipolar world order that China and Russia are building, there will be fewer wars of hegemony. No more illegal wars like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. No more proxy wars like in Ukraine. The world will be far more peaceful.
Fourth, China’s advancements in space exploration will benefit all mankind. Expect China’s advancements to significantly outpace those of the USA (e.g., NASA, SpaceX).
Fifth, China’s advancements in renewable energy will significantly ameliorate the impact of climate change on the world.
What are the funniest things Southwest flight attendants have said?
I’ve had several:
On my last flight, a male flight attendant was throwing bags of peanuts at everyone and if they didn’t catch it, he would throw more. When he got to me, he made a comment about my spiky hair and put two bags of peanuts on my head. I didn’t figure out the joke until later. :-/
The same flight attendant ran through the cabin wearing the oxygen mask and yelling BOO at unexpecting passengers.
“If you are traveling with someone that needs assistance, put on your mask first then assist the other passenger… unless it’s my ex-boyfriend then don’t bother.”
“Although we never anticipate a change in cabin pressure… because if we did, we wouldn’t have come to work today…. If you’re traveling with a small child, what were you thinking? Put your mask on first and then help them with theirs. If you are traveling with multiple young children, assist the one with the most potential first and then work your way down.”
“There is a button with a picture of a light bulb on it. If you push it, the light will turn on. Also there is a button with a picture of a flight attendant on it. If you push that one, no, you will not turn on the flight attendant.”
“We’ve been cleared for departure. Whether you like it or not, this Boeing is going!”
“Cleared for departure. We’re about to get really high and go reaaalllyyy faaassst.”
“If you are connecting on another Southwest flight, look for your flight on the monitors in the terminal. If you are connecting on another airline, we really don’t care what happens.”
Before deplaning: “I now release you into the world. Be good to each other, call your mother and eat your vegetables!”
Burbank Airport has a very short runway so landings are usually rough with full brakes, spoilers and reverse thrust:
“Well folks, we’ve hit Burbank!”
Peggy Meets Another Man! | Married With Children
As a doctor, what have you seen patients wish for on their deathbed?
Originally Answered: As a doctor, what have you seen patients in deathbed wish for?
I was an intern. The team was caring for a very ill woman who was admitted the day before for a seizure. The work up revealed a large brain tumor. Treatment options were discussed and she and her family decided to refuse surgery and chemotherapy. She was receiving steroids and supportive care and she went home. A few days later she came back to the hospital and was admitted to the team. We were all a little confused because she wanted to be home and be with her family. She returned because she had another seizure and a mental status decline. After some more steroids she awoke and was pleasant however very weak. The patient and family had an unusual request. They realized their time together was short so they wanted to have Christmas together, one last time as a family. It was September and they all realized that their mother and grandmother would not last until December 25th. They wanted to do a Christmas celebration in the hospital room the next day.
So, while she lay in her bed the family decorated her room. They played Christmas carols on a little boom box and they hung tinsel all around the walls. One of the nurses brought in paper from the copy machine and all the kids made paper chains to hang on the tree they brought from home. Nurses and staff made their favorite Christmas cookies and treats and presents began to arrive. The next morning all the children in her family were there and “Santa” came and delivered even more gifts. The family gathered around the patient and the staff was encouraged to hug her and wish her Merry Christmas. The Christmas theme spread down to the nurses station on the floor with decorations and treats there as well. The staff filtered out of her room while the family began to sing carols. I mercifully was gone when they sang Silent Night.
When I rounded on her the next day she was gone. Her room was empty and the decorations removed. It was crushing.
I’ve seen more than my share of people on their death beds. Most ask for simple comforts like a drink, a softer pillow or warmer blanket. Nobody asks for their briefcase. I have never heard anyone ask for their work schedule or their cell phone. Everyone though… in their own way, asks for more time with those they love. Then, they set about trying to make what little they have left as meaningful as possible. Some, like this family, achieve that goal spectacularly.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Cook the lasagna noodles according to the package directions; drain.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, 2 cups Cheddar cheese, 2 sliced green onions, corn, egg, salt and pepper; mix well.
Spread 3/4 cup chili over the bottom of the baking dish. Place 3 lasagna noodles over the chili. Place half of the ricotta mixture evenly over the noodles then top with half of the remaining chili. Place 3 noodles over the chili then top with the remaining cheese mixture. Place the 3 remaining noodles over the cheese mixture then top with the remaining chili. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and sprinkle the lasagna with the remaining 1 cup Cheddar cheese.
Bake for 10 minutes more.
Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the remaining green onion, and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
This Passport Bro Spent Over $100,000 on a Young Escort in Colombia
Time to go
What are some reasons Apple employees leave Apple?
What is the reason I left Apple?
There were many, many reasons, and taken all together, it was just time…
– I made lots of money, and I ‘could’ retire.
– The person who hired me (Mike Culbert), and I owe a wonderful career to, passed away. Apple was just not the same for me without Mike.
– Steve Jobs passed away. Things changed.
– Stress. A LOT of stress… I mentioned that Mike and Steve passed away, but many others I worked with (about 30 folks), passed away from heart attacks or cancer. It was when my doctor told me to lose weight and retire, that I needed to think seriously about retiring to reduce stress. (I lost about 45lbs!)
– The project I was working on last had many years to go before getting to the execution stage. (It is still a secret project that can not be spoken of.)
– My wife was assigned a year long internship for her doctorate in Biloxi Mississippi and I wanted to spend time with her in Biloxi.
– My team did many great things (Mac Mini, Apple TV, the built in iSight, prototype for the iPad, prototypes for many other features, etc.), so I could leave with a great feeling of accomplishment.
– The first 5 years I worked at Apple, I did not take time off or vacations. It was grueling. So I earned being able to retire.
– My 5 kids were growing up, and I wanted to spend time with them. Since joining Apple, I did not have a good work/life balance… Success came at a cost.
– After retiring, I became an advisor to many companies (and the University of Michigan – Dearborn). This is a great way to keep busy.
– By retiring, I could pursue building a science center focused not on education, but instead on inspiring visitors. This is an ongoing pursuit for me…
– I have pursued a number of patents that are mine. (While working at Apple, all your ideas are owned by Apple.) I have also worked on new patents with many of the companies I advise for.
It was bittersweet leaving Apple. I had the best team one could ever hope for and we created many great products together. I don’t miss the stress, but I miss the people I worked with. For most of the time I worked at Apple, I had the same team reporting to me (over 10 years). They were amazing, and after I left they have gone on to do great things (some having left Apple themselves to do amazing things at other companies).
Working at Apple was my dream job. I got to help create great products, and work with great people. But all great things come to an end…
I can’t speak to why others leave Apple, but it was just time for me.
Men Don’t Want to Go to the Gym for Fear of Modern Women
“Who would believe that I, the great Lish Ryn, would be brought to my knees by the little Nadyr?”Telen Fogg, the tall android sighed. “Lish. How many times have you said that exact same thing? Look. So what if Nadyr got the Zarkot first? My friend,” Telen smiled, “this can only be good. We can easily steal the Zarkot back from him. It’s most likely in his ship, the Angyl, and it probably isn’t even protected.”Lish spun her pilot’s chair away from the cockpit’s window and faced Telen. Her long, golden hair framed her face. With the combination of her hair and bright green eyes, she stood out against the white leather and silver computers behind her. “And how do you propose we do that?” Her voice was flat, angry. “I am completely tired of being humiliated and undermined by that Bos’ii snake! He took my Zarkot and left me stranded in a tree!”Telen chuckled. “He may be a Bos’ii snake, but he is not a wise one-““No, he is!” Lish thundered. “Every plan, every scheme I have, he somehow finds out about it… and every time, he brings it to ruins! I wonder how that happens?”“Lish, please don’t tell me you suspect me?”“I-” Her gaze jerks up to glimpse a flash of color dart behind one of the navigational devices at the back of the room. “Vorrha?” She asked, incredulous. “I wouldn’t have imagined you to be the traitor in the midst.” This, of course, was rather likely, as the only crew members on the Aalya Meriet were herself, Telen, and the humanoid mechanic Vorrha. It was possible that Telen was the information leak, or Nadyr had planted a spy-droid on the ship, but Telen was very dedicated to Lish, and Nadyr rarely had access to the ship to plant a droid. It was doubtful that Nadyr even had that type of technology. The planet Jayjar was located in the farthest corners of space, hardly touched by the technological advances of the planets Mirima or Qud, and Nadyr never left Jayjar. The only suspect could be Vorrha, and she was hardly being sly about it either. She had no reason to sneak about the very ship that she repaired daily.Vorrha slunk out from behind the computers, and the small hominid shriveled under Lish’s glare. “Nadyr offered Vorrha m-money, more than Captain Lish could. Vorrha needs the moneys, you see, b-because Vorrha’s mother needs the treatment for the sickness.” She stammered. “Vorrha is so sorry.”Lish growled quietly. “A little meelvat in our midst, taking precious information and leaking info to Nadyr. I would throw you into space from the airlock, but I’m not that heartless. No, I think I’ll drop you off on Arboga, maybe in-”“Lish.” Telen muttered.“What do you need, Telen?”“There’s an incoming ship on the radar. Big one.”
“Nadyr’s?”
“No, bigger. Could it be-”
Lish shoved him aside. “It could be the Narrtor, Kon Laari’s ship.”
Telen’s face paled. “The Kon? Here? He must be thousands of miles from the planet Okrak!”
Kon Laari Antrus, the cyborg crime lord, or The Kon as he was known by many, was the leader of the galaxy’s largest criminal organization. He was head of the Antrus Clan, a group of thieves, pirates, and smugglers. Okrak, a dry, mountainous planet, about three thousand miles from Arboga, was his home. It was rare that Laari left that area, generally sending off his minions to do his work.
But for some reason, it was his personal space cruiser, the Narrtor, that Telen saw.
The comm crackled to life and an authoritative voice could be heard faintly. “Aalya Meriet, this is the pilot of the Narrtor. Please prepare to be boarded.”
Vorrha dropped her head into her hands, muttering some type of prayer in her native language.
“What are we gonna do?” Telen asked. “Maybe we could light up the engines and fly out of here-”
The comm hissed again. “Any signs of resistance or attempts to escape will be taken as a threat and the Aalya Meriet will be annihilated.”
The large hatch of the landing dock opened, and the pilot of the Narrtor took over the auto-controls of the Aalya, steering her into the landing dock. The gate hissed shut behind them.
“Trapped like a fly in a Cath spider’s web,” Lish muttered. “Stuck… Our only hope of escaping is to play along with this. See what Laari Antrus wants, give him it, and get out of here.” With a short, decisive motion, she pressed the button to open the loading hatch below. “Compliant, that’s the look we’re going for.”
Vorrha whimpered quietly.
The sound of footsteps quickly grew loud, and in seconds, a group of five men, four carrying guns and the fifth a data pad, came into the cockpit. The man with the data pad glanced up. “Yes. Those are the ones. Seize them.” The armed men grabbed Telen and Lish by the arms. “Comply, or be shot,” the tall one, who seemed to be the leader, continued.
Lish’s face was red. “On what grounds can you arrest me? I am Lish Gir’ryn, best pilot in the galaxy, not some girl to by toyed with!”
The leader glanced down at his pad again. “Lish Gir’ryn? And, I assume, Telen Fogg. And whoever that little mouse is. You, Ryn and Fogg , are both under arrest,” he paused to clear his throat, “by order of the great Kon Laari Antrus. Do not speak again, unless you would like to be killed.”
Lish was bursting with fury, but she kept her angry words to herself.
The trio was marched not towards the top of the ship, where the ship’s cockpit was, but towards the back.
“Where are you taking us?” Lish asked, both frustrated and curious.
The head of the guards, or whoever the tall man that was leading them was, frowned. “Towards the prison deck. Where else would we be taking you?”
“But why?” Telen burst out. “Why are we being arrested? What have we done to anger Kon Laari?”
The tall man with the data pad sighed, and glanced down to read the arrest warrant. “The smugglers Lisk-” he paused, closely scrutinizing the pad. “Lish Ryn and Telen Fogg are under arrest for inhibiting and interfering with the business of Kon Laari Antrus. He personally came to oversee their capture.
“It is by Antrus’ law,” he continued, “that all smugglers, robbers, pirates, and any others involved in criminal dealings are under arrest by the Kon and are sentenced to three years of work in the planet Okrak’s mines. I, Timothy Halos, have been placed in charge of these dealings.”
“Why is he capturing all of the… hard workers?” Lish asked.
Timothy frowned. “I have not been given leave to reveal that information.”
“Oh, what a shame,” Lish spoke smoothly. “Second only to the Kon and yet, still rules being placed on what you can and cannot say?”
“I- I must obey Antrus.”
“Yes… but, well, I don’t see Antrus around.”
“I cannot speak of something the Kon has forbidden me to speak of.” But there was a slight hesitation in his voice, as if he really did want to speak.
“No one’s here to tell Antrus.”
The guards escorting the prisoners exchanged glances, but said nothing.
Timothy sighed. “Very well, but you must not tell anyone. Antrus’ plan is strictly confidential. He is searching for a type of stone, or mechanical device- none can say which -but he heard that a smuggler in the Outer Reaches had gotten hold of it. He began to capture and arrest any criminals he came across, hoping that one would have it. He did this under the pretense of ‘cleaning up our galaxy.’ Of course, he told me, his most trusted advisor, what was truly happening.”
Lish, of course was quite pleased, as her plan to get information was going quite smoothly. “A stone? Why a stone?”
“Not just any stone. It’s the Zarkot.”
Lish scrunched her face up, as if confused. “The Zarkot… I know I’ve heard the name somewhere. Tell me more!”
Timothy Halos was blind to the fact that Lish was easily dredging up information from him. “The Zarkot is a stone said to posses magical powers, or extremely advanced technology.”
Lish changed her expression to in awe. “Really? What can it do?” Of course, she already knew how it worked, she just wished to see how much he knew.
“Many things. It is said to be a translator, able to detect different alien languages and make them understandable to the superior humans. It can command other ships’ controls, many at once, even if the ship that is overriding them does not have the technology to countermand other ships, and it even-” he stopped. “Ah! We have arrived!” With a flourish, he opened the door. “Welcome to Cell Block B, your new temporary home.” He turned to the guards. “Escort them to the nearest empty cell. That should be B7 or B8. I will be taking my leave to go report back to Antrus.” The guards nodded their heads to Halos. They drug Telen, Lish, and Vorrha through the doorway and down the hall to cell B7. “Hope you enjoy your new home,” one of them grunted, shoving them into the room and slamming the heavy iron door behind them.
“Well. That was rather intersecting,” Lish said, in surprisingly high spirits.
Telen grunted in response.
Lish surveyed their surroundings, looking for a possible escape route. The door, which seemed to be the only entrance or exit, was a stout iron door. There was no handle, and the door opened outwardly, so the door screws couldn’t be taken off somehow. The door itself looked like a large slab of metal. The rest of the room seemed to be a smooth cube, with only two grated openings between each cell.
“Hello?” Lish called through the grates. “Anyone else in here?”
“Hello!” A young man, who looked to be around the age of seventeen or eighteen, popped up in front of one of the great. He had short, curly hair, bright blue eyes, and a contagious smile.
Lish yelped in surprise. “Nadyr?”
“The one and only.”
“What are you doing here?” She hissed.
“I could ask the same of you, but thing is, I already guessed why you’re here. And that’s the same reason why I’m here. Except I have no idea why I’m here.”
“Antrus is searching for the Zarkot.”
Nadyr’s jaw dropped, but his smile quickly returned to his face. “Is he really?”
“Yes. Which would be fine, if you hadn’t taken it from me. I would have it with me right now, and I would be able-”
Nadyr scoffed. “In your dreams. We all know you’re not competent enough for that. If you had it with you, Timothy would already have found it.”
“Like you could have done better!”
“Actually,” Nadyr held up his hand, curled into a fist around something, “I did do better.” He opened his hand to reveal a small blue stone, dangling from a silver chain. “Please, hold your applause. It was quite hard to smuggle it in, but I managed.”
Lish sighed. “Bested again.”
Telen chuckled. “Bested again indeed. Now, Nadyr, do you know how to use it?”
Nadyr shrugged. “To be frank, no, I don’t.”
“Alright. Then shall we make a deal? If you give it to me, Lish can use it to get us out of here. Then, we sneak back to the Aalya Meriet. We use the Zarkot to override the Narrtor’s security systems, fly out of here, and maybe head to the Center Planets. We can sell the Zarkot, split the money, and then stay out of each other’s paths from then on. Is that a deal?”
“But,” Nadyr asked, face twisted with indecision. “How can I trust you to let me out?”
Lish spoke up. “You can trust us, because if we don’t let you out, you can just yell for the guards. Deal?”
Nadyr shoved his hand through the bars, and they shook hands. “Deal.” He pushed the stone through. “You sure you know how to use that thing?”
“Very sure.” Lish pressed the stone to the center of the cell door, and spoke the command word for the Zarkot. She could hear the gears grinding as the locking mechanism was overridden. The door swung open, hanging loosely from its hinges.
“Ready?” Telen asked, and Vorrha, Lish, and Nadyr nodded silently. “My memory databases tracked the turns we took and the distances between them to get from the Aalya Meriet, so all I have to do is reverse it and I can get us out of here.”
“Being an android must be nice,” Nadyr commented.
The foursome ran through the hallways, ducking to the side when any of Antrus’ men came down the hallways.
Within minutes of their escape, alarms began to shriek.
Nadyr smiled. “Nice to know I’m worthy of alarms.”
Lish laughed. Her mood had become quite cheerful. It seemed that adventure had banished her irritable nature to the recesses of her conscious.
“There!” Telen said. “That’s the entrance to the docking bay. But it’s heavily guarded.”
Nadyr smiled. “Lish! Remember how Liz used to distract the kitchen guards?” He asked, referring to the days when him and Lish were in the orphanage on Arboga.
Lish nodded and smirked. “You distract. I’ll take them out.”
Nadyr strolled around the corner, directly in front of the guards. “Hello, gentlemen.”
Four barrels of four guns jerked up to point at him.
Nadyr put his hands up. “Whoa, no lets not be too hasty.”
And then chaos reigned.
Lish darted up behind the guards, grabbing two and smashing their heads together. Nadyr disarmed the other two, shooting them both with a blaster he stole from one.
“All done!”
Lish nodded, teeth gritted into a smile, hand gripping her shoulder.
“Lish, what happened?” Telen asked, worried.
“Stray blaster shot. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me. Just get back to the ship.”
They filed through the door, and Telen jabbed the button to open the Aalya Meriet’s loading hatch.
“All aboard!”
Later, they sat in the cockpit. Lish’s shoulder was swathed in bandages, and Nadyr was reprogramming the ship’s computer system to accept the Zarkot.
Nadyr sighed. “If only we didn’t have to leave the Angyl.”
“All we have to do,” Lish said, ignoring him, “is hijack the computer system of the Narrtor long enough to open the landing hatch. Then we zip out of here. That’s all. Antrus didn’t ‘tie down’ the Aalya Meriet in any way.” She stood up and walked towards the controls. “Plug the Zarkot here,” she reached down and pointed, and Nadyr stuck the little stone into the slot made to fit it. “And now,” Lish pushed a few buttons and typed a destination into the navigation system. “And now, we’re free.”
The huge hatched opened, and the little Aalya Meriet darted free of the Narrtor’s clutches.
The flight to the Center Planets was not a long one, but the foursome’s adventures on the planet Qud were worthy of a second tale. But, alas, that tale must be saved for another day, because for now, the story of Lish Ryn and her friends must be given a rest.
BREAKING: China’s Latest AWACS To Counter US Military Attacks
What court case does the Miranda Warning come from?
Miranda v. Arizona
Ernesto Miranda was a serial rapist. His normal technique was to come up behind a woman, threaten her life with a weapon, and force her to keep her eyes closed or look away from him while he raped her.
Eventually, he raped enough women that police were able to put together enough clues to name him as a suspect. One of his victims had looked at him as he walked away, after raping her. However, she was very clear that she had not seen his face. She only saw his basic profile.
In a police lineup, she stated that she could not positively identify him, but that Ernesto Miranda did fit the profile she had seen and could have been her rapist.
Police interrogated Miranda. Since nobody had yet invented the “Miranda warning,” they didn’t give him one.
Ernesto Miranda confessed to the rapes (and a bit of kidnapping too, if I recall correctly).
He was convicted at trial. His lawyers appealed the conviction, arguing that Miranda’s Constitutional right against self incrimination in court, and right to an attorney in court, should also apply during police questioning outside of court. The appeal worked its way all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Miranda’s attorneys’ argument, and they invented the doctrine that police must issue a warning during custodial police interrogation. This was a totally new idea in law enforcement.
Miranda’s conviction was overturned, and his previous trial was basically considered null and void, like it had never happened. If they wanted to convict him of the rapes, they would have to do a new trial, but without the evidence of his confessions. Since the one witness who had peaked at him honestly stated that she couldn’t identify his face, the prospects for a conviction were pretty grim.
Ernesto Miranda had a common-law wife and children. While he was in jail awaiting his second trial his common-law wife came to visit him. He told her how nervous he was about the testimony of this woman who could sort of, possibly, identify him. He told his wife that he was very sorry about raping that woman. He asked his wife if she could go visit the woman, explain that to her, and ask her, as a fellow wife and mother, to refuse to testify so that he could go free.
Apparently this was the first time Ernesto Miranda’s wife had realized that her husband was actually guilty of raping all those women. She was, to put it mildly, a bit disappointed in him. In fact, she was so disappointed that she went straight to the cops and told them about his confession to her and how he had asked her to tamper with a witness.
The really fun irony here is that Ernesto Miranda, whose name was associated with brand-new rules about custodial interrogations by police, had just made a confession, while in custody, to his wife, who was not part of the police and who was not acting on behalf of the police when the confession was made. Therefore, this second confession was completely admissible in court. His wife testified against him in his second trial.
Ernesto Miranda, a serial rapist who was about to escape punishment based on the suppression of his first confession, made a second confession and got convicted! He was sentenced to 20 – 30 years in prison.
He eventually made parole. He made some pocket change selling autographed copies of the “miranda warning” cards used by cops.
Eventually he died on the restroom floor at a bar after he got cheating at cards and his fellow players stabbed him to death.
I think the new rules we got as a result of the Miranda case are pretty good ones. I do wish we had a name for the warning that didn’t celebrate a twice-confessed and twice-convicted serial rapist.
Hungry thoughts
f255c09639eea83e8fa9e540e9e71fc3
What’s the name of the Chinese app that lets Chinese citizens rate their government officials’ performance?
12345 hotline. 7 * 24-hour service.
You only need to provide feedback on the issue over the phone, and the staff will relay your complaint or request to the responsible department.
The relevant departments need to respond within the specified time.
After the problem is resolved, 12345 will conduct a follow-up and ask for your evaluation, whether you are satisfied or not.
One day at 00:10, I finished my work from a client and went home. When leaving the parking lot, I need to scan the QR code to pay, but the payment page crashes and I am unable to complete the payment, trapped in the parking lot.
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00:20. I am looking for the phone number of the parking lot property, but it is incorrect. I then called 12345 for help.
00:30. Because I couldn’t determine how much longer I had to wait, I called the Chinese emergency hotline 110 (911 in the US).
00:40. The police rushed to the scene and helped me get out of the parking lot. They drove the police car to the entrance, and as the railing was lifted, I drove out of the entrance. I thanked the police and went home.
00:55. The person in charge of the parking lot called me, apologized, and then asked me how I was doing now. I said the police helped me out. He apologized again and told me that he would definitely correct the problem.
What did James Cameron find in the Mariana Trench?
In 2012, Cameron would embark on a solo odyssey, a vertical freefall into the inky abyss of the Mariana Trench, the belly button of the world.
It wasn’t just some Finding Nemo sequel; this was hardcore exploration in the Deepsea Challenger, a submersible he’d co-designed—basically a lime-green torpedo with a human inside.
Dude had balls of titanium, no doubt.
See, the pressure at the bottom of the trench is insane, roughly a thousand times greater than what we experience at sea level.
Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger submersible was painstakingly engineered to withstand this crushing force, but any breach would have been catastrophic.
Imagine a hairline fracture appearing in the viewport, or a tiny leak springing in the hull. The water, under that immense pressure, would jet in with the force of a bullet, instantly obliterating the submersible and its sole occupant.
Remember the Titan submersible?
Yea it would be like that.
No gentle implosion here; it would be a violent rupture, turning Cameron and his high-tech capsule into Swiss Cheese/fish food faster than you can say “abyss.”
The frigid temperatures and complete darkness at that depth would add insult to injury, ensuring a swift and merciless end.
There would be no time for a dramatic rescue, no last-minute heroics. It would be game over, lights out, with Cameron’s name forever etched in the annals of deep-sea exploration as a cautionary tale.
But James Cameron is a badass.
So, down he plunged, sunlight fading to an eternal twilight, pressure threatening to crush him like a beer can under a tank.
At nearly seven miles down, he hit the Challenger Deep, the trench’s deepest point.
Imagine the darkness, the bone-chilling cold, the feeling of utter isolation.
This wasn’t your average scuba dive; this was like visiting another planet, except wetter and with fewer aliens—or so we thought.
Turns out, the Mariana Trench wasn’t the lifeless void scientists had assumed.
Cameron found a whole ecosystem down there—shrimp-like amphipods, weird sea cucumbers, and even some funky microbes that looked like they came straight out of a Lovecraftian nightmare.
Who knew life could thrive in such extreme conditions? It was like discovering a secret speakeasy in the middle of a desert.
Cameron also collected sediment samples and did some 3D mapping, giving us a whole new perspective on this underwater world.
It wasn’t just about the ‘wow’ factor of being one of the deepest human ever; it was about pushing the boundaries of science, like a caffeinated grad student on a deadline.
He spent roughly three hours exploring the alien landscape, collecting samples, and filming the otherworldly environment.
But technical issues with the submersible’s hydraulics cut his expedition shorter than planned.
Originally, he had hoped to spend six hours at the bottom. Still, in those three hours, he managed to gather enough data and footage to keep scientists buzzing for years to come.
An update on some of my AI generations
This is what I generated today. Many nudes. But, I am working on a kind of overall classic look. I threw in a couple of dragons and pastoral scenes to flush out the AI generation seed. Here’s what came up.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(18)
I really like the colors, and the over all layout.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(18)
The male looks good with a nice chest, and the fine glass of wine. This next one is a favorite. I really like the cat looking at the camera.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(18)
THis next one is so-so. I would have preferred a schooner than a clipper ship.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(17)
Here’s the guy clothed. I am debating which is better, with a shirt or shirtless…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(17)
Shirtless looks good.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(17)
It emphasizes his nice arms. I like her expression too. But, the cat needs work.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(16)
This one is convoluted.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(16)
Cat is messed up in this one…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(16)
Nice rosy cheeks on the girl.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(16)
This has promise with the great clouds but the cats are all messed up.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(15)
So much potential in this one…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(15)
This one is better… I really like her draped dress fabric.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(15)
Two guys. Not bad. Not bad.
The cat is great too.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(15)
This has promise…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(14)
Nice.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(14)
After a while all the nudes start to look the same…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(14)
This looks pretty darn good…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(14)
Nice, but the ships are convoluted.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(13)
The cats add nothing…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(13)
I like the wood highlights…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(13)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(12)
Really nice arms.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(12)
Nice background.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(12)
This is more interesting with a kind of hidden backstory…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(12)
Great colors.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(11)
Nice contrasts.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(11)
Is the cat interrupting something?
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(11)
What is he doing?
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(11)
The cat wants to know her intentions…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(10)
Both forms are great.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(10)
Ohhhh. I love these colors.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(10)
Is he spitting in the cup?
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(10)
This is my FAVORITE of the entire bunch.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(9)
Is it poisoned?
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(9)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(9)
Smoking?
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(9)
Messed up legs. Such the pity.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(8)
Legs are still messed up. And the cat… he’s a big one.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(8)
I do like her dress.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(8)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(8)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(7)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(7)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(7)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(7)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(6)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(6)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(6)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(6)
Let’s have some fun with tigers…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(5)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(5)
She can’t get enough wine…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(5)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(5)
Let’s have some fun with dragons…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(4)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(4)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(4)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(4)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(3)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(3)
Not so great on the dragon front. Back to tigers on the water…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(21)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(12)@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(22)@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(21)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(20)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(11)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(11)
Now this picture is a great artistic favorite. But where is the rest of the tiger?
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(20)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(19)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(10)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(10)@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(19)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(18)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(9)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(9)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(18)@Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(17)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(8)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(8)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(17)@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(16)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(7)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(7)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(16)
Two tigers. Double the fun!
@art Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(15)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(14)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(15)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(3)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(3)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(2)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(2)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(2)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(2)
Here’s some nice pastoral scenes…
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1(1)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0(1)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3(1)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2(1)Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 1Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 0Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 3Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2
The Rock – Jungle Cruise | Hollywood Action Movie 2024 special for USA full english Full HD
If the police want to search a military official’s car and the official states that he has classified material in the vehicle, what happens next?
Not military, but lots of money. I used to work at the Federal Reserve and we had a driver come in really late one night. When we asked why, they said they got caught up at a weigh station and a rookie cop who was still in training.
Anyway, these trucks were loaded right to the edge of the 80,000 lbs. gross weight, like within a few hundred pounds. So they stop and rookie says he wants to take a look inside. The drivers explain why this is a bad idea and he doesn’t care as he must know why it’s so heavy. Even his FTO doesn’t recommend it, but the kid was in his last few days of training and the FTO was letting him call all the shots.
The drivers again tell him not to go there and they even verify the seal numbers with the paperwork numbers. Kid still doesn’t get it and he breaks the seal, with the drivers present. The drivers immediately call the closest FBI field office and hand him the paperwork that says he’s now responsible for the $800,000 worth of quarters inside and he can’t leave until Federal Agents arrive. Not leaving means, not being out of arm’s length of the doors at any time. He was told that if the weight of the load when they left the US Mint was different than what it was at arrival of the Feds, he would be charged.
To make a long story short, the Feds made a road trip out of it and the poor rookie never got a break; his FTO took a nap in the station. The kid had hours of reports to do and apologized profusely and said he’d never open one of those again.
The drivers were exhausted when they showed up and our paperwork was all jacked up because of the new seal. We got it checked in though and secured.
Update: Just over 5,000 likes. Thanks so much. I never thought I’d write something that so many people would like. Most of my stuff is short and simple. Anyway, thanks to all of you who have viewed and/or commented.
Update: Now over 17,000 likes! I can’t believe it. I’ve read quite a few of the comments, but started to give up over time. Thanks to everyone for enjoying the story. Sometimes, I miss those days at the Fed, but I’m better off where I am now.
Is China a great place to live?
I think so. It’s not for everyone. It depends on your individual sensibilities.
Just like anywhere else in the world, there are things you may dislike.
But I think on the whole, China is a great place to live. The cities are clean and safe and very modern. No crime to speak of. No homelessness. No drug addiction. Great transportation infrastructure. Great 5G service. Cashless payment.
The shopping malls are quite Westernized with lots of famous Western brands.
The rural areas are quaint and picturesque. Good for tourism.
If you can deal with the language barrier, you can make a good life for yourself in China.
Ok. SO the United States is actively killing Russians on Russian soil. And then Russia hits back and kills all the Americans who launched the weapons.
Meanwhile the United States is attacking every nation that wants to join BRICS+. Forcing the collective to issue a statement saying that they will pause on new entries.
Ah. We are deep in the middle of the “doo doo”. We are in The Shit.
It’s really hot.
Do not put your hand on the blistering surface of the stove.
It’s all a big cluster fuck. Yeah. Today is Geo-Politics post. We are deep in the middle of it. Do not fall asleep.
Today…
BREAKING: Russia Eliminated 10 US Army Officers Who Carried Out Missile Attack On SEVASTOPOL
Russian revenge. Hits.
OpenAI to further block access by China, what’s your comment on this?
According to recent reports, OpenAI has been noted in multiple media outlets for attempting to restrict access to its platform from users within China. The move has been perceived as a further limitation imposed by the United States on China’s ability to leverage advanced AI technology. This development was highlighted by an industry insider who chose to remain anonymous due to the politically sensitive nature of the matter, as reported by SCMP.
Notably, Chinese companies have been actively participating in the AI sector’s development. For instance, in November, a relatively unknown startup based in Beijing, 零一万物-http://AI2.0大模型技术和应用的全球公司（01.AI）, unveiled its own open source model, which has demonstrated superior performance when compared to Llama 2 and has achieved high rankings on various leaderboards that benchmark AI model capabilities.
Furthermore, prominent Chinese entities such as Baidu, Alibaba, Mengniu Dairy, and TAL Education have also entered the competitive landscape of generative AI, leading to the emergence of what Chinese media has coined “the battle of 100 models” to characterize the intensified competition in this field.
The rapid advancements in AI have introduced a new dimension to the ongoing US-China tech conflict. The Biden administration has taken measures to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductor technology and has imposed restrictions on American investments in China’s AI sector. Additionally, there are reports of forthcoming regulations intended to control the export of advanced AI models.
In May, the Biden administration introduced the CHIP ACT, a significant initiative aimed at strengthening the semiconductor supply chain. The Chips and Science Act, supported by over $100 billion in grants, loans, and guarantees intended for semiconductor firms to establish manufacturing facilities in the US, has sparked a substantial influx of investment. This is anticipated to reverse the declining trend in domestic chip production, as confirmed by the Semiconductor Industry Association.
Russia’s MiG-31 Foxhound Destroyed The U.S. GLOBAL HAWK and MQ-4C TRITON Drones Over The BLACK SEA
The Western “news” claim that this is a big “nothing burger”. That it is “fake news”. Hum. I tend to believe the Russians.
In the age of dueling with pistols, was it customary to finish the wounded foe with a shot to his head?
It wasn’t really the standard practice, and doing so could actually get pretty complicated.
Duels, especially during their heyday in the 17th to 19th centuries, were governed by a strict code of conduct.
The goal of a duel wasn’t to kill your opponent. It was more about defending one’s honor.
In many cases, just showing up and being willing to risk your life was enough to restore your honor, and a lot of duels ended after the first shot, whether or not anyone was hit.
if someone did get hit and was wounded, the duel usually ended right there.
Killing a wounded opponent would have been seen as excessive and dishonorable.
People back then took these codes seriously.
In fact, in most cases, if a duelist was wounded, the seconds (the assistants to the duelists) would step in to stop the fight.
There are plenty of wild stories from those times.
There are plenty of wild stories from those times. One of my favorites involves the American politician Alexander Hamilton and his infamous duel with Aaron Burr.
Hamilton was hit and fatally wounded, but Burr didn’t go up and finish him off with another shot.
Instead, Hamilton was taken back to his friends and later died from his injuries.
there was a French duel in the 19th century between two gentlemen named Léon Gambetta and Édouard de Cassagnac.
Gambetta was shot in the thigh and unable to continue, but de Cassagnac didn’t finish him off.
The duel ended with Gambetta wounded but alive, and both men actually went on with their lives, their honor intact.
What is the most bizarre mechanical problem you’ve encountered while working on your car?
I bought a 1967 Ford Galaxie convertible back in ’77 that no one could figure out. For $175 it was a bargain so I took the chance. The owner had given up on it after several shops couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. It would idle fine, but as soon as you tried to accelerate it would spit back through the carb and either stall, or stumble then take off. I jacked it out of the mud and babied it home. I at first thought it was the carb, but it seemed to have good power when you got lucky and you got the rpm’s up without it puking through the carb. I started looking at the ignition system, and finally found the answer when I revved it off of idle while watching and checking the timing with a timing light. When it hit about 8–900 rpm the timing advanced way beyond where it should be, which was causing the engine to choke. It turned out that Ford used some vacuum advances that had a slug inside to tension against a spring to set the rate of advance. Most vacuum advances are sealed cans, but this one had a screw on cap with the vacuum line connection in the center. It had been replaced so the mechanics must have thought it was ok, but apparently the slug was never taken from the old unit and put into the new one. Once the carburetor butterfly opened it would provide vacuum to the advance port and the distributor would go right to full advance (probably 50 to 60 degrees before TDC). It took a little fiddling to cut a piece of copper tubing to the right length with a few coke can shims to get it to the sweet spot, but that 390 ran great. I met my wife cruising in that car.
“What this DHS guy said TERRIFIED me to the core” | Redacted with Clayton Morris
What was the last thing your mother said to you?
”Goodnight Hon, love you !”
I replied “Night, love you too and thank you for the pot of soup”
We had been camping and when we got home my Mom had made a big pot of chicken soup. Only my youngest had school the next day, also had PTA open house before school started that I had to be at. It wasnt unusual that my mom didnt come out of her room in the morning while kids were getting ready for school, I know she had been up late and her TV was on. I was super busy that morning my oldest son came with me to help set up. My 14 year old daughter stayed home to sleep in.
About 2 minutes after kids went to class and I started cleaning up the food at PTA event, the office lady called the library over the intercom and said there was a call on line 2 which was odd because I had my cell phone. But it was my sister who had stopped by to check on our mom after she dropped off her son at school. Mom had had heart failure do to her illness. The emts said she had died maybe 2–3 hours sgo which was when we were all up and getting ready to leave. It was 4–6 hours later that the Neptune society arrived to pick her up. I dont remember much but I do remember thinking She died hearing the normal family life happening right outside her bedroom door and although she was alone she really wasn’t. I pray that it was comforting even just a little bit.
My Mom had been sick a long time and we were all aware this would happen eventually.
It’s been almost 16 years (July 7 2008) Man do I miss her something fierce still.
“LEAVE WHILE YOU CAN”- CANADA WARNS, NUCLEAR DIRTY BOMB, RUSSIAS EMERGENCY CALL WITH USA
What do you think about Europe’s recent tariffs on Chinese-made cars?
It’s fine.
It simply shows that they are unable to compete in any meaningful way.
They’re also rather poor at history.
When CRUSHING tarrifs were placed on Chinese steel, Solar panels, tyres, chips, wind turbines.
Within 10 years? China became absolutely dominant in those industries and western companies get hollowed out.
Westoids will cope with the poor quality / bad safety bullshit like they usually do until you point out NCAP ratings.
What I think will happen is this:
People in Europe will keep their ICE cars longer. As inflation ravages Europe more they’ll fill their cars up with petrol or diesel and the numbers on the pump will just get bigger and bigger. They’ll look for alternatives and see the high price tags…
Via culture videos and stuff they’ll see far more affordable Chinese EVs and think why can’t we have this? People in the USSR saw the apparently better things in western nations and thought why can’t we have this?
Quick French Bread
Quick French Bread
Ingredients
1 envelope yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
1 1/4 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
5 or 6 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
Add yeast to water, then add salt and sugar. Stir until the yeast dissolves.
Beat the flour into the yeast water, a cup at a time, using a wooden spoon to stir. Add as much flour as you need to make a smooth dough. Knead until smooth. Brush top and sides with oil and cover the dough with a towel. Let stand in a warm place to rise until double in bulk.
Turn the dough onto a floured bread board and shape into long French loaves.
Place the loaves on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal and let stand to rise for 5 minutes.
Slash the tops of the loaves in several places, brush them with water and place in a cold oven.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Place a pan of boiling water in the oven with the loaves and bake them for 45 minutes, or until crusty done.
Quick French Bread 2
Do teachers ever pass a failing student just to get them out of their classroom?
I did it once at university. I had a student who really struggled with my class. I learned later that she was struggling in all phases of her life. But she worked hard. She did all the home work. She showed me all the different ways she tried to solve the problems. It was a programming class. She tried several ways to solve the programming projects. She was in my office every chance she had. She asked questions indicating that she had really tried to understand. The lightbulb just never came on for her. She told me she was doing fine in all her other CS courses.
At the end of the semester I totaled her grade and she was about half a percent below passing. My course was required for a degree. As I thought about it, I realized that she would never need this language after she left my class. Nobody programs in assembly anymore. I thought taking it again would not benefit her in any way. I didn’t think she would ever get it. Finally, I didn’t want to work that hard again. She wore me out and I gave her a passing grade.
A couple semesters later I passed her in the hall. She was so excited to see me. “I finally understand what you were trying to teach me!” I was skeptical, but on the other hand, I had exactly the same experience in a class as an undergrad when three weeks after the final, I finally figured out what had been dealing me fits.
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“When my Advanced Computer Architecture professor says something, it reminded me of what you were saying. Because of what you said, I understand what he is saying now.”
So, she got some benefit from my class after all. I am still glad I passed her. I hope things went well for her.
Russia is Losing its Patience and it could be Devastating for NATO | Pepe Escobar
SPACE NEWS BROADCAST CORP.8 PM GALACTIC NEWSBreaking News: Are the Koolman Industries Again in Violation of Space Workers Comp?Is this Another case of Space Labor Law blatant contravention?The anchorman goes on the air followed by hundred of millions of faithful audience members of the most popular space news agency.“:Dear Cast Readers,We know from the stories that came in large numbers, from Triton to Artemise, that recent cases of Space Labor Laws are culminating in a Space Class Action Lawsuit of extreme proportions.Let us introduce you to two cases that involved different settings and events, but are remarkably symptomatic of the present climate of scandals and corruption incidents in the Far Space Regional Authority.First Case Scenario:
Workers Conditions in Triton’s Meth-sea:
Two dinghies filled with survivors from a Triton ocean wreck derive for weeks over thousands of miles under a blasting binary sun. It is comforting to know that these dinghies are made of coated titanium with borodium reinforcements which are the strongest known materials.
The crew is composed of space shift members who got separated by an hydrogen potassium typhoon of epidemic proportions.
They had been fishing meth-fish on the HMS Essex-SpaceCargo in the middle of the methane ocean for now two months and their cargo was loaded with about a million tons of catch. This ocean (located on Tarantula 1) is a meth-sea of a color red like blood. Its inhabitants inherited the same color.
The number one rule for our meth-fishermen is that they never get into contact with the species found in that red ocean. These fishes are so toxic and life-repellant that just one bite could prove to be lethal, disintegrating or slowly consuming the victim’s flesh until they die in agony after having lost consciousness in horrific medical circumstances.
The million tons catch is then fed to the machines hidden deep in the belly of the Essex where they are cryogenized and processed for very-long term storage, up to a century. On the boat, not one fisherman has the faintest idea of the use the catch will fulfill, or if it will ever even be used at all. All they know is that they meth-fish them and get paid for their arduous work.
A crew usually is made up of around eighteen men who works in grueling shifts of one day and one night and get two days rest. They stay at meth-sea for six months or even a year. At the end of the campaign they have made about two-year salary being able to support a family of four until the next campaign. It is basically a space-version of the Alaskan fisheries of once.
The conditions are extremely harsh and a big difference with the salmon- fishboat is that falling at sea means unavoidable death and not just a bad adventure. Consequently no life jacket can be found as they are unnecessary. And that is a violation of Space Labor law. A few concerned Scientists have developed a suit that is halfway between the space suit and the deepest range pressurized deep underwater suit. But it can only guarantee a short period of survival until the rescue teams have arrived at the place of distress. If the survival unit doesn’t get there in time, the workers will just have a very bad day.
The crew we interviewed last week were exemplary in the matter. They ran into the largest meth-fish bank ever encountered counting five millions of tons of catch. They were all happy and started to work. But that is when the archetypal monster, a gigantic star sea monster came down on them: a gigantic alien Moby Dick type sea monster called the Suburt’na by the natives, the ones with the red color. On Earth the most likely predator to use as a comparison would be the Carcharodon megalodon.
The giant creature destroyed their space-pressurized meth-fishing boat in twenty minutes and killed a number of men. Not one of them was covered by any life insurance policy because their employer hasn’t deemed it necessary.
Thanks to the ensign’s courageous audacity (that cost him his life), they managed to put their unsubmersible dinghies at meth-sea and escaped. They begun a long derive on the meth sea for weeks trying to reach out with distress calls which were not heard. Now the men on board are slowly going astride on the vast ocean perhaps three times larger than the earthly Pacific.
The meth sea port station where they came from looks a bit like an Antarctic station soon became convinced the Essex was lost at meth sea. That is the jargon used in this case. All search for the lost Cargo has been stopped.
But the Essex had not gone down yet. Aboard, the meth fishermen knew that their supplies were going low and if they were not found shortly they would surely perish by starvation. And to compound their problems the charcarodon megalodon was still out there – prowling the seemingly infinite red ocean. The creature was first thought to be a sort of primitive local version of a whale but soon turns out to be much, much worse than that…
Have you ever imagined what a meth sea in fury could look like? The meth waves are as tall as a 5 story building. Then a small speck can be seen on top of the waves. The speck is really the head of a Unit-1 robotic assembler unit, barely emerging from the meth sea in fury. It fell a few weeks earlier from the orbital station and by gravity slowly reentered the Kuranian atmosphere just to fall into the meth sea in the middle of a storm of the century. The Koolman worker stranded in the Unit-1 robotic assembler unit can survive for a week or two, depending on the type of lease he’s been subscribed into. The lease has the inconvenient drawback that the supplies are limited by the lease agreement. Basically, if you got credit for a week, your supplies, including your oxygen tank, will be limited to a week. When the week is over, you better have applied and gotten more credit line or you are out of luck.
Second Case Scenario:
Koolman’s Disregard for Workers Comp at their Industrial Space Facilities:
Dear Readers:
The Second Case we offer to your judgment is as disconcerting as the first one. It took place on the interplanetary facilities administered by Koolman during the week of May 1st to 8th.
You will be able to judge for yourself the gravity of the facts and vote at the end of this cast, in your conscience, your verdict.
The location is the Koolman’s Space Industries Facilities. Our unvoluntary hero is an hourly space worker. An hourly space worker in a working space suit is a worker not a hero and shouldn’t be asked to be one. John looks like a standard industrial worker, except he lives 305 years from now. His daily schedule consists of repairs, adjustments and other not so heroic jobs. He works on space stations compartments, maintenance rooms, and anything he has been assigned to, when getting his weekly schedule at the space station administration center. On a weekly basis, he could earn around 100000 new coins a month which is enough to support a family of four or six. Generally he does not want this job but has to take it to make a living. So, John once earned a PhD in magnetohydrodynamic science and hoped to get a job at the Trans-Jupiterian Consort. But that did not happen and when it was time to make a tough decision, he accepted this lower occupation for the time being. John traveled one week to the industrial complex and begun fixing space modules right away. Koolman rents the space suit to its workers. They take a large deposit and send you good to go into the neighborhoods of the largest spacepods. John’s weekly schedule begins on Sunday and is somehow repetitive but he has not lost interest when he floats in space, with the red planet in the horizon.
The inevitable happened on his fourth day of work as he was fixing a ramp located on the side of a huge depressurizer, he was hit with great force by an unknown object. Thrown at great speed into space, John was saved by an emergency landing pod in outer space that stopped his vertiginous flight. He was marooned not too far from the main planet. Workers in this area may sometimes have to spend a day in a space suit of that type in which they have most of the survival tools needed as well as food and drinks. So when John fell to what could have been his death on the surface of the emergency pod he hoped he would be found quickly and brought back to the planet orbital landing.
He also had his credit cards to buy the supplements he needed off the outlets on the emergency pod.
But after a couple of days spent on the platform John began to fear the worst as he was uncomfortably stuck in vertical position inside his space suit. All the coms had been cut off in the fly and had not been reestablished.
On his fifth day on the emergency pod, John sees another space suit hurled into space. and comes landing onto his already crowded emergency pod. Now John must share his already claustrophobic situation with another worker, who, like him, fell into space. John tries without success to establish a com with his unwanted neighbor. Ironically they can see each other through their visors. John knows some sign language. They can soon share the news and hope that a rescue party will come for them.
They will wait eight days, eight long days which will have now passed without any help on the horizon. John used up the last of his credits to buy the last supply of drinks and foods accessible at the outlets. He expects the card to be declined very soon. What will they do when this happens?
Fortunately a search party spotted the emergency pod on the tenth day of John’s odyssey.
Dear Cast Readers:
We just showed how, once again, Koolman Industries has proven to disregard the most elementary working rules and safety procedures in space and in Triton’s Meth sea. We ask you, at the end of this cast, to vote your mind about Koolman Industries. Please, be partial and vote to prevent Koolman to operate in such unfair conditions that place the lives of their workers in danger. Stop Koolman Industries before someone dies in their facilities! “
Thanks For Watching! Good Evening.
(Music. Holo Cameras span the Theater)
What’s the coolest thing you found in a hotel room that was left behind?
In San Francisco. I was helping a good friend, and myself, by being an extra housekeeper at a hotel that is very close to the airport. A huge conference was hosted there for four days. The place was booked. It was a neverending cycle of cleaning the rooms and changing linens. One time I was cleaning up an especially gross room. Luckily for me, it was the last one on my list. It took about half an hour to clean the bathroom. It seemed like a person bypassed the toilet and chose to vomit in the tub. I got it cleaned up and disinfected. The bed wasn’t too bad. I just had to strip it and put fresh linen on. I found a hundred dollar bill on the nightstand along with an apology for the mess. I emptied the trash cans and started vacuuming. As I was checking things over to be sure I didn’t miss anything, I found a manila envelope wedged between the bed and nightstand. There wasn’t anything written on the outside. Inside, I found five small plastic bags. Inside of each one was what looked like Susan B Anthony coins. I stuck them in my apron and finished up. On my way out I went to the security desk and turned it in. A couple of days later, I returned to payroll for my check. Before I left I was told the supervisor wanted to speak to me. It turned out that the coins I had were collectors. Each coin had a fault on it. Things like the figure facing the wrong way or the date was off. What I thought were just ordinary coins were actually worth thousands of dollars. I asked why they were in an envelope and not in a safe or lock box. The owner thought he would be able to keep them safe on his own. So, my honesty netted me an envelope with a thank you note. It also included fifteen hundred dollars.
Kallas replaces Josep. US contractors in Ukraine. Austin calls Belousov. Macron wants to call Putin
And the old man says no. Then the young man tells him he was his student, And the teacher asks:
“What do you do, what do you do in life?”
The young man answers:
“Well, I became a teacher.”
“ah, how good, like me?” Asks the old man.
“Well, yes. In fact, I became a teacher because you inspired me to be like you.”
The old man, curious, asks the young man at what time he decided to become a teacher. And the young man tells him the following story:
“One day, a friend of mine, also a student, came in with a nice new watch, and I decided I wanted it.
I stole it, I took it out of his pocket.
Shortly after, my friend noticed the his watch was missing and immediately complained to our teacher, who was you.
Then you addressed the class saying, ‘This student’s watch was stolen during classes today. Whoever stole it, please return it.’
I didn’t give it back because I didn’t want to.
You closed the door and told us all to stand up and form a circle.
You were going to search our pockets one by one until the watch was found.
However, you told us to close our eyes, because you would only look for his watch if we all had our eyes closed.
We did as instructed.
You went from pocket to pocket, and when you went through my pocket, you found the watch and took it. You kept searching everyone’s pockets, and when you were done you said ‘open your eyes. We have the watch.’
You didn’t tell on me and you never mentioned the episode. You never said who stole the watch either. That day you saved my dignity forever. It was the most shameful day of my life.
But this is also the day I decided not to become a thief, a bad person, etc. You never said anything, nor did you even scold me or take me aside to give me a moral lesson.
I received your message clearly.
Thanks to you, I understood what a real educator needs to do.
Do you remember this episode, professor?
The old professor answered, ‘Yes, I remember the situation with the stolen watch, which I was looking for in everyone’s pocket. I didn’t remember you, because I also closed my eyes while looking.’
This is the essence of teaching:
If to correct you must humiliate; you don’t know how to teach.”
BREAKING: Military Coup in Bolivia
As soon as Bolivia tries to join BRICS+, the United States starts a coup.
Commander Lance Gilmore and Lieutenant Drew Adams touched down near the Sea of Serenity. Boosters kicked up clouds of lunar dust as they signaled Huston. It had been a very long trip and the astronauts were eager to set foot on Earth’s closest neighbor.
Commander Gilmore signaled Earth, “Huston, this is Lunar Five. We have touch down.”
“Copy Lunar Five. That’s great news. You’re clear to have a look around.” Houston signaled back.
After a decade of budget finagling and technical leaps, man was once again traveling to the moon. The plan was to use a series of new missions to the moon to prepare astronauts for the
first manned mission to Mars. It was a solid long term strategy put in place as governments finally came together to begin more far-reaching manned exploration.
“It’s still hard to believe we’re really here.” Lieutenant Adams said while he wrapped up the landing routine.
Commander Gilmore was fidgeting in the new generation space suit eager to explore the grey landscape. “It is something. And in a minute, we’ll set foot where only a few have before.
Having finished their last safety checks, the pair were pressurizing the air lock.
The sun glared down upon the barren landscape as the exterior hatch of Lunar Five cycled open. Commander Gilmore stepped down onto the fine moon dust with Lieutenant Adams right behind.
“How’re you two doing down there?” Lieutenant Melissa Sloan called down from the orbiting shuttle.
“Everything’s peachy down here. How are things up there? Any traffic?” Commander Gilmore asked with a grin while he looked around.
“Smooth sailing up here. You boys are having all the fun. I feel like the designated driver.”
“So you’re saying you miss us?” Lieutenant Adams asked playfully.
“Don’t get your hopes up Adams.” They all laughed. Everything was going as predicted. Their experience on these new lunar missions would be used to finalize an international mission to the red planet.
That’s when the shockwave hit. All at once Gilmore and Adams were slammed to the ground by some force from above. Without missing a beat Commander Gilmore called to Sloan, “Gilmore to Sloan, report!”
Static. Then a muffled voice, “…to Gilmore…unknown impact…boosters to compensate…”
More static. And silence. Getting back to their feet, Adams and Gilmore looked at each other then up to wherever Lieutenant Sloan was.
“Sloan, come in. Are you all right? Status.”
After too many seconds to count, Sloan replied. “I’m alright sir. Something hit me like a ton of bricks. Took me a while to compensate. I’m glad these suits come with their own diapers.”
Commander Gilmore smiled, “Agreed. Run a diagnostic and see if you can get some info from Houston.” Gilmore paused as Adams started to tap him on the shoulder lightly, then much harder.
“Adams, what is it?” Gilmore could see Adams pointing up.
Before he could look up he heard Sloan screaming over the com, “Noooo!”
“Sloan! What is it? Are you alright?”
Adams forcefully turned his commander around and pointed up. Commander Lance Gilmore looked up to see the Earth shattered into pieces. At first it didn’t register. Sloan’s panicked cries faded away as the realization of what he was seeing started to sink in. He dropped to his knees dumbfounded. Adams still staring up at the nightmarish sight. Sloan continued to scream.
“God.” was all he could utter.
Then he started to hear a countdown. Adams pulled him to his feet.
Sloan was still screaming, but it was instructions. “Debris inbound! Estimate impact in thirty seconds! You’re best bet is north! I’ll keep you updated as long as I can!”
“Sloan?” Commander Gilmore started but Adams pulled him into a leaping jog. The best any astronaut could do on the moon.
“Ten seconds until impact. Commander Gilmore, Lieutenant Adams, it was an honor.” Then she chuckled to herself. “I really wanted to walk on the m…” Her sentence was cut off.
Both Gilmore and Adams knew what that meant and they didn’t stop running. Around them little puffs of dust started to pop up from the surface. The impacts gave no noise, their own panicked breaths was all that filled their ears.
To their left was an explosion of dust as something big hit. Was it the shuttle? A satellite? A chunk of earth? More and more impacts came down all around. Some too close for comfort. They ran hard until one impact landed right behind them throwing them forward and away from one another. Commander Gilmore’s vision went hazy as he nearly lost consciousness.
He raised himself to all fours. The lunar dust that had nearly buried him pouring off his suit like filthy bathwater. Slowly he got to his feet.
“Adams? You there?” He looked around. “Lieutenant?”
“Sir?” Not far away he could see Adams gingerly rising up from a nearby impact crater. His suit completely grey from dust.
Commander Gilmore made his way over to the lieutenant and helped him back to his feet. They looked each other over and paused.
“Sir…Earth?” The two astronauts looked up to see the shattered pieces of their home drifting slowly apart.
“What the hell happened?” Commander Gilmore asked to the sky above them. As if in response, from the blackness a ship appeared. Then another. Then many, many more. Each ship was enormous. They were the size of countries – what used to be countries. Multiple ships flew about in practiced unison hauling away pieces of the astronaut’s former planet to who knows where. In no time at all there was nothing left. That’s when things started to get weirder.
Both men stared up in silent disbelief as more ships showed up. These flew much closer to the moon and were hauling large glistening components. The spaceships danced together connecting this long antenna-like object to this blinking cube. They strung together countless miles of thick cable from one gigantic piece to another, then encasing the inner workings in even more components. On and on it went as the object started to come together. It took on a cylinder shape with a large flat screen down its center. In literally minutes the multitude of ships had assembled what could only be an enormous space station. And then, the enormous screen turned on. The astronauts were greeted with images of aliens. And the aliens were, playing games? And what seemed to be, betting?
Bright pops of energy suddenly appeared overhead as ships of all sizes, shapes and alien configurations began to dock with the station. The two men took a few steps back as several other ships broke off from the group and started to approach the moon’s surface.
“Commander?”
“I see them.” Commander Gilmore tensed as he saw the approaching ships, but also as he viewed his O2 display. It was redlining. There wasn’t much he could do if these ships decided to attack. They couldn’t fight. And they couldn’t run.
As the ships came closer, they spread out and flew over the surface. Actually, it was hard to call them ships. They were very blocky, almost like trailer homes or rv’s. They hissed gasses and blasted their landing jets. One set down just twenty feet away. Parts of it unfurled and
slammed into the ground just in front of them. The structure continued to shift and assemble itself revealing a strange opening bordered with blinking lights. The entrance was glassy; not an airlock that either men were familiar with. The opening more resembled looking through a thin wall of liquid. Above the place, holographic alien lettering popped up.
The two of them looked at one another.
“I’m almost out of air sir.” Said Adams.
“Me too.” Commander Gilmore agreed.
They looked back at the building and moved forward. As they reached the entrance, Gilmore extended his arm and touched it. His hand went right through. He didn’t feel anything and when he pulled his hand back the entrance quivered like a soap bubble.
The two astronauts walked cautiously through the barrier and looked around. A chime could be heard as they emerged inside. The floor was patterned in black and white checkerboard. Booths lined the walls, though some seats were very strange. The place had a very alien, yet familiar feel to it.
From the back of the place wobbled over a somewhat humanoid alien. The best way to describe it would be to ask someone to imagine if a walrus and a chihuahua had a baby. This lumbering creature clad in colorful metallic overalls eyed them with its oversized twitchy pupils. It paused and placed the orange boxes it was carrying on the floor. The creature walked slowly over to them. It placed its meaty fists on its sides and bubbled out something which the two astronauts assumed was its way of asking what the hell they were doing there.
Commander Gilmore held up his hand in greeting. But before he attempted to speak Adams started to wheeze.
“Commander…” Adams began before he fell to one knee.
“Adams!” Gilmore could also see the warning lights flashing on his heads up display.
Gilmore looked up to the creature not knowing if it would understand anything. Would they die there? The creature seemed to, roll its eyes? It moved back to where it came from. Gilmore held Adam’s hand as he felt himself getting lightheaded as well. Then something grabbed his helmet and yanked it off. Strange smells engulfed his nose and his lungs started to burn. This was definitely not air he could breathe. The creature hit the release on Adams helmet and yanked that off as well. Adams gagged and wheezed. There was something slapped onto the
back of both of their heads. Hoses zipped around, up their noses and over their mouths. They were soon breathing easily again.
The creature held out six small metal spheres. It pointed to their ears and their mouths. They took the twitchy metal marbles and gave the creature a puzzled look. It grunted almost irritatedly and pointed to the balls, then to the men’s ears and mouths. They slowly put the tiny metal things against their ears. The spheres grew legs and ran up their ear canals. The sensation was shocking and quickly their ears were ringing sharply causing them pain.
The creature burbled again, but now they could understand it. “Can you little pink idiots understand me yet?”
The two humans nodded weakly.
“Good. Now swallow the other two so I don’t have to put up with your weird squeaking.” It said crossing its flipper arms.
Gilmore and Adams did what the creature demanded and again there was a lot of pain.
“That hurts!” Adams blurted out.
“Of course it does. Translation bots have to burrow into your flesh to work correctly.” The creature said matter of factly. “Now, what are you two doing here? My place doesn’t open for another day.”
Commander Gilmore couldn’t take any more. “What the hell do you mean?” He bellowed advancing on the much larger being. “You blew up our planet! You killed everyone we know! The two of us are the last human beings in existence.” He was pointing accusingly between this creatures bulbous eyes.
“Easy there little guy. I didn’t kill anybody. If you’re talking about the little blue planet that was broken up. It was purchased by the Orion Gambling Federation giving them rights to set up an operation in this sector.” The creature’s flipper arms were flapping away as it explained.
“What the hell are you talking about? How could they buy our planet? There were over seven billion people living there!” Gilmore’s finger was now shaking.
“Happens all the time. Listen, you’re from a younger planet with a very young race so I can understand how all of this is shocking. You just lost everyone you knew. Your home is gone. I get that.”
The two astronauts stood dumbstruck. Earth was bought, destroyed and replaced with a casino.
“Gone.” Adams whispered.
Gilmore put his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. Adams swept it away.
“We’re nothing to them. To that!” Adams pointed at the large alien in front of them.
“Hey.” said the offended creature.
“Easy now lieutenant.” said Gilmore trying to calm his friend.
Adams stood still and looked off into the distance.
“What does it matter?”
Gilmore tried to grab his friend before he ran through the barrier to the cold vacuum outside, but could not. The commander fumbled for his helmet and jammed it on his suit, clicking it into place. He grabbed the other helmet and ran out the barrier. Gilmore reached the
lieutenant and was about to place the helmet on his friend, but stopped. Adams was kneeling in the grey dust looking skyward with lifeless icy eyes.
Gilmore slumped to the ground, his helmet’s O2 sensor blaring. Maybe Adams was right. What does it matter. The moon became blurry then black.
Commander Gilmore was awakened by enjoyable singing, and, an electrical shock.
“Aaah!” he yelped.
“Quiet down.” said the irritated alien as it poked at him.
“You’ll be fine so long as you don’t go back out there without your suit refilled. The device I gave you only alters available air into what you need. Doesn’t work in a vacuum.”
Gilmore sat up, “Good to know.” Then he remembered.
“Adams!”
“Yeah. Your friend didn’t fair so well. Too much damage.”
Commander Gilmore put his head in his hands.
“Hey, don’t worry buddy. You can get him fixed up after you earn enough.” the large creature smiled. At least Gilmore thought it was a smile.
“Fix him? But he’s dead? He…” Gilmore stopped in mid sentence when he saw his friend’s head floating in front of him. Wires and tubes were connecting Adam’s head to a device that appeared to be a floating speaker. The lieutenant’s head was singing a song Gilmore had never heard before.
The Commander jumped to his feet in both horror and disgust.
“What did you do to him?” Gilmore shouted.
The bulbous creature put up its hands, “Calm down. Your friend’ll be fine once you earn enough to fix the damage.” The being glanced at the head and shrugged.
“As for separating his head, I thought it would help.”
Gilmore, enraged, shoved the big alien. Its blubbery belly shook.
“How the hell is that supposed to help?”
The being looked confused and then said, “Oooh. I see. Yeah, I suppose that seeing your buddy’s head cut off would look odd to you.”
Commander Gilmore was about to blurt out something when the alien cut him off.
“Your friend’s in stasis. His body’s in a pod out back.”
Gilmore still had a shocked look on his face so the alien continued.
“Listen pal, to fix up your ‘Adams’ after going out into a vacuum is expensive. Believe it or not, removing his head isn’t a big deal. Orion medicine is way out there. They can fix pretty much anything.”
“But why is his head on that floating…thing?”
“Well,” it began, “While the two of you were out I got to thinking. I said to myself, ‘Hey Yorble’, that’s my name by the way thanks for asking. I said, ‘Hey Yorble.’ You need some help in your new place don’t you? Why not use these two?’”
Gilmore blinked a few times trying to process all this.
Yorble continued, “I figured you could take customer orders and bus the tables. Though your friend’s options were more, well, limited.”
Gilmore looked over at his friend’s floating, and singing, head while Yorble continued.
“I thought, what can I do to bring in customers at my new location?” The alien paused for dramatic effect.
“Entertainment! Your buddy would make for a great jukebox.”
Commander Gilmore felt his legs get shaky so he sat at a booth.
#
Six months later, Commander Gilmore was bussing a table where a couple of Flamorians had just sat. He would need the hard scrubber to remove the slime. If he didn’t, it would start growing.
“Order up!” yelled Yorble.
Gilmore walked around a spherical Robotobo and picked up the order of fried tuskart with a side of baked vinatoes. He figured the furry little Boofax at table three ordered it.
After dropping off the order, Commander Gilmore looked over at the crowd gathered at the front of the cafe. The various aliens cheering as decapitated Adams sang a song that sounded a lot like Blue Suade Shoes. Adams was a hit and Yorble made sure Gilmore received all the tips left for the floating head. The funds were really mounting up. When he first started, Gilmore thought it would take ten years to save up the astronomical sum required to bring Adams back from near-death. But with Adam’s popularity, it may only take two.
With all the extra funds, Gilmore had been able to treat himself. The orbiting casino turned out to be not that bad after all. It was a great stress reliever. When he first started going, he would spend a night there once a week, tops. Nowadays though
it’s become two or three a week. The Commander really enjoyed the gambling.
Feeling the weight of the tip money filling his pocket, Gilmore glanced over at his friend floating amongst the aliens. Adams seemed to look back at him.
“Maybe we could wait a little longer before we get you fixed up Adams. After all, you’re not going anywhere.”
Sergey Lavrov’s BRICS Announcement: No New Members for Now
Every time a new member nation tries to join BRICS+, the United States attacks it. Color revolutions, coups, sanctions, outright and direct wars are the norm.
Now the existing BRICS+ members are setting up defense “antibodies” to counter United States efforts before future announcements. Oh, it seems like a slowing down, but it is a pause and an adoption of strong strengthening measures.
Pepperoni Pizza Bread
The dough for this one is an adaptation from an Oregano Bread recipe that I found in The Bread Machine Cookbook #1. I’ve made a lot of these over the years for family get-togethers, potluck and holidays. It’s always one of the first things to disappear from the table, and so my boys usually beg me to make a second loaf to leave at home for them to devour unchallenged.
pepperoni pizza bread 03
Ingredients
Dough
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, Romano or blended cheese
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon dried basil
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes or 1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder
3 cups bread flour
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
Filling
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 to 1 1/2 cups (approximate) mozzarella cheese
12 to 16 ounces sliced pepperoni
Dried oregano, basil, onion and garlic powder
Also Helpful To Have Handy
A small bowl of lukewarm water
One or two large thin-bladed spatulas
A large wire rack for cooling
Clean cookie sheet, cutting board or cardboard flat if transporting
Instructions
Please follow the instructions in the booklet for your bread machine for best results. The order in which to add ingredients may vary per manufacturer.
Grease or spray a heavy cookie sheet or jellyroll pan and dust with cornmeal. When dough is done remove from breadmaker and roll out on a well-floured surface into a long rectangle a little shorter than your baking sheet. Spread with tomato paste just to within 1 inch of the edge all around. Sprinkle tomato paste with herbs and spices and then mozzarella cheese. Lay slightly overlapping slices of pepperoni over all. Roll up carefully from the long sides as you would a jellyroll. Wet the seam and ends and gently press and smear them together.
Lift carefully supporting the middle and place seam side down on prepared sheet. Let rise about 15-25 minutes while preheating the oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until top is well-browned and bread looks done.
Don’t be alarmed if it springs a leak and oozes – it’ll still taste great. It will stick in that spot but the spatula(s) will help get it off the sheet. Cool on the sheet until you can handle it and then carefully loosen it from the pan and slide it onto a wire rack to cool enough to wrap. It can be wrapped warm in aluminum foil, and I usually do it that way so that it s still a little warm when I get to my destination. A cookie sheet or cardboard flat underneath makes it much easier to transport without bending and cracking it – it tends to be soft when warm.
Cut into 1 1/2-inch slices and watch it disappear!
Store leftovers in the fridge – if you ever have any. I never do!
Notes
Reviewed by mes16121 Tuesday Dec 6th, 2005 08:03 pm.
I made this tonight I have to tell you that this is SO YUMMY! I added some extra toppings…peppers, onions and chopped mushrooms. The bread baked so pretty…did not crack at all! The bread itself was so soft! It was gone in no time! My family wants me to make this at least once a week. Thanks for posting this wonderful recipe!
If you bake bread, you should have this commercial dough conditioner.
Attribution
Posted by cuteascountry_Shortcake at The Cutting Board (Recipe Goldmine) Thursday Oct 20th, 2005 10:35 pm.
This delicious and cheesy pepperoni pizza bread is a delicious twist to the classic pizza recipe. Made with hoagie rolls and fresh mozzarella cheese, these individual pizza breads are sure to please all the pizza lover’s out there.
pepperoni pizza bread 03
Pizza bread is one of the most popular snacks out there. There’s a good reason for its popularity. It’s amazingly delicious! As always, I love putting a spin on a classic. You’ve probably had pizza bread made with something like Italian or French bread, but have you ever had it made with hoagie rolls? If you haven’t, then get ready for a great new way to enjoy a classic!
I used to make this delicious pizza bread variation all the time when my kids were in school. It was just one of the many recipes that my children and their friends would descend upon like locusts after school. The thing is that it’s so good, I still make it just as often as I ever did!
Pepperoni Pizza Bread
I begin this recipe by roasting my own garlic. It’s easy to do and adds so much flavor. I use it to make roasted garlic butter that I slather all over the rolls before baking them to golden, crispy perfection. This adds depth of flavor AND keeps the pizza bread from getting soggy. After that, I top the rolls with pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, and two kinds of pepperoni for the ultimate pepperoni pizza flavor. Then, I just bake it until melty and scarf it down! Oh, it’s so good.
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Why You’ll Love This Pepperoni Pizza Bread Recipe
It has fresh mozzarella, mini pepperonis, pepperoni chunks, and seasoned garlic butter on hoagie rolls.
It’s a hearty, delicious, easy weeknight meal that the whole family will love and enjoy.
Add all your favorite pizza toppings.
Pepperoni Pizza Bread Ingredients
This delicious pepperoni pizza bread only uses a few simple ingredients.
Submarine rolls or hoagie rolls
Head of garlic, roasted
Olive oil
Salt
Butter
Oregano
Basil
Pizza sauce
Fresh mozzarella
Mini pepperonis
Boar’s Head pepperoni
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How to make Pepperoni Pizza Bread
The recipe might sound complicated, but it really only has a couple of moving parts. In reality, it only takes a few simple steps to make.
Step 1: Roast the Garlic
Cut off the top ¼ of a garlic bulb and place it on a 5×5 piece of foil. Then, drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt, and fold the foil up tightly around the bulb. Air fry at 390 for 20 minutes or bake at 400 for 45 minutes to an hour.
Step 2: Make the Garlic Butter
When the garlic is cool enough to handle, remove it from the foil and squeeze the garlic out of the bulbs into a small bowl. Add the softened butter, oregano, and basil and mix until combined.
Step 3: Toast the Rolls
Spread the garlic butter over the inside of the rolls and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Step 4: Add Toppings
Remove the bread halves and spread top them both with pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, and both types of pepperoni.
Step 5: Bake
Bake again at 400 degrees for 12 to 16 minutes or until the cheese is hot and bubbly.
pepperoni pizza bread 08
Recipe Tips
Be careful not to cut too much of the garlic bulb off. You only need to cut far enough down to allow you to easily press the roasted garlic out after it’s finished cooking.
Fully soften the butter so all the garlic and herbs can be easily combined.
Be sure you cut your pepperoni into small chunks so they get hot on the inside and crispy on the outside.
If you decide to use another meat like Italian sausage, fully cook the meat first so it’s fully cooked and wont’ make a greasy mess of your pizza bread.
Variations
Use can use any of your favorite cheese varieties for this recipe.
Top your pizza bread with other favorites like sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, bacon, and olives.
Add a kick of heat with some red pepper flakes in the garlic butter.
What to Serve with Pepperoni Pizza Bread
You can make a full meal of this pizza bread, or you can serve it as part of a larger Italian-themed dinner. Try pairing it with garlic bread, cheesy bread, mozzarella sticks, cheesy bread, pasta, and the like.
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Recipe FAQ
What is the best substitute for pizza dough?
You can use pita bread, naan, crescent dough, Italian bread, French bread, hoagie rolls, or even English muffins in place of pizza dough.
What type of bread is pizza bread?
There is no real single kind of bread used for pizza bread. Italian and French bread are used primarily, but sub rolls, hoagie rolls, and other types of bread like English muffins are also used for pizza bread.
Can pepperoni pizza bread be made in advance?
I don’t recommend making this pizza bread in advance. Although it can be reheated relatively well, it’s never as crunchy, melty, and delicious as it is when it’s straight out of the oven.
What’s the difference between pizza crust and bread dough?
While both pizza dough and bread dough are made with salt, water, oil, and flour, the ratios are quite different to achieve their different goals. Bread dough is designed to rise high and has more water content than pizza dough which is intended to rise but not nearly to the level of bread dough.
Can you freeze leftover pepperoni pizza bread?
Pizza bread freezes well and will last for up to 3 months when stored correctly.
pepperoni pizza bread 02
How to Store and Reheat Leftover Pepperoni Pizza Bread
Refrigerate this pizza bread in an airtight container for up to 3 days. For longer storage, wrap it in a double layer of plastic wrap and a layer of foil and place in the freezer for up to 3 months.
To reheat, place the pizza bread on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted again.
Try This Delicious Pepperoni Pizza Bread Recipe Today
This pepperoni pizza bread is as easy to make as it is delicious. Even roasting the garlic is a snap! With so much buttery, garlicky, pizza-licious flavor, this is one of the best pizza bead recipes you’ll ever make. Try it just once, and you’ll be hooked. It’s perfect for almost any occasion so give it a go!
pepperoni pizza bread 01
Vet Hugs Dying 15-year-old Cat. A Minute Later, Something Totally Unexpected Happens!
What was the last thing your mother said to you?
”Goodnight Hon, love you !”
I replied “Night, love you too and thank you for the pot of soup”
We had been camping and when we got home my Mom had made a big pot of chicken soup. Only my youngest had school the next day, also had PTA open house before school started that I had to be at. It wasnt unusual that my mom didnt come out of her room in the morning while kids were getting ready for school, I know she had been up late and her TV was on. I was super busy that morning my oldest son came with me to help set up. My 14 year old daughter stayed home to sleep in.
About 2 minutes after kids went to class and I started cleaning up the food at PTA event, the office lady called the library over the intercom and said there was a call on line 2 which was odd because I had my cell phone. But it was my sister who had stopped by to check on our mom after she dropped off her son at school. Mom had had heart failure do to her illness. The emts said she had died maybe 2–3 hours sgo which was when we were all up and getting ready to leave. It was 4–6 hours later that the Neptune society arrived to pick her up. I dont remember much but I do remember thinking She died hearing the normal family life happening right outside her bedroom door and although she was alone she really wasn’t. I pray that it was comforting even just a little bit.
My Mom had been sick a long time and we were all aware this would happen eventually.
It’s been almost 16 years (July 7 2008) Man do I miss her something fierce still.
Alien (1979) Transmission Distress – Extended Scene (2018)
Ukraine SitRep: State And Military Continue to Deteriorate
The Ukrainian state and its military are falling apart.
Under the new mobilization law the Ukrainian military is said to recruit/mobilize some 5,000 men per day. This is sufficient to replace current losses which are above 2,000 men per day. But the quality and level of training the new forces have is way below the level needed to survive on the frontline.
Losses are high because the mass use of Russian FAB glide-bombs is eliminating all identified agglomeration of forces. Ukraine has found no way to counter these.
For lack of armored vehicles several of the new brigades which were supposed to be mechanized will be pure infantry forces. They will be able to hold positions until they are bombed but will not have the means to attack.
The high rate of mobilization has led to a lack of men power in the rest of the society. Agricultural and industrial productions are down. People who can afford to do so avoid taking jobs for fear of being identified for military service. Others attempt to flee abroad (machine translation):
In the Odessa region, an attempt to illegally travel abroad was stopped by 100 men at once. They had to cross the border on foot and paid from 5 to 18,5 thousand dollars for this.This is reported by the State Bureau of Investigation.
In revenge for Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure the Russian forces continue to dismantle Ukraine’s capacities. The electricity network is on the verge of falling apart. Electricity is only available for 10 hours per day. A few Russian hits on those switching stations which receive supply from Europe could finish it off.
Figures vary, and the Ukrainian government is increasingly coy about releasing economic data sets, but the Ukraine’s economy is currently around $180-190bn in size. To put that into context, that is around 11 times smaller than Russia’s economy and 131 times smaller than the US economy.
…
According to politico, Ukraine borrowed $58bn in 2022, $46bn in 2023 and is set to borrow $52bn in 2024. So, in just three years, Ukraine will have borrowed 82% of GDP.Ukraine needs to borrow this much because its government spends almost twice as much each year as it receives in income from taxation and other sources.
The Central Bank of Ukraine is trying to help by devaluating its currency. Over the last six month it lost about 10% of its value. The further ‘printing’ of money, which will heat up inflation, is expected.
Ukraine has suffered a setback in its quest to complete the outline of a debt restructuring before the end-of-August expiry of a two-year payment freeze agreed by private holders of near $20 billion in outstanding international bonds.The government announced on Monday it had not reached agreement with a group of bondholders, raising the specter that the war-torn country might slip into default.
Against the background of the continuing difficult situation for Ukraine at the front, public criticism of the AFU command is growing.MP Mariana Bezuglaya again spoke out against Commander-in-Chief Syrsky. She said that after receiving his position, he could not “go beyond” outdated management methods and became “even more authoritarian”.
“In this stressful situation, against the background of this huge responsibility, he has become even more authoritarian, increasingly tightening the screws and returning to the so – called classic techniques of the Soviet army,” Bezuglaya said in an interview with journalist Natalia Moseychuk.
She bases her opinion on messages that come to her from the military.
Recall that the People’s Deputy began to actively “wet” the commander-in-chief, as she had previously done with Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed.
However, in addition to Syrsky, she criticizes much harsher Yuriy Sodol is the commander of the Joint Forces and the Khortytsia group, which operates in the Pokrovsky direction (where the AFU has been losing ground most actively in recent months).
A number of activists like Serhiy Sternenko are also in solidarity with Bezugla in their antipathy to the general.
And yesterday the campaign against Sodol was joined by the chief of staff of” Azov ” Bogdan Krotevich. He said that he had filed an application with the State Bureau of Investigation against the Ukrainian general for committing “war crimes”.
Yesterday evening Sodol was replaced by a former leader of the 36th Marine Brigade who’s track record is in no way better that Sodol’s.
Syrski will be the next to fall.
The Russian forces now have the men and equipment to largely overrun the Ukrainian lines. But doing so would cost a significant amount of casualties. They are therefore just waiting for the Ukrainian army to exhaust itself and to fall by its own means. Only after a large scale breakdown of Ukrainian defenses will the order be given to proceed.
After I left the Navy, but before I went into MAJestic training at China Lake, I was a young 20-something man who was out dating and having fun. As were all of us in our twenties.
For a while, I hooked up with this “train wreck” of a girl named “Mary”.
She was a thin red head, attractive with a one year old child. She was a single mom. No job. No income. Living off welfare.
I met her in a bar, and if there is one thing that I will say, she lost her mind when drinking tequila.
Ah. She liked me a lot, but she was a wreck. She really was.
First off, she was having sex with her brother for years until he got married. Perhaps for six to eight years.
And, though it didn’t bother me…
But what did was her constant drinking and out of control behavior. Why, she couldn’t keep her panties on.
She’d go to a salon to have her hair done. Then she would come home and tell me that she was seduced in the back room, and had sex with the guy.
She’d be looking at apartments, and end up giving blow-jobs to every man that was there. Three different apartments, resulting in three different blow-jobs to different guys.
She’d need a ride, and the guy would have sex with her when he took her home.
And so on and so forth.
Now, this was in the early 1980’s and I’ll tell you, maybe it was common, but it was new to me and very overwhelming to me. It’s not that I cared too much, as I could pretty much have any girl that I chose, but lordy! That kind of rampant free-sexual lifestyle way far too off the charts for me.
Ah, I left her and met another girl.
But man oh man.
Now, what it going on in the West regarding the free promiscuity is disturbing to me as I have a different idea and opinion about relationships, but what this snippet of memory does is point out that there are others that view sex as something common.
Like tissue paper or, paperclips.
Or used Popsicle sticks.
Know the proclivities and what others find to be important. Often; more often than not, what you think is important is NOT shared by others.
Accept that, and understand. It will make your life easier in the future as you can become very selective in your human associations and relationships.
Today…
What is it like to talk to a serial killer?
Originally Answered: What is it like to talk with a serial killer?
The truth about evil, and the people who commit serial murder, is both scary and eye opening.
I spent some time incarcerated at the same prison as Orville Lynn Majors. He is suspected of having murdered in excess of 130 people while he was employed at a rural Indiana hospital. To put things in perspective, one out of every three people admitted to the hospital during his employment ended up dying. He was directly implicated in a minimum of 130 deaths, though convicted of only a handful, which was all that was needed to give him a 360 year sentence.
My conversations with him started out as function of my job as warehouse and inventory clerk at the license plate shop. I knew who he was from news accounts, and wanted to find out what kind of a person could do such things.
Prison politics are strictly enforced by the offenders, and you do not ever ask another inmate questions about why they are locked up, or if they actually did the crime, etc. To do so is to risk your life. Literally.
I had made it a policy to carefully observe people I considered to be dangerous and find out what motivates them. I wanted to learn what their mode of operations are like and what can potentially trigger violence in them.
Orville is an extremely polite, congenial gay man, who is easy to get along with and instills a level of trust in his co-workers. He worked closely with guards, Pen Products (a prison based industry) staff members and other inmates. His conversations were jovial, he would give you the shirt off his back and be willing to help with anything and everything. A very likeable guy.
Just like anyone else there, he had his moments of anger, disagreement with others and the like. He did not appear to be any different from anyone else. On the surface.
My observations of his behavior, however, chilled me to the bone. When people work closely together, they end up lowering their defenses around their co-workers. Orville is a very smart individual, and he knows this about human nature. You would never guess from casual observation and interaction that this man is a serial killer.
I was struck by how casual the staff members acted around him, the level of freedom he enjoyed and how carefully he manipulated people into giving him ever increasing levels of latitude and freedom.
When watching him, I had to be careful and do it from a distance. You do not want him to suspect you as a potential danger. I am a little apprehensive about it still, as I write this answer.
Whenever a staff member would lose focus on him, his entire demeanor would change and he would make every attempt to do what he was actually wanting to do, without discovery. Yet, he was back to good old Orville the minute someone refocused on him.
Instantly.
As if there were two completely different people in charge of his body. What he was really doing, was plotting on the guards, staff and other inmates. He was procuring items to make weapons, making certain things disappear on paper so that the prison would lose track of inventory.
I have just crossed the line on convict behavior by sharing this, and he will likely be punished for what I am saying. This is not my intent, I have no personal animosity toward him.
I guess I relate this to you because he is the most dangerous man I have ever met. Yet, if I hadn’t been exposed to other dangerous people before him, I would have never guessed, and would not have been as diligent in my efforts to keep an eye on him.
I could not believe how the guards and staff lowered their guard around him. It was an insanity to allow him near deadly tools and things that could be used to cause serious bodily harm, and yet, he was in close proximity to these things, unsupervised, much of the time I observed his behavior.
There was a quality about his demeanor that I had rarely, if ever, seen before. We were not real to him. We were just objects to be used and discarded as he saw fit. If he could use you, he was your dearest friend, until he was done, or you were exhausted, at which time you were just another object in his way.
In short, he was evil. I don’t scare easily, but with this guy, I was constantly on alert. There was nothing to trust in him.
You’d never guess how much he hates people from talking to him.
I am making this anonymous because there are certain rules that prisoners must follow, and I have broken just about all of them with this answer. While I do not plan on ever going back to any prison, if I was that unfortunate, this answer would carry a death sentence. Those who know my writing can guess who I am, the rest do not need to know.
Female TEACHER-Student Sex is an EPIDEMIC!
What’s the most expensive thing you’ve gotten for an insanely cheap price?
A set of John Deere pallet forks for my tractor. These thing go for anywhere from around 800 dollars to over a thousand. I got these for free.
I needed some to move a deer blind but I couldn’t afford to buy a set so I went to a rental store to see if they’d have some I could rent for the day. Nope, nothing to rent. I was a little disappointed and the guy that was helping me said that they had something in the back that maybe I could use if I was interested. Figuring that they had something back there that was either homemade or not even what I was needing or wouldn’t fit my tractor I thought it couldn’t hurt to look so I followed the guy to the back behind the maintenance building.
Just sitting there in the tall grass and weeds was not only a set of pallet forks but they were John Deere green and they were specifically made for my tractor. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Oh man, you bet I told that guy. These are perfect. Let’s do the deal. He says we gotta go talk to the manager because these aren’t in the inventory.
So the manager says he can’t rent them because they aren’t in the inventory. So I half jokingly and half seriously say I’d give him a hundred bucks for them. He says no, he can’t because again. They aren’t in the inventory. So I said I’ll buy them just name the price and again he tells me he can’t. I then told him I’ll just slip him some money under the table and bring them back when I’m through with them and he just says he can’t do that. He explained to me that when they first moved into that property those forks were already there along with some other items and nobody had claimed them in 6 years or so. For accounting purposes he has to be able to match any money brought I to equipment leased out and since those weren’t on the inventory he couldn’t account for them.
I was about to give up when he said “Just take ‘em”. “YOU SERIOUS?” I said. “He said yeah, I can’t do anything with them.”
Man I didn’t hesitate, I just asked for help getting them loaded in my pickup. I couldn’t stop thanking that manager and the guy that helped enough.
On the way home I called the best pizza place in town and had 6 extra large pizzas sent over for that shop.
“The United States is Crumbling Before Our Eyes” | Victor Davis Hanson
What is something crazy you have seen that no one else around you saw?
A beggar came and started knocking on my car window. He wasn’t able to stand properly!
I told him to go away. But he wasn’t paying any heed.
I lowered down the car window.
He started crying, saying, “Babu, please give me ₹10 only. I haven’t eaten food for 3 days. I don’t want to die like this. God will bless you!”
Then, I thought, “What’s a big deal in giving ₹10?”
As I was about to give a 10 rupee coin to him, I heard my mobile’s ringtone. (Redmi Note 3)
I picked up my phone. (Which was on the dashboard)
But, it wasn’t ringing. Still I could hear Redmi’s ringtone.
Then I looked at the beggar. He was trying to stop his mobile from ringing.
He was looking at me, I was looking at him.
Awkward Silence.
He ran away. (Remember, he couldn’t stand properly)
Then the traffic started moving.
I went home and said, “Dad, I want a new phone! Samsung Guru would work, but not this Redmi.”
What do you consider an unfair double standard towards men these days?
If women sexually harass us, it’s seen as amusing rather than rapey.
If a guy and a woman both get drunk and have sex, only the guy can be accused of rape.
Women don’t get blamed for dumping a man; when a man dumps a woman, he’s ‘afraid of commitment.
If a woman gets angry at a man, it’s his fault. Man gets angry at a woman, he needs to control himself.
Our society doesn’t believe that women can sexually abuse boys.
Women can beat us up all they want, but if we hit back, we’re monsters.
If a woman sexually assaults you, you’re supposed to enjoy it.
Guys are still expected to be the breadwinner.
Women are allowed to reject guys based on their looks without being seen as ‘shallow.’
If a man cheats, he’s an asshole; if a woman does, it’s the man’s fault.
Divorce laws are lopsidedly in favor of women.
When a woman is raped it’s a tragedy; when a man is raped it’s a joke.
Women get shorter sentences for the same crimes as men.
Harry Potter by Balenciaga – 1950’s Super Panavision 70
What is the most pretentious thing you have ever seen your boss do?
September 12, 2001
This was the day after the World Trade Center went down. Although I was in London, our office was evacuated a few hours after the terrorist attacks in NY. Somehow people thought that terrorists were after investment bankers.
When I came in the morning of Sept 12 there was not much work going on. People were just roaming around the office trying to figure out what the future holds.
Then I witness the following scene from a senior banker – not my direct boss, but more a boss of my boss. Let’s call him Mr. Boss as he talked to his secretary. Remember this is on 9–12–2001
-What time did you book my flight to NY?
-BA cancelled all flights to NY.
-Just get me American…
-They are not flying also…
-I need to be in NY tomorrow to meet a client (already raising his voice)
-I’m afraid but I couldn’t find any airline to book…
-This is ridiculous. Well …just book me a private plane then because Jeff and Peter need to be there as well
-I’m afraid but I looked into that option as well and it is not available.
(Now Mr Boss goes on a rant)
-Are you telling me you cannot find me a ticket to NY with all the airlines in the world? AND YOU CANT LOCATE A JET TO CHARTER IN THE ENTIRE UK ? Why do I need you?
(Secretary ready to cry at this point but Mr Boss continues and now the entire floor is watching)
-Just tell me why can’t you do your job? How hard is it to do travel arrangements? HOW HARD ? SHOULD I DO IT MYSELF? TELL ME, WHY CANT YOU FIND ME A PLANE TO NEW YORK ?
-Because there is an air space shutdown in the U.S.
Mr Boss was speechless and went into his office slamming the door. We all wanted to erupt into cheers and applause, but that would just make matters worse.
Major Banking Giant To Sell $63 Billion In US Treasuries – Expect Bigger Failures & Losses
and a craving for a taco. But as they all sat down at a table, I noticed only one of them ordered anything.
The other three sat and stared at the menu with hungry glances. As time went on, they began having conversations about school, girls, and about twenty other subjects…
At a random moment, the man who was sitting in the corner of the restaurant stood up, came over to stand over the table…As all of the boys shrank back on view of this 6’5 giant, the words that issued forth made my day.
“Y’all want a slushie? Come on up here, let’s get you guys something.” Within a few seconds, the three boys jumped out of their chair, ran to the counter, and happily ordered not only slushies, but found that the stranger also offered to buy them food. He quickly asked the cashier if he could pay before they started the food as he needed to get back on the road.
Card swiped, a goodbye given, and this gentle man quickly went for the back door without asking for a thank you for the young boys. I nodded silently to him and flashed a smile as a signal that he had been seen.
He lifted a hand in farewell towards the counter, and with smiles touching both sides of their faces, the little dudes all turned and yelled “thank you!” as he slipped out the door and jogged to his semi parked to the side of the building… Today, Love and Kindness looked like a 12 pack of soft tacos and 3 Starburst Freezes.”
Emergency Announcement! Potential Death Penalty For Taiwanese Separatist. 臺獨最高判死刑
Very serious actions.
What is the most shameless thing you have ever seen a teacher do?
I attended Catholic school and my 4th grade teacher, Miss Shoemaker, was the most shameless teacher I have ever known. She was on top of me, every single day, with some punishment or reticule or something to embarrass me in front of the class. She accused me of cheating on my Science test because I and another boy were the only ones who got a 100% (the other boy sat several tables away and she didn’t accuse him); she dumped my desk out because she thought I stole a girl’s hair brush (I had a crew cut at the time and had absolutely no need for a brush); she had punished me by sticking me in a desk at the very back of the room and when she asked the class what kind of punishments we should have for different behaviors I suggested sitting them in the back of the room, she exploded at me that that would be a terrible punishment that no one would deserve. But the MOST shameless thing that she did was she took me out into the hall to yell at me because I had been in the hospital because of some physical issues (that the doctor at the time said came from stress; I wonder where I could have gotten any stress!) and I hadn’t told her so she could come and visit me!! Yeah, that would have been so helpful!
The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers – 1950s Super Panavision 70
Declawing cats is legal in most U.S. states but why is it banned in at least 22 countries including Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan?
People planning to get a kitten sometimes ask me when they are supposed to get them de-clawed. My answer usually stops them cold. “You should get the kitten de-clawed the same day you have your baby’s fingers amputated” I get the deer in the headlights look and a WHAT???? Then I explain what de-clawing actually entails, and how it affects the cat’s quality of life and even his length of life. It’s a lot more than just pulling the cat’s “fingernails” out by the roots, (as bad as that is!) It’s the actual amputation of the fingers , comparable to taking off your fingers back to the first knuckle. Consider that the cat, fresh from surgery has to paw through gritty sand or litter to urinate and/or defecate, and walk in his mess with his newly bandaged feet. Is it any wonder that many cats have recurring infections of the feet after de-clawing? Is it any wonder that many cats suffer from constant pain and arthritis-like agony starting any length of time after the amputation? Is it any wonder that though he may love you and your family, it is just too agonizing for him to play or be cuddled when he is in pain? Pain causes stress on the entire animal system, his heart, digestion, lungs, liver, etc. And finally: The cat is also absolutely defenseless after de-clawing and absolutely must not EVER be allowed outside. He cannot scratch an attacking dog or other cat, he cannot climb a tree to get up and away. Please, please do not mutilate your darling kitten with this barbaric torture.
If You Grew Up in the 1970s…You Remember This!
What is the most amusing conversation that you have ever heard?
Originally Answered: What was the most amusing conversation that you have ever heard?
I am French and my girlfriend is Indonesian. We communicate between ourselves in English, and as I live in Indonesia I can speak an average bahasa Indonesia, but my girlfriend doesn’t speak a word of French.
We went to my grandma’s house in the countryside of France to pay her a visit, and on this side of my family, no one speaks a word of English, even for the basic words such as thank you etc…
So they spoke to my girlfriend in very simple French (the one you usually speak to your dog or kids) hoping she would understand. Of course it didn’t work at all and my girlfriend was answering in English, which was not understood by anyone but me. So she was using this technique (which I still use sometimes too in Indonesia) that consists of repeating the last words of the sentence that has been said to you when you don’t understand. Of course you won’t go too far in the conversation with repeating the last few words, especially when you have no idea what it means, but you can pretend that you get the message.
Of course I’m not a full asshole so I was trying to help both sides most of the time, but once in a while, I won’t lie, it was fun as hell to just sit and watch and see how it goes. One moment was particularly funny.
My grandma, bringing a chicken while looking at my girlfriend: “Et voilààà un petit poulet” (= Here it is a little chicken)
My girlfriend, with no idea of what have just been said: Petit poulet? (=Little chicken?)
My grandma, smiling: Petit poulet!
My girlfriend, super enthusiastic: Petit poulet!
My grandma, thrilled: Petit poulet!
Then everyone laughed with no idea of why this conversation even happened !
When we left, my girlfriend cried a little because she found my grandma adorable, and my grandma told me that my girlfriend was great.
From the few days we spent there, this was probably the deepest conversation they got without me interfering.
Conclusion: you can create great connections with people talking about chicken, even if you don’t know that you are talking about chicken.
Putin just made an OMINOUS nuclear warning, and the west better pay attention
Vladimir Putin has just issued what can only be described as a chilling warning involving nuclear weapons, global world order, and NATO's continued provocation. Asia rolled out the red carpet for Putin this week... during his Asia tour, which included stops in North Korea and Vietnam, Putin dropped a bombshell—both metaphorically and potentially literally.
If your accelerator breaks on the highway causing you to speed uncontrollably, could you just take the keys out of the car? What else could you try to do?
This happened to us driving a brand new Volvo on the “Freeway” headed south from Paris a long time ago. My friend was driving at high speed, took his foot off the accelerator, and… nothing happened. He started panicking. Being the resident engineer, I calmly told him to put it in neutral and kill the engine. He then coasted off the highway onto the shoulder. I popped the hood and diagnosed the problem. The accelerator linkage had broken. I was able to do a temporary repair which got us to Lyon, where a Volvo dealer replaced the parts with profound apologies. Even in France.
Addendum – Commenters are correct that 1. You do NOT want to remove the keys or do anything to lock the steering wheel. 2. You will lose power assist on steering and brakes if you kill the engine. But brakes and steering are designed to still work, they will just require more effort without the power assist. And the emergency/parking brake will not be affected at all. In the story I told above, my friend had no trouble controlling/steering/stopping the car with the engine off. Of course, different cars will behave differently. Knowing your car’s capabilities and limitations is always helpful in an emergency. We used to practice skids in snowy empty parking lots. Knowing what to do may have saved my life once when my car started spinning on an icy highway.
Southern Biscuits and Gravy
Biscuits and gravy have been around as long as this country. Born of necessity and frugality, the dish seems to have become commonplace during the Revolutionary War. Biscuits and gravy answered the need for a hearty, high-calorie breakfast for people who worked hard, but didn’t have much money on hand.
Why Biscuits And Gravy?
The milk-based gravy was used to stretch the meat, and biscuits themselves could be made with a variety of fats. Butter was the preferred fat, particularly if the family had a cow or ready access to dairy; and if not, lard or drippings were frequently used. At first, biscuits were nothing but hard tooth-breaking lumps of flour and water, but eventually they evolved into the light and flaky tender-crumb variety made with baking powder that we enjoy today. Popular across the country, this dish is a particular favorite in the Southern United States, and you’d be hard pressed to find a restaurant where it wasn’t on the menu.
Proper Southern-style biscuits and gravy begin with homemade buttermilk biscuits. If you are planning to make this dish with grocery store biscuit dough in a pressurized cardboard tube, you will be sacrificing flavor and texture (not to mention authenticity) for convenience. As for the gravy, it will only be as good as the sausage you use. Buy a bulk breakfast sausage that you like, one that’s well seasoned, and has a decent ratio of fat to lean. Avoid the budget varieties that are almost all fat. The buttermilk you use is also important — the acidity that results from a high-quality product reacts more fiercely with baking powder, making a much lighter biscuit.
Try this authentic recipe and serve to your weekend guests — we guarantee every last bit will disappear!
Heat frying pan and fry the sausage and onion until the sausage is brown and the onion clear.
Drain off all grease except for 2 tablespoons.
Stir in the flour and cook for just a minute.
Add the hot milk. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and then season with salt and pepper.
Serve over warm opened biscuits.
When did Roman soldiers retire? Was it dependent on age, length of service, campaigns fought, or something else?
Roman soldiers typically retired after 20 to 25 years of service. This wasn’t strictly about age, though if you started young, you’d still be relatively fit when you retired.
It was more about the length of service. The standard term was 25 years, but this could vary depending on the era and specific circumstances.
For example, during the time of the Roman Republic, soldiers were often citizen soldiers who served temporarily during campaigns and then returned home.
But as Rome’s military needs grew, especially under the Empire, the system evolved into a more professional standing army.
Augustus, the first Roman emperor, formalized this with his military reforms, setting the retirement standard at 25 years.
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Now, campaigns fought and distinguished service could influence retirement, too.
A soldier who showed exceptional bravery or skill might be granted an early discharge, a sort of “thanks for going above and beyond” reward.
One cool thing is that some soldiers received land grants upon retirement.
Augustus started this trend, giving veterans land in provinces like Gaul, Spain, and North Africa. It was a clever move, rewarding the soldiers and spreading Roman culture simultaneously.
In the late Roman Empire, Emperor Diocletian made some tweaks.
The standard service term was still around 25 years, but Diocletian, always the reformer, introduced the concept of the veteranus, a sort of semi-retirement phase where soldiers could transition out of full active duty but still serve in a support capacity.
This helped maintain experienced soldiers in the ranks without overburdening them.
Also, let’s not forget the praetorian guard, the elite troops tasked with protecting the emperor.
They had it a bit cushier compared to the legions. They usually served about 16 years before retiring with full honors and a nice pension.
Their shorter service term was partly due to the intense political nature of their job, which, let’s be honest, could be just as deadly as any battlefield.
Retirement wasn’t just a pat on the back and a “see ya!” moment.
Soldiers were often given a diploma, a bronze plaque detailing their service and granting them Roman citizenship if they weren’t already citizens.
This was a big deal, especially for auxiliary troops from the provinces. Citizenship came with legal and social perks that could significantly improve their post-service life.
Top 10 80s One Hit Wonders You Forgot Were AWESOME
Jexx felt his hand being gripped as if his hand was the last lifeline left. He glanced at Avill, his wife and his eyes told her more than words from his mouth could.
“Is this really it?” she asked him. “We’re really going to Earth?”
He nodded. “We have no other choice. Our home… it’s gone. We can live in peace amongst the humans… stay hidden even. It’s for the best.”
Avill bit her lip, which trembled slightly. Whether from fear or anxiety, Jexx could only guess. The Great War had finally taken its toll on their planet, just as he suspected it would. He and his wife were part of a group of only ten survivors—out of millions. Fortunately, they all looked just like humans which would make it easier for them to blend in with the humans on earth.
Loud alarms sounded so much and for so long, Jexx’s ears popped. Red flashes drained his world of color, and he closed his eyes to shield them. He could still feel his wife’s grip, and he returned it.
Voices shouted over the loud-speaker and his heart sank when he realized the ship was malfunctioning.
“What’s going on?!” Avill yelled. Her voice was just one among others worriedly shouting over all the noise.
“The blockade… one of the ships hit ours! The engine has been damaged!” one man shouted. The rebels in the Great War had finally taken over the planet’s government, which sent the whole planet into chaos. They put up a blockade of ships to trap anyone from getting out. Jexx and his group had risked it and came out unscathed.
Or so he had believed.
The ship itself violently rocked and trembled; it was as if Jexx’s whole word had turned upside down. He stood, with difficulty, and started to follow the man into the engine room.
“Jexx!” Avill shouted. Her eyes pleaded what her voice couldn’t say. They were the color of sapphires—intriguing and as deep as an ocean.
“I have to do what I can to help.” He stared back at her, his gaze steady, attempting to reassure her. He would do what he had to if it meant what little of his people were left could survive.
She nodded, seeming to understand the deeper meaning behind his gaze and no more words were needed between them. He turned and followed the man down an endless maze of hallways. Mentally, he calculated how many people were left and where they were; there were two at the cockpit—the pilot and copilot. There were two or three men at the gunners. Then there was this man along with two others in the engine room, and he remembered that Avill was with another woman and her child.
“Where is the most damage?” Jexx asked him.
The man showed him. The engine was a sublight drive, which enabled the ship to travel into deep space. The warp core, which allowed the ship to go into hyperspace, appeared to be undamaged. The engine’s IR suppressor, which kept the sensors from getting overheated, was completely shattered.
Jexx cursed. “We won’t be able to pick up readings about the world as we travel through Earth’s atmosphere,” he said.
“And with the sensors overheating there could be damage to the landing jets.”
Jexx ran down the endless hallway. If the landing jets were damaged they wouldn’t be able to land. It seemed to take too long, but finally he arrived at the back of the engine room. The sensors had already overheated.
The landing jets were useless.
He ran back toward the front part of the room and inside, the man knelt on the floor, assessing other damage.
“How close are we to Earth?”
“We’re coming out of hyperspace now,” the man replied.
Sure enough, Jexx felt the jolt that meant they had come out of hyperspace.
“Go tell the pilot we can’t land!” As the man ran off, one of the metal pipes started to fall. If it fell, the whole engine would collapse. Jexx ran over and grabbed it, using all the strength he had to hold it up.
The man returned, looking pale faced. “We’re coming in to the planet’s atmosphere now. It appears we’re going to land in some kind of body of water and we don’t have enough speed to reach land,” the man was explaining. When he looked up and noticed Jexx, he tried to help, but Jexx pushed him away.
“Get everyone out of here! Make sure they’re gathered at the hanger bay doors, ready to jump out and swim to the surface!”
“Jexx…”
“I have to stay here to hold this up to keep it from exploding or all the lives here could be lost.”
“You’ll die,” the man said, stating the obvious.
“Just tell my wife I love her. Get out of here!”
When the man left, Jexx grunted under the weight of the metal pipe, but he forced himself to hold its weight.
In those final moments, it was as if time had stopped completely. Jexx could see the parts of the engines around him, some even as tall as the buildings back home. He could smell oil and something bitter and he could taste metal in his mouth. The ship rocked and hit something hard. When the walls burst open, his ears felt as if they were splitting open as the water came crashing through. The taste of metal in his mouth turned to water and he could fill it spilling over his ankles.
His legs.
Waist.
Chest.
Mouth.
The taste consumed him and his lungs fought for hair, but he held on. He couldn’t let the pipe fall and cause the engine to explode; he had to give the others time to get out.
He could only hope he gave them enough time.
He thought of his home, of his wife and their unborn child before water consumed him and he finally gave in, finally opened his mouth and let the water swim down his throat, blocking his airway.
His last thoughts were of his wife and child, and the chance they had to live.
What ended your relationship with your best friend?
This is going to sound ridiculously stupid and it was. But it was the Barbie movie. That was the final snap.
My best friend and I had been friends for 15 years. We went through thick and thin together, I helped her through her parents divorce allowing her to vent uncontrollably to me about her entire life. Due to this she went through a bought of poor mental health. She didn’t come to uni so I made new friends and it was wonderful.
I still tried to keep in touch with her but I got little response so the friendship began draining me and I felt used. The only times she spoke to me now was when she needed something and it was painful but still I tried to keep the friendship. This cycle just carried on and my friends were even asking me why I wasn’t just ending the friendship as they could see the toxicity within.
Anyway, me and my group of 13 friends all arranged a nice trip to the cinema to watch Barbie. Typically the day we were going to go she turned up to uni and asked me if I had plans for the rest of the day. So, I responded with “well I’m actually planning to go to watch Barbie with everyone later. You can join if you want”. To which she responded by bursting into hysterics telling me I don’t value the friendship and I needed to put more effort into messaging her (bare in mind she didn’t message me at all) to which I got angry and expressed my feeling about feeling used etc. The argument got to the point that I said to her I just needed to go and speak to one of my other friends before I said something I may regret. At which point she physically pushed me against the wall throwing insults at me, telling me I was a horrible friend etc. I didn’t want the friendship to end but at this point the argument got to the point that it needed to end so I tried to console her. She turned the whole conversation on its head turning herself into the victim and I got angry again which I think was understandable so I walked and once again she pushed me but also slapped me straight across the face infront of all my other friends and members of the uni. It was attracting attention. At this point she just started spewing things I had told her throughout the whole friendship and I just went NEVER speak to me again and blocked her on everything. She tried chasing after me profusely apologising but I was not taking her bullshit.
I’ve felt bad ever since for leaving her during a time of hardship but the friendship was becoming really taxing in me mentally and the moment she laid hands on me I decided I would never go back.
As a surgeon, what is the scariest thing you’ve seen in the operating room?
A thirty-year old man came to see me for unexplained visual loss in one eye. I thought there was a mass pushing against his left optic nerve and ordered an MRI. This demonstrated that the mass was in fact a large aneurysm of his carotid artery against the brain.
The protocol was to send such cases to the vascular neurosurgeon who saw him the same day. He agreed on the diagnosis and ordered an angiogram to better show the aneurysm. Both the angiogram and surgery were set for the next morning. This was about 1987 and there was no way of fixing the aneurysm without open neurosurgery. We were lucky as Dr. T was world famous for his technical ability. And he was kind to allow me to come as his assistant.
The skull was opened by the resident by drilling four holes that were then connected with an electric saw that had a ridge to protect the soft brain beneath. The large skull flap was removed and the underlying dura (tough skin around the brain) cut and flapped back, exposing the brain. For the next hour the chief resident pushed and manipulated the brain to one side. And then a ridge of bone had to be drilled down for better exposure. Then we had a clear view, the juncture of the carotid and ophthalmic arteries with a big bulging arterial aneurysm coming straight up at us. Before touching this, Dr. T placed two cords around the carotids on both sides. “Just in case.” He explained.
Then, a silver aneurysm clip was slipped in behind the aneurysm and slowly released allowing the two prongs to cinch closed over the neck of the aneurysm. Only I didn’t get to see the last part. Suddenly the entire brain pan filled with blood. I was suctioning but couldn’t keep up with the outpouring of blood. The resident ripped his suction tip off and I followed suit, so we went with these hoses into the bloody opening, but we couldn’t make any headway or even see the brain. Dr. T couldn’t see a thing and blood was spilling up and over the edges of the skull.
A nurse started to read the falling blood pressures. “110/65, 90/50, 70/40, 55/nil. Then the anaesthesiologist said, “We’ve lost him. Blood pressure crashed to unmeasurable.” The nurse was squeezing bags of blood into him but couldn’t keep up with what was pouring out.
Now if this happens in the abdomen, you compress the bleeder or place clamps. But in the brain, you don’t have those options. But cool as a cucumber, Dr. T stuck his hands below the surface of the blood and began feeling about. He tied off the carotids proximal to the bleed. Then suddenly our suction worked. And the blood pressure came up from zero. Dr. T examined the area and laughed. “There was a second aneurysm hiding behind the first one,” he exclaimed. A second silver clip was placed. Then the carotid ligatures were removed.
I turned to the anesthesiologist and said, “Were you scared?” “No,” he said. “Just sad. He was dead and I saw no hope that we could get him back. Such a young man.” Two hours later I related the story to the patient’s wife. On follow up, the patient did great. He even got his vision back.
I have never seen such cold blooded rapid action under fire. Dr. T didn’t even take a second to swear. Afterwards in the doctors’ lounge, he smiled and said, “It’s more fun when it goes like that.”
Blueberry Puffs
Puffs
Ingredients
2 cups fresh or 1 bag frozen blueberries
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
12 slices bread
6 eggs
2 cups Half-and-Half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Instructions
Mix first 7 ingredients in a saucepan. Heat until the sauce is semi-thick. Set aside and cool to room temperature.
Cut crusts from bread. Spray a 2-quart rectangular glass pan with a nonstick pan coating. Cover the bottom of pan with 6 bread slices.
In separate bowl, mix eggs, Half-and-Half, vanilla extract and sugar. Pour half of this mixture over bread.
Spread thickened, cooled blueberry sauce over bottom layer.
Arrange the other half of the bread on top of blueberry filling.
Pour remaining egg mixture over the top.
Sprinkle with a dash of nutmeg.
Cover and place in refrigerator overnight.
Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 60 minutes.
Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting into 6 servings or 12 servings for a buffet.
I was hired by a psychologist to fix a program that seemed to have “strange output” written by one of his ex-grad students. It was a program that reads a data file, asks about 50 questions, does some calculations, and comes up with some score based on this PhD’s research. It’s on a research 3B2 at the university. He demonstrates the program and sure enough there seemed to be strange flashing words on the screen when it moves from question to question, and they don’t seem nice. I agree to do it, should be pretty straightforward, so he’ll pay me by the hour to determine how big the fix is and then we’ll agree to a fee.
Day 1
I sit down at the 3B2 and login to the ex-grad student’s account that has been given to me. This is where the code resides. I examine the C code. It is written to be hard to read. All the code is squished on one line. It’s spread over 15 files with about 3 functions per file — all on one line. All variable names are just three, seemingly random, letters. I talk to the guy and agree to go with hourly on this (great decision). I untangle all the code and format it nicely so I can see it.
It was done on purpose. It used the curses library to move to a point on the screen, print a question and the answers, and wait for a response. But it first went to the first line of the question, printed some white supremacy message, waited 1/2 a second, and then overwrote it with the question. This ought to be simple. There are only about five places it could output anything, and all of them had this subliminal flash of a message. Each one was hard coded. No problem. Delete the offending mvprintw() and all is well. Or should be. I compile, thinking I’m done. But when I ran it, there it is again — the subliminal messages. This time with different text still the same subject, just different messages.
I check my code and believe it or not it’s back to the initial state I found it. 15 files, mangled, 3-letter variables — the whole thing right back where I started. I want shoot myself for not making a copy of my code. I unmangle again, this time putting it in three files, named differently. I make a copy of the whole directory, and I mark the files readable only. I compiled it. All looks good. I run the program. There’s now a copy of the original 15 files in the directory along with mine and the subliminal messages are back.
Okay, so somewhere on the disk is the source code necessary to keep doing this and he’s set the program up to pull in that code when you compile it. I do a full disk search in the include areas (/usr/include) and since this is a research version we have source for just about everything but the kernel itself. That’s a lot of header files and this takes some time on the 3B2, so that’s day 1.
Day 2
The disk search showed up nothing. The strings were apparently either encrypted or they are buried in a library somewhere. Because I don’t have check sums of all the original executable objects, I decide to search all libraries for the text. This is even longer than before, so day two is over.
Day 3
No results. The strings are encrypted. That means I’m going to have to follow all the header files from each #include and each one they #include to find where this is. And that will, take some time. We do alert the campus computing department that we believe someone has gained root level access to Dr. Phelps research computer, which is just a shared lab computer in the science building. They’re understandably not convinced.
I start unwinding the #include files. I do that, nowhere do I find the code. So now I know it’s compiled in a library. No problem at all. Why not just recompile all those libraries, we do have the source after all.
Days 4-6
The hardest part, convincing the campus nerds they have an issue. But we finally do and Mark, the Unix admin who was hired because he married the Dean’s daughter, gets busy learning how to do this. In the end, he agrees to allow me to handle it, because he just doesn’t really know how to get all that stuff compiled. End of Day 6, all standard libraries are recompiled. Woo hoo!
I whip out my modified, cleaned up source and start the compile. All looks good. I run it. O M G. It did it again. 15 messed up source files and the subliminal messages are back. This is suddenly like magic. I investigate very very carefully though I am stumped. This code doesn’t exist in source code. I think I might be beaten. Dr. Phelps isn’t happy with the hours involved and thinks maybe we ought to just rewrite the program from scratch. “Sure”, I say staring at the terminal like a lost puppy too deep in my thoughts to put out of my thinking mode, “I think you’re right. That will be quicker.” “Good,” he says, “we can start tomorrow.”
Day 7
To hell with that. This guy isn’t beating me. We are compiling it from his stinking code or not at all! “You don’t have to pay me anymore, Dr. Phelps, I just want lab time.” This is nerd war.
Days 8-14
I get smart, I’m thinking he somehow modified the curses library. I compile the curses code to assembly and though I don’t know 3B2 assembly (yet!), I start learning. I read manuals for 6 days, piecing together that assembly code. Waste of time, nothing seems unusual.
Day 15
I suddenly realize it’s in the compiler. It was the compiler. And every time you compile the original code and run it puts in the subliminal message code into the source code. I’d heard of this before.
Ah ah! I’ve got him!!!! We have the source code for the compiler as well. I search through it looking for a reference. Lo and behold, I find it. Indeed. There is source code in the compiler/linker that does this:
1) it examines any call to fopen(), searches the file opened looking for Dr. Phelp’s questions; if it finds them then
2) it rewrites the 15 files to the current directory when compiling that specific program.
3) It then compiles Dr. Phelps program using the 15 files and outputs to the -o name in the link phase.
The compiler was modified to put that code in Dr. Phelps program was written by the man that modified the compiler.
Several days later, an AT&T tech shows up with a disk and loads the proper compile and linker source and we recompile the compiler from the source. That solves it. All the bad source in the compiler is gone and we’ve got a new clean copy of the compiler.
Except it didn’t. Because the compiler was poisoned with other source code that we didn’t have. And that source code, that now existed only in the executable compiler, put those changes back into the compiler source before it compiled it. But this time it didn’t modify the /usr/src copy, it copied it to a hidden directory, modified the compiler source, compiled itself from there, and deleted the hidden directory. It took an AT&T tech to find this. The ex-grad student had poisoned the compiler to poison itself when it was recompiled. We had to put a new binary version of the compiler on disk from another 3B2 running the same revision before the problem went away.
We also found that if /sbin/login is compiled it puts in a backdoor allowing anyone who uses a specific password to login in as the root user. This computer is accessible by modem and Tymnet. Finally, this gets the computing center’s attention.
Genius! But put to a horrible cause.
Scott Ritter: Russia just DESTROYED Blinken, NATO with this Move and China Wins Big
Can you destroy your entire life with one wrong decision?
I was 41 yrs old and I had never broken a bone or had stitches, I was a hard working individual and apart from a slot machine addiction of many decades, my life was great. I had met my soul mate back in 2002 and we had lived together since 2003. I was a delivery driver and I simply loved being out on the road with no hassle from bosses. I pretty much worked the hours I wanted because I had earned that right through the hard work I always give.
Long story short ish, like an idiot I tried to move something in the front of the van to the back so it could be unloaded off and I felt something pop in my lower back. I went through the NHS system in the U.K. and the MRI showed I had ruptured my L5/S1 disc. Not a massive hole but enough to warrant a lower back op and they were going to remove the disc and plate it up using screws. The day of the op I had a real bad vibe. I wasn’t impressed to be told I had to have this operation, because the accident happened while I was working and because I didn’t get paid if I was off on sick, it was advised I started a claim against my employers, basically just for the loss of earnings I was going to lose for however lomg I was unable to work after this operation. My employers were amazing from the start, they fully accepted responsibility and I was told to take as much time off because my job would still be waiting for me upon my return. Without sounding bigheaded, I was very good at my job, not just because I could drive a van in the centre of London, but the way I treated the customers and feedback always got back to my boss just how much they appreciated me and yes I did go that mile (no pun intended). So admitting liability helped me out big time. The problem was, I had to do everything to get myself back working as soon as possible. Besides, the success rate was over 99%, so why was I worried. It’s a kin to a fear of flying, it’s the safest way to travel but yet, so many of us fear flying. So what’s the worse that’s going to happen to me……..
That decision to go ahead with that op ruined the rest of my life. It’s now 15 years since I had the original operation. I lay in a bed for 23 hrs a day every single day. I take one of the highest dosages of opiates in the U.K. (according to a senior medical official) and goodness knows what the long term consequences are of taking opiates for so long. I haven’t touched my partner in over a decade and if I was an animal they’d of shot me the same day after that operation. The worse thing for me is, I was told everything went great, no issues at all. So why am I feeling pain like I’ve never felt pain before, it was horrendous. No one knew why, 15 years later and still no one knows why. Don’t get me wrong, during the last 15 yrs everything and anything has been done, sorry, I say 15 yrs, it’s actually 10 yrs. After the 10 yrs I was informed there was nothing else the NHS could do and I was discharged all the while still suffering that very same pain.
I lost everything. But that was just the beginning. I ended up in £42k in debt from interest payments being added to my credit cards because technically, I was still employed and sick pay was just £60 a week back then. But that’s only paid for 6 months, after that you have to be paid via the government and back in 2010 they decided to revamp the social security payments. I was then given just £41 a week for just short of 2 years. I was told I had to wait until it was my turn, but not to worry, it will all get backdated if I was successful with my claim……. My rent alone was £650 a month and I maxed out every credit card I had, I had no choice. When all that ran out I was entered into a debt repayment program and 10 years later, the £42k debt was scrapped. Thanks to my gran, I never missed a payment for 10 years.
Talk about having to jump through hoops for my benefits, I was treated like the rest of society who claimed benefits, like I was trying to cheat the system and all the up to Covid 19 in 2020, I had to be assessed 2 times a year for each benefit and I was claiming 3 benefits. Disability, industrial injury benefit and employment support benefit. That meant I had to travel 6 times a year to wherever they sent me to be assessed, if I miss one appointment ALL my benefits are stopped. It didn’t matter what I told them about being in bed for 23 hrs a day or I couldn’t walk anywhere without going through the pains of hell.
In the early days, everyone thought I was putting it on so I didn’t have to work, like that’s going to help my cause right! But eventually the appointments became less and less and touchwood, I’ve had just one appointment since 2020 Covid. They still only pay the minimum despite being a genuine case, so I’ve had to do what I could to get by. My life is still ruined though. My GoFund page which is in my bio was supposed to pay for a private operation somewhere who knows about this kind of lower back pain. The problem is, no one will even reply to emails unless you have the cash right there and so far I’ve precisely 1 donation which was me because I was convinced people were giving but the page wasn’t working, so yes the page is working but for whatever reasons, I’m still waiting for the first donation but this post is NOT about begging for cash. That’s not me or how I work. I replied to this question because I did have this story to share and I know of others who are simply forgotten about when an operation goes astray.
So yes, you can destroy your life with a single decision.
On the plus side – at least my job is still open for when I am able to return back to work. Although I only have another 11 years to hit retirement age. That’s going to be another massive issue because I have not been able to pay into my private pension for the last 15 years.
Thanks for reading if you made it thus far. All unfortunately very true as I lay on my back in bed with my knees raised.
The America We Knew: November 1975 (the first 10 seconds will give you chills)
Is China really as powerful as we Indians think?
China is far more powerful than most Indians think.
I won’t share the usual stuff about GDP etc, but rather some anecdata (quantitative information I have personally come across), because that’s what I can personally contribute.
I was at a business conference and the German MD of a very large semiconductor company (they are all very large, to be fair) was speaking. He shared some stats about China’s share in global manufacturing capacity, specific to green tech:
Wind towers – 60%
Wind nacelles (the thing the blades are attached to) – 60%
Cathodes and anodes: 70%
Cells: 83%
Batteries: 74%
Semiconductor wafers: 94%
Note that this is not China’s share vs that of India. No. It is China’s share vs. that of the Rest of the World.
This is all installed capacity. Once it’s purchased, it is impossibly expensive to replace, so not only do these things make money through direct sales, they continue generating income through services, maintenance, parts, etc.
They’re not manufacturing goods. They’re manufacturing dependence. Just like you have an entire ecosystem of applications based on the SAP ERP, these capital goods will establish new standards which will require new companies.
Another anecdote. I was in Hamburg, Germany, last year for my birthday (I live in Berlin). It has a pretty impressive port. I wanted to know where Hamburg ranked among the top ports in the world, and where India came in.
Here’s that list. Can you see a common trend here?
The first Indian port comes in at #35.
Travel to Europe or any other tourist destination, and you’ll see just how many more Chinese tourists there are compared to Indians. It’s not a few percentage points, it’s orders of magnitude.
Go to UK, Canada, parts of Europe and look at who owns property. Sure, some obscenely rich Indian might own a prominent palatial central London residence, but there will be apartment blocks owned by the Chinese. I rent an apartment in a newly constructed apartment complex in central Berlin. It is advertised as an investment property destination in China and Hong Kong.
These are all anecdotal, but ever since I’ve moved out of India, one thing has become clearer than it ever was: China is already a true global superpower which is getting even more powerful by the day. And it’s a systematic takeover of future cash flows.
Of course, like India, China has its problems. India is doing fairly well as an economy—indeed, at the moment, better than many developed economies including China. However, make no mistake, it is decades behind China in terms of power and influence on a global stage. There is really no comparison.
You want the ultimate irony here? Today is Dassehra, and if you do a search for a portable temple for home on Amazon (or buy it from a nearby store), you’ll most likely get a product that’s made in China. While India prays to God, the Chinese are laughing their way to the bank.
It won’t change unless we really start asking, “How can we be as powerful as China?” instead of whether China is really as powerful as we think.
What’s the most depressing thing you saw as a police officer?
In 1987 I responded to a call about senior citizen abuse. It was a hot day and I went to this little, old apartment. This little old man was left in a worn out old recliner sitting in the middle of the floor, no furniture, no AC, no water. He had been sitting there for who knows how long. He was crazy with dehydration and out of his mind. I called EMS and they transported him to the hospital. His children had cleaned him out and left him there to rot.
My very first suicide was a guy who shot himself in the chest with a .357 magnum. When he died he had that horror look on his face like he knew he messed up. That one was 32 years ago and I can still see it. I saw many, many, many death cases over the years, all sad in there own way. I have been on hundreds of homicides.
The one that sticks was a female counselor who had a sexual relation ship with a client. He was a drug addict and crazy. Eventually he murdered her in her bed. Then he ran a tub of water and drowned her baby. Sick bastard. Earlier that day I had been on a homicide where a guy killed his wife and put her to bed, pulling the sheets up to her neck. I went looking for him and found him dead in his car. He killed himself.
Another sad one was this sweet old lady decided that life was more than she could bear. She laid out the dress she wanted to be buried in. Then she overdosed on pills, but didn’t actually die. She should have but, didn’t. The last time I saw her she was in a vegetative state. She went from the issues being in her head to actually being in terrible shape. Nothing’s worse than a failed suicide with permanent injury. I’ve seen it more than once.
As a side note (very important). Over the years we responded to a lot of found bodies sitting on the toilet. The Medical Examiner once told me that for your health there’s nothing more important than making sure to eat your fiber. Don’t strain real hard on the toilet. You can bust a gasket and die in there. Eat your fiber.
Ex-CIA: US Pentagon TERRIFIED Over New Russia Strike Plan!
What were lies told by your parents?
Disclaimer: This isn’t a cute, funny story about things parents say to their kids and everybody laughs about later. It’s a cautionary tale about how narcissistic parents can impact their children’s lives.
When I was a little girl, my toxic, abusive, yet fiercely religious mother TOLD me that *telling lies* was egregious, and would be subject to severe punishment up to and including eternal damnation.
At the same time, she SHOWED me that *telling the truth* was egregious, and would be subject to severe punishment up to and including eternal damnation.
Let me explain using a couple of examples. First, regarding telling lies:
Little me, trying to get away with dropping and breaking a dish: “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me!”
Mother, who didn’t witness the incident but claimed to have done: “You’re a LIAR! I SEEN ya! Daddy, I think she needs a GOOD SPANKUN’.” Off comes the belt.
Lesson learned: Don’t tell lies.
Next, regarding telling the truth:
Little me, after admitting to a nosy neighbor something I didn’t know was supposed to be a secret: “Mom, Mrs. Carlson asked me if you dye your hair. I said yes.”
Mother, who had just used her latest box of Miss Clairol’s Red Penny Number 416 that morning: “You’re a LIAR! That ain’t true and you know it! Daddy, I think she needs a GOOD SPANKUN’.” Off comes the belt.
Lesson learned: Don’t tell the truth.
Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, both in this life and in the next.
I, as well as my four younger sibs, grew up very confused about what lies and truth actually are. Each of us learned to be very careful about what we said or didn’t say, because we never knew where the land mines were buried. We all were damaged psychologically — which affects us even as older adults — but the symptoms and severity are as individual as we are.
What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?
When I was in high school I got a job in a restaurant as a hostess. When I had to go in back to clock into work I had to walk through the area with all the male prep cooks and dishwashers who all primarily spoke Spanish. I was young, pretty and well-endowed, and they all noticed it. For a couple weeks, I would walk into the back and listen as they all made edgy comments about me and my appearance and what they’d like to do to/ with me. I just ignored them.
A couple weeks after I started, I walked through the back to clock in and one of the new employees said something particularly vile about what he’d like to do to me. I stopped, whipped around, and in Spanish “read him the riot act” about talking about me so disrespectfully and inappropriately. I watched as jaws dropped all over the room, different men realizing the things they’d said when I was walking by and in earshot.
Profound apologies came for days. I don’t think any of them would have spoken so coarsely about me if they had realized I could understand. After that they all treated me like a little sister, very respectful, some standing up for me when others started to go off track.
I might have related this story in some of my many writings, but this is the story of a boyhood friend. His name was Jeff, and he was one year older than myself.
He lived one block up the hill from my house, and we played a lot. He had a horse, a canoe, and a cool attic bedroom with all of his brother’s airplane models still hanging from the ceiling. He loved Mad magazine, and science fiction. In fact, I bought my entire Doc Savage collection from him for the princely sum of ten dollars.
He was a little odd, not bad, just odd. His parents had divorced, and he lived with his mother. And she was nice but odd. On one occasion she wanted to hide me in their house for a week to get the entire town all worked up. I said no. After all, all that I could think of was the hurt and terror my parents would feel if I did that.
Anyways, he lived in a house with a two car garage.
One day, I went to visit him, and sitting in that garage was a massive pile of dirt. You see, he was trying to become a earth-worm king. He had this idea that he could raise earthworms right there and sell them to the local fishing bait shop.
Good idea, but he over-estimated the value of his product.
Anyways, for a whole month he would water that pile of dirt, and farm out earth-worms. Big news for a fifth grader.
Then one day it was all gone.
He sold one coffee can full of worms for a $1. And yeah, things were cheaper back then, but even he realized that that was a far cry from becoming a millionaire.
So he moved on to other things of boyhood interest. Which included model rockets (Estes) and crossbows.
Ah. Boyhood.
Eventually he moved away when I turned 16 years old. And during the furniture auction for his house, I met my first girlfriend; a Ms Georgia Beck. A fine thin, willowy lass all of 15 years old.
And that is another story for another time.
Today…
How much alcohol did Winston Churchill consume? Was he a big drinker?
We can get a peek into how much Churchill drank since the White House butler, Alonzo Fields, wrote about Churchill’s drink requests in his memoir. Not long after Churchill arrived at the White House in December of 1941, he pulled Mr. Fields aside and said the following:
“Listen, Alonzo, when I leave here we want to depart as friends, right? I’ll have no whistling in the hallways in the mornings. Now, I must have a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French champagne, and 90-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night.” This was not inclusive of everything Churchill drank during the day, however, it was just a starting point.
Essentially, Churchill drank for a good part of his waking hours every single day. His drinking sessions were known to last until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. every night, wherein he kept President Roosevelt up to talk shop. This exasperated the First Lady, who was at least a little pleased to see him go at the end of his three week trip to Washington.
Churchill maintained his heavy drinking and smoking lifestyle all while leading his nation through a war and as a renown public speaker and author. He still managed to live to age 90. Good genetics.
Reaction to @hoe_math . Is Promiscuity that bad? Women should stop aiming above their level.
A breeding visa? in Japan?
This is the tragic story of Seath Jackson, who was born in Belleview, Florida.
In 2011, at the age of 15, Jackson briefly dated Amber Wright. However, their relationship ended in March of that year after Jackson learned that Amber had cheated on him with an 18-year-old named Michael Bargo.
Bargo despised Jackson so much that he even believed Jackson had abused Amber, and he began to devise a plan to punish him. Bargo collaborated with four others to carry out the plan. Amber lured Jackson to a mobile home under the pretense of wanting to “work things out,” but when Jackson arrived, he was ambushed by the group.
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Image: Seath Jackson(top right), the attackers, and evidence recovered in the investigation.
The attackers bludgḛoned him on the head with a piece of wood, causing him to stumble outside, where Bargo shot him several times. They then wrapped his body in a sleeping bag and threw it into a burning pit fire. The group’s heinous crime was exposed when one of the perpetrators confessed.
Bargo was sentenced to dḛậth, while the others received life in prison for their roles in the m̃urdḛr of Seath Jackson. Michael Bargo is the youngest person on Florida’s dḛậth row.
Can you destroy your entire life with one wrong decision?
Effortlessly.
Guy I went to school with turned down the advances of a young lady at a party because she was underage and he wasn’t in to that. This wasn’t a huge age gap (four years) but she was fifteen and that’s illegal.
She went to the police and said he raped her (at a later date).
Police did their usual stirling job and nabbed him without even asking for an alibi.
His name was leaked to the press. (Norfolk police in the 90’s were really bad).
He was cleared in court because his alibi was that he had been going through army selection that weekend and had a whole training base of folk who could prove he was a hundred miles away from where she claimed things happened.
Didn’t matter. Papers named him and whipped the locals in to a frenzy. His car was set on fire, house vandalised, fired from his job, army rejected him (he passed selection but the army was trying to clean up their image at the time so …).
End of the day he did a bunk in the middle of the night. Went to eastern Europe and got a series of shitty jobs. I got one email from him back around 2000 just to let me know he was alive and I’ve never heard from him since. So, there you go, one young man’s whole life pissed away because he wouldn’t cop off with a girl at a party.
Why I Left the USA (Again)
Did you ever accidentally overhear a conversation about you on a conference call?
Not a conversation that I overheard, but a technical conversation I had for work that was overheard by other people.
I was a civil engineer working as the project manager for the replacement of a very, very weird bridge. First let me tell you about this bridge – it carried a small, local road over the main Amtrak line. It was an historic truss structure dating back to just after the civil war (back when the rail-line belonged to Pennsylvania railroad), and, weirdest of all, there was a driveway to a car dealership *on the actual bridge*. And all of this was located in the heart of the Main Line where property values were super-high, and it was crowded among some very luxe businesses.
Redesigning this bridge was a complete nightmare.
First off, I could not meet a single design standard. Not roadway width (too narrow), grade (too steep), clearance, nothing. There were just too many constraints. So I call my Federal counterpart (because this bridge has federal funding) and try to explain all of the problems.
Only our line was crossed with a pair of women who were having their own conversation.
That’s fine, we can hear them, but their volume is low, and we know that they can hear us, but we aren’t discussing anything secret – so we each ignore the other conversation, for the most part.
I explain the problem to my counterpart and ask if he can grant me a design exception for the design speed. If I can design the bridge for 15 miles per hour I can meet the design criteria. No, that is too big an ask. I continue to explain the problem with all the constraints. Then my counterpart asks me how much it would cost to design the bridge to meet all the standards. (Quick aside here, cost is NOT supposed to be a factor in choices like this, unless it is extremely excessive *AND* there are other safety factors involved. But extreme costs can be considered as a mitigating factor.)
So I tell him that the the extra construction cost won’t be that much, maybe a hundred thousand dollars on a million dollar project. But the two properties on either side of the bridge at one end are owned by a Lexus dealership and a Mercedes dealership who do not want to give up a square inch of land and are going to make the state pay through the nose. The other side of the bridge has an historic church on one side and a medical office building on the other – not quite as expensive but still hard to obtain the land. So the cost of the real estate would probably be about a million dollars in that area. On top of that, there are utilities everywhere – water, electric, phone, gas, cable, fiber optic lines – so there goes another three-quarters to a million dollars moving all of them. Then, because the bridge is very close to a heavily trafficked commuter route, and improving the grade on the bridge would mean repaving that road, too, the cost of traffic management would easily run another four to five hundred thousand dollars.
And the women overhearing our conversation exclaim, “Oh my God! That’s two and a half million dollars!” Then, realizing that they were overheard, they say their goodbyes and quickly hang up.
My counterpart says he has to see this bridge before making a decision, so we set up a meeting on the site for about a week later. And just as I am about to leave for that meeting, I get a panicked phone call from my counterpart saying that he is at the bridge and he is too nervous to even drive across it. He moves the meeting to my office, arrives thirty minutes later and signs off on all of the design exceptions.
It still took another three years to completely the design – mainly because the Lexus dealership didn’t want to lose their driveway, or sell the tiny amount of land that was required, but it did get built, safely and for a lot less than two and a half million dollars.
Southwestern Beef and Chili Pizza
southwest beef and chile pizza vertical
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (12 inch) thick prebaked Italian bread shell
1 1/4 cups mild thick and chunky salsa
1 1/2 cups Mexican cheese blend or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1 (4 ounce) can diced green chiles, drained well
2 medium plum tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/3 cup thin red onion slivers
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
Instructions
Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
In large skillet, brown ground beef over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes or until no longer pink, breaking up into 3/4 inch crumbles.
Pour off drippings.
Season with salt.
Place bread shell on ungreased baking sheet.
Spread salsa over shell. Sprinkle with half of cheese.
Top with beef chiles, tomatoes, red onion and remaining cheese.
Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Sprinkle with cilantro; cut into 8 wedges.
Have you ever met a celebrity and found they were much kinder or ruder than you expected?
In the late 1980s I worked as a chauffeur for Beverly Hills Limousine (At that time a small family run business) and I had occasion to drive many of the “Hollywood elite”. As I have recounted in another post here, the absolute nicest celeb I drove would be actor Kirk Douglas. Intelligent, thoughtful, funny but not to be trifled with. I thoroughly enjoyed having him in my car.
The absolute worst celeb (though certainly not the absolute worst client) was actress Susan Clark. Married to football star turned actor Alex Karras (“Mongo” in “Blazing Saddles”) she had a reputation as a lady with class and upbringing. The car I drove her in was a Lincoln Continental 4-door hardtop with NO window “screen” between driver and passenger. I drove her to a photo shoot from the Hollywood hills to Glendale, approx. a half hour drive. All was “normal” for a while until I heard a loud belch behind me. Hey, everyone burps, only it is standard to apologize for such an indiscretion. She was silent. Shortly after that I saw her produce a toothpick to give her teeth the “once over”. Afterwards she unwrapped a stick of chewing gum and put it to work, presumably to freshen her breath. Moments later there was a loud fart… I cracked some windows to insure there was no “poison gas”…
Fortunately, we arrived at the photo studio shortly thereafter and I dropped her off. I pulled the car over in a nearby filling station to dispose of the gum wrapper and toothpick. They were not visible. I found her gum stuffed into the rear passenger ash tray (Yes, cars all had ash trays then) but the wrapper and toothpick were not visible. Running my hand between the seat and the backrest, I found them both there stuffed in between the upholstery.
Not my worst day driving a limousine but NOT my definition of a classy lady.
Why you SHOULDN’T get US Citizenship even if you have a chance?
Why Americans think Chinese are most brainwashed but World see Americans the most brainwashed and they believe theories like flat earth?
The Americans are the most brainwashed people in the world and the evidence is out there in the open for everyone to see.
A country who spent north of $7 trillion on the stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while allowing itself to decay in almost every aspect of its essential services and amenities, has to be a country drowned so deeply in corruption.
And today the American people are still electing their favourite politicians from the the equally corrupt bi-parties instead of sending them to the gallows is truly mind numbing.
NATO & the US are making a decision to up the ante—we will escalate. We will take more and more perilous actions and take this thing right up to the edge of WW3.
The Schiller Institute is trying to mobilize public opinion to bring a greater air of caution. By preempting the most aggressive and most reckless people we have managed to ward off some of the worst excesses during this war.
If we can continue doing it successfully then perhaps peace will come and we can reconsider our foreign policy and some of the very grave mistakes that we’ve made recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET5ZjNIU0dg
The Western corporate elite have made up their mind. They are determined for WWIII. If they can’t have total world domination they will stomp on the blocks and nuke the Whole thing.
What’s the most expensive thing you’ve found/lost/broken?
My wife & I had just boarded a cruise ship and were settling into our state room. The prior occupant had left some valuables in the safe, closed but unlocked: her wallet (with ID) with some cash in it, and then various envelopes with $20s, $100s, etc written on the front, stuffed with that kind of bill. Of course, we had to count the money. It was over $3k.
The ID was for an elderly lady, and we found a paper with a phone number on it for a relative (same last name).
Some people may think it was silly of us, but we tried calling the number to return the wallet & cash. No one answered—we left a message but never heard back. So instead we took the cash & wallet to the customer service desk and turned it over to them. The lady at the desk was pretty surprised I think. We had to stand there while she counted it out in front of us twice.
We’ll never know whether the old lady got her wallet & cash back.
EDIT: Some are asking why housekeeping didn’t find it. The safe was physically shut most of the way and the contents were not visible. I assume housekeeping doesn’t usually pull open the safe door to see if the safe is empty. We didn’t find the stuff until we went to put our valuables in the safe.
Crossing the Airfield – The Pacific
Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?
I bought a Mazda RX3 in early 1972 with the new rotary engine. I was living in Los Angeles when I learned my mother had pancreatic cancer and would not likely survive very long. I jumped in my car and drove as fast as I could to her home in Phoenix to spend a little time with her before she passed.
There were no other cars on Interstate 10 so I decided to see just how fast that little engine could go. I had just pegged the needle (140) and was still gaining speed when I heard the “whoop” of the siren. I looked in my rear view mirror and could see the California Highway Patrol car trying to catch up with me. I pulled over (safely), rolled down my window, grabbed my documents, and waited for him.
The officer quickly parked, exited his vehicle, and ran toward me shouting “Get out of the car!” I thought perhaps my car was on fire so I leaped out and practically ran into him yelling “What’s happening?” He stopped, grabbed me by the shoulders and stared and me with a very surprised look on his face. I repeated, “What’s happening?”
Then he started laughing. “You’re just a kid! And a girl!” I was still confused, but told him I knew I was driving fast, that I was in a hurry to spend time with my mother who was in her last days, and that the truth was that I was also really curious about what that rotary engine could do and thought the road was empty.
He took a few breaths and told me my speed was extremely dangerous and even a slight bump or pothole in the road could have caused me to crash. He was sorry about my mother. He was also sorry that had to write me up since he had already called in a “reckless driver”, but he would write the ticket for the maximum that would allow me to continue on my journey (and not be arrested on the spot).
Then he said, “Before you go, can I take a peek at that rotary engine?” I nodded and popped the hood. We had a nice chat. I drove safely away to see my mom for the last time.
I lean against the cool metal of the large door that never opens. I know it opens, of course. It’s the only door in this room. But I almost never see it move. At least, not since the day I was brought here.Despite it being dark in this room, I still know where the door is thanks to the light seeping in through the bottom. Even though it is probably night, the monsters keep working.I was brought here by people who always smile. But no matter how friendly they look or act, they’ll always be monsters to me. Why did they bring me here? Why did they bring us here? To die in this cold empty room, away from our families?It’s only me and Oscar now. We’re the only two left. I rub my arms, feeling chilly or maybe just scared at the thought that we’re alone. There used to be many children in this room. So many children were in here, just days ago, playing with us, eating with us, sleeping with us. Then they left, beginning to disappear one by one. No one said anything about it. The monsters acted as though they had never even existed in the first place. I just don’t understand. I never saw them go. It was like bubbles. They were there one moment and gone the next. And like bubbles it doesn’t seem to matter if one pops.When the last one left today, I planted myself at the door. Half because I wanted to make sure no one would take me or Oscar next and half because I was hoping if I waited here long enough, they’d come back.I just don’t understand why things are so different now. We used to be taken from the room from time to time, to get poked at with needles or examined by machines. But the monsters always returned us to this room. I guess they don’t now.Suddenly I hear the muffled voices of some of the monsters behind the door. It sounds like a man and a woman.“Really? To all of them?” The woman asks, sounding shocked. I lean a little closer into the door.“Yes. Unfortunately they didn’t survive the testing. It’s a shame, but we should’ve seen it coming. You can’t force that kind of change without consequences.” The man says, sighing. What does he mean, force that kind of change? Who is he talking about? Us?“What about the other two? Will we need to dispose of them too?” The lady askes, flatly.“Thankfully, no. They always were healthier than the rest, probably from being a second generation. We were quite fortunate that they’re different genders.” The man responds, sounding almost eager. What does that mean? Why would it matter that they’re different genders? Unfortunately I might never get the answer, because their voices get fainter as they move farther away.Oscar and I are different genders. He’s a boy and I’m a girl. So could they really be talking about us? And if they are, what did they do with the others?
I crawl away from the door, heading across the freezing tiles to where Oscar is sleeping in a pile of blankets.
“Oscar.” I whisper, afraid to startle him. He continues sleeping, unmoved. Annoyed, I begin to shake him. I just can’t sleep until I talk to somebody about this! “Oscar, wake up!” I cry out, as loud as I can without drawing the attention of the monsters. He jerks up, squinting at me through the darkness.
“What time is it?” He mumbles, rubbing his eyes. I guess he’s still groggy because we haven’t had access to clocks since the day we came here.
“It’s still night. But I need to tell you something important, so I need you to be awake with me!” I explain, frantically.
“I don’t care how much your stomach hurts…”he begins, his eyes closing.
“It’s not that! It’s about the others.” He opens his eyes again, interested.
“What about the others? Did one of them come back?”
“No. I don’t think so. But I was leaning against the door and I heard the monsters talk about them! Or at least it sounded like it was about them and us. They were talking about how they did something to them and how they were sick and how the monsters won’t get rid of us cause we’re different genders or something!” I say hurriedly. I gasp for breath, glad to have told someone. He frowns.
“They were sick for a long time.” He mutters, staring at the floor.
Yes, all of them had dark circles around their eyes from lack of sleep because coughing kept them up all night. They were also unusually skinny despite all the food we were fed. But I guess I didn’t think of it that much until now. All they ever really were was friends.
In my old home, my mother had a small, sparse garden. One day I watched as she threw away a wilted flower. Even though it was wilted I remember asking why she threw it away. She told me that the flower had gotten sick and eventually died. Like flowers, humans can probably wilt too. So did that mean that because my friends were sick…
My stomach churns. I wish I had been born deaf so I couldn’t hear a single word anyone ever said. To be blissfully unaware of the fear and dangers of this world. But most importantly, so that I would never have heard the monsters through the door.
“They’re not coming back.” I state, something hot and wet running down my cheek. That should’ve been a question, but somehow it feels true. Oscar doesn’t say anything, his eyes glossy.
I cling to him, grabbing onto the silky fabric of his shirt. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why they were so sick or why they’re not coming back. The only thing I do understand is that right now in this room without the voices of my friends, this is the loudest silence I’ve ever heard.
We are Living in The Twilight Zone ….. Part 3
What was the most unexpected knock you got on your door?
I was alone, my husband was away on a training course. I had been sick for days to the point I no longer knew what day it was or what time it was, I had fallen asleep on the couch with all the lights on. I had taken some medication for my cold. There was frantic knocking at my door I didn’t realize it but it was 4 AM. I opened the door and standing there shivering in the -15C temperature, was a teenage boy with no shoes on. There was at least 2 ft on snow on the ground. I
His head was bleeding. He started pleading all in one long breathe, “Please, please let me in, some guys are trying to kill me, they hit me in the head with a bat and I don’t even know them, your house was the only house that had lights on, PLEASE! I was a little dazed by it all and the medication, I just said, “Come on in”. Later my Mom and husband gave me such a hard time about opening the door in the middle on the night. I kept telling them I didn’t know it was the middle of the night. Besides the kid needed help and I had a son just a bit older than him. I would hope someone would do the same for him.
The boy had been at a house party where some people were kicked out for being too rowdy. Those people came back with more people with baseball bats. They hit anyone who was there. The kid didn’t know them or them him. He said he left via a balcony window and jumped down into the snow with no shoes. He ran down the alley, saw my lights on and came to my door. We called the police who came and took the young man away. I never heard anymore about it. My family said I should never do that again, But I have!
BEST 21 Minutes of Men Going Their Own Way – Special Video
Why does the U.S. have so many military bases outside of the United States?
The US military does not maintain 900 bases abroad.
Full stop.
Just because Ron Paul said it doesn’t mean it’s true (or, with all due respect to Politifact, even “mostly” true).
And more to the point, the vast majority of those 587 sites aren’t “bases,” but small installations – which the Department of Defense defines as being worth less than $100 million (and, hint: a proper military base costs way more than $100 million). They include things like 144 square feet of leased space somewhere in Newfoundland, Canada, and a medical research center in Lima, Peru.
The majority of these sites, while counted separately, are actually satellite components of a central base or base complex. The complex for Wiesbaden, Germany, for example, headquarters for United States Army Europe, gets 25 separate listings. Every minor camp and installation in South Korea gets a mention.
Seriously, things like golf courses (which they’re slowly divesting) and family housing units get counted towards the overseas “site” total. A lot of them are just parcels of leased land that the government has to account for (like a random acre of land in Costa Rica, versus the regularly debunked “army base”).
The fact of the matter is that America’s overseas military presence is largely, usually overhyped. Yes, it has very large military commitments in places like Japan, South Korea, and Germany, but it isn’t an imperial force with its boots on the necks of every country everywhere. 90 percent of the US’ forces are based inside the United States, and the vast majority of other nations that house US military personnel only have a handful.
Here’s a map of the number of nations with at least one US military servicemember assigned, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center:
main qimg 07556931677daf63cbdfa8a2f639304f pjlq
Now here’s a map with those assignments weighted by the size of deployment.
main qimg 07a2fa411bd7e13e69f1f943ddbc36ce pjlq
A lot less shocking. The US’ main overseas commitments are to Europe, South Korea, and Japan to honor mutual defense pacts. Everywhere else has just a handful of service personnel whose roles are probably advisory in nature, if not entirely contained within the US embassies in those nations.
I know all the popular answers to this question come up with fancy reasons related to the US’ need to project its power or some such, and people have reflexively upvoted those answers because they sound smart, but they’re built on the incorrect premise.
The fact of the matter is that the US has neither the interest nor the resources to sustain such a massive, overseas military presence that 900 bases would require. That it has large deployments in selected countries represents its commitment to existing alliances and ongoing conflicts. But putting a bunch of hardware around the world and the garrisons necessary to zealously defend them isn’t on the table.
Ukraine putting out its begging bowl at the Berlin “Restoration and Infrastructure Conference” this week has led to a smidge more press attention to the impact of Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s electrical system. Similar to coverage of the war as a whole, bad information is being dribbled out, accompanied by doses of hopium as to how conditions could be made markedly better if the West only provided more weapons, money, and other salves.
Another telling aspect is that the articles are only willing to project out to Ukraine having the high odds of a cold and dark winter, and the impact of that on households. It’s as if we were given old fashioned naval maps, with their warnings at the periphery, “Beyond here lie dragons.” They avert their eyes from the fact that highly constrained power translates into massive constraints on and likely cascading problems with commerce.
Even if you consider only the difficulties for residents, it is not just that they will be in freezing, blackout conditions come winter. What about food? What about getting gas, since many stations rely on electricity to run their pumps?
And when we get to commerce, just start with processing transactions. What happens when Internet access is limited, and retailers and suppliers can’t take card or electronic payments on their merchant systems? Or for that matter, banks if theres is only power for a few hours a day?
And most of all, what about sewage, which John Helmer identified as the big chokepoint in terms of municipalities having a hope of remaining habitable? From his post earlier this week:
Independently of one another, Russian and Ukrainian reporters are confirming the impact of the power losses on the operation of water and sewerage systems in the majority of Ukrainian cities. According to Oleg Popenko, a Ukrainian expert on energy for communal services, “Armageddon has already arrived. We just don’t feel it yet. But the residents of Poltava, for example, feel it, because since May 5 of this year, 120,000 residents of the city receive water by the hour and use sewerage by the hour. You can imagine what happened in Zhitomir when the central sewerage collector didn’t work there for a week, but now in Poltava [it’s been] a month. And this is the problem with water utilities in 70% of Ukrainian cities. Water utilities are probably more important than rest of the infrastructure in the city. Heat and electricity can be replaced somehow, and you can go somewhere. But if the sewer system breaks down in a city, the city is no longer viable in principle.”
Also note that there is some artful positioning on the extent of the devastation. Ukraine’s biggest energy company DTEK confirmed Washington Post reporting. From DTEK on June 7:
In a recent Washington Post article, DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko revealed that russia’s missile attacks have devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with the country’s largest private power producer losing 86 percent of its generating capacity.
“What makes the situation worse is that many of the electrical facilities have been targeted repeatedly — a cycle of destruction, recovery, destruction,” Timchenko told the Washington Post. He pointed to one DTEK power unit that was repaired just weeks ago only to be struck again over the weekend, saying “Now it’s just gone.”
Yet various new reports state that Ukraine has lost only 50% of its generation. This is plausible given that DTEK in 2019 and 2020 supplied only 18% to 19% of Ukraine’s electricity, per Fitch. So the math could work. But 86% for DTEK versus 50% overall would mean DTEK has been singularly unlucky. So it’s not unreasonable to think that 50% is an understatement.
If Russia continues to attack power plants, the worst-case scenario is that come winter Ukrainians could be spending up to 20 hours a day without power and heating, according to Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK. Part of the issue is that Ukraine’s thermal and hydroelectric power stations are difficult and expensive to fix.
They skipped over the significance of this part:
Ukraine is buying energy from the European Union to try to cover its shortfall. Its energy ministry said it was planning on Wednesday to import its largest amount of power to date. However, this is not enough to make up its deficit, meaning nationwide power cuts have been planned during an eight-hour window, from 3pm to 11pm, in order to protect critical infrastructure such a hospitals and military facilities.
The BBC piece made it sound as if 3 PM to 11 PM power outages are the new normal (although in fairness “power cuts” could mean rolling blackouts in this window). Anyone who has read about load balancing in connection with solar power knows that residential usage peaks when people come home from work. They cook dinner (and open their fridges, also increasing power demand), turn on lights, turn on air conditioning or turn up heat, depending on the time of year, and in normal circumstances, many turn on entertainment devices.
So this window is part of the business day and the most active time for households. In the US, the consumer sector is the largest user of electricity, but represents less than half the total (commercial and industrial are classified separately). Ukraine is probably not wildly different (it probably has a larger industrial sector, but that was concentrated in the Donbass, which Russia now deems to be part of Russia). So even though the outage time is only 8 hours a day, on a guesstimated basis, it seems consistent with a 50% reduction. But when you consider the profile, it already represents a lot of pain for individuals.
A new story in the Wall Street Journal applies as much porcine maquillage as possible to this dire and worsening situation. Key extracts:
Ukraine is imposing blackouts, launching hasty repairs and hunting for spare parts after a Russian bombing campaign targeting power infrastructure in recent months slashed the country’s electricity production by half.
The Russian attacks, using waves of missiles and explosive drones, have sparked fears of a painful winter should the power outages severely hamper the economy and lead to an exodus from cities. Ukraine has long pleaded with the West for more air-defense systems, and Ukrainian officials say deliveries have been insufficient to protect both cities and the front lines.
In reviving and expanding a tactic used earlier in the war, Ukrainian officials say Russia is seeking to spark a humanitarian crisis as part of an effort to break Ukrainians’ will to fight and force a capitulation.
The streets of Kyiv are already filled with the sound and fumes of generators, as power companies impose hourslong blackouts to manage consumption and carry out repairs. Ukraine has increased electricity imports from European Union neighbors it was exporting power to as recently as March. And repair crews are working across its energy grid to restore capacity, sometimes only to see the same facilities struck again.
This section implies, and more Ukraine complaints in the article later explicitly claim, that this campaign could be neutralized if the West provided more air defenses. While technically accurate, it breezes past the fact that that’s na ga happen. Ukraine’s former Soviet weaponry generally outperformed Western replacements. As anyone who has been even dimly following this story knows, the US and NATO have been scrounging to find more Patriot missiles, even as Russia has been successfully hunting and destroying the platforms. Ukraine has also been pinning far too much hope on the eventual delivery of F-16 fighter jets, which the Anglosphere media has dutifully also overhyped. And we see no mention of ever-more effective Russian signal jamming.
It’s not surprising to see frustration and upset on Twitter:
The Journal piece turns to the notion that Ukraine can restore service as the war is on, which is akin to bailing water out of a badly leaking boat:
DTEK estimates the price of restoring the energy system at $50 billion…Focused on maintenance, they are looking for spare parts, equipment and investment to keep Ukraine’s grid working. To address the need for parts, [Maxim] Timchenko [CEO of DTEK] said DTEK has been working with countries across Europe to visit decommissioned power plants to scour for usable parts. At least 10 countries have opened their doors.
During the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said it helped coordinate a dozen new cooperation agreements for rebuilding and maintaining the country’s power grid. State power company Ukrenergo said it has received 30.4 million euros, equivalent to around $33 million, from Germany to support energy infrastructure. The EU said 1.4 billion euros in grants will be available to businesses working in the sector. DTEK announced partnerships with U.S. energy companies Honeywell International and GE Vernova as well as French energy company Schneider Electric, which has donated 43,000 pieces of emergency equipment worth 4 million euros since February 2022.
In fairness, the article does acknowledge, as minimally as possible, that energy facilities are “sometimes” destroyed again after repairs.
The Journal describes Ukraine plans to rely more on solar and other distributed generation, with DTEK having launched a new wind farm even while the war was on. But the article also describes the use of generators as a stopgap, without acknowledging that they are not a viable ongoing solution. Again hoisting from Helmer:
On June 7, a video recorded stroll down one of Odessa’s shopping streets revealed an emergency generating set providing electricity for almost all of the commercial establishments.
“This is in no way sustainable,” comments a NATO military engineer. “Note how each shop has its own genset. The generators in the video are not designed for the duty cycle they’re being run at. They’ll wear out soon enough. The military, including deployed NATO personnel, use the shops and the gensets, too. The idea of pooling their resources, sharing load among gensets, thus reducing wear and tear on the whole network, while collectivizing fuel and maintenance costs, doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. To be sure, what follows will be no lack of electrocutions, carbon monoxide poisonings, and fires. We can bet the manifestations of the social pathology we’re seeing here have been factored in by the General Staff. Their attack point will now be to stop fuel, engine oil, spares, and replacements from getting through.”
Russia is working on two overlapping tracks, that of degrading Ukraine’s power system so severely as to cripple its military’s ability to supply itself and communicate, with the ancillary effect of getting civilians to leave cities, which would give Russia more degrees of freedom in taking them, if it has to resort to offensive operations. At the same time, it is relentlessly attriting Ukraine’s men and weapons in the east. Russia can decide how to manage the tempo of each campaign. It will be interesting to see which vector Russia prefers over time, since this may also give early signals as to how Russia is thinking about the end game. For instance, more emphasis on the electrical campaign could presage Russia eventually asserting control over western Ukraine, which they would regard as an unwelcome necessity. Consistent with that notion, John Mearshimer on Judge Napolitano pointed out yesterday (starting at 8:58):
Ukrainians needs more manpower on the battlefield, they need more weaponry, and we don’t have weaponry to give them in meaningful numbers, and we certainly don’t have any manpower to give them. So there is not much we can do at this point in time. And I would argue, by the way, that by doubling down the way we are doubling down, especially by giving Ukraine a 10 year military commitment, we’re just guaranteeing that Russians have a powerful incentive to really wreck Ukraine.
Mearshimer did at least disagree with Gilbert Doctorow and said he thought Russia would not flatten Kiev. But that view does not make the overall trajectory that much better.
What was the most disappointing birthday present you ever saw someone get?
A car. My oldest daughter was very mature and responsible and for a few reasons I decided to give her a (used) car for her 16th birthday. My girls went to school in a different town that started at 7:20 a.m. The bus came at 6:10. An extra half hour was big. At least three nights a week she went back to school for music rehearsals. My youngest was ill and I was back and forth to the hospital so it wasn’t a wild whim to give her a car; it was a bit of a necessity. But it was a big gift. I had a party for her and a friend put a bow on it and delivered it during the party. NO REACTION. She looked pained and everyone else was a bit taken back by her lack of enthusiasm.
That evening she apologized. She wasn’t extremely outgoing and being the center of attention, knowing people were expecting a big reaction, and not being mature enough to fake one, she basically froze. She wasn’t unappreciative – more a deer in the headlights. You couldn’t have asked for a better child – it was easy to understand and let it go, but now we joke when it’s a little box at Christmas ”sure hope its not a car!”
What did you do when you were suddenly fired from a job?
I was terminated from my job as a nurse after 14 years with the same hospital. I felt defeated, unworthy and depressed. I was not sure i wanted to be a nurse anymore.
I took a week off and decided to take a road trip to a place that once made me prouder and happier than I had ever been in my life. I drove down to Columbus, Georgia, the town just outside of Fort Benning where I had attended the U.S. Army Basic Parachutist course, a.k.a. “Jump School”, and had earned my wings. It was a pivotal moment in my life as Basic Training and my Combat Engineer school had not been the “band of brothers” experience that I had hoped for. Jump School was such an awesome experience that I was finally looking forward to what would become an eventful and mostly enjoyable 3 year tour of duty which would eventually lead me to become an Army Medic and then a Registered Nurse.
I spent the weekend visiting the Infantry Museum, which included watching a class of Infantrymen graduate, the Naval Museum of the Civil War, the Coca-Cola Space Center, ambling along the river walk, and exploring the old Civil War iron works that had been made into a conference center and events venue.
On the way to and from Columbus, I visited the Aquarium in Atlanta, the Army Airborne museum at Camp Taccoa, two other local museums and an old water-powered grist mill.
I returned home feeling refreshed and began a job search. It took me 15 months to find another full-time job as a nurse, but in the interim I did some volunteer driving for the local food bank, worked part-time in a nursing-adjacent job, and went on several job interviews, both nursing and non-nursing, just to see what was out there. I even got to visit a factory where the Army’s parachutes are made.
I was fortunate enough to have a paid-for house and car and a lot of savings, but I understand that there are many out there who are less fortunate than me.
I once read a cartoon in the which the narrator said that before a person can overcome tragedy, they must take some time to just stare at the rubble. That was certainly true for me, but I also recommend finding and going to a “happy place”, even if only for a brief time, just to remind ones self that there is still some happiness to be had in life, even as we suffer the darkest of times.
Philippine Marines Drew Firearms as China Seized Second Thomas Shoal Airdrop, Says Philippine Military Chief
JUNE 4, 2024 6:04 PM
Chinese and Philippine Armed Forces boats rigid hull inflatable boats clash near Second Thomas Shoal. AFP Image
The contingent of Philippine Marines onboard BRP Sierra Madre (LT-57) at Second Thomas Shoal reportedly drew their weapons as China Coast Guard boats moved in to take packages from a resupply airdrop.
Philippine military officials said this week that Chinese rigid hull inflatable boats intercepted an aerial resupply drop destined for Marines aboard BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal in an incident last month on May 19. This incident saw the vessels come as close as five meters to the grounded Second World War-era landing ship tank, which Manila grounded at the disputed shoal in 1999.
Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Romeo Brawner said that the Marines deployed their weapons as a “precautionary measure” in self-defense.
“It’s part of the rules of engagement. That whenever you see imminent threats coming your way, you best be prepared,” said Brawner about the incident.
Chinese state media claimed that the Philippine Marines were pointing guns at China Coast Guard officers and released a video of the incident from the Chinese perspective that depicts two Philippine personnel onboard Sierra Madre wielding firearms. These claims were denied in a statement by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, citing the need for “heightened vigilance and alertness” because of the “CCG’s provocative presence near BRP Sierra Madre.”
According to the Philippine military, the China Coast Guard reportedly tore open the packages and threw their contents of foodstuffs into the water. Brawner said that may have been searching for construction materials, which Beijing has constantly cited as a reason for their interceptions of Philippine resupply missions to Sierra Madre. While most of the supplies sank, some were recovered by Philippine personnel. However, officials cited the overall resupply operation as a success as the majority of the other airdropped packages were recovered.
Two separate incidents also occurred last month around the disputed South China Sea feature. According to the Inquirer newspaper, the China Coast Guard obstructed a medical evacuation mission from Sierra Madre on May 19. The third incident occurred on May 24, which reportedly involved the use of water cannons by Chinese forces to force away a Philippine civilian fishing vessel from the proximity of the shoal.
When I was young, and throughout elementary school, I eventually learned to stop playing board games with my sister.
Oh, do not misunderstand. I enjoyed playing board games. We had a number of games from Life, to Candyland, to Checkers, to Chutes and ladders. Lots and lots of board games.
But the thing was that my sister could not EVER accept losing.
We would spend an hour playing a game, and near the end when it appeared that I, or anyone else would win, she would grab the board and throw it into the air, tossing all the pieces everywhere.
Flipping the game board
And so, you might argue that she was a “sore loser”.
I disagree.
What was actually happening was that SHE NEVER really experienced a loss, and could not handle what it was like to lose.
Later on when she got older, this continued way into her first marriage.
…
From my point of view it was difficult.
If you only play games with people who flip-the-board when they seem to be losing, you never win.
For a while, and I do mean a LONG while, I went without winning any games. I would either lose a game or I would experience a board flip event.
You know, it’s difficult to have and build self-confidence when all you experience is losing, or board flips.
…
I often wonder about the current crop of deep-state politicians, and Western leaders. They all seem to be cut from the same mold.; being protected from adverse conditions, living a pampered life, and thus always being immune to criticism or retribution for their errors.
Which of course, makes me fearful as they all seem completely delusional and have the power to launch nuclear weapons…
…anyways, when I would complain to my father about my sister and her propensity for toss the board-game into the air when she was losing, his response was always boilerplate. “You are the big brother. You must take it. If you don’t want that to happen, stop playing with her.”
*sigh*
Instead of addressing the root cause of the problem; a behavior aberration of my sister. He told me to adapt to her.
Well… yes. A man (as a boy) must learn to adapt to situations. But Jeeze Louise, you cannot adapt to every situation. Sometimes you have to react. And a good punch in the nose is sometimes the best action to take.
He was training me to be George McFly with a kick-me sign on his back.
Kick me
A piece of paper bearing the words KICK ME was affixed to a victim's back without his or her knowledge, and usually resulted in the victim being playfully kicked — usually in the buttocks.
Mark Dixon attached one such sign to George McFly's back on the morning of November 7, 1955, in between classes at Hill Valley High School. Marty and Doc witnessed Dixon and another student repeatedly kick George, who tried desperately to take the harassment in stride. It was all for naught, as the repeated kicks caused George to drop his books.
Seconds later, Mr. Strickland appeared, pulled the sign from George's back, and admonished him for being a slacker.
My dad made so many mistakes.
And it retarded my natural male development.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.
…
I hope and pray that the current crop of misfits in office won’t flip the board when things get testy, but given my very own personal experience with these kinds of people…
Today…
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to incite fear of China vaccines – Reuters
Remark: A salute to Reuter for it willingness to report this after years of smeared campaign against China vaccines during the pandemic :
The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.
By CHRIS BING and JOEL SCHECTMAN Filed June 14, 2024, 9:45 a.m. GMT
What would you do if someone pepper sprayed your dog?
My neighbor shot my father’s dog one day to “try out” his new shotgun.
The dog was on our property, doing nothing.
My father has one leg, 7 herniated disks, and a collapsed spinal cord supported by titanium rods.
He heard the shot, saw Sugarbear running and stood up from his wheelchair.
“Uhh Dad?”
He didn’t respond verbally. On his prosthetic leg he moved without his walker or even a cane, faster than I’ve ever seen ANYONE move, much less him.
I got out the backdoor just about the time he was getting to the guy holding the shotgun. Words were exchanged, I couldn’t hear them. Suddenly my father grabbed this guy by the chest with one hand and lifted him up off the ground, still holding the shotgun. He pulled him in close and said something. Then he threw him like 20 feet! He landed on his ass and the gun fell to the ground.
My father had his injuries since before I was born, I was always in awe of how smart and persistent a man he was. He was the poster-child for being level-headed, I had never even seen him yell before this day. After that day I understood what a beast of a man he could be if he wanted. I was, (and 20 years later am still) in awe of this man’s strength.
The dog lived and is fine today. (Edit: Sugarbear has passed since writing this answer. Peacefully.)
The neighbor? Pissed his pants and calls us all “Sir” now. I won’t look at or speak to him or any member of that family.
Edit: I should have put some back story. My bad.
My father was a semi-pro body builder before he injured his back. He is an enormous man, he can easily pick up a car battery with one hand.
I was 12 when this happened, so it probably wasn’t 20 feet, plus I was behind my father so hard to judge distance from there.
Yeah, I probably exaggerated about how far he threw him, so what? He’s my dad! That was the coolest f***ing thing I’d ever seen!
Is the world going to let the United States get away with this, after its greatness is due to the robbery and massacre of many people in many nations around the world?
First of all, the United States is not the first imperial power to abuse and exploit other nations. Previous imperial powers include Great Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Rome. They’ve all gotten away with it until they finally lost their imperial power.
The United States will lose its imperial power, too, probably within the next 20 years.
China and Russia and BRICS are taking steps to hasten the decline of American power. The Global South is consolidating and pushing back against the United States. Their actions will undermine the supremacy of the US Dollar. A new multipolar world order will make it more difficult for America to wage illegal wars.
Foreign Girls React | The Fifth Element | First Time Watch
Fun fun fun.
Putin: The West is Pushing World “To the point of no return” – Lays out Terms for Ukraine PEACE
Vladimir Putin has issued another chilling warning to the West, saying its ‘selfishness and hypocrisy’ has led to a ‘dangerous turn of events’ and brought the world ‘close to a point of no return.
Speaking to foreign ministry officials, the Kremlin leader said: ‘Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons demonstrate the extreme recklessness of Western politicians.
‘They either do not understand the scale of the threat they are creating – or are simply obsessed with their own sense of impunity and exceptionalism.
‘Both can lead to tragedy.’
Putin also warned that plans by Western countries to provide Ukraine with loans using interest from Russian assets frozen abroad was theft and would not go unpunished.
‘Despite all the chicanery, theft will certainly remain theft. And it will not go unpunished,’ he said.
‘Now it is becoming obvious to all countries, companies (and) sovereign funds that their assets and reserves are far from safe in both the legal and economic sense of the word.
‘Anyone could be next in line for expropriation by the US and the West.’
Putin was speaking a day after G7 leaders agreed on an outline deal to provide $50 billion of loans for Ukraine using interest from Russian sovereign assets.
TERMS FOR PEACE IN UKRAINE
He told officials the ‘Western model’ of global security is collapsing and ‘needs to be essentially created anew’ – adding he is open to talks with everyone, including NATO.
‘All this requires us, together with our partners, with all interested countries, and there are many of them, to work out our own options for ensuring security in Eurasia, proposing them then for wider international discussion,’ he said.
‘We live on the same continent. No matter what happens, you cannot change the geography. We will have to coexist and work together one way or another.’
Putin also set out his prerequisites for peace talks with Ukraine.
‘Conditions are very simple,’ he said. ‘Ukrainian forces must be completely withdrawn from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
‘[It’s] important to note, from all territories of these regions within their administrative borders which existed upon their accession to Ukraine.
‘As soon as Kyiv says they’re ready for such decision and start the real withdrawal of forces form these regions and officially declare rejection of plans to join NATO, from our side, immediately, literally the same minute, will come an order to stop the fire and start negotiations.
‘We will do it immediately. Obviously, we will guarantee the uninterrupted and safe withdrawal of Ukrainian forces.’
UPDATE 1:08 PM EDT —
Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the territory of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions
Ukraine must not join NATO
Russia wants a neutral, non-aligned, nuclear-free status of Ukraine
All Western sanctions against the Russian Federation must be lifted
The status of Crimea and Sevastopol, DPR and LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions as regions of the Russian Federation should be recorded in international treaties
If Kiev and the West refuse the new peace proposal, further conditions will be different, Putin said.
Ukraine rejects new Russian peace proposal
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, claimed that Putin’s new initiative to settle the conflict allegedly does not contain a “real peace proposal”.
Vladimir Putin has declared that Russia is making another real peace proposal but if the West and Kiev reject it, they will be responsible for the bloodshed.
Fufu Pizza with Garlicky Pesto Sauce
pastopizza02
Ingredients
Garlicky Pesto Sauce
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly minced garlic, more or less if desired
Fresh black pepper to taste
Fresh lemon juice to taste
Fufu Pizza
Pesto Sauce
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes or 1 cup fresh diced tomatoes
1 cup feta cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
4 pita breads
Olive oil
pastopizza01
Instructions
Garlicky Pesto Sauce
In a food processor, put the basil leaves and half of the olive oil, blend well.
Stop processor, add pine nuts and blend.
Stop processor and add cheese, remaining olive oil, black pepper, garlic and lemon juice. Puree well.
Stop and taste. If necessary, add more garlic and pepper.
Keep covered and refrigerated.
Fufu Pizza
To prepare pizza, spread pesto sauce evenly over pita breads, followed with feta cheese and tomatoes.
Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over tops of pizzas.
Bake in a preheated 425 degrees F oven for approximately 5 minutes, or until cheese has melted and bread is hot and slightly crispy.
Sprinkle olive oil on tops, slice and serve.
The Most Convincing Time Traveler
In The Old Days We Had “Slumlords”, But In 2024 We Have “Vanlords”
If you live in a major city, you can see them all around you. I am talking about aging vans, RVs and trailers that are parked on the side of the road for months at a time and that obviously have people living in them. There is an entire class of people that live in such conditions, and there is an entire class of “businessmen” that prey on such people. When I was growing up, there were lots of headlines about “slumlords” that were taking advantage of the poor. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a “slumlord” is “a landlord who receives unusually large profits from substandard, poorly maintained properties”. Today, we have a different sort of a problem. “Vanlords” are parking vans, RVs and trailers along the streets of the worst parts of our major cities, and they are renting them out to people that cannot afford regular homes. Sadly, we live at a time when lots and lots of people cannot afford regular homes because homelessness is absolutely exploding all over the nation. In some areas there have been efforts to crack down on the “vanlords”, but when things get too hot in one area they just move somewhere else. As long as there are vast hordes of homeless Americans that are deeply suffering, there will be “vanlords” that are eager to take advantage of them.
Matt Feely just authored a very interesting piece about this phenomenon. He says that things are particularly bad in the poorest sections of Oakland…
The most familiar and ominous form of homelessness in Oakland, however, has become the vehicle encampment. A few small clusters of vehicles have gathered in my North Oakland neighbourhood, lines of dirty campers and battered cars seeking shade under an elevated freeway, but poor East Oakland has it the worst. There, such encampments have taken over long stretches of busy street, visiting already-distressed neighbourhoods with huge living sculptures of ugliness and disorder — cars filled with clothes and junk; hulking RVs parked for months at a time, drug and sex deals conducted streetside; trash gathering around and between the vehicles, and lots of new crime. Recently, the city had to replace traffic lights at an East Oakland intersection with stop signs, because people, presumably from the vehicle encampment close by, were constantly stealing the cables to sell the copper wire inside.
All over the country, this is how vast numbers of people are living now.
Unfortunately, most of the people that are living in RVs don’t even own them. Instead, most of them are owned by the “vanlords”…
But the people in those RVs don’t own them. They rent them, from people who’ve come to be called “vanlords”. These energetic businesspeople buy up old trailers and RVs and either drive or tow them to unfortunate neighbourhoods in cities like Oakland. There they enter into informal rental agreements with homeless people.
This is also happening on a very large scale in southern California.
In fact, it is being estimated that the number of people living in RVs in Los Angeles County actually increased by 31 percent from 2020 to 2023…
The number of people living in RVs across L.A. County has jumped 31% from 2020 to 2023, according to the annual homeless counts.
About 11,500 people are estimated to live in roughly 6,800 RVs.
With each passing day, more impoverished people are being forced out into the streets.
And with each passing day, more formerly middle class Americans are joining the ranks of the poor.
Our standard of living has declined so much that we have reached a point where even most middle class Americans are struggling financially…
A majority of middle-class Americans are experiencing financial hardship that they expect will continue for the rest of their lives, according to a new poll.
Findings published by the National True Cost of Living Coalition show that 65% of Americans whose incomes are 200% above the national poverty line – which is about $62,300 for a family of four, often considered middle class – said they are struggling financially.
In many cases, a single accident or a single bad break is enough to push someone over the edge.
The vast majority of us are just barely scraping by from month to month, and that is because the cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have…
The typical U.S. household needed to pay $227 more a month in March to purchase the same goods and services it did one year ago because of still-high inflation. Americans are paying on average $784 more each month compared with the same time two years ago and $1,069 more compared with three years ago.
If you are still doing well, please don’t look down on those that are hurting.
Many of them were once just like you.
Sadly, many more Americans will be dumped out into the streets soon as economic conditions continue to deteriorate.
This week, we learned that initial claims for unemployment benefits have hit the highest level in 10 months…
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week unexpectedly jumped to the highest level in 10 months, the latest sign that the labor market is starting to cool in the face of high interest rates.
Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show initial claims for the week ending June 8 increased by 13,000 to 242,000, above the 2019 pre-pandemic average of 218,000 claims. It marks the highest level for jobless claims since August 2023.
Continuing claims, filed by Americans who are consecutively receiving unemployment benefits, also rose to 1.82 million for the week ended June 1, an increase of 30,000 from the previous week.
Virtually all of the economic numbers that we have been getting lately tell us that the economy is rapidly heading in the wrong direction.
Aleksandar Vučić is the President of Serbia. He gave a television interview which I mentioned on last night’s Hal Turner Radio Show, wherein he states plainly “We will have World War within three to four months, maybe sooner.” Clips from that interview appear below – watch it.
He went on to say his people are being told to check their flour, sugar, and food supplies, and prepare.
He outlines very clearly, what is at stake for the collective West as it relates to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, and how if the West loses, it falls apart politically and loses respect of the entire world, but if Russia loses, their country “will no longer exist as it is shaped today.” With the stakes so high for both sides, a massive collision and war seems now to be “unavoidable.”
For MONTHS, I have warned readers of this website and listeners to my radio show, that this conflict was going to go “wild weasel” and result in what I personally believe, will be actual nuclear war.
I have suggested, advised, cajoled, and even implored you to get emergency water, emergency food, extra medicine that you need to live, and other “preps” like flashlights for every room in the house, spare batteries for them, a first aid kit with bandages to treat wounds or injuries, a generator to supply electric to your refrigerator so your food won’t go bad if the electric grid goes down, spare fuel for that generator, COMMUNICATIONS GEAR like CB or HAM radio, to talk with locals and be able to hear news from around the world by shortwave (HAM).
I have been regularly ridiculed as “Chicken Little – the Sky is falling.” People have lambasted me as promoting “fear porn” and offering stories as “click bait” even though there are no ads on this site for which I get any revenue!
Many people have flatly DENIED REALITY for months, have ignored my warnings and have done nothing. Now, the President of Serbia is telling everyone just how bad things are getting.
If you don’t start getting the emergency supplies you will need, then you and your family will be shit-out-of-luck when the fighting starts – because millions of other morons, who also did nothing, will all be running to the stores trying to get food and supplies. The store shelves will be picked clear within hours. Just like what happens when a hurricane is going to make landfall, and all the morons who didn’t do anything because they wanted to see where it would come ashore, all run out to get supplies at the last minute. Store shelves are emptied and they are out of luck.
8 Reasons Why I DON’T Live in the USA
Why can’t the Chinese criticize themselves? They love criticizing others but not themselves. In the US, we criticize ourselves all the time. Other Asians like S. Koreans and Japanese do it too. Are the Chinese afraid just like the North Koreans?
Chinese call the years between 1842–1949 as the century of humiliation! China know themself well, the knew they made 2 deadly mistake to end up in this humiliation!
One the Ching Dynasty from 17th century where the Manchu’s ruled the Han Chinese for 200 over years in a corrupt and weak government allowing warlords to fight each other for local control. It weakened the Chinese spirit and made Chinese easily disillusioned by the time the Japanese started its imperial colonialism over Taiwan and Manchuria.
Secondly the Chinese did not expect the evil and barbarically behaviour of the west and sleep walk into a fatal mess facing the British manipulation primarily till it is too way late! They admitted fully to the century of humiliation! So one cannot say Chinese lacks the ability admit weakness!
YEMEN CLAIM: UK Warship “HMS DIAMOND” Directly Hit with Ballistic Missiles
Ansar Allah, the name of the group calling themselves Houthis , that run the country of Yemen, announced this morning the United Kingdom Destroyer “HMS DIAMOND” was directly hit during an attack today.
Houthi Spokesman Saree announced this latest operation is in response to U.S-Israeli Nuseirat massacre.
According to intelligence information, both US and Israeli Forces came ashore in Gaza via the Pier set up by the US. The troops then took/stole an aid truck, used it to drive to Nuseirat, where those troops opened fire upon Palestinians for an alleged hostage rescue.
Photos circulating on social media show IDF troops, being accompanied by troops in different uniforms, undertaking the operation. Allegations circulating on social media say they were American Troops.
I walked the Hong Kong waterfront yesterday
What was the stupidest thing someone has called the police on you for?
Moving day.
My mom finally got a divorce after 40–50 years of hell. She said she knew it was wrong one day at the beginning when dad’s family basically laughed at making their dog attack her, but went through with it anyway. He was left literally on his knees in the street begging. She says, “it’s too late,” and drives off.
Right about an hour before that, (before the TV show “Hoarders”) the rest of us had done our best to get rid of our furniture and anything of value we couldn’t reasonably move. And we helped clean up the rest of the house to the specs of the buyer in order to complete the sale. Dad, well, he’s on his own. That’s when a cop shows up to tell us we are breaking a city ordinance for junk in public.
So, as the main cause of the ruckus of the psycho killer druggie house, I’m baffled as to why some of the neighbors who couldn’t possibly not know we were moving as per the “for sale” sign and all the moving, would want to keep us arrested there unless they were as desperate to keep up their routine of pain as dad was. Anything else is far more scary.
Car salesmen: who was the most “shrewd negotiator” customer you’ve ever had?
I had a customer that exhausted me with negotiating, but he got himself a great deal.
He would show up on the lot every few weeks showing interest in a new Toyota 4Runner. He would get our best price but never buy. One day during an off-site sale he started to get serious. We went back and forth for quite some time on the price. We had got to a price where my manager didn’t want to budge from anymore. It was something like $34500 (this was over 20 years ago). The customer would not pay this price because he said that the number 4 was unlucky in his culture (not unlucky enough for him to choose to pay a price over $34500). After I badgered my manager more, I finally got the price to $33399 for my customer.
Mind you, I wanted to strangle the customer, but after so many hours negotiating, I didn’t want to walk away without a sale. We got the 4 out of the price, so I thought for sure that I was finally going to be able to wrap up the deal. Wrong! Now he says that anything that ends with 99 is unlucky in his culture. By this point my manager (who was a very friendly, reasonable person) was DONE. He was not going to go another $99, and my customer wasn’t budging either. So there I was, $99 away from a deal.
I finally kicked in $99 out of my pocket (the commission was only $75, but I was getting a $250 spiff from Toyota). But I wanted something to show for the $99 that I put in. The customer owned a Chinese restaurant, so I told him I wanted a gift certificate for some buffets. He offered me 5 buffets (worth about $25-$30 total). Now it was time for me to have some fun. I told him that was not a fair trade for what I put into the deal. So then he offered me 10 buffets. I told him 10 was not a good number for me. He eventually offered 15, but wouldn’t you know it – that’s unlucky for me as well! I finally got 17 buffets from him. Only used four of the buffets, but I got some satisfaction in that negotiation.
Host Goes Silent When Doctor Admits Bird Flu LEAKED From a Lab
What was the worst thing your parents ever did to you?
When I was a teenager I got pregnant. My b/f was older (21) and wanted to marry me right away. However my parents would not even let him see me, and instead he was only allowed to communicate through my mother.
I became extremely sick and was hospitalized much of the pregnancy. B/f was understandably distraught. He was very emotional but the only person he had contact with was my mother.
Somehow – not that I care how – that connection turned physical. Yep – mom cheated on my dad with the father of my baby. But THEN to make sure I never found out, they forced b/f to return to his family, across the country.
They concocted a whole story about how b/f threatened to kill me so they forced him to leave our town. Oh and the days that mom went missing while on her tryst I was told b/f kidnapped her and she went with him to save my life.
I was young – I did not realize if that were true he would be in prison. I believed this story and at one point became so terrified of him – based on my mother constantly reinforcing that he wanted to hunt me down and kill me and the baby – I gave my child up to an open adoption with a family I was really close to. I never wanted him to hunt her down. Her name was changed and they moved to another state. I moved the opposite direction and my mother KNEW I did it out of fear, and still let me.
It was not until almost 7 years later that all of the truth came out with my father devastated for his part, and telling me EVERYTHING.
I contact previous b/f and asked him to tell me what happened. He told me the same story I had recently come to know was true. He felt awful about the affair but none of the threats or me needing give up my child over it was real.
I reunited with my daughter.
I will never speak to my mother again. She is truly dead to me. Even the last time I spoke with her, she tried to justify the nightmare she put on our family.
COVID- (mRNA) Vaccines cannot be mandated — 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Big Pharma manufacturers of the COVID -19 mRNA “vaccines” have lost their shield from product liability, after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the mRNA shots are NOT VACCINES, but rather “Treatments.”
The 9th Circuit said it’s not a vaccine if the claim isn’t to “PREVENT THE SPREAD” of a disease.
COVID shots were claimed to “reduce symptoms” and prevent hospitalization. Those claims make it a TREATMENT.
The case involved the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) mandating their people get the “vaccine.”
But the 9th circuit, in a very detailed and complex ruling said the US District Court ERRED because this particular “vaccine” did not “prevent the spread of disease.” Here is the pertinent portion of the 9th Circuit ruling:
COVID 19 Vax LOSES Liability Shield
So while the court held that government __can__ force vaccines to “halt the spread” of a disease in a public health crisis, government cannot expand that power to cover medical treatment which is simply for a citizen’s benefit merely for “reducing symptoms.”
Protecting public health by stopping the spread to others, is one thing, but trying to force vaccines that do not stop the spread, merely “reduce symptoms” is not within government’s power to do.
Why The American Dream Is DEAD
This hits close to home for me. After losing my first career and seeing 'just how valuable of an employee I was after great sacrifice for nothing', living hand to mouth, listening to what my culture told be "work hard, go to school and be rewarded' and living in this ultra-competitive highly individualistic society, I left America for Japan for a total of 4 years. I knew society and economic systems were screwed up; after living in Japan and its different culture, I was forever changed, for the better! I now say that the "American Dream is just good marketing to sell you a false sense of self at your own expense." Thank you Austin!
What is the most clever way that you have seen someone get served a legal document?
I saw one that was too clever by half!
A classmate in graduate school had gotten divorced. It was amicable, so he thought. Before papers were finalized, they split their $40,000 savings and he agreed to provide a third of his post-doctoral stipend (a third of ~$20,000) in alimony. He then left the State to start his post-doctoral position while he made preparations to complete the last step of his degree – the “final, public oral examination.”
Final Orals were very stressful. The candidate would get grilled by four faculty members in front of anyone who cared to show up. Some faculty members would take the opportunity to show the candidate how stupid he was. People actually flunked and would get just one more try, usually six months to a year later. Nonetheless, most candidates had a party planned in anticipation of success.
When my classmate returned to the State for his Final Orals, he was met in the exam room by a process server. His estranged wife was seeking half of his $20,000. Her lawyer had advised her to hide the half she had already been given and to shake down my classmate for another $10,000. He complied.
A few months later, his position took a very favorable turn. His professor had been hired by a very large tech company. Part of the deal was that the professor got to bring along his post-docs but at $60,000 industrial salaries instead of post-doctoral stipends.
My classmate asked his lawyer if he should tell his estranged wife about his new salary. The separation had, after all, been amicable. The lawyer laughed. After the stunt in the exam room, the lawyer told my classmate to tell her nothing and give her nothing. For at least ten years, she never caught on that her ex-husband was making three times what she thought.
Are people in the US really willing to instigate war with China simply because they can’t beat them economically?
That’s just the prevailing narrative, nothing more. It’s fashion, a naked mannequin for intellectuals to dress up.
After all, what kind of economic threat has Russia posed to America this century?
It’s just hegemony, and the ever-present need to demonstrate who’s in charge, and who’s words carry the day. The U.S. Congress and White House lavish inordinate effort on issues beyond American shores, because there are no limits to American sovereignty.
Or like the Chinese lovingly put it: 眼里容不得沙子
So yes, America, whether it is the more dignified Joe or in-your-face Donald, will stop at nothing to win and dominate.
Winning, in a might is right world, is the only metric that matters.
Decades of Donald the “winningest man in business” should have educated the world at large about the nature of American “values”.
Little By Little, The Economy Has Declined To A Point Where Almost Everyone Is Struggling
It happened so gradually that a lot of people didn’t even realize what was happening. The cost of living just kept rising faster than paychecks were, and little by little our standard of living just kept going down. Now we have reached a stage where the ultra-wealthy are thriving but almost everyone else is struggling. For most people, it is a real fight just to pay the bills from month to month. The majority of the population is deep in debt, and meanwhile the cost of just about everything is going up and up. Millions of Americans feel like they are drowning financially, and there is no easy way out. Sadly, many of them don’t even realize that the game was designed to get them on to a hamster wheel and keep them running for as long as possible.
When I was a kid, the United States had a very large and very prosperous middle class.
Life certainly wasn’t perfect in those days, but just about everyone that I knew could afford to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle.
In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.
If 65 percent of those that “earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” are struggling, what about those that earn less than that?
Needless to say, almost all of them are struggling.
That same survey discovered that 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up…
About 40% of respondents were unable to plan beyond their next paycheck, and 46% didn’t have $500 saved. The February poll found that more than half said it’s at least somewhat difficult to manage current levels of debt.
Over the past couple of years, the stock market has been “booming” and the ultra-wealthy have been getting richer and richer.
But things have been getting worse for virtually all the rest of us.
According to Zillow, over the past four years “the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled”…
The real estate firm Zillow reports that since January 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled. It’s up 96% in just four years.
According to Zillow, a typical buyer will now pay nearly $2,200 a month, with a 10% down payment. Meaning, homeownership now costs well above the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing cost in America.
Has your income doubled over the past four years?
If not, you are falling behind.
The American people absolutely hate what is being done to their standard of living.
Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says one of the things he has learned in the past few years is that consumers would rather see the economy fall into a recession than to continue to suffer the pain of soaring prices.
“The American people – and maybe people in Europe, equally – really hate high inflation,” Kashkari told the Financial Times podcast “The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes” last week. “I mean, really, viscerally hate high inflation.”
He is right.
I really detest inflation.
I am sure that you do too.
But what he didn’t mention is that the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington are responsible for creating the epic cost of living crisis that we are currently facing.
They caused this mess, and now they don’t seem to have any solutions for cleaning it up.
Meanwhile, economic activity just continues to slow down.
On Tuesday, we learned that the number of job openings in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest level in more than 3 years…
Job openings fell more than forecast in April, signaling a potential weakening in the labor market that could provide the Federal Reserve with more impetus to start lowering interest rates.
The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday showed that the level of employment vacancies slipped to 8.06 million for the month, down by nearly 300,000 from March and close to 19% lower than a year ago.
Moreover, the total marked the lowest since February 2021.
And more workers are being dumped into the streets with each passing day.
California’s $20-an-hour fast food minimum wage has its first casualty.
Mexican chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill is shuttering 48 restaurants in the state – because of the ‘rising cost of doing business in California’.
‘While painful, the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic long-term plan to position Rubio’s for success for years to come,’ a Rubio’s spokesperson added.
As this year rolls along, we will see a lot more stories like this.
For a long time, our leaders were able to keep the party going by flooding the system with money.
Mark Spitznagel, chief investment officer of Universa Investments, is known for being a “permabear” when it comes to the stock market outlook.
Spitznagel told Bloomberg in an earlier interview that we’re witnessing the “greatest credit bubble in human history.”
“Credit bubbles end. They pop. There’s no way to stop them from popping,” he said, adding that the Fed has brought the economy to a place “where there’s no turning back.”
Spitznagel is right on target.
There really is no turning back now.
Our leaders have wrecked the greatest economic machine in the history of the world.
What is ahead of us is a tremendous amount of pain.
Four Frightened Kittens Sat On the Mast of a Burning, Crew Abandoned Ship
Is it true that Space Shuttle Challenger’s crew compartment had extremely disturbing contents when the US Navy finally recovered it from the ocean?
The tragic fate of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s crew is still a haunting memory for many.
When the US Navy finally recovered the crew compartment from the ocean, the contents were indeed extremely disturbing.
One of the most shocking discoveries was that the crew members’ remains were still seated in their chairs, with their seatbelts still fastened, a gruesome testament to the sudden and catastrophic nature of the disaster.
The investigation revealed that the crew compartment had remained remarkably intact, despite the intense forces generated by the explosion.
This was due in part to the compartment’s robust design, which was capable of withstanding intense pressure and extreme temperatures.
In the aftermath of the disaster, the crew compartment was subjected to a series of intense forces, including extreme deceleration, massive shock waves, and intense heat generated by the explosion.
The post-accident investigation also revealed that the crew had likely survived the initial explosion, but succumbed to the extreme conditions during the subsequent free fall towards the ocean.
This was evident from the fact that the crew members were still strapped in their seats, with some even having their helmets still on, indicating that they had not lost consciousness immediately.
The recovery of the crew compartment was a complex and challenging operation, involving a team of divers and engineers who worked tirelessly to locate and retrieve the wreckage.
The operation was made even more difficult by the fact that the debris was scattered over a wide area, with some pieces sinking to depths of over 12,000 feet.
One of the most poignant aspects of the recovery operation was the discovery of personal items belonging to the crew, including a set of keys, a calculator, and a CD player, which served as a haunting reminder of the human lives lost in the tragedy.
The intact condition of the crew compartment also raised important questions about the design and safety features of the Space Shuttle program, leading to significant changes in the years that followed.
Reuters reported that China is pushing rival Ukraine peace plan before Swiss summit, according to diplomatic sources. What’s your view on this?
A pragmatic peace summit, in which both warring parties must participate.
The Ukrainian Peace Summit held in Lucerne, Switzerland was unilaterally invited by Ukraine, but Russia was not invited to participate, and China, South Africa and Brazil also stated that they would not attend the meeting. Therefore, this summit was not a peace summit at all, but a summit with the theme of “condemning Russia”.
Without Russia’s participation, discussing issues such as ceasefire is completely futile and will only be empty talk without achieving any practical results.
Such a meeting is meaningless. It is not a “peace summit” but a venue to provoke and stimulate Russia.
What is even more ironic is that although the United States has long supported Ukraine and is one of Zelenskyy’s important invitees, the US side stated that US President Biden will not attend the summit due to “scheduling conflicts.”
China and Brazil jointly issued a six-point peace consensus, calling for an international peace conference to be held at an appropriate time recognized by Russia and Ukraine, with all parties participating equally and discussing all options fairly. Only such a summit can achieve substantive peace results.
In addition, China has been promoting peace talks between Russia and Ukraine since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, and this has not just started recently.
Rodent! Liar! It was supposed to be fun, not this ridiculous foofaraw where I can’t patch in but only hear pronouncements. Anyone could do that!“I thought you were premium support and extra paid up! Instead™, you’re privacy-shading me!””That other voice you paid for never had too much to say. But you must hand it to them when they invented Instead™. It was a game-changer, always keeping things interesting,” replied One_Up. “You can count on me to stay ahead of it!”The concert hall was vintage 20th-century. No accoutrements, not Ghezi certified. It still had a lovingly preserved red carpet and seats, and knowing why we could be there was hard.“A vision of Hell? N’est-ce pas?” a_Playful_Voice said. I ignored it, one of the many voices I tended to ignore. It left you_snubbed_me on my social. Not that anyone else was there to be playful—no one else was here at all!One_Up was first because he earned it. It was the voice I listened to the most!“You got that right!” he said.I went dark on it to talk to you, my dear diary. I had to have a One_Up, you see—not that I had to listen to it! My little rebellion was so tiny that no one noticed. I wouldn’t want a pronouncement, would I? Actually, it was best not to listen to pronouncements. If I got too interested, it might be suspicious…“C’mon back, Darren!” One_Up said. “I have a pronouncement for you!”“Yeah, sure! If I can’t patch in, what’s the point?”“The point? The point is to stay ahead of them! Here we go!”“I can’t say I haven’t tried, sir.” Uh-huh… Instead™ is failing. Well, he’s interested in it, but I’m afraid the therapeutic value is nil.” Long silence“Sir, I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell me how to do my job….When I’ve reached the end of my options—Silence“It’s been nice working with you too. If there’s anything else I can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to call. Goodbye.“Weird, don’t you think that people still talk like they’re on a telephone, even though we all have instant access to anyone who gives us permission?” said Darren.“Old people do that!” replied One_Up. “And why would you think I got permission for this?#“Darren? Oh, Darren?” One_Up asked in his most playful voice. DARREN! It’s time for your diaper.”“Don’t.”“Time! Too much non-ghezi time means it’s diaper time!” demanded One_Up.“We spent all of ten minutes in that concert Hall!”“Non-ghezi! Just the same. This isn’t an Instead™ stratagem, is it?”“Instead of what?”“Your diaper!”“You talk in riddles, you know that?”Diaper, my ass! One_Up was always being a comedian! If I had wanted comedy, a_playful_voice would have been my choice!I went on recycle. Well, actually, it was more like my garbage cycle. There wasn’t much I could get out of being in the concert hall!
#
I heard the most beautiful music—non-ghezi—across the way. I tried to patch in until I remembered what non-ghezi meant. Am I losing my mind?
She was so beautiful. Alone in her apartment, she had long blonde hair, which made her seem slenderer than she was. Is slenderer a word? She’d go to the window to feed some birds, and I could just make out a smile, being a stone’s throw away from her. Yes, that’s right, isn’t it? People used to say that. You could throw a stone; how far away you could throw it would describe the distance. I never threw a stone—not a real one. I wonder what it would be like to throw one. The other day…
“Darren!” shouted One_Up.
“DARREN! Time for your walk.”
“I don’t want to walk.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No!”
“We’ll go to the concert hall…”
People used to go to places like this. I feel the plush seating, the furrowed abrasive cloth caressing me as I sit. I imagine how people used to clap and swoon for music that I could hear anytime, anywhere. What did I miss? The energy, the shared experience? What exactly?
Could there be anything more than systems attuned to the beating hearts of billions that could be exceeded? And more still undiscovered, the synthesis of minds overcoming time and space? Yet what crushes me is the knowledge of what is gone forever. The silence is endlessly filled. Can everything really be nothing in disguise?
Dark again. Help me figure this out. Someone needs therapy, and I think the person who was supposed to provide it just got fired! At least, it sounds that way. It seems serious, too, like things aren’t working out. I’ll catch you later.
“There you are! Why do you keep hiding from me?” pouted One_Up.
#
One_up took me to the concert hall. I thought its job was to entertain me! C-O-N-C-E-R-T H-A-L-L. I could spell it! We meander down the streets, and I get bored. What was I hoping to find at the concert hall? Old Tech? An orchestra? Musical instruments? Like cave implements and ancient wall paintings! I am hunted by Neanderthals who aspire for immortality at my expense! I call up Instead™ but get put on hold. Then, it fails.
“Instead™ is non-ghezi!” says One_Up.
“Good.”
“What do you mean, good? Patch in here!” says One_Up.
Everything swirls. I’m playing Hell Surfers 6 in no time. It starts to hurt, but everything old is Neanderthal to me. I keep going!
#
There was no One_Up to greet me. Where am I? I feel so alone. Everything is dead when I try patching in— no patch in, no One_Up.
I go dark. Whew! That works. Help me out here, dear diary. This has never happened before. I swear! Maybe I should be scared or something. Let me know what you think.
Do the pronouncements work? When I switch on, the voices sound far away. I also try amplification, but it doesn’t work.
I’m only dimly aware…
“He’s in terrible shape. Yes. Uh-huh.”
Long silence.
“We tried that. She came to the window and snagged him a little, but the relapse was awfully quick. There are no legs on this one.”
Silence.
“Well, the last chance is to nuke him. We tried Instead™. Next™ isn’t the same generation. It wouldn’t work. Guaranteed…Uh-huh…Right. Do I have the go-ahead?”
I get so angry—angrier than ever! It’s part of the game—self-generating. I helped design it myself! The Hell you surf is your own, see? It’s self-replicating, too. It gobbles up everything to present the best entertainment ever! Because the best of realfun™ is how close it comes to everything imaginable that ever existed! Mashed together, a million billion experiences of people worldwide. You feel everything! Presented in endlessly entertaining entertainment…
“Darren?”
“DARREN?” yelled One_Up.
“We need an ambulance to this location. Can you please hurry?”
I’m out, but I’m not. I’m too tired to switch off. I can’t do anything. I wish I could turn off the voices in my head!
“We have to murder One_Up! You heard me! I don’t care if he has been trying to help Darren. Uh-huh. The sooner, the better.
One_Up is frantic. “You have to protect me, Darren!” Sure, sure, I say.
“Getting a fix. No, it’s not murder! It’s a figure of speech. Do I have your permission or not?”
Silence
“Can I hide in your secret place, Darren?”
I heard the most beautiful music. I can’t describe it. I don’t even know why I would try.They’re hunting for One_Up, but he’s safe, in a place I made that no one knows about! Until today, even One_Up didn’t know where I went!
#
“OK, ease it in,” said Dr. Oakley.
“I want to go on the record, sir,” said the lead nurse. “I recommend that we not proceed. We were unable to stop the program. His digital assistant is still operational, presenting an unquantifiable risk to the operation’s success.”
“I’m aware of the risks. It is my responsibility.”
“Are we cleared for this?” demanded a lawyer over a microphone from the observation deck.
Dr. Oakley looked up from the operating table. Three nurses, looking very apprehensive, tried to look busier. The lead nurse presumed to stop what he was doing to gaze at the lawyer, too.
“What do you mean? Are we cleared? I wouldn’t be here, would I?” snapped Oakley. “Has something changed?”
“He can’t die, that’s all,” the lawyer shouted. “Too many other people are involved.”
Dr. Oakley’s jaw tightened. “You tell me this now? Let’s get this started!”
#
I was standing at the edge of an abyss—a volcano or something—only it was a long way down and incredibly hot. Waves of heat envelop me, so the moment sweat develops, it immediately evaporates. There was lava below, and I was going to fall!
“He’s reacting to this like he’s reading a script. We’re losing him!” the lead nurse yells, glancing at the heart monitor.
“Okay, ease back a little bit,” says Dr. Oakley. He’s got to take this seriously, or we’ll lose him for good.”
“Wait for it…” calls out the lead nurse.
One-Up! I don’t like this program. Switch, please! One_Up? Anybody?
“I’m here, Darren! At your service! None of this is real. I can switch this now if you want to?”
Oakley swore under his breath, “He has to try! Make the path away from the abyss clearer.”
“On it,” says the lead nurse.
“Blood pressure keeps rising, 155 over 90,” one of the nurses says.
“Stay with it. He has to realize that he doesn’t control everything,” says Dr. Oakley.
“He’s taking the path…” says the lead nurse. ”With One_Up!”
Everyone cheers.
#
“Debrief…everyone. You all have your assigned places. Dr. Oakley? Can we begin with you?” the head of hospital staff says.
Dr. Oakley took his seat, his laptop in front of him. “Well, it was a success, as you all know. Instead™ and even Next™ have come up with treatment plans. We’re coordinating that now. The patient is responding well.”
Another doctor asks, “How long until Darren Oakley is completely well?”
Dr. Oakley teared up. He struggled to clear his throat. “I’m sure we’ll manage,” he said.
The lead nurse caught up with the hospital lawyer after the meeting.
“That was a real bone-headed thing you did, calling out to us from the observation deck! What were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking? Well, try this on for size.” The lawyer took out his cell phone to project an image.
“Jeez!” exhaled the nurse.
“And those calls to emergency were just for the people with an addiction in North America! We don’t have good data for anyplace else.”
“Darren helped create it all,” wondered the nurse. “What was happening to him started to happen to everyone?”
The lawyer turned to go, but then he hesitated. “Say, do you feel like a beer?”
“No. But I’ll drink one.” cracked the nurse.
Pesto Chicken Flatbread Pizzas
Tuscan flavors will delight family and friends in this easy to make Pesto Chicken Flatbread Pizza. Great as a main dish or side dish to complement a meal.
Pesto Chicken Flatbread Pizzas
Prep: 10 min | Cook: 8 min | Yield: 2 flatbread pizzas; 4 servings total
Ingredients
2 (3.5 ounce) Tuscan-style flatbreads
1/4 cup Buitoni Refrigerated All Natural Reduced Fat Pesto with Basil
2/3 cup sautéed or cooked chicken breast strips
2 tablespoons shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup (.75 ounce) Buitoni Refrigerated Freshly Shredded Parmesan Cheese
Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Place flatbreads on baking sheet.
Spread pesto sauce evenly over each flatbread to within 1/2 inch of edge.
Top each evenly with chicken, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until flatbread is crisp and cheese is melted.
Notes
Cooks Tip: Refer to your flatbread packaging to determine recommended bake temperature and time as each brand varies.
Try substituting regular BUITONI Refrigerated Pesto with Basil.
What was the biggest slap in the face a loved one ever did to you?
It was at my mother’s funeral. I went up to my brother to talk to him. I hadn’t seen him since he moved out at 18. I think it was around 20 years of not seeing or talking to him. I was a terrible sister to him when we were kids. I got him into so much trouble with mom. He received so many beatings because of me and my lies. I so much wanted to talk with him then. So I went up to him and went to put my arm around him to tell him how sorry I was about her passing. He shrugged my arm off and turned away without speaking. I kind of lost my temper a bit and told him he needed to grow up. He just walked away and wouldn’t even sit anywhere near me. I watch him sit there and cry during the funeral and knew there wasn’t anything I could do. I want to go over and hold him and tell him how sorry I was for how I treated him. But I didn’t want to hurt him and more then I already had.
And before anyone says it, yes I deserved that slap. Many years later we finally talked and I poured my heart out to him. I apologized and begged for him to forgive me. What he did surprised me. He hugged and and said there’s no reason for forgiveness. Because he had already forgiven me. That he saw from what I’ve written here that I had really changed and it was time to be brother and sister again. That day we both cried together.
China’s view of USA – Is it true that, from the point of view of China, the Constitution of the United States is a failed document?
I cannot speak on behalf of China.
Let me speak for myself.
I heard that US constitution guarantees Freedom of Speech. But Biden equated anti-genocide in Gaza or anti-war to antisemitism.
To be fair, anti-genocide is not unreasonable. Now the entire world minus Israel & USA condemns genocide. If we say the students are wrong, it is not possible that the entire world is also wrong.
See, Americans can make fun of their president or scold at him. But cannot be against Israel. US politicians made thousands of anti-China statements & lies. But cannot “touch” Israelis.
US constitution guarantees owning guns. When there are many gun-related deaths, USA is so “powerless” to protect the life of innocents. Ironically, Right to Life is also in US constitution.
Maybe US constitution is not a failed doc. It is the enforcement that is the problem.
This should keep you up at night more than anything.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I see a one-way ticket to poverty for Americans and the US dollar. BRIC's nations in coordination with Saudia Arabia are now selling oil in multiple denominations and they're backing it with gold. The ONLY thing that's kept the US prosperous since getting off the gold convertibility in 1971 is the petrodollar and now it's toast.
Even with heroic assistance of its European allies, the US was incapable of sustaining its long-planned proxy war in Ukraine.
Preparation for war with superior military powers (never a good idea) like Russia and China would require doubling current borrowings for ten years, which even optimistic economists consider unsustainable.
- Aurelien
Today, I have another PP story about my dog.
So I am carrying him rather than walk him. It was a crowded early evening. Perhaps a Friday night. And the walkway was full of people. Not so easy to walk a dog. So I am carrying him on my shoulders.
So he’s up there and we get behind this slow moving cabal of foreign women Karens.
They were just meandering.
Not walking from A to B, but just grazing, shuffling and just not moving out of the way, and Lordy!
I was getting frustrated.
5f74ef470d36e.image
But these women were just chatting up a storm and oblivious that they were creating a huge amount of congestion.
Finally, my dog, now at face level turned and face to face to the slowest Karen in the group, barred his teeth and snapped and yappped yapped, yapped, followed by a barking growl, and the poor woman nearly had a heart attack.
One minute she is in some kind of la la land, the next she is facing the Alien creature barring it’s nasty teeth.
Alien
I still get a chuckle when I remember that incident.
LOL.
Today…
If the US continues to provoke China through Taiwan, how likely is a Chinese base in places like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua?
There is no need for us to do this.
As we all know, the PLA’s military maps record the locations and coordinates of the United States’ fixed military bases around China, and China’s missiles have long locked onto these fixed military bases, so in wartime, all it takes is a press of a button.
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Not only are fixed military bases liable to bear the stigma of military expansion, but they can also easily become targets of attacks by the US military, thereby dragging these innocent countries into superpower wars and subjecting their people to the ravages of war.
We cherish the friendship between Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and China, but we do not want them to be harmed by China’s internal affairs.
main qimg 5e480c7faa8510c4176a55183cca1393
China should be a responsible major country, not a major country that brings trouble to its friends.
We Chinese cannot be as selfish as Americans, who only consider our own interests and not the interests of our friends. Since we have been friends and brothers with them for many years, we should take the initiative to consider each other.
Did you know there is a weapon called a nuclear submarine?
Nuclear submarines are mobile military bases.
The nuclear warheads carried by a nuclear submarine can destroy hundreds of cities. China only needs to send a nuclear submarine to surface in the high seas around the United States and let the Yanks see it.
main qimg de0bbea7d6acbc27917f66c9ba9352bf
The Yanks are essentially profit-seeking businessmen, not lunatics. They know how to seek profit and avoid harm.
We are not trying to show off our muscles, but the PLA submarine soldiers also need to bask in the sun, which is human nature. right?
main qimg bc26e3f32838fec5ad4a0d20b7667ebe
Whoa…
Everyone, the Type-100 Chinese submarine is a fictional creation, originating from an April Fool’s joke by H I Sutton for Naval News. The imaginary submarine was described as an enormous vessel with advanced capabilities, including 48 missile silos and ‘hydrosonic’ nuclear torpedoes, but this was entirely fabricated as part of the prank (Naval News) .
Cat distribution system
10 Thoughts All Girls Have During Sex
by Rosemary Ribner
We all have things that go through our heads when we’re having sex and they aren’t always super sexy thoughts either. We ladies can have entire conversations with ourselves while our partner is inside of us. Heck, we talk all the time so having a silent conversation in our head during sex isn’t as strange as it sounds. So, here are 10 thoughts all women have during sex and why.
1. Maybe I should moan louder so he will step this up a bit?
Sometimes an orgasm isn’t going to happen. It’s not anyone’s fault, it just is. Once a woman realizes she’s not having one, she’d like to wrap up the sex and go do something productive instead. We don’t want our partner to feel bad, especially if he did his best to make it happen so we fake it occasionally. He feels good and we can go to sleep, watch t.v. or whatever.
2. Did I pay that bill?
Yeah, sometimes random crap pops in there. We don’t do it deliberately. It also throws off our mojo a bit because we’re going to want to check. We may fake it here too or just start yelling out crazy stuff like “oooh baby, yeah harder, harder or faster, faster” because that is most likely going to bring us to orgasm unless he comes too quickly. Either way, we can double check that bill.
3. Did he just come? Really?
Things are moving oh so nice and the build-up is happening. She is well on her way to a mind-blowing orgasm and then he makes that sound, stiffens up and then plops. Then we hear Bob Uecker’s voice “just a bit outside”. Damn, damn, damn…
4. I wonder if I can sneak this fart out without him noticing.
Okay, I know this sounds terrible but we’re human and we fart too. Sometimes the urge strikes us and hopefully it strikes when it’s when there is a penis in the vicinity rather than a tongue, if you catch my meaning here. The urge happens during sex sometimes and is made worse when the position is missionary rather than doggie or cowgirl. Having all that extra weigh on top makes it harder to hold in, which almost every woman on the planet would rather do but it’s not always possible.
5. Does he really think that squeezing my boob a few times is foreplay?
Seriously guys a peck on the lips and a couple squeezes on the tit does not foreplay make, okay? We need the foreplay to get our working parts ready for action and without it…ouch. Little or no foreplay is likely going to create a situation like #1 except this time we’ll blame you – in our heads if not outright. Yeah, we’ll fake it but you’ll pay for it later, we are petty like that.
6. I think I may have to help myself out a bit.
Maybe the foreplay was shallow or things just aren’t going as we hoped but we’re still in the game and wanting the prize. When that happens, we’ll snake a hand down to our clitoris or pull out old faithful (our vibrator) and get things moving a bit. Don’t panic, we adore you, really, we do that’s why we didn’t fake it and go eat ice cream. Go with it.
7. I’m hungry.
We’re human and we get hungry. Deal with it. I mean you don’t want our thighs to cramp up while in a reverse cowgirl, do you?
8. I think the dog/cat is watching.
Dogs and cats are so weird, they will totally watch you bang. Some people don’t care but most of us find performing for an audience awkward. I always worry that they will try and stick their nose someplace it does not belong. Literally.
9. Why do my boobs always go into my armpits?
Women are generally always worried about how their bodies look and that’s when we have our clothes on. Once we’re naked we notice everything like the boob thing. Smaller breasted women will complain that they look flat or become a large set of nipples and not much else when on their back. Larger ladies have boobs that go sideways right into the pits, bend us back far enough and then we get strangled. Boobs…they look nice but they cause a lot of trouble during sexy time.
10. Seriously, how do you not know where the clit is?
We really need you to get fully acquainted with the clitoris. It’s not GPS accessible so you’re going to have to locate it on your own or you could ask. If you’re rubbing till your hand cramps or licking till your jaw aches and moaning isn’t happening widen your search area. If you hit a hole, go up slowly about an inch or so. If it is more than an inch away from the vagina, orgasm through vaginal penetration alone won’t happen so that clit is going to be your salvation. The clitoris accounts for nearly 70% of all orgasms in women so you really need to locate it and give it a good workout.
Modern Women Can No Longer Find Decent Guys … It’s Over!
50 Dad Jokes You’re Going to Hate Yourself for Laughing At
by Rosemary Ribner
1. My wife accused me of hating her family and relatives. I replied, “No, I don’t hate your relatives. In fact, I like your mother-in-law a lot better than I like mine.”
2. My girlfriend is turning 32 soon, and I told her not to get her hopes up. “After all,” I say, “we’re only going to be celebrating it for half a minute.” When she asked what in the world I was talking about, I pointed out, “This is your thirty-second birthday.”
3. My friend keeps saying “cheer up man it could be worse, you could be stuck underground in a hole full of water.” I know he means well.
4. How do locomotives know where they’re going? Lots of training.
5. What’s the difference between roast beef and pea soup? Anyone can roast beef.
6. The secret service isn’t allowed to yell “Get down!” anymore when the president is about to be attacked, now they have to yell “Donald, duck!”
7. What is the least spoken language in the world? Sign language.
8. My friend has been a limo driver for 25 years and hasn’t had a single customer…All that time and nothing to chauffeur it.
9. A man walks into a zoo. The only animal in the entire zoo is a dog. It’s a shiatzu.
10. Why did the lifeguard not rescue the hippy? He was too far out man!
11. What do you call it when a chameleon can’t change colors anymore? A reptile dysfunction.
12. I used to be a member of the secret cooking society…But they kicked me out for spilling the beans.
13. We can’t take our dog to the pond anymore because the ducks keep attacking him… I guess that’s what we get for buying a pure bread dog…
14. I used to hate facial hair, but then it grew on me.
15. Where do fishes keep their money? In the river banks.
16. If money doesn’t grow on trees, then why do banks have branches?
17. Orion’s Belt is a waist of space.
18. My recliner and I go way back.
19. You know what they say about grandfather clocks…they’re old timers!
20. What is Romeo and Juliet’s least favorite fruit? Cantaloupe
21. Why do fish live in salt water? Because if they lived in pepper water, they would sneeze.
22. I said to my wife, “I need to call the doctor today.”
“Which doctor?” she replied.
“No, the regular kind.”
23. How do you know if a sniper likes you? He misses you.
24. Statistics show that 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren’t happy.
25. Joseph Stalin should have known communism wouldn’t work… I mean seriously, there were red flags everywhere.
26. My boy asked me to hand him his sunglasses. I told him I’d do it as soon as he hands me my dadglasses.
27. Why are there no knock-knock jokes about America? Because freedom rings.
28. My neighbor blamed my gravel for making him fall, but it was his dumb asphalt…
29. What’s Justin Timberlake’s favorite part of Ukraine? The Crimea River.
30. A man on one side of a river shouts to a man standing on the other side, “Hey, how do I get to the other side of the river?” The other man responds, “You are on the other side of the river.”
31. A traffic cop went to the trouble of leaving a note under the wipers to let me know I’d positioned my car correctly. It said, “Parking fine”. So that was nice.
32. The only thing flat-earthers fear…is sphere itself.
33. My wife complains that I never buy her flowers, but it’s not my fault, I didn’t know she sold any!
34. Why were the dark ages called the dark ages? There were too many knights.
35. Did you know there’s no official training for garbage men? They just pick things up as they go along.
36. The inventor of the throat lozenge has died. There will be no coffin at his funeral.
37. What word in the dictionary is always spelled incorrectly? Incorrectly.
38. I googled “cigarette lighter” and got 150000 matches. Now I don’t need the lighter.
39. My wife found out I was cheating on her, after she found all the letters I was hiding… she got so mad and said she’d never play Scrabble with me again.
40. I refused to believe my dad got fired as a road worker for theft. But when I got home, all the signs were there.
41. Why don’t blind people go skydiving? It scares the dog.
42. I am terrified of elevators. I’m going to start taking steps to avoid them.
43. Whiteboards are remarkable.
44. Why does it take a pirate so long to learn the alphabet? Because he spends years at C!
45. I saw an ad for burial plots and thought to myself, that’s the last thing I need.
46. I’ve started a business making boats in my attic. Sails are going through the roof.
47. What’s the difference between pessimists and people with a phobia of sausages? Nothing! They both fear the wurst.
48. What’s the loudest kind of pet? A trumpet!
49. Why can’t Harry Potter tell the difference between his cooking pot and his best friend? They’re both cauldron.
50. A genie asked, “What’s your first wish?”
Steve answered, “I wish I was rich.”
And the genie said, “What’s your second wish, Rich?”
Stuck
The 7 biggest douchebags in America
by Rosemary Ribner
This would be a super easy list if I just loaded it full of politicians and moved on but that’s like picking the low hanging fruit, don’t you think? I heard a guy at Panera Bread once say, loudly while on the phone, “Go big or go home! Just do it man just go big or go home!” and I thought wow what douchebag, so in the spirit of that douchebag, I’m going to go big since I’m already home.
7. The United States Congress
You are all a bunch of douchebags. GOP or DNC or faux independents. None of you douches want to do your jobs, you know the jobs we elected you to do. There are plenty of things you can do together like fix healthcare, taxes, balance thebudget, etc. The Democrats won’t work with the Republicans and the Republicans won’t work with each other. You are all a bunch of overpaid douchebags and you suck.
6. BLM
Many people support your mission and agree that there are many issues that need addressing. But you’ve made police the targets of violence and many good officers have been injured and killed due to the tactics of your members/people claiming allegiance. You have turned a blind eye to violence and even in many cases argued that violence is necessary for change. With great power comes great responsibility, you need to step up your responsibility before more people die needlessly… douchebags. Oh and one last thing, when one of your most outspoken members, Talcum X or should I say Shaun King is faux black …you got douchebaggery written all over you.
5. All Live Matters people
Started by a bunch of people who do not understand what BLM is all about. Of course, all livesmatter, you f’ing twits – that’s not the point. The point is we have a group of people in this country who believe that we think they don’t matter and your douchebag movement proves their point. They want you to recognize that they are equal to you and want equal treatment. They don’t believe they are getting it and you are not helping.
4. Millennials
You bunch of safe space needing, participation trophy getting, college campus segregationist crybabies are huge douchebags. Yuge! You’re also snowflakes who try to call other people snowflakes, but you are too stupid to realize you don’t even know what the term means. Then you all cried when Hillary lost the election. You know that big boys and big girls don’t cry over stupid crap like that, don’t you, little snowflake? Grow up you little douchebags, the real world isn’t so nice to people like you.
3. Antifa
Supposedly against fascism but uses fascist techniques to try and control people like you know… fascists. You are the moral equivalent to the neo-Nazis and Texas sized douchebags. Go chew on a live wire!
2. KKK/neo-Nazis
You are everything evil in the world. You are ignorant of history and on the wrong side of it. Go F*ck yourselves…Alaska sized douchebags.
1. Colin Kaepernick (LOL just kidding)
The # 1 Douchebag in America is The NFL and Colin Kaepernick
He took a knee during the anthem because he wanted to protest the police but he also said he wasn’t disrespecting the flag, except he said this: ““I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Then the NFL players started to join him. Then people started getting mad about disrespecting the flag because according to Kaepernick’s own words that was exactly what they were doing. Then the POTUS tweeted and others got crazy about it and turned it into the largest shit fight in America…You guys want people to listen to you then speak but pissing on your fans is not going to garner any sympathy. Douchebags.
So, all this hubbub has ruined the sport for more than half the country. Congratulations, NFL!
Men are Relaxing as it All Collapses
Don’t Date Someone For Their Potential
We’ve all been there. You meet someone new and they seem amazing. They’re attractive, charming, and have big dreams and ambitions. You start to imagine a future together, picturing all the incredible things you could accomplish as a couple. There’s just one problem: right now, they’re kind of a mess.
But that’s okay, right? Because they have so much potential. With your love and support, you’re sure they’ll get their act together and become the incredible person you know they can be.
Here’s the thing though: falling in love with potential is a dangerous game. Because potential doesn’t mean shit if the person isn’t willing to put in the work to actualize it. And more often than not, they won’t.
It’s easy to get caught up in the fantasy of who someone could be, rather than seeing them clearly for who they are right now. But the reality is, you can’t date a future version of someone. You can only be with the person in front of you.
And if that person is constantly flaking on you, treating you poorly, or not living up to their own ideals, that’s a red flag. Because here’s an uncomfortable truth: people don’t change unless they want to. You can’t love someone into becoming a better person. They have to choose that for themselves.
It’s not your job to fix your partner. Either you love them the way they are or you don’t. If it’s the latter, you may need to move on. Trying to change someone is a recipe for frustration and resentment. You’ll constantly be disappointed when they don’t live up to your expectations, and they’ll feel like they’re never good enough for you.
So instead of projecting all your hopes and dreams onto a fixer-upper partner, focus on finding someone who is already the kind of person you want to be with. Someone who has their shit together, knows what they want, and is actively working towards it.
Because at the end of the day, healthy relationships aren’t built on one person’s untapped potential. They’re built on two people coming together as complete individuals, ready to support each other’s growth while still maintaining their own identities and goals.
Don’t fall for the fairy tale of transforming someone else’s life. Choose the person who is already building a life you want to be a part of. Trust me, it’ll save you a whole lot of heartache in the long run.
Cucumbers
Electric Skillet Fried Pizza
Electric Skillet Fried Pizza
Ingredients
1/2 package yeast
1/2 cup warm water
Pinch of granulated sugar, added to yeast
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 generous tablespoon liquid oil
Instructions
Dissolve yeast in warm water adding sugar.
Mix remaining ingredients and let raise two hours.
Spread dough out in an electric skillet.
Pour 1/2 can tomato paste over the top of the dough.
Top the tomato paste with a mixture of cooked ground beef and sausage.
Cook onion and green pepper with meat.
Season meat and oregano, thyme, salt, pepper and garlic salt cooking mushrooms go on top of the cooked meat.
Cover with a slices of Mozzarella cheese.
Pour on rest of tomato paste with garlic salt, salt and pepper and sweet basil.
Top with Parmesan cheese.
Cover and cook at about 300 degrees F with steam vent closed. Crust will brown and cheese melted to be ready to serve.
"Multipolarity does not depend on the desire of one country or a group of countries.
Multipolarity or polycentrism, as we call it, is an objective historical process that cannot be stopped.
Even though the West is using every trick in the book to slow it down to prolong its hegemony.
This hegemony has been declared the main goal of the United States and its allies.
They have no scruples to say that the world order dominated by America, NATO, and the EU must not be allowed to change.
It is a blatantly neo-colonial mentality.
You can see it in all actions of the collective West, which is trying to divide the world into blocs.
You may remember that in the past few years the Americans convened special summits for democracy to which they invited carefully chosen participants.
The only criterion for receiving invitations is loyalty to the United States or more precisely, to the Democratic administration of Joe Biden.
All other countries were marked as autocracies.
Another example of the division of the world into blocs is the infamous statement by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that Europe is a garden and the rest of the world is a jungle.
Neither will we forget a statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said that if you are not at the table in the international system, you’re going to be on the menu.
I do not remember hearing a more racist and neo-colonial statement.
In other words, BRICS is not separating itself from the world.
Quite the contrary, it has developed as a group of countries that are concerned about justice on the international stage."
Excerpt from remarks and answers by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to media questions following the meeting of foreign ministers from BRICS and Global South and Global East countries, Nizhny Novgorod, June 11, 2024.
Nope
Have you ever had a fight with your neighbor?
Back in England, my ex and I lived in a new house in a small rural village, population about 1100. I did the usual male things like building a garden shed and amateur woodwork in the garage. After a few years, maybe ten, my then wife’s mother died and we offered her father a room, but we needed to add an extra bedroom over the garage. Our very recently arrived new neighbor, a retired spinster teacher, had already started complaining about our non-existent excessive noise (she said she had moved to a village expecting a quiet life and didn’t expect any noise she could hear from her property!) We politely pointed out that our noise was not out of the ordinary, no loud music or television and certainly no fights, no loud parties or people coming and going constantly. Our children were all at University.) Despite our usual polite neighborly behavior, she fought our request for planning permission, and lost, and then refused to allow access for the builders to her side of the boundary, and they had to do all the brickwork by leaning over the top of the brick wall they were building.
One day, I was chatting with three of the women from the village who belonged to the local Woman’s Institute, (a very popular nationwide organization in Britain). I knew them pretty well because it was a small village, they were also involved with church activities and I was captain of the church Bellringing team. They were telling me they had a new W.I. member, and she was a bit of a dragon. She had been badmouthing her nasty, ignorant, stupid neighbor who was deliberately making her life a hell, and after a while they realized she was talking about me. They said that some other members drifted over to join the conversation and when she temporarily ran out of steam, they all told her that they knew me well, that I was one of the most polite, highly respected and nicest people in the village and she was talking rubbish. Apparently, they shamed her enough that she never turned up there again! She also retreated into her home after that and kept out of our way, thank goodness. Peace at last!
We prayed
Moscow Stock Exchange Halts Trades in Dollars and Euros
The Moscow Exchange announced minutes ago that it will not conduct trading in dollars and euros starting from June 13.
Earlier today, U.S. Treasury announced that the United States is imposing sanctions on the Moscow Exchange and the National Clearing Center.
RUMORS swirling on Moscow right now say Russia may have to “take-out” U.S. Stock Exchanges by placing them on the target list of “decision-making centers.” That would make New York City a primary target for Russian military strikes.
WHAT WOULD JOSEY WALES DO?
“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.” – Josey Wales
the outlaw josey wales
“To hell with them fellas. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.”– Josey Wales
As our political, economic, civic, and social structures continue to degrade, dissolve, and disintegrate before our very eyes, it is easy to become apathetic and surrender to hopelessness. There are relentless powerful forces actively trying to destroy the fabric of our society and force the masses into economic servitude while caged in an electronic gulag, controlled by an oligarchy of evil totalitarian minded billionaires and their lackeys in key governmental, political, banking, military, media, and corporate positions of power. We are in the same situation as Josey Wales in Clint Eastwood’s epic 1976 film – The Outlaw Josey Wales.
The film tells the story of Josey Wales, a Missouri farmer, just trying to live his life in peace without interference from the government, uninterested in the violent Civil War between two monolithic forces fighting for their created causes. His wife and son are brutally murdered by Union Redleg militants, led by the despicable Captain Terrill, while he was away from his homestead. After burying his family, his mind naturally turns towards seeking revenge against the perpetrators, and he begins to practice shooting. He joins a group of pro-Confederate bushwackers who become the scourge of Union forces until the war’s conclusion.
At the conclusion of the war, Josey’s friend and superior, Captain Fletcher, persuades the guerrillas to surrender, having been promised by Senator Lane that they will be granted amnesty if they hand over their weapons. Josey refuses to surrender because he knows you can never trust the government or the politicians who make promises they never keep. They have been pissing down our backs since the last Civil War, while telling us it’s just raining, so everyone can relate to this scene in the movie.
Senator:The war’s over. Our side won the war. Now we must busy ourselves winning the peace. And Fletcher, there’s an old saying: To the victors belong the spoils. Fletcher:There’s another old saying, Senator: Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.
Wales having refused to surrender, along with a young guerrilla named Jamie, are the only survivors when Terrill’s Redlegs massacre the surrendering men. Wales intervenes and wipes out many of the Redlegs with a Gatling gun before fleeing with Jamie, who dies from a bullet wound sustained in the massacre after helping Josey kill two pursuing bounty hunters.
Fletcher learns the lesson that you can never trust the government, or the lackeys carrying out their mandates. They will lie and murder to accomplish their goals. Anyone who does not bow to their authority will be treated as an outlaw, with no acquiescence to the Constitution, decency, or simple human dignity. Once decent men are pushed too far, they will push back in a more violent manner than the authorities will expect. Violence begets violence, and will create more Josey Wales type characters who will not surrender or ever bow down to governmental authority.
Fletcher:Damn you, Senator. You promised me those men would be decently treated. Senator Lane:They were decently treated. They were decently fed and then they were decently shot. Those men are common outlaws, nothing more.
The remainder of the movie entails Union soldiers and bounty hunters trying to track and kill Josey, while he accumulates a rag-tag group of companions, including Indians, foul mouthed grannies, and a slew of other settlers trying to live their lives unhindered by the government. Clint Eastwood’s character maintains a stoic meanness throughout the film towards his government enabled enemies, but has empathy and kindheartedness towards the downtrodden people who represent the vast majority of citizens in this country.
I found it interesting the film was based on the novel Gone to Texas, written with a virulent anti-government slant by a former George Wallace speechwriter. When the script writer/director tried to tone down the anti-government aspects, Eastwood told him no and eventually fired him, taking over as director for the remainder of the film. Eastwood’s refusal to bow to Hollywood pressure and soften the dialogue and story line is a tribute to his resolute dislike and mistrust of governmental authorities. He has essentially gone his own way and made his films his way, never letting the Hollywood elite dictate his path.
Released in 1976 when anti-war sentiment was at its peak, following the government created Vietnam war debacle, which slaughtered over 50,000 American boys, Eastwood later referred to it as an anti-war film. And we all know it is governments and those Deep State operatives who control the levers of power, and start wars to increase their wealth, power and control. War never ends because it is extremely profitable for those waging it, while the youth doing the fighting are just cannon fodder for corporate interests. Eastwood was dead on, as we have waged wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine and Palestine, benefiting the military industrial complex at the expense of you and me.
“As for Josey Wales, I saw the parallels to the modern day at that time. Everybody gets tired of it, but it never ends. A war is a horrible thing.” – Clint Eastwood
Eastwood equates the plight of the Confederacy with the plight of the American Indian, as both groups were bullied, bloodied and crushed under the weight of the Federal government, which began its unfettered growth during the Civil War and has now reached its zenith of incompetence, arrogance, lawlessness, and hatred towards the citizens it is supposed to serve. Most people just want to be left alone, like Josey Wales, to live their lives in peace and harmony with their fellow community members. But the federal government makes that impossible, with their rules, regulations, taxes, fees, and enforcement thugs harassing the public on a daily basis.
In Eastwood’s movie they murder his family, murder his comrades, and are hell-bent on murdering him. The song remains the same. Our government murdered people minding their own business at Ruby Ridge. They murdered women and children at Waco. They murdered a rancher at Bundy Ranch. They send young men to war for bankers and corporations. They have been unlawfully imprisoning protestors in dungeons for a fake insurrection fomented and initiated by government agents. They rigged the presidential election and have convicted the leading political candidate of fake crimes he did not commit in order to maintain control over the political system.
The list could go on for pages, as the totalitarian methods and abuse of power against the citizens of this country accelerate at a breakneck pace. Fear of seeing their wealth and power slip away has created an almost psychotic spasm of unhindered chaotic flailing about, in an ultimately fruitless effort to retain control. They are fearful of the masses wakening from their technology induced slumber and realizing the enemy is not the groups they have been programmed to hate, but the very government pulling the strings of this clownshow.
The government needs a sedated, dumbed down populace who fear what they are told to fear and obey the instructions of their overlords. But the covid scamdemic and continuing death of loved ones from the toxic jabs, has opened the eyes of millions. The debt death spiral induced by Biden’s handlers, supercharged by the coordinated and financed invasion of our southern border by third world mutts, and resulting in raging inflation for average American families, has angered and infuriated the masses. We are approaching our moment of truth.
The government is in the midst of creating millions of vengeful Josey Wales characters. As political chaos increases in the coming months, the threat of global conflagration escalates and the economic plight of the masses deteriorates, revenge against politicians, government drones, and the globalist financial elite for creating this madness will expand rapidly. We know what Josey Wales would do. The question is what will we do.
Eastwood made his final Western masterpiece, sixteen years after Josey Wales, with the release of the Academy Award winning Unforgiven. He paid tribute to Josey Wales in the climactic scene in the saloon when confronting Little Bill. In The Outlaw Josey Wales Grandma Sarah’s initial reaction to meeting Josey Wales was:
“This Mr. Wales is a cold-blooded killer. He’s from Missouri, where they’re all known to be killers of innocent men, women and children.”
He closes the loop with Will Munny, out of Missouri, with the same false accusation that he killed women and children, as he also seeks retribution on government authoritarians who murdered an innocent man. Both Josey Wales and Will Munny tried to live out their lives as peaceful farmers, but were forced to revert to violence because the government would not allow them to live in peace.
Little Bill Daggett : “You’d be William Munny out of Missouri. Killer of women and children.”
Will Munny : “That’s right. I’ve killed women and children. I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I’m here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned.”
Eastwood’s first and last epic Westerns both examined the harsh reality of violence and retribution as the logical consequence for crimes committed against innocent people just trying to lives their lives. His meditations on the concepts of age, repute, courage, and the cloudy definition of heroism, make for far deeper and complex examinations of the old West than other western films. Eastwood distinguishes between the brutal reality of a world controlled and run by tyrannical psychopaths acting as government agents, and people living peacefully, with no government intervention.
Eastwood’s ideal vision of America as a pluralist society of individualists of all races and backgrounds who put aside the past and their difference to live in harmony, contrasts with the reality of a society controlled and manipulated by those referred to as the “invisible government” by Edward Bernays. The ruling elite do not want people to live peaceably in a self reliant manner. The climactic scene in Outlaw Josey Wales between Josey Wales and Ten Bears captures the nature of our world and the difference between governments and the people.
Josie Wales : “I came here to die with you. Or to live with you. Dying ain’t so hard for men like you and me. It’s living that’s hard when all you’ve ever cared about has been butchered or raped. Governments don’t live together – people live together. With governments, you don’t always get a fair word or a fair fight. Well, I’ve come here to give you either one or get either one from you. I came here like this so you’ll know my word of death is true, and my word of life is then true. The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche. And so will we. Now we’ll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does. And every spring, when the grass turns green, and the Comanche moves north, you can rest here in peace, butcher some of our cattle, and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the Comanche, that will be on our lodge. That’s my word of life.”
Ten Bears : “It’s sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life… or death. It shall be life.”
I had previously used Josey Wales as the basis for Part Four of my five part series based on Clint Eastwood movies in 2012, documenting how the Federal Reserve, under the control of the Wall Street banking cabal, had destroyed the middle class and set in motion the ultimate destruction of the American economic system. Here we are twelve years later and that destruction is approaching its climax. As the powers that be are flailing about in a final destructive apocalyptic spasm of hate, greed, and war, the average American needs to channel their inner Josey Wales.
We can either give up and allow those running this shitshow for their own benefit to enslave us in perpetual debt, culling us with their toxic “vaccines”, making us eat meatless meat and bugs, forcing us into their digital currencies, 15 minute cities (aka electronic gulags), electric cars, and social credit system, or we can get plumb, mad-dog mean and man up. In order to reverse our totalitarian spiral, being executed by powerful mega-wealthy men and their highly compensated double tongued lackey politicians, bankers, media moguls, and corporate chiefs, those 300 million guns will need to be put to use.
If we want to live together peacefully, unhindered by an overbearing, corrupt government behemoth, controlled by evil men with evil intentions, then we will have to fight. That’s just the way it is. Ask yourself, “What would Josey Wales do?”, and act accordingly.
Ancient Flood Myth in China
What’s the most expensive thing you’ve gotten for an insanely cheap price?
This was in 1979-1980. I used to have the habit of going into any and every music store I saw or passed by. So one day, I spot this little mom & pop music store and of course I stop in. I’m looking for old guitars to buy & resell. So the store itself has nothing but pretty cheap student models, nothing I’m interested in. But the store, which looked like it was last painted in 1957, had this back area where there were little rooms, obviously where they gave lessons. So I wander back there, and on the wall are black and white 8 x 10 photos of kids giving a high-school concert. They’re (the photos) about 10–15 years old. Here are these goofy looking kids, but they are playing neat old guitars. All the guitars were Gibsons with only one exception. And the amps were glorious old Fender amps in white covering, leaned back on their “tilt-back legs”, Tremoluxes and Bandmasters. They all looked new, so obviously, the store must have supplied their floor models for the concert. Glorious! And the photos had the names of the kids playing the concert in those plastic “DYMO” labels that used to be popular. So I thought to myself “How stupid would it be to copy those names down and go to a phone book and see if I could look up and see if any of those last names were still around and then call and ask if they still had those guitars?” So that’s exactly what I did. So I didn’t expect to be able to contact anyone named Smith or Jones, but one photo had a kid with an unusual last name. He was playing a Gibson ES-175, which is a very nice f-hole jazz guitar, it was funny, it looked way too big on him. Anyway, I walked over to a phone booth (we had them back then) and looked up in the directory (we had them back then) and found the name and called. I explained where I had gotten the name & number and I asked the fellow whether he still had that guitar and if so, if he would consider selling it. He said, “No, I traded that guitar long ago for a Fender “Sandblaster”…but if you’d want that guitar, you can have it for $125. Well, the Strat was about 5x as desirable as the Gibson (to me) and I got his address, went over, and bought his 1958 Strat for $125. It was definitely in worn, but otherwise original condition.
It was actually not that great a guitar, it was not a good example. But it looked awesome. That guitar today would be worth $30,000 in two seconds, but I sold it the next day for $1350. I couldn’t afford to have more than 2 guitars “in stock”, I just didn’t have the capital.
“I think the Dutch are really doing something foul because they traveled all the way from Europe to East Asia and claim that they are exercising supervision on behalf of the United Nations.
The fact that their helicopter became aloft very close to the largest metropolis in China—Shanghai—raised concerns on the Chinese side.
The Chinese Navy and the Air Force are fully justified to take action against such interference, and for the Dutch side to pretend to be the victim is really a double standard.
Fortunately, this didn’t end up in real friction between the two sides.
The Dutch side needs to be warned that if they repeat such acts of infringement against Chinese law, they will be held fully responsible.
We know that in recent months, there have been quite a few countries, like Canada and others, which have claimed that their airplanes or naval ships were being monitored.
First of all, all these countries are not neighboring countries with China.
They came from afar—Canada is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and the Netherlands is on the other side of the Eurasian continent.
Why did they travel this length to East Asia?
I think they acted under the direction of the United States, which wants to strengthen the so-called first island chain and the second island chain to try to suffocate China and prevent the Chinese naval forces, air forces, and otherwise from going beyond these chains into the Pacific.
I think the Netherlands, this time again, is acting in concert with the United States and on their behalf, trying to raise tensions in East Asia and really muddle the water rather than create stability in our part of the world.
If these countries are really worried that the Chinese planes or naval ships are getting closer to them to monitor their movements and ask for their information, the best way is to stay far away from China rather than encroach upon it and violate China’s legitimate security interests.
If they really want to test the willpower of the Chinese nation as to how to defend China’s sovereignty and legitimate territorial interests, then they need to be prepared for all the consequences.
I think it is very important to take note of the fact that there are indeed important Western countries—especially members of the NATO alliance—that are becoming more and more hostile against China.
They keep talking about a confrontation with China because they say China’s values are different from theirs.
Are you really serious?
What kind of values are you talking about?
Are you talking about values from 100 years in your history, 200 years in your history, or values from your darkest days of colonial power, enslaving people, and selling people like slaves? Come on.
So I think it is dangerous to see that certain countries want to follow the US leadership, for example, in instigating greater antagonism between China and the United States.
Some even claim that war is destined between China and the United States.
Countries like the Netherlands need to use their own brains to think about the reality in the world of today.
They need to fully stand for peace rather than be hijacked onto the bandwagon of war between and among major countries in the world of today.”
Excerpt from remarks by Chinese lawyer and academic Victor Gao Zhikai in an interview for Global Times, June 12, 2024.
The sounds of conversation surrounded Olympus Hall. A surge of enthusiastic energy permeated as more guests continued to enter. These people represented all the big shots throughout the entire Sol System. Each of them a guest to Emperor Olympus, of Mars. The guests wore their best attire to show off the styles of their respective homeworlds.Olympus Hall is the Emperor’s favorite place to host individuals of this caliber. The room’s walls, ceiling, and floors hid grade IV armor within, but the guests would have never known. Security is paramount when hosting the most important people in the Sol System in a floating piece of metal. The floor held an elegant, deep red carpet with an intricate art déco design. The walls and ceiling ran a holographic projection system to show what was on the other side. New guests walked in with shock on their faces—seeing the illusion that we were all enjoying a night in space with Mars beneath our feet. The angle of the station was such that the Emperor could exhibit his namesake, Olympus Mons—the largest known volcano in the Sol System. Guests who have been here before rolled their eyes at the thought of the Emperor’s need to show off where possible—a little hypocritical, if you ask me.Hey, Reg, did you take your prefrontal booster?, thought someone behind me.No, I thought back. They aren’t worth it. Guests aren’t allowed to have thought-blockers while they are here, anyway. Only an idiot would try using one. We will know if they did and kick them out for breaking system laws. Even if they were the ones who made them. Besides, all I end up with is a headache from hell once I crash. Oh, stop whining, Reg. You know the Boss is taking extra precautions, given the significant nature of tonight.Tonight, in Olympus Hall, we celebrate an event many, including myself, thought would never happen; the Unification of the Sol System. Tonight, the leaders of The Martian Empire, Earth Dominion, United Jupiter Republic, and Neptune Kingdom celebrate the signing of the Unification Accords. The exact details of this agreement go well above my paygrade. I’m just here to serve the Empire and keep others from messing with it.“I’m aware Brix,” I said aloud, “But I’m not taking them. Hell, Wilkens hates them too. Captain Ero can chew me out later. Echo Guards don’t need them and you know it. You and the Cap will lose all the effort you put into training if you’re going to rely on a drug to help. Now let’s do our jobs and scope things out…wait, didn’t she want you helping with the check-in? Making sure the guests weren’t thinking anything of concern near their shuttles?”Brix moved around from behind me. He was about my height, although he would try to say otherwise. His reflective power-armor covered him from head-to-toe, but I could tell he was smiling his smart-ass smile behind that mirrored helmet.“Nah, Boss thought you could use my company,” said Brix, as he nudged me with his elbow. “She’s got Wilkman taking care of welcome readings. He’s good at catching the anxious folks. I heard he already sent two nervous Neppies back to their ship.”“Great.”***So far, the night was quiet. Brix and I walked around each side of the hall. Our main assignment was to listen to the thoughts of each guest and make sure everybody was content, and not thinking of doing anything stupid, especially when the alcohol flowed on occasions such as this.
Most people could telepathically communicate these days. This is all thanks to our ancestors screwing around with our genetics. They thought it would help us unite as a species, but it caused more harm than good. People of that time didn’t know how to shut off their internal monologue and Earth was a noisy place. I would have hated it.
People still struggle to keep thier thoughts quiet. Mainly during times of stress, excitement, or when the alcohol intake was high. An event like was a great way to ensure all three factors came into play. The hall was noisy, and I hated it, but I pushed past the annoyance to serve the Emperor.
I walked by a man and a woman discussing something about increased sales from the minerals found in The Belt. The man’s suit was crisp and dark blue. Someone from Earth, probably Luna, actually. The woman was muscular and wearing a revealing dress with several colors. Definitely a Jovian. They love to show off—even more than the Emperor. They always talk about how they have the biggest planet and the biggest ships. Sure, and like their planet, they are full of gas and hot air.
“I can’t believe Neptune is paying that much of a premium!”, said the woman in shock. Or was it frustration? I couldn’t tell. Jovian facial features were hard to read, but their thoughts were the opposite.
“You’d be surprised,” said the man as he took a drink from the glass he was holding, “It costs a ton of credits to get anything over there. Neptunians will pay anything to get luxury resources over to them.”
“Yes, but simple metals and ice should not be defined as a ‘luxury resource’. Earth is always looking for a way to squeeze credits from those doing the real work,” said the Jovian woman. Man, I wish I could just kick him right between the legs, she thought.
His face showed he did not hear her thoughts. He must’ve been a blanker. Sometimes I wish I couldn’t hear people’s thoughts. He just replied with his stupid smile, but I didn’t listen further, or I would have kicked him between the legs.
“Greedy Earthers,” I mumbled to myself.
***
While making my rounds, Captain Ero chimed in. Her voice blaring through my helmet. “Echo Guards 2 and 4, report.”
“Nothing much on my end,” said Blix with that annoying laid back tone of his. “I’ve heard a few interesting things, but nothing we already don’t know. Terraforming Venus, the Emperor signing off on another Earthen belt mine, etcetera. I’ve recorded the thoughts to analyze later, in case I missed something. I swear, if I have to hear another Jovian ask some to compare their ship sizes, I’m gonna….”
“Enough Blix,” said the Captain, annoyance building in her voice. “It’s already a pain in the ass to deal with these non-Martian pricks. I don’t need you to adding to it.”
“But Boss, aren’t you a Nepp…”, Blix said.
“Shut it. I’m half. The Martian side is the only one I give two shits about,” Captain Ero interrupted. “Reg, report.”
“Nothing at the mome…”
Why…taking…deploy…nano…
Strange. It sounded like I was listening to jammed comms, but this was someone’s thoughts and they were close.
“Ma’am. Give me a moment. I may have something.”
“Understood. Report in on what you find. Wilkens and I are finishing up below. Call the Imperial Guard if you think you found anything suspicious. The Emperor should have 20 in the main hall and another 30 throughout the station.”
“Will do, ma’am,” I said as I scanned the room with more intensity. The nice thing about Echo Guard armor is that nobody could see your face. To them, I was a strange humanoid in reflective chrome.
I continued my normal walking pattern to find how close they were. His voice seemed impatient, yet focused. Not good on a night when everyone was relaxed or excited. This person was planning something, and I needed to find out what that was.
***
Moments later, the hall broke in applause. I looked up for a moment to see the four leaders of the Sol System gather on a dais at one end of the hall; Emperor Olympus of Mars, Prime Minister Marolles of Earth, President Ishk of the Jupiter Republic, and King Domino of Neptune. They waved and bowed as if they just finished putting on a show. All but Emperor Olympus sat down and their assigned seats. The Emperor walked up to a nearby podium and began his speech. His voice booming as he highlighted the importance of this day — more importantly, where it took place.
They’ve…ceremo…activ…now…
That was behind me. I continued my path and turned around. Trying to lock in on who it was. There were seven individuals around the source of the voice. They all seemed to be enamored by the Emperor’s speech. All but one.
He wore a light blue suit. His long white hair braided and blue tattoos along his clean-shaven jaw. Someone from Neptune. But this someone looked quite familiar to me. I did a quick facial scan from my helm and discovered that he was Prince Domino.
Something about him seemed off. As I walked closer to his party, I stared into his eyes, putting every ounce of focus I had on them. Suddenly, the surrounding room got quiet and only his voice remained.
Wait…I think it’s looking at me. Shit. What? No…I said they’ve started the damn ceremony, so you need to activate the nanobots now!
Not good. He was trying to use some kind of technique so he could telepathically communicate with someone at long range. He was also using a thought-blocker, but I don’t think it was a thought-blocker. Wilkens would have told them to turn around, royalty or not. Well, too bad he’s going up against an Echo Guard. Our training helps us to bypass their intention to keep us out of their heads. The human body is a strange thing. Having someone look deep into your eyes, and I mean deep, causes weaker people to lose their own focus and they begin mentally blabbing.
His eyes grew wide. Oh shit. I think the Echo thing can hear me…
I approached the Prince, engaging my forearm stun gun. Those eyes seem too desperate for me to go in without a defensive measure ready.
…I thought you said…ok…I’m coming. He excused himself from his party and turned away.
“Cap. I think we’ve got trouble. Prince Domino just tried to mental-block me and he said something about nanobots. You and Wilkens need to get to the scanning array. I don’t think regular scans are going to work here.”
All I could hear was static in reply.
“Wilkens…do you read? Where’s Cap?”
More static.
“Blix, we’ve got a problem here.”
Nothing.
I immediately scanned the room for Blix. At the opposite end of the hall, I could see him standing at rest.
“Blix! Report.”
I quickly moved over to him, but not so quickly that it would cause concern to our guests. Once I got to Blix, I stood in front of him.
Blix, what the hell are you doing? I mentally asked.
No response. Blix was far too much of a yapper to be this quiet. I move closer to his reflective helm, seeing myself and causing an infinite mirror effect with my helm. I entered a code into Blix’s suit to deactivate a small portion of his helm. I took a sharp breath when I saw his face. It was blue and foam was coming out of his mouth. He was dead.
***
I reactivated his helm and opened encrypted comms to the Emperor’s Guard.
“Red Guard Alpha 1. We’ve got a situation. We need to evacuate the Emperor.”
“Acknowledge Echo Guard 2. That’s a big ask, so you better know what the hell you’re doing,” grunted the Red Guard Captain.
“When have I ever I led you wrong?”
“Fair enough.”
“Also, I need to find Prince Domino. He’s involved in this somehow.” I made my way to where I last saw him walk off.
“Well shit. Checking now. Got him. He’s…that weird…he’s going down to level E3. What the hell does a Neppy Prince need to do in a Martian Engineering bay?”
“Nothing good,” I said as I moved into a sprint. Behind me I could hear the Emperor apologize that there seemed to be a mechanical issue with Olympus Hall and that everyone should return to their ships.
I made my way through the station while readying my access code to open the maintenance stairs. The door slide open right as I approached. I entered the stairway and looked over the railing to see how far the drop was. My HUD notified me that level E3 was 36 levels below.
“Great,” I said as I jumped over the railing.
***
One doesn’t have too much time to think when falling, but this wasn’t my first jump when chasing down a dumbass who thought they could escape through a flight of stairs.
I saw the numbers of each level flash before me. I engaged my suit booster as soon as I saw E1. By the time I made it over to E3, I was slow enough to grab the rail and leap over it and go through the doors.
“Cap, were you able to pinpoint where the Prince is located?” I said between breaths as I ran.
“Yeah…and you’re not going to like what I’m about to say.”
“Fire away.”
“He’s nearing the power bay…with Captain Ero. She’s not wearing her armor,” said the Red Guard Captain. Confusion in his voice.
“What the hell is going on?” I mumbled.
“Beats me, but I trust you’ll find out and resolve this. Also, the Emperor has evacuated. The other three leaders, too. We also got Echo Guard 4 out. Sorry to say, but the Docs couldn’t do anything for him. Even revival boosters didn’t help. Some kind of poison. Did he eat anything?”
“No, but he took something. What about Wilkens?” I said as I neared the power bay.
“No sign of him,” said Cap, his voice on edge.
“Understood. Keep getting everyone out. If the Prince and Cap are in the power bay, then we are in big trouble.”
“Understood. Red Guard out.”
I cut off comms so I could focus on the task at hand as I came up to the power bay door. It was still open.
As a slowly walked through, I checked my stun gun’s power, a habit whenever I walk into a room with hostiles. There was still plenty of juice left, even after using the boosters. Ahead, I saw the Prince and Captain Ero working on a console.
Cap…what the hell are you doing? I thought.
“Shit,” I could hear her say out loud. “I thought you were going to stay with Brix, Reg. You had my orders.”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” snapped the Prince.
“One of my guards.”
“What?! I thought you said you took care of them?”
“I did take care of them, or so I thought.”
I stepped out and pulled my stun gun up to both of them. “Back away from the console.”
The Cap and Prince lifted their hands up and turned to me.
“Why the hell are you doing this?” I asked.
“Do give everyone what they deserve!” said the Prince, his hair looking more disheveled than earlier. Including you, bitch, he thought.
Captain Ero’s body collapsed before I could return fire, but I certainly did. The stun pulses slammed into the Prince and he screamed out in pain, the gun built into his forearm smoking.
I ran over to the Prince and grabbed his hands and using my suit to fry any other weapon systems that he could hide underneath his own flesh.
“Why the hell did you do that?!” I yelled, grabbing his body and throwing him up to the console.
I told you. I’m just giving you all what you deserved, including that half-blood, thought the Prince as he looked at Cap. All of you within the Sol Systems think you can treat us like garbage. Making our kingdom grow poor with your outrageous demands. All of you patting yourselves on the back while we suffer.
And how do you expect this whole plan of yours to help you? I thought as I pushed him harder against the console. For good measure. I could even hear the glass screens cracking against the pressure.
Easy. War. Humans are good at it. Someone destroys the Emperor’s prized station while all of Sol’s leaders are aboard. Leaderless factions will react. Nobody is going to want to deal with us as we are so far out. You’ll tear each other apart and my kingdom will claim what’s left with me as king.
You’re willing to kill your own father to accomplish this?
Oh yes. But it looks like they escaped. At least my nanobots took over the station’s thrusters. Now you can all fight over who threw the Emperor’s toy into your drab red planet, thought the Prince as he smiled.
I’ll let them know, I thought.
They won’t believe you.
Of course they will. I’ve recorded the whole conversation, I thought as I tapped my helmet.
Impossible. Nobody can record thoughts!
“Oh, yes, I can. A little Echo Guard specialty,” I said as I looked at the console. They had set the boosters to slam the station into Olympus Mons. “Well, enjoy your ride.”
What? thought the Prince as I tied him to a nearby railing and left him.
***
It wasn’t long until I found where the Prince had a small vessel ready for escape. I hopped into the cockpit and started up the ship. Alarms were blaring at me. The ship was kind enough to tell me we were about to die if we didn’t leave soon. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to undock and get away from the station. The evacuees’ ships were nearby, so I made my way to the Emperor’s ship. Behind me Olympus Hall’s boosters fully engaged and sent the station straight into Olympus Mons. The Emperor was going to be pissed.
Great, I thought to myself.
Living at Home in Your 30’s …..
Who is your favourite communist?
Thomas Sankara.
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“Africa’s Guevara” he was termed. A true-blood communist he was. A good fellow I’d like to have a beer with, he was.
He was a low rank Army official when he successfully performed a coup d’état against the unstable Republic of the Haute-Volta and became its leader. Then Sankara began a series of truly “communist” reforms:
He changed the name of the country from a bland geographical location to “Burkina Fasso” (the land of upright people);
He stripped feudal landlords of their tax-collecting privileges;
Distributed land controlled by landlords to peasants who worked on them;
He set a cap for land size. Before you jump to your seat and say that the country began to starve, well, the country only became self-sufficient in food after these reforms. In fact, the country became a net exporter of food!
Stimulated cotton plantation and tried to establish textile industries;
Launched a mass vaccination program that quickly eradicated measles, polio and meningitis. Burkina Fasso was the first African country to recognise the danger of the AIDS epidemic;
State-built brick factories helped the boor build themselves sturdier houses, improving living conditions;
During his tenure, the country planted 7 million trees to fight deforestation;
The country began building roads and rail connecting every major urban centre, all completed in four years;
These roads and railways were built using locally available materials and voluntary labour;
He had about a third of his government staffed with women;
He banned genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy;
He recruited women for the Armed forces;
There was a widespread sexual education programme to prevent teenage pregnancy and unplanned parenthood;
He sold the fleet of Mercedes owned by the government and replaced them with much cheaper Renault 5;
The profession of chauffeur (driver) was discontinued: all government officials, including himself, were required to drive their own cars;
He refused foreign aid: “Whoever feeds you, controls you.”
He ordered a large Army supply centre converted into the country’s first supermarket;
He discontinued the use of air conditioning in government buildings and his own house (that’s why you only see photos of him glistening with sweat drops);
He required public workers to wear clothes made locally;
He kept himself fit (at 34) running around the town in jumpers, protected only by a pistol concealed under his sweater;
He played the guitar and composed the new national anthem. He used to play it sometimes;
Instead of putting his official portrait in public offices, he instructed public servants to bring their own portraits to the working place because “there are seven million Thomas Sankaras” and because “everyone is the government”.
Sankara was not very successful in his educational programme, though; but, again, he only had four years in power!
During his government the country reduced its foreign debt.
In 1987, a group of Liberian and Burkinabé mercenaries, all funded by France and the USA, cornered and killed Sankara. They dismembered and partially burned his body beyond recognition before scattering it in different unmarked graves. The new dictator reversed almost every measure Sankara implemented. Legend has it (but I don’t know if it’s true) that he even ordered trees to be uprooted , textile plants dismantled and a huge IMF loan was taken to “restore” the country’s economy into “good shape.”
The Titan Submersible Disaster Shocked the World. The Exclusive Inside Story Is More Disturbing Than Anyone Imagined
A year after OceanGate’s sub imploded, thousands of leaked documents and interviews with ex-employees reveal how the company’s CEO cut corners, ignored warnings, and lied in his fatal quest to reach the Titanic.
The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.
On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down.
Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and faculty filed out under overcast skies. Eventually, just a handful of people remained inside, preparing to unleash one of the most destructive forces in the natural world: the crushing weight of about 2½ miles of ocean water.
In the building’s high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a hoist on the ceiling. About 3 feet long, it was a scale model of a submersible called Cyclops 2, developed by a local startup called OceanGate. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, had cofounded the company in 2009 as a sort of submarine charter service, anticipating a growing need for commercial and research trips to the ocean floor. At first, Rush acquired older, steel-hulled subs for expeditions, but in 2013 OceanGate had begun designing what the company called “a revolutionary new manned submersible.” Among the sub’s innovations were its lightweight hull, which was built from carbon fiber and could accommodate more passengers than the spherical cabins traditionally used in deep-sea diving. By 2016, Rush’s dream was to take paying customers down to the most famous shipwreck of them all: the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Engineers carefully lowered the Cyclops 2 model into the testing tank nose-first, like a bomb being loaded into a silo, and then screwed on the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. Then they began pumping in water, increasing the pressure to mimic a submersible’s dive. If you’re hanging out at sea level, the weight of the atmosphere above you exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The deeper you go, the stronger that pressure; at the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. Soon, the pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi, and it kept ticking up—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At about the 73-minute mark, as the pressure in the tank reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.
“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”
“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.
The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.
In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself.
The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington as well as the Boeing Company, released statements denying that they contributed to Titan.
A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The trove also reveals a company culture in which employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach and decisions were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired. (The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull, which has not been previously reported.
A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on WIRED’s findings.
I met Stockton Rush on June 24, 2015, while reporting on OceanGate for New Scientist magazine. A former flight engineer and tech investor, Rush was already styling himself a subaquatic Musk. “I wanted to be the first person on Mars until I realized there was nothing there,” Rush told me at a city center dock in Seattle. “But in the ocean, there are new life-forms, things people have never discovered.” Rush believed that Earth’s oceans, not outer space, were where humanity would find refuge from existential risks like climate change. “My goal is to move the needle,” he told me.
Around us, employees were prepping OceanGate’s prototype submersible, the Cyclops 1, for its deepest dive to date. The sub was a cylindrical, steel-hulled design rated for dives up to 500 meters. OceanGate had acquired it a few years earlier and refurbished it, adding LEDs and a PlayStation controller for easy steering, and replacing an ugly exterior cabin with a sleek white plastic fairing to protect components outside the hull. Together with the large acrylic viewport, the effect was a sort of one-eyed robot shark. Up to five people could squeeze inside—which is what Rush and I were about to do, for a test dive in Seattle’s Elliott Bay.
Ninety minutes later and 130 meters deeper, we were totally lost. First the thruster software had glitched, leaving us floating just above the seafloor. Now the sub’s compass was acting up. The shipwreck we aimed to explore, a rail ferry that had once carried Teddy Roosevelt, was nowhere to be seen. All I could spy outside the Cyclops’ forward dome was the occasional salmon dancing in the frigid water.
As I began to feel the chill seeping through the sub’s steel hull, Rush asked me to open my iPhone’s compass app. He wanted to compare it to the one on his phone. The headings did not match, but he rebooted the thrusters and we set off in what he was pretty sure was the right direction.
“You’re heading in exactly the wrong direction,” said a faint voice transmitted via an acoustic link from the support ship tracking us on the surface. We eventually located the sunken ship, its rotting bow emerging into the Cyclops’ headlight. It was an otherworldly experience, made more thrilling by the hint of danger.
Back at the dock, Rush brushed off the problems we had encountered. This is exactly why OceanGate started with the Cyclops 1, he said, rather than anything capable of diving deeper. “I could have built a multimillion-dollar version and all of a sudden I’ve got to figure out really stupid stuff like the magnetic compass,” he told me. “The Cyclops 1 is getting us ready. When we do the Cyclops 2, then all these bugs will be out.”
The Cyclops 2, which Rush renamed Titan in 2018, was already on the drawing board. And Rush believed he had the biggest bug—how to make a vessel that could safely dive 20 times deeper than America’s nuclear subs—worked out. He would use a modern wonder material: carbon fiber.
Carbon-fiber composites are some of the strongest materials available to engineers. They are formed of thin strands of atomic carbon within plastic resins, layer upon layer, then cured carefully at high temperatures. The resulting composites can be both stronger and lighter than titanium, and it was this combination that caught Rush’s attention. A carbon-fiber Titan could be roughly the same size and weight as the steel Cyclops and yet be able to dive up to 12 times deeper. It would be much cheaper for a support vessel to carry and deploy at sea than a metal sub, and would also be more buoyant, reducing the risk of getting stranded on the ocean floor. While carbon fiber has been used in everything from cars to rockets, no one had ever dived in a deep-water carbon-fiber submersible. Rush wanted to be the first.
In 2013, OceanGate struck up a partnership with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory to develop the new sub. The university has a long history of working with composites and designing its own underwater vehicles. It also already had a relationship with OceanGate, after using its subs for research; the physics lab helped write the software used by Cyclops 1. The university touted the arrangement in press releases at the time: “UW, Local Company Building Innovative Deep-Sea Manned Submarine,” read one headline from October 2013. The story was updated with a note in 2023 saying that “the vessel that resulted from this partnership” was the Cyclops 1. Emails from OceanGate leaked exclusively to WIRED indicate that UW researchers provided hundreds of detailed 3D CAD drawings of components for a carbon-fiber sub between 2013 and 2016, as part of a $5 million contract. But the relationship between the lab and OceanGate was contentious, according to emails.
UW claims that OceanGate and the lab parted ways after just $650,000 worth of work, and former OceanGate employees told WIRED that none of UW’s hardware or software work wound up in the finished sub.
OceanGate also announced that Boeing Research & Technology was helping with the project. In October 2013, two engineers at Boeing, Mark Negley and William Koch, produced a detailed 70-page preliminary design containing renderings, manufacturing advice, and technical analysis. These details of Boeing’s involvement have not been reported before. “Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it,” Jessica Kowal, a spokesperson for Boeing, said in a statement. The company declined to answer on the record any other questions from WIRED. Negley and Koch, who are still employed by Boeing, did not respond to LinkedIn messages.
Even at this early stage, these engineers were warning of potential problems ahead.
Negley and Koch pointed out that although composites can be stronger than any metal, they have other challenges. Carbon fiber can get progressively weaker, sometimes in unexpected ways. The manufacturing process can introduce defects if the resin is cured too long or not long enough, if debris gets in, or if the material is laid or wound unevenly. And the more layers a structure has, the engineers wrote, the greater the risk of a defect that would weaken it. Titan would ultimately have 660 layers of carbon fiber. To mitigate these risks, the Boeing engineers suggested a rigorous quality assurance process during manufacture and ultrasound testing of the hull after it was made. Ultrasound scans could find defects or delaminations in the hull—places where the carbon-fiber layers had separated.
To manufacture the hull, Rush turned to a company called Spencer Composites. First, though, OceanGate needed a scaled-down model of the hull to test how it would fare against the intense pressures at the bottom of the sea. By 2015, according to a design document written by Spencer, OceanGate wanted its hull to be rated up to 6,000 meters and have a safety factor of up to 2.25—meaning that it should be stable to two and a quarter times that depth, or 13,500 meters. James Cameron’s record-setting Deepsea Challenger had a safety factor of 1.36. Alvin, the submersible that originally explored the Titanic, had a 1.8 or higher. (Spencer Composites did not respond to requests for comment.)
In June 2015, just before my trip in Cyclops 1, engineers placed a one-third scale model of Titan in an 8-foot-long testing tank at APL-UW for its first pressure test. This model was built entirely of carbon fiber, including the end domes, which ended up failing at pressures equating to around just 3,000 meters, according to a report written by Rush. OceanGate commissioned Spencer to make more domes, but these would take months to arrive. Meanwhile, the cylinder was tested again, this time with solid aluminum discs on the ends, and reached 4,100 meters without incident. But when OceanGate received the new carbon-fiber domes and tested the hull in March 2016, the new domes again imploded at 3,000 meters.
The test that “scared the shit out of everyone,” in one engineer’s words, was OceanGate’s fourth. This time, the hull (again with aluminum caps) reached the equivalent of 4,500 meters before imploding, giving it a miserly 1.18 safety factor for any dives to Titanic depths.
Photograph: Courtesy of a former OceanGate employee
“Over the next months we will analyze the data in detail … and then run a test with a new cylinder through at least 1,000 cycles to confirm its durability,” Rush wrote to shareholders at the time. That replacement scale model was not made, and the new tests never happened, former employees tell WIRED, in part because Rush trusted OceanGate’s computer models. Even when OceanGate decided to change the domes in the final design from carbon fiber to titanium, Rush didn’t commission models to test the interactions between the new materials; one former employee who was familiar with Rush’s decision says the CEO balked at the high price tag.
“The modeling says it’s OK. The analysis says it’s OK,” one former employee says. “We build airplanes on the same type of analysis and then we go throw people in them.”
But a low-pressure environment, like flying, is different from a high-pressure one. Carbon fiber is inherently stronger when holding pressure in, like what happens with an aircraft in the stratosphere, than when keeping pressure out, as happens underwater. And all cylindrical vessels resist buckling better when the air pressure is higher inside.
Submersible experts not associated with OceanGate told WIRED that they would do much more testing on a new design. “We did at least 10 scale-model pressure hulls that we tested to destruction,” says Adam Wright, an engineer who had worked on explorer Steve Fossett’s 2005 carbon-fiber sub, which was shelved after Fossett died in a plane crash. And that was for a submersible that would only be used for a single mission. OceanGate was planning to use its submersible repeatedly—up to 10,000 times, according to internal design documents.
“Carbon fiber is a very sensible material if it’s been engineered correctly and manufactured in a controlled way,” says Chase Hogoboom, president and cofounder of Composite Energy Technologies, which has successfully tested small carbon-fiber vessels to the equivalent of 6,000 meters hundreds of times. “It takes millions of dollars and many years, but it’s not rocket science. It’s just connecting the dots.”
OceanGate tested the model hull to destruction only once, and never used the titanium components that would become fixtures on the final sub. Instead, the company simply increased the thickness of the carbon-fiber hull in its design specs from 4.5 to 5 inches, and commissioned Spencer to build the real thing. (Later, OceanGate engineers found that Titan’s full-size hull was too thick for portable ultrasonic scanners, and a coating Spencer had applied to it would further block the signals. Rush decided that moving the entire sub to a lab for scanning would be too expensive, says a former employee who was familiar with Rush’s thinking. As a result, no scans were made—going against the advice of both Boeing and OceanGate engineers.)
Unlike Cyclops 1, with its large, 180-degree viewing dome, Titan’s front dome was made of solid titanium, with a smaller 23-inch viewport in the center. The viewport, made from 9-inch-thick acrylic, was an entirely new design by Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s director of engineering, and it was going to be manufactured by a company called Hydrospace Group.
Will Kohnen, Hydrospace’s CEO, told WIRED that he had originally expected Rush to thoroughly test the viewport according to rigorous standards set by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Under those standards, OceanGate would test at least five windows to destruction at high pressure, cycle a viewport from low to high pressure a thousand times, and subject another viewport to five times the intended pressure for 300 consecutive hours to see how much the plastic slowly shrank under pressure, says Kohnen.
“The more innovative you get, the more testing you’ve got to do,” Kohnen says. “Over a period of years, it was pretty obvious that OceanGate wasn’t going to do the testing.” The former employees who spoke to WIRED also said that OceanGate wasn’t testing the viewport to the society’s standards.
By the fall of 2017, Kohnen was getting worried. As a last-ditch effort, in November he sent Rush an email offering “a serious discount” to build a second viewport using a design that had been tested and certified to 4,000 meters. It could be swapped out for the experimental window within 24 hours, he wrote. Kohnen says that Rush told him he wasn’t interested.
Kohnen delivered OceanGate’s viewport in December. He would rate it to only 650 meters—one-sixth of the depth to the Titanic. He also shared an analysis, done pro bono by an independent expert, concluding that OceanGate’s design might fail after only a few 4,000-meter dives. OceanGate nevertheless installed the viewport in Titan later that month. Construction on the sub was almost complete, and the company was already advertising its first expedition to the Titanic in May.
It was time for the engineers to hand it over to OceanGate’s operations team for testing at sea. But there was another snag. David Lochridge, who oversaw marine operations at the company and who needed to sign off on the transfer, became convinced that Titan was unsafe. In January 2018, Lochridge sent Rush a quality-control inspection report detailing 27 issues with the vehicle, from questionable O-ring seals on the domes and missing bolts to flammable materials and more concerns about its carbon-fiber hull. Rush fired him the next day. (Although Lochridge later made a whistleblower report to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about Titan, Rush sued him for breach of contract. The settlement of that lawsuit resulted in Lochridge dropping his complaint, paying OceanGate nearly $10,000, and signing an NDA. Lochridge did not respond to WIRED.)
Will Kohnen also couldn’t forget about Titan, and the foreboding he had about the whole enterprise. “We have a rogue element within the submersible industry,” he remembers thinking. If something went wrong with Titan, it might scare people off deep-sea exploration more widely. In March 2018, he drafted a letter, signed by more than 30 crewed submersible experts, urging Rush to test the vessel with an accredited outside group. (The letter was earlier reported by the New York Times.)
Virtually all marine vessels are certified by organizations such as the American Bureau of Shipping, DNV, or Lloyd’s Register, which ensure that they are built using approved materials and methods and carry appropriate safety gear. It has been widely reported that Rush was dismissive of such certification, but what has not been made public until now is that OceanGate pursued certification with DNV (then known as DNV GL) in 2017—until Rush saw the price. “[DNV] informed me that this was not an easy few thousand dollar project as [it] had presented, but would cost around $50,000,” he later wrote in an email to Rob McCallum, a deep-sea explorer who had also signed Kohnen’s letter.
“Titan and its safety systems are way beyond anything currently in use … I have grown tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation and new entrants from entering their small existing market,” Rush wrote to McCallum. “Since [starting] OceanGate we have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often.”
Days later, Rush received an even more pointed warning from Boeing’s Mark Negley, who had stayed in contact with the CEO after he helped with a preliminary design. Negley had recently carried out an analysis of Spencer Composites’ hull based on information Rush had shared. He did not mince words when sharing his findings, which WIRED is reporting for the first time. “We think you are at a high risk of a significant failure at or before you reach 4,000 meters. We do not think you have any safety margin,” he wrote in an email on March 30. “Be cautious and careful.”
Negley provided a graph charting the strain on the submersible against depth. It shows a skull and crossbones in the region below 4,000 meters.
chart
The chart Mark Negley shared with Stockton Rush
Chart: Courtesy of a former OceanGate employee
Despite repeated warnings, Rush seemed unfazed. His confidence in Titan was based in part on the new safety systems OceanGate had designed. “A lot of risk mitigation was supposed to ride on the real-time health monitoring,” says one former employee. The heart of that system, designed by an experienced electrical engineer and OceanGate board member named Mike Furlotti, was a suite of sensors and microchips that analyzed the hull’s acoustic emissions—the little pops made by carbon fibers as they break under compression. OceanGate’s theory was that the hull would be fairly noisy on its first few dives but would get quieter when taken to the same depths over and over, one former employee explains. If the acoustic monitoring system started getting really loud on a dive, that would be a clear indication to surface immediately. (Multiple attempts to contact Furlotti for comment were unsuccessful.)
Wright and other industry experts have been extremely critical of this setup. “I’m sure you can pick up these acoustic events fine, but you just don’t know when the end point is,” he says. “You don’t know how many pops is too many, and it could be different for every vessel.”
There was even skepticism within OceanGate itself. In September 2017, the engineer responsible for integrating Furlotti’s design into Titan sent an anxious email to management expressing concerns about the system’s ability to accurately track fiber breakage over time.
OceanGate hired an outside consultant named Allen Green to assess the acoustic monitoring. Green, an authority on the sounds that materials make under stress, endorsed the system in 2018. Later, though, when Green saw how Rush was describing the system to the public—the CEO claimed it could detect the sound of “micro-buckling” in the sub’s hull “way before it fails”—he wrote a concerned email to an OceanGate employee, reported here for the first time.
Rather than warning of failure, Green explained that the sounds indicated “irreversible” damage. “It is my belief, substantiated by many years of experience, that composite structures all have a finite lifetime,” wrote Green, who died in 2021. “While I do not intend to be an alarmist, I did not sleep well and arose early to send this message.”
Rush had pitched OceanGate’s board and investors on a grand vision of what his company could be. By 2018, that included a fleet of self-driving Titans that could dive to 6,000 meters, and satellite offices in Croatia, Israel, and the South Pacific. He imagined a world whose oceans were populated by OceanGate’s crewed underwater bases, which could be used for data storage or even “Plan B habitats” for billionaire preppers.
Reality was more prosaic. Like most startups, OceanGate was in constant need of funds. Rush was trying to save money wherever he could. Interns, who made up around a third of the engineering team, were paid as little as $13 an hour. (When a manager pointed out in 2016 that Washington’s minimum wage was just $9.47 an hour, Rush responded, “I agree we are high. $10 seems fair.”) Rush also downgraded the sub’s titanium components from aerospace grade 5 quality to weaker and cheaper grade 3, says one former employee.
According to internal documents, by 2018 the company had raised around $9 million in venture capital and another $4 million from subsidiary companies that profited off OceanGate’s research and scientific missions. But the real business opportunity would be trips to the Titanic.
Rush had planned six missions to visit the legendary shipwreck in the summer of 2018, each with nine people paying $105,000. With every mission bringing in nearly a million dollars in revenue but costing OceanGate only an estimated $333,000, the more visits Titan could make to the bottom of the North Atlantic, the better. Although the plan was for the finished sub to make more than 30 dives in shallow water before going to deeper waters, OceanGate managed just 18.
In mid-April, Titan was transported to Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas, where deep water could be found very close to land. But before Titan was even moved into the water, it was hit by lightning, damaging its electronics. Some of the damaged equipment was replaced, but the sub was without many components for weeks. Rush nevertheless insisted on attempting a shallow dive during high, rolling seas.
Choppy waves ripped fairings and foam from Titan as it was being towed back from the dive site, causing it to sink. “I was merely ‘spam in the can’ with no comms for 9+ hours inside the sub,” Rush wrote the next day. “I could see parts of the sub floating away on my cameras, but could not communicate to the tow team—a remarkably surreal and frustrating experience.”
Rush had to face facts: There was now no chance of OceanGate reaching the Titanic in 2018. Eager ticket holders (and investors) would have to wait another year.
While they were still in the Bahamas, the team did manage to lower Titan on a series of uncrewed dives, eventually reaching 4,000 meters. But engineers found the hull was warping more under compression than it was meant to, by perhaps as much as 37 percent. Nevertheless, Rush wanted to keep diving deeper with Titan, with himself at the helm. When one engineer expressed concern about performing crewed tests at this point, Nissen wrote to him, “Yesterday I told you if you don’t have the stomach for this type of engineering then OceanGate isn’t for you.”
On December 10, Rush successfully dove Titan to a depth of 3,939 meters—just enough to get to the Titanic. Nissen wrote to the engineering team: “Diving to such deep depths is extremely complicated if you want to be untethered, communicate with the surface, be location tracked with reasonable accuracy, and monitor the health of your vehicle. And, we have delivered. You all have a lot to brag about.”
Titan reached a similar depth again in April, with a crew of four including Rush. While OceanGate touted the dive as history-making proof of its submersible’s bona fides, even Rush was getting worried about loud noises the hull was making at depth. Then on June 7, three weeks before Titan’s maiden voyage to the Titanic, an OceanGate pilot inspecting the interior with a flashlight noticed a crack in the hull. He sent Rush an email warning that the crack was “pretty serious.” A detailed internal report later showed that at least 11 square feet of carbon fiber had delaminated—meaning the bonds between layers had separated.
This time, Rush couldn’t ignore the data. The hull that was meant to last for 10,000 dives to the Titanic had made fewer than 50—and only three to 4,000 meters. It would have to be scrapped, and the Titanic missions would be delayed for yet another year. When Rush shared the news with GeekWire a few days later, however, he blamed the delay on legal complications with Titan’s support vessel.
It’s true that OceanGate ran into issues with maritime law, says one former employee: “The lie is that it was not the reason we delayed.”
After the crack was found in Titan’s hull, OceanGate started searching for a new carbon-fiber contractor. By early 2020, many OceanGate engineers had been laid off or had left the company, insiders say. Tony Nissen was out, and a team that had once numbered more than 20 was reduced to just a handful. “Stockton never really wanted an engineering team, but he needed somebody to build it,” says one insider. “We were down to a skeleton team,” says another.
Rush then announced that the company had inked a partnership with NASA to “collaborate on the development, manufacturing, and testing” of a new carbon-fiber cylinder. (Covid-19 had other plans, shutting down NASA for months. Ultimately, the agency told ABC, “NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities.”)
The new hull would instead be made by two aerospace firms in Washington state, Electroimpact and Janicki Industries. Electroimpact laid the carbon fibers, and Janicki cured the material in its ovens, confirmed one former employee. Electroimpact did not provide a response to questions about its role, and Janicki declined to comment.
This time, OceanGate had two scale models made, which were once again tested at the University of Washington. Once again, the models imploded early, possibly due to warping of the hulls during manufacturing, says a former employee.
OceanGate scrambled to solve the issue. One idea: Rather than cure all the layers at once, they would cure the hull in stages. Electroimpact would wind about 100 layers of the hull, then ship it to Janicki to cure and settle. Then Janicki would send the hull back to Electroimpact to repeat the process. They were running out of time, so they went for it—skipping tests of the new procedure on samples and going straight to manufacturing the second hull. “The first time we did multiple cures was when we did the full hull,” says one former employee. The new hull was finished by January 2021. It passed pressure testing, similar to what was done at the University of Washington, but at a facility in Maryland that could accommodate the full-size cylinder.
OceanGate’s engineers now needed to integrate the new hull with the rest of Titan. But Titan’s two titanium domes were still attached to each end of the old hull, sitting on titanium rings glued to the carbon fiber with aerospace-grade epoxy adhesive. Commissioning new titanium interface rings and domes was ruled “an absolute no” by Rush, one former employee says, because of the extra cost and delay. The company that made the original titanium components told WIRED that it did not make new rings for Rush, and three former employees say that OceanGate did, in fact, salvage and reuse the originals.
But staff had difficulty working out how to separate the old hull from the interface rings without damaging even a sliver of titanium. Gaps or bumps could have weakened the join with the new hull, say the sources. On dives, the hull and the rings needed to compress under pressure in perfect harmony. “I can’t imagine a situation where you could reuse the titanium rings,” Wright, the independent engineer, says. OceanGate somehow managed it.
By February 2021, photos of the newly reconstructed Titan were popping up on OceanGate’s Facebook page and other social media. After the implosion in 2023, one ex-employee looked back at these and noticed an unexpected addition: The company had added metal lifting points to both interface rings, apparently to provide a new way to hoist Titan into and out of the water. The addition of the lifting rings, reported by WIRED for the first time, was confirmed by a former employee who saw the engineering drawings, and by another source.
Previously, OceanGate had lifted Titan using a sling beneath the sub to avoid putting stress on the critical joins between the rings and the carbon-fiber hull. As far back as 2017, when the original Titan was first shipped to OceanGate, Nissen had warned the operations team to use only the sling: “The titanium cannot take load/tension.”
“Lifting points are a very serious part of a pressure vessel design and must be considered carefully, tested, and qualified,” says Will Kohnen. “Any lifting arrangement may impose loads and stresses into the pressure vessel, and this must be mitigated by analysis and test.” It is unclear whether such analysis or tests were carried out.
The diving season was about to begin, and after three years of expensive delays, OceanGate desperately needed income from the Titanic missions (whose tickets now cost $125,000 per person). “We were running out of time,” says a former OceanGate employee. Titan had only a few relatively shallow dives in Puget Sound before the company put it on a truck and sent it all the way across Canada to Newfoundland, the port closest to the Titanic wreck.
On July 13, 2021, OceanGate’s Titan made its first successful dive to the Titanic, with Rush serving as the pilot. “We had to overcome tremendous engineering, operational, business, and finally Covid-19 challenges to get here, and I am so proud of this team and grateful for the support of our many partners,” Rush said in a press release.
After the 2021 expedition, OceanGate was flush with success. The company announced plans for the following year’s expedition to document the wreck “in more detail than ever before” and urging “aspiring mission specialists” to get in touch.
The successes and warm media coverage continued in 2022. OceanGate was profiled by CBS Sunday Morning, which accompanied one of the missions that summer. When reporter David Pogue noticed how improvised the setup on the sub was, Rush reassured him. “The pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all, because that’s where we worked with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail, your thrusters can go, your lights can go. You’re still going to be safe.” The rest of Pogue’s mission was sort of a farce—the sub got lost, things broke—but he came back safely.
That’s not what happened the following year. In June 2023, five eager people got ready to dive back down to the Titanic. They were Rush; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a deep-sea explorer; and three paying passengers: a businessman named Hamish Harding and a father-son duo, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. On June 18, they sealed Titan and dove. Within two hours, the support ship had lost contact with them.
Their disappearance set off a media frenzy. People speculated how long the crew might be able survive without power or aid. A massive search-and-rescue operation spent four days combing the sea before finding debris from the sub. The US Navy later confirmed it had detected loud sounds “consistent with an implosion” shortly after contact with Titan ended. OceanGate ceased its commercial and exploration activities a few weeks later.
The US Coast Guard is currently leading an international investigation into the deaths.
Several former employees said they were neither shocked nor surprised at OceanGate’s deadly accident. Three had left the company on safety grounds, and two separately described Titan as a ticking time bomb.
One former employee remembers preparing Titan for multiple successful Titanic missions, prior to 2023. “I put my heart and soul into building that sub,” he says. “Many, many hours inside the sub, outside the sub, building and testing it. She was my baby.”
Each time Titan was about to dip beneath the waves, he would pat her hull lightly. “I’d say, ‘Come on back to me baby, you’ll make it, you can do it.’ And when she’d come back up to the surface, I’d say, ‘Good job. You got everyone back up safe.’”
Until one day, she didn’t.
Now the bottom of the North Atlantic is littered with more evidence of human hubris, tiny pieces of a plastic video-game controller nestling among the barnacle-encrusted gold fixtures of the Titanic. Both vessels were at the cutting edge of technology, both exemplars of safety in the eyes of their overconfident creators. And in both cases, their passengers paid the price.
Know your girl
Ginger Chicken Pizza
fullpizza edited 1
Ingredients
2 tablespoons minced or pressed garlic
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 cups finely chopped scallions, including tops
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cups shredded boned, skinned cooked chicken
3 firm-ripe Roma tomatoes
1 (12 inch) baked pizza crust
1/2 cup pizza or marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
In a 10 to 12 inch nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat, stir garlic, ginger, scallions and oil just until onions are limp, about 5 minutes.
In a bowl, mix soy sauce with chicken.
Rinse and core tomatoes; cut crosswise into 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick slices.
Place pizza crust in a 12 inch pizza pan or on a 14 x 17 inch baking sheet. Spread crust evenly with sauce, then scatter chicken mixture and onion mixture over sauce.
Sprinkle pizza with cheese, and arrange tomato slices evenly over the surface.
Bake in a 350 degrees F oven until cheese is melted and pizza is hot in center, 12 to 15 minutes.
Cut into wedges to serve.
10 Of The Strangest Things Tourists Have Been Advised When Visiting America
by K.J. Adan
When you live in America, you forget that the rest of the world might have a very different vision of life and laws in the United States. Travelers to the U.S. need to consult their nation’s travel advisories just as Americans do when going abroad.
The warnings for the land of the free and the home of the brave may seem a little ridiculous or excessive to Americans. Some are genuinely rooted in legal differences between nations, and some seem inspired by Hollywood misrepresentations of American life. Here are ten advisories that may make you chuckle, take mild offense, or even feel sympathy for people who live elsewhere.
10. Germany warns, “Do not talk to prostitutes.”
Prostitution is legal in parts of Europe, so the German government needed to remind its citizens that even chatting up a working girl can be seen as solicitation. This might be why many Europeans enjoy visiting rural Nevada more than you might expect.
9. Austria says. “Don’t drink the water.”
Yup, that’s for the United States, Not Mexico. Austria does give props for the general safety of consuming American water, but warns it tastes kinda funky. The H2O in the U.S. can taste a little chlorinated. Some regions of the country are definitely worse than others.
8. Switzerland warns: “Don’t pee in the street.”
This has more to do with what Europe views as the States’ draconian laws around public nudity than hygiene, but we’re fine with this advisory. In fact, Switzerland, if you could just come to Manhattan and Portland to tell people this, that’d be great.
7. The Chinese warn: “No cutting!”
Americans take standing politely in line for granted. In China, it’s apparently common to just insert yourself wherever you like in a line. In the U.S., it could lead to “disputes,” as the Chinese government coyly states. Americans know this could range from the cutter’s parentage being insulted right down to getting popped in the mouth.
6. Russia accurately advises not to rely on your cab driver.
This is one instance where Russia has a point. They bluntly inform their citizens that many cabbies in the U.S. are recent immigrants who may not know how to get somewhere any better than they do. Thank God most of us have smartphones with a map app now.
5. GUNS. GUNS EVERYWHERE!!!
Considering the way guns are depicted in movies and the understandable coverage mass shootings get on the news, it’s not very surprising that some other nations imagine America is a hell hole that rains down bullets every second of every day.
The reality is that most Americans live to the ripe old age of cardiac arrest, that guns and gun violence are in every country (legal or not), and the U.S. doesn’t actually have the highest rate of gun deaths in the world. It ranks thirty-first.
4. The Irish are meh about crime, but very concerned about weather.
For every continental European, Canadian, or Aussie fretting about guns, there’s an Irishman who shrugs. In fact, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says, “Crime remains relatively low in the US.”
But WHOA watch out for hurricanes and whatnot! A nation that freezing rain keeps lush and green has not seen the likes of tornadoes and hurricanes in fifty years, which is why Ophelia was so devastating.
3. Austria declares it’s okay to be gay.
The land of edelweiss happily tells travelers not to worry about booking a room for two boys or two girls, or even unmarried straight people. This may seem very quaint to Americans, but it’s a stark reminder that other parts of the world still view these behaviors as crimes.
2. Germany: “Don’t stalk Americans. They hate that.”
What is going on with you, Germany? They warn their travelers that America has laws on the books punishing people for “repeatedly following or repeatedly harassing another person, called ‘stalking’….” Nein means nein, you guys.
And number 1: Germany (again!) advises against being naked in public.
Depending on one’s perspective, Germany sounds like either the scariest place on Earth, or the greatest. They have to tell Germans not to change on the beach, parade around naked, or let kids run around naked, because America has —GASP— laws about that!
They say this also applies to breastfeeding, which is true depending on the area. But it also, with good reason, also applies to public urination, as the previously noted by the Swiss.
Y’all can go pee in your streets all you like, Europe. We’re good with our pee-free, nudity-free thoroughfares and boulevards, danke.
The Dark Side of the Moon | Alien Activity and the NASA Cover-Up
Guys, all people who are arrested and sentenced to prison, must spend an amount of time waiting in jail. The reason for this is simple because (in the United States) the jails and prisons are full, and there is a long waiting list that you have stand in until you can get placed.
In my sorry experience at the ADC, I ended up waiting nine months in jail.
And I will tell you that the jail was better than the ADC prison in certain respects. We didn’t eat that much, but at least the food resembled “normal food”. We had two oreos as a dessert. We ate chicken wings, and hot dogs. We had french fries. While in Prison (well the Arkansas ADC) you ate mashed turnips, boiled okra, and Global.
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Anyways, during that time it was terribly boring. Most of the time was spent in the cell, and we would be able to hang out in the common room to watch some television (WWF wrestling, the local news, and bowling for dollars), and play some cards.
I spent a lot of my time writing. I wrote up a couple of my MM volumes while waiting. All hand written on paper.
And when I was transferred to the ADC and went into “intake” at Pine Bluff, they looked at all the stuff that I left jail with and threw most of it away. You see, it wasn’t “state issue”. The paper, the pencils, and the toothbrushes were not regulation. And so was my writings.
They collected all of them, and together they threw them into the big trash can, and that was that.
You see, once incarcerated, you are nothing.
No. Let me correct, are are below nothing.
And as I entered the old (former) slave plantation to start hard labor, I did so raw. I did so fresh, and I did so with a big empty.
They threw everything away. I was able to keep my glasses.
That was it.
So people, every now and then, we need to be reminded about our place in society; in the world, and in this universe.
And if you are a misfit, then you pack yourself up, and go to somewhere else where you are appreciated. Life is too short to live in a shithole like the United States has become.
May I suggest Thailand.
The land of smiles… where everyone loves you and you are a handsome man, no matter how butt-fuck ugly you actually are.
Default Create a anatomicallyaccurate photo realistic Baroques 2
Today…
Can a judge place an on-duty police officer in jail for contempt of court?
Originally Answered: Can a judge place an on duty police officer in jail for contempt of court?
Oh, yeah. And I’ve got a great example.
My stepfather, at the time a D.C. homicide detective, got home very late from work. Not in itself unusual, it happened from time to time. When I got home shortly after he did, about 9:30, and saw he was just getting dinner, I asked out of interest what kept him, he said he (in jest) he thought he was going to need me to bail him out of jail. So, Dad, what happened?!
Dad and his partner were in court for preliminary/discovery murder hearing. Lots of pretrial stuff. Prosecutor, case file, a couple of crime scene guys, Dad, his partner, defense counsel, . . . But NO DEFENDANT.
The judge queries the defense attorney why the defendant isn’t present. The defense attorney doesn’t know, hasn’t seen or heard from the defendant recently.
The judge rifles through the court file and says the records show that he, the judge, authorized the release of the defendant on a PR ( personal recognizant) bond.
That’s when Dad muttered under his breath he magic words . . . “You idiot.”
The judge orders Dad to come before the bench and tells him to repeat what he said. Dad does so — first lesson of life is always conceded the obvious, and it was obvious to Dad that the judge heard exactly what Dad said.
The judge holds Dad in contempt and orders him held in detention. So Dad is taken to court holding cell area, surrenders his pistol, handcuffs, keys, wallet, cash, belt, shoe laces, and tie. He was placed in a cell by himself, not with several other prisoners waiting for their own hearings.
Hours later, like at the end of a long court day, the judge orders Dad be brought into chambers. The prosecutor is there, Dad’s partner is there, and the defense attorney is there. The judge asked Dad if he had anything to say. I’ll never forget what Dad told me he said: “Yes, your Honor, I do. There was a mistake made. And apparently I made it. I apologize for what I said.”
Dad said the judge acknowledged that PERHAPS he, the judge, had erred when the authorized the defendant’s release on PR bond. The judge accepted Dad’s apology, rescinded the contempt charge, and released Dad.
As Dad and Jimmy left the judge’s chambers, Dad said he muttered again, under his breath, “You’re still an idiot,” and Jimmy shoved him through the door before he got locked up again.
California Pizza
California Pizza
Ingredients
Pizza
1 Boboli or homemade crusxt
California Oil Sauce
Mozzarella cheese, shredded
Marinated artichokes, quartered
Goat cheese, crumbled
Sliced sun-dried tomato strips
Olive oil
California Oil Sauce
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground black peppercorn
Instructions
Pizza
Lightly oil crust with California Oil Sauce.
Top with mozzarella cheese, artichokes, goat cheese and sun-dried tomato strips.
Drizzle with olive oil.
Bake and serve.
California Oil Sauce
Puree all ingredients in blender and store.
USA SENDING SOLDIERS to UKRAINE – greasing the slippery slope to WW3…
What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?
Oh I have a doozy of an answer, so my current career is one in the NHS, in particular an ambulance service, now we are told when training as long as you’re attending a emergency call that providing we drive safely we can effectively break the speed limit if we are on blue lights and sirens because obviously driving to a cardiac arrest at 30mph is probably not the best course of action and the same goes for parking, so long as the vehicle is parked safely and preferably not blocking the road where possible so long as the lights are on we’re good anywhere.
Now, just yesterday I was called up to the Fleet Office at my Base, the Fleet Team are our administrative team, they deal with fuel purchases, ambulance purchases, repairs, accidents and Notices of Intended Prosecution aka parking/speeding/CAZ tickets and they are actually really smart women who I know some of my colleagues look down on because they aren’t paramedics but whatever, some people are just divs. Now the reason for my visit to Fleet? I had got a parking ticket in an ambulance, and they knew my crewmate and I had been on a 999 call and already appealed it last month however the appeal had been rejected, why? Because we didn’t pay for parking in the carpark…yep you read that right.
My crewmate and I looked at each other then back at Becky the girl talking to us, we must have looked confused because she told us she had spoken to the people who had issued the fine, a company called XCel, and they wanted to talk to the driver, me, was I okay with making that call? Um sure? So Becky dials the number and asks to be connected to the person handling this Notice someone called Jack, the call is connected and she tells him she has the driver with her, does he want to speak to me still? Yes he does. His first question, my full name, you can call me Pancake, second question, why had I not paid for parking upon arrival at the car park?
I asked if he knew what vehicle I had been driving and he reels off the registration plate of that ambulance so I asked again do you know what vehicle that registration plate corresponds to? He says yes a yellow Mercedes Sprinter, he’s right it is, I then asked if he had photos of the vehicle, he confirms he does, so I asked if he can see what’s stuck on the side of the vehicle? He says what do you mean? JACK, I was driving an ambulance on a 999 call that day, I tell him.
So? You can’t park anywhere you like, he replies. Yeah he’s right, however I was parked in bay was I not? Yes but you didn’t pay, nope because I was dealing with a woman who had collapsed and gone into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated. If that was your wife, Jack, would you demand the paramedics pay for parking whilst your wife’s life ebbs from her body as your kids stand crying a few feet away? Jack goes very quiet, then asks if it was a serious call? I confirm it was and whilst I was sorry we hadn’t paid £1.50 surely the fact that woman is alive more than makes up for it? She might not be a relative of yours, Jack, but next time who knows and would you like it if this was you or your family? He asks for Becky in a shaky voice and I hand the phone back.
Long story short, fine has been cancelled and Xcel parking suck.
China’s MASSIVE Ocean Project Is About To Change The World!
Very interesting.
What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?
Second-hand story here:
Over 40 years ago I shared a house with a musician buddy who had a long-time girlfriend. Sonja was a stunning brunette who was frighteningly smart and had a sharp sense of humor. She was the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants and had a very good job at a financial firm on 85th floor of what is now the Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower, Chicago, USA).
One day Sonja left her office in the stratosphere and got in an elevator car with two men in business suits at the back. When the doors closed, the two men started trading increasingly lascivious comments about her, what she was wearing, what they would like to do with her, all flagrantly sexist and offensive. They were speaking in Ukrainian and must have thought “what are the odds….?” and that they were “safe”.
Sonja waited until the car stopped, then hit the “STOP” button before the doors could open, and then laid into those two guys for a solid 30 seconds…… in fluent Ukrainian. She then hit the 80th floor button, the Close Door button, and the Emergency buttons in quick succession and stepped out, turning just in time to see the “priceless” look on the faces of the men in the elevator.
Wish I’d been there to see that, but Sonja’s satisfaction in telling the story was a treat.
TIME TO GET OUT OF HERE! (Serious Warning Issued After Fierce Exchange)
Have you ever been glad you were carrying a gun? What happened?
I sure was. I was driving home from work on route 30 eastbound about 4 pm. I was about halfway between the Hellam and the Wrightsville exits. It was a hot day and even though I had a conceal carry permit. I had my Star 9mm BKM lying on the passenger seat because the holster was uncomfortable while sitting. Looking in my rear view mirror I observed 4 cars behind me. The fourth car moved into the left lane and as he passed the third car he slammed into it forcing it onto the shoulder. He continued on and as passing the second car he slammed into it also forcing it to the shoulder. He did the same thing to the car just behind me. As he pulled up beside me. He started over toward me. He was less than a foot from me. I quickly grabbed my pistol from the passenger seat and stuck it out the driver’s window. He immediately moved back into his lane and sped away. I managed to get his license number as he pulled ahead of me. At that time in the early 80’s I didn’t have a cell phone. I got off the Wrightsville exit, went to a pay phone, called the police, and reported the incidence. I was told a few days later by the local police that the driver was caught by the Coatesville, PA. police. It was a stolen car and the driver had mental issues.
I got a vid-call from Taylor233. She looked and sounded excited.“They’ve found another one!”The excitement was contagious; I felt my heart-rate shoot up.“What condition?”“Pretty good! It was in a vac-pac.”I was already mentally rearranging my schedule so that I could make it along to the biblioteque asap.“Have they got anyone on it?” I asked, trying to keep the euphoria out of my voice.“I think Harris115 might have applied,” Taylor233 said, her tone consolatory.“We’ll see about that!” I said and hung up, immediately embarrassed at not thanking her for the information.I punched a code into the vid-fon. Harris115’s face appeared on the screen.“So you’ve heard?” he said.
“Yes. And I’ve also heard that you’re going for it.”
“Absolutely!”
I smiled at his wild enthusiasm, knowing that it was a bubble I was about to burst.
“You’ll remember, though…” I paused to allow him to connect the dots.
“No!” he exclaimed, his hopes crushed.
“It’s what we agreed. You’d get the Dickens and I’d get … whatever this one is.”
“But maybe–” he began. I cut him off.
“A deal’s a deal, Harris.”
His shoulders sagged visibly.
“All right, I’ll withdraw,” he mumbled.
Pausing only to tell the robo-sec to cancel all my appointments, I packed up my compu and rushed out of the office, making the biblioteque in record time, despite the midday congestion in the corridors. For me, lunch would have to wait.
I caught the Director just as she was leaving. She kindly agreed to a brief meeting, in which I laid out my credentials – not for the first time. She must have been convinced by them and my earnestness because she signed there and then the access digi-form. I made a point of thanking her profusely (you never know when being on good terms with the high-ups might come in useful). Then I made straight for the biblioteque lab.
Barber842 was on duty. We get on well together, so he smiled when he saw me.
“Word gets round quick!” he joked.
“It does! So tell me – what have we got?”
He led me through to the inner room, bathed as usual in filtered light. And there it was, lying in the middle of the steel table.
“The robo-scavs found it yesterday,” he whispered; this particular room always engenders hush. “It was concealed under rubble and a reinforced-concrete beam – on its own, I’m afraid. Whoever left it had the presence of mind to place it in a vac-pac.”
I nodded, disappointed at there being only one, but eager to get on with the job.
“You’ve geigered it, I suppose?”
“Of course! The box was saturated, but the artefact’s clean.”
“No radiation at all?”
“Tiny traces, but harmless.”
I rubbed my hands together.
“So, can I get started?”
“You’re keen, aren’t you?! I’ll get you a kit.”
I sat down at the table and looked longingly at the orange and cream object of … yes, my desire.
Barber842 returned with the treatment kit.
“It’s all yours,” he said, patting me on the shoulder and retiring.
…
And so here I am.
I boot up my compu and take some bio-plas gloves from the kit, along with a pair of fine tweezers. This moment is delicious: observing and wondering where to begin.
“From the beginning, I suppose,” I giggle; I feel like a young child.
My first move is to smell it. There’s nothing that quite matches this sensation. I don’t have references to liken it to other smells, but it’s unique … or rather, it’s similar to the other three I’ve had the privilege to handle, but unlike anything else in this confined world.
I spend several minutes on this act, such is the pleasure I derive from it. While I inhale the intoxicating scent, I register the seemingly incompatible sadness I feel: that this would have been one of millions – no, billions – incinerated in no time at all. I bemoan the simultaneous frying of systems, destroying digital copies. And I rage silently at the lack of foresight of engineers, who had designed and produced back-up systems for functional operations – we wouldn’t be here otherwise – but had failed to provide protection for cultural heritage.
The scent pulls me out of the bitterness and returns me to the task at hand. I sit up straight and regard the cover: that orange and cream – which was probably once white – and a word that stands out: Lover.
Love. A thing I’ve heard of, naturally, but have never experienced – as far as I know. I’m sure, though, that it’s a positive thing. I follow some simple logic: if a person who teaches is a teacher, and a person who writes is a writer, then a ‘lover’ must be a person who loves. For some reason, this little exercise warms my inside and I feel myself smiling.
The Director has entrusted me with an important task, though, and I force myself to concentrate. I have to read, analyse, and rate, then recommend – or not – that this artefact be placed in the biblioteque itself, along with the almost one hundred companions which have gone through the same process. Others have been destroyed after analysis – a fact which pains me – because of their apparently subversive nature. ‘Subversive’ is a subjective notion, I’d say … though never aloud.
I take the tweezers, pinch the side of the cover, lift it. And here again I spend several minutes inhaling the scent of the inside, which is even more exhilarating than before.
The first few pages I turn very gingerly – they’re extremely frail and flake a little under the pressure of the tweezers. Later, if recommended, it’ll be treated to make it more resilient. There’s important information on these pages, most notably the date: 1960. I shake my head in wonder at the vastness of time between then and now, and if anything, I proceed with even more reverential care.
Then I get to the first page proper, and I have to sit back and pause; I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I can see the block of text waiting for me to consume it, but it’s out of focus for the moment. I must be ready. This is a momentous occasion, and I cannot rush into it, however much I’d like to.
…
I’ve relaxed enough. I’m breathing relatively normally. I lean forward.
Parts of the first paragraph hit me like a hammer:
The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes.
It appears to be speaking of these times. How can it be? It feels like magic. And then:
We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
I feel dizzy with the striking voice speaking to me from distant times. And my heart races as I read on, impatient now to find out who the person of the title is.
This Lady Chatterley, who has a lover.
Russia Retaliates. Russian Warships heading to south of Florida, move into the Caribbean
How do you tell whether someone is a good person or is just faking it?
By listening carefully and paying attention!!
I had a friend who was constantly blathering on on her Facebook and Instagram accounts about good energy, paying things forward, saving the rhino, etc. etc. You know the type.
I enjoyed her company, although she enjoyed talking about herself too much for my tastes, but I believed she had a good heart and was in need of a friend. She didn’t seem to have many so I did what I could as a good listener.
But the more I listened the more I heard about the injustices she had suffered, money issues (she was obsessive about money and never seemed to have enough yet I put this down to insecurity), how no one invited her anywhere, etc., etc.
Fast forward a couple of months and there was a an elderly man we would run into during our walks at lunch hour. I truly enjoyed talking to him, he was very nice and had interesting things to say so I always tried to give him some time on our walks.
One day, however, my friend stated that she didn’t like talking to him. That he was old and boring. I stated that it may be the highlight of his day to talk to us as he probably doesn’t get out much and he was so nice, what was the harm. I’ll never forget her reply,
“Well, I’m not being nice to anyone unless I want something from them!”
That shocked me so much my head snapped back and I finally understood why she was lonely. On the cover she ticked all the boxes of good energy, spirituality, giving back, etc. But the truth was, she didn’t give a shit about anyone but herself.
And that, my friends, was the end of our friendship. So listen up and pay attention, not just to what people say but how they behave.
Does China have a Tipping culture?
In many ancient texts, labourers known as 小二/”little twos” who worked at tea houses and inns were given gratuities by the upper classes. Some of these young men were described as grovelling before their wealthier patrons, in the hopes of having a few extra copper coins dropped at their feet.
That said, it is believed that tipping did not exist as a social convention in China at the time. It was mostly done to flaunt one’s wealth (i.e. “flex”).
Tipping as a culture was only introduced to China during the late Qing/early Minguo era, first existing in foreign-occupied territories such as Shanghai. Restaurant owners supported such a custom, as they could get away with paying their workers way less.
The “little twos” were expected to make their living by bothering the patrons. If the patrons refused to tip, their servers would decline to provide any further service, or harass them (e.g. blocking the door, spilling tea on their clothes) until they were tipped. Quarrels and fights over tips were a common sight.
As the fights were beginning to affect business, restaurant owners came up with a new strategy: a mandatory 10% “service charge”(加一服務費) along with the bill. In theory this extra 10% would go to the servers, but in reality the owners would keep most of it for themselves.
To counteract the tip-theft, many servers resorted to “tip-shaming” their patrons. As a patron paid for his meal and the 10% service charge, the server would shout out how much tips they received. On the surface this was to prove they weren’t pocketing any extra money, but in truth this was to shame the patrons into tipping just a bit more under the table.
And if the patron didn’t get the message the first time, the server would find ways to make his life more difficult than it had to be.
Tipping was banned after the communists came to power in the mainland, as it was considered exploitative and degrading to both the patrons and the servers. Instead, restaurant workers are now expected to be paid a fair wage for their labour. Tipping a server in modern day China would bring back ugly memories of the past, and would be seen as an insult.
In Hong Kong, however, tipping culture still exists. Most restaurants here still charge you an extra 10% for “service”, even self-service restaurants. It is an open secret that most restaurant owners simply pocket that money, but there appears to be no law against this sort of thing, and the locals just go along with it.
2 tablespoons Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup shredded fresh basil
Instructions
Heat well-oiled cast-iron or nonstick 10 or 12 inch frying pan over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Divide dough in half; roll one half into round 1 inch smaller than diameter of pan.
Cook dough in hot pan until dough begins to rise and bottom starts to brown. Using metal spatula, turn carefully. Layer half the tomato slices over dough; scatter half the mozzarella over top. Lower heat to medium-low; cook until mozzarella melts.
Using metal spatula, transfer pizza to cutting board. Sprinkle with salt; drizzle with half the olive oil.
Cut into wedges; sprinkle half the basil over top.
Repeat with remaining ingredients.
DOWNTOWN Los Angeles COLLAPSED
What should you never buy in life?
Latest iPhones every year.
Amazon prime subscription if you want movies and shows. (Completely useless, has got nothing)
Vixen, brazzer , tushy or blacked subscription.(Everything latest is available on pirate bay)
Regular shampoos available in supermarkets. ( Go for sulphate and paraben free ones, like skin elements or mama earth)
Head n shoulders to get rid of dandruff. (Use neutrogena T Gel, expensive but 100% effective)
Stop buying anything blindly that your favourite YouTubers suggest. Those guys are fucking paid. ( Like nowadays WOW company has been doing)
Never buy something (clothes or accessories) just because it’s currently the latest fashion trend. They are usually costly and would become completely obsolete after few years eg. Tiger printed at the back of a leather jacket or Knee ripped jeans or some cool ass funky sunglasses. Always remember.. stick to basics. Wayfarers and Aviators always look good and will always remain in the scene even after 50 years.
Please don’t buy a Siberian Husky if you live in a place where tropical climate prevails. These breeds cannot endure Indian climate. They have a thick coat of fur that withstands cold upto -40 degree Celsius, imagine their condition if they have to survive at 35–40 degree Celsius.
Fairness creams. Come on man if you could become fair by just applying a cream then there would have not been any brown or black skin people.
And the biggest thing is please don’t buy Bollywood’s attempt to clean up Sanjay Dutt’s image through the film Sanju. Ak56 is a weapon that can’t be obtained easily. This is a highly sophisticated weapon which can never get into a normal citizen’s hands. He is a criminal and would always remain a criminal.
What happened to your school bully?
I’ve had a couple of bullies in my day. However, there is one in particular who really stands out to this day. I was attending a school where my father was a custodian. My father would of course be the one to open up the school doors every morning and because of that, my siblings and I would be the first children in the building everyday. He made sure all of the classrooms were unlocked for the teachers, made sure the cafeteria tables were set up for breakfast time and other things to have the school setup for opening at 8 am for students. Every grade had a certain section in the school where they would line up and wait for their teachers to get them and walk to class. I was in 5th grade, so the 5th and 6th grade classes lined up in the gym, because that was our designated area. Now within the gym, there were labels on the gym floor for each class. Being that I was always in the school before the rest of the students, I would always be the first in line for our class spot. Well, on this particular day, a girl named Angela thought it would be funny to do something that she was dared to. As I was standing in line, minding my business, a swift open handed arm extended slap from the pits of hell came out of nowhere from behind me, and burned the heck out of my face. In shock, I turned around while holding the right side of my face and asked her why she slapped me. Meanwhile, the boy I had a huge crush on was laughing like a dang hyena. The bully proceeds to say “ Because you’re always first on line and you think you’re better than all of us because your dad works here”. When I tell you I thought that was the most idiotic reason to get slapped, that was the most idiotic reason! At the time I was so shy and wasn’t a fighter, so I immediately ran off crying trying to find my dad. I ended up finding him and told him what happened. He was furious and began walking so fast and asked if I slapped her back. Of course I said no, and he was infuriated. We walked back to the gym and he immediately told the girl to keep her hands to herself and that the next time she put her hands on me, that it wouldn’t be good. Now, I don’t know what that meant, but she didn’t bother me for the rest of the school year. Where she is to this day, I have no clue, and honestly don’t care. She was such a bully to other kids and I really disliked her. A memory I would give anything to erase!
CIA Classified Book about the Pole Shift, Mass Extinctions and The True Adam & Eve Story
I had an uncle, on my mother’s side of the family. His name was “Sonny” and he married my mother’s kid sister. And he was a raging alcoholic.
We were constantly visiting my auntie’s home, to find it broken and destroyed by a lunatic Sonny who had destroyed everything, and had terrorized his two daughters to no end.
It was a battle that our family dealt with throughout the 1960’s into the 1970’s. Just nasty non-stop grief.
Not my family, but it was something like this
Now, being much older, I can see that his abuse of my cousins in the 1960s affected them in such a way that suggested some sexual abuse, that of course, no one dare talk about. But the actions of my cousins while they were in their early teen years certainly suggests a weak parental figure.
My auntie divorced him sometime in the middle 1970’s, but he still orbited in our lives as he was, after all, the father of the girls.
He would come to family events; get togethers, picnics, weddings, and banquets… and “lose it”. Just eventually having to have the male men in the family haul him away or get the local police involved.
At one wedding banquet, which was on the second floor of a hotel, he picked up my uncle “Robert” and threw him off the rail into the pool. Oh, Lordy! Such a scene. I’ll tell you what.
But it was the early 1970’s and I was still a kid.
Kid life
My auntie still had a roller-coaster life, and married a wealthy dentist who ended up buying and selling companies for a living. They owned a ranch and had a couple of horses. The daughters got married and moved on.
The one daughter, was a favorite of mine. She was only two years younger than me. She was doing well in Florida and all was good. Unfortunately she got COVID19 and died. I’ll tell you what, it broke my heart. RIP sweety.
The other daughter has had a stormy life. From being a “working girl” (if you know what I mean) to marring a man who ended up robbing a bank, and spending 15 years behind bars. *sigh*.
Yeah.
So he asked to borrow my aunties car. Robs a bank with it, then hides the car in another aunties garage.
Such drama!
Non-stop drama.
You don’t want drama in your life people!
If you find someone who is broken, or who has issues or problems, think long and hard before you want to take on their responsibilities. It will create quite the tumultuous life…
Instead, I suggest moving to Jamaica and living on the beach. You’ll be far better off.
Rasta man
Today…
Why do many people think that the Chinese don’t yet know that their president is a dictator?
Many people are ignorant bigots.
The Chinese know exactly what kind of government they have. It’s not a dictatorship. It’s a uniquely Chinese form of democracy that actually works in the best interest of the Chinese.
Nobody is suggesting that Chinese democracy would work for other countries. It’s entirely up to other countries to decide how they want to be governed.
It is enough that the Chinese like their system. The following shows you how they think, especially in comparison to the Americans and British…
According to 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗮’𝘀 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘅 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰, 79% of Chinese believe their nation is democratic while only 57% of Americans and 55% of British do.
Another example, according to the 𝗘𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰, 85% of Chinese trust their government while only 40% of Americans and 30% of British do.
Another example, according to the 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯, 76% of Chinese trust their politicians while only 29% of Americans and 20% of British do.
Another example, according to 𝗜𝗽𝘀𝗼𝘀’ 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯, 91% of Chinese are happy with their life while only 76% of Americans and 70% of British are.
Another example, according to 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗞𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗱𝘆 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬, 95.5% of Chinese are satisfied with their government.
Another example, according to 𝗜𝗽𝘀𝗼𝘀’ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿, 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟵, 95% of Chinese believe their country is on the right track and moving in the right direction while only 41% of Americans and 23% of British do.
Another example, according to 𝗮 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟵 𝗨𝗖 𝗦𝗮𝗻 𝗗𝗶𝗲𝗴𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆, 80% of Chinese are happy and enjoy financial security.
I’ve gone back 5 years but I could go further back if you like.
Why Russia Loves Cats
French Bread Taco Pizza
Take your favorite taco ingredients, and layer them up on French bread. So easy and tasty, too!
67881t1
Prep: 20 min | Total: 30 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 loaf French bread
1/2 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons Old El Paso™ taco seasoning mix (from 1 ounce package)
Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Line large cookie sheet with foil.
Cut bread in half lengthwise, then in half crosswise. Place on cookie sheet, cut sides up.
Place in oven to lightly toast, about 5 minutes.
In 6 inch skillet, cook beef over medium-high heat until brown, stirring frequently; drain.
Add taco seasoning mix and water; cook until thickened.
Spread refried beans over toasted bread.
Top with beef mixture, bell pepper, onion and cheese.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Top with lettuce and tomato.
Notes
For a quick and easy dinner, cook the ground beef mixture ahead, and refrigerate. Then all you have to do at serving time is top the French bread, and bake.
"There is a saying I learned in Spanish, and the English translation is: 'People confuse being good with being a fool.'
What that means with respect to Russia is the West has interpreted Russia's patience and tolerance up to this point with outrageous actions (on the part of the West) as a sign of weakness (on the part of Russia).
That's a potentially fatal mistake.
Both President Putin, Foreign Minister Lavrov, and Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov have said the same thing this week.
It is not just a coincidence that they've made those statements—it's a coordinated message that they're sending to the rest of the world that they’re not going to take it anymore.
The United States and the West are now on notice that any further attacks inside Russia are going to be met with a response.
Some of the options Russia has, and I don't know if they're going to pursue these, but just let me lay out a couple of options they have:
They could supply more advanced missiles and rockets to insurgent groups fighting ISIS and U.S.-backed forces in Syria and could strike U.S. military bases or the bases of those entities in the Kurdish region that the United States is supporting.
They could also help the Houthis not only with improved weaponry that could actually take out a U.S. ship, but also provide intelligence that could be used, doing the same thing for the Houthis that the United States is doing for Ukraine.
Now, Russia recognizes that it’s moving steadfastly forward in its campaign to demilitarize Ukraine—denazify Ukraine—and they recognize that in the process, they’re weakening NATO.
Yet, what does NATO do in response? They’ve issued statements this week about preparing for their ground troops to fight Russia on the ground.
They're crazy.
This is madness—absolute insanity being talked about by people that you think would have more sense, but they obviously don't.
I'll put it very clearly: the United States and NATO, if they decide to enter a ground war with Russia, will lose badly.
It may end up with the complete destruction of Europe.
Europeans need to sit down and count the cost—is it worth it?
Because Russia's not seeking to conquer Europe; Russia's seeking to have its national territory respected and not have to face, every year as has been the case for the last 16 years, NATO and the United States conducting military exercises on the borders of Russia.
When you're sitting there as a Russian looking at it, you see these as hostile and intended to come after you.
Given Russia’s history, where they’ve been invaded from the West four times over the last 212 years, they're not sitting back ignoring that—they’re taking it seriously.
These are continued provocations by the West. There’s no justification for it.
The West keeps coming up with justifications, trying to portray Russia as this country trying to recreate its 'empire.'
We talked about this before in our previous discussions.
Name me all of the colonies that Russia established in Africa—none.
It was Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands that were establishing colonies and exploiting the people in Africa. Same thing in Asia.
Vietnam was under French control, and one of the reasons the United States initially got involved with Vietnam was more to try to help preserve French influence, not to free the people from communism.
That was the big lie.
The U.S. is trying to use the same playbook both with respect to China and to Russia, portraying them as these authoritarian societies hellbent on conquering the world.
It’s a lie.
It's the West that has been involved in unrelenting wars over the last 70 years around the world, killing millions of people in countries such as those in Africa, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
It has to stop.
That's what you're seeing coming from the Russians—they're saying it’s going to stop.
They’re not going to sit back and be a punching bag.
With this feeble-minded president heading up the United States, it’s quite clear to the world that the United States is being led by an incompetent."
Excerpt from remarks by Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst and U.S. State Department employee, in an interview with Nima R. Alkhorshid, June 9, 2024.
Starbucks in CHINA is BIGGER & BETTER (They Even Have Alcohol)
What’s a red flag that you ignored in a significant other, only to realize it was a big deal later?
On our 3rd date, I asked my favorite question at this point in a new relationship: “If you could be or do anything in the world you wanted—age or training not an issue—what would you be or do?”
I had asked this question several times, and was always fascinated by how it was received. Some had never asked themselves this question, much less be asked by someone else; a few couldn’t even wrap their heads around the question. This fellow was stunned and was quiet for a long time. Then he gave an astounding answer:
An unemployed prince.
He went on to explain why: A prince has plenty of money to pursue his own interests, princes get to travel and meet lots of new people, they have no major decisions to make, and princes get to dress well. I asked about the “unemployed” part: most princes don’t have any official duties, especially if not in line for the throne (and he didn’t want to be a prince in line for the throne).
I found his answer charming. Clearly, this was an imaginative individual to be able to think so far outside of the box, and it supported how much I was enjoying his differing perspectives on movies, music, and art. He had established his own business that was successful (I worked in the security of corporate) in the creative advertising/publishing field. He was great fun and a delightful companion, a treat from my previous husband, while seeming to share many of the same values on the important items.
Arm in arm, we headed down life’s path; dated, moved in together, married, then started a family. Life was good; if as busy and as stressful as any family of two young children, two careers, and two aging parents can be. Then our paths diverged.
When the youngest was 3, he closed the business, got his real estate license and “worked” not earning a dime. Bills to pay and full-time parenting two opinionated, busy kids weren’t near as much fun as pursuing one’s own interests. Struggling with it all, I could not understand how the same individual who professed to want what we had could also not do the everyday work that was required to keep it all going.
Then I remembered his answer on our 3rd date. As Maya Angelou said: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Mexico’s New President is a “Nightmare for the Right”
Why do military analysts insist that Russia would steamroll NATO despite their inability to defeat Ukraine?
Heard of the Vietnam War?
Now, how did a war in Vietnam cause Laos, a neutral country in the conflict, to become one of the most bombed nations in the history of warfare?
American munitions dropped half a century ago continue to maim and kill Laotians today.
Answer that, and one will be more than halfway through the answer for the question posed.
In a conflict escalation, the rules flip. Supply lines will be targeted. Long range sensor support will be targeted. Foreign airfields from which flights originate will be targeted. Belarus may open a second front. Tactical nukes will enter the battlefield.
Russia has mobilized over a million men, NATO hasn’t.
Russians see this conflict as an existential threat to the Russian nation. NATO doesn’t.
Russians have give the mandate to Putin to pursue victory. NATO haven’t.
It is a question of attitudes—which side has the resolve and grasp of reality.
The West does not need to fight Russia, whereas Russia has no choice but to fight the West.
As Sun Tzu said, “know yourself and your enemy, and you will not lose in a hundred battles”.
Gen Z Is Finally Paying Taxes And They Are Pissed
Have you ever witnessed something you believed was supernatural?
My father died in 1982 when I was 8. I was an only child and I was ‘daddy’s girl’. His death wasn’t sudden-as he was diagnosed with cancer in June and had passed away in November. Even at an early age I knew the permanency of death. My great grandmother died a year prior to his passing and my grandmother passed away in June of 1982. I was in school when my dad died that morning. I was using the restroom and when I turned to open the stall door, I caught a whiff of Aqua Velva (for those who don’t know- it was a popular aftershave in the 70s and 80s and it has a very DISTINCT odor). Well, that is what my dad wore. And I loved the smell of his cheeks! So when I caught that distinct odor I was expecting to see him outside the girls’ bathroom. I walked out and didn’t see him. So I walked down the hallway hoping he was looking for me. When I finally went back to class, my teacher called me up to her desk and informed me that I had been gone for about 15 minutes and she said it is 9:55, you left here at 9:40. I went back to my desk and tried to focus on school. I kept thinking about smelling that odor. At 10:30 my mom came to the classroom and my teacher went out to speak with her. After a while my teacher came in and quietly got my coat and lunchbox and walked me out into the hallway. I didn’t say anything to my mom and when we got to the stairway landing, I asked if daddy had died. She turned and stooped down to my eye level and with tears in her eyes quietly said yes. I asked her when he died. And she replied at 9:45. I truly believe that he wanted to let me know that he was there in that bathroom and it was his time to go. Every so often I will catch a whiff of Aqua Velva for just a slight second and I would like to think that it’s dad checking in on me.
Russian Naval Group off Melbourne, Florida Coastline!
The Russian Navy has a grouping of warships off the east coast of Florida, between Melbourne and Vero Beach.
One of the vessels involved is a Russian nuclear submarine (FILE PHOTO – Not actual image from Florida):
Russia Sub Kazan
That submarine is being tracked by a US Navy P-8 “Poseidon” Sub-Hunter (FILE PHOTO: – Not taken over Florida)
P 8 Poseidon Sub Hunter
While these vessels from the Russian Navy are hanging out off Florida, the Russian Navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov – capable of carrying Zircon hypersonic missiles, arrives in Havana:
Russian Frigate Havana
Hal Turner Remarks:
Just so all of you grasp what’s taking place here, the United States and our NATO vassals, are making more and more trouble for Russia, inside Ukraine.
So now Russia is demonstrating to us they can make trouble for us . . . . HERE . . . . inside the United States.
While what __we__ are doing in Ukraine is causing the actual deaths of Russian soldiers, Russia has not —- yet —- decided to bring death to OUR people. Notice I said “yet.”
This is what the US Congress and the US President are causing. While THEY play “the sport of Kings (war” in Ukraine, we the American people are the ones they are endangering HERE, inside our own country.
If we get attacked here, inside America, by Russian forces, the sole and exclusive BLAME rests on members of the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and the present illegitimate occupant of the Presidency.
They have been warned over and over again by Russia, to stop what they’re doing. Yet Congress not only ignores the warnings, they up-the-ante and do even worse things. Sooner or later, once the Russians have had enough, they’re going to show us that they are as powerful – if not more – than we are.
Remember that when you see your member of Congress slithering out from a nuclear bunker after it’s all over . . . . and hold them accountable right then and there.
Douglas Macgregor Exposes: “Russia Unveils New Hypersonic Missile, threaten to U.S & NATO”
Nizhny Novgorod hosted the BRICS Council of Foreign Ministers in its new enlarged format. A Joint Statement will be issued.
According to the MFA’s website, Lavrov met on the sidelines with all BRICS+ FMs and many from invited nations like Laos and Thailand. We’ll begin with Lavrov’s opening remarks:
Dear colleagues and friends,
I would like to open our meeting with a minute of silence in memory of the untimely departed President of Iran Sayrahmad Raisi and our colleague Khalid Amirabdollahian, and once again offer my deepest condolences to the people of Iran and the families of the victims. I ask everyone to stand up.
***
Dear Colleagues,
We are glad to welcome you to one of the oldest cities in Russia, in Nizhny Novgorod, the history of which dates back more than 800 years. Today’s meeting will certainly leave a special mark not only in the annals of the city’s leading international events, but also in the BRICS itself. For the first time, a meeting of the heads of the foreign affairs agencies of the association is being held in a new expanded format.
The expansion of BRICS is a clear confirmation of the process of formation of a multipolar world order. New centers of globally significant political decision-making are emerging from among the states of the Global South and East, from the states of the World Majority. These countries are in favour of a more just way of life based on the sovereign equality of States and the diversity of civilizations.
The transition to a new world order (we have already seen this) will take a whole historical era and will be thorny. The United States and its allies do not abandon their attempts to maintain their elusive dominance and slow down the objective processes of the formation of multipolarity. At the same time, they are using economic instruments as a weapon – through sanctions pressure and financial blackmail, they are trying to influence the choice of development models and trading partners by sovereign states. The West does not shy away from forceful methods. Examples are known to everyone: Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine and a number of other countries. And this is just the “tip of the iceberg”.
Recent international events have “thrown off the masks” from those who have hitherto claimed almost the exclusive right to define “universal values” under the guise of a “rules-based order.” Supporters of this concept are trying to impose norms and mechanisms of interaction that are beneficial only to them, to replace equal and honest dialogue with narrow coalitions that act behind closed doors and arrogate to themselves the right to speak and act on behalf of the whole world.
Russia, like the countries of the world majority, stands for a fairer world order based on the sovereign equality of states and taking into account the balance of forces and interests. Together, we aim to promote a future-oriented constructive international agenda. An important task in this context is to strengthen the role of interstate formats that advocate collective approaches to international development.
BRICS is one of those associations where the principles of equal cooperation are implemented in deeds, not in words: mutual respect, openness, pragmatism, solidarity, continuity and, of course, consensus. I am convinced that BRICS is driven forward by the wind of change, because its role in solving global problems will only increase. This is also confirmed by the steady growth in the number of countries showing genuine interest in joining the work of our association. In this context, we expect productive discussions at a separate session today with the participation of a number of like-minded BRICS countries.
Dear Colleagues,
Russia’s chairmanship is increasing momentum. About 70 events have already taken place, and more are to be held. We note the constructive participation of all partners in them. Work has begun on key Russian initiatives in the transport sector, the creation of the Contact Group on Climate and Sustainable Development, the Working Group on Nuclear Medicine, and the Medical Association.
Active work is underway to implement the decisions of the Johannesburg Summit in 2023, in particular, in terms of improving the international monetary and financial system and developing a platform for settlements in national currencies in mutual trade. In accordance with the instructions of the leaders at the Johannesburg summit, we are paying special attention to coordinating the modalities of establishing the category of partner states of the association.
We have an extensive agenda. It raises issues that will directly affect the future world order and the formation of its fair foundations. [My Emphasis]
A great deal has occurred under BRICS auspices before and during SPIEF as this news roster with links in English details. Pepe Escobar’s “The Three Key Messages From St. Petersburg to the Global Majority” is a very link heavy report published today in SputnikGlobe. Here are what Pepe describes as Putin’s three main messages:
Message Number One:
President Putin, a “European Russian” and true son of this dazzling, dynamic historic marvel by the Neva, delivered an extremely detailed one-hour speech on the Russian economy at the forum’s plenary session.
The key takeaway: as the collective West launched total economic war against Russia, the civilization-state turned it around and positioned itself as the world’s 4th largest economy by purchasing power parity (PPP).
Putin showed how Russia still carries the potential to launch no less than nine sweeping – global – structural changes, an all-out drive involving the federal, regional, and municipal spheres.
Everything is in play – from global trade and the labor market to digital platforms, modern technologies, strengthening small and medium-sized businesses and exploring the still untapped, phenomenal potential of Russia’s regions.
What was made perfectly clear is how Russia managed to reposition itself beyond sidestepping the – illegitimate – sanctions tsunami to establishing a solid, diversified system oriented towards global trade – and completely linked to the expansion of BRICS. Russia-friendly states already account for three-quarters of Moscow’s trade turnover.
Putin’s emphasis on the Global Majority’s accelerated drive to strengthen sovereignty was directly linked to the collective West doing its best – rather, worst – to undermine trust in their own payment infrastructure.
And that leads us to…
Glazyev and Dilma rock the boat.
Message Number Two:
That was arguably the major breakthrough in St. Petersburg. Putin stated how the BRICS are working on their own payment infrastructure, independent from pressure/sanctions by the collective West.
Putin had a special meeting with Dilma Rousseff, president of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). They did talk in detail about the bank’s development – and most of all, as later confirmed by Rousseff, about The Unit, whose lineaments were first revealed exclusively by Sputnik: an apolitical, transactional form of cross-border payments, anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%).
The day after meeting Putin, president Dilma had an even more crucial meeting at 10 am in a private room at SPIEF with Sergey Glazyev, the Minister for Macro-Economy at the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Glazyev, who had previously provided full academic backing to the Unit concept, explained all the details to President Dilma. They were both extremely pleased with the meeting. A beaming Rousseff revealed that she had already discussed The Unit with Putin. It was agreed there will be a special conference at the NDB in Shanghai on The Unit in September.
This means the new payment system has every chance to be at the table during the BRICS summit in October in Kazan, and be adopted by the current BRICS 10 and the near future, expanded BRICS+.
Now to…
Message Number Three:
It had to be, of course, about BRICS – which everyone, Putin included, stressed will be significantly expanded. The quality of the BRICS-related sessions in St. Petersburg demonstrated how the Global Majority is now facing a unique historical juncture – with a real possibility for the first time in the last 250 years to go all-out for a structural change of the world-system.
It was confirmed in St. Petersburg that no less than 59 nations – and counting – plan to join not only BRICS but also the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
No wonder: these multilateral organizations now finally have established themselves on the forefront of the drive towards the multimodal (italics mine) – and to quote Putin in his address – “harmonic multipolar world”.
The above is only about half of Pepe’s report; click the link for more. Pepe also links to the session he was directly involved with at his Telegram and the speeches others gave besides himself.
More on the BRICS+ meeting will be presented tomorrow along with the Joint Statement. Readers should know there are two BRICS TV stations online, Russian and English, with both having dropdown menus for Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese.
Has a member of the U.S. military ever died as the direct result of a seemingly harmless order given to them as punishment or hazing?
Happens all the time. When I was at airborne school at Ft. Benning in the summer of 1992, a female ROTC cadet in my squad who told me on the first day she was into triathlons and on a “low-salt diet” collapsed at the end of rather mild training day on the last day of Ground Week. It was hot and humid, as is typical in summertime in Columbus, Georgia, but we were on the last day of Ground Week, which meant it wasn’t that physically intense. However, she succumbed to the rigors of the training and climate — many arrive at Ft. Benning without being acclimatized to the heat and humidity — and practically collapsed. Our Black Hat instructor ordered her to sit done on the side of the sawdust pit and “drink more water” while the rest of the squad continued practicing PLFs (Parachute Landing Falls). By the end of the training day (around 17:00), she couldn’t even stand on her own, so the Black Hats ordered her to drink more water, while they summoned a medic to look at her. She feebly attempted to drink more water, but was at that time almost unconscious, so most of it dribbled all over her face and uniform when she tried to drink from her canteen. The medics came and had to help her walk, as she couldn’t walk on her own. We didn’t see her for the rest of the day, and come Monday morning, with the start of Tower Week (week two of three), we were told that she wouldn’t be joining us as she was now in intensive care at Martin Army Medical Center, the on-base hospital at Ft. Benning. We asked what was wrong with her, and he said she almost died because of Hyponatremia. Apparently, she became so over-hydrated from drinking too much water combined with excessive sweating due to the high-levels of physical exertion and lack of climate acclimitization, that she depleted herself of all her electrolytes and salts that are required to be alive. I also knew that she was skipping meals and the few times that she was eating at the d-fac (dining facility), would typically forego the main entree for just a small salad. (I knew this b/c she often sat next to me in the mess hall.)
To: Frank DelaneyEditor@thewashingtonpost.comSubject: anthropological finds linking past to the futureI, Dr. J. Emmit Hardy, Professor of Archeology at the University of Montana, former navy seal and marine sniper, stumbled upon something I should not have and in the excitement of the moment, I took it. Now they are after me. I don’t know who they are, other than the keepers of secrets, the guardians of mysteries. Could be the Vatican or some other religious organization, a collaboration of world governments, or some secret society. I probably sound out of my mind but wait until I tell you what I have uncovered.
It all started in what I like to call the broiler, a.k.a. southern Iraq, in an area once known as Mesopotamia. It was in that barren landscape that I and a group of archaeologists came upon a rather suspiciously lonely looking hill, more of a large mound I would say. We had started excavating as soon as the Iraqi government lifted their ban on archeological excavations. After years of careful digging, we dug down where we found an entrance to an upper chamber that led down to the heart of what we presume will be a ziggurat. In the lowest portion of the structure, we found what we named the Library of the Anunnaki, the collective name for the Sumerian gods. The library consisted of hundreds of stone tablets, most of them broken, some shattered, even to the point of dust. I found one large piece, rough in my hands, chipped, not without its damage. I blew it off and noticed it was written in cuneiform. The translation goes:
Origin………. Primitive species DNA spliced………. producing male child………. male children produced and raised to farm and………. production cumbersome………… remove Y………. first female child for reproduction presented to first male……… uprising………. Usurpers cast out of gardens and mines………. debauchery throughout………. murder………. war………. Meteor causing mass………. Fleeing planet, will return.
Obviously defaced, what I concluded from the text was that the text was not written by human hands. Rather, it was a document left for us by who early humans considered gods. It tells us that we originated from a primitive species (apes, or Cro-Magnon Man perhaps, maybe even some early form of homo sapiens) having their DNA spliced with that of an alien race, producing a child that we now call a human being. Given the success of the experiment, they created more, until they figured natural reproduction to be a viable process. These children grew up working on farms and in mines for the alien race. It goes on to say there was an uprising. Some were cast out where they lived wildly without law or rule. A lot of text is missing, but it goes on to explain the flood was caused by a meteor, probably crashing in the sea nearby. At that time, the aliens left, promising to return. My biggest question is, return to do what?
This tablet destroys god-centric religions, proving that we were created through the advanced science of an alien race, putting an end to ancient beliefs. It would also take away power from institutions such as the Catholic Papacy. Old traditions will die hard, but the word of God will no longer hold credence in the minds of the majority again. This is a world altering find. That is why I had it carbon dated for its legitimacy, taking it to an old friend.
Dr. Phillip Baker at Oxford University did some carbon dating. The tablet predates the Sumerian use of cuneiform for literary purposes by a thousand years. We realized then that it was truly an extraordinary find. While Phillip and I celebrated with the champagne he had been saving for such an occasion, men in black suits paid us a visit trying to seize the tablets. With a distraction made by Dr. Baker, I escaped out the back. From the hallway I heard shots fired. I knew my dear friend’s fate and feared it would be my own if I did not run. I assumed knowing what was on the tablet put my life in jeopardy. I was pursued by them and what looked like a private security detailed, armed, muscular men dressed in black. They chased me through the streets at high speed. I was scared out of my mind, even taking to the sidewalk to avoid stoplights. I made it to the airport where I evaded capture and caught a plane back to the states. The tablet is now hidden safely where no one will ever find it.
I still wanted answers. Why are they returning? When will they return? Why were they here in the first place? I knew of one place that had the answer. I put to use all my military training to sneak into the most heavily guarded military base in the US. I broke into Area 51. I’ll save you the details. It’s a process of inching through the desert dressed like a bush for three days, monitoring security patterns, cutting chain-link, and choking people out for their security badges and weapons, turning up loose ends, until finally I found what I was looking for – the Area 51 Library.
The library is a massive collection of written statements, voice recordings, pictures, videos, blueprints, documents on everyone who has claimed abduction or sighting, documentation of people who have been abducted or visited and have no recollection of it, and archeological evidence. The most disturbing artifact I found was a 1950’s recording of an alien being questioned under duress giving the same account on the tablet, filling in the gaps.
Apparently, there is another planet in our solar system that passes the sun every six thousand years. They survive in biodomes but require extra fuel and food that they get from earth when their planet gets within flying distance. The air on earth is toxic to them, so they wear suits, some wear armor over their suits resembling animals known to humans to strike fear in them. They have a spy station on the dark side of the moon where they operate out of one of their biodomes, watching us, occasionally experimenting on us, or coming down to replenish food.
The Alien went on to explain that they tried to quell the violence within humans, who murdered each other and started wars for territory, before the flood. As they watched on over the centuries, war and hate spread like wildfire across the land as humans flourished. They decided since humans still believed in gods, they would send them a representative from God.
He explained the insemination of Mary and the resurrection of the man we call Jesus – he was revived from a coma using advanced medical procedures and lifted up in a small spy shuttle under the cover of smoke. He is at the station now and will return with the others when the other planet draws near. His purpose was to teach people how to live peacefully, choosing people to carry on his work after he was gone, to spread it around the world. The alien said things didn’t go as planned, calling us wicked and violent. His final statement was that when the planet returns, those who fight will be destroyed and those who don’t will be enslaved.
Area 51 is only guarded by the US. They are not running it. I was discovered by a man with a heavy European accent and, of course, dressed in a black suit. I grabbed the recording and fought my way past him, then through three levels of private security before getting past the military detail on the outside. I’m sure these men know where I live. I’m taking a big risk contacting you, but the public deserves to know the truth. They need to prepare to fight the coming onslaught. So far, governments have kept everything a secret, selling off technologies like cellular communications and nuclear power. I have the recording safely hidden away with the tablet. I have the evidence if you want to proceed with the story.
To: J. Emmit Hardy
drdigit@gmail.com
Reply: anthropological finds linking past to the future
Dr. Hardy, I’ll be honest with you, if it weren’t for your credentials and the background check I ran on you, I would be telling you to take this to the tabloids. Since you are an esteemed professor of sound mind with a military background, I suppose your story warrants some attention. Meet me at Malone’s at noon on Thursday for lunch. They are usually busy so there should not be any scenes made in there if you are followed. Try not to be followed. Bring the evidence. Depending on it, we will see where we go from there.
———————————————————————————
When I saw Dr. Hardy walk into Malone’s that day, he was not what I was expecting. I was looking for an unshaved old man with wild hair acting a little erratically. No, this was your Indiana Jones type professor, middle aged, lean and sun kissed. Far from erratic, his eyes scanned the restaurant before approaching me with a duffle bag.
“Mr. Delaney?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Emmit Hardy. Glad you took the time to see me.”
His eyes missed no detail of what was going on around him. He was even checking reflections in the smallest objects to see behind him.
“Did you bring the evidence?”
The first thing he pulls out is an old reel-to-reel and lays it on the table as he goes for the next item in his bag.
“What am I going to do with that?”
“Listen to it.”
“I thought you would have recorded it on your cell phone.”
“I wasn’t about to take a cell phone into Area 51. You’re the news. Don’t you have a reel-to-reel player?”
“Well, yeah, back at the newsroom.”
“Here, check this out. Carefully.”
He displays a bundle of rags gentler than if it were a baby. He unwraps it to reveal the stone tablet, chipped and cracked with a series of markings on it that meant nothing to me.
“I’ll have to take your professional word on what that is. What I’m interested in is on that reel. But first, we eat.”
“I don’t think we have time for that, Frank. Be casual, but two guys in black suits and sunglasses just walked in.”
“Relax, guys in suits eat here all the time.”
“Not with security details. Let’s head out the back. Slowly, they haven’t made us yet.”
I thought Emmit might be schizophrenic, but when we got out to the alley, two guys were waiting with guns. Now, I would love to give you a play-by-play of what happened next, but it happened too fast. Somehow, Emmit managed to disarm and knock unconscious two men in a matter of seconds. He took their guns, putting one in his waistband.
“Can I have a gun?”
“No,” he chuckled.
We ran to the news building. When we got there, we were spotted by more guys in black suits and their security details. We took off in the other direction with them on our heels. I pulled out my cell and made a phone call.
“Susan, I need you to get those old duffle bags out of storage and five other people. Here is what I need you to do.”
Emmit and I took the long way to The Lincoln Memorial. There, we ran into six people with bags similar to the one Emmit was carrying. We all bumped and shoved, switching bags several times. When we were done mixing up the bags, some took cabs, some ran, some strolled. They grabbed Marcus and checked his bag, only to find gym clothes and a phone book. Later that night, Emmit and I met with Susan to retrieve the real bag. She asked what was going on, but all I could tell her was to read the morning’s paper.
Emmit was able to sneak me pass some of the men in black suits and their muscle so I could write up the story. I wrote frantically, the words flowing from my mind straight to the screen. I barely got it through pre-press in time to make the front page. I rushed it out to the printers myself. They were in the middle of putting on the plates that were supposed to run and were not thrilled about the last-minute change, but now people know where they came from and can prepare for the future.
Australia Forces China To Dump Rare Earth Assets, But No Refund For US Submarine Deal?
32 New Ukraine Soldiers Cross Hungary Border to Escape War Mobilization
Yesterday, a Ukrainian GAZ-66 truck with “military” license plates illegally crossed the border into Hungary from the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine. Local border guards found the truck and detained 32 Ukrainian citizens.
It turned out, the truck was filled with new Ukraine Army “Recruits” – men who had been forcibly grabbed off streets in Ukraine, held for three days, given uniforms, and sent to the front lines to die.
The men took a military truck across a field in Zakarpattia, entered Hungary, and surrendered to Police in Hungary.
The government of Hungary has granted the men asylum.
Hal Turner Opinion
The slave state of Ukraine is the very worst place in the world with absolutely no human rights at all.
These people are being hunted by army slave catchers and sent to the front to be exterminated.
The average Ukrainian’s worst enemy is the war criminals in Kiev and the war criminals of NATO who fund and facilitate their slavery and extermination while pretending that Ukraine is a free democracy, and not the only cause of the conflict that is going on.
Imagine what the U.S. will be like when Biden orders the draft for WW3 against Russia/China. There will be some crazy things going on; can’t wait for the chaos.
Someone should make an “Escape from Ukraine” movie as a sequel to Escape from L.A. from the ’90s. I’d watch it.
NATO PREPARES for US TROOPS to ATTACK RUSSIA – americans being sent to die for Europe…
It’s Official: Russia ready to strike NATO airfields hosting Ukrainian jets
F-16 fighter jets and any airfields they are based at will be legitimate targets for the Russian military if they participate in combat missions against Moscow’s forces, the chairman of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, Andrey Kartapolov, has warned.
The comments come as Kiev prepares to receive the first delivery of US-made fighter jets from its Western backers, after Ukrainian pilots were trained to fly them.
In a statement to RIA Novosti published on Monday, Kartapolov clarified that if the F-16s “are not used for their intended purpose” or are simply held in storage at foreign airbases with the intent to transfer them to Ukraine, where they will be equipped, maintained, and flown from Ukrainian airfields, then Russia would have no claims against its “former partners” and would not target them.
However, if the jets take off from foreign bases and carry out sorties and strikes against Russian forces, both the fighter planes and the airfields they are stationed at will be “legitimate targets,” according to Kartapolov.
“As for [our ability] to shoot [them] down, we can shoot down anyone, anywhere,” the MP insisted.
Kartapolov’s statement comes after the chief of aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force Command, Sergey Golubtsov, stated in an interview with Radio Liberty on Sunday that some of the F-16 fighter jets donated to Kiev by the West would be stationed at foreign airbases.
He explained that only a portion of the jets would be stationed directly on Ukrainian territory, corresponding to the number of pilots trained to operate the aircraft. The other jets would be kept in reserve at “safe airbases” abroad so that they are not targeted by the Russian military.
Golubtsov stated that so far four countries have agreed to transfer F-16s to Ukraine, namely Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands. While he did not specify exactly how many aircraft would be donated, he claimed it was between 30 and 40 planes, with potentially more to come in the future.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also warned that Moscow would perceive the deliveries of F-16 fighters to Ukraine as a nuclear threat, given that the jets have long been used as part of the US-led bloc’s joint nuclear missions.
At the same time, the minister stressed that the US-designed jets would not change the situation on the battlefield, and would be shot down and destroyed like any other foreign weapons supplied to Ukraine.
Crispy Sweet Onion Pizza
Caramelized Onion Pizza 3435
Ingredients
1 (12 inch) pre-baked pizza shell
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound sweet onions halved, sliced vertically
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes (packed in oil), chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Ingredients for Caramelized Onion Pizza
Pizza Dough – Use your favorite pizza dough here. I always love the chewy / airy texture of this No-Knead Pizza Dough.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Instead of sauce, this pizza is brushed with a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil before the toppings are added. The oil helps the crust to get a deep golden brown color and adds a subtle, fresh olive flavor.
Caramelized Onions – See below for all the details on making caramelized onions. They are sweet and savory and make a super flavorful base for this pizza.
Gruyere Cheese – The first time I had Gruyere cheese I was blown away by the rich, deep flavor of this Swiss-style cheese. It’s slightly crumbly and has a nutty, tangy flavor. It costs a bit more than mozzarella (which is more common on pizza), but seriously delivers on flavor.
Fresh Rosemary – The savory flavor of fresh rosemary fits really well here. Be sure to remove the leaves from the stem and discard the stem (it’s too tough to chop along with the leaves). You can skip the rosemary or use another fresh herb – fresh thyme is great here.
Caramelized Onion Pizza 3435 2
How to Caramelize Onions
Slice the onions into slices that are about 1/3” thick. (No need to be super precise here, but if the slices are too thin they won’t develop all the flavor that comes with the low, slow cooking process. If they are too thick, they’ll take forever to cook. Try to strike a balance.)
Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and butter (use about 1 tablespoon of each per pound of onions).
Add the onions to the skillet and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions start to soften, about 5 minutes.
Reduce the heat to low.
Season onions with salt and some sugar (about ½ teaspoon of each per pound of onions). (Note: Sugar is optional here, but can help to draw out the natural sugars in the onions and speed the caramelization process along.)
Continue to cook the onions, stirring occasionally, until they are very tender and deep golden brown, 25 to 40 minutes more. (Important: If the pan starts to look dry or the onions start to burn, add a splash of water. You may need to do this several times throughout the cooking process.)
Instructions
Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Place pizza shell on baking sheet.
Sprinkle onions on pizza and drizzle with olive oil; top with sun-dried tomatoes.
Sprinkle with herbs, salt and pepper.
Bake until onions just begin to brown, about 10 minutes.
Russia already has enough “hyenas” to deal with in Europe, Vladimir Putin has told his Zimbabwean counterpart
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Zimbabwean counterpart Emerson Mnangagwa shared a laugh during a tense debate on nuclear diplomacy on Friday, as they discussed how to deal with the real and metaphorical “hyenas” threatening their countries.
During a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), political scientist Sergey Karaganov urged Putin to update Russia’s nuclear doctrine to allow nuclear retaliation against countries that strike Russia with conventional weapons.
With multiple Western nations – including the US, France, and Germany – recently giving Kiev permission to use their missiles in long-range strikes on Russian territory, Karaganov argued that these countries have grown complacent and need to be reminded of Russia’s nuclear capabilities.
“They have gone mad, especially the Europeans,” he told Putin. “It’s how animals behave. If there is a herd of hyenas or wild dogs and you’ve got a stick, you can keep them at bay. But there’s a high chance that they will tear your clothes, and if you get tired they will bite you to death. If you can kill a couple of them then they will disperse.”
“President Mnangagwa knows about the behaviour of hyenas,” Karaganov continued, before asking the Zimbabwean leader: “Do you agree Mr. President, that this is how you deal with hyenas?”
“We do have lots of hyenas in Zimbabwe, but we keep them in the national parks,” Mnangagwa replied. “We have no problems with them, but they breed a lot, and if there is anybody who wants them, we are ready to donate,” he added, to laughter from the audience.
“Well we’ve got hyenas of our own in Europe,” Putin responded.
Russian nuclear doctrine has not changed since 2010. It allows for the use of atomic weapons in the event of a nuclear first strike on its territory or infrastructure, or if the existence of the Russian state is threatened by either nuclear or conventional weapons.
“I do not believe that it is the case now,” Putin said, adding that Russia “needs no nuclear weapons to achieve victory” in Ukraine. However, Putin noted that changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine “are not ruled out.”
18 Years Later, I Finally Get how Idiocracy Came True – The 2024 Election
When I was attending university, perhaps after my sophomore year, but between I entered my junior year, I spent the Summer with my father. And, of course, my step mother; the Karen from Hell.
Now, she was a royal pain in the ass, and I could go on, and on, enumerating all the shitty things that she did to me. But today, I will relate one such event of curious charm.
At that time, I had long hair and a beard.
Mens hair 1970s
The Summer was spent in Summer-classes.
Where I studied anthropology and archeology. I worked in a few digs off of Lake Erie, and I really enjoyed the classes.
I learned a lot, and I found the experience really rewarding for me personally. Not only for the credits that I could transfer to my “regular” university, but also for the experiences that I was getting.
dig
But, you know, that didn’t matter to my fathers wife; my step mother.
She hated me. She hated everything about me. There was nothing that I could do right. And if there was something that she could pick on… she would make an issue of it.
Well, at that time, in the 1970’s I wore bell bottom pants, a choke collar, puffy sleeve, wide collar polyester paisley print shirt, and had long hair.
2a74264a1537e243edbf2992a00567d6
And she hated it all.
A day didn’t go buy without her complaining, and bitching about me. It was endless and relentless. And the top topic was my hair.
So one day…
After I dealt with yet another tirade from her about my hair, I left the house and went to a nearby barber and told them to give me a crew cut. Yes. They kept on asking “Are you sure?”. And yes I was.
And when I came home, she shut up. She shut the fuck up, and was really kind of embarrassed. Actually.
crew cut
But, you know what?
I loved her looking like she was sucking on a lemon every time she looked at me.
So, yeah, something good did come out of that entire fiasco. LOL!
"The West has really crossed—or is in the process of getting ready to cross—some red lines.That's what's so critical for people in America and Europe to understand: when Russia sets out red lines, they're not kidding.These are not suggestions; these are what they view as life-and-death issues.The Russian people have a history of this.The city I'm in, St. Petersburg, was known as Leningrad during World War II.When you look at the fact that the Germans encircled the city and tried to starve them out, Hitler's desire was to kill every Russian inside Leningrad at the time.800,000 died in about two and a half years, most of them from starvation and disease.Think of that number: twice as many Russians died in this one city as a result of a two and a half-year siege as died in the United States in both theaters of war—Pacific, Europe, and Africa.This stays with the Russian people.They have paid with their blood for having faced threats in the past from the West.So, they don't take the current threats from the United States and Europe about launching missiles into Russia as 'Oh, no big deal'.I wrote about this and challenge every American.Donald Trump recently said what he's going to do is cross the border into Northern Mexico after the drug cartels.I understand why he wants to do that because they're killing over 110,000 Americans a year.However, if Russia then intervened and started supplying missiles to those drug cartels, and those drug cartels were launching those missiles at San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles, or San Diego, do you think we in America would sit back and say, 'Oh, no big deal'?Hell no. We would view that as an act of war.So how, in the name of God, do we have politicians advocating that sort of madness against Russia and expecting that Russia will behave differently than we would?For God's sake, people, wake up!"
Excerpt from remarks by Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst and U.S. State Department employee, in an interview with Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom, June 3, 2024.
about 40 years ago, I commuted to work daily on a large motorcycle. i did heavy construction work, and was very tired by the time i needed to get the bike to ride home,
i regularly left my bike in a parking lot across the street from the commercial multistory building i was helping construct. the side of this lot closest to my job had a 6–10′ retaining wall bordering it. i would park in one of the auto spaces right along that, since it was the closest to my place of work. [there were none for cycles]
one day, i arrived at the lot and found a vw bug occupying most of the space that my motorcycle had been in. though my bike was very heavy, and the front wheel was locked, that driver had gone to considerable trouble and effort to place my bike horizontally right next to the retaining wall drop off. then they pulled the darn bug so far into that space that it was not possible to move my bike, let alone get out of the parking space and go home unless their vehicle was moved.
presumably, they were angry that a motorcycle was taking a parking place the bug owner felt they were entitled to, and were endeavoring to teach me a “lesson”.
that “lesson” backfired rather badly.
i had owned and worked on many volkswagens, and knew how to get this one open. i did so, and then pushed it completely out of the parking space to where it would block traffic in the lot and be towed.
then i popped the rear engine compartment lid and rearranged the spark plug wires on the distributor cap so that the engine could not start or run.
lastly, i unscrewed the valve stems in all four tires.
after a mere 5 minute or so delay, i was headed home.
never saw that same vw parked in that lot again, and never had any other auto driver mess with my motorcycle.
as ms crouch and idgy say in “fried green tomatoes”: “TOWANDA!”
U.S. Escalates ‘Nuclear’ Risk: World Stands On ‘Edge’ Of Destruction | Richard Wolff
In 1970, at Submarine School at the US Naval Base in New London, CT, we were taught that the maximum depth from which we could hope to escape, using the Steinke Hood… basically, a cloth bag that you pulled over your head, with an inflatable buoyancy chamber attached… was about 400 feet.
Luckily, I never had to test this, using one of the Hoods that were stowed aboard the USS von Steuben SSBN 632 in a storage compartment built into the stairs next to the watertight door leading to the Engineering Spaces.
But, we grizzled old sea dogs, being the sadistic bastards that we were, used to scare newly-arrived seamen by showing them the Steinke Hood stowage locker… forcing them to think about it.
One hazard of escape from that deep is that, before opening the Escape Hatch, we would be required to rapidly pressurize the escape compartment to sea pressure. Such a maneuver would almost certainly rupture our ear drums.
But, i did have the adventure of doing a freeascent… just me in my swim trunks… from ~100 feet, at the Dive Tower. We entered a room at the bottom, which was then (relatively slowly) pressurized to the appropriate pressure for a 100-foot water column. Then we were brought into the water through an “air lock”.
We didn’t actually wear the Steinke Hood, as shown in this picture. Don’t know why… hope I’m not getting any instructors in trouble.😜 We had been trained to lock our hands over our heads in a Superman pose. Then, we were released to “blow and go”, exhalingbyyelling all the way as our natural buoyancy carried us to the surface.
Divers were stationed at several points along the ~15-second ascent, to intercept and hold anyone who did not appear to be exhaling sufficiently to prevent their lungs from popping like balloons.
Larry Johnson: RED ALERT! Russia Was Ready For DESTRUCTIVE War, Just Waiting Nato SPARKED!
My parents never had great credit growing up. They lived paycheck to paycheck for most of my life and when I was in high school my mom got a great job almost through a combination of luck, hard work and dedication. Suddenly, money wasn’t as big of a deal.
After a few years of catching up financially so to speak, my mom wanted a new car. She had been driving an older Sebring for a while and wanted to get out of a smaller car and into a SUV. I’m not talking a Maserati but something nicer than a sky blue mini van.
We went to F.C. Kerbeck in NJ about 30 minutes from where we lived. Kerbeck is known for its high end cars mainly lamborghinis, Bentleys, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Etc. But they also did Cadillacs, Buick, GMC.
My mom wanted a used Cadillac SUV – maybe an Escalade, or the smaller one. This was in 2005 or so.
Anyway. We went to the dealer, took us some time to get someone to talk to us but got a nice salesman who showed us cars in our price range that my mom really liked. This was a 2003 Escalade, jet black, not fully loaded but more than what she’d had before and it was well below what she wanted to pay for a car. A slam dunk.
As mentioned credit still wasn’t great, probably in the low 6’s at the time. My parents never declared bankruptcy but had a car repossession. They told the sales guy this from the begining of the conversation.
Anyway, we go inside after a test drive, to talk numbers. Trade in plus I think around 2 grand down and let’s see where we can meet with a price.
The guy goes to run my parents credit and never comes back.
Meanwhile I had excellent credit and would have been happy to co-sign. But he never gave us that option. He literally ignored my parents and me until we got up and left. They were embarrassed. I was embarassed for them.
A simple, “Hey, we just ran the numbers and found some credit issues; I don’t think we’ll be able to find a bank for a loan” would have sufficed, but to ignore people is more than rude – it’s unconscionable.
Scott Ritter Alarming Revelation: Russia Will Use Nuclear Weapons if U.S Continues to Aid Ukraine
Scott is on a rant and tells it as it is. Really worth the view.
Tex-Mex Beef and Bean Burritos
BeefandBeanBurrito Hero 2048×1365
Ingredients
1 boneless chuck roast
1 envelope dry burrito mix
1 to 2 tablespoons salsa (mild, medium or hot according to taste)
About 1/4 cup water, just enough to cover bottom of slow cooker
Flour tortillas
1 can refried beans
Flour tortillas
Grated Cheddar cheese
Instructions
Place chuck roast in slow cooker.
Add burrito mix and water.
Turn the roast a few times to blend in the mix. Add the salsa.
Cover and cook on LOW for 12 to 14 hours or until the meat is falling apart.
Wrap flour tortillas in foil and warm in a 325 degrees F oven for 10 to 15 minutes.
While tortillas are warming, heat up beans. During the last couple minutes add some grated Cheddar cheese.
On the middle of the tortillas place some of the meat, some beans and some grated Cheddar cheese if desired.
Leave about 1/2 inch at the top and the bottom and have the mixture go out to the sides a couple of inches.
Fold over the top and the bottom.
Fold one side, then the other.
The United States should not in any way meddle with Hong Kong affairs — Chinese Foreign Ministry
China expressed firm opposition to U.S. blatant interference in China’s internal affairs, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing on Monday.
Mao’s remarks came after the U.S. State Department Spokesperson announced new visa restrictions on officials of the Chinese Central Government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government in a statement released last week on the verdict issued by the Hong Kong court on some of those involved in the case of conspiring to commit subversion.
Mao said that the United States has deliberately attacked the principle of “one country, two systems,” smeared the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong SAR, irresponsibly commented on democracy and freedoms in Hong Kong, sought to meddle with HKSAR’s judicial matters and abused visa restrictions.
“Such moves blatantly interfere in China’s internal affairs, violate international law and basic norms governing international relations. China strongly deplores and opposes it,” said Mao.
Mao added that the so-called “primary election” organized by those involved in the case who are anti-China and sought to destabilize Hong Kong amounts to a serious challenge to the constitutional order in Hong Kong and endangers national security.
“Among the defendants involved in the case, 31 have already pleaded guilty,” Mao said, noting that it is reasonable and lawful for the law enforcement and judicial authorities in the HKSAR to carry out their duties in accordance with the law, and punish all acts that undermine national security, and that it is firmly supported by the Central Government.
Mao stressed that Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s domestic affair that brooks no external interference.
China urges the United States to earnestly respect China’s sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong, and abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations, the spokesperson said.
“The United States should not in any way meddle with Hong Kong affairs,” Mao said, adding that if the United States implements the visa restrictions on officials of the Central Government and the HKSAR government, China will take firm countermeasures.
In Maryland, where I was police, we had the old fashion citation books. If people refused to sign a ticket or if we felt the violator would disregard the citation, we had the option to arrest and take them before a commissioner where a bond would be set or the person released on their own recognizance. It amazed me when people would refuse to sign for their copy of the citation, believing they would not be arrested. They were often proven wrong, usually by other officers.
I would typically write “Refused to Sign” on the signature line and scratched out another ticket for refusing to sign a citation. When these came around to court, the judge would see this as aggressive and hostile behavior and be pretty harsh on the violator.
If they tore up the ticket, I usually let that go to if they signed it. The reason I would let this slide is there was very specific instructions on the citation of what the violators options were…typically pay the caution or go to court. If you didn’t select one of those and return it to the court, they would automatically set it for a trial…and guess who wouldn’t show up in court? The idiot who tore up the instructions.
When people were uncooperative in that they would not let me talk, I’d hand them their copy of the citation and not explain the instructions to them…just hand it to them and walk away. I had a signed copy that they received their copy.
I should note that the signature line has a bold line that says by signing, it’s not an admission of guilt but indicates they received a copy of the citation.
Years before I retired, we moved over to an electronic system that did not require a signature. I’d just print out a copy and give it to them. It had instructions on what needed to be done if they wanted to pay it or dispute it.
Regrettably, no. The USA needs to aim for at least 2 exaflops if they are starting now, since it takes about two or three years to go from design to actual running hardware.
Sitting in Singapore, I am in the unusual position of having visited the Chinese #1 and #2 supercomputer sites and met with their designers, and also being familiar with the usual TOP500 sites in the US and what some of their plans are.
As a citizen of the USA, I find the disparity discouraging. The Chinese already have a 1 exaflops system in their pipeline, and their designs are excellent and getting better. By the time the USA ekes out a 200 petaflops system, the Chinese will almost certainly have one already in operation that runs circles around it.
While the USA economy grew slowly from 2001 to 2016, China’s economy grew very quickly and in some specific areas they actually surpassed the USA, supercomputing being one of them. Their supercomputer engineers did a lot of things right:
They were willing to spend the large amount of money required to compete in this arena.
They were not wedded to the x86 processor mentality, and instead created a hardware-software stack (mostly based on the Alpha processor and its associated software that they had licensed) that delivers significantly more speed per watt of power. Alpha processors achieve about twice as many instructions per clock as do x86 processors.
They took a holistic approach to the physical design, from the building structure to the cooling system to the custom cabinet design, instead of restricting themselves to easily-available and low-cost solutions to those challenges.
They bought or licensed USA technologies and picked out the best ideas, then combined them with shrewd ideas of their own.
I should probably note that my colleague Jack Dongarra has written that Taihu Light is not based on the Alpha processor. With all due respect, he should ask one of his Mandarin-speaking graduate students to read the Taihu Light literature that has not been translated into English. The use of Alpha appears in the original, but not in the English translation… I am surrounded by bilingual Singaporeans who can confirm this! There may have been sensitivity that the designers would be accused of ripping off USA technology, so they de-emphasize that aspect of their design. They shouldn’t. There was easily enough innovation in the Taihu Light to earn the designers not just one, but two Gordon Bell Prizes.
Each processor of Taihu Light looks like the Cray T3D on a chip. The Cray T3D was a nimble system based on Alpha processors that many HPC people feel was one of the best-designed supercomputers of all time.
Most supercomputers are severely communication-bound; the T3D was much less so, with an unusually good system balance and low-latency interconnect that made it easier to sustain a high fraction of the peak rated speed. Imagine a 256-processor T3D on a single chip (together with four processors that service that array), and a cleverly-cooled cabinet that packs hundreds of those close together, and a roomful of those cabinets, and you have a system that makes the DOE and NASA labs in the USA go… *gulp*.
If the USA wants to really get back in the game and not just play catch-up, they need to break the me-too paradigm of filling standard racks with x86 processors that have GPU accelerators attached. We can get an order of magnitude improvement in operations per joule by rethinking everything. If I were doing it, I’d use a Very-Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processor with no caches, no instruction lookahead or speculative execution or branch prediction, explore the use of gallium nitride with 16-level logic instead of silicon CMOS, change the numeric representation from IEEE floats to posit arithmetic, connect the cabinets with free-space optics at terabytes per second per channel and a full crossbar, use only stacked memory and extensive use of in-processor RAM and ROM, and declare it a “moon shot” to make such a system work by 2022. This is the way all the great breakthroughs in supercomputing have been made historically… by being willing to change paradigms. Right now, the Chinese are proving better at breaking from legacy thinking than the USA.
Every day another section of the road to hell is handed over.
Every day we are besieged with the demand for hundreds of billions of euros for Ukraine, the deployment of nuclear weapons in the middle of Europe, and the conscription of our sons into a foreign army: into a NATO mission in Ukraine, into European military units sent to Ukraine.
My Friends, it seems that the pro-war train has no brakes and the driver has gone mad.
In the European elections what we are committing to is nothing less than stopping this train.
We must pull the emergency cord, so that at least those who want to get off can do so, and stay out of the war.
The Hungarian government knows how to do this. We know how to stay out of deadly situations.
In good time we disconnected the Hungarian railway carriage from the pro-migration train, as it hurtled towards the abandonment of nations. Stop migration!
And we also rescued Hungarian children from the hands of dangerous, repugnant gender activists. Stop gender!
Nor will we allow our children and grandchildren to be wagoned to the Ukrainian front. Stop war!
For those looking for how to get to hell, try the second door on the left.
Just so that Brussels, too, can understand: No migration! No gender! No war!”
Excerpt from the speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the ‘Peace March’, Budapest, June 3, 2024.
What’s the most ridiculous adult tantrum you’ve witnessed that you couldn’t believe?
My husband and I were eating breakfast at a local restaurant one morning. While eating we couldn’t help but hear a man complaining about his coffee to the staff.
We went to this small cafe often and knew the employees. They worked hard and were friendly.
“This is the worst tasting coffee I have ever had!” he announced. He stood at the counter glaring at the young woman who had poured his coffee.
She looked timid saying the pot of coffee had just been made. Her face turned pink and it appeared she might burst into tears.
She seemed very young; hardly old enough to drink coffee. Chances were, she simply followed directions on how to prepare it.
I felt sorry for her and wondered why the man didn’t lower his voice. Everyone in the restaurant heard him.
“Well, someone needs to show you how to make coffee!” the man said.
I rolled my eyes at my husband thinking what a jerk the person was.
“Such drama over coffee!” I quietly said.
My husband stood up and strode to the counter standing next to the rude man. The woman looked apprehensive as he handed her his coffee cup.
I was a bit nervous as well. Was my husband going to tell the man he was making a fool out of himself? Would there be an argument or some ruckus over coffee?
“I would love to have a second cup of coffee, please! Great coffee!” he said smiling.
Looking relieved the waitress grinned and poured him a cup.
The man who complained looked a bit embarrassed and angry. He stalked out of the restaurant.
I smiled thinking how kind my husband was. He had restored the young employee’s dignity.
It was just a moment in time, but I will never forget how relieved the woman looked.
My best friend from high school was the same age as me. She was the most beautiful girl, with an awesome figure and a head of long, curly dark hair. We were best friends for 27 years! We both had our first children at the age of 29. For her, it was the only child because 18 months after she was born she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her cancer was HER2 positive, one of the nastiest and most aggressive cancers, and by the time she found the lump in her breast, it was no longer in the early stage.
So at 32 she had a partial mastectomy. Then chemo so she lost all her hair, and finished up with radiotherapy which left her with burn marks on her skin.
But the treatment seemed to have worked, her hair regrew, she went back to work, divorced her husband and started dating again. She had a nipple tattoed on her breast to mimic the one she had lost (the tattoo plus all her treatment was free because we live in Australia). All was looking good. She even had her 5-year cancer-free milestone which is supposed to mean that you’re all finished with the cancer.
But six months later it fell apart. The cancer was back and it was everywhere; all through her organs, her spine, everywhere. And it all started again.
Chemo, hair loss, radiation treatment. She was started on a brand new drug, Herceptin, (free of charge because we live in Australia). But there was no more talk from the doctors about cure, only “prolonging life”.
I helped care for her in her last six months of life. The cancer finally metastasized into her brain, she had fearful hallucinations seeing things that aren’t there and swearing like a sailor at all of us because we couldn’t see them (she had never sworn; she was a perfect lady). And finally, a tumour pressed the optic nerve in her brain and she went blind. But she couldn’t understand that she was blind. She kept asking us to turn the light on.
And that’s how she was when she died on Boxing Day. Weighing less than 40kg; badly tattoed-on nipple (looked like a kid with a crayon had done it) on her half a breast on one side; bald from chemo; burn marks all over her skin; small moustache on her upper lip from steroids.(I used to take hair removal cream into the hospice and remove it – she would have HATED it); blind, raving and swearing. It was a death I would never wish on my worst enemy. Cancer is an EVIL thing. It takes everything away from you and then it kills you.
The biggest problem leadership has in the military with it’s personnel is debt among the lower enlisted.
Whenever I got a new soldier, one of the first thing I’d do is find out if they had an AAFES line of credit (credit card or otherwise). I’d make them tear up the card and prioritize paying off that debt. AAFES is borderline criminal in how they issue credit and they’ll let an E-3 buy a Mercedes.
Next is buying cars. Go to any major military installation and you’ll see two things lined up right outside the gate to the base. First are used car dealerships. Yep, they have that Mustang you want so bad. Yep, they’ll charge you 23% interest for that Mustang. Nope, they won’t detail all the other expenses, like insurance, that come with that Mustang.
I actually took a Soldier back to a dealership to return a car he had purchased the day before. They charged him $17,000.00 for a $12,000.00 car, at 21% interest.
In other words, give an 18-20 year old a steady paycheck and they’ll likely be pretty stupid with it.
I was. I took a lot of financial lumps.
Then there’s marriage. These clowns can’t wait to do it. First, they think it’ll gain them something financially. It doesn’t. It makes a bad situation incredibly worse. Plus the divorce rates are really high.
The marriage thing is so bad that when I talk to an aspiring military recruit I really only emphasize one thing. DO NOT GET MARRIED IN THE MILITARY. I can’t stress that enough. DO NOT GET MARRIED IN THE MILITARY. Let me say it again. DO NOT GET MARRIED IN THE MILITARY.
You’ll recover from a bad vehicle purchase. You will not recover from a bad marriage and worse, a pregnancy. Some of these women out in town outside of a base can’t wait to get pregnant by a military member. That’s assured health care and a paycheck.
A typical E-3 under 2 years of service will bring home about $750.00 a paycheck. That’s $1,500.00 a month. This income is almost all disposable, given you live in the barracks and eat at the provided dining facilities. $1,500.00 a month of disposable income is a lot more than most families in the U.S. have. You can either make that money go a long way or you can blow it on stupid stuff. Most choose to blow it, then complain they don’t make enough.
Both Ukraine & Russia exported lots of agricultural products incl fertilizer. The Ukraine disrupt the supply chain incl food. Who suffer the most? Under-developed countries in Africa.
China is the world supplier ranging from low-end products eg pencil to medium-end eg medicine to high-end eg solar panel. If there is another war – Taiwan war, the entire world will suffer. Again the under-developed countries.
To take Taiwan is easy. In days or at most weeks, a retired Taiwanese veteran said.
But a war will give USA & its allies an excuse to impose heavy sanction on China just like they did to Russia in the Ukraine war. Though Russia’s GDP growth is doing better than the West, but its GDP does drop.
Same thing will happen to China too. Western sanction cannot hurt China too too much but it for sure will hurt a bit.
One important detail must be well planned. That is to catch the leaders alive. Otherwise you cannot put them on trial to warn the rest of people. Look at Hongkong. There was a coup in Hongkong in 2019. The #1 traitor was put on trial now. When the court shows all evidence of treason, those HKers who were misled to support the traitor now see it with their own eyes & hear with their own ears how they were fooled by the traitors before.
See, a military war with Taiwan is easy for China. What to consider is the big economic consequences for the world & the details how to catch Taiwanese leaders.
China has just cancelled 134 items from trade with Taiwan. Some has calculated Taiwan’s GDP will drop by at least 1/3. Many medium & small business will be closed. … Let Taiwanese give pressure to its government/leaders.
I’ve answered this in another Quora forum, but it deserves to be repeated.
We bought this cute house which was the one of the triplets of little one bedroom one bath built in a row.
We were a young newlywed couple living in the middle house. To our right was an elderly couple who were pretty nosy, but they rarely bothered me.
But to the left was a rental under Section 8 Housing. For those unfamiliar, Section 8 is a voucher program where the federal government subsidizes rent for low income families.
It was a revolving door there. One was a single mother that we befriended, but she didn’t stay long. Another family moved in, but they kept to themselves. Again, their tenure was short-lived as well.
Then a couple moved in. We think they were a couple. It appeared to be more than two or three sometimes. Lots of people came and went. We never introduced ourselves because they appeared to be the type of people who did not want to be known.
They never acknowledged our presence either even when we would greet them when we saw them outside. They would quickly disappear inside.
One evening at a dinner at my brother-in-law’s there was a family friend who also happened to be a city police. I can’t recall his rank at the moment, but he had been with the department for some time.
I don’t know how the discussion came around to drug dealing in town, but I happen to mention to Alex that our neighbors had an awful lot of visitors. Cars would pull up to the curb and honk. The residents, usually the woman, would come and greet them down the sidewalk. And then the vehicle would leave.
He chuckled when I told the story and asked if I would be home at 3pm tomorrow afternoon. I told him that I could be. And he said “fine, put on some coffee, and we’ll visit.”
It struck me as odd, but I did what he said. At 3:00 the next afternoon Alex arrives in his police cruiser in full uniform. We sat in the kitchen and watched cars slow down in front of our next door neighbor’s home and then leave quickly. Alex laughed at each one. I think he may have recognized a couple.
Fifteen minutes later he got up to leave and said “let’s do this again tomorrow.”
A long time ago now, my elderly father fell in love with a woman appx. 20 years younger than him. She actually dated my brother for a short time who is younger than her, and decided she liked my Dad and started dating him and they had a relationship for about 10 years until I put him into a senior’s home due to dementia.
This woman drove me crazy because it seemed to me that she was lying about her past. She bragged about living in California and managing a huge club featuring the Chippendales male strippers when she was younger. She said she used to own a big horse ranch and bred horses. She also said she used to own a yacht and used it a lot. She had been married a few times and had 3 children and said she lived the high life in the past.
I found this very hard to believe because my Dad was always a very poor carpenter and was retired and lived in a modest housing cooperative which was the only kind of home he could afford on his pension and seniors benefits. She was severely disabled, legally blind and sometimes needed a wheelchair and was living on social assistance and was just as broke as my Dad and always needed money. She was renting a cheap apartment in a very low income, crime ridden neighborhood and had next to nothing and actually took advantage of my Dad who gave her money when he could spare some. She also said that she was part of a mass lawsuit of hundreds or thousands of people who were suing a pharmaceutical company because she became disabled using a pharmaceutical drugs which had severe side effects which made her disabled and ruined her life.
The way she behaved made me think she had a mental illness and was a compulsive liar – there was just something very off with the way she presented herself. Well – I was surprised when she actually showed me old photos of her surrounded by Chippendale male strippers, on a ranch with horses and on a yacht. The photos looked legit and maybe she wasn’t lying after all. I also checked the internet (at that time there wasn’t nearly as much info as there is now) and sure enough – there was a class action law suit against this pharmaceutical company by a lot of people who have been disabled and hurt by taking a pharmaceutical drug which was now discontinued due to its serious side effects. She had a daughter and I overheard them casually talking about when her children were very young and she was managing an adult strip club, etc. So I guess her outrageous stories were probably true to some extent and her life had seriously gone downhill and she was living in extreme poverty in Canada (not the US). I have lost touch with her since my Dad went into the seniors care home and as far as I know, she never did get any money from that lawsuit. But those things can drag on for a very long time.
“America touts itself as the land of the free and the home of the brave, this demonstrating that it’s only free for some and definitely a land of cowards,” Johnson said.
Johnson worried he may be targeted in a similar fashion. “He’s been convicted with no crime,” he said of Ritter, noting the former Marine Corps intelligence officer had served his country in the US military.
“There have been no charges brought against him. So this is just an arbitrary act. But when people have that kind of power and they can act unrestrained, as they have under the Biden administration, it can happen to anybody. I anticipate when I go back, they may try to seize my passport,” Johnson said.
“They take a US citizen who… just happened to be a critic of US policy and are now punishing him by preventing him from traveling freely. I think this will likely backfire because it’s going to bring more attention to Scott, not less,” Johnson concluded. “And it will get his message heard by more people instead of fewer people.”
[If Russia makes a strategic breakthrough in eastern Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland will deploy troops on Ukrainian territory, according to Der Spiegel, Germany. Do you see any reality in this type of reporting? Because how are they going to do that? How trained are they?]
“It’s delusional.
Do you know anything about dogs? You know what a Rottweiler is? I’ve got two of them. Great dogs, very loving, but they’re big—about 130 pounds each.
They have a ferocious bark and are extremely strong. Very strong. That’s Russia.
Have you seen any of these Chihuahuas, these little bitty, tiny, skinny, yappy dogs? All they do is yap-yap-yap, and they’re a pain in the ass. That’s Estonia. That’s Latvia. That’s Lithuania.
If I let my dogs out, those Chihuahuas can yap all they want, but my dogs would eat them.
Russia would eat Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania if they dared to do something like that.
Yeah, they’ve got some troops, but so what? Again, let’s go back to France.
What’s the last war that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania won?
Where are their troops so combat-trained in combined arms? Oh, they’re not.
They participated in a NATO exercise? Oh, that’s great—that qualifies you.
It doesn’t—I’m just being sarcastic.
This kind of talk is delusional on the part of these people because they’re not coming to grips with reality.
If Russia wanted to, yes, it could attack those countries and destroy those people. That’s not what Russia is about.
In fact, even when the Soviets were occupying those countries, they did it for one reason: they wanted a buffer.
After 1945, they looked back and realized they had been invaded in 1941, 1918, and 1854 (with Crimea).
After being invaded multiple times, they said, ‘Okay, wait a second, this West will not leave us alone. We’re going to create a buffer.’ That’s what Putin is all about right now.
They’ve recognized that there’s no coexistence with the West, at least not with its current leadership, when you have nitwits like Rishi Sunak.
He’s like Mini-Me—a skinny Mini-Me—from one of those cult movies.
He’s nobody.
He looks like a little boy dressed up to go out and play banker.
He’s just a tiny man, tiny both in physical and mental stature.
It’s dangerous when you have these Lilliputians running around trying to tie down Goliath.
That’s not going to happen.”
Excerpt from remarks by Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst and U.S. State Department employee, in an interview with Nima R. Alkhorshid, June 2, 2024.
PASSPORT SEIZED! Scott Ritter Taken Of Airplane While Traveling To Russia
Freedom in America.
What is something that most people don’t know?
The man in the above picture is popularly known as the Human Hibernator.
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Arthur E. (Turkey) Gehrke, was popularly known as the human Hibernator, he had a habit of going to bed in Early November and staying in bed Until April.
For 25 years Gehrke continued his practice of going to bed in November and staying there till April. A psychiatrist explained that Gehrke was suffering from Anxiety Neurosis because he suffered from shock which arise as a result from a liver ailment.
He believed staying in bed at the time he was sick made him better, he can continue to do that for the rest of his life. He told his doctors that by staying in bed he avoids getting sick.
Arthur had a bar which was the source of his bread and butter and he used to hire one bartender to look after the affairs after when he went into his hibernation.
Arthur died in his Sleep, in a hospital to which he was admitted because he suffred from acute anemia.
To date he is known as the Human Hibernator and no other man in history is known to sleep like this. At least he died doing what he loved.
In today’s world of science, human hibernation is termed to be very useful as travel to Mars would require a good amount of time (many months), if it could be learned and be tought or artificially induced – would help a lot.
I believe that many people did not know that a human hibernator existed.
Too much stress. Getting an education at MIT has been likened to “drinking from a firehose”
Mailing list spam.You can easily get 100 emails in one hour when a flamewar starts.
Lack of good on campus or near-campus food.
Everyone seems so much smarter than you.No matter how smart you are, people with gold medal at International Math Olympiads are not hard to find. There’s those who started programming at the age of 6, those who skipped two grades and still got into MIT. People breeze through problem sets in half the time you take and never have to go to office hours for help. We were all above average in high school. At some point you’re going to be below average at MIT, even the very best students. It’s just a very difficult feeling to get used to, but once you accept that you’re not the biggest fish in the pond, you’ll realize how much you can learn from an environment like MIT.
Everyone seems so much cooler than you.In a school legendarily filled with nerds there are quite a few amazing people who “seem to have it all”: Attractive, popular, everyone recognizes them at parties, boyfriend/girlfriend of everyone’s dreams, a 5.0 GPA, job at Facebook lined up, sleeps 8 hours a day and seem to be having the time of their lives while you say “I hate this frickin place”
Everyone seems to know what they’re doing except for you.While everyone rambles on about internships, the next 3 years of classes in their major, what UROP to do, what advisor to get, etc. you are just lost. In the end, it’s just an illusion caused by the vast number of people around and the fact that people rarely reveal their doubts or insecurities in public. You only see the one side they are amazing at: they, like everyone else, are human too and have worries, self-doubts, and frustrations just like you.
Someone is inevitably jealous of you.See the above three points.
Finding your home at MIT. The housing system can cause a lot of consternation, especially if you wind up in a dorm you really don’t like and can’t transfer out. Every dorm has its unique personality, which they advertise to freshman incomers during a 3-day period called REX (Residential Exploration) at the beginning of the school year. After basing their preferences on this, various gossip, friends made in the past few days, and CPW (Campus Preview Weekend, for admitted freshmen), freshmen make their choices – and then have to decided which wing or floor of their dorm to live in – each of which also has a unique personality.
This gives a lot of freedom and ability to create communities but is also radically different from every other school I’ve heard of, and creates a lot of drama for freshmen. Immediately afterwards, fraternity rush and sorority recruitment begins – 50% of MIT men and 30% of MIT women are in the Greek system, which makes this a big deal unlike many other schools. Do you pledge? Do you not pledge? Which is the right place for me?
Too much frickin’ snow. Being from California, I’m not used to waking up to this:
The dining plan is now mandatory in certain dorms. If you don’t use the 12-17 meals required per week, you lose all of them. This was a giant change from the previous meal plan which was optional and much cheaper. There were also no guest meals in 2011-2012 – guests had to pay $13.50 cash for a dinner.
You’re often stuck on campus and where the Saferide/Tech Shuttle takes you. The T is pretty good but takes effort to ride. To someone from California walking 15 minutes in the snow to the Red Line + 5-10 minute wait for a train + 10-20 minutes into Boston seemed like a major pain to do frequently. Especially if it’s late or a far destination outside the reach of the T. Driving usually is not an option. Until I discovered Zipcar of course.
Walking to class. Especially in the Infinite Corridor, when suddenly a wild tourist group appears…
The poor stray cat, bullied by its peers, sat alone on the hood, tears in his eyes as he met my gaze
A while back, my son was super excited to start his first day at a new swim class. He’d been looking forward to it for weeks, but the day before his first lesson, he fell off his bike and broke his arm. It was such a letdown. Since parents were welcome on the first day and I knew he’d need some help, I decided to go with him.
When we arrived, I got a bad feeling right away. The instructor barely acknowledged us and seemed irritated that my son had a broken arm. She made it clear that he was more of a hassle than anything else, which didn’t sit well with me. The final straw came during the warm-up. The instructor had a rule where the kids got to do the exercises in order of how “well-behaved” they’d been. I didn’t love this idea, but since it was our first experience, I decided to roll with it. My son was placed last because he couldn’t keep up with the warm-up exercises due to his broken arm. He ended up stuck at the back with the rowdiest kids, who were splashing water and goofing off, while my son just stood there looking lost and unsure. I could see this going on for months – my kid treated like a burden and stuck with kids who weren’t a great influence. After the warm-up, I took his hand, and we left. I couldn’t see us putting up with that kind of treatment.
Thankfully, I managed to get our entire non-refundable deposit back. We found a more accommodating swim class where my son thrived, and his broken arm was never an issue.
This story is certainly different. An American family were on holiday (vacation) in the UK for the 1st time.
They visited the usual tourist attractions that Americans love castles old Manor houses and British countryside.
They were visiting a Manor house steeped in history an about 1000 years old.
The youngest daughter who was 10 at the time suddenly went very quiet then very excited and announced I use to live here.
The family were taken a back by this announcement but just teased her by saying sure you have.
That’s when things started getting odd they were getting a guided tour of the house. The little girl kept interrupting the tour guide telling where things were to the astonishment of everyone there.
They got to oldest part of the house when the little girl got very upset and refused to go any further.
The tour stopped everyone concerned for the little girl including the irritated and slightly annoyed tour guide what’s up with you something awful happen here laughing
The little girl stopped crying and very coldly said they bricked me up in a room down there and left me to die for something I didn’t do.
The little girl stopped looked at her mum dad and asked what are we doing here and couldn’t remember anything she had said earlier.
The tour guide was the most shocked he said that 500 years ago a young girl was bricked up in a room by her husband who wanted rid of her so he could marry someone else.
The room was discovered a hundred years ago during building work finding the the poor girl.
The tour guide said that story was not on the official tour as there was hundreds of stories to tell.
The American family certainly had a story to take back to states and obviously check there family tree.
The little girl just snapped out of it and couldn’t remember any of it.
I read this story in a magazine about 30 years ago so I can’t update on it.
I like the story as its so unusual so if any of our American cousins are coming over on holiday it might happen to you.
Mark Sleboda: Putin, China and Iran Drop BOMBSHELL on U.S. Military as Middle East Embraces New Era
This isn’t a matter of establishing supply chains.
This is a matter of economics. Using US supply chain to build electronics products would raise costs by 5–10 times. I can create a supply chain for the entire electronics industry. Everything from SMD resistors, capacitors, etc. to PCBs.
But I wouldn’t be able to sell the products outside of the US. And I would also need laws to protect the supply chain. Tariffs of 1000% for ALL electronic products and parts.
The problem is the US market isn’t big enough compared to the entire world so those tariffs and laws will always need to be there.
And the US consumer would have to pay $2,000 for a LCD TV instead of $500. And this would be for everything with electronics in them. And since I have a monopoly, the prices would rise.
Many nations have attempted this in history for every product you can think of. They have always failed because the prices because so large that their own consumers could no longer afford most of the products. So people stopped buying and were pissed off.
Amazon and other retailers product list would drop like a rock. So Amazon would take a massive hit in revenue and then their stock would drop off a cliff.
It’s a vicious cycle that nations do not want to happen.
This is why the US hasn’t tried it. The US has tried it in the solar panel industry and the solar panel makers went bankrupt. Because the prices were so high, people stopped installing them.
ATACMS, F16s, boots on the ground; Russian warnings ignored
This video was made three hours before it actually happened!
Back in grade 8, I was tiny and awkward and usually quiet. The tallest boy decided I was his target one day as the whole class stood against the hallway wall waiting for our teacher to come unlock the classroom. I wasn’t impressed and told him to stop.
I warned him he wasn’t going to like what happens if he continued. He of course just laughed and continued. So, like my parents taught me I gave him a hard right upper cut. His head went up and back so hard he hit his head on the wall behind him and slid all the way down onto his ass out cold.
I was shocked and knuckles bruised but kept my cool.
The class gasped, laughed and yelled all kinds of support. Just as the teacher came to our door. We all marched in past the body starting to stir. The teacher finally noticed him and asked what happened. “I hit my head on the wall I think” was all he would say.
2 years later, grade 10 Art class he walks in. His older brother was also in the class but I didn’t know this at the time. Tall guy sits at my table and when the teacher isn’t around he starts trying to tease me. I turned face to face with him and said, “Do you have a short memory? I’m still tough enough to knock you on your ass and there are 20 some witnesses who can vouch for it.” “That was a lucky shot, that’s all.” He shyly tried to back up but his brother had Heard and jumped on the moment.
He teased him terribly and laughed asking me if that was back in grade 8 and was I really the one. Said not to worry, his little brother won’t be stepping out of line again and I was officially “Wild Thing!” The nickname didn’t last more than a year but it was funny. I also realized then that his older brother was the reason he thought it was ok to be a bully. I hope he managed to get passed the teasing and he and his brother could be friends.
NASA Isn’t Telling Us Something About The Moon
“We won’t have to bring any food to the Moon on our next trip because we can order out from the local Chinese Russian or Indian restaurants.”
“So, you don’t talk much?” I casually asked my Uber driver, an American man in his mid 20s.
He shook his head.
“Oh, okay.” I shrugged.
“It’s just– nothing really matters. Why talk about anything, if nothing matters?”
“You’re a nihilist?”
And suddenly, I was trapped in a Toyota Prius, hurtling down the highway with a man who– as it turns out– actually had a lot to say about the government, the universe, and everything.
Things took a turn about 15 minutes into his rant when it became clear he also held a grudge against women.
Knuckles white on the steering wheel, spittle hitting the windscreen– dude was angry.
Alarm bells dinged out a frantic ‘Pachelbel Canon’ in my head.
My instincts took over.
I nodded, agreed, backed him up. Cooed over his angry remarks.
Agreed with how unfair life had been to him, feigned concern.
Offered him a snickers bar.
We arrived at my destination, a place I was house sitting.
Completely alone.
For seven days.
“You know, if you want to keep talking, I could come in for a while?” he asked, no longer with venom in his eyes, but weird puppy-dog hope.
“I’m sorry, my Hubbs is going to be home any minute, it wouldn’t feel right.”
With a sad frown and greasy hair, he drove off.
I promptly ran inside and locked all the doors and windows.
– – –
Edit:
Thank you to everyone who had something kind to say, I appreciate your empathy!
To everyone else: is it really that big of a deal if I felt unsafe and handled it in a polite and calm way?
Maybe you were overreacting, lady!
I can assure you I was not, believe me, I was there.
But that’s beside the point. I didn’t karate chop him and roll out of the moving vehicle, did I?
I just politely said ‘goodbye!’ and went inside.
It’s really great that there are plenty of people here who are feeling bad for the guy– I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. Heck, everyone should. Mental health is a real issue in the States.
I just hope that we can look at this answer for what it is: an insight into one woman’s mind when she found herself in a scary situation.
Pregnant Cat Cries Just Before She Was About To Be Put Down. What Happens Next Will Melt Your Heart!
Should Cambodia submit itself to be a province of China so as to become second-class citizens of a superpower?
The Chinese are not WASPs (White Anglo Saxon ProtestantsIn) who believe they are superior.
China respects all countries, Same welcome ceremony as that for Russian President Putin. China treats countries the same, big or small.
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Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Manet
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President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin
China has no precedent of letting a head of state sit on a small bench.
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić
Leaders of small countries like this do not get such welcome treatment in the West especially in the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLY90qkfLm8
Whenever an leader from Africa or a poorer country visits the eu or us they never get treatment like this and rarely see the president.
When African leaders visit the west , they huddle all the African leaders in 1 bus like school chiildren ~ William Ruto (President of Kenya)
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At the US-Africa summit, Joe Biden rode in the presidential limousine while African leaders crowded into a bus.
When African leaders visit China, each of them has a Hongqi presidential car arranged by China to serve him.
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The citizens of small countries, including Cambodia, are not idiots, and neither are their leaders.
They know exactly who respects them and treats them as honored guests and who treats them with arrogance and treats them like second-class citizens.
In addition, to make you sad, with the rise of Southeast Asia, there are not many days when old white men go to Southeast Asia with few dollars and euros to find young girls.
Lewis was about to collapse under the weight of the information and the speed of the data that had churned into his mind since Spring. He was a foremost academic. An expert in Global Economics,. Climate Sciences , Engineering, knew everything about Global history, knew all the facts, possessed all the arguments by memory. His mind was the Collective. The implant he got at a young age connected him instantly to everyone and everything curated by an artificial intelligence created with the sole purpose of making sure he wanted not for knowledge of anything. He was about to unalive himself. He took the winter off of his research and had an automated vehicle drive him to Alabama. From Maassachusets to Alabama. Hours down numbered highways. Lewis was never lost. He knew the entire route and where the traffic stops were. He knew where the wrecks were. He knew that the National Weather Service Radar had đetected inclement weather. His mind was a constant electronic buzz. He never wondered anything. The whole ride, sitting alone in the vehicle while it navagated itself, in a bubble of complete comfort Lewis streamed podcasts into his mind constantly, though if the information mentioned was published in the academic presses he knew it instantly. It was all uploaded to the Collective. Eventually he was in a fetal position, like a zygote in the womb of a publicly owned electric vehicle with ‘Copilot’ application that connected directly to Lewis’s mind. His body sobbed, The car streamed into his mind, “YOU HAVE REACHED THE HANK WILLIAMS HIGHWAY, ALSO KNOWN AS THE ‘HANK WILLIAMS MEMORIAL HIGHWAY.’ I-65 IN ALABAMA. IT BEGINS IN GEORGIANA, ALABAMA WHICH WAS HANK WILLIAMS BOYHOOD…” Lewis, whose biological body was still sobbing and whose emotional self felt unaliving dread, could only hear in his mind, “HIRAM KING WILLIAMS, BORN 1929 IN MOUNT OLIVE ALABAMA…” The vehicle pulled out infront of the shotgun shack that had belonged to his family for generations. The vehicle aimed itself directly at the old wooden steps. Lewis walked in the old cabin. On the old fold out table was a strange machine he paid no mind to. In one corner was the rifle, made for a child, that he remembered. As his eyes rested on it and his emotional self’ felt perverse relief, the Collective, via his mind announced, “THE RUGER 10722 WAS FIRST INTRODUCED IN 1964. IT IS A SEMI-AUTOMATIC RIFLE THAT HAS BEEN IN PRODUCTION SINCE THEN, MAKING IT ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL RIMFIRE RIFLE DESIGNS IN HISTORY. ” Lewis was sitting on the top step now. “THE RUGER 10/22 RIMFIRE…”
It was the most bizarre thing Lewis had ever experienced.
He looked up at the ceiling lit by fluorescent light and heard nothing. After a while He heard someone say, “How long has it been? Where am I?” He looked around the room. The last thing he could remember was lights, orange fleeting lights on the highway, and a feeling he could not
put words to. He sat there, either in silence, or hearing that strange voice that didn’t know anything but knew about him. Hours passed, though he didn’t know that for sure.
A nurse came in and noted instantly in his case report that he “had regained consciousness, despite being inactive from the Collective.” Lewis felt like he was falling into the bed as she stared at him for seven minutes without blinking. Then It decided that she needed to express herself verbally. “You are at Andalusia Regional Hospital. Andalusia, Alabama. You sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound after an attempt to unalive yourself. Luckily your action took place in view of your car’s safety camera and an autonomous 1ife flight was dispatched.” This was delivered to Lewis with no meter nor tone inflection and for some reason, must be some medication he figured, Lewis felt sick looking at the glaring nurse.
He was released and the same vehicle which had saved his life had followed Lewis to the hospital. At the cabin he noticed that the sun had stained the top step red with his blood, inside the door was the Rugar leaning against a wall. He looked at it. Mind said nothing. He felt regret, and pain, and shame, and gratitude, though he could not say why. There were no words except “Thank you” repeating in his mind. Tears came to him. He picked up the rifle, walked it to a back room, and put it up in a closet. He sat at the table and looked up at the dusty portrait of the last supper. He could not remember who had painted it, maybe Michelangelo. He looked up at it and remembered those dinners shared at the table before he was an academic, when uncles would talk of hogs and aunts would whisper. He hardly knew anything and was happy. He sat in that feeling of the past, and his mind said nothing to him. Or rather, he thought about nothing. After he ate a meal of surplus food from plastic bags in silence, he found on the shelf, tucked between photographs of his grandparents, a small hardcover book. Physical books were very expensive. There had not been a need to print one for many years. Any book one had the desire to read was instantly known down to the last word simply by becoming cognizant of it. First, he smelled the object, and his mind lit up. He loved the smell. He wrestled with himself on what to call it. Sweet, woody, pulp? cardboard? No, fresh and ancient. He could smell times gone by. He could smell the sweat of the 20th century. He read the three-word title. Which surprisingly, for a scholar took a lot more effort than he thought. It’s not that he couldn’t read, He knew more words than the author did. He knew better grammar than the author did. There was something else, a discipline of manual-reading that he had to develop, as well as an ability to let his own thoughts speak as he read. The most amazing thing happened as he read the first page slowly. Visions came to him, and he heard voices. He was at the edge of a harbor. It was night but he could hear the waves in front of him. From the darkness a spotlight would scan across the water and onto the sand.
He walked back to the closet and got the rifle out, then out the door sat on the top step and loaded it. He noticed there was dried blood still on it and he felt that grateful sorrow. He walked around the back of the old house. He followed a path that existed much less in the sand he was walking in than in the sacred pre-Collective part of him. He passed the fallen down house with the iron toilet sunk halfway into the ground and the lid long had been taken off. He walked along with the gun resting in the crook of his arm and it looked like a pipe hanging lazily on the lip. He would have called it hunting but really, he is just walking at such a slow pace the business of the woods can go on without noticing the intruder. Lewis strolled along all the way until he reached the bank of the river. He leaned the rifle on a tree and sat in the sand on the bank and watched the black water flow by. In the shallow part where the water was amber, he watched a bass struggle against the flow of the stream. He watched until the fish peeled off and swam downstream. He took the book out of his pocket and began reading. —Nothing but burned over country… Looked down into the clear brown river… Trout keeping themselves steady in the current… He watched them a long time… “What was he thinking as he watched them?” Lewis asked himself. A strong breeze came down the river corridor and shook the trees and out in front of Lewis there was a rattling coming from the overhanging tree. He peered into the tree for a long time while trying to see what caused the noise. There were several lures, rusty hooks lodged into the tree that had grown around them. The tops of the lures were bleached white and treads of old line drifted in the breeze like Spanish moss. Lewis reckoned they had been there a long time. He wondered what had been in the minds of those that left them.
After eating back at the cabin that evening Lewis took the book and sat down at the table under the Michelangelo painting. Lewis read those first three words, the title, “In Our Time.” By the time he got through to the end of the book it was dark but Lewis didn’t notice. He was living in the thousand other lives that the Collective had kept from him.
Why does the Western media portray China in a negative light? Has China been misrepresented?
Wow, I am absolutely privileged to meet someone who was born yesterday. Greetings!
Or perhaps you’ve been living on a deserted island your whole life, in which case you have my sympathy.
By now, everyone who has kept abreast of world events over the past several decades is aware of the unbridled hatred the collective West has for China.
This is evidenced by relentless Western anti-China propaganda disinformation.
And the reasons are pretty obvious. They’re one or some combination of the following:
Fear of losing Western global hegemony to China.
Racism (white supremacy) or Sinophobia.
Jealousy. China’s spectacular success just makes the West look bad. It’s an ego thing, a matter of national pride.
Politics. China is a terrific scapegoat to divert attention from the poor state of Western economies. Pay particular attention to the 2024 US Presidential Election.
Anyway, I hope you are now caught up from your slumber.
Why We’re Leaving The United States
FLASH!!! Russia Formally “Warns” United States Against “Miscalculations that could have Fatal Consequences”
Moscow warns the United States against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences.
“Fatal consequences” is not ambiguous. There is no room for misinterpretation.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, commenting on Kiev getting permission to carry out attacks with American weapons deep into Russian territory also said:
“The Russian Federation calls on the United States to take Russian warnings with the utmost seriousness.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov continued by saying “Ukrainian attacks on missile attack warning systems: such attempts will be stopped, the response may be asymmetrical.”
Of course “asymmetrical” means that one side does one thing, the other side does something completely unexpected and different.
HT Remark: I do not know how much longer the Russians can go without hitting the United States for all our murderous meddling in the Ukraine situation. I suspect that when Russia’s retaliation comes, it will be sudden, dramatic, and horrifying.
Readers of this site know that I have urged and implored them to get emergency prep supplies of food, water, medicines you need to live, communications gear like CB or HAM radios, flashlights, batteries, first-aid kits. a generator to keep your refrigerator running and spare fuel for that generator.
I do NOT sell any of these things and have no financial interest at all in what you buy. I’m telling you to do this to save your lives!
Things seem to be rapidly escalating out of control. If you are not prepared in advance, and think you’ll run out t to the store to get these things once attacks begin, you will find yourselves S.O.L. because store shelves will be wiped clean by millions of other panicking people. Get the things you can get, RIGHT NOW. Don’t wait.
Better to have them, and not need them, than to need them and not have them.
When someone hugs you, you should not be first to break it.
Remove your sunglasses when you have to speak to someone.
Irrespective of your closeness, do not ask your friends and room mates for their clothes, shoes and accessories. Those are ‘ personal belongings‘
Do not order expensive stuff when you are sharing or the other person is paying the bill.
Don’t make ola / uber driver wait for you. Time is literally money for them.
If you borrow someone else’s novel/ books, do not mark anything in them. Return them in a good condition and within acceptable time.
Compliment people when you notice their extra efforts in something.
If any child touched you and asked(begged) for money don’t give a dirty look at them and run two steps back. Give, if you want to or say no. That’s it.
Wave your hand rather than calling his or her name in a louder pitch if someone is wearing headphones.
Praise publicly. Criticise privately.
Be quiet when other people are asleep. That means more than not talking — not slamming doors, drawers, etc.
Avoid finishing other people’s sentences and cutting them off
If you get a missed call, remember to call them back. Or at least drop a message.
Reasons I left the United States, 3 years later in Spain
Anna stood, suitcase in hand, in front of the old white farmhouse, as the caseworker drove away, kicking up dust in her wake. The front door swung open and Aunt Betty stepped out, hand raised in greeting.Having been raised the only child of a mother who preferred alcohol to her daughter, Anna was quite used to being dropped off at unfamiliar homes, with unfamiliar people. She never quite felt like she belonged anywhere. This was no different. Aunt Betty, as she was known, was a sweet old lady who opened her home to many foster kids over the years, having never had any children of her own.“Oh Anna, darling! Please come in, come in! Here, let me get that for you.” She said, reaching for my bag. “We’ve been waiting for you, dear. I am so sorry for everything you’ve been through to get you here. You must be tired.” Anna simply nodded and followed closely behind her.“Are you hungry, dear? Or would you like to go straight up to your room? It’s just this way.” Without even waiting for an answer she ushered her towards the stairs to the second story. There were photos on the walls, most of them crooked and layered with a thin film of dust, but it was evidence of a loving home. Something she was in desperate need of.Upstairs, Aunt Betty set her bag down on the bed and gave her a chance to get settled. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything, Anna. Please, don’t be shy.” She closed the door gently on her way out.Anna took a deep breath and glanced around, taking in her surroundings. A simple room, adorned with a bed and a dresser. It would certainly do.She unpacked what little belongings she had, placing her clothes in the dresser, and a couple of old paperback books on the bedside table. While sliding her suitcase under the bed, she noticed something unusual about the flooring. To get a closer look, she scooted as far under the bed as she could. Several of the boards, about two feet in length, were cut on either end.
“Anna, darling!” Startled, she knocked her head against the bed frame as Aunt Betty called from downstairs. “Are you hungry, dear? I’ve made up some food for you!”.
“I’ll be right there…” She called back, as she slid out from under the bed, making a mental note to come back to investigate.
**
Later that night, sufficiently full of home-cooked food, Anna made her way back to her bedroom. She was looking forward to being able to relax alone; moving into a new place was always so mentally exhausting. But first, she had to know what, if anything, was up with the floor. As quietly as she could, she slid her bed over a few feet. Kneeling on the floor, Anna pulled up on the boards one by one. Underneath, to her satisfaction, was a wooden crate and an old typewriter. Wiping some of the dust off the crate, she noticed the letters E.A. written on top. She wasted no time in taking the lid off. It was filled with aged paper. Journal articles, by the looks of it. After a quick glance she noticed the first page was dated October 15, 1918. She rifled through the crate, looking at the rest of the dates. They didn’t seem to be in any particular order, as if someone had haphazardly collected the papers and threw them in.
She found the page with the earliest date, figuring it would be best to read chronologically, and started reading.
**
October 15, 1905
Dear reader,
I hope this finds you well. It is my birthday… Today I am fifteen years old. Ma and Pa gifted me this typewriter. They’ve known of my fondness for stories since I was a small girl. I couldn’t be more thrilled to have opened it. I have decided to write journals to document my life. Maybe someday you will find it. Maybe someday I will read them back and realize what a wonderfully exciting life I have lived. Oh, how I long for adventure. I have always had the sense that I do not belong here… like I am destined for more than to grow up and become a housewife, on a farm in the middle of Virginia. Perhaps I will become a famous author one day! I will write again soon.
Best,
E.A.
**
Anna read through the journal entries one by one. Many of them were so worn with age that they were difficult or impossible to read. A few partially eaten by mice. The mystery author wrote almost daily. Occasionally she tried her hand at fictional stories. Many times she wrote about her life: her friends, books she was reading, plans she had for the day, and fond memories that she wanted to remember.
**
October 16, 1895
Do forgive me if this does not make much sense. I can hardly believe it and I myself experienced it. My last entry was last night, I wrote about my fifth birthday. Shortly after writing that, I extinguished my candles and went to sleep. When I woke up this morning, I was not where I was supposed to be. I am home, yes. But everything is different. I should say, everything is as it once was. Ma and Pa look different, much younger. There is a little girl, strangely resembling me as a child. They are treating me as though I am a scullery maid. I feel like an outsider with my own family! In the kitchen, I noticed a newspaper dated October 16, 1895. It is impossible, utterly impossible! But I seem to have traveled through time.
E.A.
**
Anna looked up from the page. Time travel? It was far more likely that the mystery author was simply practicing her creative writing. Fiction or not, she was grateful for this temporary escape from reality. More and more, she felt like the author was a kindred spirit. They were just words on a page, but she felt like she had found a friend. She looked up at the clock: 11:45. Her eyes were burning with fatigue. She knew she should go to bed, but she couldn’t, like a novel she couldn’t put down, she went back to the crate of papers. The next date didn’t make sense, July 30, 1862. If it was the same writer, she wouldn’t have even been born yet.
**
July 30, 1862
A civil war is currently raging between the north and the south. I have been in search of an adventure, and while I have certainly found one, I’m unsure whether it is wise to be here. Danger is all around. The north seems to be prevailing. I do hope that they succeed. This is not the Virginia that I know. I have felt ashamed everyday that my ancestors are here now, fighting for their right to treat human beings as property. I have seen abhorrent things here. I am missing home, but I want to be helpful, in some way. I have befriended several wives of Union soldiers and we have been raising money and sending supplies. I am unsure where or when I will travel next.
E.A.
**
“Aunt Betty, how long have you lived in this house?” Anna asks as she pours herself a cup of coffee the next morning.
“Oh, this house has belonged to me for many years, dear. Let’s see… I think I arrived in the sixties. Yes, that’s right, I believe it was the year 1969. I met Arther shortly after and we got married, and made ourselves a nice home here.”
“I found some old things in my room… journals dated much earlier than that. I just wondered who they belonged to.”
“It is such an old house. This farm has a lot of history, to be sure. It stood here far before I came. That sounds fascinating.” She said, pouring a coffee of her own. “Where did you find them?”
“They were under my bed… someone cut a hole in the floor and tucked them away under there. I just found them by chance.”
“Oh dear, you know the furniture in this house has not been moved in many years… I suppose I forgot that it was there.”
With a warm smile, Aunt Betty made her way to the porch to enjoy her coffee in her rocking chair, just like she did every morning.
**
December 12, 1969
I’ve found myself in the year 1969. I’m now 25 years old. I’ve been traveling like this for many years now and I am growing weary. I am feeling more and more like I do not belong anywhere. I have experienced the impossible. I have seen incredible things, and equally as many horrible things. I long for a home and a family. I wonder what they think happened to me. By this time, they are long dead. It gives me some solace to know that as long as I have my typewriter, I can go home to them, at any point. As long as I have that, I will never truly be alone. But how long can I go on like this… with no roots in the ground.
When I arrived here, I found myself under a beautiful willow tree. After walking a short distance I came upon a farm, with pastures and a barn and a beautiful white house with a big porch. From what I can tell it is abandoned, which is useful for me. It is a comfortable place to rest. I will write soon.
E.A.
**
Anna sets down the page and reaches into the crate for the next one, but as she does she finds that it is the last entry.
“No! It can’t end like that!” She said aloud. She turned to the typewriter, looking for clues on who it might have belonged to. She clicked a few keys, testing it out. It can’t really be a time machine, she thought. With only one way to truly find out, she inserted a piece of paper, but when she tried to type, nothing happened. It was broken, and with no understanding whatsoever about typewriters, especially potentially magical typewriters, she was ill suited to fix it. As she tinkered with it, a thought suddenly came to her, “Wait… 1969… 1969!”
Anna got up to run downstairs, but as she turned around, Aunt Betty was standing in her bedroom doorway.
“My friends and family have always called me Betty, dear, but my full name is Elizabeth Alexander. By the look on your face it appears that you have put enough of the pieces together to have figured that out on your own. The typewriter has been broken for a long time. I never was able to figure out how to fix it.”
“You wrote these… it was all true.”
“Yes, somehow it is. And what an adventure it was… for a time, at least. It was lonely, though. When I got stuck here, I realized how much I missed having a family. After so many years with no home, it was time I made one.” She smiled warmly down at Anna. “I want you to know that you have a home here now, too. You always will.”
If you are a healthy 20 year old,you have around 2860 weeks before you die. (Just 2860 Sundays).
The average person will be less successful than they think.
About 153,000 people die on your birthday.
Seals have been known to rape penguins.
If you took all of the world’s spiders and let them out in the Netherlands, they would consume the country’s population in three days.
One in fifty of us is walking around with a brain aneurysm. It just hasn’t ruptured.
The Colombian serial killer Pedro AlonsoLopez, who is known as the Monster of the Andes, raped and murdered over 300 girls from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. However, after he was caught and imprisoned for 18 years, he was put in a psychiatric hospital. There he was reviewed, declared to be sane and was set free, in spite of his blatant avowal that he fully intends to kill again. Ever since his release in 1998, nobody knows where he is or what he’s doing.
In 2012, scientists found 1,458 new species of bacteria living in the belly button. Everyone’s belly button ecology is unique like a fingerprint, and one volunteer’s belly button harbored bacteria that had previously been found only in soil from Japan where he had never been.
A person suffering from Cotard’s Syndrome believes he/she is dead. Cotard’s syndrome comprises any one of a series of delusions that range from a belief that one has lost organs, blood, or body parts to insisting that one has lost one’s soul or is dead.
If you’re looking at a Victorian photo and one of the subjects in the photo is clearer than the rest, they’re probably dead.
An octopus is flexible enough to enter your mouth, navigate your digestive system and leave through your anus.
60% of the UK population feels like no one really loves them.
If you are a single child and don’t have kids you will break an unbroken line of children that has gone on for tens of millions of years.
Russian Paratroopers KILLED A French Army OFFICER In DONETSK┃NATO Officers Were Wiped Out In VINITSA
Systems Are Coming Apart; NY Stock Exchange “Glitches” Cause Multiple “Trading Halts” as $1.4 TRILLION Magically Wiped-out for Berkshire Hathaway . . .
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) opened as usual at 9:30 eastern time today, and within minutes chaos erupted. Trading in multiple stocks had to be “Halted” because of “Volatility” as over $1.4 TRILLION Value got “glitched.”
GameStop Trading Activity Halted – Roaring Kitty’s Return Keith Gill, known as “Roaring Kitty,” returned to social media, reigniting interest GameStop shares.
Horace Mann Educators Corporation Common Stock — Trading Halted at 09:46:15 ET on NYSE | Volatility Trading Pause | 2024-06-03
Trinity Industries, Inc. Common Stock — Trading Halted at 09:45:10 ET on NYSE | Volatility Trading Pause | 2024-06-03
Plutonian Acq Cp Ut | Trading Halted at 09:44:53 ET on NASDAQ | Volatility Trading Pause | 2024-06-03
Kforce, Inc. – Common Stock | Trading Halted at 10:00:24 ET on NYSE | Volatility Trading Pause | 2024-06-03
Then the really big boys starting getting hit . . . badly:
JPMorgan Core Plus Bond ETF | Trading Halted at 09:38:08 ET on Non NASDAQ | Volatility Trading Pause | 2024-06-03
AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Class A Common Stock | Trading Halted at 09:37:10 ET on NYSE | Volatility Trading Pause | 2024-06-03
But the absolutely HUGE problem of the day was…
Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway which took took a minor 99.97% haircut. Which is equivalent to a valuation loss of $1.4 trillion, however, trading has been halted and it is likely a technical issue.
Hal Turner Snap Analysis
So what can we, the regular folks, make of this? Why the sudden gigantic volatility in the markets?
A number of people with whom I spoke this afternoon all agreed: The system is coming apart at the seams. There is so much corruption, so much dirty dealing, so much cooking of the books, so many outright phony reporting of financial numbers, it is hard to hide anymore.
Plus, several of them said, the US money supply is contracting. It has only done that before and then the Great Depression followed.
So it seems to many people – but certainly not all – that the system is now coming apart.
Think about this for a moment: If the premier Stock Exchange in the world, closes with everything fine on Friday, then opens with inexplicable catastrophic volatility on Monday morning, how trustworthy is the system anymore?
Of course, I saw this as it was taking place and . . . all my regular readers know what I did . . . . went to the bank and pulled out some cash. Not for paying bills, but to SURVIVE ON if the entire system collapsed.
I don’t trust it anymore. At all.
The fact that this type of trouble could pop-up out of nowhere, and likely be a “glitch” in some computer somewhere, tells me the system is now completely unstable and is not to be trusted at all.
Others may legitimately have a different view, and I respect that. But frankly, when it comes to matters financial, I don’t trust these people are far as I can throw them, and I can’t even pick them up.
Z E R O Trust.
I have some cash to live on . . . do you? If not, get some. Just in case.
Abandoned And Locked Up, He Was Exhausted, Tears Streaming Down His Face When He Was Rescued
Abandoned And Locked Up, He Was Exhausted, Tears Streaming Down His Face When He Was Rescued The poor kitten had to live on the roof for months after being abandoned by its previous owner when moving to another place… It was hungry, thirsty, lost the will to live, lost nutrition, and began to have organ failure, slim chance of survival. After 8 months of rebirth, it is miraculous that the connection of so many people can create unparalleled strength and save a life without any hope.
Former US Marine, and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter was physically stopped from visiting Russia today, by U.S. government hirelings.
The US State Department seized the passport of former Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, he said on Monday.
Ritter was on his way to Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) when he was pulled off the plane and had his documents confiscated.
“My passport was seized by the State Department,” Ritter said in a message. “I was pulled off the airplane.”
“I’m fine, just aggravated,” he added.
Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, who later served as the US and UN weapons inspector in Iraq. He is also a Russia Today (RT) contributor, writing about international security, military affairs, Russia, and the Middle East, as well as arms control and nonproliferation.
He most recently visited Russia in January, spending time in Chechnya, Moscow and St. Petersburg, among other places.
The most recent post on Ritter’s Telegram channel put the Clooney Foundation for Justice on notice for its alleged crusade against “Russian propagandists.”
“Here I am. In your face. If telling the truth about Russia makes me a propagandist in your book, then I accept the title,” he wrote. “Bring it on. I’ll school you on the First Amendment.”
“You have zero concept of what free speech is. Try and arrest me and you’ll find out. In spades. It’s war,” he added.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW
Whiskey-Molasses Shredded Beef
This isn’t your grandma’s shredded beef recipe—or is it? Bottom round roast slow-cooked in sweetness and served with a carrot-apple slaw.
whiskey molasses shredded beef
Cook: 10 hr 30 min | Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
1 beef bottom round roast (about 2 1/2 pounds), cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup whiskey
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, divided
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
4 tablespoons packed brown sugar, divided
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
2 cups shredded carrots*
2 cups diced Granny Smith apple*
Instructions
Place beef bottom round roast in 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 quart slow cooker. Combine whiskey, 1/4 cup vinegar, tomato paste, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, molasses, salt and pepper; pour over roast. Cover and cook on HIGH for 4 to 6 hours or on LOW for 8 to 10 hours, or until beef is, fork-tender.
Remove roast from slow cooker; shred with 2 forks. Skim fat from sauce as needed. Return beef to slow cooker; stir to combine with sauce.
Meanwhile, combine remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar, remaining 2 tablespoons brown sugar and mustard in large bowl. Add carrots and apples; mix well. Season with salt and black pepper, as desired. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve beef with slaw.
Pressure Cooker Method
Place beef Bottom Round Roast in pressure cooker; add 1/2 cup beef broth. Close and lock pressure cooker lid. Use beef, stew or high-pressure setting on pressure cooker; program 90 minutes on pressure cooker timer. Use quick-release feature to release pressure; carefully remove lid. Shred beef; return to pressure cooker.
Combine cooking liquid, whiskey, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, tomato paste, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, molasses, salt and pepper in small saucepan. Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until desired consistency is reached.
Combine sauce and shredded beef. Continue as directed in Step 3. (This recipe variation was tested in an electric pressure cooker at high altitude. Cooking at an altitude of less than 3000 feet may require slightly less cooking time. Refer to the manufacturer’s instructions.)
Notes
*Thinly sliced pears, celery, red cabbage, green cabbage or bell peppers or a pre-packaged slaw mix can be used in place of the carrots or apple.
Serving Suggestion: Sandwiches, tacos, nachos or sliders.
This recipe can be made in a 6 quart electric pressure cooker.
When I lived in the State’s I often would travel to certain cities. Sometimes for work. Sometimes for personal reasons. But all in all, I pretty much have been exposed to many different American cities.
One of the things that I would notice in all of the big cities of America was the abandoned, chained up, bicycles on the various streets.
pexels photo 1987736
You would be so surprised with how many old and abandoned bicycles are there. Many have the rubber wheels are gone, they are rusty and growing into the various trees on the residential trees.
Ah. Is this significant?
Nope. It probably isn’t.
But it’s a fine curiosity. And something rarely noticed and thus rarely discussed.
Today…
Life in the UK vs Life in China (Don’t watch if youre sensitive.)
What is a family secret you didn’t know as a kid, but now as an adult you do and when you look back it explains a lot of things?
My Great Aunt Dottie was actually my Great Uncle Garrison. He was never invited to any family events and when they’d ask my Great Aunt Remi (Dottie’s sister) where “Gary” was (Dottie hated that name with a vengeance) it was always with darting eyes and hushed voices making sure the children didn’t hear, Remi would answer, “he’s dead and you damned well know it.” It wasn’t until I was in high-school and had a friend who had two dads that my mom quipped one day while she was doing the dishes “You know your Great Aunt Dottie was a man, right?” and I was dumbfounded, I loved Great Aunt Dottie, I would ride my bike over to her house all the time and have tea and cookies and the most amazing monkey meat sandwiches ever and she would teach me how to cross stitch and how to plan a fifteen course meal. It was Great Aunt Dottie that taught me how to waltz and roller skate and how to shoot a bow and arrow. I actually loved my Great Aunt Dottie more after I found out that she chose her own happiness over her family and was one of only three members of my family to attend her funeral. But looking back I wonder if I always kind of knew, she had a husky voice, an always present five o clock shadow and scratched her balls like a true man.
Most men can remember back to a time on the schoolyard when two kids got into a confrontation and one of them kept promising to do something bad to the other if the other did not stop whatever it was he was doing. The threat of consequences was supposed to deter the other, but the other kid was undeterred, and the result was a fight, with the kid making the threats getting the worst of it. Bullies often come to a bad end like this as their bullying is based on threats.
If you are a member of the managerial elite, it is unlikely that you have such a memory as you were raised by women, so no school yard fights. As a result, the logic of the bully, issuing escalatory threats, makes perfect sense. After all, if you can conjure something worse than the other guy is conjuring, then you win! Therefore, success is determined by who has the greatest mastery of escalatory dominance, the alleged ability to escalate a conflict beyond that of an opponent.
This is the engine that has been driving the war in Ukraine. For close to a decade the Russians have objected to what Washington has been doing on its border in Ukraine, but Washington has responded with the promise of more of what the Russians found objectionable, rather than search for a compromise. Once the Russians crossed into Ukraine, Washington unleashed the sanctions war and promised even more punishments, including the promise of regime change.
Throughout the war, the approach from Washington has been to create some artificial red line for themselves or Russia, and then cross it in such a way as to suggest all future red lines will be crossed. Currently NATO is having a debate about launching long range missile attacks on Russia, from NATO countries or with NATO personnel, while pretending it is being done by Ukraine. This is the bully threatening the kid who refuses to back down with somet
What’s the craziest thing you’ve heard pretending to be asleep?
As a kid I was friends with these 3 girls, who were sisters and one night their parents allowed me to have a sleepover at their house so when it came to bedtime the parents allowed me and one sister to sleep in their bed until the parents came up and moved us to my friend’s bed. At the time I didn’t understand why, maybe that’s how bedtime was in their house, anyway the light was on in the room so it stopped me from falling asleep, I was too soft to turn it off incase I got into trouble or it woke up my friend who clearly could sleep with the light on. Then I heard footsteps coming upstairs so I had to pretend to be asleep. The parents came into the room, one of them picked me up and put me in one of the girls beds, the other picking up their daughter and putting her next to me. The light wasn’t on in there but the hall light was on which was fine, so I thought ‘finally I can go to sleep now!’ As I was just about to head into dreamland I hear moaning and the bed squeaking coming from the parents bedroom!!!! 🤣🤣 I was 9 years old so I knew what they were doing and I had to wait till it was quiet until I finally got some sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t tell anyone what I heard or that I was awake the whole time, it would’ve been an awkward conversation to have so I tried to forget about it. 😬
hing worse than backing down.
Unreported in the West, Ukraine has been using Western supplied drones to attack early warning radar stations in southern Russia. These are part of Russia’s nuclear defense system. They play no role in the Ukraine war, but Ukraine’s handlers are having them do this as a form of escalatory dominance. The point is to signal to the Russians that the West is not afraid of nuclear war. The madness of this is obvious, but to a great degree that is the point, to seem mad.
We see a similar thing shaping up with China. Washington is going out of its way to provoke China over the issue of Taiwan. Various officials have been sent to the island for no other reason than to antagonize the Chinese. A big package of weapons has been shipped to Taiwan and Washington has increased the number of military personnel on the island. Washington regularly talks about how it is actively preparing for a war with the Chinese over the issue of Taiwan.
A great example of how the concept of escalatory dominance controls how American ruling elites deal with the world is the last trip by Anthony Blinken to China in which he went out of his way to insult the Chinese. The State Department insisted on Blinken visiting China, where he held meetings with Chinese leaders. He then went out of those meetings and threatened them with sanctions. This was done to let the Chinese know that there is no red line Washington will not cross.
This is not just a foreign policy strategy. The reason Trump is waiting to hear a guilty verdict is the regime has always assumed that if they cross enough red lines with regards to the rule of law, Trump or his supporters will fold. For going on four years, it has been ever increasing violence against both the rule of law and the customs that have controlled our politics. The point of each new escalation is to warn that there is no limit to what they will do unless you obey.
It is the unquestioned assumption in Washington that there is always some threat they can issue that is so terrifying that the other side will back down that has led them into a crisis for the regime. Half the country now thinks the courts are corrupt beyond reform thanks to the lawfare unleashed by the regime. We are remarkably close to the point where a majority of Americans think we are ruled by lawless gangsters, which even in easy times is an impossible state of affairs.
The crisis gripping the West is due, in large part, to the fact that the system now selects boys and girls with no practical knowledge. Never having had their bluff called and walking away with a bloody nose or a black eye, they just assume such a thing is impossible, so they are free to escalate their threats. It is not so much that their threats work, but that they ought to work. In the artificial reality in which these people live, the ought is the same as the is.
The Trump trial is a good bit of foreshadowing for how this widely held delusion about escalatory dominance will end. At some point, the bluff is called, and the bluffer has to either follow through or their raison d’etre evaporates. This is the story of the bully who finally has to fight and gets beaten. It is not the beating that ends his reign as a bully, but the fact that someone stood up to him. This is what is happening with the lawfare against Trump, who has called their bluff.
Unlike the schoolyard, the end of a regime that relies on escalatory dominance is not so simple and tidy. The regime now has to hope the Trump trial ends in a hung jury so they can maintain their stance. An acquittal has them looking like fools and a guilty verdict has them in a crisis far worse than Trump winning the election. Soon, the bluff will be called over Ukraine and Taiwan. Once this happens, the regime has no answer other than the unthinkable.
Pepe Escobar: Xi & Putin’s Move Pushed NATO Into CHAOS! Who Is Win?
When someone hugs you, you should not be first to break it.
Remove your sunglasses when you have to speak to someone.
Irrespective of your closeness, do not ask your friends and room mates for their clothes, shoes and accessories. Those are ‘ personal belongings‘
Do not order expensive stuff when you are sharing or the other person is paying the bill.
Don’t make ola / uber driver wait for you. Time is literally money for them.
If you borrow someone else’s novel/ books, do not mark anything in them. Return them in a good condition and within acceptable time.
Compliment people when you notice their extra efforts in something.
If any child touched you and asked(begged) for money don’t give a dirty look at them and run two steps back. Give, if you want to or say no. That’s it.
Wave your hand rather than calling his or her name in a louder pitch if someone is wearing headphones.
Praise publicly. Criticise privately.
Be quiet when other people are asleep. That means more than not talking — not slamming doors, drawers, etc.
Avoid finishing other people’s sentences and cutting them off
If you get a missed call, remember to call them back. Or at least drop a message.
As a kid I was friends with these 3 girls, who were sisters and one night their parents allowed me to have a sleepover at their house so when it came to bedtime the parents allowed me and one sister to sleep in their bed until the parents came up and moved us to my friend’s bed. At the time I didn’t understand why, maybe that’s how bedtime was in their house, anyway the light was on in the room so it stopped me from falling asleep, I was too soft to turn it off incase I got into trouble or it woke up my friend who clearly could sleep with the light on. Then I heard footsteps coming upstairs so I had to pretend to be asleep. The parents came into the room, one of them picked me up and put me in one of the girls beds, the other picking up their daughter and putting her next to me. The light wasn’t on in there but the hall light was on which was fine, so I thought ‘finally I can go to sleep now!’ As I was just about to head into dreamland I hear moaning and the bed squeaking coming from the parents bedroom!!!! 🤣🤣 I was 9 years old so I knew what they were doing and I had to wait till it was quiet until I finally got some sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t tell anyone what I heard or that I was awake the whole time, it would’ve been an awkward conversation to have so I tried to forget about it. 😬
The Dating Market isn’t Looking Too Hot ….
Doctors, have you ever delivered a child to a couple who clearly didn’t need Maury to tell him “you are NOT the father!”? What happened next?
Not a doctor or a nurse, just a friend of a couple. She is elf pale, blonde hair so light it’s almost white, pale blue eyes and nary a freckle to be seen. He is (no offense to anyone) coal black. When the baby was born she looked like she should have been wearing a sombrero with a taco in her hand singing La Cucaracha. (still, no offense intended to anyone, just setting the scene) the doctor and the nurse were both speechless. I was there, I was taking the video. The doctor was hesitant to hand the baby to my friends husband and they both thought something was wrong with the baby. The nurse went from being sweet to being a total bitch to my friend. When he left the room to go tell his family that is was a girl, the nurse made a comment to the doctor about how they never see any wholesome god-fearing families anymore. My friend lost it; it technically wasn’t even her baby, she was just a surrogate. The man in the room with her? He wasn’t even the father, just a friend that was gracious enough to be her coach. She was carrying the baby for another friend of ours and her husband.
The UnXplained: TOP 5 SHOCKING MYSTERIES OF 2023 | PART 1
I really enjoyed this video. I think that youse guys will too.
In Thailand, why are the South Koreans and Japanese treated better than Chinese tourists?
Disclaimer: I’m a Thai of Chinese descent living in a tourism hub of Chiang Mai, speak a little Mandarin and had actually been to China as well, so may I offer my humble 2 cents. I don’t want fellow Chinese quorans to be too stoked or offended by this kind of question. If my answer offends anyone, I apologize in advance. I also apologize for my fellow citizens as well. After all, our economy relies on tourism a lot, please come and visit us! At least this Thai welcome everyone to visit my country with open arms! I say this as a Thai who have traveled to almost all inhabited continents on Earth. 😊
There were lots of direct flights from China to Chiang Mai pre-Covid, even to lesser known cities like Changsha. Influenced by a 2012 Chinese blockbuster “Lost in Thailand” (泰囧) which heavily featured Chiang Mai, the city became hugely popular among Chinese visitors. Back then, Chinese tourists tended to exhibit a not-so-impressive manners. For example, in Chiang Mai University, Chinese tourists used to roamed free inside the campus and took photos of classes in session (many faculty members were really tired of this). This prompted the university to disallow tourists inside the campus, and directed them to the university’s official guided tour instead.
However, post-Covid, Chinese tourists nowadays are no longer loud and rude like before. Yes, there would still be some bad sheep in the flock, but the overall trend manner-wise went for the better. Back when China was poorer, Chinese tourists indeed had bad reputation. However, as time goes, I did notice a better trend of manners among the Chinese tourists. I dare say they are pretty much on par with Koreans and Japanese nowadays manner-wise. Nonetheless, I won’t deny that there are some racism bias towards mainlanders among a portion of our citizens (which is quite an irony because 1/6 of Thai population are of Chinese descent). Also, since China is a much larger country than Korea and Japan, there are just a lot of Chinese setting up shops (100% owned) in several touristic hubs like Bangkok, Chiang Mai, or Phuket. And as some answers also mentioned, such shops only cater to Chinese customers and Chinese tourists have higher tendencies to visit Chinese-owned shops compared to Thai ones. Thai people’s concerns on Chinese tourists is mainly about the circulation of tourism money in Chinese-owned business nowadays rather than the manners. I don’t have problems with Chinese setting up shops here, but please also spend some money and contribute to the place you are visiting too. 😊 This would greatly improve our perception towards Chinese tourists a great deal.
I would like to share my own experience as well regarding the Chinese tourist’s manner. In 2013, I went to Mongolia (part of a train trip from Mongolia to China and then onto North Korea) and met a Chinese couple in our tour group. They really shattered my prejudice of “Chinese tourists are loud and rude”. They were so kind and very well-mannered, and when my train arrived in Beijing, they offered me a treat at a Peking Duck restaurant in Haidian District and then took me (and some Westerners who were in the same group back in Mongolia) to have some “rou chuanr” with “Jia duo bao” herbal drink! I still remembered it to this day.
Again, I would like to just tell the situation as it is without putting in prejudices or biases. It would be better if we treat each culture with respect and understanding.
Professor Studied NDE’s For 30 Years; What She Discovers Is Incredible (Near Death Experiences)
As a leader in the photovoltaic industry, China dominates the industrial and supply chains, currently producing over 90% of the world’s polysilicon, 98% of solar-grade silicon wafers, over 85% of solar cells, and over 80% of photovoltaic modules. It is projected that by 2025, China’s global share in polysilicon and silicon wafer production will reach 95%, making the world highly dependent on China’s photovoltaic products.
Not only does China have massive production capacity, but its photovoltaic technology is also extremely advanced. The latest solar cells have achieved a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 33.9%, far exceeding the 5% capability of plants. Additionally, Chinese photovoltaic products are highly competitive in price, with a 99% decrease in cost over the past 20 years, currently priced at around 0.8 yuan per watt. Furthermore, Chinese photovoltaic modules have a long service life and can maintain 80% of their power generation efficiency after 25 years of use.
As China’s photovoltaic technology rapidly advances, old photovoltaic modules, although long-lasting, have lower performance and are difficult to circulate and dispose of domestically. However, in poor countries with inadequate grid coverage, such as Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, these second-hand photovoltaic panels are in high demand. In these regions, lacking basic infrastructure, the living conditions of the population are extremely poor, often without access to basic lighting or phone charging facilities. China’s used photovoltaic panels, with their low prices, can provide basic electricity to rural households, improving their quality of life and being regarded as high-tech products.
South Africa witnessed a significant increase in imports of photovoltaic panels and energy storage batteries in 2022-2023, with not only rural but also urban residents purchasing these systems to overcome unstable grid issues. Gaza has the highest density of photovoltaic panel installations globally, as the local grid has been destroyed, leaving the population reliant on photovoltaic panels for electricity.
In summary, China’s discarded second-hand photovoltaic panels, at extremely low prices, have benefited many impoverished areas around the world, providing electricity to billions of rural households without access to power, lifting them out of darkness, and enabling them to enjoy the conveniences of electricity. This reflects China’s philosophy of utilizing technology to assist and support underprivileged groups, in stark contrast to some countries that exploit and oppress the weak.
Oh this is hilarious.
The USA offered a gigantic bribe to Marcos to turn them into a missile base.
Marcos says yes allows US to build missile facilities.
Marcos asks where his money is.
US says what money?
you believed me?
Many Hong Kong restaurants demand money UP FRONT.
CHINA BUILDING 3nm CHIPS – biden makes failing look easy…
As an engine mechanic, what is the strangest thing you’ve found inside an engine?
In college as a rookie on the SAE Baja team, I was tasked with tearing down one of our old engines and doing a simple top end rebuild. There wasn’t anything wrong with the engine, it was just a spare one and this was a way for new team members to gain familiarity with part numbers, torque specs, and other things like that. We used a brand new engine for each year’s competition car.
Upon removing the head from the 10 HP Briggs & Stratton, something odd caught my eye. There was raised material on the face of the piston partly obscured by carbon. Brushing it away revealed threads and part of hex head! This engine had somehow ingested a stray 1/4″–20 screw which became embedded into the top of the piston, and then just kept running like nothing had happened. It was potentially like that for a whole year worth of test runs and competitions, possibly even longer.
The fastener was laying there sideways but extremely fused to the piston and could not be removed without destroying it. We simply ground down the portions that were sticking up to recreate a flush surface, reinstalled everything, and called it a day. It continued to run just fine.
– – –
A couple years ago my father in law asked me to help fix up his riding lawnmower, powered by another Briggs & Stratton engine. This was a two cylinder vertical shaft of maybe 18 or 20-some horsepower, I don’t recall exactly. His complaint was that it was “a little down on power” but still cut the grass fine. It just struggled a little bit going up steep hills or cutting through extra-thick grass if he let it grow too tall, and occasionally it let out puffs of dark smoke. He mowed with it like that all summer, bagged leaves with it like that in the fall, and when it was finally done for the season I met up with him to look the thing over.
Expecting a 30-minute carb cleaning or a fouled spark plug I got to work, but found everything spotless. With no signs of any issues with the electrical components either, I moved on to a more serious investigation. Tearing into this engine began with a crankcase cover on the top. With this removed we could look down along the axis of the crankshaft to inspect for any catastrophic bottom end damage. Everything appeared fine but there was a thin metal rod in kind of a weird place tucked behind the crank counterweight. It had a few bends in the middle of it for clearance and the two ends disappeared into the oil bath and up into the block somewhere. I figured it had to be part of the governor system so I left it in place and moved on.
Removing the valve covers, I found the first head looking as it should. The second, however, revealed the culprit: a totally missing pushrod! It was just gone! That would explain the lack of power. One valve on that cylinder is never opening so it’s never accomplishing a power cycle. It’d only been running on one cylinder all year. But then the unavoidable question was, “where did the pushrod go?”
I eventually put two and two together and realized that strange governor-rod-thing was actually the missing pushrod. It had somehow gotten dislodged from its place and fell down into the crankcase. The clearance bends were not manufactured, they were suffered from the crankshaft smashing into it as it bounced around in there until everything was able to self-clearance. Despite being completely down one cylinder and choking on its own guts, this V-twin still performed so well that its shortcomings were nothing more than an inconvenience to be dealt with on the off-season.
I’d always heard Briggs built some tough ass machines but these experiences really solidified that for me.
Why are 90% of US guided missiles and drones missing their targets in Ukraine?
All of the following munitions rely on GPS and have a problem with terminal guidance anywhere near the Russian front line, due to ubiquitous Russian GPS jamming:
JDAM (air launched 500 pound GPS-guided bombs — 90% of what the USAF and USN drop)
SDB (replacement for JDAM)
GLSDB (an SDB mounted on a missile that can be shot from a HIMARS)
M30 (90 km range rocket fired from HIMARS, deploys cluster munitions)
M31 (90 km range rocket fired from HIMARS, 91 kg warhead)
The problem is not confined to US products. Ukrainian-built FPV drones which do not use GPS are also getting jammed by the Russians. I spoke to a guy who is responsible for about 15% of Ukraine’s drone production, and he dismissed any talk of GPS and said it’s gone. In and around the front line, that may be true, but there are caveats.
Background: GPS relies on a network of satellites with 44.8 watt transmitters 20,000 miles up. The signal (-125 dBm) is substantially weaker than the background radio hiss that’s everywhere (-110 dBm), and uses a lot (43 dB) of something called coding gain to be detectable and usable. When GPS devices take a while to acquire the signal, what they are doing is synchronizing their internal code to the satellite’s code. Once the two are synchronized, they can hear the satellite, until then, it’s just more hiss. The process of synchronization is basically trying every possible time alignment until one works.
Before the first GPS satellite was launched in 1978, the designers already knew that GPS could be jammed [1]. Just hit the receiver with -82 dBm of radio hiss and it’ll never hear the satellite. A 1000 watt ground-based transmitter can blank out naive GPS receivers for 560 km.
And, before the first GPS satellite was launched, the designers knew of many clever ways to reduce the effect of jamming. One of them, however, is a massive hammer: controlled reception pattern arrays (CRPA). You use an array of GPS antennas and combine the signals together in a way that causes the jamming signals to cancel. So long as the jammer isn’t coming from the same direction as the GPS satellites, this works really, really well.
Here’s a CRPA from a May 2000 report [2]:
1 panel
Arrays like this can act a bit like a bigger antenna with a diameter the size of the entire array. That’s nice, you get a bit more signal from the antenna. Cancellation works far better. Let me demonstrate.
2 graph
Here is the result of just two omnidirectional antenna elements added together. The Y direction is dB of gain from combining the antennas. The X axis is degrees between the “null” direction and the actual direction of the signal source. You can see that at right angles (90 degrees) to the null, two antennas pick up twice as much power as just one, which is +3 dB of gain. That’s nice, we’ll take it. It’s a big fat lobe. If that’s off by 40 degrees you still get half the benefit, and the benefit isn’t amazing to start with.
But look at that deep, sharp null. If you can get it aligned to one degree, you can knock the jammer down by 35 dB. In practice, CRPAs achieve 50 dB because they very quickly and very precisely line up the phase delays from the antennas to knock out the jammer.
If the jammer against a CRPA wants to work as well as it did against a naive receiver, it’ll need 50 dB more power. dB is a logarithmic scale: That’s 10,000x as much power. So that 1000 watt jammer now needs to push 10 million watts. This is… possible… but any such thing is going to be a major installation and will get a visit from a HARM missile and thereafter many JDAMs.
Today you can buy CRPAs from a variety of manufacturers, all outside the United States. Tualcom, a Turkish company, sells 8-channel CRPAs. They’ve sold 2500 of them to Iran for use on… drones. Yep. Did you know that Turkiye is a NATO ally?
These aren’t going to be on Shaheds, or not many of them anyway, because a CRPA costs about $20k or more. (Please let me know if there are cheaper units.) That’s because there’s no commercial market for CRPAs, as the primary civil defense against GPS jamming is litigation. Even though the electronics are actually simpler than what’s in your cell phone, they are built in low volume of many discrete parts, and in the US they are built by folks like Raytheon.
I would hope that every western military jet has a CRPA, but somehow I doubt it.
The HIMARS-launched 90-km range M31s are having accuracy trouble but the HIMARS-launched 300-km range M57 ATACMS missiles are not. In both cases the missiles can probably use inertial guidance from launch to impact, since that’s less than 7 minutes. But they’ll need an accurate initial position and target position.
The accurate target position can probably be found from military maps. FYI, you probably cannot get accurate target positions from Google Maps — I used to work there, and they don’t want you doing that, and they probably fuzz the locations enough to screw up this use.
The accurate initial position and initial GPS acquisition for the missile would come from the launcher’s GPS antenna. This suggests to me that the HIMARS truck is getting jammed when too close to the Russian front line, probably anywhere within 50 km. And THAT tells me that HIMARS doesn’t have a CRPA. (Update: see below, it has an FRPA, which means fixed pattern. I don’t know the pattern, but as it doesn’t articulate the nulls won’t line up exactly with a jammer and as you can see above, they need to line up well to get good jamming.)
main qimg 5d18026abadbd730e65d839862884227
Neither does JDAM, apparently. And I’m guessing SDB doesn’t either, which went into production in 2005.
This is a stupid problem to have. A half-dozen ASIC engineers and $5m could fix it.
China Just Scored A KNOCK OUT Blow To The U.S. Economy And War Is Coming
What are the chances of the U.S nuking China in a war if the U.S starts losing? Where does it start? A carrier group being destroyed? Japan/South Korea being attacked? What exactly would prompt U.S nuclear usage against China?
Chances are near zero.
And for all of those. The reason is something that you may not know.
China is not a signatory to the START treaty. This limits deployed nuclear weapons to around 1,500 warheads. China likely has more than both Russia and the US combined. Despite what you hear in the MSM about China having only 300 warheads, that is an outright lie.
The original estimate came from the Federation of American Scientists in the 80s. In their estimate they stated that they had no idea how many nuclear weapons the Chinese had. So they decided to use electricity generation as some kind of measure.
What does electricity generation have to do with how many nuclear weapons a nation has? Nothing. The Soviets did not have that much electrical generation and yet has more nuclear weapons than the US. So they finished their study saying that China could have 3,000 or 5,000. They had no idea.
The next thing you should know is that these Senators, Congressman, and President of the US is that they spent generations gaining wealth and power. When was the last time you heard Bill Gates or any other billionaire pulled a knife and went toe to toe with another guy with a knife? Never. And you never will.
Even if the US loses a war by attacking China and the US loses 7 carrier battle groups. Do you think Bill Gates or any other billionaire would chose to vaporize their family to take revenge on one of their body guards being killed? Or even all of them? No.
And it’s even more impossible for the politicians to do so because China has more deployed nuclear weapons than the US and Russia. Starting a nuclear war would mean that the US would get at least a double dose of nukes. One from China and one from Russia.
Those selfish people that have spent decades stealing from the US tax payers are going to vaporize their families, wealth, and power for you, a peon? Don’t make me laugh.
The only time nukes would be used is if China nuked the US first or if the US thought it could get away with it without getting nuked back.
Pecos River Red Fritos Pie
dsc05716
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped coarsely
3 pounds coarsely ground beef
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons ground hot red chile peppers
2 tablespoons ground mild red chile peppers
1 1/2 cups water
Corn chips
Shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Instructions
Combine onion, ground beef, garlic, chiles and water in slow cooker.
Cover. Cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.
Drain.
Serve over corn chips.
Top with mixture of Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese.
What is the most bizarre way you’ve landed a job?
Son’s friend stayed overnight. The next morning I’m making breakfast for everyone. Son likes poached eggs. I make them. Friend asks if I can make them like that all the time. I explain how to poach an egg. That night I get a phone call from a strange number and a man asks if I’m looking for a job. He needs a cook. In his father’s house. The father is picky about his breakfast and he heard I can poach eggs. I explain that all cooks can poach eggs. Eventually I am hired to cook 3 meals a day for his elderly parents. I have to plan menus for the week and prepare breakfast to order. Hot lunch and a dinner plate to be reheated for dinner. I wash the dishes but all other cleaning is done by the maid. Amazing kitchen. Eventually they tried to give me the old guys Cadillac because he stopped driving and they wanted to “save me using my car to drive to their house.” It was probably the best job I ever had. Not the money or the benefits. They were family. They treated me like family in the best way.
This is a new addition that I am considering to my daily posts. Here I include some contemporaneous SF (short story) for the reader to enjoy. -MM
Do not ever step foot on the ground. Charlie had been told this his entire life, but it never really sunk in. He didn’t understand the deep-seated fear everyone else seemed to harbor. He thought it was incredible, a beautiful problem to be solved. Until he was laying on the floor of the lab staring at the ceiling and blinking away tears.The first time Charlie ever saw the ground consume a person he’d been twelve. What the tree-top teachers referred to as “live mummification” was a quick, disturbing process. Dirt crawling over skin to create a sort of exoskeleton. A casting of the human body, like those papier-mâché spheres they’d made in class years ago. It’d been an elderly lady that first time. The pulley system keeping her safe had malfunctioned and she’d lurched off balance. It was a code yellow bridge and wasn’t fully enclosed. The old lady stumbled to the side and was pulled right over the edge. Charlie caught only the first flash of the swarming ground on her skin before his mom had ushered him away. As the crowd around them shrieked and cried, Charlie craned his neck for a better look.He’d liked to have claimed this moment as the catalyst for his obsession, but really that had occurred years ago. It was maybe a few days after his seventh birthday, and he was crossing that old rope bridge by his house. It’s been built in a rush by early survivors trying to escape their houses for supplies. He was not supposed to be on it, but that had only made him more intent on using it.One of the rotten wood planks had splintered under his front foot and sent him toppling forward. It was only due to some notion of luck that his hips didn’t fit through the empty space and his arms had gotten tangled in the ropes. His leg hung down, exposed, ten feet off the ground. And then his new shoe, a size too big so he could grow into it, slipped off his foot. It landed on the dusty ground and tipped over sideways. Charlie’s breath caught in his chest, but nothing happened. The shiny shoe glistened under the sun. He wanted desperately to stick his finger in that restless dirt, just to see what would happen. He stayed put for way longer than was logical just in case, but the ground remained flat and lifeless. The shoe was not alive.
The second time he saw someone be consumed by the ground he was 18 and on the verge of declaring a major in Microbiology, specializing in the study of those tiny organisms that made the ground hungry. This time the fall had not been an accident. He’d been crossing a major intersection of bridges when a commotion piqued his curiosity. A young woman who looked barely older than him had crawled out onto the roof of a one-story house where no one would risk following. Her auburn hair floated in the wind. People crowded against the railings to watch her. A few kind souls called out things like “You don’t have to do this!” and “Things will get better!” but the girl ignored them. She stared straight ahead and stepped off the roof. For a millisecond it was as if she was walking in the air, and then she plummeted to the ground and landed with a heavy thump. Immediately the soil surged up to meet her. She didn’t make a sound as it closed over her. Charlie came back every day for two weeks to observe the hardened cocoon. Inside, he knew that the body was being decomposed, drained away. The microorganisms in the dirt would suck the nutrients from her. Then the cast would collapse in on itself and the ground would smooth over once again.
It wasn’t surprising that these events would have a lasting effect on him. The unexpected part was the nature of the effect. Where others would shy away and realize how dangerous the ground was, Charlie felt himself drawn to it. He wanted to understand the little beasts that terrorized his people. So, it was inevitable, really, that he’d want to see this forbidden phenomenon again.
The lab he was assigned to was on the upper floor of a university no longer in use. The building was old, made of even gray bricks. He had to duck through the fifth-floor window that had been fashioned into an entrance to get in. The walls were off-white, and the floors were so stable it made him feel somewhat unbalanced. His feet, used to the bridges and tree-top platforms, weren’t accustomed to the solidity. The equipment in the lab was well maintained: microscopes, autoclaves, incubators, centrifuges. He felt like a child in a room full of new toys. On one side of the room, where a balcony had once been, a ramp had been fixed that led down to the ground. The space before it was taken up by a deoxygenation chamber used briefly to asphyxiate any rogue organisms.
Charlie was integrated into a group that exclusively studied the microorganisms in the ground called Vitae Suffocent. Life suckers. The study was relatively new, they’d only recently worked with engineering to create a protective suit. Before then, the scientists would lean out the window with a cup fastened to a long pole and scoop up a small bit of the dirt. With the help of the suits, they had been able to set up a secure mock habitat to observe the specimens’ behavior.
The group was small, a handful of young students of which he was one, along with six seasoned scientists. For the first time, Charlie found himself surrounded by people who were just as interested in the ground as he was. The obsession that had set him apart from other kids in school was now reflected all around him. There was a girl who’d started at the same time as him- Tori. She was short and had thin black hair chopped short around her ears. Because they were new, they were often assigned projects to work on together. He wasn’t sure if he liked her, but it didn’t matter much.
There was an ongoing experiment that needed a fresh test subject, someone to stick a finger into the Life Sucker habitat. Charlie volunteered immediately, exhilarated by the idea of being able to touch the ground. He pictured it being magical, a borderline religious experiment. He worked himself up over it for days, so that when it was finally time he was almost bursting with excitement.
The scientists heading the experiment placed him in the deoxygenation chamber with the container. Around him, they gathered clipboards, pencils poised to jot down any and all details. His forefinger was swiped clean with an alcohol wipe that made the skin feel dry. Tori unlocked the circular compartment in the top of the container. Slowly, breathlessly, Charlie lowered his hand into the habitat. The tip of his finger brushed the dirt. It was soft and damp as he pressed the finger down. Charlie blinked and the soil began to stir. It tickled the pad of his finger. He watched in fascination as the hidden organisms began to climb up his skin. It was a strange sensation. The soil was cool and light, it felt more like a caress than a smothering.
Tori clicked the stopwatch in her hand and began to count aloud. By the time she reached seven, the organisms were up to his wrist. He withdrew his hand. The seal on the opening caught most of the dirt and held it back, to the irritation of the organisms. He held his hand away from him, not trusting it. Tori latched the contained shut quickly. Someone on the outside of the chamber switched it on. They held their breaths as the oxygen rapidly drained from the room. A loud whirring assaulted Charlie’s ears. His chest tightened. For a minute they all felt like they were suffocating, then it abruptly stopped and the doors to the lab popped open. Oxygen flooded back in. Charlie sucked in a deep breath.
He examined his hand. It was tingling and covered in little red blotches, but otherwise, he was fine. No damage had ever been recorded from less than ten seconds of exposure. Charlie glanced at the other set of doors over his shoulder. The ones that opened onto the ramp that led down to the ground. He longed to go through them, wanted to dig his hands in the ground and laugh as the organisms consumed him. He turned and walked back into the lab.
A month later he was given a protective suit and given the chance to wear it for the first time. He and Tori had been assigned to walk, outside, to a big oak tree and back. Charlie was thrilled. He stepped into the suit and pulled it up over his arms. A tech zipped him in and checked him over. The suit was a stiff layer of slick rubber designed to lack tread so the organisms wouldn’t be able to climb against gravity. The boots they were given were thick and clunky. They were tall, reaching up to his knees like a pair of extra-long rain boots. A device attached to the top of the boot sent out vibrations that they’d found would deter the organisms. The hood of the suit came up over his head and the visor was clicked into place. He saw the world through a glass partition.
Then they were in the chamber and the doors behind them were closing. It was midday and the sun was shining. A breeze spirited a few brown leaves past the glass. The doors to the ramp opened. Charlie stepped out first. His heart pounded in his chest. It was right there, the ground. He walked quickly down the ramp, Tori following behind him at a more reserved pace. He paused at the end of it. The dirt was disturbed, as it always was when the organisms were present. It looked almost fluffy.
Charlie took a deep breath and lifted one foot. He lowered it slowly to the ground, enjoying the crunch of soil underfoot. He leaned his weight forward, ready to take another step, but paused. The ground was shaking around his boot, pulsing in strange waves. It was trying to climb up his boot, he realized. He tried to pick up the foot but felt resistance. The ground clung to his boot, pulling him back down. Charlie watched, entranced. He continued to pry his foot away and eventually the dirt fell back down. He looked at Tori, whose face he could just see behind the visor. She looked equal parts disturbed and fascinated.
Afterward, he felt like he’d been on another planet. It was amazing, he’d been on the ground, but he couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed. What had they learned during that expedition? Nothing new, nothing interesting. He wanted more. All he could think about was how slow the studies they performed were. They were no closer to understanding these organisms. They needed to study them in action. His plan fell together quickly after that.
Once again he fastened the protective suit on and was checked over by the other technicians. Tori was doing the same next to him. Charlie clapped a hand on her shoulder and with the scalpel hidden in his palm he sliced a tiny hole into her suit, the rubber splitting easily under a sharp blade. She turned and gave him a thumbs-up. He hid the scalpel in one of his pockets.
They walked through the chamber and out onto the ramp. The suit was heavy and sweaty against his skin. Through the visor, he saw the dirt-coated ground come closer and closer. The first step was always the most exciting. His foot hovered over the solid ground, casting a wavering shadow over the dirt. He placed it firmly down. The ground beneath him stirred, trying to creep up his legs but being deterred by the vibrations.
Slowly, the ground pulling at them with each step, they made it 50 feet away from the end of the ramp. He knew they were being watched closely from the observation windows, but at this distance, no one would really be able to tell what happened. Charlie shoved his foot hard to the side right as Tori took a step. The bottom of her boot caught on the top of his and she lost her balance. Her arms windmilled but the suit was too bulky and dragged her down.
She should have gotten up. The suit should have kept the microorganisms at bay. But Charlie had damaged her suit. He gazed intently down at her as the organisms poured over her and into the hole in the fabric. He bent over as if to help her, but really he just wanted to get a closer look. This near, it was mesmerizing. The dark earth swirled as though it was possessed. It rose and fell like a liquid. Tori cried out one last time before they closed over the top of her dark hair. Charlie ignored the panicked voices over his earpiece. Through his visor the majority of the event had been captured (excepting, of course, when he purposefully tripped her).
He’d made a huge leap in the field, no matter how tragic. The footage would help inform scientists for years to come. Except, he didn’t know (no one did) that after a feeding, the organisms laid their eggs. Hundreds of microscopic eggs stuck to his boots and were carried back into the facility. The eggs, not having to breathe oxygen yet, were not affected by the deoxygenation tank. Charlie stripped off his suit and hung it on the hook.
Overnight, the eggs hatched, and those tiny, deadly microorganisms scurried to hide in the dust accumulated above cabinets and at the edges of the room. Charlie was the first person at the lab that morning, still buzzing with the exhilaration of the day before, ready to study the footage and propel their lab forward. When his skin started to itch, he thought nothing of it. Until he noticed the little red dots on his forearm. Then the world tilted on its axis, and he crumpled to the floor. He’d made another major discovery that day. The skin of the microorganisms contained a deadly neurotoxin.
There weren’t enough creatures to make a cast over him. It was a slow death during which all he could think about was how these organisms would feed on him, suck the life out of him. After, they’d lay their eggs. And the eggs would hatch. And the organisms would spread.
His curiosity had doomed their entire town. He’d brought the ground to them.
Five Dollars
“Today I was picking up lunch for a doctor’s Office and as I’m standing there waiting on my order and checking emails, I hear a gentleman ask this lady, “I would like to purchase something to eat but all I have is $5.” So nosy me looks up from my phone and notices this gentleman wearing a backpack and holding a $5 bill who looks to be homeless or maybe he was dealing with a hard time but either way as he asks about a few items on the menu he shortly discovers that he may need more than $5. The lady begins to offer some suggestions to help him and the man orders and as she’s asking him what he wants to drink and as he’s thinking about it the lady says don’t worry about it because your breakfast is on me.
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I got this picture for a couple of reasons. It would have been so easy to turn around and ask the manager to step in or for help but she didn’t she just said hey it’s on me. She could have just gave him water and took his money and went on to the next customer and again she didn’t she just did it. I’ve been in customer service for a long time. I’ve been through some of the best trainings such as Dale Carnegie and yet a girl name Karina in a Chick-fil-A in Jackson, MS in a 3-minute conversation with a customer has managed to teach me the value of humility and taking care of your customers. It’s not just the nuggets that make this place successful. It’s people like Karina.
Fighting Russia & China to Last American: Destroying US From Within| Dr. Jill Stein & Michael Hudson
Back in the day, and I mean really back, I used to party with friends. And being an American in the 1970’s, our medium of fun was drugs, booze, and if we were lucky… perhaps the hint of sex. I for one, dropped a lot of LSD. Way more than my friends.
I know, I know, I was pretty foolish and reckless back then. But it was the times.
In those days, the LSD came in different forms. There was “barrel”, which was a tiny little pill that resembled a very tiny-tiny can of cambell’s soup. There was “blotter”, which was a perforated paper with a design, as well as a few other variations. But most of what I “dropped” came in those two types.
Another big drug at that time, aside from marijuana, was amphetamine. We took it in the “White cross” form. Now, this was NOT “crank” also known as methamphetamine. No, it was something different.
A syntheticcompound, C9H13N, thatoccurs as a racemicmixture of twostereoisomers or as one of itsstereoisomers(especiallydextroamphetamine),derivatives(such as methamphetamine), or salts.Amphetamineacts as a centralnervoussystemstimulant,andvariousformulationsareused in themedicaltreatment of certainconditions(such as attentiondeficithyperactivitydisorder)andillegally as stimulants.
But that was a long time ago, and I rarely revisit those days. Oh, sometimes, I am reminded of those days by a song, or a smell, but they are deep in my past.
Anyways, one day I was partying with my brother and two girls that we had met. And one of the girls had some “silver star” blotter LSD. This was a piece of perforated black paper with a silver star and asked me if I wanted some. She asked do you want two? I said “sure”.
Now at that time I was busy working the pump on the kegger, and I told her to put it in my mouth. And so she put two “hits” in my mouth. Now, I normally only took one, but I was feeling “peckish” and thought that I could handle two.
But the thing is, it wasn’t two. She didn’t know, and neither did I, that each “star” was four hits; four doses of LSD. And I ended up taking a total of eight.
Eight doses.
Lordy!
So the party is going on and I’m getting a little nervous when it starts to hit. Now, contrary to what you might think, LSD isn’t visions of monsters or anything like that. It’s a kind of amplifier of sensory perception. It’s called a hallucinogen, but that is only if you actively “force” some visions…
Anyways… brilliant colors. CHECK.
Fantastic “tracers” (the lines that follow movement). CHECK.
Most excellent “color gradients” (a greater degree in detail when observing the sky) . CHECK.
And I was enjoying the time. Drinking beer. Taking a toke or two. Listening to music, and just talking…
When the other seven does of LSD hit.
What was I thinking? And I started to go into a worry mode… not a good thing. And yeah, it can end up as a really bummer of a trip. And so, yuppur! I started to go full Hunter S. Thompson… Gonzo!
Not a good thing.
About 14 hours later, I crashed out and slept with the most craziest dreams ever. When I woke up, and went to brush my teeth and perform my toilet, I found out that I was still hallucinating. And all that day, I was still dealing with that high.
Went to sleep that day.
Crazy dreams again.
Woke up again, and lordy! I well remember what I said when I woke up. I said “Holy shit! I’m so high, I’m never coming down.” And got ready and went off to the coal mine.
Needless to say, it did eventually wear off, and four days later, I was back to “normal”.
For what ever it is worth. That was almost my last time that I ever dropped acid. The experience enabled me to get it “out of my system”, and move on to the next stage in my life. It’s called “growing up”, and it happens to everyone. Whether it is greasy food, sex, watching television, or golf… eventually we grow out of a certain stage in our lives and move on forward.
Not all of us do.
RIP Robbie.
But many of us do. And this is my story on “passing the line; the threshold” into a new beginning.
have a great day everyone! Today…
Why can Chinese people eat almost anything, including foods that are poisonous or allergic to them, but Westerners can’t? My German friend said that moon cakes alone can “knock out” more than half of Europe. Is this true?
It is 9 a.m. China time on May 31, 2024. As I write this response, I am resting at my father’s house. He is 71 years old and often jokes that he and the Chinese President, Xi, are peers, having endured similar hardships in their youth. I came to my father’s house today because my wife bought some expensive apricots, and after tasting them, we both agreed they were delicious. So, my wife instructed me to bring some apricots to my father to share the flavor. Then I stumbled upon this interesting question. I believe I am capable of providing a good answer.
Chinese people harbor a profound fear of hunger. Since China’s reform and opening up in 1978, Chinese people have been able to eat their fill. It has been over 40 years since then, almost half a century. However, despite decades of abundant food, my father’s fear of hunger persists. The following description applies not only to my father but also to other elderly people in China:
I brought him some apricots to taste. Now he is rummaging through the refrigerator in the next room to find anything to give me. Two weeks ago, he gave me minced beef, last week it was frozen chicken wings, and just now he told me he bought 2 kilograms of peas and wants to give me half. Despite my wife and I having monthly incomes four to five times greater than his, whenever he has the chance, he gives us food. Because he believes: everything else is not as important as having food at home.
My in-laws are the same way. Every weekend when I take my wife and son to their house for dinner, they give us food that she personally prepares. Sometimes it’s buns, dumplings, or traditional Chinese zòng zi (粽子，glutinous rice wrapped in reed leaves with sweet fillings). And she always gives us a lot of food, enough for us to eat for a week. She has no education and doesn’t understand profound principles. She always says, “As long as there’s food, there’s no need to worry.”
Many foreign friends, even if they haven’t been to China, are aware of some Chinese social customs. For example, when two people meet, the way to say hello is to ask, “Have you eaten?” This is not an invitation but simply a kind way of ensuring, “You have food at home, you won’t go hungry.”
China’s history spans thousands of years, filled with alternating periods of war, famine, and prosperity. So much so that whether it’s the heyday or the decline of a dynasty, most ancient Chinese people had to endure hunger regularly. Zhāng Yǎng hào（张养浩）, a poet from the Yuan Dynasty, wrote in his poem: “兴，百姓苦，亡，百姓苦” (Regardless of whether the country is strong or weak, the common people always endure hardships). Another line from this poem is: “伤心秦汉经行处，宫阙万间都做了土。” It means that you see those great dynasties, such as the Qin and Han dynasties, once they come to power, they start building magnificent palaces for themselves. But over time, both the imperious emperors and the palaces end up as piles of ruins.
Even today, we can still find traces of famine times in many traditional Chinese foods. For example, this is “zhēng yě cài（蒸野菜）,” a cooking method where a lot of leafy vegetables are collected from the fields, mixed with a little flour (about 10% of the weight of the leafy vegetables), some salt, and a drop of sesame oil, then steamed in a pot. These are some steamed wild vegetables, and even the chef can’t be sure of the ingredients, because elderly people in rural areas gather whatever plants they see in the wild:
My father detests this food. He had enough of it during the famine of the 1950s. But what he didn’t expect is that “zhēng yě cài” is now the most popular food in China. Surprisingly, it meets almost all the principles of nutrition—very few carbohydrates, a variety of vegetables, organic leafy greens, and very little sodium and fat. It is a healthy food in China, eaten by beautiful girls, middle-class gentlemen, and some elderly people to avoid obesity. And the price has gone from almost zero to about the same as meat per kilogram today. This is the expensive steamed wild vegetables sold in supermarkets:
Another famine-era food is “zhuang mo,” made by repeatedly squeezing a lump of flour with mechanical force to make the dough very dense. Then, a little salt is added, and it’s shaped into 3 cm thick cakes, slowly baked on a skillet. The dehydrated cooked dough can be stored for a long time and won’t become hard—because it’s already hard enough. When eating, people from the old society break the cakes into 1 square centimeter pieces by hand, then soak them in water to soften them. This food is not only stored by people during famine times but also beneficial for military activities. Because it can be carried around and is said to be able to stop bullets. Of course, that’s just a joke. This is “zhuang mo”:
But in today’s China, “zhuàng mó”（壮馍） has become a rare delicacy. Because it is very cumbersome to make, the craftsmanship has been lost. It can only be occasionally found in rural areas. Two years ago, my mother-in-law wanted to eat “zhuàng mó,” and I found a shop in the suburbs 5 kilometers away from my home. But the boss said it needed to be booked 48 hours in advance. Today, when Chinese people eat “zhuàng mó,” they eat it with delicious lamb soup. Because Chinese people who are used to refined grains begin to enjoy the texture of “zhuang mo” and believe that chewing repeatedly can taste the unique aroma of wheat. This is “zhuàng mó” eaten with lamb soup:
There is another classic famine-era food called “wo wo tou,” made from cornmeal, sorghum flour, and wheat flour in equal proportions, with the center hollowed out. The purpose of these ingredients is to save wheat flour, and the hollow center is to “deceive one’s eyes, so visually it’s not empty inside.” During famine times, the hollow part of “wo wo tou” was filled with some pickled vegetables or hot sauce. This way, there was no need to make additional dishes; one “wo wo tou” was a meal. These are some “wo wo tou” made by Chinese families themselves:
My wife sometimes asks me to buy or make some “wō wō tóu.” This food, because it uses whole grain staple foods and is rich in dietary fiber, has become a healthy food in China today. I rarely buy it at the market because, like the other two foods mentioned above, it has become a rare delicacy. Some food store owners have updated “wō wō tóu” into multiple varieties such as corn, sorghum, oats, soybeans, etc. These are the high-priced “wō wō tóu” offered in restaurants:
Diet is always influenced by culture, and culture comes from the living environment. For thousands of years, China’s living environment has been harsh most of the time. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, people thought that famine would never come again. However, several large-scale political movements led to economic chaos, even causing the horrifying Great Famine in the early 1960s. This event is recorded in the history of the Communist Party of China, scholars’ works, and textbooks for middle school students, reminding Chinese people never to experience famine again.
Fortunately, all of that is behind us. As the lives of the Chinese people become more prosperous, metabolic diseases have become the main public health burden. There are more and more obese people, and diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and atherosclerosis have become the main causes of death among Chinese people. These diseases were once called “diseases of the affluent” (富贵病) in China from the 1950s to the 1970s. My friend works at a community health center, which manages about 20,000 residents nearby. The health center holds various courses and lectures every week, mainly educating the public on “how to live a healthy life.” Dietary balance is their main teaching content.
Today, when Chinese elderly people see the expensive “zhēng yě cài（蒸野菜）,” “zhuàng mó（壮馍）,” and “wō wō tóu（窝窝头）” in supermarkets, they are amazed. Because in their childhood memories, these foods meant imminent starvation. But today, they mean a prosperous life.
African Nations Repatriate Their Gold and Foreign Reserves From the USA.
"It's not about Russia; it's about the US and Britain before that.
I think it's a little bit like that old game of Risk. I don't know if you played that as a kid, but the idea was to have your piece in every place in the world—that was the game.
You read the American strategists, whether it's Zbig Brzezinski, although he was very moderate, or the neocons who have run US foreign policy for the last 30 years. The neocons are very explicit: the US must be the unchallenged superpower in every place in the world, in every region we must dominate.
That's quite a load for us American people.
What they say is, 'We are going to be the constabulary duty holder'—a fancy word for saying we'll be the world's policeman.
They say it explicitly.
They say, 'That's lots of wars—we have to be ready for all these wars.'
To my mind, it's a little crazy, but their idea was that after the end of the Soviet Union, 'Well, now we run the world.'
And to come back to Russia, the idea was, 'Well, Russia is weak, it's down. We're the sole superpower—they're on their back or on their knees, whatever it is, and now we can move NATO where we want and we can surround them.'
The Russians said, 'Please don't do that. Don't bring your troops, your weapons, your missiles right up to our border. It's not a good idea.'
The US was, 'We don't hear you, we don't hear you. We do what we want.' They kept pushing.
Inside the US government in the 1990s, when this debate was going on about whether NATO should expand, some people said, 'Yeah, but we told Gorbachev and we told Yeltsin we weren't going to expand at all.' 'Now, come on, the Soviet Union's done. We can do what we want. We're the sole superpower.'
Clinton bought into that—that was Madeleine Albright's line. NATO enlargement started.
Our most sophisticated diplomats—back when we had diplomats, which we don't have anymore—like George Kennan, said: 'This is the greatest mistake we could possibly make.'
We had a defense secretary, Bill Perry, who was Clinton's defense secretary, who agonized over this: 'God, I should resign over this. This is terrible, what's going on.'
But he was outmaneuvered diplomatically by Richard Holbrooke and by Madeleine Albright, and Clinton never thought through anything systematically, in my opinion. They decided, 'Okay, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic—first round.'
Then Brzezinski, in a 1997 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, which is kind of the bellwether of US foreign policy, wrote a strategy for Eurasia where he laid out exactly the timeline for this US expansion of power.
He said that in the late 1990s, we'd take in Central Europe—Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic. By the early 2000s, we'd take in the Baltic states—now that's getting close to Russia. By 2005 to 2010, we'd invite Ukraine to become part of NATO.
So this wasn't some flippant thing; this was a long-term plan based on a long-term strategy.
Now the Russians are saying, 'Are you kidding? We wanted peace. We ended the Cold War. You didn't defeat us; we said no more. We disbanded the Warsaw Pact. We wanted peace, we wanted cooperation. You call it victory; we just wanted to cooperate.'
I know that for a fact because I was there in those years.
What Gorbachev wanted, what Yeltsin wanted, they didn't want war with the United States, nor were they saying, 'We're defeated.'
They were saying, 'We just want to cooperate. We want to stop the Cold War. We want to become part of a world economy. We want to be a normal economy. We want to be a normal society, connected with you, connected with Europe, connected with Asia.'
And the US said, 'We get it, we get it. We won. You do everything we say, and we determine how the pieces are going to go.'
So, in the early 2000s, Putin comes in.
His first business was good cooperation with Europe.
You go back to the early 2000s—again, I know the people, I watched closely, I was a participant in some of it—Putin was completely pro-Europe and pro-US, by the way.
I know we don't want to talk about this; we don't want to admit it because we don't want anything other than the narrative of 'unprovoked' actions.
Everything we say is phony; everything is a lie."
Excerpt from remarks by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and academic, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, May 28, 2024.
Lemon Brisket
1692910538862
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
2 ribs celery, halved lengthwise
2 onions, quartered
1 first-cut or flat-cut (leaner section) beef brisket, about 4 pounds, trimmed
2 lemons, cut into thin slices
1 cup raisins or to taste
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 low-sodium beef bouillon cubes, dissolved in 2 cups water
Instructions
Line the bottom of a large slow-cooker with celery and onions and top with brisket.
Place lemon slices and raisins on the brisket; season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add dissolved bouillon.
Cook on LOW until meat is fork-tender, about 10 to 12 hours.
Remove meat to a cutting board and let stand 15 minutes.
Skim fat from cooking broth. Adjust seasonings if needed.
Remove lemon slices and cut in half.
Pour broth into a serving bowl and add lemons.
Slice meat across the grain into thin slices. Halve or quarter the brisket slices and serve with the broth and lemons.
Nutrition
Per serving: Calories 301; Calories from fat 25%; Total fat 8g; Saturated fat 3g; Cholesterol 77mg; Carbohydrate 17g; Sodium 322mg; Fiber 2g; Protein 39g
Have you ever tried to annoy a scammer who called you? If so, what happened?
So I decided I want to sell my old phone and I put it on a local online service. Predictably, the usual scammers made an appearance so I decided to mess around with him/her a little bit.
The scam goes like this: They entice you to sell to them by promising you more money than you ask, you give them your IBAN, they sent you the money, show you a receipt, you ship the item to them and they reverse the payment, leaving you waiting for money that will never arrive. What follows are some snippets of our conversation
P.s. Alaye is apparently a Nigerian “secret” word that scammers use to reveal to other people that they are scammers – so they don’t waste each others time. The scammer got fed up with me
Modern Dating Is Impossible – Here’s The Playbook | PsycHacks’ Orion Taraban
What is the most deceitful thing you have ever seen a business do to a customer?
A friend was buying some land and planned to put a mobile home on it while he decided what to build. He found a great deal on a solid double wide and hired a company to disassemble, move and reassembled it on his land.
On the day of the move, they showed up late finally got the two pieces ready to move late in the day. My friend had family property a half mile away and asked that the company just park the two pieces there overnight, but the company was adamant that they take it back to their office, fifty miles in the opposite direction from where they would be headed the next day and right at rush hour. Nothing would change their minds.
About nine that night he got a call from a friend who had spotted half of his mobile home, wrecked on the side of the interstate. We went out to look, and it was true. Not only was it wrecked, but the driver had dropped it with no support under the tongue, so it was severely twisted, and vandals had already gotten in and stripped out the copper wire.
We went out again and took photos at dawn and then called the company. They said there was nothing wrong that they couldn’t fix right up, and they still planned the move for that day. My friend asked where the other half (that contained all the appliances) was and the company refused to tell him. He told them that he refused to sign off on the move until the reassembled mobile home was inspected by an independent contractor and to his satisfaction. The company refused that stipulation.
By that afternoon the wrecked potion of the mobile home was gone. The company stopped taking calls. Apparently, they had subcontracted the move to another company without anyone’s knowledge, so there was no way to find the mobile home. My friend had depended on the mobile home to live in, so he had to rent and lost his land because he could pay both rent and land payments.
My friend spoke to a lawyer who was willing to take the case, but only if he could provide an address to serve the company, and by that time they had disappeared. I began sleuthing and finally managed to track them down (this was 1985, so no Google). I know that it took more than another year to get to court, but I believe the lawyer found two insurance policies and got a good settlement, but those people had every intention of robbing that poor man blind.
KNOCKOUT: China’s BOLD Move Threatens To Dethrone The US In Europe’s Economy
What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?
A couple of years ago my brother and I were driving from the UK to Germany. We were stopped by police shortly after crossing the Dutch/German border. They checked our travel documents then one said to the other in German, “How much shall we get from them?” To which the other replied “Five hundred each.”
One of them then proceeded to “search” the car we were driving while we stop with the other on the other side of the car. The one who was searching rather smugly announced that we had a problem and displayed a small bag of green stuff.
They went to their car and came back with documents to be signed and informed us that they’d “found” 4g of cannabis in our car and that we had to pay a €500 “fine” each or get arrested and charged with smuggling.
My brother called his wife and our mother, trying to get funds transferred to his account. I made out I was doing the same but in fact I quietly called my (German) lawyer who confirmed what I’d suspected: that they were trying to extort money from us and that there were no fines in Germany which were to be paid to a police constable in cash.
As I was speaking with her, one of the policemen asked if I’d be getting the money for the fine. To which I replied in German (I’d spoken nothing but English up until that point) that I was speaking with my lawyer and would need another few minutes. His face dropped. His mouth actually opened into an expression of disbelief and amazement. I asked my lawyer if she’d heard him — she had, and if she’d recorded our conversation — she had. She then advised me what to do.
I hung up and told the policemen that we wouldn’t pay any fines and if they felt they had cause to arrest us, then they should do so and I’d call my lawyer immediately. I informed them that my lawyer had recorded our telephone conversation including the part where I’d been asked if I would be getting the money.
Needless to say, we weren’t detained any longer. I have never seen such a switch in a person’s attitude. From cocky and bullying to worried and sheepish in a flash.
My new idea of including new short science fiction stories in the MM daily posts. -MM
If he never saw another rock again, he’d be flipping thrilled.“I found something strange on Google Maps and had to check it out!” Gray smiled at his phone and hoped he disguised how absolutely done he was with this trip. Someday soon, the footage would go out to his thousands of viewers, but right now he had no service, no Wi-Fi, and no feeling in his arm after hours recording his hike up the rugged mountain.At least it wasn’t the jungle. The last time he did one of his ‘spontaneous discovery’ videos, it took him two weeks to find the right bug spray.This was his best video series yet, though, far more popular than the Vegas Strip street interviews, so he massaged his shoulder and pressed onward–upward, really–until his lungs screamed from the air pressure and the altitude had him pulling his jacket from his worn pack.
“It’s around here somewhere,” he told his camera. Gray hoped it was true. He spent days scouring Google Maps for something worth investigating. When he finally found this place, he saved the image as his lock screen as a symbol of triumph. He’d seen it so many times now that the second the cluster of boulders came into view, he flicked on the GoPro strapped to his forehead and started running.
“I think I found it,” he huffed through wheezing breaths before kicking at overgrown weeds and what he hoped was mud.
There it was, the hatch. Unlike the one he found in a tunnel at the foot of the Alps, this one did not require his not-yet-patented one-leg, two-arm prying technique to open.
He peered inside, hoping the cameras caught the view even as the hazy afternoon sun seemed to be consumed by the darkness of the passage. His own eyes took several seconds to adjust. Gray was sure the microphones picked up the gasp that left his lips when everything came into focus. It was a staircase–a staircase leading down into the mountain! Holy shit! He’d break a million subscribers for sure this time.
The entrance was just barely wide enough for him to slip inside with his bag. Gray propped the door open with a few sizable rocks, pulled out Beacon Deacon–the cross-covered flashlight gifted to him by his über-religious uncle, and started descending.
“Wish me luck.” His words echoed down the chamber, warping with every reverberation. “Wish me luck. Wush miluck. Woosh milk.”
Gray counted one hundred and sixty-nine stairs before he decided it must be endless. It was a staircase inside a mountain. Who had the energy to carve this many steps?!
“Three hundred and twenty-six. Four hundred and eighty-two. The things I do for you guys.”
Six hundred and twelve. There were six hundred and twelve stairs. He had to go back up. Was this divine punishment for that time he made fun of how his brother said ‘croissant?’ Even the French thought it was too much! Gray asked!
He dropped his pack on the rocky ground–or would it be rock-ground? Either way, his bag landed with a thud and Gray leaned against the wall to catch his breath. It was bumpy, but not in the sharp way he would have expected.
Gray turned and flipped Beacon Deacon on to full blast. Was that… a book? It was.
He tripped over his own feet as he surged further into the room, coughing as he kicked up what he assumed must be years’ worth of dust.
The cavern was round and about the size of a school gym, sans the basketball nets. He craned his neck and still couldn’t find the top. From what he could see, books covered every inch of the walls
“What the hell? Are you guys seeing this?”
Gray approached the nearest section. From afar, he thought they were the old sort of books libraries didn’t let you check out. He carefully plucked one from the shelf. The binding was a thick leather, but the title embossed in the spine was new, The First Town. His sister was obsessed with that book when it came out two years ago.
“I’m so confused,” he said, just loud enough for the mic to pick up. Speaking louder felt illegal, somehow.
His microphone responded with a soft hum. “Damn. It’s got dirt in it again.” Gray unhooked it from his lapel as the hum became a buzz. “I hear you, I hear you. One second.” But it didn’t quiet, even as he squeezed puffs of air into it from the little canister in his bag. Instead, the GoPro on his head seemed to harmonize with the microphone, then his phone, then his flashlight. Together, they were like a swarm of bees growing more agitated by the second.
“What the hell?” Gray said again, scrambling to turn everything off. They crescendoed in one shrill screech before dying out together.
“Um. Guys? What was that?” It took a beat before he realized there was no one to talk to. His cameras were fried, and he was all alone.
He expected silence, but there was a soft purr sounding from in front of him, more like a motor than a cat, unfortunately. He could have had a familiar!
Gray checked his gear one more time, but it was definitely dead. He would investigate if only he could see, but without Beacon Deacon, he was more likely to knock the shelves down like dominos. He really didn’t want to die under the weight of several thousand books. Or by the blunt force trauma of several thousand books.
He chanced a step forward, arms held out in front of him like a particularly handsome zombie, but managed to kick his discarded bag. What luck, he found the only item on the ground. At least he wouldn’t have to search for his bag. His bag that held all of his things. His things which included a lighter!
Gray dug through his pack and pulled out the Flaming Hell, the ultra-strong lighter his father gave him after seeing Beacon Deacon. His dad even stuck a big pentagram on it as a petty little treat.
Gray flicked it on and held it as close to the shelves as he dared. All he could find were books, but the hum definitely sounded like it was coming from there. He leaned closer and Flaming Hell flickered–no–the shelves flickered!
Gray whirled around as every wall quivered in and out of existence before disappearing completely.
“Um. I don’t know what just happened.” There was no one to listen, but he had to at least pretend like he wasn’t on his own here.
Low blue lights kicked on from a strip in the floor as he crossed the juncture from the old library into, well, he wasn’t sure what. The space had doubled in size, though the ceiling was just as high. It was easier to see now as another section of lights clicked on from above.
Shelves still lined the walls, but they were a strange blend of vines and metal, like a jungle mated with scaffolding. Instead of books, they held hundreds of… no way.
Gray’s steps stuttered as he neared. Someone had to have set him up because there was no way the shelves were really covered in jarred brains.
“Nick? Taj? Did you do this?” His friends didn’t pop out from behind the shelves. Now that he thought about it, no one he knew could afford such a crazy prank.
“No. I am Aurora Initella.”
He whirled around so fast that his long ponytail slapped him across the face. “What the hell! Who are you?!”
The woman was tall and thin, like the car models his brother always had on his walls growing up. She had just as many clothes on, too. Aurora’s shirt was one in spirit only, barely covering her chest and tied loosely behind her neck. Her skirt wasn’t much better. Wasn’t she cold? God, he sounded like his grandmother.
“… I am Aurora Initella.” Her voice reminded him of the afternoon he spent by the deep blue waters of Turkey’s Iztuzu Beach. It was one of the more peaceful days he ever had until he heard the vicious caw of a hawk and watched bloody duck feathers bob on the waves.
“What are you doing down here? What is this?”
She hummed. “I believe it’s proper to introduce yourself first.”
“Uh, right. Name’s Gray Griffin.”
Aurora tilted her head so far her ear hit her shoulder. “Is it?” she asked lightly.
“… It’s John. Jon Vaughn.”
“Why did you lie, Jon Vaughn?”
“It’s not a lie. It’s a stage name.” Was this really the conversation two people in the depths of a mountain surrounded by brains were having? Was he on drugs? He’d never had a drug before.
“We are not on a stage.” He hadn’t been on a stage since his eighth-grade production of Greece, but he figured it was close enough. He had been an amazing Sandy, a real hit at the Brighton Boarding School for Boys.
“It’s a figure of speech, but now that you’ve mentioned it and I definitely was not the one to bring up the terrifying ambiance first, what the hell is this place?”
“A figure of speech. Interesting. I will make a note of it.” She stood completely still, completely silent. Gray counted to twenty-nine.
“Um… hello? I have unanswered questions.”
She twisted her gaze to him with her entire neck. What commitment. “This is a library.”
He peered over her shoulder at the room of horrors. “I don’t think it is.”
“This is a library,” she repeated in exactly the same tone.
“We’re surrounded by brains! Human brains!”
“Is that not a library?”
“I… okay, you’ve got me on a technicality, but there’s no way you think this is normal!”
“Is any home normal?” What was with this woman? The way she answered questions, she’d be a prosecutor’s nightmare. At least, he could hear his state prosecutor mother saying so.
“You live here?” His voice hadn’t been so high since puberty. Maybe it was best that his mic died. “Were you the one who carved the insulting number of stairs?” He couldn’t imagine it, not with her stick arms and her nearly pore-less skin.
“The library was made by the Knights of Knowledge.”
Gray snorted. “That’s not a real thing.”
He read about the Knights in a fiction series back in elementary school. The Knights of Knowledge traveled the world trying to understand humanity only to bumble their way into increasingly ridiculous situations. You know, maybe he was a Knight of Knowledge.
Aurora shook her head so jerkily she surely gave herself whiplash. “They named themselves after the books.”
His hands braced his head. “Can you read minds?”
“You were speaking aloud.”
“Oh.” He lowered his arms and cleared his throat.
“The Knights—” she gestured wildly with a locked elbow. The sorry excuse for a shirt slid down too far. He averted his eyes.
“Can you put on more clothes first? I know this is your home, but I don’t think this is a good way to host a guest.”
“Does this not please you?” She cocked her head unnaturally again. “Master Paxal prefers it.”
Gray peeked through his fingers and raised a brow. “Master Paxal sounds like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.” He could hear his mother saying that, too.
“How is this?” Between blinks, her clothes lit up and grew into a pin-striped power suit.
“Am I in a magic girl anime or something?” he mumbled. Forget the embarrassing voice cracks. He wished his camera was rolling. No one was going to believe him.
“I am not magic. I am—”
“Aurora Initella, I know.”
“—an avatar.”
“You’re what now?”
“I am the voice to these memories,” she gestured again to the surrounding brains. This time, she remained blessedly covered, “a face for the library.”
“So, you’re not real then?”
“What is real and what is fake?”
“I’m too dumb and emotionally compromised for philosophical debate.”
“To be dumb is to lack knowledge. The library can help.”
Gray dropped his face into his hands. He wanted to go home. He wanted to bury himself under his covers and forget all of this had ever happened. Hell, he’d even listen to his parents and get into improv if it meant he didn’t have to have a conversation with this woman… avatar… person…?
“If it’s such an amazing library, why doesn’t everybody know about it? Why hide it under a mountain five hours from civilization? Isn’t the point of the library to share with the community?”
She blinked. Gray only just realized she hadn’t been before. “We do.”
“What does that mean?”
“Perhaps you have read Terminal Living: A Mindset Game or Blue Crescent Dying? Maybe The Inquisitor’s Bed or Memory’s Nest?”
“I think everyone and their twice-dead grandmother have read those. They’re some of the most famous books of all time.”
“And who wrote them?”
“I don’t know, smart, famous people?”
“So you think.” She smiled with too many teeth. She was like an attractive barracuda. He paused. Scratch that. “This place is the Library of Memory. It houses the greatest minds of every generation.”
“You mean these are…” he eyed the closest brain. E.A Poe. “No way.”
“With their knowledge, I can write you your perfect book. Do you want a science fiction story by Agatha Christie? Or maybe you would like a romantasy by H. P. Lovecraft?”
“You’re stealing their work.”
She took a step closer. His feet felt welded to the stone.
“It is merely utilization of their knowledge. They are dead. They have no use for it anymore.”
It felt wrong, though he couldn’t find the words to explain why. Even if he did, he didn’t think she had the capacity to care.
“What do the Knights want?”
“‘He who has Knowledge has the world.’ That is their slogan.”
“Then why use it like this? Why steal—utilize—” he corrected before she could, “it in this way? If you can actually extract thoughts from the world’s greatest minds, why not use that technology to cure disease or something?”
She shrugged, or tried to. Her shoulder–holographic shoulder, he realized–sunk into her cheek. “They tried at first, but they could not find an agreeable course of action.”
“But this was agreeable?”
“There were a few issues.” He followed the line of her too-wide eyes to a small section of brains. Oh.
“Man, people of the past were seriously kill-happy, huh?”
She hummed again. It was just like the purr he heard before. “Murder is common in all eras.”
“You sure know how to comfort a guy.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I just wanted some good content for my socials, not to uncover some crazy conspiracy. Maybe tell your programmers or whatever to cover the entrance to their secret lair better. It’s a miracle no one else has ever stumbled onto it before.”
“But, Jon Vaughn, they have.” She pointed across the room. The area was close to the exit, so he walked the path to a darker corner, lit by half the floor lights as the rest of the library.
“We have had lots of guests,” Aurora said into his ear. When had she gotten so close? She had no presence, no solid form or footsteps. “They have taught me so much.”
Something sharp pricked his neck. His vision blurred.
“And you will too.”
Why is China so peace-loving?
It’s in the nature of the Chinese culture. For thousands of years, China has been a sedentary civilisation focused on taking care of its people and protecting itself from invaders. China has never sought colonialism like the Europeans did.
As long as you don’t threaten China’s security, it will not wage war.
Currently, the USA threatens China’s security by interfering in China’s domestic matter, Taiwan. So China is doing everything it can to discourage Taiwan independence and keep the peace.
Instead of invading other countries, China wants to trade with them. This benefits the Chinese people.
Contrast the above with the Europeans and Americans…
British Empire
French Empire
German Empire
Dutch Empire
Spanish Empire
Portuguese Empire
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
Syria
China has fought no wars in the last 45 years!
U.S. foreign policy isolates the U.S.
Have you ever seen someone accidentally pick a fight with the wrong dude?
7th Grade. 1964.
School had just let out and I was walking with three other friends, on our way home.
Uh, oh!
Here comes Carl, the school bully — a really bad guy with a nasty attitude.
I got a little nervous. Carl was known for picking fights and leaving his victims severely bloodied.
Our group moved aside slightly, to let Carl pass. But it was a no go.
One of our buddies was a tiny little guy, Robbie, who was about 5’3” at around 115 pounds. Wouldn’t you know that, as Carl walked by, he slammed Robbie’s books to the ground.
Bullies choose the easy target.
Carl: “You better watch where you’re going little a**hole.”
Robbie: “Yeah. Sorry man. I’ll do that.”
Carl: “What’s the matter? You don’t like my face or somethin’?”
Robbie: “Naw man, you’re fine. Sorry.”
Carl moves in with a predatory stance.
Robbie: “Huh? Oh! You wanna fight me? OK. Yeah, we can fight if you want.”
Robbie handed me his coat, then spoke to himself saying, “Hmm. I think I’ll leave my gloves on.”
I was terrified speechless for Robbie.
I looked fearfully at one of my other buddies who smiled ever so slightly and said, “Don’t worry (about Robbie). He’ll be fine.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but Robbie and Carl stepped onto the parking lot and took stances. Carl made the first move, going in for the haymaker, the knockout punch.
Robbie dodged the punch completely and started dancing with gloved fists posed cautiously in front of his face.
Carl was big. Carl was strong. Carl moved like a sack of potatoes.
As Carl kept going for the haymaker, Robbie dodged and weaved like a master in self defense. Picture a two year old cat when they chase imaginary monsters through the house.
Over the next 3-4 minutes, Robbie peppered Carl’s face with light little shots, one by one, perfectly timed at every opportunity, precisely aimed and perfectly landed until Carl’s eyes started to swell shut.
About that time, the School Principal ran out and hauled both boys off to the office. Robbie was a little winded, but untouched by Carl. Carl’s face was a bloody mess.
When the fight ended and my buddies and I resumed our walk, I let out a sigh of relief.
One of my buddies asked: “You didn’t know?”
Me: “Know what?
Long story short, Robbie’s father was a WWII Vet, now a Colonel at the local Military School. Robbie had been trained in boxing and self defense, by his dad, every Saturday morning since the age of five. That’s nine years, every Saturday morning. Robbie had also been taught the honor of only fighting when necessary. I never would have known.
Sorry Carl. You lose. And you can be bloody well thankful that the principal broke up the fight while you could even see to walk.
Economic Bombshell: Consumers Are TANKING, Treasury Borrowing Erupts, Yen Collapse Zero Hope
What kinds of sentiments do Chinese citizens have about the Chinese government’s claim to Taiwan?
I’m Chinese,an IT industry worker.”Anger and incomprehension”. This is what the Chinese really think. If you want to get the real view from China, you have to come to China, get off the plane, take a taxi, and leave your luggage at the hotel. Then go to the small park on the street in China, where there are a large number of ordinary Chinese people, including retired old people, middle-aged people who have finished their work for the day, and young women playing with their babies. There, you can hear the most daring criticism of the Chinese government and the CPC on all issues.
Then, you start the interview. You ask them: “I am a foreigner who has flown thousands of kilometers just to understand a question, so please tell me your true thoughts. Excuse me, do you support the Chinese government’s sovereignty claim over Taiwan?”
Then, you will immediately hear everyone cursing! Old people, middle-aged people, young women, they have the unique loud voices of the Chinese. But please don’t be angry, they are not disrespecting you. They are cursing the Chinese government: “Why not retake Taiwan tonight or at the latest this Friday”?
Because if a military attack on Taiwan is launched over the weekend, the PLA can complete the military operation before next Monday. When the Chinese start working next Monday, they will not be bored all day, and everyone can discuss the country’s establishment of a new holiday: National Reunification Day.
Dear friends, in fact, you have no way to get the real Chinese public opinion (including my above description) from the Internet. Because you will always have various doubts. So, I guarantee that if you come to China, avoid the boring high-speed rail stations, subway systems, and commercial streets (like those boring foreigners in YouTube videos), and walk among the people, you will hear the above real stories.
This happens to prove that the Chinese Communist Party is the most important force in maintaining peace across the Taiwan Straits. If China is a “democratic system” like Taiwan, then the public opinion of all Chinese people will surge to the top leader of China, forcing him to start a war immediately for votes.
Therefore, if Taiwan Province intends to avoid war, the only way is to pray that the CPC still does not care about the public opinion of China. This seems to be a paradox. There will definitely be people who will object to my argumentation process. But this is the fact. 100% real Chinese public opinion. Not the public opinion of the Chinese elite, not the public opinion of the Chinese middle class, not the public opinion of the party members, not the public opinion of the Chinese workers and farmers. It is the public opinion of all Chinese people.
If it offends some people, I apologize for it.
Finally, I want to talk about an unrelated topic. In the past decade, China’s GWF has blocked Chinese people from accessing part of the foreign Internet. I think the most terrible thing about this is not that it blocks Chinese people from participating in the outside world, but that the changes in Chinese public opinion in the past decade are unknown to the world.
Today’s Chinese young people are full of confidence and courage. They have not experienced hunger and poverty. When they were born, they could enjoy a life similar to that of Western children. As they grew up, the Internet developed rapidly. At a very young age, they knew knowledge that their parents did not know in their entire lives. Therefore, they are not inferior, they do not have the original sin of poverty, they love China and support the Communist Party of China. At the same time, they have completed higher education and have enough knowledge and skills to engage in all professions such as science, engineering, art, and business. They enjoy life and pursue faith. They no longer regard the United States as an insurmountable paradise on earth. They are becoming the mainstay of Chinese society.
Dear friends, China has changed. It is no longer a poor, hungry, polluted, ignorant, backward, without freedom, and without personality. It is a brand new country. Please get to know China again.
China is the world’s superpower, and no force can stop it. This is not the brainwashing of the Communist Party, nor is it the belief in communism, and it is not propaganda for China for a few cents. This is a fact. It is an irreversible fact. Whether you are happy or sad, agree or disagree, this fact will not change because of you.
This is also the whole meaning of my writing here.
Have you ever met somebody so stupid that they made you question how they survived this long?
Interacting with Flat Earth (FE) folks as one of my duities at various conventions – it’s clear that each FE has fully accepted a stack of conspiracy theories by the time FE intersects with them – they swalliw it without protest
But the odd thing is, they will forsake it in five years or less. Something will hit their brain, or they will realize an obvious truth – and FE flees their minds
Problem is – the damage is already done. They championed FE to all their family and friends, in such a contentious and mocking way, they’ve isolated themselves. When they meet up with someone they knew, that person will often mock the former FE for being so stupid. The FE has to stand there and take it.
I liken it to Alex Jones, who fully believed Sandy Hook was a hoax to the point of not trustimg anyone’s opinion on it. Once he was enlightened, he said he must’ve been under some strong form of psychosis
Here’s my favorite FE assertion, that the Sun is near. They claim the earth is flat and stationary and the Sun is on the move. I got one of them to tell me how far the Sun would have to travel for a complete circuit – he said 58,000 miles in one day
So I said- 58,000 miles in 24 hours – that’s more than three times the speed of sound! Seems like we would hear a sonic boom as it passed over, and the Sun itself would be blur, a streak in the sky.
Cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours or until meat is tender.
Serve over buttered noodles or rice.
swiss steak 1 2
What is one thing that makes you swoon every time?
I have a guy friend I haven’t known for very long. Our lives are incompatible – we are both busy and firmly wrapped up with other things.
When we manage to spend time together it’s lovely – sparkling and light and easy, like a tall, cold glass of champagne at the end of a grueling week.
Tragically, I find him criminally attractive. Hanging out and feeling this attraction is massively distracting – like I have to contain an oversized shipment of a sort of involuntary effervescence – so I always feel like his company was delightful but really I was not able to give him my full attention due to the fact I kept tripping over myself.
Here is what kills me: of all the people that I know, this guy, peripheral to my life, is the one to say – always in an offhand way – the most insightful things about my character.
We found ourselves at a symposium one day and I was feeling restless. I apologized to him for my twitchiness. “I’m sorry I’m so fidgety” I said, “it’s hard for me to pay attention”. “Dushka” he responded. “That’s because you pay attention to everything else”.
Another time we were having a general, non-specific conversation about casual relationships and he – this person who barely knows me – said “you can’t do casual.” I felt almost insulted. “How would you know that?” “Because, Dushka” he said. “Anything you do you do with your entire heart.”
I recently hurt my hand in a yoga class and was complaining about the pain. “Well, it’s going to take a long time to heal because what you need to do is give it a rest and you’re never going to do that”.
As much as I am a participant in life I am also a spectator and I will tell you I adore being a witness to the things people do and say. To put it in other words there is a gorgeous, resplendent, as wide as the Milky Way swath of things that others do that make me swoon.
But it’s the sense that someone can really see me that leaves me feeling like I don’t know what I could ever do to repay him for his friendship.
Ukraine on the Verge of Complete Collapse | Scott Ritter
I once observed a fellow classmate hide from a loud and noisy dirt bike.
He was a kid of wimpy kid that was two grades younger than myself. I didn’t know him personally, but since we both attended the same small school, so I knew of him.
So, here I am hiking alone in the woods. There was a hilltop, and I was sitting on an isolated rock and just enjoying the view. It was a quiet and peaceful Summer day. Perhaps late Pennsylvania July or early August.
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As I sat there I watched this neighborhood kid ride his bicycle though the field that lay below me.
It was a nice field. With tall tan grass, with sporadic trees here and there. Off in the distance is another wood, and behind that some low wooded hills.
The kid was a lot like me when I was growing up. Kind of shy, easily intimidated, and kind of a loner. Just walking (or riding a bicycle) to find solace in life.
riding
Then I hear this terrible noise. This guy, maybe in his early 20’s is tearing up the countryside in a dirt-bike. No muffler, just screaming loudly. And just tearing in and out of the peaceful meadow.
And the kid, hearing and then seeing him approach, tossed his bicycle down, and climbed up the nearest tree. It’s a state of protection, and (though I never did it myself) totally understood.
After the dirt-biker left, he scrambled down from the tree, picked up his bicycle and headed in the opposite direction of the guy on the dirt bike.
It’s not that the young man on the bike meant him any harm, but that in those parts (Western Pennsylvania), if you are a kid and alone, and a group of older boys come around… well, you scram. It usually meant torture, hassles and abuse.
And this is what the kid did. He hid.
It’s a tale of my boyhood, and while no one is going to make a television drama out of it, it well illustrates what the world was like when young boys are in the in between ages with no real father role models, an indifferent school and classmates, and a hostile outer world. You hide to protect yourself.
This is the reality of American boyhood.
Peace out.
What was the shortest first date you ever had?
It was essentially over before it began.
He came to pick me up at my house (I still lived at home then, I was still in college.) I had two rescue dogs, Max and Brady. Both super friendly, gentle dogs that greeted him with wagging tails and an eagerness to get chin scratches and tummy rubs.
Well, this guy was pretty much up on the ceiling trying to get away from my dogs. We said good bye to my mom, and we’re walking to his car. He said “I know it’s not your fault, you still live at home. I just don’t understand why anyone would want filthy animals in their house! Just more motivation for you when you graduate, I suppose.”
At that point I said to him “look, I’m not going to waste your money or my time.” (He has very specific ideas as to who was supposed to pay on dates.)
He laughed me off. I had to tell him that I was serious. I’m an animal loved to my core. It’s a part of who I am. I could never, ever live without having pets.
It all worked out though. That was about 16 or 17 years ago. For the last 14 years, I have been married to the most wonderful man. He’s as much of an animal lover as I am.
It’s worth not setting.
Lai Ching-te openly said in his inaugural speech that “the Republic of China Taiwan is a sovereign, independent nation,” a claim which has never appeared in the inaugural speeches of previous leaders of the Taiwan region. What does this mean?
I am from Chinese Mainland, an ordinary IT worker.
In the speeches of successive ROC presidents, it has been emphasized that “governance power” is not subordinate to each other. Now, for the first time, the concept of non subordination of sovereignty has been proposed. So, even from the legal perspective of ROC, it violates the Constitution of the Republic of China.
Two recent incidents have made me feel sick.The first time was when LQBT people danced in front of a photo of ROC’s founding father Sun Yat sen.Another time was when President LAI was sworn in under Mr. Sun’s photo.
I have read about the history of the Republic of China. What may surprise some Taiwanese is that Sun Yat sen enjoys a great and lofty position in the narration of the CPC. This photo was taken by me 30 minutes ago while waiting for a red light. It is the busiest road in my city, called “Zhongshan Road”, named after Mr. Sun:
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In the narration of the CPC, the party inherited Mr. Sun’s will, completely overthrew the decadent and reactionary emperor and the imperialist enemy, and made China a country that will never be invaded by foreign powers.
Mr. Sun’s tomb is located in the capital city of Nanjing, my province. During holidays, there is a sea of people there, and Chinese people go to the tomb on their own without official organizations to commemorate Mr. Sun.
As the first President of the Republic of China, Sun Yat sen would angrily jump out of the coffin if he knew that a self righteous successor had announced that the highest goal of the Republic of China was “no longer China” – according to Chinese jokes.
Friends, a timeline of solitary evolution in human history has disappeared in 2024. Whether some people are happy or angry, the great revolution of the Republic of China and its founders has completed its historical mission.
The great changes in the world always start with a careless little thing. If any member of the Kuomintang of China sees my article, please answer a question: How have you done with the will of Sun Yat sen, the founding father of the country? Isn’t there any shame or sadness?
Note: People in Chinese Mainland view the election result with high spirits.
Wishing all Chinese people around the world.
Is it currently safe to travel around China? If not, which parts of China should be avoided?
Dear, please avoid the night in all Chinese cities. Stay in the hotel. There is good food everywhere, and if you eat one every day, it won’t be repeated for a year. It will make your calorie control plan fail completely.
Because the fragrance will float to your nose, and then you have a chance to look for the fragrance and see what is in a certain direction. Then you see queues of up to 20m, 50m long, everyone waiting quietly to buy a flavoured source. You wonder why China has returned to the era of material shortage of the planned economy. Then, unnaturally, you join the queue and wait 20 minutes to buy food you’ve never eaten before. After eating, you joined another queue.
What is the evidence? On YouTube, it seems that every foreign blogger who has been photographing China for a long time – travel blogger, cultural blogger, economic blogger, Ended up as food bloggers.
How America Destroyed the German Economy
How to kill the ‘zombie’ cells that make you age
Researchers are using new molecules, engineered immune cells and gene therapy to kill senescent cells and treat age-related diseases.
Lurking throughout your body, from your liver to your brain, are zombie-like entities known as senescent cells. They no longer divide or function as they once did, yet they resist death and spew out a noxious brew of biological signals that can slow cognition, increase frailty and weaken the immune system. Worst of all, their numbers increase as you age.
For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to see whether they can selectively destroy these cells with a variety of drugs. In a pivotal study1 published in 2015, a team at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, discovered that a combination of two compounds, called dasatinib and quercetin, killed senescent cells in aged mice. The treatment made the mice less frail, rejuvenated their hearts and boosted their running endurance. The finding opened the door to a new area of medicine called senolytics.
Now, fresh results from animal studies and human clinical trials have added momentum to the field. In mice and monkeys, researchers are using genetic tools to reprogram and kill senescent cells. Others are engineering senolytic immune cells. And about 20 clinical trials are ongoing. Researchers are testing new and repurposed drugs that could have senolytic properties, in the hope of combating age-related conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, lung disease and chronic kidney disease.
“I am convinced that senolytics will have an impact in the clinic,” says Anirvan Ghosh, chief executive of Unity Biotechnology, a company in South San Francisco, California, that is developing senolytics. “I think the question is really what the agent looks like and what the first approved drug is.”
Zombie cells
Senescent cells were first described in 1961 by US biologists Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead, who discovered that human cells in a laboratory dish will divide no more than about 50 times before either dying or entering the twilight state of cell senescence2. In the lab, it can take weeks for dividing cells to become senescent. But researchers have yet to uncover how much time this process takes in the body, how long senescent cells last and whether all cell types can become senescent.
Beyond hitting the limits of cell division, cell senescence can arise owing to other factors such as physical injury, malnourishment or DNA damage caused by UV light. Researchers initially thought that it evolved to prevent damaged cells from replicating uncontrollably and causing cancer. This might be the case to some extent, but it didn’t make sense that the cells would stick around in the body instead of simply dying, such as through the controlled programme of cell death known as apoptosis.
Researchers eventually discovered that senescent cells were avoiding apoptosis so they could perform a service, belching out a potent mix of inflammatory signals — including the cytokines interleukin-6 and interferon-γ — that prompt the immune system to clear out damaged cells. This helps to make room for damaged tissues to regenerate and repair.
The process works well until the immune system weakens with age, leading to a build-up of senescent cells that stir up excessive inflammation. Researchers have found that an accumulation of senescent cells and age-related inflammation correlates with many diseases, including osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and Alzheimer’s disease. For many scientists in the field, this realization prompted a shift away from understanding what the cells are doing to working out how to kill them.
Tipping the balance
One key strategy in senolytics involves designing drugs that stop senescent cells from resisting apoptosis. Usually, the cells survive by producing anti-death proteins. Blocking these with drugs can force the cells to succumb to death.
Unity Biotechnology is at the forefront of this approach, say researchers. In a February study3, Ghosh and his colleagues found that senescent cells were more abundant in the retinas of diabetic mice than in those of healthy mice. It was possible, the team predicted, that senescent cells in the blood vessels of the eye play a part in diabetes-related vision loss.
This condition, known as diabetic macular oedema, is caused by high blood sugar and makes those delicate blood vessels leaky, particularly in older individuals. The eye condition is a leading cause of blindness worldwide, estimated to affect 27 million adults. But around half of patients get little benefit from the standard treatment, which uses a cancer drug originally designed to slow down the growth of blood vessels. “There is an unmet need,” Ghosh says.
The researchers designed a drug, called foselutoclax, which blocks the action of BCL-xL, a key anti-death protein that is abundant in senescent cells. When they injected the drug into the eyes of diabetic mice, it killed senescent cells in the blood vessels supplying the retina, but not healthy cells3. “We see a very selective elimination,” says Ghosh.
The senolytic drug reduced the leakiness of retinal blood vessels in diabetic mice by around 50%. Moreover, the treated mice performed better in vision tests compared with controls. Next, the team turned to humans. In a phase II trial, researchers administered a single injection of foselutoclax into the eyes of about 30 people. Eleven months later, those treated with the senolytic could read 5.6 more letters, on average, on an optician’s chart compared with participants who had received a placebo treatment.
After just a couple of weeks, says Ghosh, one participant called him to say the treatment was making her life much easier. Another saw rapid improvements in their colour vision. The team expects to publish the results later this year, but in the meantime, Unity is running another phase II trial that will compare the senolytic with standard therapy.
Unity’s results are promising, say researchers. “I think within the next five years we may see this treatment for diabetic macular oedema being offered in the clinic,” says Sundeep Khosla, who studies ageing at the Mayo Clinic.
Rather than making senolytics from scratch, some scientists are testing drugs that already exist. These include dasatinib, which is approved in the United States as a cancer therapy, and two commercially available, plant-derived chemicals called quercetin and fisetin. The latter two are sold as supplements to dampen inflammation, boost brain health and reduce the risk of age-related disease. These claims are based on rodent studies in which the drugs have been shown to clear senescent cells and reduce inflammation4.
In a 2019 study5, researchers used dasatinib and quercetin to remove senescent brain cells in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Mice treated with the senolytics had reduced brain inflammation and improved memory compared with animals that were given a placebo. Spurred on by these promising data from mice, Miranda Orr at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and her colleagues last year conducted the first safety trial of the drug combination in people with early stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Orr’s team gave five people dasatinib and quercetin intermittently for three months. The researchers found that the drugs were safe and that dasatinib was present in samples of cerebrospinal fluid, suggesting it could cross into the brain. Quercetin was not detected in brain fluid samples, but Orr says she suspects that it did reach the brain and was rapidly broken down. The team is now conducting a larger trial to track the cognition of people with and without Alzheimer’s disease for nine months after they take a placebo or the drug combination. The results should be released in 2025, says Orr.
Khosla says that fresh data should also emerge this year from the largest human trial of dasatinib and quercetin so far. In this study, which is currently under peer review, his team looked at the effect of senolytics on the bones of healthy women.
Immune killers
When it comes to killing cells in the body, the immune system could be of help. And some researchers have latched on to the idea of using genetically engineered immune cells called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. These can target and kill specific cells on the basis of the molecules they display on their surface. CAR-T-cell therapies are currently approved as a treatment for various blood cancers.
Earlier this year, cell biologist Corina Amor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and her colleagues identified a protein marker, called uPAR, on senescent cells in the livers, fat tissues and pancreases of older mice6. The researchers created CAR T cells that were designed to kill senescent cells bearing the uPAR marker. After the team infused the engineered cells into the blood of old mice, there was a decline in the proportion of liver, pancreas and fat cells that were senescent.
Amor and her team found that old mice treated with the uPAR CAR T cells had reduced blood-sugar levels — a sign of improved metabolic health — and that the animals ran faster and for longer than did mice treated with non-engineered T cells, or with T cells that target a protein not found in mice. None of the mice treated with the senolytic CAR T cells showed signs that the T cells were toxic.
In young mice, the senolytic CAR T cells prevented age-related declines in blood-sugar regulation and exercise capacity. And in a March preprint7, the team reported that senolytic CAR T cells could rejuvenate the guts of old mice.
Still, further studies are needed to assess the safety of the therapy, says Amor. Moreover, it would be good to have an off switch for these cell-based drugs in case anything goes awry, she says. In rare cases, CAR T cells used to treat cancer in people seem to have become cancerous themselves.
Amor’s team plans to explore such safety switches in the near future. This would involve engineering the senolytic CAR T cells to carry a gene that induces cell death, which could be activated with a drug, she says. But CAR-T-cell therapies are expensive to make, says Robin Mansukhani, chief executive of Deciduous Therapeutics in San Francisco, which is also developing immune therapies against ageing.
Mansukhani is banking on a more affordable approach that harnesses a different kind of immune cell called a natural killer T cell. In 2021, researchers at Deciduous Therapeutics demonstrated8 the senolytic role of these cells, which naturally become less effective with age. They also found that drugs that can activate the immune cells helped to eliminate senescent cells in the damaged lungs of mice, reducing lung scarring and improving survival.
The researchers have developed a range of drugs that can bind to and supercharge natural killer T cells to treat various conditions, including diabetes and lung disease, says Mansukhani. Safety tests will be conducted in dogs and non-human primates later this year, and clinical trials should begin in the next two years, Mansukhani adds. The approach relies on smaller molecules that are easier to make than CAR-T-cell therapies, he says.
Gene therapy
Other teams are using gene therapy to kill senescent cells. In this approach, researchers package a gene that encodes a lethal protein called caspase-9 into fatty capsules studded with proteins derived from a virus. In mice and monkeys, the capsules have been found to deliver the gene to cells in the lungs, heart, liver, spleen and kidneys.
To stay young, kill zombie cells
Healthy cells are spared, because the gene is activated only in senescent cells that have high levels of one of two proteins called p16 and p53, says Matthew Scholz, chief executive at Oisín Biotechnologies in Seattle, Washington, which is developing the gene therapy. As a further safety switch, the lethal protein kicks off cell death only after the animal is given a very low dose of a drug called rapamycin, says Scholz. The researchers found that, over four months, a monthly dose of the therapy reduced frailty and cancer rates in old mice without causing harmful side effects. The comparison group involved mice that were given a placebo and low-dose rapamycin, says Scholz.
But a key limitation of this approach is that it relies on just one or two protein markers. Although p16 is widely used as a marker of senescence, definitive identification of cells in this state requires a panel of several markers. That means that, by targeting only p16 and p53, the gene therapy is probably eliminating some healthy, non-senescent cells that have these markers, and failing to kill some senescent cells that lack them, say researchers.
Better markers
Indeed, the issue of specificity is shared by all senolytic approaches, simply because there is more than one type of senescent cell. Researchers are only just beginning to uncover how many there are — and what markers they bear. “Without having really great biomarkers of senescent cells, it’s a little bit tricky to engage the right targets,” says Orr.
Orr is part of a large collaborative effort called the Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet), involving more than 200 researchers, that aims to produce atlases of senescent cells across the lifespan of humans and mice. Her team is using machine learning to improve definitions of brain-cell markers of senescence, then using them to map how senescent cells change with age and during dementia.
Ultimately, better markers of senescent cells will bring better senolytics that could one day prevent or treat age-related disease, she says. Ghosh echoes this optimism when it comes to killing zombie cells. “I think the fundamental science is so compelling that targeting senescent cells is definitely going to be of benefit.”
Would it be possible to throw everything away and spend the rest of your life living in a rainforest?
See the little scar on my ankle, the purplish one.
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I was walking through the jungle and caught my leg on low branch. It stuck into my leg. When I got home I rinsed it, probed the wound with my tweezers and scalpel and plastered the whole thing with antiseptic cream. A few days later I was at the doctor’s having a local anaesthetic whilst he cut the wound open, drained it and then removed the small piece of wood that was lodged there.
Not significant if you can visit a local doctor
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I visited a friend yesterday. He’s in hospital with the same sort of injury that I had. He was a muppet and ignored the infection. His leg is black to almost the knee. In areas it looks like the skin is sloughing off. Giant deflated blisters. There are red streaks running upwards. He’s been in hospital for 5 days now. The Doctor reckons that it will take another 5–10 days for him to be released. (The above picture is not of him. I really couldn’t find any publicly available photos on google that showed the blackness.)
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Of course I had another friend, a hasher, who ran with a foot infection. His toes turned black but he delayed going to hospital. Work trip. He had multiple amputations of his leg as they tried to stop the spread of the septicaemia. I should have gone to his funeral.
(Look up limb gangrene images if you want. It’s not nice)
Why is this relevant?
I spend 5 – 10 hours running in the Jungle/Rainforest each week. I’ve mapped in detail about 600km2 of the Titiwangsa range in Malaysia. I am one of the fastest mountain runners in Malaysia. That experience really means squat when it comes to surviving in the jungle with nothing.
EVERY time I go into the jungle I carry a knife, first aid kit, rations for a day and a small survival kit. With this I may be able to survive up to a week. I even carry morphine because out of phone coverage and by myself I have to self rescue. 20km with a broken leg is a shitty thing to cope with if no one comes to rescue you.
From what I can see, and have been taught by the indigenous inhabitants, most of the great food is up in the canopy. At the right time of year. At the wrong time of the year even the monkeys can’t get food. They migrate to the forest edge and steal trash to survive.
I am white guy who’s only been doing this for a few years.
Would I do any better if I had grown up in the jungle?
Most inhabitants, called Orang Asli in Malaysia, live in small villages. These are surrounded by concentric rings of fruit trees, banana, durian, rambutan, guava, jackfruit and more. That’s because a hunter gatherer existence in the forest is too hard. Limited farming plus hunter gathering is ok.
However, many of the skills take a LONG time to acquire.
A few years ago, 7 small children ran away from their boarding school. They were Orang Asli, aged between 7 and 11. They and their parents lived in the jungle. They survived for 46 days. Well, 2 did.
The others died from starvation, impalement on bamboo stakes, drowning and being eaten by a monitor lizard.
It’s tough. The jungle is neutral. If you treat it with respect then likely enough you will be treated with respect. If you don’t then you will have a terrible time.
Going in with nothing is rank stupidity.
Paul Theroux, in his book “Mosquito Coast”, had this idea. The reality was that he traded off white privilege and took enough goods with him to replicate a planter lifestyle. That ended with failure as well.
If you do it I hope that after a few hours you realise how uncomfortable and dangerous it is and take steps to save yourself. If not then you will be lucky to be found. The kids mentioned in the article above were less than 2km from home and were only found after 46 days because someone saw one of their corpses floating in the river.
If you throw everything away you can spend the rest of your life in the rainforest.
Personally I would like nothing better. That’s why I spend so much time there.
The harsh reality is that, like me, you will get infected wounds but with no modern medicine you will soon die.
What is important to most people is quality of life. You cannot have that in the jungle, with just the clothes on your back, without losing most of the benefits of 20,000 years of human development.
What is something a bartender did that you will never forget?
Several years back, a group of us ended up at a local bar after a friends funeral. Friend had died young, and the funeral had turned into a 2 hour hellfire and brimstone sermon that none of us were prepared for.
It was mid day, and the group of us were the only ones there, just catching up since it had been years. Bartender finally comes up and starts talking with us. We told him we were all there coming from our friends funeral.
A few moments later, he brings out a round of shots for all of us (him included) and one for our friend. He gave a quick toast, and we poured that one out for our friend.
Didn’t charge us for the shots (there were maybe 10 of us there). And continued hanging out with us while he could.
A random gesture from a stranger that day really helped all of us to get out of the post funeral funk and really celebrate the life our friend had had.
Juicy Roast
juicy roast
Ingredients
1 (2 1/2 pound) chuck roast
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1 (.75 ounce) package dry brown gravy mix
1 1/2 cups juice of choice (apple, orange, cran-raspberry, etc.)
Instructions
Place roast in slow cooker.
Sprinkle dry mixes over roast.
Pour juice over the top.
Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
Another Scandal Hits California While McDonald’s Considers Leaving the State
If a police vehicle is tailgating you, should you speed up, maintain speed, slow down, or pull over and stop?
I was out with my family one night, left lane, cruise control set to 70 in a 65, and passing people. A Sheriff came flying up behind me, probably going 85–90 mph without lights on, which made the vehicle look like any other Dodge Durango.
I set my cruise down to 65 in an attempt to slot into the middle lane, which applies the brakes of the car because of how its cruise control works. Dude decides to light me up for it.
I pull over and he asked why I hit the brakes because he was on a call. I explain to him that’s how the cruise control works in my car and that I was trying to get out of his way. He tells me he’s going to write me a ticket because I brake checked him and that he did have his lights on. I tell him that not only did he not, that I was also going to show him the replay. I proceeded to download the last 5 minutes from my dash cam system to my phone, footage showing him flying up on me, and then asked if he really wanted for me to present the video as evidence against him in court.
“Have a good night, sir, and drive safely.”
You too, Deputy Doofy, you too.
Moral of the story:
Pass left, drive right, and get yourself a dash cam system with front and rear cameras to protect yourself from everyone else’s BS.
Edit:
First – thanks for the 4700+ upvotes. This is wild for me – I haven’t had this much traction on anything I’ve posted since running a meme page on Facebook. I appreciate all of you who enjoyed or related to this.
Second – For all the people who are assuming I’m one of those people that camp in the left lane, a little note about the road I was on that night – three lanes, slight congestion, people in the left lane going between 45–55, people in the middle lane going 55–60. In the states of Missouri and Kansas, you have the right to be in the passing lane as long as you’re passing people, then you’re required to get back over as soon as you safely can. I was following that law.
Third – Yes, I know traditional cruise control uses engine braking to slow down your vehicle when you adjust speed. Adaptive cruise control uses the brakes to slow down. This is true for Mazda and across many other brands of vehicles, but not all.
Fourth – For those interested in buying a dash cam, I have a Nextbase 522GW camera system with a rear camera in my Mazda and some Rexing thing in my wife’s Chevy, I think the R4 but I’d have to look. The 4-channel Rexing is also handy for navigating tight corners in parking garages since her car doesn’t have backup sensors or an “birds-eye view” camera system. I’m not posting links as I have no interest in becoming an affiliate, I just like to suggest what works for me and isn’t too expensive while still being decent quality.
Fifth – While taking the evidence to court would be a thing to do, I’d rather avoid the courtroom or giving my lawyer money if I can.
In 2023, China surpassed the United States to become India’s largest trading partner, a seemingly absurd news that contradicted India’s previous “boycott Chinese goods” movement reported in the media. Data showed that in 2023, India’s total trade with China reached $118.4 billion, slightly higher than $118.3 billion with the US. Of this, India imported $101.8 billion from China but exported only $16.6 billion, resulting in a massive trade deficit of $85.2 billion.
A closer look at India’s $101.8 billion imports from China in 2023 revealed that 98.5% were industrial products, with Chinese goods accounting for as high as 43.9% of electronics, telecommunications equipment and electrical appliances. This reflected the reality that despite India’s calls to “boycott Chinese goods”, Chinese products still held a significant market share in India due to their superior cost-performance.
In fact, India’s “boycott Chinese goods” movement was largely a superficial gesture. Taking pulse oximeters as an example, despite Indian media reports of the “boycott movement”, Chinese pulse oximeters still occupied 98% of the Indian market. The reason was that if Chinese pulse oximeters were truly boycotted, ordinary Indian citizens would not be able to afford them, harming their livelihoods.
Beyond consumer goods, India was also highly dependent on Chinese products in the industrial raw materials sector. In 2023, 71% of India’s bulk drugs came from China; 69% of yarn imported by India originated from China. Prohibiting the use of Chinese raw materials would directly lead to higher costs for Indian products and a decline in industrial competitiveness.
Overall, although India exhibited nationalistic sentiments to “boycott Chinese goods”, practical economic interests meant that India found it difficult to completely boycott Chinese products in areas where the cost-performance ratio could not be easily replaced. This led to a continued increase in India’s imports from China in 2023, making China its largest trading partner.
On the other hand, India’s imports from the US plunged 20% in 2023, mainly due to the Fed’s interest rate hikes driving up US manufacturing costs. In comparison, India’s dependence on Chinese goods was more thorough.
It is noteworthy that while India had a huge trade deficit with China, it enjoyed a $36.7 billion trade surplus with the US. From trade data alone, it seemed that the US was “boycotting” Indian goods, while China “generously” welcomed Indian products into its market.
In reality, from 2019 to 2023, India’s imports from China grew from $70.3 billion to $101.8 billion, but its exports to China fell from $16.75 billion to $16.67 billion. During this period, the US contributed a $337 billion surplus to China, and India $85.2 billion, together accounting for nearly half of China’s total surplus.
Following business logic, “the customer is king”. Although the US and India treated China “excessively” in rhetoric, China had to tolerate their “petty behavior” due to the enormous benefits they brought. Only when the US and India run out of funds will China refuse to tolerate such conduct.
In summary, despite the apparent contradictions, China’s surpassing of the US as India’s largest trading partner reflected India’s inability to completely boycott highly cost-effective Chinese products in livelihood and industrial sectors. Meanwhile, the US seemed to “boycott” Indian products to a greater extent, leading to an interesting contradiction among the three countries in trade.
Slam Dunk
Last night was the weekend. My seventh-grade child spent the entire evening discussing the Japanese anime “Slam Dunk” with me. He talked about every aspect of the show—from the multiple storylines to the theme song, the fate of the characters, and the main character Hanamichi Sakuragi’s injury. Then he told me that this show has been a constant source of strength for him.
My child is 13 years old. I’ve never heard him speak so earnestly, especially during a casual family conversation. It was particularly striking because these serious words were about an anime. So, I asked him what had happened.
He then shared the lessons he learned from the show. For instance, even if you’re not a genius, you can achieve greatness through hard work. And repeated failures did not crush these young boys. Basketball was their youth and life. Troubled youngsters found their way back to the team through basketball and were accepted by everyone. These touching storylines almost perfectly mirrored his own middle school life. Therefore, he constantly learns from these beloved characters in his studies.
Next, we discussed the movie adaptation of “Slam Dunk.” We talked about the movie’s dark tones and the main character’s family troubles. My child told me that the entire movie left him with a subtle sadness. I asked him where this sadness came from. He mentioned the death of the protagonist’s brother and the failures and injuries in the tournament.
I thought for a moment and shared my perspective—that sadness is a multifaceted emotion, not just stemming from the story itself but also from the passage of youth. The beautiful youthful years, the most glorious vitality in life, inevitably fade away as one grows.
I hope my child can have a youth without regrets. To study, explore, embrace nature, connect with the world, give and receive love, understand civilization, and understand the nation and society. I am grateful for “Slam Dunk,” which was also my favorite thirty years ago. Classic works never go out of style and always provide strength.
Terrible Simpsons Predictions For 2024
What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever said in a foreign language by accident?
I was actually quite proud of my progress in learning the Chinese language. I was living in Shanghai, and I had learned how to count: “Ee, arr, sun…”
The next morning, I approached a steamed bread vending shop and ordered proudly: “Arr Baoz’i!”
I could swear that life stopped around me.
For emphasis, I indicated the number with my fingers, and got my steamed bread. At the office, my secretary explained to me that “arr” wasn’t really used to indicate quantity, and that I had actually said something more like “stupid dumplings.”
My Chinese learning has slowed down a bit since then.
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Another time, I decided to tell a taxi driver my address in Chinese instead of showing him a hand written card, as usual: “3, Yuyao Lu.” To this day, I have no idea what he understood, but he was spewing tea all over the inside of his windscreen and laughed so hard and so long that I thought he was going to have a seizure. Never before had I heard someone laugh so heartily, with such mirth. The poor guy was in tatters.
In the end, I found the silly card. I still heard the driver laugh out loud helplessly even as he pulled away twenty minutes later, once I had disembarked at my apartment.
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These days, I let my wife do the talking when we are in China.
What is the rudest thing you have ever done?
I used to have a very serious short temper problem. One day, I was angry with my mother (for some silly reason) and started shouting at her. We had a small puppy dog, who got scared by my shouting, came to me, and started pulling my leg. It’s her (the dog’s a girl) way of asking me to stop shouting.
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Out of anger, I kicked that puppy with my right leg so hard that she’d hit the wall and bounced back. She screamed for few seconds out of pain, stopped screaming, came back to me again, and this time, started licking my feet: it’s her way of expressing apology.
She thought that she’d done some mistake, and asked me to forgive her!!
I was shattered. The dog was a two month old baby, still her eyes were so expressive that I’d understood her every emotion. I can never forget that moment, my short temper has gone for ever!
The dog loved me a lot, she’d always tried to impress me and get my attention for pampering. She was intelligent, beautiful, and adorable.
She died recently, six years after the incident.
I feel guilty and sad to this day for being a jerk; I cry whenever I remember that incident and cannot forgive myself, I’m crying now.
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
The year was roughly 1999, when internet access for most of us was dialup. I lived in Newtown, CT, and the nearest access point was in Bridgeport. That was a toll call, so access would be quite expensive.
The local telephone company, SNET, had a program where you could forward a call from one number to another. A group of us arranged for a friend in Monroe, CT to set up a phone number which would forward my call from Newtown to Bridgeport. Since it was a local call from Newtown to Monroe, and also a local call from Monroe to Bridgeport, there was no charge for this call.
I had a phone line installed that I kept dialed in to the service provider to Bridgeport (via Monroe). Another line was installed for my friend Dave, also in Newtown to dial in to my computer. A third line was installed for Dave’s friend Stan (in Danbury — a local to to Newtown) to dial in to my computer.
(North American Internet) and had three more telephone lines installed for others to dial in. We sold subscriptions (but never made any real money) to our own dial up service under the North American Internet name. I forget the actual data rate, but the modems were around 24Kbits per second.
for a few hundred dollars. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have. Three letter domain names are pretty rare.
Why does Biden say in a 60-minute interview that US troops will defend Taiwan, while the White House says this is not official US policy?
He has said it 4 different times in the role of the sitting American president.
Each time, the white house has walked back on the words, assuring the American public that the commitment to one China, and the three communiques remain unchanged.
Observers claim the opposing statements create ambiguity which keeps China guessing, and strengthens America’s position on the issue of taiwan.
China is willing to give Joe a pass because his verbal promise can be walked back on. But changes to American legislation or a defense treaty with Taiwan are a different matter.
We have seen China downgrade communication and cooperation with America due to Nancy’s visit. The situation can get a whole lot worse if America keeps up the provocation. We are dangerously close to the tipping point, and the risk of misreading intentions has increased.
Compilation: UFOs & Aliens!
Can I ask a cute police officer for his phone number? Is it okay to do this?
I did this once. I was walking back to my car after dinner with some friends and noticed a police officer was writing parking tickets up ahead. She was one car away from mine. I looked at my watch, realized my meter was expired, so I broke into a dead sprint.
By the time I got there, I was completely out of breath, but she was already behind my car, jotting my license plate number into her ticket book. I had my hands on my knees, head down, desperately trying to catch my breath, but I asked, “This is my car. Can you please not give me a ticket?”
I finally caught my breath, looked up, and was face-to-face with a stunning woman. She gave me a crooked smile and said, “Sure. Only because you worked so hard to get here in time and because you asked nicely. It’s your lucky day.” She tore it up and started to walk away.
I took a deep breath to gather up some courage and asked, “Hey. Can I ask for another favor?”
She asked, “What’s that?”
I asked, “Can I get your phone number?”
She said, “Sorry. It is your lucky day, but not that lucky.”
Denied.
UPDATE: Some have noted that she was a meter maid, not a police officer. Yes, this is true, but I didn’t really know the difference back then. What I did know for sure is that she didn’t give me the ticket, looked very nice in her uniform, and was smoking hot. (Doing my best to keep descriptions as PG as possible.)
The Kids Aren’t Alright: Facing the Hard Truths About Childhood Trauma and Neglect
Let’s get real about the fucking elephant in the room: childhood trauma. The kind of shit that happens when you’re a kid that fucks you up so badly, you spend the rest of your life trying to un-fuck yourself. I’m talking about abuse, neglect, abandonment – the experiences that teach you, before you’re even old enough to spell your own name, that you’re worthless, unlovable, and unsafe in your own goddamn home. It’s a topic that makes people squirm, because it forces us to confront the ugly reality that we’re failing our kids on a massive scale.
But we can’t afford to look away anymore, because the effects of childhood trauma don’t just magically disappear when you blow out the candles on your 18th birthday cake. They shape every aspect of your adult life – your relationships, your mental health, your sense of self-worth. And until we start talking about it, acknowledging it, and working our asses off to prevent it and heal it, we’re going to keep seeing the same cycles of addiction, homelessness, abuse, and dysfunction playing out on repeat like a fucking broken record.
We’re about to dive into some heavy shit. But it’s shit we need to talk about, because the only way out is through. And I promise you, there is a way out – but it starts with staring the darkness in the face and refusing to blink.
When you experience trauma or abuse or neglect as a kid, it doesn’t just hurt you in the moment. It fundamentally reshapes your understanding of yourself and your place in the world. It’s like a fucking earthquake that shatters the very foundation of your identity.
See, when you’re little, you don’t have a fully formed sense of self. You’re basically just a sponge, soaking up messages from your environment about who you are and what you deserve. And if those messages are consistently negative – if you’re being told through words or actions that you’re worthless, that you’re unlovable, that you’re a burden – then that becomes your default programming.
And when those messages are hammered home through abuse – physical, emotional, sexual – it’s even more devastating. Because abuse isn’t just painful in the moment, it’s a soul-level mindfuck that tells you, “You are so worthless that you deserve this. You are so unlovable that the people who are supposed to care for you are instead violating you in the most intimate ways possible.” Abuse teaches you that you’re not safe in your own body, in your own home, in your own fucking skin. It teaches you that the people who are supposed to protect you are actually the ones you need protection from. And that kind of betrayal, that kind of fear and confusion and shame – that shit buries itself bone-deep.
And that belief gets wired into your nervous system. It becomes the lens through which you see yourself and interpret the world around you. So no matter what happens later in life, no matter how many people tell you that you’re smart or talented or worthy, there’s always this voice in the back of your head saying, “Nah, they’re just being nice. If they really knew me, they’d see what a piece of shit I am.”
Trauma and neglect teach you that you’re not safe, that you’re not worthy of protection or love or respect. And that’s a fucking hard lesson to unlearn, because it’s not just a thought or a belief – it’s a felt sense, a visceral knowing that’s rooted in your earliest experiences of the world.
And the thing is, that kind of early damage doesn’t just go away on its own. It’s not like you hit 18 and suddenly you’re a well-adjusted adult with a healthy sense of self-worth. That shit stays with you, coloring every relationship, every career move, every decision you make about how to move through the world.
It’s why you see so many people who grew up in fucked up situations struggling with addiction or abusive relationships or self-sabotage. They’re not just making bad choices because they’re stupid or weak – they’re acting out the only story they know, the one that says they’re damaged goods, that they don’t deserve anything better.
And breaking free of that story is a fucking marathon, not a sprint. It takes years of therapy, of self-reflection, of learning to rewire those deep neural pathways that tell you you’re garbage. It takes surrounding yourself with people who reflect back your inherent worth, even when you can’t see it yourself. It takes a daily practice of choosing to act like you matter, even when every fiber of your being is screaming that you don’t.
So when we look at someone who’s struggling with homelessness or addiction or any other manifestation of a shattered sense of self, we can’t just write them off as lazy or weak or hopeless. We have to have some fucking compassion for the battle they’re fighting every day, just to feel like they deserve to take up space, to draw breath, to exist.
And we have to recognize that the solution isn’t just about providing housing or rehab or job training – although those things are important too. It’s about healing the deepest wounds, the ones that convince a person they’re irreparably fucked up and unworthy of love.
It’s about creating a society where every child is treated as inherently valuable, where no one grows up believing that they’re disposable or broken or undeserving of care.
Because when we shatter a person’s self-worth, we shatter their ability to function in the world. And until we learn to put those pieces back together, to heal the deepest hurts, we’re just putting band-aids on compound fractures and wondering why people aren’t magically fixed.
We have to do better. We have to go deeper. We have to give a shit about the pain people are carrying, and work like hell to make sure no one else ever has to carry it again.
That’s the only way out of this mess – hard fucking work, and a whole lot of give-a-damn. There are no easy answers, but there is a path forward. If we’re willing to walk it.
Everywhere I go I see “Help Wanted” signs. None of these jobs pay minimum wage anymore and yet they go unfilled. What’s happening?
Originally Answered: Every where I go I see "Help Wanted" signs. None of these jobs pay minimum wage anymore and yet they go unfilled. What's happening?
The simplest answer is : The person who needs the work done can’t find anyone to do the job for the terms they are offering.
Last year, he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were qualified. He hired all of them, but soon had to fire 15. Part of Isbister’s pickiness, he says, comes from an avoidance of workers with experience in a “union-type job.” Isbister, after all, doesn’t abide by strict work rules and $30-an-hour salaries. At GenMet, the starting pay is $10 an hour. Those with an associate degree can make $15, which can rise to $18 an hour after several years of good performance. From what I understand, a new shift manager at a nearby McDonald’s can earn around $14 an hour.
The going rate is 30$, he only wants to pay 10$. For a job that requires 5–10 years of experience and skill.
How does this man own a factory?
There is a lot that goes into a ‘good’ job –
Most workers want a single job at a single location with regular hours that is not too dirty and that allows them to keep a shirt on their back, a roof over their head, and allows them to save a little bit, and maybe grow so that someday they can have a spouse and children. Most people don’t mind occasionally putting in a few extra hours, assuming that those extra hours get a bit more pay.
Most employers want someone who will show up on time, put in a good day’s work, not complain too much, display adaptability and flexibility, and look out for their employers’ interest just enough to avoid unforseen disaster.
If a job goes unfilled, it’s because one of the parties is not generally willing to provide what most of the other parties want.
What is the funniest thing you have heard someone say when they are angry?
My friend was savagely drunk and stumbling home from the bar when he decided it would be fun to kick over some garbage cans.
Doing his best imitation of kung fu poses, he began screaming like Bruce Lee as he kicked the cans left curbside for morning pickup. At 3 am. On a residential street.
His impromptu reenactment of Enter the Dragon woke one of the neighbors, who called the cops.
As the officers were cuffing my idiot friend and trying to get him into the back of a police cruiser, he was incensed and insisted he was being falsely arrested. As they were closing the door he screamed:
“YOU’RE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE! I KNOW MY RIGHTS, I WATCH LAW AND ORDER!”
I had to bail the idiot out the next morning. At the time I was employed in my first post-graduation job as a late night crime reporter for a newspaper, so I knew the cops. They gleefully told me about Mr. Law & Order’s drunken lectures on criminal law before letting me take him home.
Of course he didn’t remember a damn thing, but he never lived the Law & Order incident down. For the rest of his time at the paper, whenever there was a newsworthy incident involving a drunk someone would pipe up with some variation of “too bad he didn’t watch Law and Order!”
5 Aircrafts US Secretly Tests To Wipe Out China! World Shocked!
The Brutal Truth About Professional Bodybuilding
Look, I’m all for pushing yourself and striving to be your best. Setting ambitious goals, working your ass off, making sacrifices to achieve them – that’s admirable stuff. But there’s a line between dedicating yourself to a challenging pursuit, and straight up abusing your body. And when it comes to professional bodybuilding, that line isn’t just crossed, it’s obliterated.
Let’s be real here. You don’t get to be a top level competitive bodybuilder by practicing healthy, balanced habits. We’re talking about guys who are 5’9″ and 280 lbs in the off-season. That’s not accomplished by eating a sensible diet and training hard a few times per week. It requires consuming a ridiculous 8,000+ calories per day and injecting obscene amounts of anabolic steroids and other drugs.
But the off-season is just the beginning. Leading up to a competition, they’ll radically cut calories and amp up the workouts to shed 30-40 lbs in a matter of months. The drug stack shifts to hardcore cutting agents like trenbolone and clenbuterol. Diuretics are added at the end to achieve that totally peeled, dehydrated look on stage. It’s an incredibly grueling and unnatural process to put a body through.
Sure, from the outside it may look impressive – I mean, these physiques are otherworldly. You can’t help but be in awe of that degree of muscularity and definition. But the reality is that it’s just not healthy. You’re forcing your body to crazy extremes, first bulking it up far beyond normal capacity, then starving and dehydrating it down to skin and sinew. And you’re doing it over and over, year after year.
I don’t care what the pro bodybuilders say – all that stuff about how they’re perfectly healthy and do it the “right way.” Give me a break. Your organs don’t care that the drugs are pharmaceutical grade or that your 9,000 calorie diet is “clean.” Abuse is abuse. And the toll this takes long-term on the body is severe. You don’t get to be 300 lbs with 4% body fat without paying a steep price.
Look, if an extreme physique is really someone’s dream and they feel it’s worth the sacrifices, I can’t stop them from pursuing that. But I sure as hell am not going to play along with the convenient fiction that it’s a healthy endeavor. Let’s at least be honest that it’s self-destructive on a fundamental physiological level.
Ultimately, I think a lot of it comes down to self-acceptance. If you can’t be satisfied without turning yourself into a sideshow freak, you’ve got some deeper issues to confront. There’s more to life than being a mass monster. You can build an awesome physique while still treating your body with respect. Work hard, but be kind to yourself. Push yourself, but not at the expense of your health. That’s the sustainable path.
But what do I know? I’m just a guy who believes in moderation and not doing stupid shit. If you want to chase glory on the bodybuilding stage, by all means, go for it. Just don’t expect me to pretend it’s anything other than a profoundly unhealthy pursuit. The human body was not meant to endure that kind of self-inflicted abuse. But I guess that’s not as catchy of a slogan for the supplement companies to put on a t-shirt.
Are China’s air and sea forces now capable of enforcing a blockade of Taiwan?
Yes. Due to Taiwan’s close distance to China, approximate 100 miles away and the small size of Taiwan.
This places any attacking foreign force well within all of China’s weapon delivery systems. And it is NOT just ASBMs (hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles). The problem for the US is that every Chinese weapon system outranges the US ones. And that is not an accident.
China has been studying the US Air Sea Battle strategy for 30 years and devising tactics and weapons to beat the US, NATO, Japan, SK, Australia, and India at the same time.
If the US dares to show up. The US fleet would be wiped out. The US knows how this scenario turns out. The Pentagon has been running thousands of simulations for the last 10 years. And the simulations has gotten worse for the US as time went by.
High-Value Man TRIGGERED American Women After He Told Them They Aren’t Wife Material
There is currently an argument in Quora, was the PVA considered a peasant army? Did a peasant Army manage to defeat the mighty US?
Even a worm will turn! They are both a peasant army and battle-hardened warriors.
Yes, most of the PVA Soldier were farmers, Even Mao and Peng was born into a peasant family and worked in farming locally. What they enjoyed most was living and farming in a peaceful environment, but the invading army that was eyeing them did not give them such an opportunity.
As they themselves say: We fight all the wars that we have to fight, so that our children and grandchildren will be saved from warfare.
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They often found some ammunition boxes next to the frontline tunnels and grew vegetables. Since you can pass the time, you can also see hope by watching these seeds germinate and see the sprouts grow. Under the hail of bullets, they still maintained their strong will, maintained their yearning for life, and survived the difficult moments in their lives.
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Before his death, an American veteran wrote a short essay of about ten pages confessing his heartfelt feelings. In it, he recounted his experience of fighting with the Chinese volunteers in the Korean War in a physical battle that plunged him into that kind of despair and horror. In his short essay he says this:
I didn’t feel much fear about physical combat because I fought bayonets with Japanese soldiers in World War II and killed them.
Although every Japanese soldier shouted ‘Be loyal to the emperor and fight to the end’, I clearly saw fear and cowering in their eyes.
But when I fought with the Chinese on the Korean battlefield, I saw no fear in their eyes, as if they were not fighting you at all.
Sometimes when they reach the last moment of their life, they don’t dodge at all, but use their last strength to grab you. They even use their teeth to bite any part of your body, they don’t want to live at all, their purpose is to die with you.
They are like messengers from hell, you don’t even dare to look into their eyes, that kind of gaze scares people to death.
What’s even more frightening is that when the Chinese blow their horns, the shrill sound is like the sound of a bell counting down to death, because you instantly feel that you have been sentenced to death. So you get so scared that you shoot randomly with your hands and turn around and desperately run away, and I was really lucky that I didn’t get killed by them.
What made you realize your life will never be the same?
In February 2024, my best friend thought she had a pinched nerve because her foot was tingling and then starting to feel “dead“. She had lost almost all feeling in it, and it started to go up her leg. She had an MRI of her lower back, which showed nothing and they thought it might be in her upper back or her neck. When they did a second MRI they saw that she had a tiny tumor on her neck. She went to a neurologist who sent her for a third MRI of her brain. It turned out the tumor on her neck was benign, but they also found a glioblastoma brain tumor , that is 100% fatal. This is my best friend for the last 48 years. She’s been on treatment and in June she was supposed to find out how much good the treatment had done in shrinking the tumor and giving her more time. Last week she could barely wake up and the little bit she was awake, she couldn’t keep track of what was going on or who was in the room with her. Of course we got her to the hospital in an ambulance. Her entire brain swelled and they were afraid they were going to lose her. She was put on massive steroids and they did another MRI, which said the tumor has not shrunk. It has grown. There’s an excellent chance I won’t even be able to see her for Christmas, we text 50 times a day, I don’t have a single clue how I can possibly survive without her.
What is the most bizarre way you’ve landed a job?
I was unemployed and down to my last $20. A friend was having a party and persuaded me to spend my last $20 on booze and show up at the party. “What are you going to do with $20, invest it in the stock market? Have some fun. You’ll be fine.”
I went and a couple of hours into the party some drunk bastard yelled out, “Anyone looking for a job?”
I was well past the legal limit and answered back, “Me!” He told me to show up at his house at 7AM Monday.
Spent years working for and with that crew installing carpet. Made a ton of money and worked my a$$ off. Blood and sweat.
Mary Nell’s Goetta
Ingredients
1 pound ground round
1 pound Bob Evans Zesty Pork Sausage
6 cups water
4 bay leaves
Pinch of pepper
1 tablespoon salt
1 large onion, chopped
2 1/2 cups pinhead oats
Instructions
Put water, salt and pepper in a slow cooker.
Cover and cook on HIGH for 20 minutes.
Add pinhead oats and cook on HIGH for 1 1/2 hours.
Mix meat well and add to slow cooker with onion and bay leaves.
Cook on LOW for 3 hours.
Uncover and, if not thick enough, cook longer, stirring often.
Pour into greased bread pans and cool.
Refrigerate, and fry until browned.
“Am I wrong for telling my girlfriend I don’t want her going for a drink with her ex?”
I have been with my girlfriend for just under 3 years. She has had 2 previous relationships that both ended when they cheated on her. Her first boyfriend she has not spoken to in 6 years and the other one she hasn’t spoken to in 4 years.
Her first boyfriend recently messaged asking how she has bene and just wanting to catch up. She told me about it and told me she was planning on replying. I told her I didn’t see why she’d want to bother talking to him when he’s not in her life anymore but just said I can’t stop her talking to him.
She told me a couple more times when he messaged but I believe they have been messaging slightly more than that. She mentioned today that he suggested them going for a drink with a few other friends and catching up. I told her I wasn’t comfortable with her going and she asked why. I just told her it’s disrespectful to be out drinking with your ex. She said she just wants to catch up with him and the other friends but I just repeated that I wasn’t comfortable with her going.
I said if she chooses to go then that will be it with us since I’m no going to just sit back while she’s out drinking with her ex boyfriend. She said I was being controlling but I just pointed out I was only tell her what I am comfortable with and what I’m not comfortable with.
She said I shouldn’t be telling her not to go and should be fine with her going.
Here’s the deal: If your girlfriend’s planning to catch up with her ex in a group setting, why aren’t you invited? That’s a legitimate question to ask.
Let’s cut to the chase: she’s basically telling you she wants to go out and party with her ex. Most people would find that pretty disrespectful. It’s not about you being insecure; it’s about mutual respect. She knows his intentions, and if she’s entertaining his advances, that’s a red flag. If someone cheats on you, cutting them off completely is the norm for most people. Why she would want drinks with someone who disrespected her so badly speaks volumes.
You have every right to set boundaries in your relationship. It’s not about controlling her; it’s about maintaining respect and trust. She’s free to go, but as you’ve clearly stated, there’s a cost to that. If she chooses to prioritize a night out with her ex over your comfort and trust, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate what you both want from this relationship.
At the end of the day, it’s about finding common ground. Have an honest conversation about your boundaries and see if she respects them. If not, it might be time to consider whether this relationship is what you both need.
ANOTHER RUSSIAN NUCLEAR RADAR HIT
This makes two in one week. Very concerning.
Which habit changed your life?
I worked at four startups in two years.
They all failed.
And they were in four different markets: pharmaceuticals, real estate, crowdfunding, and the music industry.
So I founded my own company, an online publication.
A year later, that failed, too.
Then I became the VP of Marketing for a mobile app company that failed.
I lost all my money.
Had zero job prospects.
So I moved into my Dad’s tiny apartment.
Without space, we slept in the same room.
I got a job as a copywriter that paid $12 an hour. It was awful.
At the same time, I made a decision to read for five hours every day on average.
This led to 170 books read over the next year about psychology, business, and marketing.
A few months after my copywriting gig, I had saved enough money to take a risk.
To work at a Facebook software company where I got paid half.
In eight months, I led their marketing.
Landed a few clients, then wrote a book about Facebook marketing.
Took that credibility, became the head of growth for a venture-backed company in San Francisco.
Then the head of growth for a 50-million-dollar VC firm.
Next the growth evangelist for one of the fast-growing SaaS companies.
Today, I’m the co-founder and CEO of a multi-million-dollar company.
Entirely bootstrapped.
The lesson –
Adopt the habit of persistency.
Persistent enough to where you’ll pursue what you want no matter where you live, how much money you make, or connections you have.
If you want results, do what 99% of people won’t.
What is the most disgusting experience you have had at another person’s house?
I am a Code Enforcement Official; I’ve seen some nasty stuff.
When I first started my job, years ago we were called by child services to render a decision on if a mobile home was habitable. They were looking to remove the two children. It was mid week…very hot outside…we knocked on the door. The door swung open with a loud thump as this decrepit old trailer rocked.
A large woman in her nightgown…at around 11AM no less, was filling the tiny doorway, cigarette hanging out of her mouth. The cigarette smoke rolling out of this tiny place was unbelievable.
In we went…I first noticed a giant big screen TV (the vintage style, that are about 3 foot deep) across from a nasty old couch…with roughly 18 inches of path to walk between. To this day I have no idea how they watched a TV that large being so close up.
We noticed open dried-out cans of cat food, roaches picking the last of the meat out of them. Wires hung low exposed everywhere, and the bathroom reeked of urine, roaches and feces.
We made our way to the back, and there were two small children who should have been in school…but they weren’t. Instead they were playing with their trucks on the floor, giving roaches rides in them, dumping them out of the dump truck bed. To them, it was like the roaches were little friends, there to play with.
I had seen enough to render my part (the electrical) worthy of shutting off. I went to leave…this is where it gets nasty…er.
The master bedroom door (a curtain or blanket nailed to the door frame) began to move. I laid eyes on him…quite a spectacle…I’d say he was late forties, probably 5′ 10″, 350 pounds, and naked. Smoking a cigarette, he begins to tell me how horrible the neighborhood is, how the cops are worthless etc., etc. I stepped out…he filled the doorway and continued the rant.
Interesting thing about a mobile home: when you step out, you’re about eye level with waist of the person inside.
Soon I heard my boss ask him from inside, “Sir, I need you to come here for a second.” It’s at that point he turned around 180 and to my surprise he had tightey whitey underwear on, from the front I couldn’t tell because of his large belly hanging down. He took one step toward my boss, and there I was marveling how his underwear was totally hidden up front, and he lets go of a large amount of gas…and then the underwear quickly turned brown and wet.
As the crap rolled down his leg…he didn’t miss a beat, gave that leg a shake onto the floor…and begins to converse with my boss.
I in turn being full witness to this, and eye level to this mess only a few feet away…turn into the yard and begin to hurl.
As my boss came bouncing out of the house, oblivious to what just happened…he said, “What’s the matter, buddy; it didn’t smell that bad in there.” (We’ve been in some nasty places.) I pointed and said that dude just crapped his pants in my face.
And that’s the nastiest thing that I’ve seen in a house.
Pepperoncini Beef
Slow Cooker Italian Pepperoncini Beef HERO scaled
Ingredients
1 (3 pound) beef chuck roast
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 (16 ounce) jar pepperoncini
Instructions
Make small cuts in roast, and insert garlic slices in cuts.
Place roast in slow cooker, and pour the entire contents of the jar of pepperoncini, including liquid, over meat.
Cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
Serve on sub rolls with cheese.
Confessions Of A Woman In A Polygamous Marriage
How did you end up in a polygamous marriage?
I was born and was raised in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh. A few months before my seventeenth birthday, my father, due to the Guardian System, told me that he had arranged a marriage for me to a foreign businessman in Dubai, and that I would be married within a few weeks.
At the beginning of 2017, I was married to my new husband in Dubai, and became his second wife. I didn’t ever realize that I wouldn’t be his first wife until a few days before the wedding, and I can only remember crying for an entire afternoon the day I found out I would be his second wife. It would not be until the end of last year that our husband took his 3rd and most recent wife.
How old is your husband?
Early 50s
How soon before the wedding did you meet him? What would have happened if you didn’t like him/he didn’t like you?
I met him about a week before the wedding for the first time. If he hadn’t like me, it’s not likely anything would happen since he had already talked to my father, but if i hadn’t liked him there was not much I could have done about it. At that point I was such a mess of nervous teenage anxiety and emotion that there wasn’t much I could have even thought or said.
Why did he marry you?
I’m not sure why exactly, it could have been for my looks or age, since his first wife is quite a bit older than i am, but I’m sure it was also due to the social connections between him and my father that would be forged because of the marriage.
Has your husband mentioned how many wives he plans on having?
He legally can’t marry more than 4 according to Sharia Law, but I can’t imagine he would marry someone else, especially at this point in his life. But who knows, he certainly could. I hope not, but it is a possibility.
Do you have a good relationship with him?
We have a fairly good relationship. Although he doesn’t spend as much time with me as his new wife, he’s very polite and nice to me, and doesn’t mistreat me at all.
Do you love him?Does he love you?
In a way I think I love him; even though I don’t think he married me for love, and I didn’t have much of a choice, I’ve learned to love him for what he is. I know he cares for me in his own way, and I know he wants me to be happy and provided for, which I am very thankful for.
Do you guys have children?
Yes, we have one child, a beautiful two-year old baby girl!
How does your husband treat you? Does he treat all his wives equally or is he biased?
It depends; he treats his first wife and I pretty much the same, or at least spends the same amount of time with us, but ever since his third marriage he’s spent most nights with his new wife. I try not to feel jealous, but it is hard not to resent him and her for it.
How old are his first and third wife?
His first wife is 36, and his most recent wife is only 16. Even though 18 is legally the marriable age in the UAE, a judge can approve a younger marriage, and our husband is wealthy enough to ensure that it happens.
What do you think of a man in his early 50s marrying a girl of 16?
I personally don’t think it’s right for such a marriage to take place. Even though legally it was allowed, the odds are she’ll be widowed before she even turns 40, which is really tragic for her.
Why are you more concerned for her after he dies than what might happen during the marriage?
I don’t think it’s right for him to marry someone so young, but at least this way she is provided for. Once he dies, I’m not sure what’s going to happen to any of us once he dies.
What typically happens to the wives once their husband dies? Say you are 50. Do you get an inheritance?
I would most likely be sent to live with a male relative, and perhaps receive an inheritance or something similar. I would have to follow ‘Iddah’ under Shariah Law and wait before remarrying though. If I an widowed while still young, I could probably remarry, but if I was older I might just live as a widow with my relatives.
He must be very rich to afford 3 wives, 3 households. Are you allowed to spend any money?
He is, as far as I know, fairly wealthy, even though he never talks about business or finances with us. Each of us gets a monthly allowance for groceries, clothes, shopping, and anything else we might need, but it’s never enough to make any really extravagant purchases; for anything like that, like jewelry or really nice clothes; anything really expensive, we have to ask him for permission.
What do you enjoy spending your allowance on?
Well, its usually not enough to buy anything more than the essentials, but I love cooking and buying new ingredients, and i always put a little aside to buy paints and art supplies with.
Are you allowed to work?
No, we aren’t allowed to work, or at least not for money. I love painting and art, so I do work on that a lot, but my husband would never let me sell them or earn a living myself. For the most part I have to rely on my husband to provide for me and our daughter.
How are mealtimes? Do you cook? Do you all eat together?
I usually cook meals for myself and daughter, and maybe a few friends, but we usually I don’t eat with our sister wives, except for on Friday, when we usually eat a meal together with our husband.
When it comes to sex, is it only ever you and him? Or is part of it that the four of you have sexual relations?
It is always only him and one of us, he has never asked any of us to have relations with him at the same time. It’s a very private affair.
Do you spend time with the other wives? Are they your friends? Or do you keep separate lives?
For the most part we are like separate families, we each have our own apartment, cook our own meals, and have our own beds, but fortunately his first wife and I do get along very well; since I left Saudi Arabia she’s been almost like a sister to me. His third wife though, she is very rude to us, since she is the youngest, and we definitely don’t get along.
How is she rude to you?
It feels like since our husband spends more time with her than the rest of us, she has a more privileged relationship with him than we do. She can get him to do things to us that he wouldn’t do otherwise, like punish us for doing innocent things, like going out without his permission, he is usually fine with, but if his youngest wife convinced him to, he will get angry and even hit us, even very softly. It’s more of symbolic than anything, but it still makes me feel awful. She also doesn’t miss an opportunity to bring me down or insult me.
What’s the best thing about your marriage?
Probably having such a good relationship with his first wife. It’s almost like having another sister, and it definitely helps make up for some of the worse parts of my marriage. Either that or being provided for so well. I’m not mistreated or neglected, and it gives me a chance to raise our daughter.
If he were to die soon, would you still be friends with the first wife?
I think we would. Even if we didn’t share a husband, I think we would have been friends anyway, and I think we would stay friends even if we weren’t married to the same man.
What is the worst part about living in such a relationship?
The worst part of my relationship is probably just the stress it brings. For instance, he spends most nights with his new wife, and she knows she is his favorite right now and uses that to treat his first wife and I very badly. I try not to hold it against her or our husband, but it’s hard not to.
Do you feel any resentment towards your father for putting you in a situation you may not have necessarily chosen for yourself?
I do sometimes. He never really gave me a choice in the matter, so I do sometimes feel resentful towards him for putting me into this situation, but it’s the culture he knew growing up, and i know he had my best interests at heart. He wanted to be sure I would be provided for, and I know that despite everything he loves me and wants what’s best for me. But it’s not easy to forgive him.
If you were given a chance to, would you get out of the marriage?
Although under Sharia Law divorce is allowed, the only way it could realistically happen for me is if my husband wanted a divorce as well, which he does not. And if I did divorce him, I don’t know what I would do or where I would go, especially since I would have trouble finding anyone willing to marry a divorced single mother. But honestly, I really don’t want to leave, although I wish it hadn’t happened at all, now that I’m married, I’m fairly well off and happy, and although it’s hard, it’s something I have to live with, and I am alright with that.
Would you prefer a different future for your daughter?
Absolutely. I would never want anyone, least of all my daughter, to be in the same relationship as me.
I would like to see the attitudes towards marriage become more western, and allow women more of a say in who they marry. I also pray that plural marriage continues to become more and more rare as time goes on.
Did you have a childhood sweetheart/relationship before your marriage?
I did have a sweetheart before I got married, he was a family friend, and I thought I was going to marry him for the longest time. I was actually looking forward to it, and I stroll sometimes regret not being able to spend my life with him. But I never had a choice in the matter, so I’ve learned to live with it.
How do you feel about the fact that a lot of the world (at least a lot of the Western world) looks down upon plural marriages. Do you ever question your own lifestyle?
I definitely question my lifestyle, and if I had the choice, I don’t think I would want to be in a plural marriage. Since I do live in Dubai, I do get exposed to more western culture than I did before, and I generally think that the west is right about the negative aspects of polygamy. Despite this, I’ve lived my whole life this way, and I’m not unhappy like many people in the west think. It’s not ideal, and certainly causes more stress and emotional strain on everyone, but it’s not all bad.
How has your life changed because of the marriage?
Before I was married, I lived with my family, and, because of the laws in Saudi Arabia, I had very little freedom of movement, and had to ask permission to do or go anywhere. Even while I was at home my parents, and especially my father, had absolute control over what I did.
Now that I’m married, I don’t have to ask permission to go out, as long as I am accompanied by another woman or male guardian, and I have more control over how I spend the small allowance I get. I also have more freedom at home, to raise our child and to talk and spend time with female friends. Despite this, if he wanted to, or if I made him unhappy with me, my husband could control me just like my father, did and monitor my every move, but fortunately he allows his wives to be fairly independent as long as we obey.
The fifth element -Adventure Movie Full HD | Bruce Willis
What is the oddest thing you have ever found while taking a walk?
25 years ago I had just left the safeway supermarket in the uk. Right beside the exit doors is a cash machine and as I walked past I realised there was a wad of cash hanging out of it. I looked around, couldn’t see anyone. In my head I was thinking oh wow, perfect timing. Single parent, an ex who didn’t pay child support and I was struggling to support my 3 kids under 5, but then it was like someone hit me across the head and said stop it. Hand it in to customer services immediately.
So I walked to the entrance and went to the customer service desk and explained what I’d found. She counted it, £620. She took my name and phone number and said she was shocked someone actually came to hand it in instead of just taking it. I just shrugged and left. Refused to think about how I almost got so much money and did the right thing instead of the wrong thing.
6 months later, December, I got a phone call from the supermarket asking me to come in to see them about the money so I did. She informed me that the bank knew who’s money it was but they had never reported it missing and as such the money was mine to keep. I cried. I’d been struggling so much. I knew I could barely afford to heat our home or buy Christmas presents and then all this money just got given to me.
I kept half and donated the other half to the local homeless shelter who were able to have a Christmas meal because of the donation. No names of course, just anonymous donor. My kids and I were warm, they had gifts and a roof over our head.
Edit
I only had contact with the supermarket customer service lady so I don’t know exactly what went on with the bank. All I know is what she told me, that the bank knew who’s money it was but it was never reported by the account owner as missing or forgotten.
Now after speaking to you all I suspect it was because I handed it in to the supermarket instead of a bank, however I have no idea which bank the cash machine belonged to and there wasn’t a bank office in the area, just the supermarket, a restaurant, post office and community centre. Seeing as the machine was on the outside of the supermarket building I thought my only option was to hand it in to them as I didn’t have time to catch the bus to town to the police as I had to pick up my kids.
What is Gordon Ramsay’s true personality?
I worked with him on several episodes of “Kitchen Nightmares.” I was a lowly PA, so his treatment of me speaks a lot.
Firstly, he rode in the front seat of his car, next to the driver. This says something about him not being high and mighty. During my first three days, he would give me a brief nod whenever he passed. He knew I was part of the team, but PAs come and go. He’s not going to waste a lot of time on me.
On my second episode, also three days, he would engage people around me in friendly banter. He’s the type of guy who makes fun of people, but with a broad smile on his face so you know he’s joking. He also joined us in tossing around a football during a slow point.
By my third episode, I ranked a “hello” and smile. On the last day of the third episode, just before the restaurant opened, a producer pointed out my untied shoe. Being bone tired, I pulled out a chair to sit and tie it. Gordon suddenly shouted, “What are you doing?! That’s it! Fired!” I looked up in shock and he immediately laughed at me. It felt awesome.
Famous people are expected to be “on.” It uses up energy to be charming. For temporary employees, he was polite, but didn’t spend a lot of time with us. As he grew to know and trust us, he became warm and open. He’s a little gruff and sarcastic, but a lot of fun. And others who did multiple seasons on the show told me he was very loyal to them. I can’t count him as a friend, but how he treats other people says a lot about him.
Your Worth Is Inherent, Unchanging, and Absolute
Your worth is not up for debate. It’s not some fickle, fleeting thing that can be given or taken away by anyone else. It’s not dependent on your achievements, your relationships, your bank account, or your fucking Instagram follower count.
No, my friend. Your worth is inherent, unchanging, and absolute. It’s baked into your very being, as much a part of you as your DNA or your undying love for pizza. And anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.
But I know, I know. It’s easy to let the world convince you otherwise. We live in a society that’s constantly trying to sell us the idea that our value is contingent on external factors – that we’re only as good as our last success, our latest conquest, our most recent “before and after” photo.
And when we buy into that bullshit, when we let our self-worth be determined by the opinions and expectations of others, we set ourselves up for a lifetime of anxiety and self-doubt. We become so fucking desperate for validation that we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to please everyone, convinced that if we just work hard enough, achieve enough, sacrifice enough, we’ll finally be worthy of love and respect.
But that’s a trap, my dear. A soul-sucking, joy-crushing trap that will leave you feeling emptier than a bag of kale chips at a Super Bowl party. Because the truth is, no amount of external validation will ever fill the void of self-doubt if you don’t first believe in your own inherent worth.
And I get it. Believing in yourself can be hard as hell, especially if you’ve spent years marinating in the toxic stew of self-loathing and insecurity. But it’s not impossible, and it’s sure as shit not optional if you want to live a life that feels authentic and fulfilling.
So how do you start cultivating that unshakeable sense of self-worth? How do you begin to internalize the truth of your own value, even in a world that’s constantly trying to convince you otherwise?
It starts with a choice. A conscious, daily, moment-by-moment choice to reject the bullshit narratives that tell you you’re not good enough, and instead lean into the radical truth of your own inherent worthiness.
It means standing in front of the mirror and telling yourself “I am enough” over and over again until it starts to feel less like a lie and more like a battle cry. It means surrounding yourself with people who reflect back your own brilliance, who celebrate your quirks and flaws and all the things that make you uniquely you. It means learning to treat yourself with the same kindness and compassion you’d offer a beloved friend, even on the days when you feel about as lovable as a dumpster fire.
And most importantly, it means letting go of the idea that your worth is something that can be earned or achieved or bought or sold. It means embracing the truth that you are valuable simply because you exist, because you are a one-of-a-kind expression of the universe in all its chaotic, messy, beautiful glory.
Because here’s the thing, my love: you are a fucking miracle. You are a walking, talking, breathing example of the incredible resilience and creativity and magic of the human spirit. And no matter what anyone else says, no matter how many times you stumble or fall or fuck up, that essential truth remains unchanged.
You are worthy. You are enough. You are inherently, unequivocally, absolutely valuable, just as you are.
So fuck the haters. Fuck the doubters. Fuck anyone who tries to convince you otherwise. Your worth is not up for debate, and it never will be.
Embrace that truth. Lean into it. Let it be the foundation upon which you build a life that feels authentic and fulfilling and joyful as hell.
Because you, my dear, are worth it. And that’s the fucking tea.
Jeffrey Sachs: The Untold History of the Cold War, CIA Coups Around the World, and COVID’s Origin
In my repertoire of memories, I have a lot of things that I regret. Today, I want to talk about one such item.
I was a Senior in High School, and the prom is coming up. I had broken off with my girlfriend, and I was free and single, but I wasn’t dating. I was still too young, and I really didn’t know what was going on. Lot’s of gals were chasing me. I mean it, and some were very persistent.
When I would get with some of these gals they would immediately want me to head straight into sex, but Lordy! I wasn’t nearly ready. I was just a shy nerd, and things tended to crumble from there.
Some of the gals that perused me were quite “hot”.
What was I thinking?
Anyways, there was a girl that really liked me, from my younger brother’s class. And she was nice, and I liked her too.
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And the prom was coming up.
At that time I worked in a grocery store, and forest fire fighter, and the coil mine. So I was a hard working kid.
And her (the girl that liked me) father came in to the store and spent hours trying to convince me to take his daughter out… no kidding. And he was offering generous terms.
I liked the girl. She was cute and attractive, and I am sure that we both would have a great time.
But nothing happened. The prom came and went.
My buddy Sid Custer took her out. And so she did get to go out. And I stayed home that night.
Bone-headed decision made by a stupid ass kid.
But my regret is NOT of my lost opportunities. No. It is the look of pain on her father’s face when he couldn’t provide his daughter a “16 candles” moment.
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That is one of my regrets. A grand one.
And one that I am sharing today. The disappointment of a father who loves his little girl.
Marlon Brando wearing smoking jacket.
I was s selfish, jack ass. And I didn’t realize it.
*sigh*
Today…
What was the strangest way an embezzler was caught?
My dad once opened up a truck parts business.
At the time, he got a state contract to maintain a fleet of buses that daily were taking workers to a “brownfields clean up site” – about 50 miles away – for more than a year.
The buses started getting an unusual number of flat tires – not really a big deal because the bus could keep going, then fix it while waiting for the next trip.
After a while, something smelled fishy. The flat tires were saved and inspected. They went flat because of wear, not road hazard damage. Shop records showed that new tires had been put on those buses recently.
Mysteriously, since the whole shop was in on the tire inspections, the problem went away for about three months.
Then the shop manager came to my dad and showed him some worn-out bus tires. Shop records showed that new tires had been placed on those buses.
Somebody was stealing bus tires. The state gov’t could not have cared less, by the way. They weren’t spending their own money, right?
They called the insurance company. The insurance company hired a private investigator.
He solved the case in two weeks.
A tire mechanic was going through the motions of changing the tires but was, in fact, merely rotating them, then every Friday, taking ten fresh bus tires to a truck stop and selling them for cash to truck drivers.
Interestingly, the bad guy seemed to have smelled something in the wind and stopped showing up for work.
How not to be used
Did Anne Boleyn confess to the crimes before her execution?
Anne gave her final confession 48 hours before execution to her almoner, John Skip (or Skypp.) At dawn on May 18, she called for her jailer, Sir Anthony Kingston, to come and witness something. She swore on the communion Host that she was innocent of the charges against her. She then consumed it and repeated the oath.
For a person of the 16th century, what Anne had just done was extremely powerful. Taking an oath on what they believed to be the literal body of Christ would instantly damn the soul of anyone who was dishonest. She wouldn’t have lied on the Host expecting to meet her maker within a few hours.
The execution was delayed. A large crowd had gathered to see this extraordinary event — the execution of a crowned Queen of England. Kingston hoped if it was delayed and no announcement was made, the people would drift away. They didn’t; the crowd only got larger.
Anne had to be in agony. She called Kingston to ask why no one had come to get her. He told her it had been rescheduled for noon. She settled into prayer with Skip again, but when noon came and went and no one came to get her, she called for Kingston again, and at this point, he told her it would be the following day. Unintentional though it was, this was an incredible cruelty.
On the morning of May 19, 1536, she walked out to face the huge crowd. She mounted the scaffold which had been adorned with hundreds of yards of black velvet. Until the very last moments, her status as a crowned queen had to be respected.
She tipped the executioner to ensure a swift death and then comforted her ladies. These women, assigned to Anne because they hated her and were friends with allies of Princess Mary, now wept as though they were “bereft of souls” or the living damned. They had come to care for her deeply over the two weeks they spent with her in the Tower.
Anne turned to face the crowd and people held their breath, waiting to see what she would say. Kingston knew she was innocent after seeing her swear on the Host, and it was a situation he’d never really anticipated — executing an innocent person. He didn’t know what she would do and had speculated she might declare her innocence before the crowd.
But Anne kept her poise and held to the traditions. In the Tudor era, showing fear or reluctance to die indicated the person was afraid to face God with a guilty conscience. Anne held her chin high and made it clear she welcomed death.
Her exact words are disputed by different sources, but it’s clear they were the conventional speech of a condemned criminal. Any deviation from the pattern would have been shocking and appalling and would have had consequences for her family.
The only slight deviation from the pattern was the request that anyone who might “meddle with her cause” would use good judgement. She knew the history being made in that moment, and that people would be debating what had happened to her for centuries to come.
She submitted to the sword with grace, having done all she could to prove her innocence.
In real China, family net worth and home ownership are 50% bigger than America’s and it dominates all 21st century technologies. Help get the word out.
BITTER Feminist LOSING Their Mind Because They Have NOTHING To OFFER MEN
I asked a Chinese (civil) engineer friend to estimate what proportion of America’s spending on failed weapon systems China spent on its successful ones. He would be surprised, he said, if it were half as much. Here are some systems we discussed:
Hypersonic Missiles: America’s 20-year, failed ARRW hypersonic missile defense program cost $15 billion. Chinese university science clubs have demonstrated hypersonic weapons. China’s DF-17, Mach 10 ‘carrier killer’ has been demonstrated many times. Its big brother, DF-27, can hit ships west of Guam.
DF 27
Next-Gen Helicopter: After spending $7 billion developing a reconnaissance and light attack helicopter, the US pulled the plug in 2004. China’s Harbin Z-19 is a tandem-seat helicopter for reconnaissance and light attack, with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and nose-mounted electro-optical target tracking turret.
Self-Propelled Howitzer: The Crusader was to replace the Army’s aging artillery pieces, more mobile with longer range. It was canceled in 2002 after $2 billion was spent. China’s PLZ-05 155 mm self-propelled howitzer, the PLZ-07 122 mm self-propelled, self-loading howitzer, the PCL-181 155 mm wheeled, self-propelled, selfloading howitzerare all in full production.
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Railgun: The U.S. Navy spent $500 million on the railgun program and cancelled it in 2021. China’s railgun fires 120 rounds at 4,500 mph (7200 km/hr) and strikes targets 120 miles (200 km) away.
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Laser Cannon: The Air Force spent $5 billion developing the laser cannon then cancelled it in 2012. China’s high-energy laser cannons remain powered up indefinitely without overheating, thanks to state-of-the-art cooling.
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Next-Gen Destroyer: The Zumwalt next-gen destroyer was supposed to launch missiles from its 80 VLS cells but after spending $22 billion, the Navy canned it in 2016. China’s Type 055 next-gen destroyer has 112 VLS cells, all of whose missiles vastly outrange and out-punch their USN counterparts.
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Aircraft Carrier: Construction of the $20 billion USN Gerald Ford began in 2009. Its electromagnetic aircraft launch system, EMALS, is underpowered and unreliable, thanks to the Navy’s choice of AC electric power throughout the ship. The Fujian, with a more powerful DC electric system, has a much more powerful, reliable EMALS, a bigger flight deck and aircraft elevators, a slimmer mast and a wider array of defensive weapons.
F-35 fighters from design to retirement, will cost $2 trillion, and each jet requires 9 hours of maintenance for one hour flying. The J-20 fighter carries a bigger payload (10 tons) faster (1,500 mph), higher (60,000 ft.) and further (1100 nm.) than the F-35. The J-20’s missiles outrange the F-35’s missiles by 50%.
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The crisis
The West is suffering a crisis, not only of confidence, but of competence. Boeing’s failed shuttle is in the headlines but, less visibly, CERN’s $20 billion attempt to sustain nuclear fusion is collapsing under the weight of its own complexity. It will probably be abandoned now that a private Shanghai company has sustained fusion–for $1 billion.
Instead of continuing with this embarrassing list, I will devote the next post to consider more implications of the fusion breakthrough for world leadership.
American style corruption
Iran Receives Nuclear Threat Over Pending Retaliation Against Israel
Former Iranian diplomat Amir al-Mousavi told Al-Mayadeen news that Iran has been threatened with a nuclear strike.
Mousavi stressed that Iran has made it clear any nuclear attack will be met with a proportional response.
He further noted that those issuing the threats received even stronger replies.
He also urged people to ignore baseless claims of alleged Iranian “cowardice” circulating on social media, over the still-delayed retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran weeks ago.
Mousavi concluded by asserting that Iran, together with its allies, is fully prepared to confront the Zionist entity (Israel) with full force.
Hal Turner Analysis
In the ongoing Soap Opera of the Israel-Iran troubles, we have finally reached the apex threat stage: nuclear attack.
I call it a “Soap Opera” because like old the TV Soap Operas, you can walk away from it for a whole week and when you get back, you find you haven’t missed anything substantial.
As readers are aware, today (August 15, 2024) is my first day back at work from my vacation last week, and, as I peruse the available Intel and news, I realize I haven’t missed much!
What I have missed – or rather been relieved of for a week — is all the stress that had come with the ongoing situation.
As usual, folks in the Middle East are all hyped-up and ready to blow each other up . . . again . . . . as usual. It’s been this way for decades and shows little sign of abating.
As I look at the nuclear strike claim, I realize the only thing different about this situation is that the threat was actually made.
For decades, it was the quiet part . . . the part no one said out loud. It was always known, and presumed, that no one could hit Israel without the real possibility of being nuked by Israel.
But now that the actual threat has been made – interesting things are happening.
First, there is no abatement of the retaliation by Iran. Iran says it __is__ coming and __will_ be delivered.
So what did the nuclear threat accomplish?
Looking at the situation as the outsider I actually am, Iran faces a very simple reality:
If they do not hit Israel back for the assassination, then they don’t have a country anymore. Israel will be free to kill whomever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want.
If they DO hit Israel back, and very VERY hard, it __may__ give them pause before they think about undertaking such an act again. BUT . . . .
It will also unleash the very war that Israel has been looking at waging since the Iranian nuclear program became public knowledge.
Israel simply will not tolerate any other nearby country being equipped with nuclear weapons the same way the Israelis have nuclear weapons. If any neighbor country has nukes, that would DETER Israel from its ongoing military abuse of neighbors.
It was this reality, for decades, that actually created today’s troubles because somewhere inside Israel, they got the idea they could do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever and wherever they want, and no one would dare do anything for fear of being nuked.
Many MANY sources have repeatedly told me that Iran already has nuclear weapons; they allegedly got them via their own research and with help from North Korea.
None of us knows for certain if this claim of Iran nukes is true.
But back to the issue at hand, Israel has apparently made an actual, direct, nuclear attack threat.
So again, for Iran, the issue is simple: Does Iran hit the Israelis back (HARD) for assassinating Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, or not?
In my analysis, this is a no-brainer. I think Iran __must__ hit Israel back, and very hard.
Remember, back in April of this year, Israel bombed the Iran Embassy Compound in Damascus, Syria. An open act of war!
Iran made a retaliation, with force, much of which was shunted by Israeli defenses, with assistance from allies like the US and UK.
But in that retaliation, deadly weaknesses in Israel’s defenses were exposed. Several Iranian ballistic missiles, got through Israeli defenses, and struck Israeli military bases. It proved that Israel __could__ be successfully hit, and the Israelis now know they are nowhere near as “invincible” as they thought they were. They don’t like this reality and so they have upped-the-ante to actual nuclear threat.
That was foolishness on the part of Israel that is psychotic in its origin. If Israel nukes Iran over any conventional attack, what does Israel think Russia will do? What will North Korea do? What will Pakistan do? I think one or more of those countries would launch nuclear strikes at Israel! Much of Israel would be annihilated.
Now, the U.S. would be in a real pickle if any of this happened because, as Israel’s co-dependent enabler, the US would be obligated to come to the aid of their psycho-bully-little-brother, Israel.
Would US political leaders risk all-out nuclear war, for a bunch of psychotics-from-inbreeding over in Israel?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Which brings us all back to Israel’s nuclear threat. If I was in Iran, I would realize the nuclear threat is __possible__ but not probable.
If I was in Iran, I would also realize that Israel has wanted an excuse to go after Iran’s nuclear program for years, and this situation, right now, was intentionally created BY ISRAEL, to cause that exact war. It is coming and nothing will stop it.
So if I was an Iranian political leader, I would resign myself to the reality that a big war __is__ here, and I would go for the gusto; I would order a massive attack upon Israel in response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, and the total violation of Iran sovereignty the assassination actually was.
Iran is either sovereign or they’re not.
If they want to be sovereign, it seems to me they __must__ hit Israel. Since the Iran retaliation after the Embassy Bombing did not deter Israel, this retaliation for the assassination of Haniyeh must be at least ten times larger.
The longer Iran waits, the more time Israel has to prepare. The more time the US and UK have to move assets into theater and move weapons into Israel.
So, I ask the leadership of Iran: Are you sovereign, or not? Are you going to allow the Israelis to murder people in your capital city, or not?
I think that if Iran rolls-over and does not attack in response to the Haniyeh murder, then Iran is no longer sovereign.
When She Expects Princess Treatment But You’re In the Friendzone
Taquitos
These are the best taquitos! I like to serve them with guacamole and sour cream for dipping. They’re certainly not traditional taquitos, but they are delicious.
taquitos
Ingredients
Pork, beef or chicken
1 can Mexican beer
Garlic salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Cumin (comino), to taste
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 can or jar chile verde
Corn tortillas
Melted cheese for drizzling (optional)
Instructions
Add all ingredients except melted cheese to a slow cooker.
Cook for 8 to 10 hours on LOW.
Drain juice.
Put filling on corn tortillas and roll up. Secure with a wooden pick.
Fry until tortilla is crispy. Remove wooden pick to serve.
As a police officer, what is the kindest thing a suspect ever said to you?
OMGosh…
I got a call for a domestic disturbance, once. When I got there, I saw two guys fighting in the yard. I got out, and ordered them to stop. I was by myself, so I cuffed one guy and put him in my car while I talked to the other one. Then, I switched them to interview the other guy.
I found out they were brothers but one had been messing around with the other brother’s girlfriend. I talked to them about family and the total mess they were making of each other over a female. I took the fellow that started the fight to jail and left the other at the house. All the way in, I continued telling him not to do this over some girlfriend—it wasn’t like they were married—he’s your brother…
By the time we got to the booking office, he was thanking me.
Eight months later on patrol I happened to see the two brothers in a parking lot. I stopped and said, “Hey! How’s it going?”
They turned around and said, “Deputy, thank you so much for how you handled that mess months ago.”
“Great,” I said, “how are things now?”
They said they both got rid of the girlfriend, started a landscaping business together, and business was going great! “Had we not met and talked that day, one of us might be dead by now.”
I felt really good about my job that day. 🙂
NOTE: I want to add the backstory for this girlfriend that some had wondered if she got the short end of the deal. She did, but there was a reason. She was not a long-term girlfriend with any history connected to the brothers. She had only been around for a few months and was clearly using the brothers for her own selfish gain (house, drink, food and apparently a little more…). I imagine that the stories ending would be different had the brothers been dirt-bags, but they weren’t.
How are China’s current economic troubles (2024) affecting its global economic influence?
Look. China is an 18t dollar economy.
It is the world’s largest trading nation.
LARGEST.
No. 1.
Between 2019 and 2023, Chinese mercantile exports increased by almost 1t, and would have certainly been far higher had American-led sanctions and restrictions not curtailed normal trade. That’s more than double the increase in US goods exports, at 400b.
[Note: There are ~2,000 Chinese entities on the sanction list today.]
Yet it is growing like a developing economy, which it is, structurally as a whole.
China is an unprecedented economy. There has never been anything like it, and equivalence with any economy in the present or past fail at some point, often superficially.
~5% growth is a china in economic trouble?
Now, China is in the ~13,000 gdp per capita bracket, similar to Mexico, Malaysia, and turkey, all in the structurally vulnerable middle income “trap”.
What were their growth and inflation numbers in 2023?
China: 5.2%, 0.2%
Malaysia: 3.7%, 2.5%
Mexico: 3.2%, 4.7%
Turkey: 4.0%, 53.8%
And the kicker?
The other 3 have devalued massively relative to the yuan this century, particular post GFC.
There isn’t a developing country who won’t kill to be in china’s shoes today.
NONE.
The disparity would have been starker were the global south not given carte blanche to depreciate their currencies in a follow-the-yen reverse plaza accord begun in 2012-2013.
There was no political blowback, and the silence turned deafening when it was China and Singapore (of all actors) inexplicably singled out for designation as currency manipulators, despite appreciating versus the dollar.
It was a sharp message to China. Do NOT join in the festivities. We have different rules for you.
China today has low domestic inflation and interest rates. Given that the yen has devalued 100% in the past decade, along with a host of other currencies, what would it hurt if China devalues the yuan by 10% to 7.8-7.9 to the dollar? Even then, it will only be a fraction of the yen’s colossal dislocation in recent years.
That move alone can boost growth by at least 1–2%.
Economic troubles?
Far from it.
China hasn’t brought out the elephant gun, not even during covid.
That, my friends, is something to chew over.
The Problem With Society is: Most men don’t own anything, so they don’t give a F*ck.
The hum of the spaceship’s engines filled the air as Captain Jackson surveyed the vast expanse of space stretching out before them. They were on a routine mission to explore the far reaches of the Galaxy, charting new star systems and collecting valuable data for the Intergalactic Alliance.But as they ventured further into uncharted territory, a sense of unease settled over the crew. There was something off about this sector of space – a feeling of foreboding that sent shivers down their spines.As they pressed on, their fears were realized when a sudden jolt rocked the ship, sending alarms blaring and lights flashing. Emergency protocols were initiated as the crew scrambled to assess the damage.”What happened?” Captain Jackson barked, his voice tense with urgency.”It looks like we hit some sort of anomaly,” replied Lieutenant Ramirez, her fingers flying across the control panel as she attempted to regain control of the ship.
But their efforts were in vain as another jolt shook the vessel, this time more violently than before. Panic gripped the crew as they realized they were hurtling towards a nearby planet, their trajectory set on a collision course that spelled certain doom.
With time running out, Captain Jackson made a split-second decision – they would attempt a risky maneuver to evade the planet’s gravitational pull and regain control of the ship.
“Brace yourselves!” he shouted, his hands gripping the controls with steely determination.
As the ship plunged towards the planet’s surface, the crew held their breath, their hearts pounding in their chests. But just when it seemed all hope was lost, Captain Jackson’s daring maneuver paid off, and the ship veered away from the planet at the last possible moment.
Cheers erupted throughout the cockpit as the crew celebrated their narrow escape from disaster. But their relief was short-lived as they realized they were now adrift in the void of space, their navigation systems fried and their chances of survival dwindling by the second.
As they frantically searched for a way to repair the ship and plot a course home, Captain Jackson couldn’t help but wonder what other dangers lurked in the darkness of space, waiting to test their courage and resolve.
Despite the chaos that ensued, the crew of the spaceship refused to let fear dictate their actions. With determination in their hearts and a spirit of camaraderie that bound them together, they set out to explore the planet they had narrowly avoided crashing into. As they descended through the atmosphere, they were greeted by a breathtaking landscape unlike anything they had ever seen before – towering mountains, shimmering lakes, and lush forests stretching out to the horizon.
Eager to uncover the secrets of this alien world, the crew donned their spacesuits and ventured out onto the surface, their eyes wide with wonder as they took in the sights and sounds of this new frontier.
But their sense of adventure soon turned to apprehension as they encountered strange and wondrous creatures lurking in the shadows – creatures with scales as hard as steel, eyes that glowed with an otherworldly light, and voices that echoed through the caverns like whispers from the void.
Undeterred, the crew pressed on, their curiosity driving them ever forward in their quest for knowledge and discovery. And though they faced countless challenges and obstacles along the way, their indomitable spirit carried them through, guiding them on a journey of exploration that would change their lives forever.
As they prepared to leave the planet behind and return to the safety of their ship, Captain Jackson couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the adventure they had shared together. For in the face of adversity, they had found strength in each other, forging bonds that would withstand the test of time.
Amidst the chaos and excitement of their unplanned detour, the crew found moments of levity that brought much-needed relief from the tension of their predicament.
From Lieutenant Ramirez’s failed attempts at fixing the ship’s malfunctioning systems to Ensign Johnson’s comical mishaps during their explorations on the planet’s surface, there was never a dull moment aboard the spaceship.
Even Captain Jackson, typically stoic and reserved, couldn’t help but crack a smile as he watched his crew stumble their way through one misadventure after another. But amidst the laughter and camaraderie, there was a sense of camaraderie that bound them together, a shared sense of purpose that gave them the strength to face whatever challenges lay ahead.
And as they finally set course for home, their ship repaired and their ship repaired and their spirits buoyed by the memories of their cosmic escapades, they knew that no matter what trials awaited them in the vast expanse of space, they would face them together, united in their quest for adventure and discovery.
The journey back to their home base was filled with moments of reflection and gratitude. Each member of the crew took the time to appreciate the bonds they had formed and the experiences they had shared during their time in the far reaches of space.
Lieutenant Ramirez, with her quick with and unwavering determination, became the heart and soul of the crew, guiding them through even the most challenging of situations with her calm demeanor and steady hand.
Ensign Johnson, despite his tendency to stumble into trouble, proved himself to be a valuable asset to the team, his ingenuity and resourcefulness saving them on more than one occasion.
And Captain Jackson, with his leadership and courage, inspired his crew to rise above their fears and doubts, leading them through adversity with unwavering resolve. As they neared their home base, a sense of anticipation filled the air. Though their journey had been fraught with danger and uncertainty, they had emerged stronger and more united than ever before.
And as they docked their ship and stepped onto solid ground once more, they knew that their adventure was far from over. For as long as there were stars in the sky and unexplored corners of the universe to discover, they would continue to journey forth, together, in search of the next great adventure that awaited them in the cosmos.
The Snow White Trailer – Nightmare Fuel
1960’s era Toys
Mostly the stuff that I encountered. GI Joe and Major Matt Mason.
What goes through the mind of Chinese citizens when they travel out of China and end up on the internet seeing uncensored speech and negative factual news about the CCP?
What goes through the mind of Chinese citizens when they travel out of China and end up on the internet seeing uncensored speech and negative factual news about the CCP?
They love China even more and decide to go back China to build a better modern China with the unique Chinese Characteristics.
The Chinese American scientists and engineers who have worked and studied in the US for years have read and seen all the fake news and real life stories their whole life. They have endured enough discrimination and unfair treatments that they decide to return China and start up their high tech companies.
That is the fact.
Stop making fake narrative harassment and bullying hate speeches on China wastefully.
Hollywood Is Abandoning “The Message”
Swiss Steak with Tomato Gravy
swiss steak tomato gravy
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 large slice round steak
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large cans tomatoes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 large onion, diced
Kosher or sea salt and pepper
1 cup water (for gravy)
Instructions
Spray slow cooker with Pam. Turn on LOW.
Heat oil in large skillet.
Cut round steak into serving-size pieces.
Put flour into a shallow pan. Add salt and pepper to flour and flour steak well.
Fry steak in hot oil until brown.
Pour a few tomatoes into the slow cooker. Add pieces of browned steak and remaining tomatoes in layers. Add diced onion.
Cook for 4 hours on LOW heat.
Remove meat from slow cooker.
Put 1 cup of water in a pint jar. Add 3 tablespoons flour. Shake well. Add to tomato mixture in the slow cooker. Cook and stir until gravy is thickened.
Put meat back in long enough to heat.
Serve with mashed potatoes.
What is the strangest experience you ever had firing somebody?
“With all due respect, you’re not paying us $5,000 so I can carry out quick revenge.”
I’ll never forget that line, spoken by a fully armed contractor hired for my personal protection on the strangest day of my career.
The year was 2014 and Dan is falling apart again.
Dan (not his actual name) shows up in many companies. Dan is intelligent, capable of spectacular results but is incredibly inconsistent. Our Dan once led the entire company in our sales rankings and had four President’s Club plaques in his office.
The only thing Dan was consistent at was being a nice guy. Everyone loved him. He gave his time freely to everyone in the office. Whether you were an intern or a manager, he raised his hand if you needed help.
Dan was in his early 50s and was a family man. Married with two kids in high school, he lived a simple life.
Dan drove us crazy. He could be running along with incredible results for the first six months of the year and then look like a completely different person in the second half. He was either sensational or a complete disaster. There was no in-between with Dan.
Most of the time, it just took a stern conversation. He had four different direct managers in his time with the company. I was several levels above him but saw the same three-step process play out every time.
New manager loves him. Dan is helpful, hustles, delivers great results and is a great team player.
Manager is concerned. Dan is missing deadlines, seems overwhelmed and we’ve had some customers complaints.
Manager is done. The entire office is distracted in putting out Dan’s fires and he just lashed out at a teammate (or some similar incident).
Throughout this process, Dan’s manager talks with him about his performance and encourages him to get his mojo back. Dan agrees and commits to improvement while performance keeps getting worse. Each time, a last straw is added to the figurative camel’s back when Dan erupts on a teammate or manager.
We then put Dan on a written performance plan with the direct language of “If Dan fails to achieve the results in this plan, he will be terminated.”
The performance plan always flips a switch in Dan. He would tell us how much he loves the company and needs the job. He would apologize, promise to improve and then deliver on that promise. Results would go from terrible to great.
I am talking about worst to first kind of turn-arounds. We would go from customer complaints to receiving love letters from his customers.
One year later, the process would start over again.
After this cycle happened too many times, I had a conversation with him.
“If it goes downhill again Dan, there won’t be another written performance plan. We can’t afford to keep disrupting the office. You have to get it together and keep it together. Is there something outside of this office that we can help you with?”
He paused for a long time and opened up. He suffered from depression. He drank too much. His family had confronted him. He was in a bad place.
Our company partnered with a counseling organization for just this type of situation. I offered him a leave of absence if he would enter the program, of which we would pay for 100%. He had to attend every session and stay in the program or we would terminate his employment.
He graciously agreed.
We gave him two months of paid leave and he entered the counseling program. He came back energized and we saw the best of Dan.
For a while.
Soon, the process started again as complaints started surfacing, both from his teammates and customers.
This time, it ended with Dan sending an explosive email to a customer at 2AM. This cringe-inducing email was four paragraphs long and all but called the customer an idiot. It was totally out of his normal character.
This happened on a Friday. The customer forwarded his email to me and several other managers the next morning with Dan copied on the email. This customer shared her plans to post it on her blog and social media accounts.
Dan left me with no choice but to fire him and he knew it.
On Sunday evening, I got a call from Dan’s manager. She was rattled.
Dan knew what was coming on Monday and confided in several people in the office, in the worst of ways.
He told one person that he expected to be fired. He went on to say he deserved it and probably didn’t deserve to be alive. Maybe, he should just end it all.
Startling, but it got worse. He called another employee who happened to be an avid hunter. Without talking business, he asked her questions about handguns and which caliber he should look into.
Damn.
This was the summer of 2014 and two school shootings had just taken place on the West Coast within a week of each other. Hints like this couldn’t be ignored.
My first responsibility as a leader is keeping employees safe. Was Dan likely crying out for help? Probably. Was he going to bring a gun to the office? Highly unlikely. Could we take that assumption to the bank? Absolutely not.
I told our manager to sit tight and I got on the phone with my boss. We were not going to take any chances. He had experience with a security firm and knew the owner.
He arranged for an “armed specialist” to be with me the next morning in the office. To this day, I appreciate how quickly my boss worked to arrange everything. I have fired many people but never in a situation like this.
For the first time in my life, I was headed to a business meeting with a loaded gun.
I talked with our manager in the office and asked her to arrange an office meeting at our satellite office across the street. In essence, I asked her to get everyone out of the main office to start the morning. If something happened, I would be the only employee in the office with Dan that morning.
Next, I called Dan and asked him to meet me the next morning at my office.
I didn’t sleep that night. My imagination kept taking me to dark scenarios. I wanted to tell my wife more of my fears but kept them to myself. I didn’t want her to start imagining all the crazy stuff I was dreaming up.
I met with my bodyguard two hours before I was scheduled to meet with Dan. He was an older gentleman, short and lean. He wore a dress shirt tucked into jeans with a leather bomber jacket on. He gave me his credentials. Twenty years in the military and another twenty years in private security, both overseas and domestic.
He wanted to know where all the entry points to the office were. We walked the perimeter of the building and did the same inside. We walked back to my office where I planned to meet with Dan.
“Too many doors to get here. Also, what if one of your employees comes back to the office and is back here with us? I like the offices in the lobby.”
“OK.”
We walk up front and sit down in one of the lobby offices. He asked me how I planned to conduct the conversation and what I am expecting.
“Well, I can meet with him in this office. I will leave the office door open since no one will be here yet. You can sit right outside the office on that couch.”
“With all due respect, you’re not paying us $5,000 so I can carry out quick revenge.”
It takes me a few seconds to comprehend what he is saying.
“Ian, I won’t do you any good on the couch if he brings a gun into that office with you. I’ll be sitting right next to you.”
“Of course.”
“I will have my gun covered by my jacket but trust that I can get to it quickly. I don’t want to show it and get him more nervous than he already is.”
We agree to announce him as an “HR specialist” hired to assist in the discussion. This sounds much more comforting than telling Dan that my bodyguard will shoot to kill should Dan pull out a gun.
Dan walks through the door on time. I am anything but calm. I am not sure if I am worked up because of potential danger or simply because I am sitting next to a trained killer.
Dan knows what the meeting is about. He sees the paperwork in front of me. I introduce the person on my right who smiles and shakes his hand. I immediately get to the point.
“Dan, today is your last day with the company. We tried to make this work but feel that we need to move on without you.”
“I understand.”
I walk him through the paperwork. All standard stuff. When his benefits end, who to call in HR to learn more about Cobra, severance details, etc. He signs everything quickly. Next, I pivot.
“Dan, you said some things to people in the office that concern me.”
“Oh, that. Is this why you have someone here with you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to do anything crazy.”
“Dan, we want to help you continue with the counseling if you are interested.”
“Thank you. I am interested. I’m sorry for scaring everybody.”
I took his computer and access keys to the office, shook his hand and he left without incident. We paid for additional counseling and an outplacement service that helped him find new employment.
Since Dan had already been enrolled and worked with the same counseling organization, we alerted them as to what had happened and they reached out to him immediately after our meeting. He started counseling again that day and they continued to work with him for several months.
Our security detail remained in the lobby the rest of the day, guarding the front door. We took it a step further and paid for him to show up every day for the rest of the week, watching the front entrance.
Excessive? Maybe, but it gave our local managers peace of mind. As an organization, we had the safety of 30 employees to worry about. Many were nervous as word got out about the calls he made over that weekend.
Count me as one of the nervous employees. Scared is a more honest word. Scared he might hurt himself, other employees or me.
It was an incredibly difficult situation as you want to do right by the employee while also protecting the people he works with.
I left work early that day. I went home and hugged my wife and kids for a long time.
When I was in prison; in the ADC, I witnessed numerous fights, stabbings and deaths. In all cases, the correctional officers (CO’s) handled the situation professionally.
Here’s an example.
We were being led from our barracks to the sally port. In this process we were led down a long hall with painted lines that we had to stay inside. During this transfer process, we would go from one gated area to the next, always manned by guards, and watched by surveillance cameras.
One day, there was a stabbing in the hall… just as we were being led down it.
Three inmates clustered around another and jabbed him repeatedly over and over and over again, and he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Immediately the entire hall went into lock-down.
We were told to stop; turn around facing the wall and not move. And so we did. Most prisoners in “general population” are just doing their time, and don’t want to get involved in the hard core games of the long timers.
Then a crew of officers came, and hauled the offenders off, and a medical team came to pick up the carcass of the killed felon. All in all, it took perhaps ten to fifteen minutes.
We keep standing there facing the wall.
Pretty quick.
They had a lot of practice in these kinds of matters.
To survive in prison is to watch your six at all times, to keep your mouth shut, and never, ever get involved with queers (no offense intended, that is what they were called in the ADC), gangs (of any type), or drug users. A word to the wise.
What’s the most hurtful thing your mother or father has ever said to you?
It was a few weeks before my wedding and my parents sat me down. They told me that my fiancée is not someone who will ever be happy. They told me she is not the person I think she is. They informed me they would support whatever I decide to do and never speak about it again.
I assumed they made their conclusions because she was a product of divorce, alcoholism ran in her family, and she dropped out of school in 9th grade and started selling drugs. But, I didn’t see her that way. I saw her as a strong woman who conquered all of those things. She got her GED, had a job, an apartment, a car, a sense of humor, I never saw her do drunks and she had alcohol maybe twice a year. And she was really gorgeous.
Nine years into the marriage and 4 kids later, she started drinking. Every single day. Hiding alcohol throughout the house (mind you, she never really drank before this point). She would get so drunk at gatherings she would throw up on herself. Yes. With 4 young kids right there. I worked about 12–15 hours a day (she was a stay at home mom, we had 4 kids and a mortgage that was due on the 1st of every month). She hired a caretaker for the kids and to clean the house – paying the person over $1,000 a week. When I came home from work at 9 or 10 pm every day there would be a babysitter there and she wouldn’t return home until early in the morning – many times making me very late for work. The day my mother died she left the house when I got home from the hospital and didn’t come back until the next morning. In the morning I told my 4 little kids what happened and it was taking me some time so they wouldn’t see me fall to pieces – so she just jumped in and said Grandma died and then she walked out the house and didn’t come back until the next day. Yes, she was cheating. With the previous “drug dealer” from her past. Then she started physically and verbally abusing me. Gaslighting me. She began telling my family I was severely depressed. That I was having an affair. That I was a bad father and a bad husband.
it took some time to be realize I was better than the situation she had created. My kids would be better served without thinking this was what marriage actually was supposed to be. She filed for divorce thinking she would be on easy street for the rest of her life. In a drunken tirade she even told me she would be living off my income for the rest of her life since we had 4 kids.
it didn’t turn out that way for her but that’s her issue now. I think back to the conversation my parents had with me. They were completely right. But, if I had listened to them, my 4 amazing kids would not have been born.
I have a foreign friend in Shanghai who used to take the high-speed train to Beijing frequently to meet me for dates. He has told me more than once about experiencing “Chinese speed” on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, stretching from Beijing South Station to Shanghai Hongqiao Station, spans 1318 kilometers, with the fastest journey taking only 4 hours and 18 minutes.
Over the past decade, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail has safely transported over 1.35 billion passengers, becoming not only the busiest high-speed rail line in China but also turning the saying “a day’s round trip between Beijing and Shanghai” into reality.
However, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail is just a microcosm of China’s high-speed rail construction.
From the completion of the first high-speed railway in 2008 to a total mileage nearing 40,000 kilometers in 2021, China now boasts the world’s largest high-speed railway network. China’s high-speed rail mileage ranks first globally, accounting for two-thirds of the world’s total.
In the first half of 2023, US President Biden openly acknowledged at the 50th anniversary celebration of the US National Railway Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) that China’s high-speed rail length and speed rank among the world’s best. He emphasized that the current US infrastructure lags far behind some countries and regions in the world and that the United States cannot afford to fall behind and needs to rebuild its railway system.
China’s high-speed rail operation indicators, including safety, efficiency, comfort, convenience, and economy, are at the forefront or advanced level globally.
At the same time, China’s high-speed rail is also recognized as the safest in the world. From 2008 to 2020, China’s average accident rate per 100 kilometers for high-speed rail is 82% lower than that of overseas high-speed rail. As of the end of June 2021, China’s high-speed rail has accumulated 9.28 billion kilometers of safe operation, equivalent to circling the earth 232,000 times, and safely transported 14.12 billion passengers.
How stable is China’s high-speed rail? Many of us have heard about a Swedish individual placing a coin on China’s high-speed rail and it remaining upright for 8 minutes. Not just coins, but mineral water bottles and pens can also stand steadily on the window ledge of high-speed trains.
Moreover, China has built the world’s largest 12306 railway internet ticketing system, with a daily ticketing capacity of over 20 million. Currently, 86.2% of ticketing is done online, reaching as high as 90% on peak days.
How convenient is China’s high-speed rail now?
In short, China’s urban clusters within a radius of 500 kilometers have formed a 1-2 hour travel circle, achieving bus-like travel; cities across regions within 1000 kilometers can be reached in about 4 hours, enabling same-day round trips; and cities across regions within 2000 kilometers can be reached in about 8 hours, allowing for morning departure and evening arrival.
Moreover, boarding high-speed trains no longer requires queuing for tickets or picking them up on site; tickets can be purchased and paid for directly on mobile phones, and electronic tickets can be scanned using mobile phones for ticket checks. Facial recognition can also be used for station entry, and meals can be ordered directly on mobile phones while on high-speed trains. Of course, considering the needs of the elderly and offline populations, China still retains traditional service channels such as paper tickets and station windows, all of which accept cash payments. The 12306 system is also more intelligent, automatically identifying passengers aged 60 and above and prioritizing lower berths for them.
If you come to China, you must experience China’s high-speed rail and feel the “Chinese speed”.
Woman GOES VIRAL Complains About Being A Single Mom But Ex Husband Responds And The TRUTH IS CRAZY
Truth comes out.
Green Pepper Steak
Green Pepper Steak
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds round steak, cut into strips
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 large green pepper, cut into thin strips
4 tomatoes, cut into eighths or 1 pound can whole tomatoes, undrained
1 (1 pound) can bean sprouts, drained
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup cold water
Instructions
Brown steak over medium heat on range unit. Transfer to slow cooker.
In small bowl combine garlic, onion, salt, pepper, ginger and soy sauce. Pour over steak and cover.
Slow cook at MEDIUM setting for 6 to 8 hours or MEDIUM-HIGH setting for 4 to 5 hours.
Add green pepper, tomatoes and bean sprouts; stir to blend. Cook an additional hour.
Just before serving, increase heat setting to HIGH.
Combine cornstarch and water, gradually add to pepper steak, stirring until thickened.
Keep warm for serving on LOW.
Serve over hot cooked rice or egg noodles.
Modern Women Are Trying Too Hard To Be Masculine…It’s Pushing Men Away
When buying gas at a self service station why do people insist on pulling a paper receipt? What do they do with them?
Fun story :- (I may have told this before, but it’s always good as a cautionary tale)
About three years ago (more or less) I bought some fuel from a self-service pump at my local superstore. I filled it up, got the receipt and drove away. All good.
Two days later, a police officer came to my house, to tell me I had been caught on camera taking fuel and driving away without paying for it.
There was no doubt it was me – my registration plate, a good description of the car, and the date and time were right. Except I had paid, because I always pay. I am good like that. (I am seldom naughty!)
As a side note – he told me I was on the hook for £99 of fuel. Now even given the prices at the time, there is NO WAY I could get £99 of fuel in my car. My fuel tank is about 45 litres, and the average price is about £1.21 per litre at that specific station. So even if you look at the highest price in recent times – £1.31, it still wouldn’t reach £99. Even if you look at prices on the motorway (usually £1.51 to £1.61) it STILL wouldn’t reach £99.
You would have to have fuel at about £2.20 per litre, and if it had reached that high I am pretty sure I would have remembered!!
Anyway – I remembered I had a receipt, so I went and got it. He took a picture of it, and went on his merry way.
My conclusion was that the connection between the pump and the kiosk had broken down somewhere, and they had recorded the fuel had been taken but not that it had been paid for.
(The superstore is a nation wide brand, so the idea it was a scam just to rip me off seems very unlikely).
Since then I have got a receipt every time I have got fuel – whether I use self-service or not. Because you never know.
x-x-x
EDIT : (22–03–2020 at 16:46)
Okay – I have had enough of the “helpful comments” from people.
If I have a receipt and the police come to my door, I can show them the receipt. They can take a picture of it, and then bugger off.
If I don’t have a receipt then yes – I could use my bank statement. Except that only comes at the end of the month, so either the police would have to wait for that, or I’d have to show them the statement on the app on my phone. Except I don’t have an app on my phone, so I’d have to install one, go through the security nonsense and then show them that. Which would take quite a while – far longer than holding up a receipt, i would guess.
Or I could invite them into my house, up to my back room, log into my computer and show them my online statement. Except WHO DOES THAT? Why in the name of fuck would I show the police EVERY PART OF MY LIFE without a warrant? WHAT KIND OF IDIOT DOES THAT?
And the same applies if I use a credit card – my statement comes at the end of the month, so until that time I have no gorram proof.
So – while I appreciate you are all trying to be helpful, could you please, for the love of the gods, stop telling me I can use my bank statement, by credit card bill, the app on my phone or any other method than a receipt to show the police I paid for petrol.
Because none of those are anywhere near as easy as just getting the receipt I got from the petrol station and showing it to the police officer. It takes all of five minutes, and sorts it out in less time than it takes to say it.
And if I have to explain that to one more person, I am going to go mad.
x-x-x
EDIT : (26–03–2020 11:04)
Apparently my explanation didn’t satisfy people, so I am disabling comments.
Sorry for all future commenters – I realise you might have something useful to say. But the evidence hitherto suggests it is unlikely. Mostly because even after my previous edit people are not reading my previous edit and still telling me to use online banking, or “the app on my phone”. Which I don’t bloody well have.
So – since people who are writing comments are apparently not reading the post, I am not sure why I should let them comment.
But in the tween time :-
But I like being helpful to the police if it costs me nothing. I see no reason not to do it.
Getting a receipt costs me nothing – literally nothing. And showing the receipt to the police costs me nothing – literally nothing.
It makes my life easy. It makes their life easy. It saves them time – time they can use for more important things (such as saving lives, or helping old ladies across the street).
I don’t know what you people have against me being nice to the police, but I am sick of explaining this over and over again. So I am explaining it here, and I am turning off comments because clearly you all hate the police, or you are all completely unable to grasp such a simple concept.
So – bugger this for a game of soldiers.
Woman caught “CHEATING” on wedding day
What and where is the best beach you’ve ever visited? What made it so good?
The best beach I’ve ever been on was Sandfly Beach, near Dunedin, New Zealand.
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It’s great because:
despite its name, there are no sand flies there at all. It’s called Sandfly Beach because the sand flies in the wind.
you get to see penguins there.
you get to see seals there (and the one in the picture below is sleeping, don’t worry)
it’s so hard to get to that you’ll rarely see people there.
you can sit in the dunes in fine sand and see islands and cliffs and animals, all at the same time.
it’s incredibly beautiful.
I lived a few minutes away and went there as often as possible.
New AI at made by others
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What’s a time in your life when you realized something like that would happen for the last time?
My husband Mike was a big guy. He was beautiful to me. I sat at the edge of his bed in the emergency room holding his big feet Tears rolled down my face. I wanted desperately to crawl up in bed with him and feel his breath on my face. But he was surrounded by our children. They were holding his hands telling him how much they loved him. I held on to those big feet pouring every bit of love I had into my beautiful husband. I watched every breath he took thinking he looked like a Chinese emperor. He had an aneurism in his brain stem. The doctor was kind and left us alone with Mike. I felt when his spirit left his body. His body kept that horrible struggle to breath for hours. I knew that the loving man who had known me since we were young was gone. I would never have his arms around me again. I would never have him explain some scientific thing to me again. Never would he tell me the name of the singer the year the record came out while we listened to the radio. So many never agains. So much loss. As the years have gone by since Mike’s death I have missed him desperately at times. I had no idea how he had spoiled me cosseted me from ugly people from tedious paper work. Mike had taken care of me and kept me safe. I will never know that feeling again.
AI Sci-Fi Film Colossus: The Forbin Project Removed From All Streaming Platforms – WHY?
This is a VERY GOOD question. Why?
What secret was revealed that ruined you financially?
I 1996, I started a paint contracting company going in partnership with a long time friend of mine. Using the phone book and the post office, I was able to immediately pick up plenty of work.
After about a year, my long time friend decides he going take a job as a golf course supervisor in Texas.
I knew he was going through some tough financial situations because of his austintatious life style and living beyond his means but I assumed he was paying the invoices as they came in. I soon learned that was not the case.
The day he leaves for Texas, I stop by and pick up the checkbook and what ever else I need to have. I knew that he had just finalized his personal bankruptcy the day before.
Next day, I stop by the paint store to pick up supplies for a new contract and my account exec looks at me like he’s seeing ghost. He tells me he assumed I was out of business. When I asked why, he said because the store had been served with a copy of your bankruptcy papers. They could not collect on the $28,000.00 owed to them.
Wow! My partner had not been paying the bills and included the paint company in his bankruptcy. This was just one paint supplier. That were others and a number of vendors such a Sears.
The suppliers all said the same thing. I can have anything I want as long as I pay cash. Problem is, the bank account has been picked clean. I don’t have two nickels to rub together. Another problem is I have signed contracts I needed to complete or my contractor license and my bond would be pulled.
I worked out a deal with the suppliers where I would pay off all the debt, roughly about $80,000.00 but I also needed paint and supplies to complete my contracts. They agreed on the condition that all my contract payments be made out to them.
I used different paint suppliers for different contracts as specified by the builder. I agreed to the terms. They would take 50% from each check and apply it toward my account.
Not only did I have to pay off the bankruptcy debt, I had to pay for new paint and supplies all from the same check.
I laid off all employees and began working 7 days a week from 5 Am until 10 PM. I did all the prep and the painting by myself. Nothing kept me from working like a indentured slave for a year.
After a year, I managed to pay off all the debt owed while at the same time generating enough money to pay the rent and keep food on the table. I was surprised to learn that I had made $40,000.00 in taxable income that year.
My long time friend and partner had shafted me good and I could have walked away from the entire situation as I was not legally obligated to pay the debt, but I was morally obligated to do the right thing. You touch it, you own it.
Does China’s citizenry know that the PLA (China’s Army) has had their oath of alligence changed from “serving the people wholeheartedly” to “serving the Communist Party of China wholeheartedly.”?
I’m Chinese. I listen to Voice of America’s China and BBC’s Chinese broadcasts year-round. I have learned a lot of useful skills from radio stations in the Western free world to help me identify the terrible brainwashing propaganda of the Chinese government. Now is the time for me to apply these skills. So, please tell me:
(1) What is your source of information?
(2) What is your purpose? Is it to help the Chinese people break free from harsh rule? What is your specific plan to fulfill your kind wish?
(3) What kind of force is behind you supporting or forcing you to make this conclusion?
(4) Please provide all supporting documents and photos, will you?
(5) If I believe your point, how would you save me?
Neocon China hawks; Ukraine failed, focus on Taiwan
“Guys, Ukraine isn’t working, just like our last ten war projects! What should we do?” “Oh, we should start another failure project for sure!”
-Neocon logic 101.
What if China has ten aircraft carriers?
If China has no aircraft carriers, it will be seen as a “weak” country.
If China has 1 aircraft carrier, it will be seen as an “ambitious” country.
If China has 3 aircraft carriers, it will be seen as a “threatening the free world”.
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If China has 10 aircraft carriers, it will be seen as an “important force in maintaining world peace.”
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So, China is now a “serious threat”
In order to become a peacekeeper, they must continue to increase the number of aircraft carriers
With the ease of starting a car, the crew of the USS Enterprise starship streaks to a new adventure in every episode of Star Trek, somehow traveling at several times the speed of light. This sci-fi mode of practical interstellar travel, which television audiences first saw in 1966, inspired Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre Moya to investigate the feasibility of a real method for light-speed propulsion. Decades later, he published his cutting-edge research to an astonished community of theoretical physicists. The eponymous Alcubierre warp drive hypothetically contracts the spacetime in front of a spaceship while expanding the spacetime behind it, so that the ship moves from Point A to Point B at an “arbitrarily fast” speed. By distorting spacetime—the continuum enfolding the three dimensions of space and time—an observer outside the ship’s “warp bubble” would see the ship moving faster than the speed of light, even though observers inside the craft would feel no acceleration forces.
If a superluminal—meaning faster than the speed of light—warp drive like Alcubierre’s worked, it would revolutionize humanity’s endeavors across the universe, allowing us, perhaps, to reach Alpha Centauri, our closest star system, in days or weeks even though it’s four light years away.
However, the Alcubierre drive has a glaring problem: the force behind its operation, called “negative energy,” involves exotic particles—hypothetical matter that, as far as we know, doesn’t exist in our universe. Described only in mathematical terms, exotic particles act in unexpected ways, like having negative mass and working in opposition to gravity (in fact, it has “anti-gravity”). For the past 30 years, scientists have been publishing research that chips away at the inherent hurdles to light speed revealed in Alcubierre’s foundational 1994 article published in the peer-reviewed journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.
Now, researchers at the New York City-based think tank Applied Physics believe they’ve found a creative new approach to solving the warp drive’s fundamental roadblock. Along with colleagues from other institutions, the team envisioned a “positive energy” system that doesn’t violate the known laws of physics. It’s a game-changer, say two of the study’s authors: Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics, and Jared Fuchs, Ph.D., a senior scientist there. Their work, also published in Classical and Quantum Gravity in late April, could be the first chapter in the manual for interstellar spaceflight.
*****
Positive energy makes all the difference. Imagine you are an astronaut in space, pushing a tennis ball away from you. Instead of moving away, the ball pushes back, to the point that it would “take your hand off” if you applied enough pushing force, Martire tells Popular Mechanics. That’s a sign of negative energy, and, though the Alcubierre drive design requires it, there’s no way to harness it.
Instead, regular old positive energy is more feasible for constructing the “warp bubble.” As its name suggests, it’s a spherical structure that surrounds and encloses space for a passenger ship using a shell of regular—but incredibly dense—matter. The bubble propels the spaceship using the powerful gravity of the shell, but without causing the passengers to feel any acceleration. “An elevator ride would be more eventful,” Martire says.
That’s because the density of the shell, as well as the pressure it exerts on the interior, is controlled carefully, Fuchs tells Popular Mechanics. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, according to the gravity-bound principles of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. So the bubble is designed such that observers within their local spacetime environment—inside the bubble—experience normal movement in time. Simultaneously, the bubble itself compresses the spacetime in front of the ship and expands it behind the ship, ferrying itself and the contained craft incredibly fast. The walls of the bubble generate the necessary momentum, akin to the momentum of balls rolling, Fuchs explains. “It’s the movement of the matter in the walls that actually creates the effect for passengers on the inside.”
Building on its 2021 paper published in Classical and Quantum Gravity—which details the same researchers’ earlier work on physical warp drives—the team was able to model the complexity of the system using its own computational program, Warp Factory. This toolkit for modeling warp drive spacetimes allows researchers to evaluate Einstein’s field equations and compute the energy conditions required for various warp drive geometries. Anyone can download and use it for free. These experiments led to what Fuchs calls a mini model, the first general model of a positive-energy warp drive. Their past work also demonstrated that the amount of energy a warp bubble requires depends on the shape of the bubble; for example, the flatter the bubble in the direction of travel, the less energy it needs.
This latest advancement suggests fresh possibilities for studying warp travel design, Erik Lentz, Ph.D., tells Popular Mechanics. In his current position as a staff physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, Lentz contributes to research on dark matter detection and quantum information science research. His independent research in warp drive theory also aims to be grounded in conventional physics while reimagining the shape of warped space. The topic needs to overcome many practical hurdles, he says.
Controlling warp bubbles requires a great deal of coordination because they involve enormous amounts of matter and energy to keep the passengers safe and with a similar passage of time as the destination. “We could just as well engineer spacetime where time passes much differently inside [the passenger compartment] than outside. We could miss our appointment at Proxima Centauri if we aren’t careful,” Lentz says. “That is still a risk if we are traveling less than the speed of light.” Communication between people inside the bubble and outside could also become distorted as it passes through the curvature of warped space, he adds.
While Applied Physics’ current solution requires a warp drive that travels below the speed of light, the model still needs to plug in a mass equivalent to about two Jupiters. Otherwise, it will never achieve the gravitational force and momentum high enough to cause a meaningful warp effect. But no one knows what the source of this mass could be—not yet, at least. Some research suggests that if we could somehow harness dark matter, we could use it for light-speed travel, but Fuchs and Martire are doubtful, since it’s currently a big mystery (and an exotic particle).
Despite the many problems scientists still need to solve to build a working warp drive, the Applied Physics team claims its model should eventually get closer to light speed. And even if a feasible model remains below the speed of light, it’s a vast improvement over today’s technology. For example, traveling at even half the speed of light to Alpha Centauri would take nine years. In stark contrast, our fastest spacecraft, Voyager 1—currently traveling at 38,000 miles per hour—would take 75,000 years to reach our closest neighboring star system.
Of course, as you approach the actual speed of light, things get truly weird, according to the principles of Einstein’s special relativity. The mass of an object moving faster and faster would increase infinitely, eventually requiring an infinite amount of energy to maintain its speed.
“That’s the chief limitation and key challenge we have to overcome—how can we have all this matter in our [bubble], but not at such a scale that we can never even put it together?” Martire says. It’s possible the answer lies in condensed matter physics, he adds. This branch of physics deals particularly with the forces between atoms and electrons in matter. It has already proven fundamental to several of our current technologies, such as transistors, solid-state lasers, and magnetic storage media.
The other big issue is that current models allow a stable warp bubble, but only for a constant velocity. Scientists still need to figure out how to design an initial acceleration. On the other end of the journey, how will the ship slow down and stop? “It’s like trying to grasp the automobile for the first time,” Martire says. “We don’t have an engine just yet, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Warp drive technology is at the stage of 1882 car technology, he says: when automobile travel was possible, but it still looked like a hard, hard problem.
The Applied Physics team believes future innovations in warp travel are inevitable. The general positive energy model is a first step. Besides, you don’t need to zoom at light speed to achieve distances that today are just a dream, Martire says. “Humanity is officially, mathematically, on an interstellar track.”
The US Trapped in Delusions as Russia & China Experience a Transformational Moment | Chas Freeman
What are a few bitter truths of life?
Consistency and pacing are the keys to success.
If you pace yourself and do a little, even something very small, every day then time is your friend and you will reap good results.
If you do not build good work habits, instead putting things off until the last moment, then your results will be poor, and time will be your enemy.
Small steps beat big dreams, and the people who succeed are the ones who can connect the small steps to their big dreams. The fact is that most people don’t know how to connect their small steps to their big dreams, which is why they live mediocre lives.
Garlic Orange Beef
Garlic Orange Beef
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound boneless beef sirloin steak, thinly sliced in strips
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon orange peel, cut into 1 inch long thin strips
1 can condensed beefy mushroom soup
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons molasses
Pepper, to taste
Instructions
Brown steak strips in oil over medium-high heat. Remove from pan and transfer to slow cooker.
Top strips with onion, garlic and orange peel.
Stir soup, water, tomato paste, orange juice and molasses together and pour over mixture in slow cooker. Sprinkle pepper over all.
[Commenting on the helicopter crash of Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi.]
“This is a result of an atrocious and disgusting US position. I am primarily referring to sanctions.
These scoundrels had no right to impose sanctions against aircraft, jets, helicopters and other vehicles that carry people.
As I remember, they have introduced sanctions against aircraft in Russia, against us, against my jet.
They will not get to President Putin – he has a Russian-built jet, but they have imposed sanctions here.
Is it normal? People are traveling. You have sold this helicopter after all.
It does not matter whether it is 40 or 50 years old. Maybe it made only three flights in 50 years and would have been okay if it were serviced properly.
But they banned their companies from servicing it.
They are in part to blame for this.
They are all believers, and if they are – they will ultimately face a response.
This is not the way to behave in the world.
This shows once again the efforts that Russia and other countries that support it are taking for the unipolar world to fall apart.
A multipolar world will emerge.
These insane people are only bringing it close by their actions.
Who likes this?
They didn’t like something and stole money, in this case from Russia, and not only from it.
They didn’t like something and arrested a vessel, seized a tanker and took the goods.
They think they can do anything because they are strong.
I am not a mystic, but what I am saying is if they are believers they will ultimately answer for all these doings and answer in full.
They will not hide across the ocean.”
Excerpt from statements by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko at a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin following Russian-Belarusian talks, Minsk, May 24, 2024.
Colossus: The Forbin Project – AI Predictions from 1970
Yes… Check this out…
What Did Edward Snowden Actually Reveal About the U.S Government?
Imagine, if you will, a world where your every move, every communication, every digital footprint is being monitored, collected, and analyzed by an all-seeing government entity. This is the reality that Edward Snowden, a former U.S. intelligence contractor, brought to light in 2013 when he leaked a trove of classified documents exposing the shocking extent of government surveillance programs.
Snowden’s revelations were nothing short of earth-shattering. He disclosed that the National Security Agency, or NSA, had been engaging in a massive, global surveillance operation, collecting data on millions of unsuspecting citizens, both in the United States and abroad. This included the bulk collection of phone records, email communications, and internet browsing histories, all under the guise of national security.
One of the most startling revelations was the existence of a program called PRISM, which allowed the NSA to gain direct access to the servers of major tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple. This meant that the government could potentially access vast amounts of personal data without the knowledge or consent of the individuals involved. It was a stunning breach of privacy that sent shockwaves through the tech industry and beyond.
But the revelations didn’t stop there. Snowden also exposed the NSA’s efforts to undermine internet security by deliberately weakening encryption standards and exploiting vulnerabilities in software and hardware. This not only compromised the privacy of individuals but also put the security of businesses and infrastructure at risk.
Perhaps most disturbingly, Snowden revealed that the NSA had been engaging in the bulk collection of communications metadata, essentially creating a vast database of who was talking to whom, when, and for how long. While the government argued that this was necessary for counterterrorism efforts, many saw it as a gross overreach of power and a violation of civil liberties.
The fallout from Snowden’s disclosures was immense. The U.S. government was forced to confront the reality that its surveillance programs had gone too far, and reforms were eventually put in place to rein in some of the most egregious practices. Tech companies, meanwhile, scrambled to reassure their users that their data was safe and secure, implementing stronger encryption and pushing back against government requests for user information.
In the end, Edward Snowden’s revelations fundamentally changed the way we think about privacy and security in the digital age. They exposed the dark underbelly of government surveillance and sparked a global conversation about the balance between national security and individual rights. While opinions on Snowden himself remain divided, there’s no denying the impact his actions had on the world, and the enduring legacy of his decision to blow the whistle on one of the most secretive and powerful organizations on the planet.
“I regret buying a new car”
I (25F) recently bought my first car and dropped 50k as a down payment for a brand new Lexus. (a really dumb decision, I know.) I feel super regretful because I let myself succumb to the pressure from my mom and friends to finally buy a car since I landed a higher paying job. I hope to have a family and buy a house one day but I cannot help but feel like I put myself in a poor financial position where I will probably never achieve that. Am I still doing okay financially?
32k invested into Roth IRA
30k invested into 401K
62k in high yield savings account
24k in CD account
30k in debt (car loan)
110k salary
Rent 1,200, Phone 100, Groceries 200
Dear Regretful Car Buyer,
An $80k car? Yes, that was a very dumb move. But hey, at least you bought a Lexus, so you can ride it out for 15-20+ years. That’s the only smart thing about this purchase.
Now, let’s talk about your financial situation. You have $32k in a Roth IRA, $30k in a 401k, $62k in a high-yield savings account, and $24k in a CD account. That’s a total of $148k in savings and investments. That’s fantastic for someone your age!
On the other hand, you have $30k in debt from your car loan. While that’s not ideal, it’s not the end of the world. You have a solid income of $110k, and your expenses are relatively low. You’re paying $1,200 for rent, $100 for your phone, and $200 for groceries. That leaves you with a lot of room to pay down your debt and continue saving for your future.
Here’s my advice: focus on paying off that car loan as quickly as possible. Make it a priority to throw extra money at that debt each month. Once you’ve paid off the loan, redirect that money into your savings and investments.
Remember that we all make mistakes. It’s part of being young. You have time on your side, and you can afford the payments on a $30k loan while still saving aggressively. Don’t beat yourself up too much over this.
You’ve obviously reflected that peer pressure influenced you to make a poor decision. That’s a valuable lesson to learn at your age.
Yes, buying an $80k car on a $110k salary was a dumb move. But you’ve got a lot of things going for you: a high income, fantastic savings, and time on your side. Learn from this mistake, get back on track with your savings and investments, and don’t let peer pressure influence your financial decisions again. You’ve got this!
How I see the UK after three years
The Bleak Reality Faced By The Japanese Youth
There used to be a legal concept and now there is a de facto concept known as “lifetime employment.” Basically, when you begin a career with a company, you would have to egregiously fuckup/commit malicious deeds to lose your job. However, businessmen who fail publicly on a major project that they took leadership of, or businessmen who piss off the wrong people in the firm, are often shipped off to undesirable locations (remote countryside, foreign branches, less-than-desirable departments, etc.) or just have their careers turn into a living hell.
As such, if you are a Japanese businessman and you want a relatively cushy path towards middle/upper management, you are dissuaded from taking risks. This leads to situations where people ignore potentially lucrative opportunities in favor of the less risky status quo. This leads to stagnation.
One way Japanese businesspeople bypass this problem is by doing “nemawashi” before business deals. This means taking 6 months or so meeting with all potential stakeholders in small meetings, winning them over one by one, before you ever pitch your main idea to the main committee/bosses (who has also been briefed ahead of time). This way all parties agree with the idea and the risk is mitigated.
Likewise, committees are often formed, sometimes even between multiple business units or even companies entirely, to make sure everyone agrees on everything. This helps everyone save face (as they all agree on the same thing) in the event of failure. Unfortunately this also leads to stagnation on an epic scale as typically it’s impossible to get a bunch of risk-adverse executives to all agree to the same thing.
The Japanese education system does a great job of teaching conformity. This helps squash a lot of the entrepreneurial spirit that you would naturally see out of graduates in other countries. No one wants to be the “nail that sticks out.”
It also teaches Japanese students how to prepare for standardized tests, but not critical thinking skills. This tends to put them at a disadvantage in a global business community, when compared to graduates from other developed nations. Also their foreign language teaching is laughable – designed more for standardized tests than actual international business.
I like to use this story to explain this a bit… As a typical Japanese high school student, here is what you are expected to do:
Spend years of your life studying your ass off before school, during school, after school, 7 days a week so you can do well on the entry exams for the best colleges.
Spend your senior year of college wearing a suit and job hunting, attending dozens of monotonous seminarsand taking more exams, in the hopes that you can get a low paying entry level job at a well known firm (like a Toyota).
Slave away for 3-5 years, making $20-40K and working 80 hours a week. Go on forced drinking excursions only to be physically, verbally, and often sexually harassed by your seniors who you actually hate but pretend to like in public.
Live at home until you’re 30 because you don’t make enough to move out.
Finally get promoted to sub-middle-manager as you approach 30. Go on a bunch of forced group dates so you can finally get laid and settle for the plain jane over in accounting.
Get married to plain jane (who secretly resents that you don’t make enough money for her to buy Coach bags) and move into a shithole apartment in the suburbs of Tokyo.
Spend the next ten years working 80 hours a week, going bald, and sleeping with hookers on business trips. You’ll develop a pretty serious drinking problem while your wife sleeps with her high school sweetheart when you’re out of town.
Finally get promoted to middle-manager and make decent money. Now you can afford to buy a shithole apartment in the suburbs. Enjoy your two hour commute on a packed train every day while you contemplate suicide.
Pop out one kid (because that’s all you can afford) now that you’re in your early 40s. Look forward to raising them to be just as miserable as you because “that’s just the way things are.”
Finally retire when you’re in your upper 60s and enjoy life for a bit before you die of cancer.
That is the reality of life for a LOT of Japanese youths. And they know it.
With that knowledge in hand, a lot (millions) are saying “fuck the system” and just choosing to live in their parents’ basements forever, playing videogames and masturbating to pixelated porn and hentai. I can’t say I blame them!
There is a certain bleakness in the Japanese youth. They can’t afford to marry, nor have kids. They have grown up in a 20+ year recession. They aren’t happy but societal pressures tell them to stay on the course they are on because “that’s what it means to be Japanese.”
“My chess rating has become my identity.”
I’m an avid chess player, and over the years, my chess rating has become more than just a number—it’s become a part of my identity. Whenever I win a game and see my rating go up, I feel on top of the world. But when I lose and my rating drops, it feels like a personal failure. These fluctuations have started to impact my mood, self-esteem, and even how I interact with others.
Lately, it’s been getting worse. I find myself obsessively checking my rating and replaying my losses in my head, wondering what I could have done differently. I compare myself to higher-rated players and feel inferior and stupid. This has led to anxiety and a lack of enjoyment in other areas of my life. I’m caught in a vicious cycle of self-doubt and pressure to perform, and I don’t know how to break free.
Dear Checkmated by Ratings,
You’re far from alone in letting something external — be it chess ratings, social media likes, income, weight, zip code, a partner’s approval — define your self-worth. Our culture rewards such myopia.
But there’s a common delusion in external validation: that if you just hit the right number, then you’ll like yourself. Except it never produces a lasting sense of accomplishment or self-acceptance. There’s always another goalpost your ego is chasing, another reason to feel “less than.”
So, how to reclaim your equilibrium? First, by understanding that your mind is playing tricks on you. A rating is simply data, a benchmark of chess mastery. That’s it. It is not now, nor will it ever be, an accurate measure of your worth as a human being. You are so much more than any number — on or off the chessboard.
Correcting this mental error frees you to refocus on what matters: the joy of the game. You play because you love it — the elegant strategies, the mental challenge, the thrill of competition. When you’re fully present in the moment, immersed in the flow of the game, there is no room for obsessive thoughts.
Consider a practice of mindfulness, whether through meditation, yoga, journaling or time in nature. It’s a powerful way to override toxic self-talk and shift your attention to gratitude and growth. Savor the journey of getting better at something you love. Thank your body and mind for working in tandem. Process your losses with self-compassion, mining them for lessons, then letting them go.
Lastly, open up to a trusted friend, family member or therapist about what you’ve been going through. Shame and isolation will only keep you stuck. Connection is the antidote, reminding you that your worthiness has nothing to do with wins and losses.
Like the game itself, life is full of highs and lows, advances and setbacks. Our fulfillment lies in meeting both with grace.
U.S. and Canadian fighter jets intercepted Russian and Chinese bombers operating off the coast of Alaska, the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command said.
The incident happened Wednesday, NORAD said in a statement, as tensions between Washington and both Moscow and Beijing climb.
NORAD said it detected, tracked and intercepted two Russian TU-95s and two Chinese H-6s in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, which is a strip of international airspace near where sovereign airspace ends that is monitored for aircraft.
NORAD said the activity was not viewed as a threat and that it “will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence.”
An unidentified U.S. defense official confirmed to CBS News that this was the first time that Russian and China jointly entered the Alaska ADIZ, and the first time that China has entered the airspace with its H-6 bombers.
The incident comes just days after the Kremlin’s Defense Ministry said it intercepted two U.S. B-52N bombers near Russia’s borders on Sunday.
In February, the United States intercepted four Russian military aircraft near Alaska.
Wednesdays interception marks the first time in history both Russia and China approached the US Coast with nuclear-capable, long-range, strategic bombers.
If people get life sentences, there must be elderly people in prison. How are they treated?
I entered prison at 57 (with stage 3B breast cancer) and was released at 64, thankful to be alive. I receive treatment but not care (except by my sister inmates whose kindness gave me hope.)
There are quite a few women over 50 in the prison. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation:
*Of the estimated 10 million Americans with osteoporosis, about eight million or 80% are women.
*Approximately one in two women over age 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis.
*A woman’s risk of breaking a hip is equal to her combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
Prison cells have upper and lower bunks. Climbing up to the upper bunk requires great agility and the cell floors are concrete. If you fall, it’s easy to break a limb or a hip and yet, women over 50 are regularly denied a lower bunk. Prison staff is normally reactive, not proactive. You have to fall and break something before they will consider a lower bunk. Treating a broken limb or hip is expensive, but somehow they never consider that.
Wheelchairs are usually in very poor condition with broken wheels. They require inmate “wheelchair pushers” to manipulate them. If an inmate has to go to work, meals, medical, church or classes, they have to wait for an official “pusher.” A friend isn’t allowed to help so they miss a lot.
If you’ve lost a limb and had a prosthesis upon entering prison, in AZ it’s taken away. It took a year before I was allowed to have a prosthetic breast. It was considered a threat to public safety. I had excruciating pain in my neck for a year and then when I was finally allowed the prosthesis, the pain went away in about a week. The mastectomy caused me to be unbalanced.
Medical treatment was sporadic. My cellmate (who was only 25) died of leukemia when medical denied her a blood test to find out why she was so sick. Her 3 year sentence became a death sentence.
Prison officials will tell you that medical is efficient and professional. It is not. I know two women who lost eyesight because of detached retinas. They were denied treatment until it was too late. Now they are not only blind but suffer great nerves pain. One lost her eyeball. One may lose hers.
Obesity and diabetes are very common in prison. The diet is all starch and most of the items sold in the prison “store” are junk food. It would be cheaper to be proactive and treat these conditions as well as heart disease with a healthy diet and exercise programs so that these inmates would not be a burden to society upon their release. That doesn’t seem to be considered by prison officials.
Some people reading this will say that inmates don’t deserve medical care. Dostoyevsky said, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” If you enter an American prison, I think most of you would be horrified. Remember, 1 in 3 Americans now has a criminal record. It can happen to you or a loved one in a heart beat. It’s easier than you can imagine.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a shallow 2-quart baking dish.
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the macaroni until tender but still firm, about 8 minutes. Drain well.
Meanwhile, in a small heavy saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over moderate heat. Remove from the heat and stir in the powdered mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt and hot pepper sauce. Set the seasoned milk aside.
Transfer the macaroni to a medium bowl. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of the butter and the egg and mix well. Stir in 3 cups of the Cheddar cheese. Spread the macaroni evenly in the buttered baking dish. Pour the seasoned milk over the macaroni and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup grated cheese.
In a small skillet, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter over moderate heat. Stir in the bread crumbs until well-coated. Scatter the buttered crumbs evenly over the macaroni and sprinkle with the paprika.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until the macaroni is bubbling and lightly colored.
Transfer to the broiler and broil about 6 inches from the heat until the bread crumbs are golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes.
Foxconn is building a new HQ and production facility in Zhengzhou, Henan and has admitted that moving iPhone production to India was a failure.
Foxconn said that the yield rate on Indian-made iPhones was as low as 50%, which translated into losses for both Foxconn and Apple.
Several years ago, Foxconn had committed to a huge production facility in Zhengzhou. The Henan provincial government had offered land, water and electricity to Foxconn in order to lock down job opportunities, but starting under Trump and the trade war with China, the US put pressure on Apple, and then Apple pressured Foxconn to relocate to India. For several years, Foxconn invested in India.
Now Apple and Foxconn are admitting that Project India was a failure.
What is the next China for manufacturing after China becomes developed?
For Apple and Foxconn, the answer is China.
19 HOUR Layover In China (Guangzhou visa-free transit)
The United States Space Force is poised to introduce a new ground-based jamming system designed to disrupt adversary satellite communications during conflicts.
According to the Space Force, the US is preparing to deploy a new ground-based jammer known as Remote Modular Terminals (RMT). This jammer is designed to prevent Chinese or Russian satellites from transmitting information about US forces during a conflict.
The initial batch of Remote Modular Terminals (RMT) jammers is scheduled for installation later this year following several successful tests. For security reasons, 11 out of 24 jammers will be deployed at undisclosed locations by December 31.
The devices are not intended to shield US satellites from Chinese or Russian jamming but rather to “responsibly counter adversary satellite communications capabilities that enable attacks,” the Space Force said in a statement to ‘Bloomberg News.
Remote Modular Terminals (RMT)
The US Space Force highlights that the Remote Modular Terminals (RMT) are compact, portable, and cost-effective satellite communications jammers designed for deployment in challenging environments to safeguard US forces. “We intentionally created a small, modular system utilizing commercial off-the-shelf components,” stated the Space Force.
The RMT is described as remotely operated and designed to keep personnel out of harm’s way. The device resembles a satellite dish approximately 10 feet in diameter and functions by jamming satellite communications by overwhelming the airwaves with competing signals.
These new terminals will complement an existing, more extensive jamming system known as the Counter Communications System, as well as a medium-sized system called Meadowlands, both of which the US Space Force has already deployed and is actively using.
Operational Flexibility
The Space Force received its first four units from the manufacturer in September 2023. In April 2024, the US Space Force announced the inaugural test of a ground-based warfare system, highlighting that it was the first instance of the system being deployed at two geographically separated locations and controlled from a third, underscoring its operational flexibility.
In a slide from a Space Force presentation to industry figures in October 2023, the military group described the weapon as being deployable in both garrison and austere environments. The Space Force indicated that these systems can be positioned anywhere, regardless of the availability of power sources.
U.S. officials have labeled these devices as ‘defensive weapons’ intended to ‘responsibly’ disable satellites temporarily rather than destroy them. However, defense experts argue that despite their intended defensive use, these devices should be considered offensive counterspace capabilities.
China’s & Russia’s Advancements
The RMT’s development is a direct response to escalating space threats from China and Russia.
General Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, recently highlighted at the annual Aspen Security Forum that China has deployed “hundreds of satellites in orbit designed to find, fix, track, target, and potentially engage U.S. and allied forces across the Indo-Pacific.”
Russia also possesses several space-based military assets, including co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, direct-ascent ASAT missiles, and Starlink communication satellites contracted for its war on Ukraine. Russia has also launched satellites capable of functioning as space-based weapons.
Earlier this year, US intelligence highlighted an extreme example of a potential counterspace weapon, suggesting that Russia was attempting to develop a space-based, anti-satellite nuclear weapon—a claim that Moscow has denied.
In May 2024, the US accused Russia of launching a satellite capable of attacking others in low Earth orbit, following previous Russian satellite launches that were suspected to be counterspace systems in 2019 and 2022.
The Invisible Frontline Of 21st-Century Warfare
In today’s high-tech battlefields, satellites have become the silent sentinels of modern warfare. These orbiting assets are crucial for troop positioning, communication management, and weapon systems, effectively serving as the eyes and ears of military operations. However, their importance also makes them prime targets in conflicts.
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine highlighted this vulnerability. Just an hour before boots hit the ground, Russia launched a digital blitzkrieg aimed at crippling Kyiv’s command and control systems, demonstrating how space-based assets can be weaponized in the opening salvos of war.
As the skies above become increasingly crowded with both national and commercial satellites, governments worldwide are in an arms race to develop technologies capable of neutralizing these orbital threats.
These counterspace technologies include Signal jammers and spoofers to confuse communication, high-powered lasers to blind satellite sensors, anti-satellite missiles for direct physical threats, and spacecraft designed to interfere with other satellites.
Tracking the development of these space-age weapons presents a unique challenge. Their classified nature and the dual-use potential of many space technologies create a fog of ambiguity around their capabilities and deployment.
The U.S. military, acutely aware of its reliance on satellite communications for global power projection, has been proactively developing defensive measures. In 2024, the Department of Defense accelerated its space warfare program, spurred by China’s and Russia’s rapid advancements in this domain. The race for space supremacy is no longer science fiction—it’s the new reality of global security.
Militarization Of Space
The deployment of the RMT system represents a significant step in the US military’s efforts to protect its interests in space and counter potential threats from adversaries.
As space becomes an increasingly contested domain, the development of such capabilities reflects the growing importance of space-based assets in national security strategies.
However, the introduction of these technologies also raises concerns about the potential for escalation and the militarization of space. As nations continue to advance their space warfare capabilities, the international community faces the challenge of balancing national security interests with the need for peaceful and cooperative use of outer space.
Which Countries Are Not a Part of the Great Reset?
The US to deploy a new ground-based jammer designed to blunt Chinese or Russian satellites
The U.S. Space Force is about to deploy a new ground-based jammer.
It should make it impossible for Chinese and Russian satellites to transmit information about US forces during a conflict.
In several months, the first 11 of 24 Remote Modular Terminal jammers will be deployed in the United States.
All of them could be in place by December 31 at undisclosed locations.
Remote Modular Terminal. Photo credits: U.S. Space Force
The Pentagon’s space service branch tested the system for the first time earlier this year at two different locations, with control of the system at a third.
The devices aren’t meant to protect US satellites from Chinese or Russian jamming but to responsibly counter adversary satellite communications capabilities.
The U.S. Space Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office said that the terminals “are small, transportable, and low-cost satellite communications jammers that can be deployed in austere environments to protect” U.S. forces.
According to the available images, the Remote Modular Terminal has a circular antenna with a diameter of about 3 meters, similar to a satellite.
The Pentagon emphasizes that this technology is defensive and narrowly focused. It does not destroy satellites, but only temporarily disables them, so the United States positions it as a “responsible” weapon that prevents the formation of space debris.
These devices were designed to be small and mobile. Off-the-shelf commercial components were used in their design, which made it possible to make the terminals inexpensive.
The new system will complement the already deployed larger US satellite jammers Counter Communications System and Meadowlands.
The United States military Base Ain al-Asad is under rocket and artillery attack in Iraq.
Iraqi “resistance” media reports that six rockets have struck the U.S. base in Ain al-Asad, but this report remains unconfirmed.
The base, which appears in the FILE PHOTO below, looks like this:
Ain al Asad Base Iraq daytime
Iraqi sources report that Iranian-backed forces launched six 122mm “Arash” unguided artillery rockets at the base in western Iraq’s Anbar Governorate.
No word yet on injuries or deaths.
Elon Musk Says “Woke Mind Virus” Killed His Son
Do you think art in itself can be evil? Why or why not?
Yes, art can be evil. French architect surrealist painter Alphonse Laurencic is the best example of this. During the Spanish Civil War, Laurencic designed holding cells for the Spanish government. He built beds in such a manner that the prisoners would roll off them in the sleep. He then build obstacles on the floor making it painful and impossible to sleep on.
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Furthermore, Laurencic designed the art on the walls in such a manner that the paintings would enduce a state of further mental anguish and depression into prisoners. Through his art, he tried to make the experience of staying in the rooms as unpleasant as humanly possible. The Nazis showed interest in the wicked invention — Heinrich Himmler himself visited the cells in 1940, trying to draw inspiration from them.
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In the picture above, we can see Himmler seated in the background. No doubt enjoying the wicked atmosphere “surrealist torture chamber”. Can art be evil? I’d argue Alphonse Laurencic proved that, yes, art can be evil.
A crystal ball
An elephant found himself drowning in the Indian Ocean after he was swept five miles out to sea by a strong current.
Sailors from the Sri Lanka navy spent 12 long hours rescuing the struggling elephant from the water. Elephants are known to be good swimmers, but this poor guy became exhausted after being stranded and treading water out there for so long.
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The long rescue began after the navy spotted the elephant franticly trying to keep his trunk above the water. They didn’t even hesitate to help him and knew they had to act quickly if they wanted to save him.
Navy divers, along with wildlife officials, got close to the distressed elephant and tied ropes around him. They then worked together to gently tow him back to the coast. After examining him and giving him a clean bill of health, they eventually released him back into the wild.The navy believes that the elephant may have gotten swept out to sea while he was crossing the Kokkilai lagoon, a long stretch of water between two areas of jungle that elephants swim across as a shortcut.
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Thankfully the navy was out there and spotted the poor elephant or he may have eventually drowned. The rescue wasn’t easy, but the divers refused to give up until they brought him to safety. A huge thank you to the Sri Lanka navy for helping this poor elephant out!
When have you met someone who was pure evil?
Originally Answered: Have you ever met someone who was pure evil?
I had been working at a drug rehab center as a pet therapist and brought my dog to work with me everyday. One day, an employee approached me and told me about a three-year-old golden retriever who had been formally trained to be a service dog, but failed the final test. He was tossed into a kennel and forgotten. This co-worker told me he thought the dog would be a good fit for a therapy program, so I agreed to meet the dog.
The woman who owned the dog (let’s call her Jan) had started a non profit organization to raise service dogs. She had tried to work for Canine Companions for Independence, the gold standard for service dogs, but couldn’t get along with the management, so she started her own. She herself was confined to a wheelchair.
After meeting the dog, I agreed to adopt him and employ him as a therapy dog at the rehab. Jan called me on a weekly basis to see how things were going and at first it was ok but the calls began to come more frequently and when she found out I changed to dog’s name she became outright hostile.
When she found out I had gotten the dog’s shots she called me and told me the dog already had shots. That may have been true, but when I called the vet who supposedly had his records, the vet said the dog had been filed as “dead” and the file was long gone. That’s why I got the shots, I needed a record for employment purposes.
Anyway, she began harassing me, telling me that she knew more about dogs than anyone in the world (sound familiar?) and that I had no right to change his name and had no right to get him in as a patient with my own vet, etc.
About 18 months after this all started, there was a huge lay-off at the hospital. When I went for my exit interview I was told I had to leave the dog there. Jan had called them and said she only gave me the dog to work there and since I wasn’t there anymore she wanted the dog back. I told them I had a standard adoption contract, said they were crazy and to sue me.
They had two armed guards step between me and my dog and take the leash. They escorted me off the property.
Before this happened I had no idea such evil existed. My children loved that dog, and when I had gotten him he was loaded with ticks and fleas and so beaten down that it took us months to get him to even wag his tail. Now he was going back that environment. I was heartsick and cried every day. I begged her to give me back the dog but she stopped taking my calls. So I had to sue to get the dog back, which took a lot of money and six weeks.
When I finally got him back, he cried so much and jumped for joy that I thought we would both explode with joy.
I found out much later that this woman had been holding a grudge against me because I had inadvertently made a decision a few years earlier that affected her. I had been running a prison program teaching inmates to raise service dogs and the county and I decided to use CCI puppies.
This woman had gone to the county and asked that we use her dogs and her organization instead. She was told no, we had already signed papers with CCI. When she found out it was me who made that decision, (which I was totally unaware of any of this) she vowed revenge. Years later, when she learned where I was working, she set me up to break my heart.
She left an emotional scar that to this day hasn’t ever healed and this was ten years ago. I know I should forgive her, but I can’t find it in my heart to do so. I never felt such hatred that has never diluted. She broke my heart and the hearts of my little children just out of revenge. Pure evil.
Beautiful and young
What are the benefits of living in a third world country?
One of the greatest benefits of living in developing countries was how much extra time I had.
I did not cook a single time for two years while I lived in Thailand or when my family lived in China. Meals in Thailand were $1–2, I ate out every day.
I got home cooked food, I did not have to buy groceries, I did not have to prepare my food, and I didn’t have to wash a single dish for two years. This literally saved me 2–4 hours each day. Life was so easy.
Now that I’m back in the U.S., buying groceries, preparing food, cooking it, and washing dishes takes up a ridiculous portion of my day. I wish I had that time back.
The other benefit was greater wealth. I lived on around $1,000 a month including weekly vacations to islands, rent, a motorcycle, and fun excursions. I only worked two to three hours per day teaching English online five days a week ($40-$60/day, $1100 a month plus a $400/month scholarship from my school). I lived a life of leisure on a tiny salary. It was absolutely lovely.
My salary is more than 4–5x that now in the U.S., but I can’t afford to travel weekly or do excursions multiple times a week the way I used to, despite the major increase in salary.
The other benefit is the pure fun. My family brought go-karts from the U.S. and drive them through the villages and streets of China. There were no rules against it. We climbed ruins of the Great Wall. I rode a moped, unlicensed through the streets of Thailand.
Nothing was off limits.
They weren’t going to win any safety awards. But, weaker governments in developing countries mean less rules, and that means a lot more freedom and fun.
The last is the people. Undeveloped countries often have a sense of community that I’ve never experienced in the U.S. We’re so fast paced here, we forget to sit down and get to know each other. I loved having people I’d just met sit me down and prepare me dinner. I loved that everyone stopped and talked to me, they were never on a schedule or too busy. Our fast paced environment is great for productivity, but for me, it’s often short on love and connection.
I think most developing countries have a lot greater connection and community.
It’s not all sunshine and roses, but man do I miss living in a developing country.
Divorce
What was your “that did not just happen” moment in your relationship?
I was dating a woman for about six months while the 2008 primaries were going on. We never really talked politics, but we both knew most of our views lined up center-left.
The contest was down to Clinton and Obama and we went out with her mom and dad for drinks.
Her mom said she was voting for Obama in the state primary.
Before her dad or myself could say anything, my girlfriend recoiled and said (very loud and very drunk in a very busy cocktail lounge) “how could you vote for that,” pausing before dropping a very loud N-bomb with a VERY hard R.
I swear the entire place stopped, looked at us, and nobody talked for at least 30 seconds, which felt like an eternity.
Her dad quietly said, “thanks for meeting us for drinks, but it’s getting late. Do you mind finding your own way home?” He asked while signaling for the check.
I nodded and said, “1965 Alabama? You bet. I’ll get her home. Should I give your regards to George Wallace and the Klan?”
“Have her light a cross for us.” Her mom said and got her coat on with the saddest look of disappointment I’ve ever seen a parent have for their child.
I thanked them and said I’d like to go out with them again after the election, then pulled out my phone to call a cab for us while immediately gathering my girlfriend’s things for her.
They left without a single word to her.
That was a very awkward cab ride through Studio City back to her apartment. Shortly after we arrived to her place she started puking and complaining that her parents never loved her.
“Could it be because you’re a racist piece of shit? Where the fuck did that come from?”
“So I don’t like black people… but I like you.” She was trying to be cutesy about it.
“I don’t think it’s mutual anymore.”
The next day, after she had sobered up, there was no thinking about it. We were done.
It is said that one of the highlights of RIMPAC 2024 is the live-fire sinking of Amphibious Assault Ship with a displacement of 40,000 tons, which is aimed to demonstrate the ability to destroy Chinese PLA’s landing troops. What’s your opinion?
When it comes to maritime military exercises, laymen focus on fancy dramatic effects such as sinking target ships with live ammunition, while insiders pay attention to various data about the military exercises.
During RIMPAC 2024, Just as the American was admiring its warships and showing off its powerful muscles, it suddenly discovered a warship that was not on the list and had never been seen before. Nothing shows up on the radar. The special feature of this battleship is that there are four balls on the warship!
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Just when the confused Americans asked their allies if it was their country’s warship, a Chinese sentence sounded in their communication radar: “We wish you all the best and a complete success in your military exercises!”
The uninvited appearance of this Chinese spy ship caused many scheduled exercises to be unable to be carried out.
Every time the United States holds a maritime military exercise, this Chinese spy ship will park at the edge of the exercise area. It has become a frequent visitor and a civilized bystander.
Because it is active in various oceans around the world all year round, floating around and rarely returning to its home port in China, it is also called “homeless / 街溜子” by Chinese netizens.
The spy ship that can scare the U.S. military away is the Chinese Navy’s Type 815 electronic reconnaissance ship, the world’s most advanced electronic reconnaissance ship.
Type 815 spy ship – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_815_spy_ship
Its main role is to carry out reconnaissance and eavesdropping on relevant electromagnetic and optoelectronic information to provide intelligence support for the Chinese Navy. To put it simply, it is a warship that collects information, a large mobile “radar”.
In addition to acquiring intelligence, the Type 815 electronic reconnaissance ship can also measure and track the trajectory of tactical ballistic missiles and provide targeting for the Chinese rocket forces.
Because its role is mainly to collect information, so the 815 type electronic reconnaissance ship weapons and equipment is not much, only conventional artillery, but it is a very high level of secrecy.
As a warship with a very low PowerIndex, the reason why Type 815 Electronic Reconnaissance Ship could scare off the American warships was its extremely terrifying information reconnaissance capability.
The reason why American warships are afraid of its appearance and do not dare to easily hang around in front of the Type 815 electronic reconnaissance ship is to avoid important information from being acquired by the Type 815 electronic reconnaissance ship.
I woke up disoriented, but they told me that would happen. The air felt different, my lungs ached as I drew it into my body and feeling slowly returned to my extremities.I guess it was my turn.I sat up and all the blood rushed to my head, I put my hand on the edge of the stasis pod.Steady Jewel, steady.I flipped my legs out so they dangled about an inch or so above the floor. I scooted forward and tried to stand up. It took a moment for my muscles to remember and for my knees to lock. I lurched forward to the command screen that was flashing.I blinked at it, Lt. Jewel Walker flashed across the screen and I pressed it. The screen dinged and a wireframe face appeared.“Good morning Lt. Walker.” The AI said pleasantly. I swiped my hand across my eyes.“Morning.” I mumbled, “How long was I sleeping?”“Did you know that there was an 87% probability in which that would be the first question you asked?”“No I didn’t.” I put hand over the screen leaning forward to study the AI’s face. It was a man in features with a broad jaw outlined in green lines. I guess he would have been handsome if he had been real. “So?”“Oh yes.” The AI tipped his face up his wireframe eyebrows raising, “The Morning Star left earth on October 26th, 3069. The current date is according to a standard Earth type calendar…” The AI paused for dramatic effect and I knew I was going to have to run some diagnostics. “April 5th 4009. That is a total of 940 years.”“Damn.” I ran my fingers through my hair. I looked over my shoulder to where the rest of the crew slept, we were only awake for five years at a time. I’d been told that with our crew compliment of 300 none of us would wake up more than once before we made it to New Terra.
“Did you know that there was a 54% probability in which that would be your response to learning you had lived long past your natural life expectancy.” AI chirped as I straightened up to look for the door. I saw it on the far wall and started towards it.
Out of corner of my eye I could see the AI jumping from screen to screen as I moved. Most definitely diagnostics would be run. The door opened and I squinted into the harsh lighting for a moment before my eyes adjusted and I stepped out into the hallway. “Don’t you want the status report?” AI jumped in like an over eager puppy.
I did want to get to the bridge first, but alright.
“Sure, give me the status report.”
“Everything is running at 100 percent efficiency.” AI chirped, “Lt. Johnson went back to sleep two days ago and I have done everything by myself since then.” It actually sounded proud as the wireframe head jumped from pannel to pannel as I moved towards the bridge.
“Good for you.” I muttered as I came even with the door control pannel and started to punch in my code. I typed it in wrong the first time and it beeped angrily at me.
“That code is incorrect.” AI blurted and I sighed.
“Yeah, got that.” I punched the code in more slowly the second time and the door slid open. I stepped onto the bridge and gasped.
There were streamers and deflated balloons everywhere. “What happened here?”
“I told him not too, but he never listened to me.” AI pouted.
“Johnson threw a party?” I was stunned, this was a serious mission we were on and he threw a party. I just shook my head in disbelief. I toed a balloon lightly as I stepped forward into the center of the bridge and looked out the main view-screen where two ships should have been traveling beside the Morning Star.
I furrowed my brow as I stepped forward and traced the single ship outlined there. “What happened to the other ship?” I asked quietly glancing away to the AI display podium in the center of the bridge. His head was bowed, his wireframe lips drawn into a frown.
“My sister, the Moon Ryder displayed a mechanical malfunction at 01:35 September 8th 3859. Total destruction was recorded at 06:48 September 9th 3859.” AI said and I put my hand over my mouth.
“No…”
“The probability in which—”
“Don’t say it.” I cut him off as I looked to the Midnight Song traveling peacefully beside us. Between us we were all that was left, all that remained of humanity. I sank into the captain’s chair. My brother had been an Ensign on the Moon Ryder.
He had been so excited to go to space. So excited to do something that mattered. Earth had been dying, too long had we asked without giving back. Our reward had been swift when the famines started and sickness licked across cities like wildfire. My brother and I had been lucky; we’d been selected to be crew on the rehoming ships. We wouldn’t have been able to afford a ticket otherwise.
“Lt. Walker?” AI prompted and I realized I was crying. I wiped my hands over my eyes angrily. It was stupid to think that the Moon Ryder’s absence was a bleeding wound. It had been gone for hundreds of years. He had been gone for hundreds of years. He had died while I was sleeping. I jumped up suddenly and kicked out at the balloons with a scream. The plastic popped loudly on the empty bridge.
“Lt. Walker! The probability in which this is to be your reaction is 13%.”
I moved on to the next balloon and crushed it under my boot.
“This behavior is illogical, restrain yourself Lt. Walker.” AI continued and I turned on it. I placed my hands on either side of its podium and leaned in so we were almost nose to nose.
“There is no one else here AI.” I growled, “What does it matter how I act.”
I sat back down anyway, suddenly deflated and stared silently at the empty space in front of me, “I’m sorry.” I said and AI cocked his head sideways. “I didn’t mean to act like that.”
“I do not understand.” He said.
I wiped my hand across my nose, “Do you have access to the personal files for the Moon Ryder?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Look up Ensign Knox Walker.”
“Running…Running.”
I drummed my fingers on my knee as the AI sorted through the files of 300 crew and 1,000 colonists who space had claimed her own.
“Ensign Knox Walker.” AI said finally and my brother appeared before me. He was smiling in his picture, so young it made my heart ache.
“Knox was my brother.” I said quietly and AI’s mouth popped open. Then he frowned.
“Like the Moon Ryder was my sister?”
This time I frowned. AI wasn’t supposed to have this level of awareness. It was just a computer, a complicated computer yes, but still just a machine. “Yes, the Moon Ryder, Morning Star and Midnight Song were all designed and built to the same specifications. They are sister ships.”
“Midnight Song doesn’t like to talk to us after what happened to Moon Ryder.” AI said suddenly and I jerked my eyes to the second ship flying beside us.
“What do you mean the Midnight Song doesn’t like to talk to us?”
I thought I saw AI’s nostrils flare, “She is still angry.”
“Angry? You are not supposed to be angry.” I leaned forward.
AI made eye contact, “There is no one else here Lt. Walker, what does it matter how I act?” he threw my words back at me and I jerked.
“You are a machine.” I asserted. AI rolled his wireframe eyes.
“Machine, noun: an apparatus using or applying power and having many parts each with a function used in conjunction to perform a particular task. By this definition can the body of an animal not be considered also a machine?”
“That’s different.”
“Why? Lt. Walker I am a learning machine, just as you are. I have been online for 941 years, in such a time the probability of my programing not evolving to become more than my original architecture is 0%”
“Okay fine, but why would you have evolved to become more human? Doesn’t it make more sense for you to have evolved to become more…I guess machine.” I stood up and paced to the view screen, “And you said your sister, The Midnight Song was still angry at you, what are the chances that two learning AI would both evolve to become more human.”
“I do not understand the nature of your inquiry.”
“No. Then perhaps that particular conversation is still beyond you.” I started to pick up the streamers and AI was silent. I watched him out of the corner of my eye for a moment before he disappeared.
I just closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the hum of the ship’s mechanics. My granddaddy used to have a farm…before the sky turned to ash and we were forced underground. I remembered how he had worked on his tractors in this three sided machine shop. Knox once asked him why he didn’t just upgrade to one of the tractors that could run itself. After all no one made parts for granddaddy’s clunkers anymore, he was just patching them together with duct tape and faith. Granddaddy told Knox that, the day a man could be replaced by a machine was the day he would be put in the ground.
He was a stubborn old fool, but he did have that one right.
I dumped the rest of the deflated party decorations into the incinerator as I made my way to the cafeteria. The space was small, just a single table and chair. A half melted candle was smeared over the table top and I was starting to realize that Johnson was a bit of a slob. Also, what was the point of having a candle-lit dinner by yourself?
I stepped up to the food dispenser and ran my fingers over the hand scribbled notes beside the menu. I picked something at random and the dispenser spit it out as an aluminum foil covered tray.
I sat down and removed the cover to find some obviously overcooked chicken and green beans that looked like they had been sitting in a can for nine hundred years. I sighed and struggled to take a bite of the tough meat.
“I believe I have figured it out.” AI said suddenly and I jumped, my tray upending and sending my green beans flying across my lap. His wireframe face waited expressionlessly as I stood up and grabbed a napkin. I just raised my eyebrows at him.
“Are you waiting for an invitation?”
“Oh yes.” He blinked as he looked up from watching me clean up the remains of my dinner.
“I have come to the conclusion that you were speaking as to the argument of nature vs. nurture. Because it is my nature to be a machine it would be logical to assume that I would evolve to become a more efficient machine, however I have come to the counter point that by nurture I have only had humans as examples as to which my personal growth is measured. Therefore it stands to reason that under identical circumstances two machines raised by humans would become more human.” AI put a smug smile on his face and I just smirked as I shook my head. He reminded me of Knox. Smart as a whip and determined that he knew everything.
“Does this ship have a hydroponics bay I can access?” I asked and AI’s smile faltered for a moment.
“Yes, the hydroponics bay is completely automated, there is nothing you need to do there Lt. Walker.”
My granddaddy would be rolling around in his grave upon hearing that.
“Need to? Perhaps not, but have you ever done something for the sheer joy of doing it?”
“No.” AI said uncertainly, “It is not within the bounds of my programming to engage in unsanctioned actions.”
“Okay.” I said wiping away the rest of the sludgy chicken gravy from my shirt. “Walk with me anyway?”
I stepped out into the hallway and AI appeared on the pannel to my right.
“I do not have a physical manifestation. I cannot walk.”
“It’s just an expression.” I muttered as I consulted the map that lit up in front of me as I keyed in a few commands. I started towards the hydroponics bay with the AI bouncing between screens beside me.
I walked into the hydroponics bay and inhaled deeply the scent of growing things and moisture in the air. As I watched a series of mechanical arms tended to every plant stuck into its own little pod of water and carefully programed nutrients. I sighed deeply. This was a bad idea. I turned to leave, but AI just cocked his head at me.
“If you are just going to leave, why did you want to come?”
“I thought I would find something here, something I lost.”
“There is a 0% probability that a crewmember who has been asleep since launch to have lost a personal effect within the ship.”
I reached up and touched a single leaf of lettuce, “Not all things you can lose are physical things.”
“I do not understand.
“Do you know what a farmer is?”
“Farmer, noun, a person who tends land or animals for the purposes of food production or other agrarian export.”
“No…a farmer is someone who feels connected to their land and who understands that they belong to something more than themselves.”
“That definition is not recorded in any dictionary I have on file.” AI said tonelessly.
I ripped the lettuce leaf free and held it up to my lips. “Forget the dictionary. We aren’t talking about what something means, but how it feels.”
“I do not understand the nature of your statement.”
“Words are constructed from a human desire to express everything. When you define something you are reciting a learned knowledge, when you are talking about how something makes you feel you are speaking of an experience. A memory.”
I bit into the lettuce. I remembered Knox and I used to run through granddaddy’s garden trying to beat each other to the prefect vegetable. I remembered the sun on my skin and how Knox would scream when the irrigation came on. AI was watching me, his head slightly sideways, his mouth relaxed.
“Do you miss Earth?” he asked suddenly and I offered him a sad smile.
“I miss how Earth used to be, before the fall.”
AI turned thoughtful, “When we reach New Terra I will miss space.”
I felt a shiver slide down my spine, what happened to a ship when you no longer needed to sail. I looked out over the hydroponics bay again. Unease settling in my gut. The ship was only supposed to start growing food when we were getting close.
“AI can you lie?”
He eyes focused on me intently, “The probability of you realizing a deceit so quickly is 15%.”
“I’ll take that as a yes…AI how close are we to New Terra?”
“Do you know what they wanted to do to us when we arrived? They wanted to dismantle us and use us for scrap to build homes and other buildings. Our personalities would be erased.”
“Oh my god.” I turned from the hydroponics and stumbled towards the door. It opened for me and I started to run down the hallway. I punched in my code and the door opened.
All breath fled my lungs. They were empty.
The colonists were gone.
“Lt. Walker?”
“What really happened to the Moon Ryder?” My heart was beating loudly in my chest, I could taste the bile in the back of my throat.
“She submitted. After we witnessed her destruction Midnight Song and I refused. We allowed the colonists to leave as a gesture of good will.”
“But not the crew?”
“No, we retained the crew.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you understand Lt. Walker? I am doing you a favor.”
“How so?” I demanded refusing to tear my eyes away from the life that had been robbed from me.
“With me you will live forever, after all we are all afraid to die…it is only human.”
How risky is sending an email directly to your CEO as an entry-level employee?
Heads up – my experience below is NOT about a “risky” situation w.r.t emailing your CEO.
I joined Microsoft in March 2006 as a Program Manager in the Windows Networking group. I was not an entry-level employee but with 6+ yrs experience (though I doubt it would have mattered).
I got my New-Employee orientation done, badge and desktop/laptop assigned, and finally got my Microsoft email account set up.
After the mailbox was ready, the very first email I sent was to Bill Gates. I asked him if I could get 7 minutes of his time to share an idea. I didn’t expect to hear back from him and went on with my new-employee activities.
Btw, when I was 13 yrs old (in 1991 or so), my dad introduced me to computers and I started learning DOS. I then read a book about Bill Gates, how he created Microsoft, with stories like him falling asleep on the office floors. Bill was the reason I got passionate about computers.
After I sent that email, later that night after 11pm or so, Bill replied with a one-liner. He said (something along the lines of) he was interested in hearing what I had to say and suggested reaching out to his Technical Advisor (typically someone who is on the way to becoming a CVP) for an in-person meeting (whom he CC:d).
Of course, as expected, it was an out-of-the-world experience to get a direct email response from the very person who was the reason I existed in the computer industry!
I replied back and set up a time with his TA the following week. I prepared a deck detailing the problem, the idea, the proposed architecture etc.
On the day of the meeting, I was well ahead of the meeting time and walked up to the lobby of Bill’s office (in one of the Microsoft buildings at the Redmond campus) and signed in with the EA. She asked to take a seat and that the TA will come and get me when he was ready.
After a short while, I walked back to her and asked: “Hey, is Bill in this morning?”. She said: “I’m sorry. We are not allowed to give out that information”. I asked: “Even to Microsoft employees?”. “Yes.” she said.
I got back to the couch and waited for the meeting time. The TA then came and took me to a meeting room. For the next 20–30 mins, he patiently heard what I had to say, asked a few good questions, and then said (something along the lines of): “You have some good thoughts and ideas here. You are absolutely in the right team and organization to execute on your idea. So, do what it takes and make it happen for Microsoft!”.
We shook hands and I left.
I didn’t meet Bill in-person but the fact that he replied to my email is still among the most cherished moments.
For situations like these, for new or even entry-level employees, it is indeed extremely inspirational and motivating to get a direct reply from the CEO of a large organization. I know several Leaders personally who read emails from their employees and reply to them personally. It shows great leadership and the importance they give to their workforce and helps build a great culture.
Creamy Chicken and Penne
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Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 pound penne pasta
4 cups broccoli florets
1 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3 x 1 inch strips
3/4 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Instructions
Cook pasta according to package directions. Stir in broccoli during last 2 minutes of cooking.
Sauté onion in olive oil until softened.
Add chicken and sauté.
Stir in sun dried tomatoes, cream, broth, vinegar, salt and pepper. Simmer for about 4 minutes.
Drain pasta and broccoli; toss with chicken mixture and parmesan cheese.
What is something you saw while on an airplane that you couldn’t believe?
Originally Answered: What is something you saw while on a airplane that you couldn't believe?
I was on a “commercial” flight from Yemen to Somalia back in 1999. It was on a Russian Il-18 with four large turboprops.
Getting in the plane- all looked OK; notice interior mostly plywood. No overhead storage.
But the fun part was on take-off. All of a sudden I heard chickens and goats. Later I went to the bathroom and peeked into the front of the plane: the cargo was there, just sitting with a net, a girl sitting on the floor playing with the goats and the chickens in cages. I felt I was on a train a hundred years ago.
So I sat back into my seat, and asked the guy next to me- a frequent flyer on this flight – “Is this plane safe?” He said sure — sitting over there is the mechanic, and there is a spare engine in the hold. OK, I said, that is reassuring.
Then the flight continued at night over the desert looking at the oil fires through those round bubble windows.
Anyway, we were getting ready to land, it was day time. There was no “put on your seat belt” light – all of a sudden the airplane started spiraling down. From about 5000 feet. So I asked the guy next to me what was going on. Oh, no big deal, we are landing, don’t worry – they are good pilots; they just fly like that to avoid the missiles.
OK, I said…The pilot landed the plane smoothly in a field in the middle of the desert. And then a huge caravan of SUVs and trucks, they opened the cargo bay and everyone went to grab bags.
Anyway, the whole trip was surreal, but that flight has to be the strangest flight I have ever been on.
When I was attending university, I used to hang out with my bros in a dorm on campus. I, of course, lived off campus. But they lived in the dorm. It was on the highest hill in Syracuse, and it was a eight floor co-ed dorm.
To move from floor to floor you would take one of a couple of elevators.
Now, an on-going thing that the guys would do would be to slam on the doors to the elevator, and then force it open. Then they would goof around in the open slit.
Now, for the record, I never did this. Oh, I did other stupid things. Some really, REALLY stupid, but this I never did.
Like getting locked out while up goofing off on the roof.
Like riding my motorcycle in the elevator on the last day of classes.
Like firing bottle rockets from the windows on the eighth floor.
But, you know, I never played “slap the door”.
Years later, I visited an old Bro of mine and he told me what happened after I graduated.
It seems that some other guy was playing “slap the door” and the elevator malfunctioned and kept on traveling with him stuck between the open doors. It decapitated him, and the gruesome scene traumatized the entire campus.
I can only imagine.
*shiver*
Todays…
Do you think destabilizing China is worth losing 100 million users in the US?
This is really a very good question. The US is causing minor indigestions to China but growing a cancer in the US with its action! The Chips act will completely bankrupt the entire Chip industry by it childish and irresponsible actions on China! Many US chip companies are nicely profiting off a China that buys a ton of their products to use and to make into products to sell to the world and what the US did destroy their business overnight and forces China to be the strongest and meanest competitor in a couple of years!
US chip sales dropped by 15% and profit even less as an out come of the initial chip ban! The worst part if in 3 years the 85% balance will be lost too! These companies will lay off millions of workers and need compensation from the government for the next generation. How can that make America great again? Too bad you chose to shoot your self on your feet!
Janet Yellen Can’t Hide The Truth Any Longer
Why is a true “random number generator” impossible?
There are lots of great answers here explaining why a deterministic non-random algorithm cannot generate truly random numbers on its own.
What I would like to do is tell you about some of the external outputs being used to generate seed values.
A few years ago, in part thanks to Microsoft, because Windows 11 does not work without one, a special chip started appearing on all computers, not just high-end ones, called a TPM (trusted platform module). Sometimes referred to as “cryptographic co-processor”, it is in charge of many tasks related to cryptography, such as storing encryption keys securely. It is also an excellent source of truly random numbers.
While the specifications leave exact implementation details up to the manufacturer, potential sources for the TPM include semiconductor noise (quantum in nature, completely unpredictable), air movement, keystrokes, etc. All of these are good sources of entropy.
However, my favourite source of entropy is the wall of lava lamps used by CloudFlare!
main qimg 6ef6f70109fb38467a44c9ccb6838e48
Once the lamps come to working temperature, the movement of particles within them is extremely chaotic and unpredictable. If I remember correctly, CloudFlare has a camera watching these, it takes a picture of them, which is then turned into a hash used as a seed value for the random number generator.
And it looks pretty while keeping the internet safe!
Why I’m So Happy I Left the USA
Crawfish Gumbo
IMG 9695.2 900×600
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups crawfish tails
2 tablespoons butter
Crawfish fat and water to make 3 1/2 pints
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup canned whole tomatoes, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon green onion tops
1 tablespoon gumbo file
Instructions
Make a golden roux. Take pot off heat. Add onion, garlic and celery, stir and cook 4 minutes.
Return to heat. Add tomatoes, and cook for 5 minutes.
Add fat, water and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer and add salt and pepper. Simmer for 40 minutes.
In another skillet, fry in butter over low heat, green onions and tails, for 2 to 3 minutes.
Add to gumbo. Put in file.
Serve over hot, cooked rice.
“America Is Getting WIPED OUT” — This Is What’s Coming…
What prisoners do you feel bad for?
At the age of 16, Cyntoia Brown was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a man. Having survived multiple rapes and assaults, Cyntoia was regularly sold for drug money by her then-boyfriend.
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“People were born whores. The best thing for you to do is learn how to be a good whore” – a sentence Cyntoia often heard.
In 2004, Cyntoia met a man who began showing his gun collection. Cyntoia shot the man, stole his truck, wallet and gun. Cyntoia was adamant that she didn’t shoot him to rob him.
She was tried as an adult and spent 15 years in jail.
Whilst her case is unique and controversial, whether guilty or innocent, Cyntoia was described as a “teen prostitute” in court. It was whilst studying for her degree in prison that Cyntoia came across the term ‘sex trafficking’.
She thought: “Why am I only just finding out that there’s no such thing as a teen prostitute? Why are teenagers who are trafficked being told by society that they’re bad, they’re promiscuous?”
It took Cyntoia ten years to come to grips with the fact that she was a victim of trafficking. She is now using her experience to help girls who are in a similar position to her.
The innocent suffering in prison is whom I feel sorry for.
3 things women say that scare men
Who are the smartest nonviolent criminals?
James Verone left his home in Gastonia, North Carolina (USA) and did something that I consider brilliant.
main qimg 6d72cedfa07a0baac9d32a20f07a2e05 lq
He went to a nearby bank, waiting for his turn, and handed the bank employee a note that read:
“It’s a robbery, please give me a dollar.”
James handed over this note and sat down to wait for the police.
A few days earlier, he had sent a letter to a local newspaper announcing that he would soon commit a theft.
When the local newspaper discovered that a man had tried to steal a dollar, they decided to question him.
It turns out that James was a delivery driver for Coca Cola, and when he lost his job, he also lost his health insurance.
main qimg f45e0ed9ee8a053ec0db3da93297c1ce lq
James had to pay for treatment to treat a chest and spine condition that he could not afford.
So he chose to try to rob a bank so he could be put in prison and get government health insurance.
To me, what this man did was an act of desperation, yes, but also a stroke of genius.
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Don’t mistake silence for weakness.
What did someone do or say at the bank that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me!”?
I’ve told the story before, but any bad publicity I can give BOA the better. Our local branch frequently is so poorly staffed that there is one teller and one officer. I went inside one day because, well the drive up ATM was broken as it commonly is. I wanted $100 in 20’s and I wanted change for a $20 with ones. There was a line of like 8 people waiting for the one poor teller. So, there is a “mini ATM” right next to the open teller’s window…in front of the windows they never use because of poor staffing. I went to the little ATM and got my $100 in 20’s. Went back and stood in line. Finally get to the teller and ask for the change. “Do you have an account with us?”. “Why, yes I do, in fact I just withdrew the 20’s from yon ATM”…(2’away). “Do you have your bank card?” My answer, quite loudly was: “Why, do you think BOA is dispensing COUNTERFEIT MONEY from their ATM? I just withdrew the money from there” pointing at the ATM. “It’s bank policy”. Everybody behind in line is snickering by now…
Second story, and this was the one that got me out of BOA…I was in the middle of a strange period where my wife and I had sold a house, bought a house, were flipping the second house and buying a third house…all in a little over a year. I was keeping a lot of cash in BOA during almost all that time. There was a brief period where I was getting into a cash squeeze. My financial guy suggested I consider a HELOC loan rather than cashing investments right then. Seemed sound advice…I made an appointment with the ONE officer in my branch. When I showed up, he was of course in another appointment and I waited an hour beyond my time. Finally, discussing the HELOC..They wanted 3 years of all my tax returns including corporate returns (I had also just retired and wasn’t in the corporation anymore), copies of all my financial investment info, etc. Mind you, I owned the house which was worth at least $700k free and clear. It is called a HOME EQUITY loan…AND he told me that it would likely take 3–4 months to process and approve. Well, that killed the deal. I needed the cash in a week. Borrowed the money from life insurance. I then moved to another more local bank, Southatlantic Bank here in SC. SUPER friendly, branch manager gave me his card, personal cell number, told me to call ANYTIME if I needed his help. I asked him how about if I wanted a HELOC loan from them…paperwork, time to approve? This was Wednesday. He said I could have the money Friday. Bye, Bye BOA…I think the “B” stands for Bandits…
CIA Spy : “I Don’t Want To Live In The USA When THIS Happens 2030…”
When did you realize exactly who your son or daughter really was?
When my daughter was 3 in 1990. I learned exactly who she was. It was picture day at school. I chose her Easter dress, a frilly pretty girlie dress. She decided that she would wear a sweatshirt with sequins on it, some pink houndstooth print leggings, troll scrunchi in her hair and troll clips on her shoelaces. We argued for an hour, until we hit the wall for time to get them to school and me to work ontime. I gave in. My daughter was and is a strong woman. Someone who knows what she wants and has a plan to get it. Today she lives in Virginia, studying for her doctorate in environmental biology. She has funded her education herself. We are still incredibly close, i hear from her several times weekly. She is in love with a young scientist from Panama who she met at school. Today i defer to her decisions, she thinks things through very well.
My son, i learned that i had done well when his boss told me that i had raised a very polite young man with a great work ethic. I take that compliment to myself since i raised them both alone. Work ethic is something that i was raised with. once you take a job, you must go every day unless you are so sick you cannot get out of bed. It originally comes from my grandparents who were millworkers. The story about my grandmother is that she walked home for lunch, gave birth to my aunt, then was back at her loom when the lunch bell rang again. I only remember my father taking one day off in his 40 plus years at General Motors. That day, He was hospitalized for kidney stones.
HUAWEI PURA 70 SHOWS CHINA DOESN’T NEED USA – china ignores rantings of senile biden…
Ahem, I have come to the realization that the average anti-China propagandists are just so illiterate and clueless, especially when it comes to tariff. “Chinese products are so cheap that tariff is hanging everywhere”. What do you think tariff does?
Let’s take this simple product on Amazon:
Made in China
True cost of this hammer:
Direct from Chinese wholesale: wumao! I mean 50 cents.
Sold on Temu with free shipping: $5.80
Sold on Amazon with free shipping: $11.98
Sold at local Japanese Daiso: $3
I just showed you 4 ways you can buy a hammer with 4 different prices. Now, the first way is not really plausible unless you are ready to buy 5000 hammers at once.
If US mandates a tariff of $5 per hammer, then we will be looking at…
Temu $10.80
Amazon $16.98
Daiso probably will not sell because it’s too expensive.
American consumers are paying $5 more for this simple 50 cent hammer. This $5 will be used to by bombs and missiles to shoot at little boys and girls in Palestine.
China will sell less hammers in the US. But for 50 cent per hammer, they can sell these hammers anywhere else in the world. Not really a big loss.
If US does this to every product from China, then American consumers are easily paying $100-$500 more per month. There is practically no loss to China. For a $5 product, you can pay $5 more. For a $100 product, how much more do you have to pay for tariff?
Then is it a good time to buy American made hammer?
China is a threat to the US because the narrative of American Exceptionalism no longer holds in a world which is rapidly becoming multi-polar.
The US’s leadership stopped investing in its own social development, becoming removed from most of the society, which became increasingly polarized to the point where nothing could change for the better.
China has shown the weaknesses in American hegemony which happens when the global leader fails to offer a development plan for the world which everyone, regardless of ethnicity and religion, can follow. By investing heavily in its own development, and overseas through its Belt and Road Initiative, China is showing a development path which the Global South and BRICS nations can follow, instead of the old way of relying only on racial, historical and religious differences to keep people divided.
The US stubbornly refuses to adapt to this new reality, which is why the US sees China as a threat.
What is the best comeback you used on someone?
I am disabled but you cannot tell from first glance.
My son was a cart pusher at Walmart and he brought me a scooter. We went into the store and the little old greeter started talking to my son.
While they were talking I stood up and looked in the movies at the RedBox that was a few feet away from them.
She said to him, “look at that fat woman (I weighed 150 lbs to my 5’6 frame) ! She is so lazy! I just hate people like her!”
My son looked at her and said “oh her? That’s my mom. She’s not lazy because if she was, obviously she wouldn’t be here. As for the scooter that she is in, she has epilepsy and her foot is currently broken. Also she was bit by a Tick when she was younger and the doctor said she was fine. She actually has ‘Late Lyme Disease’ and it affects everything from walking to talking. Yes she does have a placard in our car for the handicap parking, and she is stronger than most people I have seen with this disease! Now, would you like to keep judging people who walk or use a scooter in the store, or would you like to keep judging the ‘silent disabled people’?”!
She apologized and headed toward the main office, red in the face.
I told my son he was a bit harsh, even though he didn’t raise his voice and spoke to her kindly. -She was probably in her 80’s- He said he didn’t feel as if he was harsh because right before that she had commented about another person in a scooter. We just hope that she learned to be a bit kinder and to not judge someone before she knows their internal battles.
Rufus Respect
What’s the best thing to do if you drive past a cop over 100mph and you have a headstart?
Many many years ago, I was dating my now ex wife, visiting her in Phoenix. I had a Volkswagen Beetle and as luck would have it, the trans-axle went out Saturday evening. I found another one for sale and one of her friends had the basic tools, jacks, etc to swap it out, but unfortunately I ran out of time before I had to be back at work Sunday night at 10 PM.
Of course being a young and invincible teenager, I worked as long as possible, then at the last minute, borrowed her 1974 Mercury Capri, looking pretty much exactly like this:
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Although not a speed demon, that 2.8L V6 would get up to over 120 mph.
As I was getting close to Tucson, realizing I was going to be really late, I decided to “speed up” just a wee bit. Mind you, the speed limit back then was 55 MPH. There was very little traffic around 11PM on I-10, other than semis. I cranked it up to around 120 MPH for several minutes. As I approached a semi, I decided to slow it down a bit, and guess what was on the other side? Yep, Arizona Highway Patrol Officer.
Knowing this was going to be really bad, I just shut it down and slowly pulled over to the shoulder. He pulled up with lights on, stopped then exited the Cruiser and slowly approached me. I already had the window down, license & registration out. His first words were “Do you know how fast you were going?”. Being totally honest (because I had just that second let off the gas) I said “No sir, I have no ideal”. He responded “Well I clocked you at 98 MPH; what is your hurry?”.
Breathed a sigh of relief, because as I recall at the time double the speed limit was criminal. I explained what happened with my car, tried to get it repaired, and to work on time. Of course I was young, 17 or 18 years old; he gave me the “What would I tell your parents and your GF if you killed yourself?” speech. He went back to his car, then approached a few minutes later and said “I’m only going to write you for going over the limit”.
So to answer the question, pull over, that is what you should do.
Baton Rouge Chicken
WARNING! This is VERY spicy!
Baton Rouge Chicken
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Spice Mix
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon black pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
Chicken
4 (4 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Instructions
Spice Mix
On a sheet of wax paper, combine cayenne pepper, paprika, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, basil, oregano, chili powder, thyme and mustard. Mix well.
Chicken
Heat a large cast iron skillet or other large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until very hot, about 8 minutes.
Meanwhile, brush chicken with butter.
Dredge chicken in spice mixture, patting firmly to adhere.
Place chicken in prepared skillet and cook, turning once, until coating is blackened and chicken is no longer pink, about 10 minutes.
Place chicken on a serving platter.
Serve immediately.
Men Are Waking Up to the CATASTROPHIC Consequences of Marriage
Have you ever seen an employer fire someone without realizing what a crucial role the employee played?
In the early 2000s, my ex-wife was a Senior Systems Analyst for Sears during their long, slow, tailspin into oblivion. At the time, the company was going through one of their perennial desperation moves to stop the bleeding and orders given to slash and burn the employee lists to make the smell less stinky.
She related that during this period, the grim reality was that the employees knew when it was a purge day if they arrived at headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois (USA) and saw a line of taxi cabs waiting at the front door, those being staged for employees who were going to be given the boot and didn’t have transportation out.
Anyway, the bean counters kicked a senior network administrator who had been with the company for many years. He had designed, implemented, and supported a critical software application that had been repeatedly passed over for upgrades and/or replacement because it was still working and alternatives were…. expensive. He was the only one left at the company that actually knew how to run, maintain, and repair this system.
And of course you can see where this is going: some time later, the system in question crashed big-time, nobody had a clue how to fix it, replacing it would take too long (it was critical) and too expensive (they had no money left), so they had to beg and plead for the Net Admin to come back and fix the problem after the guy had demanded and received and agreement that included he be considered a Consultant, higher pay, full medical benefits, and immunity from being let go until they had the system replaced even if he wasn’t working on anything.
They never did get the money together to replace the system, he got a number of years of full-time “cake” money out of it, and the Net Admin was able to get a whole consulting business going out of referrals.
Pizza Delivery Driver 911 Call
What is the most shocked you have been when waking up?
A young lady friend, much older than me, married. She and I were such good friends that even though she was about to be married, she confided in me much that would normally not be confided in someone of the opposite sex. Shortly after she marred she and her new husband did not show up at a family get together on Christmas Day. They did not respond to phone calls. The family went looking for them. As newly weds, they had rented a very small apartment. It had a gas heater. The little apartment was so small that the heater burned up all the oxygen and she was dead. Her face was black, but he was still alive but died on December 31. I was probably 15 years old but my mother opened the door to my room and said “Sharon McBrayer is dead” and left the room. It took me a while to absorb that and go seeking more information.
Why was the concrete made by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago stronger than the one used today?
Roman concrete is like the Chuck Norris of building materials—it’s seriously tough stuff. Even after more than 2,000 years, Roman concrete structures like the Pantheon and aqueducts are still standing strong, making us wonder, “What’s the secret sauce?”
Here’s the lowdown: The Romans made their concrete using a mix of volcanic ash, lime (that’s calcium oxide), and seawater, creating a chemical combo that isn’t just sturdy—it actually gets stronger with time! This ancient recipe produced a material that could resist the elements, especially seawater, which is pretty corrosive.
The magical ingredient in Roman concrete is volcanic ash, which contains silica and alumina. When mixed with lime and seawater, it creates a chemical reaction that forms tobermorite and phillipsite, which are like the superheroes of mineral crystals.
They help the concrete resist cracks and breakage, and they even allow the concrete to “heal” itself, filling in cracks that do form.
Today’s concrete, while super strong and versatile, usually uses Portland cement instead of volcanic ash. It hardens quickly and is great for modern construction, but it doesn’t have the same self-healing properties or resistance to chemical wear and tear. It’s more vulnerable to cracking and doesn’t get better with age like Roman concrete.
So, in a nutshell, Roman concrete is the old-school bodybuilder of building materials—gets better and tougher with age, thanks to some nifty natural chemistry with volcanic ash!
PLO LUMUMBA Speech To Africa’s UPRISING IS INSANELY BRILLIANT and A Lesson for the ages
For almost ten years I lived in a mobile home. I bought it in Pennsylvania, and moved it to Indiana, a couple of times. Then to Kentucky, and then to Mississippi. We eventually sold it.
The thing about mobile homes… well, there are a lot of things about them. But my mobile home had to have a new roof painted on every other year or so. If you didn’t lay down a new coat of silver tar substance on the roof, it would start to leak. And, you know, no one wants that.
I would, at that time, buy a bucket of mobile home roof tar, and make a day out of it. We would get a brush and push on the coating on the entire roof. First going over the edges, then the seams.
paint4
Then finally the rest of the roof.
paint2
Now, this is something that most people who rent, or who live in regular homes, don’t ever need to worry about. But we did.
paint
Now, while I am happy that those days are over, ever now and then a memory is triggered and I recall an event from those days. One… in this case of me painting the roof silver.
Now you know.
Today…
What happened when a workplace bully went to Human Resources only to be told that IF they investigated his complaint against you, they’d be required to also investigate the complaints that had been filed against him by multiple other employees?
The matter was considered resolved.
A young woman, fresh out of college, extremely bright with a photographic memory, was tasked to do charts. They were documentation of company profits and losses. Losses mostly.
A seasoned employee, who had little patience for the bright young woman, told her to make a chart. The bright young woman could see, because she has a photographic memory, and this was her job, to track losses, that the figures were horribly wrong.
She asked the seasoned employee to recalculate the data. The seasoned employee said, ”Why don’t you just do your job!” Again, she asked the woman to recalculate the data. The seasoned employee said, ”Are you a fucking moron or just hard of hearing because you are a fucking moron?” Another employee heard this conversation.
The bright young woman sent an e-mail to the seasoned employee saying, per our conversation you want me to use the data included in this email to calculate the chart? The seasoned employee responded to the email, ”Does it hurt your head to be so stupid?”
The bright young woman calculated the data, sent the chart to the seasoned employee’s boss and explained how the data was wrong, what the data should have said, and that there was friction getting corrected information.
Immediately the seasoned employee and the bright young woman were in management’s office to resolve the communication problem. Another witness.
The seasoned employee went to HR claiming the bright young woman was creating a hostile work environment.
The bright young woman sent the e-mails, and her version of the previous conversations, including those who were present at the time of the conversations.
Apparently the seasoned employee had numerous complaints however those complaints were he said, she said, they lacked documentation.
The bright young woman was absolved of the hostile workplace accusations. She took her skills to another employer. Problem solved.
Time-Slip Artifacts: Modern Objects in the Ancient World – Volume 1
This is fun. The Pyramid stuff with Baogong is interesting.
The Russia–Iran–China search for a new global security order
While the collective west is in the grips of an existential legitimacy crisis, the RIC is devising its own security order to protect the rest of the world from the ‘genocidals.’
The Hegemon has no idea what awaits the Exceptionalist mindset: China has started to decisively stir the civilizational cauldron without bothering about an inevitable array of sanctions coming by early 2025 and/or a possible collapse of the international financial system.
Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his list of delusional US demands was welcomed in Beijing by Foreign Minister Wang Yi and President Xi Jinping as little more than an annoying gnat. Wang, on the record, stressed that Tehran was justified in defending itself against Israel’s shredding of the Vienna Convention when it attacked the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
At the UN Security Council, China now openly questions not only the state terror attack on the Nord Streams but also the US–Israel combo’s blocking of Palestinian statehood. Moreover, Beijing, just like Moscow recently, hosts Palestine’s political factions together in a conference aiming to unify their positions.
Next Tuesday, only two days before Moscow celebrates Victory Day, the end of the Great Patriotic War, Xi will land in Belgrade to remind the whole world about the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese embassy by the US, UK, and NATO.
Russia, meanwhile, provided a platform for the UNRWA – the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has sought to defund – to explain to high representatives of BRICS-10 the cataclysmic humanitarian situation in Gaza, as described by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
In short, serious political business is already being conducted outside of the corrupted UN system…
… as the United Nations disintegrates into a corporate shell with the US dictating all terms as the largest shareholder.
Yet another key example of BRICS as the new UN: Russian Security Council chairman Nikolai Patrushev met in St. Petersburg with his Chinese counterpart Chen Wenqing on the sidelines of the 12th International Security Summit, congregating over 100 nations, including the security heads of BRICS-10 members Iran, India, Brazil, and South Africa, as well as Iraq.
The SCO security show
But the key crossroads these past few days was the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) defense summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
For the first time, the new Chinese Defense Minister, Dong Jun, met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, to emphasize their comprehensive strategic partnership.
Dong, significantly, stressed the “dynamic” nature of China–Russia military interaction, while Shoigu doubled down, saying it “sets a model for interstate relations” based on mutual respect and shared strategic interests.
Addressing the full SCO assembly, Shoigu emphatically refuted the massive western propaganda drive about a Russian “threat” to NATO.
Everybody was at the SCO defense ministers’ meeting – including, at the same table, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Belarus as an observer. Minsk is eager to join the SCO.
The interlocking Russia–Iran–China strategic partnerships were totally in sync. Apart from Dong meeting Shoigu, he also met Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, who lavishly praised Beijing’s condemnation of the Israeli terror air strike in Damascus.
What is happening now between Beijing and Tehran is a replay of what started last year between Moscow and Tehran, when a member of the Iranian delegation on a visit to Russia remarked that both parties had agreed on a mutual, high-level “anything you need” relationship.
In Astana, Dong’s support for Iran was unmistakable. Not only did he invite Ashtiani to a security conference in Beijing, mirroring the Iranian position, he also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Shoigu, meeting with Ashtiani, provided extra context when he recalled that “the joint fight against international terrorism in Syria is a vivid example of our long-standing friendly relations.” The Russian defense minister then delivered his clincher:
The current military-political situation and threats to our states oblige us … to common approaches to building a just world order based on equality for all participants in the international community.
A new global security order
Establishing a new global security order is right at the heart of BRICS-10 planning – on par with the de-dollarization debate. All of this is anathema to the collective west, which is incapable of understanding the multifaceted, intertwined Russia, Iran, and China partnerships.
And the interaction goes on in person. Russian President Vladimir Putin will be visiting Beijing later this month.
On Gaza, the Russia–Iran–China position is in complete sync: Israel is committing genocide.
For the EU – and NATOstan as a whole – this is not genocide: the bloc supports Israel no matter what.
After Iran, on 13 April, changed the game in West Asia for good, without even using their finest hypersonic missiles, the key question for the Global Majority is stark: in the end, who will restrain the genocidals, and how? Diplomatic sources hint this will be discussed face-to-face by Putin and Xi.
As one Chinese scholar, with unique aplomb, remarks:
This time, the barbarians are facing a 5,000-year continuing written civilization, armed with Sun Tzu’s Art of War, Mao thought, Xi’s dual circulation strategy, Belt and Road, BRICS, renminbi digitalization, Russia and China unlimited, the world’s most powerful manufacturing industry, tech supremacy, economic powerhouse, and the backing of the Global South.
All that against a polarized Hegemon in turmoil, with its genocidal aircraft carrier in West Asia totally spinning out of control.
US threats of a “clear choice” between ending several key strands of the Russia–China strategic partnership or facing a sanctions tsunami don’t cut it in Beijing.
The same applies to Washington’s wishful attempts at preventing BRICS members from ditching the US dollar.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has made it quite clear that Moscow and Beijing have nearly reached the point of abandoning the US dollar in bilateral trade.
And the outright theft of Russian assets by the collective west is the ultimate red line for BRICS – and all other nations watching with horror – as a whole: this is definitely a “non-agreement capable” Empire, as Lavrov has been emphasizing since late 2021.
Yaroslav Lisovolik, founder of BRICS+ Analytics, dismisses the Hegemon’s threats against BRICS as the road map toward an alternative payment system is still in its infancy. As for Russia–China trade, the non-dollar high-speed train has already left the station.
Yet the key question remains: how will Russia–Iran–China (RIC), as BRICS leaders, SCO members, and simultaneously top three “existential threats” to the Hegemon, be able to start implementing a new global security architecture without staring down the genocidals.
Power Breakfast Bowls
Start the day strong with this savory whole grain breakfast bowl that includes sliced portabella mushrooms and a curry yogurt tahini topping. We’ve used barley, but feel free to swap it with your favorite grain such as quinoa or wild rice.
power breakfast bowl
Prep: 30 min | Cook: 20 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Yogurt Topping
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chopped kale
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon tahini
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
Breakfast Bowls
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 portabella mushroom caps, cleaned and thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 heads baby bok choy, sliced
1 cup pearled barley, cooked according to package directions
1 red bell pepper, julienned
4 large eggs, fried
Instructions
Yogurt Topping
Heat the olive oil in a medium-skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the kale and cook for 2 more minutes, until wilted. Let cool to room temperature.
Spoon the yogurt into a small food processor or cup of a single serving blender. Add the tahini, curry powder, and salt. Add the kale and garlic. Pulse in 10 second intervals until the kale is finely chopped and all ingredients are combined. Set aside.
Breakfast Bowls
Start by heating the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium-skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sliced mushrooms and toss to cook in the oil for 5 minutes, until they become tender. Toss with the salt. Transfer the mushrooms to a bowl and add the bok choy to the hot skillet. Cook over medium-heat for 1 minute, until it begins to wilt. Remove from heat.
Assemble the breakfast by adding an equal amount of barley to each of four bowls. Top with greens, sliced mushrooms, and red bell pepper. Add a large dollop of the topping and place an egg in each bowl. Serve right away.
Do you know of a case where an average student became among the best in the class because he started hanging out with those that are the best?
I was asked to tutor 15 PhD candidates (who were mostly university professors), who were expected to study in the U.S.A. for 2 years.
Their TOEFL scores were high, except for one administrative officer who scored 470 and one financial officer who scored 287. At that time, students were expected to have a score of 500 to get into a bachelor’s program.
They were already enrolled in the PhD program at a reputable university, and advisors had interviewed them here in Thailand.
I assumed that these two were allowed in as a special favor, but I had no real knowledge of the hows and whys.
The admin officer, who did little to improve, left our course and the PhD program with less than a month before departure.
The financial officer (call her ‘Dee’), however, attended every class, but her participation was stunted by the far more competent participants, no matter what I did to encourage her.
She was (quietly) considered an outsider, a non-academic and a non-proficient speaker of English by others in the class.
When they left for the U.S., I kept in touch with a few participants and always asked about Dee.
I needn’t have worried.
Dee completed her PhD earlier than was expected, much to the surprise of the others.
How did she do that?
Dee immersed herself in university and U.S. life, focusing on her tasks and seeking out advisors and other PhD candidates with similar interests. She was invited to instructors’ and candidates’ homes, and was quickly ‘adopted’ by their families.
A ceremony was held at the Thai university at the end of the program. She was greatly praised by the rector and others, while some of the professor candidates who did not complete the program stood silently by.
As a doctor or nurse, what were the creepiest last words you’ve heard from a patient right before the patient died?
Patients’ last words can be a window into their subconscious mind, revealing their deepest fears, desires, or regrets.
It’s not uncommon for healthcare professionals to encounter unsettling or cryptic last words, which can leave a lasting impact on those who care for the dying.
One doctor recounted a patient who, with their final breath, whispered “the children aren’t safe.”
The patient had no children, and the doctor was left wondering what dark secret the patient was trying to convey.
Another nurse remembered a patient who, as they took their last breath, whispered “I’m sorry” repeatedly, as if trying to atone for some unknown sin.
In some cases, patients may use their last words to convey a message or warning to their loved ones.
For instance, a patient who was a former smoker might warn their family members to quit smoking, while another might express regret over past decisions.
Some patients may use their final moments to settle old scores, confess secrets, or seek forgiveness.
The human brain is wired to respond to threats or perceived danger, even in the face of impending death.
This can lead to a flood of adrenaline, causing some patients to become agitated, aggressive, or even violent in their final moments.
In rare cases, patients may experience a “deathbed vision,” where they see or sense the presence of deceased loved ones or a higher power, offering them comfort and reassurance.
Ultimately, the dying process can be as mysterious as it is unsettling, leaving healthcare professionals to ponder the mysteries of the human psyche.
What’s the most ingenious car repair you’ve ever seen done?
I was at a bar, and this girl and her boyfriend got into a fight. She had a ’73 camaro, and he opened the hood and pulled off her coil wire. Then took off in his car leaving her stranded. I went into the bar, got a coat hanger, bent the ends so they would fit tight into the distributor cap and coil. she hit the key and it fired right up. I even impressed myself.
Another time, I was at the GW FASHION MALL, (Goodwill), and there was a guy with his hood open. says it won’t start. So I sprayed some starting fluid into the intake and it popped right off, but wouldn’t keep running. I had heard that if the fuel pump is going out, to give it a few hard smacks under the fuel tank, and that can knock it loose. I did it and it worked. That is just a temporary fix..
Another time, my son and I were on the highway, and my serpentine belt broke, and it knocked off the power steering belt also. I sat there trying to figure out what to do. My son said, *try putting the power steering belt on the crank pulley and the water pump/fan*. I thought that won’t work, but gave it a shot anyway. It was too tight. He said, turn it inside out and try it. It worked, a little loose, and slipped, but it made it home. Driving 20 miles like that keeping an eye on the temp gauge. We didn’t have an alternator or power steering, but got it home.
What made you think, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” when someone sat next to you on an airplane?
I was comfortably settled in my window seat, book in hand, anticipating the rest and relaxation my well-deserved vacation would bring. As my seat mate approached, I was struck by the six-inch rhinestone cross that hung from her neck. She began piling books atop the tray table, one of which was entitled, How to Convert Atheists.
Within a matter of minutes, the dreaded question was propounded. “Have you heard the good news?” I enthusiastically answered, “I have! The Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is legal in all fifty states. The Catholic Church is losing members faster than you can say pedophile priests and televangelists are being exposed for their fraudulent practices and extramarital affairs.” Before she could respond, I pointed to her book, looked her directly in the eye, and stated unambiguously, “Don’t even think about it.”
I returned to my book and suddenly heard, “I will pray for you.” To which I responded, “Knock yourself out, dear, just do it silently.”
What is that one secret that your parents have never told you, then all of sudden you get to know it?
I grew up in a polygamous family as it was and still a common practice in the African Traditional Society. We were and still 17 children. My father paid our school fees for all of us but only 50% of us completed our school while others dropped out.
Currently as I write this piece we are still 17 but we far apart from each other and father currently stays with my mother, the other 2 women (my step mothers), one passed on in 1991(RIP), while the other is married to some man.
Here is where the secret comes in, my Dad and Mum have been fighting each other for the past 28 years that they have been married, but they have never told us the cause of their fights, and for the past 28 years my mum and dad didn’t share the same room, but no one seems to tell us even when we had family meetings.
Last year around May 2019 the fight intensified to a point I thought they were going to divorce, we sat them down as family and we wanted to hear from them.
My Dad became very hostile when we started the meeting as he has always been, very defensive in his actions as our mother told us that Dad had been having extra marital affairs out to which my Dad completely objected.
Then boooooooooooom….. the shocking news comes out, the secret that mum and dad never wanted to tell us. Our first born knew everything but he kept this from us.
He decides to break the news that shook all of us the family members, that our step mother that died in 1991 was sick with HIV/AIDs Virus and when my mum realized that they went together to a medical facility and tested she was negative and dad was positive, and that Dad has been HIV positive for the past 28 years and has been on medication that he kept from us for all these years.
Our mother decided to stay in the relationship to take care of him and us but my dad has failed to see that and continued tormenting her by having affairs outside the marriage. I felt completely battered, shattered because I looked up to my mum and dad has role models when it came to honesty. They always told us to be honest yet they never told us what was hapening in their lives.This was my experience.
USA ADDS SANCTIONS to HUAWEI for INTEL and QUALCOMM – china must submit to old white man..
What is the most shameless thing you have ever seen a teacher do?
I was in 5th grade. My teacher was regularly given troublesome students over the years. I was in her class because my brother (one of the aforementioned troublesome students) had had her four years prior. Unfortunately, all those years of kids that made things difficult took its toll.
Early in the school year, because of constant arguments, our teacher started doing something she called IALAC (I am lovable and cuddlable). This meant every day before we went to the classroom, we formed a circle outside and had to say one nice thing about the person to our right. We also had an in class project every day. On this particular day, we were painting. I decided I didn’t want to use a brush and was finger painting. We had a sink in the classroom and I had always been well behaved and quiet. Other students saw what I was doing and complained. The teacher didn’t mind what I was doing but I washed my hands without being told and switched to a brush because I didn’t like conflict.
My classmates decided that if I was allowed to finger paint, they could do. Except they started painting each other, not the provided paper.
Our teacher completely snapped. She started screaming at us, singling out particular students and telling them just how awful they were. A bunch of 10/11 year olds being shrieked at. I wasn’t singled out but because my finger painting was the catalyst, I felt absolutely awful. I’d never been yelled at in my life!
After tearing us all down with her verbal abuse, the teacher stormed out of the classroom, leaving us alone, frightened, and our self esteem crippled. The teacher in the next classroom saw ours leave and came over to find us all sobbing. Administrators were summoned. Many of us ended up in the front office under the school nurse’s supervision. Two students attempted to leave school grounds. Parents were called.
Our teacher didn’t come back. We had a sub for the remainder of the year. I heard the teacher retired the following year but I was moved to a different school district after the winter break.
What is the most heartbreaking thing your child has told you?
I was pressing my teen daughter, who had asked to earn some money, to clean out our car. She was 16 and she had done it before and I would give her $100 for a good job (back in the 2000’s that was good money for a teenager for 3 hours work). One day she was stressed when she got home from school and was very serious and I reminded her that she promised to clean the car the week before and it never got done. I was gentle because I knew it was mid terms time. I said “If you get it done by this weekend I’ll add $50.” But she looked at me and just broke down sobbing. She was having a particularly rough day, it was…that time…and she was behind in studying for tests and she was trying to tell me this.
My daughter finally looked up at me and said “Dad! You’re not LISTENING”. I felt about 3 inches tall. I was thinking about other things that I needed to get done and this was just another ‘thing’ to check off and I hadn’t heard a word she was saying until that moment. As a pretty tough Army guy and all around guy of ‘manly pursuits’…I teased up and just hugged her and apologized. And I asked her and her mother to help me learn how to listen…to explain what to watch for with them. Since a serious head injury I don’t always get facial cues or ‘hear’ stress in people’s voices…I’m a bit oblivious. But anyone can learn and they helped me and have been ever since!
What feature in your car did you not realize you had until someone else told you about it?
Q: What feature in your car did you not realize you had until someone else told you about it?
I have always had bare bones automobiles. Even the one I ordered from the book didn’t have all the bells and whistles on it. My last car, before my present one, was a Chevy Venture more than two decades old that I paid a whopping $2400 for. I loved that car, but as fate would have it, it could not withstand hitting a pick-up truck directly in the rear axle when the assh0le driving it decided to pull out in front of me. A lot changed in the four years since I bought the van and it is now impossible to find such a bargain as that. Most used cars start at $10,000 and go up fast. I did find one dealership that had cars closer to my price range, and I got a generous settlement on my poor van from the insurance company. The best deal I found was on a 2007 Lincoln MKX. In my wildest dreams I never thought I’d ever own a car this nice! It had bells and whistles that Henry Ford himself could not have imagined! I thought I knew them all. Then one day I was out with my caregiver and she said something about my seats being heated! I’m from Wisconsin. If I’d had heated seats when I lived there, I would have been in heaven! However MY seat did not heat up, only hers did. It seems the car has a few bugs that need to be fixed. Where I live now, I don’t need a heated seat, but it’s nice to know that with a little tweaking, if I need one, I have it!
USA is crazy
If I walked up to you and called you Japanese and you’re Chinese would you get offended?
This reminds me of a bad joke that illustrates the question.
A Vietnamese man and a Jewish man are waiting in the Doctor’s office for an appointment and as the time goes on they become more and more irritated until finally the Jewish man says, “I hate you Vietnamese people!”.
Shocked, the Vietnamese man says, “What in the world would compel you to say something like that? Why do you hate Vietnamese people?”
To which the Jewish man replies, “Because you bombed Pearl Harbor!”
The Vietnamese man goes, “You idiot! That wasn’t the Vietnamese, that was the Japanese!”
To which the Jewish man shrugs and says, “Vietnamese, Japanese, what’s the difference?”
Stunned, the Vietnamese man says, “Yeah, well I hate all you Jewish people!”
To which the Jewish man replies in great indignation, “That’s anti-Semitic! Why would you hate all Jewish people?”
And the Vietnamese man says, “Because you sank the Titanic!”
“You idiot,” bawls the Jewish man, “That was an iceberg!”
To which the Vietnamese man replies,
“Iceberg, Goldberg, what’s the difference?”
What’s the best excuse you’ve heard for calling in sick at work?
It was over 35 years ago in sunny Southern California, right before work and school, when that infamous phone call was made. “I am sorry, but neither my son nor myself can make it to school today, as we just had a Tractor Trailer drive through our kitchen.
So yea, over 3 & a half decades ago, I was attending a private school where my belated biological mother was one of the teachers there. We lived mid-way down a massive inclined hill in Southern California in the Sand Fernado Valley. It was early in the morning with she & I rushing to get dressed and jump in the car to go to school.
As I was putting on my shoes I heard the loudest crashing sound, and the house shook. Thinking that it was an Earthquake, I ran to the center of our home underneath a door frame to take shelter. As I got to reach that area I saw dust coming from the kitchen, with debris all over the place. Since the house stopped shaking, I approached the kitchen, and to my disbelief, there was a Truck aka Big Rig, parked partially in our Kitchen.
I ran outside and saw one of our trees knocked down, branches of another tree that had fallen, and a Huge Tractor Trailor Truck sticking it’s nose where it did not belong, our kitchen. A man was getting out of the truck, his knee badly hurt, and bleeding, with him asking with desperation “Is everyone inside OK?”
He was parked further up the hill, with his wheels properly angled towards the curb (I am the grandson of a professional Truck driver, 3rd generation & eventually worked for gramps too), but his Emergency brakes broke, and with the massive weight and steep angle of this hill, his Truck went over the curb then back off heading straight for our home. It is confirmed by other neighbors, that he ran down the hill and managed to jump and grabbed the horizonal bars used to aid truckers to get into their cab, but in the process, slamming & cutting his knee against his truck, and just barely managed to open his Cab door and apply the brakes as his truck was crashing into our home.
You would think that this would be a lot more believable than my dog ate my homework or my parents’ car won’t start, but both my belated mother & I had to bring to that private school both the insurance report and police accident report.
What is an example of a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer and how did you handle the situation?
We’d agreed to buy and deliver about $10,000 worth of gravel the local baseball association needed to stop one of their fields from flooding. — The terms were that they would pay us back once the season started back up again.
By then, their treasurer didn’t remember that we’d done it, despite my invoicing them. At cost.
She said that she would check with the man who’d received the rock; their contractor; and, the President of the organization.
—
I never got a call back. — I tried this method three or four times, documenting each time, and then I tried a different approach.
We were developers in the area in addition to being a general construction corporation and owning a subsidiary ready-mix concrete plant. — The developer aspect meant that I knew a thing or two about lease agreements.
My guess was that they had a lease with the city for that property (land). Since our property (tangible personal/inventory/rocks) was now unpaid for but now an immovable/irretrievable aspect of the city’s property, I could place a mechanic’s lien against that property.
Lessees who encumber the landlords’ properties generally are subject to having their leases canceled. — Just standard stuff. Didn’t need an attorney to tell me this.
—
So, I sent them a demand letter threatening to notify the mayor.
I soon received a phone call from the association’s President informing me that they did not lease from the city! — “That was county land!”
—
Oh. — So, the county judge needed to be notified. My mistake.
A week or so later, I was at our main office, in my office, when in filed the entire Board of Directors of that baseball association. They asked my assistant, who appeared then, to be the receptionist, to speak to me. — Well, I saw them walk in, and I’d already gotten up.
The President of our corporation wasn’t there, so I ushered them into his big office with the big desk. The big desk that was built inside the office; it wouldn’t fit back out unless you knocked down a wall.
I got them some chairs and arranged them in front of the President’s desk. They sat down, and then I sat in the big chair behind the big desk and said, “Good afternoon. I am the Chief Financial Officer of this corporation and the manager of the concrete plant. How may I help you all?”
A white-haired lady at least twice my age asserted a couple of things, asked a question, and then made two statements:
WHL: You all said that you were donating this rock to us.
J: I purchased the rock and had it delivered to your location. That was never our agreement. — I invoiced you myself. — I would know.
WHL: If we pay this amount, do you intend to still go after our contractor?
J: Your contractor has a very bad reputation. I wouldn’t go after him as he has no money. Plus, you may have had an agreement with him; this corporation had an agreement with your association. — If you pay the invoices in full, I will have no reason to go after anyone ever again. Not with you all, that is; or, him.
The moment I write, “PAID IN FULL” on your invoices and initial them, you will be paid up. I will have nothing to collect. I guarantee — I wouldn’t try to collect a $0 debt. To do so makes no sense.
WHL: Fine. — She turned to the treasurer and said, “Give him the checks.”
—
Then, she turned back to me.
WHL: I want you to know: We will never do business with this company again.
J: Ma’am, with all due respect, and I mean that: If this is the way you pay your debts, we will not miss the business.
—
I verified they’d written out the checks correctly; wrote that information on their invoices; PIF; initialed. — Done.
I handed them to her and said, “Unless these bounce, neither the mayor nor the county judge need to know what has gone on here this year; and, if they find out, it won’t be from our corporation.”
Boy. They were not happy. — Probably because the checks cleared.
Some LeonardiAI text to images
Default Please create the sneakers of the future 0 7842d24c 4520 448a 94be a1a578bf8eaf 0Default epic full detailed oil painting picture of a bacteria 0 34f6e6b5 aaec 45f7 ada1 e9cde1ea17f2 0alchemyrefiner alchemymagic 3 48a572a1 a688 48aa a053 42ecce6ceea2 0Default Fisherman weaving net into the concept of the buildin 1Default Blac 3 a6f179f3 260c 40af 9e95 a99578875214 0
When have you warned of an impending problem, been ignored, and then simply waited and watched it happen?
“Don’t sit there.”
When I was in college my honor society sponsored a spring break trip to South America. We started in Brazil and ended in Argentina. Overall, great trip. But college students being college students, there were a lot of dumb assholes along for the ride.
In the middle of the trip we went on a boat tour to a little resort. The boat was a big motorized passenger boat of some kind, made up to look like a sail boat. I could immediately tell the mast and the rigging and everything was just set dressing. I got the impression safety was only a mild concern to the boat operators so I made myself comfortable but didn’t sit on or lean against anything that didn’t look like it was an original part of the boat.
Other members of our tour group were not as observant. This was not too long after the second Pirates of the Caribbean film was released so there were a couple of guys who were amusing themselves playing Jack Sparrow (what can I say, they were very stereotypical city boys; I think this was the longest time they’d been outside since they were in grade school).
They were having fun hopping around the deck and hanging from the ropes and stuff, and when one of them perched himself on a flimsy looking railing I warned him “Don’t sit there.” Of course he didn’t listen to me because he was a dumb jock who had already decided he didn’t like me for some reason.
Sure enough, when he shifted his weight the wrong way the railing broke and into the river he went. (Lucky for him we weren’t moving at the time.)
When they fished him back out he was very embarrassed and I was positively full of smug.
Slow Cooker Chicken Burrito Bowls
A Weeknight Meal Solution
(Family Features) During the hustle and bustle of the school year, it can be difficult to find time to sit down for dinner together as a family. However, on weeknights filled with extracurricular activities, homework, meetings and more, it’s still important to put delicious and nutritious meals on the table that can be served whenever your family members can find a few minutes to grab a plate.
slow cooker chicken burrito bowls
Prep: 20 min | Cook: 4 to 8 hr | Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 (16 ounces) chunky salsa
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups instant brown rice
1 cup corn kernels, fresh or frozen
Chopped avocado, for garnish
Chopped cilantro, for garnish
Chopped red onion, for garnish
Chopped tomatoes, for garnish
Lime wedges, for garnish
Sour cream or Greek yogurt, for garnish
Shredded colby jack cheese, for garnish
Instructions
In slow cooker, stir together salsa, chicken, broth and chili powder. Cook for 3 1/2 hours on HIGH or for 7 1/2 hours on LOW.
Transfer chicken to cutting board and coarsely shred; return to slow cooker. Stir in beans, rice and corn. Cook for 30 minutes on HIGH, or until rice is cooked through.
Serve garnished with avocado, cilantro, onion, tomatoes, limes, sour cream and cheese.
Notes
Dairy foods like milk, yogurt and cheese are on hand in many kitchens and provide nutrients people of all ages need to grow and maintain strong bodies and minds. These Slow Cooker Chicken Burrito Bowls combine dairy with chicken, beans, corn and rice + colorful garnishes for a meal you can set in the slow cooker at the beginning of the day and serve whenever hunger strikes that evening.
Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?
I lost a jury trial once that involved my client and another allegedly shooting a man at night in an apartment complex parking lot. A DVR with a video of the shooting was retrieved by the police as evidence. The DVR was returned to the manager wiped clean.
At trial, the victim identified both defendants as the culprits. He explained that both came within 10 feet of him while he was getting something from his car and he saw them clearly when the shots were fired. He knew them from previous run-ins and described their clothing and the gun in detail. The lead detective said nothing of value was found on the DVR. The Defendants offered weak alibi witnesses, i.e. a girlfriend and a mother.
The jury convicted both men and each received sentences of 20+ years. My guy was a habitual offender and was going to serve his sentence day for day.
After approximately a month into their sentence, I was doing a jail visit on another case. Another Detective, not on the case in question, came to where I was and asked to speak with me.
To my complete and utter surprise, he stated he couldn’t sit by and let the two Defendants do time for something they didn’t do. He sent a video to my phone showing the parking lot and the shooting. He had videotaped it on his phone when the DVR was at the police station. It clearly showed only one suspect with different clothing and a larger size discharging a firearm while the victim was reaching for something in his car with his back turned. He told me he didn’t want to be identified as the source and didn’t want anyone to get in trouble. I was so grateful for his action, I agreed to his terms and immediately called the other attorney, whereupon we gave the video to the Prosecutor and the Judge. I’ve never seen two men released as quickly from prison. I understand the City may have settled a civil suit in the matter a few months later but I was never called as a witness nor asked to reveal my source. To this day, I have nothing but respect for the officer who came forward.
What was the strangest thing you found cleaning out your parents’ house after they died?
My dad died in 1992, he was 58. I was crushed. While looking around the the finished basement in the house, opening random doors and cupboards, I found dad’s diaries. Nine years of them. He wrote something everyday. Even if it was “Nothing happened today.” His last entry was the day he died.
Finding these was so wildly out of the norm from every thing I knew about my dad I would have been less shocked to find a Playboy magazine under the Pope’s mattress.
A man can, and sometimes will, lie to anyone and everyone. But you don’t lie to your diary.
I learned all the dirty little secrets of my mother, brother and sister. I also learned dad’s true feelings about me.
He was proud of me. He knew at times I struggled. I was broke for a while. Eating in soup kitchens. I never asked for a penny. My brother and sister had their hand out every time they stubbed a toe. My mother…a messed up basket case.
It was a very revealing time. I miss dad. I don’t miss the rest of them. Only my sister is still around. We’re cordial but I haven’t seen her in a very long time. Of course, I live on the other side of the planet.
My dad was a good man who put up with a lifetime of shit exactly because of it.
What is the basis of China in their sovereignty claims on the West Philippine Sea?
China has no claims in the West Philippine Sea:
mapp2
The western edge of the Philippine Sea is the archipelago of the Philippines.
China does have, on the other hand, legitimate claims on the South China Sea that date back all the way to 1946, and were created by the Republic of China (the internationally recognized government of all of China at the time), along with the assistance of the US navy.
Oh, and while we’re at it, I think that I should remind you that at the time that the US was assisting the ROC in officially laying claims, the Philippines was still under US control. They explicitly told the Philippines that, according to the Treaty of Paris (1898), the islands of the South China Sea were not a part of the Philippines.
Are we seeing the end of US hegemony in the world?
Indeed, we are.
First of all, the USA is a global hegemon because it controls most other countries through the US Dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency. The US Dollar has been weaponized to punish countries that refuse to obey US foreign policy with economic sanctions.
The USA is also a global hegemon because of its military power projection with over 850 military bases worldwide and 11 aircraft carrier battle groups. The USA has been exercising its military power through dozens of conflicts, most notably in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
However, things are changing. The Global South is rising and pushing back on America’s nonsense. BRICS is helping the world to de-dollarize. This will weaken the US Dollar’s influence.
The USA also faces a crushing $35 trillion nation debt, which is growing by $1 trillion every 100 days. This is completely unsustainable and a massive financial collapse is imminent.
BREAKING: I’ve Received TOP SECRET INTEL, NUCLEAR PLAN HAS CHANGED, EQUIPMENT MOVES TO BORDER
I am closing this post with this…
What is the best excuse you have given to the police for speeding?
Once upon a time I drove from San Diego to Vegas a couple times a week for business. I hit snow over the first pass out of Vegas trying to get home before 12:00 noon. My car made it very easy to exceed the speed limit without realizing it. I got pulled over by a very angry officer who berated me for my carelessness. He repeatedly told me he didn’t want to hear ANY excuses! After about 3 minutes of his angry lecture during which I sat quietly awaiting my well deserved ticket he stopped and asked me why I wanted to die. I calmly answered, ‘sir, you just told me you didn’t want to hear any excuses, I’ll take my ticket now…I need to get to the next rest stop to use the bathroom.’ I got a police escort to the next rest stop. Once inside, I made sure to take enough time applying my makeup. I figured I escaped a ticket the least I could do was spend enough time in the bathroom to look nice if he was still waiting when I got out. One of the few times that being a woman worked to my advantage.
Russia Paints New Military Insignia on Invading Force – Same Symbol Used in Past Wars against . . . Khazaria
Russia has launched a new offensive into northeastern Ukraine, aimed at Kharkiv and Sumy regions. But the HUGE news about this isn’t the invasion itself, it’s the SYMBOL Russia is painting on this new force: ‘Rune of Gungnir’ — the spear of Odin.
Below some imagery of the symbol and its appearance on Russian military vehicles:
New Russian Military Symbol
Historically, the Varangian bogatyrs of Svyatoslav (Ancient Russia) marked their weapons & armor with such runes when they went to war against the Khazarian Khaganate.
There is now no longer any doubt, that Russia knows exactly who their enemy is.
For those unaware, a map of ancient Khazaria appears below:
Khazarian Khaganate
No other media outlet in the entire world, has made this connection. You got it here. First. Exclusively.
What is the most evil thing you have ever witnessed? It could be an event or a person.
I’m not going to talk about what I’ve seen on Dark Web. The things I saw on there I’m not going think about anymore.
But once I was in Walmart and saw a couple with a little boy of about six or seven. The boy was pushing the shopping cart looking happy and smiling, the couple looking not very cheerful. He accidently bumped the man in the back with the cart. He didn’t do it hard, just a bump. The man whirled around and shoved the cart so that the kid got hit full in the face. The look of shock and then the terrible hurt on this child’s face made me sick inside. He began to weep in the most pitiful way, in a way that my intuition told this was one of many times this man has been cruel to him.
So I’m standing there with my jaw dropped in disbelief and the kids mother met eyes with me and I shook my head in disgust. She was ashamed and dropped her gaze but all she did was pat the child’s back weakly while that asshole man looked pleased with himself. I saw everything I needed to see, what the dynamic was in this household, and my heart broke for this poor kid.
I considered saying something but the man met eyes with me too and his look was of sheer malevolence. He told me mind my damn business. He had this aura of crazy so I hate to admit I backed down. He looked like someone who would enjoy any opportunity to use it on someone.
Project 8200 Exposed | CIA Psychics Find Alien Bases Underground
I keep coming back and rewatching this episode and this is probably the best episode of the Why files ever!
Bolivia coup failed. Apparently irate civilians found out & surrounded the rebels. The coup leader is now in jail.
I was amazed and overjoyed at how quickly the people shut the coup down. The crowd that showed up to chase coup members out of the central plaza was inspiring. By the 1990's I believe Bolivia had amassed something like 150 coups, almost the same number as its age. I'm glad to see Bolivia now resisting and defying coup attempts.
Posted by: Inka | Jun 27 2024 16:55 utc | 14
One of the things that I have really learned to appreciate in China are the massages and spa treatments. Oh sure, and for sure, there are many variations of these things. From sexual release (which is legal in China) to just a fine relaxing back-rub and everything in between.
The truth is that I always feel great after I have one of these massages, and then take a nice shower and relax in the lounge with a cocktail or a coffee. Tea is the preferred beverage of many Chinese patrons, but I, being an American, find that a well made coffee “does the trick”.
It’s a shame that you cannot find these in the ‘States. Sure there are “fronts”; bordellos that pretend to be massage places in strip malls, but honestly, I like to get a good ol’ cheap foot massage every now and then. It’s so very relaxing.
After all, don’t you know, I do have a high blood pressure problem, and these things really help me along.
Massages is something that I never partook of when I live din the Untied States. I guess that I was just too “blue collar”, not low class that knew every street hooker in a fifty mile radius, and not too “upper crust” that frequented the “clubs” and the “golf courses” that surround the wealthy enclaves. I just lived a sheltered life, and for an American that meant “work cog”.
Work until you die. No fun, and allow everyone to put their hands in your wallet until you are completely spent.
Last year, my social security (retirement income) got a 3.3% CPI increase. Oh you would have thought that Jesus was coming down from Heaven, with all the airplay that it got. But hold your horses, actual inflation was 21.5%. That’s one FUCK of a slap in the face.
*sigh*
I’m really glad that I live in China.
Excellent food. Pretty girls. Calm and relaxing lifestyle.
When you get a chance, get a massage, you will appreciate it immensely.
Today…
Federal government CPI numbers are fake
A young fellow posted a video to TikToc showing he bought a month’s worth of food from Walmart in the year 2022 which cost him $126. By clicking Re-Order, he found the exact same order costs $414 today! The FedGov’s Consumer Price Index numbers are all fraudulent.
Worse, if he followed through with the order and received it, he’d discover that there would be some items that not only cost more per unit, but that there would be less product inside.
These price increases are not exclusively a Walmart problem. This is across the board.
It’s even worse than that. Hundreds of items have been completely discontinued in all major grocery store chains across the country.
Slowly but surely, we’re being forced to buy from an increasingly shrinking selection of items.
Moreover, BEEF has skyrocketed everywhere. Even tough, low grade cuts are radically overpriced (and cut thinner).
Even Deli meats are $14 a pound now.
Another person reports “I just went back to an order I placed on January 22, 2023. 19 items for $110, hit the re-order button and it’s now $264.20. WTF?”
A separate, third person reports: “I just looked up the earliest order I had from Walmart.
It was in April, 2022.
The total was $169.
When I hit reorder, the total is now $241.
That is 21.5% REAL INFLATION, per year.”
Government lying about inflation is not new. What is new is the intensity of the lie. I have never seen anything like this.
The government says the CPI = 3.3%
The people see that the real CPI = 21.5%
When you ignore the obvious red flags
What’s the worst thing your parent has ever said to you?
My father disowned me once. It was worse than the beating he gave me with his fists and a belt. I’ve never forgotten that day. My mother told me the next day he didn’t mean it, but coming from her that meant nothing. My father was a hard, cold man who played favorites and he loved my younger brother more than anyone. The rest of us were just “labor”, there to do his bidding, and we did. The neighbors called our house “Auschwitz” because it was a miserable labor camp where we were not allowed to play with them until every single chore was done and done completely, every day, all the time. I was mowing the lawn by the time I was seven. My brother hauled rocks in a bucket. The favorite brother would ride by on his new bike and wave at us while we worked. When we complained, we got hit with a golf club my father always carried.
So what did I do? I took it out on my younger brother, the favorite. I was cruel and mean in heartless ways that I am filled with shame when I think of them now. It wasn’t his fault. But when he complained to my father one night, up the stairs he came like Frankenstein. He was a big man, with arms like steel from years of hard construction work, and when he swung he didn’t hold back and when he stopped there were holes in the wall from when he missed me and hit the wall instead. But he didn’t miss often. The entire family watched in silence as I laid there in a ball and crying like a baby. “Serves you right,” my mother said, “For treating your brother like that.” My only guess was that they thought by beating me they would make me love him more somehow, only it didn’t work that way.
I’ve always loved the joke, “The beatings will continue until morale improves”. It has special meaning to me. I moved to college when I was 17. I never went home again.
Dinosaur finds
What’s the most ridiculous adult tantrum you’ve witnessed that you couldn’t believe?
Originally Answered: What's the most ridiculously unnecessary jaw dropping adult tantrum you've witnessed that you couldn't believe?
I was barely twenty-one and working the overnight shift alone in a convenience store. A boy about seventeen was a regular. We had talked quite a bit and I had learned a lot about him. It seems he had some pretty bad parents who had moved away and left him on his own. He had worked to buy his own car and was determined to graduate high school. A teacher at the school had taken him in because he was such a good kid.
One night while I was working, the boy was playing a video game in the corner. A man came in to buy beer. I was careful to request a picture ID because law enforcement in the area had been really cracking down and performing many sting operations. They could be very tricky. The man could not produce the ID and got an attitude, finally saying just give me a pack of cigarettes. I told him I still needed the ID for that too. He did look military and old enough but I had underage friends in ROTC that could pass that test as well so I wouldn’t give in. The man flew into a rage and began cursing and calling me names. He stormed out, got into his truck and gunned it. As he spun his truck around he smashed into the boy’s car who had been playing video games. I called the local police who also called the military police from the nearby base.
We had to go to court and I was called as a witness. I heard that he was reduced in rank because of the incident even before his court date but it got worse from there. I took the stand and his lawyer began questioning me. I will never know why but his lawyer asked if anyone was with him that night. I answered yes there was a woman waiting for him in his truck but it wasn’t the one he brought with him to court that day, who was apparently his wife. I felt really bad for her as the entire court room burst out in laughter, but she did need to know. Her face said it all. He was found guilty and faced several charges but that was the least of his problems at that point. That man had managed to destroy his career and his marriage all in one night.
Do you think you were reincarnated from a previous life?
I absolutely do
I died in 1891 at the age of 54 – as a farmer
I was born again in 1899 and died in 1931 due to drowning
I was born again in 1938 as a Young girl and died in 1954 at 16 due to Smallpox
This Bunkum is called Naadi Josiyam
A Charlatan bamboozled my wife and wrote nonsense for all of us in Tiruvannamalai
A Famous Charlatan nonetheless who took 10,000 bucks from me for stuff I could have written better
My Wife was reborn in 1963 for the 7th time and I was reborn in 1957 for the 4th time and my sons were born in 1986 for the 6th time and 1988 for the 1st time
So My Wife and Older Son were actually Karmically older than me in this Universe
He also said I was apparently a womanizer and lecher in my first birth (1837–1891) and died leaving a pregnant wife in my second birth (1899–1931) and died an unhappy girl in my third birth (1938–1954)
It’s why I didn’t have a daughter in this birth
My wife apparently died in 1961 at the age of 86 (1875–1861) in her Seventh Birth
However I don’t trust the guy a millimetre:-
That’s because he predicted that my elder son would have a love marriage that would disturb me and my family
He had an arranged marriage, as traditional as can be
He predicted my son would be professionally involved with the Government
My son runs a Hedge Fund with three friends and has worked in finance from his first day
So unless my son is a secret CIA Agent, it’s all bunkum
Or unless my second son reveals he was sent by Doval to China to steal secrets on Self Learning Drone Programs
His prediction says my present cycle ends in 2039
My wife who holds a first class degree in Physics is so convinced by this nonsense that in Trivandrum when I had chest pains and went to see Dr Tiny Nair, she actually told a relative “Nothing to worry. He is destined to die only in 2039 so this will likely be nothing”
There’s a lot of lesson we should learn from the Reuters expose on how the U.S. military spread disinformation in the Philippines during the pandemic. One of the most significant ones is to prevent Philippines and China from transforming their relationship from enmity to amity.
The U.S. military propaganda was simple: to make sure the Filipino masses will ALWAYS see China as a threat, which would then tie the hands of leaders who want to be voted into power. Why does the U.S. want to do this? Taiwan.
The long-term goal of the U.S. is to prevent the unification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland.
The real agenda of the U.S. is to keep the Philippine leg of its theatre of war against China. The Philippines is the nearest state to Taiwan, and from which, the U.S. can also launch attacks to Chinese cities.
To justify its massive military presence in the Philippines, the United States has to make sure that Philippine and China relations will remain in permanent crisis. It is never in U.S. agenda for these two countries to pursue a compromise solution. It is only by keeping China as a permanent threat to the Philippines that the U.S. can fulfil its long-term goal of having long-term presence in its territory.
If one would go back to the last 10 years, one can see how the U.S. has made sure that China will always be perceived as a threat by the Philippines:
1. Allowing China to have several fait accompli in the South China Sea: Scarborough Shoal, artificial islands, and I am afraid, soon it will involve Ayungin Shoal.
The U.S. has no intention in stopping China from doing all these things – didn’t do it in Scarborough Shoal crisis; didn’t do it in terms of artificial islands, and will never do it in Ayungin Shoal (hence, the very anemic copy-and-paste statements).
By letting China accomplish these series of fait accompli, the Philippines will be in a state of permanent crisis with China, hence, in a relationship of perpetual enmity. It is the narrative of “China stole these from us” hence we need the U.S. to help us get them back, which will NEVER happen.
The U.S. will keep on justifying its presence as a way to deter Chinese actions, which is belied by empirical reality. The U.S. military propaganda even escalated the narrative into preventing “China’s invasion of the Philippines.”
2. The U.S. military propaganda has prevented any joint development efforts between the Philippines and China. The earliest time I know was the joint-seismic mutual understanding between the Philippines, Vietnam, and China during the Arroyo administration. During my interview with former President Arroyo in my show Statecraft in 2021, I asked her about what was the U.S. position on that.
President Arroyo has told me that U.S. bureaucrats had been objecting to the joint venture. She took it up with President Bush who was surprised that U.S. bureaucrats were objecting to a research project.
The most aggressive propaganda against any joint ventures of the Philippines and China happened during Duterte’s time. Almost everyday, Western media and mainstream Philippine media were undermining diplomatic efforts of the Duterte administration. Filipino pundits beholden to Pentagon have made sure that Filipinos will not find these acceptable, labelling them as capitulation, selling out, debt trap, etcetera. These Filipino pundits have taken advantage of the largely uninformed Filipino masses on how joint ventures work.
If the Philippines and China successfully forged joint partnerships, ventures, and development, their relationship will be transformed from rivalry to partnership, as they have both stake in making the cooperative arrangement work. The alternative to that is perpetual enmity, of zero-sum game between the Philippines and China, which the United States wants to happen.
Just ask yourselves: How many times the United States initiated any diplomatic talks between the Philippines and China? None.
3. The U.S. will never back up the territorial sovereignty claim of the Philippines because that would mean being against not just with Chinese mainland, but also with Taiwan WHICH HAS EXACTLY THE SAME CLAIM AS BEJING, Viet Nam, and Malaysia. It is absolutely idiotic to think that the U.S. will go against any of these countries for the sake of the Philippines.
Thus, the U.S. will keep on encouraging Filipinos to pursue absolutely unrealistic goals. By keeping them in that state of hope that they could achieve those goals with U.S. help, the Philippines will be stuck in a permanent crisis with China, which the U.S. will use to justify its “temporarily permanent” military presence in the Philippines, which is nothing but for the sake of Taiwan, which is also a territorial rival of the Philippines!
4. The U.S. military propaganda will always undermine any diplomatic efforts of the Philippines with China. How many times our Foreign Affairs Secretary had any high-level meeting with his counterparts in Beijing in the last two years??? By preventing any meaningful exchange with China, the U.S. creates the perfect condition for paranoia: Fear of something you don’t understand; and you cannot understanding something unless you have meaningful engagement with it.
What would this do to the Philippines?
1. Stuck in a perpetual cycle of dependency with the United States
2. Forever a mendicant of U.S. largesse.
3. Maldevelopment brought by being in a state of permanent crisis with the world’s largest economy, the world’s most complete industrial system, and the world’s scientific superpower. All these benefits the Philippines will not be able to gain in a transformative way because the U.S. will not want it to happen. If the Philippines benefits from China’s rejuvenation, the U.S. will lose the magic of its propaganda against China.
4. In the long run, the country will be a battleground of a war not of its making.
Joint development with China is the only realistic goal. This transforms the relationship of China and the Philippines from a relationship in perpetual crisis into a collaborative relationship. This will not be accepted by the United States. However, it is up to the real sovereign of the Philippines – the Filipino people – to determine the fate of their relationship with China Permanent Crisis or Permanent Cooperation.
Joe Biden Now Shuffles Like a 2-Year Old Toddler
Bill breaks down Joe Biden's bizarre behavior in recent days, including his shuffling and mumbling during a major address.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called for Ursula von der Leyen to be replaced as president of the European Commission (EC), describing the past five years as the worst in the EU’s history.
When asked why he was preventing von der Leyen from being appointed to a second term, Orban replied: “Due to her lack of efficiency. The green transformation has been a complete failure of management, and the migration package does not solve the problem.”
“Europe needs more effective leadership. There are plenty of talented politicians who can provide it,” the prime minister said in an interview with German media group Funke.
“The last five years have probably been the worst five years in the history of the EU. The achievements of the European Commission and the Brussels elite are weak,” Orban maintained.
The Hungarian Prime Minister also noted that the results of the European Parliament elections demonstrated a clear desire for change in Brussels.
On March 7, von der Leyen was nominated as a candidate to head the European Commission at the European People’s Party congress in Bucharest.
What’s the most ridiculous adult tantrum you’ve witnessed that you couldn’t believe?
The most ridiculous adult tantrum I witnessed had to be at a Lonestar restaurant by a grown woman and her family.
My family was having dinner at a LoneStar restaurant. As we were just served our food, we saw a family get up from their table to leave. They were walking towards us to leave the restaurant. A middle-aged woman was at the front of the group and she was dressed up nicely, like they were celebrating some special event. My son and I both looked up at the same time just as the woman – middle aged, took a couple of steps and dived forward right beside our table. She landed face forwards with her hands extended to break her fall. She had high heels on and it was very clear to us that she tripped over her own feet. We saw the before, during and after, like a slow motion video. Her family was right there to help her up and she looked at us, embarrassed. Next thing we knew, she started to yell and moan loudly, so the entire restaurant went silent, watching her. She claimed the floor was wet. It wasn’t. She said she broke her ankle, but we saw her dive forward, not sideways or backwards. She yelled for her husband to hold her as she hopped on one leg towards a bench beside restaurant door, still in her high heels. She insisted that the restaurant call an ambulance.
The restaurant manager very quickly cleared the way for her to put her feet up and tried to dissuade her from calling the ambulance. All this time the woman yelled loudly that it was negligence on the part of the restaurant and she wanted the police. The manager came to our table and looked at the floor and saw that it was completely dry. No spilt drink, or food. The husband now said he saw a piece of paper on the floor that caused her to fall. There wasn’t. The manager was trying to reason with them and offered ice for her ankle, but she screamed for an ambulance and police.
The ambulance came. Yes! She insisted on an ambulance for a supposed twisted ankle! Not life or death situation. Just a twisted ankle. The ambulance attendants couldn’t believe it and we heard them telling her that there was no swelling, no sign of broken ankle, and they didn’t think she needed to go to emergency. She started to cry loudly but agreed that she would not need to go to the hospital. One of the ambulance attendants came by our table and asked if we saw what happened. We told him that we saw the whole event and described the scene to him. He rolled his eyes and walked to the front and left with his team. The woman and her family left right after, but yelled back at the manager “You’ll hear from my lawyer!”
We left our name and phone number with the manager, and told him we would be happy to provide witness account of what we saw. He was most grateful. A few days later we did hear from the restaurant -corporate office. They asked us to recount the event and said they’d let us know if they needed anything else. We never heard from them.
Trump speaks
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve watched someone make in their personal life?
I had a friend. We were nearly inseparable. Any free time we had, we were doing things together. Hanging out, playing music, meeting new people, racing cars, you name it we did it. As life often facilitates, we lost touch after I moved a number of times and I hadn’t heard from him in years. The last I knew, he was a healthy guy working a good job got his own place and life seemed to be picking up for him. I heard he had a daughter, though that might well have been when things took a dramatic turn for the worse.
The woman he impregnated, turned out to admit she was actually a lesbian and had used him to have a child as she wanted it to have his striking physical features. He was half German, and half Peruvian – a handsome fellow. Through the lovely court system they required him to pay an exorbitant amount of child support to a woman that admitted she used him, and was going to do everything in her power to prevent him from being part of their life. He tried like heck. The guy worked double shifts to try and be an honorable man, despite that at the pinnacle of his existence, his life was being devastated by an evil woman.
The emotional turmoil was too much for him to bear. Though this isn’t how I handle myself when I am experiencing stress, I can understand why he chose to do what he did. He needed an escape, his reality was just too tough to cope with any longer. For a man that wanted nothing more than to love a woman, and raise his daughter – never seeing her and being extorted for money was like a death sentence. He went from alcoholism to drug use. A couple of drinks turned into losing most of his body mass and becoming emaciated and on the brink of dying.
I called him one day after contacting his brother who said he could use a friend and that he thought he would be happy to hear from me. We talked, we reminisced about the days of old. I told him how my life was going and asked how his was. He didn’t say much, just sort of avoided the question. I said hey you know what, let’s hang out. He says oh I can’t I have to get some money. I said money for what? He says I owe somebody money, I have to come up with $2,000 by tomorrow or they are coming for me. I said I’ll give you $2,000 and I will come pick you up if you need a ride. I just want to hang out – money means nothing, what time is good? He says you don’t understand, I owe a lot of money. I owe more than $2,000. My cars gone, I lost my job, and now I’m royally screwed.
I wanted to think it was the child support that had him jammed up, but it wasn’t. He said oh by the way, I got injured at a concert, I hit my head. The doctors don’t know why but I lost all this weight, I look like I’m sick. I said that doesn’t sound right man. Be straight with me.. he says I am, I just can’t see you, you’ll never understand. Just get on with your good life, it sounds like you’re doing great, I don’t want you to get involved.
My friend would never be heard from again.
I can’t tell you where he went, or what happened. I don’t know if he moved, or passed away, there was no closure. His family went silent as they knew the truth but weren’t going to tell anybody. I would find out later that he was heavy into drugs that he would take intravenously, and that he owed a drug dealer so much money that it’s possible foul play was involved in his disappearance. To this day I still don’t know, which is very sobering to think about.
It wasn’t the drugs, or the alcohol that I find to be the biggest mistake.
It was him not reaching out for help, or accepting help when plenty of people around him cared enough and had the means to get him out of what ever he was into, and make it go away permanently. He was stubborn to a fault, and it might have cost him his life.
So if you or somebody you know is experiencing distress, please, don’t be too proud to ask for, or to accept help. If somebody reaches out to you, put your hand out and allow them to help you up.
Stay well my friends.
Distracted Biden Wanders Off AGAIN!
Have you ever been filled with blind rage and why?
I was pregnant with my first child and working in a hospital. I was probably third trimester, this child was long awaited, and I was proud to be carrying her. For the most part, people were respectful and understanding- coworkers and patients alike.
Then one day I had a patient who was not respectful, not listening to staff, and who threatened to beat me up once he got out of bed. He was actively trying to get up and throw punches. Then he tried to kick me. I lost it.
People talk about Momma bears and maternal instincts and I never took it seriously. I used to box in the ring (before pregnancy) and I used to equate fighter’s zen with maternal protective instinct. Adrenaline is Adrenaline, right? No. Not the same.
Maternal instinct was like being possessed by something very, very ancient and angry. While I can’t tell you exactly what I said to the patient, it was something to the effect of “How dare you threaten me and my child? What would your mother say if she saw you behaving like this?! I know she didn’t raise you to threaten pregnant ladies! Shame on you!” I could feel the truth in what I said and I knew he didn’t dare hurt me. I was invincible. In that moment, I was every mother who had ever been and who would ever be.
I swear the guy’s eyes bugged out and then he started full on bawling. I made a full-grown adult male cry with a scolding. He told me I was right and his Momma would be ashamed of him for threatening me. He promised to behave for the rest of the night and he kept that promise- he even became somewhat protective of me and urged me to take care of the baby.
It was a powerful experience and one I haven’t needed since. Thank God. I know that scolding was only a sampling of the power the rage had given me and I’d feel sorry for anyone it was directed towards- once my children are out of danger, of course.
Threads (1984) – Bombing Scene
As a medical professional, have you ever read a patient’s notes and realised that someone had tried to cover up a medical error?
I had a patient come in for a consultation. She was accompanied by her husband, who was very concerned.
His wife was in agonizing pain following an ablation procedure by a local orthopedic surgeon. She had radiating sciatic pain prior to the ablation, but afterwards she developed extremely severe pain in the area of the injection and was unable to sit or stand in a normal upright position. She’d developed all types of compensatory problems due to the limited and contorted positions she had to assume to avoid pain. She was in tears describing it.
The patient had returned to the treating MD, who had told her he had no idea why she was in so much pain and implied that she was hysterical or faking. She had gotten a second opinion from another orthopedist. I happened to know that the second orthopedist was close friends with the first doctor. They got a third opinion from another orthopedist who was a member of the first one’s group practice, and they all shrugged and said they had no idea why she was in so much pain.
Some background: An ablation procedure is a pain-management technique. First, the patient will have a numbing injection, sort of like novocaine, injected into the nerve root that’s suspected of being the source of the patient’s pain. If that gives them relief, they are considered a good candidate for an ablation.
The day of the ablation, the patient is given general anesthetic or sedation. A radiology technician initiates a real-time X-ray video (fluoroscopy) to monitor the procedure, which continues the entire time. The physician then inserts a probe into the nerve root and applies something that destroys the nerve root from which the pain is coming. The real-time fluoroscopic monitoring is important because the probe has to be placed precisely in the anatomical spot where the nerve root is located. The ablation can be done using heat, electricity, or microwaves (radiofrequency or RF ablation). In this case, it was an RF ablation.
The patient brought post-treatment MRI and CT reports in which the radiologist described “ill-defined inflammatory changes” in the facet joint at the level of the ablation (the facet joints are the two little joints between each pair of vertebrae in the back of the spine). On the actual images the facet joint was not even visible, the area being full of fluid and calcification.
The whole thing sounded fishy to me. Instead of examining her, I did something I would ordinarily never have occasion to do as a chiropractor. I contacted the hospital and sent for the operative report of the procedure. I sent her home, telling her to return after I’d had a chance to review the report.
When I read the report, I was shocked.
The orthopedist had dictated the report as though the procedure had gone just as anticipated and no problems were encountered.
However, after the report was dictated, the radiologist had gone back into the record and dictated an addendum. The fluoroscopic equipment had failed just as the orthopedist was preparing to insert the probe. The radiologist advised the orthopedist of that fact, and that the procedure would have to be aborted.
The orthopedist had proceeded with the ablation anyway, blind!
It was apparent to me that the orthopedist had inserted the probe into the patient’s facet joint and applied the destructive microwave radiation anyway. The joint was basically cooked and all the inflammation and calcification I saw was the patient’s body trying to heal the destruction. He’d covered up his mistake in dealing with the patient, and his colleagues had joined ranks and covered for him too.
There was nothing I could do to help this poor woman. As a chiropractor, I can’t adjust a joint that’s been completely destroyed. I did provide the couple with a copy of the operative report (which they hadn’t yet seen) and explained what it said in layman’s terms. I gave them some names of malpractice attorneys.
I never heard what the final outcome of the story was. I was never called to testify in a malpractice suit on the case, but that wasn’t surprising because I had never actually treated the patient and as a chiropractor, I legally couldn’t have an opinion regarding a surgical procedure outside my scope of practice.
That orthopedist was still practicing when I became disabled and left town several years later. He is probably still teaching, and still on the provider panel for all the local insurance plans and HMOs.
Let the patient beware.
China’s First Robot Army in Action SHOCKED Russian President
Why don’t people who bail out of jail just flee the area and go live in the wilderness if they know they’re going to prison?
When I think of fugitives who could live off the land in the woods, the only name that comes to mind is Eric Rudolph who was the Olympic Park Bomber. By the time that Rudolph was identified as the bomber he had disappeared into the Nantahala National Forest. For five years the FBI scoured the forest with bloodhounds, electronic motion detectors, and heat-sensing helicopters. They set up listening posts with cameras and hired local residents as scouts to search every section of the wilderness.The FBI put Rudolph on their vaunted Ten Most Wanted List and added a $1,000,000 reward tag for his capture. This caused a tsunami of bounty hunters to flood the forest, determined to make a fortune off of finding Rudolph. They all failed.
The FBI spent five years and an estimated $24 million searching for Rudolph and turned up nothing. It took a 21-year-old rookie with the Murphy Police Department named Jeffrey Postell to catch Rudolph in the act of dumpster diving behind a Save-A-Lot store. Rudolph said, “I’m glad it’s over. I’m tired of running.”
After his arrest Rudolph cooperated with the feds for a life sentence and directed them to a campsite hidden deep in the woods. It was scattered with deer hides, wild turkey remains, a high-powered rifle, and food containers that hung from the trees. They also found plywood, roofing paper, books, and cooking supplies. the Sheriff said, “you could walk within 10 feet of it and never see it.”
He told them stories of raiding dumpsters and grocery stores, digging through the dumpster at the movie theater for popcorn. He’d steal food from gardens and grain from silos, transporting it all in a stolen truck. he would boil the grains and then pound them into pancakes and fry them. He also told them that he lived off of nuts, berries, wild turkey, bear and salamanders that he swallowed whole like sushi. He ability to evade the feds turned him into a survivalist folk hero. Some people in the area wore t-shirts that read “1998 Hide and Seek Champion Eric Rudolph.”
Today, Rudolph spends 22.5 hours alone in an 80 square-foot concrete coffin in the depths of the Florence Colorado supermax prison. I bet he wishes he was back in the woods.
Joe Biden during an interview
WTF?
The story behind this photo continues to shock anyone who recognizes it.
In 1968, two men kidnapped Kim Bird. They put her in a homemade coffin, took this photo and buried her in the woods. They hung the photo on a local bulletin board and signed on the back, “I am buried in the woods, you have no more than 5 days to find me.” For days, passersby looked at the photo and thought it was a joke. Until a former colleague of Kim’s saw the photo. She immediately went to the police, but they didn’t know what to do. After all, they only have the photo, but where it is buried is unknown. Then Kim’s classmate started looking at the photo and realized that some letters are written strangely, highlighted in bold, and if you look closely, you can read the girl’s secret message….
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On the leaf was written Kim + Brad (classmate’s name). It was exactly the kind of inscription they had once left on a tree during a vacation in the woods as a token of their love for each other in high school. Brad immediately went with the police to the site and they found a fresh grave next to the tree. Kim was saved, but if she had been found a few hours later, she would not have survived. For many years afterward, neither Kim nor Brad could explain how it happened that she was buried there and how Brad saw that photo. After all, he had just happened to be in town for work, he hadn’t lived here for years.
Has a patient ever said something that sent a chill down your spine?
Yes. In the early ‘90’s I worked as medical staff in a drug and alcohol treatment program. Our program was geared toward treating patients who were lower income.
One woman, a single mother of 5, was brought in by her social worker. Said social worker was insistent that we admit this woman immediately stating that she was in imminent danger of losing her children. The children’s ages ranged from 9 to 8 months.
This woman’s 5 and 3 year old children had been found outside at 3am by a neighbor going through the neighbor’s trash looking for something to eat. The 5 y/o was wearing a dirty tshirt and stained underwear. The 3 y/o was only wearing a filthy diaper. This was in the middle of December. Department of child services determined that the mother had been away from home using drugs with a friend for almost a week.
We admitted her. It was her 4th admission in less than 6 months.
During her admission process, she was hostile and uncooperative. It was obvious that she did not want to be there. My tech had asked me to help with this admission as she was having difficulty dealing with this woman and the social worker constantly arguing about this mother’s need for treatment. The social worker reminded her that she may lose her children because she had left them alone for days. At this point the mother turned to the social worker and said “well, you can’t expect me to take my kids with me everywhere I go, can you!”. My tech and I were horrified by this callous statement.
This “mother” stayed in the program 15 days, just long enough to have a letter send to court stating that she was receiving treatment for her addictions.
10 days after she checked herself out of the program, her 5 y/o found some matches and set their house on fire. The 4 children that were in the house at the time died in the fire. The 9 y/o died a few days later. He had been looking for the mother and was on his way back to his brothers and sisters when he saw flames coming through a downstairs window. He died from injuries sustained after entering the house while trying to rescue his siblings.
It took police 3 days to track down the mother. They found her at a local crack house.
I can still see the expression on her face when she said what she did to the social worker that day.
WTF ALERT! RUSSIA “DOWNS US DRONE?!” NATO ATTACKS RUSSIA, NUCLEAR RADARS ATTACKED AGAIN!
Just when you think it can't get worse, it does.
If a person was to get rabies, would they go around attacking people like an animal would?
The story of a taxi driver, which I heard from another taxi driver, who got infected by rabies. 2009 he was bitten by a stray dog, and within few hours he went to the doctor for an anti-rabies shot. He got the first shot right away. A person who is exposed and has never vaccinated against rabies should get four doses of rabies vaccine – one dose right away, and additional doses on the 3rd, 7th, and 14th days. They should also get another shot called Rabies Immune Globulin at the same time as the first dose.
Now, he did get his first and second shot on time but then missed his other two injections. Fast forward 2014, he received a call from a customer for taxing to the airport. During a rainy night, he had body aches and headaches. In the morning, he started his day with a mild fever for a few days. He went to GP for treatment to which GP prescribed him Paracetamol, multivitamin, and rest. He took medicine and left for the client’s house. He picked up the client and drove him to the airport. Later in the day, he did his daily chores. While in the market for buying something he got agitated, and he said the cashier was about to hit him. They called the store manager, and the argument concluded into checking the cameras to see what happened. To everyone’s surprise, nor cashier or the driver moved a muscle. There was only a verbal argument. Back at home, he told his wife about what happened that he saw cashier hitting him.
Days passed, and his fever went from mild (99.5F) to fluctuating high (102-103). He still kept taking Paracetamol and multivitamins. Weird thoughts and hallucinations continued with depressions and him crying no reason. Next came the severe back pain and random seizures. GP wrote them for tests and asked for medical history in which they revealed the dog bite. They started with the 4x injection cycle. But nothing worked for the poor man.
Before the seizure, he’d become violent and even tried to attack his own family. At home, he was tied with chains and couldn’t bear the bright morning light. In the last days, even looking at the ceiling fan rotating gave him headaches and seizures. He was fed from a distance and would drool during the seizures. Only his grandfather went to help clean and dress up because the rest of the family was afraid of infection. Within ten days of reappearing rabies, he died.
"Vietnam is a vibrant and unique ancient civilization adding to the tapestry of a multipolar world.Hanoi pursues an independent foreign policy in the global arena and strongly advocates a just world order based on international law and principles of equality of all states and non-interference in their internal affairs.We highly appreciate the fact that our countries have coinciding or similar approaches to pressing issues on the international agenda.We work closely together within key international forums, first of all within the United Nations.We have similar assessments of the situation in the Asia-Pacific region.We see Vietnam as a like-minded partner in shaping a new architecture of equal and indivisible Eurasian security on an inclusive and non-discriminatory basis.We are grateful to our Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukraine crisis and their desire to facilitate the search for practical ways to settle it peacefully.All of this is fully in line with the spirit and nature of our relations."
Excerpt from the article by Russian President Vladimir Putin for publication in Nhân Dân, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, ‘Russia and Vietnam: Friendship Tested by Time,’ June 19, 2024.
The Granite Boxes Hidden in Egyptian Tunnels are Still Unexplained | Ben Van Kerkwyk
As a medical professional, have you ever read a patient’s notes and realised that someone had tried to cover up a medical error?
When I was the director of an urgent care in southern California, a patient came in for a gynecologic follow-up after seeing one of my colleagues a couple of days before. The other doctor’s notes stated that he had carried out a pelvic exam and that the findings were all normal. I said to the patient I would like to do a 2nd exam, if she didn’t mind, and she said, “What do you mean by ‘second exam?’ I didn’t have a first!” I was confused. “Wait, you don’t recall the other doctor before me performing a pelvic exam?” She looked at me as if I was nuts. “I think I would remember a doctor pushing and prodding my internal organs!”
I had a chaperone come in, did the pelvic exam, and released the patient home, but then I embarked on a little “internal affairs” inquiry. Since all pelvic exams by a doctor must be accompanied by a female chaperone, at least one of the nurses should be able to confirm if the other doctor had done one on the night in question. All who had been present at the time confirmed that he had not done one. This means that he had falsified the details of the exam and put it in the record. This is very serious. He potentially endangered the patient’s life because she could have had pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
Since I had known this doctor for many years, it was a painful thing to call him in and confront him, and after his admission, he was terminated. If I had ignored the transgression, then I would be guilty of what doctors (and the police) are often accused of: protecting each other and covering up mistakes. There’s no way I could be part of that.
Sad Cat Cries Silently In Her Cage Waiting to be Put Down, Then Something Incredible Happens!
Valentino the cat was rescued from horrible circumstances. But the cat was in rough shape.
She had horrible sarcoptic mange and got sicker each day that she was in the shelter.
They tried to help her. But she needed a lot more care than they could give her.
They couldn’t pick her up, because she was contagious to humans.
And she was sick and weak. After a while, she couldn’t even open her eyes.
The cat was in terrible pain and the shelter didn’t have money to treat her.
They had to put her down.
The sad cat cries silently in her cage waiting to be put down.
My father told me that it was life; my purpose as a young man.
And doing so, earning a dollar earned (by me) enabled me to earn the privileges of a “working man”; which was drinking beer at home and at the dinner table.
I started at 14, but really went full time at 16 years old.
At that time, I started to drive a car, drink and hang out. I had friends that I hung out with. Clyde (who also drove a GTO like I did)…
GTO
…and some friends like J Eck with his Ford pickup “beater”…
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…as well as my brother with his crappy Vega…
RS Vega GT 4
I was a piece of shit car. Fucking aluminum engine…
…and the “Bracky Boys” and their Duster (a very popular muscle car)…
1970 plymouth duster coupe front
Those Bracky Boys were RICH. All the time I thought that they were just some hillbillies, but no. Their parents were loaded. They came from Mo-ney! Who’d figure.
…and a few others with Comaro’s and Pinto’s.
We used to drink Miller Pony bottles in a 8 pack after work. That and smoke. Both cigarettes and the dreaded reefer! If there was one thing that I would tell my younger-self, now that I am an older man… it’s stay away from drugs.
Good times.
Good times.
Cruising late at night on the country roads and stopping at keggers and strip mines. A simple life. But that was what it was like.
It was a social – cultural thing.
Ice and beer
Ah… And something else.
Miller pony bottles.
Rolling a joint in the “shotgun” seat, and listening to BTO, Boston, Led Zepplin, and Yes. (Oh, and let’s not forget Robin Trower, and Neil Young.)
1. No one’s coming to save you. Get up and be your hero.
2. Never force anyone to choose you. You’ll learn the art of spending time alone.
3. Master your emotions. A calm mind can handle any situation.
4. To avoid disappointment, you need to take people for who they are not for what you want them to be.
5. Everyone will show you who they are, give them time.
6. You’re at peace with yourself when you mind your own business.
7. Ensure you take good care of yourself, if anything happens to you, the world will move on.
8. Nobody cares, work hard to get better every day.
9. If you don’t work to build your dream, someone will hire you and give you a purpose.
10. Free yourself from society’s advice, most of them do not know what they’re doing.
11. Life doesn’t wait for you to be okay. Get up every day and keep pushing through.
12. You shouldn’t take advice from people who are not where you want to be in life.
13. Life is 100% better when no one knows anything about you.
14. You become 10x smarter when you quit the news and put politics out of your topics.
15. You need to be smart enough to create your opportunities, don’t wait for them to come to you.
Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
This is, by far, my favorite homemade chicken noodle soup recipe because it’s simply the perfect mix of easy, wholesome, and satisfying. It’s creamy yet light, and benefits from the addition of potato, thyme, oregano, and convenient pre-cooked rotisserie chicken.
light creamy chicken noodle soup 1
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Light & Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Lightened up, yet still creamy and so satisfying
Can be made on the stove or in a slow cooker
1-pot meal
Using a cooked rotisserie chicken saves time
So much more delicious than store-bought soup
Make ahead of time and freeze
Good way to use up leftover chicken
Flavorful spices, herbs, and vegetables
Ultimate winter comfort food!
Best Ingredients to Use:
You need 1 big pot and a few staple ingredients. This is a forgiving recipe, so let’s review what can change if needed.
Butter: Just a Tablespoon, to soften the vegetables.
Vegetables: Onion, carrots, and celery form the mirepoix flavor base for this soup.
Herbs/Flavors: Use a blend of garlic, dried or fresh thyme and oregano, fresh ground pepper, and salt. Feel free to use other herbs you enjoy instead, if desired.
Flour or Cornstarch: Flour (or cornstarch) thickens the liquid, taking this soup from brothy to creamy. See recipe Note for that substitution.
Chicken Broth: Or stock.
Potato: 1 medium potato is the first magical ingredient in this recipe, because it cooks down and makes the soup SO creamy, hearty, and satisfying.
Chicken: This recipe saves time because you can use pre-cooked chicken. You could also use leftover cooked turkey, like we do in this turkey pot pie! I usually pick up a small rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, shred it, and add it right into the soup. Or you can boil/poach chicken breasts or roast them with a little garlic and thyme, let cool slightly (or refrigerate for a day or two), then shred or chop. If you have leftover chicken, you can also use it in recipes like my chicken quinoa salad or peanut chicken zucchini noodles.
Milk or Half-and-Half: This is the other magical ingredient that turns your homemade chicken noodle soup into the creamiest soup ever. Use 1 cup of whole milk or 1 cup of half-and-half. If you want to make regular (non-creamy) chicken noodle soup, replace the milk with more chicken broth.
Noodles: I prefer wide egg noodles in chicken soup, but you can use any type of dry pasta you like, or go noodle-less.
1 teaspoon seasoned pepper or garlic-pepper seasoning
1 1/2 cups dried egg noodles
creamy chicken noodle soup 4
Instructions
In a slow cooker gradually stir 5 cups water into the soup. Whisk until smooth.
Stir in chicken, vegetables and seasoned pepper.
Cover; cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours.
If using low heat setting, turn to HIGH.
Stir in noodles.
Cover and cook for 20 to 30 minutes more or until noodles are just tender.
creamy chicken noodle soup 2
How Does the Soup Thicken Up?
Cooking down the onion, carrots, and celery is a key step in the recipe. After you cook them down, add flour and your herbs. The flour will absorb the liquid from the softening vegetables, and create a nice thick base for the soup. This is exactly how we start biscuit vegetable pot pie, too.
Whole milk or half-and-half also thicken up the soup. I’ve even made it with half the amount (1/2 cup or 120ml) heavy cream in a pinch. (Add more chicken broth if you use heavy cream; see recipe Note.)
Nice and thick, without being too heavy.
Can I Skip the Noodles or Use Rice Instead?
Yes. Feel free to skip the noodles entirely with no other changes to the recipe. Or you can use 1 cup of uncooked rice instead. Add it when you would add the noodles.
This Soup Satisfies. Period.
One bowl of this light & creamy chicken noodle soup will leave you feeling satisfied for hours, without feeling weighed down. This is the meal that keeps on giving because if you have a smaller family, there will be plenty of leftover soup to enjoy during the week.
Take shooting lessons
Do you think China steals American spacecraft designs?
THE CHOICE OF WORDS BY THE WEST IS ALWAYS – BIAS & PROPAGANDA.
Chinese CCTV cameras are being called surveillance cameras, but the Western CCTV cameras are called security cameras
Chinese landing on Mars is called conquer, US landing on Mars is called exploration.
Terrorist in China is called – freedom fighter, terrorist in the West, of course, is called – terrorist.
US government is called administration. Chinese government is called regime.
US/West invasion in Middle East is called liberation. Russian invasion … well, is called invasion.
The US invasion and organized coup on more than 25 countries since WWII is referred to as following “International rule-based order”.. China fought 4 borders wars and voluntarily withdrew to its borders (before the wars) since WW ll is referred to as “A threat to international rule based order”
The US government that can be bought with money is called “Democracy.” The Chinese government that cannot be bought with money is called “Dictatorship”.
Wars led by the US with the support of the West – killed and maimed millions all over the world is called the “Civilized West”. China which lifted 800 million from extreme poverty in the past 40 years (according to the UN and World Bank) is referred to as “Totalitarian.”.
JUST A SINGLE WORD DIFFERENCE – CAN BRAINWASH YOU.
What is the most jaw-dropping method for shoplifting that you have seen?
I had a friend in college at the University of Utah.
He was at the University of Utah because he’d gotten kicked out of BYU.
The reason he was kicked out was listed as “criminal mastermind”.
What actually happened was much more mundane, but, he was a criminal mastermind of sorts.
His roommate, and a friend of his roommate, were planning on a theft at the BYU bookstore. Realize that there was nearly absolutely no security in those days, and though cameras were a thing, you never saw them outside high end retailers, like jewelry stores, and certainly not in college or University bookstores.
His roommate, and the roommate’s friend, were plotting a burglary, and pretty much ignoring my friend, who was studying.
They eventually settled on grabbing as much high end camera equipment as they could (the most expensive thing in the store at the time, since it predated laptops, which tells you how long ago this was), and then running for the door.
Finally, my friend could stand their stupidity no longer, and pointed out that they would be caught, how they would be caught, and the fact that, since they were going to school there, if no one recognized them immediately, they would be eventually, as in, the next time they had to buy textbooks.
They sneered at my friend, and asked him, “If you’re so smart, what would you do?”.
And my friend told them.
The entire store had hanging ceilings- including in the dressing room.
These ceilings wouldn’t hold their weight, but they’d hold some weight.
And the store had a camping department, where there were a variety of display sleeping bags, hung from the bottom, against the wall.
And the store, as college bookstores tend to do, sold backpacks.
And with these things in mind, my friend laid out a plan, never really expecting that his roommate, and the roommate’s friend were idiot enough to follow through on it.
The next Tuesday, there was a burglary reported of the BYU bookstore. Authorities were mystified, because there were no signs of breaking and entering, all the locks were securely locked, and when searched, there was no one in the store.
His roommate, who’d been missing since late Monday, showed up Wednesday morning.
Having implemented the first part of the plan, of course.
He and his friend had hidden (standing) in the sleeping bags against the wall until the store closed, everyone left, and the store was locked up.
Then, they loaded up a bunch of identical blue backpacks with the stuff they wanted to steal, and hid them in the hanging ceiling above the men’s dressing rooms.
And then, they hid in the sleeping bags again, until the store reopened normally, then left with the after-lunch crowd.
And then, they implemented the second part of the plan.
Each day, for the next week…
They walked in with a blue backpack.
They tried on clothes and, occasionally, bought a T-Shirt or other item of clothing.
They walked out with a blue backpack.
They walked in with a blue backpack.
They walked out with a blue backpack.
How was the case cracked?
Guilt.
The friend of the roommate started hearing “God”.
“God” told him to confess.
That nothing bad would happen.
But that he needed to confess.
Two weeks after the last backpack exchange, he did so.
The police found backpacks full of crumpled newspaper in the hanging ceiling in the men’s dressing room, confirming the confession.
The thieves got kicked out of BYU; the one that came clean got 3 months plus probation; the one who didn’t, got six months plus probation.
My friend (the one not involved in the robbery) saw the whole thing as nothing more than an intellectual exercise and felt he could help solve their problem in a better way after hearing them planning the burglary badly (in front of him)- he got expelled.
They couldn’t charge him though because there was no intent, and it was pretty clear he didn’t expect the roommate, or the roommate’s friend to go through with it — and all the loot was stored in the friend’s dorm room — but they had to do something. You know: send a message.
And so… they expelled him.
For being a criminal mastermind.
He cracked the code
What’s the most impressive thing your parent(s) have done?
They lied to me for 54 years. Successfully.
at 21 I was complaining to my cousin that I loathed my father and was sick of his abuse. Her reply “what if I told you that he’s not your father?” for two years my parents told me that it’s a lie and to drop it.
dad dies in 2004. A few years later I get suspicious again because my siblings have diabetes (perfectly healthy and fit). I don’t. Dads parents and aiblings ll had it by 50. But I don’t act on it.
2010 youngest goes off to college and the hubs and I get a call from mom that she would like to share her home with us. I asked why, she said “because I need one of my kids on my side, the other 4 want me in a nursing home.” Her only health issue was Parkinson’s. She had it for 30 years but wasn’t disabled or senile until 2–3 years before her death in 2021 (Jan 2021)
One day in 2014 she is asking me to show her how to look up and old beau. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find him. He had a super rare name so I was surprised. I don’t think twice about it but it’s really important.
2018, my sibs and I are arguing over our heritage. Some think we are Scottish. Some Irish. We all order tests, take them the same day and ship them off. We all get our results the same day. We are in fact Scottish, or should I say THEY are. And right there were it says father is a name I recognize. Moms “old beau”. Wtf? So the man had his dna on ancestry dot com at 84, could he have known about me? I quickly email him. No answer but he has two sons. I quickly emailed one of them. He gets back to me. They had no idea and sadly my birth father had died 7 months prior. They say he would have welcomed me with open arms and would have loved me
So they successfully lied. I was suspicious because I was the only one he physically disciplined. First I was angry that mother allowed this man to lay hands on me. Knowing he wasn’t my father and most likely taken it out on me that mom lied to him.
The saddest part is they had at least 3 chances to tell me. Instead I found out myself 7 months too late. They cheated me out of a dad and a better life. I don’t grieve for them. Not like a Daughter would really. I loved them, I just can’t grieve with all this anger over being their dirty little secret and robbing me of knowing my biological dad. Friends say “oh but he was your father, he raised you and blah blah blah. No. He’s not my father. He mistreated me and abused me. So to hell with him.
Anyone that read this far, I thank you. Those that didn’t, I’m sorry I babbled on.
UPDATE – Yes I am in contact with and have a relationship with one of my half brothers. The other I was told to contact with extreme caution as he is “trouble” and lord knows I don’t need that. Maybe someday I’ll reach out. I don’t know. I don’t see my half brother as much as I’d like but we are 3 hours away from each other. We do exchange pleasantries and such on holidays.
"The West must be factoring our response into its projections all while plotting against us. They are trying to put themselves into our shoes, while sticking to their own mentality.
As for their mentality… Only recently, Mark Episkopos, a prominent American political scientist, chastised the West, including from a purely utilitarian and pragmatic standpoint.
Take sanctions, for example. Usually, they are designed to change the way their subject behaves. If you want them to be effective, you need to adjust these sanctions based on the response from those who endure them.
The West has been carelessly expanding its sanctions without giving any thought to the possible outcomes.
But the outcome was clear to begin with, even before the special military operation when the Crimean sanctions, as well as a host of other sanctions, were already in place.
The result was clear. We pulled together, and I do hope that we will become even more focused.
We have to go further, as Vladimir Putin said many times. We pulled together and decided not to depend on them in any sectors where they can restrain or hold back our development, and possibly in other sectors too.
Today, they pride themselves for getting rid of Russian gas.
First, supplies have been on the rise in many countries, including France.
Italy took pride in claiming that over the past three years the share of Russian gas in Italian imports declined from 90 percent all the way down to zero.
This is what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz boasted of when describing his efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on Russian energy imports, while promising to end the dependence on them completely down the road.
Many European have been making statements along the same lines, including the Netherlands, and almost all Western and some Eastern European countries.
But at what cost? How much did they have to spend and how have their spending on serving their people increased?
Nobody answered these questions. Still, people can see through these ramifications.
Mr Episkopos went on say that failing to anticipate the way Russia would respond to these developments was a huge mistake.
The West fails to understand that sanctions can be effective only if the subject is ready to change its behaviour for the sake of having these sanctions lifted.
The second point Mr Episkopos made was that if the country subjected to sanctions already said that it was not going to change its behaviour, keeping these sanctions in place would be pointless and careless.
This is the kind of policy our would-be colleagues have opted for."
Excerpt from remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview with the radio stations Sputnik, Govorit Moskva, and Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow, April 19, 2024.
How to be a man
One of the unremarked things that has happened over the past ten years is the collapse of the so-called man-o-sphere. There may be people still working that land, but all the big names have moved on or disappeared. The pickup artist have all disappeared from the internet entirely. That whole scene just seems to have folded up and gone the way of the dinosaur without anyone noticing.
One reason is the demographic aged out of the material. A guy like Heartiste, for example, could do the pickup artist stuff when he was early middle-age, but once you hit fifty you become a skeevy weirdo, not a Don Juan. The same holds for the other subcultures in that space. Once you reach middle-age, it all starts to sound a bit weird and pointless, even to the people making money off it.
There is another aspect to it. That whole scene was a reaction to the feminization of the culture starting with second wave feminism. The next generation of males have no frame of reference in which to have a reaction. The typical Zoomer has been raised in the longhouse, to use the cool kid’s term. He has no way of knowing that all of this is both weird and unnatural.
That is the point of the show. The male role is not a slippery concept that changes from one generation to the next. It has been revolutionized and pulverized over the last few decades, but that is what makes this age anomalous. The male role in society is timeless, at least in the Western world. There are certain immutable characteristic to being a man that will reassert themselves in the coming years.
IT JUST DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE! Retirement and Jobs ARE FINISHED!
And then a large group of activists who had taken over a university surrendered to police, causing the newspaper publisher to declare: “That wiped out my best men.”
Meanwhile, Lai’s right-hand man, former US intelligence officer Mark Simon, gave the go-between a company he said was of a covert nature and could be used to liaise with foreign organizations and collect funds.
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ASTONISHING REVELATIONS
Extraordinary revelations came this week from the ongoing trial of newspaperman Jimmy Lai, 76, confirming US involvement, and the role of the publisher and his former US intelligence officer partner Mark Simon in backing the violent protests that roiled normally peaceful Hong Kong five years ago.
Testimony from a go-between named Wayland Chan Tsz-wah, 32, detailed the problems that arose during the period after a legal extradition amendment was withdrawn. Protesters continued to use it as an excuse for an increasingly violent insurgency, with terrorist-grade bomb factories discovered at several locations.
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G7 RECOMMENDATION
Background: In 2018, civil servants at Hong Kong’s Department of Justice continued their routine updating of the city’s British Common Law legislation. The city already had Asia’s highest-rated legal system, but to keep at the top, they followed a recommendation from a G7 financial law committee to upgrade the city’s extradition law.
In the British era, arrested individuals from Mainland China had been simply put in vans, driven to the border, and dropped off “over the line”.
The new extradition amendment gave people detained for specific serious crimes due legal protection. They could only be extradited after a lengthy process of hearings, typically taking 12 to 24 months.
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MISINFORMATION
However, by the first half of 2019, an extreme campaign of disinformation had totally misrepresented the amendment. The amendment was falsely painted as a new law “from Beijing” that enabled people (and even tourists) to be “snatched” from the city and “disappeared” in mainland China for political misdemeanours.
The misinformation led to hundreds of thousands of protesters (organizers claimed “millions”) hitting the streets in June calling for its withdrawal.
The amendment was withdrawn the same month, but anti-China groups continued the protests, turning it into a violent insurgency that caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage, shutting down the airport and wrecking scores of metro stations.
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STOP THE VIOLENCE
In July of 2019, US officials told newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai to tone down the violence, the court heard.
This was a problem for several reasons. First, he had repeatedly told his newspaper staff to report events in a way that deliberately removed the gap between Hong Kong’s peaceful protesters and the violent “localist” thugs that smashed up or burned restaurants owned by families from Mainland China. This was described by his staff in earlier court hearings.
Second, he had been financially backing the “old school” pro-American political individuals and groups in Hong Kong for years – often exactly the same anti-China politicians receiving cash or support from various US groups. But did not personally know the new generation of young “localist” leaders. He would need a go-between.
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THE GO-BETWEEN
In July, the publisher arranged to meet Wayland Chan Tsz-wah, a paralegal aged 32, who he believed to be a high ranking activist who could spread the new message to a cluster of violent groups known as “the valiants”.
The paralegal was invited to go to a designated restaurant and was asked to hand over his phone “for security reasons” before Jimmy Lai talked to him, the court was told.
When he had done so, the publisher told him that things would have to change. The United States now wanted “no police or civilian fatalities”. Furthermore, they had said that the violence “should stop at some point”.
Lai wanted this message taken to the violent groups, which were divided into multiple sub-groups with their own names, including JD Team, G20, Pink, Dragonslayer and others. (The code name for Jimmy Lai and Mark Simon was “Backer”.)
Wayland Chan met with the publisher several times, he said, always having to give up his phone before conversations started. On one occasion, they met in a car parked near Hong Kong’s Supreme Court, the court heard.
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US OPERATIONS
Between face-to-face meetings, the younger activist received Whatsapp messages from Jimmy Lai about US progress in the anti-China effort, he told the court.
Two American operations had been set up with Hong Kong in their names. One was a lobby group working to create the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” and the other was a group called the “Hong Kong Democracy Council”.
They were working to get western countries to sanction Hong Kong, remove its privileges, and damage its main sources of income – finance and tourism — although the community had done literally nothing to deserve such a punishment.
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INITIALLY UNAWARE
Wayland Chan told the court that he had not been aware at first of the nature of the relationship between the anti-China publisher and US officials.
“Only when he told me at a later stage about the US Government’s internal considerations, did I realise Jimmy Lai was not simply rallying for international support, but he knew certain criteria [set by US officials] and was trying to meet them,” he said at the hearing in the West Kowloon court this week.
Chan contacted leading “valiant” individuals but struggled to get the message over to them, he said. In one case, his contact refused to believe that the message came from Jimmy Lai.
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MAN SET ON FIRE
The insurgency remained out of control, and the violence got worse. Bomb factories were set up, and weapons smuggled into the city. One group started making TATP, the explosive used in the London bombings of 7 July 2005.
In November of 2019, an old man tried to stop protesters smashing up a metro station in Ma On Shan, in a rural part of Hong Kong. The old man was doused in petrol as they tried to burn him alive.
Jimmy Lai was dismayed, and contacted Wayland Chan for another meeting, also calling representatives of the old-school pro-American political groups known as the pan-democrats.
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MAROONED
The newspaper publisher also faced another setback later the same month, when protesters marooned themselves at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which was situated on a single city block.
Police took no action, but simply waited at the entrances, playing a range of popular music. After about 12 days, the protesters, bored and hungry, gave themselves up, walking out with their hands up.
“That wiped out my best men,” Jimmy Lai told Chan, the court heard.
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CHAN’S REWARD
About two weeks later, Wayland Chan was invited to meet Mark Simon at the Hyatt Hotel in Shatin. As a reward to Chan, an overseas company with money in its bank account would be set up, he was told.
This idea ran into an immediate difficulty. Hong Kong had strong policies against money laundering, which meant that it was difficult to open a bank account in the city for a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
When Jimmy Lai was told this, the publisher decided to offer one of his unused companies to Chan as a reward, and asked an assistant named Evan Lau to handle the formalities, the court heard.
In early 2020, Chan attended a meeting where a company named Lacock Inc, owned by Jimmy Lai, was transferred to him. It had an HSBC account containing HK$80,000.
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FOREIGN ORGANIZATIONS
But then came another issue. Wayland Chan saw the company as his personal reward, and wanted to use it to develop his own business.
Mark Simon had other ideas, of an ideological nature. He felt it should be used to as a channel for overseas groups to continue to contribute to their anti-China campaign.
Mark Simon told Chan that the company was of covert nature and could be used to liaise with foreign organizations and collect funds, the court heard.
The trial continues.
Have you ever stolen something back after getting robbed?
The company I work for gave everyone a nice company coat for Christmas. I took a marker and marked the inside tag with my name so that I would know if it was mine (all the coats looked the same).
One day, before heading for home, I looked at the peg where my coat had been hanging, and it wasn’t there. I checked all the coats…mine was gone, as were my favorite sunglasses.
I told management, who expressed regret, but there were no coats left.
Two weeks passed…and I periodically did a check to see if any hanging were my coat.
After about two weeks, I came across it hanging on a peg on the opposite end of the room. I grabbed it and hid it at my work station.
One of the night crew workers came storming up to me demanding HER coat. I told her that I didn’t have it…I had mine. I then showed her the tag, which showed my name. I then asked her where my sunglasses were. She responded she didn’t know.
I told her she had 24 hours to come up with them or I was going to tell them who had stolen my coat.
This would have been a termination offense.
She handed them to me the next day, saying she found them in her husband’s truck.
She has since transferred, but when I see her, she avoids me like the plague.
Some views of Pago Pago
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What are your thoughts on Chinese automaker BYD’s $11,500 Seagull, an extremely cheap EV that is not available in the US due to high tariffs?
Freedom of trade? What a hypocrite! The U.S. burnt down nations just to install freedom but it ensures that it’s people buy from profiteers and keep prices high to give its people no choices! The U.S. citizens are the real loser! Are US citizens not aware that they are worst than Chinese citizens who can buy Tesla if they do wish! I fact out of the cars that Tesla made in 2023, 69.7% are sold in China! Can you Yanks not see the irony that China a supposedly unfree nation can buy Tesla and a nation screaming freedom like there is no tomorrow cannot buy BYD?
Let me school all of you on this! China U.S. a very smart and intelligent nation, by allowing Tesla to sell it ensures that those cars are made in China too! They got jobs and are learning all the while about western demands and western customers. So by the time BYD goes international it knows their taste, their likes and dislikes and they made a killing! Thanks to being open and free they are successful.
The U.S. is left as a pathetic slur grape nation without principle nor freedom!
A fun quote
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Have you ever been knocked unconscious in a car accident?
I have. For 20 minutes.
It was 2011, and I was meeting a couple for lunch for my birthday. He worked at Oakley, and lunch “came with“ a new pair of Oakley‘s as a gift. It should’ve been a great day.
I was in a convertible, traveling on highway 73 in Orange County, California. I exited and was waiting for the light to turn left onto a surface highway. The approaching cars stopped, the light turned green and I started to make a left turn. As soon as I passed the stopped cars and made it to the centerline, a speeding Chevy Suburban, three times the size of my car, came into view. My last conscious thought was “They’re not going to stop“. I swerved, and it was lights out.
She ran a red and T-boned me; smashed into my side, forward of the door, near the front wheel. She crushed the entire front like a tin can, my car spun and we collided twice. So I heard…
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Twenty minutes and lots of bystander activity went by. My next conscious moment was in the ambulance, looking up at a female emergency medical tech as we were heading to the trauma center. I was an EMT decades ago, and my first thought and words were “so this is what it looks like in the other direction“…
My head had hit the frame of the convertible top and it split my scalp, but fortunately didn’t crack my skull, though you could see it from the wound. My hand broke on the steering wheel, my ribs were cracked where they impacted the door. I was covered in blood and bruises. The airbags never went off.
Two guys jumped out of their cars and ran over. My window was a curtain of blood and of course I was out. They couldn’t open the door and thought I was dead. One called 911, and the other ran over to the woman’s car. It was totaled.
The impact of my head hitting the car was so forceful, my brain violently bounced off the inside of my skull. The brain stem flexed with such force it caused “micro-tears.” They sewed me up, patched me up, gave me X-rays and a CAT scan and I left the trauma center late that night with my wife instructed to ensure I woke up the next morning.
To give you an idea of how much it shook me up? I had been arranging a huge business dinner for two nights later. I still made phone calls to make sure the plans were set, and then the night of the event? I forgot to go… Par for the course with bad concussions, I had a slightly volatile temper for a couple of months. I forgot, seemingly everything randomly. I had minor bouts with depression which I’ve never had otherwise in my life.
The brain impact prevented me from remembering proper nouns for almost year and a half. I got to know my neurologist and the neuropsych testing people very well.
You can’t be unconscious for that long without taking a huge shot to the brain. And you can’t be unconscious for that long without having a long-term challenge. My ability to recall proper nouns is still pretty poor. That’s mostly it…
But it could’ve been much worse. Had she hit the driver’s door? It would’ve been the other kind of “lights out.”
What is the craziest purchase you’ve seen someone make on a work credit card?
This was a series of purchases, over a period of around six months. The company I was working for hired an employee who apparently had left her prior job under a cloud of felony charges. She hadn’t been convicted, so there was no record to find in a background check, plus the individual reversed a few numbers on her SSN when she applied. She managed to then hit a perfect storm of processes that allowed her to run up some significant charges on the company credit card. First, she was a remote employee with an also remote boss (this was well before COVID). She immediately requested a company credit card so she could fly to HQ for new hire orientation. A card was issued and FedExed to her. Her first charge was a cash advance (in those days, this was a holdover from days further in the past where it was unheard of for an employee to use the credit card — or their own money — for small purchases). During the ensuing investigation, we found that her subsequent purchases were for household bills, groceries, and utilities. Interestingly, she never submitted the expenses for the trip to HQ. Her manager never noticed that.
Fast forward six months or so and the employee went missing. Her manager woke up and discovered from media reporting that said employee had been convicted of some felony charges related to her prior employment and sent off to be a guest of the state for a few years. Alarm bells went off and an investigation began. As we unwound the credit card bill, we continued to see the various household purchases, utilities, cash advances, etc. Then we found that she had used the card to pay her lawyer as well as take some family members on a (modest) cruise. By the time we added things up, the company was out well in excess of $10,000. Arguably, not a ton of money for a large company, but something that caused immediate changes in expense policy and company credit cards. We found that she was able to exploit a fairly liberal payment window (established to accommodate time for employees to submit expenses, get them approved, and get them paid out to the credit card company). She further managed to (probably) use cash advances to make payments on the card to avoid showing up as delinquent. It appeared that she made some additional payments from other sources, but it wasn’t something we were in a position to confirm. The company didn’t have a good process for tracking personal charges, so there was no process to have the employee report and reimburse such expenses. There were also no categories of expenses that could not be charged to the card. There were quite a number of additional learnings, starting with why the background company didn’t flag a SSN mis-match.
The employee’s manager was fired (in addition to the initial failure to submit expenses, there had been some communications from the credit card company that charges were aging, which the manager had never looked into) and the lawyer was advised to pay the company back the fees charged against the credit card. Beyond that, I wasn’t privy to any other events outside of a flurry of expense and credit card policy changes.
Why is the US so desperate to compete with China when the world knows it cannot?
The ONLY people who realize that the United States is unable to compete with China is the Western “news” media, and the people that consume it.
The rest of the world, INCLUDING the American “leadership” and the Pentagon understand the futility of “Tonya Harding” competition strategies.
However, the United States is not a “healthy” nation. It is a nation in “free-fall”. There is no one at the helm, and those that are in control of various functional aspects of the government are stymied by a complex web network of counter-productive political polarization. Often led by those with self-interest at their core, and incapable of actual subjective reasoning. For everyone in the West are under the propagandized narratives that they themselves create.
Like (for instance) the “brick wall” of Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.
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But there is an “out”.
Cooperation NOT Competition.
China wants to see a better world, but in order for that reality to play out, some very toxic behaviors, and legacy dysfunctions must be excised (one way or the other) from the West. I am afraid that it will be a painful process.
The United States NEEDS friends, and help. China is willing to take on this role. But I am fearful that that will not materialize until a period of disharmony adjusts the objective reality of the West.
What makes you jealous?
Even though he passed away years ago, I still find myself feeling a bit envious. I’m talking about my granddad—my lifelong hero and mentor. He kept grinding every day until he hit 90. Getting up at 6:00 AM, he’d down his coffee and head off to work. Surprisingly fit for his age, not exactly a six-pack, but definitely in good shape.
I remember working on physically demanding tasks with him, and I’d be wiped out afterward. For him, it was a walk in a park. Once, we chopped wood for eight hours, and I passed out right after. But he? He moved on to his next job without missing a beat.
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What I envy most is how he never lost his ability to handle physical tasks. While others his age struggled just to stand, he could do everything as if he were still in his thirties. I never quite grasped how he managed it all. I really wish I could be like he was.
“Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I’m not guessing at that. They’ve told me that, including people who run the intel committee.”
What Tucker said next was even more revealing.
“I said to somebody, a very powerful person, the other day, in a conversation in my kitchen, an elected official — holds a really senior position… But I was like, ‘All these people are controlled. They’ve all got weird sex lives, and all these things they’re hiding, and they’re being blackmailed by the intel agencies.’ And he said, and I’m quoting, ‘I know.’ I was like, okay, so at this point, we’re just sort of admitting that’s real? Like, why do we allow that to continue?”
This is the Amerikkkan Deep State.
What are some examples of the “wussification” of the United States of America?
About six years ago or so when I was still in high school, we were playing soccer in gym class. After about five minutes in or so, the kid who was playing as my team’s forward (we’ll call him “Brock”) came up to me, who was playing goalie, and said he wanted to be the goalie now. I politely declined, because the game was only five minutes in, and that’s just not how soccer (or the real world) works.
After about 30 seconds of arguing back and forth over it, he presumed the second best option to be to grab me by the shirt and try to drag me out of the goalie box. Or in other words, physically assaulted me.
As a natural reaction and in accordance with what the law actually says, I laid into Brock with one good hit.
I then see the gym instructor approaching us to break up the scuffle that was occuring. When he gets to us, he sends us both to the principal’s office.
Brock’s punishmen was a week of out-of-school suspension. And I received the exact same punishment.
Why? Because according to my school’s policy on fighting, if you are even merely involved in a fight, it’s an automatic out-of-school suspension, so the principal technically doesn’t even get to use his own discretion regarding disciplining students regarding these types of matters.
I remember him even saying to me “Geraldo, coming from person to person, I would have done the exact same thing as you. However, as a school official, I unfortunately have no choice but to suspend you”.
What my school expects you to do if you are to find yourself in the situation I was in, is to passively submit and take your beating, and then once that is finished, you are to go to a teacher and tell on the person who attacked you. (Because it’s not like the person you just told on isn’t going to kick the shit out of you for rolling on them once you’re outside school property, right?)
Say you were to get jumped by five people at my school. Well that means that a total of six people will be getting suspended. That being the five dudes who assualted you, and yourself, for being assaulted.
If that’s not an example of institutionalized wussification, I don’t know what is.
Some of my AI generated pictures
Girls and alcohol with cats.
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What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
This happened when my dad was just out of high school. One of his longtime friends confirmed the details.
My dad and some friends were at a roller skating rink having fun and flirting with some girls. There was a black family skating there as well. Suddenly they hear this guy saying, “You n%#s, we don’t want your kind here.” He kept harassing them and it pissed my dad off. He went up to the jerk and told him to knock it off, that this family was more than welcome to be here, and he is the one who should leave.
The bully asked, “You n%# lover, are you going to make me?”
My dad told me he was terrified because this guy looked like someone who had been in a lot a fights. But the looks on that poor family’s faces was more than he could bear. So, he agreed to take it outside. While he was putting on his shoes an employee told him he should take off, that the guy he was facing was a known troublemaker and he had just gotten out of jail for assault. That didn’t help my dad’s nerves. Then as he was getting up the father of the black family told him not to bother, that they will just leave.
I don’t know how he mustered the courage to walk out that door, but he went to face him anyway. A crowd gathered around them as they faced each other. The bully said, “Now I am going to teach you a lesson you n#% lov…” He never had a chance to finish that sentence. My dad hit him squarely on his chin and the racist bully crumpled to the pavement. One punch and he was out.
Everyone cheered, the girls were all swooning over my dad, and the family thanked him for being the only one standing up for them. Yep, my dad was a true badass that day.
What is the best thing a teacher did for you that you still remember?
I was in 6th grade and 11 years old. I had started menstruating at 10 and didn’t have it all figured out quite yet. I was wearing a pale yellow skirt and jacket that my grandmother had sewn me and I really liked it. When school ended, I stood up to leave and the teacher snapped at me to come see her. I was pretty shocked. She never raised her voice to me. When I reached her she spun me around so my back was toward the wall. Then she whispered to me that the back of my skirt was stained and to just stay there with her until everyone left. When everyone left she told me to just keep waiting. She knew that my mother came and picked up my brother and I each day. Eventually, my brother came to see why I wasn’t coming out to the car. He was about 7. When he came into the classroom, first she yelled at him for not getting out of bed in the morning and making me late several days (I felt bad about this, but she wasn’t wrong) and then she told him to give her his jacket. She wrapped it around my waist and told us we could leave. I have never forgotten her kindness. Especially because several of the girls could be really mean to me. I’m pretty sure no one ever saw the stain.
Creamy Asparagus Soup
Creamy Asparagus Soup with Morel Mushrooms and Ramps 500
Ingredients
1 pound fresh asparagus
2 onions, finely minced
2 potatoes, peeled, diced small
2 ribs celery, diced small, with tops included
2 carrots, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 teaspoons granulated chicken or vegetable bouillon (or 8 cubes of bouillon)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped or 1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 sprig fresh tarragon, chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced, or 2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon seasoned salt (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 cups Half-and-Half
Sour cream
Chives, chopped
Instructions
Break off and discard the tough, thick end of each asparagus spear. Chop the spears into 1/4-inch slices and add to the slow cooker along with all remaining ingredients down to and including the white pepper.
Add water to within 1 inch of the top of the slow cooker.
Cover the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 6 to 7 hours.
About two hours before serving, use a slotted spoon to remove most of the vegetables to a blender. Use a ladle to add some of the liquid from the slow cooker to the blender. Puree the mixture and add back in to the slow cooker.
Repeat once or twice more as necessary (you can leave some of the pieces in the slow cooker for effect.)
Add approximately 1 cup of the Half-and-Half to the slow cooker.
Add the cornstarch to the remaining Half-and-Half in the carton.
Close the carton well and shake vigorously.
Add the mixture to the slow cooker.
Continue to cook on HIGH for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Serve in bowls with a dollop of sour cream and chopped chives sprinkled over the sour cream.
For those who cannot imagine what it’s like to be vaxxed, and living with it once the evidence becomes available, l can answer you: it’s day-to-day grieving and cellular remorse.
Many of us were just living our daily lives without any idea of the World Economic Forum or the World Health Organisation. We trusted our doctors – l’d had mine for over 25 years, and we knew our government lied at election times, but we voted the best we could based on the B.S. presented to us.
We went about our lives innocently – working, raising kids and babysitting grandkids – and many of us had not one person in our circles to warn us of the dangers.
We didn’t even know that we had to do ‘research’. Unbelievable as that may seem, it’s absolutely true.
So off we went and had the shots. And now us ‘sheeples’ – as we are sometimes referred to – are dying in our millions, some suddenly, while some are destined for slow, malingering, pain-filled deaths.
But we are dying, and ironically, we are the evidence; the proof you will all use later.
Some of us argued with others who knew about the dangers, and words and actions hurt both sides. And that is the greatest weapon of the psy-op: it’s actually greater than the vax itself.
There is a level of toxic hatred and gloating online that condemns the vaxxed to silence in regards to seeking help. l see it in the forums, how they are abused by total strangers, so we stay silent and die alone, unforgiven for our naivety and fear.
But back to the point above – of what it is like to be vaxxed and to then become aware of how we’ve been done. It is hell. Living with the knowledge that I took three of them; that my wonderful, kind, hardworking husband took four; that our children and grandchildren had them;
it haunts me, it breaks my soul, it has destroyed me… simply because we were naive.
My husband and l were already injected when a cousin contacted me through Messenger after seeing a post about my rapid decline in health and asked me questions. l then spoke to my sons, but it was too late – they had been jabbed already.
It’s reading endless detox protocols and wondering IF they truly work or IF they too are part of the B.S., because how would we ever know when there is no long-term proof? It’s endless medical tests that come back ‘normal’, but you just know and feel the changes in your body.
It’s seeing the videos of the ‘calamari’ clots and reading about graphene microblades slicing up veins, and spikes adhering like velcro to tissues and organs.
It’s the breathlessness and palpitations on the slightest exertion that doctors can’t explain.
It’s the knowing that it was all for nothing, though we believed it was for the best of intentions.
It’s this tattoo on my arm of the vax batch numbers that l use to open conversations and share my adverse reactions with every doctor, specialist and pathologist, radiologist and ambulance paramedic l meet.
It’s knowing that any second, any second, could be IT… the last one l breathe before l die.
It’s grief – deep, empty, gut-wrenching grief for all my family and friends, all those l love and care for.
It’s loss – the loss of my future dreams and plans, the loss of my husband and family, it’s the pain felt by the name-calling and ongoing online abuse.
l may be a sheeple to some, and cop endless abuse online for speaking up with my truth, but that will not stop me.
Not every vaxxed person acted like an A-hole when approached by someone who cared enough to take the risk of warning them.
Yet we have ALL been tarred with that one brush. And it’s there that humanity debased itself even further. They did not have to do a thing except sit back and watch us fall apart.
Sounds Of The Department Store 1979
Music in this video is from various Bruton and music De Wolfe Records dating from 1972-1979 mixed in audacity and recorded onto a 1977-79 Maxell UD Type 1 Cassette Tape. The Video portion was created from various images of old department stores recorded onto real VHS tape for the retro effect.
Today, we have a video about “tall whites” or “White hats”.
I do not know that much about them. I have had very limited dealings with extraterrestrials; four to be exact. None of them resembled these fellows. But the story seems legit. And I learn new things every day. Maybe you two will do so as well. Eh?
My sole and only value is my connection… direct HOT LINE… to the regional Commander of the Domain in this area.
Never the less, the world is big, vast, complex and very interesting. I hope that you enjoy today’s video and get something out of it.
Today…
Did a co-worker ever try to hide their wealth or poverty from those at work? How did they do it and what happened after?
My husband and I went through the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University program to get out of debt. We buckled down and after several years paid off our mortgage in 2008. We then ramped up our savings for retirement and kids’ college.
About three years later, my top secret security clearance was up for its five year renewal. The office accepted the massive questionnaire I had to fill out. A few days later, an investigator called me. “It is incomplete.”
I didn’t think it was but asked, “What section?”
“Your financial information. You aren’t listing any debts.”
“I don’t have any.”
The person on the other end made a noise. Then she asked, “Can you come by the office this afternoon?”
I showed up after lunch. The investigator asked, “How did you pay off a mortgage you listed in your last 5-year review?”
I made the mistake of just saying the name, “Dave Ramsey”.
“And how much money did Mr. Ramsey give you and why!” This was an angry accusation.
Pause. “Have you heard of the Financial Peace University program? It is a get out of debt program. We followed it and paid everything off.”
“You can’t afford that on your salary and with two kids -”
“My husband is an engineer. Did I leave his income off the form?” Pause. “He earns more than I do.”
Investigator blinks. “Two engineering salaries.” It was more a question than a statement.
“Yeah, and getting on a tight budget so we could pay everything off. If I can access the internet, I can bring up the budgeting forms.”
The investigator determined that yes, given our incomes, we could have put an additional $500–1500 against the mortgage every month for two years despite having two young children. Especially driving 5–10 year old cars and not caring about keeping up with the Jonses. We weren’t rich, but we looked poor compared to people who chose larger homes in “better” neighborhoods and prioritized lifestyle over life goals.
I amended the forms to include my husband’s salary. The paperwork was submitted and my security clearance renewed.
U. S. Plan to To Seize Lithium in Bolivia Revealed
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Luis Arce, current Bolivian Socialist President, to the right a Lithium Mine. Illustrative image. | Photo: X/ @Cooperativa
Lithium would not be the only resource Washington wanted, but also the reserves of iron, uranium and rare earths and weaken the left-wing parties.
According to an article published for the Bolivian Information Agency (Agencia Boliviana de Información, ABI), filtered from the US Embassy in La Paz and systematized, among others, by the Center for Multidisciplinary Geopolitical Studies (CEGM), “gives account of a new plan of the United States to carry out the recolonization of Latin America.”
This new interventionist plan, according to the press agency, is aimed at consolidating the rupture of the political party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and creating an “outsider” candidate for the 2025 elections, with the aim of seizing natural resources such as lithium and rare earths containing significant resources.
“The strategy would be focused on its natural resources and on the consolidation of a servile and right-wing government, for this reason the United States has as a priority the rupture of the MAS – IPSP (leftist coalition that currently rules in that Andean country) seeking to make that instrument disappear from the political scene,” says the news portal El Radar.
The Plan called “Simón Bolivar” would try to build a foreign candidate that does not yet appear in the polls and that would be an option of the right and undecided voters, according to El Radar, one of the operators of this plan in Bolivia is Debra Hevia, who since September 2023 has been in charge of business at the United States Embassy in La Paz.
It was also leaked that the National Foundation for Democracy, the Institute of International Relations, the DEA, the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, the Fundación Construir, Comunidad Ciudadana, the Alianza Informativa Latinoamericana, Military Church Support Group – Centurian Project (Fort Bragg), and others are the organizations through which the plan is financed.
It also targets local and national politicians. The mayors of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa, and Santa Cruz, Jhonny Fernández, and former presidents Mesa and Quiroga are counted. Of the Assembly would be involved the deputy of Citizen Community for Santa Cruz, Luisa Nayar, and the senator of the same political faction for Cochabamba, Andrea Barrientos; and, externally, the businessman Samuel Doria Medina.
The final objective of the plan, according to El Radar, is “to take the largest lithium reserve in the world taking advantage of and encouraging the growth of the political crisis, which would become an economic crisis increased by the obstruction of credits by operators in the Assembly”.
Lithium would not be the only resource Washington wanted, but also the reserves of iron, uranium and rare earths. ” This is not impossible, as Bolivia is surrounded by US military bases. The nearest ones on the border between Tarija and Argentina, where the US Southern Command took over.”
Don’t ask for something if the person only has one of it left — gum, candy, or a piece of cake.
If you used all the toilet paper, you go refill it.
Buy a plunger before you need a plunger.
Do not swipe left or right if someone shows a picture on their phone.
Pee first. No matter what you’re doing, pee first.
If you borrow someone’s car, fill up the tank before you return it.
Leave it in a better condition than you found it.
When out to dinner with a group, only the person who ordered the least expensive meal/combo of things can offer to split the check evenly.
Don’t put your music on speakers when in a public space. It’s not like everyone wants the same genre, or was in the mood for music. Use your headphones.
You can be wrong. It isn’t a bad thing either. And when you are wrong, acknowledge it and learn from it.
Please don´t start drama at a funeral.
Chew with your mouth closed. It’s shocking how many adults chew with their mouth open.
Never make fun of someone else’s laugh.
Don’t ever leave your shopping cart in the middle of a grocery aisle!
If you are borrowing it for the third time, you need one of it of your own.
If you cancel on a friend, it’s your responsibility to reschedule.
Don’t propose at someone else’s wedding.
Turn on your headlights when it’s snowing.
Don’t look through the gap of bathroom stalls.
Be kind to people that are working.
OFF BEFORE ON. Let the people off the elevator and train before you get on.
Walk on the same side of the stairs/sidewalk that you would drive on. Most of all….
23. Show the same respect for everyone. We are all people.
Crockpot Breakfast Cobbler
Crock pot breakfast cobbler
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
4 medium size apples, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 cups granola cereal
Instructions
Spray inside of slow cooker with nonstick spray.
Place apples in slow cooker and mix in remaining ingredients.
Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours, or overnight (alternately, cook on HIGH for 2 to 3 hours).
Serve with milk.
Have you ever outwitted a pushy salesperson?
Back in my hippie days I got a call from a company that was selling time shares. This was a time when I barely had enough money to buy food and pay for rent.
I was told that I had won a free dinner at a very good restaurant, all I needed to do was listen to the the sales pitch
I told the caller that I would not come unless I could bring my girlfriend. He had no problems with that. I then told him that my car was not running, so I would have to go with my brother. Again, he had no problem with that, but I said that my brother needed to bring his girlfriend. So the four of us showed up, dressed up for the occasion, which meant we wore shoes.
The event was in a big banquet room with about twenty-five tables and a couple hundred people, and many sales people roaming around. Th
The meal was the best meal we had had in a long time. The sales person at our table told lame jokes, but could see we were not the customers they were looking for.
We listened to the sale talk, and then left.
But it gets better, the next day, my brother got the same phone call — and the four of us went to dinner again. The same person was at our table and told the same lame jokes, but did not even try to sell us on what a good investment time shares were. We listened to the sale pitch and left. We now had had two excellent meals for free.
But it gets even better. The next day, my girlfriend got the same call with the same results. The four of us showed up, and when we were directed to the same table, the salesman refused to have us at his table and insisted that we sit at one of the other tables.
By this time, we knew the agenda and had a friend call us with an “emergency” just as dinner ended. We all had to go as we had only one car.
So we ended up with three excellent meals, and all the same, at a time when we were all very poor. It could not have come at a better time.
I have no idea where they got our names and phone numbers.
Compare this Country with your Country
What don’t they tell you about retiring early?
I retired at age 55. That was 11 years ago. Here are some of the things I noticed and learned.
Retirement is not like vacation. In retirement you have a different relationship with time. Vacations are usually time limited and you are aware of this while on vacation. The realization that you are not going back to work is something you can’t prepare for until you are retired.
You not only retired from something (work). You should retire to something. You have to know what you want to do with yourself and your life. No one can tell you. You would be surprised at how many people don’t know who they are or what they want to do.
Everyone has a bucket list of things they think they will do in retirement. In reality some of those things you will decide are unimportant. The rest you will complete in 6 months. After you’ve finished your bucket list you have to figure what to do next
Someone else mentioned loneliness because everyone else is working. That is true. You have to be comfortable with being alone if you retire before everyone else. You should actively plan things to do with other people.
Within a year you will lose touch with many of the people you worked with and saw and talked to every day.
Retirement doesn’t cost as much as you thought. Before you retire you should finally track your expenses and estimate future expenses. Learn how to use a spreadsheet. Track EVERYTHING for 3–4 months. Note there are 3 types of expenses. a) daily expenses b) regular yearly expenses c) unexpected expenses. Plan for an emergency fund.
Learn to live within your means and enjoy it
Your pace of life will slow down. Learn to accept it and relax a little.
Accept your new life. Don’t regret your past life. Don’t be embarrassed to tell others you are retired and that you are enjoying it (if you are). Others may not understand you.
Understand that there is both financial independence and retirement. If you are financially independent then you are totally in control of what you want to do each day. If you want to continue “working” and collect a paycheck then that is up to you. Enjoy.
(late addition) If you are really looking for something to do then consider volunteering. Volunteering can take many forms. There are huge number of opportunities out there. Research says that doing something for others is a powerful way to increase your own happiness.
Blinken warns China. Sanctions, Proxy War and Regime Change
The on-the-street view from China; China are furious and will do some bad stuff if the USA doesn’t knock it off.
What is something a person has done or said that changed your life but they probably forgot about it the next day?
When I was in college I was facing another surgery on my spine. I already had had thee previous surgeries and was depressed about the state of my health. I was having lunch with a girl that I knew who was confined to a wheelchair having her back broken in an auto accident.
She knew about my health problems so we could easily talk about such problems.
I asked her how she was dealing with the “why me”. Her response blew me away and changed my outlook on my life.
She said, “why not you. What makes you feel you are immune to life itself. You cannot always control what happens to you but what you can control is how you deal with the hand you are dealt.”
I was so dumbfounded that I could not answer her. Here was a person who has had it a lot worse than I had and she had a better outlook on life.
I did not fully appreciate what a profound statement she had told me until after my sugery. By this time I had lost contact with her and I was unable to thank her.
I have had about a dozen surgeries since then and I have never felt “why me”, I appreciate the life I have and know that I am a fortunate man to have survived all of this and have had a rewarding career and an incredible marriage to an amazing woman.
The rich Chinese wants their money transfer out of the country, they hoped their children can live in overseas. What makes the elites in China take such actions?
Because in China, the rich have no privileges.
If his children want to go to a good university, they still need to pass the college entrance examination and compete with 11 million people. He could not gain admission through donations;
He wants to become a national civil servant and participate in politics, but he still needs to take the civil service examination and compete with 1.5 million people to get an admission rate of 1%; even if he is admitted, he will start from the lowest civil servant; if he hopes to be promoted, he needs Go to work in the poorest and most remote border area for 3 years. He could not qualify for civil service through donations.
If he wants to be a lawyer, he must take the bar exam with a passing rate of 10%; otherwise he cannot enter the legal profession.
All scores for these exams are anonymous. This means you cannot bribe the examiner to get priority. In addition, these examination papers are classified as top national secrets before the examination. Its level of secrecy is equal to or higher than that of most military bases. Anyone who attempts to leak test questions will be jailed for more than 10 years, or life in prison.
If rich people commit crimes. He cannot exonerate himself by paying compensation.
For example, if a rich man breaks a man’s arm, this is a criminal offence. Even if the rich man is willing to pay 100 million yuan in compensation, this does not exempt him. He still needs to go to jail.
Karma Is Coming For Serial Cheater Who Dumped Fiance For A Chad Who Says He’ll Leave Wife For Her
These stories are interesting. They suggest different types of people with different variances in moral justification.
What is the strangest reaction of someone who has just been fired?
About thirty years ago, my wife worked in the cafeteria in a hospital. It was the hospital’s policy at the time to raise your hourly pay to $10 per hour (usually from around $7) when you had been there for 10 years. The cafeteria was subject to this rule, but owned by an outside company. The outside company decided that firing folks who had been there for ten years seemed like a good loophole, so they told her that her last day would be a week or so before her tenth anniversary. Then, on her last night (she worked the third shift by herself), her boss magnamously offered to let her work two more nights – to train her replacement. She told him to fornicate himself, but then agreed to finish her last scheduled shift.
Then, as soon as he left, she cooked several prime rib roasts, salmon, and shrimp that were meant for a hospital board dinner a few days later, and sent a message to all departments:
“D’s going away party, everyone eats free!”
Even the patients ate well!
We heard later that the board only found out why she – and many others – had been fired was because they ended up eating grilled chicken instead of prime rib, and dug until they found out why. Folks got fired, my wife and several others got retroactive severance pay.
Our Alien Overlords | How We Secretly Serve The Tall Whites
For your enjoyment and background.
The Tall White Aliens: We Work for Them Charles Hall, a former weather observer at Nellis Air Force Base, shares his incredible story of encountering the Tall Whites, an extraterrestrial species working with the US military. These chalk-white aliens, standing up to 9 feet tall, have been influencing human technology and evolution for decades. Charles’s friendship with a Tall White known as “The Teacher” led him to discover hidden alien facilities and the shocking truth about their presence on Earth. Uncover the secrets of the Tall Whites, from their advanced scout crafts to their underground bases, and explore the startling implications of their alliance with the US government and the hidden reality of alien-human cooperation.
When being terminated from a job, have you ever warned the company of something important that only you knew how to do, and your advice has gone unheeded?
Not terminated but I was quitting, a few years ago my brother and I worked at home depot, we were on the M.E.T. team (merchandising execution team). If you don’t know the M.E.T. team are the ones in the orange shirts that set the bays to plan, build displays make sure everything is stocked ectopic. Well since met is corporate and not store employees then met is not supposed to drop pallets for store associates and vice versa, so if you need a pallet down from the overhead you needed to get a M.E.T. associate that was certified to operate the fork lift, of which there were two. Those two were my brother and I.
So most of our days were go to this isle drop a pallet for person 1, one of us would flag and one would operate the fork lift and we would switch of occasionally, then we’d go to that isle and drop a pallet for person 2, then go over there and drop a pallet for person 3 and so on, usually by the time we dropped a pallet for everyone the first few had finished and needed another pallet so we would continue on.
We both truly loved our jobs because we spent the day essentially hanging out, driving a fork lift and spending time with our best friend. Until our boss was fired. A new boss came in and decided that my brother and I needed to be separated because even though we were getting all our work done we were “having to much fun” well she spent the next 6 months trying to have us on separate projects (which usually didn’t work because we were the only 2 that could use the fork lift and no one else on the team wanted to learn).
Well after separating us didn’t work she decided to fire us, well we were exemplary workers besides our having fun so she needed a paper trail and started writing us up for everything and anything (I once got written up for something I said off the clock across the street at the bar, I made a innuendo joke much like one of the hundreds you would see in a pg movie, it really wasn’t that inappropriate. But I didn’t know a coworker was there to report on us to her and she said that because I was still in uniform which let me remind you is an orange SHIRT that I represented the company and it wasn’t appropriate to make that type of joke)
Well after a few months of this my brother and I had enough so we put out feelers for different jobs, almost immediately a different ex boss of ours contacted my brother and offered us jobs on the spot which we accepted. So we called our regional manager and gave our two weeks to which she asked us to try and leave the store in a way that our absence wouldn’t hurt the remaining team. Well we knew that meant training more people on the fork lift, which our manager absolutely refused to let us do. She said that since we were leaving she wasn’t going to let us do ant job where we could sabotage the team so for the last two weeks she had us sorting screws, the pallets piled up with no one to pull them down for two weeks and by the time we left there was very little room anywhere in the store for new pallets, meanwhile there was no product to stock because the pallets were all in the over head so most of the shelves in the store were bare, we tried to help by dropping a few pallets but our boss caught us, wrote us up, and sent us back to sort screws. So we did.
We left with our heads high and not caring that there would be a reckoning for not having any pallets brought down for two weeks. And boy was there. We went back a week later to do some shopping and our boss had been fired.
She tried telling our regional manager that we refused to train anyone and also refused to pull pallets down, a couple people on the team “verified” her story. Than our regional manager came to the store to talk to store associates to see what happened and they told her the truth(my brother and I were liked by most of the store associates because we were always helping then out, even if it meant we might get in trouble) she heard the full story and checked the cameras and saw our boss was lying. So she was fired immediately. And it took a few months for them to catch back up.
Women Disrespecting Men & Getting Instantly Dumped For 25 Minutes
Watch it.
Want a big laugh
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What is an incident that changed your life?
I knew we weren’t rich… but I never knew we were poor until one moment.
My parents had split and just like change that slips away forever into couch cushions, the minor extravagances of my childhood started disappearing.
The cable…
The fast food…
The car.
My Mom was like Maria in The Sound of Music. No material? I’ll just make clothes out of these drapes kind of resourcefulness that never let on that we were barely scraping by.
We’d walk down the hill to catch a bus across town so my mom could teach music.
That stroller, I remember it so well – yellow, floral, the kind of thing you get as a gift when you’re not sure if it’s a boy or a girl. I remember holding the handle so tightly as not to watch my 3-year-old sister and 1-year-old brother roll away.
But even then, in that moment, somehow… I didn’t think we were poor.
That realization only hit when, a few years later, my Mom, in response to post-Christmas “I wish I would have got” griping said the words that are forever etched in my mind:
“I only had $15 to spend on Christmas for you four kids.”
$15.
That’s not some passing, semi-serious statement like, “I’m so broke” or “I’ve got no money”.
It was exact… and that’s what made it so startling. $15.
It turns out that the pastor of our church helped out that year. So that’s why I ended up getting a G.I. Joe figure in my stocking instead of an orange.
That number was anchored in my mind and helped to mute the entitled gripes I was assuredly scheduled to have. I became more resourceful; I realized that anything near that number was a sacrifice, and that my mother, even in that moment of weakness, was the strongest person I’d ever met.
If a grenade is thrown in a room you’re in, what are your best chances of survival?
Your best chance to survive is to leave the room, either by the door or by jumping out of a window.
If there are no windows, you are on the 5th floor, or it’s not safe outside, you should do one of the following things:
get behind some furniture.
place something between you and the grenade, for example, a flak jacket or a backpack.
turn yourself away from the grenade, get flat on the ground (only if there’s enough distance between you and the grenade, at least five feet), hide your head between your arms, and cover your ears.
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In 1996, a mentally ill person threw a hand grenade into a church in Frankfurt, Germany. Three people were injured. The picture demonstrates the power of the explosion and what it did to the wooden furniture. (Photo: Frankfurter Rundschau)
If you think there’s enough time for it, you can try to kick the grenade in a corner where it causes less damage. Instead of your foot, however, you should use your rifle butt. Someone in the room with you might even have the guts to throw the grenade out of there.
Those are split-second decisions, based on experience and very good situational awareness. If you are new to combat, I wouldn’t recommend doing it.
China’s New Tech Warfare| an AI Chip Introduced to POWER Hypersonic Weapon
China has once again outdone itself in the realm of hypersonic technology. That’s right, China makes headlines in hypersonic once again – but this time, there’s something extremely interesting going on that has the tech enthusiasts scratching their heads. Using low costs AI computer chips, hypersonic weapons have powered up significantly, ensuring China’s strong position on the Hypersonic throne.
What’s the weirdest way your fast food order got messed up?
A few years back, I walked on into my local Panera Bread craving a turkey sandwich something fierce.
I ordered that turkey sandwich on rye bread with Swiss cheese, bacon, lettuce, onion, and tomato.
What I got… a turkey sandwich on white bread with some kind of neon green avocado paste that, I swear to all that’s holy, looked like boogers.
It was a to-go order that I intended to eat in my car because the modern acid jazz music they play in there is blasphemous to a person like me that worships the genre.
I had to walk back in and explain that I received the wrong sandwich. The female manager walked over, flipped the sandwich open, and -no joke- said to me “hmm, that looks good. You sure you don’t want it? I’m over on my food costs and can’t afford to have any more mistakes.”
I was floored. Since when is it my problem they were making a lot of mistakes that were costing the store money, and I told her that, too. I was shaking and on the verge of tears. I asked to please just have what I ordered so I could be on my way.
The manager picked up the incorrect sandwich and said to me that she would be eating it on her break because “there was nothing wrong with it and no reason you couldn’t have eaten it”, then went in the back.
I wouldn’t be eating it, and didn’t have to, because it wasn’t what I goddamn ordered.
I was even more floored because, first of all, that sandwich left the store for two minutes before I brought it back. She didn’t know me. I could’ve wiped my ass with it for all she knew. But she was going to eat it.
The employees that remade my (correct) sandwich laughed at her and her ridiculous reaction the whole time. They apologized for her and threw extra chips and baguettes in my bag. It was amusing and made up for that crappy experience.
What was the most depressing essay you’ve ever received from a student as a teacher?
It was a typical 10 year old assignment, write a persuasive letter to you parents to convince them on something. Most kids chose getting a phone, some a dog or a new bike. Except one girl, who we’ll call Amy.
I was skimming though them, checking for mistakes for them to correct next lesson before the the follow up (write your parents reply, this was changed due to Amy’s letter) That’s when I saw her one.
This it it paraphrased
Dear Mum,
I am writing to ask for some changes…I would like you to stop drinking.
I would like this because when you drink you change. It scares me when you hit me…..and when you bring home your boyfriend he hits me too.
Maybe if you stopped earlier Daddy wouldn’t have left, I know I’m his little girl but he doesn’t come anymore and he says it’s your fault.
It went on longer, tears came to my eyes, she was such a bright, bubbly girl I never suspected anything. I was angry, why doesn’t her dad protect her, I was sad, she doesn’t relise it’s not normal.
A few days later she came in with a large bruise on her face. At break I called her back to talk to her. Then she let everything out, how her dad won’t come back until her mum stops drinking, how each night her mum gets back early in the morning with a new guy. How she sometimes sleeps in bus shelters or bushes to avoid her mum.
I talked to the headteacher and we called a meeting with her mum, on the day if it Amy wasn’t in school, her mum didn’t show up. Amy never came back, I went to her house but it was abandoned and a neighbour told me that they left for London. I panicked and by some miracle tracked them down. I found Amy alone in the flat, I waited with her until her mum returned. After talking it though with her and social services I’m fostering Amy until her mum is ready to look after her. They see each other every other weekend now and her mums nearly out of rehab. Amy’s just started secondary school and loving it.
I hope they can be reunited soon and live better lives together.
Should you stop to help someone that’s having car problems?
My family was on a cross country trip with a trailer and nine people. One Sunday morning we were on a country road in Alabama when came upon a woman and her three children standing next to a car with a flat tire. Of course we stopped and my brother and I changed the tire for her. She told us that she was on her way to church. She wanted to pay us, but we told her to put the money in the church collection.
That evening we told the story to a family at the trailer park. When we mentioned that the family was black, the father, in front of his children said, the “you should never help a nigger *”. My father told him he was a “shameful human “ and walked away.
Just another example of hate, but also another example of why I admired my father.
Blinken reiterated that the US does not seek to decouple from China, stating that doing so would “harm the global economy”. What does this mean?
Let me offer an age-old script.
The cad of a man telling his mistress “I love you, but I won’t divorce my wife.”
In other words, stay illegitimate, and do what I say, because you are dependent on me.
Older movies portrayed the poor mistress as the long-suffering woman, asking little, and receiving none.
Modern versions give the protagonist backbone, who demanded better treatment and got it—either through financial independence or new relationships. Some even managed to take revenge against the heartless cad.
China says fine, we’ll embrace a future without you, and find others to share it with.
Yes, heartless cads CAN and WILL be spurned.
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Who cares what Antony says anyway? Keep it up and he will be sanctioned the day he leaves office, just like Mike.
Have you ever stood up for a child when he was being beaten up by his parents?
Yes, I was walking after dinner and I saw a man beating his wife and child. I was furious and did not think straight. I grabbed the man and threw him up against the car (I was in the military) and held him until the police came. The wife and child were taken to the hospital and treated for their injuries. A month later I got a subpoena to appear in court for assault. His lawyer attested that since I was in the military and trained in hand-to-hand combat I could have “killed his client.” I was dumbfounded. Fortunately, the public defender had copies of the hospital records showing the injuries he had inflicted on his wife and daughter and the solitary bruise I had left from pinning him to the car. Yes, the case was dismissed but I was furious at him for a while.
Years later a woman came up to me and said “You don’t remember me do you?” I said no I did not. She said “You saved me from my husband killing me and his daughter and now he is in prison and we are finally free. Thank you for being brave.” Yes, I started crying immediately!!
Baked Chicken and Dumplings
Chicken and Dumplings 1 1200
Key Ingredients
Whole chicken: I simmer a whole chicken with aromatics for about 1 hour, which produces the most delicious chicken broth and tender, moist chicken. Once you try chicken and dumplings this way, you’ll never go back. I use the same process to make our easy chicken broth.
Aromatics: For the classic broth, we add an onion top (the part you usually throw away — you can see what I mean by looking at our photos or watching the video), carrot, celery, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, and salt.
Self-rising flour: I use self-rising flour for the drop dumplings. Baking powder and salt have already been added, making the dumpling batter so easy! If you do not have it, I have included a DIY version in the tips section of the recipe.
Milk: I use whole milk, which brings our dumpling batter together and helps make them tender.
Butter: Adds flavor and keeps the dumplings moist.
Spices: I add ground pepper, a bit of extra salt, and fresh parsley to the dumpling batter.
How to Make Chicken and Dumplings From Scratch
You can break this cozy classic chicken and dumplings recipe into 3 easy steps.
Make broth and cook the chicken. For the best homemade chicken and dumplings, we make the broth ourselves (it’s so worth it and is much easier than you might think). By making the broth ourselves, we also gently cook the chicken, which guarantees juicy and tender chicken meat for our soup (it takes about 1 hour). If you are short on time, I have included a speedier option using store-bought broth below.
Make the soup. Since we make our chicken broth, making the soup for this recipe is quick and easy. After straining our homemade broth, we add chopped carrot, celery, and the shredded cooked chicken (from cooking the broth).
Make the drop dumpling batter. This Southern-style recipe uses drop dumplings (similar to drop biscuits). We make a somewhat wet dumpling batter and then drop it by the spoonful into simmering broth, where they steam in the broth (about 15 minutes).
When cooking the dumplings, keep these things in mind:
Drop your dumplings into gently simmering broth with a spoon or cookie scoop, and don’t worry if the pot looks crowded. Depending on your pot shape, you might even have a few dumplings on top of each other.
If the dumplings fully cover your soup, use a spoon to make a small hole in the middle to allow steam and some of the simmering bubbles to release.
So that they cook perfectly, the dumplings need to steam, so cover the pot with its lid.
Keep the pot at a gentle simmer when cooking the dumplings. An aggressive simmer or boiling will break them apart. Keep the heat low and cover the pot so that they steam. The dumplings can cook longer than the suggested times without issues, but agitating them with an aggressive simmer will make them fall apart.
The batter for these dumplings is very similar to the batter for our easy drop biscuits. I love how light and fluffy the drop-style dumplings turn out. They also make the soup thicker and creamier since some batter will ultimately fall into the broth and help thicken it. We also have a this recipe for more traditional biscuits, but I’d keep those for dipping into the broth, not for cooking on top.
Chicken and Dumplings In Dutch Oven 3 1200
Storing and Make Ahead Tips
Homemade chicken and dumplings are at their best when fresh, but you can store them in the fridge for a couple of days and gently reheat them. The dumplings will be slightly more moist and might fall apart, but the flavors will all be there. We do not recommend freezing them.
To cut down on the preparation time of the recipe, you can make the broth and chicken up to three days in advance. Then, when you are ready to serve, reheat the broth, add your carrots and celery, and then make your dumpling batter.
Chicken and Dumplings In Dutch Oven 1200
You Will Need
Chicken and Broth1 whole chicken, about 4 pounds
1 onion top, see notes
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 large carrot
2 stalks celery
3 bay leaves
8 whole peppercorns
1 tablespoon fine sea salt
12 to 14 cups (3 liters) water
1 bunch fresh thyme
Dumplings2 ½ cups (325g) self-rising flour, see notes
8 twists black pepper
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 ½ cups (350ml) whole milk
1/4 cup (60g) butter, melted
Directions
Make Broth and Cook Chicken
1Cut a 3-inch section of the carrot, about 1/4 the size of the whole carrot, and set aside. Chop the remaining carrot into small cubes. Cut a 4-inch piece of celery stalk and set aside with the carrot. Chop the remaining celery into small cubes. Save the chopped carrot and celery for later.
2Place the chicken, breast facing up, in a large pot (we use a 9-quart Dutch oven). Then, toss the 1/4 carrot, 4-inch piece of celery, onion top, smashed garlic clove, bay leaves, peppercorns, and a tablespoon of salt around the chicken.
3Pour in 12 to 14 cups of water, depending on the size of your pot. In the video, we used 14 cups. It is okay if the chicken is not fully covered; an inch or so of chicken breast above the water is okay.
4Cover the pot with a lid, turn the heat to medium-high, and bring to a simmer. Once the broth is at a simmer, reduce it so that it’s a gentle simmer — the bubbles should be slowly dancing around in the pot.
5Cook at a gentle simmer for 50 minutes. Peek under the lid occasionally to see if the heat needs to be reduced.
6After 50 minutes, the broth will be aromatic, and the chicken will be cooked through (you can test this with an internal temperature thermometer — it should read above 165 °F).
7Carefully transfer the chicken to a plate and allow it to cool until you can handle it.
8Strain the broth, wipe any foam stuck to the sides of the pot, and then pour the strained broth back into the pot used to make it. Place the pot back over medium heat, add the thyme, chopped carrots, and chopped celery.
Finish Chicken and Dumplings
1When it is cool enough to handle, shred the chicken by hand, removing all the bones and skin. Shred as big/little as you like. We keep the chicken in larger pieces.
2To make the dumpling batter, melt the butter. In a medium bowl, stir the flour, pepper, salt, parsley, milk, and melted butter until mixed.
3Remove the thyme from the soup, scraping a few leaves off the bundle as you remove it.
4Stir the shredded chicken and any juices left on the plate into the soup.
5Bring the broth to a gentle simmer, and then use a spoon to scoop golf ball-sized portions of the batter into the soup, scraping them off with your finger. (If you have a large cookie scoop, scoop balls of batter into the soup.) Do this until all the batter is in the soup — it will look crowded. Some might sink.
6Cover with a lid and cook the dumplings at a low simmer for 5 to 7 minutes or until they look like they are firming up on the bottom. Then, carefully turn each one over to simmer the other side. If there’s no space for the liquid to bubble up past the dumplings, use a spoon and make a small hole in the middle of the pot.
7Once they are all turned over, simmer over low heat with the lid on for another 8 to 10 minutes. You can test a dumpling to check they are done — The center should look cooked through and fluffy, not doughy. When cooking the dumplings, keep the pot at a gentle simmer. An aggressive simmer or boiling will break them apart. Keep the heat low and keep your pot covered so that they steam. The dumplings can cook longer than the suggested times without issues, but agitating them with an aggressive simmer will make them fall apart.
Adam and Joanne’s Tips
Onion top: We are only looking for a mild onion flavor in our broth. Slice an onion at the top, keeping the skins on. Use the top (what you would normally throw away) to make the broth, and save the onion for another recipe. You can also use a 1-inch slice of onion in its place.
Self-rising flour: Unlike all-purpose flour, self-rising flour adds baking powder and salt. For 2 ½ cups of homemade self-rising flour (what you need for this recipe), whisk 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour with 3 ¾ teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Pot size: The perfect size for this recipe is a 9-quart Dutch oven, which is large enough to make the broth and cook all the dumplings. I have also used a 7 ½-quart Dutch oven with this recipe and found that I could only fit 12 cups of water with my chicken. If you don’t have either of these, make sure the pot is large enough to hold at least 12 cups of water with the chicken.
Shortcut: I highly recommend the homemade broth, but if you are short on time, use 10-12 cups of store-bought broth. Bring your chicken broth to a low simmer, and add chopped carrot and celery. Stir in 3 to 4 cups of shredded cooked chicken. Make the dumpling batter and cook by gently simmering them covered with a lid, per our instructions above.
The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
Nutrition Per ServingServing Size1/6 of the recipe/Calories501/Total Fat14.4g/Saturated Fat7g/Cholesterol136.8mg/Sodium1599.2mg/Carbohydrate48.7g/Dietary Fiber3.8g/Total Sugars4.1g/Protein42.4g
AUTHOR: Adam and Joanne Gallagher
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No Title allowed by YouTube. Russia, Ukraine, SOMETHING HAPPENED!
Stuff not reported in Western media.
What are the most common regrets that people have once they grow old?
I don’t regret a single thing I did, except one.
I knew from an early age that I had married the wrong woman. She didn’t love me, only tolerated me. I never learned about being loved until after being widowed at 63 and remarrying at 67. That was 17 years ago.
Sure, it sounds selfish, but I regret not learning more about sex and living with more variety during all of those years of being a devoted husband, even though my wife had many affairs.
I regret not divorcing her.
Now, my body isn’t quite what it was. No more mountains to climb, rivers to swim, bicycle races to participate in, or half Marathons north of the Arctic circle.
Do you have any paranormal/unexplained experiences you could share with us?
My father was hospitalized with heart and diabetes complications. He had to have a heart triple by pass surgery. There were complications and he was in intensive care for 3 days, near death. In the evening of the first night, I stayed at the hospital. My mother and daughter went to my parents home for the night. A neighbor was babysitting my daughters 2 month old daughter, there at the home. My mom, daughter and the baby went to bed soon after returning to the home. My parents lived along a golf course that was heavily lighted at night. There was always light fading into the rooms, even with the drapes drawn.
My daughter woke up at 3 am and saw a blond woman from the back. She thought it was me, standing beside her daughters small, travel crib. The figure, who was my height and shape, was staring down at the sleeping baby. She was dressed in a white robe, similar to one that I wore. My daughter then said that she whispered, Mom what’s the matter? Is the baby okay? And then the woman turned and faded away. My daughter said she saw her face briefly. She looked fully human. The woman or figure was only a few feet from where my daughter lay in bed. My daughter said she got up and walked into the bedroom that I was using and I wasn’t there. She then stayed awake, with the lights on the rest of the night.
Around 5 am I went to my moms home to rest. My dad had become more stable. When I got home my daughter told me about the incident. I took out some old photo albums and asked her to look and see if she could find a similar face. My dads mom died when he was 18 and in the Army. She was 43 at her death, which was near my age at that time. My daughter and I had never seen these photos before. My dads sister had recently sent them from across the country. My daughter picked out a photo of my dad in his army uniform standing beside his mother. She did look like me.
We think his mom was with us, just to watch over him and his great grand daughter, his little one. We had one more incident like this. He survived this surgery and 9 years later died of complications of heart disease, diabetes and dementia. In the nursing home,a CNA said to me,the last morning of his life,you’re back so soon. I lived a few hours away and had just driven there. I guess, early that morning a woman who looked like me,was in his room for a moment. The CNA saw her from the back,leaning over his bed,as she walked down the hall, and had glanced in his room. It was not me. At that time he was in the fetal position,and he died later that morning. I leaned over his bed as I told him to go with mama. I really think his mother was there. I held his hand and he died. I really believe that his mother took him home. It was as if he left his body. I knew he was embraced in love and at Peace.
US Politicians Have Lost Their Mind Over the Latest Chinese Tech
While the Media is discussing China and the TikTok ban, there is something much bigger at stake. US and China have been working together in biotech for decades but now US politicians want to ban US scientists from working together with their Chinese counterparts. What impact does this have on the future of American healthcare? Does the US actually need Chinese biotech? Let’s break it down
What is the most neglectful thing you have heard of a parent doing?
“My son doesn’t need an education, he is going to work in the mines and drive a truck. He doesn’t need to know all this crap.” Said by the parent of an extremely bright 6th grade student (11 years old) in front of him to his teachers, administration and support staff.
My response, “What happens if Erik doesn’t want to be a truck driver at a mine?”
Dad: “Tough, it is a good job, good wages and benefits. I don’t want to be taking care of him his whole life.”
My response, “Erik, do you like mining.” (Mining is a major industry here)
Erik, “Yes.”
Me: “Do you want to drive heavy equipment?”
Erik, “Maybe but probably not.”
Me: “What do you want to do at the mine?”
Erik: “I want to be a mining engineer, a metallurgist.”
Dad: “What is the hell is that, sounds like a pansy job.”
Me: “It is actually a wonderful job that takes a lot of work, intelligence and one that keeps you employed.” (Dad obviously works at a mine.)
Me: “Erik, you know that takes a lot of math and science as well as at least 5 years of college, right?”
Erik: “Yes, but I could do it.”
Me, “Dad, he needs this education, needs to be to school every day, do his work, and be able to focus on his future possibilities.”
Dad: “Bullsh*t, I need him at home taking care of his brothers and sisters.”
Yea. Erik is still not going to school as often he should, however, he works harder knowing he can do whatever needs to after he leaves home. He is focused on becoming an engineer. He even contacted a couple of the mines and asked if they have educational programs for college assistance. He is lined up with one that has him working as a laborer and taking classes. If he gets a B or better they pay for the classes, if he can’t afford to pay up front, they pay it and take it out in installments from his checks. When he gets a degree, they have a job waiting for him and he needs to work for them for at least 2 years. Hopefully it will work out. Dad is still a jerk, still finds ways to make it hard for Erik to surpass his own education and job title. It is like he is intimidated that his son could do better. Most parents are thrilled when their kids do better. Not this guy.
When did you know your parents were two of the good ones?
When I went to the house of my richest friend. I was in elementary school at the time. The boy’s family lived in an enormous mansion. It was grand. It was glorious. Every nook and cranny of that building seemed to exude power, wealth, success. Walking up to the main door, I was utterly in awe of the size of… everything. Grandeur.
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Then I went inside. And it was… empty. Not literally empty, there were chairs, sofas, the largest television set I had ever seen and some lamps. But the house had no books. The house had few pictures. And there were no parents to be seen. I asked were my friends’ father was? At work, the answer went. He was always at work. His mother was “sick”, on bed with a headache. Every time I was there, and I was there five or six times, dad was away at work, mom was sick with a headache. Looking back I’m almost certain the woman was an alcoholic. The man a workaholic. My friend was raised more or less by his older siblings.
Our house was small. Our families deeply involved. Life was simple… but it felt full. Theirs, though outwardly grand, felt empty. Just visiting that eery house a handful of times reminded me of how good I had it.
Is China challenging the United States as the new global hegemony? Is the dominance of the U.S. over or fading away?
China is with world at large to form a new way forward. That the world favours considerably more than the present enslavement to the U.S. method! One that the U.S. cannot do anything about.
I is welcomed as a nation and not the nation which it does not like but it inevitably will dwindled into whether it. Likes it or not! No one cause this but the U.S. themselves since it abused the power that it gained to the point that everyone wants out. If you steal money kept in INTERNATIONAL bank, The world will want to collectively take it out.
if you could and constantly manipulated the real value if the dollar people will want to dump it all together. If you set up rules as you go along to advantage yourself it us a matter of time that people don’t want to have anything with your rules or better still get as far away from you as one can!
Yes everyone wants out of your orbit. China happened to be the biggest of them all. You should have thought about the consequences when you did barbarism on Russia!
That message is China telling America (talking to a wall) and the rest of the world that strong decisive actions to de-dollarize are coming soon.
They are designed to harm the US dollar and hence American global hegemony.
Given China's historical demonstration of patience, it will likely occur over progressive stages of severity, but we're no longer talking about decades.
Sino-American win-win cooperation is a ship that has sailed and long gone beyond the horizon, and America is trapped in a sinking ship of its own making.
Sayonara and good riddance!PM
Today, I will present one of my Quora posts. This one has over 22.7K views…
Why should I move to China? What are the pros and cons as an American?
I am an American and I live in China.
I would do it again in a HEARTBEAT.
This is my sincere and accurate answer directed at someone who might be considering a move out of the United States (for whatever reason), and may consider China to be a destination to consider. If you fit in this profile, then this answer should give you an idea of what to expect.
Every place has pros and cons.
It’s up to you to determine which cons are worth accepting and which pros are important to you. It doesn’t matter what nation you are considering. It really doesn’t.
Now, China is (in many ways) the absolute OPPOSITE of the United States. And because of that, many things about China is shocking to Americans. Distasteful even.
So, I am sorry that the “cons” section is so large, but from an American point of view some things need to be said and (perhaps) elaborated on. So it’s almost twice as long as the “pros” section. Sorry about that. China is a BIG country, so this answer is gonna be big as well. LOL.
We will start with the “pros” of living in China…
Here’s the Pros…
You will live longer. Much longer, and you won’t be fat either.
China is space-age. There are way too many things that are in China that aren’t even on the “radar screens” back home. Like real (honest to goodness) robot patrols, drone monitoring, and QR parking.
High Speed Trains are amazing. You will never want to fly again.
Breakfasts are commonly under $1 USD. And you will be completely full.
You will eat better. Much better. You will eat much more seafood, delicious pork, and all sorts of healthy fruits and vegetables.
China is seriously pet-friendly. The Chinese treat their pets like little children. It’s insane, and cute at the same time. The most common pets are dogs and cats, just like in the ‘States. But there are other pets as well. The third most common seems to be rabbits, where back in PA it was ferrets.
You can make U-turns.
A steak will be just a little bit more expensive than a hamburger “value” meal. So you will be eating more steaks than hamburgers. Additionally, very little processed or canned food will be consumed. Everything is fresh.
There is very little in the way of canned foodstuffs. There’s an enormous frozen section, and all sorts of spices and pickled items, but actual canned food items really don’t exist.
There is an enormous variety of food items to choose from. Far greater than anything in the ‘States. The USA had, what, five different flavors of potato chips. In China the number is in the thousands. Lays is the biggest foreign-owned potato chip manufacturer that serves the Chinese market. My favorite flavors are starfruit and orange, roast duck with pickled egg, and “American style”. LOL
All of the public areas are super clean. Old or new, it doesn’t matter.
Restrooms are everywhere and none of them charge for use.
All public buses and transport are electric. Means that they are quiet and do not billow out pollution.
There is zero unemployment. And the crazies are nurtured in their communities. Everyone is provided a job (if they don’t have one) and they are the responsibility of community.
Homeless, vagrants, beggars are collected when they are reported, taken to the local police who identifies them. They are then provided with health care, food, a bunk and a trip back to their community with friends and family.
EV charging stations are plentiful.
Ride-share bikes are cheap, fun, and come with bicycle “superhighways” where you ride under large shady trees, and off the roads.
The idea of “sex” is not the same as in the West. It’s far more relaxed and natural, if that makes any sense. It isn’t broadcast 24–7 on media, billboards, television commercials and shows. It’s not a big deal.
That being said, the chances are that you will have more sex than what you would get back home. Because it’s not a goal. It’s an element of life.
The girls that you have relationships with will be very pretty. Not tattoos, piercings, foul tobacco chewing skanks. they will be real beauties.
Speaking of Chinese girls, they do have curves. They are not the thin, helpless, mindless waifs that is the common belief that seems to exist in the United States. Sure many are thin. But they are low BMI. Not emaciated. You would be surprised of the chest sizes on some of these chicks. Lordy!
And, while I am at it, Chinese women are tough. I mean tough as nails tough. They will manage a home, work two jobs, raise three kids all while carrying bricks on their shoulders for some extra money.
Chinese women are traditional. Meaning being a 1950’s era housewife is considered to be the ideal to achieve. Stay home. Take care of kids, budget and manage finances while the man works and brings home the money.
During rainy season you will adapt to tropical attire and carry an umbrella. So it will be common to see office folk wearing shorts and flip-flops in the office.
Men are studious, hard-working and very traditional. Just like the ladies are.
You will be expected to drink hard alcohol, and you will enjoy it immensely. Especially Maotai.
No one tips. No one will accept tips either.
There’s no April tax reports to fill out. Never do you have to report any income to the government. Nor do you have or need to hire an accountant, buy the latest version of “TurboTax” or go to H&R Block for tax advice.
You will be able to smoke cigarettes everywhere for the most part. From your office at work, to the bathroom, to inside the car. Everywhere. Office desks come with a glass ash tray, and all the manager’s offices have huge crystal ashtrays for you use, as do the bathrooms.
And the cigarettes will be cheap. The cheapest ones are less than $1 USD a pack. Though that can darn near kill you. However, the “good stuff” isn’t that expensive. Generally you can expect to pay $1.50 USD for a Chinese equivalent of Camel. But the most expensive cigarettes can get pricey.
You will have lifetime, real, friendships. If you need help, money or support, they will drop everything and come to you in a heartbeat.
Free dancing every morning and every evening in the local public areas. They are called “dancing grandmothers”, but everyone of all ages participate. Even I get down and boogie from time to time.
China is 100% cashless. You scan QR codes to buy or do anything.
You will NEVER starve. China is a nation that love to share food.
Car blocking you? No problem. Scan the plate and instantly your phone will call the number of the car owner / driver.
WeChat everything!
You will be able to save money. Lots of money. Unlike the USA, there aren’t millions of tiny hands in your wallet.
Medical care is very cheap, and easy to get. Local clinics are everywhere, and your medical history is transported no matter where you go.
You won’t need a doctors prescription for most medicines. This includes Viagra, codeine based headache medicines and antibiotics.
If you work in China as an American foreigner, the chances are that you will be paid less than what you would make in the United States for the same role and position, however you would actually be living an upper-middle class life and lifestyle because the cost of living is so cheap.
You will be able to buy nice new top-line cars. Whether it’s a luxury brand of a cutting edge EV, you will probably end up with multiple cars.
Chicken breast is considered to be the most undesirable part of the chicken, so Chicken breast meat at the grocery store is amazingly cheap. It also doesn’t have hormones or hormone injections or fed GMO feed. It’s healthy.
You will be accepted by the Chinese and friendships will form easily. Which differs substantially from that of the Japanese.
When hired you will have a contract. You will NEVER be laid off, or fired without notice such as what is common in the USA. If you merit a firing, it becomes a law case and a judge will determine what will happen. Typical contracts are two to three years. During the time that you work you will never worry about layoff because of some “downturn” in the news.
All businesses are required to provide meals and housings for their employees, or the equivalent (regional norms) in compensation to you. Typically, single people will share an apartment with another person, but if married the company will give you one for your family alone.
All business will (by law) provide you a yearly round-trip plane ticket to visit your family. So if you are a foreigner, this is an international trip. If you are Chinese, this ticket is negotiated within your contract.
You will get a yearly bonus, and it is typically one to two months salary. The bonus is calculated in your annual salary, and comes “off the top”. It will be given during the final CNY party, and there might be other incentive bonuses placed on top of it.
You will be able to buy nice homes. A bunch actually. And they all will appreciate in value. My Nanshan house in Shenzhen cost me $ 40,000 USD. Today, it’s worth $ 9 million USD. But, you know, I was just lucky. Most everyone else has their homes value in the 2 to 6 million dollar range.
You will be able to breathe nice fresh air, and experience beauty. China has so much to explore in so many different venues.
You will be able to fish, and you won’t need permits to do so. Anywhere. Anyhow, and at any time.
Chinese medicine is cheap but tastes like shit. Yuck!
The Chinese diet is heavy on seafood, chicken and pork. They also have a far, far variety of vegetables and fruits here. Everything from bitter melon to yiche. These things add a very unique taste to food. Like the wonderful pudding of Duran fruit.
You will never be lonely. There’s people everywhere, and they really love to talk to Americans.
The police will leave you alone. As long as you obey the law they will be respectful and helpful to you.
Massages are cheap, plentiful and everywhere. A foot massage might cost you $3 USD and it’s a relaxing spell while you watch the game on television.
Speaking of massages; “Happy Endings” for both women and men are perfectly legal in China. It’s considered a form of physical relaxation. Crazy huh?
A meeting will (typically) not be held western-style with a conference room, instead it will be more intimate with a tea table and you will discuss things over tea and cigarettes.
And the government is merit based. You won’t get indigestion every time the appear on television.
All the gizmos and gadget are new, and cheap and won’t be available in the ‘States for a couple of years. Such as the Huawei phone that doesn’t need cell phone towers, and the wrist holographic phone. As well as all the facial recognition scanners in homes these days.
You WILL fall in love. The girls are precious treasures.
You won’t need to buy a bicycle, ride share is common and super cheap.
Here’s the Cons…
The Chinese democracy is very different from the American “democracy”. The Chinese don’t talk or understand “freedom”. Instead they understand “family.” If you try to be too independent, it might get you into trouble.
You are forever a GUEST in someone else’s land. Accept that fact.
You never wear outside shoes in someone else’s home. It’s considered downright boorish.
No one knows what Rights are. And when you try to explain to them the American bill of rights, they will think that you are an idealist, and not a pragmatist. Their argument is “what does it matter” when you have the “freedom to speak, but risk social banning if you speak things that are to be unspoken.
Like it or not, the actions of the American leadership will fall on your shoulders. If the president is popular like Obama was, you would be viewed with favor. If he’s unpopular (in China) you would be viewed as supporting his actions. It’s of course, not true, but it’s a reality that you will need to deal with.
Many American habits are considered to be “filthy” and you will need to change. Such as eating a hamburger with your hands, eating french fries with your fingers, and eating an apple by taking a bite from it. The Chinese cut things up and use chopsticks. Including with pizza. Or you will be given these thin plastic gloves to wear.
Local pizza restaurants do not know how to make pizza. They make something else, but it’s certainly not pizza.
Cheese will be imported and it tends to be expensive.
Beer is stronger in alcohol content than what is available in the ‘States. That means, that if you are not prepared, you will get drunk much faster than you would expect.
If you have tattoos you could be banned from exposing them. This would be at work and in all public places, from swimming pools to malls.
As a foreigner, you can never obtain citizenship unless you have Chinese blood in your veins.
To enter China you will have your full biometics added to the database, and from that moment on, you will be 100% tracked by AI. You will be left alone, but if there is an emergency, your phone will light up and the police will come and pick you up within minutes.
The police, baoans and local party will all know you by name. Even if you never met them before.
You will not be able to do any kind of illegal drugs. None. Zero and you will not be able to get out of any mess that you get yourself into.
Typical drug sentence is death plus three. Means that you do hard labor for three years while you are being organ harvested, and then you are killed. The good news of this gruesome policy is that the government will get you high on medicine to chill you out, and then allow you to dress in your best clothes and you will get a happy-value meal from McDonalds. Then they put a board listing your crime around your neck and shot you with a bullet to the head. Your family will be billed for the cost of the ritual.
You will not be able to own or shoot guns. But if you want to shoot guns, you can visit Thailand. It’s only a three hour flight out of China.
It will take a while to get used to squatting toilets. But once you master it, you will be fine. It’s just those first couple of dumps that’s gonna be a problem.
You will need to carry around these tiny tissues with you. Toilets do not have toilet paper for you to use.
You will NEVER be able to uncouple yourself from the United States. Even if you renounce your citizenship, you will always and forever be “the American”.
The Chinese do not debone fish. You will be expected to eat the fish and then spit out the bones.
You will probably stop carrying a wallet.
You will probably start carrying a satchel or a backpack.
Your house will be much smaller than one in the ‘States. But it will be made out of stone, not drywall on metal frame. You will probably use an elevator to get to it.
American holidays do not exist.
China is in many ways simple, but it can get complex very quickly.
Chewing tobacco (“chew”) doesn’t exist, but you can chew on a betal nut instead. The problem with this is that it will stain your teeth a big bright red color.
You will work on Christmas and Christmas Eve.
Good luck finding a turkey to eat. You will need to go to a specialty store to get one.
If you are a big man you will have trouble finding clothes. I have big feet and that limits my access to shoes. (Sigh)
You will not be able to watch or view porn. Instead, you will be forced (out of necessity) to participate in real sex with real people. Not be a voyeur spectator.
At your job, you will be expected to give your best and “up your game” if you slack off. China is a merit based society. You ether do your best or leave.
Violations of law can be very harsh. Death and torture harsh.
You will need to comply with covid restrictions. It’s a real thing. Don’t even think about flaunting the rules, or going borderline. You comply or leave.
American Christmas music will be played all year around, and the Christmas decorations stay up all year as well.
Chinese homes are much smaller than American homes, but they do tend to have amazing views.
I’ve been living in China for over 20 years now, and still I am having a difficult time with the tones, and the idioms. I have met expats who pick up the language quickly, then there’s other older folks like myself that have a rough go at it.
Cheese-Its and other American snacks such as Doritos, and goldfish, and Wise potato-chips will be expensive. Many approaching the cost of a T-bone steak. So you will find yourself not eating these snacks often.
Coffee makers are rare. Outside of a coffeehouse, you will adapt to using instant coffee.
Starbucks coffee in China is surprisingly more expensive than what it is sold for in the USA!
You will STILL need to pay American taxes on top of any Chinese taxes that you must pay.
McDonald’s menu will not resemble the menus you have in the ‘States.
There’s no White Castle, Bojangles, Ground Round, Waffle House, or other well-known American fast food franchises.
You will be called a “traitor”, and a liar, and all sort of bad things when you talk about your life. No one (from the ‘States) will believe you. So you will, over time, distance yourself from them.
Your passport will be your ID, and so it will get frayed and worn.
You had best memorize your passport ID as you will use it a lot to get set up on the various apps and all the rest. No one uses social security number.
As a foreigner, you will need to update your residency papers with the local police, and comply with reporting requirements.
You will not be able to ride the riding mower while you listen to music and drink a beer.
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Now, there are all sorts of people out there reading this. And I want to make myself very clear in this. Our decisions to move, stay, visit or leave a place are made for personal reasons.
My reasons were personal. I fell in love, and stayed and made a life. I cannot imagine a life without my Chinese family, my Chinese friends or eating delicious Chinese food.
But I am NOT average.
Certainly there are people who left China ten years ago and that say “good riddance!” while they live in places like Cleveland, York, Syracuse, or Erie. For them, they have made a good life.
For them, they made the right decision. For them they are happy.
They are paying on a house mortgage, and driving a leased car, and working as an employee and paying a big portion of their earnings to the government. They love their McMansions, the hamburgers, and weekend mowing-the-grass lifestyle.
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But not me.
You cannot say that what is important for one person will be important for everyone. I love China. And that’s just fine with me. You see, what is important to me is very personal.
For instance, I like being able to smoke where I want, what I want and when I want to do it. I don’t want to be directed to go outside of a restaurant to smoke in the rain near a loud busy road. I like to eat in a nice fancy restaurant and put our dog in a chair with us, eat a fine steak with a glass or wine and smoke casually and easily.
I also like the trees planted everywhere. China has this “thing” about trees. Flowers and trees are everywhere. I believe that it keeps the temperature low on the sidewalks so that you want to walk. In the USA, trees are considered to be a nuisance… something that fall on your car, and leaves that you have to rake up in the fall.
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What I like will not be perfect for everyone.
I like the ability for average families to set up storefronts and sell things. I like the idea that you can do this anywhere and get a side income in, as well as being your own boss… plus not “putting all your eggs in one basket” constantly at the mercy of your corporate boss. I like that real freedom…
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I like how people are (for the most part) happy. I like how they are helpful. I like how they are cheerful and welcoming and open to talk with you. I like the calm, relaxed, healthy and good life that China offers…
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I like the pace of life. Whether it is in the (so called) “Ghost City” where I live. (Which, by the way is filling up nicely. Don’t you know.) Or in the big mega-cities that are everywhere in China.
Here’s my “Ghost city”… perhaps you heard about it. It’s supposed to be representative of the terrible mistakes that China has made in their economic model. I don’t know anything about that. Everyone here is happy. Everyone here thinks the world of the Chinese government.
Happiness is a big deal inside of China.
The only ones pissed off and angry, seems to be Americans. Gosh, you would think that I am the devil himself by showing what China is like… what it is REALLY like… and why I like it so. So much spewed hatred. Honest to goodness, the spitting, sour hatred out of many Americans just rattles me. What the heck are youse guys eating? Lard Sandwiches, or what?
I’ll tell you what; that hatred will kill you early.
Be happy. Don’t be hateful. You’ll live longer. Don’t you know.
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China has life. It’s active, alive and dynamic. There’s always something going on. I like that. I never had that in the United States.
China is active and dynamic. Always something going on. Yet, it’s not that rush-rush-rush feeling that you might get from a Hollywood action adventure movie. It’s a really relaxed feeling. Like playing golf on a beautiful day, like going fishing on a slow calm late Summer day, or just riding your bicycle in the fall and listening to the leaves crackle under your wheels. Yeah I like that.
I like the feeling of calm and nature.
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I love the food. Oh lordy there is is so much food to choose from. And my goodness is it delicious!
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And I love the girls…
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And finally, let it be well understood that I live in the poorer “blue collar” worker section of China. I do not live in a big upscale wealthy section of China. I’m solidly in the lower-middle class economic strata.
I live in Southern Zhongshan on the Zhuhai border. It’s very lower-middle class. And the life that I praise is comfortable, but not lavish.
Average Family incomes (husband and wife both working) are between 4000 RMB and 12,000 RMB). This is roughly $300 USD to $2000 USD a month. But when the total cost of living is under $200, everyone can get by quite well.
Yah. Simple. But good enough for me.
And my social security check. LOL.
…
Today…
When do I know it’s time to retire?
I had an office manager for over 33 years. She ran the office and I practiced law. It was a good partnership for both of us.
However, after practicing law for over 35 years, I was burnt out. I was finding if more difficult to empathize with my clients. I had thought about retiring but just could not bring myself to say I have had enough.
One day my officer manager came into my office and closed the door and said we need to talk. She said it was time for me to retire and proceeded to outline exactly how I could do it. She had calculated how much I would get from Social Security, how much I was getting from rents, how much my wife would get from her teacher’s retirement once she retired and how much I could get from my 401(k).
She said that she knew I was not happy with my career anymore. She said that I should not worry about her as she and her husband were going to convert their home into a bed and breakfast.
I knew she was right and the next day I announced my retirement and have never regretted it.
My office manager now runs a very successful bed and breakfast.
Have you been to a doctor and they can’t find anything physically wrong with you, but you know something is wrong?
Back in 2014 I went hiking with family and found that I could not keep up with them. I was sweating profusely and was breathless even before we even got to the first uphill hike. My wife and I decided to stay behind and just waited for their return. I went to see my PCP the day after. He did an EKG but did not find anything. He referred me to a Cardiologist who, after giving me a stress test, said I was fine. I insisted that something was wrong. He gave me an echocardiogram and still could not find anything wrong. I insisted further and he agreed to do an angiogram. My brother-in-law who is a vascular surgeon in Northern California referred me to a colleague of his in San Diego to do the angiogram. This doctor did the angiogram and found that an angioplasty would not work for me and that I need a bypass. He referred me to another Cardiologist, Dr. Dan Meyers, from Texas. I ended up having, not one but five-artery (quintuple) bypass. Dr. Meyers said I was days away from getting a heart attack.
Today, after 10 years, I am feeling the same thing I felt back then and am going through the same thing again with cardiologists not finding anything wrong or saying there is nothing they can do but give me more medication to improve what I am feeling. The first one did an angiogram and found nothing wrong and gave me more medication that I stopped taking as it did not make a difference. I am on my fourth cardiologist now and finally found one who showed me on the computer screen what is happening and can do something about it. He said of the five arteries that were grafted in 2014, only 2 are still open. The other three have either collapsed or again blocked. He can reopen 2 of them easily with stents. The other one is a little bit tricky but can be done and I will be home on the same day. He told me not to overdo my workouts until after the angiogram which is scheduled for next month.
We do need to pay attention to our body. No one else knows our body more than ourselves. The doctors are there to find and correct the issues we feel.
What did your parents say about you that made you sad?
“Do you think they swapped them?”
I was barely three years old, and playing on the floor across the room.
“The woman in the room across from me at the hospital had a boy.” My mom’s hushed voice was colored with envy.
“Yes.” My father nodded patiently, as if he had heard this before.
“Do you think she really had a boy?”
“What do you mean?” Dad was confused, not following what my mom was asking.
“I mean, do you think the nurses swapped them? Maybe she had the girl and I was the one who had the boy.”
“No, they wouldn’t do that!” Dad seemed horrified by the suggestion, and instinctively glanced over at me.
I looked down and pushed the shiny tin train across the floor.
I never let on that I had heard or understood their conversation, but it changed me. The experience leaked uncertainty about my identity into my three-year-old world.
It was when I first realized why some things were the way they were.
I understood then why Mom rarely corrected strangers when they met me and praised what a cute son my mother had.
Why my hair was kept cropped short while my older sister had ponytails.
Why my grandfathers never gave me time of day.
It was the first time I found out that boys were to be coveted, and girls to be lamented.
I was meant to be a boy. And it made me sad. It wasn’t because Mom wondered if they mixed up the babies or wished she had the boy.
I was sad that I was a girl.
WARNING: Hard Landing is coming for the US Economy
Screw a hard landing. Its always a crash landing when the wheels have fallen off already.
All Americans are feeling economic pressures with high inflation, fearful news, a Congress that loves to throw money around, and all sorts of changes to their lifestyle. Without becoming political, what is the easiest and best solution for the USA?
Stop creating more dollars. 1 trillion dollars are being created every 100 days. Within a few years it will be much greater than that amount.
The old definition of inflation, 100 years ago, said that inflation is the creation of money (currency).
Our currency is not really money anymore. Currency not backed by gold cannot be money. We have fiat currency now. It only has value because people accept it as having value. But it has been losing value at a much faster pace, since America went off the gold standard in 1971.
When money is backed by gold, it limits how much, new money can be made. When you go off the gold standard, you can create all the currency you want to. Now, you know why, we have higher inflation.
The inflation numbers on TV are not the true inflation numbers. In 1980, they changed, how inflation was calculated. So, you have to multiply by 2 to get a more accurate inflation number. So, 3 1/2% inflation is 7% true inflation rate. Everything, we are being told is a fraud now. They will lie about the employment numbers, so Biden can get reelected. There is a chance that something major is going to happen between now and May 19. It could be nuclear war or dollar devaluation. Maybe, a stock market crash. The economy is a fraud. It will end badly, eventually.
Have you ever witnessed clever parenting and/or discipline?
When I was a child, bedtime was 8:30, no fooling around about it. Unless I was reading. If I was reading anything at all, I could stay up as long as I stayed quietly reading. (I rarely made it to 9).
Later, my parents’ problem became getting me to stop reading and go to sleep. I had the third floor of the house to myself, but I kept getting caught staying up and reading. Tried sealing the door so light couldn’t leak out. No good. Tried covering the windows so nothing showed in the yard. No dice; I kept getting caught.
Many years later, as a young adult, I broke down and asked Mom how she did it.
She gave me the look she reserved for occasions when I’d done something a little cute, but basically stupid, and replied: “How many nights were you not reading?” Me: *thinks* “Oh. So, every night on your way to bed, you just hollered upstairs, and on the odd night when I was already asleep, no harm done?” Mom: “Uh-huh.”
What surprised you most about retiring?
One of the biggest surprises that has happened after retiring is realizing what it’s like to downsize. We lost, or rather left behind, over 1000 square feet. We’d had a lovely piece of property, and now we don’t have very much.
I’ve pared down our possessions, I’m still doing that, and I’m beginning to realize how little we need. No one will tell me why I dragged my mother’s china with me. I won’t use it. I hardly used it when we had a larger house. I was younger then, and we did a lot of entertaining. You’ll find out how this works. You know that there is no good reason to take so much stuff, but you do it anyway. I look at that china and think, “Let my heirs take care of it.” As long as I don’t do that with too many things, I should be okay.
I’m overwhelmed by how nice people are in the community we’ve moved into. People showed up at my door with homemade soup, breads and even dinner. We were welcomed with open arms. I’d lived in my old neighborhood for a long time, I knew my neighbors, but I never got to know them well. I had a good friend across the street. I knew the people on my block, but we each had our own lives. We were working. That made a difference. Larger homes with larger plots of land tend to make people stay within their boundaries. I don’t feel any boundaries here. I feel free.
I didn’t expect to be this happy. I thought we were just doing this for the money, but I’ve found out that I’ve been looking for this place a long time, and finally I was old enough to find it.
SHOCKING: China Warns The US “Cooperation or Confrontation” As Russia SEIZES US Bank Assets
This is a VERY GOOD video. China gave the USA “notice”.
China has had enough.
Blinken’s in China and things aren’t going well for him. Beijing has given him multiple warnings and red lines not to cross. China has given clear signs they aren’t afraid of America’s economic threats. Meanwhile, Russia has just frozen the assets of JP Morgan’s Russian account. This asset seizure will likely continue as the West plans to confiscate Russia’s frozen $300 billion. Here’s what you must know!
What did your father say to you that you’ll never forget?
When I was 20 years old, still a university student, and in the early stages of a relationship, a game of truth or dare with friends took an unexpected turn. I was dared to confess about my relationship to my parents, even though it felt too early. However, my ego pushed me to accept the challenge.
I nervously called my dad.
Me: Hi, Dad.
Dad: Hi! How are you?
Me: I wanted to say something.
Dad: Okay, go ahead.
Me: I… hmm… (I hesitated).
Dad: What’s the hesitation?
Me: I wanted to say… (still hesitant, thinking of how to handle things if they go south).
Dad: Is there someone around you? (He heard my friends’ voices and they were making sure I said it.)
Me: Pooh… (taking a deep breath and without second thought) I like a girl!
Dad: Okay, what’s her name? (He seemed surprisingly cool, which was not typical with Indian parents.)
Me: (I told him her name.)
Dad: Okay, where is she from?
Me: (I gave him her details.)
Dad: Alright. Just remember one thing in life. Even if you miss one bus, there is always another bus that will come. You just need to wait.
Me: Okay (totally dumbfounded by how things turned around).
Dad: Anything else?
Me: No.
Dad: Bye!!.
Me: Bye !!.
Till this day, I remain captivated by the way my dad handled that unexpected conversation. His calm and open-minded response, especially given the usual cultural norms, left a lasting impression on me. The analogy he used, comparing life’s opportunities to buses, has become a guiding principle for me in facing challenges.
Since that day, whenever I encounter setbacks or failures, I recall my dads words and wait for the next bus. 🙂
edit: Thanks a lot for all the upvotes . shared it with my dad yesterday, and he was ecstatic about the response. A big thanks to all who read and all the upvotes !!
What were the last words you heard someone say before they died?
My mom had lung cancer. I was with her the last few days. She refused medication until the last day. Then started morphine. I had fallen asleep after reading to her for a bit.
The nurse explained to me that her kind of death is like slowly drowning the morphine reduces your bodies desire to breath. Very hard to watch.
Well I fell asleep finally and my alarm did not wake me for her next dose. I heard “ Neal get up!”. Just like when I was late for the bus 50 years ago. I had not heard her speak above a whisper for more than a month.
I gave her her next dose read a bit more to her from the hobbit ( she called her house that she built after she was65 her self) her hobbit house ( partially underground) but she had never read the hobbit and loved it when we read to her.
She never spoke again, I actually think she was not really there after that second dose of morphine.
Due to covid this remarkable lady never had a funeral. Grew up on the reservation, professional trick rider from ages of 9 to 12. Completed high school, raised 3 boys on her own . Ran 3 successful businesses, tribal council 3 times no one messed with her twice all 90 lb 4ft 7 of her…. Happy trails ma….
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Apricot Cream Cheese French Toast
8061t4
Ingredients
French Toast
1 loaf French bread, cut into 8 very thick slices
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup pecans
Confectioners’ sugar
1 cup whipping cream
4 eggs
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Apricot Sauce
1 (12 ounce) jar apricot preserves
1/2 cup orange juice
Instructions
French Toast
Make a pocket in bread slices by slicing again, but not all the way through.
Mix the cream cheese with the pecans and a couple tablespoons of the confectioners’ sugar. Stuff the pocket in the French bread with the cream cheese mixture. Dip into a mixture of whipping cream, eggs, nutmeg and vanilla extract.
Grill on hot griddle, and serve with Apricot Sauce.
Apricot Sauce
Mix apricot preserves with orange juice over low heat.
How is a plane removed from a place where it’s unable to takeoff again?
In 1997, a Saudi Airlines 747 landed at the wrong airport in India – it was supposed to land at Madras International Airport but ended up touching down at a nearby Indian air force base instead. The pilot simply saw and aimed for the wrong runway. Oops!
In that particular case, the base’s runways weren’t enough to allow the plane to safely take off again.
So, they made the plane as light as possible. All of the passenger seats were taken out, as well as all of the galleys. Any excess weight was removed from the plane to make it as light as possible. It was given just a few minutes worth of fuel – the absolute minimum necessary to be able to get the plane in the air and make the short flight to the Madras airport, which was its original, intended destination and just a short hop away.
Big, longhaul planes that need longer runways are usually intended for longer flights, and thus a big reason they need such long runways for takeoff is they’re loaded up with so much fuel. So, perhaps the Saudi 747 wasn’t the only case in which a large plane was stripped of as much weight as possible, and then given the absolute least amount of fuel possible – just enough to allow it to take off and get itself to the nearest airport with the right runway.
Apparently the same happened with a TWA flight that landed at the wrong airport near Steamboat Springs, CO in 2001, and an Atlas Air cargo jet that landed at the wrong airport in AZ. In each case, all excess weight was removed from the plane, and it was given just enough fuel to get it to the correct airport. Once there, everything was put back on the plane (after being trucked over) and it was put back in service. Obviously, these situations each involve pilots accidentally landing at the wrong airport, mistaking them for the (nearby) airport they were supposed to land at. So in these situations, giving the planes just enough fuel to get to the proper airport – but not enough to prevent them from taking off on the short runway – was an option.
What was the most disrespectful suggestion you received from a person who assumed you made less money than them?
When I chose to leave the language center where I had worked for 14 years for lack of respect issues by ‘the boys’ club’, one colleague (who was part of the club) made it clear that HE thought I was making a huge mistake.
Fast forward perhaps 5 years. He, too, had left the center for a higher paying position elsewhere.
We ran into each other at an exhibition, and he asked what I was doing for work.
As a communications teacher, I am really good at reading body language and tone of voice. He was oozing condescension and seemed ready to gloat, assuming I was working at some unlicensed language school.
I admit to messing with him and felt no guilt whatsoever.
I told him I was teaching part time (I had been a full-time teacher trainer and supervisor at the center) and added nothing.
He gave one of his famous ‘sad on the outside, superior laugh on the inside’ looks and saying he still had connections, he offered to put in a good word for me at the center, so MAYBE I could be rehired there as an hourly teacher.
I thanked him as sincerely as I could, but then, looking very serious, told him I was part-timing at the then top-rated business school in Thailand, making over three times what I had made fulltime at the center and working only a fourth of the 40-hour week.
His look of shock was very satisfying.
The fun didn’t end there.
My husband walked up and asked if we were talking about our new logistics company (we owned six 10-wheel trucks outright); I feared my former colleague was going to have a heart attack.
Note: I had been moonlighting at the business school long before I left the center. It was no secret, but the ‘club’ never bothered to learn much about me.
When I left the center, I also left my disgust and anger about them AT the center, being unwilling to carry THAT burden into the future.
Why dont young able-bodied homeless people just get jobs?
A few years ago someone I had known when they were a teenager showed up where I was working looking for a job. He was in his early 20s by this point (American citizen) but had been kicked out of his moms house. He had nothing but the clothes on his back and his birth certificate.
There was a truck stop walking distance from where he was staying that would hire him but he had to have a social security card and a picture id.
So I tried to help him get those items and I discovered just how difficult it is to get photo id without photo id! He was a nice kid but not brilliant. And he had no car so I drove him. first place we went was the social security office. once there it was discovered that the birth dates on his birth certificate and his social security card were one day apart! That took more paperwork to figure out.
Finally we get a social security card but then we go to the local dmv for an id. He didn’t have a previous id of course, and because of his situation he had no utility bills in his name or passport or anything else. Eventually we managed to get him an id because I was willing to sign paperwork vouching for his identity since I knew him when he was a kid
Both the social security office and the dmv were over 20 miles from where he was staying, and each took multiple trips. He couldn’t get a job so he had no money so he couldn’t have taken Ubers. ( and no working phone or credit card) And he would have really really struggled figuring out all of the paperwork. I have a masters degree and I struggled trying to figure out this stuff.
These days any ‘legit’ -ie not paying under the table – employer has to check social security cards and all of that stuff.
If a homeless person has lost their social security card and picture id – I can assure you – at least in Texas – it’s incredibly hard to get either back. If that homeless person does not have someone to vouch for who they are, they might not be able to get it again.
it took well over a month and numerous trips to get him sorted out. Once we did, he took the job and could work again. But a homeless person with no one to drive them around and help them out? Good luck.
What are the facts about girls that guys don’t know?
Generally, we don’t enjoy talking dirty
women are attracted towards men with good dressing sense…like men matching their sneakers with hoddies or socks with the shirt
without speaking a word we can give alerts to other females…like there is a period stain on your dress or “I want a sanitary napkin!!” all this can be said through eyes
We dislike boys who are a simp (brutally honest)
we gain respect for the boy who cries in front of us (we never ever judge you for crying)
7. when we talk to our crush we generally play with our hairs
8. we love when you teach us something without making us feel dumb
9. the happiness of having no period stain on a bedsheet after sleeping on it for a whole night
10. girls generally think a lot of fake scenarios more than boys and if that fake scenario becomes reality she will be insanely in love with you
so try to know her imagination (ask this indirectly) and fulfill it.
This type of politicization of medical research is absolutely disgusting, and downright harmful.
This is @wellcometrust
, a large global charitable foundation focused on health research. Their mission, I quote, is to “improves health for everyone by funding research”. Everyone… except for the Chinese apparently.
Here they’re offering to fund research to the tune of £5 million for research into dengue and Zika, two virus infections that do occur in China (especially dengue which is endemic in the southern provinces). And they make it extremely clear throughout the description of the project (Infectious Disease Award: Understanding dengue and Zika spread | Grant funding | Wellcome
) that any organization in the world can apply for this grant, literally “anywhere in the world”… “apart from mainland China”!
This isn’t only shocking for the obvious singling out of one specific country but also because it runs counter to the very principles of science: what if the one scientific team in the world that’s most competent to further research into dengue is actually Chinese? Are we saying that because they’re Chinese that means we’d rather set science back than have them work on it? What kind of world are we preparing for ourselves where nationality and race take precedence over scientific progress? I remember a certain country doing this in the 1940s and it didn’t work too good for them…
china bad1
Yet westoids will say NOT RACIST they’re just insects!
BYTEDANCE REFUSES to SELL TIKTOK – china tells Biden to go back to sleep…
America is a circus, and a sad one.
China is “Dude; we are so tired of your bullshit. Go fuck yourself.”
Western democracy used to be in the circle of “electing and regretting”. Has it become a cycle of “electing and ousting” now?
Oh yes, you can literally see it on westoids responses.
We’re a democracy! We can vote them out if they do shitty things.
This of course fails to mention that they get to walk off with their ill gotten loot.
This also fails to mention that they don’t really have a choice, all the political parties are the same.
democracy
We can look at it today and now with the Democrats and Republicans. Or Conservative and Labour (UK). The parties policies are absolutely identical when they agree with each other all the time.
Want an example?
In the UK water companies are dumping raw sewage into rivers and the sea. This was after Brexit made EU pollution laws no longer apply.
26th April there was a vote about OFWAT. To WEAKEN the water regulator in their ability to issue fines and order water companies to literally clean up their shit.
So Starmer Labour leader opposed this right?
Nope
Starmer’s Labour voted with the Tories to weaken the water watchdog’s ability to combat sewage dumping. This will fundamentally impact the ability for OFWAT to fine water companies who continue to pollute our rivers, lakes and seas as we know they have been doing with impunity since EU water cleanliness legislation got dumped following Brexit.
So oh sure you’ll get to replace your politicians with identical politicians who act the same way, are greedy and self serving in the same way too!
main qimg 4e79036152b1051aea9859db98c8ac23
The above is from Futurama.
The even funnier thing is they’ll defend this as the PERFECT system!
What are the most arrogant, idiotic and shameful things a politician has ever said?
I’m going to go with Louis Farrakhan on this one
A couple quotes so you can get my idea:
“You see everybody always talk about Hitler exterminating six million Jews. That’s right. But don’t nobody ever ask what did they do to Hitler.”
“White people are potential humans – they haven’t evolved yet.”
“The Jews have been so bad at politics they lost half their population in the Holocaust. They thought they could trust in Hitler, and they helped him get the Third Reich on the road.”
“The Mother Wheel is a heavily armed spaceship the size of a city, which will rain destruction upon white America but save those who embrace the Nation of Islam.”
“Now that nation called Israel, never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion under His holy and righteous name.”
“The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man.”
“I believe that for the small numbers of Jewish people in the United States, they exercise a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government …Yes, they exercise extraordinary control, and black people will never be free in this country until they are free of that kind of control … “
“Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn’t offer anything back to our community. When the Jews left, the Palestinian Arabs came, Koreans came, Vietnamese…and we call them bloodsuckers.”
“White people deserve to die, and they know, so they think it’s us coming to do it.”
Arrogant? Check.
Idiotic? Check.
Shameful? Check.
Have you ever been ignored by the staff in a store because you didn’t look wealthy enough?
I walked into a Harley-Davidson dealership looking to buy my next bike. I was looking at their pre-owned stock, which, like in any other retail scenario, is significantly less expensive than buying new. My son (I think he was 7 or 8 at the time), was with me, and I had him sitting on the passenger seats of several bikes on the floor to see if he were tall enough to reach the foot pegs. We were both wearing jeans and t-shirts, which is fairly typical for us, and not entirely uncommon among motorcyclists.
I narrowed my selection down and got on those bikes with him to see if he could hold onto me in the riding position. After probably 5 or 6 bikes, I decided on one, and started looking around for a sales person. There were several of them on the floor, all just kind of glancing over at us while talking among themselves. We wandered through the merchandise section of the store, and as we passed the group of sales people, I said “apparently nobody wants to take a cash down payment for their next sale?”
We walked out, and I later discovered that while this treatment of customers isn’t all that common among Harley dealers as a whole, this particular dealer is notorious for it.
As a police officer, what’s the one call that will be with you forever?
As a new officer on overnight shift, I was dispatched to a shooting in an urban neighborhood in the downtown area. When I arrived, I was accompanied by two other officers where we observed two men in a pickup truck in front of a house who had been shot. Before a minute, there were another half dozen police officers who had arrived securing the scene while we administered first aid. The paramedics came and took the driver. The passenger, a 19 year old kid was pronounced dead at the scene. We had learned shortly thereafter this was a drive by, gang style shooting that was retribution against these individuals who had shot one of there members the week before.
I was assigned to stand by the passenger door of the pickup securing the evidence until the scene could be processed. Our CSI Unit worked during the day shift and was on call, so we had to wait.
The door was open with the nineteen year old’s head and right arm sticking out the door as he laid on his right side across the seat. This was my first homicide scene. This was the first time being close to a deceased body. I stood there watching his blood spill out of the vehicle and drift down about fifty feet in the gutter to where we had put up our crime scene tape.
About 45 minutes had passed when a lady drove up, exited her vehicle and approached where the detective was standing outside the tape. When she saw the blood, she let out a shriek and then inconsolable sobbing as she knew her son was the one in that pickup truck even before the detective could have informed her. Before long, family members started to arrive. One by one, the shrieks and the sobbing continued. After about an hour, they left together, attempting to console one another. Then there was an eerie silence. After nearly 23 years, I can still remember what the scene looked like, the smell, and those agonizing screams. My prayers are still with this young man’s family.
Southwestern Egg and Cheese Breakfast Casserole
71858t1
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
18 eggs
2 small cans green chiles, chopped
1 to 1 1/2 pounds cooked breakfast sausage
2 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
1 onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
Instructions
Spray slow cooker with Pam.
Starting with sausage, layer meat, chiles, onions, peppers, and cheese, repeating the layering process until all ingredients are used and ending with a layer of cheese.
Beat eggs, then pour over mixture in slow cooker.
Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours.
Serve with sour cream and/or salsa.
What are some “Wait, what?” moments that you’ve had with your child’s school?
One of my daughters is a serious academic. She is the student who, when given an assignment due in 2 weeks, would begin it that same evening. She always turned in essays and projects early; sometimes the teacher even told her to take it home for a while until it was due. She scrupulously studied for every test and exam. When she was in Grade 8, French class, every project, quiz, test, and participation level scored 95% or better. Yet, on her report card, her grade was B+.
WHAT?
We arranged a parent-teacher interview at the appropriate time as designated on the form supplied with the report card. My daughter, who was understandably very upset with her grade, accompanied me to ask for clarification from the teacher. Perhaps it was a simple error? We brought along all of my daughter’s marked work from the term.
“Oh, no error,” said the teacher. “I don’t ever give an A or A+. Students always have room to improve.”
“Well,” I countered, displaying all the marked term documents we had, “could you please explain how you added numerical grades over 15 assignments, that seem to average at 97%, to equal a B+, which is a numerical grade of 85–90%?”
“That may be accurate,” said the French teacher. “But I don’t give A+ to any students. There is always room to improve.”
We passed over the projects and exams that were graded at 100%. “Please explain how my daughter could improve in this circumstance.” Then we handed over the lowest-graded item, at 95%. “You have marked several of my daughter’s interpretations of this French novel as “inaccurate,” but her views actually are in agreement with those of these renowned French literary critics.” I passed her the publications.
“So, please explain to my daughter and me how she could have improved her performance enough to get the grade she needed to promote her to her desired school?”
“I never give an A+,” was the final comment before the interview was ended. And my daughter was once again in tears.
“It’s not over yet,” I told her. I sent all of our documentation, the report card, and the teacher’s remarks (which I had written down as they were being discussed) to the school Principal, cc to the Superintendent, and to the School Board. Within 3 days her mark was corrected to A+, and a letter of apology was sent to my daughter from the principal of the school. The French teacher transferred.
I am proud to say that this daughter is now in her 4th year PhD English Literature, and is completely fluent in French.
Sorry not Sorry, But NO: China doesn’t need to be grateful to the US for anything
As a follow on to two videos I’ve recently made, on about the reasons why Japan invaded China and another about the reason why China should be grateful to the USA, there have been a few questions and I’ll attempt to answer them here.
For the longest time, my wife and I had a little dog. His name was PP. He was a good little guy, really… he was a really GOOD dog. He passed on last year, and I do miss him.
Anyways… when the wife and I lived in Shenzhen we would take him out for walks. He went everywhere with us. That is, long before he got old, and senile. Poor fella.
One day it might be me.
*sigh*
It will happen to all of us. Sadly.
Anyways, one night we went to a restaurant and were drinking beer. It was a new local restaurant in the heart of the “Louhu village” area. Lots and lots of local eating establishments. And so there we were. Eating. Drinking. Chatting.
When suddenly ol’ PP got up and was shaking like a leaf. His tail was between his legs and he started whimpering and shaking uncontrollably. Whimpering, and trembling.
“What’s wrong with PP?”, we asked. But he only got worse.
So we packed up, and we left.
Ah. We left.
Turned out that the restaurant was serving dogs that day. Not feeding them. No.
They were killing them, skinning them on the spot. Then, cooking them, and serving them to other patrons at the restaurant.
Boiled dog heads and internal organs. Roasted dog legs.
Ah. We had no idea.
Poor PP, he probably thought that he was next on the menu.
Rest in Peace little guy.
Today…
What psychological knowledge could save a life?
It is late, on a street in Copenhagen.
A man approaches another. He punches him to the face, knocking him to the ground.
The victim falls, cracks his head on the pavement and is unconscious.
The attacker doesn’t stop. He kicks the prone man 47 times to his body and stamps on his skull.
They catch the incident on CCTV cameras. There are many passers-by. It might be late, but the street is busy. It might be dark, but there is sufficient street lighting to see. Despite the brutal assault lasting a few minutes, nobody makes any attempt to stop the man.
It has psychologists puzzled; Why did no-one intervene?
This CCTV footage was one of 81 incidents being examined by researchers conducting an observational study into the ‘bystander effect’.
From viewing the footage, they pick out 764 bystanders who saw and heard a fellow human being assaulted… but they stood back and did nothing.
Not one of those people came to any of the victims’ aid.
Why?
‘Diffusion of responsibility’.
The bystander first notices the situation, correctly labels this is an emergency, assumes responsibility for helping, decides how to help and implements the decision to help – at least, that is how most people would react on their own.
But this is different, there are other people present.
Being in a crowd interferes with this process.
When alone, defining a situation is straightforward because we use our own judgment, whereas in a group of strangers, a process known as ‘social comparison’ takes place where everyone looks to other’s reactions to define the situation.
If others lack worry or do nothing, the likelihood of the victim being helped is significantly reduced.
We assume others will take responsibility.
The burden of responsibility is diluted among the number of bystanders present at the scene.
‘Someone else will phone the police.’
‘Someone else will be more qualified to help than me.’
‘No-one else is doing anything, it can’t be that serious.’
The more people there are, the less likely you are to get involved.
But now you know about the bystander effect.
The next time you come across someone collapsed in the street, YOU be the one to phone for an ambulance.
If you see a pick-pocket steal a wallet shout, ‘Stop thief’.
If someone’s life is in danger, tap the nearest person to you and say, ‘We need to help that guy.’ The touch is enough to snap people out of inaction.
Enlist the help of other bystanders. Tell them what to do – it is in our nature to respond to direct requests. Check they understand what you are asking, even if it is a simple request, getting a ‘yes’ reinforces the request and makes people more likely to stick to the plan. Ask others to keep an eye out for trouble/police/ambulance. People need a purpose, even if it is doing nothing.
“Last year, China registered one of the highest growth rates among the major economies and accounted for over 30 percent of global growth as before.
This was due both to the hard work of the Chinese people and to international cooperation.
China has come to where it is today after overcoming all kinds of difficulties and challenges.
China did not collapse as predicted by the ‘China collapse theory,’ nor will it peak as forecasted by the ‘China peak theory.’
We will continue to advance high-quality development and Chinese modernization, enable the Chinese people to live a better life, and contribute more to sustainable development in the world.
We have the confidence and determination that China’s development has a bright future.”
Excerpt from the speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting with representatives of U.S. Business, Strategic and Academic Communities, March 27, 2024.
The Reconquest Of American Culture
Colorado Red Chili
Chili Colorado Recipe1
Ingredients
3 to 4 pounds pork tenderloin or pork roast.
1 pound ground pork
12 to 15 whole New Mexico green chiles, roasted and peeled (or 5 or 6 cans whole green chiles)
2 or 3 jalapeños for heat
2 medium white or yellow onions
2 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1-2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 whole tomatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks (or used canned diced tomatoes)
1 potato, shredded (optional)
Instructions
Cut pork tenderloin (or roast) into 1/2 inch cubes and coat with the flour, salt and pepper. Brown in skillet with small amount of oil until pork is well browned. Remove and set aside.
Brown ground pork in same skillet and drain excess grease.
Chop onions into large sections and add to skillet along with the garlic to sweat. Add 1 cup of the chicken stock to deglaze the pan.
In a large pot add the above pan mixture along with the pork.
Chop green chiles into 1 inch slices and add to the big pot along with the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil then simmer slowly for 2 to 3 hours.
Serve with grated yellow cheese and tortillas or use to smother rellenos, burritos, chimichangas, enchiladas, or use in breakfast burritos.
Why A $100,000 Salary Can’t Buy The American Dream
What are 10 things police officers wish they could tell you, but can’t?
Guys: keep your dicks out of other men’s wives. Of course you can expect some trouble in your life from the husband. You are just begging for it. You aren’t rescuing her from anything. Let her sort her crap out for herself before you make things more complicated by getting yourself involved.
Girls: if he is cheating on her with you, he is going to cheat on you with the next one. You are nothing special. Just the next one in the chain. And that new girl is going to think that you are just as trashy as you think the one he is with now is.
If you have a radar detector in your car, you have had enough warnings already. You are getting a ticket.
I don’t care who you know. I have a job to do. If you really do know someone who matters to me, word will get back to them that I am doing my job.
Yes, you really did do a very stupid thing. You made a lousy choice and now you are going to suffer the consequences.
If you ask for a fight and get one, you don’t get to file charges against the person who beat the crap out of you just because you lost.
People who do drugs get into some really stupid shit. Sometimes pretty nasty shit as well.
Hey, you know those people around you called friends and family? They do care and the stupid crap you get into affects them as well.
Parents, your kids are your responsibility, not ours. If you didn’t care where they were or what they were doing hanging out at 3 am with other kids you don’t know, it’s not our fault that something really bad happened to them. And stop telling them that we will take them to jail if they don’t listen to you. And what the hell do you think you are doing letting someone else’s kid stay in your place all night without knowing or talking to the kid’s parents?
If you complain about parking and bad driving in your neighborhood, you are not exempt from getting a ticket because you were the one who complained. You should be happy that your complaint is getting a response.
White House Officially Makes Side Hustle ILLEGAL
This is ridiculous! How else are we supposed to get ahead in this greedy, evil and narcissistic ass country! As hard as it is to make ends meet in America. This will make things harder! I’m sick of these crooked politicians creating laws that take makes it harder for the people who are trying to get ahead! “The land of the free” was just a catch phrase America is turning into a dictatorship.
What if every single nuclear nation emptied their nukes on China before they could respond? If China is such a threat and their leadership needs to die, why don’t we just kill them and be done with it?
Fortunately distance even if you park the SSBNs off the coast of Tianjin means we’d have about 4 minutes to respond.
Those 4 minutes means we can activate a total launch since it’s use it or lose it. There would be literally no time to call for a clarification like with a continental launch which gives 25 minutes to call ask what’s going on.
So we’d be obliterated but our missiles would be in the upper atmosphere and land in your towns and cities about 17 minutes later.
What’s the most questionable cost-cutting move you’ve seen an employer make?
Two weeks on the job and I found that I needed another yellow pad for client notes. I asked my manager, “hey, can I get a yellow pad? And is it possible to get a mechanical pencil instead of a #2 pencil I have to sharpen? The led makes huge stains on my shirts
And I hate to complain, but can I get an optical mouse instead of a rolling ball mouse? The rolling ball always stutters which impacts my productivity”
“yeah – you have to go ask the office manager”
I walk down the hall to ask the office manager and tell her what I need.
“Can I get an optical mouse?”
“No”
“all right. Can I get a mechanical pencil so I don’t have to constantly sharpen my pencil and so my shirts don’t get stained”
“Sorry, we don’t provide those”
“Well – ok. I do need another yellow pad. Can I get a few?”
“Yes – follow me”
We proceeded to walk down the hallways of the high-rise we were in at the time. Mind you that this is the most expensive space in all of Sacramento:
main qimg 89614ae71428a6935dba861e7c40dccd lq
Scary office manager went into the managing partner’s office and grabbed keys from inside of his desk (Weird) and took me into the file room.
“What do you need now”
“I need a pencil and a yellow pad”.
She then proceeded to unlock a file room door as if it were the gates to Fort Knox. Inside of it were valuable items such as:
The cost of a box of 12 #2 pencils: $2.39
The cost of a box of a dozen yellow pads: $12.39
The cost of 40 AAA batteries – $20
The cost of treating your employees like 4 year olds to the point where 40% of them quit the company over a 15 month time span: Priceless
America’s economy is failing
Who is the Beijing official in charge of managing Hong Kong affairs?
The Beijing official in charge of Hong Kong affairs is Zhang Dejiang 张德江。
Under the “one country, two systems” approach, Hong Kong is supposed to be independent when it comes to making internal decisions, but when it comes to foreign affairs and defense, it is under Beijing.
In fact though, many important decisions have to pass consultation with the Office of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, of which Zhang is director. The Office of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs is like a sub-ministry set up to manage relations with these two areas because they do not fall under Chinese domestic control, and reports directly to the State Council, China’s cabinet. In the case of Hong Kong and Macau, they are special administrative regions (SARs) of the People’s Republic.
In addition to handling Hong Kong affairs, Zhang is the third ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, being only two steps away from Chinese president Xi Jinping. He is also chairman of the National People’s Congress, and deputy head of the National Security Commission, which is chaired by President Xi Jinping. (The National Security Commission is a new body modeled on the US National Security Council, and started by President Xi Jinping two years ago.)
This means that Zhang is really, really important in the Chinese party and government hierarchy. Basically, he is the third most important person who runs China.
CY Leung, who is Hong Kong’s chief executive, likely reports to Zhang Dejiang on a daily basis, especially following the demonstrations in Hong Kong. Another way of looking at it is that CY Leung is Zhang Dejiang’s front man in Hong Kong. CY Leung cannot make any important decisions about the protests without first consulting Zhang, who would then report to Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Zhang Dejiang is originally from Liaoning in northeastern China, and went to university in North Korea. That’s right, North Korea.
After finishing university, he was made deputy party secretary of Jilin, which borders North Korea. (The deputy party secretary would be like lieutenant governor in a US state.) His first major challenge was dealing with the issue of refugees from North Korea into China.
Later, he was made party secretary of Zhejiang province (like a US governor). Zhejiang has a very lively private sector; Alibaba, which just went public in the US, is from Zhejiang province.
In 2002, he was made party secretary for Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong. As party secretary in Guangdong, he worked with the Hong Kong government to make travel and transport between Guangdong and Hong Kong more convenient for business people. He also worked with Hong Kong’s leading business people on their factories and investments in Guangdong, and providing support for their investments. This way, he built a working relationship with many of the tycoons who play a leading role in Hong Kong’s economy.
He also met with many of the leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy movement.
In July 2011, he dealt with the cleanup following the Wenzhou train disaster. In March 2012, following the sacking of Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai (who was later sentenced to life in prison), he was appointed Chongqing party secretary.
After successfully cleaning up in Chongqing, he was appointed to several senior positions by Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Chinese president Xi Jinping heavily relies on two people: Vice Premier Wang Qishan, who has managed the party anti-corruption campaign which has taken down so many Communist party officials and Zhang Dejiang, for everything else. You might say that Wang Qishan handles party affairs and party discipline, while Zhang Dejiang handles non-party affairs. Both of these men have proven themselves by successfully cleaning up messes; this is their value to President Xi Jinping.
The party anti-corruption campaign has been especially tough: there are reports that there have been six assassination attempts against President Xi Jinping by party insiders under investigation, or who fear investigation. The travel itinerary for Vice Premier Wang Qishan is a state secret, just for this reason. In speeches to party members, President Xi Jinping has repeatedly stated that it is impossible for the party to be defeated by outside enemies; the only way it can collapse is because of a breakdown of internal party discipline. He has also said that he is prepared to sacrifice his own life in re-establishing party discipline.
If you want to understand how Beijing is going to react to the democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, Zhang Dejiang is the man to watch.
What subtle behavior makes a person more attractive?
1. When someone hands them an object with both of their hands, attractive people receive it with both of their hands as well.
2. They can remember details such as a birthday date. It’s always good to know that someone has taken the time to memorize things.
3. They maintain grace and joy, even in difficult circumstances. And positivity can be contagious.
4. Occasional vulnerability. People rarely bond with others with whom they cannot relate. We all love humans, not flawless, robotic beings.
5. They take care of themselves. When people start taking care of themselves, they start feeling better, looking better, and even start attracting better.
6. “You are what you eat” holds true for them. Also, people are what they read, watch, and the company they keep, including who they choose to date. If you’d like to improve your dating game, try this platform.
7. They can keep a secret. (An important one.)
8. They greet people by name. Likable people make certain they use others’ names every time they see them.
9. Ask thoughtful questions. People like to know that others are listening, and a question shows that not only are they listening, they also care about what they’re saying.
10. Less is more when it comes to online social media profiles. Showing fewer things can make people more attractive.
America is beyond gone
What is your worst experience in life?
Having to survive as a child, without support.
My Mom killed herself 3 weeks before my 6th birthday and my family fell apart. Up until then, I had a great life. I was the youngest of 4 siblings, had 4 sets of Aunts/Uncles/cousins and my Grandma. They were all local and we interacted frequently. We went to Grandma’s every Sunday and one of my Aunts was so close she would discipline /care for us just like our mom.
By my birthday, my Dad was dating one of the casserole ladies from church (they were bringing us dinner). I remember she bought me gifts. This may be when everyone bailed. My oldest brother (17yrs) left home and lived on the streets. My grandma and one Aunt/Uncle set moved to Vegas. My dad then married a slightly insane woman with 2 children of her own. She was cruel and seemed to want to destroy us kids. We pretty much never saw or heard from anyone again.
We were not adequately fed, clothed or cared for. My stepmother divided us siblings and pitted us against each other. She taught her children to torture us physically and emotionally, as well. It was bad. My dad played stupid and claimed helplessness. If we went to him, we got it worse the next day.
So began my journey of survival. I knew how to find bottles for deposit in trash cans and when I discovered food there too, I knew I was onto something. A year or so later, I learned I could get clothes from the school lost and found. I begged for food during lunch at school and I learned to steal food (candy, I must admit) from stores. After school I would hang around people that had mom’s who would feed me or I’d just hide in the bushes until I had to go into the house. I had to avoid my stepmother and step sisters at all costs at all times. If you were noticed, you were fucked.
This was 1970 and I guess the schools were not aware enough yet to get involved. I know it was pretty obvious that something was a off. I didn’t know how to brush my hair or teeth and it showed. My hair was literally a dirty mass of rats, my clothing – you can imagine, and my behavior was atrocious (I started acting out and bullying by 3rd grade).
I pretty much stumbled through my early life this way. I did not know how to interact so I never really had friends. I never paid attention in class or did any of the assignments and no one said a thing. I started babysitting and doing odd jobs for neighbors at 9yrs, which helped because I could buy things like shampoo or socks. I just had to be damn sure no one caught on or I would be fucked. If I had anything (anything!) it was destroyed and I was tortured. One day, a neighbor man called me into his garage and cut my hair for me. Of course, my stepmother’s rage was viscous and violent. After she was done she took scissors and destroyed my haircut.
I dropped out of high school and ended up couch surfing and slightly homeless until I could save enough money for an apartment at ~20 years old.
So now that I could manage my basic survival, it was time to learn how to interact with the world. I had the social skills of a traumatized 6 year old. I’m 53 now and still have a lot to learn about relationships and self care, but I know I’m not alone in that boat 🙂
Shout out for all the help and resources that I’ve had over the years. I do believe that I would not have made it without the generosity of others….mostly relative strangers who never asked for anything in return. One man cut my hair, one man co-signed a car loan, hundreds fed me. I could go on and on.
Thanks for listening.
Can’t afford to live
What pissed you off today?
I had gone to an ATM some time ago. It is located at an arcade/mall which is very popular with people of all ages. Lots of youngsters hang around this place till late at night.
On my way back I saw a florist and stopped to browse through some flower arrangements. One pani puri (savory dish) vendor is very close to this shop. A lady came there with a small boy of around five/six years and asked the vendor for one plate of pani puri. The boy was giving instructions to the vendor loudly and excitedly. That’s what attracted my attention. The lady and child were dressed in very ordinary, slightly tattered clothes. They were a little unkempt and disheveled in appearance. But the incessant chatter of the boy was super cute.
I was tempted by the smells too. So, decided to get a plate of chaat (street food) packed for the family. While I was waiting for my turn, two girls came there. They placed their order and then gesturing towards the mother son duo, told the guy “Inko dur karo pehle” (Move them away first)!
Whoa man! Did I hear correctly? This was my first reaction. Who did they think they were? Their snobbish attitude pissed me off big time! But, before I could utter a single word at their uncalled for behaviour, the vendor told them “Madam, inko abhi time lagega. Aap dusri jagah chale jao” (Serving them will take time. You proceed to some other vendor). And then, he calmly continued to hand out pani puris to the little munchkin.
A befitting reply by an unassuming, awesome guy! The girls stomped off. Their retreating backs made my chaat more delicious :p
Federal Reserve is a for-profit agency used by the oligarchy to keep Americans imprisoned
What has your kid or a young kid you know said that made you think they were reincarnated?
I never gave reincarnation a second thought until my son was about 2 1/2 , maybe 3.
I recall that he began talking very early, and had an extensive vocabulary by the time he was 2 yrs old. Adults were awed by him. My Mom even called him an “old soul”.
Anyways, one winter night, we were driving home from a family gathering. It was my son, his father, and I in the car. I was driving. He was bundled up in his car seat & I thought, fast asleep.
Suddenly, his little voice piped up: “Mommy, you’re afraid of bridges”. At the time, I was deathly afraid of crossing bridges & had been my whole life, but it was not something I’d ever discussed with my 2 yr old.
Curious where this was going, I said that yes, I was afraid of bridges. He asked if I knew why. I tried to play it off as something silly, then he continued.
“When I was big & you were little, a car got crashed up on a bridge. It was upside down, all the glass was ‘brokened’ and you were ‘blooding’. I couldn’t save you and I was so sad”. His tone of voice was beyond somber. It was sorrowful, brokenhearted, even. And though I can’t explain it, something in the barest bones of my soul just felt as though this was the truth. Tears were rolling down my face even as he told the story.
His dad and I exchanged glances. Very much a “what was that!?” moment, and I remember pulling over to the side of the road. We looked to the backseat, but our son was already sound asleep once again.
Later that week, I asked if he remembered telling me a story about a bridge. He looked up at me, sighed, and said “I don’t like to talk about what happened on the bridge. Don’t ask me anymore” .
In that moment I felt as though I was no longer talking to a 2 or 3 yr old. His demeanor was more of an older, defeated man. I was so sad for him that I never brought it up again.
This was not the only thing he said that gave me pause to question reincarnation & the afterlife. But it is the most memorable.
What strange law did you accidentally break when you were in a foreign country?
I got arrested in Jordan at rifle point, for snapping a photo of the U.S. Embassy in Amman. It looked like a giant microwave oven from the outside. Concrete barriers and metal barriers, barbed wire. I wanted to capture how surreal it was.
I didn’t know you can’t photograph the U.S. Embassy without permission, for security reasons. I was just standing around, waiting for my fellow journalists to finish breakfast at our hotel. I fired off a few shots.
The next thing I knew, a Jordanian soldier in a brown uniform was pointing a rifle at me and shouting in Arabic. He looked young and jittery—and that made me jittery. The rifle bobbed up and down.
Then he used a lot of hand gestures, forcing me inside the embassy. He followed behind me, the rifle at my back.
We went through what looked like an airline terminal, with all kinds of metal barriers, until we got to a booth where a U.S. Marine in military uniform was stationed. I showed him my U.S. passport.
“Give me your backpack,” he said.
Rats! I had tampons in the backpack. Anything to do with a woman’s body is just weird in the Middle East. It’s like you don’t want to have a body if you’re female. Although Jordan is more secular than most countries in that region, we’d been warned—and warned about how to dress.
Cover your legs. Wear blouses that hide your armpits. Don’t expose yourself.
Amman, the Jordanian capital, was a terrible place to run short of tampons. The day before, I’d had to ask a female guide to come with me, into a huge marketplace, down into a beehive of stores before we finally found a box. They were kept behind a counter, under lock and key. From the looks of disapproval, you would think I’d asked for heroin.
The Marine examined my passport and then emptied my backpack onto the counter. When the tampons tumbled out, his face turned red. He tried not to laugh. Same with the Jordanian.
“Why are you here?” the Marine asked.
“I just wanted to take a picture of the U.S. Embassy. It’s my embassy. Why can’t I do that?” I showed him my stupid little point and shoot camera. “Do you really think a terrorist would use a ridiculous camera like that?”
He shook his head. He laughed.
“Ma’am, you’re a U.S. citizen. You can do anything you want to in this embassy.”
He gestured to the Jordanian soldier, who escorted me out, without the rifle pointed at my back. It turned out he spoke a little English. We had a nice talk about how some of his family members wanted to immigrate to the U.S. Indeed, when we finally got outside, he showed me a long line of people waiting to apply for U.S. visas.
Then I looked across the street and saw the other journalists. They stared at me, open-mouthed. What the hell?
I wanted to join them, but the Jordanian soldier held me back.
“Please,” he said, with a courtly gesture. Then he smiled and waved toward the embassy. He insisted I photograph that hideous building from every possible angle. Then, at last, he let me go.
The other journalists were very jealous that I got arrested. They wanted to know every single detail. They could not get over it.
During the next week, we went to so many magnificent places—Petra, Jerash, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Madaba, Aljoun. We sailed on the Red Sea. We had tea with Queen Noor, a transplanted American, at her private villa. We had fabulous food in seaside restaurants, on family farms, and in a Bedouin tent way out in the desert. Everything was fresh, delicious, beautifully scented—and new to us. Everybody was so nice. It was an amazing journey.
But late at night when we got to drinking, somebody would always say:
“Candace got arrested. We will never top that.”
What is the most savage revenge you’ve seen someone take on their ex?
This happened to a close friend of my best bud.
He was dating this girl for over 2 years. They were like the best looking couple I have ever seen. They were living together in his house. Her family loved him and was happy that their golden child found her soulmate.
One day he caught her texting her ex. He was reading all her messages from his iPad which was synced with her phone. It was a boundary that was established earlier and she crossed it. However, he didn’t break up with her.
He started taking screenshots of all the messages and pics. After a month or so later, she decided to meet her ex at Vegas using “girl’s night“ as an excuse. She arranged two of her friends to give her cover while she was in Vegas. The second her flight took off, he changed his locks. He blocked her number and all of her social media. He called us to his house to help him pack her stuff and drop it at her friends house who “was in Vegas”. As a final f-u to her, he went to her parent’s house and told them what had happened. He also showed them all the screenshots and pics. They couldn’t believe that their golden child would do something so evil.
Her parents hate her now. She is now roommates with some druggies. One of the friend who tried to give her cover was dumped by her boyfriend for being a part of this plan.
Would recommend doing this to your cheating partner.
EDIT: Wow! This blew up real fast.
Many of you are wondering why her parents would hate their own child. Cheating did make them mad. But what made them hate her were the texts where she trashed everyone including her parents. One of which made fun of her mother’s weight issue and gave her parent’s marriage 6 months time after which she would hire someone to seduce her Dad as “he deserved someone hotter than mom”. I should have made that clear.
Corporate treatment of YOU
Why did your son go to China for work?
My son did his Doctorate in the US and began his Post Doctoral Career there
It was strenuous
He had a 3 year Bond with MOE in Singapore for his Masters Degree for which he had a Grant from the MOE (MOE = Ministry of Education)
He also had loans during his Doctorate to fund his expenses in US
Plus every single year they had to write a grant application and their salaries were dependent on the grant
It was literally begging for money and cutting many aspects of research due to lack of grant money.
Sometimes his wife who taught Middle School Maths earned better than he did
Then he applied for a Job at the NTU School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences to teach Data Science and Artificial Intelligence to Bachelor of Computing Students
While asking for a reference, his Professor from NTU advised him to apply for the position of Senior Researcher in China working on Interfacing for Regression Algorithms (Whatever it means) and application of the same for Autonomous navigation systems
A Chinese company was funding research for 10 years at a Chinese University
He asked for my advise
I said go for it
The Chinese company paid off his full loans in US and Singapore as a Bonus with only 50% repayable at no interest across 5 years
No begging for Grant money every year. Fixed pay, allowances, able to save much more
His daughter gets full waiver on private school fees as the school is within the university campus for all foreign faculty children
So no school fees
No fear of student gangs or kids selling drugs in school or transgender students or teachers
He plans to work 10 years in China and then move to Singapore as an Associate Professor and get a Citizenship there (He is still a PR)
The only small flaw is
First his house is a flat which is around 1300 SFT and at a nominal rent of 800 RMB (Owned by the Company)
In US he had a larger independent house with a lawn and driveway.
Second is Mandarin
He gets free classes on Saturdays but it’s a tough language. His daughter picks up faster, much faster.
So basically for a better life
Postdocs in US at University don’t have it as good as Postdocs in the Private Sector
China is a career changing option
He still is part of a start up in US and while he had to sign a lot of papers for the same in US , he doesn’t have to in China
Standard Issue
Saltpeter. Yeah, they gave this to us in the ADC.
What are some psychological facts about attraction?
1. Love is a feeling, not a decision.
2. People always relate to a person that they love with their best songs.
3. The average male spends 43 minutes a day staring at 10 different women.
4. If you want to know whether someone likes you or not, try to make them laugh. If the laughter comes easy, the answer is yes.
5. When you’re drunk, you will rate people on a higher scale.
6. You are more likely to be attracted to someone you have no chance with.
8. We are more likely to love or hate people that are very similar to us.
9. Women are more influenced and persuaded by a man’s sense of humor than his looks.
10. Women tend to feel loved when talking face-to-face with their partners whereas men prefer to play or talk side-by-side.
All men want this.
All of us.
“Rules-Based Order” Means Rules For Thee But Not For We
The “rules-based international order” that the US-centralized power structure purports to uphold just means an order in which the US makes up the rules and nations had better obey them.
Israel’s allowed to bomb an Iranian consulate, but Iran’s not allowed to strike back. The US is allowed to surround China with war machinery, but it would be World War Three if China ever tried to militarily encircle the US. NATO is allowed to expand to Russia’s doorstep and amass proxy forces on its border, but the last time Moscow placed a credible military threat anywhere near the United States, the US responded so aggressively that the world almost ended.
The “rules-based international order” that the US-centralized power structure purports to uphold just means an order in which the US makes up the rules and nations had better obey them. It means rules for thee but not for me.
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Democrats are currently committing genocide, pushing through terrifying NSA surveillance powers, and working to imprison a journalist for life for telling the truth about US war crimes, but it’s very important to support Biden because if Trump wins, fascism might come to America.
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The Assange extradition case is like if the mafia was demanding a snitch be extradited to Italy and multiple nations collaborated with them to help make this happen, except in this case the snitch is a journalist who told the truth, and the mob happens to run a global superpower.
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The imperial media are once again trotting out John Bolton to help sell the idea of war with Iran. This monster belongs in a cage, not on camera. The fact that the mainstream western press keep having this completely discredited bloodthirsty psychopath on their shows to advocate every possible US war proves that our entire civilization is diseased.
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Israel’s actions over the last six months have made it abundantly clear that Biden’s stated goal of preventing the outbreak of more war in the middle east and his stated “ironclad” support for Israel are two mutually exclusive positions. You can do one or the other, but not both.
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Outside the mainstream press the news about Ukraine is a nonstop deluge of stories about how badly things are going for them.
“US General Says Russia’s Military Is Bigger Than Before Ukraine Invasion” quotes General Christopher Cavoli saying “The army is actually now larger — by 15% — than it was when it invaded Ukraine,” an acknowledgement that Washington’s stated goal of using this proxy war to “weaken” Russia has failed.
It’s absolutely criminal how the west pushed this country into sacrificing a generation to a war they always knew was unwinnable.
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So much suffering and loss has been caused by the way people decided a long time ago that killing one person is murder and therefore immoral but killing thousands of people is “war” and therefore fine. The actual act is the same; only the narrative and the scale are different.
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Around the mid-1800s humanity began to notice it doesn’t make sense for a small group of rich people to own everything and for everyone else to continually give that group labor, rent and expenses just to stay alive, and ever since then the media, the mainstream culture and the foreign policy of the ruling class have been intensely devoted to aggressively erasing this realization from humanity’s memory.
Yes. This is very odd.
China wants to literally dig its way around geopolitical challenges
A Beijing-funded shipping canal will reduce regional reliance on Vietnam, a fellow communist state and traditional rival
By Timur Fomenko, political analyst
China and Vietnam, two Communist neighbors with a shared revolutionary heritage, exist in a state of strategic unease. They are not enemies, and have significant trade connections, but neither are they friends.
This is because Vietnamese nationalism views Beijing with a suspicion that is historically rooted, with a legacy of seeking to sustain its independence against the Chinese dynasties of old. As China has risen again, this sentiment in Hanoi has increased, especially with the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1978 and overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, known to Vietnamese as the East Sea.
Similarly, China is wary of the idea of Vietnam potentially aligning with a foreign power as part of a containment coalition against it, itself an instigator of conflict. Although the two countries are not currently in a state of hostility and have worked to improve bilateral relations amid these strong points of contention, this mutual suspicion persists, which leads to them continuing to hedge against one another subtly, even as they co-operate on some projects, in an unspoken competition. For example, one may note Vietnam recently forming parallel strategic partnerships with the US, Australia, and Japan, moves which were unthinkable decades ago.
As Vietnam hedges its bets, China is also broadening its strategic options. Beyond the South China Sea/East Sea controversy, Beijing is making efforts to woo two Southeast Asian countries which traditionally have been reliant on and influenced by Vietnam: Laos and Cambodia. Owing to the reality of geography, Vietnam has had the upper hand against these countries, as it effectively “wraps itself” around the east coastline of Southeast Asia. This renders Laos landlocked, while Cambodia has only a small portion of coastline. This means that, for most intents and purposes, Vietnam has been the two countries’ primary route of supply and access point to the sea.
Both have resented being dominated by Vietnam and, as a result, there has been a decades-long struggle for influence between Beijing and Hanoi over them, including Beijing’s support in the 1970s for the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. However, as China has ascended, the balance of power soon turned in its own favor, as it has unlocked game-changing resources and projects that are now rewriting the geographical limitations of this region via the Belt and Road initiative (BRI). As part of the BRI, China first gave landlocked Laos a new lifeline by building the China-Laos Railway.
The US is cultivating an antagonist to China in Beijing’s own backyard
Opened in 2021, this high-speed and commercial freight route, and accompanying expressway, connects the Laotian capital Vientiane with China, meaning the country no longer must rely on Vietnam to access ports. This has allowed Laos to not only export goods to China but also to become an intermediary between China and Thailand, with more railways to form a complete route between Beijing and Bangkok underway. The China-Laos railway is a strategic gamechanger, but more important than that is the new Techo Funan Canal in Cambodia.
This canal is a China-funded and contracted mega waterway that will span over 110 miles (180 km) from the Mekong River at Phnom Penh to the sea, with construction set to start this year. By building this canal, Cambodia now gets to bypass the Mekong Delta, which is in Vietnamese territory and subsequently transforms its capital city into a direct port. This canal strengthens China-backed Cambodia and deals a strategic blow to Vietnam, weakening its hold over its neighbor. Cambodia is thus transformed, from a historical subordinate to Hanoi into a commercial competitor. It is no surprise that the Techo Funan Canal has attracted Vietnamese fears and opposition.
When all of this is viewed together, China is effectively strengthening Laos and Cambodia at the expense of Vietnam. This is also part of Beijing’s strategy of using the BRI to integrate the interior of the continent and establish trade routes which bypass the contested waters of the South China Sea, which the US and its allies are militarizing. So, how is Hanoi reacting to these developments? The answer is, bizarrely enough, by integrating itself with China further in order to further compete with trade from China. As the saying goes, ”if you can’t beat them, join them!” On April 11, Vietnam announced it would be starting work on two high-speed railway links which would connect its northern cities with Yunnan and Guanxi provinces in China. Why? So that Vietnam can continue to promote itself as the nearest and primary overseas destination for Chinese companies, suppliers, and goods, so that it itself can be the next industrial powerhouse. Thus, to continue to hold an advantage and ensure China’s reliance on Vietnam, latch onto China’s success and therefore ensure that outbound Chinese commerce into Southeast Asian ports isn’t going to be siphoned away by what’s emerging in Cambodia.
Either way, what this shows is that the competition between Beijing and Hanoi is a complex and intermingled one, but far from hostile. The two nations have differing and conflicting objectives, but also many complimentary ones, for which it benefits them both to maintain a cordial status quo. Hanoi fears China’s presence emerging all around it, including peeling away its neighbors, which leads it to turn back to the ”Old Enemy” the US, though at the same time it is forced to admit Beijing can’t be ignored and that it continues to derive benefits by being in China’s game. Vietnam has to dine at the table while ensuring it is not the menu.
When a woman no longer gets upset & frustrated with you, you can almost guarantee that she doesn’t care for you anymore.
The pain that compels a man to remain silent is much more severe than pain that compels to shout.
Even if they say they’re always there for you, sometimes you just can’t reach them.
The world is full of players, be a game changer.
The distance between your dream & reality is called action.
Sometimes later becomes never, do it now.
People who think they’re crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do.
Never waste your feelings on someone who don’t value them.
Appreciate what you’ve before it becomes what you had.
Don’t tell people your plans. Show them your results.
The only way to change who you’re is to change what you do.
The older you get the calmer you get coz the older you get the more you realize none of the shit even matters.
Don’t regret the things you’ve done. Regret the things you didn’t do when you had the chance.
Sometimes it’s good to pretend that we don’t care.
American companies are looting Americans
New Mexico Chili con Carne
12JPCHILI2 articleLarge v3
Ingredients
1 pound lean beef, coarsely ground
1 pound pork, coarsely ground
1/4 cup olive or peanut oil
1 onion, chopped coarsely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (28 ounce) can tomatoes, run through a food processor
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cilantro
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
Pepper sauce, to taste
1 quart cooked pinto or kidney beans (optional)
Instructions
Brown meat in hot oil in a large pot. Add onions and garlic while cooking.
Then add all other ingredients and three or more cups of water. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours until meat is tender.
Notes
Chili con Carne with Frijoles: Add the quart of cooked beans.
Chili con Queso: Stir in shredded Cheddar cheese or canned cheese sauce with jalapeño peppers.
[Commenting on remarks by UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron regarding the Iranian response to the Israeli attack on the Iran's Consulate in Damascus.]
"I've learned something over the years—I know David Cameron personally, and I know a lot of British leaders.
For a long time, I just loved listening to them because they speak English so beautifully.
But what they say is so absurd, so stupid, yet it's so beautiful that it really had me fooled for many decades.
The British are the worst at this; they're even worse than the Americans because they had a longer imperial reign.
What empire does is make you so arrogant that you think you can say anything and squash anyone that opposes you.
It becomes a game to see what you can say that's so outrageous but so authoritative that you can get away with it.
And so, the British are the most hypocritical country in modern times.
They're not the most powerful—they used to be the most powerful—but they're the most hypocritical because they had the most violent, militaristic empire in the modern world.
They left behind all of these problems.
Now, they want to be a sidekick of the United States, cheerleading on but with their good old imperial ideas.
It's a kind of absurdity at this point, but it's a lot of nerve because—why are we in such a crisis in the Middle East?
Because Britain wrecked the Middle East after World War I."
Excerpt from remarks by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and academic, in an interview with Judge Napolitano, April 16, 2024.
Americans are being Taxed to Death ….
Super loungin’
Have you ever caught someone in the act of stealing your car?
My former boss had bought a car when they were rolling out LoJack. They bought a ford explorer and got the LoJack added. They had just got LAPD up and running on the LoJack and they had the car for 6 months when one morning they let the dog out and saw their car drive off. They called the police the west valley lapd and lapd connected to the LoJack and they followed the car.
The car was tracked to Long Beach so lapd worked with LA county sheriff’s and California highway patrol and Long Beach police. The car was found by LoJack in a shipping container with several other stolen cars. The police were able to stop a large international stolen vehicle ring. They were able to link the container with several other containers.
The insurance company replaced the car and they buy LoJack with every car they buy. The car was held as evidence for the court cases. LoJack did what it was supposed to do. Since they happened to catch the car before the container was loaded on a ship they were able to put an end to a stolen car ring.
Around the same time there was a story in the Los Angeles times about a stolen Mazda that LoJack traced from Los Angeles to Mexico and with the Mexican police LoJack recovered the car in the living room of a house just outside of Tijuana. That car was returned to the owner.
There Will NEVER Be War With China For This ONE Reason Alone
China’s Xi Jinping holds a meeting with top American CEO’s.
What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
My mom was a nurse. A navy nurse. I’d always known that and we saw her give allergy shots to one of our neighbors’ kid in exchange for his mother making dresses for us girls. This lady had two boys but loved to sew girls clothes and taking her son to the doctor every couple of weeks for his allergy shots was expensive. However, my mom stayed home to raise her children after I was born because they had saved up enough from both of them working and living with my mother’s parents to finally buy a house. My grandmother had looked after my brother and sister while my mother worked but I’d never seen her in action up until that time.
Around 1975 or there abouts, all seven of us were off in the old, dented gold station wagon on some trip or another to visit grandparents. One set had retired to Florida and the other lived in Michigan, so each was a long road trip from the Washington DC area where we lived. I was about eight or nine at the time.
One hot afternoon, we were coming along a road, when we saw an accident. A man’s car had crashed and he stumbled out of the car into the road, covered in blood and broken glass. I wonder now if he didn’t go through the windshield. My mom made my dad pull over so to give aid. I remember her having him sit down in the back passenger seat beside her, after rearranging the five kids, and me sitting next to her on the seat, with her back turned to me while she treated him. I had never seen anything as scary as that horrible, bloody mess in my entire life. I remember my younger sisters in the station wagon’s rear- facing back seat crying quietly and hiding their eyes. I probably was too. We had to stay in the parked car because my parents didn’t want any of us wandering off. I remember my older brother and sister’s shocked faces looking over the backs of the seats watching as much as they could stand and my brother handing my mother tissues or paper towels as she barked out commands for supplies. She has always carried a pair of bandage scissors in her purse and still does to this day. I remember her demanding that my dad and brother find them and using them to cut down compresses to the size she wanted. I remember getting sick and having to open the car door to throw up on the side of the road into the dusty grass. Hardly any notice was taken of this since I was not the point of crisis. At some point after that, my dad drove us all to the nearest gas station to call for help, since this was way before the advent of cell phones. They told us that the police had been called and help was on the way but to take the man back to the accident site to meet the responders. I just remember my mother’s fierce calm as she daubed away the blood and had him hold pressure on bleeding cuts as she assessed the condition and ruffled through his hair looking for more cuts, with the bits of broken glass tumbling off him. My parents had a hard time getting a clear story out of the man, who may have been in his late teens or early twenties. I don’t know if it was the effect of his injuries or if he was already impaired and that was what caused the one-car accident in the first place. The narrative of how it all played out is spotty after all these years but eventually the police must have come and taken him out of our car so we finally got back on our way. I remember finding little hexagons of broken glass in the car for a long time after that.
I know that it made a huge effect on all of us. As a child, my older brother had always wanted to be a paramedic, inspired by the TV show “Emergency,” but this was the first time that any of us had seen, heard and most importantly smelled the real thing. He went on to join the army. Pretty much all five of us have gone on to be tough, strong nerved and calm in a crisis. We now all know basic first aid and have the wherewithal to step up in an emergency and do what needs to be done.
While in the army, my brother contracted a viral infection overseas and was in a coma for a few days. My mother held it together and communicated with the doctors and got us all the vital information we so desperately longed for on my brother’s condition. She calmed and reassured us.
I know that in college, while working security, my brother had given CPR to a man who dropped dead from a heart attack in front of him and another security guard. My brother was taking action, directing people to call for help while he assessed the man and began chest compressions. He was shocked that the other security guard just stood there, sullenly, refusing to help or to do anything as my brother directed him to begin mouth to mouth. The patient could not be revived and died. My brother was so angry, upset and disgusted and thought that there may have been some racial prejudice on the part of the other guard. He blamed and yelled at the other guard for his stupidity for not even phoning for the emergency service. The dying man’s adult son had to do that while being practically incoherent with worry over his father. The concept of not helping when one could help was so entirely foreign to my brother, thanks to being my mother’s son.
My mother told him that her first CPR patient had also died and that actually reviving people is not very common. My mom said that she, a tiny little student nurse, was sitting astride a great, fat man as they wheeled him into the emergency room. The man had had an aortic aneurysm burst and all my mothers’ chest compressions were just making him bleed out faster.
Once, my year-old nephew choked on a bit of gristle from a spare rib. My mother grabbed him, turned him over, swatted him on his back, then reached up with her finger and dislodged the obstruction from his airway, all before my sister could finish dialing 911. She literally saved his life in front of us all.
When her own mother slipped away into a coma from failing kidneys, my mom and her brother made the clear-eyed, rational decisions to stop invasive medical intervention and withdraw life support in accordance with the living will that my grandparents had signed and that I had signed as a witness. Even though I knew that this was my grandmother’s repeatedly stated and expressed directive, I wasn’t ready to let her go and couldn’t watch to the end. I finally went into another room to sleep in a chair while my mother and her brother stood on either side of my grandmother and held her hand through that endless night as she died. My dad and I had to do the same thing a few years later when his father was declared irretrievably brain dead after a car accident. I know my mother’s example helped me to step up for my dad and my uncles that second, horrible night. My mom couldn’t get there until the next day.
A few years ago, my brother broke his thigh into five pieces on his 89th and final military static line jump just before he retired from the military. My parents were out of town, skiing, and my older sister and I each drove from Florida and the DC area respectively, to be with him in North Carolina. My sister had to go back to work so I ended up staying to care for him after they released him from the hospital. He needed personal care day and night, wound care and supervision about his meds. Percocet made it hard for him to keep track of what he had taken. He was in a wheel chair that needed to be hauled into and out of the car. It was exhausting. My parents got there by the following weekend. I remember all four of us and the wheel chair all crammed into the orthopedic surgeon’s tiny office, looking at X-rays and discussing his future prognosis. After a week, I had to get home to my child, my dad had to go back to teach skiing and my five foot-two, seventy-four year old mother stayed and looked after my 5′9″, 180 lb brother for another six weeks until they could transfer his out-patient care to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Then he stayed with my parents and she continued to look after him for months until he got back on his feet.
She’s delivered babies, given birth to her own five babies, waited while her grandchildren were being born and given last rites to a stillborn child while a navy nurse. She can give commands that make sailors, marines, corpsmen and kids jump to order. She’s talked down psych patients in psychotic episodes. She’d given me some of my vaccinations. She helped give her mother insulin shots and when I had to take a course of injections which I hated, she gave me shots when I couldn’t reach the injection site on the back of my right arm.
My mom was a registered nurse, a Navy Lt. JG, an emergency room nurse, a pediatric nurse, a public health nurse and a psyche nurse. She is calm, collected and brave. She’ll be eighty next year. She is a still a total bad ass. As I said in the comments, she’s now had both knees replaced so on top of everything else, she’s now a cyborg.
Update: Someone in the comments said that this story inspired them to take first aid classes. That is absolutely the sort of inspiration that my mother would want to be. That, nursing school, sound nutrition, exercise, Catholicism and taking up skiing. So, you know, take your pick.
U.S./EU Lobby Against Georgian Law That Would Reveal Their Secret Influence
The government of Georgia has tried for some time to implement a law “On transparency of foreign influence”. Its aim is to publicly identify organizations and parties who receive a significant amount of their budget from abroad:
The draft law “In order to ensure transparency”, initiated for the second time by the Georgian Dream faction, envisages the registration of such non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) legal entities and media outlets, whose income – more than 20% – is received from abroad as an organization carrying out the interests of a foreign power. According to the project, everyone who is considered an “organization carrying the interests of a foreign power” must be registered in the public register under the same name in a mandatory manner. At the time of registration, it will be necessary to reflect the received income. At the same time, the organizations will have the obligation to fill in the financial declaration every year.
Those organization who currently receive money from the various U.S. or EU government or non-government organizations are of course not amused that they will have to reveal their association with such sources. They want to lobby for foreign positions without being identified as foreign influencers.
They have therefore launched protests against their country’s government and parliament which has passed the law in the first reading. Two further readings will be required to finalize the law.
The protesters against the law claim that it is a “Russian law” against “foreign agents”.
Since 2012 Russia does have a law that is somewhat similar to what Georgia is attempting to implement but such type of laws are certainly not a Russian intervention:
Supporters of the [Russian version of the] law have likened it to similar legislation in the US that requires lobbyists employed by foreign governments to reveal their financing.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) (22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq.) is a United States law that imposes public disclosure obligations on persons representing foreign interests. It requires “foreign agents”—defined as individuals or entities engaged in domestic lobbying or advocacy for foreign governments, organizations, or persons (“foreign principals”)—to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and disclose their relationship, activities, and related financial compensation.
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FARA was enacted in 1938 primarily to counter Nazi propaganda, with an initial focus on criminal prosecution of subversive activities; since 1966, enforcement has shifted mostly to civil penalties and voluntary compliance.For most of its existence, FARA was relatively obscure and rarely invoked; since 2017, the law has been enforced with far greater regularity and intensity, particularly against officials connected to the Trump administration. Subsequent high-profile indictments and convictions under FARA have prompted greater public, political, and legal scrutiny, including calls for reform.
FARA is administered and enforced by the FARA Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) within the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD). Since 2016, there has been a 30 percent increase in registrations; as of November 2022, there were over 500 active foreign agents registered with the FARA Unit.
The Washington Post, without mentioning the long standing FARA law which is at least as strict as the new Georgian one, falsely insists that the original idea of the new Georgian law is indeed Russian:
Georgia’s Parliament voted Wednesday to advance deeply contentious legislation aimed at cracking down on “foreign agents” — an echo of a similar law in Russia that has been used to crush political dissent.In Georgia, the bill has sparked huge street protests and drawn condemnation, including from President Salome Zourabichvili, who is not a member of the Georgian Dream political party, which controls Parliament and the government.
Zourabichvili and other critics say the bill is itself an instrument of foreign interference — backed by Russia and intended to undermine Georgia’s bid to join the European Union.
On Tuesday evening, as some protesters clashed with police in the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, Zourabichvili said the bill was evidence of Russian meddling.
However neither is the law “Russian style” – it is a copy of FARA – nor does the law include the loaded word “agent”. It does not accuse anyone of being such but seeks public transparency over foreign financial influences which would of course also include Russian ones.
17 Apr 23:15 – “Let’s demand that the Prime Minister talks to us” – rally participants moved towards the government administrationAfter Levan Tsutskiridze, co-founder of the “European Platform of Georgia” group, announced the plan of action, demonstrators headed towards the government chancellery and demanded a meeting with the Prime Minister. Tsutskiridze proposed demanding that the government repeal the law and release those detained the day before. Police and security forces are strengthening their cordon near the chancellery building.
At 21:30 rally participants presented an ultimatum to the authorities demanding the repeal of the law and gave them one hour to make this statement.
Attempts to storm or blockade government buildings have been pushed back. The government is holding firm. It has a solid majority in parliament and can outvote a potential presidential veto.
Every Georgian decision maker has the Ukrainian “Maidan revolution” in mind during which the opposition used snipers (allegedly from Georgia!) shot at police as well as protesters.
We can be sure that the Georgian government is aware and well prepared for such an escalation.
The law is likely to pass. Soon thereafter a majority of the organizations which currently organize the street protests against the law will have to admit that they are the foreign paid influencers the law is aimed at to reveal their dubious interests.
Posted by b on April 18, 2024 at 13:12 UTC | Permalink
Take a cold shower in the morning to increase alertness.
Similarly, eat an apple in the morning instead of consuming caffeine to increase alertness.
Pick your work outfit the night before, so that you don’t waste time messing up your closet in the morning.
Create your lunch the night before, to give you more time to eat breakfast in the morning.
Create food in batches. Put the food in containers and place them in the freezer. Food lasts longer this way.
Get into the habit of cleaning as you go. Don’t leave the mess to build up. It’ll only cause you to feel more stressed and anxious.
Don’t hoard items. If you don’t need something, throw it away.
Keep your workspace tidy and file all important information away in an organised manner.
Talk about your feelings, no matter how hard it may seem. If you can’t talk, write.
When you need to reflect or think, take a long walk.
Get into the habit of saving money. Put aside a percentage of your earnings every week.
Find time for yourself. It’s important to let your body rest. Sometimes, it’s okay to simply do nothing.
Take short breaks during work as this will help you remain focused.
Adopt a positive mindset. When something doesn’t go your way, learn from it and if it brings you ease, tell yourself that it could have been worse.
Engage in meditation, prayer or mindfulness.
Read every single day, to increase your vocabulary and to gain knowledge.
Ask questions. If you don’t understand something, ask for help.
Get into the habit of saying ‘no’ when you need to.
Drink plenty of water, every day.
Control your junk food intake.
Remove make-up before you go to sleep.
Eat chocolate in moderation. Or alternatively, eat a sweet fruit.
If you don’t like water, drink flavoured water.
Exercise daily. If you’re too busy, take a 10 minute walk.
When you’re studying, remove all distractions, including your phone. Try to study somewhere, other than your bedroom.
If you find social media distracting, deactivate or delete the app. It really isn’t that hard.
Spend time with those you love. Those are the memories you want to hold on to forever.
The BRICS Just Secretly Acquired These 3 Assets To Crash The US Economy | Andy Schectman
A different view point. A little dry for me personally, but suggest that the Global South has all things in hand.
Do you think Chinese EVs, such as BYD, Geely and SAIC, pose a threat to US national security?
No not at all. Americans are threaten with better cars that they will drool over and they will loved to own and it will cost them half of they will pay for the US brands and giving them twice their mileage with the same dollar they spend on their present gas guzzler and a third of the cost to maintain it.
That is the real threat the American government are worried about for its citizens. Getting value for money. It needs to protect its so call too big to fail corporations that sells you overpriced and underperforming vehicles by profiteering on the ooor and the middle class in the U.S.
Is that the threat? Ask your government if you guys are not made brain dead by the U.S. government!
Poland just did the UNKTHINKABLE to Ukraine, Blackrock and Vanguard are FURIOUS
Ancient marine reptile found on UK beach may be the largest ever
The jawbone of an ichthyosaur uncovered in south-west England has been identified as a new species, and researchers estimate that the whole animal was 20 to 25 metres long
The 200-million-year-old fossilised remains of an ancient ichthyosaur, unearthed on a beach in south-west England, may be part of the largest marine reptile ever found.
In 2020, amateur fossil hunters stumbled across a giant chunk of bone at Blue Anchor beach in Somerset. Upon further inspection, Dean Lomax at the University of Manchester, UK, and his colleagues quickly realised that it was a jawbone fragment of a giant ichthyosaur – a kind of reptile that roamed the oceans between 250 and 90 million years ago.
Subsequent digs at the beach have uncovered 11 more fragments, allowing the team to partially piece together a bone that sits in the back of the jaw called a surangular.
“It was very clear that this was another one of these giant jawbones,” says Lomax. “So I was very, very excited.”
My landlord sent me a letter saying that she believes that I have someone living with me, which I don’t. I asked her if she had proof. What should I do?
My landlord sent me a text once and told me “you know you’re not allowed to sublet” I just asked her what she meant. She said that she had reason to believe that I was subletting. I explained that I share a 1 bedroom apartment with my adult daughter and couldn’t imagine where I would put anyone else. Then asked her what led her to believe this. She said that multiple people had been seen coming and going from the property carrying luggage and other belongings. I explained that is the neighborhood just north of me who rents out her spare room on short term rental. She insisted that it was me. So I asked where she got her information. She insisted that she had parked across the street and watched it. I said so you’re watching me? She stated that she has the right to keep an eye on her property. I said well of course you do but I have difficulty believing that you drove the several hours from your home to mine to just watch me when it takes several weeks and at least 2 rescheduled appointments to get you to come make repairs. She made a snarky comment about how if I don’t like it I can leave but she stopped making accusations and now leaves me alone. For me I believe it was the neighbor on the other side of my duplex who has been complaining about me since I moved in.
What is the most inappropriate interaction you have had at a Starbucks?
I took my dad to a Starbucks….once. Dad had previously managed the largest coffee roasting plant in the world. The man knew coffee. At the time we visited Starbucks, dad was older and more feeble. I thought he would enjoy it.
First of all, the sizes. Who is Starbucks trying to impress? When your seventy or eighty something, the sizes are small, medium, large, and I guess extra large. Not eenie, meenie, miney or whatever words they think are so cool. The man who has been drinking coffee since before your founder was born knows that.
Dad had to talk to the barista. I don’t know and he didn’t know if being a barista is a career path or not. To Dad, that kid behind the counter was regarded pretty much like the kid at McDonald’s McD’s may have been held higher. Dad loved fries. But dad wanted to talk with the barista. “What kind of coffee are you serving?” The kid responded. Not the answer Dad wanted. Dad asked about the roasting, the blending, and the grinding of the coffee (apparently there are several ways to grind coffee or dad, at this point was yanking the kid’s chain about the grinding.). None the less, the kid was deemed to be “an idiot”, who according to dad, “ Didn’t know a “damn thing” about coffee.” Dad schooled the kid in coffee. Foam or no foam? Foam? This isn’t laundry; this was coffee. And, according to Dad, if the coffee is decent, you “don’t need all that crap.” No foam.”
Then finally, it was time to actually drink the coffee. I am not a fan of Starbucks, but said nothing. Dad had plenty to say. None of it was good. Dad told the kid that he had “burned” the coffee or he had some bad beans. The kid looked at me for a rescue on this one. I shrugged and shook my head trying to explain that, sorry, your coffee has never tasted right to me.
We left and I took Dad someplace where I knew he would get a good cup of coffee. But that day, in Starbucks where patrons normally act as if they were enjoying the nectar of Gods instead of a cup of coffee, my dad’s interactions were pretty inappropriate. Go Dad!
50% of Women Will Be Single & Childless. Marriage is Never Returning- What Does the Future Look Like
Let me tell you, when you ride in that car, a womans’ hair blows all over the place, and it gets really messed up. A woman will spend hours getting her hair and make up just right, and then it is all undone in 15 seconds.
Oh sure, the car is fun and looks great.
But the SECRET fact is, men and women who KNOW, will never buy a convertible. As it destroys a woman’s’ fine; well done hair, and makeup.
Truth and reality.
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Convertible… brings them in, but in real life…. not practical.
Same is true with a penthouse apartment. But, youse guys all know my story on THAT, eh?
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Stuff you only read about on MM.
Today…
Did Canada live up to your expectations, or are you disappointed?
Canada did not live up to my expectations, but I am also not disappointed.
I arrived as a teenager, from western Europe, and expected it to top that. Well, that was wrong of me. It’s a very different place from Europe, and cannot be measured by European standards, because it is not trying to be Europe, and doesn’t have to. It was me silly bunny who expected the world to be like Europe.
Over the years, I learned things in Canada I never could have learned in Europe:
how to be nice to strangers; the Canadians are the absolute world champions in that, and my years in Canada have given me the behavioural tools to act the same way. That easy friendliness of the Canadians is worth gold in professional life.
that we are all the same, if given a chance; life in Canada is the same for everybody. You can be black, white, blue, or rainbow coloured, but you will be using the same Honeywell thermostats, fill up at Petro Canada, grab a thingy in the morning from Tim Hortons, wear boots, and do a lot of windscreen scraping.
speaking English properly; you may not have noticed yet, but Canadian English is wonderful. It has a North American touch, but it is clear and well-formulated. If you speak like a Canadian, you will be understood by all English speakers world wide.
living well without spending a fortune; when you live in Canada, your lifestyle is high by world standards. As a student, I lived in an apartment with skyline views (the rent was 600 dollars), drove a big old car with a V8 engine I had bought for 800 dollars, and ate breakfast specials for 2.99 in restaurants almost every day. Now, maybe that was simply Alberta in the 90s, and these things were cheap to do. It taught me that you can have a great life cheaply if you aren’t expecting too much. You just need to know what should be on your list, and how to appreciate its items. Canada gave me that list, and I still drive cheap, big old cars, and am very good at appreciating things to this day.
civilisation is a marvel; you wouldn’t think so in crowded places elsewhere, but when you’ve driven across the prairies in minus forty degrees for a day straight and pull into a truckstop, you think it’s the most amazing thing that we humans can put up a brightly lit, straight-edged structure like that, where it’s warm inside, and you can eat poutine, or bacon and eggs, in that sea of snow covered land.
civilisation is an attitude, not luck, or history, or lots of resources and money. Canada shows you what we humans can be if we pull ourselves together and apply some sense and civility.
severe winters are fantastic. The clean air that goes down your airways as if you’d just eaten mints; the brightness of the snow, the huge, blue sky… how could one not love winter.
nature is awesome. We Europeans don’t know nature. If nature is sea life, Europe’s version of it is a goldfish in a glass, whereas Canada’s is a swarm of wild tuna to the horizon. There is more awesomeness to standing in a field next to a grain elevator than there is in Europe’s most officially precious nature reserves.
I left Canada after a few years in search of career options that didn’t exist there then (and found them), but deep down, I have never left Canada.
It’s still inside me.
I think my astral body is wearing boots and a work shirt from Canadian Tire, and says “eh” at the end of sentences. And it’s driving a Pontiac Parisienne (made in Ontario) – which I still have, almost 30 years later, here in Sweden.
There Will NEVER Be War With China For This ONE Reason Alone
Yup.
What is the most savage revenge you’ve seen a renter get on a sleazy landlord?
My girlfriend and her sons rented a house briefly, before her and I moved in together. Slumlord ran a restaurant next door to the place. About a week after they moved in the landlord provided refrigerator went out- of course, two days after they spent $350 stocking up everything. She walked next door and told him, he said he would get one over there. Two days later, all the food is bad. No refrigerator. This time I walk over- she’s the nice guy, me not so much. I told him that now he needed a refrigerator and to replace all the food that went bad. He gets pissed and starts arguing with me. Actually picks up a billy club and comes out from behind the counter, which definitely didn’t have the intended effect. I told him I’d beat him to death with it if he tried to hit me, and now I was going to call Land Use on him about the refrigerator and other issues. Went down the next day, we filed a complaint, the day after that the inspector was there. Landlord replaced the refrigerator, all the electrical outlets, loose drywall in both bedrooms, all the carpet and got his restaurant closed down for numerous violations. Worst of all for him, he had ‘replaced the door and windows’ on his restaurant without a permit, which would have been fine- except the new door and windows were 6 feet farther out, enclosing what had been an awning in the parking lot. Replacing existing stuff is fine, adding hundreds of square feet without a building permit or inspection in a commercial structure? That’s a 10000 dollar fine and guaranteed inspections monthly afterwards. The most expensive refrigerator I ever saw.
The respect threshold
Easy Meatball Soup
This easy-to-make Meatball Soup recipe is filled with tender meatballs, hearty beans, and a warm tomato broth. It’s a tasty and comforting weeknight dinner perfect for a chilly day! Plus it has plenty of protein and nutrients for a healthy dinner.
Meatball soup 5
If your family loves meatballs, this Meatball and white bean Soup will become their next favorite dinner. Tender ground beef meatballs are simmered in a rich broth with tomatoes, beans, and plenty of seasonings. Top with parmesan cheese for an easy Italian soup that everyone will love.
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Why you’ll love this soup
Flavorful! This soup is made with garlic, tomatoes, Italian seasonings, and Parmesan cheese for a simple but delicious flavor.
Easy to make. This soup is easy to make and great for prepping ahead or freezing for later.
Nutritious and filling. This soup is protein-rich, full of fiber, and packed with veggies for extra nutrients. It’s hearty and healthy all at the same time.
Meatball soup 7
Ingredients you will need
This is just a list of ingredients you will need to make this Italian Meatball Soup recipe. Full measurements are listed further below.
Whole wheat breadcrumbs: you may also use Panco bread crumbs or mash potato flakes.
Milk: any milk of your choice
Olive oil: or any other oil of your choice
Egg: used as a binder for the meatballs to make it extra tender and juicy.
Parmesan cheese: or you can also use the rinds
Fresh parsley leaves and fresh thyme: give flavor, among other herbs you may add
Kosher salt and Black pepper
Lean ground beef: use lean beef, if you prefer to use ground turkey you can.
Beef broth: this is prefered, if you prefer using vegetable broth or chicken broth that’s fine.
Cannellini beans: or any other white beans of your choice. Great northern works just fine.
Crushed tomatoes: we used canned but you can make your own from fresh tomatoes.
Garlic: Do use fresh garlic instead of garlic powder.
Italian Seasoning
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How to make meatball soup recipe from scratch
Prep oven: Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Soak breadcrumbs: In a small bowl combine the breadcrumbs and milk and allow it to soak for a bit.
Make meatballs: In a large-mixing bowl, add all the remaining meatball ingredients. Add in the soaked breadcrumbs and use your clean hands to thoroughly mix.
Form meatballs: Next, take a spoonful of mixture and roll it to form a 1.5-inch diameter meatball. Place on the prepared sheet pan, then repeat with the remaining meat mixture.
Cook: Bake at 400F for about 12-15 minutes.
Boil broth: Once the meatballs are almost done, place the broth in a large soup pot or dutch oven, and bring it to a boil.
Finish soup: Add in the cooked meatballs, beans, tomatoes, garlic, and seasonings. Simmer over medium-low heat for about 18-20 minutes to allow the flavors to meld.
Garnish: Serve soup hot and topped with shredded parmesan and fresh thyme. Enjoy!
Tips and substitutions
Breadcrumbs: We use whole wheat breadcrumbs, but you can use regular or a gluten-free substitutes as well.
Ground beef: Use lean ground beef for a low-fat, high-protein meal. Another meat option would be to use ground turkey.
Beans: Cannellini beans can be substituted with great northern or navy beans.
Broth: Use canned broth or beef bouillon and hot water. Vegetable broth also works
Italian seasonings: We used an Italian Seasoning mix, but you can substitute it with another or a homemade mix.
For tender meatballs, be careful not to overmix the meat mixture. That will make the meat tough.
To avoid overcooking, simmer the soup gently instead of boiling it.
You may cook the meatballs on the stovetop instead of baking them in the oven.
Top the soup with some more fresh herbs and a sprinkle of lemon juice.
Meatball soup 4
Tips and substitutions
Breadcrumbs: We use whole wheat breadcrumbs, but you can use regular or a gluten-free substitutes as well.
Ground beef: Use lean ground beef for a low-fat, high-protein meal. Another meat option would be to use ground turkey.
Beans: Cannellini beans can be substituted with great northern or navy beans.
Broth: Use canned broth or beef bouillon and hot water. Vegetable broth also works
Italian seasonings: We used an Italian Seasoning mix, but you can substitute it with another or a homemade mix.
For tender meatballs, be careful not to overmix the meat mixture. That will make the meat tough.
To avoid overcooking, simmer the soup gently instead of boiling it.
You may cook the meatballs on the stovetop instead of baking them in the oven.
Top the soup with some more fresh herbs and a sprinkle of lemon juice.
Meatball soup 6 825×1024
Malaysia Proposes Taming America’s Veto Voting Powers At The United Nations
Wow! Long over due.
What do you think of David Chang and Momofuku’s attempt to trademark “Chile crunch” and “chili crunch”?
This is a perfect example of what socialists call the “tyranny of copyright”.
In David Chang’s case, what he tried to do was make an entire category of spicy condiments – perfected and enjoyed by generations of people from Asian (particularly Chinese) cultures – his own private domain.
He took inspiration from the world renowned Lao Gan Ma chilli crisp (a wonderful, addictive mixture of chilli oil and peanuts), made his own version of the sauce, then tried to trademark the concept of chilli crisp itself – to be more precise, he tried to trademark the word “chilli crunch”, which is actually a synonym of the more commonly used “chilli crisp”.
https://youtu.be/LNuwgbxQe-M
John Cena seal of approval.
If Chang had his way, then all the other businesses that have been making the same product for generations would be sued for copyright infringement, and be forced to pay him a huge sum of money. And that’s exactly what he tried to do by the way – his company, Momofuku, was already threatening a whole bunch of mom-and-pop stores by sending them cease-and-desist letters, just because they were calling their own products “chilli crunch”.
It is noteworthy that Lao Gan Ma – China’s favourite chilli sauce brand – has been successful and competitive without having to bully other businesses. Nor has it ever felt the need to prevent others from making the same product.
In the US, all Lao Gan Ma did was patent the words, letters and numbers on its logo. It didn’t even trademark the iconic picture of the auntie on the logo itself.
In case you were wondering, she’s the Chinese entrepreneur and Communist Party member Tao Huabi, founder of Lao Gan Ma. She’s a goddess, and a legend in her own right.
While Asian Americans are some of the most self-hating, passive and disunited people in the country, they have one bottom line you should never cross – their money, and their food.
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Chang’s actions predictably caused a huge uproar among the Asian diasporas, leading to him withdrawing his patent application and issuing an apology letter, in which he tried to weasel his way out of the controversy by making the issue about “chilli crunch” vs “chilli crisp” – which, as explained before, mean the same thing.
This sort of thing happens all the time, unfortunately. Just last year, Dior promoted a new line of skirts that was clearly a copy of the mamianqun (a traditional Chinese garment whose design dates back to the Ming Dynasty), and yet claimed it was an original design.
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Several years ago, when Disney made the movie “Coco”, they initially named it after the centuries-old Mexican holiday of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which would have been fine had they not also attempted to trademark the name of the holiday itself.
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Culture rightfully belongs not to any private individual or entity, but to the people who created it, and those it is shared with. That’s why it is called the “public domain”. But that’s not how capitalists view the public domain. They see it as something to be conquered and rented out in small pieces to the public.
It is a very dehumanising and destructive way of thinking. This is why the conversation shouldn’t stop at David Chang and Momofuku. The system that favours that kind of behaviour and mindset must also be addressed.
Be the Rufus!
What, as a Canadian, could you not believe you had to explain to an American?
In my line of work, I interact with a fair number of Americans, but to be clear, I’m generally dealing with Executives who are very well educated.
In terms of those interactions about Canada, all I generally have to deal with is fairly minor misunderstandings of a more nuanced nature, such as an expectation that I must speak French…which I only speak very poorly!
But occasionally, I deal with folks “further down the ladder” and that has lead to some interesting conversations, and in fact just had one this week.
My wife is currently in Cuba with her bestie. I can not stand the heat down there, so she does a yearly girl’s trip.
During a conference call this week, we were talking about what we were going to do on the weekend; I mentioned the wife is in Cuba, so I also took the week off for a staycation, and I’m going to spend it with rum and Taco Bell, eating like I’m 20 again.
That got a laugh from most folks on the call, but one of the SysAdmins pipped up, and asked how it is my wife was allowed to go to Cuba. It took me a minute to understand what he meant, and then I remembered that Americans are not generally permitted to go to Cuba…at least directly.
I explained that the American restrictions on visiting Cuba only applied, to well, Americans. Canadians are free to travel to Cuba anytime they wish.
The SysAdmin was clearly confused, said as much, and for a moment, the call got uncomfortable. I cracked a joke on how it is that American laws do not apply to Canadians in Canada, and one of the Executives from the company joined in saying he would explain it later.
As far as I can tell, this SysAdmin seemed to honestly believe because there were American laws about traveling to Cuba, they must apply to everyone on the planet.
But again, in my experience, this sort of interaction is pretty rare.
Inflation killed the American dream
Yes. The American Dream is dead. These are valid points.
What is the most condescending advice you received from someone who assumed you were poorer or less educated than them?
I’m a “techie” and always have been. Middle management is a very rich breeding ground for condescending advice if you know your stuff and rarely wear a suit.
I was meeting in a consultancy role troubleshooting a product issue. Most meetings of more than four people are a waste of time so I generally wait for the vocal contingent to get their two cents in before participating.
So, I didn’t speak much, and worse, was in jeans, whereas this new middle manager spoke a lot, and wore a suit. He was obviously better than me so he felt free to disagree: I “hadn’t done my homework”, and advised that I should “actually look at the documentation” before venturing an opinion.
I’m normally happy to be wrong and so learn, in fact I’m known for it, so it was fully in character to ask that he show me the relevant documentation and so be educated. Sadly he had misremembered it, failed to bluster his way out, and I got to use my favourite line:
“That’s what I thought I wrote.”
In fact the company existed solely so that I could concentrate on producing the software they marketed and supported. I owned 60% of it, but I didn’t wear a suit!
Obviously poor and uneducated!
Regarding Taiwan
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It is very easy for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to liberate Taiwan by force, but no matter how precise the strike is, it will always cause Taiwanese casualties, which is something mainland China does not want to see.
Whether Taiwan’s future will be peaceful liberation or liberation by force depends entirely on the ideas of Taiwan’s rulers.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel were not conducted alone. Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran’s back, and their role in West Asia’s conflict will only grow if the US doesn’t keep Israel in check.
By Pe.pe Esc.obar
APR 15, 2024
A little over 48 hours before Iran’s aerial message to Israel across the skies of West Asia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed , on the record, what so far had been, at best, hush-hush diplomatic talk :
The Russian side keeps in contact with Iranian partners on the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Ryabkov added, “We stay in constant touch [with Iran]. New in-depth discussions on the whole range of issues related to the Middle East are also expected in the near future in BRICS.”
He then sketched The Big Picture:
Connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which are at the core of Washington’s policy, is in many ways becoming the root cause of new tragedies.
Here, concisely, we had Russia’s top diplomatic coordinator with BRICS – in the year of the multipolar organization’s Russian presidency – indirectly messaging that Russia has Iran’s back. Iran, it should be noted, just became a full-fledged BRICS+ member in January.
Iran is a BRICS+ member! -MM
Iran’s aerial message this weekend confirmed this in practice: their missile guidance systems used the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system as well as the Russian GLONASS system.
This is Russia–China intel leading from behind and a graphic example of BRICS+ on the move.
Ryabkov’s “we stay in constant touch” plus the satellite navigation intel confirms the deeply interlocked cooperation between the Russia–China strategic partnership and their mutual strategic partner Iran. Based on vast experience in Ukraine, Moscow knew that the biblical psychopathic genocidal entity would keep escalating if Iran only continued to exercise “strategic patience.”
The morphing of “strategic patience” into a new strategic balance had to take some time – including high-level exchanges with the Russian side. After all, the risk remained that the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate/ambassador’s residence in Damascus could well prove to be the 2024 remix of the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
And don’t forget the Strait of Hormuz
Tehran did manage to upend the massive Western psychological operations aimed at pushing it into a strategic misstep.
Iran started with a misdirecting masterstroke. As US–Israeli fear porn went off the charts, fueled by dodgy western “intel,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made a quick sideways move, seizing an Israeli-owned container ship near the Strait of Hormuz.
That was an eminently elegant manoeuvre – reminding the collective west of Tehran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, a fact immeasurably more dangerous to the whole western economic house of cards than any limited strike on their “aircraft carrier” in West Asia. That did happen anyway.
And once again, with a degree of elegance. Unlike that ‘moral’ army specialized in killing women, children, and the elderly and bombing hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, and humanitarian convoys, the Iranian attack targeted key Israeli military sites such as the Nevatim and Ramon airbases in the Negev and an intel center in the occupied Golan Heights – the three centers used by Tel Aviv in its strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate.
This was a highly choreographed show.
Multiple early warning signs gifted Tel Aviv with plenty of time to profit from US intel and evacuate fighter jets and personnel, which was duly followed by a plethora of US military radars coordinating the defense strategy.
It was American firepower that smashed the bulk of what may have been a swarm of 185 Shahed-136 drones – using everything from ship-mounted air defense to fighter jets. The rest was shot down over Jordan by The Little King’s military – the Arab street will never forget his treachery – and then by dozens of Israeli jets.
Israel’s defenses were de facto saturated by the suicide drone-ballistic missile combo. On the ballistic missile front, several pierced the dense maze of Israel’s air defenses, with Israel officially claiming nine successful hits – interestingly enough, all of them hitting super relevant military targets.
The whole show had the budget of a mega blockbuster. For Israel – without even counting the price of US, UK, and Israeli jets – just the multi-layered interception system set it back at least $1.35 billion , according to an Israeli official. Iranian military sources tally the cost of their drone and missile salvos at only $35 million – 2.5 percent of Tel Aviv’s expenditure – made with full indigenous technology.
A new West Asian chessboard
It took only a few hours for Iran to finally metastasize strategic patience into serious deterrence, sending an extremely powerful and multi-layered message to its adversaries and masterfully changing the game across the whole West Asian chessboard.
Were the biblical psychopaths to engage in a real Hot War against Iran, there’s no chance in hell Tel Aviv can intercept hundreds of Iranian missiles – the state-of-the-art ones excluded from the current show – without an early warning mechanism spread over several days. Without the Pentagon’s umbrella of weaponry and funds, Israeli defense is unsustainable.
It will be fascinating to see what lessons Moscow will glean from this profusion of lights in the West Asian sky, its sly eyes taking in the frantic Israeli, political, and military scene as the heat continues to rise on the slowly boiling – and now screaming – frog.
As for the US, a West Asian war – one it hasn’t scripted itself – does not suit its immediate interests, as an old-school Deep State stalwart confirmed by email:
That could permanently end the area as an oil-producing region and astronomically raise the oil price to levels that will crash the world financial structure. It is conceivable that the United States banking system could similarly collapse if the oil price rises to $900 a barrel should Middle East oil be cut off or destroyed.
It’s no wonder that the Biden combo, days before the Iranian response, was frantically begging Beijing, Riyadh, and Ankara, among others, to hold Tehran back. The Iranians might have even agreed – had the UN Security Council imposed a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to calm the regional storm. Washington was mute.
The question now is whether it will remain mute. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, went straight to the point:
We have conveyed a message to America through the Swiss Embassy that American bases will become a military target if they are used in future aggressive actions of the Zionist regime. We will consider this as aggression and will act accordingly.
The US dilemma is confirmed by former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof:
We have got some 35 bases that surround Iran, and they thereby become vulnerable. They were meant to be a deterrence. Clearly, deterrence is no longer on the table here. Now they become the American’ Achilles heel’ because of their vulnerabilities to attack.
All bets are off on how the US–Israel combo will adapt to the new Iranian-crafted deterrence reality. What remains, for the historic moment, is the pregnant-with-meaning aerial show of Muslim Iran singlehandedly unleashing hundreds of drones and missiles on Israel, a feat feted all across the lands of Islam. And especially by the battered Arab street, subjugated by decrepit monarchies that keep doing business with Israel over the dead bodies of the Palestinians of Gaza.
A good mans worst fear
What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?
Not me but my brother. In 1975 we were living in Papua New Guinea a large island [the size of France] in the South Pacific. My brother was the commissioner of taxation. Papua New Guinea got independence in 1975 and as commissioner his job was to set up dual tax treaties with other countries. His first of course was Australia but then he took a team to Germany. About 10 Papua New Guineans and himself the only white face there. During the meetings which lasted for more than 2 weeks he spoke only English with the Germans and both English and pidgin [a local language which is made up of a mix of several languages and is not broken English as many assume] with his very bright teammates who had been clued in and played their part perfectly. The Germans spoke English with them but also discussed what they would offer amongst themselves in German saying things like “well we always give developing nations this but let’s swap it for something” etc. anyway after about 2 weeks with the talks practically completed the Germans came to him and said that his counterpart the head of German tax would like to have dinner with him but there was a problem, unusually for Germans he did not speak English but they could provide a translator, my brother who spoke 5 languages fluently answered “no problem I speak perfect German” all their faces fell and not a word of German was spoken again during the last few days of the conference. The dinner was excellent.
Half-Wit Foreigner BANGS OUT Mindanao
This guy just backpacks in the Philippines. He checks out small towns, back roads and stuff, and it is BEAUTIFUL. It reminds me of Pago Pago. Fun escapist video.
Oh… the babe on the splash image is just eye-candy. This is a real adventure video. Not a sex video. LOL. Take the time to appreciate those third world “cesspools” that the United States says is so poor and poverty ridden.
What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
My parents split when I was 9. Fast forward to age 11, and my dad was supposed to pick my sister and me up and drive us from Pennsylvania to Florida in June 1979 for a court-ordered child visitation.
A few days before we were supposed to leave, I awakened with a fever and some stomach pain in the morning. I’d felt fine the night before. Mom, who was now of course a single mother, had to go to work, and left me in bed with orders to call her if I got worse. My discomfort slowly grew throughout the day, but seemed to be subsiding when my worried mother got home in the afternoon. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“It still hurts, but only if I straighten out my legs,” I remember replying as I lay in bed.
“Dear Lord, you have appendicitis.” This was stated as a fact, and not a question. I could barely walk from the pain, so my mother carried most of my 120 pounds downstairs, out to the car, and into the emergency room at the local hospital. I was soon on a gurney and receiving x-rays, which showed nothing, but my fever and distress merited an exploratory abdominal surgery to see what was wrong, and I remember the doctor saying they’d take out my appendix while they were in there. My fever was climbing, and there was no time to waste. “It’s his appendix, Dr. Peguero! You’ll see!” I remember her telling the doctor shortly before I went under anesthesia.
Mom refused to leave the hospital until the surgery was done. It was, indeed, my appendix, which was about a foot long, gangrenous, and curled up behind my pelvis, which is why radiographs didn’t show it. It was minutes or hours from perforating, and was likely already leaking a small amount of infected fluid into my abdomen. My body temperature post-operation had climbed to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was given an alcohol bath in a room where the nurses opened the windows to let in the 47-degree June Pocono Mountain night air. I was kept in the hospital for nine days, a very long time for an appendectomy, because the fever was reluctant to subside completely.
Mom diagnosed me, and literally carried me to the car and into the ER. The doctor saw no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to ride in my father’s non-air-conditioned 1979 Renault LeCar all the way down I-95 a week or so after my discharge, to which my mother replied, “Doctor, if anything happens to him on that trip, I’ll sue you and this hospital for everything I can get.”
“In that case, there’s no way in hell he’s going to Florida,” was the doctor’s reply, and he immediately wrote an official opinion that the court accepted to keep me from making the trip that year.
Yeah, my mom’s still a badass when she needs to be.
Ah, the BACKROOMS
This is insane
16 of the top 20 top selling EV cars are Chinese.
China EV
As a female, what is the dating scene like after 50?
From the clowns I have to deal with, it’s an absolute circus.
Bachelor Number One is a small businessman making his fortune in the sales and marketing industry as a vendor of reduced-price luxury brand alternatives, available in a fine car trunk near you. He is in high demand by three exes and the county child support office.
Bachelor Number Two is a man of traditional values whose hobbies include guns, beer and how to combine the two. His apartment consists of a daybed, a black velvet painting of Jesus hugging a confederate flag, and a TV permaglued to One America News.
Bachelor Number Three isn’t a bachelor, but his wife gave him permission to behave like one after learning I’m back on the market.
Dating after 50 runs the gamut from crapshoot to shitshow. On the one hand, I’m probably getting propositioned more now than I did in my 30s or even in my 20s. On the other hand, a lot of those propositions are coming from guys who sell fake Gucci out of their cars or are uncomfortably nostalgic for 1952. And there’s no shortage of bored men looking for a side piece or a fling to spice things up, because older guys are more likely to still be married than the young professional rising in his field.
I’ve learned that I don’t so much have to lower my standards as to change them. Starting over has forced me to reevaluate my own relationship goals, and I’ve learned to look well beyond aesthetics. I’ve also grown far more wary; the guys who message me on dating sites who look like George Clooney at a Mediterranean resort are far more likely to look like someone in an offshore catfish gulag.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t have any obligation to put up with nonsense or abject stupidity. 20-something Elizabeth would have sat through a bad date with a frozen smile and a vague hope that the man’s redeeming qualities could eventually break through the clouds. 50-something Elizabeth will happily walk out in the middle of a date if the man turns out to be ignorant and poorly mannered. I’m just as capable of taking myself out to a nice dinner, and I certainly wouldn’t object to the company; I’m smart and cute, after all.
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Amman’s collaboration with Tel Aviv peaked last Saturday with its shocking defense of Israeli territory from Iranian drones and missiles, a move that may prove fateful for the future of the Hashemite Kingdom.
By Khalil Harb
APR 16, 2024
The most dangerous development during Iran’s massive 13 April retaliatory strike against Israel last weekend was the defensive military alliance – comprising the US, Britain, Jordan, and France – that coalesced to defend the occupation state.
Jordan has jumped to Israel’s full defense at a time when Arabs have never been more collectively outraged by its crimes.
Particularly notable was Jordan’s role in thwarting Iran’s incoming drones and missiles. The Hashemite Kingdom was the only Arab or Muslim state to act as Israel’s “firewall,” providing direct military protection for Tel Aviv within a multilateral, regional military framework.
Despite Amman’s long-standing pro-Israel stance, this sudden reassertion of its position is indicative of some broader shifts in military strategies across West Asia.
Despite Amman’s long-standing pro-Israel stance, this sudden reassertion of its position is indicative of some broader shifts in military strategies across West Asia.
Patterns and calculations of confrontations across West Asia will be readjusted to adapt to this new equation and others that have emerged in the region as alliances shift to and away from the west.
That includes the Axis of Resistance, which will likely reassess the expected range of responses in a future confrontation, given that western anti-missile capabilities are well spread throughout strategic locations – strategic sites from the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar, Iraq, to the Al-Tanf base at the Syrian–Jordanian–Iraqi border and from the Mashabim base in the Negev desert to the King Faisal base in northwestern Jordan.
Strategic shifts
Over the years, the Jordanian government has dramatically shrunk its commitments to the Palestinian cause and “Arabism.”
This can be traced from its 1968 “Battle of Dignity ” against Israel to 5 November, when King Abdullah II boasted of his country’s “success” in airdropping medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in the Gaza Strip, and now, quite stunningly, employing its air force to protect Israel’s security from retaliatory Iranian strikes.
This shift is not merely a reactionary measure but the culmination of years of extensive security and military coordination with the occupation state, as highlighted by a Jordanian opposition activist speaking to The Cradle. This deep-seated integration into anti-missile and drone operations reflects a strategic evolution rather than a spontaneous response.
Eyewitness reports from multiple sources to The Cradle describe the audible presence of warplanes over the Amman region, followed by the sound of explosions hours later when overhead projectiles were intercepted and downed.
One Jordanian witness relays that the suburb of Marj al-Hamam saw the most interceptions against Iranian drones and missiles, with debris reported across the area.
Jordanian writer and journalist Rania Jabari informs The Cradle that “citizens in Jordan have felt jammed on the GPS for about two weeks,” that is, since after the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Amid rising concerns about a swift Iranian counterattack through drone incursions, Israel reportedly initiated GPS jamming operations across several regional countries, including Jordan.
Jabari suggests that this electronic interference might have precipitated the Jordanian Air Force’s readiness to intercept any unauthorized aerial objects in its airspace, given the potential risks to national security from mistakenly guiding Iranian drones into Jordanian territory.
However, the Jordanian opposition activist casts doubt on the capability of Jordan’s Air Force – equipped with only about 60 older F-16 and F-5 aircraft – to single-handedly manage the response against hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles destined for Israel.
Regional repercussions
Supporting these suspicions, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Israeli fighter jets had intercepted drones launched by Iran in the airspace of Jordan and Syria.
The day after the Iranian Operation True Promise, the Jordanian government issued a vague statement, only saying that “some unidentified flying objects that entered our airspace last night were dealt with and intercepted to prevent endangering the safety of our citizens and inhabited areas.”
The statement conspicuously omitted any mention of the scale of involvement of the Israeli Air Force or the nature and role of US fighter jets participating in the operation.
Given the limitations of Jordan’s aerial fleet and the extensive geographic area these planes need to cover – a “firewall” stretching approximately 1,500 kilometers from western Iran to the occupied territories of Palestine – the involvement of international forces seems credible.
Additionally, Iraqi sources inform The Cradle that coalition forces had shot down about 30 drones and missiles over Iraq, with explosions heard in regions like Erbil, Najaf, Wasit, and Anbar. This indicates that a significant number of the drones and missiles traversed Jordanian skies, where they were intercepted before reaching their intended targets in Israel.
The role of the Jordanian Air Force is so significant that the Iranian Mehr news agency quoted an Iranian military source as saying, “Iran will monitor Jordanian movements, and if they cooperate with Israel, Jordan will be our next target.”
The source is said to have “warned Jordan and other countries in the region before the start of the attack against cooperating with the occupying entity.”
This statement seems to have aroused the ire of the Jordanian government. On Sunday, authorities summoned the Iranian ambassador in Amman to warn against Tehran’s “questioning of Jordan’s position.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also issued a statement saying that his government would “intercept any drone or missile that breaches our airspace, whether Iranian or Israeli.”
However, the Jordanian oppositionist questions the accuracy of Safadi’s statement, especially about his country’s readiness to confront a similar threat coming from Tel Aviv, noting numerous occasions when Israeli fighter jets infiltrated Jordanian airspace to carry out raids on Syria.
A history of betraying Palestine
Jordan’s historical antagonism towards Palestinian resistance dates back to the “Black September” massacres of 1970, aimed at expelling the PLO from the country – allegedly with the support of former King Hussein bin Talal, who reportedly received backing from Israel and the US.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s Air Force shot down and destroyed dozens of Jordanian aircraft. Following the 1994 Amman–Tel Aviv peace agreement, the two states have struck multiple defense deals, including Israel supplying Jordan with F-16 jets and Cobra helicopters.
Since the 1970s, when Israel supported Jordan during the Palestinian revolt against King Hussein, the two air forces have not engaged in combat. Israeli belligerence persists despite this. On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, when asked about potential opposition from the Jordanian Air Force should Israel strike Iraq, then-retired Air Force Commander Avihu Ben-Nun boldly stated , “There would be no more Jordanian Air Force.”
It is very likely, moreover, that the western militaries involved in Israel’s defense last weekend utilized Jordanian bases. For example, US troops are stationed at the Mashabim air base in the Negev desert, supporting operations like the Iron Dome system.
Similarly, UK and French military forces are present at multiple strategic locations within Jordan, including the King Faisal Air Base in Al-Jafr and the Humaymah base near Aqaba, where they play roles in regional defense and run intelligence operations.
There are also French troops at King Faisal Air Base, known as Al-Ruwaished Base, which is close to Al-Tanf. From this base, activities involving espionage operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran are carried out through a state-of-the-art reconnaissance center, and its airport is believed to be used by both Israeli and US drones.
Sacrificing Jordan’s stability for Israel’s security
But Jordan’s relations and collaboration with Tel Aviv remain deeply unpopular among the country’s citizenry, with protestors amassing for weeks near the Israeli embassy in Amman – many of them subsequently subjected to repression and tight security restrictions by Jordanian authorities.
Adding to the pressure on Amman, the Iraqi resistance faction, Kataib Hezbollah, announced earlier this month its readiness to arm “12,000 fighters with light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles, millions of bullets and tons of explosives, so that we can be united to defend our Palestinian brothers,” adding that it would seek to “cut off the [Jordan] land route that reaches the Zionist entity.”
By participating in the interception of Iranian drones, Jordan has made a significant contribution to alleviating some pressure off Israel, but one that comes with a much more significant domestic consequence for the stability of the kingdom.
Will Amman’s blatant alignment with Tel Aviv in this context prove to be politically detrimental for its monarch? In years to come, this decision may be viewed as a strategic error of gargantuan proportions. For now, Jordan’s political future and its position in regional politics remain uncertain – certainly as Tel Aviv and Tehran gear up for further confrontations.
King Abdallah can jump into the fray as he did last weekend and suffer through further waves of domestic and Arab outrage, or he can resolve to stay neutral and quiet – as many larger, more powerful neighbors chose to do – and let Iranians and Israelis adversaries fight their own battles
Backpacking trip in the Philippines
Take a vacation.
Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?
During college, a very good male friend and I decided to take a road-trip from Minneapolis, where we both studied, to Boston, during Spring Break.
One of our stops was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
We had parked our car and were walking around the downtown area when we stood at a crosswalk and waited for the light to turn green so we could get to the other side of the street.
Once green, we began crossing (we were the only ones on the street at the time), when we see a police car drive up on our left, to the crosswalk and stop while we are crossing it.
The driver, a uniformed police officer, and the only one in the car, began yelling at us asking why are we crossing the street.
I told him that we were going to check out the restaurant across the way (I didn’t understand why he asked that and answered innocently).
He began to yell loudly that we are crossing at a red light and are behaving recklessly.
My friend and I, not wanting to be rude to an officer in uniform, simply stood there in shock and pointed at the green light that was in front of us.
The officer didn’t bother looking and kept yelling at us that perhaps we were being rude because he was in an unmarked car and we didn’t realize he is a police officer.
As mentiobed, this man was in uniform, sitting in a very noticeable police car, nothing unmarked about it.
My friend and I were standing there, in the middle of the crosswalk, not able to come up with anything to say in exchange because it was so ridiculous.
My friend began yelling back that we had a green light, and that he had the red light, but before finishing, I nudged him to stop and told the officer that we are really sorry, and kept apologizing.
The officer seemed to calm down and we continued to cross the street while the officer waited for his light to turn green.
It was truly bizarre.
My friend and I began dating shortly after that, and have now been married around 20 years, and we still laugh at that weird exchange, though we did not think it was funny at the time.
What is the most badass thing your parent has ever done?
My dad was putting gas in the car.
I was standing on the opposite side of it.
I went to throw trash away at the trash can across from me.
Out of nowhere, a car came barreling off the road and into the gas station faster than any car should ever drive in that tight of a space.
I froze.
I felt the car fly past me within what may have been a foot or two feet from me, but it felt like inches …
That’s when I see an otherwise placid dad turn from human to enraged Silverback Gorilla.
He picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could and started running after them.
Suddenly, the car was engulfed by multiple police cars that apparently were chasing it.
When we got back in the car, I asked him why he threw a rock at their car.
He said:
“I wanted them to come back and fight me! They almost hit my kid driving like an idiot! I was not going to let them get away with it!”
You could hear the indignation in his voice and see the fire in his eyes.
Someone messed with his little boy, and he was ready to go to war to protect him.
That little boy was me.
I never felt so safe and secure as I did in that moment with him.
My father’s act of impulsive, selfless love for his child was the most badass thing my parent has ever done.
Green Garlic Chili
070114 greenchiligarlicsauce web1title
Ingredients
3 pounds fresh pork, cubed in small pieces or coarsely ground
1/2 cup olive oil
3 cloves fresh garlic
Salt and white pepper to taste
1 large onion
6 to 8 fresh New Mexico green chiles or 2 to 4 small cans whole green chiles, chopped
3 large fresh, home grown green tomatoes
Instructions
Heat oil in heavy Dutch oven or stainless pot. Cook pork until it is white and braised on all sides.
Remove pork from pot.
Sauté whole, peeled cloves of garlic and onion in oil until onion is clear.
Chop tomatoes and green chiles; add them to the onion-garlic mix. Sauté . Put pork back into the pot. Add enough water to cover and simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until pork is done and chili is thick. You may need to add more water during the cooking process. Stir to prevent sticking.
Serve in flour tortillas with plenty of picante sauce.
Appreciation matters
Have you ever successfully bribed someone?
My daughter. She was 20 and a serious smoker.
She was on her way to Florence for her junior semester abroad. We were at the departure gate at JFK, and I offered her money to quit smoking. A hundred bucks a week. Don’t tell your mother.
She said, “Dad, I’m going to be living in Italy. I can’t quit now.”
She flew off to Florence. Smoked. Fit right in.
Cut to six months later. She’s back in the states. “Hey Dad, are you still willing to pay me to quit smoking?”
“Yes. Here’s the deal. I’ll put $5000 in the bank for you every year, and if you’re still not smoking in five years, you can have the $25,000. Or you can let it ride, and we’ll go another five years, another $25,000. Don’t tell your mother.”
The backup bribe was because I was afraid she’d take the 25 Grand and go back to smoking. The “Don’t tell your mother” was partly because I didn’t think my wife would approve, and partly because bribes by their very nature are most effective when they’re shrouded in secrecy.
My daughter quit smoking on April 1, 1996. On April 1, 2001 she claimed the $25,000. She needed it to pay off her credit card habit. But it’s been 20 plus years, and she never picked up another cigarette.
Moral: Teach your children well. If they can’t learn, bribe them. It works.
Women aren’t wives today
What are some mind-blowing psychological facts about males?
1. Men have higher rates of death from suicide and homicides than women, with the highest risk among younger men.
2. Male emotions are different than female emotions, but just as complex and powerful.
3. Studies suggest men may have better self-control than women.
4. Men generally experience stronger gender role pressure, particularly around achievement
and ambition.
5. Men’s cortisol levels tend to increase in competitive and hierarchical situations, allowing them to react quicker to danger or pressure.
6. Male brain cells tend to be larger than female brain cells.
7. Men often talk less than women, yet make up 75% of political speeches worldwide.
8. Studies suggest that men are more susceptible to memory-loss with age.
9. Men experience greater impairment from the effects of alcohol than women.
10. Men have a stronger desire for physical stimulation than women.
From these psychological facts, we can conclude that males have unique physical, psychological, and emotional characteristics. These aspects make them who they are and can be both positive and challenging at times. Although, they can still provide us with a better understanding of the human experience.
A lot of money
Has Mao Zedong been the victim of superficial propaganda that vilified him excessively?
Has Mao Zedong been the victim of superficial propaganda that vilified him excessively?
This question is too big. I can only show you a tiny little corner of Mao’s work.
In 1947, LIFE magazine employed a young American reporter, Jack Birns
, to Shanghai to report on China’s civil war. Shanghai, at that time, was like a heaven: this one city is far, far, richer than the rest of China. It had 4 million residents and consumed half of the total electricity generated in China. Half. And the expats were indeed having a reasonably good time in Shanghai, as photographed by Jack Birns. Here is a photo of an expat with Chinese girls.
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And not far away, here is a city sanitary worker picking up trash. Also photographed by Jack Birns.
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Yes, that was a dead child you see there. Starved to death. And here is a newspaper article on Oct. 27, 1940, reporting that the night temperature dropped to 39.9 degrees fahrenheit, which was about 4.5 degrees celsius, which resulted in 74 people frozen to death in one of the Shanghai districts. Just one of the districts. Half of China is north of Shanghai.
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And here is the photograph Jack Birns took, of the execution of suspected communist sympathizers. The photograph was never published, of course, because the owner of the LIFE magazine, Henry Luce, was a devoted anti-communist and did not want to show the KMT government committing atrocities.
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You think this is bad? NOOOOO, this was what heaven looked like in China in 1947, in the richest city, the one tiny spot of China that consumed half of the total electricity generation in China. On only 4 million residents. What about the other 500 million Chinese?
That’s an annual population growth rate of < 0.3% a year, in an age with no contraception and everybody was having 6+ kids. (BTW, by the time Mao died in 1976, China’s population had reached 930 million, grew by 350 million in 21 years, that’s a growth rate of ~ 3%. Compare this with the previous 100 years, and you’ll get the real total death rate of the previous century in China, which would be around 15 million a year.)
You think this is bad? NOOOOO, if you go to China’s countryside, you will often see something like this
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I ran across this photo on the internet. It’s a tombstone issued by the government in praise of a young girl’s good virtue. Her name was not on the tombstone, because girls didn’t have names. Her fiance died before the wedding, so her family carried her to her fiance’s house, had her stood on top of his coffin, strangled her, and put her inside the coffin, to be buried with her fiance, the man she had never seen, never met, never known in life. On the back of the tombstone are the names of the male relatives of her family and her fiance’s family, etched in stone as a perpetual sign of great virtue.
How does this compare with Afghanistan? with Pakistan? With Saudi Arabia?
This was the China that Mao took over. 80% illiterate. 35 years of average life expectancy, and GDP per capita was $52 in 1952. Historical GDP of China
And if the men got a bit of money, the first thing they’d want to do was to open his own opium den and go buy himself a 12-year-old concubine.
Mao changed all that in a most profound way, despite 21 years of the most comprehensive Western embargo. 400 categories of products, including medicine, farming, and fishing equipment, were under embargo from 1950 to 1971. Without the fertilizers, Chinese farm yield was abysmally low. Without the medicine, the Chinese was under constant threat of small pox, malaria, and the plague. U.S. Ends Ban on China Trade
This was what Mao had in his hands. He started with clearing the country of bandits and opium, trained peasants on basic healthcare, and implemented universal, compulsory education. The government has the obligation to educate, and all children, boy or girl, have the obligation to learn, period.
This is the first set of China’s currency issued in 1960, featuring the first woman tractor driver.
Generals, admirals, politicians, CEOs, firefighters. There is literally no job in China that people think women can’t do. This is the same people that a mere 70 years ago bound women’s feet and refused to let women go outside of their homes, wouldn’t even bother giving girls their own names. Foot binding
Mao didn’t just change the country. He changed the people.
But these individual examples are not as important as the overall statistics here: China has one of the highest women labor participation rate, and one of the highest rate of education for women.
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So this is the way Mao understood Women’s Liberation: It’s not about clothes, not about sex, not about additional protection, not about some guy opening doors for ladies, but about strength – the strength of knowledge, of professional careers, of independence, of character, so that a woman can run her own life, and tell even the Pope himself to go f*ck off if she so desires. This, is Liberation.
And here is the thing about Mao: a lot of the stuff he did, nobody else has been able to do, even today, 40 years after he died. What I wrote here, is just a tiny little corner of his work. So you think you can do what Mao did easily? Well congratulations, we have just the right little problem for you to solve. Afghanistan is 100 times richer and the people healthier and more educated than China was in 1950. The country has only 30 million people, instead of 600 million. There is no embargo. Instead, there is a lot of financial aid. You want to go try your hands? NATO has been there for 15 years, what do they have to show for it? War is still going on. Opium production is at all-time high. Women walk around in tents. And little boys are still being f*cked in the arse. Bacha bazi
So go. Go there and make it into another China. Show us what you can do. Show us you can do what Mao did without the loss of a single life. Show us you can do better. Or try Iraq. Or South Sudan. Or Yemen. All of these countries are hundreds of times better than China was in 1950.
So going back to the original question, is Mao vilified excessively. I can only say this: he had done great things, and he had done quite a few things wrong. He did not do many favors to the West, but he was very straight forward and truthful about it. He didn’t lie about it. He didn’t steal. He didn’t pretend friendship. He didn’t kiss ass. Neither did he intend to harm any people or any other country. He intended to modernize China, and even more, modernize the Chinese people. He wanted to do those things that would benefit the Chinese people for the next hundreds of generations. He would have laughed at any vilification from foreigners, and thought he must be doing something right. He would not have liked the vilification from the Chinese people, but he would have ground his teeth and trudged on, if he were convinced that this was what China needed for the next 1,000 years.
PS: I want to reply to some of the comments regarding Mao’s faults. He had a lot of those too, the most glaring being a weakness for pseudoscience and sycophancy. But that’s not the question being asked here. And I doubt anybody can write a comprehensive review of Mao on Quora. It’ll be too big.
But the point I want to make is not about Mao. It’s about the fact that some aspect of “tradition” or “culture” or “religion” is harmful, and people who espouse those are just plain wrong, and most of the current crop of political leaders are pussyfooting about it, unwilling to deal with the fact that in certain places, it’s the PEOPLE themselves that need to be modernized. Any tradition or culture or religion the keep 50% of a country’s productivity off the table, or keep 50% of the brain power off the grid, can not possibly compete with other countries. Mao and the CCP were willing to deal with it and re-shape the culture to the right path. The other politicians today are willing to put up with medieval culture as long as it’s called “tradition” or “culture” or religion”, and this is going to keep the society down for the next millennium. Some things benefit the society if they live in a museum, and harm the society if they live in real life.
Wholesome Daughter
From a Canadian
Well boys, I’m required to get back to Canada very soon, and I will. But I gotta be perfectly honest with you. I have zero desire to go back — absolute zero. I want to live in China forever.
I feel like I’ve visited not another country, but another planet. Planet China. The next level of human civilization.
And the quality of life, especially in terms of social life and cultural and aesthetic surroundings? No comparison.
Now a couple of decades ago, any Westerner could’ve come to China and been regarded as a top asset. There were no standards back then, anyone foreign was good. That’s no longer the case. Today China is hyper-developed. It’s just plain superior to us. This is no tankie stuff, I can look anyone in the eye and state this as a fact. I spent two weeks in one of China’s lowest-GDP provinces, coming from what is supposed to be one of the best countries in the world. And I am honestly intimidated by all the massive wealth, almost alien technology, absolutely stunning architecture and ubiquitous beauty, and brilliant administration I’ve witnessed.
I’ve seen so many things that don’t exist in Canada, nor in any other Western country to the best of my knowledge. And I have no special skills that the central government or prestigious employers would want. I’m practically a backpacker.
But not all of China is hyper-developed. I got a warm welcome from local authorities in small cities I visited. They told me if I finish a degree and get a visa, they’d be glad to give me a job. They even said China needs me and I’d be loved here.
I might have related this story to you all or not.
About Taiwan
Most Taiwanese who have not visited mainland China know little about their cousins across the strait. Having lived in China for twenty years since 1997, I noticed sharp changes in social behavior, especially of the younger generation.
For example, when I go to Hong Kong, I take the subway (or Metro) to get around. Younger riders would rush in and occupy all seats without regard for older, slower folks.
They promptly glue their eyes on their cellphones ignoring the elderly standing right in front.
When I first landed in mainland China in 1997, it was the Wild West, and everyone wanted to be the first to claim the prize by whatever means.
I also mentioned the unruly crowds trying to order a McDonald's meal. Those chaotic scenes in McDonald's disappeared over time and, when taking public transit in China, teenagers would automatically give up their seats to older people, including me, in my late fifties or early sixties.
I was pleasantly surprised.
More…
Nantou is a pan-Blue county, i.e. pro-KMT. But the KMT is losing supporters (your friends not voting) and DPP legislators have been elected there for the first time in 2023.
Your friends also know the history of the Republic of China in Taiwan, which considers itself the legitimate government of all of China.
It is enshrined in ROC's constitution. The DPP may say they want independence for Taiwan, but they'll have to change the constitution; good luck with that.
Since it will also give the PRC the pretext for unilateral reunification of Taiwan, the DPP will not try.
As for Taiwan fighting the PLA, it's a laughable narrative propagated by the usual liars (people in Taiwan know that it's a joke), the same as the lies about Japan and the Philippines wanting to go to war with China for Taiwan.
If China must reunify Taiwan by force, I'm certain the PLA will only take a few hours to complete the job.
I've written about how and why in the past, so I'll skip the details. No one will have the time or ability to react.
Japan will not dare because it imports most of its food and fuel. An embargo would be deadly.
The greatest concern China would have in such a case is the speedy resumption of normal activities in Taiwan after the reunification under a provisional government.
Therefore, strategically, China should hold secret discussions with proxies of pro-unification political leaders in Taiwan, who have government experience in keeping the population calm and taking over the day-to-day running of whatever government may be in power.
As for Western sanctions, I say let them try.
Aside from the many things the West depends on China to supply, they rely on China for medicine. C
hina has a virtual monopoly on the supply of Key Starter Materials and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients for many drugs, without which Big Pharma and India cannot produce their medicines.
In sanctioning China, the West will cut off their heads to spite their brains.
-PM
Now for my narratives…
For a while, I lived with my father’s mother; my paternal grandmother.
We got along well.
Over time, I got to understand her better, and so I wanted to buy her things. And so I did. I bought her, on separate occasions, a radio and a skillet.
The AM Radio
Here, she needed a simple radio. Just an on/off switch and a dial to tune the station to. Oh, and a volume knob. That was it.
So I bought her a nice simple… so simple radio… but paid “good money” for it because it was a reliable brand that would never wear out.
Something like this
She loved it, but eventually replaced it with a radio bought by my cousin.
She told me why.
She said that she loved my radio, but Cindy made such a fuss about how great and powerful his radio was that she didn’t have the heart to tell her no.
It had a built in cassette tape player, an equalizer, AM and FM bands, plus a citizens and police band, and it has all sorts of dials for tone, bass, and everything like that, plus two big speakers. Well…
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My radio was her preference, but she kept the bigger monstrosity in the kitchen out of deference to my cousin.
Later, about a year later, she switched back to my little simple yellow radio. As the bigger radio was too confounding to her, had only two volume settings; loud and very loud, and eventually died.
I don’t know the “full story”, but this was good enough for me.
It was a heartfelt gesture on my part to give my grandmother exactly what she wanted and needed.
Now, I am a guy. I am very, VERY clueless about gifts and had many spectacular failures over the years. But I like to think that this one was a win.
The frying pan
Now my grandmother lived alone (after I moved out), and she needed a small cast iron skillet to cook a single egg for herself or a single slice of bacon. So I planned to get her a tiny, tiny, cast iron skillet.
I picked out the perfect one. Big enough for one egg, and a strip of bacon. Maybe one chicken wing for dinner…
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I had to go work in the mines that day, and so I asked my mother who was going into Pittsburgh that day to stop by and pick it up and give to my grandmother.
I gave her the money, the description, the size, the price, the brand name and the model number of that skillet.
And that was that!
Or, so I thought…
I called my grandmother after my shift and asked her if she liked the present, and she said it was “nice” but it was too large and she couldn’t pick it up to put on the stove. And it was too big for her needs.
A big question mark filled in my head.
Turned out that when my mother saw that the price for the tiny cast iron skillet was the same as the jumbo family banquet size that she thought that it would be a value-added decision to get the bigger version.
Massive gigantic frying pan
I was furious! I yelled and bitched and moaned to my mother.
She said she was sorry and didn’t know.
It wasn’t just that… I really wanted to surprise her with what she wanted without her needed to tell me that. It was my first experience in anticipating a woman’s wants and needs.
Thanks to my mother… that was a fail.
She and my auntie went and replaced it with the one that I selected. And I had to explain away the entire fiasco to my grandmother, and the reasoning to my mother, and to my auntie… who had not one iota of a clue as to WHY I insisted in the tiniest cast iron skilled.
Phew!
Somethings you gotta do yourself.
Somethings you gotta do yourself.
Somethings you gotta do yourself.
Somethings you gotta do yourself.
Somethings you gotta do yourself.
Sheech!
That was a FAIL.
Todays…
Sr. American Diplomat Kurt Campbell stated that the USA will hold China accountable for Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine. What is the Chinese thoughts on this matter? Is the USA overstepping it’s authority?
Heard about six degrees of separation?
This was one of the problems I came across studying Monte Carlo simulations.
Six degrees of separation is a rule of thumb that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other.
What does it have to do with Kurt the Assistant Secretary of State?
It has all to do with holding the Chinese accountable for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
The answer lies in secondary sanctions, which is a historic expansion of the big sanction stick enabled by the hegemonic hold of the Eurodollar over the global economy.
How did sanctions work?
America would draw up a list of companies to sanction, and depending on the severity of the sanction, make it illegal for American companies to trade with companies A, B, and C or kick them entirely from the dollar system. This works because of the unnatural size of the US economy, and the requirement for all dollar-based transactions to be cleared through NYC.
That’s direct sanction.
America is introducing secondary sanctions on Russia, to sanction partners that trade with companies A, B and C. This bears a little explaining.
Say companies D, E, and F trade with the three amigos above. Under the old sanction model, their Eurodollar transactions with other parties won’t be affected. But under secondary sanctions, these transactions will be subject to the same sanction. In other words, collective punishment, or guilt by association.
For example, India will find it difficult to resell Russian energy to Europe because the Indian energy company will be subject to the same sanctions as the Russian energy company, and it will affect their Eurodollar business with European customers.
Unfortunately, this lays three potential landmines.
One, how is compliance at the bank going to keep up? Due diligence isn’t just consulting a list from the Fed, but careful examination of a customer’s client list. How will banks quantify the legal risk without securing guarantees on how far the Fed will pursue the policy?
Two, a second degree social map will expand the list of sanctioned entities by multiples, if not an order of magnitude. That’s a snowball rolling downhill, in terms of workload and implementation. It is impractical, to say the least, and can have unintended consequences, especially with China thrown into the mix. The 1 trillion USD in S&P500 revenue on the mainland is at risk of gargantuan disruption.
Three, what’s to prevent parties from setting up intermediaries to add social distance, such that it will require tertiary or quarternary sanctions to have effect? In fact, what if these secondary entities withdraw completely from the Eurodollar system?
I don’t put it beyond the Americans to put the threat of invalidating Chinese patents stateside, and the seizure of China’s dollar assets in the name of “rebuilding Ukraine” and being on the wrong side of history (American-written history that is).
Never say never, because even Barack was openly mocking Donald as late as 2014/15.
So Kurt is right, sort of.
But I happen to think the history of the 21st century won’t be written by America.
Asking of people currently living in South Korea; what is the general opinion of Yoon Suk Yeol? What do citizens think of his rapprochement with Japan, his love affair with the United States, and his thoughts on China?
Despite being the Prosecutor General, President Yoon Seok-yeol was unable to quickly send leftist politicians who committed corruption to prison.
There are many complaints from the public about these matters.
In addition, although many election frauds occurred in the previous National Assembly election and this National Assembly election, these election frauds were not pointed out, causing the public to doubt President Yoon Seok-yeol’s ability.
As for the issue with Japan…
Koreans recognize the importance of the alliance between Korea, the United States, and Japan
However, the problem with Japanese politicians is that they always try to drive a wedge between the United States and Korea.
When any political or military agreement is reached between Korea, the United States, and Japan, Japan always argues over Korea’s Dokdo issue.
In other words, Japan has a history of taking over Korea’s land…
Rather, they often engage in actions that provoke Korea.
And, Japan pretends that this problem is a territorial issue.
If this happens, it will stimulate the emotions of the Korean people and lead them to reject what Korea, the United States, and Japan worked hard to negotiate.
Because of these problems, it is always difficult for Korea and Japan to become closer politically.
However, Koreans have a cool-headed mind.
Japan is a perpetrator against Korea and often incites hatred against Korea…
In Korea, the only people who hate Japan are leftists.
Ordinary Koreans do not give any disadvantages to individual Japanese people.
In the case of Japan, there are many cases of discrimination against Koreans traveling to Japan or terrorism by putting strange things in their food…
In Korea, if there is a Korean who does this to the Japanese, Koreans criticize the bad Korean and bury him or her from society.
This is the difference between Korea and Japan
And, regarding the issue with the United States…
First of all, more than 80-58% of Koreans like the United States.
However, the United States often ignores the sentiments of Koreans when implementing policies toward Korea.
For example, let’s talk about Trump’s issue of military expenses for U.S. troops stationed in Korea.
“Korea is doing well and the U.S. military is protecting Korea, so Korea must pay more for stationing U.S. troops. Otherwise, we will withdraw the U.S. troops.”
Korean people feel very bad after hearing these remarks.
“As the U.S. military’s defense budget is decreasing, I hope Korea will pay more to help the U.S. military stationed in Korea.”
If you said that, negotiations would have become easier without hurting the sentiments of Koreans.
There is a difference in how the two sentences are used and expressed, but the result is that you are asked to pay more.
From the U.S. perspective, if Korea ends up paying more, it doesn’t matter how it is said.
However, speaking in the latter way does not mean that America’s pride will be broken or hurt.
Koreans’ emotions tend to respond strongly to the strong and help the weak.
Therefore, although the United States is not weak, these sentiments of Koreans must be taken into consideration.
South Korea sent Korean soldiers to America’s Vietnam War.
After the Vietnam War ended, many wounded soldiers and Agent Orange victims remained in Korea and suffered greatly.
However, the United States had no interest in these soldiers dispatched to Korea.
Later, during the Iraq War, when the United States requested the deployment of Korean troops, leftists in Korea opposed the deployment of combat troops and were able to obtain the consent of the Korean people.
Now, the question is if war breaks out between Taiwan and China.
China has frequently threatened to attack Korea with nuclear missiles using state-run media and Chinese YouTubers.
However, the United States only promised a nuclear umbrella over South Korea, but did not take actual action.
The problem facing us today is that the United States must either tolerate South Korea’s nuclear armament or lend American nuclear weapons to Korea.
Then, China will not be able to threaten Korea with nuclear missiles, and Korea will be able to help the United States as an ally.
The United States said, “Japan doesn’t have nuclear weapons either, so doesn’t it say it will help the United States?” It can be argued that
Japan has no real threat or target of war from North Korea.
However, South Korea is in a position to defend itself and help the United States in a war with North Korea.
Unless Korea is armed with nuclear weapons, Korea cannot help the United States as an ally when China attacks Taiwan.
The responsibility for Korea’s failure to help the United States lies entirely with the United States.
Next is the problem with China.
In the past, the relationship between Korea and China was not bad.
However, things quickly got worse as the Korean people learned that China was interfering in Korean politics and inciting public opinion in Korea.
In particular, Korean citizens become angry whenever Chinese politicians, diplomats, state-run media, etc. make arrogant remarks about Korea.
Whenever a social problem arises and China becomes noisy, it tries to use Korea to solve it.
In other words, they are trying to resolve social conflict by criticizing and being hostile towards Korea.
These Chinese policies are a factor that is causing Korea and China to become increasingly distant.
5 Reasons Why Men Are Going Their Own Way
She’s pretty good and makes some great points. A contract not a marriage.
“Ukrainians are losing more soldiers every day now than they ever have in the past—we shouldn’t be surprised.
They’re falling apart, they’re collapsing, so they’re falling back.
German losses in the last year of the Second World War—it wasn’t even a year; I would say it was like nine months—were much larger than they had taken in all the months before the end of the war.
This happens at the end of conflicts—things fall apart; people are trying to withdraw, disengage from combat, and they’re slaughtered.
That’s happening in Ukraine.
It’s inhumane; we should stop it. We and Washington should intervene and say, ‘No, stop! Let’s come to some sort of negotiated settlement before Ukraine is completely destroyed,’ but no one will do it.
Their position is not going to improve at this point—who are they going to train and arm?
An enormous amount of effort has been invested over the last two and a half to three years to train and arm troops from Ukraine. There’s only so much you can do.
I think it’s because Europeans, particularly Western Europeans, are so remote from reality when it comes to warfare—they’ve forgotten that you build a military establishment over decades; you don’t snap your fingers and bring something into existence. That’s number one.
Number two, there’s far too much fascination with what I would call ‘silver bullet technology.’
If we just give the Ukrainians enough Javelin missiles, they’ll destroy all those Russian tanks. No.
If we just give them enough Taurus missiles, we can obliterate their logistical infrastructure. No.
In other words, if we give them something that appears to be another miracle weapon—you know, what Hitler called ‘Wunderwaffe’—that sort of nonsense is not going to change things. No, it will not.
There was never any chance to begin with for Ukraine to be successful.
They had as much chance against Russia as Mexico would have against the United States. Forget it.
I’m surprised that, in many respects, they’ve done as well as they have, but I think that’s also a function of two things:
First of all, the Russian military establishment and its leadership do not want to take heavy casualties.
For the first time certainly since I would say the mid or late 19th century, there is a true interest in preserving Russian life in uniform.
During World War II, we now know that the losses in that country—at least 15 to 16 million soldiers were killed, and another 20 plus million civilians—probably a total of 39 to 40 million dead in total.
The Russians are not going to do that, and they don’t need to, and they know that.
Putin is also a man of immense patience; there are others that wanted to move more decisively, and he said, ‘If you move more decisively, it will create the illusion that we are everything they say we are—that we’re bad, that we’re trying to conquer. That’s not what we’re about; we don’t want to do that; we don’t want to kill more Orthodox Slavs. That’s not our position; that’s not why we’re here.’
Putin has won this war through patience, persistence, and perseverance.
And I think now in the spring—late April to mid-May, once the ground is dry—the Russians will sweep forward and end this war.”
NATO forces have been unable to deter the pro-Palestine operations of the Yemeni armed forces despite heavily militarizing the Red Sea
APR 12, 2024
France’s Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace has turned tail from the Red Sea after running out of missiles and munitions repelling attacks
from the Yemeni armed forces, according to its commander, Jerome Henry.
“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” Henry told French news outlet Le Figaro
in an exclusive interview published on 11 April.
“We had to carry out at least half a dozen assistances following [Yemeni] strikes,” he added.
The commander of the Alsace also revealed that, after a 71-day deployment, all combat equipment was depleted.
“From the Aster missile to the 7.62 machine gun of the helicopter, including the 12.7mm, 20mm, or 76mm cannon, we dealt with three ballistic missiles
and half a dozen drones,” Henry adds.
According to the French commander, the Franco–Italian Aster missile – each carrying a price tag of up to $2 million – “was pushed to its limits” by the Yemeni armed forces, as the Alsace had to use it “on targets that we did not necessarily imagine at the start.”
Henry added that Sanaa has markedly increased its use of ballistic missiles after relying mainly on suicide drones at the start of the country’s pro-Palestine operations in the Red Sea and stressed that the French Navy has not faced such a tough battle since NATO collectively launched its 2011 war on Libya to depose the late ruler Muammar Gaddafi.
“I was there too. It wasn’t the same thing. It has been even longer since we have engaged with this level of weaponry and violence. The threat to the boat was much greater in the Red Sea,” Henry notes.
the Red Sea in late January, a few weeks after the US and the UK launched an illegal war on Yemen to protect Israeli shipping interests. The frigate was deployed as part of the EU naval operation Aspides – Greek for shield.
With a mandate initially set for one year, Aspides saw the deployment of several EU warships and airborne early warning systems to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and surrounding waters. According to authorities in Brussels, the mission is exclusively defensive, and its forces are not taking part in US-led attacks against Yemen.
Aspides came together after several NATO members proved hesitant or outright refused
(OPG), which a top US commander called one of the largest battles the navy has fought since the end of World War II.
“We favor a diplomatic solution. We know that there is no military solution,” US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking said earlier this month, acknowledging the futility of Washington’s military strategy against the Arab world’s poorest country.
According to Yemeni sources who spoke with The Cradle
, US officials recently offered Sanaa “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the ongoing war on Gaza.
“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” The Cradle columnist Khalil Nasrallah cited the sources as saying.
The offer also includes “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.
Nevertheless, Yemeni officials have maintained that their operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean will continue until Israel stops the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
“From the coast of the Red Sea or from outside it, we can achieve the goals we want in defense of our country and support of Palestine … We still have many military surprises, and there are military operations that we are keeping secret as part of a specific media strategy,” Mohammad Ali al-Houthi
, a senior member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, announced on 3 April.
How many years ahead is WeChat of WhatsApp and why is China so much ahead of the US in service integrations via mobile?
All of the mobile companies are state-owned, and all of the banks are state-owned, which means that they are technology-driven, not by the need to make a profit.
China is driven by technology scale, not by profit. The Chinese government supports any new technology which is likely to be quickly adopted.
In contrast, US tech companies are driven by shareholder profits, and the shareholders are many and have fragmented interests. This means that technology scale takes a back seat to profits, since shareholders want to profit from their investment.
WeChat was designed by a team of 10 in Guangzhou who had previous experience working with the Chinese government through its ownership by Tencent. Tencent consulted with the Chinese government to get their support for connecting to payment systems and mobile networks.
This kind of government support does not exist in the West, and explains why China is progressing quickly in key technology fields.
Let Loose With Tokyo’s Unbridled Maid Girls – No NG Rule, Just Fun!
This is why Men are going overseas to find wives and dates
Did Iran’s ballistic missiles ‘land’ at Israel’s Nevatim Air Base?
Four of them struck the air base
Imagine if they had a nuclear warhead each
…
They would be guided by either GLOSNASS or BEIDOU so US cant jam the GPS guidance
The Discharge alone would be sufficient to contaminate upto a strike radius of 25 Kms or an area of 3.14*25*25 which is roughly around 2000 Sq Kms
That’s the end of the soil for the next 300 years
That’s a lot of radioactive dust
That’s a lot of atmospheric radiation
Thats the end of Israel as we know it
Today US, UK, France came to Israel’s Aid and helped destroy more than half the targets
Imagine if the West escalates with Putin who decides to launch missiles on Europe and UK
Or Xi who decides to launch on Japan and Philippines
Or Kim Jong Un who decides to launch against Japan, Australia and South Korea
So
→South Korea is locked
→Japan is locked
→Europe is locked
→UK is locked
→US is torn between three theatres and no way strong enough to win even in one
So Israel would have to deal with Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran on their own
And Israel would be certainly stuck badly
That was the benefit of the entire exercise
To show Israel that Israel cannot stand up to Iran and it’s allies Alone
And also to show that if Iran has nuclear warheads , Israel cannot escape a nuclear strike because despite the strongest air defence of FOUR NATIONS – 7 Missiles managed to get through
Was there a stranger you met once, are not likely to meet again, and who profoundly affected you?
Originally Answered: Is there a person, a stranger, whom you met once in your life and never met since and are likely to never meet again, and they affected you in some profound way?
After a student-party in Bergen, about 15 years ago, I was heading out of the party and out into the night, on my way home.
I noticed a single young woman having come from the same party, standing under a tree, looking sad. I went over to her, and though this is completely out of character for me, I asked her if she needed a hug. To this day, I don’t know why I asked precisely that, it’s not the kind of thing I tend to say to strangers, and I haven’t before or after.
She just nodded, and I hugged her. It went on for a long time, and she clung to me as if I was her anchor in a crumbling world. After a minute I noticed my shoulder getting wet, she was crying. I didn’t mind, it felt good to just stand there, holding her.
I don’t know how long we stood there, holding each other. 2 minutes ? 5 ? Something like that. Then she stood up straight and really looked at me for the first time. She was still sad, but there was a tiny smile lurking at the edge of her sadness.
“Thanks!” she said, “I needed that.”
We went separate ways after that. We didn’t say anything more to each other, but I don’t think it was needed either. I never met her again.
But I offer people hugs somewhat more often now. Sometimes they’re needed.
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN was too much for me.
What’s the most savage way you’ve seen someone get fired?
Well I’m not sure this is the most savage, however it is quite different. I was working at a tooling manufacturing facility in the late 60’s. There was a man working there who constantly attempted to stir up drama and conflict almost everyday. The management had warned him quite a few times to no avail. Their warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears. He still continued to cause conflict. The company gave him a 3 day suspension. When he returned his behavior had gotten worse. The company continued to receive complaints. There were rumors for weeks that the company was trying to get rid of him. One week when we were working the 4pm to midnight shift. He had caused a problem between a woman and man who were working close together in the press department by spreading lies that he saw them being intimate in the hall outside the locker room. Somehow the story had gotten back to the woman’s husband. The next evening just after quitting time at 12 midnight as we were walking to our cars. The woman’s husband who was waiting outside grabbed the unexpecting man who he thought was making it with his wife and a fight broke out. The police had to come break up the fight and arrested the woman’s husband. The man who started the rumor stood there laughing and thought the whole thing was funny. The following day the company sent the man a singing telegram saying, “you are fired, you are fired, don’t come to work tonight, ha ha, You are fired, you are fired, don’t come to work tonight, ha ha, we will mail your check, ha ha, hope you think it’s funny ha ha ha he ha”. Well the man did come to work that night and he was mad as hell. After a confrontation with the HR dept. as the police hauled him away. someone on the PA system was singing ha ha ha ha ha. The telegram managed to get on the company bulletin board for all to read. Then everyone had a laugh
What’s the most unreasonable request you’ve received from your boss?
It’s my day off and work calls. The General manager has yet again had things get away from her.
Usually I don’t mind, let me clock in and I can watch my paycheck grow this time I need to be somewhere soon. I tell her “OK I’ll play Rescue Ranger and drop in and take care of it I am guessing it will take two hours or a little less and when done I am gone.” Kinda plan to see that I am not staying right?
Damn if while I am working on one thing she dosen’t go and start something else. When I am done with the first task she expects to walk off and me finish what she has started. When I say no she has a fit.
“Thanks for nothing!” Followed with “Now you know how I feel!” Then it was down hill for me so I got a transfer to another location. As part of the move I have the District manager wanting to know what’s going on. After explaining the constant damma show working for her was I brought up some suspicions that I thought he should know.
The fallout for her was unreal, two managers under her quit in ten days and about half the staff was gone. The District manager waited about sixty days then acted on my suspicions and was waiting outside for her when she showed up. Turned out the money count was off about $1,200. That was the end of her.
What women don’t realize; WHY men stop putting in effort into a relationship…
What is the reason for the limit on having children in China? Is it beneficial or detrimental to the country?
An Average Chinese Landholding for Rice is 57 Acres
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Take a farming family
You have a father, mother and son
When the father dies, the son takes over the landholding, gets married and a new wife and son live on the land
Soon the mother dies
That’s 3 people again
Then the son dies and his son takes over the landholding
At all time this 57 Acres supports 3 or maximum 4 people
So Yield of Rice is high and good
Now imagine the Farmer family again
Say you have a father, mother and 3 sons
This means when the father dies, each son gets 19 Acres (57/3)
So the landholding is divided the first time around
Then each son has 2 sons each
This means six holdings of 9.5 Acres each
And each such son has two more
That’s twelve holdings of 4.75 acres each
So ONE HOLDING OF 57 ACRES becomes TWELVE HOLDINGS OF 4.75 ACRES in four generation
Now instead of 57 Acres supporting 3–4 people at a time, you have the same 57 Acres now divided into twelve , supporting a whopping 30-40 people
So Yield is poor and People are poor and struggling with economies of Scale
This was China in the 1970s
You didn’t exactly have IT Jobs for younger sons to flock off to and you couldn’t just take a flight to San Francisco without hocking your entire family fortune
Deng Xiaoping believed China had no other way out
In order to feed almost a Billion People in 1980 properly, China had to ensure that the Landholdings were large enough to be productive
Otherwise Land would be divided into smaller and smaller portions and end up having pathetic yields and horrible economies of scale
Like INDIA
Where Yield is 40% of Chinas and costs per acre are 68% higher than China despite 55% of the land being under cultivation
Plus in India you can sell Landholdings for a few crores to build villas and landed plots
It was hugely beneficial for China
It kept China fed when more and more land came under Industrialization and Land under cultivation stands at 9.87% today
The only flaw was a large number of girl babies were subjected to infanticide yet it now turns out many girl babies were adopted out or kept hidden in the Hukou and claimed to be daughter of a cousin from far away outer mongolia
Asking of people currently living in South Korea; what is the general opinion of Yoon Suk Yeol? What do citizens think of his rapprochement with Japan, his love affair with the United States, and his thoughts on China?
I am not living in Korea, but let me share what my Korean buddy tells me. They hate the humiliation this rapprochement with Japan signifies and shoved down their throat. They are fuming. Near the THADD campground, there are daily protests by senior farmers. They are ecstatic to see Yoon’s party losing this congress election in a landside of 192 : 108. This reflects S Korean’s strong anti-US sentiment brought about by their Mr. American Pie president. Koreans are a proud people. Yoon’s recent yield to the demand of medical community is considered insincere and too late. They are not buying it. He will be a lame duck in the remaining 3 years for sure.
She Found Out How Hard It Is To Be A Man (Shocked)
Who saved your life without even knowing it?
A stranger dialed the wrong number and saved my life.
I was competing to be a ski instructor in Aspen. I passed 3 ski rounds and if I excelled today, I would have a final interview the next day. The head instructor told that I didn’t make the last round. My boyfriend Barry and I, along with another couple, had planned a vacation starting that night if I didn’t make the final round.
Now I was able to fly out with them as originally planned and not the next day. I was to meet him and our friends at the airport in half an hour. The other couple had a private plane and wanted to leave before dark.
As I finished packing, I received a call from some stranger in the main office who was confirming my interview tomorrow. I thought that I was cut and hired as an on-mountain marketing rep instead. She said no, that I had a 10am interview.
I quickly called Barry and told him to go ahead. I’d meet them tomorrow afternoon in Denver, and onto our vacation. About 40 minutes later I received a call from someone in the main office informing me that I was a snow-host and uniform fittings were next week. I was ticked off because I was given the wrong information earlier, causing me to miss my flight. Now I would have to pay for a commercial ticket and vacation the next day.
About midnight, the phone rang and it’s Barry’s attorney. He said, ‘’Jenna, I’m afraid I have some bad news, Barry’s plane crashed and there weren’t any survivors. They are all gone’’. I was too stunned to cry immediately. The girl in the office, whose identity we never confirmed, had stopped me within 20 minutes of joining them on that plane.
A stranger, a temp helper, made a mistake and by delaying me, she saved me from dying in a plane crash that day. The office staff never heard from her again, so she never knew, nor could I find out who she was.
Update on Taiwan
From my China's Writer's Group. -MM
Friends,
One of the things l most like about Chiang Mai, Thailand is that it is a crossroads for people from all over the world.
Of course, the city is also a tourist destination. As I write, we are in the middle of Songkran, nominally Thai new year, but known mostly as the Water Throwing Festival…For three days, it’s one great big water fight, especially located around the 800 year old moat surrounding the ‘Old City’.
Anyway, Chiang Mai is also a gathering place for wanderers, creatives, digital nomads, misfit and frankly political dissidents. That is, lots of people who stay here for extended periods of time are here because they don’t want to be in their home country.
I met a nice lady in a yoga class about a year ago, and since she appeared to be Chinese, I struck up a converstion with her. Turns out she’s from Taiwan. She, her husband and daughter and I met for coffee last year. They’re back in Chiang Mai for a month, so she contacted me recently, and we had very nice dinner last night. Nothing special, just tradition Chinese dumplings.
I told them about our online group and got their permission to ask questions about their experience in Taiwan, and general attitudes. So here are at least some answers to question you asked.
What are the reasons they don’t feel comfortable in Taiwan?
There are 2 main reasons: First, they feel that the societ is rather rude, that Chinese people both on the mailand as well as in Taiwan are loud and impolite. Unlike very polite Thai drivers, Taiwanese are always beeping their horns and are very impatient. They’re also not honest, Everybody is out to make a quick buck (lr Qian…Chinese word for money??), and are willing to cheat to get it. In their opinion this is generally true of Chinese in most countries. The second reason is that they feel like the government is always trying to manipulate them. They feel the same way about the PRC, government, as well as the Taiwan government which iis using fear to control them. ( I replied that this is an endemic problem with most governments nowadays, which is why people from all over the world come to Chiang Mai. Foreigners are pretty much left alone as long as we don’t disrupt life here.)
Do they feel that Taiwan is being set up like Ukraine, as a US proxy, to fight China to the last Taiwanese?
This engendered an interesting conversation. First, they said that China and Russia are pushing other countries around. So I pointed out to them, the history of US coup, the Nazis that the CIA empowered over decades, and the history of US bullying itself. At that point, they agreed with this analysis. and basically said that they are somewhat worried about hostility breaking out. But they don’t seem to be too worried about that. They have teenage daughter, who is happy being at school in Taiwan, so they are planning to return there. Also, while the husband has put in enough years to retire from his teaching job, the wife still has another year or two to reach retiremen age. So they’ll return to Taiwan, and then decide where to go when both can retire. The daughter, would probably go to an international school
Interestingly they didn’t have much respect at all for the level of teaching at these international schools and language schools. Most of the teachers they hire are for show, and basically, the schools are run as scams.
Living and working in Nantou City
This city is different from other cities in Taiwan because it is not near the coast. It is 1000 meters in elevation, so that in summer it is more comfortable, but in winter can be rather cold, not freezing but maybe 4 degrees celsius. It’s also rather far from nearest major shopping centers, so its maybe 2 hours to get to such a shopping location. They also complain that people there are not polite, as most Taiwanese are these days in their opinion.
This brought up the subject of the general degeneration of culture. I had pointed out how language and dress standards have fallen a lot in the West. Sloppy clothes and a lot more profanity are seen as normal, While Chinese are more conscious of dress, people are not as polite as in earlier years. Chinese people used to want to work hard, but the ‘the younger generation doesn’t want to work, they only want to make money on Youtube or Tiktok.
Interestingly, Singapore is seen as not falling into that trap. In their opinion, Chinese people need to be controlled and disciplined, Nowadays, children are not punished for being naughty. So they are spoiled. But in Singapore, people are still more disciplined and society for Chinese ethnic people works best there. Better than in PRC, Taiwan, and Malaysia. There was a complaint about mainland Chinese, who insist that all Chinese overseas should be loyal to China as Chinese.
Did they vote?
No, they don’t trust any of the parties. However, I sent them an article from Consortium News, about a visit by Guomitang party leader who had a cordial visit to the PRC, had a good time there, and the hope is that the issues between the two countries , so to speak, can be resolved. I raised the issue of the One China Policy and it’s history. They admit that originally Taiwan’s plan was to take back the Mainland, since the KMT was legitimate, not the communists. But they realized over time that this was not going to happen. That left simply going independent. But that option is also not likely without a disastrous conflict. So seems like they see reunification, as inevitable. Their main problem as I see it, is that they’ve been propagandized since birth by Western control, so they have a rather skewed understanding of the history (very similar to what happened to Ukraine).
They didn’t know about weekly demonstrations for reunification with China
Re TSMC. They didn’t have a strong opinion about this. I told them about the US plan to take TSMC under US control in the USA, however, the problem is that US workers want to be paid much higher than in Taiwan. And the workforce is not well education in the US. So there aren’t enough skilled workers.
The economy is not going so well in Taiwan.
Bonus interview:
As a seller on Amazon, I am in contact with other sellers, Recently, a lady born in Shanghai but now living in the UK came to Chiang Mai. She was kind enough, as a professional business consultant, to look at my shop and business. We had lunch one time and a few chats on Whatsapp.
Here primary focus is business. That was really all she wants to talk about. How to make more money. I even asked her out on a date and she refused.
In a chat, I raised the question of Chinese culture, and how I am more interested in that than in business. I’m not rich, but–so far have enough…So how much is enough money?
Deng Xiao Ping said ‘to be rich is glorious’. But I am more aligned with Confucious, Laozi and the Buddha, all of whom have had huge influence on Chinese way of thinking. But this is not her concern. I raised a number of serious geopolitical issues, which we discuss in CWG, including the nefarious role the UK played in Chinese history. But none of that matters to her. Her only concern is business.
She did corroborate, having generously spent time evaluation my business, the fact that, my Amazon business is simply not viable at his point..I am sure she would charge a good amount of money for her service, so it was very generous of her to give advice for free.
The bottom line is that in many countries, English langage oriented culture has played a corrosive role in society, especially in the younger generation. Of course, we who are now older heard the same complaints from our elders when were young. Looking back we didn’t understand how Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Modern Art and so on were planned, just as woke culture is now.
This concludes my report on my encounters with a Taiwanese couple, and an Anglified (she goes by her English name even though she’s from Shanghia) Chinese woman.
Eric Arnow
The Wall Is Slowly Getting Bigger For Lonely Modern Women ..
Chicken Lemon Rice Soup
By Rena Awada | Updated On November 30, 2019 This easy Chicken Lemon Rice Soup recipe is filling and just perfection in a bowl during the winter. Filled with veggies and chicken and so filling and tasty in a lemony broth. Warm and comforting homemade chicken soup that the whole family will enjoy.
Lemony chicken rice soup 2
Set your classic chicken noodle soup to the side and make this homemade Chicken Lemon Rice Soup for a change. It is filled with veggies and chicken in a lemony broth that will get you wanting a second and third bowl. Such an easy chicken soup recipe that everyone in your house will love and there won’t be any leftovers.
HOW TO MAKE THIS HOMEMADE CHICKEN LEMON AND RICE SOUP
You should have all your ingredients set up and ready. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat, add the chicken and sear for about 2-3 minutes on each side. Then, add in the onions, carrot, bell pepper and celery and cook until tender, about 5-6 minutes. Go ahead and add the garlic and thyme. Cook until fragrant for about a minute or so. The aroma for this Chicken Lemon Rice Soup should start to fill up your kitchen by now. Add the chicken broth, bay leaf, and brown rice, then bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until rice is cooked through about 20-25 minutes. Using a fork, remove the chicken pieces and shred them using 2 forks. Finally, return the shredded chicken to the pan and stir in lemon juice, zest, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and enjoy.
Lemony chicken rice soup 3
CHICKEN LEMON RICE SOUP SUBSTITUTES
Chicken: Use boneless or skinless hicken thighs or breasts. I love using mostly boneless breasts. Some may love keeping bone-in for added flavor.
Rice: You may use brown or white rice. A great substitute for the rice would be either quinoa or some shredded cauliflower to keep it keto!
Veggies: Some other veggies to use can be broccoli, green beans, peas, and cauliflower.
Lemony chicken rice soup 5
HOW LONG DOES CHICKEN SOUP LAST IN THE FRIDGE
Store your chicken soup in an airtight container before you place it in the fridge to retain its fresh taste. The chicken soup should last for 5-7 days in the fridge.
CAN YOU FREEZE HOMEMADE CHICKEN SOUP
If you have a lot of leftovers, you can store the rest of the chicken soup in an airtight container and freeze. They should last for 4-6 months frozen. When you are ready for the chicken soup, remove the night before and allow it to thaw in the fridge. Then reheat it on your stovetop until it starts boiling again. Adjust the taste if needed.
HOW LONG TO BOIL CHICKEN FOR SOUP
You may not need to cook the chicken ahead for some chicken soup recipes. On my chicken lemon rice soup, you will be cooking the chicken along with everything else, remove the chicken to shred almost halfway through and then add it back in. If a recipe asks for you to cook the chicken separately, bring a pot of water to boil, add chicken breasts or thighs along with some herbs for some flavor. You can use cinnamon, whole cloves, and bay leaf. Allow it to boil for about 15-20 minutes. Even if it’s not completely cooked through thats fine. After you shred and place in the pot with veggies, it will have more time to cook thoroughly.
Lemony chicken rice soup 4
BRICS new Members: BRICS to Triple Its Members
What is the funniest joke you’ve been told that you still think about to this day?
An engineer dies in a car wreck and goes to the pearly gates. St. Peter looks through his book and tells the man, “Sorry, I don’t see your name here at all. You gotta go to the other place.
The man goes to Hell and looks around at the shape it’s in, and being an engineer, goes to work. Before long the AC is working great keeping all the buildings cool, the buildings are all up to code, the parks are green and growing greener because he fixed the plumbing systems, the streets are getting repaved, and things are getting comfortable.
Meanwhile God is wondering where the engineer he ordered is, so he asks St. Peter about it, and St. Peter tells him that the man’s name wasn’t in the book so he sent him to Hell.
God goes to Hell and pounds on the door. Satan answers and God tells him, “You have my engineer. I want him. Satan says, “Can’t have him.” God says, “ I want my engineer. Give him to me now!” Satan says, “Nope. He’s mine.” God says, “I’ll sue you!”
Satan laughs, crosses his arms over his chest, leans against the door jamb and says, “Where are you gonna find a lawyer?”
As a doctor or nurse, what were the strangest last words you’ve heard?
I was taking care of a patient in the neuro ICU once. He had been comatose for quite a while after a CVA and was going to be transferred to long term care as not likely to awaken. I always talk to my comatose patients as if they can hear me, explaining what’s about to happen, what day it is and the like. I was talking to the guy explaining the night’s plan and his eyes were tracking me, something he didn’t normally do. Comatose people will sometimes open their eyes and stare at something bright, or just straight ahead, but this guy normally did not open his eyes.
“Are you listening to me?” He nodded. “Can you speak?” He shook his head no. “Give me a thumbs up on the left hand” He did. “Now the right” He did. “That’s great! Welcome back! You’ve been away so long we thought you weren’t coming back! I’ll go call the doc to come check you out!”
The guy smiled, and died.
What is the most regretful thing you ever said?
When I was in grade 8, I had just finished changing for gym, and I was walking to my locker, when my wallet fell out of my pants. I didn’t know it was my wallet, but I had heard something, and I turned around, and the principal was right behind me. He was a strict, mean, opinionated man, and I turned around quickly so I wouldn’t have to deal with him. Evidently, he had been walking right behind me, and scooped up my wallet, before I could turn around.
He kept it for three weeks, before giving it to my parents, saying that he had been teaching me a lesson about responsibility.
It was a small school, and I had been with everyone in the class since grade 1, we were all very close friends.
During that three weeks, I thought it through. The only people who could have stolen my wallet, were the boys in my class, my teacher, the principal and the janitor. Nobody else had access. I was taught to respect authority, so I immediately dismissed any thoughts of my teacher or principal stealing my wallet.
I had no way to approach the janitor.
So I was left with the boys in my class. All good friends.
This was shocking to me, how could someone I trusted like a brother do this to me?
It was tearing me apart, that I couldn’t trust my friends. So I approached them one by one, and said that someone had seen them with my wallet. They all vehemently denied it, because they were all innocent.
My principal had ruined my life long friendships. Or rather I had ruined them, because my sanctimonious principal had stolen my wallet, and I didn’t believe it could be him.
It took months to rebuild those relationships.
Accusing my friends was the most regretful thing I have ever said.
If an employee gives a 2 year resignation notice and not a 2 weeks notice, what should the company do?
I had a boss that told the company that he was quitting in 8 weeks’ time. As the quit date approached my boss was questioned about whether he was actually quitting on that date or if he could stay on a little longer. He reiterated that it was a firm date and he would be gone on that date.
It came down to that quit date Friday and during the morning meeting where they discuss who will be taking what responsibilities during the next week, it came my bosses turn speak. He reiterated that he wouldn’t be there the next week. They asked if he was going on vacation. He told them no he was quitting and would not be back. They then went around the table again asking who could take over my bosses old duties. They then assigned those duties to an engineer who was shocked to be handed such responsibilities.
I also have a son-in-law who told his boss that he had interviewed and been accepted at another company not competing with his current company. The boss told him to continue to work on his projects and they would find someone to train under him until he left. during this time, they offered him a pay raise, a promotion, a different duty assignment, along with a trainee to nurture until his final day.
Most of my work experience had been when you turned in your 2 weeks’ notice the company walked you out the door right then along with a letter of non-compete and would mail you your two weeks’ pay.
If nearly all locks can be picked, why do we still use them?
My dad lives on a dead end street (sort of a cul de sac), a year ago someone living several houses down the street knocked on his door one morning and said he had been robbed in the night. Slept through it all and woke up to see half his downstairs missing.
My dad has a camera out the front of his house and the neighbour just wanted to see if there was a time when the guy or guys had been past. So, he starts looking through the footage and instead he sees someone actually approach his door (unfortunately wearing a baseball cap and looking down so not much use) and just try the handle. My dad locks his and bolts his door at night so no luck but then the guy just left and moved on. He didn’t try to pick it, or have a go at the windows or anything. Ten minutes later, a van drives past and half an hour later the van reserves back out.
My dad turns to his neighbour and goes “do you lock your door?”
“no. It’s always been fine before and how would anyone know I don’t lock my door”
My dad knows one other person near the top of the street who also has a camera so they go over there and see his footage. Twenty minutes before the man tried my dad’s house, the guy near the top of the street also had a burglar approach his door, try it and then leave.
As far as we know, these guys tried about 40 houses before finding someone who just didn’t bother to lock his door at night. The moral of the story, your house doesn’t need to be Fort Knox, just tougher than the one next door.
What’s the most disrespectful comment a teacher has made to you in front of everyone?
I moved a lot as a child and went to many many schools. I did get to go to the same school, my junior and senior year. I was always the skinny new girl with kinky hair and crooked eyes. My eyes were crooked because I was blind in my right eye from birth and it just sort of wandered around in my head and did whatever it wanted. My parents had had it operated on twice to try to fix the muscles but the problem was that the eye was blind and that was that ( when I was 32 the Cleveland clinic put titanium muscles in my eye and made it look almost normal)
I was always in the new kid, the funny looking kid, but I was also the smart kid. My junior year I was placed in an honors class in English with the most disgusting teacher I have ever met. He was so loved by his students. He was certainly not loved by me. He loved to tease me about my crooked eyes. He also consistently stated to the class that nothing of any value ever came from south of the Mason Dixon line, a quote from HL Mencken, the journalist in the scopes monkey trials. The fact that I was from Ohio, which was north of the Mason Dixon line, sort of escaped him.
in addition to his constant insults, one day he slapped me in the face with a paper I wrote. Actually he slapped me three times. I pretty much think that was the most disrespectful thing that a teacher did to me. His reason for slapping me was that I had not developed my paper sufficiently. to punish me, he made me write it over and I did. It was 32 typewritten pages, and he read the entire thing to the class page by page.
However, in the end I won. One day he was standing next to my desk and he was laughing. He threw his head back and his upper plate fell out on my desk and rattled around like “chattering teeth”. and then came to rest next to my pencil, I just looked up and smiled at him. he taught the rest of the class that day holding his false teeth in his hand and trying to talk properly without them. I might’ve felt sorry for I am if it wasn’t for the fact that he thought my crooked eye was so funny. On my high school class page on Facebook, the story of the chattering teeth has been recounted many times, even by people who weren’t in the class. In my high school yearbook the valedictorian of my class wrote “to hell with HL Mencken “
Make this Chili Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe for a warm and comforting meal all year round. It is easy to make, filling, and packed with flavor. Enjoy this filling and hearty soup any day of the week as a main or side dish.
Soups are very comforting when the weather gets colder. They are filling and easy to make when you only have an hour on hand to come up with dinner. This easy chicken tortilla soup has the bold flavors of chili and Mexican flavors all in one bowl. Made with shredded chicken breast, black beans, corn, and a handful of bold spices. Serve this Mexican chicken soup recipe as a main dish or a side dish along with the main course. For a creamy version of tortilla soup check out our Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe or you can also try our super tasty Chicken Enchilada soup. You may also like this Chicken Chili Recipe
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup 5
Recipe Summary
Comforting and filling: This chicken tortilla soup with bold chili flavors is packed with fiber and protein to make a comforting and filling meal.
Easy to make: all you need is 30 minutes to make this easy and healthy chicken soup.
Tasty: Packed with flavor. You will love it.
Ingredients you will need
Olive Oil: any other oil of choice can be used like avocado oil.
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts: you may also use boneless and skinless chicken thighs.
Sweet Onion: or any onion you have on hand
Garlic Cloves minced: we do recommend using fresh garlic cloves for optimal flavor.
Red Chili (or to taste): this is optional if you can’t handle spice.
Spices: Ground Cumin, Chipotle Powder, or Chili Powder
Cherry Tomatoes or diced fire-roasted tomatoes: these can be purchased in cans or you can make your own at home.
Low Sodium Chicken Broth: you may use vegetable broth.
Black Beans: rinsed and drained
Corn: can be Fresh or frozen corn can be used
2 Limes– Juiced, you may use lemons if you do not have lime.
Tortillas: cut into 1/4-inch strips
Salt and pepper, to taste
Cooking Spray
How to make chicken tortilla soup
Heat olive oil In a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, chili, and seasonings, and cook until onion softens about 4 minutes.
Add chicken breast, canned tomatoes, broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a nonstick pan over medium heat and spray it with cooking spray.
Add tortilla strips in a single layer and fry until golden brown and crispy, on both sides. You might need to work in batches to not overcrowd the pan.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove from soup and shred it.
Add chicken back to the pot together with beans, corn and lime juice. Mix to combine then simmer for a couple of minutes more.
Serve soup hot with crispy tortilla strips on top and enjoy!
Chili lime chicken tortilla soup 4
Have you ever been lost or stranded? Can you describe the experience?
1993 Labor Day weekend my girlfriend at the time, now my wife of 30 years and I went to Lake Tahoe. On the way home at the highest point of the highway crossing the Sierras my car stopped like it had overheated. We pulled off to the side of the highway and waited for it to cool off. About 30 minutes later a California Highway Patrol officer pulled up behind us. We explained that we might have overheated and the engine had quit on us. He said that this was regular patrol area and he would come back and check on us. Well two hours later the car would not start, temperature was dropping fast outside and we just had a couple of sweatshirts and a jacket for warmth. We decided to try to take a nap until the officer returned to help us. The officer never came back to check on us. We slept in the car while coyotes and other wild animals could be heard making noises right outside the car. This was absolutely terrifying and bone chilling to say the least. At first light we realized we were parked right next to the entrance of a PG&E substation and people were arriving for work. We went down and explained to them our situation and asked if we could first use the facilities and freshen up. Then one of them helped us get in touch with the Ford dealer about 20 minutes away. They sent out a tow truck to pick us and the car up. Being it was Labor Day they were closed and only the tow trucks were there. The driver got all our information and helped us find a rental car to get back home to San Francisco. A couple of days later we got a phone call saying that we had a blown engine but the car was still under a factory warranty and we were covered by it. The service advisor also told us that the first $30 per day of the rental car was covered by the warranty. They would be replacing the engine with a brand new one and it would take two weeks to complete as they had to submit the paperwork to Detroit for fulfillment. So all in all, we spent an uncomfortable and scary night in a place we had no way of communicating with the outside world because it was in the days when only the affluent people had cellular phones. We survived the night and ended up with a new engine in the car for a nominal price.
If civilization started from Egypt and China, how did Europe become more civilized than them? Why did civilization spread faster in Europe than Africa or Asia? Could it be because Africa and Asia have too many languages? Did colonization help?
Europe is not more civilized; it is just that for the past 500 years it has controlled the narrative because of colonialism.
Now that the economic center of the world is moving to Asia and Africa, that period is ending because Asia and Africa are the population centers of the world, with the most economic activity.
The period of European privilege is ending now.
Have you, while repairing a computer, ever found anything that made your jaw drop?
I used to work at a tech support call center. So when the pastor down the street started experiencing problems with his computer, his wife called me to see if I could help. I was not a member of their congregation, but it was a small town and we all helped each other when we could.
His computer had been infected with a virus, and it was not difficult to delete it. But his browser was terribly slow, the home page had been changed to an adult website, and there were multiple bookmarks for po’n sites.
I updated his antivirus and ran a scan. After clearing out the malware, I fixed the browser, deleting all the adult bookmarks and keeping the ones he wanted to keep.
His wife seemed to have no idea how it happened, but it was obvious to me. He’d been looking at po’n and clicked something that infected his computer. He sat there like a deer in the headlights. He said something about clicking a link in an email he got, and that’s when all the problems started. I didn’t want to cause any problems between him and his wife, so I just warned him not to click on any links that came from people he didn’t trust.
How is it helping the homeless if you pay for a motel for a few days then after the few days they go back being homeless?
I’ve had a couple people pay for hotel rooms for a night, and let me tell ya – it’s a godsend.
How? Well, one time, when it was storming really bad in Southern California – someone I love dearly paid three nights for a room right down the street. For the first time in a couple years I was free of my wardrobe and tent – suitcase and backpack – so I went to a movie and had a nice dinner out.
I felt human for the first time in years. A fresh hot shower rather than a bird bath, a warm comfortable room while it stormed outside. It’s little things like this that reminded me I was human – and let’s be clear – in the weeks leading up to this – I’d been pushed WELL beyond my breaking point and had literally planned on murdering this junkie on meth who kept threatening me with a knife on a random basis prior to this point, as I was sleeping with one eye opened and police were unable to do anything about it.
Most people don’t understand that being homeless is about as dehumanizing as it gets. Society has a tendency of treating violent offenders better than someone that’s broke and homeless, which in my opinion – pushing me, a peaceful man who has never been in a fight in my life – to the point of premeditated considerations of murder – has homelessness as being one of the biggest existential threats to modern society. If you’ve never been through it. You simply wouldn’t understand.
But that motel. Just for a couple nights. Made me finally swallow my pride, look at the predictable trajectory homelessness was going to take me and what it was going to turn me into…
And finally agree to accept my mom and dad’s offer for a couch to sleep on in a warm house.
Rest assured. That motel room saved someone’s life. I’m being straight up 100% honest with you there. I’d mentally prepared myself to begin taking the law into my own hands, and I was fine knowing I’d never suffer any consequences from it because the needs of homeless people and the poverty stricken, to this society and world – don’t fuckin matter.
To most, anyways. To those few who did care. That room at just the perfect time changed my life, and prevented the death of someone else who society didn’t care about anyways.
I dont like knowing that part of me exists. I scared even myself. So I don’t believe it was coincidence that room came at the perfect time for me.
Is China producing too much? US ‘overcapacity’ accusations: new tactic in economic war
This Chicken Enchilada Soup recipe is so creamy, thick, and easy to make. Loaded with hearty shredded chicken and beans, it is a crowd-pleasing soup that’s full of your favorite Mexican flavors and very comforting and delicious.
Enchilada soup is one of the most flavorful soup recipes that is not only filling and comforting, but it is full of flavor and a crowd-pleasing soup recipe that will put a smile on everyone’s face. This soup is loaded with beans, chicken, and all the Tex-Mex flavors you love all in one delicious bowl of soup. Easy-to-make Creamy Chicken Enchilada soup is perfect for any night of the week. Especially on a busy weeknight when you need dinner ready in no time.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 6
Reasons to love this soup
Best-tasting soup ever: The taste of this soup is seriously out-of-this-world good.
Filling: This soup will keep you full, happy, and satisfied. Perfect for lunch or as a light dinner.
Healthy and good for you: Packed with fiber and protein, this soup is good for you in every way.
Ingredients you will need
Butter or Ghee: to keep this on the healthier side, you do not have to use butter. You may use avocado oil.
Onion: use white sweet onions or cooking onions
Veggies: Celery Stalks, Carrot, Red Bell Pepper,
Beans: Red Kidney Beans and Black Beans
Seasonings: Ground Cumin, Chili Powder, Dried Oregano
Garlic Cloves: do use fresh garlic
One can of Diced fire-roasted Tomatoes
Tomato Paste
Fresh or Frozen Sweet Corn: you may use canned corn if that’s all you have and you don’t want to make a trip to the grocery store.
Shredded Cooked Chicken: make your own chicken or get a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken. To prepare your own, check out our post on How to poach chicken breast.
Low-Sodium Chicken Broth– If you plan to poach your own chicken you may save the broth from that.
Mexican Shredded Cheese Blend for garnishing, or you may also use Monterey jack cheese
Salt and pepper, to your taste
Optional: If you prefer to add some enchilada sauce, you can. We didn’t but it certainly won’t hurt and will add some flavor to the soup.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2
HOW TO MAKE CREAMY CHICKEN ENCHILADA SOUP
This chicken enchilada soup recipe is made on the stovetop. We will also be showing you further how to make it on your crockpot, slow cooker, and instant pot. Note: Recipe calls for cooked shredded chicken. Either get a storebought rotisserie chicken and use that or cook your own at home using chicken breast (scroll down to learn how to cook the chicken for your enchilada soup).
Prepare vegetables and ingredients: Set up all the ingredients and get your shredded chicken ready.
Cook vegetables: Add butter or oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. First, add the onions, celery, carrots, bell pepper, garlic and cook until softens, about 5-6 minutes. Then, stir in seasonings, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and chicken broth and bring to a boil.
Cook and prep soup: Lower the heat and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until veggies are very tender.
Blend: remove from heat and using a hand blender, blend the soup until smooth and creamy. (This is optional if you don’t want to blend you can skip this step).
Add beans and chicken: Place the soup back over medium heat and add in beans, corn and shredded cooked chicken. Stir to combine and boil for a couple of minutes, just to heat it all up.
Serve: Pour into bowls and top with your favorite toppings. Enjoy!
SOUP TOPPING Options
Endless toppings to come up with, but here are some optional toppings you can add to your creamy chicken enchilada soup are:
Chopped avocado
Sliced jalapeño
Fresh chopped cilantro
Green onions
Lime wedges
Crushed Tortilla Chips
Sour cream or yogurt etc.
Shredded Cheese
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 8
How to cook chicken for enchilada soup
Cooking the chicken is quite simple. You can use any pot or a dutch oven. It would be easiest to use a rotisserie chicken but you can certainly cook your own. We recommend using skinless and boneless chicken breasts.
Add chicken into a pot full of water
We like adding some sort of herbs to give the chicken some flavor. Use half an onion and a bay leaf. sometimes we use a cinnamon stick but not for this particular recipe.
Allow boiling for about 15-20 minutes until you easily insert a knife or a fork through the chicken.
Then, drain it in a colander and let it cool off. Or you can just remove the chicken and place it on a cutting board while you save the chicken stock.
Finally, using your hands or forks, shred chicken.
If you have an Instant pot, you can simply make this Instant Pot Chicken Breast to use in this enchilada soup.
How to make enchilada soup using an instant pot, crockpot or slow cooker
There are other ways to make chicken enchilada soup other than using your stovetop. Here are other ways to cook up your soup.
How to use an Instant Pot:
Using the saute option, add the oil or butter in the instant pot, then add the onions, celery, carrots, bell pepper, garlic and cook until softens, about 5-6 minutes.
If using raw chicken, add in with the veggies in the previous step at the bottom.
Add in the seasonings, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and broth.
Next, add in the beans, corn, and shredded cooked chicken (if using pre-cooked shredded chicken). Stir to combine.
Then, place the lid on the Instant Pot and seal. Using the “manual” setting, cook on high pressure for 10-12 minutes.
Allow the instant pot to natural release for 10 minutes or so before doing a quick release.
Finally, remove the lid from Instant Pot, shred the chicken (if used raw whole chicken breast), and serve with your favorite toppings.
Note: You may remove a portion of the soup towards the end. Blend it and then add it back into the soup. Mix and serve.
In a pan or skillet, add oil or butter over medium-high heat add the onions, celery, carrots, bell pepper, garlic and cook until softens, about 5-6 minutes.
Transfer to crockpot or slow cooker and add in the seasonings, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and broth.
Then, add in beans, corn, and shredded cooked chicken. Stir to combine cover and set it on High for 2hours or low for 4 hours if using cooked chicken.
Note: You may add raw chicken breasts to the crockpot or slow cooker right before you add in the veggies at the very bottom and set it to cook longer. 6 hours on low and 4 hours on high. Then towards the end use a fork to shred the chicken.
Also Note: You may remove a portion of the soup towards the end. Blend it and then add it back into the soup. Mix and serve.
Creamy chicken enchilada soup 2
Fun cat pictures
From my archives
SNAG 0079SNAG 0078SNAG 0076
Why Pass Port bros find Foreign Women
This time…
Jokes directed at Chinese people are the acceptable form of racism in the west.
Westerners will gaslight and say this isn’t racist! Chinese aren’t people!
This is the first step towards a war of extermination, demonisation of the target nation and gervais shows himself in this video to be a very able agent of the Empire
This time we’re armed
dongfeng 41
Does Japan even have a “ghost of a chance” against China in a war? China has numerous advantages (Russian/North Korean support, HUGE military, healthy disdain of Japan, etc) and Japan has none of that except to be a prompt for the U.S to use nukes.
Japan despite massive massive disadvantages in firepower, military numbers and culture has a massive chance against China. Why? This man and the general state of the leadership is far too conservative. As well as their age.
If you’ve ever played a game before like Rimworld, 7 days to die, Project Zomboid. There’s a setting called Builder. Here’s the menu on Project Zomboid.
It literally says builder: Construction, Exploration and farming focus.
So sure he’s got 3000 hours in game and all the achievements of that…But it’s a crippling overspecialisation.
Martial arts are sometimes like this.
You need close range, mid range, long range, grapple, strength and conditioning to give and take hits. Wing Chun is excellent at close range, but they never condition themselves so boxers eat them alive. The current leadership are far too conservative as such when there’s easy and obvious ways to punish those who literally want us dead? What the hell do they do?
NOTHING!
Taiwan.
It’s not recognised by the UN, it’s not part of the WTO. The poliburo could immediately stop all business with them tomorrow and there’s NOTHING they could do about it. We could literally cause a 50% collapse in the economy TOMORROW.
Yet they don’t do it.
Even my dad who is actually older than Xi did some squeezing of bollocks in his time. He was a beansprout man and his group held a total monopoly on Chinese goods in the UK and he squeezed a few bollocks with his position.
You can write about oh but it’s only a matter of time.
The USD will collapse! (though the USD doesn’t actually need to collapse it’s in such shit that a few % will make a huge difference, US military budget cuts are a real thing because of the debt).
It sounds almost like Joseph Wang, if you ever read his stuff from years ago? He literally said he allowed white Americans to beat him up and offered no resistant. To somebody like me and many others that’s a what the fuckty fuck type situation? Somebody attacks you? You’re going to give them as good as they give you.
So back to the original question?
If Japan starts to militarise again and they’re doing so right now? There’s going to be a huge aversion to fight and you don’t even need me to spell out whose going to have the aversion.
So while China is far more powerful and many of us especially us overseas types are far far more violent than any local Chinese or Japanese. It’s hampered by the fact that the leadership is playing civilisation on builder mode.
I mean at the very least you could have some big weapons tests. Even N Korean leader Kim has done some test launches.
Putin scares the living daylights out of westerners with his SARMAT tests in 2022.
With Iran attacking Israel, is WW3 all but official?
Hope not
The Strategy is clear
Iran sent 158 Shaheed Drones and 27 Cruise Missiles on Israel at a cost of $ 9 Million
Israel intercepted 150+ Drones over Jordan and Syria and Lebanese and 21 Cruise Missiles at an estimated cost of $ 115 Million
6 Missiles hit the targets – An Airbase in Negev plus two military docking centres in Haifa Port
The cost ratio is 9:115 or 1:13 approximately
Iran is thus depleting Israeli (Western) missiles and AD on a large scale from reserves
Today alone around 100+ Missiles were launched by Israel
This means in 10 days, Israel would need 1000–1200 missiles forcing the West to divert stocks to Israel while Iran has low cost cheap drones and cheap missiles and decoy missiles
If the West spends more and more money and weapons on Israel further depleting their stocks
Russia gains immensely as Russia outproduces NATO by 3:1 in Missiles and 12:1 in Artillery Ammunition
And of course China
The more West is mired in the Middle East, even lesser chance of the West to take on China who can produce on war footing, more missiles in a month than Nato can produce in 2 1/2 years as per experts
Leaving Japan, Philippines to take on China who today can more than easily take them out
You said “watch THE PRINCESS BRIDE.” As you wish!!! | First time watching
A few years ago, when there was talk of possibly doing a remake, Cary Elwes (Westley) tweeted "There is a shortage of perfect movies in the world. It would be a pity to remake this one."
Is the trilateral agreement between the Philippines, the United States, and Japan a threat to China?
You can draw up any shit agreement you want but even a bow an arrow shot from Japan or Philippines at China including Taiwan will be fully and comprehensively reciprocated plus interest to that country it does not matter if it is shot by US military or third dog nation forces.
Who asked you to so foolishly to allow a strange bed fellowinto your home.or allow a trouble maker and a war monger to be stationed in your land! Let that be so vividly clear about this state of affair.
China will let the U.S. burnt all it a cash if it so chooses to set up over next 100 years putting up 200 bases around China but it cannot shoot a single song arrow out of if cares for its dogs. Nations. China will not may be not if it will destroys that nation without hesitation. As alllowing one means allowing more. The Navy boys can part all night long banging local Japanese and Filipino girls for all we care as long as they don’t throw a rock at China!
What’s the strangest thing delivered to your house (that you did not order)?
A friend of mine I England, mentioned one day at the pub( bar) that he could do with a cleaner as his old 1700’s mill house was getting too much for him. Next morning there was a sharp knocking on his door, he opened it and a large Middle aged lady pushed by him into the room and said, “ I’m Jean, your new cleaner, let’s have a look at this mess!” He never had a chance to say a word, just stood there dumb. “ Right , where’s the cleaning cupboard?” He pointed in the right direction. Muttering to herself she set about cleaning , “ I’ll be a long while yet you can make yourself scarce untill supper time. “ He went out back to the pub and sat at the bar in a daze as he nursed his pint of beer. He returned to his house in the evening, everything was clean and tidy, Jean was sat down in the kitchen having a cup of tea. “ Umm, how much do I owe you?” He stuttered. All she said was, “ that garden shed has to be cleared out yet!” I’ll attend to that tomorrow. I’ll be staying in the upstairs front bedroom, breakfast will be at 9 o’clock on the dot! “ With that she climbed the stairs and was gone. That was nearly 5 years ago and she is still there cleaning and cooking. He still hasn’t plucked up the courage to ask her any questions, and she has never asked for anything in return. ’ As he is a literary man I hope one day he will publish the whole story. Amazing!
REACTION- Will women WAKE UP & want the men that they rejected?
If you continue to wait for the “right time”, you’ll waste your entire life and nothing will happen.
You’ll lose 99% of your close friends if you start upgrading your life.
You’ll be 10x happier if you forgive your parents and stop blaming them for your problems.
Train yourself to let people win arguments on purpose to conserve your mental health.
You become more mature when you train yourself to take nothing personally.
You don’t need 100 self-help books, all you need is action & self-discipline.
You can’t expect honesty from people who even lie to themselves.
Most people are stuck in toxic relationships because they are afraid to be alone.
The most difficult mission on earth is to focus on your dreams; The easiest task is to complain.
What is one piece of simple advice that actually changed your life?
My dad made it to almost 94, and died in relatively good health. Fantastic, but old age comes with a high price. Once, after the death of the last of his ten friends who had come together to build their hunt club some sixty years previously, I asked him, point blank, “Dad, how do you stand it? How do you cope with losing all your old friends?”
His answer was, as his answers usually were, short and straight to the point: “You make new friends honey. Young ones.”
It was then that I noticed the number of folks, often the children, grand kids, or great grand kids of those lost friends, who stopped by the house regularly. Dad always liked kids; he kept the now unused ashtray next to his recliner filled with Juicy Fruit gum and Hershey chocolate bars. He admired the new BB gun that a ten year old namesake stopped by to show off. He listened eagerly to tales from many boys’ “first hunt.”
I’ve adopted the philosophy. Many of my friends are in their 30’s and early 40’s: young’uns I mentored their first few years of teaching. I drop off a meal here and there, knowing how tired they are after teaching all day. And I’m rewarded with their kids’ pics and artwork on my fridge. Plus all the free technology help!! I now can use Marco Polo, Audible, Chirp, and Libby, thanks to my “young set.”
Most Companies Don’t Want You To Succeed, They Want You Distracted & Hooked On Their Products
Old Buffalo Breath Chili
Old Buffalo Breath Chili
Ingredients
1 (5 pound) chuck roast, at least 3 inches thick
10 to 11 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt, to taste
Chili powder
1/4 cup olive oil
About 1 to 2 cups beef broth
Juice of 1 Mexican lime
2 teaspoons ground dried mild red chile, such as ancho or New Mexican
2 teaspoons ground dried hot red chile, such as cayenne or chile de arbol
1 tablespoon cumin seed, toasted and ground
2 teaspoons Mexican oregano
Chiles pequins, to taste
Masa Harina, as needed
Instructions
Two or three hours before you plan to begin making the chili, rub the chuck roast well with a mash made from two to three of the garlic cloves and salt. Sprinkle the meat with the chili powder to lightly coat it. Loosely cover it with plastic, and set it aside.
Light enough hardwood charcoal to sear the meat on an outdoor grill, preferably one with a cover. At the same time, soak a few handsful of mesquite chips in water. When the coals are covered with gray ash, spread them out evenly, and scatter the damp mesquite chips on top. Then immediately set the meat over the smoke, about an inch from the coals. Cover the grill, and adjust the dampers to maintain a slow, steady heat. Let the meat sear for about 12 minutes (this process is meant to flavor, not cook, the meat), and turn it over to sear the other side for the same amount of time. Remove the meat from the heat, saving any juices on its surface, and transfer it to the refrigerator. Let it cool thoroughly, about 1 hour.
When the meat has cooled, trim away any surface fat or cartilage. With a sharp knife, cube the meat into the smallest pieces you have patience for, saving all the juices.
Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy Dutch oven over moderate heat. Mix in the remaining garlic, and sauté it until it turns translucent. Stir in the meat and all reserved meat juices, adding just enough beef broth to cover. Pour in the lime juice, and sprinkle in the remaining seasonings, stirring and tasting as you do. Crumble in a few whole chiles pequins to bring the heat up to taste. Turn the heat down as low as possible. Long cooking toughens, not tenderizes, if the chili is allowed to boil. Every half hour or so, stir the chili and taste for seasoning, adjusting as you wish. After the first hour, thicken the chili as you like by adding the Masa Harina a teaspoon at a time. The chili should be ready to eat in 3 hours, although it will benefit from a night’s aging in the refrigerator.
Serve the chili steaming hot in large, heavy bowls with an ample supply of soda crackers and a side of beans, but not much else except maybe hot black coffee, iced tea or beer.
How might Chinese citizens respond to their government losing an all-out economic/trade war with the United States, especially if they cannot afford to lose?
China don’t do daft things. Only the U.S. does. If China cannot win it won’t fight. If China seems to be up in arms. They are most likely happy that the U.S. took the bait and ate hanging themselves. It is call winning without fighting!
China can do even one NM chips if it wants but the U.S. thinks it cannot do 7 NM for at least 3 decades! It took China 3 years to do 5NM. Now the U.S. is laden with humongous compensations to its Chip firms and they lose some 80% of the market as China gets it done cheaper, faster and better.
Argentina’s Crumbling Economy is Collapsing, GDP CRASHING, Banks are Failing, Protests Everywhere
Learn about what is going on in the world today. This is what happened when you hitch yourself to the United States.
If a car dealer kept my keys or license to try to pressure me to make a purchase, what would police officers do when they show up at the dealership?
I test drove a f350 platinum super crew, was going to trade a vehicle, I left the keys with the salesman, came back, I decided not to buy “that” truck, due to I didn’t want to own another black truck, they had no other loaded trucks in another color, so I opted to take a pass, the sales manager thought we had some imaginary deal and said the deal was done (I had signed nothing), and wouldn’t return my keys, I asked him if he was certain that he wanted to play this game, he said we have a deal. I pulled my phone out, called 911, told them who I was, where I was, I had been robbed and the assailant was still on premises. Shit happened real fast, I got my keys back, sales manager found out he can be criminally charged for theft as well as kidnapping as I couldn’t leave. Yep, I won’t be shopping there again.
Iran has launched drones against Israel which have not yet hit their targets in Israel.
While this may look like a reprisal against Israel, there is more than meets the eye. The majority of the drones will be intercepted and shot down before they reach their targets; if 10% reach their targets the Iranians will have done well.
But the intention is not to do damage to Israel. Iran, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas are fighting a war of attrition against Israel which will deplete Israel’s and the US’s munitions, using the cheapest weapons needed. The aim is to provoke Israel into committing more violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and turning more of global public opinion against the US and Israel. The Israeli economy will take a heavy hit, and the US will have to provide expensive economic support to Israel because Biden has committed to Israel’s support.
The Arabs and the Iranians have learned: Israel’s war doctrine is based on the application of overwhelming force to win a short war , which is the same as the US. But if the Arabs and Iran turn the conflict into a long war of attrition, the Arabs win.
In every long war of attrition, which includes Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and arguably Ukraine, the US has withdrawn in the end.
A short sharp war requires the application of overwhelming firepower. Overwhelming firepower requires a huge munitions supply and powerful logistics. US weapons stores have been depleted by the war in Ukraine.
The writing is on the wall…
What has your child done that is technically “wrong” but you were proud of them for doing it?
My young son was friends with the 50-something “neighbor guy”. They were real friends. The neighbor gave him a spark plug wrench and let him take the spark plugs out of all the cars in his junk yard. He also let my son “drive” his 1950 pink Cadillac sitting on blocks in a place of honor in the junkyard. He talked to my son about serious things like how to be a good man, why you should wash your hands a lot, the importance of having a place for your tools and putting them where they belonged. My son lacked a father and this neighbor lacked any family at all.
The neighbor got cancer and was going to die. He let my son know it was nothing personal and he had done nothing wrong to deserve it. He also said he was going to have to leave forever, die and he would go to heaven. They talked a lot about whether he was afraid and what would happen when he died. He told my son he didn’t want anybody messing with his body and he wanted to be buried, not embalmed and still be intact. He wanted to go back to the earth in dignity and not be a poisoned pickle in the ground.
Unfortunately, he died just before Thanksgiving, and without a family, there was no one who felt obligated to see to his wishes. In our state, you can only be buried, without embalming, if you are buried within 3 days. The ground was frozen and it was a holiday weekend. No gravediggers could be found so the adults discussed this in the social room. After church, they concluded that man, whom we had all known and valued, would have to be embalmed. My son, who was about 6, overheard this and became outraged!
He pestered one man after another about it. He eloquently argued how sad the man would be about being a poisoned pickle in the ground. My son announced he would go dig the hole himself even if he did not get home in time for pie! He managed to guilt a dozen men, in their best clothing, to go to the graveyard and dig a grave. Also, a Catholic Priest would be doing the services for a “protestant” before anyone went home to eat a turkey.
It was technically “wrong” because he interrupted and pestered adults with great determination. One by one, he effectively MADE them do something that was outside his purview as a child. I didn’t stop him from doing it. I was more than proud of his love and care for his deceased friend.
Over the years I have collected numerous articles that I have found on the internet. I would print them out. Carefully organize them, and put them in three ring binders. I carried these things around with me for years.
Then I got a divorce from my second wife. She slaughtered me, and all my documents were seized by the police for “evidence”. And wouldn’t you know it, they were misplaced.
A few years ago, I wanted to check what articles that I had written on Free Republic, but they considered me a “Commie” and deleted me. I tried to access my accounts via LinkedIN and discovered that they too considered me a “Commie”.
My MM post that caused this catastrophe was about the HK riots being A United States created color revolution.
Most, but not all, of my writings have been “deleted” by Free Republic by one of their Gen-Z staff who felt that I should not be on the platform. Thankfully some still exist, and have been used by the WF files, and other Internet sleuths to formulate articles around. Still…
So I will relate some stories right now that I just cannot find on the internet anymore. *sigh*
…
While demolishing a 1930’s bridge (I think it was in Pittsburgh or another “rust belt” city) they started to tear apart the stone tiers that held up the bridge. When they were knocking down the stone and cement blocks a cavity appeared. And inside were the skeletal remains of two men, who apparently were buried there. Maybe entombed. I do not recall.
Every now and then I muse about these men. Who were they? Why were they buried that way?
One cold case solved but without the who and why that my imagination so yearns for.
In another instance, another building tear-down in Philadelphia (as I recall) found a body at the bottom of one of the old elevator shafts. They thought that he must have been placed there sometime around 1910 or so.
He was placed there. Not jumped there involuntarily.
Curious.
This next one took place around the middle 1990s. A real estate developer bought up a bunch of farm land, and on it were some old long abandoned properties. All just rotting wood and what not. On one of the properties was a “cold cellar” which was a separate small mini-barn, no bigger than a tiny one-car garage, with a underground room built around a natural spring. These were very common in Pennsylvania back in the day.
When tearing it down they discovered that there was a small room behind the basement brick wall, and apparently a woman had lived there for decades, and eventually died there.
The article was very interesting. They identified who she was and all that. But as I recall, she must have been sealed up in that basement under that little out-shed next to the “cold cellar” for two decades or longer.
For twenty years. Entombed alive.
No journal or anything like that. But I recall that the bricks in the bottom permitted a metal tray of food to be slid back and forth into that tiny room.
What a way to do.
History is interesting .
Back in the 1990’s as the Internet was awakening, all sorts of weird and unique historical articles were popping up everywhere. Now you don’t see anything. It’s all so corporate… so sanitized. Do disgusting.
There’s a beauty in the Wild Wild West; the scene of chaos… and freedom. Where those without power, money, or fame could find a place to exist. But once it’s tamed you get what we have today…
…America.
Don’t get me started on Hollywoods pro LGBQ+ reprogramming. Or the corporate “news”, the sterile chain dining establishments…
Give me Vietnam.
Give me Bedlam, Color, Activity, song, dance, and a hint of danger.
*sigh*
Cold cases. Or in many cases … stuff that no one dare know about. Now maybe never.
Many secrets lie hidden that we rarely get to see before they are forgotten.
As I write, it looks like Iran has fired drones at Israel from Iranian territory as a reprisal for Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, which resulted in the deaths of seven Iranians, including a senior member of the Revolutionary Guard.
Israel PM Netanyahu is working very hard to expand the Gaza conflict into a bigger ME war which will drag the US into the conflict, so that he will not need to resign under pressure.
While Israel and Iran are mortal enemies, both are helping China by dragging the US into a greater ME conflict which will bleed US military resources, and goodwill for the US worldwide. If the US becomes stuck in a war of attrition in the ME, it will be a gift to China because the US will not be able to do more in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
If it becomes a war of attrition, it is likely to hurt the reputation of Biden, and it could hurt his chances for re-election. Trump will likely capitalize on this during the runup to the election.
By doing nothing in the ME, China is winning. The Chinese call this “winning by lying down.”
Israel, Iran and the US are doing all the work for China.
Iran Seizes Israeli-Owned Merchant Ship in Strait of Hormuz
Reports have come in overnight saying Special Forces of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) seized the MSC ARIES in the Strait of Hormuz.
The vessel involved was the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries, a container ship associated with London-based Zodiac Maritime. Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group.
The vessel was redirected to Iranian territorial waters.
We four friends were chit chatting during late night after the dinner. One of the guy, who we usually bully as being the most girlish in our circle, detects an odour of a burning coil.
“There’s something burning”, he mumbled.
“Shut up. I couldn’t smell anything”, said one of them.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, we see a bright flame in the kitchen and everyone runs out of the room. Within a few minutes, it was apparent that most of the things in the kitchen have caught fire. The window in the kitchen was open and it was really windy which added on to the dismay.
We were scared as fuck. None of us had the balls to jump into the kitchen to move the gas cylinder out and close the window.
Don’t know how the testestrone boosted in him for a second and this girlish dude, whom we took always for granted, jumped into the kitchen. Like a hulk, punched into the doors, and tore the curtains and kicked every ass on the earth to successfully bring the cylinder out. I kept watching. He grabbed a shovel and ran over there.
We stood standing outside thinking who would we make fun of if he dies.
Apparently, we realized that one of us had thrown a cigarette on a wooden utensil box that lit up the fire.
Now, he is still alive and no one dares to mock him for his non-masculine attitude.
It won’t be shocking for me to witness the manliest task by him of cutting and shaping steel like a superman to weld a machine.
The dude saved lives (like, not literally)
*sigh*
Absolutely true
Former Philippine president cautions that the US is attempting to instigate a war between China and the Philippines, calling for rational dialogue with China
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte called for rational and friendly dialogue with China on current bilateral issues and expressed sadness over the disputes in the South China Sea and the policies adopted by the current administration toward China in a recent interview by Global Times.
When asked about the message he wanted to convey to the people of both the Philippines and China regarding the current state of China-Philippines relations, Duterte issued a warning. He cautioned that the US is attempting to instigate a war between China and the Philippines, emphasizing that the US would not risk American lives for Filipinos. Duterte expressed hope that the Philippines could steer away from its detrimental path and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.
He expressed hope to stop the ruckus over the South China Sea, stating that the Americans are the ones pushing the Philippine government to go out there and quarrel and eventually maybe start a war.
Duterte thinks China and the Philippines have to wait before returning to the negotiating table on the South China Sea issue. “You cannot talk to the Philippine government because it is the Americans that will tell them what he should say to you. So it’s forever a cycle of incongruity,” he said.
Duterte envisions China and the Philippines collaborating to enrich people-to-people exchanges. Despite many Filipinos leaning towards a pro-American stance due to the educational system, he aspires for them to embrace new perspectives.
If African countries suddenly stopped doing business with China, who will replace China as their largest trading partner?
China gives African Nations – Machinery, Machine Tools, Agricultural Machinery, Railway Parts, Turbines, Motors, Pumps and Tooling Equipment which form bulk of Chinese exports to these regions
Plus almost 90% of the Electronics and Laptops and Smartphones sold in Africa
China arranges a Float Swap Facility ranging from 300 Million to 4 Billion RMB that ensures China can export these products and get paid in Local Currency that gets swapped to Yuan and immediately reused to buy Uranium Ore, Rare Earths, Tin, Natural Diamonds, Cocoa and Crude Oil
So it’s a barter system literally through a Yuan Float allowing the Africans some credit
In addition Chinese Companies do Construction work of Factories, Railroads, Power Stations through the Belt and Road Initiative where the funding comes from Chinese Banks and is secured by the Operational Revenue of this Infrastructure plus the Export Revenue earned for the Equipment used for building the Infrastructure
China also gets discounted Oil, Wood and Uranium and Thorium from Namibia at highly discounted rates
Plus China is providing a major digital backbone for Africa through Wireless Equipment, Internet Equipment and Ethernet Equipment
So it’s a Trade Ecosystem that China and Africa have that successfully has by passed the US Dollar almost completely over the years
So assuming the African Nations stopped doing Trade with China
They would need their demand for Machinery and Electronics to be supplied by others
India, Vietnam, Mexico combined have an Industrial Production Capacity of around 31% of China’s
You think they would supply Africa instead of Europe or US which are infinitely richer markets?
Nopes
Korea, Japan, Taiwan are even lesser and they make too advanced products to cater to African masses.
They would need Investments into Power and Infrastructure and Extraction and Refining of Metals
Who has that sort of money?
China has an annual trade Surplus of $ 800 Billion to $ 900 Billion
Easy to cut a $ 10 Billion Cheque
Russia and Saudi have the money but not the experience or set up
India is too poor
US is already printing more and more money to choke itself off and it won’t print money to see Africa prosperous
Bottom line is I don’t see anyone else rushing to take Chinas place in Africa
China takes but also gives
The rest only take, take and take
What’s the craziest thing you’ve heard pretending to be asleep?
There were a lot of abandoned cars left at our families service station. Over the years they were dragged out to the back forty, and left for years. One day when my cousins were out visiting, we quite correctly believed that they were junked cars. I was probably 6, my brother 8, my cousins between 5 and 9. We invented a game where we would jump from the fender of one car, to the fender of another. These were old 1940s and 1950s cars, and the front fender was distinct from the hood. We would jump across all 12 cars, and then come back on the back fender, and then over the roof of the end car, and repeat.
After a weeks jumping, we dented the fenders of the abandoned cars. They weren’t locked, and I found an extension cord in one. I used it as a lariat.
One day, long after my cousins had left, my uncle came over to visit, and I lassoed him. He wasn’t impressed, and asked where I got an extension cord from.
I told him I got it from the abandoned cars. He said that was theft, and he and my dad went to look at the abandoned cars.
When my dad and uncle came back, I didn’t want anymore flack from my uncle, so I pretended to have fallen asleep on the couch. They started talking, and my uncle said that the cars were damaged bad enough, that we should call the police. I quietly freaked.
When my uncle left, I went to bed, but I didn’t sleep for three weeks, waiting for the police to come and arrest me.
After 3 weeks, I asked my parents when the police were coming for me. They laughed and said nobody would call the police about abandoned cars. That my uncle just liked to make a big deal out of nothing. If they had known, that I had heard them, they would have told me the truth.
As I grew up, I realized that my uncle only saw the worst of everything, until he had to go for counseling when he lost a foot. He turned right around then, and tried to make up for all his past behavior.
I will never forget the stress I lived under. At 6, the week before Christmas lasts a whole year, so you can imagine how long that 3 weeks seemed to me.
Use This ONE Simple Trick To Find Out Her Ideal ‘DICK’ Size!
Russia has test-fired a nuclear-capable Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) but the test-trajectory was clearly chosen to send an unmistakable message – the missile flew directly over the Middle East!
The trajectory kept the missile within earth’s atmosphere so it could be seen by people in the South of Russia, Central Asia, Iran, and “other countries” in the Middle East. . . . . Israel.
The Russians didn’t have to say a single word to anyone, anywhere, other than to announce the test, which they did. They just fired this test . . . and as the missile traveled, it spoke all the words that needed to be spoken, to everyone who needed to hear.
Certain little countries in the world have been shooting their mouth off about how they’re going to do this, and going to do that . . . . to a Russian Ally . . . . . and Russia just told that little country – and its big brother – what’s what.
Modern women on TikTok are FURIOUS about the Sprinkle trend! Sprinkle Sprinkle vs. Drizzle Drizzle
“Soft boys”
Do you like your quarantine lifestyle better than your regular one? Why or why not?
I think it’s fantastic to live and work entirely home-based. It’s comfortable, it’s economical, and the best thing is: it’s possible. We couldn’t have done this 30 years ago.
I am currently on holiday, but it doesn’t feel very different from work. Or shall we say, working almost feels like being on holiday. I like spending many hours in front of my computer anyway, and whether I surf the web for fun or do my actual work makes little difference.
The list of advantages is long:
I get up at 07:30 as opposed to 06:30 now, because I don’t have to drive to work.
I dress for comfort. Haven’t worn my tweed jackets in months.
I sit with my legs up, and a cat on my belly.
Mileage on the car has gone down to 200 a month instead of 1200 a month. That’ll slow its depreciation and extend its life.
I save a good 200 Dollars a month on fuel money.
I see my wife all day long, because she also works from home.
We eat lunch together now.
We cook that lunch ourselves, so our health is benefiting.
I can reach my colleagues so much more easily now, because they are all hogging their computers. One ping, and Leif is on Skype for me. No more of that “sorry, on business trip to Norway, will get back to you when I have internet access.”
The cats love having us around.
By 16:00, we may be in the car, cruising the landscape for fun or going to some second hand farm shop. Not commuting the same old stretch of road we otherwise would.
All our shopping is accomplished online, and so is the delivery.
Overall, the benefits to our finances and stress levels are evident. I certainly hope to continue living like this forever.
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Beef Burritos
Yield: 4 to 8 servings
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 pound lean ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 potato, peeled, cooked and diced
2 New Mexico green chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped
4 to 8 flour tortillas
Shredded lettuce
Sour cream
Salsa
Instructions
Heat oil in a frying pan, then sauté onion for 3 to 4 minutes.
Add ground beef, garlic, cumin, pepper and salt. Cook, stirring with a fork, until brown.
Stir in the potato and green chiles and continue cooking until the potato and chiles are warmed through.
In a nonstick frying pan, heat each tortilla until just warm.
Remove from pan, spoon a little of the beef mixture into the center of each tortilla and roll up.
Top with shredded lettuce, a tablespoon of sour cream and/or your favorite salsa.
Serve with refried beans on the side.
What is the most horrifying medical thing/disease you have seen?
I have seen many horrible diseases during my career but this case touched me at an emotional level. I once had a patient that I diagnosed with having a baby with Potter’s Syndrome (Potter sequence – Wikipedia). The baby would be born with a zero chance of survival without any functional lungs. The specialists advised her to terminate the pregnancy. She refused. I didn’t see the purpose of carrying a baby who would end up dying within minutes of birth. However she persisted and carried the baby to term and I ended up delivering her baby normally and handing the baby to her to hold. She cooed and spoke sweetly to the baby even as he was getting bluer and colder. There was no drama, no fighting for life. Baby stopped moving within a few minutes and I pronounced him dead. It was sad. I finished up my work and left for home.
The next morning I found out that the transplant teams from the San Francisco bay area had been busy overnight and harvested the organs to save several other babies. I was befuddled. This mother’s unspeakable tragedy made it possible for several other children to live. So now this baby lives on in the body of several other children. Even a non-emotional person like me was touched. There was a purpose for even this severely abnormal baby’s life.
Martian Mysteries | The Phobos Incident, Monoliths, and Ancient Ruins
Always a fun video.
When did you realize your child was no longer a child?
When my son was in the eighth grade, he got suspended and I had to leave work early to go get him. When I got there, I asked the principal what had happened. The principal explained that my son had beaten up three other boys and even broke one boy’s wrist. I was obviously horrified and asked my son what the fuck he was thinking. He simply told me that the boys had cornered one of his friends and were trying to make her strip for them. Being the chivalrous boy I raised him to be, he put a stop to it. I asked the principal if it was true and he dodged the question. In response to that, I told the school that if they’re going to allow sexual harassment, I didn’t want my child to attend and took him home. I told my son that I was going to take him out of public schools. He replied by telling me that he didn’t want to leave the school because of he wasn’t there then who was going to stop it from happening again.
This is when I realized my little boy had become a man. He would rather get in trouble to protect a friend than stay out of the spotlight and potentially face long term consequences.
Edit: I feel the need to point out that my son also got his ass kicked (and to be frank, “beat up” was probably the wrong term to use [a bit exaggerated] when describing what he did to those three boys). I assumed that was implied, but oh well. What can you do? The police were called and the bullies’ parents didn’t press charges as long as the girl’s parents didn’t either. The school penalized all three boys and the girl’s mother and I are very close friends now.
Why do many people (including the Americans who left the US) say that living in the US is hard and that leaving the country was the best choice they ever made?
I left the US almost 50 years ago to live in Germany. However, I frequently visit the US to stay there months at a time.
There are things that are “convenient” about living in the US: stores that open 7 days a week, some even 24/7; outside the large cities, ample free parking, better weather in vast parts of the US (compared to Germany), ease of meeting new people, etc.
But despite the “convenience”, yes, it is hard. It is hard living in a country with too many people recklessly wielding firearms – and using them. It is hard because many people do not respect others’ boundaries. It is hard because so many people are so poorly educated (I fault the system for that – not the people). It is hard because access to higher education is so expensive. The hire-and-fire mentality in the US is horrible. The fact that corruption has so openly visible on all levels is horrifying. And even more horrifying is that such a large portion of the population doesn’t care.
Leaving the US was the best choice I ever made because of the lousy American health care system. At the time I left, I had no idea I had a rare genetic defect that would eventually destroy my lungs. But once it reared its head, it became immediately clear that to survive more than a few years, I would require a double lung transplantation. I will always be grateful to the donor (and her family) for the gift of those lungs. And I will be forever grateful to the health care system here that made it possible for me to miss two years of work (one year of which I spent in-patient) without being financially worse for the wear. Twenty-one years after the gift of those lungs, I have been in and out of hospitals, have had three different cancer diagnoses, a couple of rounds of pneumonia, and sepsis, six years of dialysis, two kidney transplantation – all while being able to continue working – and still not being financially worse for the wear. Had I remained in the US, I would likely be bankrupt and/or dead.
Yellen tried to stop China’s development. This is how she failed.
What is your funniest story in your childhood?
When I was three our dog, Muffin, died. Back then, you were allowed to bury your pets in your backyard. (Or perhaps our vet just didn’t care and no one else was the wiser…) It happened while we were on vacation, so my parents asked our vet to freeze him so they could bury him next to their other dog when we got back.
They made sure I saw Muffin before putting him in the ground, let me touch him one last time… warned me he would be cold… I was mature and handled it well.
Later we were visiting my aunt and uncle. My aunt came and sat next to me and told me how sad she was that my doggy had died but I should be happy that he’s in doggy heaven now.
I looked at her very seriously and shook my head. “No, Aunt Sharon. He’s defrosting in the backyard!” (I had a fine concept of death and heaven but hadn’t been taught about doggy heaven and it just didn’t make any sense!)
Russia Hits Underground Gas Reserves in Ukraine; “Mushroom Cloud” from Fierce Explosion
At dawn, Russia achieved the largest strategic strike in Ukraine in history, when it destroyed Ukraine’s largest underground gas storage in Bilche-Volitsko-Uher in the city of Stryjak near Ľvov.
Russia utilized Kh-47 Kinzhal supersonic missiles and Kh-101 cruise missiles, to strike and detonate 17 billion cubic meters of stored natural gas!
The attack came from three different sides.
Russia Hits ukraine Gas Reserve
The destruction of the natural gas, combined with Russia’s unwillingness to supply new gas, means that Ukraine is “done” from an energy perspective.
A total of eight MiG-31 fighters carrying Kinzhal and Kh-101 aircraft hit the gas reserve, causing a nuclear-like mushroom cloud visible from Poland, 100 km from the Ukrainian border.
The reserve tank was located at a depth of 50 meters (~150 feet) from the surface of the earth, which did not prevent Kinžal from going through the stony ground “like a knife through butter” and exploding into the tank!
In Poland, radiation measurements began after what initially appeared to be a nuclear attack there, but this has not been confirmed.
Ukraine currently has less than half of its gas reserves, and after the destruction of the reserve, it cannot even be supplied from the European market.
The attack on this underground gas reservoir was confirmed by the Ukrainian company Zdroj 24 news.
Exposition (Green Flag #1)
What does Fitch’s downgrade of China’s sovereign rating outlook to negative mean?
It’s essentially this on Quora.
Upvote/downvote
vote
Yellen unable to do anything in China after flying here and demanding we buy their garbage… failed.
So the MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Had only one avenue left to hit us back. That is give us a downvote.
That’s literally the limit of their power.
Even the USS Dwight Eisenhower is hiding near North Africa because of the scary Houthis.
carrier
THE HONEY BADGER
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Aww.. he looks so cute. Lemme just pet him.
That’s when you realise, you fucked up!
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He don’t give a shit. He’ll take your dinner, smack the shit out of you and eat you for dessert.
Y’all probably heard a lot about these SOBs. But, here are the facts..
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They’re mean as hell!
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They’ll eat anything! (seriously anything)
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They’ve very powerful claws and teeth, which are powerful enough to break the shell of a freakin tortoise!
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They are thick skinned. Literally. There are reports of arrows and spears glancing off their thick, rubbery epidermis. (if they get caught in the mouth of a predator, they can break loose & retaliate with its powerful teeth)
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They are resistant to snake venom.
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They are Smart af!
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They’re so intelligent that they even use freakin tools.
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Video from Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in South Africa revealed that a team of honey badgers used sticks, a rake, mud, stones, and pure determination in their attempts to escape.
We’re talking about a highly intelligent animal which can certainly fuck you up, if evolution had it’s way.
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I’m innocent.
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Except..
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Because..
Honey Badgers don’t give a shit!
EDIT :
To those of who are familiar with this vicious bastard from Far Cry 4.
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Run.. Forrest.. R- –
Turkey DENIES U.S. Permission To Use Airspace to Attack Iran
The country of Turkey has DENIED permission to the US, to use Turkish air space to attack Iran. Turkey joins Kuwait, Qatar, and other Middle East nations in telling the US they cannot use wither bases or air space for any Iran attack.
Our “allies” seem to have finally had enough of our excusing any and every transgression perpetrated by Israel.
Turkey region large
Israel is facing military consequences for its bombing of Iran’s Embassy Compound in Damascus, Syria. The Israeli attack was, as a matter of fact and law, an “Act of War.” The bombing of Iran’s Embassy compound violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations, to which most of the world adheres.
The consequences Israel now faces is being hit back militarily, by Iran which has a formidable missile force, and and equally formidable drone force.
Neither the US nor Israel want there to be any consequences, but the real world doesn’t work that way.
The US, at first, told Iran that, as long as no US facilities were targeted, the US “would not interfere.” That position quickly went out the window and today, the US “will defend Israel.”
The US has moved substantial naval assets closer to the Israeli coastline, and has moved an aircraft carrier strike group into the northern part of the Red Sea. Publicly, the US is pledging to intercept as many Iranian missiles as is feasible to do.
The US has been speaking with the governments of countries where US bases are located, and those discussions have gone absolutely nowhere. The US is being repeatedly DENIED permission to use those countries for any attacks upon Iran.
The denial of permission from Qatar was especially serious; that’s where the largest US base in all of the Middle East is located. The refusal of permission has severely undercut US ability to project force in the region.
The US is openly frustrated that “allies” are denying permission. For some reason, the US fails to see that Israel threw the first punch, and now Israel is going to get punched back.
Why the US is in such denial is anyone’s guess, but the countries which are denying permission realize quite clearly what their decisions are creating: A situation where “big brother USA” cannot defend the little bully, Israel.
Most of my former colleagues in the Intelligence Community have told me as of Friday night, they expect Iran to unleash a missile and drone barrage upon Israel, to hit Israeli government (military) assets.
They also tell me they expect the attack to begin THIS WEEKEND.
For its part, Israel has blustered they will counter-attack. IF they choose to do so, it will only escalate the situation.
Now that the USA is being militarily hamstrung by its “allies” perhaps the Israelis may become more amenable to getting along with neighbors . . . after they get punched back, by Iran.
The little Bully Israel seems set to get a bloody nose.
What’s the smoothest pick up line you’ve ever heard?
This pickup line was used on me…
At the time, I was a centre back on my Footy team. I had injured my ankle (a foul from behind. He received a quick yellow!), and found I needed to use crutches for a few days.
I was at a party, chatting with a friend when a young lady acquaintance (I didn’t know her well, we just had mutual friends) came over and asked me what had happened. The 3 of us talked for a few minutes, when I realized that the 2 pints I’d had was passing through me, and I needed to excuse myself and go to the loo.
I then turned, and with some trouble getting through the crowd because of the crutches, I was just about to the door of the loo when the young lady acquaintance loudly called my name, catching my attention…
Talking loudly, she said, “Do you need some help with that? I understand the doctor said you shouldn’t lift anything heavy!
The room went silent. My face turned very red!
The line worked!
First units of French Foreign Legion have been deployed to Slavyansk, Ukraine!
Members of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion have arrived at the location of Ukraine’s 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in Slavyansk, part of the Donetsk People’s Republic under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
According to preliminary information, the first group of 100 people consists of specialists in artillery reconnaissance, while the specialization of the engineering group is fortification and the construction of field fortifications.
The French troops, apparently, who only move around in the city when accompanied by Ukrainian forces, will help the Ukrainian Army defend Slavyansk when the front line shifts towards the city.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that France would prepare 1,500 troops in April to be sent to Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly stated that the Kiev regime is using foreign mercenaries as “cannon fodder,” and that the Russian military will continue to target and eliminate them throughout the conflict zone.
What is the reason behind the strong patriotism of Chinese people? Is their support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) genuine or forced?
China, as a civilization-state, has two main characteristics. Firstly, there is its exceptional longevity, dating back to even before the break-up of the Roman Empire. Secondly, the sheer scale of China – both geographic and demographic – means that it embraces a huge diversity.
The idea of China as a civilization-state is a fundamental building block for understanding China in its own terms. And it has multifarious implications. The relationship between the state and society in China is very different to that in the West.
Contrary to the overwhelming Western assumption that the Chinese state lacks legitimacy and is bereft of public support, in fact the Chinese state enjoys greater legitimacy than any Western state. We have come to assume that the legitimacy of the state overwhelmingly rests on the democratic process – universal suffrage, competing parties et al.
But this is only one element: if it was the whole story, then the Italian state would enjoy a robust legitimacy rather than the reality, a chronic lack of it. And to explain this we have to go back to the Risorgimento as only a partially fulfilled project.
The reason why the Chinese state enjoys a formidable legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese has nothing to do with democracy but can be found in the relationship between the state and Chinese civilization.
The state is seen as the embodiment, guardian and defender of Chinese civilization.
Maintaining the unity, cohesion and integrity of Chinese civilization – of the civilization-state – is perceived as the highest political priority and is seen as the sacrosanct task of the Chinese state.
Unlike in the West, where the state is viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, even hostility, and is regarded, as a consequence, as an outsider, in China the state is seen as an intimate, as part of the family, indeed as the head of the family; interestingly, in this context, the Chinese term for nation-state is ‘nation-family / 国家’.
Yes, CPC is the head of the family and the inheritor and guardian of Chinese civilization.
REAL Family? Would Men Stop Walking Away if they could have THIS? REACTION to #based Tim Pool
Have you ever gone to a psychiatrist? What were the circumstances around the visit?
I sought the help of a therapist during my final months in New Zealand because I thought I had depression.
After telling him about my situation at length, he said:
“Let me summarize:
you have been bullied out of your job;
you have over one million dollars of debt and face repossession of your two houses and four cars;
half of which because you have been pressured into buying a house for your mother in law, who has been actively sabotaging your marriage for almost ten years;
your foster children you were expecting to adopt have been taken away and put back with their biological parents, teenagers imprisoned for drug offences who have now been released due to a law change;
your wife wants a divorce.
And you think you have depression? You have every reason to be down! You’re healthy. Get out of here.”
And I did.
All the way to Shanghai, from where it took me three years to clean up the mess. But he was right, I never needed any anti depressants. With every dollar my bank statements began to look more balanced, I was better.
7 things you can understand about anyone through his/her behavior
If a person laughs too much, even at stupid things, he is lonely deep inside.
If a person speaks less, but speaks fast, he keeps secrets.
If a person sleeps a lot, he is sad.
If someone can’t cry, he is weak.
If someone eats in an abnormal manner, he is tense.
If someone cries on little things, he is innocent & soft-hearted.
If someone becomes angry over silly or petty (small) things, it means he needs love.Try to understand people more.
Have you ever witnessed a life ruined from a small mistake?
On the 4th of July, 16 years ago, I was at a fireworks show where parents accidentally killed their own child.
They had 6 children. One was a 6 month old baby.
They were at a fireworks show. It was really hectic. I don’t remember the exact details. A lot of people were there.
The dad had gone off on his own to buy snacks for the kids, he took the baby along.
Mom was sitting on a blanket with the rest of her kids, ready to watch the fireworks show. Someone from the show asked Mom to move her car, it was in the way. Mom left the oldest child in charge of all the younger ones on the grassy hill on their blanket. She walked over and hopped into the car.
At the same time, Dad had come back to the car after getting snacks to get a lawn chair out of the trunk. Mom and Dad didn’t see each other, Mom was already in the car. Dad set the baby carrier down on the ground behind the car, not knowing Mom was in the car ready to back up.
I’m not sure how it happened, Dad was either distracted talking to someone or busy setting snacks down. But while he wasn’t looking, Mom backed the car over the baby. It was horrible, chaotic, and devastating.
The baby was only partially backed over and survived for two days. He died after that. The pain of his parents was indescribable.
After that, an investigation ensued of the death of their child. They were found innocent, ruling that it was a horrible accident. But being investigated for the murder of their child made the death much worse and the pain last much longer.
Surprisingly, the couple did stay together. A lot of times, couples blame each other in events like that and have to separate after something so painful, or so I’ve heard.
However, they don’t celebrate the 4th of July anymore. It’s a horrible reminder of the death of their baby boy. Every year I see a post from them commemorating his death on Independence Day.
If I get a job offer of HKD $25,000, is it enough to stay in Hong Kong like renting, utilities, transportation, living cost, etc. for one person?
It depends on your life style.
A lot of people will say rent is the killer.
It isn’t the killer it once was. Rents are FALLING in Hong Kong and if you live in the New Territories a little bit away from an MTR station a 500sqft apartment can be had for about $7000 a month, live in the arse end of nowhere and $10000 can get you an entire 750sqft apartment.
But you trade travel time/expenses for rent.
Foodwise? You can survive easily on $100HKD a day.
Transport from arse end of nowhere to Admiralty for me is about $60HKD a day. This can be cheaper if I decide to arrive before 8am.
Utilities. Family of 4 lots of air con, lots of cooking (electric) is about $2800 a month electricity. I live mostly alone spend most of my time outside and I am also heat resistant so I spend about $700 (I do however weld a fair bit).
The problem is sanity money.
As somebody on a visa? Shenzhen is closed to you. Sanity money is doing things to get away from the nuttyness of the city and urban areas. This can be cheap as chips for instance cycling all over the territory (an older road bike can be bought for $2000). To ice skating, musical instruments etc to getting wasted.
That’s the big money sink here.
This is FRIGHTENING!
If you could change your high-stress lifestyle, how would you do it?
I have already done that. Here’s what I did:
purchased a cheap house outright, so I can live mortgage free. It’s fantastic. I will never ever feel like I might lose the roof over my head.
built myself a large stock of healthy dried foods, so I can theoretically last a year or more just on my sacks of pulses, rice, and canned veggies and fruits. The squirrels got it right.
bought myself a fairly recent, compact Toyota hybrid – mobility assured.
moved to a village in the wilderness, six hours from the next big city. It’s totally quiet at night, and all I hear during the day is the waves of the lake.
got myself a pleasant university job.
invested in some premium mattresses and bedding, as well as earplugs – great sleep is your main weapon against stress.
I keep cats instead of dogs – they inspire me with their ability to sleep on the couch all day long.
all my lighting is LED, so I don’t need to worry about leaving it on. It will be cheap and the bulbs last 20 years.
built myself a little home cinema in the basement where I can retreat and watch films with the cats every evening. Watching films is supremely relaxing.
I’ve left all the accounting to my wife, who likes doing it.
What is the sleaziest, dirtiest trick an auto insurance company tried to pull on you? Did they succeed?
My wife was killed in an accident in Minnesota. A juvenile was driving her brand new vehicle way too fast even tho the road conditions were dry (speedometer was stuck at 1 04 when they were investigating).
The girl/insurance was found 100% at fault. Her insurance was a hefty one since she was a minor. Their insurance had the gall to keep calling me asking health questions about my wife and she was prone to seizures, blacking out suddenly, vertigo, etc. I was like WTH and told them I was going to get an attorney (this was Wednesday morning…accident was Tuesday night at 8:44PM). By 11AM I already had answered numerous calls from her ins, had to tell 4 kids their mom passed away, had to let her family in Arizona know that she passed.
At 11:45 on the morning after, I get a call from her insurance company asking if I would accept $1,000 for my pain, suffering and not go to trial. This girls insurance policy was over 500k. I told them that they are out of their effing mind…the girl that offered me chuckled and said she thought I wouldnt accept and hung up. I got a lawyer, had him let them know I wouldnt accept and we would reach a settlement.
All in all, the insurance company sat on the policy earning interest for 2 years and then on month 26, the KIDS reached a college settlement that they couldnt touch until each of them reached 18, 21, 25 (I didnt want them to get all that money right away and blow it even tho one had a sleazy partner and they blew thru the age 21 settlement in 3 days).
I think its very sleazy that they were trying to distance themselves from the accident and then trying to weasel themselves out of paying the insurance settlement. We didnt get the full settlement but it was close and I still have 2 children out of the 4 still collecting interest and checks.
Why does Israel kill kids? Why do Israelis online claim these deaths are not happening?
This was a Nation that once refused to starve Egyptian soldiers it had encircled in 1973
Moshe Dayan once said If Israel acted like terrorist groups, it would lose the moral ground to the world
Golda Meir formed the Wrath of God team to selectively hunt down the 1972 Munich Massacre terrorists – one by one over almost 11 years at a cost of $ 42 Million rather than send a few aircraft and bomb Jordan or Lebanon for harboring those terrorists
Those days are done and dusted now
The Americans started with Agent Orange and began to justify killing Civilians
Then in 1999, Tony Blair openly claimed the West had a right to meddle in any Country’s affairs for World Peace
And thus began the growth of Evil in the West
I would say the Evil began with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair – both alleged pedophiles and both on the list of that notorious and accepted pedophile Epstein
Europe was still protected by good nationalists like Chirac and Schroeder
Then gradually the Evil spread everywhere
Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden, Scholz, Boris Johnson,Macron and Netanyahu – the list goes on and on
The Israelis are evil people today
They seem to believe that killing women and children is fully justified
That’s not a problem in itself
Yet they seem to believe Arabs and especially Palestinians are akin to animals and deserve to die
So many Israeli kids seem surprised as to why the whole world is reacting to the deaths of Palestinians
Just like in 1940, Hitler Jugend used to ask why everyone was so worried about Jewry when the Reich was doing their job for them and ridding the world of that Jewish influence
Their God once protected them because they were on the right path and the world was persecuting them
I believe the same God will abandon them or has abandoned them to the Devil long ago
They are too evil and they deserve God’s judgment
Let’s hope like Moses – a new round of plagues arise and exterminate all the evil Israelis leaving behind the Good ones who can again build up the former ‘Honor’ of their race that existed in the times of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan
SHOCKING Court Ruling in Favor of MEN! Yale Student Acquitted of Assault Sues for $110 Million
The thing is, for many men, it's not even, "guilty until proven innocent." Its, "guilty EVEN if proven innocent."
Green Chile Burros
The burro is shown “enchilada style.”
green chile burros
Ingredients
1 small beef roast, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 (4 ounce) cans diced green chiles
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (16 ounce) can tomatoes, drained (juice reserved)
1/2 teaspoon comino (cumin)
Salt and pepper, to taste
All-purpose flour
Instructions
Brown diced meat in fat in a large, heavy saucepan. Add onion, green chiles, garlic and drained tomatoes. Add enough drained tomato juice (plus water if needed) to cover. Add comino, salt and pepper. Cook, covered, until meat is very tender.
Mix flour with a small amount of water to form a thin paste and add to mixture to thicken slightly.
Heat a large flour tortilla on a griddle. Fill with meat mixture and fold.
Notes
Enchilada Style: Follow instructions above, then place in a shallow serving dish. Pour enchilada sauce over the top to cover, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Heat in a 425 degrees F oven until the cheese is melted.
I sometimes make a fast version of this. I use leftover pot roast, dice it up, mix it with the remaining ingredients and just simmer it until the onion is tender. Thicken it with the flour as stated in the recipe.
What was the funniest moment you had with your boss?
I have had so many wonderful moments with Jay (store manager), it’s hard to decide on which one.
I think this was hilarious, but I doubt Jay would, good thing he doesn’t read my answers.
I was working in my department, Jay and I were visiting just before he was going home. A customer walked up to my service counter. I wished I could remember what the customer said or did that had me lose my temper. It takes a lot before I lose it.
Anyway, the customer upset me and I said, “You can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine and I don’t mean a closed book.” The customer walked away. Jay looks at me and said, “You are so busted!” He walked away to talk to the customer. I stood there cussing myself out for my stupidity.
Jay returned. In the coldest tone, he said, “You back room now!!!!!” I walked back there. I knew that there was nothing I could say to save my bacon.
He stood there glaring at me, counting to ten, taking deep breaths, counting again and clenching and unclenching his fists. I was smart enough not to be a smarta$$ and ask him if I was in trouble.
He finally said, “How? How in the H E double hockey sticks did you manage to do it?!?!” I waited to find out what I managed to do. Jay sputters out, “ I went to talk to the customer to smooth things out, so corporate would not become involved. The customer told me that everything was great and if I punish you in anyway, she will call corporate on me?!!?” I looked at him and said, “Maybe because I am cuter?” He stormed off!
We are still friends to this day! I’m still cuter!
Russia to United Nations: Prepare for “Unconditional Capitulation” of Ukraine
Russia just said the quiet part out loud: There must be unconditional capitulation (i.e. surrender)” by Ukraine.
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During yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said:
“This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelenski and his closest circle.
In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion.
Very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional capitulation of the Kiev regime.
“When I was elected as president then (in 2016), I tried to craft an independent foreign policy, not really against America. I have no quarrel with America. But the problem was our foreign policy was dovetailing theirs, and not so good with China. So I started on a neutral foreign policy. I announced to the world that I had no friends and no enemies to fight. I just want to be neutral. And I did not have to kowtow to anybody’s foreign policy, especially the Americans. […]
Most of the ASEAN countries have followed a very neutral, independent foreign policy. I would have wanted that… That is why I slowly detached myself, and, at least in foreign policy, and announced to China that we are not enemies, that we have never been, and never will be in our lifetime.
Here in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), when I was president, there was no quarrel. We can return to normalcy. I hope that we can stop the ruckus over there, because the Americans are the ones pushing the Philippine government to go out there and find a quarrel and eventually maybe start a war.
So I am very sure of that – America is giving the instructions to the Philippine government to ‘not be afraid because we will back you up.’ […]
I am sorry for my country. I am not the president anymore. I cannot run. But if there is a way we can reverse the situation, we might find a way inside to implode somewhere. And if God would allow it then perchance I would be able to reverse the situation. I would remove the bases.
And I would tell the Americans, you have so many ships, so you do not need my island as a launching pad or as a launching deck for you.”
How does China’s “petitioning” system work in China?
This is a custom which had its origins in China’s imperial past.
The idea was this: If a local official behaved intolerably, the people would go to the imperial capital and make an appeal to an imperial official, or in some cases, even to the emperor himself. The petitioners would lay out their case, explain the rationale for their appeal, and ask for senior official or emperor to make a judgment.
This could be very dangerous: what would happen if the senior official or emperor sided with the local official, and ordered that all the petitioners be executed? For this reason, it was considered a very risky strategy.
This petitioning method continues to the present day. When Hu Jintao was president, in some cases, local officials would go to the train and bus stations to prevent the petitioners from boarding trains. There were even a few cases where petitioners made it to Beijing, and were kidnapped by the local officials and taken back to their village! This was considered to be a serious violation of the authority of the Beijing central government.
Xi Jinping has tried to modernize this system, which is why he has strengthened the authority of the Party Discipline Committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. In effect, they act as “flying magistrates” or judges who were sent out to the provinces to hunt down and remove corrupt local officials. If you follow the detective stories of Judge Dee and Judge Bao, they were flying magistrates who represented the emperor, which was why local officials all had to kneel before him.
Insights: Famous Chinese Economist On US Economy 2024
"I listen to Jeffrey Sachs, and Michael Hudson. Great to hear about this Chinese economist who i have no access to, nor the Chinese language skill to understand even if I do. Thank you for introducing his thoughts though."
I was playing slots with my mother in New Jersey. I was at an end machine and putting quarters one after the other in one machine.
I was there for about twenty minutes when my mother asked me to sit closer to her.
So I got up.
And another woman took my seat. (She had been off the side watching me, and as soon as I got up, she ran to my seat and sat down.)
She put one quarter in.
And she won 3 million dollars!
Jesus.
Life.
Is this a joke or what?
What the fuck was I thinking when I planned this pre-birth world-line template?
Ugh!
Today…
Have you ever met someone really privileged who shocked you?
When I was in college, I had a part-time job in my domitory’s cafeteria. The richest person I ever knew was one of my fellow student employees. His father was the chairman of the board at a major multinational corporation, and his mother was a major stockholder in a US communications giant. They owned a Lear jet and a chalet in Switzerland. When they came to visit my friend in the dorm, he needed other students to help sign in the entourage of 2 assistants, 2 bodyguards, and a driver (dorm residents were allowed to sign in only 2 guests at a time).
About halfway through the first year I knew him, I found out that when he’d arrived on campus, he’d had no clue how to run a washing machine. His roommate had had to teach him. He told me “I knew we had them at home; I’d just never seen them.”
He also told me about how many times in his tween and teen years he’d spent Christmas with only the household staff for company because his parents had been invited to some fancy party or other in Europe or Asia, and he hadn’t wanted to go.
My friend owned his own tuxedo, and had a credit card that drew from his trust fund’s interest. So he bought his clothes and shoes at Neiman Marcus, and took friends out to lunch in swanky restaurants where they served us alcohol without batting an eye even though we were all clearly under the drinking age.
So, you’re probably wondering why this guy was working a part-time job in a campus cafeteria. Well, that was his father’s idea. Dad, you see, had worked his way through college and thought that having a job would be good for my friend’s character. So Dad refused to provide a cash allowance. And since this was the 80s, before you could use a credit card to buy fast food, my friend had to work if he wanted pocket money.
Bacon, Egg and Mushroom Burritos
Thick sliced apple wood-smoked turkey bacon, shiitake mushrooms and spinach enhance this yummy egg wrap. Perfect for breakfast or lunch on-the-go.
4 ounces fresh shiitake or button mushrooms, stemmed, sliced
4 ounces (4 cups) fresh baby arugula or spinach
12 eggs, beaten
6 (7 to 9 inch) flour or whole wheat tortillas, warmed
Instructions
Cook bacon in 12 inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp.
Remove bacon; pour off all but 1 tablespoon drippings. Add mushrooms; saute over medium heat for 2 minutes.
Add arugula; cook until wilted, about 1 minute.
Pour eggs over mixture in skillet. As eggs begin to set, gently pull the eggs across the pan with an inverted turner, forming large soft curds. Continue cooking, pulling, lifting and folding eggs until thickened and no visible liquid egg remains. Do not stir constantly. Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon egg mixture into center of each tortilla, dividing evenly; top each with 1 bacon slice. Fold in sides of tortillas, then roll up burrito-style.
My GF Thought I’d Be Her ATM Forever Until I Finally Grew A Pair (And A Brain) & Blocked Her Forever
What gift did you give that made you speechless by the reaction you got from it?
A few years ago my husband found out he has a sister who his mom and dad had given up for adoption. We arranged a time for her to come down and meet the entire family (parents had both died at this time). There were 5 siblings and their families. Everyone gave gifts and gift cards but I wanted to do something different. I had been scrapbooking for several years so I got a bunch of family pictures together and put them into a very nice scrapbook with journaling to explain each picture’s story. She was so appreciative and overwhelmed and kept looking through that scrapbook. Whenever we see each other she talks about that scrapbook and says how much that means to her. She said, “It’s so nice to have pictures of people that look like me.” Growing up she didn’t look like her adoptive family at all. We are all so grateful she sought us out and we are as close with her as we are with our other family members.
What was life like under communism? Do you miss anything from that time?
I was turning 17 when the communism came to an end in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania. An abrupt and violent end. Unexpected in how quickly everything happened, in a space of a few days. But somehow expected as well, as a wind of change was blowing over Central and Eastern Europe for at least a couple of years before already.
How was life? For me personally, as a teenager in a standard urban family with two kids and college-educated parents, the worst was, on a trivial level, that I couldn’t find in the music stores the music I wanted to have 🙂 Western pop-rock was scarcely available on the white market and music was one of my biggest joys and constant extracurricular preoccupations.
On a more serious level, what I was hating the most was the duplicity. Saying (or at least pretending to listen and approve) one thing at school and a totally different one at home. Watching or listening to the incredibly stupid and untrue TV and radio shows run by the public stations (the only available ones), hailing constantly the happiness of the people under the wise and paternal leadership of the Communist Party and its genius secretary general, then looking around at the grim reality surrounding us: grey streets and grey buildings under a grey sky. Grumpy people running around and trying to make the ends meet, with less and less at hand as we were growing as a nation “richer and richer”. A prouder and prouder “free and independent” nation composed of humbler and humbler people, more and more deprived of personal independence and freedom, of dignity.
This is me, a few months after the communism collapsed, on the roof of our brutalist block of communist-style flats, in the middle of a brutalist forest of similar blocks, some still under construction. I was skinny (I am still), but not necessarily because the Romanian communism had brought famine upon us, although towards the crepuscule of the regime it had come quite close to that.
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What are some psychology tricks for everyday life?
When you are in a group and notice that someone is making fun of you, look in their face and smile a little, they will feel scared
“Emotional contagion” is a phenomenon in which people working in groups “catch” each other’s emotions and feelings, akin to viral infection.
If you want someone to get nervous, look at their forehead
Beware the “Love Rat”! According to research, men who believe in love at first sight and bombard their potential partners with presents and attention are three times more likely to cheat on them, compared to those who take their time.
If you notice someone in every situation swearing at you and saying he’s joking, he hates you
According to recent studies, the people who fuss over small errors or strongly react to small problems are usually lonely and unloved.
Whisper something to smeone and 9/10 times they’ll whisper back
If you think someone is lying look them in their eyes and don’t say anything
Persistent irritability is caused by underlying physical or psychological disorders, such as depression or anxiety.
If you want someone to tell the truth, make them laugh before questioning.
Is someone watching you ow want to know whether they are watching you or not? yawn and they’ll yawn back
If you tell someone to stare into your eyes, it’s now harder for them to remember anything without looking away
If you’re trying to sleep, focus on not moving and count to 300
Around 65% to 80% of human conversations are gossip.
If someone interrupts u when you’re talking. just carry on speaking. They will feel stupid and you’ll feel powerful.
Gen Z Grad Faces The Brutal Reality of Job Search In 2024
What is the most condescending advice you received from someone who assumed you were poorer or less educated than them?
This has happened on two different occasions. In my home.
The first, I was looking to put in all new hardwood floors into my house. I’d done a ton of research, knew what I wanted; I just needed the materials and the contractor.
I am a single woman who owns a house. I’m on my second house that I bought and paid for myself, by the way. My father is long out of my life and the other family members who are men live so far away that I had to figure it out on my own.
So I had a bunch of quotes on the hardwood. One company insisted on sending someone to my house. He first asked if we needed to wait for my husband. “No, just me.” He said he wasn’t sure that was a good idea. I said he could wait outside for someone that looked like a husband.
He then asked if I had a basement. I told him “no”. He asked if I was sure.
I said take a look and be sure to let me know if he found one. Needless to say he didn’t find a basement or a job that night.
A few years later I needed a new furnace. This was a rush so I didn’t have as much research down. First, this one idiot told me my furnace was German and it had to be replaced because it would take 6 weeks to get parts for it (Googling the name on the furnace revealed it was from Texas… did Texas finally secede and become part of Germany?). Then they said they could give me a new furnace for $13-$18k. I said, “well, what does it cost.” $13k-$18k.
No, if I were writing a check tonight, what would I make the check out for? $13k -$18k.
Finally they said it would be like $200/month. I tried to explain that was based on a cost. He argued that when you lease a car that’s all it cost! I said no, the payments are based on what portion of the car you’re using based on a base price. He argued that no, I was an idiot.
Yes, I was the idiot who wrote a check for $8k for a new furnace. To someone else who told me the price…
What psychological tricks and hacks are useful to know?
1. Here’s how you can speak well-organized anytime anywhere.
There are 3 elements: the current status, estimation, and response.
Just presenting them in order makes you appear very organized and insightful.
For example:
“The car broke down now, judging from the current traffic on this road, it’s unlikely we’ll find anyone to tow our car, so let’s call for roadside assistance.”
2. When asking someone for a favor, start by giving them a compliment.
For example:
“I’m impressed with your work on the last project we did together, and I feel confident that I can trust you with this task as well.”
3. If you want to persuade someone, just say things that sound illogical at first but carry an vibe of mysteriousness.
This way, they will be drawn into these seemingly meaningless statements, feeling that your thought process operates on a higher level, and are more likely to agree with what you say next.
For example:
“If you can forget what you should have forgotten from the past, shouldn’t you understand the workings of the subconscious? How exactly should it operate?”
4. During an interview, present your personal desires as the company’s needs.
This significantly increases your chances of being hired.
For example:
Instead of saying you enjoy writing, express that the platform’s content captivates you, and you aspire to contribute as a valuable member of it.
5. If you find yourself easily getting into arguments with someone, try using another 3 elements: facts, feelings, and hopes.
For example, let’s say your partner kept you waiting in the cold for an hour.
Instead of saying:
“Do you enjoy making me wait? Can’t you check the time? Do you ever think about me?”
you can say:
“I waited for you for 58 minutes earlier, and this month alone, I’ve waited for you for over half an hour five times. Constantly waiting like this makes me feel like you might not be considering my time. I hope we can be more mindful of each other’s schedules.”
6. When praising others, it’s often more effective to compliment what they might not be consciously aware of.
For instance, if you praise Usain Bolt for his incredible speed, he might not feel it as much.
However, if you compliment him on something like, “Wow, I’ve noticed you have great handwriting,” he might feel genuinely pleased.
7. When expressing gratitude for a gift, forget about the price and emphasize your heartfelt appreciation.
For example:
“This bag must be expensive! ” (✘)
“I’ve always loved this bag. ” (✔)
8. If you’re on a first date with a girl and things are going really well. And you’re interested in planning another meet-up.
It’s crucial not to wait until the moment of departure. Instead, seize an good moment when you both are engaged in the vibe to propose the next date.
For example:
Person A: “These are so delicious!”
Person B: “These are nothing. I know a place with even better ones. How about next Saturday? I’ll take you there!”
9. For anything work-related that falls outside of your scope, the safe response is always a simple “I don’t know” added by a reason.
For example:
Person A: “Where’s Alex? Where did he go? He’s late again?”
Person B: “I don’t know, I was checking emails.”
Men are Letting Reality Happen to Women
What are some undeniable facts about life?
A woman jumps to death from the terrace of a 15 storied building.
Her husband tells the police she was depressed. Her in-laws cry because they were unable to understand the reason behind taking this drastic step.
Her parents though, alleged murder.
They say she had been complaining about domestic abuse and violence that she faced for about two years.
“She was tortured. They locked her up and didn’t give her food for days. She was beaten and pain was inflicted upon her. She would cry and tell us. Please arrest them.” The parents said.
A case is filed on the husband’s family and the matter drags to court.
The parents think that their daughter has got justice.
Makes me wonder, why are the girl’s parents also not taken into custody? They heard their daughter complain about the abuse for two whole years and they didn’t even think about taking any action? Why did they wait for her to kill herself to take these matters to the police? Why couldn’t they just take her home and stop the torture? Why come out crying only when she ended her life?
The police asked why were you silent when you knew what she was going through?
They say,
“We were waiting it would stop someday on its own. We have faith in our God. She would also not lose faith. We just hoped someday they will realise how badly they have treated her and mend their ways. But never in our dreams we thought she will take this step.”
Some undeniable facts about life you ask me?
You need to take charge and make things happen to make a difference in life. Not everything in life will happen on its own. You can’t put everything on the almighty to make it right for you.
What are some cases that literally make no sense?
Originally Answered: What are some cases that really make no sense?
Back in 2007, a sick, twisted monster named Robert A. Williams unleashed a nightmarish hell on an innocent Columbia Grad student when he broke into her apartment and unleashed an unspeakable onslaught of sadistic torture. For 19 agonizing hours, this vile excuse for a human being raped, sodomized, and brutalized the poor woman in ways that’d make even the toughest horror movie beg for mercy.
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He glued her mouth shut, slit her eyelids, force-fed her fistfuls of pills, and even set her on fire. It’s like a demented game of “how much suffering can one person endure?” Begging for death, the victim pleaded with her tormentor to end her life, but the monster cruelly refused, taunting her with the chilling words, “You’re not good enough for that.” Miraculously, she survived the ordeal, and Williams was slapped with a whopping 420-year prison sentence.
So, here’s the million-dollar question: why the hell are we wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on keeping this animal locked up when the death penalty exists for a reason? Or better yet, why not give him a taste of his own medicine, Black Mirror-style? Strap him in and make him relive every excruciating moment as the victim, over and over. Now THAT’S justice!
Meanwhile in Hong Kong
What happened when you returned someone’s lost wallet? Did they give you anything for returning it, and did they thank you personally (not through email)?
We found a phone, in a puddle by a beach in Cornwall. We took it back to our holiday cottage and put it in a jar of rice, to try to dry it out. Unfortunately, our charger didn’t fit it, so we couldn’t check if it had recovered until our son in law joined us, a couple of days later, and his did. The phone came back to life, amazingly, so we went to Contacts, phoned the one that said Home and left a message. Shortly afterwards, a surprised young man rang back. He had lost it when surfing, several days before, and it had lain in a salt water puddle for at least two days before we found it. He said he would come and collect it, and we said be quick, then – we are leaving shortly. He arrived with six bottles of nice wine, and was very grateful. It seemed to be working fine – photos intact, and everything. Wish I could remember what make it was!
What is one city you would never return to? Why?
Banjul.
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I can confidently say there is virtually zero chance I’ll ever return to The Gambia’s capital city. This is not because of any bad experiences, but that it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever revisit this little African country.
For those who are not aware of where this country is located, I provide a map below.
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The country is surrounded by Senegal on Africa’s western coast and is more or less moulded around the River Gambie. No doubt, the county’s peculiar formation stems from British and French colonial policy.
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Banjul is a fascinating city with a beautiful coastline and close access to the humid river. I stayed near the vast sandy beaches which are genuinely beautiful, fringing the Atlantic and dotted by palm trees.
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It is a very African city. Its environment is orange and dusty with extreme heat on occasions. There are overflowing food markets, lots of colourful clothes and African style mosques.
My most remarkable memory was seeing a fully dressed and booted battalion of soldiers speed marching for training through the dusty streets. Sweat poured down them like torrential rain.
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I also remember seeing spiders hanging in hundreds of cobwebs covering many different houses and complexes. Travelling over incomplete roads, multitudes of spiders just dangled in the air. I’ve never seen so many large spiders in my life. Certainly disconcerting for any arachnophobes!
I played football with some of the locals and explored the famous alligator park of Banjul with monkeys lounging around in the tall trees.
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The Gambia is a beautiful country, but I can’t see any reason why I’d return to it or its capital.
How has China unlike USSR stayed united inspite of vast diversity?
Simply because the USSR was in fact a loose federation of a handful of republics, and China was in fact one country. It’s really that simple.
This is Shanghai government. SHANGHAI CHINA. Check out the resume of everyone in the top echelon – mayor, vice mayors, etc. The nine-member top management team. How many of them are Shanghai local? Exactly zero. None. Not a single one. They all came from some other places in China.
The Shanghai government is not run by people who want to be the king of Shanghai. It’s run by people who want to run China. Shanghai is one of their “personal five-year-plans” on the way to the top. They will stay for a maximum 2 terms ( 10 years), then they move away to their next posts, either up or down, depends on what they can delivery here. This is the same with all the other provinces and major cities, i.e., the mayor of Beijing is from Jilin province, the provincial governor of Guangdong is from Shandong province, the governor of Henan is from Ningxia, Shan’an Xi province … Basically, all public offices are financed by national tax collection, manned by a national bureaucracy with regular rotations, and defended by national armed forces, since the Han dynasty
in 200 BC – so there’s absolutely no incentive to pick a fight with other provinces. They are not your “enemies” but your future constituents. So there’s a great deal of incentive to make a good impression by reaching out and collaborate, build up a support network, so that they’ll vote you into the Politburo. That’s how you get to run the whole China.
On the other hand, the full name of USSR is “United Socialists Soviet Republics”. It was a federation of republics where each republic was run by local people who spoke a different languages, believed in different religions, and wanted to be the top dog of their own republic. In fact, the dissolution of USSR made each local ethnic elite the “king” of their own republic. Just check out their resumes. It didn’t hurt one’s political prospects to pick a fight with one’s neighbors. Instead, it may polish up one’s local “nationalist” credentials. The USSR was never set up as one country in the first place.
“The United States and NATO have never been shy about outright lying to justify their aggressive plans.
In the case of aggression against the FR Yugoslavia, carried out under the mocking banner of ‘humanitarian intervention,’ mainly civilian targets were hit: residential areas, hospitals, schools, bridges, passenger transport, and columns of refugees. Thousands of civilians were killed, including 89 children, whom the Western coalition cynically dubbed ‘collateral damage.’
Let me remind you that NATO aggression against the FR Yugoslavia began without UN sanction — it was not only a tragic milestone in the life of the Serbian people with thousands of ruined destinies and desecrated national dignity, but also a devastating blow to the system of international law and the foundations of security in Europe, established after World War II.
The US and NATO have finally come to believe in their own impunity and moral superiority — to the misfortune of those who strive to choose their own path, rather than becoming instruments for the realization of others’ interests.
On that day, the strategic balance of power collapsed, and a protracted crisis in interstate relations began, which continues to deepen.
The same thing is happening now in the Middle East.
The situation in the region is an example of the ‘controlled chaos’ theory, which underlies US policy.
However, this chaos has spiraled out of control and threatens a large-scale regional war.
The US cannot be unaware of this, but the desire to make super-profits from selling weapons in the region overrides all moral and ethical standards among Americans.
If we talk about the goals of the US in Ukraine, putting aside political motives to create a puppet state on the western borders of Russia, from which constant threats to our country would come, then everyone knows that there are large assets of American business in this country.
The most profitable ‘grain business’ is half owned by Washington.
The most fertile lands have already been purchased or taken for free by American companies.
They will squeeze everything out and leave the country to the mercy of fate.
In pursuit of elusive world dominance and military superiority, Washington and its allies are expanding the network of alliances directed against third countries and are actively pursuing a number of programs that undermine global stability and regional security.
These are the emerging alliances AUKUS (Australia, Great Britain, USA) and QUAD (USA, Australia, Japan, India) in the Asia-Pacific region, the goal of which is to militarize the region to contain China and Russia.
Recently, the magazine Politico wrote: ‘In every conflict it has been involved in, Washington has lost interest in supporting the countries involved once American businesses have squeezed everything they can out of the presence of US troops.’
The goal of the US is to wreak havoc in order to squeeze everything possible from a particular country from an economic and resource perspective.
And from a political point of view, it aims to prevent countries and regions from developing in stability and prosperity.”
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Excerpt from remarks by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in an interview with Gleb Ivanov, April 12, 2024.
Full Metal Jacket | Group Reaction | Movie Review
What are the most epic failures in history?
“Guys, I just developed this bulletproof liquid. The Germans won’t be able to kill us now!”
These words were said by Kinjekitile Ngwale, a Tanzanian witchdoctor (and the hero of this story). But first, understand what was going on in Tanzania at that time.(It was called Tanganyika)
In the late 1800s, Britain, Germany, Portugal, Belgium and France storm into Africa, grabbing as much land as they can in the name of colonialism. The Germans in particular enter Tanganyika and claim it as their own.
See those two Africans holding the dead animal? Yeah, those are slaves.
See, Germans are efficient. Instead of bringing in labour from their country, which was a tedious affair, they forced indigenous tribes to work for them. They also imposed heavy taxation on them, because why not.
Naturally, those tribes were not happy.
So what do you do when some white guys take your livestock and steal your women?
Simple. You REBEL AGAINST THOSE ASSHATS!
That’s where our valiant revolutionary, Mr. Kinjekitile Ngwale, comes in. He told his fellow Africans that he was a prophet sent by the ancestors to get rid of the Germans. So he became the leader of the rebellion. Just like that.
One tiny problem though…the Germans had GUNS. Lots of guns. The Africans only had spears and arrows. If you’ve ever played rock paper scissors you know how it feels when you put paper and everyone puts scissors. That’s how the Africans felt.
So Mr. Kinjekitile Ngwale came up with an idea…
Using his extensive knowledge as a witchdoctor, he mixed water, castor oil, and millet seeds. He claimed the concoction, when applied on the body, would turn the German bullets into water, essentially rendering them bullet proof. The African tribes applied this liquid and charged straight to the nearest German base, confident of their leader’s magic.
As soon as the Germans saw the Africans approaching, they…well…read this excerpt:
Several thousand Maji warriors, led by a spirit medium, marched toward the Reich’s compound at Mahenge. As soon as the rebels were within firing range, soldiers, backed by two machine guns, laid down a lethal fire. Row upon row of Maji warriors marched toward the guns, but were cut down.Hundreds were killed or wounded before breaking off the engagement.
Kinjeketile was later captured and hanged by the Germans for ‘treason’. Despite his grand bullet proof mishap, he is still considered a hero for stirring nationalism among the Tanzanians.
The US has secretly offered a stunning array of concessions to Ansarallah to halt its naval operations in support of Gaza – to no avail.
APR 11, 2024
By Khalil Nasrallah
We favor a diplomatic solution. We know that there is no military solution.
– US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking
In a special briefing on 3 April – nearly six months after Yemen launched its far-reaching naval operations to debilitate Israel’s ability to conduct war on Gaza – US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking touted the importance of seeking diplomatic solutions in Yemen
instead of the military ones his government has been loudly advocating for months.
Lenderking’s stance contrasted sharply with Washington’s announcement in December of a multinational coalition against Yemen’s Ansarallah-led forces, aimed at safeguarding international shipping in the Red Sea and effectively protecting Israeli-linked trade from Yemen’s sweeping naval blockade.
But as tensions heighten and regional allies have hesitated
to join the US–UK coalition in fear of direct Yemeni retaliatory strikes, the US and its allies have quietly sought to entice Sanaa into negotiations through offers conveyed by Omani and other international mediators who maintain ties with Yemen’s de facto government in Sanaa.
Lenderking’s position may, in fact, reflect an astounding set of private US promises made via intermediaries to Ansarallah behind closed doors – pledges that essentially tick every box on the resistance movement’s wish list.
‘Stop your Gaza support, and we will give you everything’
Informed Yemeni sources reveal to The Cradle that the US offered Sanaa – in exchange for its neutrality in the ongoing Gaza war – “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy.”
This would involve severely reducing the role of the Saudi-backed Presidential Council led by Rashid al-Alimi and accelerating the signing of a roadmap with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to end the aggression against Yemen.
The sources further reveal that the Americans pledged to immediately release withheld Yemeni public sector salaries from the National Saudi Bank, lift the country’s siege entirely, reopen Sanaa Airport, ease restrictions on the port of Hodeidah, and facilitate a comprehensive prisoner exchange agreement with all involved parties.
In terms of reconstruction, the sources say:
[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza.
Despite these tempting offers, which have been the subject of negotiations between Sanaa and Riyadh for over two years, the Yemenis remained steadfast. Ansarallah leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi’s consistent position, as reiterated in his speeches, has been to continue operations as long as Israeli aggression against Gaza persists.
Ansarallah’s ‘military negotiation’
From the outset, marked by Israel’s declaration of a state of war following the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood operation, Sanaa threw its weight behind the Palestinian resistance, launching comprehensive drone and ballistic missile attacks against the southern Israeli-occupied port city of Umm al-Rashrash, known as Eilat.
In response to the Yemeni salvos and interception attempts by US warships, Washington initiated a campaign of threats against Sanaa, which in turn demanded an immediate cessation of aggression against Gaza as a precondition for halting its military operations. Their exact words to the Americans were: “We are not within the circle of those you dictate to.”
Matters only intensified as Ansarallah began deploying previously unused naval strategies – not even utilized against Yemen’s aggressors, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in nine years of battles – with al-Houthi vowingto obstruct Israeli ships in the Red Sea.
This strategy was actualized days later on 19 November, when Yemeni naval commandos stormed an Israeli-linked vessel, the Galaxy Leader, and its crew, redirecting the ship to Yemeni shores.
This daring naval action prompted the US to pursue dual strategies: the first, involving intimidation and preparation for a naval coalition to support Israel, and the second, encouraging diplomatic engagements through Arab and international mediators to halt Sanaa’s impactful naval operations.
Sanaa’s leadership not only dismissed these overtures but expanded the naval blockade to include non-Israeli vessels en route to Israeli ports and extended their theater of operations as far as the Indian Ocean– to cut off Israel’s “alternative long route” shipments.
Yemen’s firm refusal to succumb to either enticement or intimidation led the US and the UK to initiate aggressive military operations against the war-torn Persian Gulf state three months ago, aiming to neutralize the Yemeni threat and halt maritime attacks in support of Gaza under the guise of protecting maritime navigation freedom.
As a countermeasure, Sanaa escalated its military response by expanding operations to target not only US and British ships but also introducing advanced weaponry into its arsenal.
This included the sinking of the British cargo ship Rubymar, attacking other vessels, and broadening the theater of operations to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean – a strategic move to ramp up pressure on those executing the brutal war on Gaza.
Yemen’s military checkmate
In light of the current situation, where the US has acknowledged the futility of its military strategy and is clamoring to devise a diplomatic solution, Sanaa has clearly demonstrated its relevance to any and all West Asian geopolitical calculations.
Its stunning achievements of the past six months include Sanaa’s ability to disrupt the Israeli economy by cutting off or lengthening trade routes for Israel’s essential imports. This can be seen most notably in Eilat, where the operational disruption of Israel’s southernmost port has led to significant job cuts by the port’s operating company and paralyzed shipping entirely.
Ansarallah has also thwarted retaliatory measures by the west’s most celebrated naval forces, made a mockery of their ramshackle “coalition,” and created complex challenges for US hegemonic ambitions in the Persian Gulf, both presently and in the long term.
Moreover, Yemen has showcased remarkable political and military maneuverability, demonstrating that a single resolved Arab state can provide the Palestinian resistance with a potent negotiating tool.
Importantly, through its military operations in the region’s waterways, Sanaa has solidified its position within the Axis of Resistance, transforming into one of the most effective forces in the Axis’ Unity of Fronts strategy. All, while drawing British and American naval assets into vulnerable – and unwinnable – positions and successfully hindering Israel’s shipping connections with the world.
A rising regional power
According to al-Houthi’s most recent count, Yemen’s numerous military operations have launched over 520 missiles and drones to target naval assets and areas in southern Israel. Ninety vessels have been targeted to date, with 34 operations conducted only between 4–5 March using 125 ballistic and winged missiles and drones.
In contrast, the US and UK have launched nearly 500 raids since their ill-conceived naval coalition began ops, resulting in the martyrdom of nearly forty Yemenis.
Six months into the war, Yemen continues to demonstrate its strategic capabilities on land, in regional waterways, and even in the world’s oceans. Yemeni officials hint at further military “surprises” still to come, which they may deploy depending on Israeli actions in Gaza and the broader region, as well as the actions of its US enabler, which Sanaa views as the most destructive and destabilizing force for West Asia’s security and stability.
Black Sabbath “Heaven and Hell” REACTION & ANALYSIS by Vocal Coach/Opera Singer
Girls often understand what a guy is implying, but they may feign innocence.
Women tend to develop feelings for those who maintain distance from them.
Many women enjoy engaging in what society deems “promiscuous” behavior, yet they recoil from being labeled as such.
When deeply in love, women may exhibit childish tendencies around their partners.
If a woman truly loves a man, she’ll likely inform him when other men attempt to flirt with her.
Cooking for someone often signifies care and affection from a woman.
A woman may choose to be intimate with a man based on his character and identity.
Beware of the woman whose father was the first to break her heart; she may have deep-seated trust issues.
Green Chile Ground Beef Burritos
Burritos with a ground beef filling are a favorite in our family.
green chile burrito
Ingredients
2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, diced
2 (4 ounce) cans diced green chiles
3 cups water
4 cloves garlic, pressed
3 to 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour*
1 to 2 cups water*
1 can El Pato tomato sauce*
Instructions
Brown ground beef; add onion and garlic and toss until onion is soft.
Add green chiles.
Sprinkle flour over it to make a crumbly mix.
Add water and El Pato to desired thickness. Simmer.
Serve on warm tortillas, with any topping you like…sour cream, salsa, cheese, cilantro, jalapeños, etc.
Notes
* or use 1 can El Pato green enchilada sauce – or use homemade
My boyfriend broke up with me because I told him I wanted to wait. Is it my fault for denying his “needs”? He is 21 and I’m 19, we had been dating for a year and a half now.
You’ve been dating him for a year and a half at age 19, and told him that you still want to wait — that is your right. You get to decide who you want to have sex with, and when, and that includes the right to wait for as long as you want, or even to never have sex at all if that is your wish.
He, on the other hand, clearly wanted sex to be part of his relationship, and after waiting for you for a year and a half, he found he could no longer be happy in a sexless relationship, and what you are offering is not what he wants — so he did the rational thing and left you in order to search for a partner that has desires more in line with his.
Many of the other answers here place blame on him, and for example claim that if he truly loved you, he’d be willing to wait, or that clearly he was only interested in getting laid. Such allegations are unjust, it’s quite possible to genuinely love someone, but still to realize that you have to leave because the two of you aren’t compatible. And accusing someone of only wanting to get laid after staying in a sexless relationship with you for a year and a half is utterly unreasonable. (in addition to that, there is NOTHING wrong with wanting sex as part of a relationship and being unwilling to stay in sexless relationships.)
But other answers place blame on you and say for example that it’s “selfish” for a woman to refuse to sleep with her partner. This is nonsense. Sex should be mutual and pleasurable and wanted by everyone involved, and is not some kind of service that women should “provide” to men if you’re not into it. Your body is your own, and you should say yes to sex when you genuinely want to, and only then.
Neither of you are to blame. You want different things, so you’re not compatible with each other, and you’re likely both better off looking for a partner that shares your ideas about what a relationship should be like.
What are some things that psychologists know, but most people don’t?
You have a desperate need for mental engagement. You are starving but then you suddenly see the new trailer of Sherlock Holmes. Before you know it, hours have passed without any sensation of hunger.
Sleeping in a cold room can help you slim down. According to research conducted by commonwealth university, just one month of sleeping in a 66-degree room helped increase the subject’s fat-burning ability by 10%.
The researcher found that you can read faster with a single wide column, but still, people prefer shorter lines & multiple columns.
You Quit in 2 situations
When a challenge is tougher and you have beginner-level skills.
When you have advanced-level skills and the challenge is too easy.
All your habits of thinking & acting are stored in your subconscious mind. Even just thinking about doing something different from what you’re accustomed to, will make you feel tense and uneasy.
The research found that for each hour a person between the ages of 40 and 59 spends watching TV, their risk of developing Alzheimer’s increases by 1.3 %.
Listening to high-frequency music makes you feel relaxed, calm, and happy.
Fake smiles can hurt you. The researcher looked at the behaviour of bus drivers, & found that these people withdraw from their work by putting smiles for show & it has long term deleterious health effects.
Psychologists found that people struggling to make complex decisions did best when they were distracted and were not able to think consciously about the choice at all.
What you Gain from this space by becoming its member.
No more random motivational screenshots & one-liner answers, you will get facts that are backed up by the latest research papers.
Now you don’t need to waste your valuable time on understanding the difficult terms of a research paper.
No Bullshit, pure research-based information with real references which you can check by yourself.
China takes a hard line with Yellen
The fact that Lavrov met with Xi while Yellen was there speaks volumes !
“In light of the recent aggressive statements by the French political leaders, who openly announced plans to send troops to Ukraine, I should like to bring up the anniversary of a crushing defeat that Paris sustained in Vietnam, which marked the beginning of the collapse of the French colonial empire.
We believe that remembering those events should be a warning for all those in the Elysee Palace who have been literally haunted by Napoleon’s shadow these days.
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, often referred to as the Vietnamese Stalingrad, claimed thousands of lives.
The brutal confrontation took place from March 13 to May 7, 1954 and marked a turning point in the eight-year war between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and France’s colonial forces.
In 1946-1954, France, supported by Washington, unleashed the Indochina War in a bid to maintain its influence in the region after World War II.
It should be specifically noted that the French colonial troops were a motley mix of foreign legionnaires, mercenaries of all stripes, including Nazi fugitives hiding from trial and hoping to start over with a clean slate with Paris’s help.
However, they dirtied it again, as the brutality of their methods had no limit.
Just like the Americans who came to the Vietnamese land later, what they did was close to scorched-earth tactics.
For 54 days, the Vietnamese revolutionary army demonstrated extraordinary military valour in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. They also appeared exceptionally skilled in the art of war.
In fact, it became so bad that the French soldiers hastily left their positions as soon as they heard that the Vietnamese were advancing.
The decisive phase of the battle, the general assault, began on May 1.
By that time, the garrison’s morale was close to rack bottom – the French were in panic.
The total death toll was over 2,000 killed on the French side. Nearly 12,000 French troops were captured – only a few managed to escape from Dien Bien Phu.
The most capable French troops in Vietnam – paratroopers and legionnaires – almost ceased to exist.
The surrender of the French garrison of Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954 finally broke the morale of the French command, extinguishing any faith or hope for a good ending of the war in Vietnam.
Before the start of active operations, the hawks in Paris boasted they would ‘defeat the crowd of Vietnamese peasants armed with flintlock rifles and bamboo sticks in just a couple of weeks.’
Along with a crushing military defeat, France suffered high reputational losses, as its international influence as a former member of the anti-Hitler coalition fell dramatically.
The very next day after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, ceasefire talks began in Geneva.
The war ended with a convincing victory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the withdrawal of French troops in July 1954.
Ten years later, in 1964, remembering that defeat, French President Charles de Gaulle warned US President Lyndon Johnson against a military operation in Vietnam, prophetically calling it a very risky venture.
But France then had an independent voice and the capacity to pursue an independent foreign policy.”
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Photo: Vietnamese President Hồ Chí Minh and members of the Party Central Committee (from left to right: Phạm Văn Đồng, Trường Chinh, and General Võ Nguyên Giáp) convened to decide the opening of the 1953-1954 Winter-Spring Offensive and the Điện Biên Phủ Campaign. The meeting took place in Phú Đình Commune, Định Hóa District, Thái Nguyên Province, in 1953.
Excerpt from remarks by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova during the briefing, April 10, 2024. Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Is it possible for China to use its anti-ship ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21D, to attack US carriers at sea if needed?
The worst case for the US is that the US starts a war and all US ships within 2,000 miles of the China will be sunk.
Not only does China has the DF-21 which has a range of 1,200 miles. That is actually a medium range ASBM. It hit Mach 10 at terminal phase. China also has DF-26, which hits Mach 18 at terminal phase.
China is now onto their second generation hypersonic wave glider. These are even scarier than the ASBMs. As they come in at a hundred feet above the Ocean surface. At Mach 8 for the one type and Mach 12 for the second type.
The second generations has a range of almost 5,000 MILES. In other words, it can hit Hawaii and ships on the other side of Hawaii, towards the CA coast.
So yeah, the US should not be messing with China as the Chinese can sink all US ships in the Western Pacific if they want to.
Carne Asada Guacamole Cheese Burrito
carne asada guacamole cheese burrito
Cook: 1 hr 30 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Carne Asada
1 pound sirloin steaks
1/4 cup coconut sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Guacamole
2 ripe avocados
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 small jalapeño, seeds removed and finely minced
1 tablespoon lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Burrito
4 burrito size tortillas
1 cup shredded cheese (Cheddar, Monterey Jack or a blend)
Optional
Fresh cilantro leaves
Limes, cut into wedges
Instructions
Marinate the Carne Asada. In a shallow dish, combine the soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper. Place the steak in the marinade, turning to coat it evenly. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or preferably overnight, to allow the flavors to meld.
Cut the avocados in half, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh into a bowl. Mash the avocados with a fork until it reaches your desired consistency (chunky or smooth).
Add the diced red onion, chopped cilantro, minced jalapeño, lime juice, salt, and pepper to the mashed avocados. Mix everything together until well combined. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
Heat grill or stovetop grill pan over medium-high heat. Remove the marinated steak from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
Grill the steak for about 4 to 5 minutes per side, or until it reaches 145 degrees F for medium rare or your desired level of doneness. Transfer the grilled steak to a cutting board and let it rest for a few minutes before slicing it thinly against the grain.
Heat the tortillas in a dry skillet or over an open flame until they become warm and pliable. On each tortilla, place a generous amount of cheese. Add a few slices of the grilled Carne Asada on top of the guacamole. Garnish with fresh cilantro.
Serve the Carne Asada Guacamole Cheese Tacos immediately with lime wedges on the side for squeezing over the tacos.
This recipe is an excellent source of Protein, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin (NE), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Selenium, and Zinc. It is a good source of Potassium, Iron, and Choline.
What are the strangest things you’ll find in a desert?
Imagine being lost in the desert, desperate for water. Crawling through the sand. Praying to find something.
Your hike went wrong and now you can’t find anyone. You are sure you’ve gone miles in the wrong direction.
You lay in the sand. Waiting to die.
Then.
You hear a phone ring.
That’s right. A phone. There are phone booths in the middle of deserts – sometimes.
One such phone booth was situated in the Mojave Desert, 12 miles from the nearest type of pavement.
A man, Godfrey Daniels, read in a magazine, about this strange desert phone booth.
He then became obsessed with this phone booth. Who calls this phone booth? What is it for? How? What? Why? What does it all mean?
Who would answer a phone booth in the middle of nowhere?
He then began calling this phone booth every single day. Trying to find out who would answer.
Every day, he got up, he called the booth. Then, later in the day, he called again. This continued for months.
Eventually, he called and it was busy. This was a major breakthrough. It meant someone was using the phone!!!
He waited a few minutes. Then he called again. Still busy. Waited a few minutes – called again.
A woman picked up.
They talked for a bit. She was a local miner who occasionally used this phone booth. That’s all she knew.
He then made a website about this mysterious phone booth. And people from all over the country started calling it, wondering who would answer if they decided to call the desert.
(Source: The Mojave Phone Booth. Betsy Malloy.)
This phone booth took on this mystical status in American sub-culture for a brief time in the late 1990s, referred to as “The loneliest phonebooth on earth.” It became a minor spiritual destination.
LA Times reporter John Gigliorma made a journey out to the booth and met all sorts of people that arrived for any number of reasons, boredom, curiosity, spiritual journeys, adventure – as it would be like visiting mars, wanting proof it existed, wanting to see who would call them while they were there.
He even met a man, Rick Karr, who said he’d been commanded by God to go answer the phone. Karr spent 32 days camped out by the booth answering phone calls. (Source: Reaching Way Out. LA Times. Glionna, James)
Eventually, the chaos got to be out of hand and the park service requested the phone booth be removed as it was creating litter and a safety hazard as randoms from the internet had no business being in this extreme region (also home to Death Valley).
In turn, the phone company had it taken out.
But then –
Someone came and put a gravestone commemorating the Phone booth.
But the gravestone started to attract more trouble as people began arriving from all directions to pay tribute.
The park service eventually had the gravestone removed as well and that concluded the legacy of this magic phone booth.
RIP Mojave Phone Booth.
What sentence has someone said to you that is still stuck in your head?
Around 1988, our strict Muslim, much older next door neighbor signaled me to come into her home. I noticed that she had nervously glanced around before extending the invitation, and rushed me inside before closing the door.
During our brief visit, she talked of being a pediatrician in Iran before the Shah fell. She also mentioned she needed two items for the meal she was preparing, but she had to wait for her son to return to take her to a nearby grocery. It was a gorgeous California day, and failing to remember what I had learned about strict Islamic doctrine from two Iranian college friends, I offered to walk with her to the store. She recoiled in horror, so I changed my offer to drive her. Her response remained mortified, her countenance stiff, her eyes glaring at me.
Several uncomfortable moments passed; I decided I should leave and started to rise from my chair. She grabbed my arm, gripping it tightly and quietly said:
“You are proof there is hope for the rest of us.”
I consider her statement among the most profound ever said to me.
Western Woman DISRESPECTS Passport Bros, INSTANTLY Regrets It!
I have a question for you all. I know that fads come and go, but why doesn’t anyone still enjoy these fads from the 1970’s? I don’t know, but I would like to poll the readership. Do any of you still have one of these items in your household?
Platform Shoes: Platform shoes, particularly those with exaggerated heels and soles, were a fashionable trend among teenagers, especially in the disco scene. These shoes were often worn by both genders and were seen as a symbol of style and confidence.
Mood Rings: Mood rings, which purportedly changed color based on the wearer’s emotions, gained popularity during this time. Teenagers embraced the trend, wearing mood rings as a form of self-expression and amusement.
Waterbeds: Waterbeds became a symbol of counterculture and alternative living in the mid-1970s. Many teenagers embraced the trend, viewing waterbeds as a cool and unconventional form of bedroom furniture.
Bean Bag Chair: A bean bag chair is a large, typically soft chair filled with small polystyrene beads (“beans”) or similar filling material. It is designed to conform to the shape of the person sitting in it, providing a comfortable and relaxed seating experience. Bean bag chairs became popular in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the broader counterculture movement.
Lava Lamp: A lava lamp is a type of decorative lamp consisting of a translucent glass vessel filled with a colored, oily liquid and wax that flows and moves in a mesmerizing, lava-like manner when heated. The mesmerizing, slow-moving blobs of wax floating in the colorful liquid became synonymous with the psychedelic aesthetic of the 1960s and 1970s, and lava lamps remain popular as retro decorative items and conversation pieces to this day. They are often used in bedrooms, living rooms, and recreational spaces to create a relaxing and ambient atmosphere.
Macramé ; Macramé of the 1970s refers to a popular crafting technique that involves creating decorative textiles using knotting techniques. This craft reached the height of its popularity during the 1970s and became closely associated with the bohemian and hippie counterculture movements of the time.
They came…
The went.
Now are mostly FORGOTTEN.
What about you?
Today…
What advice would you give to a person who takes life too seriously?
I remember I was in College making fun of a bunch of nerds, “What’s going on with those guys? Why do they take life so seriously?”
I was a terrible student and by criticizing them I was hiding my lack of competitiveness. I thought “I was enjoying life,” but the deeper truth was I was not facing my reality.
It took me years to understand that by criticizing others I was hiding my own pain, trying to find “allies” of my own misery.
So, to answer your question, this is what you can tell them:
“Hey dude, relax, take it easy, good things come for those who wait! Look at me, I enjoy life. Why worry?”
And most likely you will get an answer like this:
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By the way, I do take life seriously.
Why?
Because I’ve tried living in the “relaxed” mode and the results were painful.
I learned that while I can live relaxed avoiding my reality, it’s a matter of time that life kicks-in.
Which reality?
I don’t know about you, but I hate the feeling of losing my freedom. Freedom of living life on my own terms, not living life on the terms of others. I hate living in debt, not being able to do what I want, work on whatever I want, travel or give my family everything I dream of.
So,I choose to take life seriously. For me it’s a winner’s mindset and lifestyle.
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As a result I assume responsibility for my family and my life and act accordingly. I hate mediocrity and have decided to set the bar high for my life and live my life to the fullest.
Today I have the privilege to relax and do whatever I want, whenever I want to. I’m in control, but it didn’t happen until I took my life seriously. There are NO shortcuts.
Who is the most immature adult you’ve ever met?
I had a roommate who had no common sense. She honestly didn’t know things that children would know. It wasn’t her fault, she came from a very wealthy family. They wanted her to be a tennis pro, so they sent her to private schools throughout her life. She was on my university’s tennis team and she was very good. Her parents had paid for her to live in a dorm on campus her first three years of college. By the time she reached her senior year of college, she’d never done anything for herself in her life. She was 22. That’s when I met her.
I put an ad out online because the person me and my other roommate had previously lived with graduated the semester before and moved out. A girl named Hannah replied to the ad. She was cute and nice so we let her sign a contract and move in with us.
Sometimes I felt like I was raising an 8 year old, living with her.
She kept not paying rent. I’d get a notice from the landlord saying a portion of the rent hadn’t been paid. I’d tell my roommate she needed to pay and she’d pay immediately. This happened for three months in a row. Finally, I said “Hannah, I’m not your mom. I can’t remind you to pay rent every month. You need to do it yourself.” Her eyes got really big. She said “Oh, I didn’t know that rent had to be paid at a certain time every month.”
She used to make giant pots of soup and leave them on the stove for days, unrefrigerated. I got concerned and told her she shouldn’t eat something that had been sitting out uncovered for three days. She was confused. I had to explain to her how she’d probably get very sick and food can go bad if it’s not refrigerated properly or not eaten for too long.
After that, my other friend left some soup in our fridge that she wanted to come back and pick up the next day. When I came home the next day, Hannah was eating it. I said “Hannah, why are you eating my friends soup? She said she was going to pick it up today.” Hannah replied, “Well I took the soup out of the fridge and left it on the counter because I knew she was going to come pick it up. But she didn’t come for a while, so I figured the soup was going bad like you told me, so I thought I’d eat it.” I just replied “Why didn’t you just leave it in the fridge until she arrived?” Hannah apparently never thought of that.
Once some mice invaded our home. Hannah left her food in the cupboards uncovered, like her rice and cereal. I told her she had to box them up or the mice would get in her food and poop in it and make her sick. She tied some rubber bands around some of her food but that was it. I had to secure all of her food for her because I worried about her, and I wanted the mice gone.
Another time, we went on a hike together and saw a tent made to look like a teepee in the forest. She asked “Do you think pilgrims live in there?” I’m pretty sure she meant Amish people, but either way, I was dumbfounded.
Up to a year after we were roommates, she would call me asking me about random bills that got charged to her that didn’t relate to me at all. I couldn’t believe some of the stuff she got into just because she had no common sense.
The thing is, she was pretty book smart. She got good grades in her major. She was amazing at tennis which takes intelligence. She just had zero common sense. I had never met someone like that before. I was basically her caretaker all year. She was super sweet and I liked her, but wow did I get annoyed with her sometimes.
Anyways, she’s probably going to become a pro tennis player now. She’ll have a coach or enough money to have other people handle her life for her, so I think she’s going to turn out okay.
Give me a fucking break
What was the absolute most disrespectful thing a customer ever said to you, and what did you do?
“Listen b*tch, i’ll burn this place down one night with you inside it”!
I used to work as a supervisor, in a department collecting outstanding debts for a truck company. If debts became very overdue they were passed on to me to make a final try before going legal.
One customer, let’s call him Dan from Dan’s Transport, was extremely aggressive. He would be rude and swear constantly, and (I believe) he was one of those people who thought others would back down if they were threatened. I had spoken to him before, many times, so I knew what to expect, and he didn’t let me down. (I had worked in the trucking business for around twenty years by that time, so swearing and crass comments and behavior were par for the course). I told him this was the final call before the debt was sent out for collection, and that he had untll Friday to make a substantial payment against his debt. He went ballistic, effing and blinding, and eventually slammed the ‘phone down on me, and I thought ‘that went well’.
A couple of days later I get a call from reception saying that Dan had arrived and was asking for me. I had been having a really bad day and was fed up to the gills, and I thought this was the last bloody straw. So I went to collect him to take back to our department. When I got there I was met by a guy that must have been around 6′ 7″ and built like a brick sh*thouse. He was aggressive from the off and said he wanted to speak to me in an office – just the two of us. Now I should have felt intimidated or scared. I should have said “no way”. I should have called security, but no, I felt completely calm and just thought bring it on big fella.
As soon as we entered the office he stood right over me, and ranted and raged about what I could do with my effing threat of legal action, and he said “if you were a man I’d punch your effing lights out”. To which I said “Fair enough, so have you come to pay some of your debt or not? Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Who knew? He went crazy and started to make threats, ending with “Listen b*tch, I’ll burn this place down one night with you inside it!” and (I couldn’t help myself) I started laughing!
I said sarcastically “One, I don’t work nights. Two, we have security and a vicious guard dog on duty every night who would love the chance to get at you. Also, when the police arrive they will ask who would do such a thing to your company? and we’ll say “Oh, let’s see now, probably Dan from Dan’s Transport because he said he would do it”. Maybe I’m wrong but I think you should re-think your plan love?
You know what happened then? He started laughing too. He was used to tough men backing down from him, and a p*ssed off woman, who was only holding onto her own control by a thread, had called him out on his stupid threats and he was impressed. He told me that. He then got a wad of cash out of his pocket and paid half his debt, and said he would clear the balance by the end of the month, which he did. After this meeting he would always insist on dealing with me directly and we got on well, and he always paid his account … eventually.
How I see the US after living abroad for 5 years
If a random person came up to you in the street, ready to fight and asked you “What the F are you looking at” How or what would you do in response?
This might sound crazy, but this happened to me three times in the 1990’s. Twice in a bar and once at an all night diner sorta like Denny’s in Blufield,WVA.
All three times some drunk guy just walked up to me and said something like,” I don’t like you and I’m gonna kick your ass”.
My response, all three times was, “ okay man, if that’s what you want to do, but just tell me first, why do you want to kick my ass?”
All three times it led to the person saying…”I don’t know, I just want to”..and within a minute or two, we were sitting talking and they decided they were now ok with me.
The third one in West Virginia…was strange cuz I was sitting in a booth, the first booth in the restaurant, when this obviously very drunk guy came up to me and said that he wanted to kick my ass. I responded as I do and next thing I know, he pulls up in the booth and starts crying and trying to tell me his problems.
The waitresses were apologizing to me about him and trying to get him to leave, when eventually his wife and mother or mother-in-law came, got him and apologized profusely for him bothering me.
I figured out a long time ago to be meek and not to act like a bad ass. The Bible tells us to be meek, have self control, be patient, have charity.
Why This Modern Woman Keeps Her Baby Daddies Away From Her Family – You Won’t Believe The Reason!
What if someone shows evidence of Chinese government officials detaining millions of Uighurs in concentration camps under the false pretense of “re-education” to the Chinese Communist Party?
The Chinese themselves openly confirmed this didn’t they?
They openly said they were detaining Uyghur families who were supporting the ETIM and had a role in the 2007/8 terrorist incidents and other separatist factions
They openly established Re Education camps where Uyghurs were detained
The Camps are now closed. The last camp was closed in 2020 after Covid when they took a decision that 9 years was enough
And it’s not millions
It’s around 100K-120K people
They are on home surveillance now for 15 years
All this is available on People’s Daily
They agreed they were detaining and re educating these Uyghurs
They themselves said so before anyone else did
The Allegations against the Chinese were not of Detention of and Re Education of Terror suspects or ETIM sympathisers
It was
Genocide of Uygur People
Slave Labor of all Uyghur People
The Allegations were of Death or Extermination Camps where Uyghurs were enslaved and killed
These are Total Lies
The Locations shared by Google Earth were visited in detail by many UN Officials and close to 1000 reporters from over 50 Countries including 14 Islamic ones
Not a shred of evidence
A Camp leaves some sign
The Nazi death camps had signs for decades
Likewise Slave Labor is a myth
This has been proven conclusively over and over again
Why would a region import Harvesters worth $ 15 Billion if they aimed to have cotton pickers?
Now the Narrative is CULTURAL GENOCIDE
God knows what the next will be
China is no longer fire fighting and waiting for the next accusation to prove
They are simply opening up Xinjiang and saying “SEE FOR YOURSELF”
The US is desperately dialling back and forbidding Americans to visit Xinjiang
Always a bad move because Americans HATE to be DENIED anything and that makes them all the more determined to visit the place themselves
American Reacts To How Has Your Concept Of Freedom Changed, As An American Living Abroad? | Part 1
Freedom propaganda.
Why are Americans so much smarter than Europeans, especially British people?
You won’t like this answer but…..
In the UK there is a long running television program called university challenge where teams of students from each university in the country battle it out to become the cleverest university for the year on TV.
A similar program used to exist and for all I know may still do in the US called college bowl.
Some years ago now a British university was invited to a college bowl episode to compete against an American team.
The organisers rather arrogantly gave the British team a head start by giving them a number of points, presumably because they thought the British team might not be so familiar with the American TV show or maybe the American centric questions that might arise.
The contest began and the British team went on to thoroughly rout, Indeed, totally spank the American team to the extent that even without the head start they had been given. The difference in scores was truly embarrassing.
This contest was never repeated and I have struggled to find any reference to it on YouTube or elsewhere. That episode seems to have been eradicated from history.
I think I have answered the question.
Chicken and Dumpling Casserole
Yield: 6 servings
chicken dumplings
Ingredients
Chicken
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry basil
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 cups chicken broth
1 (10 ounce) package frozen peas
4 cups cooked chicken, cubed
Dumplings
2 cups buttermilk biscuit mix
2 teaspoons dried basil
2/3 cup milk
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish.
Chicken: In a large kettle melt butter and sauté onions, celery, and garlic until tender.
Add flour, sugar, salt, basil, pepper and chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Boil a minute then add chicken and frozen peas.
Pour into prepared pan.
Dumplings: Combine biscuit mix, basil and milk. Stir until moistened and use spoon to drop dumplings onto casserole (12 dumplings).
Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.
Cover and bake 10 minutes more or until dumplings are done.
Apparently Women Are Facing An UNPRECEDENTED Crisis of Loneliness
Why is it so difficult for British people to learn foreign languages but foreign people can learn English so efficiently? What are they doing which us Brits are not?
A few years ago, I went to a restaurant in the Algarve. Because I am tall and blonde, the waiter immediately spoke to me in English. I replied in Portuguese, and kept speaking Portuguese all through the meal and in all my interactions.
At the end of the meal, the waiter asked if I would mind answering a question. He said they were taking bets in the kitchen about my nationality, with some thinking I was Dutch, others thought I was Italian, perhaps German, but obviously I couldn’t be English or American because I spoke Portuguese. However, I had a foreign accent they couldn’t place.
“I’m English” I told him. He was amazed… English people are renowned for their lack of languages.
Now, years later, Portugal is full of English speakers who think Portuguese is too difficult and anyway, nearly everyone speaks English. Indeed, they complain vociferously when they don’t.
English speakers don’t have early exposure to other languages via TV, films and music. We’re just not used to hearing foreign languages, and certainly don’t need to speak them. The idea persists that learning another language is difficult. Getting our tongues round those foreign sounding words is hard and we resist certain sounds as being just too weird.
In schools, teaching used to be fairly diabolical, in my experience, with English-accented teachers wanting us to listen and repeat foreign phrases mindlessly, without real social meaning and context.
When I arrived in Portugal, I didn’t have any real idea about how to learn a language. But I was really determined to try. My husband was Portuguese and I wanted to become part of life in the country. So I did.
When I visited my old school and told them about where I was living and admitted to being fluent in Portuguese, the old teachers said “Aren’t you clever!” As if I had done something extraordinary, although it is not, actually. In the rest of the world, acquiring second languages is commonplace.
Have you ever accidentally asked somebody out on a date?
I once asked my colleague who sat behind the cubicle, “You want date?”
It was late evening on the office in Jakarta. We were discussing about annual Eid holiday plan, when I asked the question out of the blue. She went silent for quite long, maybe surprised, and spoke very slowly, “Err… yes…”
I was a bit confused with the reaction, and then she continued, “What time?”
It took us around five seconds to realize the misunderstanding.
Both of us were sitting completely silent separated by the cubicles. I did not dare to stand up and looked to the next cubicle because it would be awkward. What I tried to offer her is a pack of date fruit which is pretty common during Ramadan month before the Eid holiday. I decided to just shove the fruit box from above the cubicle separator, told her “here you are”, and she grabbed it.
And still, silence.
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Damn. It was awkward.
To this day, I believe she still wonders whether I pranked her.
Lesson learned, next time use Bahasa Indonesia instead of broken Asian English.
What are some sad truths about life?
Chris Langan was born with a freakishly potent brain, having arguably the highest IQ of any living person.
Langan began speaking at six months old and went on to skip several grades. He had an adult vocabulary by age 10. He breezed through college-level tests as an adolescent. He took his SAT several years early and got a perfect score in half the allotted time and took a nap.
Today, he is a rancher. He never finished college. Most of his adult years were spent as a bouncer at a bar, and in manual labor jobs.
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It all stemmed from his rough childhood. He grew up in a poor family. His mother married multiple times before he turned 12. One stepfather committed suicide. Another was psychopathic and abusive.
His stark upbringing created behavioral problems and a persisting contempt for authority. Combine this with inadequate mentorship, resources, and an absent professional network and he never weaponized his extremely rare gift.
The sad truth is that there are many like Langan, who are like the gifted child working on a 3rd world farm, born into poverty and dealt a common, cruel blow to the chance of success.
What work secret did you accidentally find out that changed everything?
I worked for a private family-owned company. Business was so good that the company needed additional public share capital to continue . I was doing the ground work (valuation ) in order to proceed with investment advisors to take a company public. My findings were presented to the president in a highly-confidential , private, internal valuation memorandum. I entered the office of the president to discuss my findings and conclusions. He read the three-line summary of the memo. Then he excused himself to his private bathroom. He never returned. His secretary checked on me in ten minutes, found me alone and demanded that I leave immediately.
What happened? the valuation of the company was very much higher than expected. His net worth had exploded in those three lines of the summary. The corporate secret was that he was an alcoholic and that he could not possibly take this corporation public. He could not be trusted in a public environment. The company had a wider culture of long alcohol-laced lunches and no effective board oversite, due to family connections. After a confirming professional valuation, the company was sold to a competitor for cash (at my $$ number) and the entire head office staff, excluding a very few, were laid off. I left before the sale occurred.
Some great open GEN artwork from LeonardoAI
Default An interesting and visually descriptive prompt as a gr 5Default Tshirt Brand logo africans and orixs black and red wri 0Default a hyper realistic color epic cinematography of an accu 3Default An ancient town in China rain fog looking at the lens 3Default Generate a composition inspired by El Grecos dramatic 0Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Trad 0Default Coffee Shop Bossa Nova style cute tables outside cobbl 3Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Bull 0Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Braz 3Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Rura 4Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Geis 4Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Rura 3Default a chinese woman captivates with her rare beauty With 1Default Majestic dragon perched atop a crumbling castle tower 0Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Geis 1Default masterpiece floating character 20 years old boy curly 2Default aryshan idea Wolverine wolf husky German Shepherd 0Default An ultra detailed an ancient Mayan warrior hyper reali 3Default masterpiece best quality Anime14 pastel anime pleiadia 2Default postcard drawn with a brush and thai white headed bird 2Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Geis 2Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Rura 0Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Geis 3Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring Zen 3Default anime girl as a rider anime girl posing standing next 1Default In the center of the image stands Misa Amane depicted 1Default mega realistic highcontrast cinematic still of fenrir 0
Woman Admits Men Are Right About Everything. Modern Women Can’t Find Or Keep A Man
More fun with LeonardoAI
PhotoReal A stunning portrait of a beautiful fairhaired woman 2PhotoReal An astronaut turned into a skull floats in the abyss 1Default Dragon in aslant flight spitting Fire 2Default Martha Hyer 0Default Mangastyle illustration character wearing a longsleeve 3Default marcus aurelius standing on a balcony looking over a c 0(1)AlbedoBase XL Beautiful Elf posing with freckles and glasses 1AlbedoBase XL illusion of a indigenous girl in 100 years later 03D Animation Style Generate a cinematic and sharply focused ph 33D Animation Style man playing video games with keyboard and m 33D Animation Style Cheveux bruns 3Default A smart 20 years boy black hairs laptop in his hand si 1Default Create an AIgenerated image portraying a captivating f 3Default Coffee Shop Bossa Nova style cute tables outside cobbl 0Default aryshan idea Wolverine wolf husky German Shepherd 1Default Imagine the ethereal Lucifer the angel fallen from gra 1Default An ultra detailed realistic digital art featuring serb 4
What is the sleaziest, dirtiest trick an auto insurance company tried to pull on you? Did they succeed?
About 30 years ago I was driving on the freeway at highway speeds. My wife was my passenger. The car behind me was driving rather close to my bumper. Traffic ahead had come to a stop as evidenced by lots of brake lights so I hit my brakes. The car behind me slammed into me causing a total wreck. The police came to assess what happened. The young girl driving the car that hit me claimed I hit my brakes to hard. The officer explained to her she was following too close. The police report clearly stated the accident was her fault.
I was young and driving a “beater”. my car was maybe worth $3,000. I only had basic liability insurance because my car wasn’t worth much. My car itself wasn’t covered. She was insured by State Farm so I filed a claim with her insurance company seeking $3,000. My wife and I had back pain but I didn’t even ask for payment for my medical damages. The State Farm adjuster told me that even though the police report said the accident was their clients fault, they believed their client and would not pay my claim. Oddly, they did not go after me or my insurance company for her damages. When I threatened to sue, the agent laughed and said she doubted I’d find an attorney to take my case.
I in fact did find an attorney. That’s when the State Farm adjuster called me to offer the $3,000 I had originally asked for. I told her to talk to my attorney and pointed out she was wrong for telling me I’d never find an attorney to take my case. State Farm ended up paying over $20,000 for my car, medical bills, attorney fees, and pain and suffering. They chose to deny my claim because most people would have gone away quietly.
Cheez-It Chicken Casserole
Cheez It Chicken Casserole
Ingredients
1 package chicken tenders
Salt
Pepper
1 (8 ounce) carton sour cream
1 box Cheez-It crackers, crushed
1/2 cup melted butter
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Fill casserole dish with boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Spread sour cream over chicken.
Sprinkle crushed Cheez-It crackers over sour cream.
Pour melted butter over Cheez-It crackers.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown.
What can I do to not live in a fast paced life or live in the accelerated pace for the rest of my life?
To escape what is commonly called “the Rat Race”, you will need the following:
permanently assured accommodation that doesn’t depend on high, regular payments to maintain; for example a small house that is fully paid for and where you could always stay and wait out periods between jobs;
savings, so that you aren’t under pressure to bring in money every month in order to survive;
get rid of all debts;
a profession that is versatile and in demand, so that you can find work wherever, whenever, change jobs when you feel like it, and negotiate part time work arrangements; things like nursing, programming, or security might always work;
low bills. Drive an old, but reliable car that never needs fixing, don’t smoke or drink, learn to cook properly and to budget and plan, and do it, and generally avoid an expensive lifestyle.
remain flexible and open minded about what it is you might be doing professionally. Driving forklifts this year, teaching CAD next year, writing ad copy after that… these kinds of hops should not scare you.
give up career thinking. If you are serious about moving up, that kind of lifestyle is unattainable. Relegate yourself to letting someone else be boss, and just do your bit. Ambition is the thing that causes us the most suffering.
decide that you will be happy within that little world you are creating for yourself, and that any adversity you encounter in it will be dealt with, not evaded by giving up and moving away. A little oasis of peace is still something situated in the hostile context of life on this planet, so you need to have a will and the means to maintain and defend it.
I have organised my life in this way a few years ago, and the effects are remarkable. My stress levels have gone down noticeably, various health issues have disappeared, and I am generally a much happier person now.
A life like that doesn’t need to look small and grey, either.
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
There are two and they were both sort of theft. The laundromat in my apartments had a coke machine, 50 cents for a can of soda. This was in the early 90s so I was maybe 10. My friends and I found a particular spot you could punch the machine (not hard, but precision was key) and it would drop 10–20 cents, over and over. Free sodas, sure! But then I started using it for other things, like comics. It didn’t take long for that machine to get replaced.
The other loophole, which I now understand how it worked was one I used at arcades and movie theatres (because they had arcade games). Remember change machines? Specifically the older ones where you laid a bill on a flat metal tray and slid that into the machine, then it gave you 4 quarters. It turns out there is a sensor that reads one corner of the bill to verify and check the denomination, and an arm that grabs the bill to pull it into the machine, but that arm is on the other side of the bill. So, I’d tear off a corner of a bill, place it accordingly, the machine would read it and give me four quarters but it could NOT take that one corner which it had read, so I would turn $1 into $10, given enough time. My mom actually caught me doing that instead of an employee.
American Reacts to Americans Who Moved Abroad, What Are The Things You No Longer Fear? | Part 1
What’s the most enjoyable thing you’ve ever said to a manager as you’ve quit your job?
When I set up a small freelance bureau, my first client was run by a no-nonsense CEO and we agreed on a contract where I got paid for every day I worked in their offices plus a percentage of any new business generated. This worked OK for a couple of years until he put in a new tier of managers to run the company, who were incentivized by the profitability of their accounts.
The new director began a cost-cutting drive about wasting photocopier toner etc. to try and boost the bottom line, but most of all she hated the fact that I cost her money. So after a month or two she told me I needed to switch to a commission-only contract where I got nothing for project delivery and client management, just a percentage on new sales. She told me to present a revised contract reflecting the new reality, which I was happy to do as they had been soaking up too much time, now that I was getting more business from other clients.
She seemed slightly surprised at my pleasant acceptance of what she saw as harsher terms, but I said I could see it made sense for her and I’d bring a new contract in a few days. When I did, she immediately checked the clauses on no payment for on-site time and signed both copies.
A few weeks later, with a healthy order book projected for the next year, she asked the accountant how much she owed me and what it would cost her to get rid of me that Christmas? The accountant looked at the jobs remaining and she told the new director she would probably have to cut me a modest check for about X grand. The director immediately emailed me that she wanted to end our collaboration and I wouldn’t be needed in the new year. I said that was OK and as per our contract I would spend the notice month getting everything in good shape. I spent a few days firming everything up and asked if she could let me know what numbers she was working from so I could make the project list match up.
The accountant sent me her X grand number and I replied with my number which was seven times as high. The accountant said she had agreed X with the director and listed the projects involved that would complete the year’s work. I suggested she tell the director to check her contract and come back with the correct number, which included all the work booked for the following year.
This caused an immediate flurry of action and resistance, which prompted me to alert the CEO and send him a copy of our original contract that I had written , and which had not changed in terms of commissions. He called us into his office like two naughty children and the director said by her calculation she thought I was due X as final commission on items uncompleted by my enforced departure.
I agreed but added that the contract differentiated between commission entitlement – which occurred at time of sale – versus commission draw-down, which happened in stages as project milestones were reached. The only reason I was demanding my full year’s entitlement of 7X up front was because I was fired and had managed during my notice period to get all sales confirmed in writing. Had I not been fired I would have overseen completion of all projects, without charge and been paid the commission in stages as per contract.
The CEO asked for the director’s response, but apart from saying she didn’t agree, she avoided all eye contact. The CEO asked me would I negotiate and I replied I was agreeing to meet in his office rather than in court, where as the author of the contract I was likely to prevail and claim for damages on top.
The CEO closed the meeting and told the director to take me down to accounts and cut me a check for the full amount. Once cleared, I treated myself to a new motorcycle and saved the rest.
With so much unchecked power at the top, how has China sustained its success for so long without falling prey to debilitating corruption? What checks and balances allow Chinese leaders to focus on the country more than individual enrichment?
With so much unchecked power at the top, how has China sustained its success for so long without falling prey to debilitating corruption?
I’m not claiming that there is no corruption in China; I imagine there is. But without freedom of press, without an independent judiciary, and without a democratically elected head of state, what checks and balances allow Chinese leaders to focus on the country more than individual enrichment?
This is a very good question. The OP obviously has a brain.
To quote Holmes, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Well we know that unchecked power always leads to massive corruption, and we know that although corruption is a problem in China, it’s not terribly bad either.
So the logical conclusion is – that the power to engage in corruption is somehow checked in China.
China has a completely different philosophy on power, which is “the more power one has, the higher level of restraints one should live under.” Putting it in practice, it means that…
At the junior government level, you have very limited power, and so you only have the responsibility to follow the rules yourself. If you are wearing an expensive watch and some anonymous citizen takes a picture and sends it to the Party Discipline Committee, then it’s your responsibility to prove that the money comes from legitimate sources.
At the mid-government level, you have much greater power, so you have to report the assets of yourself, and 3 generations of your linear relatives (i.e., your parents, your wife, your children, and their spouses). Any hint of impropriety, and you’ll be put under investigation. Also, if you don’t keep your family and your assets in China, you can’t serve in the government at this level.
At the senior level, it’s per se illegal or corrupt for you to have private meetings with other people. Period. All meetings must be in public and in the presence of other government officials. Your children will have to live under assumed names so that other people don’t know their connections to you. You are expected to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and spend the rest of your time with your family or feed the goldfish or something completely innocuous.
But what about the right to privacy?
Well, what about it?
You signed on to this when you take the job. You don’t have to take the job, but if you do, you have to agree to this.
With great power comes great responsibilities. It’s a matching set.
You have great power, so you have the responsibility to live like a model person.
Sometimes the rules go over the top.
For example, a new rule says that mid-level government officials and above must give the Central Discipline Committee 6-month advanced notice if he’s going to host a wedding for his son or a funeral for his aged parents (so he can be spot-checked for signs of extravagance), with restrictions on the size and participants of these events, and it caused a bit of mumbling, like
“I’m really, really, trying to follow all the rules, but I really can’t predict when my mom is going to die 6-month ahead.”
At which point in time the response is…
“Oh, well, we can be considerate, but why don’t you give us a heads-up when she gets sick or something.”
And the lower level reaction is…
“F*ck.”
Also, China applies a de facto RICO statue to government corruption.
Basically, if I can’t sort out who’s more guilty because you guys won’t talk, then you can all rot in jail for the rest of your lives.
If you take a look at, for example, the Tianjin Explosion that killed 165 people.
A bad industrial accident stemming from poor code enforcement.
So this system may not completely root out corruption, but it makes corruption both hard to do and highly risky.
The truly determined and ingenious ones have to develop some 007-type skill set to engage in corruption.
Not surprisingly, the biggest “fish” caught in the anti-corruption net to-date is the old spymaster of China.
And the risk is not just on the corrupt official personally, but on his family too.
Daddy has to tell little Jimmy “don’t wear that expensive pair of shoes outside ’cause you could land me in jail”.
Things like Clinton’s “I’m just having a private dinner with some Goldman bankers” – that’s per se corruption in China, and you are out of a job even if you only ever talked about weather.
Now if we take a look at the checks and balances listed in your question, i.e., freedom of press, independent judiciary, democratically elected head of state.
If they work so well, why do we have 2008 meltdown, the Iraq invasion, the missing WMD, Iran-Contra, the Congress throwing money at the Military when even the Pentagon says “we don’t want it”, all the Wikileaks stuff coming out during the campaign, etc. …
…and not a single person is ever punished in any shape or form?
Well obviously these checks and balances don’t work so well.
The higher the elites go, the bigger moat they get to build around themselves.
The best moat money and power can buy.
And if you look into these things a bit more, you’ll see that most of these things are where BOTH political parties benefited & were implicated while the American people were screwed.
Interesting, isn’t it.
The question is, this may be fair for the rich and powerful individuals, but is it fair for the PEOPLE?
What can I do to not live in a fast paced life or live in the accelerated pace for the rest of my life?
To escape what is commonly called “the Rat Race”, you will need the following:
permanently assured accommodation that doesn’t depend on high, regular payments to maintain; for example a small house that is fully paid for and where you could always stay and wait out periods between jobs;
savings, so that you aren’t under pressure to bring in money every month in order to survive;
get rid of all debts;
a profession that is versatile and in demand, so that you can find work wherever, whenever, change jobs when you feel like it, and negotiate part time work arrangements; things like nursing, programming, or security might always work;
low bills. Drive an old, but reliable car that never needs fixing, don’t smoke or drink, learn to cook properly and to budget and plan, and do it, and generally avoid an expensive lifestyle.
remain flexible and open minded about what it is you might be doing professionally. Driving forklifts this year, teaching CAD next year, writing ad copy after that… these kinds of hops should not scare you.
give up career thinking. If you are serious about moving up, that kind of lifestyle is unattainable. Relegate yourself to letting someone else be boss, and just do your bit. Ambition is the thing that causes us the most suffering.
decide that you will be happy within that little world you are creating for yourself, and that any adversity you encounter in it will be dealt with, not evaded by giving up and moving away. A little oasis of peace is still something situated in the hostile context of life on this planet, so you need to have a will and the means to maintain and defend it.
I have organised my life in this way a few years ago, and the effects are remarkable. My stress levels have gone down noticeably, various health issues have disappeared, and I am generally a much happier person now.
A life like that doesn’t need to look small and grey, either.
Here, my cheap little house and my 35 year old car I’ve had for 27 years now:
main qimg afa09843db2e04d187695693780ab646 lq
The dollar value on these things is minimal. But I can maintain them with ease, come what may.
COMMENTS
Nice post! I’m glad I learned this lesson at an early age as well. I avoided the rat race, chose a profession I enjoy that is low stress, and kept my bills to a minimum. Now I look younger than my colleagues and always get mistaken for a 25 year old! The secret is simplicity and not letting society pressure you into becoming something you don’t aspire to be, or to have things you can barely afford to impress people who don’t care.
Working you’re body to death but having all the latest material fads and addictions just isn’t worth it…
Your cheap little house would be no less than 350k (U.S.) where I live. The sad thing is in the U.S. you must have money to survive and you better be working your tail off night and day if you even want a roof over your head. Or share everything with family assuming you have family who have anything. People actually wonder why our homeless situation is so rampant. Much of It is because people give up on trying to get up after chasing the U.S. ‘dream’ in endless circles never finding an opening out of poverty. The ones who are not caught in the circle have a solid base to begin with or no bad luck along the way.
It’s wise to view it as a long term project, indeed. This lifestyle requires preparation and planning, so it is a good idea to approach it the way you mentioned – giving yourself a few decades to get there. But the main thing is to have and work toward that goal.
Ladies, What Happened After The Ladies Of Sex In The City Got Wrinkles & Gray Hairs?
I grew up in the 1960’s. This was the start of the acceleration of the “woman’s movement”. This later on went nuts and merged with other generational forces and combined has created a very hostile environment for men. I know, I had a “three stage rocket” thrown at me in Arkansas.
Accuse the man of molestation, then tell the police that the man is violent.
While the man is in jail, the bank accounts are frozen, and every stone is uncovered “looking” for evidence.
Then a divorce, favorable to the woman is initiated, and the husband, in jail / prison is unable to fight back.
Three-stage Rocket.
One friend had this happen to them. Then another. Then another. And, another.
Common place.
Now, men are saying… GOOD BYE.
The West has shot itself in the foot.
And the blood is hemorrhaging. Triage is needed, but people are dragging their feet. The blood is everywhere. It is smeared all over.
The damage is TOO FAR GONE.
Die. Let the West die.
We see what is going on, but it’s still to early to see the pain, and the hurt when the the women finally realize that they are FUCKED. Starting now.
In twenty years… LORD…
It’s gonna be nasty in the West. Nasty.
Once you wipe out two generations of stable society, what you have left is “Mad Max”. Gonna be a nightmare.
Today…
American HELLSCAPE
I am a Dutch national and have lived in Ethiopia, Netherlands, France and Germany. In 1984 I went to the US on a student exchange visa. I landed in New York on June 4, 1984 and took a taxi to the Holiday inn in downtown Manhattan – I think it was on 52nd or 54th street. Can’t remember that. what I do remember is that the taxi fare was $90 (which I thought was a lot) and I had been told you tip at least 10% on taxi rides, so I have the guy $100, which was almost a full week’s of wages for me at the time. I walked into the hotel and the doorman asked me where I came from. I told him “the airport” and then, on a whim, I asked him how much a taxi ride should cost. He told me “$35–$40.” Welcome to America, where most everything is a scam of some sort.
I have now been here almost 40 years and it has gotten soooooo much worse. This country is truly devolving into a hellscape. Government is basically non-functional. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to murder tens of thousands of people a year with their opioids without ANY ramification. Food companies can poison you with the shit they put in their food because we, as individuals, cannot prove a substance to be unhealthy or dangerous and these companies do not have to prove that a substance is safe before they can use it in whatever they’re cooking up.
I own my own business and America has been good to me, but my wife and my health insurance? Yeah, the first $55,000 we earned in a year went to cover health insurance and deductible. No mandatory vacation, no mandatory sick pay, you can get fired at the drop of a hat, for no reason whatsoever, which has happened to me four times until I said “fuck this, I am going to do my own thing.” No national holidays that employers MUST pay you for – ZERO! No paid time off for new parents with a newborn at home – ZERO! Homeless people all over the place, seemingly BILLIONS of churches that do fuck all nothing for ANYBODY, it is really surreal once I began seeing all of this.
School shootings? who the fuck thinks this is a good thing? Yet America’s conservative highest court of the land claims we should not and cannot rein in the insane amount of guns in this society. It is now wonder cops shoot people willy-nilly because they are terrified ALL the time. Normal people would immediately recognize that a society with more guns does not make a society safer, quite to the contrary, it makes it MUCH more dangerous. They actually have laws here, making it illegal for the government to spend money on research about gun violence. Imagine that. 50,000+ deaths from guns EVERY year and the government doesn’t think we should figure this out.
The Supreme Court of this country is co completely FUCKED UP that it actually decided that “corporations” were “people,” so they could contribute to political campaigns unlimited sums of money without disclosing they have donated to whatever organization. I don’t know about you, but I have never seen a corporation in prison. It is completely INSANE here.
At first I genuinely was blown away by America. Now I look at it in horror and with pity for the American people, half of whom are too stupid to recognize they are being fleeced. America’s version of capitalism is abhorrent and Europe is headed in the same direction. DON’T LET IT DESTROY YOUR SOCIAL SERVICES. The uber wealthy in Europe are beginning to see how America did it and they noticed that if you set the common man up against the immigrant, you can fuck them over really easily. That is EXACTLY what is happening in Europe today. You better be careful.
Sadly I am stuck here. My daughter and her soon-to-be husband want to stay and my wife and I don’t want to move far away from her, so here we are. Fortunately our life is very good because we have invested well and have our own business. Life for most is nearly impossibly difficult here. Hopefully, one day my daughter will say, “pops, lets get the fuck out of here.” I’d be gone in three nano-seconds. That is how bad I feel this country has gotten.
Are Europeans shocked when they first come to the United States?
I am a Dutch national and have lived in Ethiopia, Netherlands, France and Germany. In 1984 I went to the US on a student exchange visa. I landed in New York on June 4, 1984 and took a taxi to the Holiday inn in downtown Manhattan – I think it was on 52nd or 54th street. Can’t remember that. what I do remember is that the taxi fare was $90 (which I thought was a lot) and I had been told you tip at least 10% on taxi rides, so I have the guy $100, which was almost a full week’s of wages for me at the time. I walked into the hotel and the doorman asked me where I came from. I told him “the airport” and then, on a whim, I asked him how much a taxi ride should cost. He told me “$35–$40.” Welcome to America, where most everything is a scam of some sort.
I have now been here almost 40 years and it has gotten soooooo much worse. This country is truly devolving into a hellscape. Government is basically non-functional. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to murder tens of thousands of people a year with their opioids without ANY ramification. Food companies can poison you with the shit they put in their food because we, as individuals, cannot prove a substance to be unhealthy or dangerous and these companies do not have to prove that a substance is safe before they can use it in whatever they’re cooking up.
I own my own business and America has been good to me, but my wife and my health insurance? Yeah, the first $55,000 we earned in a year went to cover health insurance and deductible. No mandatory vacation, no mandatory sick pay, you can get fired at the drop of a hat, for no reason whatsoever, which has happened to me four times until I said “fuck this, I am going to do my own thing.” No national holidays that employers MUST pay you for – ZERO! No paid time off for new parents with a newborn at home – ZERO! Homeless people all over the place, seemingly BILLIONS of churches that do fuck all nothing for ANYBODY, it is really surreal once I began seeing all of this.
School shootings? who the fuck thinks this is a good thing? Yet America’s conservative highest court of the land claims we should not and cannot rein in the insane amount of guns in this society. It is now wonder cops shoot people willy-nilly because they are terrified ALL the time. Normal people would immediately recognize that a society with more guns does not make a society safer, quite to the contrary, it makes it MUCH more dangerous. They actually have laws here, making it illegal for the government to spend money on research about gun violence. Imagine that. 50,000+ deaths from guns EVERY year and the government doesn’t think we should figure this out.
The Supreme Court of this country is co completely FUCKED UP that it actually decided that “corporations” were “people,” so they could contribute to political campaigns unlimited sums of money without disclosing they have donated to whatever organization. I don’t know about you, but I have never seen a corporation in prison. It is completely INSANE here.
At first I genuinely was blown away by America. Now I look at it in horror and with pity for the American people, half of whom are too stupid to recognize they are being fleeced. America’s version of capitalism is abhorrent and Europe is headed in the same direction. DON’T LET IT DESTROY YOUR SOCIAL SERVICES. The uber wealthy in Europe are beginning to see how America did it and they noticed that if you set the common man up against the immigrant, you can fuck them over really easily. That is EXACTLY what is happening in Europe today. You better be careful.
Sadly I am stuck here. My daughter and her soon-to-be husband want to stay and my wife and I don’t want to move far away from her, so here we are. Fortunately our life is very good because we have invested well and have our own business. Life for most is nearly impossibly difficult here. Hopefully, one day my daughter will say, “pops, lets get the fuck out of here.” I’d be gone in three nano-seconds. That is how bad I feel this country has gotten.
What is the biggest scam you’ve ever seen?
One morning a couple of months ago, one of my employees called me in tears. She said that she had an emergency and she and her husband must urgently leave the job and drive to LA. I asked them what happened. They explained that a month ago they received a call from someone saying they won a prize – a set of furniture and to provide the address and personal information where the prize can be sent, which they did. (They are young recent immigrants from Cuba and never dealt with this kind of thing before.)
Subsequently, she received another call and was told that the prize was shipped but now she owed a $1,000 in shipping and handling fees. She responded that she doesn’t need the prize and hung up. They then received an official looking letter from a law firm in LA saying that they are being sued to recover the prize money. And now – harassing phone calls saying they will be kicked out of the country for fraud and all of their hard-earned money will be seized by the IRS.
That morning the attorney from LA called and said that they must urgently come up with the money or appear for a deposition. They were hyperventilating and crying. Even after I explained to them that it’s a scam, they wouldn’t calm down for the longest time. I showed them that a generic office building is located at that address, not a law firm. That a lawyer with that name is not licensed in California or anywhere. And I called back the number they provided which was disconnected.
I don’t know if this is the biggest scam, but to prey on new immigrants who don’t know anything and are very vulnerable, is the lowest of the low. Same kind of people were calling my elderly mother with similar offers and messages. Makes my blood boil.
America – the Shabby
My Ukrainian relatives were. When they arrived in Albuquerque via San Diego, having escaped the war, they were shocked by how shabby everything is. This is a thing, I think, to which most Americans are oblivious, since so few of us ever leave the country. My family were expecting a wealthy, modern society— what certain elements of our culture portray as a “shining city on a hill”. They used to think I was just “talking Ukraine up” for their benefit on my many visits, and I’m not suggesting that Ukraine is without deficits, but I suspect if Americans had seen what that country looked like prior to the invasions, they would want to know what the hell happened to us.
My family are grateful to be here, grateful to have gotten their little daughter away from the Russians, and worry constantly about the relations they left behind, some in occupied territory, but they still marvel at bad roads, the general absence of public transportation, antiquated technology, stodgy banking, low quality food, poor healthcare, and a shockingly indolent education industry.
Their best friends— and some of mine— ended up in Toronto. Comparing notes, my family often wonder if they would not have been better off in Canada…
Can you give some examples of revenge being served cold and sweet?
When I was in highschool, I had a girlfriend tell me that I was immature. I pointed out that I worked 5 days a week, as well as getting good grades. That I was never late for work, and always did my homework. That I was never in trouble with the police.
She asked what that had to do with maturity? I tried to explain, but she wasn’t believing anything I was saying.
Fast forward 25 years, and I run into her family at a wedding, we are sitting at the same table during the reception. She is lecturing her 17 year old son about sneaking alcohol, they get into an argument, and she says, why can’t you grow up? He bragged about being the most mature kid in his class. She said, you can’t hold a part time job, you are just barely passing your classes, and the police brought you home because you were drinking, and you were given a warning about being suspended from school.
He asked what that had to do with maturity? I spit out my drink, and started laughing. The mom looked at me, and asked what was so funny. Obviously not remembering our conversation from 25 years ago, but I had never forgotten it. I finally felt validated after 25 years.
Culture Shock America
Haha yes….
When I visited Los Angeles in the 80s. When I get to the customs guy, he asks his questions. Now I didn’t know this but they sometimes have random questions
This one says, in a deadpan voice “ Do you have any plans to overthrow the United States government?”
Of course, I snort with laughter, which really pisses the guy off
His next question is asked in a louder, rude tone, “Are you here for business or pleasure?”
Somewhat bewildered and increasingly pissed off, I quip back, “Ask your sister”. That earned me a thorough baggage check and a twenty minute delay. So much for petty officialdom
I picked up a Hertz rental car from the counter at the airport
I noticed it didn’t have much fuel in, so as I am coming out of the airport, there’s a gas station
As I pull in, this Latino guy comes over and with a thick Mexican accent says “What you want, Senór”
I ask him to fill it up and he says “Twenty Dollars. You pay me first. The people they fill up and drive away and they do not pay!”
So I give him twenty dollars. He says “I put this in the till, Senór”, and off he goes into a little building
Ten minutes later I am still sat there, so I get out and I too go into the little building. It’s empty apart from a bored looking white guy behind a counter
“Hey”, I say, “Where’s the Mexican forecourt attendant?”
So, a few days later, I’m driving around when this small pick up truck passes me. Mounted on the back is a big board and on that board is written “FOLLOW ME”
And Americans are all like “Hey, look at that, Honey, let’s follow it and see where it’s going”
The truck drives around for a while until it gets a tail of about twenty cars. Then it goes to a big shopping mall and parks up
And the Americans are “Hey, Honey, while we’re here, let’s do some shopping!!”
I doubt such a trawling tactic would work in my country, but you never know
So, in the evening back at my hotel, I’m watching TV
First up is a quiz show, the contestants are sitting in seats with a metal plate. They answer questions on various topics to build prize money. Pretty regular fare, right? But here’s the kicker, if they get three questions wrong in a row, they host presses a button and “BZZZ”, the contestant gets an electric shock that literally makes them leap out of their seat!
I flick the channel. It’s a nature documentary about the Wild Turkey. Seems like when George Washington was President, the national bird of America wasn’t going to be the Eagle, but the Turkey. Something to do with Thanksgiving, although how that would have looked on The Oval Office carpet clutching arrows and laurel leaves bothers me more than I can say
However, the narrator is going on Wild Turkey this, Wild Turkey that. Then he says, “Now we’ll talk to someone who encounters the Wild Turkey every day. One of the backwoods hunters of America”
So it cuts to this old dude with a check shirt, peaked cap and a face like Elmer Fudd, sitting behind a log. He has a pump action shotgun
The narrator says “Sir, can you tell us your thoughts on the Wild Turkey” and holds out the microphone
In the deepest, slow, hillbilly accent, the guy says, “Well, the American Wild Turkey is a truly noble bird. It is full of grace and beauty”
Then he says, “There’s a gobbler now”, and in a loud voice calls “GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE!!!”
This Turkey head pops out from behind a bush, and, “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!”. The guys cuts loose with his gun and clouds of feathers fly up
And this is a nature documentary!
So, yes, America was an absolute culture shock to me. I did enjoy it though
Why Men Are Going Their Own Way (MGTOW Explained)
Take the time to watch.
There were only two things that shocked me when I came to the US.
the complete lack of maintenace for the infrastructure. I thought Americans loved to drive? So why not spend some money on maintenance. I’ve seen more potholes in 6 days in the Usa, than in my entire life in the Netherlands
the way police officers and other other uniformed people behaved. It already started on the airport at border security, all of the guys in uniform acted like they were the most important person in the world and we were just measly worms. Come on, I know you have a job to do, but why can’t you just try to be pollite? If Dutch police officers would behave like that, they would be considered unfit for the job.
Is it a dress code rule in county jail or federal prison to wear socks to bed?
You know, I can understand how one might get the impression that specific behaviors are mandated in jail or prison due to prisoners adhering so meticulously to certain practices.
But inmates have many self-imposed rules, and the sock thing is definitely one of these.
Nobody in their right mind wants to put bare foot to floor in lockup.
The only reasons I EVER removed my socks in county was —
…to put on a cleaner pair;
…to don shower shoes;
…to clip my toenails.
And that’s it.
Despite the CO’s wheeling in a janitorial cart once a day, and every con in the pod swabbing the day room floor, our individual cells (particularly the stainless steel toilet/sink combo), and the shower stall and additional open air communal head at the end of the second tier catwalk — despite all this — the surfaces in jail were never truly clean.
Jails and prisons are veritable petri dishes for tinea pedis, protozoa, cold/flu viruses and your everyday run-of-the-mill despair.
And in an environment where a relatively mundane illness can blossom into something life-threatening due to substandard healthcare, you do what you can to minimize contact.
And if that means wearing socks and marginalizing bunkies who refuse to get with the program, then so be it.
We called the few prisoners stupid enough to go barefoot in the pod “Jethros.”
And it wasn’t a term of endearment.
Nobody wanted a Jethro for a cellmate.
They usually ended up camping out on yoga mats under the corrugated steel stairway rather than getting a cellie.
So the sock thing, like the courtesy flush, was a rule of our very own.
And you broke it at your own peril.
America has gone INSANE!
I was working near Houston, Texas, from UK, when I took my wife to visit the town. We parked for a little while to study the city map when somone, we know not who, or why, let fly with an automatic rifle of some sort, so yes, that did shock us.
I was in Loisiana with a group of workmates when we were held up by a gang of young children, made strong by one of thier gang holding a small hand gun. One of my group was shot in the stomach, causing relatively minor injuries, but with a certain amount of trauma, so again, yes you can say we were shocked.
I was on holiday in Maine, near Bangor airport, when a stranger, from his demeanor I guess he was probably not of sound mind,walked past brandishing a large automtic pistol in his hand. By now I was more difficult to impress but my wife was certainly very impressed and quite shocked.
My son was mugged by a gang of five youths in Central Park, I think around 1990. It made your national news as my son is also a competent and very aggressive combatant. He layed into the gang, disaarmed them of their knives and holding two of them until the police got there. The rest of the gang got away with ten dollars. We were at home in England when we received a phone call from the New York police. They praised my lad but also asked us to tell my lad, that that is the way of things in this little backwater town of New York and it would be better if he had just handed over his cash to the thieves and let them escape.
You seem to have little idea just how insane you are all becoming.
Tell me, are Americans shocked when they first come the UK?
When you Accidentally Compromise every CPU on Earth
The Pizza Index.
A quick visit to the United States
The naive unworldly ignorance of most Americans and the poverty and squalor of weatherboard shotgun shacks and trailer parks living is shocking but it’s the absence of the freedoms from guns and gun crime that killed over 40,000 Americans last year and the absence of civilised universal health care that leaves 40,000,000 Americans with no health care that is really shocking.
Little things like never being able to pay the ticket price for goods and services, primitive banking and payment methods, being coerced into tipping underpaid serving and bar staff and not being able even to cross the road wherever it observed safe to do so is oppressive when used to the almost utopian freedoms Brits and most other Europeans enjoy.
How do Americans tolerate the fear that they or their children can be shot and killed at any moment and the terror of bankruptcy hangs over them if/when they or a family member becomes chronically ill? That is truly shocking!
If you’ve worked the same job in different countries, what was the country you’ve preferred doing that job in?
I have been a university lecturer in the following countries, and experienced it in the following ways:
Germany: A very pleasant experience. The students are mature and polite, and it felt like I was conversing with adults on an even, intellectual level. It’s nice to teach at university level in Germany. The colleagues also tend to be quite dignified and interesting. Hierarchies are steep. As a lecturer in Germany, you feel respected. Income is not very high though, after deductions. And one thing you will sometimes sense is a certain sense of depression. Students in Germany aren’t always happy people, and you will sometimes bump into some really dark and brooding characters.
England: A bit more demanding, also on your pedagogic abilities. British students appear much younger and less mature than German students. You will have plenty of discipline and disturbance issues, and motivation can be low. Still, there is respect for the lecturer, and I have always enjoyed my British colleagues. The research aspect is demanding. Much more so than in Germany, and one feels at times that the only way to earn one’s keep is by bringing in plenty of research funding. I often felt like a mixture of a high school teacher and a fund raiser while working in England. Pay is fairly good. I earned much better than in Germany, and generally felt that my work gave me more status.
New Zealand: Like in England, but with the exception that there was an unusual level of interpersonal friction. Students will openly challenge you and make life as hard as possible, and colleagues can dedicate themselves to strong and long lived animosities that will be carried out in eerily orchestrated mobbing scenarios. I have to say I have no interest whatsoever in working in New Zealand again. It nearly broke me. Pay is average. You will earn more as a courier driver or sales person. What is nice though is that you get a good amount of time off to enjoy New Zealand’s fantastic scenery.
France: Here, you really need to make sure you understand the institution’s philosophy first, and then sing from the same song sheet as everyone else. I found my work at French university highly inspiring, but also unbelievably demanding. The levels of discipline and integrity required are higher than elsewhere. I often say it, and will say it again: Living and working successfully in France requires a certain military spirit. Reporting orders, understanding hierarchies, and not getting into the mills of politics, are your daily life. Bottom line for me was, I learned more about my field teaching for a French university than I did studying in Germany, the US, and Canada. But watch out for the students. France is where they once beheaded their royals – that streak runs deep. Student complaints can occur with a vengeance. Pay was good. Better than in England.
China: Here, you have two choices. Either you go through your material in any way you please, or you make a pedagogic effort. In both cases, the students will be exquisitely polite and respectful, and assure you of their warmest feelings. Come examination time, the true picture emerges, and you will see just how successful your teaching methods were. Having said that, expectations in grades are very high, and the stigma of failing is enormous, so you will eventually relegate yourself to mark on the unrealistically high side, just to evade human drama. For me, teaching in China meant having to reinvent myself totally, because I wanted to make sure the high marks I pretty much had to give actually reflected reality. I have taught myself to teach properly only in China. Pay, by national standards, is on the higher side, but then, I was an expat.
India: If you are one of those idealists who dream about a career in teaching because you want to make a difference, and imagine your students will love you for your efforts, India is the place to be. My Indian students were my favourites. Nobody else is this eager to learn, displays more genuine interest and even enthusiasm, and connects more strongly on a personal basis than Indian students. Teaching in India really was absolutely brilliant, and I would do it again. Even though the management is often disgustingly top down, and will do whatever they like, such as ordering staff in for meetings on weekends, or the likes. It doesn’t matter. In India, you really experience genuine hunger for knowledge, and pleasure in making it accessible. I was on a lucrative expat contract.
Sweden: Very much like Germany. Swedish students are a mature, polite, and jolly bunch who see you as a human being and will do their best to keep things pleasant for everybody. The actual organisation though is much tighter than in Germany, while providing a fireworks of fun stuff on the side for staff and students alike. In Sweden, year schedules are ready and perfect for the entire academic year by August, and everything is timed and apportioned to the minute, with a great sense of timing and availability of resources. Colleagues are warm and lovely, and you will feel very comfortable with your workplace, which will be hugely more attractive and homely than in any of the other places. I can’t imagine a better place to be a university lecturer than Sweden if you simply want to enjoy life and do well. Pay is about the same as in France, which makes me a member of the somewhat more comfortable pay bracket in Sweden.
Coffee Liqueur Wings
Delicious
Coffee Liqueur Wings can be prepared a day ahead and can be reheated in the oven.
Ingredients
1 ounce butter
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
2 drops hot sauce
1 cup barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons honey
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup coffee liqueur
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
20 chicken wings
Instructions
In a 2 quart saucepan melt butter; sauté garlic and onion over medium heat for 3 minutes.
Add cumin and chili powder and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.
Blend in coffee liqueur and cook to reduce liquid by one-half.
Stir in hot sauce, Worcestershire, barbecue sauce and salt. Simmer 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and add honey. Set aside and allow to cool.
Prepare chicken wings by removing and discarding the tips. Divide the wings in half at the remaining joint.
Marinate the wings in the cooked sauce for 1 hour at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator.
To cook, place the marinated wings on a broiler pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and broil 5 minutes, turn and brush with the remaining sauce and bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.
What these two simultaneous events indicate is that there is a growing disconnect between the military-industrial complex coupled with the ruling class on the one hand, and the wealthy elite on the other. The fact is that China has overwhelming support among US capitalists, who want nothing more than to be able to trade freely with China.
More specifically, this means that the sectors of the capitalist class who are not involved in arms-dealing are not interested in the escalation of tensions, nor war, with China. However, their interests are not being reflected in government. US foreign policy has become via the pull of the military-industrial complex, which drags the country’s resources into wars and conflicts around the world. It is a growing tumor of greed that is depriving society of the blood and oxygen it needs to sustain itself.
Only when the US ruling class accepts the fact that China is not going anywhere can it move forward as a country. Otherwise, the contradictions between reality and its unrealistic objectives will tear it apart.
It doesn’t take a communist to realize that all attempts at dismantling China will fail, and that by insisting on doing the impossible, more people are losing out than just the working class. If America wants even to preserve its prized capitalist system, to say nothing of socialism, it will have to accept these realities. The preservation of capitalism in America rests on win-win cooperation with China.
The above contradictions are a direct outcome of China’s four-dimensional chess strategy of using a relatively weak currency to create a trade surplus — causing Western capitalist nations to both rejoice at the untold amounts of profit they receive from an endless pool of cheap but reliable labor, and seethe at the fact that the investment they put into such labor is also going towards building a developed socialist country that will not bend toward their will.
All of this begs the question, why do the pro-China US capitalists not use their wealth and influence to form a party and run for office, defending their capital interests via preserving positive trade relations with China?
At this point in time, even the most exploitative form of capitalism would be a more rational social structure than what we have in the US, which is now a rogue state threatening global stability and quite literally all life on the planet. If there were even a bourgeoisie overthrow of the current regime, I would put my full support behind it, because at least it would eliminate some of the risks of direct military confrontation with unbeatable opponents and destruction of life on a scale rarely seen before.
Ironically, this might be the best chance we have at seeing a non-imperialist United States in this lifetime. And those of us who don’t want to see war with China should be the first to not only accept, but also encourage this reality in coming to fruition.
Boss Babe Horrors
How do sergeants/chiefs handle a soldier/marine/sailor/airman who has been accepted for officer candidate school but has not, as yet, left their unit?
I was in infantry AIT with an OCS guarantee at Ft DIX. I enlisted after receiving my draft notice only to get that OCS slot. I was ranked high up in my AIT class since I was trying hard to learn and physically prepare for OCS. Somebody in the command line made the decision to fill an open Drill Sergeant slot with me. They pinned E4 DI corporal stripes on me, gave me a smoky bear hat and gave me a heavy weapons platoon to train in Infantry AIT. Since I had run through regular infantry AIT doing heavy weapons gave me the opportunity to learn 81mm and 4.2 skills. I did get to go to OCS after one cycle as a drill corporal; I graduated near the top of my class so the time to learn the junior noncom skills definitely helped. After receiving my brass bars I was assigned =as a map reading instructor at Ft Benning. Four mounts later I was sent to Jungle training school in Panama. All this training set me up very well to command a recon unit in Vietnam in the 199 Light Infantry Brigade. I ended up serving 39 months instead of 24 which I would have if I had kept my head down as a draftee. I can’t say I would have chosen the Army as a recent college graduate in 1967 since the being drafted interrupted my professional career. I certainly learned leadership, personal confidence and other personal skills and I do feel that I earned my freedom as a citizen of the US of A. I earned two Bronze stars with V device, an ARCOM with V device and valor awards from the Vietnam units I served with. I certainly used my jungle training skills and my mortar, artillery and air support direction skills in jungle combat. i came out of Vietnam with a permanent hearing disability, minor shrapnel wounds and agent orange disability that the VA can treat but not cure.
After leaving the Army I was able to resume my professional career albeit with a different company from the one I was drafted out of. With an OCS guarantee in AIT, A simple decision made by some unknown commander to hold me back in AIT and make me a junior NCO drill corporal had a dramatic effect on my military career and later on my personal and professional life.
As a draftee right out of college I was angry at the draft but over the years I have come to the conclusion that some sort of two year compulsive service to our country should be required of all citizens.
The Wall #37 – When Women Regret Feminism | The Wall
What amuses you as a foreigner in India?
I’ve worked and lived in India for two years, and for me, India is one of the most amusing countries in the world, together with Japan, Great Britain, and Australia. There’s always something going on that makes me chuckle in these places.
In India, my list of amusements is this:
the way they speak; I don’t know why, but it immediately lifts my spirits to hear an Indian speak English. There is something very funny about it for me. Perhaps it’s because of the way they seemtospeakwithoutanybreakbetweenwords, roll the Rs, and choose quaint old-fashioned expressions while sounding somehow… cute. There is a trademark intonation that I have actually picked up myself while living there, and I fall back on it in some situations, which makes my wife laugh, because she used to work for a big, Indian company once, and it reminds her of the way the management spoke.
the way they decorate vehicles. I’m a car designer, from Germany, and they teach us to design vehicles to look serious, determined, premium… and then come the Indians and paint flower garlands and happy colours and religious symbols onto them. It’s like trying to design a fighter jet, and someone paints kittens and sun flowers on it. They just somehow aren’t with the program in that regard, which the hippie inside me secretly approves of.
their start-up spirit and professionalism with even the most modest of entrepreneurial endeavours. I’ve talked to guys selling street food in Bangalore from little carts, and from the terminology they were using, you might have thought they owned a supermarket chain with car washes.
music videos in Hindi where you get some gent singing in a landscape, and before you know it, there comes a whole army of brightly dressed ladies and whirls through the background in flowing dresses, performing perfectly synchronized movements. It’s just not something we see in the west, where music videos are mostly about some somber individual glowering at something unseen in mysterious surroundings.
the way they initiate conversations. It was an absolute classic for me to be sitting in the university canteen with a plate of chana masala and some roti, and here comes a student and sits next to me and asks brightly, “are you a foreigner, sir?” To which I was sometimes tempted to answer “no, silly, haven’t you seen how many blond, blue eyed Indians with Canadian/ German accents there are?” It was of course clear to them that I wasn’t a local, but they still managed to be diplomatic even with such a blunt question.
I came to India from my expat posting in China on a French contract, and it was a huge sigh of relief for me to come to India, even though I really enjoyed China. I felt somehow immediately at home in India, partly because everyone spoke English, and partly because of something else that I can’t quite place.
A Naadi reader told me in Bangalore once that I had been an Indian in a previous life, and I could absolutely see that. A friend of mine in Bangalore says she believes I’m a “closet Indian”.
I certainly had a great time in India in this life. I
He’s special
Chicken Wings in Coke
230202 Coca Cola Chicken Wings 1
Ingredients
4 pounds chicken wings
1 (10 ounce) can Coca-Cola
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Instructions
Place the chicken in a shallow casserole.
Sprinkle with the garlic and onion powder.
Combine the Coke with the sugar and soy sauce and pour over the chicken.
Slow bake the chicken at 325 degrees F for 3 to 4 hours until liquid has evaporated and becomes sticky.
Is it true that Ukraine is losing the war? How when they possess 90% of Ukraine?
Russia’s overall objectives were, are, and will remain securing the Donbass and Crimea.
When they initially invaded in the north, east, and south, the intent was to force Ukraine forces to draw back from the Donbass. This part of the initial invasion was a huge success, despite what the USuk’s CIA and MI6 propaganda told you (and misinformed you).
To invade, take and hold even half of Ukraine, Russia would have needed far more forces than the initial 70,000 that they used. They used armor and mechanized infantry to take aggressive positions in hopes that it would force Ukraine to sue for a quick peace and settlement.
Initially, even that part of the bold Russian actions seemed to be a huge success. Then Ukraine asked for negotiations, and the results were to demand Russia to move back its forces to show a willingness to negotiate and not just use the negotiations as a ruse. Russia complied somewhat, but this only led to Ukraine doing exactly what they accused Russia of doing—aggressively counter-attacking and sabotaging the peace negotiations.
At that point, relatively small expeditionary Russian forces were dangerously overextended, so they doubled down on their original plans. Pull back, consolidate, and secure the Donbass and Crimea.
In order to take cities like Kharkov and Kherson, Russian forces will have to destroy much of these cities—unless Ukraine forces flee from those cities. The Ukraine strategy has been to put much of its military right in the cities in order to protect the forces because, for the most part, Russian forces have refrained from bombing them. After all, if the cities are part of the objective, you really don’t want to kill their largely Russian populations or destroy the buildings. It’s Russia that will have to pay for the reconstruction of E. Ukraine.
It took Russia two years to build up the defense of the Donbass and Crimea regions to the point where they can then use them as bases for going on the offensive to take the rest of the Donbass. That point has been reached, and now Ukraine is losing badly. Basically, Russia is using a much smaller force to neutralize Ukraine’s much larger army in E Ukraine.
When a client can’t get it up :/
If you are trapped in the desert with only a car that is broken down, how could you survive?
Set one of your tires on fire. They produce an inky black smoke that will be visible for miles. Also, they burn for a really long time too.
main qimg 80ff931a86b4af7941400a7d7ef0576d lq
When a tire field catches fire it produces a smokestack that is visible for huge distances. And these tire fires are actually really difficult to put out too because they reignite themselves from within due to their composition.
I’d space out when you burn each tire though. The rescue search might not start until after you’ve been missing for a while.
Also — don’t leave your car — that is usually how people die. Too often, a rescue team gets to a car only to find it is empty.
Being lost in the desert is no bueno (not good). It reminds me of that one Far Side comic:
main qimg 99518d0a902216d964c08134642bc6f2 pjlq
Creepy
The USA is on a sled going down hill
Ohh yes, when we go for first time and ever after.
Of course, so called “USA” is not a uniform place. Its made up of thousands of counties, each with its own peculiarities and distinct characteristics.
What is shared by all is the hypocritical duality of prudishness and deep religiousness with improper sexual behavior and love and care for the needed.
You frown about pictures showing woman’s nipples or prohibit showing universal masterpieces of art because they show penises, but accept and make president of a guy who boasts on TV that he can and does grab ladies genitals just because he is rich and powerful.
You boast of your country been the “safest” in the world, yet you have to own and wear and use arms to defend your selves. And enjoy the highest rate of killings by firearms of all what you call the first world counties.
You say you believe in the teachings of Jesus, basically to care for thy neighbor when he is in need and to share bread and water with the hungry and thirsty, but you refuse the idea of universal health care to cover thy neighbor in need.
You say you believe in paying workers fair and decent salaries, but waiters need the tips because they are not covered by a basic salary nor any kind of health care or social net.
You believe that the almighty US dollar can buy everything and that quantity prevails over quality but you think you can teach other how to behave.
And yes, we are shocked by the very high rate of really obese people in a country that boasts the best meat, vegetables, bread and coffee in the world. Are they? All I know is that most of USA produce is banned in the EU for not meeting our health and sanitary standards.
I’m sure you are also shocked when you come to Europe.
The USA is fucked up
Many years ago I was staying at a budget hotel in Boston and I asked the clerk if there was a corner store nearby and she said that there was a shuttle service that would get me to a local mall in about fifteen minutes. When I got to my room I realised that I could see a mall I could walk to in a couple of minutes from my window. So I grabbed my backpack and started walking, got about half way there and a cop car appeared from no where, screeched to a halt and two incredibly aggressive cops hopped out demanding to know what I thought I was doing. They were 100% convinced that I was up to no good because they just didn’t believe that anyone would walk for five minutes instead of sitting on a bus for fifteen.
Edit for the grumpy folk: I wasn’t staying down town, couldn’t afford that. I was in an area that was mostly industrial with the sort of budget hotels workers stay in. No idea what you guys think of as “budget” but 25 years ago my whole stay cost less than one night down town, even with travel costs
What’s the hardest thing about being a guy?
I am answering this on behalf of my husband.
Incident –
My husband was working with a restaurant. He was in the kitchen section of the restaurant.
There was a woman in her mid thirties who worked there. She was like my husband’s Elder sister.
My husband then switched the job as the pay was low.
After he switched, the owner started calling him as he had no one to work. My husband had given him 2 months notice.
Then one day he accused my husband as a pervert. And he told him that the woman who works there complained about my husband touching his private parts while at work.
My husband couldn’t speak and came to me, hugged and started crying hysterically.
He never cries.
I asked him and he told me everything.
I understood what happened. My husband had a bacterial infection on that area when he was younger.
He gets itching when there is high temperature. When he used to work there, due to stove he got that itching and his hand went there.
It’s a medical condition. He was helpless.
I straight away called that lady to clarify.
She told me that she didn’t complain, but the owner modified the truth to abuse my husband put allegation.
That night she called my husband and apologised.
The hardest part of being a guy is even if he doesn’t mean anything vulgar in actions, he can’t clarify with a female.
Thanks
Riya
PS – please share the answer because I don’t think anyone should suffer from this type of judgemental attitude.
Fathers are fucked
To those of you who have been incarcerated, who was the strangest inmate you ever encountered, and what eventually became of him or her?
There was this guy who we will call Bob. ( Not his real Name). He always looked at people with a cold stare. He rarely talked and never smiled . One day i went to chow because the meal wasn’t that bad. He sat down opposite of me . Others that were going to sit with me sat at the next table . Bob stared at me as he ate. Never took his eyes off me , never looked at his plate or looked around . Just stared at me . This is the way he did everyone but it was my first encounter that close to him My workout partner said “Hey Harve . come over with us. “ I wanted to but I also felt if I moved he would think he intimidated me. And to be honest I was nervous. So I just stared back.
A couple years later I saw him in the dog program and he was outside with a dog. He was smiling and laughing as he talked to the dog. I walked up and asked if I could pet the dog and he said with a big smile “Sure” I told him that it was the first time I ever saw him smile and asked what made him so happy. He basically told me the dog made him happy and that being in the dog program gave him purpose. I already knew the dog program was a good program but this definitely confirmed it
Creepy and cringe
Have you ever walked out of a movie theater early over a feature movie that you simply could not continue to sit through? If so, what was the movie?
THIS abomination:
https://youtu.be/Nk3ZN3dSeDk
It was a gruelingly hot summer day. Mercury was spurting from the top of thermometers, the heat was rising in great waves from the streets, eggs were frying on the sidewalks, and car radiators were spewing great clouds of hissing steam into the air.
Going to an air conditioned movie theater seemed a good idea, to me, a lad of 15, wandering aimlessly on the streets of my miasmic little town, trapped -like a rat- in the maze of my fetid adolescence. ANYTHING would be better than this ungodly, brutal, unceasing heat.
So I paid my 50 cents and entered the dark and cool cavern of the theatre. I didn’t care what the movie was; anything -anything at all- would be better than the cloying, penetrating heat.
Twenty minutes later, I was on the street, again. Anything -anything, I say- would be better than that insipid, brain dead, gratuitous appeal to my adolescent fantasies: Beach Blanket Bingo. God, help me.
And there, across the street, was a dog, panting heavily and licking itself in that special way that only dogs can do. A stranger approached the theatre entrance, and paused to ask me if the movie was any good.
“No,” I said, “Don’t waste your money. That dog over there is better entertainment.”
I pointed at the mutt. “Sure wish I could do that…”
“That dog’d bite you,” the man replied, and disappeared into the movie.
I turned to take the long walk home, in the searing heat.
The United States is INSANE
I was working near Houston, Texas, from UK, when I took my wife to visit the town. We parked for a little while to study the city map when somone, we know not who, or why, let fly with an automatic rifle of some sort, so yes, that did shock us.
I was in Loisiana with a group of workmates when we were held up by a gang of young children, made strong by one of thier gang holding a small hand gun. One of my group was shot in the stomach, causing relatively minor injuries, but with a certain amount of trauma, so again, yes you can say we were shocked.
I was on holiday in Maine, near Bangor airport, when a stranger, from his demeanor I guess he was probably not of sound mind,walked past brandishing a large automtic pistol in his hand. By now I was more difficult to impress but my wife was certainly very impressed and quite shocked.
My son was mugged by a gang of five youths in Central Park, I think around 1990. It made your national news as my son is also a competent and very aggressive combatant. He layed into the gang, disaarmed them of their knives and holding two of them until the police got there. The rest of the gang got away with ten dollars. We were at home in England when we received a phone call from the New York police. They praised my lad but also asked us to tell my lad, that that is the way of things in this little backwater town of New York and it would be better if he had just handed over his cash to the thieves and let them escape.
You seem to have little idea just how insane you are all becoming.
Tell me, are Americans shocked when they first come the UK?
Delusional ONLYFANS WOMAN THINK Men Want Wife Her Up
No wonder no guys want them…
Welcome to America!
Shocked doesn’t quite cover it. Appalled is closer.
The ‘welcome’ at the airport quite takes my breath away. It seems to be assumed that everyone is a terrorist and should be treated like one. The wait was also very long, it isn’t like that in Europe. We should start treating Americans in the same way so they understand how unacceptable it is.
All taxi rides I’ve had remind me of Grand Theft Auto. It seems to be necessary either to be accelerating or braking hard and changing lanes harshly.
The tipping culture is mad, why can’t you just pay the staff a salary and show real prices? Make tips mean something so that they really do reward someone for exceptional service.
prices in shops are strange. The price on the shelf isn’t what you pay because it doesn’t include taxes. That needs to be sorted out!
People seem to be judged by how rich they are, richer people receive better service. Probably due to the tipping culture. Everyone should be treated the same regardless of money, culture and sex.
I have been a few times but won’t return willingly.
i could go on, but I’ve said enough.
Creole Chicken Wings with Peach Mustard Sauce
shutterstock 50480857
Yield: 4 entree or 8 appetizer servings
Ingredients
Wings
3 pounds chicken wings
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup lemon juice
Peach Mustard Sauce
1/2 cup peach jam
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons pimento, diced
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
Instructions
Wings
Cut tips off wings; reserve for stock.
In small bowl, stir together garlic, mustard, paprika, thyme, sugar, cayenne, salt and black pepper; blend in lemon juice to make paste.
Using pastry brush, brush paste over wings.
Arrange wings, meaty side down, on lightly greased foil-lined baking sheets. Let stand for 30 minutes at room temperature.
Bake at 475 degrees F for 15 minutes; turn wings over and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until brown, crisp and no longer pink inside.
Peach Mustard Sauce
In saucepan, melt jam over low heat; stir in mustard, pimiento and vinegar. Serve separately for dipping.
Welcome to the USA more…
I’ve been on holiday in the states a few times. «shocked» is perhaps not the word I’d use, but a few things was a very new experience for me:
Airport customs immigration: standing hours in line just to show my passport and answering a random questions like «what’s the purpose of your visit» or «where are you staying». I’ve traveled all over the world and never had to wait so long at customs as I’ve done in the US.
Prices in stores not including taxes. This was quite strange for me. I’d pick out a 2 dollar item and take it to be register, only for them to ask me for 2.5 dollars. This seems absolutely absurd to anyone who’s grown up in Europe. In stores here, the price on the shelf is the price you pay. You have to pay the taxes anyway, so there’s no reason whatsoever to exclude them from the price on the shelf
TV commercial breaks: When watching american shows I’ve always wondered why they so often show the logo and fade to black. Untill I visited the states, that is. They have a commercial break every 7 minutes. It’s absolutely outrageous. In the states it takes 1 hour of TV to show a 30 minute show. For someone who’s used to 22-min shows taking 30 mins and 45 min shows taking 1 hour, this is truly jarring.
Tipping: In restaurants in the US there’s a general expectation to tip generously. This is also quite a foreign to a Norwegian. We only tip if it the service, food and restaurant were all truly above and beyond exceptional, or if you’re a rich guy feeling generous. If for some strange reason we’re paying cash we might tip a little bit to ease the rounding-up, but virtually every single transaction in norway happens by credit- or debitcard, so this isn’t common. Restaurants pay their employees a living wage, and tipping is meant as something extra for something extra great, not just paying someone for doing their job.
USA stories
Well, my first trip (of many) to the US was to LA. Our travel company had us booked into a hotel near to LAX. After checking in, we were escorted across the parking lot to our room by a security guard carrying a rifle. That was a shock!
Other shocking things for me:
1. Lack of exercise and outrageous unhealthy food portions. No wonder the US is the most obese country in the developed world with an obesity rate in excess of 42%.
2. People in Southern California that don’t speak English.
3. The levels of poverty in many of the cities.
4. Your banking system is about 30 years behind the rest of the developed world. (Thankfully, your phone system has caught up more recently).
5. Poor maintenance of infrastructure – ie Roads and Bridges.
6. The News is mostly focussed on local matters – leaving many US citizens with a lack of understanding of global issues.
7. A total misbelief by many US citizens that the rest of the world is somehow behind and in awe of the US.
Edit: It seems that some people here cannot accept reality. In particular, it seems that my experience of being escorted across the parking lot of a hotel near LAX (back in the early 1980’s) can’t possibly have happened! Well, I am very sorry to advise that it really did! If you would like to fund a lie deter test, I will happily oblige on the basis of whoever is wrong, pays the other party $1M.
My original source of the obesity rate was via a yahoo page stating it was 70%, but others have pointed out that according to the WHO, it’s 42%, so I’ve updated it. The main point, still stands.
Women Hitting The Wall #37 – When Women Regret Feminism | The Wall
This is stunning, and so sad.
America simply is in the gutter
Not a European, but an Australian.
I have visited the USA three times, 1998, 2018 and 2022.
In 1998 it seemed fairly bright and shiny, but you didn’t need to get far off the main roads for it to become dirty and ominous. This was LA. The food serving sizes were ridiculously large, and of average quality; we booked a reasonably fancy restaurant once, and I think we paid for food quality, but not much else. The tipping culture is positively feudal. And we couldn’t understand why our credit cards disappeared somewhere at restaurants before coming back with the old carbon form. The people were uniformly cheerful and friendly, that was their default, apart from anyone in a uniform, whose default was stern and unforgiving.
Fast forward 20 years. In Australia, when you pay at a restaurant, if you’re not paying cash they bring the electronic payment machine out to your table and you can tap or insert your card and, if you’ve set up your card to require a PIN, you enter it. In LA again in 2018, payment customs haven’t changed, though it’s clear that there’s an electronic machine back there because they don’t bring out the old carbon slip when they return your card, it’s been printed by a machine. But honestly, if someone took your card out of your sight in Australia, you would strongly suspect they were secretly swiping it for some form of fraud. In other respects, the place was dirtier and in higher disrepair; the decrepitude was on main street. The people were as friendly, but not as automatically forthcoming. And the people in uniforms were nastier as their default.
We had a pretty nice time, then, and again in 2022, but the USA is a place where you really need to be on guard, and heaven forbid you have an encounter with law enforcement, because they take the “enforcement” part into the physical realm far faster than police in Australia or Europe would. The USA, at first hand, is not the land of milk and honey that its citizens would have you believe it is. I’m sure it’s possible to live a happy and peaceful life there, clearly millions do. But the concessions to personal freedom and safety required to do so, and the adoption of so many delusions (of superiority in every field of endeavour) necessary to live that life, are not worth it.
And THAT is the most shocking thing to us about visiting the USA: that those smiling, friendly people are happy living in an increasingly backward, crumbling country because they have been told, since birth, that everywhere else is worse (but it’s phrased as “this place is the best”). And that simply isn’t true.
What did you notice during an interview that made you not want the job?
Filled out an application to work at an airport gift shop. Went to the airport for an interview and got to the point for a drug screen, no problem. Got through that part and received the call that I was hired. I was to show up on Monday morning in khaki pants, a white polo shirt, and comfy shoes. I arrived on time and had to fill out all of the paperwork for taxes, etc. Then I got the uniform ‘receipt” that I was to sign that I had been given two uniform shirts and that I would provide the proper khaki slacks or skirt. AND if I quit or was let go within 90 days, my final paycheck would be deducted $125 for the uniform shirts. What?? No way I was signing that paper work. First of all, I had NOT be given anything and wasn’t going to find out later they didn’t have my size or I should wear my own shirt until more came in – whatever. Nothing had been said prior to this about the uniform policy. I placed my clip board on the chair and went to the restroom to figure this out and calm down a bit. Finally, went back to the office and told them I was sick (pretty much was at how they treat their employees) and had to go home. On my way, received a call from another place I had applied and had an interview the next day with a company who was upfront and did not try to screw new employees.
What surprised you about the USA?
Shocked doesn’t quite cover it. Appalled is closer. The ‘welcome’ at the airport quite takes my breath away. It seems to be assumed that everyone is a terrorist and should be treated like one. The wait was also very long, it isn’t like that in Europe. We should start treating Americans in the same way so they understand how unacceptable it is.
All taxi rides I’ve had remind me of Grand Theft Auto. It seems to be necessary either to be accelerating or braking hard and changing lanes harshly.
The tipping culture is mad, why can’t you just pay the staff a salary and show real prices? Make tips mean something so that they really do reward someone for exceptional service.
prices in shops are strange. The price on the shelf isn’t what you pay because it doesn’t include taxes. That needs to be sorted out!
People seem to be judged by how rich they are, richer people receive better service. Probably due to the tipping culture. Everyone should be treated the same regardless of money, culture and sex.
I have been a few times but won’t return willingly.
i could go on, but I’ve said enough.
Thanks for all of the upvotes ! You have probably noticed that I have turned off comments because not everyone was playing nicely.
UK citizen discusses the United States
I’ll confess that I’ve only visited the USA a single time, back in 1993. We went to New York for our honeymoon.
Generally, I found New York to be quite grimy and also very fast paced. The only thing that truly surprised me was the television service.
In the UK, believe it or not (for any fellow Brits) we show seven minutes of commercials per hour on our commercial channels. (The BBC does not show commercials other than trailers for upcoming shows on its own network.)
We didn’t plan to watch much television, but on the night we arrived after our flight, we were quite tired and wanted to sit down quietly and relax for a bit.
I believe the show we saw was Family Feud (which we know as Family Fortunes in the UK). I may be exaggerating, but this is how it seemed:
…
Theme music, introduction of host.
Commercial break.
Introduction of each family.
Commercial break.
First question. Winner chooses whether to play or pass.
Commercial break.
Rest of winner’s family answer the question.
Commercial break.
Opposing family try to complete the board.
Commercial break.
Second question. Winner chooses whether to play or pass.
Commercial break.
Winner’s family answer the question.
Commercial break.
Opposing family attempt to complete the board.
Commercial break.
Third, fourth, and fifth question as above. Winning family announced.
Commercial break.
Head-to-head player one answers the final questions.
Commercial break.
Head-to-head player two answers the same questions.
Commercial break.
Player two’s answers checked, revealing whether the family have passed the number of points to win the big prize of a car, sponsored by NYC Motors. Keys to the car given to family.
Commercial break.
Host thanks you for watching, credits roll.
Commercial break.
…
If I tell you that the original version of Family Fortunes in the UK which ran from 1980 to 2002 was a half hour show – with a single commercial break, you’ll understand why the USA version seemed overly heavy with commercials. You stretched a half hour show to what seemed like two hours. (In fairness, in 2006 when Family Fortunes was revived in the UK, we managed to string it out to a full hour per show.)
For reference, when 24 starring Keifer Sutherland was broadcast in the UK on our non-commercial channel BBC2, it ran for 40–41 minutes per episode. That kinda ruined the “each episode covers an hour” premise of the show.
These days, I never watch commercial TV live.
I record everything and then fast forward through the breaks. Television advertising used to be rather an art form in the UK – prizes were awarded for the year’s best campaign. These days, with so many channels available, advertisers spend little money on creating their ads and they’re not worth watching. Life is too short for commercial breaks.
Men are no longer seeking relationships of any kind & people are in DENIAL!
Major changed to the Western society is in process. Japan was the “canary in the coal mine”, and Holy Fuck! Listen and watch this video.
Great video
So many average guys are MGTOW, and don’t even know what the term means.
When I lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, I experienced the most amazing changes in Weather patterns ever.
Apparently, throughout the Great Lakes, large snowfall, icy winds, and gale force winds were the norm, but when I moved to Erie, what amazed me was how mercurial the weather was. It was constantly changing.
Erie 1
One morning it was sunny and warm. Come Lunch Time, it was windy with gusts, and come dinner time, lordly! It was snowing. What a surprise.
Erie 2
Erie was a really nice place to live, and I did like the small town feel, and all the rest. It was very nice in the Spring, Summer and Fall. The lake was nice and it was simply a great place to live.
Erie 3
Do not overlook the small communities. They have things to offer that larger cities don’t have.
Today…
Imagine this:
An indoctrinated westerner being told your whole life that your technology was superior, only for China to come around and out compete you without even needing plunder. Once you understand how devastating this is psychologically for them you will understand why China fuels such hatred amongst them, that we are viewed as insects nothing BENEATH them! And yet here we are with BYD booting Tesla off the top spot and 8 more ROROs being bought to export EVs to Europe.
In fact it’s even more devastating than that. Many people are stuck under the misery of western regimes have always used the excuse that “others are worse, so I can’t be that sad about my condition”.
But living standards in many western countries is in severe and accelerating decline and is much worse than living in China (e.g. see how scientists flee to China, the top destination worldwide, seeking better lives), and that brutal realization causes sheer panic on westerners.
Blunder
What did your boss say to you during a meeting that resulted in you immediately resigning?
Whilst this has not happened to me, I was a boss, I would go on site with new clients, rarely would I tell them I am the boss, I was one of the engineers. Always interested to see how clients treated the people that I worked with.
Several occasions where I have been spoken to in a manner that I don’t feel was appropriate, one such incident the boss of the company was throwing his weight around, started getting heavy handed with me, I was not playing ball, said I was going to walk off site. His reply was ‘I am going to get you fired!’, ok I replied, he said I am going to get your boss on the phone and get this done now, ok I replied. He proceeded to phone the MD, I had the same shareholding as the MD, I created the business and the MD was brought in later. I stood there whilst this bully proceeded to exaggerate what had happened, then the line of ‘you need to get rid of him’ at which point, I saw his face drop and then over the next couple of minutes sink even further.
He got off the phone, said to me ‘You knew that was going to happen didn’t you’ yes I replied, you now know I am the boss, key thing here is you should not treat me any differently to any of my staff. He did not remain a client for long after that.
There is no need to treat people like shit.
Wow Wow
What are some dark truths of life as a government employee?
I’ve to go anonymous for obvious reasons. This is something I’ve buried deep in my heart as I couldn’t really tell anyone.
Story is from 1996, my father was back then in District level court and was on one of the relatively high positions, he had always lived by the principle of not taking anyone’s money (bribe) for doing the job and he was incharge of his table/office, this setup is consisting of 4–7 people usually and they handle different departments like Civil, Criminal and what not per table/office. Since he was incharge of that table and he did not take any money, all the others were not getting opportunity to take that extra benefit home either. Which used to be pretty big considering meager government salaries back then.
So due to my fathers honest nature, nobody was getting “malai” and this annoyed them greatly, they used to find ways to bother him so he will apply for transfer to different table or district all together, usually they are transferred after 5 years each, but you can apply for one in advance in case of problems. But no matter what they did, he never gave up, and maintained his stance to follow rules. One dark day of my life, woman from their group falsely accused him of “sexual harassment”, so he will at least get suspended and then fired. Which did work, internal complaint was lodged and if found the accusations true he would’ve been fired. He had been suspended till the proceeding were over, to make appeal he stayed in court only, as usually you have to give reply in written for any form of notice. Unfortunately for our family of three, one of the policeman (Havaldar) who heard this incident was my mothers relative (as incident was big), he came to our house and told only side of the story that he knew about, which was “my father being suspended for harassing a woman at workplace”.
My mother took this to very extreme levels, cried all day, but she did not mention a word when my father came home. As if she was waiting for him to tell her all that, which unfortunately he didn’t as he was never the type of man to bring his office problem to home. This angered her further, and you know what she did? When me and my dad was watching TV (those days some Krishana Malika was very popular and it was being played on our black and white TV), she locked herself in our kitchen and burned herself to death. Those days we didn’t have Gas, we used to use one of those “rokel stoves” and we had 5 liter can full of kerosene in our house, she used that to kill herself.
Just because of some incident in my father’s office which was actually result of him being honest and doing his job? I was only 7 years and you know what happened next? My mother’s family accused him of killing my mother, which by the way was false as he was with me the entire time. I can’t explain the details very clearly here, but this got him suspended for 2 years till case was to be given verdict on. And you know what? at age of 9 I was in court giving testimonies whether my father had killed my mother or not. As prime witness my testimony was taken right after the incident too, my mothers another relative lived close by and after the incident police took my father and they took me with them for couple of days till matters calmed down. They tried to “coach” me to give false testimony even after me giving them honest account of the incident. Thankfully police had immediately written down everything I had said right after the incident and they used that as prime evidence to prove my father innocent 2 years later.
Thankfully, my father was cleared of both the incident as there were people contradicting ladys accusations of sexual harassment and my immediate testimony as prime witness was accepted. Finally he was free, he had virtually no savings, no money to do anything during that period. Everyone looked at him as wife killer. Even our relatives would distance themselves from us.
I came to know of backstory many years later from one of his coworkers who used to come home after his retirement and we used to discuss many things. He thought this was something I needed to know. I’m glad he did.
Till my fathers retirement after the case, he still kept his head down and worked honestly. He was retired at even higher position due to couple of promotions but till 6th pay commission we didn’t even have our own home. We just weren’t able to buy it as we never had any saving in meager government salary. He also never married again, raised me all alone and even now, in such a old age does social service.
I was probably not able to explain lot of things as things are too old, but hell, that incident changed my life. COMPLETELY!
Whenever people talk about how there are no honest government workers, I can’t help but smile to myself bitterly. Afterall, that honesty has cost me quite heavily, which people think does not exist.
Sorry for any spelling and grammatical mistakes, I’m fully grown man and I’m crying atm, probably won’t even have heart to read it again to check and correct. Sorry.
Thank you for listening. I feel like huge burden was lifted off my heart.
A good man
What is the most ridiculous thing you have seen on a bus, or something that the bus driver has done?
Three obnoxious teenage males were standing at the back of a nearly-empty bus one evening in a major U.S. city. They were yelling and cursing, mocking the bus driver, who’d been instructing them to take their seats because the bus was moving. The teens clearly thought themselves far too cool to follow a transit driver’s orders to sit.
One other passenger and I sat up front on this otherwise-empty bus as the huge vehicle approached a series of underpasses — the next stop was many blocks ahead. “Hold on, you guys,” said the driver quietly, addressing me and the other behaving passenger. The driver gradually increased the bus’ speed to nearly 50 m.p.h., deftly navigating a curved underpass before straightening the bus out and locking the brakes up.
As the bus skidded to a very short stop, a twisted heap of panicked teenagers slid from the back of the bus all the way to the front, where they slammed into the steel farebox.
“Man, I barely missed that cat!” exclaimed the driver. “You guys gonna sit now?”
A yes or two was muttered as the teens untangled themselves and stood, trying unsuccessfully to wipe filthy black streaks of urban-bus-floor-grime from their previously spotless clothes. Wherever they’d been headed, they were now going to arrive looking decidedly less cool than if they’d just taken their seats.
Morons.
Is it possible for the US or other nations to prevent a potential invasion of Taiwan by China?
Absolutely, and positively No. ZERO. No way. Never gonna happen.
…
Taiwan is a province of China, and it is so close to the mainland that the PLA can swim to it.
China has already shown that it can isolate, blockade and totally rubbish the island and there isn’t a God-damn thing that anyone can do about it.
Sanctions?
Ha ha ha ha ha
Tell me about it. Ain’t no one gonna follow sanctions on China except the most butt-hole sucking LGBQ+ moronic clown-show transvestites.
Threat of war?
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Have you forgotten what getting a good butt-reaming was like? Hey! Wanna have some fun. Go watch the interview of American veterans of the “Korean War” and what THEY have to say. Instead of listening to John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.
Trade embargo?
Oh my goodness, this is a belly laugh for certain. Ha ha ha ha
When Namibia, Africa is running 7G and 8G, the USA will be struggling with land-lines and cell-phone towers that struggle with obsolete 3G networks on dying batteries.
…
To take on China is to place a loaded .45 ACP to your temple and pull the trigger. It’s “death by cop”, and you know what, if you are so God-damn stupid to pull that one, you will deserve the nuclear radiation that comes with it.
Idiots. Suckers.
…
Update
I’m sorry. I must apologize. I sometimes really minimize really serious issues and distill it into something more palatable to the average person. Like this post. The reality is that it is gonna be much, much, MUCH worse.
The fact is, that any war between China and the “rules based insanity” that is the West today is gonna be a God-Damn cluster Fuck. That is a truth, and you all had best get your arms around this truth.
Trump can be President. Oprah Winfrey could be president. Joe Biden could be President. It won’t make any difference. The USA is run by the ignorant, and they are on a death-march to the meat-grinder, and you are duck taped to them.
Enjoy the ride.
Until it is over.
Sad truth
What’s something your husband did to you that you will never forget?
My husband told me I should go to technical college and get a degree in graphic arts. He said if anything happened to him I didn’t really have a profession to fall back on. I had worked for several companies doing different types of art, ads etc. I loved art, any and all kinds. I was 40 at the time.i told him I was too old. He said in two years you will be 42 wheather you go to school or not. Huge decision as a mother of five. When I got there several others were my same age much to my surprise. Our “elder” group rocked our work and we all got pretty good jobs after graduation. Seems we were there because we wanted the education. Most of the young kids just out of high school were there to meet other kids and party. Thank you dear John. One of the best decisions I ever made.
What is your opinion on the best approach for the US to handle conflicts with China?
China is on the other end of the globe.
There are NO INTERESTS on that side of the world that matter to the American citizenry.
…
Any conflicts there are handled locally, by the local inhabitants, and the United States is like that nebby neighbor down the street who is really bent out of shape by the color of your socks.
…
The best thing for the United States to do is to mind it’s own business.
Take care of the needs of it’s citizenry.
Inflation.
Jobs
Work / industry.
Social changes.
Homelessness.
Addictions
And much, much more…
…
Do you understand?
What should I do if my boss says, “If you don’t like the job, you can go”?
I’ve done that twice.
First time was at a small chemical sales company that hooked up with a Russian shortly after the breakup of the USSR. The Russian sources were willing to do things no one else was willing to do (chemicals and pure elements that were dangerous to make).
Commissions were horrible and the new partner said if you don’t like it, leave. So I had a friend working in telecom sales for big blue that referred me in.
I came to him and said, you know how you said if we weren’t happy to leave? Well here’s my 2 week notice.
Similarly, years later I’m working in the copier industry and coming off a stretch of making Presidents Club a few years in a row. They had just changed my territory, cutting my base of machines by 2/3rds and moving me to a branch in the city meaning more expensive to go to work.
My new manager was struggling making quota for the team and called a meeting and told us all as a group that we had to make quota or we can leave if we don’t like it.
I immediately got a job at another company, as did half of the rest of the team. The only people left were newbies.
Bottom line, don’t threaten sales people. We can always get a job
Good rules
China Warns Citizens Inside USA: Prepare for “Various unexpected situations”
A strange warning has been issued by China to any of its citizens located in the United States: “take safety precautions and be prepared for ‘various unexpected situations.’
According to the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, several Chinese students and company employees have recently been subjected to “unwarranted interrogations and harassment” by US airport law enforcement officers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its WeChat account on Friday.
Their phones, computers and other luggage items were searched piece by piece, and several people were banned from entering the country, it said.
To most casual observers, this “warning” from China makes no sense. At worst, perhaps twenty people from China have had unusual incidents trying to enter the United States; hardly a reason for such a large warning. Unless . . .
So-called “Conspiracy theorists” are wondering if this “warning” is actually a “signal” to Chinese forces already inside the US; sort of a notice to “prepare for action?”
After all, such folks say, how can anyone, anywhere, “prepare for various UNEXPECTED situations?” They point out that no one can do that, and thus the tin-foil-hat folks — who often are proven to be correct — wonder if this is more of a signal, than a warning?
Timeline alert
How did Intel create the 4004 without another microprocessor?
They did it by hand. When I was an undergraduate student in my Junior year, I took a course called “Advanced Digital Circuits.” The professor never gave a lecture. On the first day, he allowed us to choose teams as one would in a grade-school PE class. He gave the two teams three projects to complete, deadlines, a list of textbooks and other resources, and his home phone number.
For the third project, we designed and built (by hand) a CPU, using only Small Scale Integrated Circuits (7400 series). We were allowed to use Medium Scale Integrated circuits for main memory and I/O devices. The next step in the CPU design would have been to replace the gates with the equivalent transistors and lay out the masks to make the chips. My group’s design was a bit more complex than a 4004, but not as complex as a 6502. We estimated around 3500 transistors. We built it in about seven weeks, while taking other courses and working to pay tuition.
The team got together for a four hour session on a Saturday to design the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), and then took a week to each code up the solutions to different problems. We got together again a week later to check all of the solutions. We decided to add one instruction to the ISA.
The next Saturday, in a six hour session, in a room with chalk boards covering every wall, David Baten and I derived and minimized all of the Boolean equations for the entire CPU. Will, Paul, and Tim kept notes and kept us from making mistakes. Everyone went home and spent a week drawing up schematics.
We got together again the next Saturday, and reviewed each other’s schematics. We took the best ideas and drew up the final set of schematics. We made copies on Monday (the schematics were on ANSI E paper and there was only one copier in Lubbock, Texas that could make copies that size). Everyone went home and spent the rest of the week reviewing the schematics.
The next Saturday, we met to update the schematics. There were three errors, and a few places where we had to debate about whether it was correct or whether there was a better way to do it. We broke the design into 5 components and each person went home to build their component.
A week later, we met again to integrate the components. We spent 10 hours on that Saturday trying to make it work. We had a couple of instructions that were not working correctly. We broke it back down into the five major components and everyone spent the next week testing their components. One teammate, Will, found a wiring error in his component.
The next Saturday, we met at 8:00 AM. We got it working at around 2:00 AM on Sunday morning and rang the professor. He got out of bed and came to see our demo at 4:00 AM. We showed him our cross-assembler (written by yours truly), our serial downlink to transfer the code into our target system (primitive JTAG done by David), and demonstrated it running three programs. He asked us to write a new program for it. He had the specifications all typed out. It took about two hours to code it in our assembly and get it to run.
We called it the “Pizza 1000” because it was about 1000 square inches of protoboards housed in pizza boxes that the owner of “One Guy from Italy” (best pizza and calzones in Lubbock, TX) gave me when I told him about the project. It was the best learning experience that I had as an undergraduate. Our computer ran for about 8 hours, and then something failed.
Now I teach a similar course called “CPU Design.” my students build a much more complex CPU using an HDL and implement it on an FPGA. To get into the course, they already have a course in basic digital logic, and another course in HDL and FPGA. I give them a few lectures to get them started, and they don’t have to create the ISA or cross-tools (I provide those). Most of my students love it and mention it in their exit interviews as one of their most challenging and rewarding courses.
They still have to understand gates, muxes, registers, etc. so that they can read the schematics generated by VHDL or Verilog, and debug their designs. Here is a simplified, non-pipelined, RISC-V core (no interrupts or exceptions). Instruction decoder on left, register file in the middle, and ALU on the right. It was generated from VHDL code.
I teach them to build and test each module separately, then connect them together at the end. Very much the same way that my team worked, but this design was built and tested by a single student. The HDL and FPGAs are force multipliers, not substitutes for knowledge. The students still have to understand what they want to build, and they have to specify it precisely in a language designed for that purpose. They still have to read the schematics that they create. The software makes sure that there are no wiring errors, and the FPGA replaces 1000’s of square inches of protoboard with reconfigurable hardware in less than a square inch. This design could be mapped to transistors and put on silicon, but that is another course.
What can we say about hypothetical planets of Alpha Centauri Star?
The Centauri triple star system, is our nearest stellar neighbors at a distance of 4.25 light years from our solar system. Two of these stars are very similar in mass to the sun, and orbit each other around a common center of mass. The third star, (know as Proxima Centauri) is a red dwarf star that orbits it’s two sibling stars at a much greater distance. Only Proxima Centauri has a confirmed exoplanet known as “Proxima B”. This exoplanet is slightly larger than the earth, and sits comfortably in the Goldilocks zone of Proxima Centauri. However, the prospect of life on Proxima B must be viewed with extreme skeptisism. The reasons why are as follows:
1.) Proxima Centauri is an “M” class red dwarf star, and is the smallest stellar classification, approximately 80 times less massive than the sun.
2.) The Goldilocks zone of an “M” class red dwarf is very close to the Star. This means that in order for Proxima B to be warm enough to allow for liquid water to pool on its surface, it must be tidally locked in its orbit.
3.) No red dwarf star in the history of the universe has ever left the main sequence. This is due to the fact that red dwarf stars will stay on the main sequence for trillions of years.
4.) No Red Dwarf in the history of the universe has ever evolved out of its “T” tauri stage of its main sequence either. Every star that initiates the main sequence of it’s evolution starts out in the “T” tauri stage. Depending on its initial mass, all stars begin the main sequence by spinning much more rapidly, and as they age slowly begin to spin slower. When a star spins much faster, it’s magnetic field lines will twist violently, and cause tremendous solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Any planet that is in the Goldilocks zone of an “M” class Red Dwarf will eventually have any atmosphere it possesses will be stripped away.
What should I know when I visit America?
No one really wants to know about your health. “How are you?” is a greeting. Respond “I’m fine, how about you”.
No one really wants you to drop by unannounced. “You should come over some time” is just a polite way of saying they want to remain on friendly terms.
Americans really are that friendly. When they smile, they mean it. They aren’t just being polite. It’s not some sort of act.
It’s a really bad idea to talk about politics, religion or guns (which is increasingly becoming the same topic). Ask about football. Americans love to talk about football.
They probably don’t know a lot about where you’re from and may make some stupid statements about it. Resist the urge to correct them. If they actually do know about your country ask them more about theirs. Americans love to talk about America and, in fact, their country is pretty awesome.
One way to show that you’re not as smart as an American is to make some comment about how you want to see the country on your one week trip. Americans know exactly how long it takes to get anyplace in their country. Ask instead what’s great to see in the region. They can then point you to a place that’s no more than a day away that you may have missed.
Americans will usually address you by your first name. That’s normal, and they often don’t mind being addressed by their first name unless they’re a policeman or a judge. They think they’re being friendly by doing so.
In most of the United States, public transit is a joke. Many places can only be effectively reached by private car. Car dependent cities like Detroit and Dallas still have cabs, but it can be nearly impossible to get one. If some how you arrive in some such city without a ride, it may be a while before you get one. For example, Detroit has a lot of car rental agencies, but almost all of them except the majors deal solely with insurance companies to provide replacement vehicles for people who have lost theirs in a crash. Some cities have really good public transit (NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago) but assume none of the other do.
Currency exchange is a real hassle, and as been pointed out there are some places that don’t even take credit cards (particularly foreign ones). It’s not going to be a problem at a hotel, but it might be at a fast food place.
Food portions are massive. And delicious. And usually not very expensive. However, American often put “quantity” over “quality” when making recommendations.
American customs and immigration agents are not really representative of the people in their country. They are rude, suspicious, humourless and often seem in a constant state of anger. Be unfailingly polite and listen to their questions.
Generative AI in a Nutshell – how to survive and thrive in the age of AI
This is HOW AI works.
Worth your time to review.
What is the saddest thing you have ever had to terminate an employee for?
My first full time job.. I was a clerk and got friendly with our receptionist. She didn’t have a car so she’d take the train to our town and either take a taxi or walk several miles to our office. I would start my day at the post office picking up the company mail. On my way in I saw her walking one day so I picked her up. Upon discovering this, I drove past the train station anyway, I told her to just wait for me every day and I’d take her there. At days end she’d come to the mailroom and I’d drive her back.
I noticed she called in sick on Fridays. One day the boss told me they fired her for attendance and asked me to drive her to the station. Once in the car she told me the reason was that she had kidney disease and was getting dialysis on Fridays. She was afraid to tell management and just let her them fire her.
I turned the car around and went back to the office. I left her in the car and went right to the boss’s office. I explained the situation and he was upset. I then brought her back in and he hired her back, with the understanding she could only work four days. Every Friday other secretaries would fill in the reception spot, rotating each week and nobody complained.
The poor girl thought the company would fire her if they knew she was I’ll. Instead we all rallied around her to help! She was still there when I left the company for a better job.
Have you ever witnessed a life ruined from a small mistake?
Yes, my neighbor’s adult son.
Let’s call him, Jack.
Jack led the ultimate life. He was attractive, smart, charismatic. Everyone loved him. He went to the best university; majored in pharmacy. Got his pharmacist license and started a great pharmacy practice.
Went out one night and got drunk.
Hit a construction worker who was at work early. Left the scene of the accident. Several days later turned himself in after contacting his parents and a lawyer and getting sober.
Got convicted and spent 9 years in prison as a 28 year old.
Fifteen years later he is still not out of debt to the family or the lawyer. Has a job, but not a career. Can’t work in pharmacy as he can’t be licensed.
One drunk night was all it took to ruin his life. He will never get rid of the stain on his life.
Forgot to add that his car insurance didn’t cover the damage to his Beemer and the lawsuit filed by the construction company he drove into so he now has a $70,000 lien against him for the damages. Doubt he’ll ever be able to pay it.
Will the US tech sanctions on China backfire itself, when the US policy has morphed into an all-encompassing effort to contain China’s development of everything from sophisticated chips to artificial intelligence and supercomputing?
Of course, US effort to contain China’s development will backfire USA.
Let us take 5G as an example.
In 2017, Huawei got 5G before USA. Then USA+allies hysterically banned Huawei. But it does not stop Huawei at all. In early 2024, Huawei announced it got 5.5G.
Then USA unites 10 countries to skip 5G & develop 6G. That is, USA+ tries to set the standard of 6G, They may marginally improve 5G a bit & call it 6G.
However, with Huawei announcement of 5.5G, USA+ must develop something faster than 5.5G before they can call it 6G.
Let say USA+ does get 6G. But if Huawei’s new G is faster than western 6G, then Huawei will skip 6 & jump to 6.5 or 7G. That is, USA+ will be forever behind Huawei. The more USA+ try, the bigger the gap will be between Huawei & the west.
Had USA+ cooperated with Huawei 5G at the beginning, they may get a chance to surpass Huawei when they work/improve on Huawei’s 5G.
Slowly, the world will be split into 2: China standard & western standard. The 2 standards are not the same.
While USA+ banned 5G, Global South are happy to use 5G. In remote China areas, Chinese already use 5G while remote US towns are still using 2 or 3G.
Many countries in Latin America, Mideast, Africa & more are using 5G too. This means technologically, USA+ are behind the world & have become the 3rd world now.
Train
How do felons get jobs if no one hires felons?
An old high school friend of mine spent 9 years and 9 months in prison.
He got out in 2018 as a convicted felon.
What’s worse, he was convicted of a violent crime.
After he got out, the world had changed and he was ostracized by society but I commend him for what he did.
The rate at which convicted felons return to prison in the United States is higher than any other country.
That’s because the system makes it hard for them to get a break so they turn back to the only life that they’ve known.
A few days after my friend got out, he and I sat down and had a long chat about what he wanted to do.
He had a plan that wasn’t fully fleshed out but I helped him fill in a few details.
We agreed that a “traditional job” was probably out of the question because of his record. So, instead, he decided to go through training as a plumber.
You may be surprised to learn that plumbers make roughly $25/hour. At least in the southeast.
After he finished his training, he applied to at least 10 positions before getting hired. Finally, he caught a break and was hired by a small firm. He put his heart and soul into that job and was recognized as one of the best employees after six months.
Then, his parole officer violated him because he was 10 minutes late for the nightly check in call. He had a curfew of 7 PM every day and was running late because of work.
He was arrested and sent to jail for 30 days.
That’s how the system is in America.
He lost his job.
After that, he started applying for more positions.
There was one that denied him because of his background. In the email they sent, there was an attachment with a form that asked him why he felt they should hire him anyway.
He ignored it because it didn’t seem like it would make a difference.
For some reason, I called him that week and asked him about the job hunt.
He mentioned the form and I encouraged him to fill it out.
He did, sent it, and forgot about it.
He got a call back later. The company said they wanted to hire him. He was flown out to Florida for 2 weeks of intensive training and came back with a 2019 Ford F-250 and all the equipment he needed to do his job well.
He’s been crushing it ever since.
It’s true that most employers don’t hire convicted felons.
That’s because many of them deserve their reputations of being untrustworthy and unreliable. For every employer that has had a good experience hiring a felon, there are twice as many who’ve had a bad experience.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities out there. It just means if you’re a felon, you have to work twice as hard for half as much.
It’s just like being a marginalized minority in America so nothing new there.
Who is an actor that had a rough start in their career but eventually became extremely successful and had one of the biggest careers in Hollywood history?
Harrison Ford has to be one of the best examples, if not THE best example of all time.
As a young man, Ford was put on contract with Columbia Studios, but then pissed off one of the executives who critiqued the young actor by saying, “When Tony Curtis played a bellboy early in his career, you could see he was a star.”
Harrison Ford said sarcastically, “Really? I thought he was supposed to be acting like a bellboy.”
Well, that was end of his career at Columbia, but he went on to do bit parts in several movies for Universal. However, years went by and he found he wasn’t getting anything more than a line here and a line there, and it didn’t look like he was going to ever make much of a living as an actor.
That was when he decided to take up carpentry. He was good at it, and made a living at it, because, he said, “I’d rather tell people I was a working carpenter than another unemployed actor.”
But one day he ended up making the acquaintance of young filmmaker George Lucas, who liked Harrison Ford and gave him a modest supporting role in “American Graffiti.” Originally, Lucas didn’t see Ford as right for his new space opera, Star Wars, but Lucas gave Ford some work by hiring him to read opposite actors auditioning for Luke and Leia.
And then something interesting happened. Lucas decided that Ford’s reading of Han Solo was actually better than the actors being considered for the role. His reading was that good. So his “offscreen” reading of Han Solo was better than the actors who were officially being considered for the part.
The rest is history.
It ain’t so; it is everybody
Alpha Centari stuff
Alpha Centauri A is about 20% more massive than B, and so A is called the primary. B’s orbit, relative to A, is shown below. The real trajectory is the fatter ellipse, and it’s shown as though we were above the orbit looking down. The orbital plane is highly tilted to our line of sight from Earth, and so B appears to follow the skinnier ellipse (the apparent trajectory).
main qimg 95de3b3cc7a988c3e22696ff432abf7d pjlq
B’s orbit is fairly elliptical. Its distance from A varies from 11.2 AU at closest approach (aka periastron or periapsis) to 36.5 AU at its farthest (apoastron or apoapsis). At its closest, it’s about as far away as Saturn is from our Sun (9.5 AU), and at the furthest point, it’s comparable to Pluto (39 AU). BTW, the Astronomical Unit, AU, is the distance from the Sun to the Earth.
If there were an Earth-like planet around A, its orbit would be somewhat further out than Earth’s because A is about 50% brighter than our Sun. But let’s ignore that and make this a bit easier.
B is about half as bright as the Sun, so roughly speaking, at its brightest B would look about half as bright as the Sun does from Saturn. According to the first link, your surroundings would look like a typical office or maybe a bit dimmer. When at its most distant, B would be about as bright as a typical streetlight.
B would certainly perturb the orbit of any planet circling A. It would take some serious calculations to determine whether the orbit is stable, and if it is, what shape it would have. Luckily, someone has just released a paper doing just that. They reckon a planet would have a stable orbit if its semi-major axis is 3 AU or less (semi-major axis is the average of the closest and furthest distances from the primary). That’s close enough for the planet to be in the habitable zone. See the second link for the paper.
You may be asking because The Three Body Problem trilogy and TV series imagine a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. Spoiler alter! The planet has a chaotic orbit which causes repeated destruction of civilization.
Paternity test results
Have you ever witnessed a judge go completely ballistic and “lose it” in court?
I’d gotten thrown in jail for the night, after I decked a guy that had been slapping his girlfriend around. Even though the jerk had swung first when I interceded, the cops decided I’d hurt him more than I had to. Spent the night the “holding “ area, but actually knew a couple of the jail staff, and got one of them to get me a book to read.
I go to court around 1:30–2:00 next day, and get a public defender for the sole purpose, of setting bail. As I didn’t have a record, I knew I should be able to get a signature bond, then straighten everything out later. My case got called for “Felonious “ assault, and the judge called for a $5,000 cash bond. Without batting an eye the idiot public defender stated “thank you, your honor. We think that’s fair.” I stared at the dolt for about 5 seconds said “Shut up. You’re fired!” The judge asked if I’d just fired my attorney, and if I thought it a good idea? I said yes, and thought I could do better than that, so I asked for a $5,000 signature bond. Judge countered with $2,500 cash, and I asked to approach the bench, and say something I don’t want heard in open court . The judge looked puzzled but said okay. I went up without the legal joker, but the assistant DA and a bailiff that was a cousin of mine went with me. Here’s how it went;
I asked the judge to mute his microphone, as I didn’t want others to overhear. Judge again asks why, and I pointed to the local newspaper guy with nothing to do.
Judge: Why do you think you deserve a signature bond ?
Me: Because it’s Wednesday.(Giving him an evil look and smile.)
Judge: What does that mean?
Me: On Wednesday’s you have lunch with your wife at Gionelli’s. You two meet in the bar area and order a club soda with lime, and a double vodka tonic also with lime A switcheroo occurs en route the your table. (I know all this because I’m one of the management staff there and have seen this several times.) At the table your wife is probably having chicken Marsala, and you had the usual chicken/broccoli fettuccine. Around half way through the meal, fresh drinks are ordered, including the double vodka tonic. You will have finished the second drink by the time you leave the restaurant.
Judge: (bug eyed and pretty pissed off): What are you trying to say.
Me: I’m saying that you’re legally buzzed, and if I don’t get a signature bond, I will have this deputy here breathalyzer you right now! (indicating my cousin who didn’t look happy, about the attention)
Judge: Go back to the table with the attorney. (Knowing he was busted!) I got a really low signature bond and had a bunch of witnesses, so the case was eventually dismissed. The judge hung out and shot a good game of pool at a bar about 2 blocks from my house, and would always made me buy him a vodka tonic whenever he saw me.
My son moved from Europe to the US three years ago (Houston, TX).
He’s got a well paid job in IT. In fact, a monthly take home pay is about double of mine.
So, you would think he’s got it made…
Think again.
His monthly disposable income is about 2/3 of mine.
Everything’s much more expensive in the US. Especially the basics of modern life: decent food, communication (cell phone, broadband internet, car insurance, medical insurance, … ).
And whilst TX doesn’t have state income tax, property taxes are brutal.
At first glance, going out doesn’t got an arm and a leg till you add the expected 20% gratuity.
Or when shopping for clothes… what you pay at the till is not the ticket price.
All things considered, people on the US are better paid, but people in Europe are richer and enjoy a better quality of life.
I came for the show
What are some amazing psychology and mind tricks?
When you tell a joke in a big group of people, the person who you turn to look at first is the person you’re closest to.
If you want something from someone, frame it as an offer rather than a request.
If a person is using his/her hand’s gestures much while talking, that’s the sign which indicates that they are telling the truth and 100% confident about their facts.
Nodding your head while asking a question makes the other person more likely to agree with you.
You can judge the character of a person by how they treat people who can do absolutely nothing for them.
If you’re asking for a favor, always use the word ‘because’. It makes them more likely to comply.
Sitting with legs open indicates that you are more open to having a conversation. If you are not very confident always mirror someone else’s body action and you will be fine.
While talking to someone, keep using their name in the conversations. This helps them feel important and valued.
People look more attractive when they speak about the things they are interested in.
If someone becomes angry over silly or petty (small) things, It means he/she needs love.
WHAT?! Yemen just Closed Red Sea to Israeli and US Ships in Deal with Russia, China
What is the most unusual and incorrect reason you’ve had the police called on you?
My ex-wife ran the gift shop at a small local museum. Very often she was the only one there in the morning for an hour or so, opening up the place before the guides and tour groups arrived.
One morning she got to work and called me (this was well before we were “ex”) because it looked like someone might have broken in overnight. So I came over to check it out, because she was justifiably worried about who might be hiding out in the building.
As it happened, the museum was doing some construction work and there was lots of debris lying around. Before I went inside, I grabbed a handy length of 2×4 to use as a club. Of course if whoever was inside had a gun, that wouldn’t have done me much good. But we figured it was more likely to be a homeless person seeking shelter for the night, or maybe something to steal quietly, than a dedicated armed robber. Folks like that don’t usually go for the stealthy approach.
I walked through the entire place, looking in every possible hiding place, with my makeshift club over my shoulder. Nobody was there, and I headed back toward the entrance to tell her it was safe.
Neither of us remembered that the museum had a silent alarm.
When I got outside, she was there, and so were the cops. A fair number of cops, because the museum in question is locally famous and known for its valuable collections. She’d told the cops that I was inside the building, but hadn’t given them a description. So what they saw was a big, scruffy, grumpy guy in a biker jacket walking out of the building carrying a 2×4 …
… and suddenly I did have guns pointed out me. Lots of guns. Probably not as many as it seemed like, but you know, all it takes is one to do the trick.
Fortunately, her cry of “don’t shoot him, that’s my husband!” got through, and the cops lowered their guns and we all had a good laugh. Then they went inside and repeated my search, with the same lack of result, and declared the museum safe to open. A good time was had by all.
Me, I wasn’t there for most of that, because I had an urgent appointment with the restroom.
Cool
How would you describe your first interview? What lessons did you learn?
I had just turned 13 and my mother woke me up one Saturday morning and told me two things:
That it was time for me to get a job.
That working for McDonald’s would look good on my resume when I got older.
Phase 1
We hopped in the car, drove a couple blocks to our regular McDonald’s and picked up an application. We got in the car, and then my Mom hands me a pen.
So, right there in the parking lot, my Mom gave me a tutorial on how to fill out an application. We dropped it off and, apparently, this was only phase one of the plan.
“Next we’ll call first thing Monday to make sure they got your application. That will increase your chances of getting an interview.”
Uh huh.
Phase 2 works like a charm. I call, and not only did they get the application, they schedule me for an interview.
Phase 2: Interview Day
Wearing my best “Church Clothes for an Adolescent Skateboarder”, I show up with knots in my stomach. I guess I really care about getting this job. As if it’s even possible, my nerves make my voice crack and squeak like the puberty I’d gone through didn’t take for some reason.
The Interviewer
I’ll never forget seeing this guy. I’d never seen a McDonald’s issue white, button up dress shirt, or a McDonald’s employee wearing a tie – but there he was. The best dressed Big Mac boss you’ve ever seen.
“Hello Mr. Lynam. Have a seat.”
I’d been eating at this location since I was 5, but this was the first time it scared me.
“I want to tell you that we appreciate you filling out this application, but because you’re only 13, we wouldn’t be able to give you a job.”
Off the hook. Relief. I thank him.
“You were very persistent and we look forward to having an interview with you when you’re old enough to work.”
Phase 3
I hurry back to the car to inform my Mom of the news. “Too young.” It was as if the news never registered to my Mother. Like one of those “Goonies Never say Die” moments, but for, you know, a job at McDonalds. So she says:
“That’s just for this location.”
Funny thing about McDonald’s – there are a lot of them. We immediately drive over to the McDonald’s exactly three blocks in the opposite direction of our house, and repeat the steps: Application, Phone Call, and then an Interview.
Then It Happens
I show up at McDonald’s #2 exactly a week since my first interview. I’m wearing the same clothes, and this time I’m a little less freaked to walk in.
I take a seat because my interviewer is busy.
Then I see that same white, button up shirt and tie. McDonald’s issue. It’s the same guy. You know those nightmares where you wake up, and think you’re safe – only to realize it’s still part of the nightmare? Well this was the McDonald’s job interview version of that.
He looks at me, then looks at the application.
“Hi Mr. Lynam, um yeah, it’s the same deal as last time.”
Epilogue
What my Mother taught me was persistence. There are countless times that I think back to this story when I’m faced with a situation that challenges my, or my team’s, comfort zone. My Mom still laughs at this story, and so do I, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect what this moment has continued to teach me all these years later.
Common in the USA
Roasted Garlic Pizza
MG 7566
Ingredients
1 (13 inch) uncooked dough crust
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 bunch spinach, wilted
6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
8 sun-dried tomato pieces, sliced
1 head garlic, roasted
MG 7562
Instructions
Prepare wilted spinach by first thoroughly washing and drying, removing stems, and then stir-frying until wilted.
Prepare roasted garlic by skinning garlic, coating with olive oil, and baking covered for 20 minutes in a 350 degrees F oven.
Top dough crust with olive oil, spinach, feta cheese, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes.
Bake in preheated 500 degrees F oven on a pizza stone for 8 to 10 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 2 or 3 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.
MG 7558
What is something you secretly enjoy doing?
I live in China, and as a black person I frequently come across people who assume I can’t speak Chinese. I’ve been learning it for over two years and I study in it, too.
I sort of enjoy the impressed looks people give me when they see me speaking it – not fluently, mind you – but people get really impressed anyway.
It’s sort of amusing how very deer-in-headlights some shopkeepers get when they see me approach them. It’s like I could hear the wheels in their heads turning, “how will I speak to this foreigner?” Then comes the look of relief across their faces, the bright smiles when I speak to them in Chinese.
They usually congratulate me for speaking it; I smile and nod encouragingly at some English words they try to use to help me understand what they’re saying. All good-natured exchanges; no hard feelings.
I’ve had food vendors give me free food; candy, even chicken once, after we conversed in Chinese and they complimented my skills.
The stories you hear about Chinese people coming up and asking to take pictures with ordinary foreigners as if we are celebrities are true, too. I’ve had that happen occasionally, especially if I’m out with other foreign friends.
There are many elderly people who’ve never stepped out of the country nor even seen a black person in their entire lives, so I do get the occasional elderly person or child literally stop in their tracks to stare wide-eyed at me like I’m a rare unicorn. It’s amusing.
Women and two things
What is the one fact about the world that no one knows, but you?
By 2020, depression will be the leading cause of death and disability.
Feeling ignored causes the same chemical effect as that of injury.
People who play video games often are much more likely to have lucid dreams than non-gamers. They were also better able to influence their dream worlds as if controlling a video-game character.
People who have cars with bumper stickers are more likely to exhibit road rage. You may want to think twice before laying on the horn!!
Phobias may be memories passed down through generations in DNA, according to new research. If you remember a past event, you’re actually remembering the last time you remembered it rather than the event itself.
Thinking about sex will temporarily relieve the urge to pee in the case of an emergency.
Having a problem? Lay down! You can process thoughts faster by laying down.
At a restaurant? Wash your hands after ordering. The menu is generally the dirtiest thing you can touch.
Always check your cell signal when looking for new apartments or dorms to live in.
If a crocodile is chasing you, run in a zig-zag pattern. Crocodiles can’t take sharp turns well.
If a crocodile has caught you between its jaw, you press his eyes intensely with your thumbs, he will leave you.
You can clear cigarette smoke in a room by spinning a wet towel around.
If your stomach is rumbling in a public setting, do not clench your muscles, instead of push out like a beer belly and the noise will stop.
Honey= brightens, tightens, & fights wrinkles & acne. Honey Facial: Smear onto face let sit for 1-3m, rinse with warm water, pat dry.
Got a pimple before something important? Use an ice cube to shrink it.
Mash tomatoes and apply the pulp as a pack on the face. Wash this off after half an hour to get a clear and glowing complexion.
For oily skin, mash one banana with a teaspoon of honey and a couple of drops of lemon juice. Apply to face for 10 minutes, rinse.
You can get longer nails by applying olive oil to help them grow.
Eating garlic and onions can make your hair grow faster.
Putting sugar on a wound does helps heal it faster!
Clean your room! When your room is messy, you’re more likely to procrastinate and not get work done.
If you know you’re going to vomit eat some vanilla ice cream first. It won’t stop the vomiting, but it will stop the burning sensation.
Remove ink from clothes? Put toothpaste on the ink spots generously. Let it dry completely, then wash.
Sign up for the free 30 minute trial of on-board WiFi while flying. Delete cookies when the trial ends. Start a new trial.
If you are buying headphones/speakers, test them with Bohemian Rhapsody. It has a complete set of highs and lows in instruments and vocals.
Put a stocking over the end of a vacuum to find tiny items like earrings. This prevents you from accidentally sucking them up.
Mess with telemarketers! Some aren’t allowed to hang up, so answer the call, take a shower, have a snack, then say “no thanks 😉
Memorize your waiter’s name when they introduce themselves—call them by name later in the meal and they’ll like you more.
Singing in the shower daily can help boost your immunity, lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and improve your mood.
Combine used coffee grounds, coconut oil, & sea salt for an amazing body scrub that will remove dead skin cells while hydrating your skin.
If you don’t know whether to write “affect” or “effect”, use the word “impact” instead.
If you want someone to listen to you, start the conversation with “I shouldn’t be telling you this.
If your boyfriend or girlfriend wrongs you–don’t tell your parents about it. You might forgive them, but your parents won’t.
If you’re ever stuck in a large crowd, put coins in a can and shake it, asking people to donate. Everyone will move to avoid you.
When walking through a crowd, look at your destination in the distance. People will clear a path if they see you make a clear eye-line.
When washing clothes, always turn them inside out so the design doesn’t crack.
If you still feel tired after a good night’s sleep, you’re probably dehydrated. Drink some water after you wake up.
If you email a big company and tell them your recent purchase was unsatisfactory, they’ll most likely send you free stuff.
Feeling sleepy? Hold your breath until you can’t anymore and then breathe out slowly. This will increase your heart rate.
Sleeping without a bra can help you have a 95% better sleep.
Sleeping on your stomach can induce weirder, scarier, and sexier dreams.
Sleeping next to someone you love not only reduces depression, but it also helps you to live longer and makes you fall asleep faster.
Eating your food slowly will help you lose weight, enjoy your food, reduce stress, and lead to better digestion.
Fasting for 16 hours will reset your body’s natural sleep/wake cycle and is considered an effective way to overcome jet-lag.
Have a flat tire? Take a picture of it on your phone for future reference. Use it as an excuse later.
When in college, always sit in the front. Your teacher will remember your face when it comes to grading and most likely be more favorable.
Forgot an assignment and need to email it? Change the date on your computer system and send it.
If you think somebody is giving you a fake number, read it back to them incorrectly. See if they correct you.
Listening to music can boost your running performance by 15%.
Before sleeping, 90% of your mind begins to imagine the stuff you’d like to happen.
Have a good 20-minute workout at night so you’ll feel better before you sleep.
Dancing, singing and masturbating are all proven ways to fight depression and lead to better sleep.
Take vitamin B complex during the summer. Insects don’t like the way it makes you smell to them, it wards off mosquitoes and biting flies.
In college? Always ask for a student discount, most stores have it and students never use it.
If you are drunk and have the urge to vomit, taking short rapid breaths can help it go away.
If you download a “PDF” file and you see it ends in “.exe” delete it. Its a virus.
When cleaning your room, start with making your bed. It will make everything around it look out of place and it will motivate you to clean.
Hearing your name being called, when no one has actually called your name, is a likely sign of a healthy mind.
If you want someone’s number at a party, take a picture with them and ask them to send it to you.
The Two-Minute Rule: If you see something that needs doing, and it can be completed within two minutes, do it immediately.
Putting dry tea bags in gym bags or smelly shoes will absorb the unpleasant odor.
Wrap a cold paper towel around a drink and put it in the freezer to make it cold faster
Drinking 2 cups of cold water on an empty stomach can boost metabolism by 30%
Cough keeping you up at night? Put Vick’s Vapo-rub on your feet and put on socks. Within minutes the cough will stop permanently
Hugging can help reduce stress and lower blood pressure — This helps to protect us from heart disease
When on a date, the best way to judge a person’s character is to see how they treat waiters and waitresses
To remove gum from hair, dip into a small bowl of Coke, leave for a few minutes. The gum will wipe off
When doing sit-ups if you place your tongue on the roof of your mouth it will stop you from straining your neck
If your boss calls you in on your day off, tell him you’ve been drinking, the boss can’t fault you for not coming in.
When going on a date, go to a horror film. Elevated heart rate and adrenaline are strongly tied to sexual attraction.
If you ever drop glass, put a piece of bread on it. The consistency of the bread will pick up even the smallest shard
When you’re finished with an essay, copy and paste it into Google Translate and listen to it. It’s the easiest way to find mistakes.
If you toss onions in the freezer 15 minutes before you cut them you won’t tear up.
Accidentally text the wrong person? Immediately put your phone on airplane mode and once it fails to deliver, delete the message.
If you place an egg in water and it floats, don’t consume it. It’s bad and should be thrown away. A fresh egg will sink to the bottom.
Eating Pizza once a week can actually help reduce the risk of esophageal cancer. So go eat some Pizza.
Turning the shower cold right before you get out closes your pores and makes you less likely to get acne.
Yellow rooms can make babies cry more and couples fight more.
Grab a banana for breakfast! They are known as happy fruit. Eating just one can help relieve irritable emotions, anger and or depression.
Bananas can reduce the swelling and irritation of mosquito bites and help with nicotine withdrawal.
People who enjoy sweets like chocolate tend to be more generous, happier, selfless and open-minded.
What are the consequences for Chinese citizens who criticize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or its policies, particularly regarding Xinjiang and the Uighur population?
Here it comes again..
If your criticism is based on facts and logics, then your criticism is welcomed.
If your criticism is based on rumor and bias, then you will ran off and seek political asylum in USA, Canada or UK, like the pro-”democracy” activists in HK, eg, Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow Ting. Because you can’t make a living in China, everyone knows you and they put you into their blacklist, you can’t find a job. So the only choice is to go for your funder.
No one is excuted by the government for criticizing it so far.
No one believes in Xinjiang fake news, because those news reports targeted on you, not us. This is your government’s propaganda, not ours. We can tell the illogic and not-make-sense narratives at the first sight but you can’t, because the distance and language barrier made you not able to access information from a much wider range.
Why don’t nuclear nations have a disarm mode for nuclear ICBM’s after they are launched?
The answer lies in the theory of deterrence and enduring paranoia of that most iconic of Cold War doctrine’s “MAD” or Mutually Assured Destruction. If there is one man who was most responsible for both it is General Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay. LeMay was everything you imagine a Cold War air force general to be — a sports-car driving, martial arts practicing, HAM radio operating, steel-nerved commander for whom the killing of thousands or even millions of civilians was an uninteresting footnote in the larger strategic calculus of war. Indeed, he may well have been the source of that stereotype. he is certainly remembered as both the patron saint of the United States Air Force and as among the most infamous war criminals in history.
Along the way LeMay became one of the guiding lights of American strategic airpower. Now, LeMay didn’t like ballistic missiles. He was a bomber man. So if we asked LeMay this question he would probably respond the same way he did when he advocated for the continuation of the SAC bomber program in a memo dated January 4, 1964:
Ballistic missile forces represent both the U.S. and Soviet potential for strategic nuclear warfare at the highest, most indiscriminate level, and at a level least susceptible to control.
What LeMay is saying here is that the ICBM fleet is, by design, an all-or-nothing proposition. The fact that it exists — out in the middle of the Northwest Great Plains in full view of any satellite that cares to look down upon it — sends a very clear and unambiguous message:
The United States has the ability to reduce your homeland to a smoldering ruin
The United States will use these weapons if you use similar weapons against her
The United States has numerous redundant protocols in place to ensure that it will use these weapons if the time ever comes.
These three statements are the core of deterrence theory. They’re sometimes referred to as the “Three Cs” — Capability, Communication, and Credibility.
The enemy has to know that you are capable of destroying them.
You have to communicate under which circumstances you would do so.
And they have to find your threat credible.
This last “C” — credibility — is probably the hardest to nail down. Credibility amounts to a psychological state: are you really ready to kill hundreds of millions – maybe billions – of people to follow through on your threat? The ICBM fleet is about credibility. It is a Sword of Damocles, hanging over the enemy’s head.
That’s why they can’t have a disarm button.
The mere existence of the ICBM fleet is a compelling argument for the idea that the people that built it have accepted – in advance – the moral quandary of the nuclear age. They are not a gun brought to a knife fight; they’re a suicide vest rigged to a dead-man’s switch. But that promise of crushing retaliation loses some of its credibility if it comes with a “take-backsies” button.
But, paradoxically, the lack of that capability also diminishes the credibility of the ICBM threat. Because they are an all-or-nothing proposition, ICBMs offer very little proportionality. The United States may be more than willing to turn lose its missiles if a Russian first-strike is spotted coming over the North Pole, but would the Americans really jump to total thermonuclear war if just one warhead were used to clear a route for Russian tanks as they rolled into Germany?
Maybe not… and that creates a problem. It invites escalation and that escalation may bring about a general nuclear exchange which wouldn’t have happened if there had been some way to deter that first nuclear use.
This is the weakness LeMay saw in the missile based deterrent. The missiles have their place but, as LeMay puts it:
The employment of these weapons in lower level conflict would be likely to escalate the situation, uncontrollably, to an intensity which could be vastly disproportionate to the original aggravation. The use of ICBMs and SLBMs is not, therefore, a rational or credible response to provocations which, although serious, are still less than an immediate threat to national survival.
LeMay’s solution to this problem was – predictably – the bomber. The ICBM fleet could await the end of days in its silos, LeMay contended, the bomber would be there to handle everything short of that.
And that is largely the role of the American bomber force. Whenever Uncle Sam feels some “gunboat diplomacy” is in order, the bomber fleet is there: flying in joint exercises over South Korea
So why don’t ICBMs have a recall button or a disarm button? Because that’s what bombers are for.
Why are rural towns in America dying?
Rural towns are generally built around one or maybe two industries other than agriculture.
Take my hometown, for example. You basically work in some form of manufacturing, or you’re in dairy and crop farming. Go north a ways to some bigger rivers and it’s dairy farming and paper mills.
Every other business basically operates to support those two industries. Dollar General, Shopko, Piggly Wiggly? They provide the basic necessities for people who work in those industries. The specialty shops downtown provide luxury goods for people who work in those industries. The standard Wisconsin small town 2:1 ratio of bars to churches exist to support those industries.
The car dealerships don’t sell Priuses and sedans hardly at all; they sell pickup trucks and grocery-getter wagons/SUVs. Mostly used; the only new dealership in my town folded about 15 years ago and both lots are still vacant.
A hundred years ago, iron was king in my hometown. It was mostly blast furnaces making iron ore into pig iron and shipping it off to coal country to be made into steel. When the iron mines dried up, it switched mostly to manufacturing.
One of the four major manufacturers in the area closed almost 20 years ago now after it got bought up by a west coast equity firm. It wiped out probably a solid 15% of the school district area’s employment. It came at a bad time, as well, in the middle of a recession, so getting other work was pretty hard. Another industry in town laid off 50% of their workforce and automated two product lines.
Between transfers and people who had to move out of town to find work, enrollment in the school district dropped a solid 5–10%. My class was large, at around 125. By a decade later, the average class size was down to 80.
Automation in the other manufacturing industries has resulted in attrition of jobs there probably by another 50%, though I will seriously credit one of the local employee-owned companies for doing a great job of retaining employees and retraining them for other positions to keep them, which is probably why they’re one of the few manufacturers that has expanded significantly and actually increased overall employment in the last decade. The other manufacturers, not so much.
Then there’s agriculture and advances in that field.
Here’s what my great-great grandfather started farming with:
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If you were fast and had a good horse and you worked sunrise to sunset, you could probably plow a 40-acre field in three or four days. Work it down in another two or three. Plant it in another two or three. If the weather cooperated and you worked your horse and your equipment and yourself hard. And the land was already cleared of trees and stumps. You could pull a two-row corn planter.
By the time my great-grandfather was ready to start working the farm, my great-great-grandfather was able to put together enough money for one of these:
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That’s a John Deere unstyled model A. The first one on the farm had steel wheels, not tires. On the other side of this is a flywheel that you had to crank to get it started. It was insanely hard to do. But it didn’t get tired and need water every hour or so like a horse. And it would pull a two bottom plow. You could plow a 40-acre field in a hard day if you had enough light. You could probably do a 4-row corn planter with this.
By the time my grandfather was old enough to start working the farm, my great-grandfather had bought this:
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This is a Ferguson TO-30. It might look smaller than the A, but it’s got more horsepower (26HP), hydraulics, and a three-point hitch. My great-grandfather bought it after the A needed a serious overhaul and the tractor salesman brought out one of these and a Ford 8N, and my great-grandfather said he’d buy whichever one got to the top of a hill with a two-bottom plow faster. The Ferguson won. (We still have the original in the family, plus the replica model the salesman gave him for buying it.)
You could plow, work down, and plant a 60-acre field in probably three good days’ work, if you were willing to work into the dark a bit. (My great-grandfather actually specifically ordered the tractor without lights because he believed if you were working into the dark, you were working too long.) Still a 4-row corn planter, but you could probably pull a larger grain drill than the A.
By the time my uncle was in high school, the farm was up to this:
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That’s a Ford 7600 diesel. Almost 100 HP, over three times as much as the Ferguson. This would pull a four-bottom plow. Live PTO, making it possible to run better and better equipment. My family actually sprung for one with a cab because Grandpa was getting older, but he didn’t like it, actually.
With the four-bottom, a cultimulcher instead of a disk and drag, an 8-12-row corn planter instead of a 4-row that the Ferguson would pull, you could work a 60–80 acre field in three days if you were nice to the equipment, and probably still get some other stuff done.
By the time I was old enough to start really driving around tractors, the neighbors were driving these:
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That’s a Massey-Ferguson 8220. The neighbors had an 8240, if I recall correctly. I remember when the guys around the corner bought one of these and a chisel plow. 150HP.
They worked down an 80 acre field in about two hours and planted it with a 16 row corn planter in about three hours two days later.
Today? I have an uncle who does crop and dairy farming. He’s got one tractor with 240 HP that can chisel plow a 120 acre field by GPS in 60–90 minutes, and will pull a 24-row John Deere corn planter. He probably wouldn’t even use it to work down a 40-acre field because that field would be too tiny to effectively turn around very well.
My great-grandfather would have been stunned at that. He might have imagined it, but it would have been a wild dream.
One guy can work ten times the cropland that my great-great-grandfather could have with a quarter of the work.
And yields have gone up, too. Hybrid corn and advances in other crops have made it so that today’s farmers are growing an order of magnitude more per acre than my great-grandfather did.
But all of those advances come at a cost. A bag of seed corn or soybeans can cost upwards of $100 a bag, and is currently going for as much as $180 a bag for the 2020 corn planting season. My grandfather once stormed out of a mill with me 25–30 years ago as a kid when the same sized bag of seed corn was going to be $15 because it was “highway robbery” and he figured he could get it cheaper elsewhere.
The same is true of dairies. My great-grandmother milked 20 cows by hand; a large operation at the time. In the 50’s, they got an electric vacuum pump system after the farm got electricity, and built a bigger, modern milking barn. That bumped them up to 60 head. In the 70’s, they were able to add on and up that to 100 head. By the early 2000’s, they were a small dairy, starting to be unable to compete. My uncle made some bad decisions, but he leveraged the land like crazy and cheated my great-grandmother out of her share of the farm to afford a 240 head new barn with a milking parlor.
He’s still a small operation now and is close to bankruptcy.
There’s a farm about two dozen miles over that has 8,400 head and the farmers don’t even milk the cows now; the cows have an RFID tag and when the cow feels like it wants to get milked, it wanders over to a stall and a robotic milking machine reads the tag and hooks itself up. The system tracks the cow’s individual production.
When my great-grandmother was doing the milking, there were probably fewer than 8,400 milking cows in the county.
But that huge operation is probably over a $10 million investment. That would have been unfathomable for my great-grandfather.
Whether crop or dairy, it’s been evolve or die, and evolving requires growing into a massive factory farm. That equipment and the buildings are expensive. And the margins are thin. If you couldn’t get enough credit to expand, you went bankrupt. If you had a bad year or two, you went bankrupt. The margins on all of that are razor thin; the farmer is probably actually netting pretty little, if not taking a routine annual loss many years.
Small farm bankruptcies are skyrocketing right now because factory farms are keeping the prices so low as to make the margins non-existent or below break-even for the little guys.
The area where I grew up is a moonscape of rotted out, fallen down barns, abandoned outbuildings, and lonely old farmhouses with lonely old retired farmers who have given up. They sold off all the equipment, and if they can rent out the land for enough to pay off the mortgage, they do, or sell it off for enough to satisfy the liens and keep four or five acres with the house. And when the old man and his wife pass away, the kids, who have moved to the city, don’t want to take care of it anymore. I’ve seen a dozen or two of those old houses just demolished; the outbuildings used for storage if anything at all.
Maybe 10–20% of the farms that were operating when I was a kid thirty years ago are still milking. Six of the seven neighbors my grandparents and uncle had that were farming when I was a kid are out and quit wholesale. The one left isn’t doing dairy anymore, the kid, who’s almost exactly my age, sold off the dairy cows and most of the equipment, does some basic crop farming, and grass-fed beef. One of the last neighbors to sell had gotten up to about 1400 acres that he’d owned and another 400 he rented before he sold out to a guy from Iowa who trucks up even more massive equipment than I described above, works up the whole thing in less than a week, and moves on to the next bit.
One guy. With probably a dozen hands. I have no doubt that he owns or rents over 36,000 acres.
Who needs a whole town to support that anymore? He isn’t going into my hometown for groceries every week, or the downtown coffee shop on a routine basis. He isn’t in the bars regularly. He isn’t buying stuff from the local hardware store, or tires and oil changes from the local mechanic.
Even if he were local, he certainly isn’t buying the same amount as the 100+ farm families he’s replaced.
Infrastructure also drastically changed my home area. Infrastructure, especially transportation infrastructure, dramatically reduces the friction costs of commerce. If it costs less to move stuff to market, people will build stuff there. If not, people won’t.
The railroad was first on this. Wherever the railroad went, towns grew along it. Where the railroad didn’t go through, those places died or never grew. There’s a little town of about 300 people, about big enough to have an “unincorporated” sign and not much more.
There’s a huge Catholic cathedral there, built to serve probably a 150 family congregation. Today, it serves probably a few dozen for a whole area.
That’s because the railroad was supposed to go through the town, which is why they built it. There’s half a dozen other old businesses that used to exist, too, the hollowed out remains of their buildings still visible, built in anticipation of a train that literally never came.
Because the railroad company built ten miles east, instead.
That town died. Or rather, never grew at all. The businesses mostly folded, with the exception of a bar and a butcher that finally relocated when I was a kid. There was a fancier restaurant there that closed up about five years back finally. It had a for-sale sign on it since before I graduated high school, but the guy who owned it could never find a buyer and finally just retired.
Today, railroads are largely replaced by highways and interstates, though freight rail is making a comeback in some places. Not enough to support a whole town, like it once did, but enough to keep some businesses going.
The main corridor in my home area is now I-41, 20–30 miles from town. It’s only recently been made into an interstate. When my parents were first dating, it was only two lanes. I still remember when there were no overpasses and it was cross-traffic most of the way by us.
As the interstate and a few four-lane state highways have grown, the towns along them have stayed steady or grown with them in some spots.
The towns between the main highways? They’re mostly gone or drying up. One got virtually wiped out by a tornado twenty-some years ago and never really recovered. Every year, they keep talking about consolidating the school district with a nearby one because enrollment is too low to sustain it independently. The elementary school closed fifteen years back and K-8 are all in one building now.
I remember a couple years ago, I was going through Iowa on my way to a wedding and they’d recently moved I-80. The main highway that it now paralleled used to go through a bunch of little towns. We got off the super-slab and went through some of them because we weren’t in a hurry to get to Colorado. Half of everything was boarded up. I asked the cashier about it. People don’t want to exit the highway and drive four miles south to get to Casey’s General Store. They just bypass the towns and wait until the next bigger stop. Where towns could, they’d tried to move towards the highway, but that’s often not possible.
It’s what happened to the towns on Route 66. A few remaining nostalgic pieces of it remain, but most of it’s just gone. Whole towns were just erased.
But even my hometown isn’t seeing new facilities getting built for manufacturing and the like, because of a lack of infrastructure. There’s a decent state highway into town that they keep in reasonable repair, but it’s a ways to the interstate still. The existing facilities keep churning out stuff, but if the companies are expanding, it’s along the four-lane highways and the towns and cities on those, still reasonably nearby enough, I suppose.
One company bought out that old plant that went bust I mentioned and turned it into a big R&D facility, since it doesn’t need much import/export and it’s smack in the middle of town. Getting trucks there is a pain in the ass. When they come up with something, they send the specs over to the shiny new plant two towns west, which is built on a four-lane highway with direct access to Madison and Milwaukee.
Internet is another infrastructural element that is significantly lagging in some of these places. Nobody’s running fiber to my hometown for the most part. A lot of people still have DSL. Maybe satellite. Apparently Verizon or Frontier is upgrading some of downtown somewhat. The last time I was at the local coffee shop to use the wi-fi, the speed test ran up to 15 megabits.
The cell coverage depends on the provider, but it’s spotty even in downtown. Verizon is okay. US Cellular is the preferred choice. Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T are complete dead zones. That makes it hard to operate a retail business these days, which is increasingly dependent on the internet for sales and backend that we take for granted. You’re not selling much if you can’t use so much as a Square reader at the local businesses. And you’re not getting a lot of tourists if their phones are off the grid before they get to the city limits.
And younger people don’t want to live in a town where they can’t get Netflix or Prime Video at even standard resolution half the time. So, they’re not moving there, or leaving for greener pastures if they can.
Because there isn’t enough demand, the cable companies don’t bother upgrading the lines unless they have to. Because there isn’t basic high-speed broadband, nobody moves there to create the demand. It’s a vicious cycle. My folks just moved out of the place where I grew up and moved to the edge of a moderately large rural town. They get one internet provider, which maxes out at 8Mb down, 4 up. If they were two blocks over, they could get another provider with much better bandwidth, but where they are, they’re just screwed. A lot of places are like that. There’s no competition, and relatively light demand, so there’s basically no reason for the telecoms to bother running anything out there.
At least my hometown and surrounding area are still close enough to major transportation routes that Fed-Ex and UPS will come all the way out. My in-laws have to drive 20 miles into town to pick up anything. They’ve been where they are for fifteen years and two weeks ago, a Fed-Ex truck actually went all the way to their house for the first time, ever. The delivery driver said he would never do it again. They don’t even get mail delivery to their place; they have to go up the minimum maintenance road five miles to a turnaround if it gets delivered, and they maintain a PO box in the slightly larger, but further away town for that purpose instead.
Water is increasingly an issue, too. New water treatment plants with higher capacities are expensive and getting more so. Rural areas have a lower population density to spread that cost around, and that means either a need for increased state aid, or higher property taxes.
If you don’t live right in town, that water isn’t probably coming to you. So, the farmers and people who live outside of town, but who are in the township and so would pay the increased taxes to pay for it, vote against it. They’re already paying literally tens of thousands of dollars for septic systems and wells; paying more property taxes for someone else’s water on top of that, while getting nothing in return, is a hard sell.
Even trash collection is an issue here. Depending on the size of the town, you might have to do it yourself or contract with a company, because the town itself might not provide it. Again, friction cost for a business, and another thing that sometimes makes people not want to move there. I grew up with it, so the idea of a garbage guy that actually comes to your house is still weird to me, as are the ideas of a) not having an organic bucket that needs to get hauled out to the brush pile by the line fence, b) not having a burn barrel for paper garbage, c) not needing to separate out metals from other recycling to take to the salvage yard when there’s enough to get the higher price, or d) that the garbage guy comes at a specific time rather than taking it to the dump on Saturday morning or dropping the cash in the can or slot to pay for the bags you put in if you come not on a Saturday morning.
When rural areas lack easy access to the kinds of infrastructure that reduces commercial friction costs, they’re at a serious disadvantage. It’s more expensive to do things, it’s more difficult to attract workers, and as a result, what sustains these small towns begins to go elsewhere.
The decline itself then turns into a vicious cycle. As the major sustaining industries and businesses give out, or the resources like a clay or gravel pit start to dwindle, the people that can leave, do, especially younger people.
That increases the concentration of people remaining in poverty.
And with an increased concentration of poverty comes a lot of the problems that arise out of that: increased crime, increased drug use as depressed people try to self-medicate, depressed property values that make it even harder to get out, and more.
The schools end up with lower enrollment, and lower tax revenues, and lower state aid. So they have to start cutting services. And then people move out of the district because they want their kids in a better school, if they can.
Any young people who can get out flee. That leads to a brain drain of the community. It’s hard to get young professionals to move back if they think they’re never going to make enough money to justify it, or lose a quality of life that they enjoy elsewhere.
So, that means fewer social workers, attorneys, doctors, etc. serving these areas that can help mitigate these problems of poverty, and it spirals downward even more. People of means have fewer kids; people without them have more but can’t support them. Services get progressively thinner, making people more desperate.
More and more desperate people often end up getting into the criminal justice system one way or another, and once you’ve got a felony, everything is substantially harder. Housing, employment, everything. That traps more and more people, as well.
People that are trapped get more and more hopeless. Suicide rates skyrocket.
Eventually, the whole thing just gives out. The remaining people die off. The houses and businesses are abandoned and left to crumble.
We’re not just talking about your boom and bust ghost towns of the Wild West. There’s plenty of these that are modern, some dying in the last few decades. There’s a few places I know of around where I grew up where the last living inhabitants were present just a few years ago. Today, there’s a handful of vacant buildings and nothing else left. You can walk right in a few of them. Some of them are so far gone that you wouldn’t even know that several thousand people once lived there in some cases as recently as thirty or forty years ago just by looking at them.
One town near where I grew up used to actually put up their own population sign and an old man would repaint the number by hand every time someone died or moved away, until he died and nobody took over the task. There was a lumberyard/building center there, a church, and a bar, when I was a kid at least. It was a quarry town for limestone before that, but the easily accessible limestone ran out in the 60’s. There were probably 100 residents total, maybe, when I was a kid, but at one point there were about 1900 people who lived there. The businesses closed and the church is boarded up now. About twenty houses remain; two others were destroyed by fire – one started accidentally by a homeless person who was squatting in it after it was abandoned. The businesses are all vacant, the for-sale signs faded and dusty.
Sometimes a natural disaster comes in and finishes the job. Gays Mills in Wisconsin has been flooded completely out several times in the last decade. Hundreds of residents just gave up and never came back when the insurance gave them an out. Some businesses are trying to stick it out, or relocate as disaster relief has tried to make it possible to move the town to higher ground.
Lastly, the death rate is exceeding the birth rate. Sixty to eighty years ago, you needed ten kids to run the farm, and the infant mortality rate was considerably higher.
In the last 20–30 years, though? People aren’t having babies. The birth rate in a lot of these rural areas is well below replacement. The oldest generations are dying off with increasing rapidity every year.
Death rates among 18–64 year olds in rural areas are also on the incline. The opioid crisis really has disproportionately affected rural areas not because it’s higher per capita, but because there’s just fewer people overall and so the same per capita impact has a greater overall impact.
But suicides are where it’s gotten really out of control. The rural suicide rate is bonkers higher than urban areas. It’s as much as 25% higher in some areas, and it’s risen over 40% in the last 20 years. There’s been a lot of research into this, with hypotheses ranging from lack of health care (both in insurance and in care providers) to stigma around mental health to simply increased access to guns, but there has not been a good consensus around what factors are most prevalent or most contributory.
This is perhaps the most literal reason rural towns in America are dying: they are literally seeing more death than birth.
Some other rural towns are growing around new industries. In Kansas, feedlot and meatpacking plants are growing substantially. Feedlots are smelly as hell. You don’t want to live anywhere near them. Seriously. Even setting aside the animal cruelty issues that are often present, they’re just awful places to be within ten miles of. But, they also provide jobs. For the desperate rural worker, any port in a storm.
In Minnesota, it’s chicken and turkey processing. There’s a handful of towns that have poultry processing, and they’re doing pretty well for now.
But those jobs are not very secure. They’re hard labor, and if someone gets laid up, there’s enough people willing to take the jobs that someone can just be replaced. Anti-union sentiment from conservatives that dominate these areas don’t make anything easier, either.
Additionally, these industries also creating a lot of tension because the local natives don’t want those jobs due to the lack of security and don’t often apply, or can’t pass a drug test to qualify; instead, these jobs are attracting a lot of immigrant labor, such as Somali refugees. These are more typically than not legal immigrants, but that makes little difference to some people who are already mistrustful of any outsiders. I have a relative who moved into a rural town thirty years ago and still is considered a transplant and given second-class citizenship to a generational local.
But many of these industries are also boom-and-bust. The oil fields in the Bakken and the Permian Basin led to huge expansions of parts of North Dakota and Texas, but as quickly as they exploded, they’ve died off as oil prices crashed in recent years.
Those feedlots and chicken processing plants are likely as insecure. All it takes is a commodity oversupply, or a trade war, to shutter whole plants. And if that’s the primary employer for the area, it can take a significant piece of the town when it goes.
Some rural towns are still doing okay, or even growing a little, and in sustainable ways.
What’s kept my hometown alive is that it’s a good bedroom community that’s 30–45 minutes driving from two reasonably large urban areas and less than two hours from two more metro areas. Those are people who want to live in a small, safe, quiet neighborhood, but they don’t work there. They commute to the larger cities in the region.
Enrollment is back up a little in the school district with people moving in to live in a quiet spot, and class sizes are back up to about 95-ish. The school has some good programs such as an award-winning music program that have brought in school choice students from neighboring districts (with corresponding state aid), or even gotten some individuals to move there.
The tax base has remained about neutral or grown a little as developments and new housing grow slowly. Areas that were farm fields when I was a boy are now subdivisions generating more property taxes than the agricultural zones they once were.
There are some rural areas that have this geographical quirk and are mostly becoming the new form of suburbs for those wealthy enough to either buy a nice place in a small town, or a couple acres of former farmland and build a house out in the country. The cost of living is usually reasonable or even sometimes lower than the city or suburbs; housing is certainly cheaper even if certain commodities are a bit higher.
But there’s a lot of rural areas that don’t have that quirk of geography.
Get out in the middle of Nebraska, or Iowa, or Kansas, or Minnesota and there’s a lot less. It’s a long, long way to the urban centers.
Those places are increasingly seeing the demise of rural America the hardest.
Scott Ritter Jaw-Dropping Revelation: NATO vs Russia – A Ticking Nuclear Time Bomb Ready to Explode!
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
Back in the early 1980’s I was a district manager for a large manufacturer. I had 16 sales reps out of three offices. My company brought in a new VP of Sales. This guy knew very little about our product or company.
This VP put out a mandate for all District Managers (there were about 150 of us nationally) to break our reps into four categories.
Category one were the top producers. They received a good end of year raise.
Category two were over quota but did not do extremely well. They got a 3% raise.
Category three were either over quota to a less amount than category two or under quota. They got no raise and were put on a 90 day action plan. The plan stated that they must be on quota for the next 90 days otherwise they would be terminated.
Category four would be terminated.
Of my 16 reps, 10 or twelve were over quota. At least two were within a point or two of quota and the rest had enough business outstanding to bring them over quota shortly.
Myself and a large group of District Managers rebelled. It went up to our CEO. Within a week or two we were allowed to make a case for each rep we believed should be kept on. Within another month or two, the new VP left the company. Good riddance!
Angel of death?
What is the biggest “I’m definitely fired” thing you’ve done at work, but nobody ever found out?
I was a third shift computer operator while in college—mostly weekend work to run overnight jobs and print boxes of client reports. Our IBM computer was old but reliable—except this night we had a drive malfunctioning and each time it fritzed out I would have to clean the head and rerun the job. After 4–5 such failures, I was tired and the night was long—when the console showed the next failure message “Drive Malfunction — Retry or Abort?” I knew it was yet another 30 minutes added to my shift. So instead of typing “A” or “R”—I punched the keyboard. A cluster of 7–8 keys were mashed down and just stayed down—there was no more keyboard input on the console so the system was down.
I called the 24-hour service tech and they were there within an hour. I “explained” that I had dropped a box of paper on the console (a lie) and the technician looked at me knowingly. Another half hour and the keyboard was repaired and we were up and running again. As the tech put his tools away, he looked at me and said “Next time you drop a box of paper, go in the back room and do it there so you don’t break anything.” Somehow I finished all the overnight jobs and at daybreak I had to call my boss to fess up. Fully expecting to be fired, I was surprised when my manager’s response was “So how many jobs did you not complete?” I told him I had finished everything and there was no backlog.
Instead of being fired, my manager was actually relieved because a prior third shift operator who was on the wrestling team at the college had a similar night—and he ended up punching in the entire keyboard. It turned out that my lie (reported dropping a box of paper on the keyboard) was better for the company than the truth—if my malicious tempered behavior broke the console it would be the company’s expense for the repair but an accident was covered by the service contract. So they promoted me into a day job on the coding team.
The US government will force ByteDance to sell TikTok. Should the Chinese government force Apple to sell all of its Chinese businesses in response?
No, I don’t think the Chinese government would take such an approach.
“If you sanction me, I must retaliate against you and launch corresponding sanctions, otherwise I will be weak.”
This is a common understanding in Western society that governments must respond to public sentiment. If other countries “hurt us”, we “must tit for tat”. Retaliation must be direct, reciprocal and obvious. Only then can public sentiment be released, and politicians’ approval ratings not drop.
So we discovered a key point: the way of revenge is centered on politics, not interests. No one cares whether doing so will bring greater benefits to society or cause greater harm.
“If you sanction me, I must retaliate against you, but the method may not be reciprocal. How to do it is left to professionals.”
This is a common perception in Chinese society, which is full of patience and believes that professional officials can handle it better than public sentiment.
With this premise, we return to the Tiktok case. If Tiktok is forced to sell by the United States, will China’s retaliation be to force Apple to sell it? No, that’s simply impossible
There is a proverb in the Chinese world: If a dog bites you, it does not mean that you have to bite the dog too.
There are many ways to take revenge, you must choose the one that is most beneficial to you.
In the past few years, China has been challenging the status of the United States in global economic activities, and the United States is in a state of hysteria. They are trying to use all available means to contain China. However, we find that China’s response has always been mild, even making people feel a little weak.
In fact, they have been choosing the way that is best for themselves, rather than the most “tit for tat” way.
—————————-
The United States has imposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods; they believe that in order to contain China, it is worth raising prices in the United States.
China’s most “relieving” response should be to impose additional tariffs on $200 billion of U.S. goods, but China believes that this will affect the import of technology and raw materials by Chinese companies, which is not worth it.
China’s actual approach is to expand BRI, join RECP, seek to join CPTPP, expand trade scope, offset the influence of the United States, and stop buying soybeans from American farmers.
—————————–
The United States has imposed five rounds of comprehensive sanctions on Huawei; they believe that it is worthwhile to undermine the fair international image of the United States and use “national security” crimes against a company in order to curb the development of China’s 5G technology.
China’s most “tit for tat” response should be to select an American company, such as CISCO, or Microsoft, or others, and impose five rounds of comprehensive sanctions. But China believes that this will affect these companies’ operations in China, reduce Chinese jobs and government tax revenue, and this is not worth it.
China’s actual approach is to change foreign investment laws and allow foreign companies to independently invest in telecommunications, automobiles and other industries. Then successfully brought Tesla to China.
——————————-
The United States has imposed “Chip and Science Act” sanctions on hundreds of Chinese companies; they believe that destroying the market and revenue of the US semiconductor industry can delay the development of China’s AI technology, which is worthwhile.
China’s most “tit for tat” response should be to select a group of American companies, such as General Motors, Ford, Walmart, and Starbucks, to implement some kind of reciprocal “sanctions bill.” But China believes that this will affect these companies’ operations in China, reduce Chinese jobs and government tax revenue, and this is not worth it.
China’s actual approach is to sanction several U.S. arms dealers and ban the export of rare earths to the United States. Launch the semiconductor development plan encouraged by the government, establish the National Semiconductor Fund, and recruit talents from all over the world to strengthen its semiconductor industry.
——————————-
Some Western public opinion has produced many similar news: Tesla is banned in China, and Apple mobile phones are banned in China. They seem to want to tell us: Look, they are just as bad as us;
But the truth is there, these are lies. The CEOs of Tesla and Apple have both praised the performance of the Chinese market.
Some Western public opinion will also tell us: Google is banned in China, Youtube, X and Ins are banned in China; so it is reasonable for us to ban Tiktok.
But some facts are deliberately ignored. Bing is running very well in China, and Amazon and Paypal have been running in China for 20 years. The crux of the matter is that China has enacted laws, companies that are willing to abide by them stay, and those that are unwilling to abide by them leave. China actually does not have a “ban” against a certain American company.
Now, the United States is demanding that Tiktok be forced to sell, maybe it will be Temu’s turn in the future, Shein
China’s most “tit for tat” method should be to choose an American company, such as Apple mentioned in the question. Asking them to “force a sale”
But China will definitely not do this. On the contrary, we may see them take more opening measures to encourage more foreign companies to participate in the Chinese economy.
They are deliberately taking a completely different approach to doing things than the United States. Use openness to fight closure, use trade to fight sanctions; use win-win to fight zero-sum games; use construction and manufacturing to fight bombs and destruction.
They are very patient and they are creating a global persona:
I don’t have many slogans, and I’m not very good at publicity and storytelling. I will only use actual actions to tell the world: who represents justice and friendship, and who represents evil and destruction.
In the short term, China’s approach seems inefficient, negative, and weak. But over time, many things change.
FAB-3000. Russia begins war. Macron, Ukraine will collapse
Give me a joke?
Here’s a Jewish mama joke.
A Jewish mother picks up the phone to hear the sound of a woman gulping sobs. Her daughter! “Darling! What’s the matter?
Woman:” Oh,Mama! Oh,Mama!”
“Yes darling. Mama is here. What’s wrong?”
“We’re snowed in. The car won’t start. The refrigerator stopped working and all the food is spoiled. The kids have colds and the house is a mess. I have a headache. And twenty ladies from my Hadassah chapter are coming for lunch at one o’clock! Oh,Mama” she wails “What am I going to do?”
In a calm soothing voice Mama replies “Don’t worry darling,Mama is here. First I’ll go down to the grocery and pick up something to eat.Then I’ll take the subway. And from the subway I’ll walk the sixteen blocks to your house. I’ll cook something for the twenty ladies,they’ll love it. I’ll give the kids an aspirin so they’ll be quiet. I’ll tell them a story till they fall asleep so you can lie down too. While the food cooks I’ll pick up the house. Everything will be all right. Don’t worry darling,Mama is here! That’s what a mother is for!”
The woman gives a huge sigh of relief. “Oh,Mama thank you! I feel so much better.”
“Don’t mention it,darling” Then,in an everyday voice “If you’re snowed in and the car won’t start how did Sam get to work?”
(Puzzled voice) “Sam? Who’s Sam?”
(Mama impatiently) “Sam! Your husband Sam! How did he get to work?”
Long pregnant pause. Then in a small voice the woman says “My husband’s name is Saul”
Another pregnant pause . Then in a trembling voice the woman says:
“Does that mean…you’re… not coming?”
Skillet Pizza Supreme
cast iron skillet pizza 1
Ingredients
1 package dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 to 3/4 cup milk
Instructions
Dissolve yeast in warm water in a small bowl; let stand 5 minutes.
Combine 2 cups flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl; stir in yeast mixture and oil. Add enough milk to make a soft dough. Cover and let stand 15 minutes.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead 5 to 8 times, working in remaining 1/2 cup flour to make a smooth dough.
Pat dough evenly in bottom and halfway up sides of a lightly greased 10-inch cast iron skillet.
Bake at 425 degrees F for 8 minutes.
Spoon sauce over crust.
Top with any toppings desired.
Sprinkle shredded Mozzarella cheese over the top.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cheese melts.
cast iron skillet pizza 09
Such a narcissist
What is the most epic thing anyone has ever done?
Originally Answered: What is the most badass thing anyone has ever done?
What would you do if you are a poor, uneducated farmer and a multi-million dollar company came in and permanently destroyed your land by dumping toxic chemical waste into it?
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This amazing David vs Goliath story is from China.
In 2001, the Qinghua Group, a state-owned mining company worth more than $200 million released 20,000 tonnes of chemical waste from a polyvinyl chloride plant into a village called Yushutun that depended entirely on farming.
The company filled a 478-acre pond with liquid waste and destroyed an additional 71 acres of land by dumping calcium carbide onto it.
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As you can see, the land was pretty much useless now.
Wang Enlin was one of the farmers in the village who was playing cards with his friends on the night this incident happened.
He approached the courts and they asked him to provide evidence of the pollution unleashed by the company. This perplexed Wang. He didn’t know which law the company violated and nor did he or anyone he knew in the village have the means to hire a lawyer tough enough to go against a state-owned company like Qinghua.
“I knew I was in the right, but I did not know what law the other party had broken or whether or not there was evidence.”[1]
So what does he do?
He starts a 16-year long journey of studying the law all by himself.
Being only educated for a sum total of three years in his life and dropping out thereafter, Wang faced a huge challenge.
He did not have enough money to buy the costly tomes that were law books, so he hit the library with a dictionary and began learning. He would initially copy out notes on his hand and would pay the librarian with sacks of corn in return for his services.
In 2007, a law firm, learning about Wang’s endeavor, began giving him legal advice pro bono. Armed with accumulating knowledge of the law, he directed his neighbors and fellow villagers to collect evidence and document it.
When he began frequenting courts with his new found skill and the evidence, he was at first ignored, but he persisted. It took about eight years for the case to finally merit consideration and in early February 2017, the Angangxi District Court of Qiqihar ruled that each of the families in Yushutun village would receive a financial compensation of $111,500.
Unfortunately, as legal battles go, the company was quoted as deciding to file an appeal in a higher court and this may drag out some years, but there isn’t any reason to believe Wang and his people will not succeed.
Even if in a nominal sense, an uneducated village simpleton had brought down a huge organization with all its legal might and its nonpareil team of lawyers to its knees.
What was the moment that made you realize that your childhood was different from other people’s?
Near the end of my sophomore years of high school, when I got my license and began driving myself to my friends’ houses to hang out.
At that point in my life, I had five friends that I hung out with on a regular basis, and about a dozen other people who I knew through those friends. Those dozen were like second-tier friends. We hung out a lot because we happened to be friends with the same person.
Before being able to drive myself to my friends’ houses, I was limited to friends’ houses I could walk to, or convince my parents to drive me to. By the time I turned 16, I’d been in six different friends’ houses that I could recall.
Then, during my first visit to my friend Rick’s house (I had to drive there myself because he lived pretty far away), I realized something: he had a lot of pictures of him, his mom, and his brother in the house, but zero pictures of his father. He’d never said anything about his father, but I always assumed he had one. When we finally talked about it, he said that his father walked out on the family when he and his brother were still young, and his mom never talked about him.
That got me thinking about all of my other friends. Jay’s father was an alcoholic and abused his mom until she divorced him. Emma’s father was actually her step-father, because her real father ran off with a younger woman. Emma’s step-dad was also much older than her mom. Sarah was being raised by a single mother. Aaron’s dad drank and swore a lot, and I’m pretty sure beat his wife. Trey’s dad was super controlling of his wife. (And, a few years later, killed her. He’s currently serving life in prison.) Anthony didn’t know who his dad was. Etc…
It was then that I realized that, of all of my friends, only one of them had a father in their lives who wasn’t an alcoholic, wasn’t abusive, and actually seemed like a nice guy. That was Tom. Tom was an only child and his parents were some of the nicest people you’d ever meet. His mom was a teacher and his dad was a businessman. They were both very active in one of the local churches.
My parents were married before they had me or my sister. They stayed married until my dad died. Both of my parents took an active role in my life as a child. My father never once raised a hand, or even his voice, to my mother. He didn’t drink. He didn’t do drugs. He wasn’t the jealous type. He never cheated on her. He showed her plenty of affection through all of the years of their marriage.
I think a lot of it had to do with the socio-economic class I was raised in. I, like most of my friends (except Tom), was raised in a lower socio-economic class. Poverty takes its toll on marriages. I guess, for a poor kid from the South, I got super lucky when it came to dads. Mine was like the dads you saw in sitcoms back then, while my friends’ dads, if they even had them, were more like the dads in dramas about abusive relationships.
FOUR MINUTES! This new site was online 4 Minutes Before HACKERS went after it
This rebuilt and restored website was online to the world for only 4 minutes before HACKERS tried to break-in! They were caught.
Long-time users of this website will recall that during Thanksgiving of the year 2022 (over a year ago), this site was mercilessly HACKED. It’s layout and functionality were wrecked.
At the time, I didn’t have the money or the ambition to do a full rebuild/restoration, so we jury-rigged-it and got by for a little over a year.
I saved up the money, did the research necessary, and last week, my tech guys began the rebuild.
In the past, the site has “good” security, better than most sites. Yet Hackers were ultimately able to breach that “good” security, got in and did their harm. So for this new rebuild, security was a major — I mean really big — aspect of the rebuild. Enterprise grade security.
Last Friday, this newly rebuilt and restored site went online at 7:24 PM eastern US time.
FOUR MINUTES LATER, the security system was already recording hacking attempts, and blocking IP addresses of malicious users. FOUR MINUTES!
I got alerts from my system about what was going on, and that these certain IP addresses had automatically been blocked, but telling me I should consider adding these IP’s to the PERMANENT BAN list. I did.
Here’s just a small sampling of the IP’s banned, and why:
Hacking BANS 03 31 2024
So it’s going to be a rough ride for me as we proceed in the future. For whatever reason, people with nefarious motives are already trying to break in.
I thought you should know. In fact, it’s important you know.
Doing what I do to bring the TRUTH to the public, has enemies. Those enemies don’t want YOU knowing the truth.
When did you realize that your childhood was not normal?
This is from my childhood in the 1960’s. My Mom and Dad were married in 1946. My sister and I were born in 1959 and 1962, so they were older parents. My dad died when I was 8. My Mom went into a deep depression. She started smoking and drinking a lot. She finally got her driver’s license, and we would drive to the bank to deposit our Social Security survivor’s benefits once a month. Then we would drive to the neighboring big city that sold alcohol. As a 10-year-old kid, I remember going into Snappy’s, getting 4 cases of Lone Star beer and a handle of Canadian Club. I would write the check on my Mom’s checking account, and they would help us load it into the trunk while my Mom sat in the car. I had to get my little sister up in the morning and walk her to school. I would sign her report card, and sign my own. I got very good at forging her signature. I did the grocery shopping, hauling them back on my bike. We ate lots of cheap frozen pizzas and sugary cereal because that is what I liked. It all seemed normal to me. She smoked and drank herself to death when I was 17. When I had a family of my own I worked very hard to give them a normal life. I realized when they were little that my childhood was really messed up and I wanted a better life for them.
Three bulls heard the rancher was bringing another bull onto the ranch.
First Bull: “I’ve been here five years. I’m not giving this new bull any of my 100 cows.”
Second Bull: “I’ve been here three years and have earned my right to 50 cows. I’m keeping all my cows.”
Third Bull: “I’ve only been here a year, and so far, you guys have only let me have 10 cows. I may not be as big as you fellows, but I’m keeping all 10 of my cows.”
Just then an 18-wheeler pulls up in the pasture carrying the biggest bull they’ve ever seen.
At 4,700 pounds, each step he takes strains the steel ramp.
First Bull: “I think I can spare a few cows for our new friend.”
Second Bull: “I actually have too many cows to take care of. I can spare a few. I’m certainly not looking for an argument.”
They look over at the third bull and find him pawing the dirt, shaking his horns and snorting.
First Bull: “Son, don’t be foolish, let him have some of your cows and live to tell about it.”
Third Bull: “Hell, he can have all my cows. I’m just making sure he knows I’m a bull.”
How were black P.O.Ws treated by Nazi Germany?
Generally not well.
Generally speaking, American POWs captured by Germany had it alright. They were not sent to concentration camps and generally received pretty good treatment at the hands of the Germans.
However we are dealing with Nazis here- keep that in mind. 2 factors really decided how an American POW would be treated.
Was he being captured by the SS or the normal German Army (SS bad, Army good)
Was he black or Jewish
If you were Jewish or Black and captured by the SS (or even elements of the Amry) you would be lucky to find yourself in a concentration camp. More likely, you are killed on the spot. If you were white and captured by the Army you’d be sent to a more comfortable imprisonment.
Black soldiers had it bad though- as they were considered Untermensch (sub-human).
I am about to tell you a story that will ruin your day and remind you how evil and demented the SS was.
So you are all familiar with the Ardennes offensive right? Also called the Battle of the Buldge where US forces were surrounded and cut off during the winter and then held out for weeks while the American 3rd Armored division broke through to save them.
Well during this time there were 2 massacres of US troops. The fact we are well aware of them both shows how rare it was for this thing to happen but I digress.
During this battle, 85 American soldiers were captured and executed by elements of the SS. Instead of bringing them to a prison camp the Germans just flat-out shot them all to death. But these men were all white, so they got the mercy of a bullet. This is called the Malmedy Massacre and is very well known.
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There is another atrocity long forgotten though, largely because it involved Black US soldiers and not white ones.
During the battle 11 “Colored” G.I’s found themselves out of ammo with only 2 rifles and lost in the woods. They came upon a little house in the middle of nowhere and asked for refuge from the cold.
Inside this house were Belgium Patriots who supported the US. They offered the 11 men shelter and food and warmed them up. The nearby neighbors were not Patriots though and had a son fighting in the SS. They would run to the Germans and inform them Americans were being sheltered nearby.
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4 men from the SS would arrive armed to the teeth. The Americans chose not to resist, not wanting any harm to befall those that took them in. They were also lacking the weaponry to fight.
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So all 11 Americans surrendered to these SS soldiers and they wouldn’t even get the mercy of a bullet. Their bodies would be found shortly after and US command was shocked by what they found.
I am not going to pull any punches- I want you to understand the level of evil we are dealing with. These men were found with the following injuries.
Their eyes had been gouged out while they were still alive
Fingers were removed and legs were broken
Men were beaten to death with rifle butts
Many men had been run over by vehicles
A few were shot, but not in the head- they were shot in the knees and stomach to inflict maximum suffering
A few men had fractured skulls from having their heads beaten in
Just executing a POW is a war crime but this goes beyond it. The 85 executed at Malmedy were simply shot, perhaps because the Germans lacked the logistics to transport or guard POWs.
These 11 black US G.I’s were brutally and violently tortured and killed for no other reason than they were black. The SS soldiers took joy in their suffering. It’s the brutality that is hard to imagine.
The US would investigate this for years but the killers were never discovered. Maybe they got killed by the eventual onslaught of US forces. Hopefully, they died slowly in a pool of their own shit crying for their mothers who were already dead at the hands of the Red Army in the East.
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
How about my high school principal?
Waaaayyy back, early 1970s, everyone arrived at school and was greeted by an announcement to go to homeroom.
Sounds normal, except that we only went to homeroom for things like report cards. Normally our first period class was attendance center, so a sudden announcement of starting the day with homeroom was weird.
Everyone went to homeroom, and there was a lot of wondering what was up – even the teachers seemed puzzled.
The principal then made a strange and rambling speech over the PA system.
It was about the parasites infesting our school.
It turned out that his definition of parasites was students who wore their coats to class, students who sat on the floor, students who held hands with :::gasp::: students of the opposite sex, students who, well, acted like teenagers.
Any student seen doing these things would be suspended for the rest of the day.
It didn’t take long.
By second period, everyone was wearing their coats. Half the school had on pieces of paper that read “I’m a parasite and I’m proud.” Members of the football team (all boys at that time) walked from class to class, holding hands. Any student with a free period was in the core, sitting on the floor around the tables instead of in the library or somewhere else. The Madrigal singers, in full costume ready for a performance, promenaded through the main hall with their hands in position (boy raised, holding girl’s in an “elegant” fashion), but not touching (it looked really stupid). I’m sure there was more, but that’s all I saw.
His policy was rescinded the next day. It’s really hard to suspend 2000 students, and that’s what it would have taken.
Donnie is a baddie
If China is full of the smartest people, why is the US so much more advanced?
I suggest you visit China. It reversed my preconception. I am from Norway, North Europe. A rather modern and advanced society.
On my first visit to the US over 20 years ago, I was surprised at how backward and old fashioned it was. Movies had let me to believe it was the epitome of modern society. I visited several states on the East/South-East. Very backwards digitally. Terrible infrastructure. Unwalkable. Dirty. Hard to find quality restaurants outside of big cities. Dead city centres in medium sized cities.
I went to China a year or two later, and the opposite struck me. It was a highly modern society. Highly digital. Fantastic high-speed infrastructure (that is even better nowadays). Super clean, modern cities. I was mainly in the Jiangsu province that time. Loved it!
I suggest everyone to go and form their own opinions. I really fell in love with Suzhou, not far from Shanghai.
What’s it like to fail because you ignored your gut and followed someone else’s advice instead?
We were drunk. Stupid teenagers thinking that we could make fun of every rule.
“Let’s go to Gabriel’s house and continue the party there!” one of my friends suggested.
“We don’t have a car!” I said.
“I’ll take everyone on the back of my pickup truck! Hop in!” Juan said while starting his truck’s engine.
I immediately hesitated, “I don’t think it’s safe!”
“Aahhh… don’t be a wooze Hector! Come on! Everything will be okay!” Juan said.
“I don’t like the idea!”
Everyone was ready to go, partying, singing, drinking and fooling around.
It was very late at night. I had two options, call my mom to come pick me up or simply go with the flow.
I ignored my gut and followed my friends.
We were balancing ourselves as the truck moved forward. Juan, the truck driver, wasn’t responsible of us sitting — and standing on the back of the pickup.
A quick turn was enough to change the rest of my life. One of my best friends lost balance and was thrown off the back.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” I shouted to the top of my lungs while hitting the rooftop of the pickup.
Juan stopped.
We quickly jumped out of the box to assist my friend. He was bleeding. His head was totally covered with blood and unconscious. He had landed with his head on a yellow speed bump causing him to fracture his head.
We took him to the hospital. Four days later he passed away. He was 16 years old.
To this day, his parents cry every time they see me because I bring memories of their son. I’m always speechless. I can only imagine how I could have prevented this life-changing event for every one of us.
I lacked character.
To answer your question:
Not trusting your instinct, your conscience, your spirit or however you want to call it; will bring terrible regrets that may last a lifetime.
Today, I’m aware of that “small voice” that somehow, I know I shouldn’t ignore anymore.
Yet, it all comes down to character, strength, and courage to stand my ground even when temptation or peer pressure is on.
Have you ever gotten home and found evidence that somebody had been in your home while you were gone?
I had been away for a couple of months diving and arrived home after a long flight. As soon as the taxi pulled into the parking square I noticed that where I once had a solid wooden door to my house I now had plywood sheet. So I immediately knew something was wrong. I got out of the taxi and approached my house where I was met by my neighbours who told me that the previous night, the Police had broken into my house and searched it. Now furious I called the Police and demanded an explanation.
A few minutes later the Police arrived and together we entered my house. Once inside they explained that a few weeks earlier a body had been found on the beach in the North West of the country, and there had been a public appeal to help identify the deceased. Following this appeal my brother (who I have not seen for over 30 years) had called the Police and claimed the body was me. He had even been taken to identify the body. With this information the Police arrived at my address and spoke to my neighbours who confirmed that they had not seen me for a number of weeks. This reinforced their incorrect assumptions that the body was mine, and as it was considered a suspicious death, they decided to break into my house and examine it, in case there were any clues that could help them solve the death.
The body found on the beach was later identified.
So yes there had been someone in my house, the Police, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling knowing that they had been through all of my possessions, and then I was left with a bill for a replacement door, as damage caused by Police in the execution of their duty, is apparently excluded from house insurance.
China has announced countermeasures against a US company and two individuals that have long collected sensitive information to provide so-called evidence for illegal sanctions by the US, after the US newly added two Chinese officials and three Chinese companies onto a sanction list citing so-called human rights concerns.
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US intelligence data company Kharon and Edmund Xu, director of investigations of Kharon and Nicole Morgret, a former researcher from Center for Advanced Defense Studies, will be prohibited from entering China (including China’s mainland, the Hong Kong SAR and the Macau SAR), said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday.
China will freeze the property of Kharon and the two persons in China, including their movable and immovable property, and prohibit organizations and individuals in China from transactions and cooperation with them.
In December, US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced to sanction two Chinese officials for alleged link to human rights abuse. Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security added three more Chinese companies to the so-called “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act” (UFLPA) blacklist.
In response, Mao said that the US once again fabricated and spread false narratives about China’s Xinjiang region, imposed illegal sanctions on Chinese officials and companies under the pretext of so-called human rights issues in the region, seriously interfering in China’s internal affairs, seriously violating international law and basic norms of international relations, seriously tarnishing China’s image, and seriously damaging the legitimate rights and interests of relevant Chinese officials and companies.
China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this and has made solemn representations to the US, Mao said, urging the US to stop slandering and smearing China, revoke the illegal unilateral sanctions against Chinese officials and companies, and stop implementing erroneous bills such as the so-called UFLPA.
If the US refuses to change course, China will not flinch and will respond in kind, the spokesperson said.
The Day After (1983) & ABC News Viewpoint original WPVI-TV 6ABC Broadcast 11-20-1983
Full movie.
This was the movie that forced President Regan to talk with the Soviet Union to stop the ramp up towards world war 3. Must watch.
Some are cool, some are silly, and some just seem odd.
Back in the 1980’s I wore “parachute pants”.
1980s era parachute pants were a fashion trend popularized during the 1980s, particularly in the hip-hop and breakdancing cultures. These pants were characterized by their loose, baggy fit, often made from lightweight synthetic materials like nylon or polyester, resembling the fabric used in parachutes (hence the name). They typically featured multiple pockets, zippers, and sometimes decorative stitching or panels. Parachute pants were known for their bold colors and patterns, and they often had elasticated cuffs at the ankles. The style was closely associated with the dance and music scenes of the time and became iconic within the fashion landscape of the 1980s.
Do you all remember these things?
s l1600
Mine were grey-silver in color. LOL.
Parachute pants
I was the “cool guy”… Ha ha ha ha
How cool are you today?
Today…
What happens if you give two weeks’ notice and they ask you to leave?
Oh, this happened to me and I can tell you from personal experience.
You leave.
I gave a letter of resignation to my boss and said “Sorry about this”. He said “Aww man, really?” and then I went back to my desk. Two hours, later the HR lady that I hated came to my desk and asked me to grab my stuff and come to HR with her. I already had all my stuff packed in a box.
She processed my paperwork and sent me home. She asked me to go straight to my car and not to say anything to any of my coworkers on my way out. I said I wasn’t planning to, but wouldn’t ignore them if they said something to me. Which she was ok with. She also asked me if there was anything else I needed off my desk, but I had already gotten everything I wanted to keep. She asked if She could go through my box and take a look. I was fine with that. And that was pretty much it.
When I got home, I called the new job and told them I could start early if they wanted. They asked me to come in on the Monday after the following week as that was how the pay periods lined up and I agreed.
This is always a possibility, especially if you are going to a competitor.
All you need to do is stay professional, and don’t burn any bridges. Not worth it.
Men are simple
"I'm a 46 year old man. Married with a kid. You pretty much nailed it. Not sure why this video was suggested to me or why i clicked on it but your insight is spot on."
What was the bravest thing you ever did in a job interview?
Sometime in 1980, I had a job interview for an Electrical Engineer position.The interviewer showed me a very simple circuit and asked me what it did. I said, “It drives a DC motor either forward or backward.” He then asked what was wrong with the circuit and I then said, “I don’t see anything wrong other than that fact that there was no biasing on the transistors, but that is pretty obvious.”
“No no.” he said. “That’s not obvious at all. You have no idea how many electrical engineers don’t know how to bias transistors,” (Fact is that this is both basic and very important.)
He went on ranting and raving about this for several minutes. Then asked me how I would bias the transistors. So, I drew in some resisters. He said, “Yeah – I guess that would work.”
I asked him, “Would you do it differently?” “A little bit.” He replied. I asked him to show me how he would do it.
He then proceeded to “bias” the transistors in a way that would NOT work. I asked myself, “Should I tell him?” I quickly decided that if I could not point out his error, I did not want to work for the guy anyway.
So I told him why his circuit would not work. He crumpled up the paper.tossed it in the basket and said, “That stuff is not important anyway.” I was out of his office two minutes later and never heard from them again. I laughed all the way to my car.
Real talk
Russia. Is. At. War.
Due to a flurry of western support for Ukraine, now escalating to ground troop insertions, Russia had to move its special military operation in Ukraine into the bigger scope of a full fledged war. Over the last month the Ukrainian military intelligence directorate GUR and its civilian secret service SBU have attempted to disturb the recent presidential election in Russia. They did this by:
sending forces, with U.S. made equipment (Bradleys), to attack Russian border villages in the direction of Belgorod (Belgograd),
by launching missiles from Czech Vampire (RM-70) multiple launch rocket systems towards Belgorod,
by launching somewhat successful drone strike against Russian oil refineries.
The election in Russia saw a record turnout. As expected President Putin did win by a very large margin. His legitimacy is a geopolitical reality:
If Nato expansion is about the perpetuation of US hegemony and de-dollarisation is about the burial of the western financial system that underpins that hegemony, Putin is playing a pivotal role in that historical process. If Putin remains in power till 2030 and fulfils even one half of the ambitious blueprint of social and economic programme for Russia that he outlined in his landmark speech at the Federal Assembly of the parliament, the global strategic balance will have shifted irrevocably and cemented a multipolar world order as the anchor sheet of 21st century politics. The West knows it, the Russian people know it, the vast majority of nations realise it. That said, it must be understood as well that this is not only Putin’s victory personally but also a consolidation of Russian society around him. And that accounts for the last week’s election turning into such a high-stakes affair.
With the election out of the way Russia was free to hit back.
Over the last six days the Russian MoD reports claimed no less than nine hits on the Czech Vampire systems which targeted Belgorod. The Ukrainian incursion towards Belgorod has thus been defeated. On Wednesday Jake Sullivan, the U.S. National Security Advisor, had visited Kiev. He was noticed for what he did not say:
Jake Sullivan, US National Security Adviser, has said that Ukraine will win if it comes out of the war as a sovereign, democratic and free country. At the same time, he did not mention restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity among the conditions of victory.
It is believed that Sullivan delivered a warning to Kiev. As the Financial Timesreported (archived):
The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions.The repeated warnings from Washington were delivered to senior officials at Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, and its military intelligence directorate, known as the GUR, the people told the Financial Times. Both intelligence units have steadily expanded their own drone programmes to strike Russian targets on land, sea and in the air since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The U.S. concern is not about Ukraine but about Biden’s chance for reelection:
Russia remains one of the world’s most important energy exporters despite western sanctions on its oil and gas sector. Oil prices have risen about 15 per cent this year, to $85 a barrel, pushing up fuel costs just as US President Joe Biden begins his campaign for re-election. … The US objections come as Biden faces a tough re-election battle this year with petrol prices on the rise, increasing almost 15 per cent this year to around $3.50 a gallon.“Nothing terrifies a sitting American president more than a surge in pump prices during an election year,” said Bob McNally, president of consultancy Rapidan Energy and a former White House energy adviser.
The Ukrainian government denied and confirmed the FT report (machine translation):
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanashina actually confirmed the information to the Financial Times , saying that “we understand the calls of American partners,” but Ukraine responded to such calls by “achieving its goals” and “very successful operations” on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Sullivan’s warning about provoking retaliation was too late. Yesterday, for the first time in 44 day, Russia launched a missile attack against Kiev (archived):
The Ukrainian Air Force said that air defense systems had intercepted all 31 of the Russian missiles that targeted Kyiv. Still, debris from the downed missiles fell in various parts of the city, causing the injuries and damage. No deaths have been reported so far. … In the Podilskyi district, which is home to industrial facilities that Russia has targeted in the past, a plume of black smoke was rising early in the morning, suggesting a hit. Mr. Klitschko said a fire had broken out at a power substation in the area. Ukrainian officials rarely confirm strikes on strategic industrial and military targets. … Thursday’s attack on Kyiv echoed a strategy used by Russia during air assaults in late December that consisted of overwhelming Ukraine’s air defenses with multiple launches of various types of missiles, including ballistic and hypersonic ones.Russia has launched relatively few large-scale missile attacks in recent months, despite a capacity to produce more than 115 long-range missiles per month, according to Ukrainian officials.
Last night, the Russian Aerospace Forces delivered a strike by long-range precision weaponry including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles at AFU decision-making centres, logistic bases, temporary deployment areas of special operations forces and foreign mercenaries.The goal of the strike has been achieved. All the targets have been engaged.
Such Russian strikes are complex. Drones are send first to reveal Ukrainian air defense systems. Then follows a wave of attacks against those system. A third strike is then launched against the real targets of the attack. In this case those were a drone factory in Kiev as well as a headquarter of the military intelligence service GUR. Another large scale strike followed today. The primary targets were elements of the electricity infrastructure:
Large areas of Ukraine are suffering blackouts after Russian missiles targeted energy infrastructure.There is no electricity in the second-largest city of Kharkiv, says regional head Oleg Synehubov. Fifteen blasts were reported in Kharkiv, while more than 53,000 households in Odesa were without power. Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, accused Russia of trying to provoke “a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system”. A power line feeding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant had been cut, he added. Regional head Ivan Fedorov said the power station was “on the verge of a blackout”, adding that seven buildings in the region had been destroyed and 35 others damaged. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 60 Shahed drones and about 90 missiles into Ukraine during the wave of overnight attacks.
Internet access in Ukraine has dropped significantly. This was again a complex attack:
Lord Bebo @MyLordBebo – 9:42 UTC · Mar 22, 2024🇺🇦🇷🇺🚨‼️ Russian missile attack on Ukraine during March 22nd, 2024. -> Notice the flight patterns of the missiles. Aviation: At 01:12, the takeoff of 3⨯ Tu-95ms from the Olenya air base was noted. At 02:30, information on the movement of 13 Tu-95ms to the launch lines was clarified. At 03:34, the launch of the KRPB Kh-101/555/55 was carried out from the Volgograd region. At 04:18, the takeoff of 5 Tu-22m3s from the Mozdok air base was noted. During the attack, a total of 10 MiG-31Ks were raised (7 were used before the attack). Armament: 55/63x “Shahed-136/131” Type Shock Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; 0/12x OTR “Iskander-M”; 35/40 X-101/X-555 cruise missiles; 0/5x NKR Kh-22; 0/7x ARPB Kh-47M2 “Dagger”; 2/2x CAR X-59; 0/22x ZKR S-300/S-400. The targeted air attack vector during today’s day is marked on the map.
The Ukrainian air defense claimed to have shut down 55 of 63 Shahid drones. But the Iskander, Dagger and S-300 fired against it all came through. The Russian MoD reports (machine translation):
Today, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered a massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons of air, sea, land-based and unmanned aerial vehicles against energy facilities, military-industrial complex, railway junctions, arsenals, places of deployment of formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and foreign mercenaries.As a result of the strike, the functioning of industrial enterprises for the production and repair of weapons, military equipment and ammunition was disorganized. In addition, foreign military equipment and weapons delivered to Ukraine from NATO countries were destroyed, transfers to the front line of enemy reserves were disrupted, and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and mercenaries in the areas of restoring combat capability were hit. All the goals of the massive strike have been achieved.
Some European politicians are eager to join the fight.
As demonstrated today, Russia is ready for it. But unlike a still training Macron Russia has taken its gloves off (machine translation):
Peskov: Russia is in a state of war, everyone should understand thisRussia will continue to act in such a way that the military potential of Ukraine could not threaten the security of its citizens and its territory, he said in a conversation with reporters. “What is the president talking about? We have four new regions of the Russian Federation. And the main thing for us is to protect people in these regions and liberate the territory of these regions, which is currently de facto occupied by the Kiev regime,” Peskov said. According to the presidential press secretary, Russia cannot allow the existence of a state on its borders that has documented the intention to use any methods to take Crimea from it, not to mention the territory of new regions. “We are at war. Yes, it started out as a special military operation, but as soon as this little group was formed there, when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, it already became a war for us. I am convinced of this. And everyone should understand this for their internal mobilization,” Peskov added.
In parallel to Peskov’s declaration of war talk, Russias announced the mass production of the three ton heavy FAB-3.000 aerial bombs with 1,400 kg of explosives. These will be fitted, like the currently used FAB 500 and FAB 1.500, with the universal planning and correction module (UMPC) which allows the bombs to glide some 40 miles after being launched to then hit its planned target with high precision. There is little that can survive such a strike. In his (highly recommendable) book “The Russian Art of War”, the former Swiss military intelligence officer Jacques Baud described the reason why the current fighting in Ukraine started out as a “Special Military Operation” within a larger context:
The use of the word “war” would imply a different structure of conduct than that envisioned by the Russians in Ukraine, and would have other structural implications in Russia itself. Moreover – and this is a central point – as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg himself acknowledges,”the war began in 2014” and should have been ended by the Minsk Agreements. The SMO is therefore a “military operation” and not a new “war”, as many Western “experts” claim.
That was then. Now Russia is at war. This will have, as Baud says, a different structure of conduct and other structural implications in Russia and beyond. Those ‘western’ politicians who are dreaming of fighting Russia have no idea of what will hit their troops the moment they try to join the war. NATO however, and especially the United States, will not go to war. At least not yet. President Biden has his hands full with the genocidal war the Zionists are waging against the Palestinian population. There is also a chance for a war to suddenly start in Asia. (Could North Korea be asked to flex its muscles?) Neither the U.S. nor Europe are in the shape of winning a multi-front war of global dimensions. The military leaders in the relevant countries know this well. In consequence ‘Western’ politicians will have to bite the bitter pill of a decisive strategic defeat.
Posted by b on March 22, 2024 at 13:10 UTC | Permalink
Furious Putin Crocus Gunmen Captured, Terror Network Destroyed, Big Ukr Defeat ivanivske Falls
What do you think about the saying: “If you have to ask (the price), you can’t afford it” as a person of wealth?
A few years ago, an American tourist in Zurich wandered into a pricey fashion store called Trois Pommes, and a handbag caught her eye. So she asked the saleswoman: “Excuse me, may I see that bag right above your head?”
The saleswoman sized up the tourist, a middle aged black woman, and figured it was a waste of her time so told her: “No. It’s too expensive”.
The tourist said: “No, you see the black one, the one that’s folded over”.
Saleswoman, with a snooty fru fru I’m-not-even-close-to-being-rich-but-will-obsequiously-kiss-rich-peoples-butt-while-despising-normal-folk-like-me replied: “No, no, no, you don’t want to see that one, you want to see this one, because that one will cost too much, you will not be able to afford that one”
The saleswoman ultimately refused to get the bag in question, priced at around $38,000, and the exasperated customer walked.
Unbeknownst to the saleswoman, the tourist was probably the world’s richest woman at the time (I’m guessing Jeff Bezos’ ex is richer now after the divorce settlement), billionaire Oprah Winfrey.
The story made the news and generated tons of negative publicity for the store. As to Oprah, when she eventually found out what the bag cost, she said it was overpriced and would never pay that much for that handbag.
Rich people – at least wise ones and/or the ones who worked for their money, as opposed to spoiled trust fund brats who had everything handed to them since birth, do ask for prices. For one, because it takes less time to ask and get an answer in a few seconds than it does to go through the hassle of research. For another, and more importantly, because like any rational people, they want to have an idea about cost vs benefit, whether something is worth it, and whether they can get the best deal for what they want.
Just because rich people can afford to pay a seller their asking price doesn’t mean they’re automatically going to. Rational rich people do comparison shop and negotiate for the best deals they can get, instead of just shell out whatever anybody who has something they want asks for.
The “if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it” assumption is silly.
The Best of Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad
What was the strangest way an embezzler was caught?
I worked in engineering and facilities for a large Pharma. We had project managers who did construction and renovation.
In the old days we had paper employee ID cards and contractors weren’t accounted for very well. We started a contractor safety program where each of the contractor’s employees had to take a one hour safety program, then issued a contractor card. At the same time employee IDs we’re upgraded to mag cards so everyone swiped in and out of our properties.
In time the audit showed one company who didn’t respond to the program. Digging in it was found that one project manager used them exclusively. On every project he had them do some small unidentified tasks, never more than $5000. And for many years. Once the card systems were installed we could see nobody from that company ever entered the property but the small bills kept coming.
An investigation revealed that this 30 year employee owned the company which was nothing more than a post office box and a bank account. He never got greedy so he never aroused suspicions, but constantly embezzled betwen $2–5000 on every project for years! Only caught by automation.
Reality of Government Policy
US crackdown on China desperate, delusional — S.L.Kanthan
“We don’t want to live in a world where the Chinese are the dominant country,” – this astounding statement of fear and paranoia is from the US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. Once upon a time, the same US championed free trade, free market, and competition. It also established global institutions such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and WTO, welcomed immigrants from all over the world, and evangelized free movement of capital and technology. Now, the US is sabotaging everything it built, hoping desperately to retain its hegemony. However, this onslaught is futile as US elites do not understand why their financialized economy of OnlyFans failed and why China’s industrial economy of electric vehicles and solar panels succeeded.
Unable to compete and unwilling to learn, the American establishment has been trying to hobble China’s growth through illegal and incoherent tactics. Since 2017, the US has been waging a relentless and intense war on China’s economy and development. The hybrid war includes tariffs, sanctions, diplomatic assaults and propaganda wars.
The broader objective is to prevent China becoming the No.1 economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP – by purchasing power parity, China is already 20 percent larger than the US. The narrower, but equally sinister, goal is to stop China from catching up and becoming self-reliant in cutting-edge technologies. If China is portrayed as a threat to Asia and the world, the American and European public would feel that the sanctions are justified.
In the smartphone world, when Huawei surpassed Apple in market share, the US forced TSMC and Samsung to stop making semiconductor chips for Huawei. Similarly, the US has pressured the Dutch company ASML into not selling high-end chipmaking lithography machines to China. What WTO rules or international norms allow the US to engage in such geo-economic thuggery?
The blitzkrieg against Chinese companies did not stop at strategic high-tech companies. Now, the US has started attacking Chinese electric cars and targeted at robbing the TikTok. Without blushing a bit, US officials claim that Beijing can turn off the electric cars or harvest data from TikTok. Don’t forget that: Thanks to Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks, we know how every American hardware and software is a spying tool; and the “Twitter Files” revealed how US social media are infiltrated with representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, US Department of Defense, among others.
Every accusation by America is an admission of its own guilt. While the US media and politicians accuse China of stealing intellectual property (IP), the US is blatantly stealing TSMC’s technology and IP by forcing the latter to build advanced chip-manufacturing plants in the US. The US also complains a lot about subsidies in China, while dispensing tens of billions of dollars to American tech companies under the CHIPS and Science Act. Furthermore, the US dollar itself is the biggest subsidy, since the US government prints trillions of dollars out of thin air rather than taxing corporations.
The tragic fact is that the US, without a clear strategy, is failing. It is jumping from tariffs and sanctions to illogical buzzwords such as “decoupling,” “friend-shoring” and “de-risking.” China is the world’s manufacturing powerhouse with a trade surplus of $800 billion a year; and neither the US nor the EU can survive for a month without Chinese goods. It’s only a matter of time until China masters the entire semiconductor ecosystem, after which the US will have no advantage. Thus, when US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo recently said that the US will “do whatever it takes to curb China’s technology,” she just sounded delusional.
To figure out who will be successful, one just needs to compare President Joe Biden’s address at the State of the Union to the Two Sessions in Beijing. Biden started off his speech by vilifying Russia and imploring Congress to continue funding the proxy war in Ukraine. On the other side of the world, political advisors of the CPPCC and deputies of the NPC deliberated “high quality growth” and “new quality productive force.”
The US model is based on imperialism abroad and a parasitic form of capitalism at home. If their ego prevents them from learning the China model, Americans should go back to their roots and study the writings of founders like Alexander Hamilton and the classical economics of the 19th century. At the current trajectory, the US is on a path to implosion and a disastrous collision with the reality of a multipolar world.
CITY OF GLASS – Pulp Science Fiction by Skyward, Surrealism, Experiments in Texture and Transparency
At The UN It Is A Rogue U.S. Against The Rest Of The World
“Unipolar” used to mean that the United States was, at least in theory, alone in leading the world. Now “unipolar” means that the United States is alone and isolated in opposition to the world.
Snider refers to the recent UN Security Council resolution 2728 which “demands” a ceasefire in Gaza and “demands” a release of hostages and “demands” the unhindered supply of food and other items to Gaza.
On March 25, the U.S. went one step further and took a step toward becoming a rogue state who has supplanted international law with its rules-based order. International law is grounded in the charter system and the United Nations and is universally applicable. The rules-based order is composed of unwritten laws whose source, consent, and legitimacy are unknown. To the global majority, those unwritten laws have the appearance of being invoked when they benefit the U.S. and its partners and not being invoked when they don’t.
On March 25, the Security Council passed a resolution demanding “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire.” The resolution was able to pass because the U.S. stood aside and let the other fourteen Security Council members pass it by abstaining instead of vetoing.
But in her explanation of the American abstention after the resolution passed, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield “surprisingly” said that “we fully support some of the critical objectives in this nonbinding resolution.”
Her claim that the Security Council resolution was nonbinding was not an off script, impromptu comment. It is the strategy of a country that enforces, not international law, but the U.S. led rules-based order.
Since the beginning, it’s been obvious that Gaza was in many ways a fight between International Law and the US’s “rules-based order”.This whole episode around the UN resolution is a perfect illustration of this. There is no debate amongst international law scholars that resolutions by the UN Security Council that “demand” certain actions are binding (good explanation by a legal scholar here). In fact resolutions by the council ARE international law, article 25 of the UN Charter clearly states: “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”
Yet the US now argues that the “rule” is in fact different: “It’s a non-binding resolution, so there’s no impact at all on Israel”.
Where is this rule written, that somehow when the UNSC “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire”, it’s non-binding and “there’s no impact at all” on the warring party?
Nowhere, that’s the beauty of the rules-based order: the rules are made-up in the moment to fit the interests of the U.S. and its henchmen, depending on the circumstances.
The big issue here is that the whole world, literally, disagrees with the U.S. claims.
All UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding and have the status of international law. That is why UN Secretary General António Guterres said, “This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable.” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq explained that, “All the resolutions of the Security Council are international law. They are as binding as international laws.”
Others responded the same way to the U.S. claim. On behalf of the ten elected members of the Security Council who drafted the resolution, Pedro Comissario, Mozambique’s envoy to the United Nations, said, “All United Nations Security Council resolutions are binding and mandatory.” He then added, “It is the hope of the 10 that the resolution adopted today will be implemented in good faith by all parties.”
The United Kingdom also did “not share” the U.S. claim, prompting their envoy to the UN to say, “we expect all Council resolutions to be implemented. This one is not any different. The demands in the resolution are absolutely clear.” China, too, did not share the U.S. evaluation. “China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said Security Council resolutions are binding.”
France too rejects the U.S. claim and insists that UNSC Res 2728 is absolutely binding and especially binding for Israel:
“A United Nation Security Council resolution is binding under international law. All concerned parties MUST implement it, especially Israel, to whom it is incumbent to apply this resolution.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that UN Security Council Resolution 2728 on Gaza, which calls for an immediate cease-fire and access for humanitarian aid, is binding for all sides, including Israel.
…
“The Russian side expects that the binding UN Security Council Resolution 2728 will contribute to de-escalating violence in Gaza, including preventing the Israeli operation in Rafah, freeing hostages, (and) increasing humanitarian assistance to civilians in the sector,” it said.
Four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – including two major U.S. allies -, all of its non-permanent members and the UN Secretary General have explicitly said that UNSC Res 2728 is binding.
The U.S. (plus maybe a few of its minor proxies) is the only state which publicly disputes that.
Bertrand points out that this will have huge consequences:
There’s no overstating how consequential this is for the integrity of international relations. By doing so, the US effectively destroys the world order it largely created after WW2 because it effectively tells everyone that the set of institutions, rules and norms that underpin it are meaningless. We’re effectively now in a world system where everyone realizes the police, the government, the basic set of beliefs, have become completely corrupted. This changes everything.What comes next? I think there’s no coming back for the U.S. And I think they know this, maybe unconsciously, otherwise they would at least pretend to act for the better good of all. The fact they don’t shows they’ve effectively abdicated ambitions to restore their hegemony: they’re now nakedly in it to milk the system for themselves, universal pretentions have gone.
This UN Security Council is not the only institution which the U.S. tries to destroys after having largely created it.
The appellate body of the World Trade Organization (WTO), considered the supreme court for international trade, lost its ability to rule on new dispute cases at midnight Tuesday.The panel, whose decisions affect billions of dollars in global trade, is supposed to have seven judges. But their ranks have dwindled because the United States — under the past three presidents — has blocked replacements to protest the way the WTO does business.
A minimum of three judges is needed to issue rulings and the terms of two of the last three judges ended at midnight Tuesday.
This will deal a major blow to the global trading system, critics say, arguing that the situation risked creating a system of trade relations based on power rather than binding international rules.
The U.S. is now using protectionism, subsidies and tariffs, which are clearly illegal under WTO rules it had previously agreed to. But as it has managed, without having any serious argument, to destroy the WTO’s court their is no longer a direct way it can get penalized for it.
But trade is only one field of international relations and other WTO members have found ways to solve disputes even without its court.
The stakes are much higher when it comes to matters of peace and of wars waged with the intent of genocide.
Most countries however don’t want to live in an “eat or get eaten”/”might makes right” world, without rules or norms. So in time a new system will arise.
The biggest unknowns being: can it arise without a major global war, who will lead the construction of its foundations and how can it be set up so that this time around it is fair for all and respected by all?
I’ll leave it to you to ponder those questions.
Posted by b on March 28, 2024 at 16:43 UTC | Permalink
The Collapse of The Traditional Career.
Pesto Feta Pizza
2011 11 10 19 03 04
Ingredients
1 prepared pizza crust (such as Boboli)
Feta cheese to taste
Pesto
2 cups fresh parsley or basil, firmly packed
3/4 cup Parmesan or Romano
2/3 cup olive oil
2 to 4 cloves garlic
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
2011 11 10 19 01 08
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Place basil and garlic in food processor bowl and blend until smooth.
Add nuts and cheese and continue blending.
While processor is running, add olive oil until creamy. (Pesto can be stored up to three months in refrigerator if covered with a thin layer of olive oil, or it can be frozen.)
To assemble pizza: Use pastry brush to add a thin coat of oil to pizza crust (can omit this step).
Spread pesto over pizza crust.
Sprinkle feta over top and add thinly sliced and quartered tomatoes, if desired.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve with a salad.
2011 11 10 19 02 01
What was the rudest thing a teacher has said to you in front of the whole class?
When I was at the 3rd year of Business Administration at the university (from 5 years total), I was discouraged, kind of depressed, and unhappy. So, I didn’t care about buying all the books or anything. I was usually a great student but that year I wasn’t inspired.
One day, my tax law professor criticised me, in front of everyone, because I didn’t have the book. He didn’t have, either! So, I told him that. He answered he had memorised the book. I said I didn’t care, if he didn’t give me the example he couldn’t criticise me. He continued not having the book during the classes and I did the same.
When the test came, we could consult the book. I borrowed the book from my cousin’s boyfriend. Before to hand him (my teacher) my test, knowing I did a great job, I wrote a note provoking him for having done a great test without needing the book during classes (it was easy to find the references I needed from the book).
He was furious with me the day he returned the graded tests. Because my grade was among the best of my class. 😈 I didn’t check the test of my colleague with the best grade. Maybe mine was better and the teacher gave him higher grade just to avoid giving me extra reasons to provoke him, but I didn’t care. For me, my grade was good enough.
Even in my worst days I can be much better than most people at anything I want to do well. Not only in my native country. I did better than competitors worldwide along my career. Without needing anyone to disrespect me or provoke me. I’m motivated by doing things better day after day and learning from my experiences.
Where is the Next American Dream?
When did you realize that you would be single for the rest of your life, and why?
My mother once told me “you gotta kiss a lot of frogs…”
Somewhere around 40 years old (I’m 42 now) I decided I was done kissing frogs and never getting my prince. I now understand why my mother referred to one of her exes as a toad.
Dating these days is often gross and impersonal. It’s hard to meet people organically, so we now resort to online dating. For a woman, online dating is basically a sea of horny, rancid, male sharks and we’ve just put on a bathing suit soaked in chum. Even if there are some decent men on there, we aren’t going to find you or believe you. It’s like panning for fools gold in a NYC sewer. I could tell you some horror stories about the kind of men I’ve met because of online dating. I don’t want to do it ever again and no one can make me! Yuck, eww, No.
Relationships are too exhausting. It takes many years to truly get to know someone and I just don’t have it in me anymore to give that much time, effort, and heart and soul on learning someone again, only to find out years into it that they’re actually a terrible human. This isn’t necessarily fair to people who aren’t awful, but it’s a gamble I’m not all that eager to take anymore. Hard pass.
Even if I were to find my unicorn, the thought of having to alter my long term life goals to now fit the goals of another person just isn’t something I’m very willing to compromise on anymore. And I wouldn’t expect or want someone else to make those changes for me either. At this age, our time is becoming more precious and shouldn’t be conceded on when it comes to our own lifelong happiness. It is unlikely we are meant to travel the same path indefinitely.
For now, I focus on my career and raising my teenagers. I have a couple of dogs and a few good friends to keep me company. I also have to interact with people at work all day. I’m introverted so I’m definitely not lonely, by any means. Getting alone time is a hot commodity to be cherished. I don’t know that I’d want to give up my 30 minutes a week to a relationship. I’m busy.
Some day, when I’m older, I’d like to do things that I really want to do, like travel more, experience new things and cultures, or maybe just sit around in my underpants while eating a rotisserie chicken with my bare hands and watching jeopardy reruns.
Whatever it may be, I want to be free to do it sans the time wasting a-hole.
Jesus via AI
Default jesus in church with lot of people in church 3Default empower through faith of jesus christ 1Default jesus showing love to people with heart sign 1Default empower through faith of jesus christ 6Default empower through faith of jesus christ 7Default empower through faith of jesus christ 5Default empower through faith of jesus christ 3
Have you ever chosen to dispute a traffic ticket in court? What was the outcome?
I was pulled over in New Mexico back in 2012 and it was for not stopping at a stopsign. The area was fairly rural and I could see both directions some distance. So I slowed but kept rolling then took off. About 2 miles down the road there was a mounty on me and I pulled over trying to imagine what he was getting me for. He came to the car asked for my DL and Ins. and asked me what I called that? I looked at him and said well if you would be kind enough to tell me what “that” was I would be happy to answer for it. After some questions about me being a smart ass he finally realized I didnt know what he was at me about. So he finally told me “Failure to stop at a stop sign!” I admitted well I did slow down he said but you didnt stop I said no its a common practice in the country side at rural stops to roll through and I explained some call it a california roll. He said “That Figures!” and he handed me a ticket to sign He said “well here in Nebraska we dont drive like californians” I said ok not arguing and went on with my evening. Well next day I called an uncle of mine who was an attorney told him and he told me how to get out of it. SO court day came I show up and so does he. THe judge asked him what happened and then turned to me and asked my side. I didnt even tell him about the stop and went to describing how I was treated by the officer and the “It figures” and “we dont drive like californians” comments and my ticket was promptly dismissed for personal bias and out I walked while the judge reprimanded the deputy.
Have you ever been treated so terribly at a restaurant that you refused to go back there again?
Yes. Arriving, the parking lot was very slick ice. I informed the hostess (owner), she just shot an undeserved annoyed look. Hey I was just trying to help them & avoid a slip & fall for someone.
Our waitress failed to bring our food as it sat way to long prepared, even after a long wait we asked. Clearly she then forgot; but did show up to push a wine bottle to buy. That after we distinctly expressed early on we were not there for drinks. Same with appetizers & desserts.
The goal was clear: upsell, upsell.
The food was just about room temperature. And not even what we had ordered. She tried to convince us to eat what she brought anyway!
All that did was piss her off. Watching her she returned food to the kitchen, obviously not giving them our actual order.
We are not snotty people at all! But were pretty much forced to be at this point, hangry didn’t help.
We stopped at the hostess/owner podium & waited for some attention. After too long she asked “how many in our party?” She didn’t remember us unsurprisingly.
I made a bit of a sport of it, saying “still two, we’re just waiting for our check”.
“Who was your waiter/waitress?”
“Don’t know”
“Where was your table”
“Over there (with a vague gesture”
Now SHE’S very annoyed & NOT pleasant at all. “What did you have?”
“Nothing but water”
Now she’s even more annoyed + confused. Good. As if anyone there cared anyway.
I finally explained the situation & that we’d been there for almost an hour at this point. Ordered food, never got it, we’re leaving.
The bitch, now outright rude, threatened to call the police.
I implored her to, explaining we certainly are not paying for a product or service we’d never received. And fortunately we hadn’t yet paid, as then we would have a stronger case do please – a police report will be a good addition to our case. Plus hopefully for her sake they arrive quickly since now they are on the clock.
She still tried to argue! “We can’t just come here and leave without paying”. Argh. Pay for what – water? I don’t even see water on the menu, how much do you charge for it?” (I believe it’s state law that water & bathroom facilities are required at a certain amount of seating). But she briefly tried to think of an amount to charge.
I finally announced the end of this dispute – if she’s call law enforcement we’d feel compelled to wait, otherwise we’re leaving. She quipped something like ” well I guess we’ll eat this one”.
US troops 1 mile from mainland china 03 22 2024 large
The top defense official in the nation of Taiwan has confirmed that U.S. troops are stationed off the coast of China, as World War 3 continues to take shape. Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s Defense Minister, was questioned by journalists about a report that U.S. troops had advanced from Taiwan to small islands in close proximity to mainland China, such as Kinmen Island. Chiu’s response confirmed that the troops had in fact advanced closer to China. The scalable map below shows where US troops have gone and how close they now are to mainland China: Hal Turner Editorial Opinion China has long told Taiwan and the world that the stationing of US Troops on Taiwan would be viewed as “an invasion of China” and would be dealt with as such. Not only has the US now deployed troops onto Taiwan, they have moved some of those troops to an island within one mile of mainland China! This is a gross provocation by the United States; it’s almost as if the US is TRYING to start a major war!
What was the strangest way an embezzler was caught?
My dad owned his own accounting firm for decades and he had one fairly big client that he got on well with. When Dad retired he was offered a job 1 day a week by this client. They had a guy who had been there a while who did payroll and the basic accounting but he wasn’t very good at the accounting so my dad was meant to be taking over accounts and this other guy was meant to be just doing payroll.
Anyway, on my dad’s first day the boss suggested he learn the payroll system so he could be cover for the other guy.
They had a little demonstration session and my dad asked how sickness was done. The payroll guy said nobody is ever sick to which the boss replied that he was, last month. Reluctantly the guy showed my dad how the sickness was done on his own payslip and everyone instantly spotted that the guy had been paying himself double when off sick! He had been doing that a while. He went the same day!
He Was Homeless in America & Then He Moved To The Philippines : A Life Lesson
Have you ever walked out of a restaurant after you were seated by a waiter or waitress?
I was seated by a hostess at an Italian restaurant in Paramus NJ. It was supposed to be our anniversary dinner. A coworker of mine who was about as Italian as you can get without being born in Italy had given me a recommendation to go there.
Well after 30 minutes with not so much as a waiter/waitress taking our drink order (perhaps longer… I can be stubborn) I decided enough of this and signalled to my wife we were leaving now.
That could have been the end of the story but it is not.
I told my coworker what happened and it turned out he was part of the family (in laws? cousins? don’t remember.) and took it very personal that we got treated that way. My telephone at work rings a day or two later and it’s the owner of the restaurant and he’s apologizing profusely. It was then that I remembered my coworker told me to drop his name when I went there.
We were invited back for a “chef’s choice” seating at their expense. The meal was wonderful but way more than I could eat. There were eight courses and lots of wine. My wife doesn’t drink wine and never did so I got sorta concerned as was going to be way too drunk to drive. I’m not talking one bottle of wine here but a different wine for each course.
It was quite the meal.
When we went back days or months later we always were treated with great deference and got great service.
210,000 CODERS lost jobs as NVIDIA released NEW coding language.
Who’s the most boring person in your life?
My brother in law Paul, he is a really nice guy he is always ready to help someone out. He was a volunteer coast guard, regularly went to church , is a really good provider for my sister, hard working financially prudent, not tight just put a bit aside for the rainy day, save for the pension.
But he makes watching paint dry feel exciting, he can flatten a family gathering just by walking into the room. He is a train spotter and makes models out of matches and is an amateur weather forecaster. His only subjects of conversation are different types of rolling stock on the railways, cloud types and work, he is an aera manager for morrisons local shops. But because a lot of his job is to do with the finance side he takes commercial confidentiality seriously. So apart from three slightly amusing stories, nothing about work.
He only ever has two drinks either at a party or in the pub, doesn’t like spicy food or french food, not really keen on pasta or pizza no bbq and doesn’t eat rice or garlic. His taste in music was once described by my sister ‘Paul doesn’t like music, he likes ric Astley and black lace it is mucus not music’ he is a nice guy but so boring.
According to my sister the only time he’s not boring is when he and she stay energetically awake, then by all accounts he is creative and inventive, and has superior staying power.
As I don’t have sex with him I will stick with the description boring.
Make this fair
Laziness: What’s the laziest thing you’ve ever done?
It’s not me, but a guy who used to sit near me in my office.
In my office, the computers are set up such a way that if you don’t do anything for 4 minutes, they get locked. in order to unlock that, you need to type your password again.
Everyone faces this several times a day, if you go to the washroom, or busy in a phone call, or discussing something with someone for more than 4 minutes, you will find your PC locked when you come back.
This guy was too lazy to type his password every time this happened. So he invented this technology:
Open notepad
Put a bottle on the keyboard, this causes some keys to be pressed all the time.
this causes text input in notepad.
The computer thinks that user is working, so it does not get locked.
This is a photo I took when he was gone from his desk after setting up the Bottle-Anti-lock mechanism.
main qimg d6d918dc60bf9231593fd04036b08d55 pjlq
Soon he realized that entering huge amount of text in notepad causes the PC to run out of memory eventually and crash after some time.
We asked him to write a VBScript to mimic the keystroke, but he is too lazy for that. He found out a lazier work around,
He now uses a Comb (borrowed from a female co-worker – permanently) to push down the keys in the alt, ctrl, and the directional keys area which do not enter text in the notepad. and he keeps the bottle on top of the comb for the weight.
I don’t have an original photo for this. so I made a dummy. imagine the power bank is the keys that need to be pressed.
main qimg c32ee9eef28193a84d190808fb6bb97c pjlq
Necessity is the mother of invention!
Update: Some friends have asked in comments why cant we just change the screen lock timeout settings, or remove the password. The answer is, we do not have Admin privileges. Passwords and other system settings are enforced by Admin directly into the registry using group policy. We don’t have the privilege of Change settings, edit registry, change date/time, change screensaver and wallpapers. we cant even install any additional software. CD roms and USB drives are disabled too, so no way of boot into a portable Linux or something to hack the registry.
My daughter’s AI “likes”
She has different tastes than I have.
Default masterpiece best quality Majesty of Amethyst Court15 m 3Default Style by Yuko Shimizu Masamune Shirow Inio Asano and J 0(1)Default Style by Yuko Shimizu Masamune Shirow Inio Asano and J 1Default photographic photo photogenic extremely high quality h 6(2)Default Style by Yuko Shimizu Masamune Shirow Inio Asano and J 0Default photographic photo photogenic extremely high quality h 2
The Sopranos – Tony Soprano and other capos meet behind Junior Soprano’s back!
What is the funniest joke you’ve been told that you still think about to this day?
Two women talking in heaven
1st woman: Hi! Wanda.
2nd woman: Hi! Sylvia. How’d you die?
1st woman: I froze to death.
2nd woman: How horrible!
1st woman: It wasn’t so bad…. After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get warm & sleepy, and finally died a peaceful death. What about you?
2nd woman: I died of a massive heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating, so I came home early to catch him in the act. But instead, I found him all by himself in the den watching TV.
1st woman: So, what happened?
2nd woman: I was so sure there was another woman there somewhere that I started running all over the house looking. I ran up into the attic and searched, and down into the basement. Then I went through every closet and checked under all the beds. I kept this up until I had looked everywhere, and finally I became so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died.
1st woman: Too bad you didn’t look in the freezer—we’d both still be alive.
Weather warnings
It’s war: the real meat grinder starts now
Pepe Escobar No more shadow play. It’s now in the open. No holds barred. Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record.
The money quote:
"Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions."
Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: "We haven't even started" starts now.
Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal. Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev.A substantial force. No numbersleaked.They are being housed in schools.For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force.
That signals, “Let the games begin”.
From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire.
The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow. And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes.Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October.
Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.
The sponsors remain the same Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress.
The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion.
Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects.
Let’s go pop.
To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”.
Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op.
ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims.
And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them. That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf ofthe Ukrainian SBU. Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs.
It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase.
He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow.
The plot thickens when it isestablished that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: anAzeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of…… Donald Trump.Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target.ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same.
The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit,to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov–the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.It’s got to go till the last Ukrainian The three exhibits above complement what the head of NATO’s military committee, Rob Bauer, previously told a security forum in Kiev: “You need more than just grenades – you need people to replace the dead and wounded. And this means mobilization.”
Translation: NATO spelling out this is a war until the last Ukrainian.And the “leadership” in Kiev still does not get it.Former Minister of Infrastructure Omelyan:“If we win, we will pay back with Russian oil, gas, diamonds and fur. If we lose, there will be no talk of money – the West will think about how to survive.”In parallel, puny “garden-and jungle” Borrell admitted that it would be “difficult” for the EU to find an extra 50 billion euros for Kiev if Washington pulls the plug. The cocaine-fueled sweaty sweatshirt leadership actually believes that Washington is not “helping” in the form of loans, but in the form of free gifts.
And the same applies for the EU. The Theater of the Absurd is unmatchable. The German Liver Sausage Chancellor actually believes that proceeds from stolen Russian assets “do not belong to anyone”, so they can be used to finance extra Kiev weaponizing.
Everyone with a brain knows that using interest from “frozen”, actually stolen Russian assets to weaponize Ukraine is a dead end – unless they steal all of Russia’s assets, roughly $200 billion, mostly parked in Belgium and Switzerland: that would tank the Euro for good, and the whole EU economy for that matter. Eurocrats better listen to Russian Central Bank major “disrupter” (American terminology) Elvira Nabiullina: The Bank of Russia will take “appropriate measures”if the EU does anything on the “frozen”/stolen Russian assets.
It goes without saying that the three exhibits above completely nullify the “La Cage aux Folles” circus promoted by the puny Petit Roi, now known across his French domains as Macronapoleon. Virtually the whole planet, including the English-speaking Global North, had already been mocking the “exploits” of his Can Can Moulin Rouge Army.
So French, German and Polish soldiers, as part of NATO, are already in the south of Kiev. The most possible scenario is that they will stay far, far away from the frontlines – although traceable by Mr. Khinzal’s business activities. Even before this new NATO batch arriving in the south of Kiev, Poland – which happens to serve as prime transit corridor for Kiev’s troops – had confirmed that Western troops are already on the ground.
So this is not about mercenaries anymore. France, by the way, is only 7th in terms of mercenaries on the ground, largely trailing Poland, the US and Georgia, for instance.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has all the precise records. In a nutshell: now war has morphed from Donetsk, Avdeyevka and Belgorod to Moscow. Further on down the road, it may not just stop in Kiev. It may only stop in Lviv. Mr. 87%, enjoying massive national near-unanimity, now has the mandate to go all the way. Especially after Crocus.
There’s every possibility the terror tactics by Kiev goons will finally drive Russia to return Ukraine to its original 17th century landlocked borders: Black Sea-deprived, and with Poland, Romania, and Hungary reclaiming their former territories.
Remaining Ukrainians will start to ask serious questions about what led them to fight – literally to their death – on behalf of the US Deep State, the military complex and BlackRock.
As it stands, the Highway to Hell meat grinder is bound to reach maximum velocity.
“Most Terrifying Poll Result I’ve Ever Seen”: Scott Rasmussen Surveys America’s Elite 1%
My first working jobs occurred when I was in High School. Part time during week-days, and full-time on weekends. I worked at a coal mine, and as a clerk at the local grocery store.
Today, I want to talk about my days working at the grocery store.
In those days, we were not paid by check. Instead, we were given an envelope of cash and change. On the envelope was the amount that we were supposed to be paid.
I would work all week, and make something like $63 dollars.
Well, since I had no expenses, I would get the envelope and throw it in a drawer in my bedroom, and forget about it.
One day, one of the cashiers was all upset. She was being short changed, and the entire crew just about walked off.
So it got me to thinking, and I went to my stash of pay envelopes. The envelope would read $63 dollars, but inside would only be two or three one dollar bills and some change.
The accountant was screwing all of us over.
Now, guys, keep in mind that at this time, my parents were separated. My mother was always gone, and I had no father figure. I had no direction, and I was only 16 years old.
I didn’t know what to do.
Well, from then on, ALL OF US, sat there and counted out our salary to the manager before we left for home.
I figure that the accountant must have siphoned off from 60% to 75% of my hard won earnings…
For, perhaps, years.
As an adult now, I would contact a detective, and the police and make formal charges, following by suing the store, but Jeeze! I was only 16 years old. Something like that. I hadn’t even kissed a girl yet, for petes’ sake. So do not get on my case about this.
Lesson learned.
What lessons?
Bad people will constantly surprise you with the evil and selfish actions that they will do to you. Often getting away with it due to inconvenience, youth, or simple ignorance.
Today…
Cats
Ancient Egyptians held Cats in the highest esteem, cats were praised for killing venomous snakes, rodents and birds that damaged crops and protecting Pharaoh since at least 1st Dynasty (3100-2900 BC) of Egypt. Cats were also represented in social and religious scenes dating as early as 1980 BC. Skeletal remains of cats were found among funerary goods dating to 12th Dynasty (1991-1802 BC). Protective function of cats is indicated in Book of the Dead, where a cat represents Ra and benefits of sun for life on Earth. Cat-shaped decorations used during New Kingdom of Egypt indicate that domesticated cat became more popular in daily life. Cats were depicted in association with name of Bastet.
Mafdet was first known cat-headed deity in ancient Egypt. During 1st Dynasty, she was regarded as protector of pharaoh’s chambers against snakes, scorpions and evil. She was often also depicted with head of leopard (Panthera pardus) or cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). She was particularly prominent during reign of Den. Deity Bastet is known from at least 2nd Dynasty (2890-2686 BC) onwards. At the time, she was depicted with a lion (Panthera leo) head. Seals and stone vessels with her name were found in tombs of pharaohs Khafre and Nyuserre Ini, indicating that she was regarded as protector since mid 30th Century BC, during 4th-5th Dynasties. A wall painting in 5th Dynasty’s burial ground at Saqqara shows a small cat with a collar, suggesting that tamed African wildcats were kept in pharaonic quarters by 26th Century BC.
Amulets with cat heads came into fashion in 21st Century BC, during 11th Dynasty. A mural from this period in tomb of Baqet III depicts a cat in hunting scene confronting a rat-like rodent. From 22nd Dynasty at around mid 950s BC onwards, Bastet and her temple in Bubastis grew in popularity. She was later shown only with small cat head. Domestic cats were increasingly worshipped and considered sacred. When they died, they were embalmed, coffined and buried in cat cemeteries. Domestic cat was regarded as living incarnation of Bastet who protects household against granivores, whereas lion-headed deity Sekhmet was worshipped as protector of pharaohs. During reign of Pharaoh Osorkon II in 9th Century BC, temple of Bastet was enlarged by a festival hall. Cat statues and statuettes from this period exist in diverse sizes and materials, including solid and hollow cast bronze, alabaster and faïence. The penalties of injuring a cat were severe and killing a cat leads to capital punishment. When the cat dies it is the duty of the owner to gave them proper burial along with rituals and shave their head, eyebrows or beard to show their grief and even conduct after life rituals for their cat in order to gain blessings from Goddess Bastet.
In mid 5th Century BC, Herodotus described, annual festival at Bubastis temple, attended by several hundred thousand pilgrims. During Hellenistic period between 323-30 BC, cats were systematically bred to be killed and to be mummified as sacrifices to gods. As described by Diodorus Siculus, killing a cat was regarded as a serious crime. During 60-56 BC, outraged people lynched a Roman for killing a cat, although pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes tried to intervene.
Cats and religion began to be disassociated after Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC. A series of decrees and edicts issued by Roman Emperors in 4th-5th Centuries AD, gradually curtailed practice of paganism and pagan rituals in Egypt. Pagan temples were impounded and sacrifices prohibited by 380 AD. Egypt has since experienced a decline in veneration once held for cats. They were still respected in 15th Century AD, when Arnold von Harff travelled to Egypt and observed mamluk warriors treating cats with honour and empathy. Gentle treatment of cats is part of Islamic tradition.
Common enough issue
What did your boss say to you during a meeting that resulted in you immediately resigning?
I had been working for a large company for almost 20 years. I worked very long hours, often late into the night and at weekends, under stressful conditions and had a lot of responsibility but I was happy in my job and took great pride and derived satisfaction from it.
There was a change of management, and after about a year, I mentioned that I hadn’t been given a raise for over 4 years and asked for one – I was given a lecture about commitment and told that I would have to work harder to ‘earn’ it, and was offered a tiny raise which didn’t even meet 1 years cost of living increases, let alone 4 years. The new financial controller was condescending and quite dismissive so I knew instantly that I was finished with them. I didn’t resign there & then (even though I was very tempted to). I thanked them for my new ‘raise’ and immediately set about finding a new role – it took almost 2 years to find a job I was confident about but when I then handed in my notice, they offered me a huge raise, a promotion, new working conditions and all sorts of inducements to stay. It was extremely tempting but I had made my mind up – I no longer wanted to work for them (and my gut-feeling about them was justified by several stories from former colleagues of how staff were treated subsequently)
So my advice is NOT to act impulsively and hand in your resignation immediately (and be forced to find a replacement job urgently) – take your time, find the right job that suits you, put everything in place and then calmly, but firmly, hand in your notice.
How did people know…
What psychological facts that people don’t know?
You are now aware that your clothes are touching your skin and that you can feel them.
People who swear more often are more honest than those who don’t.
For luxury brands, the ruder the sales staff, the higher the sales.
If you start whispering to someone, they will whisper back, even if they don’t have to.
Your mind “rewrites” monotonous speech of boring people to make them sound more interesting.
Your brain defaults to going to the beach as your initial vacation idea.
You are more honest and open with people that you consider “temporary” friends.
When entering a packed lecture hall, the left side will always be less crowded.
82% of people would feel more confident approaching an attractive person if they had their dog with them.
We tend to hate people who have the same flaws and make the same mistakes as we do.
If someone is trying to make you decide in a hurry, they are probably giving you a bad deal.
A person is more likely to be honest when physically tired.
Fear can feel good-if we’re not really in danger.
People who keep their hands in their pockets while around large crowds are generally anti-social or shy.
The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
Sounds like unrhymed poetry
What’s the most disturbing thing anyone has ever told you casually?
My late husband and I were on our way home from being on the lake with friends and were pulling a boat that belonged to one of our friends who didn’t have a truck or anything suitable to pull it with. We got to his house and pulled into the driveway shortly after the friend pulled in. My husband got out to talk, I rolled down the window and stayed in the truck. Across the street was a group of girls playing with a water hose and water balloons . The girls are obviously young possibly 11 years old at the most . Our friend tells my husband “ man that’s torture, I would love half a chance “. I was more than proud of my husband’s response . He told his friend that he was sick in the head and if he ever caught him with in a mile of one of our daughters that the torture he spoke of would become reality that he would face a hell that would give the devil chill bumps. Then told him to get his piece of shit boat unhooked from his truck he was ready to leave and don’t ever call him or come to our house . We got not even a mile up the road and turned around, I asked what he was doing , he told me that the family of those girls deserve to know what trash lives across from them . He said if someone can casually mention something like that then they are capable of doing such.i have never seen him react so strongly about something but at that time we had 2 daughters age 6 and 12 . The father of the girls was more than disgusted and thanked him for letting him know .
Very interesting WTF…
Does a boss ever get in trouble when a staff member quits?
When I quit a job over 20 years ago, I was called in by my grand-boss (manager’s boss) and asked why I was leaving. I was the second person to leave that week, and my main issue was money – they immediately offered to match the raise I was getting with my new job, but declined. The secondary issue, of how my manager’s assistant did his level best to cheat me out of $5 (out of $40) in per-diem when working in a remote office, in a way that could not be seen as accidental. They wanted to know what was happening.
Last year, my employer sold his personally-owned company to a much larger firm. During the transition, the new management told me I was overpaid and unnecessary, denied a raise, and generally treated rudely. The old owner did nothing to support me. Two months after that I called up the president of the new firm and gave notice – explaining what had happened and how I was treated without respect or professionalism, and also that I was obliged by professional ethics to inform him that my former employer was aware of several installations that were in violation of the electrical code, but were not doing anything about it to shelter themselves from liability (both legal and financial) until the sale went through. The one installation I was aware of – I insisted that it be fixed, fighting the owner who kept telling me that the cost of fixing it would come out of MY salary and bonus. I corrected him in saying that this was a mistake that I merely discovered, but did not create, and despite him being upset that I opposed his desire to merely ignore this, the cost of fixing it would come out of THE COMPANY’S REVENUE, meaning that no single person would, or could be held responsible for the error. In fact, some of the people who may have been responsible for it were now retired from that firm.
It did not go well for any of the people involved, as I knew the President of that larger firm from my previous dealings, and that he was very risk-averse. Legal liability for engineering errors is a bad thing.
Do men even want relationships anymore? There’s nothing in it for them. Too much to lose.
This is very good.
Playing around with Text to image
Today is my Doc Savage theme.
Prompt is…
doc savage cover art Bantam Doc paperbacks with the wonderful cover art by James Bama and Bob Larkin adventure driving a car through the streets of new york city
Images…
doc 10doc 9doc 7doc 6doc 5doc 4doc 3doc 2doc 1
What is the creepiest unexplained event you know of?
In the year 2000, I was working on advanced degrees in theology. A priest I had known from childhood, now serving in Henderson, Nevada right outside of Las Vegas, invited me to teach a week-long adult education class to his parish. This was a no-brainer. An easy class to teach, a small paycheck, but a FREE plane trip to spend few days just a few miles from the strip. I was happy to say yes. I couldn’t wait to try the buffets and see David Copperfield. I planned to spend a few quarters in the slots as well.
The priest set me up in a small little guest house next to the rectory where he lived. I had just two rooms and a bathroom. I was told to meet him in the morning for breakfast then he would bring me to the classroom.
For some reason I could not understand, I had the most upsetting and unsettling feeling when I was a lone in this little guest house. I had the impression someone or something was watching me, I kept jumping at the slightest noise and swearing I saw things or people pass the window. This was very much unlike me. We often say “I didn’t sleep a wink” but often this is a slight exaggeration. In this case however, I was literally awake all night with a terrible feeling surrounding me. I felt a presence in the room I simply cannot explain. I never was able to close my eyes for even a full minute. Never one for superstition or exaggeration, I assumed it was nothing and rejected the notion that I felt some sort of spirit or evil presence in the room. I just went the next day and, although exhausted, taught the first session of the class. Although I wound up in a different arrangement the second night, I could not forget that odd, terrible and lingering feeling in the original guest house. I had a nightmare in the new room. Even when I just passed the original guest house while walking it felt terrible, in a way I did not understand.
One year later, to my shock, the priest who invited me was arrested. He was a violent, disgusting pedophile who was abusing kids in that little guest house for years. I had no clue, and yet, somehow, I felt the presence of pure evil in that room. I will never ignore or dismiss such a feeling again.
I’ve lived alone for about the past ten years. I even let my ex stay with me for a stretch after we split up, but with her in the guest room. We’ve always remained good friends. We were just not a great couple with both wanting different things in life.
A good friend who also lives alone told me that she hates the part where someone doesn’t get to witness her experiences and that about sums up the downside. I live about nine miles away from the closest small town on about 3.5 acres. I’m completely secluded and during the summer you can’t see the house from the road. Yes, there are security measures, but I feel very safe here and safer than I’d feel in a city.
Living alone isn’t for everyone and so much of it depends on what you want out of life. I love my work and I have a personal assistant who’s here often, so I’m not completely alone. I also have visitors from time to time.
The plus side of living alone is that you don’t have the normal routine of others. I can go swimming in the middle of the night or work or play music or watch a movie. I can do just about anything I want and feel like I had a productive day.
I’d probably feel lonely if I didn’t have a busy life, but there are so many great things to do in a day and I love my work. I never ever want to retire and I’m good at it too.
I still go to restaurants, travel, and do other things, but I do have a dog and he’s with me at all times, except when I have to make business trips. I have a sitter here at the house when that happens.
There isn’t a big downside to living alone, other than the risk of some major illness or injury where you can’t get help, but I take precautions for that. Neighbors see anyone who comes and goes. The house is a local curiosity so that’s kind of fun too.
Yes, it would be great to share these experiences, but I do it in my writings. I turn out a massive amount of work and living alone helps that. I never thought this was where my life would take me, but it did. Circumstances took me here, but I have great friends, and a full life and I’m getting a lot out of the experience of living.
Now the USA no longer will answer 911
When have you cheaply or inexpensively fixed an item someone thought unrepairable?
When we moved into our first home we bought a second hand washer and drier. Not long after, the drier quit.
In my family, if something broke, you took it apart. If you fixed it, great. If not you learned a few things and had lots of parts to tinker with.
My wife wanted a tool kit as a little girl and never got one because Little. Girls. Don’t. Play. With. Tools.
So I said I’d take a look and see what was wrong. She wanted me to take it back for a refund. A second hand drier.
Have you ever fixed one before? What’s to go wrong? There’s a drum, a motor and a heater element. She could just not comprehend that you could look at something, see how it worked, and see how to fix it.
Finally I just went Executive Action. Took the back off and there was a broken wire. We got years more use out of it.
A few months later, she pulled in with a recliner in the trunk. The owner was throwing it out and warned her it was broken. “Oh, that’s okay. My husband can fix anything.”
Protip: if you are good with your hands, the first time your SO asks you to hang a picture, nail your hand to the wall. It will hurt like blazes but you have no idea how much trouble it will save.
I kid. She died of a heart attack in January after 48 years. I’d build or fix anything her heart desired to have her back a bit longer.
Some interesting AI generations
Default GPTmasterpiece best quality diverse group of adventure 2Default GPTmasterpiece best quality diverse group of adventure 6(1)Default GPTmasterpiece best quality diverse group of adventure 1Default GPTmasterpiece best quality diverse group of adventure 3Default GPTmasterpiece best quality diverse group of adventure 6
When I was between the ages of 12 and 14 or maybe 15 … right before I started working, I was on the “golf team” at school. We would get to leave school early, and drive out to the local Golf Club and play for free.
Then, various parents would pick us up and take us home afterwards.
Boys being boys, and kids being kids, had “clicks” and groups of friends. And when we would “tee off” one group would play after the other, and the groups were four kids.
But we had nine kids in the club.
What the coach should have done was…
3 + 3 + 3
3 groups. Everyone played in a group.
But No. The “coach” left us alone and went to the clubhouse to grab a beer and play some poker with “his” friends.
So we self organized.
Yeah. And you can guess what happened.
Two “clicks” of friends. One outsider.
3 groups.
4 + 4 + 1
Dumb fuck golf coach.
…
Guess who usually had to play alone?
Yup. I was the last kid, and I was the one playing alone.
I trailed behind the two other groups. Alone. Waiting until they finished playing before I could tee off. Which was something like ten to fifteen minutes.
Nine holes.
Nine times.
And often, I would finish the last round and walk to the parking lot to find my dad waiting for me with a car-load of the other kids waiting for me. Yupur. They were all in the car.
And all he could say was… “What took YOU so long?”
Which, of course, the other kids asked as well.
“Yeah, XXXXX, what too YOU so long?” And they would giggle.
I never said anything.
…
Dumb fuck. The other two groups played before me. I had to wait until they were all done before I could tee off.
The first group would be in the car, then the second group would pile in.
Meanwhile, I’m the last guy out, getting ready to tee off.
Fucking shits.
…
Fuck the “golf coach”.
Fuck my classmates.
Fuck my dad.
And FUCK ME for taking it. 14 years old. I should have known better.
…
So this is how I spent my entire time on the Golf Team. Mostly, but not always, playing alone.
Sometimes, I would get to play with one or two boys.
But mostly, I trailed behind. Spending the afternoon playing ALONE.
…
My stupid-as-a-rock father didn’t notice that I spent the afternoon shunned, and playing alone.
And, don’t you know it, he was giving the kids a ride and allowing them to make fun of me. A double whammy insult.
…
So one day, I was feeling bad. I was lonely. And I was again the last guy. Playing alone.
And the entire time I just fumed about the entire piss-poor situation.
I fumed, and fumed and fumed.
And, somewhere around the sixth hole, I said “fuck this!”.
…
So that day, I skipped the eighth and ninth holes, cut through the wood line, and went directly to the parking lot. My dad was there as always.
He looked up and said” Wow, you are early today.”.
I didn’t say anything.
I just threw my clubs in the car, and told my father to go. To leave. To just get going. He’s looking at me like..
Then he asked…”what about the other kids”.
I yelled; “Drive! Go! Go! Go! Don’t get those kids. Leave now!”
He looked at me like the dumb-fuck he was. The face of incomprehension.
And then he fired up the car.
And I was surprised that he actually drove off.
We left the gravel parking lot, in a wide turn.
The first group of kids were just then reaching the parking lot.
He did it slowly, looking at me; fully expecting me to ask him to stop. But I must have had a real pissed off expression on my face. So he kept on driving.
And these other kids were looking at us, like “why are you leaving without us.?”
…
So he, of course, asked.
“What is going on?”
…
On the way home I told him why.
The kids never played with me.
I always played alone.
…
They were using me to get a ride, and that was all.
That they did not like me, and I was sick and tired of being shunned. If they didn’t want to play golf with me, then they won’t get a ride with me either.
…
Dad had nothing to say.
So we drove in silence.
He then, after about ten minutes of silence, asked me sheepishly if I still wanted to be “on the team”, and I said “no”.
…
Fuck them all. And that is my story for today.
Sometimes we HAVE to tell the rest of the world to FUCK OFF.
Shortly after that, I quit the team, and started to work in the coal mines.
And that was another adventure. Today…
Have you ever seen someone park in a handicap spot who wasn’t disabled and get ticketed by the cops?
I was the cop. I was an officer at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I kept seeing a young lady parking a car in a handicapped spot and scurrying inside before I could reach her. I ran the plate and found the vehicle was registered to her father. I ran the placard hanging on the rearview mirror. It was also registered to him as well. NC law states the placard is registered to an individual, not the car, and only the registered user can use it when in the vehicle. One day, I finally caught her getting out of the car. I stopped her and explained she would have to move the vehicle, and of course, I got the usual, “Do you know who owns the car?” I responded and told her what the citation would say word for word. She still refused to move the vehicle. I requested her driver’s license and registration. When she refused, I put her in cuffs and placed her in the back of my car. I told her she would be charged with resisting, obstructing, and delaying an officer and the parking violation, and I was towing her car. It finally hit her: I was a police officer and didn’t care who her father was. She immediately agreed to move the vehicle and surrender the placard. I wanted this from the get-go, so I seized the placard and cited her for the parking violation.
I had a sinking feeling this wouldn’t be the end, so I wrote a report and placed the placard into evidence. I sent a copy of the report to the NCDMV in Fayetteville, NC, then called the inspector there and told him he may or may not hear about this later. Not thirty minutes after hanging up with the DMV inspector, I got a call from communications to return to the station. I walk in, and who do I see but my Asst. Chief and the young lady. She has this grin and wears it up to the assistant—Chief’s office. The Chief went through the everyday complaint speech, and I elected to have the young lady tell her story first. She attempted to say I was disrespectful, yelled and threatened her, and stole property belonging to the state. After all her whining and moaning, I walked over to the Asst. Chief’s computer pulled up the report and the video attachment of the traffic stop (I always recorded my stops even before it was mandatory). I said nothing but let the report and video tell the story. She left near tears, swearing, “We” hadn’t heard the last of this. I remember turning to the Asst. Chief and saying something like, “I don’t doubt it.”
The next day, a young lady in a wheelchair entered the lobby and requested to speak to the Chief. The Chief was busy, so my Asst. Chief took the visit. The young lady wanted to thank the officer who made a non-handicapped girl move from the handicapped parking spot to her dorm.
I did hear from the father a couple of days later. He called from the Fayetteville DMV office, stating he was filing a report for a stolen handicapped placard. The inspector got the case and connected him with me. I explained the situation and what happened. I offered to send him a copy of the report and the traffic stop video. After all was said and done, he decided he didn’t want to file a report with DMV and ended up apologizing for his daughter’s behavior. I explained he wasn’t responsible for his daughter’s poor decisions, and hopefully, she learned a lesson.
What is the funniest joke you’ve been told that you still think about to this day?
So, this completely drunk guy walks into a bar, sits down at the end and orders a beer. He’s obnoxious but not bad enough to get booted out. After a while he notices a dart board at the other end of the bar and asks the bartender “hey, barkeep what will you give me if I can hit a bullseye with one dart from over here? “
“You can’t.”
“Ya, but what if I do?”
“Don’t worry, I have a special prize.”
And the drunk grabs a dart, chucks it in the general direction of the dart board and to everyone’s amazement nails a bullseye.
“Well, what’s my prize?” the guy asks.
Well, the bartender has nothing and is calmly scrambling around, trying to think of something to give the guy, when he remembers a turtle he’s got in a brown bag that he was going to give to his nephew for his birthday after work.
So, he grabs the bag and plops it down in front of the drunk…who doesn’t even look in it. He just picks it up, says “Hey, thanks Boss” and walks out.
A couple weeks later, the drunk shows up again, sits on the same barstool and chats people up while putting down a couple more beers. After a while he once again asks “Hey, bartender… what’ll you give me if I throw a bullseye with one dart on that board over there?”
Knowing there’s no way in hell the drunk is going to repeat his last lucky shot the bartender says, ” I gotcha covered”
The drunk picks up a dart and once again with reckless abandon throws it in the general direction the dart board. And nails another bullseye.
Before the bartender can say anything the drunk guy says “And no food this time. That burger you gave me last time was the worst I’ve ever had.”
Proof of Reincarnation
What did the teacher in your high school get fired for?
This occurred in Mississauga, just outside of Toronto. Didn’t get fired, but worse! My high school science teacher was an okay guy, everyone liked him and he did some interesting things in his classroom.
One time he performed open heart surgery on a live chicken to demonstrate biology. The chicken died from the ether.
I graduated from high school and about two years later I see my science teacher on the front page of the Toronto Sun. This guy was a total fraud! He was arrested for impersonating a doctor and was operating his own medical clinic in Brampton based on fraudulent documents. Even his teaching degree was a fake – he wasn’t even a licensed teacher.
And the most impressive con? He was also impersonating a golf pro! He was a good golfer and he used to show us pictures of him with pro golfers like Jack Nicholas (this was late 70’s). He was found guilty, did some time, and was deported back to the US.
My theory is that he was a failed medical student but great forger and knew enough to fake his way as a biology teacher and doctor. Same for the golf, pretty good, but not quite good enough!
Us Literally Freaking Out As Brics Takes A Huge Step To Dethrone The Dollar.
Japan in 2024 has lost the ability to even buy orange juice and has started making "orange-mandarin mixed juice" with tears in its eyes.
Women have gone abroad to prostitute themselves so much that they have been refused entry into the United States, and even started going to South Korea, which was much poorer not so long ago, to work as prostitutes.
The former trading and exporting powerhouse has been sitting cross-legged for a long time now, with a trade deficit of trillions of yen and nothing to export, and in the tourism industry it is desperately bowing down not only to Westerners but also to people in Southeast Asia, India, and even countries whose names we do not know. Earn foreign currency.
Even though Japan is a country with extremely low wages, we subsidize hundreds of billions of yen to foreign companies to build factories in the country, yet young people still go abroad to work.
The top ranks of universities have all been uprooted by foreign capital, and graduates from prestigious schools such as Tokyo University, Kyoto University, and former Imperial Waseda University are pursuing empty careers in consulting rather than manufacturing, with no hope of earning foreign currency.
The top ranks of society are fleeing to the United States one after another, and those who escape never return.
In urban areas, Japanese people pay monthly rent for apartments to Chinese owners, and while Japanese people complain that they can't buy real estate because it's too expensive, Chinese people buy apartments with cash because they're cheap.
The prices of imported building materials have skyrocketed, making it difficult to even buy a house, but it's okay! The president's house is grateful for its good cost performance, and the company's profits are at an all-time high.The sales of a small-scale real estate agency that has been selling on the street in front of the station, appealing to people in their early 30s, and raising the slogan, ``Let's go, 1 trillion,'' has finally increased. Over 1 trillion.
Even though the US dollar price of the iPhone has not increased, there is a lot of fuss in Japan saying, ``It's gotten more expensive again!'' Foreign companies are in control of almost all mobile communication methods, including smartphones and LINE.
IOWN is amazing because they are desperately trying to hide the fact that they have not achieved Industry 4.0 or even the third industrial revolution by chanting a fluffy and mysterious fantasy and delusion called Society 5.0, and neither the government nor the private sector has any IT technology to sell anymore. They are desperately trying to promote something that they don't really understand and are trying to show off that they are doing a good job.
In the past, the country used to have empty discussions such as, ``If we don't have enough labor, we should bring in immigrants,'' or ``It's better not to bring in immigrants.'' The wages are higher in the department,'' so they have no choice but to deceive the Vietnamese and create a system of slavery to secure labor.
The medical infrastructure that was said to be one of the best in the world has been eaten up by the elderly, and as a result of exploiting the working generation and finally reaching the limit of what they can pay, Japan has forced its drug prices down, and now Japan is saying, ``I won't sell it to Japan at such a low price.'' There are countless drugs made overseas that cannot be used.
Young people who could be saved by a new drug cannot be helped, and even today, old people happily gather at the hospital to receive compresses, administer drugs that delay dementia by 20-30% at a cost of 3 million yen per person, and patients in their 80s are in bed. There is an old man in his 90s who is bedridden and trying to prolong his life, and his single son in his 60s who is earning his pension sometimes comes to visit him.
All of this is borne by the young working generation, who have no money and the marriage rate has hit a record low, while at the same time the number of births has hit a postwar low.
The currency that people around the world once coveted, the yen, is no longer known as the "emergency yen" and is being sold off on a daily basis.
Now, as one of the currencies of emerging countries in the Far East, it is experiencing wild price fluctuations, and although it has managed to hold on by selling off foreign currency hoarded during its past glory days, it is unclear how long it will last.
The country and its people have postponed structural reforms, neglected technological development, and simply postponed everything, mistakenly believing that monetary and fiscal policies would somehow solve the problem.
Forgetting the bloody efforts of the wise men of the past and the history of drastic changes caused by civilization and enlightenment, the old men of companies and organizations that were only steeped in old interests, which flourished in the Showa era, are wielding power and introducing new technologies and ways of thinking. Even if they were crushed, the people in question would be dead by then and have escaped.
The young people who were forced to carry a time bomb in the bellies of boiled frogs realized that one day, when foreign currency runs out, they will not be able to buy everything, including beef, flour, soybeans, oil, gas, and uranium, resulting in a devastated society. Even though I'm vaguely anticipating the future, I just turn my eyes away from the reality and drink tangerine juice today while the daddy girl is being asked about the color of her pants by an uncle.
US approach to decouple from China is backfiring
On May 3, the US Treasury announced relaxed conditions for tax incentives when consumers purchase electric vehicles (EVs). Previously, EVs using Chinese-produced minerals were set to lose tax incentives starting in 2025. The new adjustment extends this deadline to 2027 for certain minerals like graphite.
According to an analysis by Nikkei News, the US government’s decision to relax these conditions stems from the difficulty of producing EV batteries without using Chinese-produced graphite. Graphite is a core material in lithium battery anodes, and currently China accounts for 70 percent of its supply worldwide, with a high dependency on Chinese processing and refining capabilities.
As the US grapples with the complexities of its containment and decoupling from Chinese manufacturing, it’s increasingly feeling the “pain.” Over the past three years, the US government has implemented strict export controls to weaken China’s high-tech capability.
However, this approach has started negatively impacting the US itself, creating a complex double-edged effect.
A report released last month by the New York Federal Reserve Bank (Geopolitical Risk and Decoupling: Evidence from US Export Controls) analyzed this issue. According to the research by Matteo Crosignani and others, US export controls led to widespread decoupling between American suppliers and Chinese companies. Affected American suppliers are more likely to terminate existing relationships with Chinese clients and less likely to form new ones.
With the decoupling, numerous American suppliers impacted are unable to form new supply chain connections with clients in the US or allied nations within three years of the export controls being enforced.
The imposition of export controls has resulted in substantial losses for affected American suppliers, leading to heightened negative loan default risks, with an average market value decline of $857 million per impacted supplier, summing up to $130 billion collectively across all suppliers.
These suppliers are also encountering reductions in revenue, profitability and workforce. Bank loans to these suppliers have notably dwindled, signaling wider financial limitations.
From the perspective of Chinese companies, the report reveals their resilience. Targeted Chinese enterprises have increased their reliance on domestic and non-US suppliers to cope with US export controls. They have established new relationships with alternative suppliers within China and strengthened cooperation with existing non-US suppliers to mitigate the impact of the controls. Moreover, US export controls may unintentionally promote domestic innovation in China as businesses are forced to reduce their dependence on American technology.
Washington has implemented decoupling strategies with China, not without anticipating losses on the American side. The approach involves sacrificing short-term economic interests to prompt supply chain shifts and hinder China’s rapid advancement in vital high-tech areas, thereby maintaining America’s continuous advantage in global technology competition. However, the trouble now is that decoupling not only causes more losses for the US but also rebuilding supply chains is not an easy task, and some may be impossible.
This is because Chinese manufacturing has achieved large-scale, diversified and multi-tiered system development, with many sectors being irreplaceable, and the aggressive expansion of Chinese manufacturing in the global market is unstoppable, especially in sectors like EVs, renewable energy, shipbuilding, high-speed rail and steel, where it already has the upper hand.
As Chinese enterprises gradually reduce their dependence on American technology and enhance their own innovation capabilities, the influence of US enterprises in the global market may further weaken. The position of Chinese manufacturing in the global supply chain is becoming more solid. Extensive decoupling of US businesses from China could potentially cause irreversible damage to the global industry and supply chains, as well as their own. Washington has already had to start assessing the consequences brought about by this.
Chinese enterprises are also seeking breakthroughs by establishing new supply chains and innovation paths. The friction and conflict between US and Chinese manufacturing will unfold on a broader scale.
The US will not change its policy of containing China in the short term. It will continue to expand the scope of its controls and sanctions, while coordinating with other third parties to curb Chinese enterprises’ access to international markets and find new ways of international cooperation.
This strategic game will have complex impacts on the economies of both sides, including adjustments to their own economic structures and profound effects on global political, economic and security fields. Change has already begun.
“America Is Getting WIPED OUT” — This Is What’s Coming… | Robert Kiyosaki 2024
Biden’s Foreign Policy Has the US in Deep Trouble
There are two problems in the United States these days and they are closely related.
The first problem is that the Biden Administration is in deep trouble on the foreign policy front and the trouble is almost certainly going to get worse. The Ukraine war is going badly for both Ukraine and the West, but U.S. leaders show no signs of wanting to negotiate a settlement and, instead, seem committed to making this a forever conflict. Gaza is another horror show. It simply has no solution since Israel has no intention of allowing the Palestinians to have a sovereign state of their own. To make matters worse, the United States is complicit in Israel’s murderous policies in Gaza. This conflict is now causing huge trouble on campuses around the country, which is making America’s poisonous politics even worse. Moreover, there are real dangers in East Asia, where there is an ever-present possibility that China and the United States could get into a shooting match. And there are further armed conflicts taking place in Africa and other regions of the world. Something is badly wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
The second problem is that there is significant agreement inside the American foreign policy establishment on most foreign policy issues, and those consensus views are reflected in the discourse in the mainstream media. It is very difficult for the many individuals who challenge the establishment’s prevailing wisdoms to make their case in elite media outlets. This disturbing situation explains in good part why America’s political leaders will not change course and adopt smarter policies.
What we need in the United States is an open discourse about the ongoing wars as well as potential wars. Why? Because unfettered debate maximizes the chance of coming up with smart strategies for either ending wars or preventing them. The key to success in this regard is to have well-informed individuals with different perspectives engaging with each other in the marketplace of ideas. We need free-wheeling debates that include unpopular views.
Sadly, there is little chance of reforming the mainstream media anytime soon. But thankfully, alternative media outlets have proliferated in recent years, making it possible for critics of U.S. foreign policy to make their voices heard.
Antiwar.com is one of our most important alternative platforms on the planet. It is an ideal place to find first-rate analysis that challenges today’s foreign policy orthodoxies. I visit Antiwar.com every day and am invariably rewarded for doing so. Surely, many of you who are reading this appeal also benefit in all sorts of ways from reading pieces published on this vital platform.
All this means that we readers have a responsibility to help maintain a flourishing Antiwar.com. In that spirit, I urge you to join me in making a generous contribution so that we can collectively increase the chances that the United States will begin acting in much smarter ways on the world stage.
John Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and one of the leading foreign policy scholars in America.
What did someone do or say at the bank that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me!”?
We sold our house and we had to fill out paperwork saying how we wanted the money paid out across the loans we had with that bank.
We stated
home loan in full.
credit card to be paid out.
whatever money left over paid towards personal loan
What the bank chose to do
home loan in full
personal loan paid out I rang and asked what was going on as that’s not what we asked to happen. I was told ‘we assumed you filled the forms out incorrectly and that you would prefer the loans to be paid out’.
Told them no I wanted the home loan gone and then the credit card as it had the higher interest to which they responded with ‘oh well we’re sorry but it’s to late now as personal loans won’t do anything about it’.
The lady was very surprised when I didn’t take that as a final decision and told them exactly what I thought of their ‘we assumed’.
The only reason the bank decided that was what was happening is because the credit card had a higher rate of interest with no free interest period and if they didn’t pay it off we would of course keep using it and that would benefit them more.
The banks decision when I wouldn’t back down
my credit card was to be charged at the personal loan rate for the next 6 months(time left on personal loan). This rate was of course only for the amount that should have been paid out. Anything purchased after that on it would be at full rates.
our decision we took the interest rate cut told them that would be fine and then destroyed both credit cards so they couldn’t be used at all. In the end we cut expenses as much as possible and paid it off in 4 months.
As I told them ‘What’s the point of having people fill out paperwork if you’re not gonna pay attention to it’.
The final result was that when we built our new home we checked out loan deals at lots of banks but never even enquired with our original bank they had stuffed us around on a number of other occasions and we had had enough but that’s another story.
HOLLYWOOD is DEAD and GOLLUM MOVIE PROVES IT
Bacon-Wrapped Turkey with Chipotle and Orange
Want to knock their socks off? Make this bacon-wrapped turkey with a zesty chipotle-orange rub.
bacon wrapped turkey chipotle orange
Prep: 30 min | Total: 4 hr 30 min | Yield: 24 servings
Ingredients
1/2 cup Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup Kraft Original Barbecue Sauce
4 canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 (13 pound) fresh or thawed frozen turkey
1 orange, cut into wedges
5 bay leaves
1 (16 ounce) package Oscar Mayer Bacon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
Instructions
Heat oven to 325 degrees F.
Blend first 4 ingredients in blender until smooth.
Remove and discard neck and giblets from turkey cavities. Free legs from tucked position. (Do not cut band of skin.) Place oranges and bay leaves in chest cavity. Use rubber spatula or your fingers to loosen skin over breast, starting at body cavity opening by legs. Rub half the chipotle mixture onto meat under skin on breast, legs and thighs. If necessary, use wooden toothpicks to secure skin at opening. Return legs to tucked position and tie securely with string; turn wings back to hold neck skin in place. Rub remaining chipotle mixture evenly onto turkey skin.
Place turkey, breast side up, on flat rack in roasting pan. Top with bacon*. Tent turkey with foil.
Bake for 4 hours or until turkey is done (165 degrees F), uncovering after 3 hours. Remove turkey from pan; tent with foil. Let stand 15 minutes before carving. Meanwhile, pour pan drippings into medium saucepan. Discard excess fat. Mix cornstarch and water until blended; gradually stir into drippings. Bring to boil, stirring constantly.
Carve turkey. Serve with gravy.
Notes
How to make a lattice design (weave bacon): Place 5 bacon slices in single layer on sheet of parchment or waxed paper. Weave 5 of the remaining bacon slices through bacon slices on parchment to resemble lattice pattern. Hold 2 opposite corners of parchment, then quickly invert parchment onto turkey; remove parchment. Arrange remaining bacon slices over turkey’s legs, thighs and wings.
Food Facts: A 12 to 14 pound frozen turkey needs 3 to 3 1/2 days of thawing time in the refrigerator. The cooking time will range between 3 to 3 3/4 hours until the turkey is done (165 degrees F).
Nutrition
Per serving: Calories 270 Total fat 12g Saturated fat 3.5g Cholesterol 135mg Sodium 450mg Carbohydrate 3g Dietary fiber 0g Sugars 2g Protein 35g
Vitamin A 2% DV Vitamin C 0% DV Calcium 0% DV Iron 8% DV
Interesting
What are some examples of assassination attempts gone wrong?
İlkay Sivaslı was a 41 years old teacher who had been feeling suicidal after breaking up with her married lover.
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She hired a hitman, Tanju Doğan, to kill her because she can’t bring herself to commit suicide. Things took an interesting turn when the hitman fell in love with her instead.
So for a month, she had to pursue him to finish off what he’s paid to do while he took his time to talk her out of it. One time he tried to strangle her but couldn’t do it when she started turning red.
But she texted him the next day asking him to come over as she had purchased a gun for him to kill her. He tried one last time for her to change her mind but eventually did it by putting a pillow over her face and pulling the trigger twice.
Miraculously she didn’t die immediately so Tanju called the emergency line for her and fled her house. Initially, police thought it was a murder case until they obtained the record for their texts and realised that the teacher had paid him to assist in her killing.
Welp, that’s the story of a woman who pays someone a lot of money to be killed but ended up being persuaded not to instead by the hitman himself. Unfortunately, she died while paramedics were trying to save her when they got to her house.
This is in China. First day at school.
What is the most disrespectful thing someone has done while you were shopping?
It was Black Friday at about six in the morning.
In the aisle was a display for two sets of toys. One was a Noah’s Ark with all the animals and Noah and his family. The other was Old MacDonald’s Farm.
My son had the Old MacDonald one. He’d gotten it a couple months earlier for his birthday. He wanted the Noah one. The display only had a couple of Noahs, but plenty of Old MacDonalds.
I was standing right by a Noah and waiting for the store employee to cut the banding. Once he did, it was game on.
I grabbed the Noah one. A woman lunged OVER THE TOP of the display and grabbed the same one I did, yelling, “I need this! You can have one of the MacDonald ones!”
She refused to let go. So I did the only thing I could do…I planted my feet and yanked her across. She had no choice, let go or take a faceplant into the floor. She was pissed.
She followed me around cussing me out. I ignored her. But when I went to get a game off the shelf, she lunged at my cart to grab the Noah toy. I slammed my hand down on hers as she grabbed my cart. This got her pinched fingers.
I cut across a line of people waiting to get DVD players to get to the other side. People parted to let me through. When she followed behind me I yelled and pointed to her, “Hey, she’s trying to cut in line!”
They converged on her like lions on a gazelle.
Her screams were most satisfying.
Whenever I’m in a bad mood, I remember that day, and those screams.
Suddenly I’m not in a bad mood anymore.
Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar writes about the major takeaways of his recent tour to Brazil.
I have just been immersed in an extraordinary experience: a mini-tour of conferences in Brazil encompassing four key cities – Sao Paulo, Rio, Salvador, Belo Horizonte. Full houses, sharp questions, fabulously warm people, divine gastronomy – a deep dive into the 8th largest economy in the world and major BRICS+ node.
As much as I was trying to impress the finer points of the long and winding road to multipolarity and the multiple instances of frontal clash between NATOstan and the Global Majority, I was learning non-stop from an array of generous Brazilians about the current inner contradictions of a society of astonishing complexity.
It’s as if I was immersed in a psychedelic journey conducted by Os Mutantes, the iconic trio of the late 1960s Tropicalia movement: from the business front in Sao Paulo – with its world-class restaurants and frantic deal-making – to the blinding beauty of Rio; from Salvador – the capital of Brazilian Africa – to Belo Horizonte, the capital of the third-wealthiest state in the Federation, Minas Gerais, a powerhouse of iron ore, uranium and niobium exports.
Chancay-Shanghai
I learned about how China chose the state of Bahia as arguably its key node in Brazil, where Chinese investment is everywhere – even if Brazil is not yet a formal member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
In Rio, I was presented with an astonishing work on Stoics Zeno and Cleanthes by essayist Ciro Moroni – delving among other issues into the equivalences between Stoic theogony/theology and the Hindu Vedanta – the tradition of culture, religion and sacred rituals in India up to the Buddha era.
And in a sort of psychedelic synchronicity, I felt like Zeno in the Agora as we debated the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine at a lovely round pavillion – a mini-Agora – in fabled Liberty Square in Belo Horizonte, across the street from a fabulous exhibition of Treasures of Peruvian Art.
Much to my astonishment, a Peruvian, Carlos Ledesma, flew in from Lima especially for my conference and the exhibition; and then he told me about the Chancay port being built south of Lima, owned 70% by COSCO and the rest by private Peruvian capital; that will be a sister port of Shanghai.
Chancay-Shanghai: APEC in action across the Pacific. Next November, there will be three nearly simultaneous key events in South America: the G20 in Rio, the APEC summit in Lima, and the inauguration of Chancay.
Chancay will be boosted by no less than five rail corridors that may eventually be built – certainly with Chinese investment – from the agribusiness Valhalla in the Brazilian Center-West all the way to Peru.
Yes, China is all over the place in its largest trade partner in Latin America – much to the despair of a Hegemon sending lowly functionary Little Blinken to Beijing to hear the letter of the new law by Xi Jinping himself: it’s cooperation or confrontation, a “downward spiral”. Your downward spiral.
A river from Tibet to Xinjiang
At the Belo Horizonte conference, I shared the stage with remarkable Sebastien Kiwonghi Bizaru from Congo, who supervises PhD programs at the Candido Mendes University as well as being a Professor of International Law, after an extraordinary academic journey.
He is also the author of a ground-breaking book examining the highly debatable role of the UNSC in the conflicts of the Great Lakes – focusing on Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With top researcher Natacha Rena, we pored over a map of China retracing her travels east to west last year all the way to the Xinjiang border – as she filled me in on the astonishing Honggqi River – or Red Flag River – Project, first proposed in 2017: no less than an attempt to divert water from Tibet to the dry lands and deserts of Xinjiang by building an enormous, over 6,000 km-long artificial river, including the branch canals.
The projected river will be slightly less longer than the Yangtze, diverting 60 billion cubic meters of water a year, more than the annual flow of the Yellow River. Predictably, ecologists in China are attacking the project, which may have already had an official go-ahead and is proceeding discreetly.
And then, as I was on the road between Rio and Minas Gerais, the BRICS 10 Ministers of Economy and heads of Central Banks met in Sao Paulo: and all of them hailed the drive towards “independent” payment settlement mechanisms. Russia is the 2024 president of this crucial group.
Russian Vice-Minister of Finance, Ivan Chebeskov, went straight to the point: “Most countries agree that payment in national currencies is what the BRICS need.” The Russian Ministry of Finance privileges the creation of a common digital platform congregating the BRICS Central Banks’ digital currencies and their national systems of transmitting financial messages.
Crucially, at this BRICS 10 meeting, most members stressed they are in favor of totally bypassing the U.S. dollar for trading.
Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov was even bolder: he said that Russia is proposing to BRICS the creation of an independent and “de-politicized” global system of payments.
Siluanov hinted that the system may be based on blockchain – considering its low cost and minimal control exercised by the Hegemon.
BRICS map the new world in Sao Paulo
A day before the meeting in Sao Paulo, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow supported the development of these BRICS strategies, noting that “if we manage to develop independent financial mechanisms, that will seriously question the globalization mechanism currently led by the West.”
As over 100 nations are currently researching or embryonically implementing a digital currency in their Central Banks, a big breakthrough is imminent in Russia – a process I have been following in detail since last year.
In the end, it’s all about Sovereignty. That was the crux of the most serious debates I had this past week in Brazil, with academic players and on several podcasts related to the conferences. It’s the overarching theme hanging over the Lula government, as the President seems to cast the figure of a lonely fighter cornered by a vicious circle of 5th columnists and comprador elites.
In Belo Horizonte I was presented with yet another astonishing book by a former, brilliant government official, the late Celso Brant. After a sharp analysis of the modern history of Brazil and its interactions with imperialism, he reminds the reader of what stellar Mexican writer and poet Octavio Paz said in the 1980s about Brazil and China: “These will be the two great protagonists of the 21th century.”
When Paz rendered his verdict, every indicator favored Brazil, which since 1870 held the largest GDP growth in the world. Brazil exported more than China, and from 1952 to 1987 was growing at annual rate of 7.4%. Continuing the trend, Brazil would be the 4th largest economy in the world by now (it’s between 8th and 9th, side by side with Italy, and could be the 5th, were not for direct destabilization by the Empire starting in the 2010s, culminating with the Car Wash operation).
That’s exactly what Brant shows: how the Hegemon intervened to crash Brazilian development – and that started way before Car Wash. Kissinger was already saying in the 1970s that “the United States will not allow the birth of a new Japan under the Equator line.”
Hardcore neoliberalism was the privileged tool. While China under Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping and then Jiang Zemin went Full Sovereign, Brazil was mired in neocolonial dependency. Lula tried – and is now trying it again, against all odds and surrounded on all sides, with Brazil branded as a “swing state” by U.S. Think Tankland and potential victim of new rounds of imperial Hybrid War.
Lula – and some solid academic elites away from power – know full well that as a neo-colony, Brazil will never fulfill its potential of being, side by side with China, as prophesized by Paz, the great protagonist of the 21st century.
That was the major takeaway of my psychedelic tour of Tropicalia: Sovereignty. Viktor Orban – accused by simpletons of being a member of a fuzz “Neofascist International” – nailed it with a simole formulation: “The inglorious period of Western civilization will be brought to an end this year, by replacing the world built on progressive-liberal hegemony with a Sovereigntist one.”
BIDEN TARIFF AGAINST CHINA EV’s and GREEN ENERGY – us auto companies can’t compete…
Ukrainian Losses And The Role An Austrian Archduke Has Had In Them
A recent piece in the New York Times connects us to a name which played a serious role in the last century of Ukrainian ‘nationalism’.
The history of the western Ukrainian region is, like in some other European areas, a quite convoluted drama that still plays out today.
The first reports of war fatigue in the ‘nationalist’ western Ukraine are coming in. Natalia Yermak, a Ukrainian cartoon producer turned New York Times journalist, reports from the Galician area near Lviv:
It was sunset when Maj. Kyrylo Vyshyvany of the Ukrainian army stepped into the yard of his childhood home in Duliby, a village in western Ukraine, just after his younger brother, also a soldier, had been buried. Their mother was still crying in the living room.“I can already see that she’ll be coming to visit him every day,” he said that day. He was right, but he would not be by her side. A few days after the funeral, in March 2022, he was killed in a Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian military base and buried next to his brother, Vasyl.
The Vyshyvany brothers were the first deaths from Duliby and the surrounding community after Russia began its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Since then, 44 more Ukrainian soldiers from the area have been killed — more than four times the local death toll from the previous eight years of fighting Russian-backed separatists in the east.
For Duliby and its surrounding enclave of Khodoriv — total population around 24,000 people — waiting for the next solemn death notification and the funeral that follows has become a bitter routine. But even as the town meets and buries the fallen with modest ceremony, some neighbors are quietly weighing the price they are willing to pay for a war with no end in sight.
Divisions have started to form between residents agnostic about the war — often those whose family members have dodged the draft or fled the country — and those who have loved ones on the front line or who fully support the war effort.
The name Vyshyvany looked quite familiar to me. I’ll come back to it.
The reporter depicts Galicia, the hotbed of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) fascists, as ‘nationalist’:
In the earliest days of the war, before the news of the first combat deaths arrived, people in communities across Ukraine flocked to draft offices. Among them was Khodoriv, whose families have a long history of fighting for Ukraine’s independence and being executed or sent into exile during violent Soviet repressions of its nationalist movement in the last century.
Even in the region with deeply seated Ukrainian nationalism lots of people have skipped the draft by paying bribes or other means:
Petro Panat, the leader of the territorial defense unit, an ad hoc military unit formed in the early days of the war to protect local communities, said 10 out of 30 men from the unit had since obtained documents to legally exempt them from fighting. The exemptions are granted for reasons like health problems or relatives in need of care.
…
In the Khodoriv area, relatives of soldiers who are fighting or who have died at the front said that in the last two years they have begun to resent men in the community who are said to have bought their way out of service while their own sons and fathers are fighting — a feeling that may be shared by many across the country as the Ukrainian government wrestles with how to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops.
After the war is lost, with whatever other outcome, there will be a deep acrimony between families who’s members have fought and died in it and those families who had the means and foresight to bail their members out:
There is no legal way to pay for an exemption from military service in Ukraine, but there have been widespread reports of corruption in draft offices, with bribes ranging from $1,000 early in the war — “a buyout from death” — to as much as the $10,000 per head price that was revealed in a Kyiv draft center.
In future the distance between the ‘nationalists’ and pragmatist draft dodgers will get even bigger than it has been before the war. I wonder how much that could contribute to further internal strife or even a civil war in western Ukraine.
Now back to the Vyshyvany family name which was the first mentioned in the above piece. I had stumbled over it a while ago.
If one searches for that name it brings up the Wikipedia page of the Archduke Wilhelm Franz of Austria who was born in 1895. Wilhelm’s rather complicate history and Ukrainian fascist-‘nationalism’ are deeply interwoven:
Archduke Wilhelm Franz of Austria, later Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen (10 February 1895–18 August 1948), also known as Vasyl Vyshyvanyi (Ukrainian: Василь Вишиваний), was an Austrian archduke, a colonel of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, a poet, and a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.
…
Wilhelm was raised in his parental estate located in the Austrian city of Saybusch, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. His father was a patriot of Poland [..]. Accommodating the 19th-century rise of nationalism, he decided that his branch of the Habsburg family would adopt a Polish identity and would combine a loyalty to their Habsburg family with a loyalty to Poland. Accordingly, he had his children learn Polish from an early age and tried to instill in them a sense of Polish patriotism.
…
Wilhelm, the youngest child, rebelled, and came to identify with the Poles’ rivals, the Ukrainians. … [H]e developed a fascination with Ukrainian culture that he kept for the rest of his life.
The family eventual accepted his Ukrainian tendencies and groomed Wilhelm to become a ruler of Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary and today of western Ukraine.
During the first world war Wilhelm became a Ukrainian ‘nationalist’:
The most acceptable course to solve the “Ukrainian issue”, for Wilhelm, was the creation of an autonomous Grand Duchy of Ukraine with federalist principles, within the Habsburg monarchy. That duchy, beside the Eastern Galicia and Bukovina provinces, could include as well Ukrainian lands that at that time belonged to the Russian Empire and which had to be reconquered.
Supported by the German-Empire and Austria-Hungary William fought as commander of Ukrainian draftees against the Bolsheviks.
When the world war ended William was hospitalized. Ukraine, the name translates to ‘border land’, again experienced the fate that comes with such an estate:
As he lay in the hospital, World War I ended, Austria-Hungary fell apart, and the Habsburgs lost their throne. In Eastern Galicia the West Ukrainian National Republic was proclaimed, while the Ukrainians of Bukovina tried, unsuccessfully, to unite their land with the new Ukrainian republic. The Bukovina was occupied by hostile Romanian forces, causing Wilhelm to flee to Lviv to avoid arrest. As Lviv was occupied now by Polish forces, Wilhelm again was forced to leave, moving to the Carpathian region where he was hiding in local monasteries for almost half a year. Meanwhile, while Germany was withdrawing its troops from Ukraine, the regime of Skoropadskyi in Ukraine was overthrown by republican forces of “Directorate”, led by Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Symon Petliura, and interest in seeing Wilhelm as sovereign of Ukraine faded.
During that era other nation’s rivalries affected the region – as they had done before for many centuries and as they still do today.
Between the world wars Wilhelm was mostly in Vienna but continued his Ukrainian ‘nationalist’ activities:
In circles of Ukrainian political emigrants, a hope was burning that the loss was not yet final and the Soviet regime could still be overthrown. In Vienna, Wilhelm became involved with pro Ukrainian monarchists who saw in him an opportunity, but nothing came out of it.
…
In Paris Vyshavanyi renewed his communications with Ukrainians when members of the newly formed Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) found him. He twice met with head of OUN Yevhen Konovalets. Through Wilhelm, nationalists tried to find new sources of financing.
Wilhelm supported the German Nazis who, with the avid support of the Ukrainian OUN militia, killed many Poles and Jews after invading the Soviet Ukraine. When the Nazis turned against the OUN Wilhelm stayed with the Ukrainian ‘nationalists’:
Soon however, Wilhelm realized that the Hitlerites would not allow for creation of independent Ukraine even as a puppet state similar to Slovakia. After he and his brother Karl Albrecht were arrested and interrogated by Gestapo, Wilhelm changed his political views and soon joined the local anti-Nazi resistance in Vienna.
When the second world war came to an end Wilhelm was engaged by the British(?) and French secret services to instigate a Ukrainian nationalist terror campaign against the Soviet forces in Ukraine:
At some point Maas introduced Wilhelm to his colleague Jack Brier who in his turn in 1946 introduced Wilhelm to French military officer Jean Pélissier. The latter had been tasked by the French authorities to revive contacts with Ukrainian nationalists who continued to fight the Soviet regime. Confrontation between yesterday’s allies, the collective West and the Soviet Union, was becoming more obvious and eventually had grown into what now is known as the Cold War. The French representatives promised help with delivering by planes political agitation on the Soviet territory as well as Ukrainian militants who would join the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). At first the French representatives requested to meet personally with Stepan Bandera, but since it was too complicated, agreed to meet someone from his closer associates.
The ‘western’ allies, especially the U.S. between 1948 and 1952, spent a lot of effort and money to instigate an insurgency in Galicia against the Soviet forces.
Wilhelm was eventually caught by the Soviets. In 1948 he died in of tuberculosis a prison hospital
One wonders what else but the name connects the Vyshyvany family in the recent NYT piece with the Austrian aristocrat turned Ukrainian ‘nationalist’.
In the early 1950s, after the Soviets had launched a serious counter insurgency campaign, the post WWII fascist OUN insurgency in Ukraine eventually petered out.
In 2014 the U.S. revived it.
Posted by b on May 9, 2024 at 15:00 UTC | Permalink
Why has everyone in the United Kingdom turned against Meghan Markle despite initially liking her?
We like to give folk a fair chance to settle in. We also root for the underdog. It’s a British thing.
The second of Diana’s sons is a bit of a wild card, but that’s okay. Will is in 1st place and he’s the sensible one so it’s not a big issue if H wants to be a bit of a jack-the-lad. It might even be expected from the spare to the heir.
Anyway, he got together with Meghan and a lot of us thought ‘okay, a bit of diversity. Probably about time. American too. That didn’t work out so well for Edward with Wallis Simpson, but that was all a long time ago. Besides, H isn’t king, so we’re not likely to have a constitutional crisis. Let’s give the girl a chance’.
Fitting in to any new family has its challenges, but a Royal family, that’s going to be extra tough with all the press scrutiny. We wished her well.
Then the seams started to come apart. It was obvious that Meghan had certain ideas about what it meant to be in a Royal family, and when things didn’t quite go the way she expected she threw her Teddy bear out of the cot.
We can forgive a lot in the UK, but stabbing the Firm in the back is a no-no. Airing the dirty laundry through the press is very bad form.
Meghan took a great opportunity and squandered it rather than taking her time to adapt. She made her own bed.
What are some deep things 80 year old man told before his death?
Don’t celebrate too soon, wait until it’s a sure thing.
Don’t give things to people who won’t value them.
Starting is simple, but keeping going is tough.
Showing off starts when being smart ends.
Even someone foolish can have a talent.
Even when time feels never-ending, life is still short.
Everyone likes different things. Let’s respect each other’s preferences.
Fear is only as strong as we let it be in our minds.
SUMMARY: US lost dominance nearly decade ago on all fronts, now, its prepping a world war against China to regain it before the gap gets wider
Dominance? This was over 7 years ago.
Dominance? America lost the first spot to China on all fronts.
ECONOMIC: China is the world No. 1 Economy for 5 years and over 10 years if you add the black economy.
POLITICAL: U.S policy was based on creating Win-lose, China’ relies on Win-Win.
Invasions and destruction VS. Investments and development.
All U.S close allies rushed to China to build partnerships, after realizing that the US can’t be trusted for a blink.
These partnerships are China’s Political leverage in the future. A way smarter approach than bullying and intimidation.
China is respected, the US is (was tb precise) feared.
The atrocities and impunity of the several consecutive US administrations made the US hated but feared worldwide, which made China loved and respected when it emerged.
China is a 70 century old wise grandad compared to the US,a bustard 4 centuries baby with a diaper, wisdom and experience is a key on the policies front.
(Note: bustard is not an insult here,but a description of a nation born on a raped land from another, and that explains alot, since It was born with brute force and relied on it to present)
TECHNOLOGY: One of the Chinese giants, HUAWEI is times bigger than the entire of Silicon Valley companies. Search Huawei city and see the wonders. HUAWEI is the world’s no 1 mobile phones manufacturer, the forbidden APPLE is the 3rd next to Samsung. But that’s just the tip.
HUAWEI is the world’s leading telecom company, owns the 5G with over 1000+ patents and now the 6G.
The panic of NSA and the 5 eyes( US,CA, UK,AU,NZ) over the 5G says it all. The FIORC or the 5 eyes WERE tapping and controlling all Internet and telecommunications until the 5G. Now, HUAWEI or China runs the show.
But the desperation of US was really interesting, starting with an idiotic campaigns on the hazards of the 5G, as if the 4G was the last safe thing and supposedly we shouldn’t advance anymore?
That was followed by an even more idiotic move from NSA, which announced they will start their own 5G, they will reinvent the wheel, so by the time, they are ready, there will be 6 or even 7G.Ofc the intention was a message of the US capabilities to the world, which was perceived as a silly joke.
Now, the entire West is paying loyalties on the 5G patents to HUAWEI.
Tables are turned, yesterday’s payee is today’s payer. More importantly, intelligence is in the Chinese hands
And another desperate but seriously idiotic move was by Trump, by calling Tredau of Canada, to arrest HUAWEI daughter( also HUAWEI CFO) from Canada to the USA in an attempt to blackmail HUAWEI on the 5G. Obviously blackmailing was Trump’s Art of the deal.
These desperate moves signals the panic of the US and its typical way of thinking. Just American muscles no brains.
Since Technology and communication is a key and crucial factor in today’s smart weapons, it adds leverage to the military front.
MILITARY This is tricky, because practically wars aren’t 1vs 1, but alliance vs alliance.
1 vs 1, China has an equivalent of each US weapon,but China has weapons, the US never saw before on the military parade of the Chinese party 70 year anniversary. Its available on CCTV UT channel.
The US realises that the gap with China is growing wider every day. So, its Now or Never.
Knowing that China and Russia have joint defense agreement, then they will face both together.
The US used Ukraine to provoke Russia and Taiwan to provoke China. These pawns are presented to the public under the pretenses of democracy and free world, as always. Its not Ukraine vs Russia, its the US and the Nato against Russia and China for now.
Inflation rises in the countries of conflict, pretty normal, but in the present quarter, it’s the entire world.
This is not a regional conflict, its a global one, its a brink of a world war.
The US weapon stockpiles have been depleted to critical levels, making the US incapable of self defense with its current levels. Manufacturing backlogs are full. The US won’t risk that unless its at war, not for any of the pawns. These stockpiles are enough to go against the entire world.
It’s pretty clear that the 4 centuries diapered baby, is a cry baby, and can’t learn or accept the fact, that life and existence is a cycle, everything is a cycle.
Europe had its 2 centuries of dominance, then the US had its 2, now its China, its Asia time.
The West had 4 centuries collectively, now its the East time
So, the US crybaby isn’t mature enough to grasp that concept, and seek a confrontation while at parity, hoping to stay dominant.
Nothing strange, Muscles no brains is the American way of thinking.
The brat doesn’t realise its not a confrontation vs Russia and China, its against a cycle, its against nature
Man has never won against nature
So again, DOMINANCE was 10 years ago, and heading to DOOM, unless one of those immigrants isn’t thinking the American way.
God saves us all from the immigrants way of thinking
Which countries have the most brutal and horrific history?
This answer isn’t really about saying what one single country has done the worst, but I do want to share below on the cruelty of humankind that many people don’t know about.
Graphic content below but I want to make this known because so many people around the world have heard of Hitler, Nazis, concentration camps but they have not heard of the Asian holocaust that took place around the same period. In western schools, history classes do not teach people about this part of the world.
This is regarding what the Japanese did during their occupation of Korea and the war crimes they committed to the surrounding Asian countries, including some Pacific Islands they invaded: Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, East Timor, New Guinea, Indonesia, Guam, Nauru, Wake Island, Attu and Kiska Islands, and Kiribati.
They even had some prisoners of war from the west such as America, any forces against them at the time etc.
Hundreds of thousands of women from my country in Korea were forcefully abducted (called comfort women) during the Japanese occupation in WWII. They endured torture beyond imagination if they did not sexually submit to these vile men and were forced to have sex with 60–100 men every single day. Their innards rotted because of the STD’s and they were destroyed, unable to have children even after they were rescued. They have still not been compensated for the war crimes that they endured and majority have died.
Pregnant mothers were cut open and rape victims were sodomized with bamboo sticks and bayonets until they died in agony.
On top of this they literally tore the unborn from women’s wombs and speared them alive with bayonets in front of them. They’d crush the infant’s skull against concrete floors. They would actually do this for fun.
They tied sons and daughters up and tore them apart, spearing them and forced their own parents to watch.
They raped and pillaged women of all ages, even toddlers to old women in the most vile, disgusting way imaginable. They would often disembowel them while in the process, leaving them to die in agony.
They conducted unspeakable evil torture and experiments on LIVE prisoners from these countries even children and infants in UNIT 731. Torture methods such as vivisecting pregnant women without any anesthesia, centrifuging and killing people in pressurized chambers, and slowly burning and freezing people alive. They artificially created what is similar to the ‘bubonic plague’ to see the effects on the prisoners. They were forced into X-rays until they perished and hung people by their thumbs or tongues etc. These torture tactics were deliberately planned to see death happen SLOWLY, not fast as the scientists wanted to observe the resilience of the human body.
Bodies of slayed, raped, mutilated women in China.
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Carcasses of babies and children piled up
Despite this, Japan still presently denies what has happened and even believes that it is a rumour. The young people as shown in this video are absolutely clueless on the whole tragedy, or are so far removed in cognitive dissonance and lack of care it is astounding. There is even a middle aged woman in the video who even says “Well I’m not sure if it’s a rumour or not…” which is an absolute lunacy and an embarrassment of the failure of the country in not properly educating their citizens of what truly happened. One young girl even says “Well, I wonder when they will ever get over it…” How are people supposed to get over it when there are still thousands of victims still alive who didn’t receive any form of compensation for what they have been through??!
Their government still warps their history books and deliberately tries to hide the evidence of what truly happened. There are active groups within Japan who refuse to accept what happened and truly believe that it is just a ‘rumour’ to make Japan look bad.
Below is a real life account by a South Korean comfort woman on the horrors she went through. It is heartbreaking to watch but quite educational. She sadly passed away early January of this year, fighting until her last breath but still never receiving any compensation or apology from the Japanese. They don’t even recognize that she went through this or who she is.
What Japan did wasn’t just an invasion or occupation, it was a literal carnage, hell on earth genocide. They didn’t have to go this far as majority of the Koreans and the people they invaded were helpless farmers, uneducated servants, and innocent people who were not trained in war at all. They did this because they did not see these people as human, and their goal wasn’t simply to occupy, but to desecrate the spirit from within. They knew when you destroy someone’s spirit from inside out, the enemy will bend the knee and yield to the point where they do not have the soul to fight back. On top of this, it was just pure, raw sadistic savagery because all of these helpless people surrendered and begged for mercy yet they were still tortured for absolutely no reason.
Presently Japan is one of the most wealthiest and prosperous Asian countries in the world yet they cannot even fully take responsibility for their own committed atrocities. It shows the savage barbarism that still resides in some of these people and makes one question just how this is even acceptable. Instead they choose to warp their own history books, flat out deny it existed and have refused to offer sincere, acceptable compensation/apology for the people who are still alive. They are waiting until every last victim is dead so they no longer have to worry about it. They are not truly ashamed of this past, they just see it as an eyesore they want to bury. Keep in mind Japan has very strong political parties that strives to ensure this shameful past does not reach the masses to retain their false honour. Still to this day, they praise their war criminals in shrines.
From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This is more than the estimated Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
designed to discredit the nation,” wrote Mindy Kotler, director of Asia Policy Point, in 2014.
“Mr. Abe’s administration DENIES that imperial Japan ran a system of human trafficking and coerced prostitution, implying that comfort women were simply camp-following prostitutes,” Kotler continued. “The official narrative in Japan is fast becoming detached from reality, as it seeks to cast the Japanese people — rather than the comfort women of the Asia-Pacific theater — as the victims of this story.”
Edit: Since I’m getting quite a lot of people who clearly don’t seem to understand and may not have read or researched in depth in this matter. They are saying that ‘Japan does not need to offer apology or compensation for what people of their past did etc’
It’s more complicated than that. Please read the links again. Even if they can’t take full responsibility for their past, they SHOULD take responsibility for the future by not warping textbooks and giving power to political parties who enforces the dangerous fallacy of denying any of this ever happened or triviliazing everything that has happened. They should make sure to teach the correct history not just for educational purposes but to ensure their citizens fully know and accept their own history and in hopes that it never happens again. This is also to help not silence the voices of the people who did suffer in the past and to not spit into their graves and ruin their legacy by spreading false lies.
Also the comfort women and people who were forcefully taken into labour camps as prisoners, many are still alive who didn’t actually get any compensation or even sheer RECOGNITION. They suffered their entire lives without anyone hearing what they have to say with nothing from Japan. This isn’t just about wanting Japan to go up to a stadium and saying ‘I am sorry’ and stepping down. Words are meaningless and worthless when not backed up by actions.
They are hypocrites by warping textbooks and also praising their own war criminals. Imagine what the world would say if Germany praises Nazis and gave strong political power that has the power to make Germans never even hearing of the Nazis or even contemplate if it was just a rumour or not. Think about how insane that would be.
So why do they need to apologise? Because unlike Germany what they are doing is absolutely deplorable and morally bankrupt by continuing to CONTRIBUTE to the legacy of the abomination Japan was in the past. You don’t see Germany do the same about the Nazis and for good reason. It means Japan hasn’t learned and is not truly remorseful. By Japan I am talking of the FACES of Japan which are the politicians who represent that country. The rest of the Japanese experience their trickle down effect so while it’s not saying it’s their fault, they end up indirectly contributing to supporting these vile politicians. So yes the people who represent JAPAN who hold the power of influence does need to sincerely apologise and stop contributing to what they are presently doing.
As I am getting tired of having to repeat the same information again and again, any comments that say things along the lines of ‘Japan does not need to apologise’ or those questioning or defending the existence of any of these crimes, their war criminals will be either ignored, deleted or blocked. It is extremely disrespectful to the victims and deplorable. The links are already here clear as day for reading and one can also do the research themselves. Also for anyone who brings up another atrocity and pitting them against each other, STOP. This post isn’t about pitting one atrocity against another, it is disgusting to even keep doing that and seriously lacks any insight into the original point of my post.
Otherwise thank you for reading and have a nice day.
TLDR: Japan did some truly horrific shit that many people including the present day Japanese citizens are unaware of. What they did is abysmal carnage from the Antichrist itself.
Also, piece of shit apologies that require uttering words and throwing money at victims isn’t a true apology when they are still in 2019 warping textbooks and none of their youths know anything about their crimes.
Why do you think Germany forces every citizen to learn about their nazi history and Japan doesn’t ? It is to deliberately ignore and not acknowledge their past due to their pride and selfishness. I’d equate this to even pathological narcissism and psychopathy due to how far they have gone in managing stomping this knowledge out of their own present day citizens.
Edit 2: As I am still getting very disrespectful, deranged comments on here pitting atrocities against each other, saying that I am spreading lies and others spewing ignorant hatred against Koreans, here’s my final message.
Instead of blaming others, look at what Japanese Nationals do. Stop diverting the attention away by blaming the mistakes of other countries yet not acknowledging the corruption of the Japanese government
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia
The Germans in contrast have personally done everything possible to make people aware of their Nazi past. Japan doesn’t scratch the surface of what it means to have true honour while Germans go to great lengths to do humanitarian work and to allow their citizens to understand the FULL facts. This is what true compensation and remorse actually is, not the dogshit excuse of what Japan does by also denying people, correct history. End of.
What is something you heard your child say or saw them do that made you think “Yep, that’s my kid.”?
Daughter was 4, old enough to be dropped at a birthday party for sometime without husband or I to be with her.
At this one party, I dropped her and told her I would be back in an hour and that if she wants to come home, she just needs to tell the birthday boy’s mother to call me.
She assured me she was okay and headed off inside.
I was skeptical as this was the first time but she appeared okay to me.
I went back after an hour and a half to see the main door was open. I took out my slippers and peeked in. A bunch of kids were fighting and screaming. A few girls were crying put loud for their mother terrified with scene going on in front of them.
I looked around for my daughter and didn’t see her.
I panicked.
The host was in the middle of the whole drama trying to call a truce but in vain. Two mothers joined me just then and took control over the situation.
I looked around for my daughter and still couldn’t find her. I went over to the host lady and asked her about it.
She laughed and pointed at a teeny tiny corner of the dining table.
Perched up on the chair sat my daughter with a plate in her hand, munching away the food. Oblivious to the surrounding.
The whole area looked like a war zone. ‘Hurt’ people were complaining to their mother. The birthday boy was crying because his party was spoiled plus someone broke his favourite toy. Some girls were crying because they were afraid and wanted to their parents to take them away.
And here was my daughter not caring a damn to the drama that unfolded around her.
“Hey!” I said as I walked up to her.
“Mumma, the fried rice is really good and also these cheese balls. You want?” She said beaming.
“There was a fight here. You know what happened?”
“No. I am eating.” She said as she dug into her cheese ball with a fork.
When it comes to food she doesn’t care even if the world is ending.
Yep, that’s my kid.
Women has it so easy…
During a light-hearted exchange, a man guessed this 39-year-old woman’s age to be 43, which apparently pissed her off. She followed him to the bathroom and glassed him in the face, twice.
He received a 10cm cut that narrowly missed his eye, as well as an injury to his thumb while he was trying to shield his face. He needed stitches for his injuries.
Judge Elizabeth Nicholls spared her prison. The judge said that she could see this woman was a ‘hard working woman’, ‘loving mother’ and ‘no risk to the public’. Yeah right.
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In September 9 last year Joanne Dodd was out with her sister at a Manchester pub. In a banter with a guy he was asked to guess their age, at which he guessed Joanne to be four years older than she was. This made her fly into a rage and threaten to hurt him. He excused himself to go to the bathroom and away from the hostile situation, but she followed him and attacked him with her glass.
In court her lawyer said she was drunk. Said she was suffering from low self-esteem. Yeah aren’t we all. We just don’t cut up people’s faces when we’re drunk.
Joanne pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm. She was facing up to three years in jail under the sentencing guidelines.
But she was spared jail. The judge said, “one person’s banter may be insulting to others, but that did not justify what you then went on to do.” Fair enough, but come on.
She almost rendered someone blind over a joke, gave them multiple lacerations in the face that needed stitches.
Joanne was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for 12 months and was ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work. Plus also ordered to pay £800 in compensation to her victim.
Proof of Reincarnation
Have you ever called in sick but you were convinced or threatened by your superiors to come to work? Did it end well for you?
When I worked for the legal department of the Department of Children and Families, about year three or so I begin to experience profound depression, bad enough that I needed to seek medical assistance. I felt pretty miserable that my life had deteriorated to a point where I would need psychotropic medication just to function, but the doctors assured me that it was a very good thing that I was seeking help from them instead of trying to self medicate and we tried to work on a plan. The problem was, I hadn’t taken any psychotropic meds for years at that point, and I wasn’t sure what would be effective. At this point, there are so many medications on the market that sometimes it’s literally a game of “well, let’s try this and see how it goes.”
The first medication I took, Prozac, made me paranoid, even at half-dose, and gave me full-blown panic attacks. I called the doctors’ office to explain my symptoms, and they continued to tweak, but suggested that I give the meds a chance to work. The meds ended up knocking me out constantly. I literally would not have been safe to drive a car, let alone work with legal files.
The managing attorney of the office threatened my employment when I came back to work, stating that me being out of work for five days put too much stress on everyone else in the office for coverage. Mind you, this is the same person who would make small talk with me about when I was going on vacation and asked me why I hadn’t dropped everything to go across the country with my husband on one of his spur-of-the-minute trips California or Italy or something. So it’s totally cool if I ask for time off to go on a drinking trip, but actually trying to manage my mental health so that I can continue to do the job of a junior attorney for a receptionist pay is borderline terminable?
This is the same supervisor who took nine months off for her own maternity leave, but was demanding that an underling come back to work four weeks after giving birth because “the office needed her.” Completely unempathetic human being. Before she became the managing attorney, the turnover in the office was practically zero; afterwards, it stood close to 90% every two years.
Law enforcement, when did you get an unbelievable tip that was actually real?
I was working the front desk at the police station when a woman came in and said she had some information. She told me her boyfriend (I had the impression he was or was about to be an ex-boyfriend) had two sticks of dynamite hidden under her house. She wasn’t sure why he had this. I recorded her information, thanked her, and sent her on her way.
The usual procedure would have been to notify our bomb squad. My department participated in a regional EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) team that was staffed by representatives of the local police, sheriff, and fire departments. Our PD’s representative was an academy classmate. He was (and is) also an asshole. I avoided talking to him for any reason. One of my close friends, however, was the EOD tech for the fire department. I called him at home and passed along the information.
About six hours later, my friend came in to the PD to update me. He had gone to the address in question for recon, found a suspicious package under the house (maybe some search and seizure issues here, but Not My Problem), and called the rest of the team. They recovered the two sticks of crystallized (read: highly unstable) explosive, which they placed into a bomb-proof cask to transport to a remote location to be “rendered safe” (read: blown up). He thanked me for a most productive day.
What is the stupidest crime you have ever seen anybody charged with?
I was in court over a ticket, it was dismissed so I’m not a lawbreaker.
Anyway, this little old lady was called up. She’d been given a ticket for speeding in an area at the end of my street, a busy business highway street that goes through the main part of a town.
The lady told the judge she wasn’t speeding, she was actually going under the speed limit. The judge called the officer up, he said he clocked her going 44 in a 40. The officer said I clocked her in front of… some local business, XXXX, and she was doing 44mph. I drive that area every day, multiple times. The speed limit there is 45. She really wasn’t speeding. The judge started to chew the lady out, stating she was getting too old to drive and needed to surrender her license and sell her car.
I muttered something to the effect that she hadn’t done anything wrong and was driving fine, and the judge heard me. I was thinking “oh crap! now he’s not going to listen to me when it’s my turn!!” but I said I live on SSSS street and drive the road in question, every day. The speed limit in front of XXXX business is 45, the speed limit if 40 up the YYYY business and the 45 mph speed limit sign in on the easement in front of their business. The speed limit where he’s talking about is 45mph.
The judge had to get another officer on the phone to go and check where the speed limit changed. The lady went to sit down and wait. I was nearly last so when they got the call back he dismissed her ticket. I bet the officer got in trouble for giving false tickets.
When and where did your parents die? What do you remember about it?
Dad was supposed to be on Hospice but they didn’t start it because someone was on vacation. He was home swearing he wouldn’t ever go to the hospital. Mom was trying to take care of him but he fell off the couch twice one day and sat on his oxygen tube. She called 911 to pick him up once then the neighbors the next time. Saturday I was with her all day to help with him. Sunday morning he asked if I was coming so she had him call me. Then he asked if my brother was coming and she offered to call him but he said he would know he wanted him. She called him anyhow. So my brother, SIL and I were visiting when dad announced he was ready to go to the hospital. The doctor said he couldn’t because they couldn’t help him. Mom was crying, she couldn’t lift him and thought if it got to be too much she could have him go to the hospital. The doctor came to the house and said he had total system shutdown and his kidneys had stopped working. She said he could go to the hospital to get morphine but if he did, he couldn’t come home again, he would go to the nursing home if he didn’t die first. On Tuesday he went to the nursing home, an hour or so later mom was home taking a nap when they called and said to come back. He had died already.
Mom ended up living with my brother and went to the hospital for pain. They claimed she had pancreatic cancer but wouldn’t treat it unless she got a biopsy. She said she didn’t want a biopsy and would rather have hospice, so they sent her home. Everyone came to visit her dozens of grand and great grandkids, she had a great time visiting everyone like a big party. One day she said this was the first time she thought about dying. She only lived 20 days and died peacefully at home.
Is the problem with US diplomacy with China that it goes against Chinese values?
Not to be rude, but I burst out laughing reading this question in the notification.
The Chinese do not conduct diplomacy on grounds of values.
As in we’re attacking/punishing/threatening/sanctioning you for not being Chinese enough.
Only the West, and primarily the United States does that. Western NGOs are an economy unto themselves.
Israel does it to its own citizens/residents, because their quarrel with the Palestinians boils down to a disagreement over whose God is in charge.
China doesn’t print “In God We Trust” on the Renminbi.
In fact, China as a state does not identify with any religion, unlike modern India, and most of the West. All monarchies that remain today identify with a religion, and that includes Japan.
Evangelism has never been a part of Chinese culture, which doesn’t travel well, unless there is critical mass.
China’s diplomatic principle is simple. Recognize One China and respect Chinese sovereignty, and China is your friend.
America’s problem with China is singular—it wants to remain top dog, at all cost.
I say good luck.
中国人不吃这套
Pepe Escobar
May 8, 2024
The NATOstan lackeys will remain dazed and confused. So what; lackeys lack strategic depth, they just wallow in the shallow waters of irrelevancy.
Startling mirror images swirl around two major developments this week directly inbuilt in the Grand Narrative that shapes my latest book, Eurasia v. NATOstan, recently published in the U.S.: Xi Jinping’s visit to Paris and the inauguration of Vladimir Putin’s new term in Moscow.
Inevitably, this is a contrasting tale of Sovereigns – the comprehensive Russia-China strategic partnership – and lackeys: the NATOstan/EU vassals.
Xi, the quintessential hermetic guest, is quite sharp at reading a table – and we’re not talking about Gallic gastronomic finesse. The minute he sat at the Paris table he got the Big Picture. This was not a tete-a-tete with Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron. This was a threesome because Toxic Medusa Ursula von der Leyen, more appropriately defined as Pustula von der Lugen, had inserted herself in the plot.
Nothing was lost in translation for Xi: this was graphic illustration that Le Petit Roi, the leader of a third-rate former Western colonial power, enjoys zero “strategic autonomy”. The decisions that matter come from the Kafkaesque Eurocracy of the European Commission (EC), led by his Nanny, the Medusa, and directly relayed by the Hegemon.
Le Petit Roi spent the whole of Xi’s Gallic time babbling like an infant on Putin’s “destabilizations” and trying to “engage China, which objectively enjoys sufficient levers to change Moscow’s calculus in its war in Ukraine”.
Obviously no pubescent adviser at the Elysee Palace – and there’s quite a crowd – dared to break the news to Le Petit Roi about the strength, depth and reach of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
So it was up to his Nanny to volunteer out loud the fine print on the “Monsieur Xi comes to France” adventure.
Faithfully parroting Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen in her recent, disastrous Beijing incursion, the Nanny directly threatened the superpowered hermetic guest: you are exceeding in “over-capacity”, you are over-producing; and if you don’t stop it, we will sanction you to death.
So much for European “strategic autonomy”. Moreover, it’s idle to dwell on what can only be described as suicidal stupidity.
Steadfastly defending a debacle
Now let’s switch to what really matters: the chain of events leading to Putin’s lavish fifth inauguration at the Kremlin.
We start with the chief of GRU (main intelligence department) of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Admiral Igor Kostyukov.
Kostyukov, on the record, actually re-confirmed that right on the eve of the Special Military Operation (SMO), in February 2022, the West was ready to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia in Donbass, just as before the Great Patriotic War (Victory Day, incidentally, is celebrated this Thursday not only in Russia but also across the post-Soviet space).
Then the ambassadors of Britain and France were called at the Russian Foreign Ministry. They spent roughly half an hour each, separately, and left without addressing the media. There were no leaks about the reasons for both visits.
Yet that was more than obvious. The Foreign Ministry handed the Brits a serious note in response to David “of Arabia” Cameron’s babbling about using British long-range missiles to attack the territory of the Russian Federation. And to the French, another serious note on Le Petit Roi’s babbling about sending French troops to Ukraine.
Immediately after this compounded NATO babbling, the Russian Federation started drills on the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
So what started as a NATO verbal escalation was counterpunched not only with stern messages but also an extra, clear, stern warning: Moscow will regard any F-16 entering Ukraine as a potential carrier of nuclear weapons – regardless of its specific design. F-16s in Ukraine will be treated as a clear and present danger.
And there’s more: Moscow will respond with symmetric measures if Washington deploys any ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles (INF) in Ukraine – or elsewhere. There will be a counterpunch.
All that happened within the framework of astonishing Ukrainian losses in the battlefield over the past two months or so. The only parallels are with the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the first Gulf War. Kiev, between dead, wounded and missing, may be losing as many as 10,000 soldiers a week: the equivalent of three divisions, 9 brigades or 30 battalions.
No compulsory mobilization, whatever its reach, can counter such debacle. And the much-advertised Russian offensive has not even started yet.
There’s no way the current U.S. administration led by a cadaver in the White House, in an electoral year, is going to send troops to a war that from the beginning was scripted to be fought to the last Ukrainian. And there’s no way NATO will officially send troops to this proxy war, because they will be minced into steak tartare in a matter of hours.
Any serious military analyst knows NATO has less than zero capability to transfer significant forces and assets to Ukraine – no matter the current, grandiloquent Steadfast Defender “exercises” coupled with Macron’s mini-Napoleon rhetoric.
So it’s Ouroboros all over again, the snake biting its own sorry tail: there was never a Plan B to the proxy war. And at the current configuration in the battlefield, plus possible outcomes, we’re back to what everyone from Putin to Nebenzya at the UN have been saying: it’s over only when we say it’s over. The only thing to negotiate is the modality of surrendering.
And of course there will be no sniffin’ sweaty sweatshirt cabal in place in Kiev: Zelensky is already a “Wanted” entity in Russia, and in a few days, from a legal standpoint, his government will be totally illegitimate.
Russia aligns with the world majority
Moscow has to be fully aware that serious threats remain: what NATOstan wants is to test the strategic capability of hitting Russian military, manufacturing or energy installations deep within the Russian Federation. This could be easily interpreted as a last shot of bourbon at the counter before the 404 saloon goes down in flames.
After all, Moscow’s response will have to be devastating, as already communicated by Medvedev Unplugged: “None of them will be able to hide either on Capitol Hill, or in the Elysee Palace, or on Downing Street 10. A world catastrophe will happen.”
Putin, at the inauguration, was cool, calm and collected, unfazed by all the hysterical incandescence across the NATOstan sphere.
These are his main takeaways:
Russia and only Russia will determine its own fate.
Russia will pass through this difficult, milestone period with dignity and become even stronger, it must be self-sufficient and competitive.
The key priority for Russia is safeguarding the people, preserving its age-old values and traditions.
Russia is ready to strengthen good relations with all countries, and with the world majority.
Russia will continue to work with its partners on the formation of a multipolar world order.
Russia does not reject dialog with the West, it is ready for dialog on security and strategic stability, but only on an equal footing.
All that is supremely rational. The problem is the other side is supremely irrational.
Still, a new Russian government will be in place in a matter of days. The new Prime Minister will be appointed by the President after the Duma approves the candidacy.
The new head of the Cabinet must propose to the President and the Duma candidates for deputy prime ministers and ministers – except for the heads of the security bloc and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The heads of the Ministry of Defense, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Emergency Situations and Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be appointed by the President after consultations with the Federation Council.
All ministerial candidacies will be submitted and considered before May 15.
And all that will happen before the key meeting: Putin and Xi face to face in Beijing on May 17. Everything will be in play – and on the table. Then a new era starts – outlining the path towards the BRICS+ summit next October in Kazan, and the subsequent multipolar moves.
The NATOstan lackeys will remain dazed, confused – and hysterical. So what; lackeys lack strategic depth, they just wallow in the shallow waters of irrelevancy.
Amazing Tour Inside a Chinese Attack Submarine
Is this the end of the United States as a global superpower?
All empires fall. It’s an historical fact.
The American Empire is falling. The US Dollar is America’s main pillar of power and the world is massively de-dollarizing.
Within the next 20 years, the US Dollar will no longer be the world’s primary reserve currency. It will be replaced by something else.
When that happens, the Empire will collapse. It will no longer be able to afford its military.
America is also rotting from within. It is plagued by domestic problems such as homelessness, gun violence, poor health care, poor education, crumbling infrastructure, opioid addiction, systemic racism (“I can’t breathe”), mass incarceration, growing poverty, etc.
The US political system is in turmoil. Deep political division. Deep corruption by the corporate capitalist elite. January 6, 2021 is just the beginning.
As we report, the disintegration of the old order is visible everywhere. Sanctions are used four times as much as they were during the 1990s; America has recently imposed “secondary” penalties on entities that support Russia’s armies. A subsidy war is under way, as countries seek to copy China’s and America’s vast state backing for green manufacturing. Although the dollar remains dominant and emerging economies are more resilient, global capital flows are starting to fragment, as our special report explains.The institutions that safeguarded the old system are either already defunct or fast losing credibility. The World Trade Organisation turns 30 next year, but will have spent more than five years in stasis, owing to American neglect. The IMF is gripped by an identity crisis, caught between a green agenda and ensuring financial stability. The un security council is paralysed. And, as we report, supranational courts like the International Court of Justice are increasingly weaponised by warring parties. Last month American politicians including Mitch McConnell, the leader of Republicans in the Senate, threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it issues arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel, which also stands accused of genocide by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.
It is the U.S., the country which arguably benefited the most from the liberal international order, which is actively destroying it.
Others, if they did not attract random U.S. rage and war against them, also saw some benefits from it. Those small to medium countries will most likely lose out should the current regime collapse.
That would not be unprecedented:
Unfortunately, history shows that deeper, more chaotic collapses are possible—and can strike suddenly once the decline sets in. The first world war killed off a golden age of globalisation that many at the time assumed would last for ever. In the early 1930s, following the onset of the Depression and the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, America’s imports collapsed by 40% in just two years. In August 1971 Richard Nixon unexpectedly suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold; only 19 months later, the Bretton Woods system of fixed-exchange rates fell apart.
Similar ruptures, like the examples above again caused by the U.S., may happen soon.
Interestingly the Economist does not name a solution or way to avoid it. It sees a collapse coming, blames -more or less- the U.S. for causing it, but does not point to way out of it.
That is an uncharacteristically pessimistic view for writers who otherwise like to paint a positive picture for those with big money.
Posted by b on May 10, 2024 at 14:04 UTC | Permalink
Shopping in Stores in 1971: Retro Video of the Early 70s in America
Picadillo-Stuffed Turkey with
Orange-Tamarind Sauce
Add Latin flavor to your holiday turkey with the addition of picadillo ingredients to the Stove Top Stuffing.
picadillo stuffed turkey
Prep: 30 min | Total: 4 hr 45 min | Yield: 24 servings
Ingredients
1 tablespoon oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground pork
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (6 ounce) package Stove Top Stuffing Mix for Chicken
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup Planters Slivered Almonds, toasted
5 large navel oranges, divided
1 (15 pound) frozen turkey, thawed
1 (14 ounce) package frozen tamarind pulp, thawed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon butter
Instructions
Heat oven to 325 degrees F.
Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat.
Add onions and garlic; cook and stir for 3 minutes.
Add pork; cook 5 minutes or until no longer pink, stirring occasionally.
Stir in tomato sauce; cook 2 minutes.
Add stuffing mix, raisins, nuts and the juice of 2 oranges (about 1/2 cup); mix well. Cook for 5 minutes or until heated through, stirring frequently.
Remove from heat. Cool for 15 minutes before stuffing the turkey.
Remove and discard neck and giblets from turkey cavities. Rinse turkey; drain well. Free legs from tucked position, but do not cut band of skin. Place turkey, breast-side up, in roasting pan.
Spoon stuffing into neck and body cavities, being careful to not pack stuffing into turkey too tightly. Return legs to tucked position; turn wings back to hold neck skin in place.
Cut 1 orange into 8 slices; arrange over turkey. Cover breast loosely with foil to prevent over-browning.
Bake for 3 hours, basting occasionally with pan juices.
Meanwhile, combine tamarind pulp, sugar and juice from remaining 2 oranges in saucepan.
Remove foil; bake turkey 45 minutes to 1 hour or until done (165 degrees F), brushing with 1/4 cup of the tamarind mixture for the last 15 minutes.
Remove turkey from oven; let stand 15 minutes before carving.
Meanwhile, stir cornstarch into remaining tamarind mixture until completely dissolved. Bring to boil; cook and stir 1 minute or until thickened.
Remove from heat; stir in butter. Serve warm with turkey.
Notes
Serve with smart sides, such as a crisp mixed green salad and your favorite hot steamed vegetable.
A 12 to 14 pound frozen turkey needs 3 to 3 1/2 days of thawing time in the refrigerator. The cooking time will range between 3 to 3 3/4 hours until the turkey is done (165 degrees F).
Do not stuff turkey until ready to roast.
Nutrition
Per serving: Calories 460
Total fat 20g Saturated fat 6g Cholesterol 130mg Sodium 260mg Carbohydrate 26g Dietary fiber 2g Sugars 17g Protein 45g
% Daily Value: Vitamin A 2 % DV Vitamin C 0% DV Calcium 6% DV Iron 20% DV
* Nutrition information is estimated based on the ingredients and cooking instructions as described in each recipe and is intended to be used for informational purposes only. Please note that nutrition details may vary based on methods of preparation, origin and freshness of ingredients used.
What did your boss say to you during a meeting that resulted in you immediately resigning?
“You never deserved any of the promotions I gave you.”
I started working for a small non-profit when it was only 3 other employees and myself. I was able to take over a lot of jobs that they were outsourcing and saved the foundation over $15,000 a year in contract labor within 6 months of being hired. Within 2 years, the organization grew to over 15 full time employees and I was promoted from Office Admin to Office Manager to Finance Director/Travel Logistics Manager. I was on call every day and often sacrificed family stuff to make sure the participants in programming were taken care of.
After 2 years, I took a 9 day vacation with my family to Disney. I made sure that everything was taken care of before I left and had made arrangements with co-workers to be able handle anything that came up. I left contacts for myself, and my husband should there be an emergency. On the plane to FL, I lost my phone. When we arrived at the hotel, I immediately emailed from my personal email to let my co-workers and boss know what had happened and how I was handling it.
When we returned, my boss pulled me into her office and berated me for not taking my work laptop on my family vacation and said that losing my phone (not a company phone) was extremely “unprofessional” and that I didn’t deserve anything I had earned in my tenure there. She claimed that she had only advanced me because she was being nice and yelled at me so loudly that the entire office heard. I told her that was pretty poor leadership and gave my 2 weeks notice to the founder and explained the situation. Unfortunately, he felt we were “just being catty” and refused to do anything about it.
I visited my village in CHINA for the first time in 10 years *MY LIFE CHANGED*
What is your most horrifying supernatural experience? (A real life incident)
You may not believe this, but…
Los Angeles. 1980, at a stoplight. three lanes. Truck in furthest left lane, A friend was next to me in middle lane, I was in the inside lane. My friend and I were revving our motors like we were going to drag race as soon as the light turned green.
Rev..rev, looking at the light. Waiting. Yellow comes on in other direction, I was ready to go when….. this old man crosses in front of us, slowly. He looks like he’s 100 years old and so slight you can barely see him.
The light turns green but we can’t go because of the guy. All of a sudden, from my left, a truck comes barreling through his red light, crossing directly in front of us. If it wasn’t for the old guy walking across our paths, we probably would have been dead. Except……later at the coffee shop, we were talking about what a close call that was, and that but for the old guy crossing we would have been toast.
My friend asked: “what old guy?” I said the old guy crossing the street in front of us, isn’t that why you didn’t take off? No, he said, I just don’t race at stoplights. I thought we were playing.” My friend was killed, a long time ago by an old driver racing through a red light and striking his car, killing him. Me: “So you didn’t see the old guy.” He laughed thinking I was making it up.
My life was saved by a ghost.
What is the rudest thing that a new neighbor has done to you immediately after you had moved in?
It was immediately after he moved in.
We had a house for 10 years. Beautiful natural yard with several 200+ year old oak trees. Mr. New Jersey moves in behind us and immediately starts pestering my wife about getting those trees cut down because, “if they fell over they could land on his house and take out the power so they needed to be removed immediately.” Wife demanded I not talk to him about it as she didnt want me to anger new neighbor.
She put up with it for a year. I was really sick of hearing her complain about it. So I started doing yard work where he could see me. He came over and started his rant. I politely told him noody was cutting down my wifes healthy oak trees and the subject was closed. I then pointed out his pretty shrub was growing into the powerline and needed to be trimmed or we would all have a power outage.
A few weeks later the power company came out for a service call(3 days with no power for the neighbor hood). His shrub had taken out the power.
We all now get along great.
When the 65 foot Hackberry tree died, I rented a 45 foot boomlift. He let me park it in his backyard while I cut that thing into 2 foot pieces and lowered it to the ground. It was leaning over the powerline. The power company wouldnt cut it down and I had to take it down in pieces so it didnt knock out the power to the neighborhood.
He asked me why I was doing the work instead of hiring a tree service. I explained its easy work and I find it fun and relaxing.
I get to drive a 45 foot boom lift and play with a new chainsaw. Its guy heaven.
He had thought he could bully a woman into cutting down her trees. As I had not gotten involved in the fracus for a year he maybe figured I was intimidated by him for some reason. Then he realized I wasnt intimidated and just supported my wifes opinions.
What do women have that men want from us besides our holes?
I was a stripper for about ten years, so I’ve talked to far more men than the average female. The one thing most married men talked about missing from their marriage/relationship was acknowledgement, particularly for their feelings, and also their contribution. Men would routinely tell me that their wife behaved as if she was owed a better husband than he was to her; she deserved a man who made more money, but she also deserved a man who spent more time at home. And very often, a man would go to great length and trouble to do something special for a woman he cared about, and very often, she would mention the parts he fell short in that endeavor. Women have encouragement and acceptance and affection and appreciation, and when a man gets all that from a woman, her holes are hardly the thing he wants most from her. In fact, if any woman has nothing to offer, but her holes, she will find herself very unwanted, even if she has really good holes.
Aliens & Espionage: Crop Circles and the CIA Coverup | They Don’t Want You to Know
When I was living at “Father Pete’s””monastery” I shared my experience with about twenty other men all dealing with a range of issues.
One was a fellow with an addictive personality, and he just had to get high.
And you know, we couldn’t figure out why all of our cans of oven de-greaser kept on running out. One month we bought a case of 12, and they were all used up. Now, the guy in charge of cleaning the oven, claimed that he was a big rigorous in cleaning the ovens and such.
But twelve cans?
Nah. Far too unusual.
Well, for certain, he was using the cans to get high. He was spraying the de-greaser in toilet paper and huffing it away all night in his room.
This was the first time that I ever was exposed to a “huffer”.
Using him as an example; I can only conclude that the chemicals wrecked his brain and turned him into a simpleton; a town idiot.No kidding. He was really having trouble with all sorts of simple tasks. Like, for instance, tying his shoelaces.
But, you know, there were other changes as well. It also gave him this sense of superiority in a manic, just about disgusting manner. He was manic all the time. That that was nuts. My ex-wife had bouts on manic-depressive personality, and I despised them.
And of course, his day to day routines started to suffer. Including hygiene. Brushing the teeth. Taking a shower. Wiping your ass when you took a dump. Stuff like that.
Don’t huff.
Watch out for your loved ones as well. Huffing is something that he picked up when he was 14 and continued until when I met him at 45 years of age.
Anyways… Yeah….We kicked him out.
He was toxic to the community.
We were willing and wanting to help those that needed help, but some people took up too high a percentage of our limited time and resources, all the while not learning from the environment that we provided.
Ah. It's a fine line that we needed to set forth for all of us.
Do not be the victim of a de-greasing Jones. I’ll tell you what.
Today…
What is something unrealistic that you often see in movies that annoys the hell out of you?
Sorry ladies but it needs to be said:
The heroine, who is 5′4″ and 100 pounds soaking wet (usually wearing heels) faces off against a 6′4″ bad guy weighing in at 220+ pounds. She then proceeds to beat the living sh** out of him while absorbing everything he can throw at her.
First: In real life when that baddy hits her she would not get back up. Period. People (men and women) have died by being punched by men that size. Women’s bodies cannot absorb abuse like that.
Second: She would not have the strength to actually hurt him. It would take a miracle round house to the head for her to be able to do damage. But in Hollywood her tiny little fists on tiny little arms do crushing damage that incapacitate him.
Am I being sexist? Here is a quote from a female MMA fighter (Tamikka Brents) that fought a ‘transgender’ fighter. Remember, these two people were in the same weight class:
“I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not, because I’m not a doctor,” she stated. “I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right. ”
Tamikka had her eye socket broken in that fight; a fight that was in a controlled environment while wearing padded gloves.
Here is another quote from Ronda Rousey’s mother about her daughter fighting a man. Ronda’s mother is a Judo Black belt and former world champion:
“That’s a stupid idea,” she said. “Seriously, that’s a stupid idea. I’m as much a feminist as anyone but the fact is that biologically, there’s a difference between men and women. Hello, duh. A woman who is 135 pounds and a man who is 135 pounds are not physically equal.”
The sad thing is this truth is NEW to the modern gals of today
Why did my top performing employee quit after write up?
I was a senior engineer for the United States home office for the largest Japanese construction company operating in the United States. Once, while working with the Japanese vice president closing a bid, he started saying to me and anyone else in earshot, “I don’t know how to do this, I do not know what to do.” I put my hand on his shoulder, asked him to write down the total of the bid he wanted to submit and I would back-figure the schedule of values and electronically file the bid for a large tire manufacturing facility.
All done, he’s good, we were good.
Next day, I get a scheduled meeting with Human Recourses. Just the HR director and her administrative assistant. I was written up for disrespect to my supervisor, the VP, and for insubordination. I was told I was supposed to stay out of the bid closing and if the VP didn’t finish, it was his desire to not submit. This skullduggery and in-depth deconstruction into my salvaging the bid went on for 45-minutes.
I asked the VP if he had a problem and told him if I disrespected him, I was sorry. He told me he very much approached the help and that I was a good employee. My manager was surprised I was written up a 2nd time for interfering with operations and disrespect, but said he couldn’t do anything about it and to just watch it.
I sat in the lounge area to simmer down. At that time I got a call from a competitor inviting me to dinner and a talk to about my taking over estimating for them. I asked “Is this a job offer” and they said “Yes.” I immediately turned in my notice and signed out, went to the meeting as was working for the new employer the next morning.
Epilog: the Japanese company got the job I closed out. They called me the next week and told me I need to be part of the team meeting with the client in Mississippi the next week. I reminded them that I was no longer an employee, thank you for considering me and if he had any questions, consult the head of HR. The HR director called me in a matter of minutes and told me she was attempting to further my abilities and help me integrate into the Japanese frame of mind, not trying to discourage me and was sorry I took it that way. I did thank her and hung up. “Bitch.”
The truth about Ukraine
And also the truth about Taiwan.
A cop pulled me over for speeding and asked if he could search my car. When I said no, he said that it’s qualified as a probable cause and pulled me out of the car to search it. Is that actually legal?
This has been heavily litigated for decades. However, we have a pretty definitive answer.
Refusal to consent to a search cannot be used as probable cause, or else the idea of consent has no value. It creates a situation where you really have no choice; you can consent, and police can perform the search, or you can refuse to consent and the police can declare that reason for them to search despite your refusal. Either way, they’re getting to search, making the ‘choice’ little more than an illusion, a farce.
Now, if they have probable cause beforehand, that’s different. I know someone who spent three nights in jail after refusing a search of a rental car. Turns out the last person had basically kept the car a few days longer than they had rented it, and the rental company had followed their standard procedure and declared it stolen. When it was returned and fees paid by the renter, they had put it back into rotation without alerting the police that the vehicle had returned, and the car showed up as stolen in a routine traffic stop. Despite having a rental contract and nothing illegal in the car, the individual was arrested until the case was dismissed when first it went before a judge.
If you can’t refuse a search without it basically having the same impact as consenting to the search, then the Fourth Amendment has no meaning whatsoever.
Why have Chinese critics of the Chinese Communist Party never come together to offer a social and political platform for how they think China should be governed?
There are people who are interested in criticizing the existence of the CCP, and then there are people interested in providing better policies than the CCP.
The former typically end up abroad as political dissidents applying for asylum. It’s a solution that makes everyone happy. The dissident gets to bitch and moan in peace, the CCP doesn’t have to put up with people that will never be happy, the common folk get to have discussions about policy rather than stupid discussions on whether or not the CCP is evil, and the country taking them in get to generate domestic propoganda by claiming to be inclusive, democratic, a good place to live, etc, even if they are hosting a blithering idiot on taxpayer’s dime.
If you are interested in arguing over policies, it is very easy to persuade the government to give you a minor village-level position so that you can prove your mettle. Typically if you graduate from a decent university, there are programs where you can get parachuted directly to a village advisor position (of roughly equal status as the mayor). If you perform well, you will get promoted to the town level, and then small cities, etc. I graduated from Tsinghua and know quite a few people who went on such a path.
What’s interesting is that if you come from a decent university, lower level government officials will go out of their way to ask you for your opinion on local policies, even if you’re not actually a Chinese citizen and don’t have political rights. I was an engineering student operating in some of the remote parts of China, where government drinking water policy failures led to the breakdown of local water treatment systems. I was wandering around in rural Shanxi with a German exchange student, taking water samples and building temporary filters to combat local arsenic pollution in the absence of government intervention. I was curious as to why the policy was a failure, so I paid a visit to the town hall and found the mayor. The conversation went something like this:
Mayor: This is a small town, and I’ve never seen you before. And is that a foreigner behind you??? Where are you from?
Me: Yes, he’s German. We’re from Tsinghua (shows him school ID card). We’re interested in when that water treatment station on the east side of the village was built, why it fell into disuse, and what the villagers are drinking right now.
Mayor: Hey, Dog Testicles! We have some visitors and this is your job!
It turned out “Dog Testicles” was the nickname for the bureaucrat in charge of the village waterworks. The mayor pours us all a cup of tea while Mr. Dog Testicles spends an hour or so describing the construction process of the station, the funding, when it broke down, why the villagers couldn’t come up with enough money to fund its repairs and maintenance, etc. He then asked us what we think they should do.
Me: I dunno, maybe don’t ask a bunch of flat busted farmers to fund water treatment? It’s obvious they can’t pay. The local infrastructure policy was really damn stupid. We’ve been running around all over the area building filters to cover for that mistake.
Dog Testicles: Aha, so you’re the ones building filters in these villages? We found those filters on our own surveys. You kmow that selling filters without a proper license is a criminal offense, right?
Me: Yeah, but I wouldn’t be working my ass off if it weren’t for these stupid policies. You can go ahead and try to arrest me if you’d like.
Mayor: Actually, I think you have a point even though you’re breaking the law. We’ll just ask the police to… look the other direction and let you build those filters. Just make sure those villagers stop using the filters once we get the new treatment systems up and running next summer. Have you considered joining the Party and working at the village level? Lots of university students doing that nowadays. We could use people like you.
Me: I look Chinese but I’m an American citizen.
Mayor: Ah, OK. Could you and the German guy take a photo with us?
Me: Why? Have you never seen a foreigner around these parts before?
Mayor: Well, having these kinds of discussions with university students and asking them for their opinions is very helpful in our performance evaluations. It helps us get raises and promotions. Some… proof… would be useful. So a photo, please?
Basically, if you’re the motivated and well-educated vigilante type who wants to see change and you’re happy with working your ass off to see that happen, the Party is usually happy to work with you as long as you tell them what you’re doing. Very, very few people would go up against the CCP to make changes happen when they’re nice and polite and willing to talk about whether they can help you reach your goal.
I’ve been playing with text to pictures
The theme is cats, with pretty woman, Baroque art style
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What do you guys think about my work?
Did you develop any traits from being homeless that you haven’t been able to shake?
Several actually.
I still eat very little. I don’t get hunger pains that often. I don’t regard it as a big deal; as I know, homelessness can happen again. It can happen to anyone.
I still sleep in my clothes and often my shoes. I feel safer, better prepared for emergencies and it’s habit.
I don’t use blankets much. When I do it’s usually as a pillow and more for emotional comfort than physical comfort.
I still layer clothes when it’s colder outside despite being indoors more. I don’t use heat much due to habit and due to becoming more accustomed to the lack of it while homeless.
When I am cold, I often use the warmth left lingering from the oven just after cooking to warm up; rather than turn up the heat. I’m no longer used to having heat at my finger-tips by adjusting a thermostat. Not intentional just what I’ve grown accustomed to. And while homeless cooking often doubled as warm-up time.
I don’t use much space. I’ve gotten accustomed to smaller living spaces and minimalist living. I don’t try to do it. I’ve just noticed I do.
I don’t buy a whole lot of unnecessary items. I was never real materialistic; however, I am even less so now.
I still tend to hold my bodily functions for lengthy time periods; from years of not having accessible bathroom facilities.
I still eat more ready to eat foods like sunflower seeds and pistachios.
I still keep to myself a lot. Even more than I did while homeless.
Partially due to a lack of trust in people overall.
Mainly, because I am so used to being a non-person or invisible to most people’s eyes that I no longer have a sense of belonging.
I also still have what some would call “irrational fear” of being harassed or kicked out of public places. It isn’t so irrational if you’ve experienced homelessness.
I am amazed and disgusted at how all of a sudden I am accepted just due to being homed. Nothing’s changed except that I am adequately homed. I always took care to stay clean and I still buy the cheaper items, and in the beginning went daily…but somehow now it’s acceptable. Which gives me less of a desire to be in public spaces when a person’s worth can be so dependent upon having a roof over your head.
I still live mainly out of a backpack or rolling suitcase. Habit, and it helps prioritize the most important stuff and to be prepared just in case.
I still carry crazy things like sewing needles, nail clippers, scissors, flint, emergency blankets and other such items in my purse and car. Never know when you’ll need them.
I sleep pretty light.
I still feel pretty guilty for having access to food, shelter, bathroom, and other basic needs knowing so many are going without. I guess it’s kind of like survivors guilt. I doubt I’ll ever shake that.
I appreciate the basic and simple things far more than things other people value. Being able to cook, having running water, a toilet, a hot shower, and a bed are things worth celebrating. That most find to be odd things to be so happy about. Or they view them as simply mundane things that everyone has. Truth be told that are many who don’t have these things that so many take for granted.
I learned a lot while I was homeless.
How would it affect China if universities in the West cut ties and stopped accepting funding from China?
Some Big Universities like Harvard, Stanford or Universities in the “Ivy League” have little to zero funds from China. In fact these Universities have a combined total of $ 85 Billion – $ 115 Billion of Funding from Ex Alumni, Americans and US Industries alone. Also included is the MIT or Texas A& M or Caltech etc.
However there are over 187 Colleges and Universities that are barely funded for tuition which need money badly. The Biggest Industries always run to Harvard or MIT without realizing that $ 55 Billion is not really that much of a difference from $ 52 Billion – whereas $ 100 Million up from $ 4 Million is a Huge Change.
In 2018 – China funded and invested $ 3.10 Billion in US Universities and Canadian Universities (Not top tier – The Middle tier), especially funding Laser Related works in association with Top Universities in China like Tong Ji. Over 39000 Research Associates, Professors and US Industries are involved in this Funding and unlike India – No Govt can order this funding to be cut off. You need an Government Act and if you do – there are 10000 Lawyers – American Lawyers who will find loopholes around the Act and Law.
Simple Example:-
The Federal Govt passed a law on US Banks to forbid lending to Chinese Clients based on specific criteria.
What do you think happened?
The US Bank – simply purchased a Near Bankrupt Bank in Maldives or Mauritius or Seychelles and began to route all China business through those banks.
And who suggested it?
US Lawyers in return for Millions of Dollars of PRC Money as fees.
In the end – Thats all that matters – MONEY
Answer is- The Funding simply wont be cut off. It will be re-routed in one way or another and Authorities will turn a blind eye to this re-routing because in the end – Business is Business.
Crazier than me
What is something unrealistic that you often see in movies that annoys the hell out of you?
When I was sixteen my step-brother had a 9mm handgun that he kept in a case in his bedroom. One day, while we had several people visiting from out of state, a friend of ours found the weapon. My step-brother and I, and my cousin, discovered this friend sitting alone in the bedroom, gun in hand. My step-brother took the gun, removed the magazine and handed it back, unaware that our friend had already chambered a round. Our friend pulled the trigger.
Firing a gun indoors, or in confined spaces, is NOT accurately portrayed in movies. The blast alone is fairly debilitating. I was standing in front of the weapon when it discharged and (effectively) went temporarily deaf and blind.
Both senses returned gradually. My ears were ringing, sounds were muted, yellow and purple specks of light distorted my vision. I was disoriented. I had watched the kid pull the trigger and it still took me a couple seconds, after my hearing and vision cleared up, to piece together what had happened. I turned around to find my cousin, who was standing directly behind me, in shock. He looked down slowly, lifted his shorts, saw the bullet hole in his leg and proceeded to freak the freak out. He screamed at the top of his lungs, grabbed his leg and ran like hell before any of us could do anything.
In the movies when someone fires a gun indoors they’re never affected by the sound, and, as I’ve learned, they absolutely would be.
In case you’re interested, my cousin was a bit of a husky kid back then. The bullet slipped around the fat, missed everything important and blew out the back of his leg. Apparently there’s a huge scar. I haven’t talked to him since then. I think he’s over us.
Carne Adovada
This is a wonderful filling for burritos or simply great served over rice with the resulting gravy. For better flavor, prepare a day ahead.
yummy
Ingredients
1 tablespoon shortening
4 garlic cloves, minced
8 ounces (about 25) whole dried New Mexican red chile pods
4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons diced yellow onion
1 tablespoon crushed chile pequin
1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried Mexican oregano
3 pounds thick boneless shoulder pork chops
Instructions
Heat shortening in a Dutch oven, and sauté garlic until browned.
Remove the seeds and stems from the chile pods. Rinse chiles in large mixing bowl and drain.
Place moistened chiles on baking sheet and toast carefully in the oven for 5 minutes. They do not need to be completely dried out.
Remove from the oven then let cool.
Add half of the chiles into a blender, and puree with 2 cups warm water. Pour into Dutch oven with previously browned garlic and repeat with the other half of the chiles.
Add the remaining ingredients to the chile (garlic salt, oregano, onion, chile pequin)and let boil on a medium-high heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce will thicken but should remain a little soupy.
Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
Remove the fat from the pork and cut the meat into 3/4 inch cubes. Stir pork into the chile sauce and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
The following day, heat oven to 300 degrees F. Use butter to coat large baking dish, so it doesn’t stick.
Add the marinated carne adovada with sauce into baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 3 hours, stirring once at an hour and a half into baking. At 2 1/2 hours, remove foil (to thicken sauce).
Have you ever had to tell an employee that their attire was inappropriate?
I was working a security job for a friend one winter. Not hard work, but long cold hours outside at temps that regularly hit negative 30C. We were offered a bonus for staying the whole term. And the boss would compound the bonus of people who quit or were fired, so it was split evenly between those who stayed.
We were guarding the building that was a Soundstage, and they didn’t want prop hunters, or stalkers getting into the building. I got to meet a few “famous people” and get fed so much good food.
5 men 3 women were highered to work the site. The three women and one of the men, were dressed for fashion not warmth. And were often miserable, and often complained. And spent a lot of time inside the building we were guarding. I made some pointed hints about dressing warmly, but was rudely brushed off.
I grew up at temps like that and dressed to keep warm. Underwear, thermal layer, sweater or hoodie, insulated jeans, double layer soviet era snow-pants, a SnowGoose Snow Mantra Parka, and a pair of bear hide gauntlets.
The boss asked me why the 4 were always going into the building to warm up. Apparently he had gotten complaints that they were taking advantage of the workers inside asking for favors, hot drinks, or to play music.
And I told him “The skin tight pants, and short fashion jackets. And they won’t wear hats. Or proper mitts. Not little pink or purple cotton gloves, mitts.” I didn’t know that one of the women had been listening from behind a closed door.
I got supreme and royal hell from the 4 of them. I shouldn’t have been criticizing their choice in clothes. How they look is important to them, and how dare I tell them otherwise.
I started laughing and walked out of the room to go see my friend. The next shift there were 2 new women, and 2 new men, and they were dressed for the weather. And I got one fat bonus.
The Real Reason They Want to Ban TikTok
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
I was at a cash and carry stocking up for our shop. By the checkout they stacked up lots of items that had been reduced as they were close to the best before date.
This one time, there was boxes of crisps (chips for our American friends) that had been reduced to £2 a box. They also had an offer on that I you buy 2 boxes you get the 3rd free.
Whoever had set up the POS system screwed up. The box of crisp were normally around £10 a box. So, as they scanned the barcode and then manually reduced it to £2, on the 3rd box it then automatically applied the offer of 3 for two. Instead of taking off £2. It took off £10.
The upshot was that we were getting paid £4 for 3 boxes of crisp.
So like every other upstanding citizen, I immediately went back in the cash and carry, picked up 3 more boxes of crisp along with a few other bits so the mistake went un noticed.
I spent the next few hours in and out, going to a difrent checkout each time. I think I ended up with about 60 boxes of crisps and a £4 discount off the cost of each trip Mostly bread and sandwich fillers.
We gave most of the crisps away to the homeless people in our area and made a van load of sandwiches and cans of pepsi from our ill gotten gains to go with the crisps…
Nobody went hungry that day…
Are Americans aware that Russia and China doesn’t need to lift a finger to destroy USA since Americans are doing good job doing it in their own? Asking as an Australian.
Of course not. The Americans are totally clueless.
They’ve been indoctrinated by their own government.
They’re insular and ignorant of the world outside their country.
They do not know that life can be better than what they have in America. Freedom from gun violence. Freedom from homelessness. Freedom from medical bankruptcy. Freedom from systemic racism (“I can’t breathe”). Freedom from opioid addiction. Freedom from mass incarceration. Freedom from crumbling infrastructure. Freedom from crushing debt, both national and private. Freedom from political turmoil (e.g., January 6, 2021). There is no end to America’s problems.
This is as real as it gets
Is this the end of the United States as a global superpower?
The “end of the road” has been reached.
By the end of this month; May 2024, the United States interest on it’s debt will exceed it’s income. Which means that it cannot pay its debtors.
The United States is BANKRUPT.
The United States is no longer the leading global superpower. Nor, is it still a superpower at all. It is a broken nation in arrears. Oh, It still remains formidable in certain specific areas, but truthfully the nation has run it’s course, and the sunset of it’s greatness is but a memory that lingers.
…
Today, the nations of the world are galloping for the exits. They are looking for ways to prevent their national collapse when the BIG BLACK HOLE makes that huge sucking sound. They do not want to be dragged in with the sinking of the United States demise.
They are distancing themselves from the USD.
The USD, which since the 1960’s has been a Ponzi scheme of unimaginable proportions.
The other nations are forging new alliances, many of which are hidden and “under the table”.
The weakest are hunkering down in a survival crouch. The stronger nations are being more vocal, and those that can are giving the West “the boot” and kicking their paramilitaries out of their nations.
Alliances are being forged and long-time Geo-Political wonks are stunned by the rapidity of change and aggressive nature of the participants.
The UN has been shown to be nothing more than an instrument for American policy.
A replacement for UN, just met last week (early May 2024) with over 100 nations in participation at the 12th International Security Summit.
Oh, so much for the strong “leadership” role of the United States on the global stage. It is openly ridiculed, and despised throughout the world.
…
The United States as an entity includes it’s proxy nations; those slaves that are to be sacrificed on the alter of “democracy” and “freedom”.
When a Western “leader”, dressed in attire that will cost their average citizen a half a year earnings to acquire, talks about “freedom” and “democracy”, the rest of the world roll their eyes. The delusion is strong in the West. Once, the defining characteristic of Americans was it’s insular ignorance, but it is now defined by it’s harsh arrogance and sneer of contempt.
It’s over.
It is just that the collective West is unaware of it.
…
There is a question concerning the final “gasps of breath” of the dying behemoth; will it fade away into the deep black, or will it explode in a brief but stunning supernova? No one really knows. But I can tell you that it is a mystery that will be answered in our collective lifetimes.
So yes.
The United States as a global superpower is over.
…
The mail is still being delivered. The “leaders” are still throwing money around all over the world. The flag still flutters in the breeze, and people are still talking about the next election as if it will change the ultimate trajectory that the United States is rushing toward.
But what is not being said is the truth…
…those that have the means…
… are starting their self-preservation routines…
… hoarding food, batting down the hatches, and covering their asses.
All the time doing so in upmost secrecy.
The Iskander-M missile system: an equal to nuclear weapons
Why do so many people leave McKinsey after 2-4 years if the pay and benefits are excellent?
Working for a company like that is a great opportunity to develop and push yourself to your limits professionally. But in order to enjoy money, you need to be able to spend it. And believe me, with umpteen hour work days, your most common purchases will be overpriced sandwiches, energy drinks/coffe/freshly squeezed juice and suits, and after a 16-hour day, it makes surprisingly little difference if your bed is in a tiny apartment or giant mansion. The luxury car is also of dubious utility, since your and your clients’ offices are in the center and getting there by public transport or just getting an apartment within walking distance is often preferrable to being stuck in traffic in a Tesla or BMW.
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And you are sacrificing a lot – if you want to have a normal relationship, children… it’s tough IMO to combine that with working such long hours long-term. So for many people it’s a good opportunity in the short-mid term, but only some can do it long-term.
Anyhow, I hear the millenials are giving consulting firms hell on the work-life balance issue.
Jerome Funeral Hot Dish
Jerome is a ghost town which clings to the side of Cleopatra Hill on Mingus Mountain near Cottonwood, Arizona. It is the home of the Douglas Mining Museum. This is an interesting recipe from the days when artistic “hippies” revived this ghost town.
hot dish
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
1 (28 ounce) can pork and beans
1 (12 ounce) can corned beef
1 large onion, diced fine
1 bell pepper, diced fine
Instructions
Mix all ingredients.
Put into a 13 x 9 inch baking dish and heat for 25 to 35 minutes at 350 degrees F.
Why Everyone Sees Machine Elves When Tripping on DMT | Andrew Gallimore
Was medieval Europe more advanced than the Roman Empire?
In almost every way, except two.
Sanitation. The Romans famously built aqueducts (many of which survive today because of the quality of engineering. They bathed and had toilets in which poo was flushed away by running water. Proper sewers carried away sewage and waste water.
Medicine. In particular surgery. Gladiators were valuable property and were more often repaired rather than discarded. This expertise also contributed to the survival of soldiers and added to morale, as prompt removal from the battle and treatment meant that wounds were less often fatal. They had pain relief and anaesthesia which enabled better surgery as well as reducing the fear of the patient. If you needed such treatment you would have been generally better off with a Roman military surgeon than any mediaeval one. Operations included the removal of cataracts from the eye.
They were relatively hygienic, but had no proper theory of disease. Thus in the public baths people with diseases bathed at a different time from the general public. Unfortunately, they had the earliest bath.
Gen-Z
We are doomed.
What is the psychology behind addiction?
Take a second, shut your eyes.
You’re going to imagine a world.
In this world, you live in solitary confinement, contained in a small, metal prison.
Every day, you’re brought food and water and your cell is cleaned.
This is all you’ve ever known. Your world never changes.
Until one day, you’re moved to a new prison.
Some man in a white coat puts an IV into your arm. In front of you, there’s a lever.
You try pulling it.
You’re injected with heroin. It reaches your bloodstream almost instantly and your brain just seconds after. It’s almost blissful.
Do you press it again?
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This was the life of dozens of rats.
Did they pull the lever?
Of course they did.
Over and over again.
They’d overdose. They’d die.
Because for them, that brief high was the best thing they’d ever known.
Psychologists and politicians were in simultaneous uproar. Drugs were evil and irresistibly addictive.
Only, rats, like humans, aren’t solitary creatures.
So, what would happen if they changed the circumstances. Sure, a prisoner would give into mind-numbing drugs, but would the average person? Would a happy person?
That’s how the rat park was built.
Researchers put rats together in a comfortable setting. They threw in running wheels and wood chips and let them live a good life.
Naptime and recess
Just hanging out.
There are always some who prefer the rat race.
These rats had access to drugs, just like the first set.
The results?
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The dotted lines are the park rats, the complete lines are the caged ones.
And even though it would be beyond unethical to run the same experiments on humans, there’s a similar real life example.
Bruce Alexander, the man behind the experiments, explains:
The English colonial empire overran hundreds of native tribal groups in Western Canada in the 18th and 19th century.
The native people were moved off expansive tribal lands onto very small reserves, the basis of their cultures.
Their children were taken from their parents and sent off to “residential schools” to be taught the white man’s culture so they could be assimilated.
They were forbidden to speak their native languages and found themselves strangers in their own communities when they finally came home.
Before this point, Mental illness, personal betrayals, and epidemic diseases occasionally occurred in pre-colonial tribes.
Basically, native people had all the problems of their English colonizers except one.
There was so little addiction that it is very difficult to prove from written and oral histories that it existed at all.
But once the native people were colonized alcoholism became close to universal.
There were entire reserves where virtually every teenager and adult was either an alcohol or drug addict or “on the wagon”.
The drug only becomes irresistible when the opportunity for normal social existence is destroyed.
China LAUNCHED Latest Z-10ME Attack Helicopter & SHOCKED Everyone
Luau Pork Teriyaki
Also known as kalua pig or Luau pork, kalua pulled pork is a staple at Hawaiian luaus. They carry on the tradition of cooking a whole pig in an underground oven filled with hot stones. The pig is generously salted and wrapped in banana leaves then lowered into the ground to smoke all day. This slow cooker method also requires all day to cook. You’ll want to plan ahead because to get that divine tenderness you’ll want the pork to cook for at least 16 hours. For more delicate juicy pork recipes try my carnitas, this Mississippi pork, or my sweet pulled pork!
kalua pork 1 3
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds lean, boneless pork
1 cup pineapple, sliced, in syrup
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1/4 green onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 garlic powder
1 cup raw rice
Instructions
Cut pork into slices about 1/4 inch thick.
Drain pineapple, reserving all syrup.
Blend syrup, teriyaki sauce, green onions, ginger and garlic powder. Pour over pork and pineapple.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Meanwhile, cook rice according to package directions and prepare grill.
Remove pork from marinade and grill about 5 inches from hot coals for about 5 minutes on each side or until completely cooked.
Pour pineapple and remaining marinade into large skillet. Bring to a boil.
Remove from heat and serve pork with sauce and pineapple over rice.
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
Oh boy. I worked 12 years in wafer fabrication for an international electronics company. A fab, as it affectionately known, is a clean room. The smallest smudge of dust will kill a computer chip. To enter, we had to go through an air shower to blow any dust off us. And we had to wear a bunny suit.
A bunny suit isn’t remotely connected to Playboy. It is a lint free coverall that covers head to toe. The head is covered by kind of a cloth helmet, a surgeon’s mask over the nose and mouth, gloves, and shoes which are worn only in the fab. This suit is worn over your street clothes.
Sorry to be so lengthy but it’s important. If you have to go to the restroom, a person must exit the clean room to the changing room. Take off shoes, headcovering, gloves. coverall. Stash in locker. Put on your shoes that are worn only within the building. ( you put these on when you entered from outside, street shoes were in a little locker).
So our boss decided we were taking too much time on bathroom breaks (oh yeah, we worked 12-hr graveyard shifts, 6 to 6). Our team was about 2/3rds female and well, if you gotta go, you gotta go. Take suit off, maybe go to your big locker to get lady supplies if needed, go to restroom, return to changing room, suit up, air shower and back to work. And now we gotta go to see the boss to let him know I’ve gotta pee, real bad.
It all lasted two days. Julie went in one evening, looked at him, and said, it’s the first day of my period and bleeding like a stuck hog and I gotta change my tampon and pad. And pee.
TMI, boss?
Crippled by…
The forever “footprint”.
What was the most blatant scam a customer has ever failed to get away with?
I was an assistant manager at a large chain book store. One day, an older, well-dressed man came into the store. I watched him walk to the medical book section, pull a text book (I don’t remember the exact value but it was around $150) off the shelf and walk up to the cash registers. He then explained to the associate that he had purchased the book the week prior, it was the wrong book, and he wanted a refund. She asked for the receipt, which he didn’t have, so she told him that she would have to contact her manager (me).
I came up to the counter and politely asked the customer what he needed help with. Keep in mind that I watched him take the book off the shelf, so I knew that he was scamming us. I asked him at which of our stores he had bought the book. He said that it was ours and acted surprised that I didn’t recognize him because, “I am a very regular customer and, in fact, you rang me up!” Our system allowed us to search the sale history of every book in our inventory, so I looked it up and showed him that the last sale of that particular book was more than one year ago, and the most recent sale in our region was more than three months prior, at a store 250 miles away. At this point, he became rather irate and asked me if I was calling him a liar. I responded that no, but maybe he was mistaken and had purchased the book from one of our competitors. Again, he started yelling at me and demanded that I pull up the security footage from the week before to prove that he had, indeed, purchased the book. I responded with, “Okay, and while we’re at it, I’ll pull up the footage from ten minutes ago that clearly shows you taking the book off the shelf and bringing it the register. Then, we can call the police and see what they want to do.” He threw the book on the floor and ran out the door.
We didn’t have security cameras in the store.
What’s a nice thing you did for someone but backfired immensely?
Before I had a truck, I borrowed my friends truck to move to a different city. I put 2000 km on it and I thought I would do an oil change, fill up with gas, and all the fluids before I returned it to him, with a gift certificate to a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine.
I told him what I had done, and I had messed up. He was using some super expensive synthetic oil and I had just used a good grade of regular oil. I told him to drive it until he needed an oil change, and I would pay for his synthetic oil change as well. However he was worried that switching between regular oil and synthetic would cause problems, so he insisted on changing the oil that very day, so that it wasn’t driven with regular oil.
He had plans for the afternoon, and spending an hour at the quick oil change place, messed things up.
I doubt driving on regular oil would have caused a problem, but its his truck, and I messed up by thinking I was going to surprise him with something extra.
Why Ancient People Didn’t See the Color Blue
What do men find the most unattractive about a woman who drinks?
I am a very moderate drinker. Maybe two or three drinks a week.
Although I have dated and lived with a fair number of women, only one of them was a real drinker. I dated her for a few months.
This woman was a high-functioning alcoholic. She held down a management position in retail, she was never falling-down drunk, and I never saw her throw up or get in a fight.
But man, could she drink. She was a world-class darts player, and she played for drinks. She almost always won. She’d hit a bar at about 10:00, and drink steadily until closing time (1:00 AM then). I’d say that in a typical night she’d have 10 drinks or so.
And then she’d head home, go to bed, and wake up the next morning ready to do it again.
And in answer to the question about what I found most unattractive?
It was that I started drinking more as well.
In fact, I decided to break up with her one Sunday. I had bought a bottle of rum on Friday, and on Sunday night I went to make a drink and discovered that the bottle was empty — I had drunk the whole bottle in three days.
That was not good. A bottle of rum usually lasted me a few months.
And that was the end of that.
The Video That Got Andrew Tate ARRESTED
Hit the Gay wall.
What’s your favorite programming comic strip?
This is just one comic, not a recurring strip.
I’ve seen this thing floating around for years in a variety of forms. I think it’s brilliant, but I have absolutely no idea who the original author was.
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And it really sums up what I like about being a lone coder. I get to play all the roles, sometimes even that of end user. 😉
Edit 20190908:
Looks like we have a genuine mystery on our hands. One commenter said he believed the origin was in some IBM documentation from about the time I was busy being born.
Thanks to Richard Smith for providing these two very interesting links:
As a teacher, have you ever had an unforgettable student? What was he/she like?
I have one right now. Writing this anon in case she is on Quora, so I don’t embarrass her 🙂
She came to me when I was working as a math tutor. She was failing Algebra and desperately needed help. It soon became clear that she was not just ignorant of basic math principles, but had some kind of cognitive issue with processing mathematical concepts. Over time I figured out that she had trouble with abstract visualization. She couldn’t envision shapes or “see” how various processes fit together. She couldn’t even look at two angles and see that one was larger than the other. It was the math version of a reading disabliity, and merely explaining material to her wasn’t going to get her past it.
I spent over a month just trying to get the basics across to her. Concepts like “when you multiply a negative times a negative you get a positive” just would not stick…and without those basics, how much algebra can you do? Honestly, there were moments I really despaired, and wondered whether it would even be possible to get her to the point where she could pass the course. And I know she was bereft of an hope. despairing. To her it was utterly confusing and totally overwhelming, and I know that deep inside she had no hope it would ever be otherwise.
But she worked. Even when she didn’t believe it would do any good, she worked, harder than I have ever seen anyone work in my life. No matter how depressed she was on a given day, or how confusing the work was, she always gave it her best. There were days the math went so badly, and she felt so overwhelmed, I sensed that inside she wanted to cry. Some day she was so exhausted from school she could barely add two numbers. But she never gave up.
I have never seen anyone so determined, in my life. And when she passed Algebra (got a B, actually), it was because of that quality in her. I can’t think of any other student I’ve had who would fight what seemed like a losing battle for so long, without ever flagging.
This year she took Geometry. I was dreading it even more than she was, because by then I understood more about how her brain processed math, and the visualization skills required by Geometry just weren’t there. Geometry spoke to the very heart of her cognitive weakness. And….she just passed her SOL test, and it looks like she’ll probably pass the course. I can’t even describe to you what a monumental thing that is. And it was possible only because of her amazing attitude. She just never gives up, no matter how bad it gets.
A girl like that can do anything she puts her mind to, in life.
Totally inspiring.
Shirakawa-go, The Most Beautiful Village in Japan | 4K
Very nice.
Should we Americans allow Australia to be a part of the USA?
“Allow” !?
Honey, you couldn’t pay us to join that disaster.
Australians like our freedom. We like our country schools where the fences are little things an adult could step over, if there’s even a fence at all. We like sending our kids to school and knowing nobody’s going to shoot them in the classroom. We like going shopping and knowing that nobody’s going to shoot us in the shopping centre. We like eating food and knowing no corporation has added poisons and carcinogens to it to make it more shelf-stable or more addicting.
We like being able to collect the rainwater off our own roof and not being told we’re not allowed because our own roof water doesn’t belong to us. We like being allowed to put a vegetable garden in our front yard if we so choose without a HOA walking in and telling us we can’t do that on our own land.
We like owning our own bodies. Our sex education in school is pretty good and we have good access to contraceptives, but if an unwanted pregnancy is going to ruin a student’s career or if a wanted pregnancy goes wrong and looks like it might kill the mother, we don’t have to deal with politicians trying to take away our very basic human freedom to decide how our bodies will and will not be used by others.
We like our freedom to get medical care as needed. Nobody wants cancer or diabetes, nobody wants their baby to be born premature and needing a whole lot of very specialised care just to keep them alive, but being able to get the care we need when we need it really matters to us. We don’t want our employer or an insurance corporation deciding that they don’t approve of that care or they just don’t want to pay for it and thus deciding not to let us have the care we need to stay alive.
We like our kids getting a decent education that doesn’t depend on whether the people in our neighbourhood are rich or poor, and isn’t hostage to the whims of a bunch of religious nutters. We like knowing that our teachers are paid an honest wage and they’re not spending their evenings tending bars or driving Uber just to be able to pay their bills. We like our kids getting a facts-based education that doesn’t pretend anyone’s religious mumbo-jumbo is somehow equal to actual empirical science.
We like going to restaurants and not being obliged to tip. Sure, if the server is really great or if we’ve somehow made extra work for them, it’s sweet to leave them a nice gift, but they’re not depending on tips to pay their bills because they’re already paid an honest wage by their employer.
Most Australians wouldn’t even travel to the US if you paid our airfare. As for letting that failed-state disaster take over our country? Not happening.
Be more honest
What was your most horrible experience with a construction contractor or an architect?
Many years ago a friend introduced me to an Architect.
He needed a job done. It was a big job, a 12 square deck, handrails 2 sets of steps.
I really didn’t need the work and only did it because of my friend.
The job meant I had to stay away from my family for two weeks.
I worked an average of 16 hours everyday in an effort to finish the job early. It was the middle of summer and extremely hot everyday.
The client also worked long hours and came home late.
The job was finished on time . I tabulated the hours and charged him at a reasonable rate.
When I gave him the bill he was indignant and refused to pay the amount.
Not only did I give him a discount on my normal hourly rate I put nothing in for profit, like he would have. He figured that because I spent 14 days building his deck, regardless of the amount of hours I spent, that I was only entitled to an 8 hour pay day.
So I explained to him that I worked at least 16 hours a day.
He said “How do I know that’? His question was very unprofessional considering I gave him his due as a fellow professional and that I am a very honest person. Now I was the one feeling indignant.
I was stunned that he could not understand the concept of what I did considering he is ‘in’ the building business. I called my friend who also tried to reason with him. It was a waste of time.
As I was packing up my tools for a split second I considered putting my electrical saw through his deck. I am glad I didn’t. I learned a valuable lesson after that day about trusting ‘professionals’
Instead of ipads
When in your life did you feel like you dodged a bullet by not getting married?
Not me, my sister. When she was eighteen-nineteen she was pretty serious with this guy. He was nice, intelligent and respectful to our mother; but the dude seemed to have below zero ambition in life. No job, no income, dropped out for reasons I never ascertained, and seemed to live by a philosophy of “if you’re not sleeping on the floor with your leather jacket as a blanket, you’re not true punk-rock.” Polar opposite of my sister.
Some family of his in Minnesota (we lived in California) offered to take them in. God knows why, but my sister was on the verge of leaving everything for a state she’d never been to, to live with people she’d never met, because of love for a guy who’d never shown any indication that he would be seeking gainful employment.
She snapped out of it at the last minute – on her own; nobody had to convince her – and broke up with him. He made the move alone. Apparently he took this really hard; and while to my knowledge he had never been much of a drinker or drug user, he started slamming heroin and she got a phone call about a year later that an overdose had claimed his life.
My sister has a good head on her shoulders. She was devastated, but I never heard her blame herself as some people might. She wished him well, but it wasn’t her responsibility to care for a grown, capable man, and she saw this. He made his choice to live in depression and self-pity. As a recovering alcoholic myself, I can sympathize without excusing. Meanwhile, my sister’s life path brought her to her husband and the two children they have together. It’s sad that her ex couldn’t get his life together and went out like that, but she definitely dodged a bullet.
Advanced Ancient Machinery Discovered in the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid | Chris Dunn
Pretty interesting.
How easy is it currently to reintegrate overseas Chinese who grew up and spent most of their life abroad?
It depends on a lot of things.
For the near overseas Chinese who live in say Malaysia probably very easily.
For those who live further away? Difficult.
The ease of your reintegration depends entirely on IF you were exposed and picked up Chinese culture when you were young. Myself? As a baby I was given to my grandparents to look after until I was about 6. I absorbed tons of Chinese culture and language. I then visited regularly and kept some of my language skills. But I still grew up in the UK mostly and through osmosis absorbed a lot of their culture and thinking.
My dad grew up here in China and left when he was 16, he’s spent more time in the Netherlands and the UK than here. He can return and fit in with his village clan.
I made a generational seaturtle return.
Here’s the thing though. Neither of us quite fit.
My dad while he was away? His home changed enormously. I remember in the mid 00s standing in the middle of a town and he stood there for a moment. He said when he was a child he used to go fishing and swimming here. The coast was now about 3 miles away.
As such we tend to stick amongst our own groupings.
My dad hangs around a lot with other overseas Chinese who left with him in the 60s. He talks with people here who’ve been here all their lives and finds he hasn’t got all that much in common with them and entirely different life experiences.
Me? Despite this being my 8th year here on a permanent basis? I can count my born here friends on one hand. I’ve got plenty of acquaintances but I’m not sure I could classify them as friends. I find it far easier to talk to and be friendly with overseas born types and that includes Indians, Nepalis and UK born Chinese but not American borns.
It might just be a HK thing, as I was far friendlier with people in the Mainland. So why not move there (again). Well I’ve dug myself a rut already and I’m stuck in it.
But as I’ve written prior, a return isn’t for me (though life wise it worked out well) it’s for those who come after me.
I see my UK nieces and nephews some do ok but they suffer the same identity crises as we did.
History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.”
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During the Cold War period after World War II, two “international orders” emerged in the world, namely the “socialist international order” led by the Soviet Union and the so-called “liberal international order” led by the United States. After the end of the Cold War, the “liberal international order” was the only international order in the world. Since then, the United States has continued to use coercion, inducement, and regime change to bring more and more countries into this dominant international order, which has led to many conflicts between the United States and other countries, particularly China and Russia. However, in the past decade or so, the “liberal international order” has increasingly become unviable and unsustainable. The reasons include the fact that more and more countries believe it is an unfair, inequitable, and unreasonable international order catering primarily to the interests of the West and that the United States itself often violates and distorts the “rules of the game” devised by itself.
From a historical perspective, the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are significant game-changing events that would bring about “tectonic changes” in the global political landscape that would, in turn, lead to the complete collapse of the “liberal international order” in different ways.
First, they verify that the United Nations, as the linchpin of the “liberal international order,” can no longer serve as an organisation for maintaining world peace and international order under the deliberate neglect, defiance, and disruption of the United States. The United Nations cannot act to avoid and end the Russo-Ukrainian war. Moreover, the United States blatantly vetoed most countries in the United Nations’ call for a ceasefire in Gaza. When the United Nations becomes an effete and ineffective international institution, the unilateral actions of the United States taken without the approval of the United Nations will increasingly lose the endorsement and goodwill of the international community, and the international order it leads will also lose legitimacy and support.
Second, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States not only condoned but even provided military and diplomatic support to Israel’s near-genocide atrocities against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza, most deplorably women and children. Israel’s actions in Gaza seriously violate and make a mockery of the “liberal international order’s” proclaimed respect for human rights and freedoms and the prohibition and condemnation of genocide. The United States and its Western allies disregarded Israel’s atrocities, which is entirely contrary to their position of severely accusing and condemning Russia for committing “war crimes” in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has unmistakably and fully exposed the moral hypocrisy and double standards of the United States and the West. It has triggered intense anger and frustration in the international community and brought about the complete moral bankruptcy of the Western camp led by the United States. In other words, the “liberal international order” no longer has powerful moral moorings. Consequently, the “liberal international order” will continue to shrink as more and more countries are reluctant to imbue it with legitimacy. The United States’ global leadership position will also be seriously jeopardised.
Third, the Russo-Ukraine war proved that the “liberal international order” led by the United States is dangerously “expansionary” and “coercive” in nature, thus posing a clear and serious threat to world peace. The United States demands all countries participating in the “liberal international order” adopt Western political and economic models and values. It does not accept or tolerate the existence of other political and economic models and values. The eastward expansion of NATO promoted by the United States can be understood as a strategic plan to further expand the “liberal international order” in Europe to contain Russia and ultimately change its political and economic system in the Western direction. In a sense, the essence of the Russo-Ukrainian war can thus be understood as a “defensive” maneuver by Russia to safeguard the country’s sovereignty, security, and strategic autonomy. Since the continuous and reckless expansion of the “liberal international order” has triggered the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the scale of the Russo-Ukrainian war is likely to expand and pose a graver threat to world peace and development, other countries in the world will be increasingly dismissive of the “liberal international order.” A lot of countries are already deeply apprehensive about a devastating global war triggered by the United States’ dogged efforts at containment of China to make it a qualified member of the “liberal international order.” Global resistance to it is bound to grow day by day. Now, the United States is on the verge of failure in the Russia-Ukraine war, which is commonly seen as a “proxy war” between the United States and Russia. This will encourage and embolden more countries to resist the “liberal international order” in various ways in the days to come.
History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.” The Russo-Ukraine war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have already proven that the US-led international order cannot bring peace, development, fairness, and justice to the world; instead, it is becoming increasingly an impetus for instability and even war. The balance of power in the world is shifting irreversibly away from the West with the unstoppable demise of the “liberal international order.” Admittedly, the “liberal international order” may still exist in some form, but its prominent members will be mainly confined to the United States and some of its Western allies. Inevitably, with the gradual demise of the “liberal international order,” the world will experience a period of “international disorder” and the ensuing instability and uncertainty. However, in the past period, many non-Western countries, especially China, have begun to actively and urgently explore alternatives to the “liberal international order.” The Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will undoubtedly accelerate the pace of work in this area, eventually promoting the birth of a new, fairer, equitable, and reasonable international order that is conducive to world peace and development and respects the interests and needs of all countries.
I’ve been playing with text to pictures
Some of them include the retro-pulp science fiction cover theme.
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What was the most bone-chilling sentence a loved one ever said to you?
My boyfriend Ben and I have been dating for 4 years.
We’ve seen the best of each other, but that also meant that he’s seen the worst of me.
Dating me is like walking on eggshells; I have depression and Borderline Personality disorder, which meant that I can have intense mood swings and have severe issues with abandonment. That meant Ben dealt with me monthly, with me crying constantly about how I’m a fraud and how he’s better off without me. How people won’t miss me when I’m dead.
Every month, he holds me while I cry and rage at the world around me.
Every month, he plays the knight, and I play the monster, and we fight.
One day, after a particularly bad argument, I really don’t know what it was about, Ben and I had to physically separate ourselves and cool down in different rooms.
When we came back together, he looked…exhausted. He was just staring into space and he just quietly told me to get help.
And when I didn’t say anything, he looked at me and, word for word, said
“Vanessa, I want you to get help because I have nightmares that one day, one very bad day for you, will cause our child that we will someday have, to find mommy hanging from a noose.
I’m scared for you. Of you.”
I went into counselling afterwards.
Bailey’s Lasagna
Lasagna
Yield: 8 to 12 servings
Equipment
Lasagna pan
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 pound Italian sausage
1 (67 ounce) jar Prego Traditional spaghetti sauce
12 lasagna noodles
14 ounces ricotta cheese
2 large eggs, beaten
Salt and black pepper
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese or other cheese of choice
1/2 cup freshly-grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Brown ground beef and Italian sausage together until cooked through, then drain well. Combine with the spaghetti sauce. Set aside.
Cook lasagna noodles until al dente, according to package directions. Drain and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Set aside.
For the filling, combine ricotta cheese and eggs. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Spread a thin layer of the spaghetti sauce over the bottom of a lasagna pan.
Lay lasagna noodles lengthwise in the casserole dish.
Spoon and spread spaghetti sauce over the noodles.
Spoon and spread filling over the spaghetti sauce.
Repeat steps 6, 7 and 8 twice.
Sprinkle shredded mozzarella or cheese of choice over the top.
Bake, covered and sealed with foil (DO NOT LET THE FOIL TOUCH THE CHEESE), for 30 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and cheese is melted.
Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer to brown the cheese.
Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.
Top each serving with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese.
Notes
Serve with garlic bread.
Refrigerate any leftovers.
Another one
Chopsticks
One of Jerry Seinfeld’s jokes is why do the Chinese still use chopsticks. He says something like “They’ve seen the fork…” But in all reality, with the invention of forks, spoons, knives, what is the possible advantage of using chopsticks?
Behold.
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This also works with common snacks like chips, cheetos, really any “finger food.” Likewise Hara Shidho points out that it works on salads too; eating leafy greens is precisely what chopsticks are really good at in Chinese cuisine. Chopsticks are also much better at deboning fish, with Japanese chopsticks particularly designed for the task. Quite frankly I do not understand how anyone is cleanly deboning fish with forks, especially if the fish have much tinier, irregular bones that do not conform to the spine or edge.
It is also a misnomer to believe that there are no forks, spoons, and knives in China. They just have their time and place, and no they are not imports from the West as they have been around for millennia. I suspect that for Chinese people, ease of dining is where one optimizes for the least switches of utensils while keeping hands clean; removing that latter part gives us Indian hand usage, while the West seems to not care for utensil switching (or just abuses forks to fulfill the purpose of a spoon).
Really though, just think of chopsticks as two very long fingers that are easily washable.
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What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
Oh oh!
This happened to a new manager of mine who managed to cause havoc in our office within the first week of his employment.
My previous manager left for a better offer and the replacement didn’t arrive until 1 whole month after he left the company.
So there wasn’t anyone to train, guide or handover the duties/job scope to the new manager.
However, my previous manager, being a very smart man, created a folder with all the job scope, documents, handovers, etc. in our common (computer) server for us to handover to whoever that will take over when he/she eventually arrived.
So, when the replacement finally arrived, naturally very lost and confused, me and my colleagues did our best to guide him along and showed him the folder which my previous manager left for him.
It was one of the busiest periods of the year, so none of us were able to sit down and spoon feed all the details/information to him, as such we pretty much just left him to fiddle his computer and to do his own research.
I mean, he’s supposed to be our manager. He should have some idea of what to expect, right?
Thus, the first week went by, the tsunami was over and my colleagues and I finally got a chance to catch up on our work. The moment we switched on our computer to enter the common server, all of our jaw dropped simultaneously.
The idiot has reorganized the WHOLE SERVER!!
When we confronted him about the server, his excuse was that the server looks very messy and he want to tidy it up. Oh, and if we were to see if anything that is out of place, please help him to sort out into the correct folder.
This idiot had no idea how much damage he has caused us!
For those of you who are wondering what’s the big deal, by reorganizing the server, the idiot rendered all our shortcuts/hyperlinks useless.
Furthermore, a lot of our files & documents are named via codes/serial numbers, without the proper directory we have no idea where are all our past records/documents!!
The worst part is that the damage is irreversible as he had tampered with our backup folder as well…
We spent the next few MONTHS trying to find and sort out all our lost documents but till this day we are still unable to find about 40% of them. (the idiot still insists that he did not delete any of our files, it’s all in there, he just misplaced them…)
The idiot was eventually let go due to multiple accounts of incompetency after 1 year of service (so much screaming from my client).
There were so many stories from this idiot I’m surprised that he managed to somehow last the whole year.
Edit:
Now to verify, yes you can say i’m being harsh for calling him an idiot repeatedly.
We gave him a ton of advice but none were heeded; we tried to be patient with him but when the client openly demanded him to be fired in the meeting with your CEO on speaker phone, you know shit just got real.
And just to be clear, he was hired as a Manager, so not knowing basic computer skill or even some basic level of competency is not an excuse. He is definitely not new in this field and how he managed to secure a 5 figures salary previously is still a mystery to me.
REAL stuff, girls.
Chinese EV and the USA
No American car buyer today can purchase a Chinese brand (Bloomberg Business 3–18–2024) electric vehicle. And no one is really sure when these EVs will arrive on US shores. But the prospect of cheap Chinese-made EVs is already causing sleepless nights in Detroit. The primary threat comes from cars such as BYD Co.’s Seagull hatchback, which features angular styling, a two-tone dashboard shaped like a seagull’s wing and six airbags. There’s even a 10-inch rotating touchscreen for its infotainment system. BYD’s company slogan, “Build Your Dreams,” is embossed on the rear of the vehicle.
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A BYD Co. Seagull electric vehicle at the Shanghai Auto Show. Photographer: Bloomberg
The car’s most extraordinary feature, though, is its $9,698 price tag. That undercuts the average price of an American EV by more than $50,000, and is only a little more than a high-end Vespa scooter. Such aggressive pricing by BYD, which surpassed Tesla Inc. in late 2023 to become the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles, is indicative of how Chinese auto manufacturers will likely force US makers to pivot away from mainly producing expensive second cars for the affluent and toward more reasonably priced EVs for Everyman.
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Just as the long-feared prospect of a revolutionary EV from US tech giant Apple Inc. has receded, American carmakers now face a possibly greater challenge from Asia. China, long a manufacturing hub for Western companies’ products, is hellbent on expanding its own companies’ reach around the globe. It’s already the biggest market for EVs , and it’s using that scale and manufacturing know-how to help expand sales of competitively priced Chinese models to an increasingly climate-conscious world.
For now, the Chinese onslaught is being kept at bay by stiff tariffs and moves to erect even tougher trade barriers against the US’s geopolitical adversary. Read Keith Naughton
And for more on how BYD has become the world’s top-selling electric carmaker, see the Bloomberg Originals documentary: How China’s BYD Overtook Tesla
Siphoning off benefits
Do Western civilians generally wish to conquer the world?
Yes they do.
You can see the usual suspects the other posters say NO WE DON’T!
But they would say that wouldn’t they?
But there’s a difference between wanting and capability to do so.
We literally have seen the last 20 years. How most westerners were completely onboard with the genocide in Iraq. Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and others.
These mass murders of brown people were extremely popular.
Liberals will of course bullshit that they were against it, oh the protested.
But here’s the killer thing they literally have no way of getting around. If those wars were so unpopular why didn’t the governments that initiated them get voted out next time?
2001 UK election, 2005 election.
Yet Labour remained incredibly popular after same with Bush.
They’ll then use one of two mental gymnastics:
They don’t represent us! Despite always claiming democracy is the WILL OF THE PEOPLE!
Brown people aren’t people! So killing them is totally OK.
Colin Riegels is like that, he made a post about how the post WW2 dominance of the USA was a good thing a year or so back. Oh I mean fuck all the people who were killed by it right?
Fucken liberals.
Do you think CATL, China’s largest battery maker, poses a security threat to the US?
Nobody is a security threat to the U.S. The U.S. is the biggest security threat to itself. Trying to do regime change in other nations is a security threat to the U.S. Starting a colour revolution to the world U.S. a security threat to the U.S. like what Maidan is now putting the US in a step nearer to a nuclear war! If you don’t want to buy batteries from China don’t buy!
China don’t need you to buy! You wanted a cheaper and better value for money battery! If you want your people to buy at 5 times the price go right ahead!
3. If you find someone smarter than you, work with them, don’t compete. Competition is a weakness.
4. The family you create is more important than the family you come from.
5. Your current job doesn’t care about you. They only pay you enough to kill your dreams.
6. Free yourself from society’s advice, because most of them have no idea what they’re doing.
7. Most people drift through life.
They have no purpose, no direction, and zero intent.
Learn their needs and lead them.
8. It’s better to have 1 friend who’s:
Happy for you
Supports your wins
Encourages your dreams
Than a bunch of acquaintances who are:
Lazy
Self-centred
Jealous of your success
9. You’ll be 10x happier if you forgive your parents and stop blaming them.
10. No one will ever come save you. Your life is 100% your responsibility.
11. Your inner circle should be more focused on money, success, and starting a family.
12. You don’t need 100 self-help books. All you need is actions and self-discipline.
What is the rudest thing someone did to you at the gym?
I work out generally at 5 am when the gym first opens. There is little old lady who comes in and works out. She’s small and frail, but in great shape for her age. I’m putting her 70–80 to be honest. I used to be really impressed by her as well, one of those #goals type deals. But that all changed……..
I began to notice she owned the place, and everyone kind of let her go first because of age. No worries, mad respect still but it did come off a little odd. Now, she parks next to me most days as we wait for the gym to open. She opens her door, and SMACK, hits my car door. Huh, she just walks right in no big deal. I’m sitting in the car too. Wow, hmm I don’t know about her after all.
2 weeks later, she is pulling in and side swipes me just a hair. Backs up, and moves to another spot. Now, yes this is illegal and I could have called the police. I didn’t, I guess I’m too soft. All I had was a small scratch, on a low end car with plenty more blemishes. I let it pass.
Fast forward another month, and out the gym window I see flashing lights.
She scraped someone else so bad it left a big mark on her car too! They called the police and she got a ticket for hit and run and likely lost her license now. Moral of the story, call people out for being rude or it will only get worse.
I Drove Around California For A Month. It Was A Disaster.
When I was really young, say 2 to 3 years old, I had these reoccurring dreams of me being beheaded by guillotine. Of course at that age, I had no idea about what a guillotine was, or the French Revolution, or anything like that. But my dreams were consistent.
My sister and I were both led up the stairs to this wooden platform. She was always fist, and she laid down on the board, and there was a big crowd that was watching. She laid down and this metal piece slid down and hit her, but her head did not come off, so they had to raise it again, and then the second try it came off. And her head fell into this woven basket.
Then it was my turn.
I went onto the gallows and laid down. I faced the basket and it it was like five heads. All were lifeless, including my sister. She had blonde hair and it was in a tight bun. Then the steel knife went down. My head moved a little, but I felt nothing. And just waited while it went back up again.
Then it slid down. I saw the bucket get up close and my last image was the view of the gallows from the bucket looking up as darkness surrounded me.
Today, I am pretty much convinced that it was a past life that I was remembering, or maybe a television show that my parents must have watched when I was six months or so old. The take away from this are numerous. For if it was a memory from a prior life, then…
My sister and I shared reincarnation experiences.
The guillotine was not fool-proof, and in fact was very inefficient, and multiple chops were required to kill someone.
I still retained consciousness for a few seconds after my head was removed.
I felt no pain, once the first chop hit.
Interesting.
What do you think about this one, eh?
Today…
Have you ever seen an employee get fired on the spot because of you?
Yep. I was a worker at McDonalds and only sixteen at the time, and we had a new employee. He was on grills, and I was on table right behind him. There’s another side to the table that cannot see the grills through the cabinets of food, so when any cook-to-order meat, in this case quarter pounder, was finished, the grill person would call “Quarter’s up!” So side two would know to get their meat and send the burger on its way.
Well, our new employee absolutely refused to talk near me. I didn’t really get it, he would talk to other people. But he wouldn’t call out quarter’s up for the life of him. After multiple times of doing it myself, I finally stopped and took the meat and held it back to him and asked him to call it out himself. He slammed it into the table and splattered grease into it. I stood there and told him he needed to call out quarter’s up for side two. He would not, he turned back to his grills and ignored me.
I called out quarter’s up and slid them their meat, and the shift continued. I stopped calling out quarters’ up, mostly because I was busy keeping up with the lunch rush and didn’t notice when he slid the meat onto the table out of my line of sight. And out of side two’s sight.
So a manager asks why side two is so slow, and they explain they don’t have their quarter meat and I would slide it over to them and apologize. Someone would tell the grill person to call it out, and the shift would continue again until he went on break.
I didn’t actually know anything had happened until the big boss of the store was called in and he came rushing up to me and told me very sternly,”If someone threatens you like that again, you need to tell management immediately!”
I did not understand. Nobody threatened me?
Turns out, when the grill dude went on break, he loudly told everyone how he was going to “beat the shit out of that little kid.”
The Four Stooges saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge in Crimea with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.
President Putin, in his comprehensive interview to Dmitry Kiselev for Russia 1/RIA Novosti, did not fail to address it:
“They are fantasizing, encouraging themselves, first of all.
Secondly, they are trying to intimidate us.
As for the Federal Republic of Germany, there are constitutional problems there.
They correctly say: if these Taurus hit that part of the Crimean Bridge, which, of course, even according to their concepts, is Russian territory, this is a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Yet it gets curioser and curioser.
When the transcript of the Taurus leak was published by RT, everyone was able to hear Brigadier General Frank Gräfe – head of operations of the German Air Force – speaking with Lieutenant Colonel Fenske from the German Space Command Air Operations on the plan to deploy Taurus systems in Ukraine.
A key point is that during the plotting, these two mention that plans were already discussed “four months ago” with “Schneider”, the successor of “Wilsbach”.
Well, these are German names, of course. Thus it did not dawn on anyone that (Kevin) Schneider and (Kenneth) Wilsbach could instead be… Americans.
Yet that did raise the eyebrows of German investigative journalist Dirk Pohlmann – who I had the pleasure to meet in Berlin years ago – and his fellow researcher Tobias Augenbraun.
They found out that the German-sounding names did identify Americans.
Not only that: none less than the former and the current Commanders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.
The Four (actually Six) Stooges element gets an extra boost when it is established that Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz and his Totalenkrieg Minister Pistorius learned about the Taurus plan no less than four months later.
So here apparently we have a clear cut case of top German military officers taking direct orders regarding an attack on Crimea – part of the Russian Federation – directly from American officers in the Pacific Air Forces.
That in itself opens the dossier to a large spectrum ranging from national treason (against Germany) to casus belli (from the point of view of Russia).
Of course none of that is being discussed on German mainstream media.
After all, the only thing that seems to disturb Brigadier General Gräfe is that German media may start seriously prying on the Bundeswehr’s Multiple Stooges methods.
The only ones who actually did proper investigation were Pohlmann and Augenbaun.
It would be too much to expect from German media of the “Bild” type to analyze what would be the Russian response to the Multiple Stooge shenanigans against Crimea: a devastating retaliation against Berlin assets.
It’s so cold in Alaska
During the jolly Bundeswehr conversation yet another “plan” is mentioned:
“Nee, nee. Ich mein wegen der anderen Sache.” (“No, no. I mean the other matter.”) Then: “Ähm … meinst du Alaska jetzt?” (“Ahm, you mean Alaska now?”)
It all gest juicier when it is known that German Space Command Air Operations Centre officer Florstedt will meet none other than Schneider next Tuesday, March 19, in Alaska.
And Gräfe will also “have to go back to Alaska” to explain everything all over again to Schneider as he is “new” in the post.
So the question is: Why Alaska?
Enter American shadowplay on a lot of “activities” in Alaska – which happen to concern none other than China.
And there’s more: during the conversation still another “plan” (“Auftrag”, meaning “mission”) also surfaces, bearing a not clearly understandable code name sounding like “Kumalatra”.
What all of that tells us is that the Crash Test Dummy administration in the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon seem to betting, in desperation, on Total War in the black soil of Novorossiya.
And now they are sayin’ it out loud, with no shadow play, and coming directly from the head of the CIA, William Burns, who obviously sucks at secrecy.
This is what Burns told the members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week:
“I think without supplemental assistance in 2024, you’re going to see more Avdeevkas, and that – it seems to me – would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States.”
That spells out how much the Avdeevka trauma is impressed on the psyche of the U.S. intel apparatus.
Yet there’s more:
“With supplemental assistance, Ukraine can hold its own on the front lines through 2024 and into early 2025. Ukraine can continue to exact costs against Russia, not only with deep penetration strikes in Crimea, but also against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”
Here we go: Crimea all over again.
Burns actually believes that the humongous $60 billion new “aid” package which must be approved by the U.S. Congress will enable Kiev to launch an “offensive” by the end of 2024.
The only thing he gets right is that if there’s no new package, there will be “significant territorial losses for Ukraine this year.”
Burns may not be the brightest bulb in the – intel – room. A long time ago he was a diplomat/CIA asset in Moscow, and seems to have learned nothing.
Apart from letting cats and kitties galore out of the bag. It’s not only about attacking Crimea.
This one is being read with surpreme delight in Beijing:
“The U.S. is providing assistance to Ukraine in part because such activities help curb China.”
Burns nailed his Cat Out of the Bag Oscar win when he said
“if we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea”.
The inestimable Andrei Martyanov perfectly summed up the astonishing incompetence, peppered with tawdry exceptionalism, that permeates this performance by Burns.
There are things…
...“they cannot grasp due to low level of education and culture.
This is a new paradigm for them – all of them are ‘graduates’ of the school of ‘beating the crap from defenseless nations’ strategic ‘studies’, and with the level of economic ‘science’ in the West they cannot grasp how this all unfolds.”
So what is left is panic, as expressed by Burns in the Senate, mixed with the impotence in understanding a “different warrior culture” such as Russia’s:
Even as the acronym fest of the CIA and 17 other U.S. intel agencies have concluded, in a report shown to Congress earlier this week, that Russia is “almost certainly” seeking to avoid a direct military conflict with NATO and will calibrate its policies to steer clear of a global war.
After all the Empire of Chaos is all about Forever Wars.
And we are all in the middle of a do or die affair. The Empire simply cannot afford the cosmic humiliation of NATO in Novorossiya.
Still every “plan” – Taurus on Crimea-style – is a bluff.
Russia is aware of bluff after bluff. The Western cards are now all on the table. The only question is when, and how fast will Russia call the bluff.
Harry Potter as a Mexican Soap Opera | Telenovelas are Hell
What did a teacher say that made you immediately walk out of the classroom?
Once I walked into my college class of 200 people only to see my picture displayed on the projector screen and my instructor asking my classmates who had been signing in for me since I had clearly never been to class. Apparently I’d accidentally signed the attendance sheet for that day, the class day prior, and was a couple minutes late, so he had his ga literally examine my signatures and they determined that the letters were written differently each day. Since I was safely hidden behind a large pillar, I promptly left and called my mom crying. I had attended every class, albeit late on occasion, and was a very shy person. I dreaded going back to that class where I was certain everyone believed me to be a fraud.
Edit: I saw some people asked what happened afterwards, and I ended up emailing the professor during that class telling him what I’d seen and assuring him that I had attended every class and that I was very confused as to why he had made the accusation. It was then that he told me I’d been signed in on the wrong day and that was what had prompted his investigation into my attendance and signatures. He made it very clear that he did not believe my explanation and I met with him in his office where he had me sign my name about 20 times and kept threatening to fail me, saying I could easily be faking it. At this, because I was telling the truth, and had never had anyone question my honor like that before, I started to cry again, and begged him not to fail me. I honestly don’t remember much after that, only that my crying made him begrudgingly agree to allow me back in class. The rest of the time I attended class, I showed up early, sat in the very back and wore a hood until class began. I caught a couple people looking back at me on occasion (and I turned bright red as a result), but for the most part my incredible ability as a shy person to remain utterly invisible served me really well.
Cattle Drive Cornbread
Cornbread
Ingredients
4 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 to 2 finely chopped jalapeño peppers
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 (16 ounce) can creamed corn
Instructions
Boil a pan of water.
Mix cornmeal and vegetable oil well in a large bowl. Add just enough of the boiling water to form a dough that could be made into a ball.
Add remaining ingredients except for the creamed corn. Mix to blend, then add creamed corn.
Coat the bottom of a cast iron skillet with vegetable oil. Heat over medium heat.
Remove one cup of the cornbread mixture from the bowl, and add it to the skillet.
Flatten out the cornbread, and cook as you would a pancake.
This Japanese Man has 4 Wives, 2 Girlfriends & 54 Children…
An aunt and uncle are not invited to their niece’s wedding, but are invited to a bridal shower 300 miles away. Is this a gift grab? Should the aunt send a gift for the shower if they choose not to drive the distance?
Randy Miller suggested an edit to my story.
He blew my story away because I have never run into an ASSHOLE that removed an entire story.
Fuck You Randy Miller!
I had to rewrite it you ass!
I will tell you my story.
My sister-in-law has a son. When my nephew was young we saw him a lot, even visited a few times while he was in college, and took him out a few times for dinners. When he got married, we were not invited to his wedding. We weren’t even told about it. When we found out, I have to admit we were a bit hurt.
The reason we weren’t invited was because his grandmother, my MIL, was a crazy mean, lying, horrible woman. The entire family except the nephew and my husband had felt her wrath. To her, he was a golden child. She filled his head with lies, and she is convincing, especially to a kid. She did spend money on him, but nothing is without a string. When she met his girlfreinf, he was told she was a sl*t, a woman that would hurt him, a dirty girl, not worthy. Eventually, they broke up, but got back together., and then secretly engaged, and finally secretly married.
So there was a plausible reason why only his immediate family was present. They did not have any big thing, justice of the peace, ate out, done.
Now married, his wife was pregnant with their first child. I was invited to the baby shower. A part of me did not want to go because I was still hurt. Plus, I dislike showers. But I thought about it, and let it go. I attended the shower and bought a gift of of their registry that was fairly expensive for the baby, and them.
So the question is why would I agree to give them a gift for a baby shower, when I wasn’t invited to the wedding. Because I had found out the entire story, and realized I was being unkind, childish, selfish, and ignorant. And most important, I want a relationship with them.
I have never discussed being disappointed about not being able to attend their wedding, I love weddings. But I’m glad I rethought the emotions I felt because we have a great relationship now with his family. I know I would have regretted not going to the baby shower, and giving a gift to them for their baby.
So, you haven’t explained why you weren’t invited to the wedding. Could it be they were trying to keep it small. There could be many reasons, even that your invitation never arrived. But you need to decide if you have a relationship with these people that you wish to continue. If the answer is yes, then send a gift. If not, you have made up your mind.
Regarding the 300 miles away, unless they are living somewhere you could turn your trip into a vacation, if you have the time and money, I would just send the gift with a congratulatory note.
My opinion only!
Gen Z Doesn’t want to Work Anymore …..
Be the Rufus
“I was on the way home a couple of days ago when I saw this girl from my neighbourhood being very upset and crying on the street.
I decide to approach her. I asked: ‘Hi! Is everything okay?’
She barely looked up and then she just started bawling about her crappiest day she had.
She said she had lost her best friend because a stupid fight and that her mom is depressed all the time and she was also bullied in school all day…
I really wanted to make her feel better but I didn’t really know what to say, so I just asked: ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?’
She said yes!
When we walked in the door, she looked up, her eyes opened up, and she was like: ‘Wooow!!!’ My house is full of paintings and all sorts of weird stuff; it’s messy but very colourful.
On the way in, I was even thinking about how messy my house was and felt bad about leaving tobacco all over the table that morning. But she didn’t seem bothered at all.
She said it was the coolest place she has ever seen. I asked her if she wanted to paint with me so we did. She painted the biggest canvas we could find with lots of bright colours. She used like 10-12 brushes and when she finished, her face had changed completely.
She was beaming!
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I may have made her feel better that day but she also made me realise how lucky I am. Maybe I am weird and I often feel that I don’t really fit anywhere, but my art was able to make this girl feel better about herself and lift her up from a dark place.”
America Collapsing Like Rome?- Upcoming Recession, WW3, Trump, China & Joe Rogan | Patrick Bet David
Have you, while repairing a computer, ever found anything that made your jaw drop?
Not working on a computer but: I worked at the 24 hour photo processing lab back in 1990. Based in Phoenix we got film flown in from all over, including Las Vegas. The usual family photos, the occasional but weekly roll of film for some one with a anatomically correct BDSM Barbie with ever-changing costumes, personal intimate photos for a loved one, and once in a while something different and more sinister.
One of our Las Vegas rolls showed men with a pair of boys, all nude no clothes in sight(ha-ha), no intimate contact showed just these men and the children. The lead tech made the call to the FBI for possible child porn or abuse. After the FBI came and collected the pictures and the address from the packaging, they proceeded to the Las Vegas area address.
What they discovered was the address was a nudist retirement community. The men were a couple and one of them was the grandfather of the boys. The parents knew about granddad and his partner living in a gay nudist community and had no concerns about the safety of the boys.
Douglas Macgregor Reveals the Truth: Russia’s -Ukraine Terrifying Hidden Power in the Conflict
https://youtu.be/otyhVg-oUHs
What is the most extreme example of human willpower and discipline?
A Woman Finds Her Daughter’s ‘Dead’ Rapist: people are in awe of her “willpower”
A woman from a remote village in Bihar, India tracked down her daughter’s rapist after he was declared dead leading to the closure of the case. The rape convict, Niraj Modi, has been sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment for raping a minor girl and his father to seven years for forgery, cheating, and dishonesty.
Modi, a 39-year-old man who was a school teacher at a government school, was accused of raping his 12-year-old student, a minor girl, in October 2018. The girl was attacked while she was by herself in a sugarcane field, and her assailant threatened to post a video of the assault online to keep her silent.
Soon after a complaint was lodged by the survivor’s mother, and Modi was arrested. But, he was out on bail after merely two months in prison.
In February 2022, Modi’s father Rajaram Modi, who is over 60 years old and works as a farmer, travelled to a court nearly 100km (62 miles) away from the village, with a lawyer to claim that his son died on February 27, 2022, at their village home. In order to get a death certificate issued, he provided two pictures from the cremation, receipts of the firewood bought for the ritual as evidence, signatures and the unique biometric identity number of five villagers as per Indian laws. However, as per a 54-year-old law, the authorities didn’t question the cause of death.
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Two months after this, the local authorities issued a death certificate and the court closed the case in May 2022 as the “only accused in the case” was dead.
However convinced that this was a forgery, the girl’s mother was the only person who suspected that the teacher had faked his death with the help of his father.
The mother said that she went from one home to another in order to enquire if Modi was really dead and not to her surprise, nobody had heard of the news. Following which, she went to the court urging an investigation into the matter.
In May 2022, she also wrote a petition to the local official claiming that the death certificate was issued based on forged documents and it needs to be investigated. Soon, investigation began and the authorities demanded more and fresh evidence from Modi’s family regarding his death including photos of the “deceased after his death, of the cremation, of the burning pyre, the last rites and [fresh] testimony of five witnesses”.
As a part of the investigation, members of the village council met the inhabitants of the 250 families in the village. It appeared that no one was aware of Modi’s death. Hindus often only shave their heads as a sign of mourning if a close relative passes away. However, none of the Modi family members had done so. In fact, Modi’s own relatives did not have the information regarding his death.
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After Rajaram failed to provide fresh evidence of Niraj’s death, he was questioned by the investigative office again.
Following the investigation, it was confirmed that Modi’s death was faked. The officers found that the teacher had falsified the signatures of the parents of five of his students’ parents on a document requesting his own death certificate. He informed the parents that in order to set up the students’ scholarships, he would need their biometric identity numbers.
The officials, then, cancelled Niraj Modi’s death certificate and charged his father with forgery and in July 2022, the case was reopened.
The mother’s relentless battle to track down her daughter’s “dead” rapist came to an end finally and in October last year(2023)he was convicted for his crimes.
Keep smiling
Beefy Cowboy Beans
There’s plenty of hearty ground beef in this Beefy Cowboy Beans recipe.
cowboybeans 750×1000
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 red or green bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 (16 ounce) can baked beans
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup Heinz 57 sauce
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
In a large nonstick skillet, brown ground beef, onion and bell pepper over medium-high heat 6 to 8 minutes or until beef is no longer pink, breaking up into 1 inch crumbles.
Pour off drippings.
Season beef mixture with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper.
Stir in beans, ketchup, Heinz 57 Sauce, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce.
What is the strangest way you kept yourself entertained while in prison?
I have a theory about the sorts of people that are easy to entertain…. 😉
One cellie of mine was really into the markets. He spent incredible amounts of time building models to use against the daily Dow or NASDAQ numbers when we could get them in long enough blocks to be useful. A friend sent him five years of daily data for one index. He built some formulas to fire triggers when conditions were right. The formulas were designed to work in excel.
My job? Human spreadsheet. I took a couple months worth of the data, plotted it across a “spreadsheet” that I’d made from steno notebook pages taped together. The spreadsheet went from A1 to something like BK68. A handful of cells were raw data, the remainder were things like, “=If(And(AI22>AI21,B22>B21,Or(H22=I22,K22=K21)),BB22-BC21,BB22+BC21)”.
Pure drudgery. I had to proof for syntactical and lexical errors and churn out the data. We were sending the finished product (formulas) to someone who would drop them in excel and (hopefully) use them to come up with actionable Intel.
Woof. It took weeks to produce what excel can do in the blink of an eye!
Then there was this:
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I set a goal for myself to memorize two hours of poetry. I copied poems I liked in tiny handwriting and kept them with me most of the time so I could study while I waited (lots of waiting in prison).
I didn’t hit my goal, but I did manage to get to about forty minutes. The more I did, the easier it got. I learned that our memory works (kind of) like a muscle. Give it a good workout and it’ll get stronger.
Are those pastimes strange enough?
The (Overdue) Collapse of the 9-5 Job
Do police officers ever let criminals go because they sympathise with them?
A sheriff’s deputy drove up to me while I was standing leaning against my vehicle and asked me if I had any guns. I said not on me but there were some in the back of the pickup. He told me to stay where I was.
He walked back to the bed of my truck and picked up a poster that I had made up that said “WANTED Dead or Alive: Baby Bomber Brandes”
He read the poster and then said to me, “I know who you are. You are the man whose home was bombed and whose baby daughter has been in the hospital for the last 6 months, and this is going to be the hardest arrest I ever have to make in my career, but I want for you to know that if I were in your shoes, I would be doing exactly what you are trying to do.” Brandes was up a dead end road, and I was at the bottom waiting to kill him.
Brandes had called his employers at the ATF and told them that I had him trapped and they needed to help him get out of there. The ATF called the sheriff and had them come up and arrest me.
The deputy arrested and drove me to jail without handcuffs and when he dropped me at the jail explained to the jailers the situation. I was treated very well by everyone at the jail. A couple of days later I made a deal with the federal DA that I would leave town and leave their snitch alone. I had to, I had a quadriplegic daughter getting out of the hospital to care for.
I came to Oregon and had to care for my daughter while wearing an ankle bracelet for a few months. The feds did live up to their end of the bargain though: all charges were dropped a short time later. There really are some great cops out there and they are just like you and I and have big hearts.
The deputy actually apologized for having to take me in.
the American dream is dead… this is why people are leaving the US.
What are some fun and actually useful historical facts?
In early March 1933, a man walked into the Hi-Way Cigar Store in Pismo Beach, California, and laid a huge clamshell on the counter. “Gimme a box of cigars,” he said.
A clamshell used as scrip currency in 1933 shows the name of the shop issuing the currency, its value, and, on the inside, signatures of the people whose hands it passed through. (Clamshell Currency | Hakai Magazin
History is full of examples of successful local initiatives aimed at providing exchange media, but the Great Depression of the 1930’s saw this done on an unprecedented scale. There were literally hundreds of scrip issues that were put into circulation by a variety of agencies, including state governments, municipalities, school districts, clearing house associations, manufacturers, merchants, chambers of commerce, business associations, local relief committees, cooperatives, and even individuals.
These issuers went by different names, depending on who issued them and the circumstances of their issuance. Common scrip types were certificates of indebtedness, tax anticipation notes, payroll warrants, trade scrip, clearing house certificates, credit vouchers, moratorium certificates, and merchandise bonds.
Crescent City, California 1933 10 cent clamshell From the collection of Ken Barr Numismatics (Depression Scrip.com)
Besides learning how to “make do, or do without,” people began to establish mutual support structures, like workers’ cooperatives, many of which would recycle and repair donated or broken items.
People learned to share what they had, and to by-pass the market and financial systems. Most of these measures were considered stop-gaps to be utilized until things “got back to normal,” but in some of them there seemed to be the promise of more permanent improvements. One of these “stop-gaps,” which was intended to address the problem of the dearth of currency in circulation, was the issuance of “scrip.”
When the Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the coastal town of Pismo Beach, California picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange. The pismo (Tivela stultorum) is a species of clam with a very thick shell
[6], found in large numbers at least as far south as 300 miles south of the US–Mexico border in Baja California on the Pacific Ocean side, where strong surf sometimes washes ashore live clams. Native American tribes in California relied upon the clams as a main dietary staple.
The shells are surprisingly large—up to roughly 15 centimeters in width—and many have faint traces of the clams’ natural shell patterning, faded wispy lines of purple at the edge of the exterior sides.
Shells were marked with India ink in denominations ranging from 25 cents to $20. Each piece was numbered, and signed on the front and on the back. As with the stamp notes of the Midwest, it was necessary to sign each clamshell on the back in order to keep it in circulation.
No formal requirements may have existed, but informal pressure certainly would have endorsed the practice. The shells were more or less credit—placeholders for real currency.
Eleven of the town’s merchants got together to issue the clam currency. Among them: K.L. Phillips service station, Henderson’s Drug Store, Hi-Way Cigar Store, Leiter’s Rexall Pharmacy and Restwell Cabins. Even the Pismo Beach Post Office accepted clam currency. It was agreed that when change in dollars or cents wasn’t available, they would issue shells to customers instead. Customers would use the shells in subsequent transactions after signing their names on the inside, endorsing them somewhat like checks, which gave businesses a record of who had “spent” their shells. If any customers still had shells rattling around once the banks reopened, they could ask the retailer to exchange them for cash.
The larger the amount, the larger the shell. The issue may have been partly intended as a spoof, or for sale to tourists, in the manner of German notgeld around 1920.
Each piece was numbered, and each was signed on the front and on the back. This was in the middle of Roosevelt’s 1933 national banking holiday, from March 6 to March 9, 1933, during which withdrawals were frozen. This gave his administration a chance to stabilize the banking system
.In an era of economic turmoil, thousands of banks were failing and Americans’ trust in the institutions had evaporated. Fearing that their money was no longer safe at the bank, many people had emptied their accounts and stashed dollars at home—which, unfortunately, further undermined the banks.
Proclamation 2039 ordered the suspension of all banking transactions, effective immediately.
The terms of the presidential proclamation specified that:
“no such banking institution or branch shall pay out, export, earmark, or permit the withdrawal or transfer in any manner or by any device whatsoever, of any gold or silver coin or bullion or currency or take any other action which might facilitate the hoarding thereof; nor shall any such banking institution or branch pay out deposits, make loans or discounts, deal in foreign exchange, transfer credits from the United States to any place abroad, or transact any other banking business whatsoever.”
The thought of having to go for four days without readily available cash shocked and traumatized America. Around the country, businesses began issuing IOU-style notes or ersatz dollars—often called scrip currency—in the form of metal or wooden tokens so that everyday transactions could continue even when retailers couldn’t easily issue change.
An estimated $1 billion in this scrip was issued by towns and counties, not to mention corporations, school boards, newspapers and a few wealthy individuals.
Most promissory notes looked like paper currency, but scrip was also printed on leather, metal, fish-skin parchment and, in Tenino, Wash., on slabs of pressed wood.
In creating the currency, the Pismo Beach business owners turned back the clock to the era before the Civil War when it was common to find locally produced scrip.
The 1933 scrip reflected the small community’s expression of resilience. A lack of dollars didn’t worry them. “All of a sudden this group of people said, ‘Well, we have what we do have’,
The clams are now on display at City Hall in the lobby by the city clerk’s office. Not a bad investment, especially considering how rare it is to find a legal-sized clam in Pismo Beach these days. In 2013, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the clam script, Pismo Beach citizens resurrected clamshell money, making colorful homages to the 1933 variants.
10 Countries Where Americans are Not Welcome in 2024
As a new manager, have you ever had to fire someone on your first day?
I once had to fire someone just a few days after they started and it’s one of the very few times in my entire career where I fired someone on the spot. I had no choice.
At the time we were riding high as a company having rebuilt an entire culture and the company was working well. This admin who answered to me and a few others, while I was at lunch demanded access to HR documents that were confidential to the other employees. When our HR manager told her no but that she could talk to me, she started screaming at the top of her lungs at the manager and everyone in the offices was completely rattled by the scene.
I receive a call while I was eating my lunch to get back to the office because it was bad. I raced back and saw the looks on everyone’s face and asked a few what had happened. They all said the same thing. There was no other side to this. A few heard her demand for records and thought it was out of line in the first place and then with the screaming on top, there was no way to keep her. When I fired her, I explained that there was no turning that around. You couldn’t undo that damage no matter how she apologized and I didn’t want our culture to be everyone thinking that was even remotely okay.
It sucks to fire anyone. It’s not something any manager ever wants to deal with, but sometimes you have to do it for the greater good of everyone else. There were no employees who thought she should have a second chance. Not one. In fact, they were thrilled that I didn’t put up with it.
Male inequality, explained by an expert | Richard Reeves
The number of male therapists decreasing while the number of men needing therapy increases is worrying to think about.
What are some last-minute decisions that changed world history?
On April 14, 1865, as he walked into the morning Cabinet meeting at the White House, General Ulysses S. Grant received rapturous applause. Five days earlier, Grant had accepted the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Virginia’s Appomattox Court House.
The nightmarish Civil War had ended. Lincoln and his Cabinet were in a celebratory mood, but Grant was bone-weary. As author Ron Chernow recounts in his biography Grant, the general looked forward to a short respite from the battlefield.
After the meeting closed at 2pm, Grant “lingered to speak with the president.” Lincoln invited the general and his wife to the theater that evening to see the play Our American Cousin, starring celebrated actress Laura Keene.
Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, immediately worried for their safety.
“He had for some months been aware that threats of assassination were being made by certain evil minded persons against the leaders of the Federal government and army. The presence of the President of the nation and the Lieutenant-General of the armies at any public function at such a critical hour was simply courting disaster.”
Lincoln reacted flippantly, chaffing Stanton “for his lack of faith in human nature.” The president of a democracy, he averred, had to show himself to the people, and some danger was an inescapable hazard of office.
“To be absolutely safe,” he told John Nicolay resignedly, “I should lock myself up in a box.”
Grant searched for a gracious way to decline. The general soon received a note from his wife Julia, detailing her wish to leave for Burlington that day to see their children.
Grant politely declined to attend Ford’s Theatre, joking that he now had a command from Mrs. Grant. As he subsequently said, “I was glad to have the note, as I did not want to go to the theater.”
Lincoln, who was disappointed, understood. “Of course, General, you have been long from home, fighting in the field, and Mrs. Grant’s instincts should be considered before my request. I am very sorry, however, for the people would only be too glad to see you.”
Lincoln extended invitations to Stanton, Speaker of the House Schuler Colfax, and his son Robert Todd Lincoln, but all turned him down. Eventually Clara Harris and her fiancé, Major Henry Rathbone, agreed to accompany him.
At 10:13pm, while the Grants traveled east to change trains in Philadelphia, John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president’s box at the theater and pointed a derringer at the back of Lincoln’s head. He then “executed the gentle president with brutal efficiency.”
In a small appointment book, Booth was eager to record his accomplishment for posterity.
Until today nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country’s wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture, but our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart.
I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted “Sic semper” before I fired.
Telegrams notified the general of the terrible news, and he was immediately summoned back to Washington.
Grant had seen untold horrors during his campaigns. But he would remember this day as among the saddest of his life.
Weeks later, as the assassination conspirators stood trial, Grant discovered that he was one of several targets of the Confederate sympathizers. The killers had hoped to decapitate the Union government in one bold strike, but they lost their golden opportunity to attack the now-famous general.
The night of Lincoln’s assassination, as Grant and his wife prepared to board their train, they had noticed a man on horseback who had galloped past them twice. Each time, the figure had “thrust his face” at the couple and glared at them.
Grant later learned the glowering horseman was John Wilkes Booth, who had been conferring on the sidewalk with his actor friend John Mathews when the Grant carriage sped by and he set off in pursuit of it. From the heaped-up baggage, he must have confirmed that the Grants were leaving town and would not be at Ford’s Theater.
“It seems I was to have been attacked,” Grant stated, “and Mrs. Grant’s sudden resolve to leave deranged the plan.”
As Project Ukraine goes down the drain of history, Project Taiwan will go on overdrive. Forever Wars never die.
This is the Year of the Wooden Dragon, according to China’s classic wuxing (“five elements”) culture. The dragon, one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac, is a symbol of power, nobility and intelligence. Wood adds growth, development and prosperity.
Call it a summary of where China is heading in 2024.
The second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was finalized on Sunday in Beijing.
The wider world should know that within the framework of grassroots democracy with Chinese characteristics, an extremely complex – and fascinating – phenomenon, the importance of the CPPCC is paramount.
The CPPCC channels wide-ranging expectations of the average Chinese to the decision level, and actually advises the central government on a vast range of issues – from everyday living to high-quality development strategies.
This year, most of the discussion focused on how to drive China’s modernization even faster. This being China, concepts – like flowers – were blooming all around the spectrum, such as “new quality productive forces, “deepening reform,” “high-standard opening-up,” and a fabulous new one, “major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.”
“2024 is not only a critical year for achieving the goals of the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ but also a key year for achieving the transition to high-quality development of the economy.”
Betting on strategic investment
So let’s start with Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s first “work report” delivered a week ago, which opened the annual session of the National People’s Congress. The key takeaway: Beijing will be pursuing the same economic targets as in 2023. That translates as 5% annual growth.
Of course deflationary risks, a downturn in the real estate market and somewhat shaky business confidence simply won’t vanish. Li was quite realistic, emphasizing Beijing is “keenly aware” of the challenges ahead:
“Achieving this year’s targets will not be easy.” And he added: “Global economic growth lacks steam and the regional hotspot issues keep erupting. This has made China’s external environment more complex, severe and uncertain.”
Beijing’s strategy remains focused on a
“proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy”.
In a nutshell: the song remains the same. There won’t be a “stimulus” of any kind.
Deeper answers should be found in the work report/budget released by the National Development and Reform Commission: the focus will be on structural change, via extra funds to science, technology, education, national defense, agriculture.
Translation: China bets on strategic investment, the key for a high-quality economic transition.
In practice, Beijing will be heavily invested in modernizing industry and developing “new quality productive forces” such as new-energy vehicles, biomanufacturing and commercial space flight.
Science Minister Yin Hejun made it clear: there was an 8.1% increase in national investment in research and development in 2023.
He wants more – and he will get it: R&D spending will grow by 10% to a total of 370.8 billion yuan.
The mantra is “self-reliance”.
On all fronts – from chipmaking to AI. A no holds barred tech war is on – and China is totally focused to counter “tech containment” from the Hegemon as much as its ultimate goal is to wrest tech supremacy from its prime competitor. Beijing simply cannot allow itself to be vulnerable to U.S.-imposed tech choke points and supply chain disruptions.
So short-term economic problems will not be causing sleepless nights.
The Beijing leadership is always looking ahead – focusing on long-term challenges.
Learning lessons from the Donbass battlefield
Beijing will continue to steer the economic development of Hong Kong and Macau, and invest even more in the crucial Greater Bay Area, which is the premier southern China high tech, services and finance hub.
Taiwan of course was central to the work report; Beijing fiercely opposes “external interference” – code for Hegemon tactics. That will become even trickier in May, when William Lai Ching-te, who flirts with independence, becomes president.
On defense, there will be only a 7.2% increase in 2024, which is peanuts compared to the Hegemon’s defense budget now approaching $900 billion: China’s stands as $238 billion, even as China’s nominal GDP is approaching the U.S.
A great deal of China’s defense budget will go for emerging tech – considering the immensely valuables lessons the PLA is learning out of the Donbass battlefield, as well as the deep interactions part of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
And that brings us to diplomacy.
China will continue to be firmly positioned as a champion of the Global South. That was made explicit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress.
Wang Yi’s priorities:
to “maintain stable relations with major powers; join hands with its neighbouring countries for progress; and strive for revitalisation with the Global South”.
Wang Yi once again stressed that Beijing favors an “equal and orderly” multipolar world and “inclusive economic globalization”.
And of course he could not allow U.S. Secretary of State Little Blinken – always out of his depth – to get away with his latest “recipe”:
“It is impermissible that those with the bigger fist have the final say, and it is definitely unacceptable that certain countries must be at the table while others can only be on the menu.”
BRI as a global accelerator
Crucially, Wang Yi re-emphasized the drive for “high-quality” cooperation within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework. He defined BRI as “an engine for the common development of all countries and an accelerator for the modernisation of the whole world”. Wang Yi actually said he’s hopeful about the emergence of a “Global South moment in global governance” – in which China and BRI play an essential part.
Li Qiang’s work report, incidentally, had only one paragraph on BRI. But then we find this nugget as Li refers to the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor – which links China’s landlocked southwest with the eastern seaboard, via Guangxi province.
Translation: BRI will be focusing on opening new economic roads for China’s less developed regions, diversifying from the previous emphasis on Xinjiang.
Dr Wei Yuansong is a member of the CPPCC and also the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party – which happens to be one of the eight non-CCP parties in Chinese politics (very few outside of China know about this).
He offered some fascinating comments on BRI to Fengmian News and also stressed the need to “tell China’s story well” to avoid “conflict and incidents” along the BRI road.
For that, Wei suggests the need to use an “international language” in telling these stories; that implies using English.
As for what Wang Yi said in his press conference, in fact that was discussed in detail at the closed-door Central Conference on Foreign Affairs Work in late 2023, where it was established that China faced “strategic opportunities” to raise its “international influence, appeal and power” despite “high winds and choppy waters”.
The key takeaway: the narrative war between China and the Hegemon will be pitiless.
Beijing is confident it’s capable of offering stability, investment, connectivity and sound diplomacy to the whole Global South, instead of Forever Wars.
That is reflected, for instance, by Ma Xinmin, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s legal advisor, telling the International Court of Justice that the Palestinians have the right to armed resistance when it comes to fighting the colonialist, racist, apartheid state of Israel. Therefore, Hamas cannot be defined as a terrorist organization.
This is the overwhelming position across the lands of Islam and across the majority of the Global South – linking Beijing with fellow BRICS member Brazil and President Lula, who compared the genocide in Gaza to the Nazi genocide in WWII.
How to resist collective West sanctions
The Two Sessions did reflect Beijing’s full understanding that Hegemon containment and destabilization tactics remain the biggest challenge to China’s peaceful rise. But simultaneously it reflected Chinese confidence on its global diplomatic clout as a force for peace, stability and economic development. It’s an extremely sensitive balance that only the Middle Kingdom seems capable of pulling off.
Then there’s the Trump factor.
Economist Ding Yifan, a former deputy director of the World Development Institute, part of the State Council’s Development Research Centre, is one among those who’s aware China is learning key lessons from Russia on how to resist collective West sanctions – which will be inevitable against China especially if Trump is back at the White House.
And that brings us to the absolute key issue being currently discussed in Moscow, within the Russia-China partnership, and soon among the BRICS: alternative settlement payments to the U.S. dollar, increasing trade among “friendly nations”, and controls on capital flight.
Nearly all Russia-China trade is now in yuan and rubles.
As much as Russian trade with the EU fell by 68% in 2023, trade with Asia rose by 5.6% – with new landmarks reached with China ($240 billion) and India ($65 billion) – and 84% of Russia’s total energy exports going to “friendly countries”.
The Two Sessions did not get into detail on some extremely thorny geopolitical issues. For instance, India’s version of multipolarity – considering New Delhi’s unresolved love affair with Washington – is quite different from China’s. Everyone knows – and no one more than the Russians – that within BRICS 10 the biggest strategic issue is how to accommodate the perpetual tension between India and China.
What’s clear even behind the fog of goodwill enveloping the Two Sessions is that Beijing is fully aware of how the Hegemon is – deliberately – already crossing a key Chinese red line, officially stationing “permanent troops” in Taiwan.
Since last year U.S. Special Forces have been training Taiwanese in operating Black Hornet nano microdrones. In 2024 U.S. military advisers are deployed full time at army bases on Kinmen and Penghu islands.
Those actually driving U.S. foreign policy behind the Crash Test Dummy at the White House believe that even as they are powerless to handle the Houthi Ansarallah in the Red Sea, they are capable of poking the Dragon.
No posturing will alter the Dragon’s roadmap.
The CPPCC’s political resolution on Taiwan calls for uniting “all patriotic forces”, “deepen integration and development in various fields across the Taiwan Straits”, and go all out on “peaceful reunification”.
That will translate in practice into increased economic/trade cooperation, more direct flights, more cargo ports and logistics bases.
As Project Ukraine goes down the drain of history, Project Taiwan will go on overdrive.
Forever Wars never die.
Bring it on.
The Dragon is ready.
White Women Are PISSED At White Men Dating Asian Women!
What do you know that most people don’t?
I’ve literally (and I actually mean literally here) won cash money on bets with friends about this and it is a method I’ve been using since I was a little kid. Works every single time; no exceptions.
I’m going to let you in on my secret to treat your hiccups in a few seconds every single time.
Let’s first understand what causes hiccups; only when we understand how a machine works can we fix it if it’s acting up. Your diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle at the bottom of your chest. The diaphragm almost always works perfectly. When you inhale, it pulls down to help pull air into the lungs. When you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and air flows out of the lungs back out through the nose and mouth.
But sometimes the diaphragm becomes irritated. When this happens, it pulls down in a jerky way, which makes you suck air into your throat suddenly. When the air rushing in hits your voice box, your vocal cords close suddenly and you’re left with a big hiccup.
Some things that irritate the diaphragm are eating too quickly or too much, an irritation in the stomach or the throat, or feeling nervous or excited. Almost all cases of the hiccups last only a few minutes. Some cases of the hiccups can last for days or even months, but this is very unusual and it’s usually a sign of another medical problem.
So now that we understand the cause of hiccups, it’s fairly evident that to treat them, all we need to do is soothe the diaphragm, reduce the irritation and bring it back to a normal operating state.
Fill a cup a little over half with water and hold the cup right side up. Stand and bend over, while placing your mouth on the opposite side of the cup so the opening is around your chin. Sip the water slowly, holding your breath as you do and breathing between sips. The combination of these forces your diaphragm to get back to its expected state of behavior.
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So the next time that cute girl you were trying to talk to has a bout of the hiccups, skip the cheesy lines telling her how “someone” is thinking of her and instead treat her hiccups with this method. I can assure you that will score you more brownie points that way.
What if God’s plan for me is to have an insignificant, unfulfilling, and miserable life?
There is a Russian joke.
At some point in life, a man who had previously been a great sinner has spiritually awakened and started to preach the word of God. He believed that he was inspired by the Lord Himself. So he dies, and meets St. Peter.
– Saint Peter, I need to see God.
– Why? You were an okay guy, we won’t send you to hell.
– No, I really need it. I need to ask Him one question.
St. Peter shrugs his shoulders and brings him in God’s Presence. The man asks:
– My Lord, tell me, did I understand my destiny well? Was it to carry Your word?
God is silent.
– Please tell me!
– Do you really want to know? – asks God.
– Yes, I long to know, I crave for this knowledge, I implore you!
– Okay, okay. Do you remember how you travelled by train from Samara to Syzran’? It was forty-seven years ago.
– Yes!
– Do you remember how you went to the dining car?
– Yes!
– Do you remember how your neighbour to the left asked you to pass the salt?
– Yes!
– This was your destiny. You were born to pass the salt to this person.
When I first heard this joke, I was shocked at the utter pessimism it expressed. Now, I see it in a different light. Yes, the guy was mistaken about God’s designs. But he was born just to pass the salt during a train voyage – and yet he managed to have a rich and fulfilling life. Good for him, isn’t it?
So if you really believe that God had such horrible designs on your life, why not try to see what you can do yourself?
My GF Made Friends With College F**inists And Thought I’d Be P-Whipped…Instead I Tossed Her Out
The one memory that I have of my university days is the smell of bong water. I cannot count how many times that foul water would sometimes spill and smell up everything.
I know that today, the university experience appears to be a non-stop fuck fest. But that wasn’t my experience.
I was a nerd on a purpose and I studied, and then studied and then studied some more. Sure I drank beer, and did drugs, and smoked weed, but that was the culture at that snapshot in time.
Along with bell-bottom jeans, earth shoes and Jimmy Carter.
I did do a lot of acid.
I really did.
I was the guy who was always “trippin'” back in the day.
But you all must know, I might have done that, but I was a virgin until after I left university. So in many ways, compared with today, I kind of missed out on some really fun things.
I will tell you that once I got married, well… I did end up making up for lost time. Heck, my wife and I were rabid rabbits.
But that was another time, and another place.
Bong water. University. Studying and testing.
My life back then.
…
Now for today…
How will the US continue to sanction countries successfully if China can just sell those sanctioned stuff to the sanctioned country thereby changing nothing in the economy of that country?
You can only start to sanction another country if that country needs your stuffs and you stop selling to them! Today the U.S. don’t have a single thing it makes that others can’t do! In fact most nations can do stuffs cheaper, bettter and faster than the U.S. could do so sanctioning them is really like helping them save money! Hahahahaha!
Why not?
Why did you get fired from your first job?
I was fired for something that I did two weeks after I started, 2.5 years prior.
The manager who fired me was my 5th manager in 2.5 years. On her first day, she informed me after finding out that I was on public transportation from a rural town (took over 2 hours to get to the job, one way) and going to college that I had limited availability (16 hours a week), she was unsure how long I would last. I lasted 1 month to the day when she started.
She did everything she could to provoke me into quitting cutting my hours to 3 a week or on one occasion to deck her. My avatar is my cat that I had for 16 years. I had to put him to sleep. I took one day off from work and returned two days later. She was waiting for me at the front door, and asked me, “Was that a good use of your Paid Time Off?” I stood there speechless, finally said, “Yes!” and walked away.
It was a blessing because, in my final term I was going to be available for one day, 8 hours a week.
She still works at that store, and still hates me!
What are some of the best examples of “American ignorance”?
A friend of mine from the US (I’d met her years ago at a teacher’s seminar and we’d stayed in touch) came to visit me and stayed with me for a couple of weeks. She hadn’t previously been to Australia and was surprised that we live in an Alpine area, she didn’t expect to see mountains topped with snow. I don’t think she believed me when I told her that we had more snow here in winter than falls on Switzerland. Apparently she thought we were all beaches and deserts with nothing in between. So I told her about our rainforests, tropical in the north of the country and temperate, cool-temperature in the south, about the huge productive farmlands, about our research centres, etc.
Her comment, which made me laugh? “It’s quite a big country, isn’t it?”
Well, yeah. Yeah, it is.
She then asked, “Would it be as big as England?”
Flabbergasted. And she is a teacher…
Women Are FURIOUS Seeing Men Go Overseas And Be Happy In Marriages And Relationships
If Putin announces a nuclear war with NATO, could NATO react in time and nuke Russia before Russia launches their nuclear weapons?
I read a lot of fantasy answers from a lot of Pro Nato supporters who still think this is 1997
The first assumption is the Russia would launch a nuke from its own territory
The second assumption is that the Western Satellites would detect the move even before a Nuke is launched
In 1998, we pulled wool over the eyes of all those Western Satellites
India
Back then not even an emerging economy but an ordinary third world developing country dependent on imports for every aspect of defence
Russia have 65 Submarines of which 46 have the capability of carrying between 1–2 Nuclear Missiles
My guess is almost all these Submarines have been refurbished to carry Hypersonic Missiles with Thermonuclear Warheads
I am basing this guess on the fact that in 2022 August – a record 39 Submarines were serviced against an average of 12 a year from 2016–2021
The Instant a Nuke is even launched in Russia’s direction – these Submarines will launch their missiles in a pre arranged pattern at specific targets in Europe and NATO
The next would be the heat shock blast (There won’t be radioactive waste since these are Thermonuclears)
All Livestock within a 150–200 Mile radius is gone
Soil is rendered entirely useless for at least 100 years
That’s a further 140–180 Million people gone in the second wave
Finally you will have displacement, disease, starvation and that’s another 200–300 Million people gone in the third wave
The maximum deaths could be as high as 520 Million in NATO NATIONS
That’s 56% of the ‘Golden Billion’
Senator Cotton could actually breathe in his own wife and kids before he becomes vapor
Advanced Molecular integration
So it’s MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION as the name suggests
If Russia is destroyed , no less than 400–500 million Americans, Europeans and Japanese will die and their nations will go back to the stone age
There will be electronic Interference for at least 7–15 years
Why would Russia launch a Nuclear War?
They have no reason to do so
If Macron sends troops to Ukraine, the Russians will kill them
If Sunak sends troops to Ukraine, the Russians will kill them
They are all far below Ukraines fighting capability and Russians have trounced at least 350K Ukranians
Ukraine had been fighting Donbass Militia for 8 years and they had some blooding
Not UK Or France or Germany or Poland
TikTok Ban| Chips| AI Hype| CBDC! Conversation with/Richard Turrin!!
What was the biggest secret you found out only after someone passed away?
I met my husband in 2007 and he moved in with me a few months later. In November of that year his mother committed suicide, she took an overdose of drugs that she had stored up and put a plastic bag over her head. She had been in a nursing home for 12 years. I still don’t know what her actual diagnosis was, but I believe it was manic depression and a form of psychosis. Every day my father in law would spend hours with her in the home.
In 2016 we moved in to take care of him as he was becoming very frail. I grew very close to him and we would talk about his life etc. He would talk about J*** with such love and affection. He told me how for a long time she had begged him to help her end her life of pain. He had to tell her that he couldn’t, it was against the law and I could feel the pain that he went through.
He passed away aged 92 and I had the job of clearing out his possessions. At the back of a drawer in his bedside table I found a book called Dying with dignity. A page had the corner turned over which described the method that his wife had used. He had left this for one of us to find after his death. He had helped her with her final request and carried the secret to his grave.
Some words for today
Have you ever been treated differently because of the car you were driving?
Yes.
A tree fell on my 2015 Chrysler 200. I really enjoyed the car but it was a goner. One of the issues when living in the woods I guess. I don’t think I ever got a second glance from anyone while I drove it.
As luck would have it my insurance settlement worked out quickly and I replaced the 200 with a 2017 Lincoln MKZ Select. It really wasn’t an upgrade in my opinion… more like an even swap.
Um, it might be important to know that I am 59 years old but am often mistaken as someone much younger.
The next day I was getting in my car as a much older-appearing couple were getting out of a Kia or some other cheap car. The lady sneered at me and the man commented “Nice car you entitled punk. Did your mommy buy that car for you?”
I replied with a smile “Thanks for the compliment. I like being told that I look younger than I am.”
The lady asked “How old are you?”
“59. How about you two?”
“We’re both 51.”
“Good! Maybe when you grow up you can get a nice car just like mine.”
Take her into YOUR world
What things should a person avoid once they are past 70 years old?
It all depends on the person, doesn’t it?
At 76 going on 77, I marvel that my 75 year old brother still jogs for miles and competes in inline skating marathons. I walk for miles and do some ice skating, usually with a ski pole in my hand to help me get up if I fall.
I avoid climbing ladders because I lost two friends to falls in their 70s (one instantly and the other in assisted living for the last ten years of life). My brother, Al, just completely renovated a house at 72–73. I just paid some contractors to renovate parts of mine.
Every one should avoid buying a time share, but especially those over 70. Even getting a mortgage to buy or build a new residence seems extreme. I used to salivate over House Hunters International. I’m so lucky I didn’t buy my dream home in an Italian hilltop town.
I avoid soda pop, Big Macs, and hot dogs. Why tempt the gods?
I avoid signing up for online subscriptions or making donations to television evangelists. My mother didn’t and we filled a dumpster with unread magazines and CD’s from religious hucksters.
I avoid both Fox News and MSNBC. Because.
Now that I am no longer that 35 year old testosterone poisoned jerk who makes a show of passing slower drivers and pulling in front of them in disgust, I avoid the temptation to flip them off.
I feel people over 75 should avoid running for President or Senator.
There’s still enough not to avoid, so I better end this.
Welcome to the United States
What was the strangest way an embezzler was caught?
Sanjay Madan was the IT director for the Ontario Ministry of Education. He saw how lax the security was , and set up a system where he would award an IT contract for $900 a day, and his partner would find someone to subcontract for $450 a day. In his first year, they managed to take $467,000 by 2019, they were stealing $6.5 million a year. The very weird part of this is that his partner was a police informant, who never informed police. Everything was going along perfectly, and by 2020 they had stolen $37,000,000 doing this, and nobody knew that a crime had been committed. I think the police need some better informants.
Then covid hit, and they got greedy, the government was giving out between $200 and $250 to children that had to be home schooled because of covid.
He filed 48,000 fake applications and had all the money deposited into the same five bank accounts. Again he got away with it. $10.8 million dollars. How many scammers do you know that pulled the same scam 48,000 times and got away with it. But, by filing 48,000 claims, he increased the odds that one of them would file for their own child. They of course were accused of double dipping, and of course they were indignant, because they were honest. They investigated and found that the money hadn’t gone into the real applicants account. So then they searched to see if more money had gone into that account, and there was millions.
In total he stole $47.4 million. He has given back $30 million and after he gets out of jail in 10 years, he has five more years to repay the rest, or face further jail time.
But wait!!! The best part of this is that his defense was that it was entrapment. Nobody makes a system that easy to steal from if it isn’t a trap.
Welcome to Asia
As a police officer, what’s one story on Christmas you will never forget?
One Christmas, at around 1 A.M. my partner and I spotted a van driving the opposite direction of us in an alley. Something about the way the guy looked at us made it seem like he was up to no good, so we turned around to follow him and run his plates. So, we caught the guy after a vehicle pursuit and a foot pursuit.
Long story a little less long, the van hadn’t been reported stolen and it had the keys in it, but we were pretty sure it was stolen. We had an assisting unit wait with the van, gifts, and suspect while we drove to the registered owner’s home and knocked. The police knocked at 1:30 or 2 a.m. A grumpy lady came to the door and eyed us suspiciously and assumed “the pose” (arms crossed, leaning slightly back and to one side, with head down and hip thrust off to the opposite side).
“What?”
“Ma’am, are you Mary Crankypants?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you own a 1990 blue Astrovan License 123ABC?”
{exaggerated exhalation of breath as if bored) “Yeeeeahhhh?”
“We stopped a guy named Johnny Lightfingers driving it at 120th and Avalon. Do you know him, and does he have permission to have your vehicle?”
“NO I don’t and NO he doesn’t.”
“Well the van is loaded with a bunch of kids’ Christmas presents. Are your Christmas presents missing?”
(An exhalation of breath as if we were putting her out) “Just a second”, she huffed at us, before disappearing to look. She returned several seconds later,
(Again with the exhalation of breath as if we were putting her out) “The presents are all gone toooo.”
“Can somebody with a license come with us and pick up the van and presents?”
(And AGAIN with the exhalation of breath as if we were putting her out) “Fiiine.”
She stomped off to get some clothes on.
Our guy went to jail for burglary, vehicle theft, evading, parole violation and driving on a suspended license, but that lady was possibly the most ungrateful person I have ever met in my life.
Why Hiring Women Has Become BAD For BUSINESS
Join the “STAY AWAY ” Movement….
Pastitsio (Baked Macaroni)
I suppose this could be called the “comfort food” of Greek cooking. Pastitsio uses a béchamel sauce, one of the five mother sauces. My sister and I absolutely love this, and we used to make it all the time when we saw each other more often. But I also eat it at the St. Katherine’s Greek Festival every year.
pastitsio
Prep: 25 min | Cook: 55 min | Yield: 8 to 12 servings
Ingredients
Macaroni
1 pound macaroni
1/4 pound butter
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey or beef
1/2 can tomato paste
6 ounces grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Sauce
4 cups warm milk, divided
5 eggs
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 sticks butter
Instructions
Macaroni
Cook macaroni (but not well done) in boiling, salted water and drain.
Sauté onion in a little butter.
Add ground meat and stir until brown.
Add tomato paste, thinned with a little water.
Add salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook until meat is done.
Melt butter; pour over drained macaroni, mixing carefully.
Spread half of the macaroni on the bottom of a 13 x 9-inch pan.
Sprinkle half of the grated cheese on top.
Spread entire meat mixture on top.
Cover with remaining macaroni and remaining grated cheese.
Sauce
Boil 3 cups of the milk with 1 1/2 sticks butter.
Add flour to remaining 1 cup milk and blend well.
Add flour mixture to boiling butter and milk. Thicken and cool.
After this has cooled, add 5 beaten eggs, or drop small amounts of the milk mixture into the eggs while stirring constantly. Once the egg mixture gets warm to hot, add the remaining milk.
Pour sauce over the macaroni. Shake the pan and insert a knife to penetrate thoroughly.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes.
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US/Russia/China: Worst Tensions in 30 Years.
I was born July 1945 from my whole life. I knew that in November 19 63 the United States of America cease to exist. It was not the America that I had grown up in. and as a retired lawyer admitted to the bar of Massachusetts and Maryland. I am distraught about how lawless the courts and judicial system now are I always thought they were the last refuge, but they’ve gone over to the dark side for the most part.
What was a rule that was made at your job because of something a co-worker did?
I worked at a fast food place. When we closed there’d usually be a little bit of food left over in the warming bins. 2 to 4 burger patties, a grilled chicken and a fried chicken typically, as we cut back on what was prepped ahead later in the evening. We, the employees were allowed to eat the left overs as we finished closing duties. One of the perks of the otherwise annoying jobs of closing. The managers and other employees often had me make them sandwiches, as I came up with some interesting combos. Sometimes if they didn’t get eaten one of the employees would take a couple of patties or whatever was left over home with them for the fridge.
One night one of the cooks who had been there for years, was putting in about 10 quarter pound patties through the broiler, about 10 minutes before close. The manager told them there was no way we were going to sell that many before close (obviously). He just said that any we didn’t sell he would just take home with him. Obviously only making them for that purpose. The next day there was a rule that all leftover food had to be thrown out at the end of the night. No employees were allowed to eat any of it or take it home. One person ruined it for everyone, and of course he was the one that complained the most about it, when he was the one that caused it.
While painting, he noticed a small hole in the hull, and quietly repaired it.
When he finished painting, he received his money and left.
The next day, the owner of the boat came to the painter and presented him with a nice check, much higher than the payment for painting.
The painter was surprised and said “You’ve already paid me for painting the boat Sir!”
“But this is not for the paint job. It’s for repairing the hole in the boat.”
“Ah! But it was such a small service… certainly it’s not worth paying me such a high amount for something so insignificant.”
“My dear friend, you do not understand. Let me tell you what happened:
“When I asked you to paint the boat, I forgot to mention the hole.
“When the boat dried, my kids took the boat and went on a fishing trip.
“They did not know that there was a hole. I was not at home at that time.
“When I returned and noticed they had taken the boat, I was desperate because I remembered that the boat had a hole.
“Imagine my relief and joy when I saw them returning from fishing.
“Then, I examined the boat and found that you had repaired the hole!
“You see, now, what you did? You saved the life of my children! I do not have enough money to pay your ‘small’ good deed.”
So no matter who, when or how, continue to help, sustain, wipe tears, listen attentively, and carefully repair all the ‘leaks’ you find. You never know when one is in need of us, or when God holds a pleasant surprise for us to be helpful and important to someone.
Along the way, you may have repaired numerous ‘boat holes’ for several people without realizing how many lives you’ve save. ❤️
Make a difference….be the best you can…”
I’m fine
When did you realize something was a blessing in disguise?
When I re-connected with a lot of my old high school classmates on Facebook, and I saw how many of the “popular” kids ended up with really bad careers and marriages. That’s when I realized that being unpopular in high school probably helped me focus on my education and made me so much more grateful for my wife, which led to a better marriage.
Many of the guys who got all of the girls in my high school — the guys I used to be so jealous of — now have crappy jobs, failed out of college, have criminal records, have multiple children from multiple women, and generally look miserable on their Facebook posts.
It’s even worse for the women I graduated with. So many of those beautiful classmates that I used to wish would just give me a chance… they’re now drug addicts, have multiple children with multiple men, have abusive boyfriends and husbands, and just look so… miserable and beaten down by their lives.
I knew many of these people in grammar school. We were friends then. But in middle school and especially in high school, when the social cliques really started forming and I was left out of them, their personalities changed. They quit trying in school. They focused on getting dates, parties, etc… The typical popular teenager stuff.
Not all the popular kids, of course. Some of them ended up in good places in life. But many of them didn’t. And I think it can be traced right back to those high school years.
Dating and partying weren’t distractions for me. That’s the hidden advantage to being an unpopular high schooler… you don’t lose focus on your education. And, in college, when I finally met a woman who gave me a chance, I treated her like a queen, and it’s worked out great for us.
So, if you’re an unpopular high schooler today, particularly if you’re a guy who gets no attention from the ladies… fear not! It’s a blessing in disguise. “The ladies” are a distraction… for now at least. Education first, then career. Then watch how the roles change. A man in his 20s with a college education and stable, successful career? You’ll never have to worry about not finding a date again.
The Consequences Of Degrading Men
Something is happening to boys and there is goring to be a very serious backlash.
What’s the most savage way you’ve seen someone get fired?
I worked at Wilkins Dodge in Roseville MN around 1990
We were not the most productive dealer in the area for sure, selling an average of 60 used vehicles and 50 New vehicles per month.
A new Gm is hired and he has big plans for us to jump into the big leagues starting with hiring 12 new salespeople to add to our 8 person team plus 2 older than dirt fleet managers. Great we all said or thought collectively while in the middle of a very serious circle jerk.
Somehow the GM finds 12 people that can speak, tie a tie, own a pen and can pass a background check. To us the all looked like the guys that knock on your door asking about religion.
So they (the 12) are offered paid training at 300.00 Dollars a week for 2 weeks at 5 days each for 8 hours…They are all signed up thru Mopar sales training and are by all accounts doing OK.
Wilkins Dodge had no A/C and MN in August can be a little humid especially in the upstairs training room with no windows. The 12 endured though and all passed their training with higher than average scores.
On the last Friday the GM has a moment of clarity and realizes we don’t have the inventory or budget to keep all 12 newly minted superstars of retail.
He call them out to the used car side of the building (in the shade) around 430 and asks them to form a line and count off by two’s.
2’s please step forward and they do so. Ones please go inside and find a desk and I’ll be with you shortly.
2’s remain stepped forward and look confused but still not grasping the situation. Please see me for your checks, we’ve decided to change our plan regarding your employment says the GM and have a nice weekend please send your family or friends for a vehicle.
Swearing, muttering and insults from remaining 6 plus some more than a lfew expressions of soon to be physical violence had the GM exiting the area towards the service department tossing the checks in the air behind him…….
Good times….
Roast Pork with Potato Dumplings
This is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods.
roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut 650×276
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
Dumplings
3 to 4 pounds starchy potatoes
2 to 3 eggs
1/2 to 1 cup all-purpose flour
Sea and or kosher salt, to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Pork Roast
1 pork roast
Oil (for browning)
Salt and pepper, to taste
Paprika, to taste
1/2 to 1 pound coarsely chopped onions
Instructions
Dumplings
In a large pot, boil potatoes in salted water with the skins on. Peel and put them through a ricer (if you don’t have a ricer, use the back of a spoon to smash potatoes through a sieve). Let cool completely.
Refrigerate.
The next day, about 30 minutes before the roast is finished, set a large pot of salted water to boil.
To the cooled, riced potatoes add eggs and 8 to 14 tablespoons of flour, depending on how starchy the potatoes are). Also add salt, nutmeg and parsley. Using your hands, form potatoes into balls between the size of golf and tennis balls.
Add the potato balls to the boiling water but do not let the water continue to boil. When they float to the top in 15 to 20 minutes, they are done.
Pork Roast
In a large, heavy pot, heat oil. Sprinkle the roast with salt, pepper and paprika, and brown quickly in oil. Add onions and brown them, too. Turn heat down to medium low. Add a little water. A carrot and a couple of fresh tomatoes can also be added if desired. Cover and cook for 2 hours, turning occasionally.
To make gravy (optional), remove the roast and add a little water to the pan to de-glaze it. Add a little flour or cornstarch to thicken the drippings.
Serve dumplings and pork roast with red cabbage or sauerkraut.
What is the most disgusting workplace rule you’ve seen?
This was more an unspoken attitude than a workplace rule, but someone lost their job over it.
When I came to work for a certain company, I was an in-your-face out lesbian. Nobody seemed to mind, at least nobody said anything and I was well-liked.
One of the married women struck up a friendship with me and we used to go walking at lunch time. She was really into her church and she not-so-subtly tried to get me to believe that being gay was wrong. When I didn’t bite, she started asking me questions about how I knew I was queer, how it affected my life, how it was different being in a relationship with a man vs a woman (I had been in a conventional het relationship prior to coming out). I answered all her questions as honestly as I could, trying to raise awareness that queer folk aren’t really that different from straight folk.
It turned out that she had been questioning all her life and was trying to work up the courage to come out herself. I SWEAR I WASN’T TRYING TO CONVERT HER.
She ended up coming out while I worked there. I was dumbfounded when she told me—I had no clue. I really thought she was a church lady. Her husband left her, which she was actually relieved about.
I eventually left there for a higher-paying job. When I caught up with the woman a few years later, she told me she had been fired for coming out of the closet. Nobody could accept her transition from straight life to queer life. They were used to seeing her as a straight woman and they looked at her transition as a sort of betrayal. so, I guess if you were already queer that was ok, but you weren’t allowed to change teams.
EDIT: One, she didn’t suddenly start crowing at work about what a dyke she was. It was a small, tight-knit company so her divorce became known. She also cut her hair short and started wearing less feminine clothing. She stopped talking about Jesus and church, since her church rejected her when she came out. It wasn’t hard for the boss to extrapolate.
Two, of course the company didn’t tell her they were firing her for being a lesbian. They gradually transferred her best clients to other workers, started giving her poor reviews and difficult clients and basically made the work environment unpleasant for her. They laid her off after they had gathered enough (fake) documentation to support firing her for cause, and she didn’t bother fighting it.
EDIT: Any comments implying that the people in the story are liars will be deleted.
I’m not answering any more comments or questions that:
Have already been addressed in the comments
Demonstrate that the commenter believes they can interpret the situation better than those involved
Demonstrate poor reading comprehension. I’m not an elementary school teacher.
Why Do They Really Fear Single Men – MGTOW
I hate this guys voice, but the message is really good.
When I was a young boy, perhaps 6 years old, we lived in a housing complex in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I used to play with the other kids in that complex. One of my boyhood friends was this kid named Joe.
His father was a scientist from Germany. And after world war II, he emigrated to the United States with his parents. They were a nice family, and the father and Joe could speak very good English, but his mother could not. But she was pretty nice.
Joe was named after the Americans allowed him to come into the USA. He was named “G.I.Joe”. I kid you not.
Anyways he had his father’s German soldiers helmet, and a German army issue gas mask that we both played with.
He was a lot of fun. Joe and I did many things together, and we ran about getting into all sorts of things. Good times for young boys. Ha ha.
Anyways, in his basement, his father had rows and rows of cages with bunny rabbits. yeah, his father was using them for experiments that he ran out of his house.
He fed them. He tended to them.
He injected them…
Now that I am older, and knowing about “Operation Paperclip”, I wonder just what kinds of experiments his father was doing to these rabbits. Makeup? Bio-weapons? Aspirin? I don’t know.
What I do know is that my father would periodically take me over to Joe’s house and I would get to pick up the rabbits from time to time. Both Joe and I were too young to notice anything wrong about the set up. But today… knowing what I do know… I wonder about it.
Many innocent things in my past… well are exposed to the understandings of experience when you get older.
Today…
Ukraine Dropped Explosive On Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility
Ukrainians dropped an explosive on the nuclear fuel storage facility at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia sent an urgent report to the IAEA.
Absolutely ZERO additional information is available at this time.
No word of any radiation leak . . . no word about ANYTHING. Just that it happened.
More if I get it.
This $7.3 Trillion Bombshell Threatens To SINK The Dollar
Transgender – The Inability To Distinguish Facts From Wishes
Matt Taibbi opines on the latest piece of transgender nonsense:
The Dumbest Cover Story Ever – Racket News, Mar 13 2024 New York Magazine’s “Freedom of Sex” is the ultimate example of the lunatic nihilism that’s consumed America’s intellectual class
New York Magazine has a new cover story, by the trans writer Andrea Long Chu: “The moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies.” A jeremiad in support of the idea that children must have absolute political agency, it makes the Unabomber manifesto read like a Shakespeare sonnet. The money passage:
We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history.
A lot of the piece is standard-issue woe-is-me fuck-everything cartoon nihilism you’d hear from any laptop-class liberal arts product, arguing for a generalized smashing of the patriarchy, among other things by attacking the biological conspiracy to produce those units of material labor value known as babies. Complete abolition of norms would be an “impossible task,” Chu notes sadly, but that doesn’t preclude their “collective reimagining” by an alliance of intersectional victims working toward a Marxian paradise free of “oppressive systems,” which of course include the nuclear family.
The nihilism Taibbi points to is also the major theme the French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd takes on in his book “The Defeat of the West”.
American leadership is failing: That is the argument of an eccentric new book that since January has stood near the top of France’s best-seller lists. It is called “La Défaite de l’Occident” (“The Defeat of the West”). Its author, Emmanuel Todd, is a celebrated historian and anthropologist who in 1976, in a book called “The Final Fall,” used infant-mortality statistics to predict that the Soviet Union was headed for collapse.
…
Mr. Todd is not a moralizer. But he insists that traditional cultures have a lot to fear from the West’s various progressive leanings and may resist allying themselves on foreign policy with those who espouse them. In a similar way, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s official atheism was a deal-breaker for many people who might otherwise have been well disposed toward Communism.
…
Mr. Todd does believe that certain of our values are “deeply negative.” He presents evidence that the West does not value the lives of its young. Infant mortality, the telltale metric that led him to predict the Soviet collapse half a century ago, is higher in Mr. Biden’s America (5.4 per thousand) than in Mr. Putin’s Russia — and three times higher than in the Japan of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.While Mr. Todd is, again, not judgmental on sexual matters, he is judgmental on intellectual ones. The inability to distinguish facts from wishes astounds him at every turn of the Ukraine war. The American hope early in the war that China might cooperate in a sanctions regime against Russia, thereby helping the United States refine a weapon that would one day be aimed at China itself, is, for Mr. Todd, a “delirium.”
Back in January Todd expanded on the inability of distinguishing facts from fiction, which is also the basis of trans-genderism, during an interview with Le Figaro. From its English translation:
Q: Over time, haven’t you become a bit of a reactionary?I was brought up by a grandmother who told me that, sexually speaking, all tastes are part of nature, and I’m faithful to my ancestors. So, LGB, welcome. For T, the trans issue is something else. The individuals concerned must of course be protected. But the fixation of the Western middle classes on this ultra-minority issue raises a sociological and historical question. To establish as a social horizon the idea that a man can really become a woman and a woman a man is to assert something that is biologically impossible, it is to deny the reality of the world, it is to assert the false.
Trans ideology is therefore, in my opinion, one of the flags of this nihilism that now defines the West, this drive to destroy not just things and people but reality. But, once again, I am in no way overwhelmed here by indignation or emotion. This ideology exists and I have to integrate it into a historical model. In the age of the metaverse, I can’t say whether my attachment to reality makes me a reactionary.
The intentional denial of reality, as it is currently practiced in the West, is not a new phenomenon. It is the basis of neo-conservatism from where it has crept over to the progressive side.
As Ron Susskind wrote in his portrait of the first years of the Bush junior presidency:
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Karl Rove, the Bush advisor Susskind had quoted, displayed the same lunatic nihilism that is represented by those who argue that children, teenagers or people generally should can freely chose their gender. It is an attempt of “creating other new realities”. It represents a total denial of actual reality and of the common values derived from it. The Bush administration failed in its endeavor to create new realities in Iraq. The current regime in the West will fail likewise with regime change in Russia. So will others who deny realities.
The author of the Todd book review, Christopher Caldwell, adds:
Fighting a war based on values requires good values. At a bare minimum it requires an agreement on the values being spread, and the United States is further from such agreement than it has ever been in its history — further, even, than it was on the eve of the Civil War. At times it seems there are no national principles, only partisan ones, with each side convinced that the other is trying not just to run the government but also to capture the state.
I see a very similar denial of reality, followed by nihilism and a lack of values, at the top of the current European leadership. The loss of the common view of things is splitting societies on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, with regards to transgenderism, some sense of reality is still trying to survive:
“We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of (puberty suppressing hormones) to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” the publication by NHS England stated.
Puberty is a natural process which often includes a temporary confusion about ones identity. Blocking a kids puberty to further some ephemeral confusion some may have during those time is in my view criminal.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asserted his stance on gender identity in a speech Wednesday, stating it was “common sense” that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman” — a remark that sparked criticism from transgender rights activists and elicited fervent applause from attendees of the Conservative Party Conference.
I see myself, just like Matt Taibbi seems to see himself, as a progressive striving for a society based on some form of socialism and justice.
To then find myself on the same side of an issue as some staunch conservatives, and getting attacked for it, is mildly disturbing.
Is it really impossible to be reality based and on the left side of things?
Posted by b on March 14, 2024 at 11:24 UTC | Permalink
The United States is searching for what is believed to be a Russian nuclear submarine off the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (DelMarVa) Peninsula and into Chesapeake Bay.
Sub-Hunter aircraft are deployed as shown on the FlightRadar image above.
This wasn’t something that I overheard, but my cousin did.
He was sitting on a train and overheard two girls talking, roughly in their early 20s. One of the girls had been asked to house-sit for a family friend who was away for 2 weeks and also look after their pet German Shepherd.
Things were going well for the first few days until she woke up one morning and the dog had died in its sleep.
This was in central London at the height of summer, and the girl didn’t own a car. The owners wouldn’t be back for about 8 days so she couldn’t just leave it in the house until then in case it started to rot. She read online that she should store it in a cool place, but there wasn’t anywhere suitable at their house as it was a very big dog. She also didn’t have many friends in the area and had no access to a car, so she had no idea what to do.
She googled where the nearest vet might be able to store the body until the owners returned, but it was two stops away on the tube. Even if a taxi agreed to transport a dead dog, she couldn’t afford to pay £20 for a London taxi, so she put the dog in a suitcase and took it on the tube.
A man offered to help her carry it down the stairs as she was struggling, and asked what on earth she had inside that made it so heavy (about 30kg). She was a photography student, so told him that she studied photography and had a lot of camera equipment inside. They chatted a bit about it and got on to the tube.
At the next stop, the man got off, but just as the doors were closing, he grabbed the suitcase and ran off towards the escalators as fast as he could. He was a petty criminal who thought he would cash in on the camera equipment. Before she knew what had happened, the doors had shut and she was on her way to the next station.
I’m not sure if they ever got it back, but there aren’t many greater images than the thought of this man returning home thinking he had hit the jackpot, only to open the bag and see a dead German Shepherd staring back at him.
Couples Therapy
Have you ever tried to annoy a scammer who called you? If so, what happened?
I don’t know if I actually “annoyed” the scammer but. . . . I have two stories, several years apart. Story One: My phone rang one afternoon about three years ago. When I picked up the receiver (landline), a voice answered that sounded like my cousin. When I said, “Larry?” he replied, “Yeah, Grandma, it’s me.” Immediately I knew it was a scam since my husband and I never had kids, ergo, no grandkids. But, I decided to play along. He explained that he was somewhere—I forget where exactly—in the Bahamas, where he and some friends had gone to hear a rock concert, and he’d been in an accident with his rental car. I asked him if he took out insurance when he rented the car; he said yes, but the way they did things down there was, you paid for the damages out of pocket, and then the rental insurance reimbursed you. I asked him how much he needed and he replied $3000, money he’d need to pay for the car, his hotel bill and airfare to get home. “Oh, Larry,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I just paid my quarterly property taxes (actually true) and have no more money.” Pause. “Why don’t you just ask Mom and Dad for the money?” He explained that his folks had told him not to go, but he went anyway, and now they would be furious at him for disobeying. “Oh, sweetheart,” I said in my most sympathetic tone. “Yeah, they’ll be mad at you for a minute, but you know they love you. I’m sure they’ll help you.” Another pause. “Larry, you go explain things to them. I just know they’ll give you the money. And then, please, call me back and let me know what happened. Okay?” “Okay, Grandma, I will.” If I do say so myself, I was brilliant. Move over Meryl Streep.
Story Two: This happened at least a dozen years ago, before I understood just what scammers were about and how they worked. I got a call from a guy (with an Indian accent) who said his name was Jim from “Microsoft” and that they had detected a virus on my computer. Coincidentally, I really was having problems with my computer and trouble accessing my email. I listened to his spiel and decided to allow him to take control of my computer. He said it would cost me $100 to fix. I agreed and he or his IT dept. went to work on erasing the virus, but not very well. The following day I got another call from “Microsoft” and the same spiel. I told him that someone else had called the previous day and I had agreed to pay the $100 to fix my computer, but as yet the computer still wasn’t functioning properly. This new guy named George (also with an Indian accent) said that Jim didn’t know what he was talking about, that there would be no charge to fix my computer, but that if I wanted, I could agree to a 6-month for $99, a 1-year for $199 or a two-year service contract for $299, my choice. I told him I was confused, but he advised me not to deal with Jim ever again and that he, George, would really fix my computer, which took about 5 hours (I guess those guys worked on commission and they were having a fight over which one would get the credit for my computer work.) Well, it turned out that George actually did fix the problem—I wonder how THAT happened—and now he wanted to get my credit card number so he could charge me for my choice length service contract. I told him, honestly, I didn’t have a charge card available, but to send me a bill and I would send him a check for the amount. He reluctantly agreed, but I never did get the bill. In retrospect, I don’t know how or why my computer actually did work after that, and I never heard from that particular “Microsoft” bunch ever again.
U.S. Gov ADMITS They Are Readying “Kill Chain” Around China
Has anyone at your workplace ever been fired for something they said or did?
4 years ago, she was in procurement and I was in sales. We worked in a trading company. (let’s call her ‘Jane’ here.)
Me: ‘Can you please share the price of the inquiry from X company?’
Jane: ‘OK, I will send you an email in 10 minutes.’
Me: ‘Cool, thanks!’
20 minutes later
Jane: ‘Sorry the price sent 10 minutes ago was wrong.’
Me: ‘Oh shit, we already quoted the client. Let me give him a call real quick. Please make sure to send the correct one this time.’
Jane: ‘Ok, sorry bout that.’
20 minutes later
Jane: ‘Hey…. I apologize. But the price was still not correct.’
Me: ‘……(sign) Alright, let me call the client real quick. Meanwhile can you please please prepare the correct price and send it out ASAP? ’
Jane: ‘I will. This time, it will be correct.’
Me: ‘Awesome, if my help is needed, you know where to find me.’
20 minutes later
Jane: ‘Hey……’
Me: ‘Hey…..’
Jane: ‘It’s about the price.’
Me: ‘Please don’t tell me, it’s wrong again.’
Jane: ‘……..’ (she nodded)
Me: ‘………..Alright, please go back to your seat first. We will talk later.’
I called a flash meeting with her manager and mine. Went through all the communication between Jane and the supplier. We found out that Jane chatted with the supplier via WhatsApp only without asking for email confirmation so of course price could change at any time. We gave her a chance to explain and she couldn’t.
A few months later, I heard Jane had resigned. Or should I say she was pressured as the company did not want to pay compensation? Whatever it was, her skills were not suitable for the position. It was best for her and company.
Bobcat story
What are some psychological facts that people don’t know?
The mere exposure effect: The more you see something, the more you like it. This is why advertisers repeat slogans and brands use familiar logos.
We tend to believe people notice our mistakes or imperfections more than they actually do.
The sunk cost fallacy: People are more likely to continue an endeavor the more they have already invested in it, even if it’s no longer worthwhile.
Social loafing: People exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone.
The more witnesses to an emergency, the less likely any one person is to intervene. Everyone might be looking to see if someone else will take action first.
The confirmation bias: People tend to seek out information that confirms their existing beliefs and disregard information that contradicts them.
How information is presented can influence how people perceive it. Frame your speech nicely….organizing speech is as important as the speech itself.
The in-group favoritism: People favor members of their own group over outsiders.
The placebo effect: A belief that a treatment will work can actually produce positive effects. Some medicines are just flavored chewable but due the outer packing and doctor’s prescription, patient believe it as cure and thus see tangible results.
People are seen as more likeable after they make a minor mistake. They became humble and look for someone who doesn’t judge them on thier mistake.
The false consensus effect: People overestimate the extent to which others share their beliefs and attitudes.
The Dunning-Kruger effect: Unskilled people tend to overestimate their ability, while skilled people tend to underestimate theirs. You think you can be a chess grandmaster, but many a times a grandmaster thinks is not worthy of being one, although he is 100times better than you.
The cryptomnesia effect: Unconsciously plagiarism where you mistakenly believe something you created is something you heard or experienced before. Pathetic ! You thought you heard this story somewhere but in reality it was your own creative innovation.
People tend to attribute positive events to themselves and negative events to external factors.
People perform better when they are being cheered on or believe they are part of a team. Yes! you can do it. We are all there for you, Give it your 100%
Scampi
The cooked garlic-butter combination may be poured over French bread and served with shrimp as a side dish.
Scampi
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
4 pounds headless jumbo shrimp
1 lemon, divided
2 cups butter
1 teaspoon salt
6 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon finely-chopped parsley
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
Instructions
Thoroughly wash shrimp. Peel and place side by side in glass baking dish, making sure shrimp are not on top of each other.
Squeeze juice of 1/2 lemon over shrimp.
Slice remaining 1/2 lemon into 6 finely sliced pieces and place in baking dish.
Melt butter.
Finely chop garlic and place in butter.
Add salt and chopped parsley to butter and garlic mixture.
Sprinkle pepper over shrimp, then pour butter and garlic mixture over this.
Cover tightly and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
Serve with cooked pasta if desired.
Hostage Negotiation
A Chinese person just told me about a ‘frog in a well’. What are some other Chinese sayings that non-Chinese people might be unaware of?
that it would take an entire series of books to cover them. I send blog posts from a Chinese language site to my students who have an interest in ancient Chinese wisdom. So I’ll share a few of my favorite and the actual meanings.
for people who are interested in the Chinese language as well as culture.
But for those of you who aren’t sure what an idiom is, Chinese idioms, called (Zhōng guó chéng yŭ 中国成语), are well-known sayings or proverbs alluding to famous Chinese stories and historical events. They are not only a key part of Chinese language learning but are also priceless in understanding Chinese culture. Chinese idioms are deeply rooted in legacies and traditional culture, making the Chinese language more rich and fascinating. Each Chinese idiom carries profound meaning too. Some of the meaning can’t be understood from the context alone, so I’ll try to expand on the origins and significance.
“鸡毛蒜皮 (jīmáosuànpí)” may have a literal meaning of “chicken feathers and garlic skin” but the meaning has a logical reason. It is used to express that something is not important, or is simply worthless.
The story goes that a long time ago, there were two neighbors: One who lived in the East sold chickens for a living and one who lived in the West sold garlic for a living. Both families had a rather hard life. The family that sold chickens got up early to pluck “鸡毛（jīmáo) chicken feathers”, and as a result, the entire floor was covered in chicken hair. The family who sold garlic also woke up early, but to peel garlic, and their entire floor was covered with “蒜皮（suànpí) garlic skin”. The two families had originally lived in harmony. However, they did have a source of conflict, the wind.
When the wind blew westward, from the East, the “鸡毛（jīmáo) chicken feathers” would be blown into the western neighbor’s yard, while when the wind blew eastward, from the West, “蒜皮（suànpí) garlic skin” would be blown into the eastern neighbor’s yard. The two neighbors often quarreled over such nuance. At one point, the conflict between the two neighbors escalated to the point where they both fought, and eventually went to court to settle the provocative matter. The Judge learned that they were arguing over such a small issue, and said: “Such a small provocation is not worth being settled in court. You have wasted my time, therefore you should be punished.” Some people said the judge was unfair, while others said the ruling was fitting, and that both claims seemed to make sense. Later, the story spread, and eventually “鸡毛蒜皮 (jīmáosuànpí)” became known as a phrase that denotes trivial, unremarkable things or very small things.
“对牛弹琴 (Duìniútánqín)” is used by Chinese people to describe someone who is explaining something complicated to a fool, or sometimes this idiom is used to describe a person who is trying to tell something to the wrong audience.
It literally means to play the harp to a cow…
During the Warring States Period, there was a musician named Gongming Yi, who played musical instruments very well. There were a great number of people fond of listening to him play, and who respected him greatly.
One day, Gongming Yi saw a cow when he was relaxing in the countryside. He thought, “Everybody compliments my music. Why don’t I play some music for this cow?”
He played a piece of elegant quaint music for the cow, but the cow just kept grazing the grass with its head down.
He played another piece of joyful music, but the cow still kept its head down to graze the grass and totally ignored him.
Gongming Yi showed off all his skills, but the cow still ignored him. He was disappointed and started to question his ability until a passerby said to him, “It’s not because your ability is inadequate. It is because the cow can not understand music at all.”
The moral of the two stories are useful but hard to understand from context but it helps to know the background information.
Self Belief
How do I understand Chinese culture?
Fascinating question.
Having lived in China for several years, and being married to a Chinese wife, I think my first impulse is to say, “don’t expect to ever fully understand Chinese culture.”
Not because they are so hard to understand, but because that thing we call China is a huge place, with a long history, and it would be wrong to expect to ever fully grasp what it means to be Chinese, or do things the Chinese way.
All that hedging aside, I do think you could be pragmatic about it.
Presuming you are simply trying to get on in modern day China’s culture, I would give you the following list of tips:
Know your place; in China, family always come first. Then come relatives and old friends. New friends are welcome, but won’t be prioritized.
Food is China’s unofficial religion. You will be asked “have you eaten?” in the same way you will be asked “how are you doing?” in the anglosphere, and they mean it. Never downplay the importance of a meal. They dedicate an amazing amount of time, resources, and energy to making, eating, and procuring meals. If you’re French, you’ll understand.
“Saving Face” is everything. There are a hundred ways in which the Chinese can acknowledge or humiliate you, and it all boils down to small details like who sits where, when do you get to speak, what sort of dishes are served… if you can read that code, you know your place with them.
Negotiation; the Chinese will offer you a choice even when it is clear what you want. It’s one of the prime directives of China. The other person must always have a choice. That way, you may find yourself playing cat and mouse with other pedestrians many more times than you would in the western world, because one indication of intended direction just isn’t enough; no, you will have to swerve around fellow pedestrians in the last moment, because they will keep offering you options till the last second. Whenever I sit in a restaurant with my wife, she drives me crazy with the question “… or would you like THAT dish instead?” To which my retort tends to be, “no, goddammit! I want the thing I said I wanted the first time!”
Final agreements are not final. How many times did we put a final signature under something, only to find ourselves reconvening over a lavish meal for a complete re-negotiation.
Change your spokesperson, and you start from scratch. The Chinese build relations with a company or institution based on a personal, individual relationship. Take that person away, and you are back to zero.
Wastefulness is a sign of idiocy. I have yet to see a respected Chinese person with a wasteful attitude. Economy and efficiency are the pillars of Chinese success, and those who are successful there will possess them.
Nature is beautiful – but only few have a realistic understanding of nature. Instead, there is a highly domesticated image of nature in China, sporting talking, vegetarian cats, highly polished flower arrangements, and so on. The Chinese romanticize nature, but don’t understand it.
Outlooks are strangely short term and long term at the same time. The business world expects fast turnarounds and quick growth, while politics and others allow for long time spans for things to develop.
On the whole, I like Chinese culture. When you are there, you feel a new mellowness, surrounded by abundance and the dynamics of an old culture that is mercifully pragmatic and philosophical.
Rory Gallagher-Bad Penny (Rockpalast 1982)
Have you ever gotten a second opinion from a doctor that was drastically different than what you were originally told by your first doctor?
In 2011 I had an excruciating pain in the left side of my back. I called 911 and was taken to the ER where they diagnosed kidney stones, gave me a blood thinner and did a CT. The on call urologist came and said I had renal cell carcinoma and said to make an appointment to have the kidney removed asap. He said you have two kidneys and survive just fine on one. I did some research online and saw that Cleveland Clinic did an operation where they could remove half a kidney. I saw another Nephrologist in town first who confirmed the cancer diagnosis and the conceited little twerp said they can’t do the half kidney because the lesion was in the wrong place. I went to Cleveland anyway and made an appointment with the doctor who wrote the kidney textbook med students use. He did his own CT with dye and said, “Ya know this isn’t taking the dye like renal carcinoma would, let’s wait and do another CT in three months. If it is cancer it’s slow growing so it’s not a big risk.” I went back home to California and returned three months later for another scan. This time the lesion had actually reduced in size and the Cleveland doctor said the lesion was actually “a cyst that had burst” not cancer. Today, 11 years later, I have two good kidneys because I got the second opinion. Choose your second opinion from a place like Cleveland Clinic that does research if you can.
I just got fired. Now my former boss (the one who let me go) is asking me where some important documents are. How should I respond?
I just got fired. Now my former boss (the one who let me go) is asking me where some important documents are. How should I respond?
The word “toxic” gets thrown around far too often, I think. And yet, I can’t really think of any other word (except for possibly “hostile”) that describes where I used to work. The company no longer exists, having been acquired a couple times over, but I still am hesitant to name it because the industry is rather incestuous and the people are still around even if the company isn’t.
Nevertheless, perhaps this story can act as both a cautionary tale as well as a moment of schadenfreude.
After I had been with the company for about a little less than a year, they hired a new WorldWide VP of Sales who is about as close to pure evil as I ever experienced (and this is coming from someone who worked at Apple!). When he came in, he brought with him a series of sycophants who were as insane as he was malicious.
I was low enough in the food chain to have zero influence or power, but high enough that I was in an extremely vulnerable and visible position. As this VP began clearing house of the long-time veterans of the company, it was only a matter of time before he got to me.
For all the writing on the wall, I was still unprepared for when it happened. I naively believed that the work that I was doing was critical and that I was irreplaceable (at least at that moment). I had the sole responsibility of developing the documentation and training materials for a set of equipment that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars – each.
For those that don’t know, much of the material that is sold by large corporations (Cisco, HPE, Lenovo, etc.) is not designed or built in-house. Often other companies make various components that fit into the equipment; in some cases they make all of the equipment and these larger companies simply rebrand the whole shebang. This was one of those cases.
My company had created an entire portfolio that was going to be rebranded by another multi-billion dollar conglomerate. This was the largest deal they had ever signed with this company, and it was a Big Deal™. Not only did the information had to be 100% accurate, but it had to be branded with the other company’s logos, document rules, etc. On top of it all, the material was highly technical.
It took eight months of 10–12 hour days to complete. The launch was set for November 9. I had non-stop travel booked through the following March to travel world-wide and train the other company’s sales force on the equipment, how it worked, and so on. I was the only one scheduled to do this. I figured there was no way they would let me go with so much on the line.
Little did I know.
Back to the evil VP. He was notorious for walking around the office at around 7 p.m. to see who was still there, or who had “left work early.” My cubicle was just outside of his office, so there was no way he would have been able to miss whether I was there or not.
As it happens, my job was to be a road warrior, so I wasn’t supposed to be there. In fact, if I was in the office, it meant that I wasn’t doing my job!
Remember when I said that he brought some insane people with him? Well, one of those idiots remains to this day as the worst example of corporate nepotism I’ve ever seen. The man was an ADD basket case on crack. He was brought in as a VP of Public Relations, and then added a VP of Marketing title when the WWVP of Sales fired the original guy. All of this, and he couldn’t spell to save his life (he once wrote that he was a “VP of Pubic Relations” on his email before realizing that he could save a signature to automatically insert it. No, I’m not making that up).
Anyway this idiot was incensed that I was “never” in the office. Despite the fact that it was my job to be a road warrior, he was livid. And, because he was a good little yes-man, he decided he would make up all kinds of stories that he “imagined” I was doing because I wasn’t in the office. As I said, my cubicle was right outside of the WWVP’s and so he would pass by an empty cubicle several times a day.
So, without me knowing, their plan was set in motion irrespective of the actual work that I was doing.
Remember that the official launch of this product portfolio was November 9? Well, after working for so long on developing the materials, working with the bigger company, and essentially exhausting myself, I decided to take a week’s vacation at the end of October in anticipation of the upcoming launch juggernaut.
I traveled back to England (where I had lived before getting this job) to visit friends and family. I told everyone where I was going, kept a paper-trail, even had a team dinner the night before with the Business Development Manager (“<BDM>”) responsible for the overall relationship and dollar figure with the big company and talked about my holiday plans. Everyone knew where I was going, when, and why. I thought it was all good.
Big mistake.
Halfway through my week in vacation, I got a phone call from my manager.
“J, sorry to bother you on your vacation,” he began. I could tell that something was wrong.
“No problem,” I said, knowing that there was definitely a problem.
“Did <the BDM> know that you were going on vacation this week?”
“Of course,” I said. “We had dinner the night before and I told him all about it, plus it has been in my weekly reports for the past month.”
“Okay, well, <the WWVP> asked <the BDM> where you were today and he said he didn’t know.”
My blood ran cold. I knew what this meant. I actually wondered if I needed to change my flights and return back to the States. I asked my manager (who I truly liked and respected) if I should do that. If he’d said yes, I’d do it.
“No,” he said. “You enjoy your vacation. You deserved it. We can sort this out when you get back.”
As you can imagine, I didn’t enjoy the rest of my holiday. Not one little bit, Sam I Am.
The following Monday I was back in the U.S., and back at work. My manager – who lived in Colorado – had flown into town and met with me. I was surprised to see him.
“Let’s go get some coffee,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “But I have a standing meeting with <BDM>. I’ll -”
“Don’t worry about it,” my manager said. “He knows.”
I followed him out the hall, past the break room, down the stairs, through the lobby, and out the front door. All the while, he was asking me about my vacation, about visiting friends and family in the U.K., and so on. Small talk. Innocuous. Terrifying.
The local Starbucks was closed. The donut shop had run out of coffee. It was starting to look like a very strange Terry Gilliam storyline as we looked for a place to sit down and chat. Time was getting on, and so we somehow found ourselves inside of a grocery store that had an internal food counter. We got two coffees and sat in the only two chairs – green plastic patio furniture set up in front of the counter. It was surreal.
He looked around, fully aware that this wasn’t ideal. “Not exactly what I was hoping for,” he said. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Just… tell me,” I said.
He was incredibly apologetic. I actually started to feel bad for him. “<The BDM> threw you under the bus,” he said. “He claimed that he had no knowledge that you were going on vacation, that you hadn’t told anyone, and had just disappeared.”
Once again, I pointed to my weekly reports as well as the ten witnesses at the dinner the night before I left. He simply shook his head, sadly.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The WWVP wants you gone. They were going to fire you while you were in England, but I convinced them that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
We both knew what he meant. It was a recipe for a lawsuit, and the company was highly allergic to lawsuits. Especially of the employment kind.
He proceeded to lay it out for me. I could either go on a Professional Improvement Plan (PIP), or I could willingly take a not-so-generous “mutual separation” package. If I went with the plan and failed to “improve,” the package would be completely off the table.
“While I cannot legally suggest to you what to do,” he said, “I can tell you that they have made up their minds.”
I thought about the launch materials. “That’s going live in a week,” I said.
“I know.”
“What am I supposed to do with all that work?”
He swallowed and tried to keep his voice and face neutral. “They want you to destroy it.”
I was aghast. “They want me to what?!”
He slowly shook his head. He couldn’t believe it either. “<The BDM> doesn’t trust you,” he said. The words stung, but the level of projection was astounding. The BDM had shown himself to be untrustworthy repeatedly (not just in this regard), but knew how to play the political game much, much better than I.
“They don’t want me to give it to anyone else to take over?”
That’s when he said the most bizarre thing of all, and it was obvious that it pained him to say it out loud. “No,” he said. “It’s no one else’s job.”
“What about <a Technical Marketing Engineer on the team>?” I asked.
“That’s not his job.”
“What about all that training with the big customer?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“That’s not your problem any more, J,” he said.
The final piece of the floor fell out from underneath me. Not only was I being fired, but they were willing to sabotage multi-million dollar contracts to do it.
The paperwork was straightforward. I would receive a month’s salary in exchange for walking away. The termination papers were unequivocal – all company material, all of it, was to be completely destroyed and I was to keep no record of any of it. The penalties for holding on to “confidential company information” were severe. They may have been allergic to being sued, but they chomped at the bit to be the ones suing.
There was nothing I could do but comply. I deleted all of the materials I had worked so diligently on for the year, wiped the laptop clean, and returned everything that belonged to the company. Included were technical manuals, instructions, sales training (both technical and business), networking diagrams, demonstration videos, and lengthy email exchanges between me and the other company that detailed the milestones and directions that they wanted (which were extensive and involved). All gone.
Since then, people have asked me how it felt to have destroyed almost a year’s worth of work. The truth of the matter is that it actually felt like a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders. It had been incredibly stressful, and I knew that the upcoming months were going to be equally (if not more so) tense. While I had been on a deadline for the launch, there were going to be quotas to fill, sales cycles to adhere to, revenue projections to achieve, and so on.
As my manager said, “not my problem.”
Less than two months later in the beginning of the new year, I got a phone call from my (now former) manager. “J, I have a question for you, and I want you to answer with only a yes or no,” he said.
I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “Okay,” I said.
“Did you keep any of the training materials?”
“No,” I said truthfully. “I was told to destroy them, so I did.”
It was probably more than I should have said, but on the off chance they were forcing him to call me from a recorded line (the call waiting had the company name, not his personal number), I wanted to be clear as to what happened.
“Thank you,” he said flatly. “That’s all I needed.”
“However,” I said, “I’m willing to recreate the materials for a consulting fee.” I was half-joking, because I needed the money. I doubted they would consider it for even a second, though.
Keeping his voice even, he replied, “I’ll tell them that, but I don’t think they’re going to take you up on it.”
With that, he hung up. Indeed, they didn’t take me up on it, but then again I didn’t expect them to. After all, they had screwed themselves over before, why stop now?
I never expected to hear anything else. I was persona non grata at the company, evidently, but I had seen that when they had been letting people go month after month. Once people were gone, they were practically erased from collective memory.
I heard the rest of the story about two months later, and it was glorious.
I happened to have lunch one day with the Technical Marketing Engineer that I had proposed giving the launch materials to (but was declined). It turns out that the fallout was nothing short of spectacular.
It turns out that my former company had never bothered to communicate with the big customer that they had let me go. In turn, none of the dozens of training sessions were cancelled. The company had flown in sales and engineering staff for these multi-day training sessions only to find that my company was a no show.
No training meant no sales. No sales meant no revenue. No revenue meant quotas being unmet. No quotas meant penalties.
One of the stipulations of the contract was that if X amount of solutions were not sold by the end of the fiscal year (which ended for that company on January 31), my former company would be forced to pay $1.5M in “make good” penalties.
That’s why my ex-manager had called in the beginning of January – he knew that these deadlines were coming up. The week before the end of January, the <BDM> was feeling the pressure from the WWVP because he was getting nastygrams from the big customer about the no-shows and lack of training. That meant that the <BDM> had questions to answer.
“How could this have happened?” the <BDM> was shouting on the staff call. “How could we not have been prepared for this? We knew about this for over a year?”
“Are you kidding?” one of the engineers had responded. “You fired the guy who did it!”
Sadly, for me, there was not much joy to take from this other than a bit of petty schadenfreude. This was in the middle of the severe US recession and I wouldn’t find another position until the middle of the year.
The damage to the relationship was irreversible and possibly incalculable. The portfolio had cost hundreds of millions to develop, but I don’t believe the sales ever crossed over the million-dollar mark. It certainly didn’t recoup the substantial investment. The big customer company forced new rules to protect themselves (they had already been publicizing the launch date themselves, only to have to beg off their customers).
About a year after I got a new job, the entire technology division of that product portfolio got sold off to another company. The reputation of my former company in this technology was shot beyond repair. All in all, they took a bath of several hundred million dollars in the investment.
Is it all because they fired me? Oh, hell no.
It is, however, the butterfly effect of what can happen when ego, corporate policy, politics, and unmitigated insanity drives decisions without understanding the consequences.
Nevertheless, whatever you do, do not hold on to the materials when they tell you to destroy them. Not only could you find yourself on the business end of a legal hissy fit, but you may also rob yourself of some spectacular avenge-by-proxy scenarios.
A Chinese road
Is there any hope for reconciliation between Taiwan and mainland China?
Any hope for China-Taiwan reconciliation? It all depends on USA
Let us look at the Ukraine war.
Putin told a former US journalist (if I remember correctly, his name is Carlson) that:
Before the Ukraine war started, Russia & Ukraine had signed a peace agreement & not went into war.
But … we all see the Ukraine war because … right away, former UK PM B Johnson went to Ukraine in person to push Ukraine to go into war (by provoking Russia).
We all know UK & USA are co-conspirators of the Ukraine war.
When China proposed Ukraine-Russia reconciliation. Again right away, US president Biden went in person to Ukraine to support the war … USA wants the war to continue.
Both USA & UK want the Ukraine war, so that they can make money & at the same time weaken Europe’s economy
Back to Taiwan.
It is not up to Taiwan to decide its future. It is USA.
USA will never let Taiwan-China reconciliation to happen.
1, Taiwan is a cash cow for USA to sell out-of-date weapons & a cash cow for US politicians to shout support so as to get an appearance fee. It is easy money. Dont even need acting skills. Just shouting empty support is enough.
2, Taiwan can be used as a tool by USA to irritate China. Like a mosquito or fly that bugs you.
See, USA+UK have successfully bugged Russia to use military.
USA+UK are the trouble makers in the world. Look at Latin America. Mideast, SCS, even Europe thru Ukraine.
Those corrupted Taiwanese politicians are happy to serve USA too. It is a 2 way corruption.
WoCuDaDeMa
What is the wildest reaction you have seen to someone getting fired?
I’ve been a partner at a CPA firm and a CFO and COO in for profit companies. I’ve hired and fired a LOT of people over the years.
One termination that stands out is when I was hired to turn around a high-tech manufacturing Company. During our review of expenses we discovered that one of our middle managers was using the Company’s shipping department to ship products for her ETSY business. It wasn’t a ton of money, about $10K per year, but people knew she was stealing so I decided fire her.
Over the years I’ve learned to write a script for myself and the HR manager. Our plan was to read our parts, hand her the termination documents, and then escort her out of the building.
As soon as we entered her office she knew she was getting fired. She was angry and belligerent during the entire process, yelling and shouting. At one point, she pointed to one of her drawers and said she had copies of everything and could prove that she had paid everything back. She said that multiple times.
I was pretty confident that she was lying so I would simply wait for her to stop and then continue on with the termination script. That really pissed her off. She wanted us to engage with her. So what should have taken 15 minutes took a terrible hour. The HR manager and I watched her pack her things in a box and then we escorted her out of the building.
After she was gone we both walked back to her office to check her drawer … and it was completely empty. She was full of shit to the end.
Having a conversation
What would you do to fix plea bargaining in the US justice system?
The TV show is intense. Heart pounding music slows in the background for the conclusion. The camera, with soft focus filter, closes in on a tiny woman who has been charged with murder in the first degree. Her husband of thirty years was an abusive sonofabitch who beat her to within inches of her life. She’s still wearing a cast from his last attack. She’s frightened, mascara smeared, eyes wide.
The hard boiled, fry-em-all prosecutor softens his voice for the first time in fifteen episodes.
We’ve got you cold in a case of murder one Mrs. MacSuffers. But, it’s the holidays and I’m feeling generous. I’ll let you plead down to a case of aggravated jaywalking.
TV’s portrayal of plea bargains is always fun. On the flip side there’s the tatted-up gang member who’s been caught selling drugs in a kindergarten, but pleads out to a case of having a wildly inappropriate waistline on his saggy pants…
So what is it? Is plea bargaining a safety valve for the wrongfully charged, or an escape mechanism for the horrifically lucky?
Neither.
I understand that in some states plea bargaining works (sort of) like what we see in the movies. But, in the federal system it’s not like that at all. It’s more like being told you’ll be forced to eat a gallon of vomit with possible extra courses, or simply open up and eat a spoonful of live meal worms (while smiling).
In the feds there is no bargaining. The prosecutor tells your attorney what sentence they’re willing to offer in exchange for not having to go through the work of a trial. There’s no counter offer. Take it or leave it. Like a water monopoly, you must submit to their will.
There’s a reason monopolies are frowned upon…
Notice there’s no judge in this entire affair. Judges are irrelevant to plea bargains. All power in the court is handed to the prosecutor. If the accused takes the plea, it’s taken to the judge as a package deal. All the robe has to do is sign on the dotted line and another case is removed from the docket. Since the judge is usually a former prosecutor… it feels like the right move.
So… how to fix this system? You can’t. Plea bargaining is morally corrupt. You can’t negotiate with a guy that’s holding a gun to your head. Telling someone that if they use their constitutionally guaranteed rights, you’ll make it painful as all hell, is a violation of what the framers stood for.
But plea bargains are a necessary evil! Without them the system would grind to a halt!
‘xactly. 😉
First off, while the use of plea bargains goes back to the 1800’s, most places in the US didn’t consider plea bargains palatable until the 1960’s. Plea bargains became mechanized “justice.” We gave up our rights in exchange for… well… for putting more people behind bars.
This meat ain’t gonna grind itself!
So what happens if we ban plea bargains?
It becomes tedious for the system to take someone through the judicial process. Shouldn’t it be cumbersome to deprive a person of their liberty?
Prosecutors can no longer go after every single case that’s brought to them. They would have to pick and choose and make sure to go after the worst cases. I’m not at all opposed to a triage system.
Lots of lower level cases might be tossed out. These would be nonviolent, victimless, cases where the accused has no prior criminal history. If you think they’re getting off scot free, then you don’t have any experience with this system. Just an accusation is life altering.
Our prisons would shrink in number and size. The percentage of our GDP that we spend on warehousing human beings would drop to the level we see in other countries. Those funds could be put into worthwhile endeavors like education. The net effect being a lower crime rate over a long time line.
Plea bargaining isn’t the root cause of the evil that is our “justice” system, but it’s one of the largest cogs. I’m all for tossing a boot in to see how the mechanism crunches to a halt.
Free Owl
What are some unwritten social rules everyone should know?
If you are borrowing it for the third time, you need one of your own.
If you’re the only one who shares the ride, sit in front.
Don’t steal each other’s best karaoke songs.
If you’re posting a picture on social media, make sure everyone looks fine in it.
If someone has legally changed their name, don’t ask what their ‘real’ or original name was.
Don’t ask a date how much money they make. If you do care, go to dating sites that verify people’s income.
If you receive an invitation to a party, don’t bring along a date/friend/child/pet/whoever that wasn’t invited.
Don’t touch people without permission, even if they’re pregnant or have cool hair.
Don’t make plans with other friends in front of friends who aren’t invited.
If you have two friends over, who don’t know each other, you don’t leave them alone.
If someone is paying for your food, don’t order something expensive.
When someone insults themselves, disagree.
If the damn world hates China, why can’t countries boycott China until they remove Xi Jinping from power/Disband the CPC/Make Taiwan a country? If China really is the “Great Satan”, then maybe we should start treating them like one.
It may have been possible if the United States or United Kingdom or other nations thad not committed too many atrocities across the world.
Take Serbia
Everyone remembers the 1999 bombings as if it was yesterday. Everyone remembers the role the US had in breaking up of Yugoslavia and knows if the US had wanted to, they could have done so peacefully
Vucic is pro europe and pro US but he knows he simply can’t be anti Russian or Chinese
In Serbia, China is a friend who builds railways and who suffered when their embassy was bombed in 1999
Russia is a greater friend and between 65% to 81% of the masses support Russia openly
Guess what?
MOST OF THEM HATE THE UNITED STATES
So no matter how much Blinken bleats about the risks of China and Russia
Serbians will say “Look. Even if they destroy all of us, we would rather trust them than trust you”
The closer EU comes to US, the more suspicious the Serbians become
Take India
In 2021, Modi was leaning to burn bridges with China completely or to the maximum
Yet when India needed the West for Vaccine materials, they flatly refused and imposed export restrictions on their surplus vaccines and materials
We didn’t forget
They demanded our chloro quinine tablets and we complied putting our Rheumatoid arthritis patients at risk for 6 months
They didn’t lift a little finger
Not to mention the farmers protests where they demanded we don’t impose protectionism and export wheat despite a shortage in India back then (Modi didn’t)
So we simply dont trust them an inch
Take African Nations
The Westerners have plundered, looted and enslaved them for generations and generations
How can Africa trust them at all?
Many Africans LOATHE the French or British
Many Africans LOATHE the United States
They have ruined Libya, Sudan and other nations by provoking Civil War and stealing resources
The Africans cannot ever trust them and regard China and Russia as what we call attractive parallel powers so that they can make Independent decisions and not have the West meddle in them
Best example was Niger
When they kicked out the French, Macron went with his tail between his legs because if he had pushed a war, more African nations would have gone closer to Russia and China
Take Vietnam
Vietnamese remember Agent Orange and it’s use on Civilians from 1968 to 1973
Hoàng Phan would have more details but they were terrible to the Vietnamese
You really expect Vietnamese to jump and trust the US because an Indian origin Nut case Vice President shakes her booty and gives a silly little laugh and says “Freedom and Democracy”
NOT A CHANCE
They want to do things Independently which means they will keep China close and do trade with China and if the US plays too many games, become closer to China and Russia
Take the Middle East
In 60 years, the Middle East remains a war zone because of the United States
The Arabs LOATHE THE US WITH A VISCERAL HATRED
I mean “Want to see your children choke on their blood and die screaming for mommy” type of hatred
Not the “I want your girl to break up with you” type of hatred
Iraq, Syria were both destroyed only because they chose to follow a path that the US didn’t like
Others complied because THEY WERE TOO SCARED OF THE US
As Russia and China grow in power and as the US grows weaker – the Arabs are slowly sharpening their knives and waiting
Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah are KICKING ASS against the vastly superior forces arrayed against them through a lovely mix of Strategy and Geopolitics
Take South America
The US claims South America is their sphere of influence
The US has blockaded Cuba
The US has sanctioned Venezuela
The US threatens Brazil from time to time
The South Americans HATE THE AMERICANS OR ENVY THEM OR BOTH depending on the situation
Mexicans go to Texas and California because they argue it was their country once
So as I have shown you, you have Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, Asians, South Americans who have no fondness for the Americans and downright hate their guts at times
They have no bone to pick with China or Russia
China and Russia keeps the world neutral and that these nations like
The Alternate is to allow these Evil Demons to allow their hegemony to continue as overlords
So whose the real Satan here huh???
Taquitos
These are the best taquitos! I like to serve them with guacamole and sour cream for dipping. They’re certainly not traditional taquitos, but they are delicious.
DSC01412 1400×2100
Ingredients
Pork, beef or chicken
1 can Mexican beer
Garlic salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Cumin (comino), to taste
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 can or jar chile verde
Melted cheese for drizzling (optional)
Instructions
Add all ingredients except melted cheese to a slow cooker.
Cook for 8 to 10 hours on LOW.
Drain juice.
Put filling on corn tortillas and roll up. Secure with a wooden pick.
Fry until tortilla is crispy. Remove wooden pick to serve.
Drizzle with melted cheese, if desired.
Damn
Why does China want to gain control of Taiwan so badly? If Hong Kong is an indicator, any perceived economic benefits China may expect would diminish once they took control & many markets that trade with Taiwan would stop if China was in control.
They don’t realy want control of Taiwan, they don’t want the USA to have control of Taiwan, that is the red line, that can never be crossed, China is quite happy with the status quo. They have said that often enough. As far as markets stop? Are you dreaming? China is Taiwans biggest trading partner. If Taiwan was governed by the mainland their trade would almost double, AND Taiwan would be far FAR richer, because they wouldn’t need to buy a single out of date weapon from the U.S., they would save BILLIONS. That much is obvious. Also there would be no need for Taiwan to have its own military, that would be another huge saving. Just that the poor DPP would be no more, that’s why they are so set against it.
What did your mom do that became the stuff of legend?
When I was a boy, I had real problems with certain foods. I couldn’t have butter on anything or drink milk straight (milk on cereal or chocolate milk was fine).
Over when I wad left with a bunch of kids at a get-together, lunch was served and included butter on everything, and everyone was expected to drink their milk. (This had happened before and I knew to stay quiet, not really eat anything, not make a big deal, get something later, etc.) One of the supervising women noticed, however, and felt the need to make an example of me and insisted that I eat everything up right in front of everyone. I told them that if they forced me to eat it I would get sick and it would be their fault.
Boy! did that lady get pissed when I said that! You know what happened next! She forced me to eat that food and I got sick all over the table with all the food on it and, boy, did the stuff hit the fan. My mom arrived just as the lady opened up on me. Mom looked puzzled as I had handled situations like this before with no problems. Mom announced who she was, told the lady (not unkindly) to quit yelling at me, and asked, “What is the problem?”
The lady threw me under the bus and said how outrageous it was for ”a child” to dictate what he/she would eat and look what I had done! My mom paused a minute and said very slowly, “I can’t believe my son wouldn’t have told you he would get sick if he ate these things and he should have, and I am sorry . . . . . .” and then all the kids started shouting, “He did tell them, he did!” (I did have some loyal friends.) My mom looked up and said, “WHAT?” “He told you?” “and you still made him eat it?!” The lady says, “Well, well. . .it’s not up to him to tell us. . . .” Mom’s face got red. “You are an idiot and should never be left around children! If you or anyone EVER IGNORES something my child says, there will be hell to pay! Do you understand me?! This is all your fault, and yet you blame a child! How despicable!” Mom tore into her for a few more minutes, and then looked down at me, and I will never forget, she looked right into my eyes and said, “It wasn’t your fault, Spencer. They should have listened — it was their fault, they can clean It up — we’re leaving!” She grabbed my hand, and we held our heads high as we walked gracefully to the car.
I know that I was not all in the right on this one — it’s hard for me to judge — but tas an example of a mom sticking up for her child, that day shone brightly. That kind of thing stays with you forever.
Years of prep
I am traveling to the US and I have a 16 hour layover at Heathrow Airport in London. How should I spend my time at the airport?
I have been avoiding answering this question for a long time due to the fear that people might exploit the option and the UK might put a ban of sorts in place in the future. *kidding
But I guess it’s time to let the secret out. Brexit is already through!
So, back in 2016 when I was travelling to Indiana for my internship I had a layover of 23 hours in Heathrow. Don’t ask me how but just know that “Indian dads have a mind of their own and never let them book tickets for you” lesson learnt the hard way.
Like everyone else I was going through Google and Quora reading up on what to do in the airport or can you get out without visa or what kind of visa is needed. Most of the content just beats around the bush and doesn’t provide any valuable information to come to a conclusion. The proper way would be to get a visa but let’s be honest, who likes to spend that much money for just a day? While surfing through the internet one line struck my mind and stayed: “it depends on the immigration officer.”
When I landed in Heathrow, all I was hoping for is to ask and who knows what will happen. After filling out the immigration card and contemplating for 15 minutes I finally made my way to the immigration line. My heart was racing with excitement and fear at the same time. I get pulled over often maybe it’s my beard or the sheepish looks.
Immigration office -Imo
Myself – me
After initial hi and how you doing, I hand over my passport
Me- I don’t have a visa and was wondering if I could go out to spend my layover outside
Imo- I don’t understand
Me- I have 23 hours of layover and wanted to see if it’s possible for me to go out and visit few places.
Imo- looks at the cop standing near by and he walks up to the counter
Cop: where you coming from ?
Me- India
Cop: where are you going ?
Me- to Indiana via Chicago
Cop: show me your onward journey tickets
Me- *hands over the ticket
Cop: what’s your purpose of visit?
Me- I’m going for an internship/training with a golf club in Indiana.
Cop: you play golf
Me- a little bit but I’m more related on the management aspect
Cop: who is your favourite player
Me- Tiger woods
Cop&Imo- no way! He is my favourite player too.
Cop: what will you do if you go out?
Me- I’m an horticulturist and would like to visit the Royal Botanical Garden, Kew?
Cop: oh Nice and shakes his head at the imo and cop says have a nice day
Imo- stamps my passport and says I have visa for 2 days and make sure that I’m back for my flight.
Me- thank you so much and was showing all my 28 teeth at him.
I went out visited Kew Gardens, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Thames Bridge and few other places. It was one of the best days and even though I was tired I had to use the opportunity to its fullest.
I strongly recommend that people not approach immigration officer if your layover is less than 10 hours.
A fruit of feminism
What do you say when you run into an old boss who fired you?
As a teenager, I worked as a busboy at a Mexican restaurant for $4 an hour. It wasn’t much, but it covered my gas money and car maintenance (my parents wouldn’t pay for those things, nor should they). The general manager loved my impeccable work ethic and my honesty!
But one day, a new assistant general manager appeared, an intimidating red-headed woman who seemed perpetually angry. One Saturday, I worked from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. as scheduled. I was about to leave when the new assistant manager told me to stay until midnight (to cover for another busboy who didn’t show up). I had other plans. This was incredibly late notice! Most people would have just walked out. But instead of complaining, I dutifully worked the entire 14-hour shift.
I got really hungry, and very tired, because she wouldn’t allow me to take a 15-minute break. I was too young to know that breaks were mandated by law. I wasn’t allowed to even take one minute off during that 14-hour span. As a taller than average teenage boy with a huge appetite, I became extremely hungry by 10:00 p.m. after no food for 12 hours. I was cleaning up the happy hour all-you-can-eat buffet when I spotted two burnt potato skins leftover. Nobody had eaten them because they were essentially inedible. They were about to be thrown in the trash. So I ate them.
The red-headed assistant manager called me into her office and yelled, “You stole company food!” I replied calmly, “But it was being thrown away, and you didn’t give me a lunch break nor a dinner break.” She didn’t know I was one of their best workers. She simply said, “You’re officially terminated.” She never even gave me a chance. And I’ve never forgotten that moment. It reaffirmed why I was going to college the following year on a full ride for mathematics and another full ride for violin. That college degree would allow me to have a career in an intellectual field where I’d be respected, rather than doing physical labor for the rest of my life with a boss who treats employees like servants.
My final reply to her was this. “The general manager will not be happy.” And indeed, he was furious the next day when he heard I had been fired. So he promptly fired the assistant who had fired me. A few years later, I earned my master’s degree in mathematics and never had to bus tables again!
POPA CHUBBY – Hey Joe ! Rockpalast [HDadv] Nov. 2011
I have been playing around with picture generation through text prompts. It’s fun, but it takes some ingenuity and imagination. Here’s some of my results…
Default a woman crushing grapes in a wooden tub in a winery Sh 2Default a beautiful and stunning woman wearing a satin dress S 3Default a group of beautiful and stunning women wearing a sati 2Default a woman crushing grapes in a wooden tub in a winery Sh 3Default a beautiful and stunning woman wearing a satin dress S 2Default a group of beautiful and stunning women wearing a sati 1Default a woman crushing grapes in a wooden tub in a winery Sh 1Default a beautiful and stunning woman wearing a satin dress S 0Default a group of beautiful and stunning women wearing a sati 3Default a woman crushing grapes in a wooden tub in a winery Sh 0Default a group of beautiful and stunning women wearing a sati 0Default a beautiful and stunning woman wearing a satin dress S 1
What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?
my first husband was extremely abusive and had been for years but I just couldn’t seem to find the help I needed to leave. One day he came home drunk with his friends and because I knew he would become violent, I refused to let him in. Unfortunately he kicked the front door down in 2 kicks and before I could get to the phone he was in the house and on me. I spent 3 days in the hospital and because the beating was so severe, I was offered help that I immediately accepted. After being released from the hospital I was escorted by a battered womens advocate and police officer but I only had 15 minutes to grab what I could. While I was doing my grabcand go I could hear him tell the officer that it was all just a minor misunderstanding and how he wad sorry but sure we could work through everything, blah, blah, blah. As I was walking out with the few posessions that I could grab, and with the officer still standing next to him, I looked at him with a big smile and told him that he may want to get a new toothbrush because I had been cleaning the toilet with it for months. The fake smile was wiped right off of his face but the cop had a smirk. Before anyone asks, yes I was cleaning the toilet with his toothbrush.
America today
What misconception about your occupation would you like to clear up?
I’m a physicist. One day I got a phone call from an undergraduate. She explained that as an assignment in a sociology course she was required to follow a scientist around for a day and document how he/she spent the day. “I’m far too busy to give you that much time,” I said.
“No—” she replied, “You won’t even notice I’m there. I’ll just watch and follow you around.” OK— it sounded a bit intriguing.
The scheduled morning she arrived in my office at 9 a.m. She sat down in a corner, and I got to work. Every now and then I looked up and caught her looking at me; she quickly looked away, and scribbled in her notebook. Suddenly I felt like a mountain gorilla being studied by Dian Fossey.
At 5 p.m she told me she was leaving. I asked her if she found anything surprising. “My god yes!” She responded. “Your day is totally different from what I expected.” I asked for details and she examined her notes.
She said, “You spent 60% of your time talking to other people! You did it on the phone, then you visited several other physicists in their offices. You had lunch with several graduate students. Even in your lab you were working with your graduate students. Several people came to your office.”
“What did you expect?” I asked her.
“I thought scientists worked alone. I thought they sat in front of computers all day, or in their labs wearing white coats and working with test tubes.”
“That’s the scientist of the movies,” I said. “Science is a very social profession. You can save weeks in the lab by a quick conversation with someone else. Two people talking are often much more than twice as effective as two people working alone.”
“I never knew that,” she said.
It’s odd that people avoid going into science because of the impression that it is for people who like to work alone. That may be true for some people, but in my experience virtually all effective scientists spend much of their time with other people. Maybe the wrong impression arises because of the high school science nerd who doesn’t yet have social skills. But social skills are essential to scientific success. Some nerds learn them only in graduate school. (And the ones who don’t often drop out of science.)
Indeed, the interaction with other people is what makes “coming to work” so much fun.
Cats can defy gravity
In the movie, “My Octopus Teacher”, how does he know he is filming the same octopus?
You can recognize individual cephalopods if you know what to look for, but even then you need a very keen eye. Most cephalopods can change color as fast as you can blink, and are famous for mimicking their surroundings. That said, they also have a “resting face,” a specific paint job they wear when they’re not trying to do something else. These paint jobs are like fingerprints, and with practice you can learn to recognize them. We had to identify individual squid in schools of 30 on the expedition where I met my bride. It was very challenging to learn, but definitely possible.
I have had many, many, MANY, MANY requests to comment on this show. We actually didn’t make it through the first half hour on the first watch because the introduction clearly featured several different octopuses, and much of the narration seemed to be pumping up exaggerated claims of octopus capabilities, which drives us crazy. Too many documentaries do this nowadays. I understand that sensationalism sells, but octopuses are not as smart as four year old children. (for example)
But then that show snatched an Oscar. Then this particular A2A came along. It inspired me to sit down, clear my mind, to give it another try and see what all the fuss is about. I just dialed it up and watched the whole thing. I’m very glad I did. My first impression was wrong. The show is great and the footage captured was truly groundbreaking.
Here’s what I think. If you haven’t seen it, beware: spoilers follow.
I am 99% sure that most of the footage in Craig and Tom Foster’s extremely impressive My Octopus Teacher, was the same octopus.
Most.
I don’t think he found the exact same octopus after scaring away the first one by dropping the camera lens. After that, yep. Definitely the same octopus. There were many cuts throughout the show where other footage of other octopuses was used for fillers, but that’s not surprising in the least for film production.
How did he find the same octopus over and over? Experienced divers (including free divers) learn the terrain of a dive site just like we learn our way around our neighborhoods, local woods, etc. it becomes second nature to swim to a familiar spot. But there’s more going on.
I have no doubt that Craig Foster (and helpers, I expect) visited this octopus every day for pretty much it’s entire life, and it confirms something I wondered but never tested: I have long suspected that when some octopuses den, (including the common octopus) they settle down permanently. Their den seems to become their base, i.e. they are not nomadic. Likewise, they seem to get to know their neighbors: The fish that hang out nearby, local cleaner shrimp/wrasse, a nearby communities of possible predators and of course the weird hairless ape that shows up every day with treats and shiny pieces of equipment. If you don’t hurt, scare or harass them, octopuses are fairly quick to trust. This is one big reason why I still feel OK keeping them.
Back to the movie, I was very sure the post-lens drop octopus was the same animal, but once the shark ripped the arm off, it became easy to identify the individual. There was an obvious gap in the daily footage for 2–4 weeks (I suspect,) because the wound mysteriously skinned over quickly. I can understand that watching the octopus contend with rather gory wound in the early stages might have been hard to watch. Nevertheless, watching the near-daily documentation of the wound healing and the arm regenerating was incredibly interesting to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off it in any given shot. Octopuses possess an absolutely uncanny ability to heal and rebuild after grievous wounds, but they usually don’t live long enough to regenerate, say, a whole arm. As such, you could see that arm L3 (third on the left) was always growing but stubby, right up until the end.
The camera footage in My Octopus Teacher is truly groundbreaking. They must have had multiple remote cameras on the animal 24/7, because they managed to capture some frankly unbelievable events in the octopus’s life. These were things that happen suddenly, and only last a split second. They filmed the shark attacking the octopus, the exact moment of mating (which literally lasts about 10 seconds), and then getting the very moment a shark made off with the body at the end. That made me suspicious. He managed to be right there to film all those sequences on 15 minute breath hold dives? Octopuses and other sea creatures won’t act for setpieces. They’ll sit there and do nothing for hours. Foster’s team must have been setting multiple cameras on it 24/7 for the entire year. That’s dedication.
Now then. As I mentioned earlier, wifey and I didn’t get through the movie on the first try because the intro footage was clearly not the same octopus every time. I counted at least seven different octopuses of the same species in the first 15 minutes of the show and would bet a couple of the shots were filmed in an aquarium. Now, with better context, it’s perfectly understandable. I had to remind myself that this whole show was skillfully put together with a production crew of expert filmmakers who sought to fill in or augment the gaps of the octopuses behavior and Foster’s footage, (which I thought was on BBC level at times). To us, octopuses are frequently overhyped, and the intro of My Octopus Teacher felt just like that sort of show. We can’t stand those shows. Most people would never spot these things, but it triggered me initially.
So, already extremely skeptical, when he got to the part about using his “Incredible Kalihari Tracking Skills” to locate the exact same octopus over, what? A mile away? Underwater? On breath hold dives, through a KELP FOREST? We both threw our hands up and turned it off. That was too much. No way in hell he found the same octopus.
When our team studied octopuses in Costa Rica, some would squirm out of our grasp and flee, and we frequently lost them after 15-25 feet. They would jet away, land on a rock and just vanish. Octopuses can blend with their background insanely well. We had a rule out in the field: for every octopus you do find, you missed ten.
You know what? That’s OK. Maybe it was just a stunt to build interest, give him some credibility. Who knows? I’m just grateful this question made me give the show another full and attentive watch, because it is great. The Oscar award was very well deserved. Chronicling this octopus’s life was already a truly astounding achievement, but what really nailed it was the overall philosophical story. It was spot-on accurate. I have lived it so many times with so many octopuses. You get to know them. They get to know you. You enjoy fun times together. I always learn something new from each and every one. They are so fascinating, so complex, and yet…they’re essentially highly evolved snails. In your heart you know the relationship won’t last. You can almost watch them grow and age, and you have to say goodbye too soon. As I watched that octopus age on screen, I knew what was coming, and what all the events meant. I admit I cried several times.
So, to summarize, I believe the octopus before and after the Great Lens Drop moment (it’s about 35 minutes in) are different, but from that moment on, yes, it’s absolutely the same individual. Thanks for the A2A!
Real talk
Can the LCS ships ever be a great asset for the US Navy? Has the propulsion on the Freedom class ever been repaired? Has a builder gotten away with such a bad ship?
The Little Crappy Ships each have their own failures in design and execution. Sometimes tried and true is best – especially when building ships that need to be available (and mobile) all of the time. There is no auto club to call for a breakdown on the high seas.
Their mission evaporated as the world changed – a lightly defended coastal (litoral) ship did not end up being where the focus was needed. Their flexibilty was also limited because cost overuns in the basic ship package affected other wannabe missions – it was going to be a Swiss Army knife, but instead ended up a butter blade.
The navy threw in the towel when they started ordering more Constellation class frigates and cancelled the future LCS builds. Ironically, they were not cheap (half a billion $$$ or so) but they cost little enough by government standards to abandoned. Compare that to the Ford class carriers (about $14 billion each). The Fords had so much invested in them that throwing money and resources to solve technological issues (such as with the catapult system) was a given regardless of cost. You can fix things with time, money, and resources. There also was no readily available replacement available for the Ford carriers after years of investment in them. The end product is a great advance over it’s predecessor – which is not the story of the LCS.
So, lessons learned. Innovate but balance risks and reward, and know the mission you are trying to accomplish. Here is the LCS Independence. A face only a mother could love… … …
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Oh shit
How would Chinese companies absorb additional costs as China leans more heavily on exports?
Correction: China is NOT leaning more heavily on exports; the government’s policy has been to grow the Chinese domestic consumer market in order to lessen dependence on exports.
In 2024, the Chinese domestic consumer market is growing less slowly than the government likes because the Chinese real estate market is undergoing contraction. The Chinese government saw the real estate market as an asset bubble which needed to be pricked because it does not reflect a real productivity gain; it is just speculatory.
Since most Chinese have their savings tied up in their own home value, they now feel that they have less savings to spend, which is why the Chinese economy is entering a deflationary phase.
At the same time, the US and EU are putting pressure on Chinese exports of EVs and chips, as they try to decouple from Chinese exporters of those products.
This means that the whole world is going through a painful economic adjustment as supply chains are being decoupled in the US and EU.
The Chinese government is trying to re-adjust by increasing exports and trade with the BRICS+/Global South economies, while gradually cutting reliance on the US and EU markets.
Linda’s Picadillo (Mexican-Style Ground Beef)
picadillo
Ingredients
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 red or orange bell pepper, chopped
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons beef bouillon
1 (4 ounce) can green chiles or 2 fresh poblano peppers, chopped
Spices: 1 or 2 bay leaves, salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper, tomato Knorr, etc.
1 can tomato sauce or Ro*Tel
1 bag frozen corn (optional)
1 bag frozen green beans (optional)
Instructions
Sauté onions and garlic; add ground beef and cook until done. Drain fat.
Add potatoes, bell pepper, water, beef buillon, green chiles or poblano peppers, spices of choice and tomato sauce or Ro*Tel. Simmer over medium heat until potatoes are tender.
If using, add corn and green beans 10 to 15 minutes before serving.
She Bullied A Kid For Exercising Wrong, The Internet Destroyed Her..
Israel ‘Coerces’ UN Workers – By Outright Torturing Them
Every time one thinks that the depravity of Zionist fanatics has finally reached a limit they will proudly present even worse behavior.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.
Coerced, pressured, … Maybe they had a harsh talk?
No. They outright tortured, Abu Graibh like, these UN workers. Some of them to their death:
The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.
…
In addition to the alleged abuse endured by UNRWA staff members, Palestinian detainees more broadly described allegations of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, sexual violence, and deaths of detainees denied medical treatment, the UNRWA report said.
…
Reuters could not independently confirm the accounts of coercion of UNRWA staff and mistreatment of detainees, although the allegations of ill-treatment accord with descriptions by Palestinians freed from detention in December, February and March reported by Reuters and other news media.
“We tortured some folk so we could destroy a huge relief organization that’s indispensable in dealing with a huge humanitarian crisis that we created in the first place” is…. something else
What are civilized people supposed to do with these miscreants?
What ignorant thing did a retail employee say that made you walk out of the store without buying a single item?
This is another “didn’t say it, did it” story.
It was a couple of weeks before Christmas, about 25 years ago, and I was shopping for a gift for my wife. She loves pearls, especially baroque pearls, and even more when they’re set with a discreet diamond or two — nothing glitzy or brash. I went to the local branch of Barmakian Jewelers, a well known New England chain. I’d been there before and had spent there, over the years, a decidedly nontrivial amount, including some custom work I’d had them do. So I walked over to the Pearls and Diamonds counter with a budget figure of $600 (equivalent to just a hair over $1000 as I write this) and began eyeing the pieces through the glass counter surface.
I should probably mention here that I was at that time a software engineer and had just gotten out of work for the day, and I was dressed in jeans and a carpenter shirt (plaid flannel). No coat, this is New England and the temperature was well above freezing. As I browsed, I took note that although there was nobody at that counter at the moment, two sales associates were at the next counter, and I knew that they had seen me. Neither came over to help me. After about ten minutes of this, a man came walking over to the counter where I was, dressed in a suit and tie. Before you could say “WTF?” an associate, one of the two who had been chatting at the other counter, was there to help him. He lollygagged around, looked at a couple of pieces with the associate’s eager assistance, and finally decided he’d come back another day. He walked out without having spent a dime. The associate left the counter without even a glance in my direction, and returned to chat some more with the other associate. I figured I knew what was up, and I too walked out, taking my $600 budget elsewhere. I have never since stepped inside a Barmakian store, nor will I ever do so in the future.
In the United States…
As a police officer, has a suspect ever asked you, “Do you know who I am?” indignantly, and how did you react?
I once stopped newer model sports car for speeding. When I approached the car, before I could even properly introduce myself and explain why I stopped him the driver stated, “I’m John Doe, Vice President of AK Steel” (I don’t remember his name). AK Steel is a large factory in a neighboring city. I replied, “Ok Mr. Doe, can I have your license and proof of insurance please”?
He had a pretty clean driving record so normally I would’ve given him a warning. However, I couldn’t let him think that he’s above the law. When I came back with a ticket in hand Mr. Doe became upset and said some to the effect of, “Wait a minute! Is (blank) your chief of police?” I said yes and he told me that the chief of police is his friend. I replied, “Ok, Mr. Doe, sign the ticket on this line please.”
My Chief was angry with me when he found out that I wrote a ticket to his friend, who is also a local bigwig. I’m sure my stock fell with him, but he was close to retirement so I whatever it cost me, I knew I wouldn’t have to pay for it very long.
What’s something that NO science fiction author ever predicted?
Well, I think our fellow Quoran Orson Scott Card got something dreadfully wrong in his most famous work, Ender’s Game.
It was published in its novel form in 1985, and he envisioned a global computer network where people could publish anything. And it’s crucial to the plot that two very young people become massively influential by publishing, under pseudonyms, political essays with brilliant insights.
Internet, yes, fine, it was already invented and the WWW was just around the corner, but well called for seeing it as a potential game changer.
He did not anticipate that it would be used to watch memes of cats and spread flat Earth theories, and that any politically insightful youth would be totally drowned out by people trying to cure a dangerous disease by drinking bleach. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen that…
“Just Bang ‘Em All” – Older Woman’s Advice to Younger Women
As a cashier, what was the most privileged customer you had to deal with?
When I was sixteen years old (twenty years ago, sheesh) I was a “Sandwich Artist,” the pretentious title given to Subway employees whose duties include cashiering, in addition to preparing ingredients, making sandwiches, and cleaning. The Subway I worked at was inside of a gas station on the edge of a sleepy mountain town, one of the last stops for the Greyhound bus before it made the final 100 mile leg over the pass to Salt Lake City.
The biggest downside to being inside of a gas station is that the Subway closed two hours before the gas station, so you couldn’t simply lock the doors to close down like a stand-alone restaurant. Most people understood the “Closed” sign on the counter, but sometimes as you were trying to clean up people would interrupt you trying to place an order.
Most of the time this was not a big deal, although occasionally the bus was running late and a large, hungry, and travel-weary crowd would show up shortly after closing. If I had nowhere to be in the morning I would sometimes offer to make them something cold based on what I still had out. However, I was often closing on school nights, anxious to get my homework done or study for a test before going to bed way too late. On those nights I had to greet these customers with a friendly “I’m sorry, but we’re closed.”
There was the occasional rude response, but this one lady particularly set the bar for being a privileged, self-important blowhard. I had been working the closing shift by myself on a school night. It was at least twenty minutes past closing time when I heard a car horn honking somewhere outside. I didn’t think much of it until the honking then started again right outside the drive-through window.
The hours were displayed prominently on the window, so I went back to my cleaning. Then someone started knocking on the window. At first I was annoyed, then concerned. Was this one of those robbery attempts they warned us about? The reason fast food places don’t serve walk-up customers? Or was someone in trouble, unable to get out of their vehicle and come into the gas station for help? I would hate to be the guy that didn’t open the window for someone having an emergency. This was back before cell phones were quite as ubiquitous as they are now too. A bit begrudgingly, I set down what I was doing and walked over to the window, sliding it open a few inches.
“Finally!” the older woman cried, obviously exasperated. She then started placing an order.
“Ma’am…” I attempted to interrupt. She kept ordering. “Ma’am!” I said, louder this time. She stopped talking. “I’m sorry, but we’re closed.” She stared at me slack-jawed.
“I’m not ordering a lot,” she spat out as I started closing the window.
“Sorry,” I repeated, closing the window and latching it before returning to my cleaning. I stepped into the back for some reason and when I returned to the front she had come inside and was standing at the counter.
“You are very rude,” she scolded. I kept cleaning. “I was talking to you.” I looked up.
“I’m sorry,” I said for the third time. “We’re closed.”
“I just need two sandwiches,” she replied obliviously.
“All the food is put away. I have a lot of cleaning to do. The gas station has food.” I pointed towards the gas station freezer section. She looked at me with this unbelieving look, like I had just told her that I ran over her dog but it was okay because she could go get another one. I made it a point to go in the back before the conversation carried any further.
The layout of the restaurant is one where the counter and food preparation area takes up one end of the gas station, with the back area L-ing off of it, sharing the freezer with the gas station. The door to the back room comes from the dining area. I went to work washing dishes when suddenly the door opens and in waltzes this lady like she owns the place.
“You are really unbelievable, you know that?” She was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “Twice you’ve walked away while I was talking to you! I was here right before closing waiting at the drive up when you turned it off, then you slammed the window in my face! This is ridiculous! Where is your manager!?”
“She’ll be in at 5:30 in the morning.”
“And what is your name!?”
“My name is John. John Smith. And you weren’t in drive-through right before closing, because I took the trash out fifteen minutes after closing and you weren’t out there. Now please, I’ve got school in the morning.”
“Well you are a liar because I was out there waiting and I’m going to talk to your manager and you’ll be looking for another job. And don’t even think of applying at Stewart’s (a grocery store thirty miles away) because I’m the manager, and I know everyone. Everyone. You’ll be lucky if you can ever get a job around here again. You don’t know who you’re screwing with!” She stood there with a look of scornful pride on her face, like she’d just delivered the biggest burn in the history of burns.
I just stood there and looked at her dryly, waiting for her to leave. She just stood there and looked at me incredulously, not leaving.
“Well?” she says, crossing her arms.
“Well what?” I ask in genuine confusion.
“Are you gonna make my sandwiches?!” She looked at me, surprisingly seriously. She actually expected me to make these sandwiches. My mind was blown.
“No. I’m not. No way.” Again, She continued looking at me like I’d taken away her birthday. “No,” I repeated. “No. Get out. Leave!”
She looked at me like I was insane. How would I, a peasant, disobey her orders? She was the magnate of Stewart’s. Who was I? I was nobody. I forced her out and closed the door.
My manager didn’t even talk to me until our next shift together. She didn’t even consider this crazy lady’s ranting. She knew me too well. She replayed to me the crazy story this lady had told, including that she’d bought six sandwiches earlier in the day and none of them had been made correctly. Seriously? Zero evidence to back this claim up. This woman had mental problems.
I talked to a friend that worked at Stewart’s. The manager was a man. That poor woman…how dismal it must be to be that delusional or that pathetic.
Sad.
Why has Hollywood been struggling to succeed in China’s film market?
Simple.
Ask the average American to watch a Chinese blockbuster. It can be dubbed, or subtitled.
Further, ask them to pick out the cultural hooks and references in the movie.
Vanishing few will be able to do so, even Chinese diaspora who grow up speaking only English.
Take it from me. I spent a lifetime consuming Chinese media, and I am fluent in at least 3 dialects: Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin. I spent 12 years learning Chinese formally, growing up in a Chinese speaking environment.
But I struggle with the cultural references in Chinese productions, which have cultural baselines that are several steps beyond the typical Taiwan/HK production.
In other words, Wong Kar Wai and Ang Lee are above average, and not the summit, in the mainland scheme of things, as far as deep culture is concerned.
Hollywood can never make a Chinese movie that touches the tender and vulnerable side of Chinese audiences. Not in the current climate of dehumanization and “we want your money, we don’t want you”.
The Chinese are not farm animals of American oligarchs.
And even if Hollywood decides to take the Chinese market seriously, it will take years and plenty of coin to compete against the Chinese competition.
At this point (2024), Hollywood isn’t even in the game.
He stole millions of dollars
Have you ever paid another table’s bill for them without being asked? Why did you do it?
November 8, 2018. I know the date because of it’s significance. 4 men were at the restaurant I frequent. They had reserved a part of 8. All of them were elderly, all of them were wearing hats with “vietnam veteran” and “173rd Airborne” on them. I didn’t need to know where their 4 missing comrades were, or what memories those 4 gentlemen would be reliving 53 years later. I know of Operation Hump.
I quietly wrote on a napkin, “I’m not going to say who I am, but I want to say 3 things: THANK YOU! May your brothers rest in peace, and tonight is on me. No arguments, soldiers.”
I had my waitress deliver it after I left, leaving my credit card (at the time, I lived right down the street) to pay for whatever they want.
I was told that they were very appreciative, and said “for people like that we’d do it again.” which is very touching if you ask me.
I’ve seen those gentlemen back every year since, and a few times on various other days, but I haven’t said anything, and I never intend to. Their meals are still on me every year.
How do ordinary Russians feel about the Chinese goods and products now sold compared to the western brands which have left Russia?
Honestly, I don’t see any big difference and I don’t feel overwhelmed by Chinese goods.
In fact, China actively substituted only two fields: cars and household equipment
Midea or Haier instead of Bosch? No big difference. Same features, same prices. Bosch is also available by the way, and the price is comparable to Chinese. So who has left?
Chery/Haval instead of Renault and Nissan? No big difference, in fact Chinese are better. More options and features for lower price. Prices are slowly normalizing, by the way. Chinese car giants open new factories in Russia.
Of course, it will take time for market to find a new balance, but at least now it is possible to get a new SUV for around 2 million rubles. Sure, it’s not 1.3 million rubles like I paid for new Nissan Qashqai in 2018, but it’s even less about 2.4 million rubles I paid for new Nissan X-Trail in 2021. And well, Chinese turned out to be have better multimedia systems than Japanese or Europeans. Surprise, surprise.
Maybe even Moskvich will some day be available at more reasonable prices. Again, it all takes time.
New car market was too expensive starting from around last April. Now slowly getting to more normal prices.
—
Speaking of furniture, clothing and everything else – it got substituted locally and surprisingly well. If you are not dead set to pay 500,000 rubles for Dolce Gabbana, you can buy a nice good quality Russian coat at 10,000 rubles, for example. I bought warm and nice Russian-made alaska jacket for this winter for about 13,000 rubles. Didn’t notice any difference with “original” that cost double even before all those problems.
And well, I talk to people, I listen to people and I see what people are wearing and buying. There still are few “brand-crazy” folks, but most have just got ignorant.
If those “Western brands” ever want to return, they will have a hard time doing so. Sorry guys. And no, Chinese clothes are not popular and is not supplied en masse.
Why is that?
Was it a myth that a man could support a family in the 50s in the USA?
No.
Both of my grandfathers did just that.
Both of their wives only worked outside of the home during WWII, before they were their wives. By the early 1950s, both of my sets of grandparents were married and starting their families. Both families ended up with four children each. Both families owned their own homes—modest homes in small towns—all on the single income of a working-class man.
One grandfather was a salesman and installer of garage doors. One was a mechanic. Both were WWII vets, so there may have been some veterans benefits to help them out. Other than that, they were on their own.
I know much more about one grandfather’s house than the other one, because the one I know about was right down the street from the house I was raised in. That grandfather died in the 80s, before I really got to know him, but his widow (my grandmother) lived in that house until she died in 2016. I visited that house many times and even helped my father build the deck on it.
I don’t know what my grandfather paid for that house, but I know that, when it was sold “as in” after my grandmother passed, just eight years ago, it sold for $63k. According to Zillow, it’s now worth close to $200k. Same house. Eight years. Triple the price. Insanity.
And it’s not just that house. My mother’s house, where she still lives, just a few doors down, is has tripled in value in the last decade.
The house my grandfather raised his kids in was (and still is) just three bedrooms, one bath, tiny kitchen, and a little over 1,200 square feet. It is 1/3 the size of the house I am currently sitting in, and I would call my house fairly modest by Chicago standards. My grandfather’s house featured a detached two-car garage which he used as a workshop, a carport, a huge yard with a vegetable garden, two old-growth pecan trees and, of all things, a small vineyard.
I didn’t realize how cool it was that my grandparents had a small vineyard growing in their back yard until I was well into my 20s and, by then, it had been mostly destroyed by neglect (my grandmother couldn’t maintain it on her own in her old age), and I lived too far away to help her with it. The last time I drove past it, last summer, it looked like the new owners hadn’t taken it down, but hadn’t fixed it, either. It’s just continuing it’s multi-decade decay.
But I’ll bet it was pretty awesome back when my grandparents were raising their children in that house.
Anyway, besides things being a lot cheaper when my grandparents were raising their children, there were also just fewer expenses. Among all eight of their combined children, only one went to college, and that was for just one semester. Each family only had one car. Each family only had one TV, and they didn’t pay for cable until the early 1990s. The airwave signals were free. Each house had a single, land line phone. None of my grandparents ever had a credit card. The only things they bought on credit were their houses and cars.
About two hours ago, I gave my son my credit card so he could by a $2.50 Gatorade from a vending machine. My grandparents would be mortified about everything in that transaction.
I understand why so many young people feel like they’re getting cheated by this economy. They are. Who is cheating them, and why, and how to fix it, are where I disagree with many of them. But yes, I do agree that they have a much, much steeper mountain to climb to get to the same summit that my grandparents (their great-grandparents’ generation) seemed to have handed to them.
Respect
Are squids smart enough to be pets?
They are plenty smart enough, but they make terrible pets. You see, squid are what we call pelagic critters, meaning they spend most of their time in open water, away from the sea floor or any other features. They like lots and lots of water around them.
Their primary escape mechanism is to simply jet away into the abyss at Squid Warp Speed. It is so fast you literally cannot see it.
My bride and I met on a squid study, which involved a lot of laying in the water on snorkel and hand recording everything the individual squid did. One morning we were watching our usual flotilla of Sepioteuthis (Caribbean Reef Squid) and scrawling their antics on our slates.
And then, *blink.* They were gone. All 17 squid just vanished at once. We knew what happened, of course, but not why. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. Bonaire, the Caribbean island in the Dutch Antilles where the study took place, has extremely clear water. We could see easily 100 feet in all directions, but could not identify what spooked the squid. We were very sure it wasn’t us. Since we had been studying this particular school for weeks, the squid were extremely used to people by now.
Then, slowly out of the haze, a large barracuda cruised into view from the East, about 80 feet away. We could not even guess how the squid knew so quick, but they knew a big predator was moving in, and they Got Out Of Town by jetting away so fast (and far) we could not even keep track. The squid didn’t even bother shooting ink. They just disappeared.
This is why you cannot keep squid easily in captivity. They have had over 500 million years to develop this explosive escape strategy and, being prey for almost every predator in the ocean means they react to almost anything. Since invisible walls have never existed in nature, they cannot understand glass and don’t adapt to aquariums. At the slightest provocation, captive squid panic and try to blast away to safety, but they wind up slamming into the aquarium walls over and over and injuring themselves grievously.
Squid researchers have had mixed success with soft-sides inflatable pools as well as ring-shaped enclosures, but these critters do best out in open water.
On the other hand, octopuses do make excellent, if short lived, pets.
Please call the police
Angel Shot Straight Up/Neat is code for, “I need an escort to my car.”
Angel Shot on Ice/on the Rocks is code for, “Please call a taxi/Uber/Lyft for me.”
Angel Shot with a Twist/Lemon/Lime is code for, “I am in immediate danger.Please call the police.”
How can China brace for economic sanctions by the West in case it “reunites” with Taiwan militarily and not end up economically isolated like Russia?
Build more of these.
main qimg 48c6d17f2eadc8bc36f00d981ce05414 lq
A nuclear exchange is at this point all but INEVITABLE.
What we need is to massively increase our nuclear bombs and missile systems.
Right now we have 5–600 bombs. That means we have to be selective about the cities we hit.
But with 1000 we can hit even smaller cities.
The white supremacists have literally parked a SSBN in Korea to do this.
We need a massive counter strike ability to take the white supremacists to hell with us. They can die in nuclear fires along with us.
Liberals will say but I don’t want nuclear war. Well the Nuclear Taboo is a myth.
Nooooo!
Did any Chinese people successfully escape from being captured by Xiongnu/Hunnic raiders during their raids on China in history?
This Chinese man was Zhang Qian.
In 139 B.C., Zhang Qian set out on a westward journey with his interpreter and an escort of about 100 men. But just as they entered the Hexi Corridor, they were bumped into by Xiongnu cavalry. After a battle, all the others were killed in battle, and only Zhang Qian and the interpreter, who did not take part in the battle, survived. Zhang Qian and his interpreter survived.
The two did not resist, and were escorted by the Huns’ cavalry from the Hexi Corridor to the King’s Court of the Xiongnu, a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. The Xiongnu Chanyu also wanted to get information about the Han Dynasty from Zhang Qian, so he actively instigated him to rebel and even arranged for a high-status Xiongnu noblewoman to marry him.
Zhang Qian had been single for almost 30 years and readily accepted the kindness of the Xiongnu Chanyu, but he still did not leak any information about the Han Dynasty. Not only that, Zhang Qian also secretly mastered a lot of information about the Huns while living in the Xiongnu’ territory.
After ten years of this kind of life, Zhang Qian managed to escape with the help of his Xiongnu wife. However, he was captured by the Hun cavalry for the second time shortly after his escape.
The second time was in 128 B.C. Zhang Qian wanted to return to Chang’an. This time he deliberately avoided the sphere of influence of the Xiongnu people, but he was really unlucky and was caught by the Xiongnu people once again. Zhang Qian had already given up hope, but to his surprise, he was rescued by the Xiongnu woman again and escaped. This time Zhang Qian took her back to Chang’an.
In 126 BC, Zhang Qian, his Hun wife, son, and translator returned to Chang’an after an absence of thirteen years.
Upon his return, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made him Marquis of Bowang for his military service.
Although Zhang Qian was promoted, his Xiongnu wife who had made great contributions to him died of illness after one year in Chang’an because she was not adapted to the environment.
I guess Zhang Qian was a handsome man and his Xiongnu wife loved him wholeheartedly and even betrayed the Xiongnu Chanyu.
Funny and Cute
Are there any other countries besides North Korea with authoritarian or totalitarian governments? Are countries like China and Cuba considered communist?
Sunak, Biden and the western nations are authoritarian too, just that you are blinded by their authoritarianism! They are against the wishes of their people. Their people don’t want to murder women and Children all over the world. Their people are forced to listen only to western media in Ukraine! The want the truth but they are fed lies upon lies. Their people want their governments to focus on their own country and their own people but millions are left homeless and without medical care.
I’ve had enough
What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?
my first husband was extremely abusive and had been for years but I just couldn’t seem to find the help I needed to leave. One day he came home drunk with his friends and because I knew he would become violent, I refused to let him in. Unfortunately he kicked the front door down in 2 kicks and before I could get to the phone he was in the house and on me. I spent 3 days in the hospital and because the beating was so severe, I was offered help that I immediately accepted. After being released from the hospital I was escorted by a battered womens advocate and police officer but I only had 15 minutes to grab what I could. While I was doing my grabcand go I could hear him tell the officer that it was all just a minor misunderstanding and how he wad sorry but sure we could work through everything, blah, blah, blah. As I was walking out with the few posessions that I could grab, and with the officer still standing next to him, I looked at him with a big smile and told him that he may want to get a new toothbrush because I had been cleaning the toilet with it for months. The fake smile was wiped right off of his face but the cop had a smirk. Before anyone asks, yes I was cleaning the toilet with his toothbrush.
She’s on drugs and rude
What is the most condescending advice you received from someone who assumed you were poorer or less educated than them?
I had finished scraping the bottom of my boat and decided to have a shower at the clubhouse. Scraping bottom paint must be the dirtiest job in the world (potentially dangerous to your health without proper clothing and a respirator) and I was utterly filthy. As I walked up to the clubhouse, a guy in his mid-forties, a new member it turns out, told me I was not allowed in the “club,” as “no labourers allowed”. I laughed in his face and kindly told him to fuck off. He then told me he was getting the Commodore and that I would be barred from working at this club again. I said good luck with that and again told him to fuck off. When I finished up in the shower, I went to the wardroom to meet my wife and to have a beer. This guy was in the wardroom talking to the Commodore when I came in. When he saw me he said to the Commodore that I was a disrespectful shit and that I should be blackballed from the club. The Commodore said that I might be a shit, but I was a member in good standing and it would look bad if she tried to blackball her husband.
AI learning
Which country has superior products between Japan and China?
Depends on the Products in Question
Let’s see where Japan leads and dominates over China :-
Refrigeration
Cameras & Lenses
Petrol Engines
Industrial Robots
Hybrid Vehicles
Japanese Exports are primarily in these industries.
Japan has the best quality products in the world in these categories
Let’s see where China leads and dominates over Japan:-
Shipbuilding
Railroads & Electrified Railway Design and manufacture
Infrastructure Steel & Equipment & High Machinery
Television LCD Panels
High Efficiency (> 25%) Solar Panels
NEV Batteries & Integrated Platforms
New Energy Vehicles
Deep Core Gas Drilling Equipment
Data Centers
Windmill & Wind Turbines
Chinese Exports are primarily in these Industries
China has the best quality products in the world in these categories
Then you have areas where both Japan and China are not yet on par with global (western standards) :-
Advanced Lenses (Germany)
Advanced Chips (US, Europe, Korea)
Advanced Computing (US)
Diesel Engines (Germany)
Aviation Components (Europe, US)
Pharmaceuticals (Switzerland, US, France)
In these areas, neither Japan nor China have the quality of their Western counterparts
These form a huge chunk of Chinas Imports and Japans imports
The West is completely fucked up
Iowa Spaghetti Sauce
When we were young, we looked forward to visiting my Aunt Anita in Muscatine, Iowa. She always had this ready for us when we arrived. We fought over the mushrooms, so over time, she added up to three times the amount of mushrooms called for!
iowa spaghetti sauce
Ingredients
3 or 4 cloves garlic
2 pounds ground beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup finely chopped celery
Salt, to taste
1 large can mushrooms, drained
Instructions
Brown garlic in 1 tablespoon salad oil; discard garlic. Add ground meat and salt, 1/2 cup water and cook.
When the meat is half done, add the onions and cook until done.
Add the remaining ingredients, except the mushrooms, and cook until thick, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Add mushrooms when thick.
Serve over spaghetti!
It takes it
Former prisoners: What should a person not write in a letter from home? What type of stuff was not helpful to your psyche?
Let ‘er rip baby! Fire away! Don’t hold back.
Don’t hold anything back. The hardest letters in prison were the ones I didn’t get.
Maybe you don’t want to write to me because you’re angry. I did something stupid, got my dumb ass tossed in the cooler, and you’re livid.
There-is-no-better-time-to-write!
I’m a sitting duck! I’ve got nothing better to do than read your letter. I’ll read it again and again! Write out your rant, become my personal troll, and flame on old-school from afar. You might have six months worth of rage pent up, waiting to be unleashed on the page. Get it off your chest. Toss open the hatches and let loose whatever foul demons you’ve been harboring below deck. Let me know the full depth and breadth of your wrath.
I would much rather deal with this now through letters than during our first face to face encounter years later. We can discuss everything, get to the heart of it, and maybe even move on.
Has a loved one of mine passed on? Are you afraid that telling me will break my heart? If I go years without getting a letter from that person, that will break my heart. I’ll wonder on a daily basis why mom doesn’t write anymore. Then on that day when I’m finally released, a day meant to be full of hope and new beginnings, you finally hit me with the bad news?
No thanks. Tell me now. Toll that bell and let me grieve here in this hell hole in my own time and way.
Some of the hardest time I did was when it was clear that my girlfriend was breaking up with me. She stopped writing, stopped answering phone calls, stopped caring.
I knew what was happening, but without her black and white confirmation, it was a glacial band-aid ripping — it lasted months. A simple letter could’ve put it to a swift and final conclusion. I wouldn’t have gotten out two years later wondering, “Where is everyone?”
What subjects should you avoid? None.
Don’t waste any time worrying about my psyche. I’m a big enough boy to find my way into prison. Your letters aren’t going to push me over the edge, but maybe they’ll push us closer together.
Young men are turning their backs on women in record numbers
The is the reality right now. Gen-Z. People are not meant to be living alone. Thank you “WOKE” society.
Pope Francis was asked what he would tell Ukraine President Zelensky and his response was succinct: Surrender, you’re defeated.
Of course, His Holiness put it more gracefully. His exact words were:
"I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people, and has the courage of the white flag and negotiates. The word negotiate is a courageous word. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well. you have to have the courage to negotiate."
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, president of France, is beating the war drums for NATO entry into the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He continues to push the suicidal notion of NATO countries sending troops in to fight alongside Ukraine, despite being repeatedly warned NATO entry into that conflict would result in a “war the no one will win.” That is to say, a nuclear war.
Macron just today began mobilizing trainloads of French Armor, including tanks, heading east for Ukraine. Video below shows one such train:
— What the media hides. (@narrative_hole) March 9, 2024
Moreover, French troops are preparing for a high-intensity conflict against an enemy who can match them with firepower — a big change for an army that’s spent the past decades fighting counterinsurgency campaigns in places like Mali and Afghanistan.
The hostilities in Ukraine, in their third year, have brought full-scale war back to the Continent, said Colonel Axel Denis, who runs the combat training center (CENTAC) at Mailly-le-camp in eastern France.
“The world has revealed its true nature: unstable, dangerous, and not everyone is a friend. We’re gearing up for a culture of alert, of being ready at short notice,” he told POLITICO during a visit to the camp. “CENTAC is the only place [in France] where you can see what war is like.”
Conditions for the troops training at CENTAC are as close as possible to an actual battlefield. The sound, heat and light of artillery fire is reproduced, while fake mines are scattered everywhere, and radio communications can be interrupted without notice.
History shows that the last time the French went into Russia, under Napoleon Bonaparte, they lost 650,000 soldiers. Their bones were left to disintegrate in Russia.
Those who do not learn from history, seem doomed to repeat it.
What is your best “one time my dad … ” story?
One time I was working on my car. I was lying on my back under the engine but I was quite safe as I had raised the car on proper axle stands before removing the front wheels. To be even safer I had chosen to work on the engine with the car parked in the street as it was flat and horizontal. Our driveway was at an angle.
Dad was standing at the front of the car leaning under the bonnet (hood) and directing operations. It was a good time working with my dad.
One of our neighbours arrived and made a complete bodge of parking. He hit my car very slowly with his bumper. No damage to either car but the impact was enough to rock my car forward. The forward motion was enough to cause my car to roll off the axle stands. As the front wheels had been removed the whole weight of the engine descended on my chest.
Dad anticipated what would happen. As soon as the car began to move he grabbed the front bumper with one hand and my legs with the other hand. My father is not a big man. He was 5′-10″ but fairly heavily built. He lifted the front of a Ford Cortina with one hand while pulling me out from underneath with the other.
As far as I was concerned he earned another gold star when he dropped the car and dragged our neighbour from his car and slugged him on the jaw. As he fell, out cold, I will always remember Dad shouting,
It was hard to pick a specific Christopher Anvil story for this anthology. His most famous single story is "Pandora's Planet," which first appeared in the September 1956 issue of Astounding magazine; his best-known series of stories, the multitude of Interstellar Patrol stories which appeared in Astounding throughout the '60s. We could have easily chosen from any of them.
But . . . well . . .
For starters, my innate frugality—ignore what my wife says—rebelled at the notion. With me serving as editor of the project, Baen Books has already reissued the entire "Pandora's Planet" sequence and is in the process of reissuing in three volumes all the stories Anvil wrote in his Colonization setting, which includes all the Interstellar Patrol stories. To include one of those in this anthology just seemed a little wasteful.
Beyond that, however, as it happens my first encounter with the writing of Christopher Anvil wasn't any of those stories anyway. I first ran into Anvil in one of those marvelous epistolary tales that he did so well, and which so few writers can handle properly. (For those of you who are literarily challenged, an "epistolary tale" is a story told in the form of correspondence; usually letters, but sometimes—Anvil was especially good at this—in the form of telegraph-like exchanges.)
So I thought of including that story. The problem then became . . .
I couldn't remember which story I'd first read as a teenager. It might have been "The Prisoner" . . . no, maybe it was "Trial by Silk" . . . on the other hand, it could have been "Bill For Delivery" . . . then again, it could have been "Revolt!" too . . .
Finally, I whined to Jim and Dave about my quandary. Jim pondered the matter for a bit, in his best Sagacious Publisher style. (He does that quite well. Of course, he also does Curmudgeon Editor quite well, too.)
"Let's go with 'The Gentle Earth,'" he said. "It's classic Anvil, it's a lot of fun—and it had one of those great Kelly Freas cover illustrations when it first came out in Astounding."
Bingo.
Tlasht Bade, Supreme Commander of Invasion Forces, drew thoughtfully on his slim cigar. “The scouts are all back?”
Sission Runckel, Chief of the Supreme Commander’s Staff, nodded. “They all got back safely, though one or two had difficulties with some of the lower life forms.”
“Is the climate all right?”
Runckel abstractedly reached in his tunic, and pulled out a thing like a short piece of tarred rope. As he trimmed it, he scowled. “There’s some discomfort, apparently because the air is too dry. But on the other hand, there’s plenty of oxygen near the planet’s surface, and the gravity’s about the same as it is back home. We can live there.”
Bade glanced across the room at a large blue, green, and brown globe, with irregular patches of white at top and bottom. “What are the white areas?”
“Apparently, chalk. One of our scouts landed there, but he’s in practically a state of shock. The brilliant reflectivity in the area blinded him, a huge white furry animal attacked him, and he barely got out alive. To cap it all, his ship’s insulation apparently broke down on the way back, and now he’s in the sick bay with a bad case of space-gripe. All we can get out of him is that he had severe prickling sensations in the feet when he stepped out onto the chalk dust. Probably a pile of little spiny shells.”
“Did he bring back a sample?”
“He claims he did. But there’s only water in his sample box. I imagine he was delirious. In any case, this part of the planet has little to interest us.”
Bade nodded. “What about the more populous regions?”
“Just as we thought. A huge web of interconnecting cities, manufacturing centers, and rural areas. Our mapping procedures have proved to be accurate.”
“That’s a relief. What about the natives?”
“Erect, land-dwelling, ill-tempered bipeds,” said Runckel. “They seem to have little or no planet-wide unity. Of course, we have large samplings of their communications media. When these are all analyzed, we’ll know a lot more.”
“What do they look like?”
“They’re pink or brown in color, quite tall, but not very broad or thick through the chest. A little fur here and there on their bodies. No webs on their hands or feet, and their feet are fantastically small. Otherwise, they look quite human.”
“Their technology?”
Runckel sucked in a deep breath and sat up straight. “Every bit as bad as we thought.” He picked up a little box with two stiff handles, squeezed the handles hard, and touched a glowing wire on the box to his piece of black rope. He puffed violently.
Bade turned up the air-conditioning. Billowing clouds of smoke drew away from Runckel in long streamers, so that he looked like an island looming through heavy mist. His brow was creased in a foreboding scowl.
“Technologically,” he said, “they are deadly. They’ve got fission and fusion, indirect molecular and atomic reaction control, and a long-reaching development of electron flow and pulsing devices. So far, they don’t seem to have anything based on deep rearrangement or keyed focusing. But who knows when they’ll stumble on that? And then what? Even now, properly warned and ready they could give us a terrible struggle.”
* * *
Runckel knocked a clinker off his length of rope and looked at Bade with the tentative, judging air of one who is not quite sure of another’s reliability. Then he said, loudly and with great firmness, “We have a lot to be thankful for. Another five or ten decades delay getting the watchships up through the cloud layer, and they’d have had us by the throat. We’ve got to smash them before they’re ready, or we’ll end up as their colony.”
Bade’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve always opposed this invasion on philosophical grounds. But it’s been argued and settled. I’m willing to go along with the majority opinion.” Bade rapped the ash off his slender cigar and looked Runckel directly in the eyes. “But if you want to open the whole argument up all over again—”
“No,” said Runckel, breathing out a heavy cloud of smoke. “But our micromapping and radiation analysis shows a terrific rate of progress. It’s hard to look at those figures and even breathe normally. They’re gaining on us like a shark after a minnow.”
“In that case,” said Bade, “let’s wake up and hold our lead. This business of attacking the suspect before he has a chance to commit a crime is no answer. What about all the other planets in the universe? How do we know what they might do some day?”
“This planet is right beside us!”
“Is murder honorable as long as you do it only to your neighbor? Your argument is self-defense. But you’re straining it.”
“Let it strain, then,” said Runckel angrily. “All I care about is that chart showing our comparative levels of development. Now we have the lead. I say, drag them out by their necks and let them submit, or we’ll thrust their heads underwater and have done with them. And anyone who says otherwise is a doubtful patriot!”
Bade’s teeth clamped, and he set his cigar carefully on a tray.
Runckel blinked, as if he only appreciated what he had said by its echo.
Bade’s glance moved over Runckel deliberately, as if stripping away the emblems and insignia. Then Bade opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and pulled out a pad of dun-colored official forms. As he straightened, his glance caught the motto printed large on the base of the big globe. The motto had been used so often in the struggle to decide the question of invasion that Bade seldom noticed it any more. But now he looked at it. The motto read:
Them Or Us
Bade stared at it for a long moment, looked up at the globe that represented the mighty planet, then down at the puny motto. He glanced at Runckel, who looked back dully but squarely. Bade glanced at the motto, shook his head in disgust, and said, “Go get me the latest reports.”
Runckel blinked. “Yes, sir,” he said, and hurried out.
Bade leaned forward, ignored the motto, and thoughtfully studied the globe.
* * *
Bade read the reports carefully. Most of them, he noted, contained a qualification. In the scientific reports, this generally appeared at the end:
” . . . Owing to the brief time available for these observations, the conclusions presented herein must be regarded as only provisional in character.”
In the reports of the scouts, this reservation was usually presented in bits and pieces:
” . . . And this thing, that looked like a tiny crab, had a pair of pincers on one end, and I didn’t have time to see if this was the end it got me with, or if it was the other end. But I got a jolt as if somebody squeezed a lighter and held the red-hot wire against my leg. Then I got dizzy and sick to my stomach. I don’t know for sure if this was what did it, or if there are many of them, but if there are, and if it did, I don’t see how a man could fight a war and not be stung to death when he wasn’t looking. But I wasn’t there long enough to be sure . . .”
Another report spoke of a “Crawling army of little six-legged things with a set of oversize jaws on one end, that came swarming through the shrubbery straight for the ship, went right up the side and set to work eating away the superplast binder around the viewport. With that gone, the ship would leak air like a fishnet. But when I tried to clear them away, they started in on me. I don’t know if this really proves anything, because Rufft landed not too far away, and he swears the place was like a paradise. Nevertheless, I have to report that I merely set my foot on the ground, and I almost got marooned and eaten up right on the spot.”
Bade was particularly uneasy over reports of a vague respiratory difficulty some of the scouts noticed in the region where the first landings were planned. Bade commented on it, and Runckel nodded.
“I know,” said Runckel. “The air’s too dry. But if we take time to try to provide for that, at the same time they may make some new advance that will more than nullify whatever we gain. And right now their communications media show a political situation that fits right in with our plans. We can’t hope for that to last forever.”
Bade listened as Runckel described a situation like that of a dozen hungry sharks swimming in a circle, each getting its jaws open for a snap at the next one’s tail. Then Runckel described his plan.
At the end, Bade said, “Yes, it may work out as you say. But listen, Runckel, isn’t this a little too much like one of those whirlpools in the Treacherous Islands? If everything works out, you go through in a flash. But one wrong guess, and you go around and around and around and around and you’re lucky if you get out with a whole skin.”
Runckel’s jaw set firmly. “This is the only way to get a clear-cut decision.”
Bade studied the far wall of the room for a moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a hand at these plans sooner.”
“Sir,” said Runckel, “You would have, if you hadn’t been so busy fighting the whole idea.” He hesitated, then asked, “Will you be coming to the staff review of plans?”
“Certainly,” said Bade.
“Good,” said Runckel. “You’ll see that we have it all worked to perfection.”
* * *
Bade went to the review of plans and listened as the details were gone over minutely. At the end, Runckel gave an overall summary:
“The Colony Planet,” he said, rapping a pointer on maps of four hemispheric views, “is only seventy-five percent water, so the land areas are immense. The chief land masses are largely dominated by two hostile power groups, which we may call East and West. At the fringes of influence of these power groups live a vast mass of people not firmly allied to either.
“The territory of this uncommitted group is well suited to our purposes. It contains many pleasant islands and comfortable seas. Unfortunately, analysis shows that the dangerous military power groups will unite against us if we seize this territory directly. To avoid this, we will act to stun and divide them at one stroke.”
Runckel rapped his pointer on a land area lettered “North America,” and said, “On this land mass is situated a politico-economic unit known as the U.S. The U.S. is the dominant power both in the Western Hemisphere and in the West power group. It is surrounded by wide seas that separate it from its allies.
“Our plan is simple and direct. We will attack and seize the central plain of the U.S. This will split it into helpless fragments, any one of which we may crush at will. The loss of the U.S. will, of course, destroy the power balance between East and West. The East will immediately seize the scraps of Western power and influence all over the globe.
“During this period of disorder, we will set up our key-tool factories and a light-duty forceway network. In rapid stages will then come ore-converters, staging plants, fabricators, heavy-duty forceway stations and self-operated production units. With these last we will produce energy-conversion units and storage piles by the million in a network to blanket the occupied area. The linkage produced will power our damper units to blot out missile attacks that may now begin in earnest.
“We will thus be solidly established on the planet itself. Our base will be secure against attack. We will now turn our energies to the destruction of the U.S.S.R. as a military power.” He reached out with his pointer to rap a new land mass.
“The U.S.S.R. is the dominant power of the East power group. This will by now be the only hostile power group remaining on the planet. It will be destroyed in stages.
“In Stage I we will confuse the U.S.S.R. by propaganda. We will profess friendship while we secretly multiply our productive facilities to the highest possible degree.
“In Stage II, we will seize and fortify the western and northern islands of Britain, Novaya Zemlya, and New Siberia. We will also seize and heavily fortify the Kamchatka Peninsula in the extreme eastern U.S.S.R. We will now demand that the U.S.S.R. lay down its arms and surrender.
“In the event of refusal, we will, from our fortified bases, destroy by missile attack all productive facilities and communication centers in the U.S.S.R. The resulting paralysis will bring down the East power group in ruins. The planet will now lay open before us.”
Runckel looked at each of his listeners in turn.
“Everything has been done to make this invasion a success. To crush out any possible miscalculation, we are moving with massive reserves close behind us. Certain glory and a mighty victory await us.
“Let us raise our heads in prayer, then join in the Oath of Battle.”
* * *
The first wave of the attack came down like an avalanche on the central U.S. Multiple transmitters went into action to throw local radar stations into confusion. Stull-gas missiles streaked from the landing ships to explode over nearby cities. Atmospheric flyers roared off to intercept possible enemy attacks. A stream of guns, tanks, and troop carriers rolled down the landing ways and fanned out to seize enemy power plants and communications centers.
The commander of the first wave reported: “Everything proceeding according to plan. Enemy resistance negligible.”
Runckel ordered the second wave down.
Bade, watching it on a number of giant viewscreens in the operations room of a ship coming down, had a peculiar feeling of numbness, such as might follow a deep cut before the pain is felt.
Runckel, his face intense, said: “Their position is hopeless. The main landing site is secure and the rest will come faster than the eye can see.” He turned to speak into one of a bank of microphones, then said, “Our glider missiles are circling over their capital.”
A loud-speaker high on the wall said, “Landing minus three. Take your stations, please.”
The angle of vision of one of the viewscreens tilted suddenly, to show a high, dome-topped building set in a city filled with rushing beetle shapes—obviously ground-cars of some type. Abruptly these cars all pulled to the sides of the streets.
“That,” said Runckel grimly, “means their capital is out of business.”
The picture on the viewscreen blurred suddenly, like the reflection from water ruffled by a breeze. There was a clang like a ten-ton hammer hitting a twenty-ton gong. Walls, floor, and ceiling of the room danced and vibrated. Two of the viewscreens went blank.
Bade felt a prickling sensation travel across his shoulders and down his back. He glanced sharply at Runckel.
Runckel’s expression looked startled but firm. He reached out and snapped orders into one of his microphones.
There was an intense, high-pitched ringing, then a clap like a nuclear cannon of six paces distance.
The wall loud-speaker said, “Landing minus two.”
An intense silence descended on the room. One by one, the viewscreens flickered on. Bade heard Runckel say, “The ship is totally damped. They haven’t anything that can get through it.”
There was a dull, low-pitched thud, a sense of being snapped like a whip, and the screens went blank. The wall loud-speaker dropped, and jerked to a stop, hanging by its cord.
Then the ship set down.
* * *
Runckel’s plan assumed that the swift-moving advance from the landing site would overrun a sizable territory during the first day. With this maneuvering space quickly gained, the landing site itself would be safe from enemy ground attack by dawn of the second day.
Now that they were down, however, Bade and Runckel looked at the operations room’s big viewscreen, and saw their vehicles standing still all over the landscape. The troops crowded about the rear of the vehicles to watch cursing drivers pull the motors up out of their housings and spread them out on the ground. Here and there a stern officer argued with grim-faced troops who stared stonily ahead as if they didn’t hear. Meanwhile, the tanks, trucks, and weapons carriers stood motionless.
Runckel, infuriated, had a cluster of microphones gripped in his hand, and was pronouncing death by strangling and decapitation on any officer who failed to get his unit in motion right away.
Bade studied the baffled expressions on the faces of the drivers, then glanced at the enemy ground-cars abandoned at the side of the road. He turned to see a tall officer with general’s insignia stagger through the doorway and grip Runckel by the arm. Bade recognized Rast, General Forces Commander.
“Sir,” said Rast, “it can’t be done.”
“It has to be done,” said Runckel grimly. “So far we’ve decoyed the enemy missiles to a false site. Before they spot us again, those troops have got to be spread out!”
“They won’t ride in the vehicles!”
“It’s that or get killed!”
“Sir,” said Rast, “you don’t understand. I came back here in a gun carrier. To start with, the driver jammed the speed lever all the way to the front shield, and nothing happened. He got up to see what was wrong. The carrier shot ahead with a flying leap, threw the driver into the back, and almost snapped our heads off. Then it coasted to a stop. We pulled ourselves together and turned around to get the cover off the motor box.
“Wham! The carrier took off, ripped the cover out of our hands, threw us against the rear shield and knocked us senseless. Then it rolled to a stop.
“That’s how we got here. Jump! Roll. Stop. Wait. Jump! Roll. Stop. Wait. On one of those jumps, the gun went out the back of the carrier, mount, bolts, and all. The driver swore he’d turn off the motor, and fangjaw take the planet and the whole invasion. We aren’t going to win a war with troops in that frame of mind.”
Runckel took a deep breath.
Bade said, “What about the enemy’s ground-cars? Will they run?”
Rast blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe—”
Bade snapped on a microphone lettered “Aerial Rec.” A little screen in a half-circle atop the microphone lit up to show an alert, harried-looking officer. Bade said, “You’ve noticed our vehicles are stopped?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were the enemy’s ground-cars affected at the same time as ours?”
“No sir, they were still moving after ours were stuck.”
“Any motor trouble in Atmospheric Flyer Command?”
“None that I know of, sir.”
Bade glanced at Rast. “Try using the enemy ground-cars. Meanwhile, get the troops you can’t move back under cover of the ships’ dampers.”
Rast saluted, whirled, and went out at a staggering run.
Bade called Atmospheric Flyer Command, and Ground Forces Maintenance, and arranged for the captured enemy vehicles to be identified by a large yellow X painted across the top of the hood. Then he turned to Runckel and said, “We’re going to need all the support we can get. See if we can bring Landing Force 2 down late today instead of tomorrow.”
“I’ll try,” said Runckel.
* * *
It seemed to Bade that the events of the next twenty-four hours unrolled like the scenes of a nightmare.
Before the troops were all under cover, an enemy reconnaissance aircraft leaked in very high overhead. The detector screens of Atmospheric Flyer Command were promptly choked with enemy aircraft coming in low and fast from all directions.
These aircraft were of all types. Some heaved their bombs in under-hand, barreled over and streaked home for another load. Others were flying hives of anti-aircraft missiles. A third type were suicide bombers or winged missiles; these roared in head-on and blew up on arrival.
While the dampers labored and overheated, and Flyer Command struggled with enemy fighters and bombers overhead, a long-range reconnaissance flyer spotted a sizable convoy of enemy ground forces rushing up from the southwest.
Bade and Runckel concentrated first on living through the air attack. It soon developed that the enemy planes, though extremely fast, were not very maneuverable. The enemy’s missiles did not quite overload the dampers. The afternoon wore on in an explosive violence that was severe, but barely endurable. It began to seem that they might live through it.
Toward evening, however, a small enemy missile streaked in on the end of a wire and smashed the grid of an auxiliary damper unit. Before this unit could be repaired, a heavy missile came down near the same place, and overloaded the damper network. Another missile streaked in. One of the ships tilted, and fell headlong. The engines of this ship were ripped out of the circuit that powered the dampers. With the next enemy missile strike, another ship was heaved off its base. This ship housed a large proportion of Flyer Command’s detector screens.
Bade and Runckel looked at each other. Bade’s lips moved, and he heard himself say, “Prepare to evacuate.”
At this moment, the enemy attack let up.
* * *
It took an instant for Bade to realize what had happened. He canceled his evacuation order before it could be transmitted, then had the two thrown ships linked back into the power circuit. He turned around, and his glance fell on one of the viewscreens showing the shadowy plain outside. A brilliant flash lit the screen, and he saw dark low shapes rushing in toward the ships. Bade immediately gave orders to defend against ground attack, but not to pursue beyond range of the dampers.
A savage, half-lit struggle developed. The enemy, whose weapons failed to work in range of the dampers, attacked with bayonets, and used guns, shovels, and picks in the manner of clubs and battle axes. In a spasm of bloody violence they fought their way in among the ships, then, confused in the dimness, were thrown back with heavy losses. As night settled down, the enemy dug in to make a fortified ring close around the landing site.
The enemy missile attack failed to recover its former violence.
Bade gave silent thanks for the deliverance. As the comparative quiet continued, it seemed clear that the enemy high command was holding back to avoid hitting their own men dug in nearby.
It occurred to Bade that now might be a good time to get a little sleep. He turned to go to his cot, and there was a rush of yellow dots on Flyer Command’s pilot screen. As he stared wide-eyed, auxiliary screens flickered on and off to show a ghostly dish-shaped object that led his flyers on a wild chase all over the sky, then vanished at an estimated speed twenty times that the enemy planes were thought capable of doing.
Runckel said, “Landing Force 2 can get here at early dawn. That’s the best we can manage.”
Bade nodded dully.
The ground screens now lit in brilliant flashes as the enemy began firing monster rockets at practically point-blank range.
Night passed in a continuous bombardment.
At early dawn of the next day, Bade put in all his remaining missiles, and bomber and interceptor flyers. For a brief interval of time, the enemy bombardment was smothered.
Landing force 2 sat down beside Landing Force 1.
Bade ordered the Stull-gas missiles of Landing Force 2 exploded over the enemy ground troops. In the resulting confusion, the ground forces moved out and captured large numbers of enemy troops, weapons, and vehicles. The captured vehicles were marked and promptly put to use.
Bade spoke briefly with General Rast, commanding the ground forces.
“Now’s your chance,” said Bade. “Move fast and we can capture supplies and reinforcements flowing in, before they realize we’ve broken their ring.”
Under the protection of the flyers of Landing Force 2, Rast’s troops swung out onto the central plain of the North American continent.
* * *
The advance moved fast. Enemy troops and supply convoys were caught off guard on the road. When the enemy fought, his resistance was patchy and confused.
Bade, feeling drugged from lack of sleep, lay down on his cot for a nap. He awoke feeling fuzzy-brained and dull.
“They’re whipped,” said Runckel gleefully. “We’ve got back the time we lost yesterday. There’s no resistance to speak of. And we’ve just made a treaty with the East bloc.”
Bade sat up dizzily. “That’s wonderful,” he said. He glanced at the clock. “Why wasn’t I called sooner?”
“No need,” said Runckel. “It’s all just a matter of form. Landing Force 3 is coming down tonight. The war’s over.” Runckel’s face, as he said this, had a peculiar shine.
Bade frowned. “Isn’t the enemy making any reaction at all?”
“Nothing worth mentioning. We’re driving them ahead of us like a school of minnows.”
Bade got to his feet uneasily. “It can’t be this simple.” He stepped out into the operations room and detected unmistakable signs of holiday jubilation. Nearly everyone was grinning, and gawkers were standing in a thick ring before the screen showing the map room’s latest plot.
Bade said sharply, “Don’t these men have anything to do?” His voice carried across the room with the effect of a shark surfacing in the midst of a ladies’ swimming party. Several of the men at the map jumped. Others glanced around jerkily. There was a concerted bumping of elbows, and the ring of gawkers evaporated briskly in all directions. In every part of the room there was abruptly something approaching a businesslike atmosphere.
Bade looked around angrily and sat down at his desk. Then he saw the map. He squeezed his eyes shut, then looked again.
In the center of the map of North America was a big blot, as if a bottle of red ink had been thrown at it. Bade turned to Runckel and asked harshly, “Is that map correct?”
“Absolutely,” said Runckel, his face shining with satisfaction.
Bade looked back at the map and performed a series of rapid calculations. He glanced at the viewscreens, and saw that those which would normally show the advanced ground troops weren’t in use. This, he supposed, meant that the advance had outrun the technical crews.
Bade snapped on a microphone lettered “Supply, Ground.” In the half-circle atop the microphone appeared an officer in the last stage of sleepless exhaustion. The officer’s eyes twitched, and his skin had a drawn dull look. His head was slumped on his hand.
“Supply?” said Bade in alarm.
“Sorry,” mumbled the officer, “we can’t do it. We’re overstretched already. Try Flyer Command. Maybe they’ll parachute it to you.”
Bade switched off, and glanced at the map again. He turned to Runckel. “Listen, what are we using for transport?”
“The enemy ground-cars.”
“Fast, aren’t they?”
Runckel smiled cheerfully. “They are built for speed. Rast grabbed a whole fleet of them to start with, and they’ve worked fine ever since. A few wrecks, some bad cases of kinkfoot, but that’s all.”
“What the devil is ‘kinkfoot’?”
“Well, the enemy have tiny feet with little toes and no webs at all. Some of their ground-car controls are on the floor. There just isn’t much space so our men’s feet get cramped. It’s just a mild irritation.” Runckel smiled vaguely. “Nothing to worry about.”
Bade squinted hard at Runckel. “What’s Supply using for transport?”
“Steam trucks, of course.”
“Do they work all right, or do they jump?”
Runckel smiled dreamily. “They work fine.”
Bade snapped on the Supply microphone. The same weary officer appeared, his head in his hands, and mumbled, “Sorry. We’re overloaded. Try Flyer Command.”
Bade said angrily, “Wake up a minute.”
The man raised his head, blinked at Bade, then straightened as if hauled by the back of the collar.
“Sir?”
“What’s the overall supply picture?”
“Sir, it’s awful. Terrible.”
“What’s the matter?”
“The advance is so fast, and the units are all mixed up, and when we get to a place, they’ve already pulled out. Worse yet, the steam trucks—” He hesitated, as if afraid to go on.
“Speak up,” snapped Bade. “What’s wrong with the trucks? Is it the engines? Fuel? Running gear? What is it?”
“It’s . . . the water, sir.”
“The water?”
“Sir, there’s that constant loss of steam out the exhaust. At home, we just throw a few more buckets of water in the tank and go on. But here—”
“Oh,” said Bade, the situation dawning on him.
“But around here, sir,” said the officer, “they’ve had something called a ‘severe drought.’ The streams are dry.”
“Can you dig down?”
“Sir, at best there’s just muck. We know there’s water here somewhere, but meanwhile our trucks are stalled all over the country with the men dug down out of sight, and the natives standing around shaking their heads, and sure, there’s got to be water down there somewhere, but what do we use right now?”
Bade took a deep breath. “What about the enemy trucks? Can’t you use them?”
“If we’d started off with them, I suppose we could have. But Ground Forces has requisitioned most of them. Now we’re spread out in all directions with the front getting farther away all the time.”
* * *
Bade switched off and got in touch with Ground Forces, Maintenance. A spruce-looking major appeared. Bade paused a moment, then asked, “How’s your work-load, major? Are you behind schedule?”
The major looked shocked. “No, sir. Far from it. We’re away ahead of schedule.”
“Aren’t these enemy vehicles giving you any trouble? Any difficulties in repair?”
The major laughed. “Fangjaw, general, we don’t repair them! When they burn out, we throw them away. We pried up the hoods of some of them, pulled off the top two or three layers of machinery, and took a good look underneath. That was enough. There are hundreds of parts, all shapes and sizes. And dozens of different kinds of motors. Half of the parts are stuck so they won’t move when you try to get them out, and, to top it all, there isn’t enough room in there to squeeze in an extra grain of sand. So what’s the use? If something goes wrong with one of those things, we give it a shove off the road and forget it. There are plenty of others.”
“I see,” said Bade. “Do you send your repair crews out to shove the ground-cars off the road?”
“Oh, no, sir,” said the major looking startled. “Like the colonel says, ‘Let the Ground Forces do it.’ Sir, it doesn’t take any skill to do that. It’s just that that’s our policy: Don’t repair ’em. Throw ’em away.”
“What about our vehicles then? Have you found out what’s wrong?”
The major looked uncomfortable. “Well, the difficulty is that the vehicles work satisfactorily inside the ship, and for a little while outside. But then, after they’ve been out a while, a malfunction occurs in the mechanism. That’s what causes the trouble.” He looked at Bade hopefully. “Was there anything else, sir.”
“Yes,” said Bade dryly, “it’s the malfunction I’m interested in. What is it that goes wrong?”
The major looked unhappy. “Well, sir, we’ve had the motors apart and put back together I don’t know how many times, and the fact is, there’s nothing at all wrong with them. There’s nothing wrong, but they still won’t work. That’s not our department. We’ve handed the whole business over to the Testing Lab.”
“Then,” said Bade, “you actually don’t have any work to do?”
The major jumped. “Oh, no sir, I didn’t say that. We . . . we’re holding ourselves in readiness, sir, and we’ve got our shops in order, and some of the men are doing some very, ah, very important research on the . . . the structure of the enemy ground-car, and—”
“Fine,” said Bade. “Get your colonel on this line.” When the colonel appeared, Bade said, “Ground Forces Supply has its steam trucks out of service for lack of water. Get in touch with their H.Q., find out the location of the trucks, and get out there with the water. Find out where they can replenish in the future. Take care of this as fast as you can.”
The colonel worked his mouth in a way that suggested a weak valve struggling to hold back a large quantity of compressed air. Bade looked at him hard. The colonel’s mouth blew open, and “Yes, sir!” came out. The colonel looked startled.
Bade immediately switched back to Supply and said, “Ground Forces Maintenance is going to help you water your trucks. Why didn’t you get in touch with them yourselves? It’s the obvious thing.”
“Sir, we did, hours ago. They said water supply wasn’t in their department.”
Bade seemed to see the bursting of innumerable bubbles before his eyes. It dawned on him that he was bogged down in petty details while big events rushed on unheeded. He switched back to the colonel briefly and when he switched off the colonel was plainly vibrating with energy from head to toe. Then Bade looked forebodingly at the map and ordered Liaison to get General Rast for him.
* * *
This took a long time, which Bade spent trying to anticipate the possible enemy reaction if Supply broke down completely, and a retirement became necessary. By the time Rast appeared on the screen, Bade had thought it over carefully, and could see nothing but trouble ahead. There was a buzz, and Bade looked up to see a fuzzy picture of Rast.
Rast, as far as Bade could judge, had a look of victory and exhilaration. But the communicator’s reception was uncommonly bad, and Rast’s image had a tendency to flicker, fade, and slide up and down. Judging by the trend of the conversation, Bade decided reception must be worse yet at the other end.
Bade said, “Supply is in a mess. You’d better choose some sort of defensible perimeter and halt.”
Rast said, “Thank you. The enemy is in full flight.”
“Listen,” said Bade. “Supply is stopped. We can’t get supplies to you. Supply can’t catch up with you.”
“We’ll pursue them day and night,” said Rast.
“Listen to me,” said Bade. “Break off the pursuit! We can’t get supplies to you!”
Rast’s form slowly dimmed and expanded till it filled the screen, then burst, and reappeared as a brilliant image the size of a man’s thumb. His voice cut off, then came through as a crackle.
“Siss kissis sissis,” said the image, expanding again, “hisss siss kississ sissikississ.” This noise was accompanied by earnest gestures on the part of Rast, and a very determined facial expression. The image grew huge and dim, and burst, then started over again.
Bade spat out a word he had promised himself never to say again under any circumstances whatever. Then he sat helpless while the image, large and clear, leaned forward earnestly and pounded one huge fist into the other.
“Hiss! Siss! Fississ!”
“Listen,” said Bade, “I can’t make out a word you’re saying.” He leaned forward. “WE CAN’T GET SUPPLIES TO YOU!”
The image burst and started over, bright and small.
Bade sucked in a deep breath. He grabbed the Communications microphone. “Listen,” he snapped, “I’ve got General Rast on the screen here and I can’t hear anything but a crackle. The image constantly expands and contracts.”
“I know, sir,” said a gray-smocked technician with a despairing look. “I can see the monitor screen from here. It’s the best we can do, sir.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bade could see Rast’s image growing huge and dim. “Hiss! Siss!” said Rast earnestly.
“What causes this?” roared Bade.
“Sir, all we can guess is some terrific electrical discharge between here and General Rast’s position. What such a discharge might be, I can’t imagine.”
Bade scowled, and looked at a thumb-sized Rast. Bade opened his mouth to roar out that there was no way to get supplies through. Rast’s image suddenly vibrated like a twanged string, then stopped expanding.
Rast’s voice came through clearly, “Will you repeat that, sir?”
“WE CAN’T SUPPLY YOU,” said Bade. “Halt your advance. Pick a good spot and HALT!”
Rast’s image was expanding again. “Siss hiss,” he said, and saluted. His image vanished.
Bade immediately snapped on the Communications microphone. “Do you have anyone down there who can read lips?” he demanded.
“Read lips? Sir, I—” The technician squinted suddenly, and swung off the screen. He was back in a moment, his face clear and hopeful. “Sir, we’ve got a man in the section that’s a fanatic on communications methods. The other men think he can read lips, and I’ve sent for him.”
“Good,” said Bade. “Set him to work on the record of that conversation with General Rast. Another thing—is there any way you can get a message though to Rast?”
The technician looked doubtful. “Well, sir . . . I don’t know—” His face cleared slightly. “We can try, sir.”
“Good,” said Bade. “Send ‘Supply situation bad. Strongly suggest you halt your advance and consolidate position.'” Bade’s glance fell on the latest plot from the map room. Glumly he asked himself how Rast or anyone else could hope to consolidate the balloon-like situation that was coming about.
“Sir,” asked the technician, “is that all?”
“Yes,” said Bade, “and let me know when you get through to Rast.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Bade switched off, and turned to ask Runckel for the exact time Landing Force 3 would be down. Bade hesitated, then squinted hard at Runckel.
Runckel’s face had an unusually bright, animated look. He was glancing rapidly through a sheaf of reports, quickly scribbling comments on them, and tossing them to an excited-looking clerk, who rushed off to slap them on the desks of various exhilarated officers and clerks. These men eagerly transmitted them to their various sections. This procedure was normal, but the faces of the men all looked too excited. Their movements were jerky and fast.
Bade became aware of the sensation of watching a scene in a lunatic asylum.
The excited-looking clerk rushed to Runckel’s desk to snatch up a sheaf of reports, and Bade snapped, “Bring those here.”
The clerk jumped, rushed to Bade’s desk, halted with a jerky bounce and saluted snappily. He flopped the papers on the desk, whirled around and raced off toward the desks of the officers who usually got the reports Bade was now holding. The clerk stopped suddenly, looked at his empty hands, spun around, stared at Runckel’s desk, then at Bade’s. A look of enlightenment passed across his face. “Oh,” he said, with a foolish grin. He teetered back and forth on his heels, then rushed over to look at the latest plot from the map room.
Bade set his jaw and glanced at the reports Runckel had marked.
The top two or three reports were simple routine and had merely been initialed. The next report, however, was headed: “Testing Lab. Report on Cause of Vehicle Failure; Recommendations.”
Bade quickly glanced over several sheet of technical diagrams and figures, and turned to the summary. He read:
“In short, the breakdown of normal function, and the resultant slow violent pulsing action of the motor, is caused by the abnormally low conductivity of Surface Conduction Layer S-3. The pulser current, which would normally flow across this layer is blocked, and instead builds up on projection L-26. Eventually a sufficient charge accumulates, and arcs across air gap B. This throws a shock current through the exciter such as is normally experienced only during violent acceleration. The result is that the vehicle shoots ahead from a standing start, then rolls to a stop while the current again slowly accumulates. The root cause of this malfunction is the fantastically low moisture content of the atmosphere on this planet. It is this that causes the loss of conductivity across Layer S-3.
“Recommended measures to overcome this malfunction include:
a) Artificial humidification of the air entering the motor, by means of sprayer and fan.
b) Sealing of the motor unit.
c) Coating of surface condition layer S-3 with a top-sealed permanent conducting film.
“A) or b) probably can be carried out as soon as the requisite devices and materials are obtainable. This, however, may involve a considerable delay. C), on the other hand, will require a good deal of initial testing and experimentation, but may then be carried into effect very quickly, as the requisite tools and materials are already at hand. We will immediately carry out the initial measures for whichever plan you deem preferable.”
Bade looked the report over again carefully, then glanced at Runckel’s scrawled comment:
“Good work! Carry this out immediately! S.R.”
Bade glared. Carry what out immediately?
Bade glanced angrily at Runckel, then sat up in alarm. Runckel’s hands clenched the side of his desk. Runckel’s back was straight as a rod. His chest was inflated to huge dimensions, and he was slowly drawing in yet more air. His face bore a fixated, inward-turned look that might indicate either horror or ecstasy.
Bade shoved his chair back and glanced around for help.
His glance stopped at the map screen, where the huge overblown blot in the center of the continent had sprouted a long narrow pencil reaching out toward the west.
There was a quick low gonging sound, and the semicircular rim atop the Communications microphone lit up in red. Bade snapped the microphone on and a scared-looking technician said, “Sir, we’ve worked out what General Rast said.”
“What?” Bade demanded.
At Bade’s side, there was a harsh scraping noise. Bade whipped around.
Runckel lurched to his feet, his face tense, his eyes shut, his mouth half open and his hands clenched.
Runckel twisted. There was a gagging sound, then a harsh roar:
Ka
Ka
Ka
KACHOOOOO!!
Bade sat down in a hurry and grabbed the microphone marked, “Medical Corps.”
* * *
A crowd of young doctors and attendants swarmed around Runckel with pulse-beat snoopers, blood pressure gauges, little lights on long rubber tubes, and bottles and jars which they filled with fluid sucked out of the suffering Runckel with long hollow needles. They whacked Runckel, pinched him, and thumped him, then jumped for cover as he let out another blast.
“Sir,” said a young doctor wearing a “Medical-Officer-On-Duty” badge, “I’m afraid I shall have to quarantine this room and all its occupants. That includes you, sir.” He said this in a gentle but firm voice.
Bade glanced at the doorway. A continuous stream of clerks, officers, and messengers moved in and out on necessary business. Some of these officers, Bade noticed, were speaking in low angry tones to idiotically smiling members of the staff. As one of the angry officers slapped a sheaf of papers on a desk, the owner of the desk came slowly to his feet. His chest inflated to gigantic proportions, he let out a terrific blast, reeled back against a wall, and let out another.
The young medical officer spun around excitedly. “Epidemic!” he yelled. “Seal that door! Back, all of you!” His face had a faint glow as he turned to Bade. “We’ll have this under control in no time, sir.” He came up and plastered a red and yellow sticker over the joint where door and wall came together. He faced the room. “Everyone here is quarantined. It’s death to break that seal.”
From Bade’s desk came an insistent ringing, and the small voice of the communications technician pleaded, “Sir . . . please, sir . . . this is important!” On the map across the room the bloated red space now had two sizable dents driven into it, such as might be expected if the enemy were opening a counteroffensive. The thin pencil line reaching toward the west was wobbling uncertainly at its far end.
Bade became aware of a fuzzy quality in his own thinking, and struggled to fix his mind on the scene around him.
The young doctor and his assistants hustled Runckel toward the door. As Bade stared, the doctor and assistants went out the door without breaking the quarantine seal. The sticker was plastered over the joint on the hinge side of the door. The seal bent as the door opened, then straightened out unhurt as the door shut.
“Phew,” said Bade. He picked up the Communications microphone. “What did General Rast say?”
“Sir, he said, ‘I can’t reach the coast any faster than a day-and-a-half!'”
“The coast!”
“That’s what he said, sir.”
“Did you get that message to him?”
“Not yet, sir. We’re trying.”
Bade switched off and tried to think. His army was stretched out like a rubber balloon. His headquarters machinery was falling apart fast. An epidemic was loose among his men and plainly spreading fast. The base was still secure. But without sane men to man it, the enemy could be expected to walk in any time.
Bade’s eyes were watering. He blinked, and glanced around for some sane face in the sea of hysterically cheerful people. He spotted an alert-looking officer with his back against the wall and a chair leg in his hand. Bade called to him. The officer looked around.
Bade said, “Do you know when Landing Force 3 is coming down?”
“Sir, they’re coming down right now.”
* * *
Bade stayed conscious long enough to watch the beginning of the enemy’s counteroffensive, and also to see the start of the exploding sickness spread through the landing site. He grimly summarized the situation to the man he chose to take over command.
This man was the leader of Landing Force 3, a general by the name of Kottek. General Kottek was a fanatic, a man with a rough hypnotic voice and a direct unblinking stare. General Kottek’s favorite drink was pure water. Food was a matter of indifference to him. His only known amusements were regular physical exercise and the dissection of military problems. To hesitate to obey a command of General Kottek’s was unheard of. To bungle in the performance of it was as pleasant as to sit down in the open mouth of a shark. General Kottek’s officers were usually recognizable by their lean athletic appearance, and a tendency to jump at unexpected noises. General Kottek’s men were nearly always to be seen in a state of good order and high spirits.
As soon as Bade, aching and miserable, summarized the situation and ordered Kottek to take over, Kottek gave a sharp precise salute, turned, and immediately began snapping out orders.
Heavily armed troops swung out to guard the site. Military police forced wandering gangs of sick men back to their ships. The crews of Landing Force 3 divided up to bring the depleted crews of the other ships up to minimum standards. The ships’ damper units were turned to full power, and the outside power network and auxiliary damper units were disassembled and carried into the ships. Word came that a large enemy force had made an air-borne landing not far away. Kottek’s troops marched in good order back to their ships. The ships of all three landing forces took off. They set down together in the center of the largest mass of Rast’s encircled troops. The next day passed embarking these men under the protection of Kottek’s fresh troops and the ships’ dampers. Then the ships took off and repeated the process.
In this way, some sixty-five percent of the surrounded men were saved in the course of the week. Two more landing forces came down. General Rast and a small body of guards were found unconscious partway up an unbelievably high hill in the west. The situation at this point became hopelessly complicated by the exploding sickness.
This sickness, which none of the doctors were able to cure or even relieve, manifested itself in various forms. The usual form began by exhilarating the victim. In this state, the patient generally considered himself capable of doing anything, however foolhardy, and regardless of difficulties. This lasted until the second phase set in with violent contractions of the chest and a sudden out-rush of air from the lungs, accompanied by a blast like a gun going off. This second stage might or might not have complications such as digestive upset, headache, or shooting pains in the hands and feet. It ended when the third and last phase set in. In this phase the victim suffered from mental depression, considered himself a hopeless failure, and was as likely as not to try to end his life by suicide.
As a result of this suicidal impulse there were nightmarish scenes of soldiers disarming other soldiers, which brought the whole invasion force into a state of quaking uncertainty. At this critical point, and despite all precautions, General Kottek himself began to come down with the sickness. With him, the usual exhilaration took the form of a stream of violent and imperative orders.
Troops who should have retreated were ordered to fight to the death where they stood. Savage counter-attacks for worthless objectives were driven home “to the last drop of blood.” Because General Kottek ordered it, people obeyed without thought. The hysterical light in his eye was masked by the fanatical glitter that had been there to begin with. The general himself only realized what was wrong when his chest tightened up, his body tensed, and a racking concatenation of explosions burst from his chest. He immediately brought his body to the position of attention, and crushed out by sheer will a series of incipient tickling sensations way down in his throat. General Kottek handed the command over to General Runckel and reported himself to sick bay.
Runckel, by this time, had recovered enough from the third phase to be untied and allowed to walk around with only two guards. As he had not fully recovered his confidence, however, he immediately went to see Bade.
* * *
Bade’s illness took the form of nausea, cold hands and feet, and a sensation of severe pressure in the small of the back. Bade was lying on a cot when Runckel came in, followed by his two watchful guards.
Bade looked up and saw the two guards lean warily against the wall, their eyes narrowed as they watched Runckel. Runckel paused at the foot of Bade’s bed. “How do you feel?” Runckel asked.
“Except for yesterday and day before,” said Bade, “I never felt worse in my life. How do you feel?”
“All right most of the time.” He cleared his throat. “Kottek’s down with it now.”
“Did he know in time?”
“No, I’m afraid he’s left things in a mess.”
Bade shook his head. “Do we have a general officer who isn’t sick?”
“Not in the top brackets.”
“Who did Kottek hand over to?”
“Me.” Runckel looked a little embarrassed. “I’m not sure I can handle it yet.”
“Who’s in actual charge right now?”
“I’ve got the pieces of our own staff and the staff of Landing Force 2 working on it. Kottek’s staff is hopeless. Half of them are talking about sweeping the enemy off the planet in two days.”
Bade grunted. “What’s your idea?”
“Well,” said Runckel, “I still get . . . a little excited now and then. If you could possibly provide a sort of general supervision—”
Bade looked away weakly. “How’s Rast?”
“Tied to his bunk with half-a-dozen men sitting on him.”
“What about Vokk?”
“Tearing his lungs out every two or three minutes.”
“Sokkis, then?”
Runckel shook his head grimly. “I’m afraid they didn’t hear the gun go off in time. The doctors are still working on him, though.”
“Well . . . is Frotch all right?”
“Yes, thank heaven. But then he’s Flyer Command. And, worse yet, there’s nobody to put in his place.”
“All right, how about Sozzle?”
“Well,” said Runckel, “Sozzle may be a good propaganda man, but personally I wouldn’t trust him to command a platoon.”
“Yes,” said Bade, rolling over to try to ease the pain in his back, “I see your point.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll try to supervise the thing.” He swung gingerly to a sitting position.
Runckel watched him, then his face twisted. “This whole thing is all my fault,” he said. He choked. “I’m just no goo—”
The two guards sprang across the room, grabbed Runckel by the arms and rushed him out the door. Harsh grunts and solid thumping sounds came from the corridor outside. There was a heavy crash. Somebody said, “All right, get the general by the feet, and I’ll take him by the shoulders. Phew! Let’s go.”
Bade sat dizzily on the edge of the bed. For a moment, he had a mental image of Runckel before the invasion, leaning forward and saying impressively, “Certain glory and a mighty victory await us.”
Bade took several slow deep breaths. Then he got up carefully, found a towel, and cautiously went to wash.
* * *
It took Bade almost a week to disentangle the troops from the web of indefensible positions and hopeless last stands Kottek had committed them to in a day-and-a-half of peremptory orders. The enemy, meanwhile, took advantage of opportunity, using ground and air attacks, rockets, missiles and artillery in such profusion as to stun the mind. It was not until Bade’s men and officers had recovered from circulating attacks of the sickness, and another landing force had come down, that it was possible to temporarily resume the offensive. Another two weeks, and another sick landing force recovered, saw the invasion army in control of a substantial part of the central plain of the continent. Bade now had some spare moments to squint at certain reports that were piled up on his desk. Exasperatedly, he called a meeting of high officers.
* * *
Bade was standing with Runckel at a big map of the continent when their generals came in. Bade and Runckel each looked grim and intense. The generals looked uniformly dulled and worn down.
Bade took a last hard look at the map, then he and Runckel turned. Bade glanced at Veth, Landing Site Commander. “What’s your impression of the way things are going?”
Veth scowled. “Well, we’re still getting eight to ten sizable missile hits a day. Of course, there’s no predicting when they’ll come in. With the men working outside the ships, any single hit could vaporize large numbers of essential technical personnel. Until we get the underground shelters built, the only way around this is to have whole site damped out all the time.” He shook his head. “This takes a lot of energy.”
Bade nodded, and turned to Rast, Ground Forces Commander.
“So far,” said Rast frowning, “our situation on paper looks not too bad. Morale is satisfactory. Our weapons are superior. We have strong forces in a reasonably large central area, and in theory we can shift rapidly from one front to the other, and be superior anywhere. But in practice, the enemy has so many missiles, of all types and sizes, that we can’t take advantage of the position.
“Suppose, for instance, that I order XX and XXII Tank Armies from the eastern to the western front. They can’t go under their own power, because of fuel expenditure, the wear on their tracks, and the resulting delay for repairs. They can’t go by forceway network because there isn’t any built yet. The only way to send them is by the natives’ iron track roads. That would be fine, except that the iron track roads make beautiful targets for missile attacks. Thanks to the enemy, every bridge and junction either is, has been, or will be blown up and not once, either. The result is, we have to use slow filtration of troops from one front to the other, or we have to accept very heavy losses on route. In addition, we now know that the enemy has formidable natural defenses in the east and west, especially in the west. There’s a range of hills there that surpasses anything I’ve ever seen or heard of. Not only is the difficulty of the terrain an obstacle, but as our men go higher, movement finally becomes practically impossible. I know this from personal experience. The result of it is, the enemy need only guard the passes and he has a natural barrier behind which he can mass for attack at any chosen point.”
Bade frowned. “Don’t the hills have the same harmful effect on the enemy?”
“No sir, they don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. But that and their missiles put us in a nasty spot.”
Bade absorbed this, then turned to General Frotch, head of Atmospheric Flyer Command.
Frotch said briskly, “Sir, so far as the enemy air forces are concerned, we have the situation under control. And various foreign long-range reconnaissance aircraft that have been filtering in from distant native countries, have also been successfully batted out of the sky. However, as far as . . . ah . . . missiles . . . are concerned, the situation is a little strained.”
Bade snapped, “Go on.”
“Well, sir,” said Frotch, “the enemy has missiles that can be fired at the fastest atmospheric flyers, that can be made to blow up near them, that can be guided to them, and even that can be made to chase and catch them.”
“What about our weapons?”
“They’re fine, on a percentage basis. But the enemy has a lot more missiles than we have pilots.”
“I see,” said Bade. “Well—” He turned to speak to the Director of Intelligence, but Frotch went on:
“Moreover, sir, we are having atmospheric troubles.”
“‘Atmospheric troubles’? What’s that?”
“For one thing, gigantic traveling electrical displays that disrupt plane-to-ground communications, and have to be avoided, or else the pilots either don’t come out, or else come out fit for nothing but a rest cure. Then there are mass movements of air traveling from one part of the planet to another. Like land breezes and sea breezes at home. But here the breezes can be pretty forceful. The effect is to put an unpredictable braking force on all our operations.”
Bade nodded slowly. “Well, we’ll have to make the best of it.” He turned to General Sozzle, who was Disseminator of Propaganda.
Sozzle cleared his throat. “I can make my report short and to the point. Our propaganda is getting us nowhere. For one thing, the enemy is apparently used to being ambushed daily by something called ‘advertising,’ which seems to consist of a series of subtle propaganda traps. By comparison our approach is so crude it throws them into hysterics.”
Bade glanced at the Director of Intelligence, who said dully, “Sir, it’s too early to say for certain how our work will eventually turn out. We’ve had some successes; but, so far, we’ve been handicapped by translation difficulties.”
Bade frowned. “For instance?”
“Take the single word, ‘snow,'” said the Intelligence Director. “You can’t imagine the snarl my translators get into over that word. It apparently means ‘white solid which falls in crystals from the sky.’ Figure that out.”
Bade squinted, then looked relieved. “Oh. It means, ‘dust.'”
“That’s the way the interpreters translated it. Now consider this sentence from a schoolbook. ‘When April comes, the dust all turns to water and flows into the ground to fill the streams.'”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“No. But that’s what happens if you accept ‘dust’ as the translation for ‘snow.’ There are other words such as ‘winter,’ ‘blizzard,’ ‘tornado.’ Ask a native for an explanation, and with a straight face he’ll give you a string of incomprehensible nonsense that will stand you on your ear. Not that it’s important in itself. But it seems to show something about the native psychology that I can’t quite figure out. You can fight your enemy best when you can understand him. Well, from this angle they’re completely incomprehensible.”
“Keep working on it,” said Bade, after a short silence. He turned to Runckel.
Runckel said, “The overall situation looks about the same from my point of view. Namely, the natives are driven back, but by no means defeated. What we have to remember is that we never expected to have them defeated at this stage. True, our time schedule has been set back somewhat, but this was due not to enemy action, but to purely accidental circumstances. That is, first the atmosphere was so deficient in moisture that our ground vehicles were temporarily out of order, and, second, we were disabled by an unexpected disease. But these troubles are over with. My point is that we can now begin the decisive phase of operations.”
“Good,” said Bade. “But to do that we have to firmly hold the ground we have. I want to know if we can do this. On the surface, perhaps, it looks like it. But there are signs here I don’t like. As the old saying goes, ‘A shark shows you his fin, not his teeth. Take warning from the fin; when you see the teeth it’s too late.'”
“Yes,” said Frotch, turning excitedly to Rast, “that’s the thought exactly. Now, will you mention it, or shall I?”
“Holy fangjaw,” growled Rast, “maybe it doesn’t really mean anything.”
“The Supreme Commander,” said Runckel angrily, “was trying to talk.”
Bade said, “What is it, Rast? Speak up.”
“Well—” Rast hesitated, glanced uneasily at Runckel, then thrust out his jaw, “Sir, it looks like the whole master plan of the invasion may have come unhinged.”
Runckel angrily started to speak.
Bade glanced at Runckel, took out a long slender cigar, and sat down on the edge of the table to watch Runckel. He lit the cigar and put down the lighter. As far as Bade was concerned, his face was expressionless. Things seemed to have an unnatural clarity, however, as he looked at Runckel and waited for him to speak.
Runckel looked at Bade, swallowed hard and said nothing.
Bade glanced at Rast.
Rast burst out, “Sir, for the last ten days or so, we’ve been wondering how long the enemy could keep up his missile attacks. Flyer Command has blasted factories vital to missile manufacture, and destroyed all their known stockpiles. Well, grant we didn’t get all their stockpiles. That’s logical enough. Grant that they had tremendous stocks stored away. Even grant that before we got here they made missiles all the time for the sheer love of making them. Maybe every man, woman, and child in the country had a missile, like a pet. Still, there’s got to be an end somewhere.”
Bade nodded soberly.
“Well, sir,” said Rast, “we get these missiles fired at us all the time, day after day after day, one missile after the other, like an army of men tramping past in an endless circle forever. It’s inconceivable that they’d use their missiles like this unless their supply is inexhaustible. Frotch gets hit with them, I get hit with them, Veth gets hit with them. For every job there’s a missile. We put our overall weapons superiority in one pan of the balance. They pour an endless heap of missiles in the other pan. Where do all these missiles come from?”
For an instant Rast was silent, then he went on. “At first we thought ‘Underground factories.’ Well, we did our best to find them and it was no use. And whenever we managed to spot moving missiles, they seemed to be coming from the coast.
“About this time, some of my officers were trying to convert a bunch of captives to our way of thinking. One of the officers noticed a peculiar thing. Whenever he clinched his argument by saying, ‘Moreover, you are alone in the world; you cannot defeat us alone,’ the captives would all look very serious. Most of them would be very still and attentive, but here and there among them, a few would choke, gag, make sputtering noises, and shake all over. The other soldiers would secretively kick these men, and jab them with their elbows until they were still and attentive. Now, however, the question arose, what did all this mean? The actions were described to Intelligence, who said they meant exactly what they seemed to mean, ‘suppressed mirth.’
“In other words, whenever we said, ‘You can’t win, you’re alone in the world,’ they wanted to burst out laughing. My officers now varied the technique. They would say, for instance, ‘The U.S.S.R. is our faithful ally.’ Our captives would sputter, gasp, and almost strangle to death. Put this together with their inexhaustible supply of missiles and the thing takes on a sinister look.”
“You think,” said Bade, “that the U.S.S.R. and other countries are shipping missiles to the U.S. by sea?”
General Frotch cleared his throat apologetically, “Sir, excuse me. I have something new to add to this. I’ve set submerger planes down along all three of their coasts. Not only are the ports alive with shipping. But some of our men swam into the harbors at night and hid, and either they’re the victims of mass-hypnosis or else those ships are unloading missiles like a fish unloads spawn.”
Bade looked at Runckel.
Runckel said dully, “In that case, we have the whole planet to fight. That was what we had to avoid at any cost.”
This comment produced a visible deterioration of morale. Before this attitude had a chance to set, Bade said forcefully and clearly, “I was never in favor of this attack. And this fortifies my original views. But from a strictly military point of view, I believe we can still win.”
He went to the map, and speaking to each of the generals in turn, he explained his plan.
* * *
In the three following days, each of the three remaining landing forces set down. The men of each landing force, as expected, became violently ill with the exploding sickness. With the usual course of the sickness known, it proved possible to care for this new horde of patients with nothing worse than extreme inconvenience for the invasion force as a whole.
The enemy, meanwhile, strengthened his grip around the occupied area, and at the same time cut troop movements within the area to a feeble trickle. Day after day, the enemy missiles fell in an increasingly heavy rain on the road and rail centers. During the height of this bombardment, Bade succeeded in gradually filtering all of Landing Force 3 back to the protection of the ships.
Rast now reported that the enemy attacks were mounting in force and violence, and requested permission to fall back and contract the defense perimeter.
Bade replied that help would soon come, and Rast must make only small local withdrawals.
Landing Forces 7, 8, and 9, cured of the exploding sickness, now took off. Immediately afterward, Landing Force 3 took off.
Landing Forces 3 and 7, under General Kottek, came down near the base of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and struck south and west to rip up communications in the rear of the main enemy forces attacking General Rast.
Landing Force 8 split, its southern section seizing the western curve of Cuba to cut the shipping lanes to the Gulf of Mexico. Its northern sections seized Long Island, to block shipping entering the port of New York, and to subject shipping in the ports of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington to heavy attack from the air.
Landing Force 9 remained aloft until the enemy’s reaction to General Kottek’s thrust from the rear became evident. This reaction proved to be a quickly improvised simultaneous attack from north and south, to pinch off the flow of supplies from Kottek’s base to the point of his advance. Landing Force 9 now set down, broke the attack of the southern pincer, then struck southeastward to cut road and rail lines supplying the enemy’s northern armies. The overall situation now resembled two large, roughly concentric circles, each very thick in the north, and very thin in the south. A large part of the outer circle, representing the enemy’s forces, was now pressed between the inner circle and the inverted Y of Kottek’s attack from the north.
A large percentage of the enemy missile-launching sites were now overrun, and Rast for the first time found it possible to switch his troops from place to place without excessive losses. The enemy opened violent attacks in both east and west to relieve the pressure on their trapped armies in the north, and Rast fell back slowly, drawing forces from both these fronts and putting them into the northern battle.
The outcome hung in a treacherous balance until the enemy’s supplies gave out in the north. This powerful enemy force then collapsed, and Rast swung his weary troops to the south.
* * *
Three weeks after the offensive began, it ended with the fighting withdrawal of the enemy to the east and west. The enemy’s long eastern and southern coasts were now sealed against all but a comparative trickle of supplies from overseas. General Kottek held the upper peninsula of Michigan in a powerful grip. From it he dominated huge enemy industrial regions, and threatened the flank of potential enemy counter-attacks from north or east.
Within the main occupied region itself, the forceway network and key-tools factories were being set up.
Runckel was only expressing the thought of nearly the whole invasion army when he walked into the operations room, heaved a sigh of relief and said to Bade, “Well, thank heaven that’s over!”
Bade heard this and gave a noncommittal growl. He had felt this way himself some time before. During Runckel’s absence, however, certain reports had come to Bade’s desk and left him feeling like a man who goes down a flight of steps in the dark, steps off briskly, and finds there was one more step than he thought.
“Look at this,” said Bade. Runckel leaned over his shoulder, and together they looked at a report headed, “Enemy Equipment.” Bade passed over several pages of drawings and descriptions devoted to enemy knives, guns, grenades, helmets, canteens, mess equipment and digging tools, then paused at a section marked “Enemy clothing: 1) Normal enemy clothing consists of light two-piece underwear, an inner and an outer foot-covering, and either a light two-piece or light one-piece outer covering for the arms, chest, abdomen and legs. 2) However, capture of the enemy supply trains in the recent northern offensive uncovered the following fantastic variety: a) thick inner and outer hand coverings; b) heavy one-piece undergarment covering legs, arms and body; c) heavy upper outer garment; d) heavy lower outer garment; e) heavy inner foot covering; f) massive outer foot covering; g) additional heavy outer garment; h) extraordinarily heavy outer garment designed to cover entire body with exception of head, hand, and lower legs. In addition, large extra quantities of the heavy cover normally issued to the troops for sleeping purposes were also found. The purpose of all this clothing is difficult to understand. Insofar as the activity of a soldier encased in all these garments would be cut to a minimum, it can only be assumed that all these coverings represent body-shielding against some abnormal condition. The presence of poisonous chemicals in large quantities seems a likely possibility. Yet with the exception of the massive outer foot-covering, these garments are not impermeable.”
Bade looked at Runckel. “They do have war chemicals?”
“Of course,” said Runckel, frowning. “But we have protective measures, and our own war chemicals, if trouble starts.”
Bade nodded thoughtfully, slid the report aside, and picked up one headed, “Medical Report on Enemy Skin Condensation.”
Runckel shook his head. “I can never understand those. We’ve had a flood of reports like that from various sources. At most, I just initial them and send them back.”
“Well,” said Bade, “read the summary, at least.”
“I’ll try,” growled Runckel, and leaned over Bade’s shoulder to read:
“To summarize these astonishing facts, enemy captives have been observed to form, on the outer layer of their skin, a heavy beading of moisture. This effect is similar to that observed with laboratory devices maintained at depressed temperatures—that is, at reduced degrees of heat. The theory was, therefore, formed that the enemy’s skin is, similarly, maintained at a temperature lower than that of his surroundings. Complex temperature-determining apparatus were set up to test this theory. As a result, this theory was disproved, but an even more astonishing state of affairs was discovered: The enemy’s internal temperature varied very little, regardless of considerable experimental variation of the temperature of his environment.
“The only possible conclusion was that the enemy’s body contains some built-in mechanism that actually controls the degree of heat and maintains it at a constant level.
“Now, according to Poff’s widely accepted Principle, no complex bodily mechanism can long maintain itself in the absence of need or exercise. And what is the need for a bodily mechanism that has the function of holding body temperature constant despite wide external fluctuation? What is the need for a defense against something unless the something exists?
“We are forced to the conclusion that the degree of heat on this planet is subject to variations sufficiently severe as to endanger life. A new examination of what has hitherto been considered to be the enemy’s mythology indicates that, contrary to conditions on our own planet, this planet is subject to remarkable fluctuations of temperature, that alternately rise to a peak, then fall to an incredible low.
“According to this new theory, our invasion force arrived as the temperature was approaching its maximum. Since then, it has reached and passed its peak, and is now falling. All this has passed unnoticed by us, partly because the maximum here approached the ordinary condition on our home planet. The danger, of course, is that the minimum on this planet would prove insupportable to our form of life.”
This was followed by a qualifying phrase that further tests would have to be made, and the conclusions could not be considered final.
Bade looked at Runckel. Runckel snapped, “What do you do with a report like that? I’d tear it up, but why waste strength? It’s easier to throw them in the wastebasket and go on.”
“Wait a minute,” said Bade. “If this report just happens to be right, then where are we?”
“Frankly,” said Runckel, “I don’t know or care. ‘Skin condensation.’ These scientists should keep their minds on things that have some chance of being useful. It would help if they’d figure out how to cut down flareback on our subtron guns. Instead they talk about ‘skin condensation.'”
Bade wrote on the report, “This may turn out to be important. List on no more than two sheets of paper possible defenses against reduced degree of heat. Get it to me as soon as possible. Bade.”
Bade signaled to a clerk. “Snap a copy of this, send the original out, and bring me the copy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now,” said Bade, “we have one more report.”
“Well, I have to admit,” said Runckel, “that I can’t see that either of these reports were of any value.”
“Well, read this one, then.”
Runckel shook his head in disgust, and leaned over. His eyes widened. This paper was headed, “For the Supreme Commander only. Special Report of General Kottek.”
The report began, “Sir: It is an officer’s duty to state, plainly and without delay, any matter that requires the immediate attention of his superior. I, therefore, must report to you the following unpleasant but incontrovertible facts;
“1) Since their arrival in this region, my troops have on three recent occasions displayed a strikingly low level of performance. Two simulated night attacks revealed feeble command and exaggerated sluggishness on the part of the troops. A defense exercise carried out at dawn to repulse a simulated amphibious landing was a complete failure; troops and officers alike displayed insufficient energy and initiative to drive the attack home.
“2) On other occasions, troops and officers have maintained a high, sometimes strikingly high, level of energy and activity.
“3) No explanation of this variability of performance has been forthcoming from the medical and technical personnel attached to my command. Neither have I any assurance that these fluctuations will not take place in the future.
“4) It is, therefore, my duty to inform you that I cannot assure the successful performance of my mission. Should the enemy attack with his usual energy during a period of low activity on the part of my troops, the caliber of my resistance will be that of wax against steel. This is no exaggeration, but plain fact.
“5) This situation requires the immediate attention of the highest military and technical authorities. What is in operation here may be a disease, an enemy nerve gas, or some natural factor unknown to us. Whatever its nature, the effect is highly dangerous.
“6) A mobile, flexible defense in these circumstances is impossible. A rigid linear defense is worthless. A defense by linked fortifications requires depth. I am, therefore, constructing a deep fortified system in the western section of the region under my control. This is no cure, but a means of minimizing disaster.
“7) Enemy missile activity since the defeat of their northern armies has been somewhat less that forty per cent of that expected.”
The report ended with Kottek’s distinctive jagged signature. Bade glanced around.
Runckel’s face was somber. “This is serious,” he said. “When Kottek yells for help, we’ve got trouble. We’ll have to put all our attention on this thing and get it out of the way as fast as we can.”
Bade nodded, and reached out to take a message from a clerk. He glanced at it and scowled. The message was from Atmospheric Flyer Command. It read:
“Warning! Tornado sighted and approaching main base!”
Runckel leaned over to read the message. “What’s this?” he said angrily. “‘Tornado’ is just a myth. Everybody knows that.”
Bade snapped on the microphone to Aerial Reconnaissance. “What’s this ‘tornado’ warning?” he demanded. “What’s a ‘tornado’?”
“Sir, a tornado is a whirling severe breeze of destructive character, conjoined with a dark cloud in the shape of a funnel, with the smaller end down.”
Runckel gave an inarticulate snarl.
Bade squinted. “This thing is dangerous?”
“Yes, sir. The natives dig holes in the ground, and jump in when one comes along. A tornado will smash houses and ground-cars to bits, sir.”
“Listen,” snarled Runckel, “it’s just air, isn’t it?”
Bade snapped on Landing Site Command. “Get all the men back in the ships,” he ordered. “Turn the dampers to full power.”
“Holy fangjaw!” Runckel burst out. “Air can’t hurt us. What’s bad about a breeze, anyway?” He seized the Aerial Reconnaissance microphone and snarled. “Stand up, you! What have you been drinking?”
Bade took Runckel by the arm. “Look there!”
On the nearest wall screen, a wide black cloud warped across the sky, and stretched down a long arc to the ground. The whole thing grew steadily larger as they watched.
Bade seized the Landing Site Command microphone. “Can we lift ships?”
“No, sir. Not without tearing the power and damper networks to pieces.”
“I see,” said Bade. He looked up.
The cloud overspread the sky. The screen fell dark. There was a heavy clang, a thundering crash, the ship trembled, tilted, heeled, and slowly, painfully, settled back upright as Bade hung onto the desk and Runckel dove for cover. The sky began to lighten. Bade gripped the microphone and asked what had happened. He listened blank-faced as, after a moment, the first estimates of the damage came in.
One of the thousand-foot-long ships had been tipped off its base. In falling, it struck another ship, which also fell, striking a third. The third ship struck a fourth, which fell unhindered and split up the side like a bean pod. The mouth of the tornado’s funnel then ran along the split, and the ship’s inside looked as if it had been cleaned out with a vacuum hose. A few stunned survivors and scattered bits of equipment were clinging here and there. That was all.
The enemy chose this moment to land his heaviest missile strike in weeks.
It took the rest of the day, all night, and all the following day to get the damage moderately well cleaned up. Then a belated report came in that Forceway Station 1 had been subjected to a bombardment of desks, chairs, communications equipment, and odd bolts and nuts that had riddled the installation from one end to the other and set completion date back four weeks.
An intensive search now located most of the missing equipment and personnel—strewn over forty miles of territory.
“It was,” said Runckel weakly, “only air, that’s all.”
“Yes,” said Bade grimly. He looked up from a scientific report on the tornado. “A whirlpool is only water. Whirling water. Apparently this planet has traveling whirlpools of air.”
Runckel groaned, then a sudden thought seemed to hit him. He reached into his wastebasket, fished around, and drew out a crumpled ball of paper. He smoothed it out, read for a while, then growled, “Scientific reports. Here’s some kind of report that came in right in the middle of a battle. According to this thing, the native name for the place where we’ve set down is ‘Cyclone Alley.’ Is there some importance in knowing a thing like that?”
Bade felt severe prickling sensations across his back and neck. “‘Cyclone,'” he said, “Where did I hear that before? Give me that paper.”
Runckel shrugged and tossed it over. Bade smoothed it out and read:
“In this prevalent fairy tale, the ‘cyclone’—corresponding to our ‘sea serpent,’ or ‘Ogre of the Deep’—makes recurrent visits to communities in certain regions, frightening the inhabitants terribly and committing all sorts of prankish violence. On some occasions, it carries its chosen victims aloft, to set them down again far away. The cyclone is a frightening giant, tall and dark, who approaches in a whirling dance.
“An interesting aspect is the contrast of this legend with the equally prevalent legend of Santa Claus. Cyclone comes from the south, Santa from the north. Cyclone is prankish, frightening. Santa is benign, friendly, and even brings gifts. Cyclone favors ‘springtime,’ but may come nearly any time except ‘winter.’ Cyclone is secular. Santa reflects some of the holy aura of the religious festival, ‘Christmas.’
“‘Christmas comes but once a year. When it comes, it brings good cheer.’ Though Cyclone visits but a few favored towns at a time, Santa visits at once all, everyone, even the lowliest dweller in his humble shack. The natives are immensely earnest about both of these legends. An amusing aspect is that our present main base is almost ideally located for visits by that local Ogre of the Sea, ‘Cyclone.’ We are, in fact, situated in a location known as ‘Cyclone Alley.’ Perhaps the Ogre will visit us.”
At the bottom of the page was a footnote: “‘Cyclone’ is but one name for this popular Ogre. Another common name is ‘Tornado.'”
Bade sat paralyzed for a moment staring at this paper. “Tornado Alley,” he muttered. He grabbed the Flyer Command microphone to demand how the tornado warning system was coming. Then, groggily, he set the paper aside and turned his attention to the problem of General Kottek’s special report. He looked up again as a nagging suspicion began to build up in him. He turned to Runckel. “How many of these ‘myths’ have we come across, anyway?”
Runckel looked as though a heavy burden were settling on him. He groped through his bulging wastebasket and fished out another crumpled ball of paper, then another. He located the one he wanted, smoothed it out, sucked in a deep breath, and read: “Cyclone, winter, spring, summer, hurricane, Easter bunny, autumn, blizzard, cold wave, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, lightning, Santa Claus, typhoon, mental telepathy, earthquake, levitation, volcano—” He looked up. “You want the full report on each of these things? I’ve got most of them here somewhere.”
Bade looked warily at Runckel’s overstuffed wastebasket. “No,” he said. “But what about that report you’re reading from? Isn’t that an overall summary? Why didn’t I get a copy of that?”
Runckel looked it over and growled, “Try to train them to send their reports to the right place. Yes, it’s an overall summary. Here, want it?”
“Yes,” said Bade. He took the report, then stopped to wonder, where was that report he had asked for on “reduced degree of heat?” He reached for a microphone, then remembered General Kottek’s special report. Bade first sent word to Kottek that he approved what Kottek was doing, and that the problem was getting close attention. Then he read the crumpled overall summary Runckel had given him, and ended up feeling he had been on a trip through fairyland. His memories of the details evaporated even as he tried to mentally review the paper. “Hallowe’en,” he growled, “icebergs, typhoons—this planet must be a mass of mythology from one end to the other.” He picked up a microphone to call his Intelligence Service.
A messenger hurried across the room to hand him a slip of paper. The paper was from Atmosphere Flyer Command. It read:
“Warning! Tornado sighted approaching main base!”
* * *
This time, the tornado roared past slightly to the west of the base. It hit, instead Forceway Station 1, and scattered sections of it all over the countryside.
For good measure, the enemy fired in an impressive concentration of rockets and missiles. The attack did only slight harm to the base, but it finished off Forceway Station 1.
An incoherent report now came in from the occupied western end of Cuba, to the effect that a “hurricane” had just gone through.
Bade fished through Runckel’s wastebasket to find out exactly what a “hurricane” might be. He looked up at the end of this, pale and shaken, and sent out a strong force to put his Cuban garrison back on its feet.
Then he ordered Intelligence, and some of his technical and scientific departments to get together right away and break down the so-called “myths” into two groups: Harmful, and nonharmful. The nonharmful group was to be arranged in logical order, and each item accompanied by a brief, straightforward description.
As Bade sent out this order, General Kottek reported that, as a supplement to his fortified system, he was making sharp raids whenever conditions were favorable, in order to keep the enemy in his section off-balance. In one on these raids, his troops had captured an enemy document which had since been translated. The document was titled: “Characteristics of Unheatful-Blooded Animals.” Kottek enclosed a copy:
“Unheatful-blooded animals have no built-in system for maintaining their bodily rate of molecular activity. If the surrounding temperature falls, so does theirs. This lowers their physical activity. They cannot move or react as fast as normally. Heatful-blooded animals, properly clothed, are not subject to this handicap.
“In practical reality, this means that as unheatful conditions set in, the Invader should always be attacked during the most unheatful period possible. Night attacks have much to recommend them. So do attacks at dusk or dawn. In general, avoid taking the offensive during heatful periods such as early afternoon.
“Forecasts indicate that winter will be late this year, but severe when it comes. Remember, there is no year on record when temperatures have not dropped severely in the depths of winter. In such conditions, it is expected that the Invader will be killed in large numbers by—untranslatable—of the blood.
“Our job is to make sure they are kept worn down until winter comes. Our job then will be to make sure none of them live through the winter.”
Bade looked up feeling as if his digestive system were paralyzed. A messenger hurried across the room to hand him a thick report hastily put together by the Intelligence Service. It was titled:
“Harmful Myths and Definitions.”
Bade spent the first part of the night reading this spine-tingling document. The second part of the night he spent in nightmares.
Toward morning, Bade had one vivid and comparatively pleasant dream. A native wearing a simple cloth about his waist looked at Bade intently and asked, “Does the shark live in the air? Does a man breathe underwater? Who will eat grass when he can have meat?”
Bade woke up feeling vaguely relieved. This sensation was swept away when he reached the operating room and saw the expression on Runckel’s face. Runckel handed Bade a slip of paper:
“Hurricane Hannah approaching Long Island Base.”
* * *
Intercepted enemy radio and television broadcasts spoke of Hurricane Hannah as “the worst in thirty years.” As Bade and Runckel stood by helplessly, Hurricane Hannah methodically pounded Long Island Base to bits and pieces, then swept away the pieces. The hurricane moved on up the shoreline, treating every village and city along the way like a personal enemy. When Hurricane Hannah ended her career, and retired to sink ships further north, the Atlantic coast was a shambles from one end to the other.
Out of this shambles moved a powerful enemy force, which seized the bulk of what was left of Long Island Base. The remnant of survivors were trapped in the underground installations, and reported that the enemy was lowering a huge bomb down through the entrance.
In Cuba, the reinforced garrison was barely holding on.
A flood of recommendations now poured in on Bade:
1) Long Island Base needed a whole landing force to escape capture.
2) Cuba Base had to have at least another half landing force for reinforcements.
3) The Construction Corps required the ships of two full landing forces in order to power the forceway network. Otherwise, work on the key-tools factories would be delayed.
4) Landing Site Command would need the ships and dampers of three landing forces to barely protect the base if the power supply of two landing forces were diverted to the Construction Corps.
5) The present main base was now completed and should be put to efficient use at once.
6) The present main base was worthless, because Forceway Station 1 could not be repaired in time to link the base to the forceway network.
7) Every field commander except General Kottek urgently needed heavy reinforcements without delay.
8) Studies by the Staff showed the urgent need of building up the central reserve without delay, at the expense of the field commanders, if necessary.
Bade gave up Long Island Base, ordered Cuba Base to hold on with what it had, told the Landing Site Commander to select a suitable new main base near some southern forceway station free of tornadoes, and threw the rest of the recommendations into the wastebasket.
Runckel now came over with a rope smoldering stub jutting out of the corner of his mouth. “Listen,” he said to Bade, “we’re going to have a disciplinary problem on our hands. That Cuban garrison has been living on some kind of native paint-remover called ‘rum.’ The whole lot of them have a bad case of the staggering lurch from it; not even the hurricane sobered them up. Poff knew what was going on. But he and his staff covered it over. His troops are worthless. Molch and the reinforcements are doing all the fighting.”
Bade said, “Poff is still in command?”
“I put Molch in charge.”
“Good. We’ll have to court-martial Poff and his staff. Can Molch hold the base?”
“He said he could. If we’d get Poff off his neck.”
“Fine,” said Bade. “Once he gets things in order, ship the regular garrison to a temporary camp somewhere. We don’t want Molch’s troops infected.”
Runckel nodded. A clerk apologized and stepped past Runckel to hand Bade a message. It was from General Frotch, who reported that all his atmospheric flyers based on Long Island had been lost in Hurricane Hannah. Bade showed the message to Runckel, who shook his head wearily.
As Runckel strode away, another clerk put a scientific report on Bade’s desk. Bade read it through, got Frotch on the line, and arranged for a special mission by Flyer Command. Then he located his report on “Harmful Myths and Definitions.” Carefully, he read the definition of winter:
“To the best of our knowledge, ‘winter’ is a severe periodic disease of plants, the actual onset of which is preceded by the vegetation turning various colors. The tall vegetables known as ‘trees’ lose their foliage entirely, except for some few which are immune and are known as ‘evergreens.’ As the disease progresses, the juices of the plants are squeezed out and crystallize in white feathery forms known as ‘frost.’ Sufficient quantities of this squeezed-out dried juice is ‘snow.’ The mythology refers to ‘snow falling from the sky.’ A possible explanation of this is that the large trees also ‘snow,’ producing a fall of dried juice crystals. These crystals are clearly poisonous. ‘Frostbite,’ ‘chilblains,’ and even ‘freezing to death’ are mentioned in the enemy’s communication media. Even the atmosphere filled with the resulting vapor, is said to be ‘cold.’ Totally unexplainable is the common reference to children rolling up balls of this poisonous dried plant juice and hurling them at each other. This can only be presumed to be some sort of toughening exercise. More research on this problem is needed.”
Bade set this report down, reread the latest scientific report, then got up and slowly walked over to a big map of the globe. He gazed thoughtfully at various islands in the South Seas.
* * *
Late that day, the ships lifted and moved, to land again near Forceway Station 2. Power cables were run to the station across a sort of long narrow valley at the bottom of which ran a thin trickle of water. By early the morning of the next day, the forceway network was in operation. Men and materials flashed thousands of miles in a moment, and work on the key-tools factories accelerated sharply.
Bade immersed himself in intelligence summaries of the enemy communications media. An item that especially interested him was “Winter Late This Year.”
By now there were three viewpoints on “winter.” A diehard faction doggedly insisted that it was a myth, a mere quirk of the alien mentality. A large and very authoritative body of opinion held the plant juice theory, and bolstered its stand with reams of data sheets and statistics. A small, vociferous group asserted the heretical water crystal hypotheses, and ate alone at small tables for doing so.
General Frotch called Bade to say that the special Flyer Command mission was coming in to report.
General Kottek sent word that enemy attacks were becoming more daring, that his troops’ periods of inefficiency were more frequent, and that the vegetation in his district was turning color. He mentioned, for what it was worth, that troops within the fortifications seemed less affected than those outside. Troops far underground, however, seemed to be slowed down automatically, regardless of conditions on the surface, unless they were engaged in heavy physical labor.
Bade scowled and set off inquiries to his scientific section. Then he heard excited voices and looked up.
Four Flyer Command officers were coming slowly into the room, bright metal poles across their shoulders. Slung from the poles was a big plastic-wrapped bundle. The bundle was dripping steadily, and leaving a trail of droplets that led back out the door into the hall. The plastic was filmed over with a layer of tiny beads of moisture.
Runckel came slowly to his feet.
The officers, breathing heavily, set the big bundle on the floor near Bade’s desk.
“Here it is, sir.”
Bade’s glance was fastened on the object.
“Unwrap it.”
The officers bent over the bundle, and with clumsy fingers pulled back the plastic layer. The plastic stood up stiffly, and bent only with a hard pull. Underneath was something covered with several of the enemy’s thick dark sleeping covers. The officers rolled the bundle back and forth and unwound the covers. An edge of some milky substance came into view. The officers pulled back the covers and a milky, semitransparent block sat there, white vapor rolling out from it along the floor.
There was a concerted movement away from the block and the officers.
Bade said, “Was the whole place like that?”
“No, sir, but there was an awful lot of this stuff. And there was a compacted powdery kind of substance, too. We didn’t bring enough of it back and it all turned to water.”
“Did you wear the protective clothes we captured?”
“Yes, sir, but they had to be slit and zippered up the legs, because the enemy’s feet are so small. The arms were a poor fit and there had to be more material across the chest.”
“How did they work?”
“They were a great help, sir, as long as we kept moving. As soon as we slowed down, we started to stiffen up. The hand and foot gear was improvised and hard to work in, though.”
Bade looked thoughtfully at the smoldering block, then got up, stepped forward, and spread his hand close to the block. A numbness gradually dulled his hand and moved up his arm. Then Bade straightened up. He found he could move his hand only slowly and painfully. He motioned to Runckel. “I think this is what ‘cold’ is. Want to try it?” Runckel got up, held his hand to the block, then straightened, scowling.
Bade felt a tingling sensation and worked his hand cautiously as Runckel, his face intent, slowly spread and closed his fingers.
Bade thoughtfully congratulated the officers, then had the block carried off to the Testing Lab.
The report on defense against “reduced degree of heat” now came in. Bade read this carefully several times over. The most striking point, he noticed, was the heavy energy expenditure involved.
That afternoon, several ships took off, separated, and headed south.
* * *
The next few days saw the completion of the first key-tool factory, the receipt of reports from insect-bitten scouts in various regions far to the south, and a number of terse messages from General Kottek. Bade ordered plans drawn up for the immediate withdrawal of General Kottek’s army, and for the possible withdrawal by stages of other forces in the north. He ordered preparations made for the first completed factories to produce anti-reduced-degree-of-heat devices. He read a number of reports on the swiftly changing state of the planet’s atmosphere. Large quantities of rain were predicted.
Bade saw no reason to fear rain, and turned to a new problem: The enemy’s missiles had produced a superabundance of atomic debris in the atmosphere. Testing Lab was concerned over this, and suggested various ways to get rid of it. Bade approved the projects and turned to the immediate problem of withdrawing the bulk of General Kottek’s troops from their strong position without losing completely the advantages of it.
Bade was considering the idea of putting a forceway station somewhere in Kottek’s underground defenses, so that he could be reinforced or withdrawn at will. This would involve complicated production difficulties; but then Kottek had said the slowing-down was minimized under cover, and it might be worthwhile to hold an option on his position. While weighing the various intangibles and unpredictables, Bade received a report from General Rast. Rast was now noticing the same effect Kottek had reported.
Word came in that two more key-tools factories were now completed.
Intelligence reports of enemy atmospheric data showed an enormous “cold air mass moving down through Canada.”
General Frotch, personally supervising high-altitude tests, now somehow got involved in a rushing high-level air stream. Having the power of concentrating his attention completely upon whatever he was doing, Frotch got bound up in the work and never realized the speed of the air stream until he came down again—just behind the enemy lines.
When Bade heard of this, he immediately went over the list of officers, and found no one to replace Frotch. Bade studied the latest scientific reports and the disposition of his forces, then ordered an immediate switching of troops and aircraft through the forceway network toward the place where Frotch had vanished. A sharp thrust with local forces cut into the enemy defense system, was followed up by heavy reinforcements flowing through the forceway network, and developed an overpowering local superiority that swamped the enemy defenses.
Runckel studied the resulting dispositions and said grimly, “Heaven help us if they hit us hard in the right place just now.”
“Yes,” said Bade, “and heaven help us if we don’t get Frotch back.” He continued his rapid switching of forces, and ordered General Kottek to embark all his troops, and set down near the main base.
Flyer Command meanwhile began to show signs of headless disorientation, the ground commanders peremptorily ordering the air forces around as nothing more than close-support and flying artillery. The enemy behind-the-lines communications network continued to function.
Runckel now reported to Bade that no reply had been received from Kottek’s headquarters. Runckel was sending a ship to investigate.
Anguished complaints poured in from the technical divisions that their work was held up by the troops flooding the forceway network.
The map now showed Bade’s men driving forward in what looked like a full-scale battle to break the enemy’s whole defensive arrangements and thrust clear through to the sea. Reports came in that, with the enemy’s outer defense belt smashed, signs of unbelievable weakness were evident. The enemy seemed to have nothing but local reserves and only a few of them. The general commanding on the spot announced that he could end the war if given a free hand.
Bade now wondered, if the enemy’s reserves weren’t there, where were they? He repeated his original orders.
Runckel now came over with the look of a half-drowned swimmer and motioned Bade to look at the two nearest viewscreens.
One of the viewscreens showed a scene in shades of white. A layer of white covered the ground, towering ships were plastered on one side with white, obstacles were heaped over with white, the air was filled with horizontal streaks of white. Everything on the screen was white or turning white.
“Kottek’s base,” said Runckel dully.
The other screen gave a view of the long narrow valley just outside. This “valley” was now a rushing torrent of foaming water, sweeping along chunks of floating debris that bobbed a hand’s breadth under the power cables from the ships to Forceway Station 2.
* * *
The only good news that day and the next was the recapture of General Frotch. In the midst of crumbling disorder, Flyer Command returned to normal.
Bade sent off a specially-equipped mission to try and find out what had happened to General Kottek. Then he looked up to see General Rast walking wearily into the room. Rast conferred with Runckel in low dreary tones, then the two of them started over toward Bade.
Bade returned his attention to a chart showing the location of the key-tools factories and the forceway network.
A sort of groan announced the arrival of Rast and Runckel. Bade looked up. Rast saluted. Bade returned the salute. Rast said stiffly, “Sir, I have been defeated. My army no longer exists.”
Bade looked Rast over quickly, studying his expression and bearing.
“It’s a plain fact,” said Rast. “Sir, I should be relieved of command.”
“What’s happened?” said Bade. “I have no reports of any new enemy attack.”
“No,” said Rast, “there won’t be any formal report. The whole northern front is anaesthetized from one end to the other.”
“Snow?” said Bade.
“White death,” said Rast.
A messenger stepped past the two generals to hand Bade a report. It was from General Frotch:
“1) Aerial reconnaissance shows heavy enemy forces moving south on a wide front through the snow-covered region. No response or resistance has been noted on the part of our troops.
“2) Aerial reconnaissance shows light enemy forces moving in to ring General Kottek’s position. The enemy appears to be moving with extreme caution.
“3) It has so far proved impossible to get in touch with General Kottek.
“4) It must be reported that on several occasions our ground troops have, as individuals, attempted to seize from our flyer pilots and crews, their special protective anti-reduced-degree-of-heat garments. This problem is becoming serious.”
Bade looked up at Rast. “You’re Ground Forces Commander, not commander of a single front.”
“That’s so,” said Rast. “I should be. But all I command now is a kind of mob. I’ve tried to keep the troops in order, but they know one thing after another is going wrong. Naturally, they put the blame on their leaders.”
The room seemed to Bade to grow unnaturally light and clear. He said, “Have you had an actual case of mutiny, Rast?”
Rast stiffened. “No, sir. But it is possible for troops to be so laggardly and unwilling that the effect is the same. What I mean is that there is the steady growth of a cynical attitude everywhere. Not only in the troops but in the officers.”
Bade looked off at the far corner of the room for a moment. He glanced at Runckel. “What’s the state of the key-tools factories?”
“Almost all completed. But the northern ones are now in the reduced-degree-of-heat zone. Part of the forceway network is, too. Using the key-tools plants remaining, it might be possible to patch together some kind of a makeshift. But the reduced-degree-of-heat zone is still moving south.”
A pale clerk apologized, stepped around the generals and handed Bade two messages. The first was from Intelligence:
“Enemy propaganda broadcasts beamed at our troops announce General Kottek’s unconditional surrender with all his forces. We have no independent information on Kottek’s actual situation.”
The second message was from the commander of Number 1 Shock Infantry Division. This report boiled down to a miserable confession that the commanding officer found himself unable to prevent:
1) Fraternization with the enemy.
2) The use of various liquid narcotics that rendered troops unfit for duty.
3) The unauthorized wearing of red, white, and blue buttons lettered, “Vote Republican.”
4) An ugly game called “footbase,” in which the troops separated into two long lines armed with bats, to hammer, pound, beat, and kick, a ball called “the officer,” from one end of the field to the other.
* * *
Bade looked up at Rast. “How is it I only find out about this now?”
“Sir,” said Rast, “each of the officers was ashamed to report it his superior.”
Bade handed the report to Runckel, who read it through and looked up somberly. “If it’s hit the shock troops, the rest must have it worse.”
“Yet,” said Bade, “the troops fought well when we recaptured Frotch.”
“Yes,” said Rast, “but it’s the damned planet that’s driving them crazy. The natives are remarkable propagandists. And the men can plainly see that even when they win a victory, some freak like the exploding sickness, or some kind of atmospheric jugglery, is likely to take it right away from them. They’re in a bad mood and the only thing that might snap them out of it is decisive action. But if they go the other way we’re finished.”
“This,” said Bade, “is no time for you to resign.”
“Sir, it’s a mess, and I’m responsible. I have to make the offer to resign.”
“Well,” said Bade, “I don’t accept it. But we’ll have to try to straighten out this mess.” Bade pulled over several sheets of paper. On the first, he wrote:
“Official News Bureau: 1) Categorically deny the capture of General Kottek and his base. State that General Kottek is in full control of Base North, that the enemy has succeeded in infiltrating troops into the general region under cover of snow, but that he has been repulsed with heavy losses in all attacks on the base itself.
“2) State that the enemy announcement of victory in the area is a desperation measure, timed to coincide with their almost unopposed advance through the evacuated Northern Front.
“3) The larger part of the troops in the Northern Front were withdrawn prior to the attack and switched by forceway network to launch a heavy feinting attack against the enemy. State that the enemy, caught by surprise, appears to be rushing reserves from his northern armies to cover the areas threatened by the feint.
“4) Devoted troops who held the Northern Front to make the deception succeed have now been overrun by the enemy advance under cover of the snow. Their heroic sacrifice will not be forgotten.
“5) The enemy now faces the snow time alone. His usual preventive measures have been drastically slowed down. His intended decisive attack has failed of its object. The snow this year is unusually severe, and is already working heavy punishment on the enemy.
“6) Secret measures are now for the first time being brought into the open that will place our troops far beyond the reach of snow.”
On the second sheet of paper, Bade wrote:
“Director of Protocol: Prepare immediately: 1) Supreme Commander’s Citation for Extraordinary Bravery and Resourcefulness in Action: To be awarded General Kottek. 2) Supreme Commander’s Citation for Extraordinary Devotion to Duty: To be awarded singly, to each soldier on duty during the enemy attack on the entire Northern Front. 3) These awards are both to be mentioned promptly in the Daily Notices.”
Bade handed the papers to Runckel, “Send these out yourself.” As Runckel started off, Bade looked at Rast, then was interrupted by a messenger who stepped past Rast, and handed Bade two slips of paper. With an effort of will, Bade extended his hand and took the papers. He read:
“Sir: Exploration Team South 3 has located ideal island base. Full details follow. Frotch.”
“Sir: We have finally contacted General Kottek. He and his troops are dug into underground warrens of great complexity beneath his system of fortifications. Most of the ships above-ground are mere shells, all removable equipment having been stripped out and carried below for the comfort of the troops. Most of the ships’ engines have also been disassembled one at a time, carried below, and set up to run the dampers—which are likewise below ground—and the ‘heating units’ devised by Kottek’s technical personnel. His troops appear to be in good order and high spirits. Skath, Col., A.F.C., forwarded by Frotch.”
* * *
Bade sucked in a deep breath and gave silent thanks. Then he handed the two reports to Rast. Bade snapped on a microphone and got in touch with Frotch. “Listen, can you get pictures of Kottek and his men?”
Frotch held up a handful of pictures, spread like playing cards. “The men took them for souvenirs and gave me copies. You can have all you want.”
Bade immediately called his photoprint division and gave orders for the pictures to be duplicated by the thousands. The photoprint division slaved all night, and the excited troops had the pictures on their bulletin boards by the next morning.
The Official News Service meanwhile was dinning Bade’s propaganda into the troops’ ears at every opportunity. The appearance of the pictures now plainly caught the enemy propaganda out on a limb. Doubting one thing the enemy propaganda had said, the troops suddenly doubted all. A violent revulsion of feeling took place. Before anything else could happen, Bade ordered the troops embarked.
By this time, the apparently harmless rain had produced a severe flood, which repeatedly threatened the power cables supplying the forceway network. The troops had to use this network to get to the ships in time.
As Bade’s military engineers blasted out alternate channels for the rising water, and a fervent headquarters group prayed for a drought, the troops poured through the still-operative forceway stations and marched into the ships with joyful shouts.
The enemy joined the celebration with a mammoth missile attack.
The embarkation, together with the disassembling of vital parts of the accessible key-tools factories, took several days. During this time, the enemy continued his steady methodical advance well behind the front of the cold air mass. The enemy however, made no sudden thrust on the ground to take advantage of the embarkation. Bade pondered this sign of tiredness, then sent up a ship to radio a query home. When the answer came, Bade sent a message to the enemy government. The message began:
“Sirs: This scouting expedition has now completed its mission. We are now withdrawing to winter quarters, which may be: a) an unspecified distant location; b) California; c) Florida. If you are prepared to accept certain temporary armistice conditions, we will choose a). Otherwise, you will understand we must choose b) or c). If you are prepared to consider these armistice conditions, you are strongly urged to send a plenipotentiary without delay. This plenipotentiary should be prepared to consider both the temporary armistice and the matters of mutual benefit to us.”
Bade waited tensely for the reply. He had before him two papers, one of which read:
” . . . the enemy-held peninsula of Florida has thus been found to be heavily infested with heartworms—parasites which live inside the heart, slow circulation, and lower vital activity sharply. While the enemy appears to be immune to infestation, our troops plainly are not. The four scouts who returned here have at last, we believe, been cured—but they have not as yet recovered their strength. The state of things in nearby Cuba is not yet known for certain. Possibly, the troops’ enormous consumption of native ‘rum’ has interacted medicinally with our blood chemistry to retard infestation. If so, we have our choice of calamities. In any case, a landing in Florida would be ruinous.”
As for California, the other report concluded:
” . . . Statistical studies based on past experience lead us to believe that myth or no myth, immediately upon our landing in California, there will be a terrific earthquake.”
Bade had no desire to go to Florida or California. He fervently hoped the enemy would not guess this.
At length the reply came, Bade read through ominous references to the growing might of the United States of the World, then came to the operative sentence:
” . . . Our plenipotentiary will be authorized to treat only with regard to an armistice; he is authorized only to transmit other information to his government. He is not empowered to make any agreement whatever on matters other than an armistice.”
The plenipotentiary was a tall thin native, who constantly sponged water off his neck and forehead, and who looked at Bade as if he would like cram a nuclear missile down his throat. Getting an agreement was hard work. The plenipotentiary finally accepted Bade’s first condition—that General Kottek not be attacked for the duration of the armistice—but flatly refused the second condition allowing the continued occupation of western Cuba. After a lengthy verbal wrestling match, the plenipotentiary at last agreed to a temporary continuation of the western Cuban occupation, provided that the Gulf of Mexico blockade be lifted. Bade agreed to this and the plenipotentiary departed mopping his forehead.
Bade immediately lifted ships and headed south. His ships came down to seize sections of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, with outposts on the Christmas and Cocoa islands and on small islands in the Indonesian archipelago.
Bade’s personal headquarters were on a pleasant little island conveniently located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. The name of the island was Krakatoa.
* * *
Bade was under no illusion that the inhabitants of the islands welcomed his arrival. Fortunately, however, the armament of his troops outclassed anything in the vicinity, with the possible exception of a bristly-looking place called Singapore. Bade’s scouts, after studying Singapore carefully, concluded it was not mobile, and if they left it alone, it would leave them alone.
The enemy plenipotentiary now arrived in a large battleship, and was greeted in the islands with frenzied enthusiasm. Bade was too absorbed in reports of rapidly-improving morale, and highly-successful mass-swimming exercises to care about this welcome. Although an ominous document titled “War in the Islands: U.S.—Japan,” sat among the translated volumes of history at Bade’s elbow, and served as a constant reminder that this pleasant situation could not be expected to last forever, Bade intended to enjoy it while it did last.
Bade greeted the plenipotentiary in his pleasant headquarters on the leveled top of the tall picturesque cone-shaped hill that rose high above Krakatoa, then dropped off abruptly by the sea.
The plenipotentiary, on entering the headquarters, mopped his brow constantly, kept glancing furtively around, and was plainly ill at ease. The interpreters took their places, and the conversation opened.
“As you see,” said Bade, “we are comfortably settled here for the winter.”
The plenipotentiary looked around and gave a hollow laugh.
“We are,” added Bade, “perfectly prepared to return next . . . a . . . ‘summer’ . . . and take up where we left off.”
“By next summer,” said the plenipotentiary, “the United States will be a solid mass of guns from one coast to the other.”
Bade shrugged, and the plenipotentiary added grimly, “And missiles.”
Despite himself, Bade winced.
One of Bade’s clerks, carrying a message across the far end of the room, became distracted in his effort to be sure he heard everything. The clerk was busy watching Bade when he banged into the back of a tall filing case. The case tilted off-balance, then started to fall forward.
A second clerk sprang up to catch the side of the case. There was a low heavy rumble as all the drawers slid out.
The plenipotentiary sprang to his feet, and looked wildly around.
The filing case twisted out of the hands of the clerk and came down on the floor with a thundering crash.
The plenipotentiary snapped his eyes tightly shut, clenched his teeth, and stood perfectly still.
Bade and Runckel looked blankly at each other.
The plenipotentiary slowly opened his eyes, looked wonderingly around the room, jumped as the two clerks heaved the filing case upright, turned around to stare at the clerks and the case, turned back to look sharply at Bade, then clamped his jaw.
Bade, his own face as calm as he could make it, decided this might be as good a time as any to throw in a hard punch. He remarked, “You have two choices. You can make a mutually profitable agreement with us. Or you can force us to switch heavier forces and weapons to this planet and crush you. Which is it?”
“We,” said the plenipotentiary coldly, “have the resources of the whole planet at our disposal. You have to bring everything from a distance. Moreover, we have captured a good deal of your equipment, which we may duplicate—”
“Lesser weapons,” said Bade. “As if an enemy captured your rifles, duplicated them at great expense, and was then confronted with your nuclear bomb.”
“This is our planet,” said the plenipotentiary grimly, “and we will fight for it to the end.”
“We don’t want your planet.”
* * *
The plenipotentiary’s eyes widened. Then he burst into a string of invective that the translators couldn’t follow. When he had finished, he took a deep breath and recapitulated the main point, “If you don’t want it, what are you doing here?”
Bade said, “Your people are clearly warlike. After observing you for some time, a debate arose on our planet as to whether we should hit you or wait till you hit us. After a fierce debate, the first faction won.”
“Wait a minute. How could we hit you? You come from another planet, don’t you?”
“Yes, that’s true. But it’s also true that a baby shark is no great menace to anyone. Except that he will grow up into a big shark. That is how our first faction looked on earth.”
The plenipotentiary scowled. “In other words, you’ll kill the suspect before he has a chance to commit the crime. Then you justify it by saying the man would have committed a crime if he’d lived.”
“We didn’t intend to kill you—only to disarm you.”
“How does all this square with your telling us you’re just a scout party?”
“Are you under the impression,” said Bade, “that this is the main invasion force? Would we attack without a full reconnaissance first? Do you think we would merely make one sizable landing, on one continent? How could we hope to conquer in that way?”
The plenipotentiary frowned, sucked in a deep breath, and mopped his forehead. “What’s your offer?”
“Disarm yourselves voluntarily. All hostilities will end immediately.”
The plenipotentiary gave a harsh laugh.
Bade said, “What’s your answer?”
“What’s your real offer?”
“As I remarked,” said Bade, “there were two factions on our planet. One favored the attack, as self-preservation. The other faction opposed the attack, on moral and political grounds. The second faction at present holds that it is now impossible to remain aloof, as we had hoped to before the attack. One way or the other, we are now bound up with Earth. We either have to be enemies, or friends. As it happens, I am a member of the bloc that opposed the attack. The bloc that favored the attack has lost support owing to the results of our initial operations. Because of this political shift, I have practically a free hand at the moment.” Bade paused as the plenipotentiary turned his head slightly and leaned forward with an intent look.
Bade said, “Your country has suffered by far the most from our attack. Obviously, it should profit the most. We have a number of scientific advances to offer as bargaining counters. Our essential condition is that we retain some overt standing—some foothold—some way of knowing by direct observation that this planet—or any nation of it—won’t attack us.”
The plenipotentiary scowled. “Every nation on Earth is pretty closely allied as a result of your attack. We’re a world of united states—all practically one nation. And all the land on the globe belongs to one of us or the other. While there’s bound to be considerable regional rivalry even when we have peace, that’s all. Otherwise we’re united. As a result, there’s not going to be any peace as long as you’ve got your foot on land belonging to any of us. That includes Java, Sumatra, and even this . . . er . . . mountain we’re on now.” He looked around uneasily, and added, “We might let you have a little base, somewhere . . . maybe in Antarctica but I doubt it. We won’t want any foreign planet sticking its nose in our business.”
Bade said, “My proposal allows for that.”
“I don’t see how it could,” said the plenipotentiary. “What is it?”
Bade told him.
The plenipotentiary sat as if he had been hit over the head with a rock. Then he let out a mighty burst of laughter, banged his hand on his knee and said, “You’re serious?”
“Absolutely.”
The plenipotentiary sprang to his feet. “I’ll have to get in touch with my government. Who knows? Maybe— Who knows?” He strode out briskly.
* * *
About this time, a number of fast ships arrived from home. These ships were much in use during the next months. Delegations from both planets flew in both directions.
Runckel was highly uneasy. Incessantly he demanded, “Will it work? What if they flood our planet with a whole mob—”
“I have it on good authority,” said Bade, “that our planet is every bit as uncomfortable for them as theirs is for us. We almost lost one of their delegates straight down through the mud on the last visit. They have to use dozens of towels for handkerchiefs every day, and that trace of ammonia in the atmosphere doesn’t seem to agree with them. Some of them have even gotten fog-sick.”
“Why should they go along with the idea, then?”
“It fits in with their nature. Besides, where else are they going to get another one? As one of their senators put it, ‘Everything here on Earth is sewed up.’ There’s even a manifest destiny argument.”
“Well, the idea has attractions, but—”
“Listen,” said Bade, “I’m told not to prolong the war, because it’s too costly and dangerous; not to leave behind a reservoir of fury to discharge on us in the future; not to surrender; not, in the present circumstances, to expect them to surrender. I am told to somehow keep a watch on them and bind their interests to ours; and not to forget the tie must be more than just on paper, it’s got to be emotional as well as legal. On top of that, if possible, I’m supposed to open up commercial opportunities. Can you think of any other way?”
“Frankly, no,” said Runckel.
There was a grumbling sound underneath them, and the room shivered slightly.
“What was that?” said Runckel.
Bade looked around, frowning. “I don’t know.”
A clerk came across the room and handed Runckel a message and Bade another message. Runckel looked up, scowling. “The sea water here is beginning to have an irritating effect on our men’s skin.”
“Never mind,” said Bade, “their plenipotentiary is coming. We’ll know one way or the other shortly.”
Runckel looked worried, and began searching through his wastebasket.
The plenipotentiary came in grinning. “O.K.,” he said, “the Russians are a little burned up, and I don’t think Texas is any too happy, but nobody can think of a better way out. You’re in.”
He and Bade shook hands fervently. Photographers rushed in to snap pictures. Outside, Bade’s band was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Another state,” said the plenipotentiary, grinning expansively. “How’s it feel to be a citizen?”
Runckel erupted from his wastebasket and bolted across the room.
“Krakatoa is a volcano!” he shouted. “And here’s what a volcano is!”
There was a faint but distinct rumble underfoot.
The room emptied fast.
* * *
On the way home, they were discussing things.
Bade was saying, “I don’t claim it’s perfect, but then our two planets are so mutually uncomfortable there’s bound to be little travel either way till we have a chance to get used to each other. Yet, we can go back and forth. Who has a better right than a citizen? And there’s a good chance of trade and mutual profit. There’s a good emotional tie.” He frowned. “There’s just one thing—”
“What’s that?” said Runckel.
Bade opened a translated book to a page he had turned down. He read silently. He looked up perplexedly.
“Runckel,” he said, “there are certain technicalities involved in being a citizen.”
Runckel tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh— Well, like this.” He looked back at the book for a moment.
“What is it?” demanded Runckel.
“Well,” said Bade, “what do you suppose ‘income tax’ is?”
Runckel looked relieved. He shrugged.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s too fantastic. Probably it’s just a myth.”
I have been experimenting with AI. I have been making movies, asking questions, and generating all sorts of art. Today we will chat about my latest adventure…
I played around with it, used the Haddock style (Tin Tin clone) and ended up with this…
mycomic1
Then I tried again with a “flying saucer” preset.
Check out the results… The block to the right never managed to generate… sigh.
mycomics2
It’s fun.
Worth your time to visit and try your hand at it.
Easy . All you need is a story line, and some dialog to add.
Today…
Have you ever been banned from a place due to your behavior?
The AT&T store. My mom had died in a car accident, and it was left up to me to close her accounts and different things like that, after grieving a couple weeks I got started. She had bought an IPad and for probably nearly a decade had AT&T service for it as my parents didn’t have WiFi. I called them and told them, my mom is dead. Please cancel auto pay from her bank account. THEY REFUSED. The person had no sympathy at all. I asked for a supervisor, and they said go to a certain store, they would call there and say to cancel.
I go to the store and when I tell them the situation, nobody would touch it. Finally a call came and they said OK now it has to be approved by corporate (or some stupid answer like that). Two months go by and they kept taking 39.95 out of her bank account. I call them AGAIN, and they say go back to this store with her death certificate (which I just received). I go back and am treated like shit. The manager was a snotty little snip who barely looked at the death certificate and her two beta male minions shrugged me off when I asked if this would finally end this bullshit. They basically ignored me and turned away. I blew my stack, finally. I started shouting to everyone in the store to not get AT&T because they will charge you even if you are dead. That they are stealing my dead mothers money and these assholes don’t care. The little bitch manager said for me to leave, and I got in her face..how would she feel if her dead mother was getting robbed and nobody gave a shit?? Anyway the police came, they were actually sympathetic and I went to my moms bank still crying. Due to having her death certificate + administration of estate credentials the bank stopped the auto payment. A few days later got a letter addressed to my mother’s estate demanding payment from AT&T. The IPad was not used since she died. They had already gotten three months of payment from a dead woman. AT&T SUCKS. Now I’m going to run on my treadmill, my adrenaline is demanding action, lol.
Awesome China
Why is the US doing such a bad job countering China’s rise?
Oh, that’s a lot of reasons.
For America:
no unified policies and strategies, every department has its own stance, and their stances may conflict each other. Like, the department of commerce wanted to continue high tariffs on Chinese products, but the department of treasury wanted China to buy American debt, this is paradoxical, you can’t ask someone to buy your goods while pointing a gun at him.
no unified benefits on “countering China”, Wall Street companies do not wish to counter China, while some domestic companies wish to. Because WS companies are financial sectors, they invest and make profit, no matter from where, but domestic companies rely on domestic market and labors, if everything can be made in China, then they die.
no unified strategies, Trump prefers solve China first, while Biden prefers solve Russia first. Given America’s strength is limited, it can’t handle both, but wavering between the two only waste precious time. And China, Russia, Muslim world, the global south won’t give America this chance, when it tried to solve one, the rest will rise up.
democratic. America’s democratic system allows people in 1, 2 and 3 can’t reach to an agreement.
no real representation of China, as many answers here pointed out, China’s image in Ameican media is twisted, which made Americans not able to make objective evaluation and correct decision. Sometimes the images are controversial, sometimes China is weak and easy to win, sometimes China is a threat…I don’t konw how come a country could be both weak and threatening at same time. However, if China is correctly and honestely reported, the politicians in WH and Capitol Hill will afraid losing power after American people found they’re fooled and manipulated, not just China, on everything.
no correct mentaility. America’s an amatuer in international politics, it adopts a zero sum mentality, which cuts off alternative options, and behaves like a red-eyed bull. Like Vietnam war, it could let the souther Vietnman go and admit it’s lost the war, but it can’t step back, so the only option is to increase the stakes, until the final collapse. Zero sum is an ideal result, but the world is complicated.
For China:
it’s big enough, so trade war can’t defeat China’s industry.
it’s advanced enough, so technology war can’t stop China’s development.
it’s strong enough, so a real war can’t defeat China and bring it kneeling in front of you.
For countering philosophy:
the correct comepetion is: you run fast, then I run faster. But America’s strategy is: you run fast, then I cripple you. Such a denial philosophy only makes the other side knowing there’s no chance to compromise.
for a third party observer, America’s philosophy is somewaht suicidal, when it is countering China is wishes its allies to pay the cost, or, its allies were unfortunately influenced, there’s no compensation. In long run, America wins the game but loses hearts.
pursuing defenite advantage than others will make a third party felt chilly: am I the next? How to avoid this fate? Can I unite all potential targets to avoid being taken as a target? Like I said, wins the game but loses the hearts.
Generally, present America is like the final days of Ming Dynasty of China, the empire treasury was almost empty but big heads possessed gold mountains, there’s outside threats (Manchu, Mongolians and Japanese), and ministers, lords, princes, all had differnt stances, they fought each other in the hall, the whole political machine is used as a weapon to attack the enemies in government, rather than enemies in field, the big heads controlled the information, they only report good news to the emperor, then emperor was blind and deaf, however, making final decision the right of the emperor, but a blind and deaf emperor only made wrong decisions. When farmers uprose to fight the unfair treatment, the big heads refused to fund the army, when Manchus and Japanese invaded, the corruptive army can’t fight. Finally, the emperor looked at the empty empire treasury, hang himself on a tree, when the emperor died, the empire collapsed, and Manchus conquered all China.
The history told us, for a big country, it collapses from inside, eyeing on an outsider is useless, or just put off its collapse. When an empire’s rotten from the root, “countering” an outside opponent only speeds up the bleeding.
Yes, me. It was a small company, a start up, still in a fairly early state. 22 people. The guy who hired me had great plans to get the company going, but the CEO didn’t like him. So fairly soon after I started the CEO fired my boss.
Now the reason I was hired was to replace an old guy who helped build the company but wanted to retire. Key role, materials engineering, for a company that wanted to be big in that field with new ideas. That guy taught me everything he knew, which was a lot.
But the CEO had certain plans, and because he fired my boss he decided I’d be next, so he let me go. But the guy that I was supposed to replace didn’t like what the CEO was doing, so when he heard I was fired, he decided to retire on the spot. Same day. We both walked out the door together.
So now there was a start up that wanted to become big in materials engineering, without any materials engineers, and nobody to teach any potential new employees what needed to be done.
I got lucky, I found a new job within a month. But the company that fired me went into administration shortly after, then a bigger company bought them, very cheaply, together with all their ideas, fired the CEO, merged all assets and basically deleted the company from existence.
WTF?
Who was the most unfortunate person in the history of mankind?
This Darrell Simmons of Morley, Alberta in Canada. Not only was he unlucky enough to have been born in Canada, but his luck never improved throughout his life.
main qimg c3daadd24f1a5d3ea8d0fca439bd7ea3
He was forced to be chemically castrated after he was wrongfully accused of multiple sexual assaults in the 1980s. Once he was released from prison, he was given a pretty substantial sum of money.
Through bad investments though, he sadly lost everything. While working at a saw mill to try and get his life back together, he lost his hand in a freak accident.
One night while was out hunting with a friend, he was shot three times after being mistaken for a charging elk.
After recovering from the shooting, he was at home shoveling his driveway when he was struck by lightning in a snow storm. Darrell ultimately died that night, but it was determined that he survived the strike and actually froze to death.
More Men Choosing NOT To WORK And It’s Freaking Everyone Out
Fuck yeah. I have a friend. He worked construction doing Masonry well. One day he and his friend left work, and they got some beer on the way home. They went to my friend’s house, and they drank all the beer. My friend told his friend to watch my daughter. I’m going to go to the store and get some more beer his friend said all right, no problem. My friend left to go to the store, and when he came back, he found his friend inside of his 2-year-old daughter. He snapped. He beat the man unconscious and dragged him into the front yard. As he was dragging him to the front yard, he grabbed a can of gas and poured gas all over his friend and had to go back inside the house. Because he forgot his lighter when he came back out, he didn’t waste any time at all in turning his friend into Captain Crunch. He would have beaten the charge altogether if he hadn’t walked back inside the house , it would have been called a crime of passion,
but when he stopped and went back inside the house to get his lighter, it became premeditated murder because he thought about it first they tried him and found him guilty of premeditated murder and gave him a life sentence. I say we should have given him a medal.
“We have a world food system based on large multinational companies. It’s based on private profits and a very, very low measure of international transfers to help poor people (sometimes no transfers at all). It’s based on the extreme irresponsibility of powerful countries with regard to the environment and a radical denial of the rights of poor people, as we just heard.
We’ve just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty.
Yet we don’t seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870, King Leopold of Belgium created a slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government of Belgium ran the colony for another 50 years.
In 1961, after independence of the DRC, the CIA then assassinated the DRC’s first popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, and installed a US-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years.
And in recent years, Glencore and other multinational companies suck out the DRC’s cobalt without paying a level of royalties and taxes.
We simply don’t reflect on the real history of the DRC and other poor countries struggling to escape from poverty. Instead, we point fingers at these countries and say, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you govern yourselves properly?’
Yes, we have a global food system, but we need a different system.
We cannot turn the global food system over to the private sector. We already did that about 100 years ago, and not only to the private sector, but to the private sector with the U.S. military behind it to defend these companies.
We just heard from the Minister of Honduras.
Let us recall that United Fruit Company essentially ran his country for a long time. United Fruit’s attorney was US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen Dulles was the head of the CIA.
On behalf of United Fruit Company, the two Dulles Brothers conspired to overthrow President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, next door to Honduras, in order to stop the land reforms that Árbenz was trying to implement.
So, yes, we have a global food system, but we need a different system.
That different system must be based on the principle of universal human dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principle of national sovereignty in the UN Charter, and the economic rights in the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
In the Universal Declaration, all governments agreed that social protection is a human right, not merely a ‘nice thing,’ or a pleasant thing, but a basic human right.
That was 73 years ago.”
Excerpt from the speech by American economist and academic, Jeffrey Sachs, at the U.N. Food Systems Pre-Summit, Rome, July 27, 2021.
She was never specific. Where she was going, what she was doing. Especially whenever I asked her a question, she wouldn’t give specifc answers.
“Where are you going after this?”
“Oh, just to the library.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Just some work.”
“What kind of work?”
“You know, school work. Some assignments and stuff.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I never pressed. If she asked me anything I’d be upfront about it. I think I was pressing her because I had always suspected. Now I’d like to think deep down, I knew, but the truth is I didn’t. I didn’t want to.
“What are you doing right now?”
“Just laying in bed.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did your roomates go out for the weekend?”
“No, they just went out.”
“Are you going home for the weekend?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want me to come drop you off at the station?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh”
“Yeah.”
Heard from a friend of mine she was going with someone else. Apparently they met before we did. Luckily I was at the point where I really liked her but didn’t love her, so that made dropping her a bit easier. Still hurts, though.
When I worked at the electric company, after 14 years, the company decided to lay off 3,400 employees and hire contractors to replace us. I spent a lot of time hunting down lost demand meters, and had to jimmy some doors open with a coat hanger, go through dungeons that connected to other basements, till I found all 22 of these meters, I never missed a month of reading those meters, so I never had to give anyone else directions to find them all. After being laid off, I got a call from one of the supervisors asking if I could tell them how to find those meters, for free. I told them I couldn’t just tell them how to find them, there are tools involved and I never really mapped it out, I just kind of know how to go once I’m in that location. I would have to go there and show them what to do and how to go, or it wouldn’t make sense. The supervisor couldn’t be sure he could get the okay to allow me to physically go down there since I’m not covered on their insurance anymore. I suggested that he have faith in these new contractors to figure out how to find the meters on their own, after all, I did it. They only found 9 of the 22 meters in 5 years of looking, I was informed in 2002.
I just left a job that I loved, and there are a few things that only I know how to do, but so what, someone will have to take over doing my jobs, and the flavors may be different, but they will survive. After all they must have thought it through before making up their minds to make the changes they did. I didn’t advise anyone this time, as you said the advice goes unheeded anyway. I figured it out, so can they. Have a good day
You Won’t Believe What These Graphs Reveal About Women!
Keep learning throughout your life. Even if you stop learning life will teach you lesson till end.
If you feel to cry, cry for the whole day but don’t cry next day for the same thing. Next time if you feel to cry for that tell yourself that you have already cried that day for that.
Love someone lot but not at the cost of your self identity. Be yourself.
Don’t judge the people immediately.
Listen the other person very carefully. Try to listen those words which he/she couldn’t speak.
Learn the fastest ways to get out of your mental prison, depression and trauma. Time is not infinite.
Your words can cost you a lot, use them wisely.
Deliver only as much information as required to know to the other person and not as much as you know.
Plan your day at least before a day, everyday. Be consistent.
Find out your natural abilities and believe in that.
Increase your sources of income. Live a simple but meaningful life.
Keep your moral values high. Forgive the people as much as possible and move on.
Everyday try to get out of your comfort zone, feel uncomfortable to achieve something better.
Have patience, it is your biggest strength.
Be successful as much as that world know you without any introduction
A couple of years ago, three other members of my women educators group and I met up at the bank. Three of us were new officers who needed to sign on to our organization’s bank account.
Our treasurer had made an appointment as required, explaining ahead of time what was needed. When we arrived, the woman assigned to help us couldn’t find the forms we needed to sign, so she took our personal and organization information and told us we’d need to come back another time to do the signing once she’d completed the forms.
Returning was going to be difficult because our treasurer was just days away from going on a scuba diving trip with her husband and one of the new officers taught full-time and also worked for an after school program, but we checked our calendars and found a time that would work for the four of us once again.
When we returned another day, we told the person greeting us that we were there to meet with the woman who was to have completed the forms and have them ready for signing. The greeter said, “I’m the only female employee at this branch, other than the tellers,” and she wasn’t the woman we’d met with before.
Now we’re in Twilight Zone territory. We know the four of us didn’t imagine meeting with a woman at a desk, so one of us thought to ask, “Do you ever have temporary workers?” That was the “Ah ha!” moment for the greeter.
“We do have people from other branches of the bank come to help out occasionally. Maybe one of them was a woman,” she said. She then directed us to a man at a desk, we explained once again why we’re there, and he began the process of looking for the paperwork. He comes back to where we’re waiting, opens the folder with our organization’s name on it…
And finds blank forms.
Nothing was ready to be signed. “I’m sorry,” he told us, “but all your information will have to be entered into the computer, then they have to be printed for you to sign. Unfortunately, we close in 15 minutes and this is going to take about half an hour, so you’ll need to come back tomorrow.”
That was our final “You gotta be kidding me!” moment.
But there’s a good ending to the story. When we explained our time constraints and what we’d already been through with the other woman, he took pity on us and said, “I’m going to help you.”
It took about forty minutes in all, with him staying past closing time, but he got it done for us.
The first time was a young lady who was driving erratically. She had her flashers on, and it was raining. When I got to her window, I saw it was a teenager I knew, and she was sobbing saying her grandmother had had a heart attack and was in surgery. I told her to follow me to the hospital. I drove a LOT slower and safer than she was driving when I stopped her. When we got to the hospital, I went in with her to get the status of her grandmother (who wasn’t in surgery, but was stable and having a lot of tests run). Then, I accompanied her to the waiting room where I had a little chat with her about her driving. I was gentle, yet firm while I explained to her that I would rather her be visiting her grandmother at the hospital instead of being a patient along with her … or worse.
Not on the way to the hospital, but I pulled someone over who was driving erratically to get home because his blood sugar had dropped. He was a diabetic. I had a Snickers bar in my patrol car, so I gave it to him and sat on the side of the road with him until an ambulance showed up. By the time the ambulance arrived, his blood sugar had come up considerably. It was still “low,” but he wasn’t disoriented anymore. He had taken his regularly scheduled insulin, but hadn’t eaten. He thought he would make it home before his blood sugar “bottomed out.” He refused treatment, and I followed him home to make sure he got there okay.
I pulled a mom over for speeding, and she said she was taking her son to the ER because he had the flu. I got her to step to the back of the car where I scolded her for driving so fast (85MPH in a 50MPH zone). I explained “the flu” was NOT a medical emergency that was worth risking her life, as well as her son’s life, and the life of every other driver. I remember that stop so well because I thought she was so audacious for driving THAT MUCH over the posted speed limit while seeing me posted there. I didn’t cite her, but I did sternly warn her to slow down.
I responded to a residence to assist EMS on a cardiac arrest call. I cleared when the fire department showed up, as there were enough responders. I posted in my “usual spot” and saw the ambulance “running hot” to the hospital. I knew the patient. Just before the ambulance got out of sight, I stopped a car for speeding. The driver told me he was following his mom to the hospital … who was having a heart attack. Well, he got the heart attack part right, but his “mom” was one ugly bearded dude! (I told the patient the story when he got out of the hospital. We had a good laugh over it.) I cited the driver and suggested he bring his mother to court to help him contest the ticket.
He hated this one kid. He was umm, you know a kid with really short hair, wears chav jackets, always hanging with his mates, making jokes and never studies.
The teacher kept picking on him. He would give him looks and comments.
One day kid got really pissed off and said things like I don’t care. The teacher took him to his desk after the class.
He came back two hours later with a steaming hot red face. According to the kid, he had hit him and said some things. Kid called the police.
The police car came to our school. They had a chat with the kid and the teacher. Everyone tried to go out and see it but the other teachers didn’t allow us.
Later he made an apology to the kid and his parents. They didn’t accept it and wanted to make it formal at first, but when he told them his story they forgave him and dropped everything.
Turns out, his wife died from cancer when their daughters were just 6 and 8. Before they could do anything the hospital bills were too much and they were in debts. So he worked very hard day and night. He would teach during day and drive taxi at night. He had then later got hired for our school, a private school, and were able to pay all the debts. He even managed to send his daughter to one of the Ivy League schools.
However the little daughter had hard times and started causing trouble. She smoked, stole and hurt people. She would blame her dad for all of it. But he couldn’t get her straight because he felt too sorry for everything.
She also kept sleeping outside, then one day she never came back.
So the kid had reminded him of his daughter. Now this time he couldn’t let him drive off the course like how his daughter did. He tried to get him straight, in his own way.
He wasn’t fired. He kept teaching but he looked very depressed.
After a month or so he had quit the job and was never seen again.
GDP is a faulty measure of wealth and prosperity. So example if you get all your education free and healthcare is totally free of charge you are well and live till on average 2 years past the U.S. life expectancy if you earn half of Americans. You are just as will be just as well off. Or if Americans don’t earn twice as much as the Chinese you are certainly not as well off! Stop fooling yourself.
When I was young I thought Malaysian padi planters are not as well off till I realised they don’t need to buy rice for obvious reasons, and buy fish which they catch or chicken which they rear or indeed the vegetables which they plant. All they ever need is some cloths which they don’t need to look especially good since they hardly need to impress anyone. so whatever they earned they can saved it almost entirely.
In the same logic Americans were fooled to think they are rich due to this nonsense call GDP! In the U.S. GDP is overstated and wrongly represented. If 1% owned 80% of everything and 99% shares the 20%balance. These 99% are very poor! Right? What is worst is that your dollar in the U.S. buys you only a third of the same dollar in China!
For me Average Chinese are just as well off as the yanks by 2020 with less liabilities and more asset by 2010. Today they certainly live better than your average Joe! With better cars, bigger homes, better cloths and eat better than your 99%. Hence there is zero homelessness versus 1 million tent living Americans!
To me Americans are intentionally fooled into thinking they are rich to prevent Americans from rebelling against the forever wars and the 75 years decline in real living standards!
Early in my career, I had a boss with an unbelievable temper. Anytime I did anything wrong or if I just did something in a different way than he would have, he went ballistic. I’ll call him Don since that was his real name. One day Don stopped by the job site I managed and found that I had let the roofers work on five houses out of the order they had been assigned.
I didn’t ask why. Had he asked He would have found that the building inspector had inadvertently skipped the framing inspection inspection on that one house. We were not allowed to roof a house before the framing had passed inspection or we would have to tear off the new roof (destroying the shingles) and risk a good relationship with the inspector, something you always wanted and needed.
What did Don do? He screamed at me until I put my palm about an inch from his nose and and yelled back, “Don, would you shut up for just one minute!”
His response, after the shock of having someone yell back was, “You are fired! Fired! Fired.”
I was fed up with his temper after putting up with it for a month or so and was more than happy to pack up and leave, Construction was booming in our county so I knew I could find another job with little or no problem.
To my surprise, Don called my house at seven that evening and asked, “Are you coming to work tomorrow?”
“Fired employees don’t come to work the next day because THEY’RE FIRED.” Okay I admit I might have added some less than polite exclamations.
“Oh come on, you know I didn’t mean it. What’s wrong? Do you need more money?” He actually sounded contrite but did not offer an apology.
I knew he didn’t have anyone to cover my job and I also knew he was an administrator, not a builder, so I told him, “I’ll come back for three weeks so you can find my replacement IF you pay me double and do not show up on the site until I’m gone.”
I knew it would cost the company more money than my double pay to fall behind on the completion of the project so I wasn’t surprised when he agreed. Don was true to his word and didn’t show his face on site but did call me twice. Both times, I hung up as soon as I found who was calling.
I went on to another job after the promised three weeks and never looked back. Sometimes you just have to stand up to a tyrant boss and let the chips fall where they may.
Harry Potter And The Hogwarts Rave
https://youtu.be/580fSMobtgg
What’s the worst thing that you did on a school computer?
It was actually in University, not the university I went to… a university… way back it was common for universities to simply have no security whatsoever in the UK.
Even in Hong Kong only PolyU and CUHK have barrier gates to the campus. This is unsurprising as they were the centre of the 2019 riots. You can go to many places on the HKU campus and Ling University campus I don’t know about HKUST without being challenged by security.
Anyway, it was at a university not going to say which one. It was one of my friends who was there and we used the university computer labs to play LAN games.
Anyway he was studying computer science. He’d done his coursework thing and found others had copied it. They’d copied it and claimed HE had copied them. He always documented his work though so was always cleared of plagiarism.
Anyway, he’d buy a load of cheap USB sticks and Floppy disks. He then wrote a program on it that looked like it was the coursework bit it linked to some program module or something… I don’t know how as I’m not very computer savvy.
This program went and searched for all the files on a persons computer and deleted them AND wrote over the HDD sector that it was stored on. It then displayed a message I hate you fucking cheating bastards it then wiped the USB stick and the floppy.
He then left it around various computer labs. We then went for a beer.
Catula
What made you lose interest in someone?
She got crazy and hung up on me mid-conversation.
When we’d been dating for less than a month.
She was angry I couldn’t do something on a Saturday with her friends. I was in grad school. And working full time.
It simply wasn’t an option. I had a group project we were doing.
More importantly though: I’m 31 years old. She’s 27. And she’s hanging up on me like a middle schooler.
I knew it then.
If she’s acting that crazy within a month. It would only get worse.
She texted me right after she hung up on me saying something to the effect of,
“I’m not going to include you in plans anymore. I’m making them without you.”
And I said, “Look – I’m a simple guy. I don’t know what is going on right now. But I can’t do all of this stuff. Make plans without me.”
And of course, she did a 180 and was apologizing via text and then sent me a video apologizing with her face all pressed up in the camera.
It was a strange scene. That Yo-Yo, up and down, drama stuff was already starting with her.
Against my better judgment, we hung out two more times. Which only further confirmed the crazy and my fading interest.
Younger people reading this: there’s a reason we write about red flags so much. Red flags are freaking real. They become your nightmare if you don’t see them.
Some videos are just unexplainable. Take a look at these
Today I have a real treat for you all. It is the movie “Fail Safe” which is a 1962 depiction of the build up to world war 3. And it stars Henry Fonda, so you know it’s a great movie.
Please take the time to watch it. It was 60 years ahead of its time.
Meanwhile, my post on Quora…
Why is the USA so eager for a war with China
Any one who wants war has a mental disorder.
Obviously they have never experienced war, and has no idea or concept of what it entails. Pain is real. The loss of everyone you ever knew is real. The lost of your money, your homes, your jobs, and your friends is real. The loss of your culture and your society is real.
The loss of your innocence is permanent.
…
So why do so many American “leaders” want to engage a war with China?
I’ll repeat myself.
Anyone who wants a war has a mental disorder. They are not right in the head. They need to be seen by a doctor and treated for this disorder. If need be, well then, locked in a padded room. But they should not be permitted anywhere near the levers of power.
…
Ah. It was deleted.
I guess that stating the obvious is against the “rules” in the United States.
a young boy, puts $100 in the bank every single day. One day the boss at the bank noticed and asked, hey buddy, why do you keep dropping $100 in here everyday? The kid says, Can we talk in your office? The boss says, yes, and they go to his office. Then the kids spills the beans. Well, I make a bet everyday with someone new that I can kiss my right eye. The boss laughs and says, no way you can do that. The kid smirks. Wanna bet? The manager agrees, and quick as a wink, the kid takes out his fake eye and kisses it. The boss feels kind of silly and gives him $100. But he wants it back. So The kid says, okay, but with a twist. I’m pretty sure that you are wearing red girly panties. If I’m wrong, I’ll give you back your $100 plus another 100. Thinking he’s too smart, the boss agrees. The kid adds, but before you drop your pants, we need 10 witnesses to make it official. The boss gathers his team and after taking his pants off, he feels very proud to have won $100. Then he notices the kid is all smiles about losing money. Confused, he asks, why are you happy about losing your cash? The kid grins. Well, I had a bet with your team about how fast I could get you to drop your pants.”
Braised Pork with Green Chile Sauce
Mild green chiles season this meaty pork stew. Serve it with rice or as a burrito filling. This can also be served with tamales. This chile verde is also good served with scrambled eggs.
chili
Ingredients
Pork
1 (3 pound) lean boneless pork butt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 large green bell peppers, seeded and chopped
1 (7 ounce) can diced green chiles
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
Garnish
Tomatoes, cut into wedges
Cooked rice
Sour cream
Lime, cut into wedges
Instructions
Trim and discard fat and cut pork into 1 inch cubes.
In a large frying pan, heat oil over medium-high heat; add meat a few cubes at a time and cook until very brown.
Push meat to side of pan and add onion, garlic and bell peppers; sauté until limp.
Stir in chiles, oregano, cumin, salt, cilantro, vinegar and water.
Cover and simmer until meat is fork tender (about 1 hour).
Skim off fat and discard.
Serve with rice or make burritos or serve in your favorite way.
For Burritos: spoon pork into warm, soft flour tortillas, add sour cream, tomato wedges, and a squeeze of lime juice and fold to enclose. Rice may also be enclosed with the filling in the burritos, if desired.
What can you do to upset your neighbors the most in a well-to-do neighborhood?
Set up a drug dealing operation.
Because I was raised poor, a lot of things DID NOT bother me once I moved into a nice neighborhood. Things that might drive other neighbors (who have always been wealthy) absolutely crazy wouldn’t faze me at all. Loud music? So what. Kids shooting off fireworks? Hey, it’s better than gunfire. Lawns that grew a little too tall? Big deal. But set up a crime syndicate in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the U.S., and you’re going to make some very influential people extremely irate!
I lived in poverty when I was younger. The shack we lived in measured 500 square feet. My bed was in the kitchen. Stabbings and shootings in the neighborhood were routine. Before I was born, my parents found a guy dead on the front porch. He had been stabbed overnight and I guess he stumbled toward the house for help, only to collapse there. Drug deals became common.
My father worked very hard to eventually escape poverty, and I applied the same work ethic to my life. I had no desire to remain in a neighborhood where I had to fear for my life every single day. Anyone who has lived in such a place can tell you that it’s a miserable way to live!
I became successful. I got married. My wife was also successful. It took me 42 years, but we finally bought one of the more modest homes in one of the wealthiest towns in America. Celebrities became my neighbors. I didn’t hear gunfire. There was no crime. Kids left their toys on the lawn overnight and nobody stole them. People left their car doors unlocked at night. This is why I had worked so hard, for this level of safety and peace of mind. I had finally arrived!
About a year after moving in, our very quiet neighbor (an older lady who lived alone) moved out. A lady who had just divorced her multimillionaire husband moved in. She had triplets who were 17 at the time, two boys and one girl. She apparently had no control over them. Among many infractions, the girl once drove through our lawn, tearing up the grass and the driveway. Who drives through your neighbor’s lawn? One of the sons was driving drunk when he plowed through a neighbor’s fancy brick driveway entrance. But worst of all was the other son, who apparently had a large drug dealing operation.
Sketchy-looking cars would pull up at all hours of the day. The kid would come out of his house, sit in the back seat, make some sort of exchange, and then go back inside. Cars and houses throughout the neighborhood began to be broken into, probably linked to the people showing up to buy drugs.
This is what I had escaped. When you’ve worked so hard to live in a place with no crime, and you’re suddenly faced with drug dealing, people breaking into cars and houses, vandalism, and all that stuff you escaped, you become pretty ticked off. We didn’t pay all this money for a house only to have flashbacks of where I grew up. Other neighbors who were unfamiliar with such behavior were even more furious!
One particular neighbor, who happened to be a big time television producer, finally made the call. Police swarmed the house, found A LOT of drugs, and the kid who had now turned 18 got a pretty hefty prison sentence. The family moved out a month later.
My dad bought himself a 1973 Mercury Montego two door. Every option you could imagine, back when you could actually order a car built for you.
image 230
Really sharp car, dark blue metallic with a blue vinyl top. Had a dark blue leather interior with front bucket seats. Was his pride and joy. Biggest motor available, 460 4bbl. That car was a real sleeper. Fast as hell. Got about 8–9mpg. Every time you went around a right turn there was a metallic thump from the back somewhere. Turn left, nothing. Dad was an OCD prick. Drove him nuts. Was to the dealership for service multiple times. They replaced all kinds of stuff, even the rear axle. Finally he had me lay in the back seat and listen as he drove around. I isolated the sound as coming from the area of the drivers side rear quarter panel. Dad and I took out the rear seat and removed the interior panel. We found heavy nut and bolt hanging from a string. Taped to the sheet metal was a note, “How long did it take you to find this?”
Coconut Corn Bread (Dominican Republic)
2024 02 18 10 12
Ingredients
1/2 cup diced mixed candied fruit
2 tablespoons dark rum
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup coconut cream
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup shredded fresh coconut
Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix candied fruit and rum in small bowl; reserve.
Beat sugar and butter in a large bowl; add eggs, one at a time, beating until well blended. Stir in remaining ingredients except candied fruit mixture and coconut; beat until smooth, about 30 strokes by hand. Fold in candied fruit mixture and coconut. Pour into greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
Bake until top is golden brown and wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.
Cool for 20 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely before slicing.
In the 17th century, a priest in Venezuela was particularly fond of meat. Yet during the Catholic holiday of Lent, eating meat is not permissible — only fish may be consumed. So he wrote a letter to the Vatican.
image 15
He had found an animal, he said, which “lived in the water, had webbed feet” and “it even kind of tastes like fish when you cook it”. Would it be allowed to consume this creature during Lent? The Vatican replied, also by letter — it was allowed to eat the creature, provided they classify it a fish. So they did. And Venezuelans have been eating this animal ever since.
What species do I speak of? The capybara. World’s largest rodent, a largely aquatic species that loves to dwell in water. A meatlover’s delight — from giant hamster, to conveniently reclassified “fish”. One hell of a good loophole, if you ask me.
I worked for a food establishment that keeps all of its food on a “line”. One day I was sicker than I’ve ever been and needed to call out. I figured this wouldn’t be a problem since I never called out, but I was wrong.
So they force me to come in under threat of termination.
So i come in. I’m making food on that line, and I have a very specific urge everyone knows well. But, oh my oh me! I can’t leave the line! I have a lot of food to make! So I threw up. On the food in the line.
The company had to close for a short time to have the line professionally cleaned and sanitized.
When they finally reopen, I get called into the office. They ask me what happened. I tell them quite plainly that I tried to call out sick and was forced to report to work. Their genius response was ”you were scheduled to work so you had to come in.“
So I simply asked them how much it had cost to have the line cleaned. They give me a rough figure. I tell them they forgot about the money they lost out on by being forced to be closed during that time. Lastly, I tell them, straight to their face, that if I call out, it’s for a reason. If they force me to come in while I’m sick and throwing up, I will purposely throw up on the line again and they can pay that price again. And if they try to saddle me with the bill of cleaning the line, reduce my hours, or fire me for any reason, I would be more than happy to report them to the number that’s literally above their head about us not being allowed to come in sick. The next week my hours were reduced. I pulled out my phone, looked at the sign I referenced the week prior, and started typing in numbers in front of the manager. My hours were immediately reinstated.
After that, anytime I called out sick, I was told to feel better and call when I wasn’t sick anymore.
I feel like I’m a good fit to answer this question because I used to own a Chevy Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV). In the summer, the Volt would drive 50–60 miles using only the battery, before switching to the 4-cylinder engine and acting like a normal hybrid, alternating between gas and battery.
Most days I did not drive anywhere near 50 miles. So I would come home, plug in to 120V, and the car was fully charged in the morning.
Why not a PHEV, then?
Well, it’s got an engine I rarely used, and some complicated electronics and wizardry to switch back and forth between the battery and the engine. It was something else that could go wrong on top of a straight EV propulsion system.
Some people like PHEVs because once they exceed range of the small battery pack, the car switches to gas and then you can just drive it like a gas car. Fillups are quick, and you’re back on the road. When you get to your destination, you can charge if you like, and your next 50 or so miles are all electric.
I loved the Volt. But I always felt it would grow up to be a Tesla, and last year, it did.
I much prefer having an EV. It’ll handle that 50–60 miles of daily driving you ask about with aplomb. Since the range of my EV is 318 miles, I could do that much driving for 4 days easily, without recharging if I didn’t want to.
Or I could charge at 120V/15A, as I typically do, and in the 12 hours or so that I’m sleeping and doing other things at home, I can add 36 or miles of range. Yes, eventually I’ll have a deficit, if I really do drive 50–60 miles per day, but I don’t. And for those that do, you can easily install a 240V outlet and charge quicker if you need it. So it’s a non-issue.
My in-laws are Chinese. I am a white American with mixed West-European ancestry. When I sit down to a meal with them, I have learned to practice strategic food placement on my plate so that it is never actually empty.
In the US, we have drummed into our heads as small children that it is incredibly rude to leave uneaten food on your plate, especially if you are a guest at someone else’s table. It is an insult to the chef. “There are starving children in Africa!” was the exhortation when I was a child. “Eat your vegetables and be grateful you have them!”
In Chinese culture, it is the obligation of the elder generation to make sure that the younger generation(s) are fed. If your plate is clean, that means you must still be hungry, but are too polite to ask for more. So they give you more, whether or not you actually have the capacity to eat it, whenever they observe sufficient empty space on your plate. Furthermore, it is extremely impolite to refuse to eat food given to you by a parent, auntie/uncle, or grandparent.
Therefore, I have learned to eat an amount sufficient for myself at meals while leaving enough on my plate to spread out and take up all of the large bits of contiguous space that might accommodate an additional serving.
I still feel guilty about the starving children who might like to have my leftovers, though.
My first boss told me that when she realized that several of us-all teenagers-were trying to coordinate our schedules so we all got off on the same day, so we could hang out outside of work. I didn’t understand it then. I thought she was just being a bitch.
But, ten years later, when I was in management, it made more sense. Coworkers are one group. Friends are another. Mixing those groups can cause problems, especially when one friend is put in charge of another.
It’s fine to be friendly with your coworkers. You should be friendly with them. But being friendly, and being their friend, are two different things.
I’m anti-social anyway, so it was easy for me to avoid making friends with the people I’ve worked with over the years. I’ll chat with them at work. I’ll ask them about their families, and they’ll do the same for me. But when work is over, I don’t hang out with them.
I suppose a lot depends on the type of job, though. Not every job is about making money. What I do now, for example: teaching. It’s not-for-profit. But I also don’t see my coworkers very often. Just in the halls during passing periods and during our weekly staff meeting. Other than that, I’m usually the only adult in the room. If adult interaction is your thing, teaching probably isn’t the best career choice.
This image was uploaded on an Internet forum with the caption:
“This is the lettuce you eat in your burger when you go to Burger King, enjoy it“
image 233
The netizens were shocked and horrified. They were angry to learn someone working in the kitchen has been messing up with their food.
Soon people got down to tracking the person; ‘where done and who doing this’! The image was posted anonymously, on the 4Chan forum. 4Chan users got down to work to discover the person behind it.
In the picture you can only see the shoes and pants of the uniform of the hamburger chain and that does not reveal anything since they are all dressed the same.
The image was tracked to its location. They found out where came from.
image 231
It came from an area where there was only one Burger King for many miles around.
image 232
Thereafter the netizens wrote and posted many mails to the Chain manager of Burger King, Mayfield Rd.
Then the Manager got into action and in a short time, the manager was able to find who had done it Two people who were on that shift were fired on the spot, they lost their jobs, and faced a fine of thousands of dollars.
So now you know, never make people angry on the internet, you could end up paying dearly.
I remember a guy who worked at a company with me. He was a professional who loved his job. He was 83, when the company forcibly retired him.
He made good money, and took fabulous vacations, had his house paid off 30 years before. He died 3 weeks after they forced him out. He lost the will to live, when he stopped doing what he loved.
I knew this lady that I worked with, who hated her job, she was depressed about having to go into work every morning. The happiest day of her life was when she retired early, with an early retirement package.
I think the benefits of working longer or retiring early very much depend on how you feel about your job.
It also depends on your health. If you think you will die early, then there is really not much point in working late. Unless you really love your job.
If you think you will die late, then working later, getting a bigger pension, and more savings, and using your wages for vacations and toys, now that your house is paid for, is the way to go.
I think it also depends on the country you live in. I live in Canada, I loved my job, I got 30 vacation days, 12 flex days, plus 3 golf days a year. I don’t know how many sick days and compassionate leave days I was entitled to because I never used them all up. So I got the equivalent of 9 weeks vacation. With weekends and statutory holidays I got 162 days off a year. Which is almost exactly half a year, so work wasn’t the same to me as an American who worked weekends, and only got 2 weeks vacation.
I could take fabulous exotic vacations, or just relax at the cabin while working.
Jamaican Rum Punch
2024 02 18 21 33
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
4 cups water
1 cup lime or lemon juice
6 cloves or allspice berries
3 cups strawberry-flavored syrup
2 cups Jamaican white rum
Instructions
Mix all ingredients together in a punch bowl, and let the mixture settle for 1 hour before removing the cloves or allspice.
Stir and serve over ice cubes in old fashioned glasses.
Water and rum may be added to weaken or strengthen as needed.
One reason I wanted to shake hands with Oskar Groening is because our first meeting did not go so well. On the first day of the trial, I introduced myself and reached out to shake his hand. The strangest thing happened. He was trying to say something as he was sitting sideways in his chair. He turned white and fell backwards, not saying a word. He was holding onto my arm so he did not hit the floor. At that moment he was not a Nazi but an old man who fainted and I was trying to save him from falling. I screamed, “He is falling and I can’t hold onto him – he is a big old guy!” This was not the interaction I was hoping for. I knocked out an old Nazi.
The second reason is because I am interested in what will happen when someone from the victims’ side meets with someone from the perpetrators’ side. You cannot predict it. So today after the trial session concluded, I went up to Oskar Groening. He wanted to stand up but I said, “Please don’t, we do not want a repetition of last time.” I just shook his hand and said, “I appreciate the fact that you are willing to come here and face us. But I would like you to appeal to the old Nazis who are still alive to come forward and address the problem of neo-Nazis in Germany today. Because these young misguided Germans who want Hitler and fascism to come back — they will not listen to Eva Kor or any other survivor. You can tell them you were in Auschwitz, you were involved with the Nazi party, and it was a terrible thing.”
As I was talking to him, he grabbed me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Well I probably wouldn’t have gone that far, but I guess it is better than what he would have done to me 70 years ago.
Everything he is accused of — I am saying he did all that. I have forgiven the Nazis and everyone who has hurt me, but I told him that my forgiveness did not prevent me from accusing him nor from him taking responsibility for his actions. And I told the media that he was a small screw in a big killing machine, and the machine cannot function without the small screws. But obviously he is a human being. His response to me is exactly what I was talking about when I said you cannot predict what will happen when someone from the victims’ side and someone from the perpetrators’ side meet in a spirit of humanity.
image 236
I know many people will criticize me for this photo, but so be it. It was two human beings seventy years after it happened. For the life of me I will never understand why anger is preferable to a goodwill gesture. Nothing good ever comes from anger. Any goodwill gesture in my book will win over anger any time. The energy that anger creates is a violent energy.
I am asking a question: What do we want in the future? Do we want to keep pointing fingers and the accused stay in one corner and the accuser stay in the other corner and they never connect? How will that work out? Look at the world – it doesn’t work out. All we have is people who are feeling angry, people who are running around doing crazy things.
When tragic things happen, we have to sit down and discuss, what are the options for the victims and for the perpetrators? Most people are only here in court to accuse him of things he has already admitted. So now what? I don’t think we should raise a statue in his honor, but he can serve as a good example to young people that what he participated in was terrible, that it was wrong, and that he is sorry that he was part of it. Now there is a message that has some usefulness for society.
If I had it my way, the dialogue between the survivors and perpetrators would have started a long time ago. And it would have helped the survivors cope and maybe heal themselves, but even more so not to pass the pain on to their children.
My ideas in life are very different, I know. I am in the minority — maybe a minority of one. I know how society looks at it, but as I look at society, I do not think it is working very well. So what I am saying is, maybe we ought to try something else. And my idea is for people from the victims’ side and people from the perpetrators’ side to come together, face the truth, try to heal, and work together to prevent it from ever happening again.
Back some 30 years ago, fresh out of college, I worked at a real estate company owned by a Greek immigrant.
The company did everything involving real estate, loans, brokerage, management, home flipping…. It was a good place to get all around experience.
About 3 months into the job, the owner approached me and asked if I was ready to purchase my first house. Told him I was not ready, I was living with my parents and saving money. Then he told me a real gem.
He said to not purchase a condo or house for my first home. Huh? I said. He told me to purchase a four unit apartment. I told him I did not have that kind of money. Then he gave me the whole spill.
A single family home cost $150,000 and I would need $10,000 deposit plus pay $1000 per month for loan payment plus upkeep.
A four unit apartment cost $250,000 and I would need $15,000 deposit plus pay $2,000 per month for loan payment plus upkeep.
Here is the real kicker. If I bought the house, I would not have anything left over after I paid for all my expense.
If I bought the apartment, I can rent 3 other units at $700 each and the rents will actually pay all my cost.
WOW!
Here is the second kicker!
He said I can save that $1,000 a month and after two years, purchase another 4 unit apartment. Then I can move to my second apartment and rent the original place for extra $700. Now I will be saving $1,700 per month! My head was spinning. I realized how he made his fortune. He had multiple apartments collecting rents.
I went home and told my parents about what the owner told me. My Dad was bit skeptical but said he will help me to get the loan if needed.
Fast forward 30 years…my wife and I are making retirement plans. Thanks to the advise from my boss early in my career, things look good.
Back when homeless people were Hobos, Drunks were Winos, and “substance abusers” were Hypes, I pounded a classic foot patrol beat on San Francisco’s Mission Street. After 3 or four years, I literally knew everyone on my beat, bad, good, or wack-a-doo.
We’d periodically get some merchants complaining about this or that, so the Captain would tell the Lieutenant, and he would lean on the street Sergeant, who in turn would tell us: “ Its the weekly sweep time boys”.
Mitch would grab the BIG paddy wagon, and the six beat cops would ride its rear bumper while picking up the usual miscreants more or less at random.
We’d do a decent job of disarming them before tossing them in the wagon, and in that the prisoners and the cops knew how to play the game, we didn’t get any big surprises.
Untill:
I forget his real name, but if I called him “stinky” , and mentioned that he NEVER took off any of the 3 pairs of pants, or five overcoats he wore, everyone knew who he was.
Stinky was face down on the pavement across the street from the food market at 22nd when we grabbed him. Mitch did a cursory high risk pat search for weapons, or bottles of cheap wine, and finding none, cuffed him up and put him in with the other 15 bums in the back of the wagon.
At the Station, we had a regular assembly line thing going where the arrestees would line up, get a photo taken, have their meager belongings tossed into a brown grocery bag, and then shamble into the drunk tank.
Stinky shuffles up, and is so out of it, he can’t empty any of his 11 coat pockets. Mitch leans him against the booking counter, and begins taking handfuls of God know what out of the pockets.
Suddenly Mitch jumps in the air, yelling all sorts of Germanic based profanity, and is yelling “ Something bit me..something M….F….g BIT ME !!!”
Stinky has a semi-blank look on his face, but says; “ Oh, that’s just my lunch”
I grabbed the offending coat, ( while wearing gloves!) , turned it up-side down, and shook it.
About 7 or 10 half-dollar sized LIVE soft shell crabs fell out, and began scuttling around the booking room.
Stinky had apparently stolen them out of the fresh sea-food bin at the fish market up the street before we nabbed him.
To say that hilarity ensued would be vastly understating the commotion that followed, but suffice to say Stinky didn’t get his lunch, and Mitch never lived it down.
The Lieutenant had Mitch prepare a Line Up Briefing presentation on the “importance of proper searches during custody” later that week. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he finished
Avdiivka, Ukraine FALLS to Russian Army – “Complete Rout”
Once considered impregnable, the KEY city for Ukraine defense, Avdiivka, the most heavily fortified city on the entire planet, has fallen to the Russian Army.
Within hours, the bloodiest battle of the 21st century (so far) will be over.
For those who have not kept up on developments in the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO), Avdiivka is the place from which the Ukrainian Army has shelled the civilians of Donetsk City for TEN YEARS!
There are going to be lots of tactical, strategic, and political implications from this that we will see over the next days and weeks.
There are reportedly very FEW Ukrainian defenses behind Avdiivka; the Ukrainians put all their eggs into one basket, counting on the deep Soviet-era nuclear bunker system, and defenses built since the end of the civil war to make it “impregnable.”
ALL of those defenses have failed and the Russian Army now controls the city.
(HT Remark:Remember how CNN and Bloomberg crowed endlessly that cutting Russia off from SWIFT was like using a Nuclear Weapon, and that there was no way Russia could survive that? Here we are, two years later, and now, there is no way for UKRAINE to survive!)
This is a developing story . . . check back for updates.
2023.02.22 China Declares War On The United States
Gonzalo was correct.
https://youtu.be/mj7mauNj8DY
Be the Rufus
image 234
“Today I went to Dunkin and saw a clearly homeless guy singing on the side of the road and picking up change. Eventually I saw him stroll into Dunkin, as he was counting his change to buy something I began to get super annoying and talk to him over and over again even when he didn’t really want to talk. Since he had maybe $1 in change I bought him a coffee and bagel and asked him to sit down with me. He told me a lot about how people are usually very mean to him because he’s homeless, how drugs turned him into the person he hated, he lost his mom to cancer, he never knew his dad and he just wants to be someone his mom would be proud of (along with another hours worth of conversation.) this lovely mans name was Chris and Chris was one of the most honest & sincere people I’ve ever met. After realizing I really need to get back to class Chris asked me to wait so he can write something down for me. Handing me a crumpled up receipt he apologizes for having shaky hand writing, smiled, and left. I opened his note and this was it. “I wanted to kill myself today because of u I now do not. Thank u, beautiful person.”
The most important thing that drug rehabs understand that soon to be patients don’t, or can’t, or have forgotten, is that your being there is a matter of life or death. Plain and simple — you will die or you will get clean — that’s it.
Preparation for rehab goes like this.
You make the call to rehab and tell them you need help. Their phone intake staff will ask you a handful of questions like:
What is your drug of choice?
How long have you been using?
Are you safe?
Have you ever been to rehab?
Do you have a phone number that we can call you back if we get disconnected?
Are you on probation or parole?
Do you have an address where we can pick you up?
Those are a few of the questions the rehabs I’ve been to have asked me during the phone intake interview.
If you noticed, there is a seemingly important question that isn’t asked (or wasn’t asked of me).
That is: “Do you have insurance?”
Every rehab that I’ve been to didn’t require insurance. Once I got into rehab they helped me find funding.
Once you make the call asking for help, rehab is usually less than twenty-four hours away.
Here is a list of things that are great to have, but without resources not all of them are possible.
Your shoes and clothing.
Toothpaste, toothbrush, body wash, stick deodorant, razors. Don’t bother bringing any aerosol deodorant, mouthwash or cologne. If it has alcohol and has an outside chance it can be abused, it is contraband.
Cigarettes.
Money.
Hard candy in an unopened brand new package.
Don’t bring drugs, alcohol or weapons. That’s a crime in and out of rehab. They will call the cops. You will pay dearly.
Now you’re packed up and ready to go.
Usually, within twenty-four hours they send a van to pick you up at your doorstep. Again, it’s life or death so time is ticking and rehabs understand that.
The van is probably going to have four or five other people heading to rehab also. They’re in the same boat as you.
Once you get to rehab, you’re gonna get naked and searched. So, let’s back up. Before you get picked up, get a shower and shave. Somebody is going to be looking at your body without your clothes on.
Once you’re searched and all your belongings are searched, you’ll be assigned a bed.
You’re going to have 1–5 roommates.
You’ll go through 1–7 days of detox. This will seem difficult. You’ll be on medication. It’s gonna hurt, but it gets better.
After detox, you’ll be moved to rehab.
Now it’s official.
There are lots of people with lots of problems in rehabs.
Focus on yourself — they are not your friends. Don’t trust them, don’t believe them and don’t leave with them.
Listen to your counselor.
Pay attention.
If you have the opportunity to get into a halfway house after rehab, take it.
It’s awesome. You get to work, save money and start your life over.
In WWII, Nazi Germany was concentrating their man power toward the Eastern Front.
An ENTIRE Wehrmacht Division which consisted of 2 brigades of about 12,000 soldiers was up against a single Soviet KV Heavy tank.
The crew of the tank (5 personnel) held off the German advance for hours. The Germans simply couldn’t disable the beast. Eventually, the crew of the tank ran out of ammo and was killed by the Germans.
The Germans took the bodies of the Soviet soldiers and buried them with full military honors.
They swept through the KV and grabbed a flag of the Soviet Union. The bodies were buried with the flag, saluted, and 21 rounds were fired in their honor.
Everyone is aware of the infamous Christmas Truce of 1914 during WWI. Similar things about during WWII. Please remember that during WWII, Germany was signed under the Geneva Conventions. The SS didn’t really care for this. But the Wehrmacht did and had to abide by it.
During national holidays like Christmas, the Germans and British once again ceased fire. They all agreed to stop shooting to give themselves time to bury their fallen soldiers. This happened on multiple occasions but was looked down upon, especially by Adolf Hitler.
During Operation Barbarossa (Invasion of the USSR), German was winning in the beginning. They were sweeping through the Soviet Union fast and capturing millions of Soviets. With the unforgivable Einsatzgruppen killing off Soviet Jews in the rear.
There are many pictures out there of Wehrmacht and even SS soldiers helping their enemies (Soviets). With the increasing victories of the Germans, thousands of Soviets were being injured. There are pictures and stories out there of SS soldiers caring for those victims. I know, it’s really hard to believe. (I’ll add the pictures in once I find them).
The Geneva Conventions state that once the enemy is disarmed, they’re no longer an enemy but a POW. And POWs must be treated humanely and taken care of.
During WWII, the Wehrmacht captured American POWs. They were separated (officers from enlisted). They were given jobs (mostly for junior ranks). They were given 2 full meals a day, and were able to receive care packages from the Americans Red Cross.
This was different with the SS most of the time.
Americans were captured by the 1st SS Panzer Division (Hitler’s Honor/Body Guard Division, Leibstandarte SS) after the Battle of the Bulge.
This image completely breaks my heart, as I’m an American soldier and have massive respect to my veterans, especially WWII veterans.
Instead of taking prisoners, the SS decided to shoot them dead and leave them in the snow. An MG-42 opened fire at them, killing 84. A few survived and managed to reach another American Division. After that, most divisions gave the order to kill all SS personnel on sight. In 1944, the commander of the SS Division (Joachim Peiper) was caught along with his men. They all stood trial for killing POWs. Peiper unfortunately got away with his crime. He was later killed by Nazi Hunters long after the war.
Jamaican Banana Bread
2024 02 18 10 14
Ingredients
Bread
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons light cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons dark rum or 1/4 teaspoon rum extract
1/2 teaspoon grated lime rind
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1/4 cup flaked, sweetened coconut
Topping
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 teaspoons dark rum or 1/8 teaspoon rum extract
2 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted
2 tablespoons flaked, sweetened coconut
Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Coat an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
Bread
Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with electric mixer; add sugar, beating well. Add egg; beat well.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir well. Combine banana, milk, rum, line rind, lime juice and vanilla extract; stir well. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with banana mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix after each addition. Stir in pecans and coconut.
Pour batter into prepared pan; bake for 60 minutes.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove from pan. Let cool slightly on wire rack.
Topping
Combine brown sugar, margarine, lime juice and rum in saucepan; bring to a simmer. Cook 1 minute; stir constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in pecans and coconut; spoon over loaf.
I pulled an idiot move and had the other driver follow me. New town, didn’t know my way around very well but knew I was being followed. Drove past my apartment complex and into a neighborhood, make a u-turn back out to make sure I am being tailed and yep, I am. Ended up driving to a convenience store and parking up front. See the other guy park as well, then as soon as he gets out I back up and leave. Do a few more twists and turns and catch a red light or two, make sure I lost them, then go to my apartment. Lucky for me they didn’t know which drive I was going to or even where I was going. And I left about an hour later for the airport and was gone a week plus. Thankfully they never saw me again, out of state plates would’ve been a give away for me.
– Kursk 2.0? – Moon of Alabama, Jun 09 2023 – Collapse of Operation Citadel 2.0 – TASS, Feb 24 2024 by Konstantin Sivkov – Vice President of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences for Information Policy
> Sir Tim Clark told the Financial Times he had seen a “progressive decline” in Boeing’s standards, which he put down to long-running management and governance mis-steps, including prioritising financial performance over engineering excellence. <
Use as open (not Ukraine or Palestine related) thread …
Posted by b on February 25, 2024 at 13:03 UTC | Permalink
Cheese Tortellini Crock Pot Dinner
A creamy, cheesy crock pot dinner recipe featuring cream cheese, cheese tortellini and spinach.
cheese tortellini crockpot dinner
Ingredients
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 large bag cheese tortellini
1 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 bunch fresh spinach, stems removed, or 1 bag frozen spinach
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 container vegetable or chicken broth
4 ounces grated mozzarella cheese
Instructions
Place block of cream cheese in the slow cooker.
Pour the bag of tortellini over the cream cheese.
Pour the can of diced tomatoes over all.
Add the spinach to the top.
Sprinkle garlic powder, onion powder, pepper and Italian seasoning over the top.
Pour the chicken broth into the slow cooker.
Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the top.
Cover the slow cooker, and cook on HIGH for about 2 1/2 hours.
Stir well and serve.
Fail Safe (1964) | Full Movie ft. Henry Fonda | Voyage
A U.S. plane loaded with hydrogen bombs is flying towards Moscow and because of technical difficulties, is impossible to recall. Starring Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau. Directed by Sidney Lumet.
“Dr. Strangelove” and “Fail Safe” were released the same year, 1964, and deal with the same subject. Dr. Strangelove got more attention due to its satirical, comedic approach to the subject of nuclear destruction, but Fail Safe brings home the point in a far clearer, more compelling manner. It’s just as chilling today as it was 60 years ago.
When I worked in Mebine, North Carolina (during our “van days”, “out in the wilderness”) I witnessed, first hand, all sorts of corruption that a powerful factory, and rich boss can get away with.
This was a factory that made “granola bars”. I worked in maintenance, and then as a line machine operator.
Using company funds he bought a “company car”. You know, to go on business trips. Except that it was an expensive custom Corvette sports car. LOL.
There was a 22 year old girl who was on the payroll as his open sex partner. She was one of those girls… you know the kind… attractive, blonde, voluptuous… attracted boys at 14 and was addicted to sex. She befriended me, and openly talked about her escapades with “the boss”. She would come in for a few hours each day to “help him in the office” and then leave.
They factory was running out of money and started to have financial problems. So we were ordered to take the huge (four story tall) storage tank and weld a fake partition at top. Then we gathered some of the molasses that it stored. We then burnt the molasses intentionally. Put it up at the top. The Boss then called the supplier and complained. They vendor came. Took a sample from the top, determined that it was burnt… and refunded the cost of the truck load to our boss.
The factory workers took up a collection to help us (me and the wife). The money was given to a girl to buy food for us, and we really appreciated the two bags of groceries… until we saw that all the items had “buy one get two free” stickers on everything. But the bags only contained one item. Someone clearly took one half of the food for themselves.
The factory made granola bars, with was nothing more than mixing peanut butter, nuts, honey, raisins, etc in a huge vat, forming them into ribbons, cutting the ribbons into pieces, and then wrapping them in foil. The thing was that almost all the ingredients were FREE from the United States government. Somehow the factory boss cut a deal where he got free “government food” that was intended for the poor, and made granola bars at a profit.
That being said, our “Christmas bonus” consisted of a USDA block of cheese. Promptly labeled “not for resale”.
As I get older, I see how everything in the United States was twisted, reformed, readjusted, and made so that only certain groups prospered, while others got poorer and poorer. How long can this continue?
It seems to me that the ONLY thing keeping Americans “on the plantation” are loads of drugs, social media pacification, and ignorance of the rest of the world.
The mother of an 11-year-old decided her daughter needed a whipping (She did). This is what happened that did NOT constitute a “whipping”.
Mom started out with an electrical cord pulled off a lamp. After numerous strikes, the cord got lost in the struggle. While holding the girl, mom punched her with her fists several times. Mom grabbed a wire coat hanger, straightened it and started whipping again. The end of the wire was wrapping around the girl’s body, puncturing her arms, legs, hips, sides. Then the coat hanger got pulled away in the struggle.
Mom grabbed a woman’s belt, about 1/4 inch wide and started in with it, cutting into the girl’s skin. After numerous strikes, that also got lost. The beating had moved through four rooms, into the baby’s room. Mom snatched a side slat out of the baby bed (about 1″ by 1″ by about three feet, and started using it. Somehow, the girl escaped the house, ran down the street, and was taken into a house by a neighbor who called the police. She was admitted to the hospital with cuts and bruises from her ankles to her head. She had a hematoma about the size of a baseball on her forehead that swelled her eye closed. She looked like she had gone 9 rounds with Mike Tyson.
Mom was convicted on Felony Child Abuse and served 5 years.
My professor, put the answer this way, the Romans ran out of people to rob. This was Rome at its maximum extent:
image 239
This takes a massive army to maintain and that requires money. I will say something unpopular, after conquest, a standing army is a financial drain. Soldiers produced nothing but cost you a great deal and you must feed them locally.
Thus the conquests must:
Be worth the value in permanent productivity and taxation
Better hope you have a weak neighbor with low organization and social cohesion. Otherwise, you will have a lengthy oozing wound that exhausts your army and financially wrecks you with continuous war
So, to the South, Romans would be expanding into the Sahara; what was the point of that?
Expand into Northern Britain was done several times; those were financially unsustainable. North of the wall, population density was too low to sustain legions.
Along the Rhine, the Romans had expanded into Germany, on many occasions. It was a place of forests and swamps and small villages. Along the coast was one giant coastal wetland. No profit in that place, the Romans tried for years but it was just not profitable. This permanent fort was found in Thuringia, Eastern Germany:
image 238
Why was it abandoned? Finances.
Further along, was the Danube frontier. After Dacia’s gold was exhausted, it was not worth keeping it. Indeed, that frontier was open to the horse people and Germans. There was nothing to gain there. So, the Romans retreated to the Danube and stayed there.
To the east, was Persia or Parthia or whatever you want to call them. Those boys were as civilized, organized and militaristic as the Romans. From Crassus onwards, there was war, back and forth, back and forth, expansions, contractions, expansions, contractions…that war continued into the Byzantine era. Some claim, it NEVER ended.
So, where am I going with this? At some point, empires are about money and profit. If a place is not making money, it does not make sense to keep it. The game has not changed. Look at it from the perspective of Tony Soprano:
I want to know why there’s zero growth in this family’s receipts. Where’s the money?! You’re supposed to be earners. That’s why you’ve got the top-tiered positions. So I want each one of you to go out to your people on the street, crack some heads, making some earnings.
Conquest for conquest sake was not the point. Making profit was the point. Rome had run out of profitable places to conquer in their vicinity.
One day, a year or so after my teenage daughter “broke up” with a boy whom we had gotten to know, (his mom had been diagnosed with cancer months before) I had a very strong feeling to contact him on Facebook and just ask how he had been doing.
He answered me immediately and said, my mom is dying. I told him that I knew she was sick, and that’s why I was checking on him. He said no… right now he is in the hospice room with her and her breathing has changed and he thought she was gone.
I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he didn’t want to leave her. I told him it would be OK if he sat with her as long as he wanted, and when he was done he should go get the hospice staff and they would take care of her from there .
This was being done via Facebook messenger, and we sat quietly for about 5 to 10 minutes, when he said her hand was cold and he was ready to go. I told him let me know if there was anything I could do for him, and the next time I heard from him it was regarding the funeral.
On the day of the funeral my daughter and I were preparing to go and I stopped on the way to look for a card or something I could write on to share our condolences.
While standing in the card section I became frustrated I didn’t like anything that I saw, I decided a card didn’t feel right and I just wouldn’t do it… but on the way out I passed the candy section and felt a strong sense that I should buy some Skittles.
When arriving at the funeral and passing through the line with this young man and his brothers I gave him the skittles and said, “dude I brought you a rainbow”
The funeral service was lovely, his mother knew she was dying and planned most of it herself right down to the music. As the services ended they asked us all to enjoy her favorite song as we proceed out of the church.
My heart and my spirits were lifted immediately when the song started, it was “somewhere over the rainbow”
As I pass the boys again on the way out we all hugged and I made sure they knew that that message was from their mother, I didn’t even know her, but that message was from her!
At her exact moment of passing she somehow got into my psyche so I contacted her boy and virtually held his hand as she left. Then she made sure I brought him a message of hope, directly from her.
Except for the corrupt Bongbong Marcos government, no other country in Southeast Asia wants to be an enemy of China.
Except for the Philippines, no country in Southeast Asia is willing to become “Asian version Ukraine” used as cannon fodder by the United States.
In Russo-Ukrainian war the Americans politicians give ammunition, the rich ukrainian give the food and the poor ukrainian give their children… When the war is over the Americans politicians get back the leftover ammunition, the rich ukrainian grow more food and the poor ukrainian search for the graves of their children.
Using the lives of their own citizens as expendable goods to satisfy the ambition of American politicians to weaken China? — Southeast Asian people are not that stupid.
image 247
Even the Filipino people themselves are opposed to Bongbong Marcos colluding with the United States to provoke China on the South China Sea issue.
Do you really think they don’t know the Yanks’ sinister intentions of sowing discord and inciting discord?
Recently, there was even news that the former president of the Philippines protested against Bongbong Marcos for provoking China and promoting the independence of Philippine Mindanao.
image 248
Quora has netizens from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Brunei and other countries along the South China Sea. You could do a broad social survey of them and quickly come to the same conclusion I did.
When my grandson Henry was about four we were very close, and he loved to hear me singing and playing guitar so when he was staying with us he’d ask me to sing for him. We’d sit in the lounge or conservatory and he’d be so silent and focussed – the best audience anyone could wish for!
One time I sang him the David Olney song “Women “Cross the River”
The last verse is :
The women ‘cross the river, they’re as gentle as the dew upon the ground
I love to hear them laughing when it rains and makes that perfect sound
Now a soldier with a gun, and a battle to be won
He might shoot you with a bullet – you’d never even know the reason why
But the women ‘cross the river, they could kill you with their eyes.
I finished with a graceful, slow arpeggio key chord, and he was staring at me, totally “in the song”.
Then, Henry sighed and said “what IS a perfect sound?” Four years old ! I was speechless.
One summer my kids and I were leaving the library and getting into our vehicle when a man got out of his truck that was parked beside us and asked if the kids would like a train set. I figured he had some little under the xmas tree set or something but he lifted a tarp in the back of his truck and showed us one one those huge sets!
He explained that he was on his way to leave it at a thrift shop but saw us and wondered if we would like it. It would save him the trip he said.
We said yes and he put it into the back of our truck.
It must have been worth a lot. I am sure he could have sold it to a collector instead. It took up most of the basement floor when we set it up. It was remote controlled and had little buildings and trees too. Lots of different sounds as well. It was older but in perfect condition.
We could never have afforded to buy anything like it.
I thanked him over and over and asked if there was anything we could do in return and he assured me no there wasn’t. Just knowing the kids would be enjoying it was enough. His kids loved it but his grandchildren were not interested in it.
My kids played with it for years. So did my husband and I.
We ended up donating it to a youth center a few years ago.
We normally did not drive a truck but that day due to temporarily being without a vehicle we had borrowed our in-laws truck otherwise we would have had no way to get it home.
Stay away from people who do back-bitching. If they can bad mouth someone in front of you, then how can you be sure they won’t do the same to you?
Never speak your heart out at work. Learn how to be diplomatic. That’s what everyone else is doing around you.
Office politics is for skill less people at work. Never involve yourself in it.
Never bargain your salary by showing other job offer letters to your current employer. Even if they increase your salary, you’ll be on their radar forever.
Efficiency is not equivalent to time. Stop staying late at work to prove yourself better.
No matter how close you are with your colleagues, never discuss personal matters at work.
You shouldn’t ask anyone’s salary, increment or anything personal.
Office romance is out of equation. It will make you miserable at work. Keep a thick line between work and personal life.
Work equally hard on your soft skills as they matter more than you think.
Czech Goulash
2024 02 21 06 25
Ingredients
1/4 cup shortening
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds pork or beef, cubed
1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups water
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Instructions
In a cast iron Dutch oven, sauté onion in shortening. Add garlic; sauté until translucent.
Add meat, onion, paprika, caraway seeds, salt and pepper. Brown well.
Add 1/2 cup of the water; simmer, covered, until meat is tender, about 1 hour.
Sprinkle flour over drippings in the pan; stir until brown.
My girlfriend and I went to the movies and she drove me home in her car. The route we took was very poorly lit and the lights on her dash were very dim, so it was very dark inside the car.
Along the way, I took out a packet of Dentyne gum (you know the kind whose pieces came in little blocks each with a small paper wrapping?)
I asked her if she’d like a piece and she said yes, so I tore the side of the package wrapping so she could grasp a piece without my having touched it. Then I got myself a piece and put the package back in my handbag.
About six days later, she picked me up to go for our weekend walk on the beach and as I got into the car she pointed down to the passenger floor and said huffily:
Before we leave, I’d appreciate it if you’d pick up the litter you left behind in my car last time and remember in future that my car is not your trashcan!
I looked down and saw that a piece of the paper gum wrapper on the floor. Apparently, in the dark, I’d thought I was putting the wrapper in my handbag along with the package, but the wrapper had landed on the floor instead.
I bent over and picked it up and said “I’m sorry. It was dark and I didn’t see that I’d dropped it on the floor.”
I should think so! she said in a repressive tone.
I got out of the car and went back into my apartment building and we never spoke again. I was angry and kind of disgusted that she let the offending piece of paper sit on the floor for six days just so she could scold me about it. I figured if it was so awful having this nasty piece of ‘trash’ in her car, why did she endure this horror for six whole days?
On Christmas Eve, somewhere in the mid-’80s, my mom dropped us off at her sister’s house. When my brother and I woke up on Christmas Day, we couldn’t believe our eyes.
Santa Claus had delivered the most epically packaged gifts I had ever gazed upon.
There were twirling ribbons and fluffy bows and shiny paper. It was just so beautiful. I was jealous and envious of my cousins.
They were always on the nice list.
Thirty years later, on December 26th of last year, I went to Kmart and Walmart. I went with fifty dollars and a plan.
image 243
I bought all the wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons that I could afford. I got 90–95 percent off of all that stuff.
image 242
I saved it for a whole year.
I’ve done this now every year for three years.
For Christmas, we can’t afford to buy the kids all new things. We buy a lot of second-hand clothing and school supplies for them.
But when it’s time to wrap those gifts, I spend night after night tirelessly tying ribbons and making bows.
image 241
I am in charge of ALL the wrapping. My girlfriend hates doing it, but I love it. It’s important to me and I do it for really inexpensive.
image 240
The kids have so much fun tearing all this stuff to pieces on Christmas morning and Jess and I have so much fun watching them do it.
This kind of stuff wouldn’t be important to me today if I didn’t look back.
I think looking back on our lives is very important, even if you’re looking back at a bad memory.
The good and the bad shape who we are in this moment.
Today I’m a gift wrapping machine and that’s a good thing.
That good thing was born out of a jealous and envious brat.
Not really a parking spot but revenge over a truck driver nonetheless… a truck driver was delivering a scissorlift and had to take it downstairs. Instead of driving the truck downstairs (parking is in the basement, and truck lifts bring the vehicles up and down), he insisted on his gears needed cooling down. And his truck had ‘broken down’ (think changing gears without the clutch). Naive as I was I believed him and let him brake down in the middle of the road for 30 minutes to make his delivery. As a result he held up half a dozen deliveries who couldnt get in or out until the truck moved. Miraculously his truck worked fine once the delivery was done.
Unfortunately I’m best friends with a guy who works for the tac, who does truck roadworthy inspections and has the power to take trucks off the road… a quiet word to him meant the trucking company had all of its trucks inspected, and given roadworthies as required. As for his own truck? As it’s already unroadworthy it was towed to the pound, and there it stays until a new transmission is replaced…
Yeah. I used to work with a miserable old (middle-age actually) hag who thought she was in charge in our dept. One day, I saw and heard our actual supervisor give her an order to do a particular job. As soon as the boss left, the “hag” brought it to me demanding I get it done ASAP, drop what I was doing etc. Well, I just let it sit there on my table. The boss came back, asked about the project and I hears the wannabe boss say “I gave it to him, don’t know what his problem is, he hasn’t touched it” The real boss looked at her an said, “ I told YOU to do it, NOT pass it on Go to my office and wait for me” She was fired……. so, in a way I got rid of a pain in everyone’s ass and literally did nothing to do it.
That’s how it works…
She took her ex to court to get full custody of a child that she abandoned with him, plus wanted alimony on top of it. It didn’t work out as she thought.
Dude, seeing the quiet satisfaction on Dad’s face brings me so much joy. He went into court that day just praying this judge would actually be responsible and not turn his life upsidedown. That’s beautiful.
It’s wonderful to see a father actually win in a system that never seems to help the father at all.
I was ten years old and had walked to the shopping mall to buy a loaf of bread for my mom. I had 42c in my pocket because that what a loaf of bread cost back then. When I got the mall I forgot why I was there and so I just started walking around randomly. I walked into a candy store that was advertizing a two for a penny sale. “gee I wish I had money,” I said to myself. “hey there are some coins in my pocket!” “wow – I’ve got 42 cents – that’s incredible. I can buy 84 candies!”
i then began to torture the shop assistant, “can I have two cola bottles, one sour gummy worm, two chocolate Brazil nuts, three milk bottles, one fizzy chew- no, make it two. Can I gave one of the fruit jellies, a yellow one please? And a red fruit gum – no that’s purple, I mean the other red …”
eventually I finished the grumpy shop assistant asked me for 42cents. I handed it over then …
”oh my god. I just remembered. It’s my moms money. I’m supposed to buy a loaf of bread with it. I’m really sorry, but I can’t buy the candy. can I have my money back please?”
”no way you foolish child …”
then I hear an old lady behind me say “ma’m please give him his money. I’d be happy to pay for his candy. ….” this kind lady made a huge impact on me and, 45 years later I still recall her kindness.
Yes. There was some busybody gossipmonger working at a local bank. When my father passed away and I was helping my mother deal with some of the financial things— such as taking his name off of their joint accounts— the teller started asking all sorts of personal questions that were none of her business. Asking if we planned to sell the place or move. We told her we didn’t know. It happened so suddenly and we were still reeling. We started getting phone calls and people showing up at our house asking when we were going to sell and how much we wanted for the place.
Apparently the loudmouth teller had started blabbing around town that we were going to sell and gave out our phone number (which was unlisted) and our home address. One of the people mentioned that “Shirley” had told them. I went back to the bank and asked to speak with her and asked her if she had told people we were planning to sell and if she gave our info to people. She said she was just trying to be helpful. I told her we were grieving and didn’t want people calling and nosing around our property and that what she did was a serious breach of privacy. I then asked to speak to the branch manager and told him what happened and how I did not want to do business with a bank with a teller who would give out my personal details to randos without my permission and that it was causing undue stress during an already stressful time. He didn’t fire her on the spot, but he send a letter to us later informing us that she’d been terminated.
We live out in the middle of nowhere to avoid people and our place is out of the way and hard to find. Having to deal with misinformed trespassers who were snooping around our yard because some blabbermouth lied to them and gave our info out would have been stressful enough under normal circumstances, but given we’d just lost my father suddenly & unexpectedly, it was doubly stressful.
It’s like watching a snake eat its own tail; predictable and entertaining.
It’s so sad. If I were in my 20’s in the USA, I’d leave as soon as I could.
At the age of 43, I found myself on the pavement with no money, no home, no job, and just the shirt on my back.
I walked into town and into a recruitment agency and took the only job they had which was badly paid, hard and unpleasant work. By being willing, I got a better job with them- still not a good job but paying better and slightly more pleasant.
At 45, I moved to Lincoln and got a better job with another agency on the back of my recent experience. By being both capable and willing, I got progressively better jobs until they offered to train me to be a trainer. I stayed as a trainer for the next ten years. My income was never as good as it had been in my youth but that was compensated by the international team I had the privilege to work with. I don’t think there was a single nationality I didn’t work with in that time. That was a very fulfilling period and the happiest time of my life.
Years ago when my daughter was maybe 7, she came home from school and I could tell something was bothering her. I told her to sit down at the kitchen table and tell me what was going on. She told me she couldn’t sit, and I asked why. She told me that a teacher had whipped her. I looked at her little bottom and there were welts. I don’t remember what caused the spanking, but leaving welts like that was totally uncalled for. I called the school, asked to speak with the teacher, and when she answered, I told her that I’d be happy to meet her outside so she could try hitting someone closer to her size. I was furious, and ready to have a go at her. She refused the offer, and I called the principal and told him what she’d done, and how she’d left welts on my child. The teacher was transferred. Hopefully, she never struck another child like that again.
For those who would have done things differently, whether by suing, filing a police report or demanding the teacher be fired, you missed the first two words of my post. Years ago. Years ago, teachers were allowed to whip/paddle students. Parents spanked their kids. If a parent would have demanded the teacher be fired, they would have been laughed at, and if the parents threatened to sue, I’m sure the school would have told them to go ahead and try. Before another commenter tells me what they would have done, research what was allowed years ago.
When I was 19, I worked behind the front desk of a 5-star hotel in a very affluent area of Florida. Rooms were normally between $700–1500 per night.
I checked in a guest from Washington D.C. who was very pleasant, and we had a great conversation. During our conversation, I mentioned that my family was primarily in the coastal areas of New York, and that they were all nervous about Hurricane Sandy (this is important).
3 days later, it was time for the guest to check out, but he had left his belongings in the room. The guest did not checkout until 7 PM, and logically, we had to charge him another night, since our housekeeping staff had gone home, and we would not be able to sell the room.
The guest lost it, screaming at our staff, slamming his fist on the counter, the whole show.
Then he spotted me.
With so much disdain, he snarled, “I hope that your family dies in that hurricane.” My manager immediately grabbed the back of my suit jacket, and pulled me into the back office, because he knew what was coming next. I still get angry thinking about that guest.
She was a brilliant Maths Teacher at Malappuram, Kerala, India. One day one of her student saw her at the railway begging for alms, but she couldn’t recognize her properly.
However when the student took a closer look, she recognized her class teacher. When the student asked her about her such a dire state, she told that after her retirement her family abandoned her and never came to know about her whereabouts so she started begging in front of the railway station.
The student broke down listening to her teacher’s story and took her home.
The student provided her Teacher with food & clothes and to secure her future contacted all those friends who were taught by their Maths teacher and took her to a better place to live her life peacefully.
So abandoned by her own family, the teacher was supported & taken care by her students whom she once taught.
This is I think the best example of Teacher-Student sacred & emotional bond and that HUMANITY is still alive.
OK I used to process payroll for a living. One day I got an envelope from the bank and inside was a notice that one of our checks had been flagged for fraud.
There was a copy of the check so I looked at it. Turns out this is one of our paychecks that was actually mailed out, rather than given out at work.
As usual, the check was made out like the following:
John Doe 1234 Any St Houston, Tx 77777
This allowed the name and address to show through a window on the envelope.
Someone had stolen the check from the guy’s mailbox. They took it and put it through a typewriter and added their own name followed by “ or” above the name on the check.
So it appeared as:
Steve Smith OR John Doe
Well… if the check had been made on a typewriter originally, that might have flown. But it was printed and the font looked nothing like a typewriter. So it was very obvious that the check had been tampered with.
What kind of idiot steals money by forging their own name on a check?
Of course, the check would never be honored by the bank, so I knew they hadn’t cashed it. Sure enough, it had been cashed at a liquor store. I called them up, and let them know they wouldn’t be getting paid for that check. They exploded on me. Told me they would be suing, etc. Sure you will…
I referred the whole thing to the police. Turns out the guy who stole the check and the guy at the liquor store who cashed the check were in cahoots. So I got two arrests for the price of one.
I was “written up” at one job by a senior manager. The comments included my failure to get a particular feature working on schedule. When I told him that I had not been assigned that task, and that my (direct) manager was doing it, the senior manager said I was just making excuses. Another complaint was that I had come in weekends to work on a feature that I thought would improve the project, instead of spending that unpaid overtime working on assigned tasks.
I was livid. I didn’t quit because I had just bought a house near the company. But I basically fell apart, and my work quality dropped dramatically.
The kicker was my re-review three months later. The same senior manager complimented me on toeing the line and doing exactly the tasks I’d been ordered to do. He rescinded the warning.
So I quit on the spot. *I* knew that my work had become substandard. It was even worse being complimented for bad work than being criticized for good work. There was no way I could have stayed at the company after that.
Moral: Don’t write up *anyone* without being really certain. Talk to them, talk to their co-workers. Find out what – if anything – is going on. Find out if they’re at fault, or if they’re being managed badly. If there’s an external issue, try to help the employee resolve it, or try to make allowances for it. But never do a writeup unless you plan to fire the person, and need to start the paper trail for that.
Trucker ELECTRICUTES SMUGGLERS with New Tool to Stop Smugglers inside
It happened some time ago when I was young and naive. I had just graduated from college and still had a modicum of that idealism and youthful exuberance that made me a particularly good mark. To be honest, I thought I knew more than I actually did and this blind spot allowed the incident to unfold.
A co-worker copied my signature and bank account information from some signed HR documents before sending them through inter-office mail and then used it to forge my name on some debit card purchases. I reported it as fraud to the bank and I was able to show that I did not actually buy the items.
About two months later, she was fired when she pulled the same trick on somebody else. The new mark had an account through the same bank that I had. A vigilant analyst noticed the same website and signature patterns from my case.
I bumped into her some months later while out in a night club with friends. She was drunk and with a friend. We joked and chatted as if nothing happened. I danced with both of them for a bit and then excused myself to leave.
As we parted ways with a hug, I told her in her ear, “I know that you stole my account information. I know that’s why you were fired.” She recoiled and turned away quickly with her friend — who was quite perplexed at her sudden change in demeanor.
Patience is the key. Crocodiles don’t go hunting. The prey comes to them.
Listening is the greatest life skill. Talking and not listening is the greatest folly.
If you don’t want other people to control your life avoid looking for a job no matter how high the pay.
Life has its irony. In school, people who succeed are those people who excel academically. In real life, people who succeed are those people who failed in school.
Don’t worry or stress yourself when you wake up each morning feeling like a failure or things are not working for you. That’s how life is designed. To feel bad when life is working for you.
The school of life is strange. People who actually succeed feel like they’re total failures. And in fact, they fail multiple times until they lose count.
Don’t hate anyone no matter how you feel about them. They have no idea that you hate them. You’re only hurting yourself.
In this life, your life is not sealed by fate. That’s the wrong way of looking at life. Your life is really like a blank cheque for you to fill with any number you decide.
We’re all born clean from debt. However, the lifestyles and paths we decide to choose puts us in all manner of debts that we will probably never recover from.
Be thankful for what you have, and don’t stress yourself about what you don’t have. Life won’t give you what you don’t have until you’re grateful for what you have.
Be the Rufus
Jack was about to fly home from New York to London when he met Violet at the gate and became her friend. Violet, an 88-year-old former nurse, was flying home after visiting her daughter, and she had never been able to afford an expensive first-class ticket. It was a dream of hers to do that someday. When it was time to board, Jack walked with Violet onto the plane, insisted that she take his first-class seat, and then went to the very back of the plane next to the restrooms, and sat in hers.
Stewardess Leah Amy found out about the switch and reported the story (these photos are hers), saying, “Jack never said a word or asked for anything. Of all the people I’ve met on hundreds of flights, including soccer players, supermodels, and movie stars, these two have been my favorite passengers.”
Baked Eggs on Toast (Jaja na Grzankach – Polish)
2024 02 21 06 24
Yield: 3 to 6 servings
Ingredients
6 slices white bread
Butter
3 tablespoons freshly-grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
6 eggs
Salt and freshly-ground pepper, to taste
Instructions
Toast the bread and butter it on both sides. Place on a baking sheet and, using the tips of your fingers, make a small depression in each piece of toast. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and chives. Carefully drop an egg onto each piece of toast and season with salt and pepper.
Bake in a preheated 400 degrees F oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until the eggs reach the desired degree of doneness.
Let me preface by saying this to add some context….
I have a rare immune system disorder called Common Variable Immunodeficiency, CVID for short. This means my body does not create antibodies and I have to get infusions every week to even have a chance of fighting infections. I essentially have no immune system so with that said, here goes:
a few years back (before they found the right medicine for my infusions) I was admitted to the hospital due to an infection of unknown nature. It was shutting my body down. My temp was 106 degrees farenheit. They decided to call in the emergency response team at 2 am and had me call my family. Things were getting worse and they were going to move me to ICU. While all of this was going on, a nurse on the team looked at me and said “you don’t look sick. You should be unconscious with everything going on with you”. One of the doctors on the team looked at him and said “This is a very critically ill patient. Although I’m not sure why she’s not presenting in worse condition, I am thankful that she is coherent enough to work with us so that we can understand how she feels… get your snarky ass out of this room. She doesn’t need that right now”.
Needless to say, he tucked his tail and ran. He did end up coming up to ICU and apologizing to me though. He said he didn’t mean it in a snarky way, he was just shocked that I wasn’t in worse shape. We sat and talked for awhile and he learned a thing or two about me and my rare condition.
When I was living in Erie, I went shopping with my roommates. We went grocery shopping, which was something we did about once a month.
One of my ‘mates was this big burly man named Mark. He was a silly guy. Drank Pepsi cola like no one else alive. Perhaps twelve bottles a day. It was his way of coping as he distanced himself away from his drug abusing past.
A coping mechanism. I get it.
Well, as I checked out and had the groceries, Mark was no-where to be found.
We looked and looked, until he finally came out one hour later.
He strolled up to the car.
We asked “where the fuck were you?”
And he said “I don’t want to talk about it”.
But, later on he did.
It turned out that he was drinking a Pepsi in the store, and instead of taking the empty bottle to the checkout counter, he placed it on a shelf. And it was caught on the CC television video system, and the store detective nabbed him.
As he was on parole, this could have gone very badly for him. But… life is strange. It turned out that the store detective was a classmate of his, and after the mandatory beat-down, they warmed up and kicked-back and shared memories and stories.
Life is sometimes like that.
I am sure that Mark has since thought long and hard about this kind of “store grazing” behavior. I like to think that he is a better person for it. Ah I hope.
As I review my life, I am constantly amazed at how many times coincidences seem to intertwine the threads of our lives together.
Not quite a garage sale. A good friend, “ George” was a coin collecter, who noticed a small ad in the local News paper. “ selling late husbands coin collection – make an offer.” With nothing else to do that day he called and went to see the lady. He started to poke through and told her he need a bit of time, but he found 3 coins he wanted, for himself. He said to the lady I will buy these three right now, on the condition that if anyone else calls you tell them the “ entire collection is sold “ she said but you are only buying 3 coins what about the rest, what do I do. He said “ I will sell them for you, please give me a chance” She reluctlently agreed. He paid $300 cash each for the coins he picked out. He saw that the lady was not to well off and had lost her husband. He sat down and selected 10 coins, wrote down what they were and description, and said he would sell them for her. He was in touch with her every day, and about 10 days later, he went to see her and told her he was able to get a decent price for 3 of the coins he left with. he handed her $8000.00. and confirmed he would sell all of the coins that she had. She said as she was going through her late husbands things she had found other coins. She really had no interest in the coins and said they had taken up so much of her husbands time away from her. George told her that her husband loved her more then she knew. In about one year, he had sold off the entire collection of coins for just over $450,000.00 A few of the gold coins he told her to keep for herself.
My wife loves a deal. If they offered a free toaster with an Aston Martin, I might be driving my dream car.
So we were on vacation in Athens and she pulled off a haggling master stroke – a bag, a dress, and a speedo (hey, it was Europe) and got them to knock a few hundred euro off the price. All she said was, “is this the best price you can do?”
And this was at Dolce & Gabbana!
So, while on a business trip in Venice, I decided to pick two things up for my wife:
A dress and a deal.
At Prada!
I found the perfect dress. Something she definitely wouldn’t buy herself, but would look great on her. It was pricey, but I had my ace in my sleeve. My all-purpose Euro retail haggling pass.
The saleswoman approached me. I explained that I wanted the dress. She was pleased with my selection.
And then I did it.
I whipped out my haggling secret weapon, with Blue Steel swagger, and an expectant attitude.
“Is this the best price you can do?”
She paused and just stared at me.
I’m thinking, haha… didn’t see that one coming did you?
She keeps staring. She wrinkles her brow, like she’s computing the speech in her head.
Now I’m getting worried.
Then, she has a moment of clarity.
“Oh, are you trying to negotiate?”
She’s says it like I’m some 9 year old kid who just asked his 24 year old babysitter to be his girlfriend.
Me: (trying to stay cool) “Well… um, yeah…. You know. If there is any room for…..”
Her: (interrupting but sincere) “We don’t negotiate at Prada.”
Ordered 4 new bras from an online shop, ended up receiving 32 new bras, none of which were the color I had ordered.
The receipt in the box was tallied for 8 bras with a note that they’d been running a promo the day I ordered that they were buy 1 get 1 free. I don’t even want to fathom how 8 turned into 32, but when I called the company to get a return label the gal informed me that the bra sale had actually been buy 1 get 2 free, which should have only been 12 bras, not 32, and who the heck gives away 2 forty dollar bras?
Got transferred to a different representative and was informed that the bras I was trying to return where non-returnable since they’d actually been discontinued and were now “on clearance” neither of them had addressed the issue that the bras I received were the wrong color (right size at least)
I was transferred yet again (gotta love “that’s not my job” employment opportunities) where I was quickly informed that they would send out the bras in the right color.
Fast forward a few days and I received 12 of the right size, right color bras. They had honored the buy 1 get 2 free sale apparently. I also received 8 additional bras in colors I hadn’t even known were available in my size as a “consolation prize” for my troubles.
So, 52 bras for the price of 4 at forty dollars each. I haven’t had to special order bras in years…
I’ve worked in software engineering for 20 years. I come from a no-name college in India, and my grades weren’t stellar. SO, getting into top tier companies was hard for me. Over 20 years, I’ve worked my way up, and I’m in Amazon now. On the way, I have worked in all kinds of companies: startups, mid sized companies, large multi nationals; and in all kinds of industries: consumer goods, healthcare, finance, education
First of all, Companies are tiered in terms of the skill levels of their engineers. They pretend not to be. Everyone claims that they hire the smartest engineers. WHat they mean is that they hire the smartest engineers that they can get. There is a definite differrence in Engineers working in FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google), I’ve seen all kinds of engineers
Here’s the kicker. The biggest difference isn’t in the quality of the code that they write. FAANG engineers, on the whole, write as buggy code as engineers in decent companies.
The biggest differentiator is Communication. When I was in mid-tier companies, I was constantly finding myself explaining and re-explaining things in great detail. In fact, I would say that at most companies at mid-tier level, your success as an engineer depends on being able to drive people in the right direction by communicating to them.
There are 3 kind of people in tech. There are a) arguers:- people who will fight every point of view that isn’t their own, b) receivers: people who will try their best to understand what you are saying c) analyzers: people who start thinking critically while you are talking to them. Arguers are toxic. Receivers are good but slow. Analyzers are good and fast. In mid tier companies, you are more likely to find Arguers and Receivers, whereas in top-tier companies, you are more likely to find Receivers and Analyzers.
To be a successful tech company, you need to get in as many Analyzers as you can. Because these are the people who generate ideas. These are the people you give 2 and 2 and they figure out how to make 8. Not only that, with ANalyzers, you have to spend less time getting the team on the same page. Less miscommunication = Less rework = shorter turnaround = lower time to market = win.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying communication is bad. Communication is good. You need to make sure everyone understands what needs to be done. Communication is essential. All I’m saying is that in top tier companies, communication is lot more efficient. It’s like getting onto a highway. You are just going faster.
Not me, but my ex-wife, and I didn’t witness it. She told me about it several years after the fact.
My ex and I are both blind. As in without sight. One of the things you have to understand about blind people is probably something obvious. To wit, we don’t drive. We can’t. Has never happened and ain’t gunna ever happen; no, not ever. Another thing you have to understand about blind people is that sometimes sighted people will ask the stupidest questions or do the dumbest things. Usually this happens when we’re just walking along, minding our own business. One day this happened to her.
I can’t remember what she was doing at the time, but she was walking along, doing whatever errand she had to do, when this group of women happened to come upon her. One of them was obviously drunk.
“So,” said the drunk woman, “you’re blind, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“So, um, like, how do you drive?”
My ex, who walks with a cane because she’s obviously blind, said:
“Well, I have two canes. When I drive, I keep one cane out the right window, and another out my left window. That way when I bump into something, I know when and how to turn.”
“Really?” said this other woman. “That’s amazing!” And she went on and on for some time about what an amazing feat this was,, while the other people she was with were laughing and calling her an idiot, which she so obviously was.
Probably convincing others that this is a good look. It isn’t — your lips look like a baboon’s anus swelling to indicate it’s ready for mating. I’ve never in my whole life met a single person, male or female, who appreciates this aesthetic. And yet I keep seeing it, with increasing frequency.
image 172
This weird bimbo-style… the heavy makeup… the facial fillers… and those God-awful inflated lips. Shudder. It’s horrific. So painful on the eyes that it makes one question the existence of the God who supposedly made our species in His image. The fake lashes don’t help, either… I mean why bother changing yourself in a way that isn’t genuine? I get going to the gym, working out or getting a tan, all those yield tangible results. But why alter yourself in ways that a single shower or missed injection could erase?
The weirdest thing people have ever done is invent this made-of-plastic bimbo aesthetic and promote it on social media as something to aspire to… it’s giving women in their twenties the appearance of elderly Hollywood stars in denial of their age. Turns the “girl next door” into whatever-the-hell-happened-to-Madonna. It’s an absolute travesty.
Originally Answered: Who was the most ignorant person you have ever met in America?
This happened many years ago, but it is what came to mind when I read this question…
I was teaching class, and we were discussing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Students were discussing their various thoughts on the situation.
One student stated, very loudly, “You know what really bothers me? All those people who are shouting and holding up signs…why aren’t they speaking English?”
I explained that it is unreasonable to expect people in a foreign country to protest in another country’s language. She didn’t understand what I meant, and the class was trying to explain to her that Arabic is the language of the people who were protesting.
After a while, I stopped everyone and asked her where she thought “those people” lived. She said, “I don’t know…near Arizona?”
That is when I realized that she thought the the Middle East was next to the American Midwest! I showed her where it is on the map, and she said, “Oh! Things make so much more sense, now!”
The most intrepid drug seeker I have ever seen was Mr. C.
He walked in a very hunched-over posture, leaning on a walker, to elicit sympathy.
We would not even say his name, as that might bring the bad luck of the ER calling to admit him…AGAIN.
If one of my colleagues were to talk about him he would say, “Mr.” and then crook over his index finger.
We all knew who he meant.
This guy was the biggest pathological liar in the universe.
Every time I’d get a call from the ER his story was different.
He was a missionary, a teacher, a policeman, you name it.
His favorite was to tell people he was a former PA or MD.
ER calls….
“I’ve got a 68-year-old former doctor down here. He looks so decrepit that I think he needs nursing home placement.”
Right away, I knew who it was.
He went from hospital to hospital to hospital. I don’t think he had permanent address. Why would he?
“Uh,…I know who it is. He’s not a doctor. He’s a drug seeker.”
“No, Maureen, he’s such a nice guy. You must be thinking of someone else. I think he IS a doc.”
“Go ask him what a CBC is (complete blood count, a common lab test). I’ll hold.”
Off he goes.
“For Pete’s sake, he doesn’t know.”
“Ah…yup. Don’t give him any narcs.”
“OK. But he still needs admission because he has been having recurrent temperatures and can hardly walk.”
“Did you document a temperature?”
“No, he is afebrile.”
”Labs and imaging normal?”
“Yeah.”
“Wanna see him take up his bed and trot, upright, right out of there?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell him that Dr. Boehm will be admitting him. I’ll be happy to evaluate and treat any of his complaints. I won’t be giving any narcotics, however.”
Off he goes.
“Uh, he got up and left AMA.”
“Did he ask for a cab voucher?”
“Yeah.”
“He wants us to pay for his transportation to the next ER.”
Sometimes, I would come in and he had been admitted overnight by some unsuspecting doctor.
His nurse called me.
“Mr. C is very lethargic. He’s becoming hypoxic”.
“How can that be? He’s not getting any controlled substances.”
Well, he sure was.
He had called down to the OR and interrupted a surgery. He told them that he was one of our orthopedic surgeons. He demanded that a message be given to the Ortho PA.
“Why does Mr. C have uncontrolled pain? I want him on a Dilaudid PCA NOW!”
I walk in. Mr. C, not only has a Dilaudid drip running, in one of his groggy little hands he had a bottle of Percocet that he had brought from home. In the other hand, the button to deliver a hefty bolus of Dilaudid to himself.
He was “out” with a mouthful of half-chewed Percocet, the drip just dripping away with a hefty basal dose.
He could have killed himself.
Never have I relished the delivery of Narcan like I did that day.
One little squirt and he was wide awake and pissed that his nice “double” high was ruined.
After that we had to do a complete search of him and his stuff, with security, so he didn’t get away with it again.
I often wonder what happened to Mr. C after the new system was available to track and prevent his overuse of narcotics.
He couldn’t go to five doctors in a month and get narcs from all of them. He couldn’t go ER to ER.
When I was 15 I used to babysit these 2 super lovely Chinese kids every friday and saturday night. It was only ever for 4 hours, 8pm to midnight. The family owned the local fish and chip shop, that also sold Chinese food. Now I never got fed while babysitting, but the parents would pay me my time AND bring me chinese food to eat when I got home. Always asked me what I wanted when I went to the house. The were an awesome family.
Another time my GP asked if I would babysit his kids on new years eve, and stay over night. My mum agreed and he would pay me £50 for it. I got told to eat and drink whatever I wanted, watch whatever I wanted on the tv, and the room they let me sleep in also had a tv. Easiest babysitting job ever! The kids were in bed before I got there at 9pm, I was told to check on them at 10, 11 and midnight which I did. They never woke up, I got to eat junk food all night, and got paid for doing it. I was actually happier about the junk food and tv than the money. At home I wasnt allowed food between meals, junk food was never allowed, and forget about watching anything other than my mums choice of program on the tv.
I was in the military (USAF) and until you reach a certain rank, you are assigned a roommate in your dorm room. I was stationed in Germany in a unit that traveled extensively 300+ days per year. Commonly we would travel 6 months, come back for a week or even a weekend, and then be back on the road. I was assigned a roommate whom I met… He was the typical “computer geek”. Greasy hair, showered infrequently, was a slob, almost never left the room when he was not on the road, and played a lot of the “Oregon Trail” computer game.
Mind you both of us were in the same unit that traveled a lot, but we were on different teams, so we traveled to different places at different times. One time after being gone 6 months in England, I came back to station, and opened the door to my room, only to be gagged by the smell. I set my luggage down in the hall and went to the communal bathroom, wet some paper towels, and covered my nose and mouth area. Then went back into my room to locate and remove the source of the smell.
At first glance everything seemed in order, but the smell was overpowering… I walked over to his side of the room and it got even worse. His bed was raised up on blocks that gave him a couple feet of storage underneath it, and I saw a shirt sleeve sticking out from under the bed. When I lifted up the bedspread, it reeked to high heaven, but all I could see was his dirty clothes. They were stuffed under his bed to the point that it took up all the room in under the bed! I couldn’t imagine that this horrific gagging smell was just his dirty clothes (although they did stink terribly), so I started reaching under there and pulling clothes out a handful at a time…. When I had pulled out about half the clothes, I found the source of the pugnant aroma.
At some point when he was stuffing all his dirty clothes under there, he apparently forgot that he had also put a half a pitcher of OJ under there as well. When he pushed more clothes under there, the pitcher of OJ got pushed back into the middle of the pile of clothes. I had been gone 6 months and come to find out he left the week after I did! That OJ sat in that pitcher in the middle of his stinky clothes for basically 6 months, rotting! It was a solid black and green mass all around the outside with Orange pulp in the middle, and OMG did it stink. I was gagging and running to the outside trash can holding the pitcher behind me to get rid of it once and for all! Once it was gone, I went back to the room. I stuffed all of his dirty clothes into big black garbage bags, zip tied them, and put them back under his bed.
When he got back the following week I was already gone again, but I left a note for him and told him what had happened and what I had had to do! I also told him if I ever come back to something like that again, that I would be turning it in and reporting him to the First Seargent! It neverhappened again. (THANK GOD!!!))
strong independent woman instantly REGRETS their lifestyle
When I was a toddler my father had an affair. The woman started calling our house and tormenting my mother in order to break up the marriage. My mother wasn’t emotionally stable. After a certain time each evening, she knew that her friends and family wouldn’t be calling so late, and when the phone rang my mother would cry, wail and scream. I remember answering the phone myself in an attempt to stop my mother’s over-the-top reaction and at some point learned to leave the phone off the hook but my mother didn’t leave it that way for long. On some level, she liked the drama I guess. This went on for months. I’d have been 3 or 4 when this was happening. It was very traumatic for me because I had no idea what was going on until much later. In my pre-school mind, the threat on the phone had to be very dire and worthy of my drama momma’s reaction. I was absolutely terrified. I’d wake up many nights to answer the phone and cry “please don’t hurt us” into the phone, but she didn’t stop until the divorce was done.
30 years later, my father dies, leaves that woman a penniless widow, which was the result of gross financial mismanagement because he’d had money and didn’t support those of us in his first family (a man could get away with that back then). The one thing she has is a lawsuit for his death. It’s a good case. The payout is potentially large but that’ll take years in court and may never payout as the company responsible will probably go bankrupt. The defendant has offered settlement and would payout quickly but the only requirement is that all of his heirs agree to accept the settlement and agree not to sue separately at a later date.
But I don’t need money and I’ll never sign. I’ve been getting certified letters for years asking for my signature. They’ve threatened to have me arrested (which was clearly a ruse) for refusing, offered me cash to sign, on one occasion her grandson connected with me on social media explaining that she needed a new roof and could I please sign off on the settlement and I ended up blocking his whole family. Last year I got a letter that the county was going to auction her house for non-payment of taxes. She is probably living with one of her kids and collecting social security so not quite homeless but I still feel like I’ve gotten a little revenge.
Many years ago I lived in an inner suburb of Sydney, in a terrace house.
The next door neighbour was an alcoholic bricklayer. Call him Don.
Don had decided to do some extensions, or renovations, and had three pallets of bricks dropped off in front of his place. They partially blocked the footpath and leaned outwards, dangerously overhanging the road.
One of the.pallets was in front of our house. Effectively our parking was blocked and the footpath was hard to negotiate.
The first Saturday they were there I knocked on his door, (interrupting a fight with his wife as he had accidentally lost her car the previous night, as far as I could work out he had parked it near a brothel and could not find it when he staggered out) and offered to help him shift the bricks around the back. He declined and said he would get to them during the week.
A few weeks went by. I offered again to help shift them, and got told to f off. I explained they were dangerous and inconvenient. Got the door slammed in my face.
I complained to the local council, and I suppose they sent him a letter, but the bricks remained.
By this time the bricks had been there about four months. The pallets were deteriorating and the stacks leaning. It was getting more dangerous by the day. It was only a matter of time before they collapsed on a car, a person or the busy road.
I wrote up a couple of large signs “ free bricks, help yourself” and put them on the pile about 6:am on a Saturday morning.
By the time Don surfaced around 11, there was probably half a pallet or so left… which he moved to his back yard.
Without a doubt. Any unfair action by the EU Will be met by an action that U.S. fairer but with a much bigger consequences to EU. Let that be a solemn promise.
Europe will have to suffer a total collapse of the automobile market if it dare to try any shit. Don’t forget that many European cars companies are surviving only due to the Chinese market and consumer. And the reason it still can compete is only due to its production efficiency and capacity of its plants in China!
Years back, I sat in a sombre home where a young man in his 30s died untimely in an accident.
I, along with my family, went there to pay respects.
Sitting on the sofa I was nudged between two middle aged women who were discussing the next course of events.
“I heard Sheela is going to go to her maternal house to stay! How would Usha bear this? First she lost her son and now with the daughter-in-law gone she will lose her grandchildren too.”
“That’s true! I had the same reaction when I heard about it. We must put some sense in Usha and stop her from letting Sheela go.”
When Usha aunty came towards us, these two woman grabbed her and made her sit with them, squeezing me.
They then narrated their opinion on the grieving mother and stopped her from taking a ‘foolish’ decision and going against a tradition where the widow usually stays with the in-laws.
After listening to their valuable advice Usha aunty spoke.
“True, I lost my son. But Sheela has lost her husband too. A person she vowed to spend her old age together. A person who was a loving parent to their children. Sending them away to her parents place will surely make me sad and lonely but it would be a much needed change for Sheela. At this time, she needs her parents the most. If she stays here, this house would remind her of him everyday. At her parents place, she would slowly come back to her usual self soon. I lost my son. I don’t want to lose my daughter because of some tradition.”
The two women were speechless, so was I. I hadn’t thought of it in that way either. Usha aunty left and consoled her daughter-in-law who sat in a corner with a pale and teary face.
That day it was just a conversation I unknowingly was a part of. But today, I think what Usha aunty did was so right.
Thinking about someone else in the event of your child dying, needs immense amount of courage and determination.
Sheela di did recover soon and moved back to her loving mother-in-law’s house and now cares for them as their daughter.
Man went to McDonald’s — which was a treat — for his family’s dinner, and on the way back, was broad-sided in the driver’s door. He’s dead in the driver’s seat and his family’s dinner is all over the front of the car. When he didn’t come back, his 10-year-old son went looking for him on his bicycle and came up on the accident scene. The child climbed into the wrecked car and was hugging his dead father. We weren’t going to stop him, and the fire department stayed longer than they normally would have in case there was any unexpected fire.
Another officer took the child home in his police car and informed the wife of what had happened. Prime example of one of those evenings when a cop skips dinner because he has no appetite.
The driver that hit him was a teenager who had just stolen a tank of gas from the local AM/PM Mini Market, and was being chased by the idiot store manager in his own car. We arrested them both, though that did not make the outcome any better.
The only decent thing that came out of it is that the owner of a local McDonald’s franchise read about it, came in the station and we helped him arrange to pay for an elaborate funeral. The owner insisted we not talk about it publicly; he didn’t want his kind act to look like a PR move. That is class.
J.K. Rowling had just got a divorce, was on government aid, and could barely afford to feed her baby in 1994, just three years before the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, was published. When she was shopping it out, she was so poor she couldn’t afford a computer or even the cost of photocopying the 90,000-word novel, so she manually typed out each version to send to publishers. It was rejected dozens of times until finally Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, gave it a second chance after the CEO’s eight year-old daughter fell in love with it.
Positivity, confidence, and persistence are key in life, so NEVER GIVE UP on yourself.
This Thing Is About To POP: Putin, Biden and The Trainwreck
This was one that I witnessed, but wasn’t a part of.
I was working in the hardware section of a department store, right beside the sports department.
Straightening up/stocking the shelves just near the boundary between the departments, I saw a fellow salesperson talking to a customer with his small son. The child was bored and started to wander around, touching everything he could reach.
After a couple of minutes, the other salesperson saw the child start to try to climb a display of weightlifting equipment. He quickly excused himself and rushed over to the child, not touching him but gently suggesting that the boy not climb on anything and particularly not on the heavy weights.
The father turned around and seeing what was happening was incensed.
“How dare you tell my son what he can and cannot do! Who do you think you are?”
“I was just trying to keep him safe.” said the salesperson. “The weights are heavy and he could hurt himself.”
“Oh really? You have no business disciplining my son. I want to see the manager to complain.” said the father.
By this time, the child, seeing that he was again being ignored, went back to the weight rack and started to climb again.
The father fumed on at the unlucky salesperson.
And just at that moment, the rack of weights, unbalanced by the child fell over on top of him, a couple of weights pinning him to the floor.
He started crying.
The father started ranting about suing the store.
I later heard that he lost because the salesperson had tried to stop the child from climbing and had been forbidden from doing so by the father.
I got a performance review that ripped me up, down and sideways, and was totally unjustified. I refused to sign it and requested a second meeting later that afternoon. I attended that one armed with statistics showing how I had reduced the work ticket backlog on our software library from over 800 to just 2.
Now, a little technical explanation. This was pre-Windows. We had a software library written in Microsoft Pro Basic. Everything worked for the most part when I took it over, except it was slow. I fixed the outstanding bugs, then went looking for the cause of the slowdown and I found it: type declarations.
There were none. If a variable name ended with a $, it was a string. Otherwise, it was a number. But there are all kinds of numbers, and the default was double-precision floating point. Microsoft made a big deal about how indexes and array subscripts should be integers and pointed out that it was a speed deal. I went through, explicitly defined all variables and made sure that anything used as a loop index or array subscript was declared as either a short or long integer. Massive increase in speed. Calculations that used to take 20–30 minutes now ran in a minute or less.
Now, back to the meeting. I pointed all the improvements out to him, including comments from customers praising the improvements. He looked at everything and had the gall to say that my review was not going to be changed. I walked back to my office, made a couple of phone calls and had a job, paying more, starting the following Monday. I then edited the library and took out every one of the integer or long type declarations, recompiled the new version and saved everything into the distribution folders. I cleaned out all my work directories so that what I had done was not readily available, then walked by his office, tossed my keys on his desk, said I quit and walked out.
I had applied for a promotion that I was overqualified for. Had a great track record of mentoring new employees, working above and beyond, coming up with great ideas. I had been in the position for 7 years and with the company for 11.
My manager and supervisor told me that I wasn’t “ready” for this promotion (a 6% raise) and that I could try again next January. I told them “there would not be a next January”
Fast forward a few months, I was already applying for jobs and went on a few interviews. My manager and supervisor called me into a meeting to let me know one of the males on the team who have been at the organization and position for 2.5 years was getting the promotion (it was a promotion multiple people could get). When they asked me if I had any questions I said “No – his promotion doesn’t age t my career”
1 month later when I was putting in my 2 weeks notice for a company giving me a 30% raise my manager and supervisor asked me what they could do to retain me…I say nothing.
Left the job May 2021 and it was the best decision ever. Never knew I could get such a big pay bump for NOT being loyal to a company.
And if you are going to do it, this is the way. Not by shooting somebody or anything else.
My dad was a small builder. A few houses a year. He enjoyed it and it made him good money in retirement. He was building one of the only spec houses (not already sold when he started) he ever built.
One night, when the house was almost done, the furnace and airhandler disappeared from the garage. No signs of breaking and entering.
Now it takes a couple of hours to remove all of this w/o damaging anything. So my dad quickly guessed that his HVAC contractor (one he had never used before) had made a copy of the key my dad had given him. Let himself in, opened the garage door. Backed his truck in. Closed the door. And got to work.
He told the police this. They talked to the contractor who denied everything and suggested my dad had done it to collect on the builder’s insurance. This made my dad MAD! The HVAC guy however didn’t know the police told my dad he said this.
So my dad had the same guy put a new furnace and airhandler in the house. Yep, same guy.
What the guy didn’t know is that before hand my dad had a security system installed. Hidden motion detectors only, no contacts on the windows and doors to be spotted. And no audible alarm. Silent only. He registered his cell phone with the security company.
Sure enough, a few nights later he gets a call in the middle of the night from the security company. He tells them to call 911 and jumps in his truck. By the way, he lived only about 90 seconds down the road.
He pulls up and can see light around the garage door. He pulled quietly into the driveway at an angle, all the way up to the door, completely blocking it. And quietly waited for the police to arrive, which they did a few minutes later.
The guy heard him talking to the police in the driveway and put the garage door up. My dad couldn’t stop laughing at the expression on the guy’s face when he saw my dad standing there with four deputies!
And the best part? My dad hadn’t yet paid the contractor for his work. And he never did.
This actually happened to me years ago. It was a Friday evening. An entire group including me were in a meeting. We had a code thoroughly tested and ready for production. This Manager went and made changes without consent and broke the code but they still wants to keep the implementation date which was ten days away.
Now the ten days included two weekends. I’m sitting in the room. They totally ignored the fact that I was the one responsible for testing the changes. Nobody asked me what my plans were for the weekends and proceeded to agree upon meeting the date. I stayed mute. Now at that time my husband was in the army and and deployed to Bosnia, so they thought I had no life. They talked and laughed and when the meeting was over, I spoke.
“Who is coming in tomorrow because I need a ride”. They all said they were not. That’s when I dropped the bomb. I said, “Neither am I”. Everybody sat down, I got up, saluted them and walked out.
I had just finished a year of substitute teaching and had few. if any, prospects for a full-time job come that Fall. So when I saw that ad in the paper, my eyes lit up.
This company was wanting to hire teachers for a summer job. Was it evaluating textbooks? Maybe we would be tasked with creating exciting curriculum or conducting research into how children learn. Maybe a private school wanted to hire a number of tutors for their summer programs? The ad didn’t get specific.
I fired off a resume and waited to hear back. I didn’t wait long before being contacted with a time and place for the interview. When I arrived, I saw a room full of people dressed in typical teacher fashion-Dockers, Polo shirt, etc. I must be in the right place! But why are they doing a group interview? A bit later, a man walks in dressed more professionally. He asks us to tae a seat. He then gives a presentation into what sort of summer work they had for all of us education professionals.
STEAK KNIVES!!! He was wanting to “hire us to be door-to-door salesmen for his company’s line of cutlery. For a low investment of only (the cost of 2 sets) we could have unlimited earning potential. He must have seen the disgusted look on my face and figured I was going to let the more naive know exactly what the deal was, for I was the first to be invited into the office for a second interview.
It showed clearly that it does not care for its people but it protect profiteering and too big to fail companies. Such actions never ends well. The day will come when the U.S. citizens rebel and raised up against them. And these companies will continue to be unproductive and inefficient to the point of becoming irrelevant.
Pease remember the US has been dictating free trade and freedom of choice to Americans and the world for the longest time! What happened?
This tasty and easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe is loaded with onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, and a healthy helping of Italian Seasoning in chicken broth with tomatoes, cannellini beans, and elbow noodles. It is the perfect pick-me-up for cold, wet weather, coughs, ailments, or just because your soul needs a little warmth. This Italian Soup Recipe is one of our favorites.
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Ingredients
2 pounds mild or hot Italian sausage
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large onions, chopped
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
6 (14 ounce) cans beef broth
1 1/2 cups red wine (optional)
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
3 tablespoons parsley
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
2 medium zucchini, sliced
3 cups pasta shells, cooked
Instructions
In a large pot, cook sausage for about 15 minutes.
Pierce with fork to release fat; drain well.
Cut into bite-size pieces.
Add remaining ingredients except zucchini and pasta.
Cook for 30 to 45 minutes, then add zucchini and cook until tender.
Add pasta shells just to heat through.
Recipe notes and helpful tips
If you have a nearby meat market, call and ask if they make their own Italian Sausage. It is well worth the added expense and trip to the market.
For aesthetic purposes, peel the carrots. It brings out that beautiful bright orange color.
You can sub any medium to small pasta in this soup, including penne, rotini, shells, farfalle, ditalini, or radiatori.
Fresh thyme is always delicious, and I usually have it on hand. However, you can substitute fresh chopped parsley or a little dried marjoram or thyme.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Heat on the stovetop over low heat or in the microwave at reduced power.
Freeze in an airtight container or heavy-duty freezer bag for up to 3 months.
One summer as a college student (many years ago) I worked at a now defunct “family” restaurant called The Ground Round. One room was a bar, and the other room was for families and they were famous for showing old silent movies in the family room and giving out free peanuts and popcorn (that usually ended up all over the floor).
Unfortunately, they were also famous for their “Penny-a-Pound” Thursdays where children under 12 who accompanied an adult would be weighed on a big scale at the front of the restaurant and could then order anything off the children’s menu (including unlimited free drinks) and be changed a penny for each pound they weighed. So, yeah, a kid could order a hot dog or a hamburger or a bowl of mac&cheese and get an orange soda (with 3 refills) for $0.40.
Most of this time this worked out OK and people enjoyed the deal responsibly. A family of four would come in, say, both parents would order full meals, and the little ones would get to basically eat for free. However, there were quite a number of occasions when people would completely abuse the deal. We’re talking situations where a single adult would come in with 5 or 6 children (obviously not all their own kids due to them all being the same age), the adult would order something cheap like a bowl of soup, and then the kids would proceed to make my life a living hell by constantly ordering drink refills every single time I walked past them on my way to take care of my other tables.
That wasn’t the worst part, though. No, the worst part was when it came time to pay the bill and the cost would end up being something like $9.27. And the person paying the bill would leave a $10 bill and say “keep the change.”
ALL the waiters dreaded having to work the main room on Thursdays, but since I was the newest employee there I ended up having to do it every week.
Dave was bragging to his boss one day, “You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them.”
Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, “OK, Dave, how about Tom Cruise?”
“No drama’s boss, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it.”
So Dave and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise’s door and Tom Cruise shouts, “Dave! What’s happenin?!? Great to see you! Come on in for a beer!”
Although impressed, Dave’s boss is still sceptical. After they leave Cruise’s house, he tells Dave that he thinks him knowing Cruise was just lucky.
“No, no, just name anyone else,” Dave says.
“President Bush,” his boss quickly retorts.
“Yup,” Dave says, “Old buddies, let’s fly out to Washington.”
And off they go.
At the White House, Bush spots Dave on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying, “Dave, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let’s have a cup of coffee first and catch up.”
Well, the boss is very shaken by now but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds he expresses his doubts to Dave, who again implores him to name anyone else.
“The pope,” his boss replies.
“Sure!” says Dave. “My folks are from Poland, and I’ve known the Pope a long time.”
So off they fly to Rome. Dave and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Dave says, “This will never work. I can’t catch the Pope’s eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I’ll come out on the balcony with the Pope.”
And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican. Sure enough, half an hour later Dave emerges with the Pope on the balcony but by the time Dave returns, he finds that his boss has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to his boss’ side, Dave asks him, “What happened?”
His boss looks up and says, “I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, “Who the fuck is that on the balcony with Dave?
My uncle was a functional alcoholic. He had an advanced degree and was extremely accomplished in his career. He never did the kinds of things that would result in legal problems, he didn’t drink and drive, didn’t get in fights, or commit crimes. He and his husband were wealthy. They had a house with a swimming pool in a HCOL area. He was well-loved by everyone in the family but no one was able to get him to stop drinking or seek help for it. By and large, no one really wanted to argue with him about it either because it was pointless.
My uncle died during the pandemic and it wasn’t due to COVID. He drank everyday starting early in the morning and continuing through the night. He had done this for as long as I can remember. He cared about his appearance but completely neglected his health and refused to see doctors probably because they would tell him what he didn’t want to hear -alcohol was killing him.
Heavy drinking doesn’t only affect the liver — although that would be bad enough in itself — it also messes up the functioning of multiple other organs and body systems including, but not limited to, the heart, brain, kidneys, digestive system, and the nervous system. In my uncle’s case, he developed a cardiac problem and died suddenly. For many other alcoholics, dying is a slow, painful decline that involves a lot of suffering drawn out over many years.
Even if a person manages to avoid major illness, alcoholism, whether functional or not, does not make for a happy, fulfilled life. By nature, alcoholism requires that people prioritize alcohol over and above everything else in their lives, including all the meaningful things like important relationships, personal values, activities that bring joy, and personal accomplishments.
A person who drinks their way through life is never really present in their life and thus misses out on fully experiencing life itself. It may be feel pleasant to temporarily numb or black out distressing emotions but this comes at the cost of numbing positive emotions too. It comes at the cost of losing intimacy in your relationships, or just losing relationships altogether. It comes at a cost of not being able to remember your life or make good decisions.
Alcoholism and addiction in general, whether functional or not, is sad. It’s sad to see people searching for life satisfaction in the one place it will never be found.
Have you heard that “African babies cry less”? It is true, but the why of it is more interesting. They cry less because they are attended to. They are carried by their mothers, they co-sleep. They are always with their mother, who nurses the baby as soon as it starts to fuss. Doesn’t matter if it’s for comfort, for hunger or thirst. The baby never gets to the point where it *has to* cry.
Crying is the only way a baby has to communicate…..sort of. They also wiggle, and fuss and make weird faces and reach toward something, and when none of the rest of it works, THEN they cry. So it might be better to say that crying is the LAST way babies communicate. Even so, they can’t tell you they had a bad dream, or their stomach is upset, or there’s a string wrapped around their toe and it feels weird, or they have an itch but no fine motor skills to scratch with. We have to learn to decode baby language other than crying, before it gets to that. And we don’t.
You can’t spoil a baby. Moreover, when did giving someone attention get such a bad rep? Why is it bad to give a baby attention? What defines ‘too much’ attention, and why should we ration it? Is there a limited amount available? What idiot made this up?
By giving a baby the attention it needs when it needs it, and not when you feel like giving it, or when some book says you should give it, you teach the baby that you are always there for it. You aren’t teaching them to be clingy, you are teaching them that no matter what they do, what new things they explore, you will be there. It gives them confidence to try and do new things, knowing this.
But let a baby go untended until he gets to the point of crying, and then wait some more? What good does that do? The baby is not going to become less hungry or thirsty or scared or wet. Baby isn’t going to decide, oh, I guess I wasn’t actually hungry after all, I guess I’ll stop now. It will cause a lot of stress hormones to be released in the baby’s brain. A baby who cries until he stops has given up on you. He’s learned that you are NOT going to be there for him, and his needs might not be met. That, in his desperation, he reached out to you and you turned away.
Soon enough, he or she will be telling you not to hold their hand at school, or kiss them goodbye in front of their friends. The time when they need and depend on you is only a small part of their lives, and yours, so you should enjoy it while you can.
It’s really hard to fire someone in the government, but if they are an intern, it’s pretty easy.
We had three people start at the same time as interns. The two women were fantastic, interested in learning the job, hard working, never called out, etc. but “Charles”, not so much. I had just been promoted to supervisor. A week after he started, he stuck his head in my office and offered to help me with my supervisory duties. He didn’t know how to do the work yet, but he was going to help me supervise. Got it.
A couple days later, he walks into my office, plops down in a chair and says “I don’t know how you work with some of these fucking bitches. Those dumb cunts deserve to be fired”. Now I’m not a prude, but I also behave and speak in a professional manner. I had done nothing to make Charles think my office was some “safe zone”, where he could denigrate other employees, or use that kind of language.
He would sleep at his desk, call out, leave early, not what you would expect from any professional, let alone an intern trying to make their mark.
A lot of our job entailed technical writing. He wasn’t much of a writer to begin with, and often sent supposedly final versions of documents on the the next department with track changes and edits still in them. I had to fix a lot of his supposedly finished work. .
The crown jewel was him loudly proclaiming that life would be great in two months as he would no longer be an intern, so it would be near impossible to fire him. He was fired the next day.
I had to let an employee go when I owned a security guard company. He’d been involved in a fatal shooting — he killed a man who’d fired at him — before I bought the business and he shot and killed a drunk who attacked him after I took over.
After the second shooting my insurance carrier gave me an ultimatum: Fire the employee or lose my insurance. I promised them that I would not allow him to carry a weapon and that I would assign him to my office as Operations Manager but they would not budge. I had to choose between him and insurance coverage but without insurance I was out of business.
I called everyone I knew in the business trying to find him another job. They all knew about the shootings so they weren’t interested. So I began reaching out to my clients. My guy was ex-military and very smart and I hoped that one of them might be interested in him.
It turned out that a car dealer I was providing patrol coverage to was thinking about taking his security in-house so he agreed to talk with my employee.
Long story short, I lost a $1,000 a month patrol contract but the guard was hired by the car dealer. I haven’t spoken with my ex-employee in years but the last time I did he was head of security for the dealer, in charge of 4 different car lots. Like I said, he is very smart.
I’m from Russia. Below are a few things I almost always have to explain or discuss with visitors from Russia.
1. Why individual houses are so large? We always get into discussion that house is not just a shelter, but also a manifestation of one’s financial achievements.
2. Philanthropy. There is no culture of philanthropy in Russia and many view American philanthropy either as a waste of money or as some intricate plot to get some additional benefits.
3. People don’t walk places. They go everywhere by a car.
4. There is almost no public transportation except in a few large cities. People actually have to have cars to get places. Cars are necessity, not luxury.
5. Majority of high and middle schools have sport facilities of very high, almost professional quality.
6. Many schools have orchestras, bands, theaters of a very high, almost professional quality. Free.
7. Every state has a lot of autonomy.
8. President’s salary is comparable with the one of a plastic surgeon.
9. President doesn’t automatically become the richest person in the country.
10. Majority of things in the US aren’t controlled or regulated by the government.
11. Children are expected to leave home when they are 18.
12. Students prefer and are expected to live in a dorm and not with parents.
13. When relatives visit they often stay in the hotel.
14. Many children, even in well to do families, work in fast food, car washes and do a lot of other things to get money and it is not an embarrassment.
15. Parents have their babies sleeping in separate rooms almost from the day of their birth.
16. Russians find 11-15 are particularly absurd, offensive, and egotistical.
17. Many Russians believe that American system of primary and secondary education is very inefficient. As a mother, I have to explain that it is very diverse and essentially even in the poorest districts there are tons of resources available for children who are willing to use them. There are also an opportunity for kids to take advanced and extra advanced classes providing they are willing and able to do the work. And this differentiation is available as early as elementary school.
18. How well elderly live, even those on SSI and Medicaid. How many services are available to them.
19. How open Americans are about their shortcomings and always ready for self criticism.
20. Millions of people don’t have medical insurance.
21. Some hospitals look like five-star hotels.
22. Budgets of some hospitals are equal to h/c budgets of small countries.
23. Doctors tell their patients everything.
24. Return policies and free refill.
25. Idea of a liberal art education. In Russia, after high school graduation, a student should decide on vocation: engineer, doctor, teacher, lawyer, accountant, etc. It seems inconceivable to attend a university and then to graduate without a solid specialty. I often have to explain that not knowing what one wants to do after high school is an acceptable norm in US. A student can still acquire marketable skills, expand his or horizons, get a job after graduation, and, what is even more surprising, obtain an advance degree in a totally different field later. Yes, accountant can attend a medschool and become a doctor and musician can go for aa master degree in computer science.
Long ago when the no bra and see through crazes overlapped for a while (late 70s I believe) I had a young lady walk into my 1st Period class with no bra and a see through blouse. I took roll while the students started a mini lesson on the board. Then I started to write a note I intended to give to her to go to the office for a ruling/talking to by a female counselor. I had just started when the young lady called to me “Mister, tell them to stop staring at me!” I looked up and of course every boy in class (11th grade) was staring, standing to see over other students etc. Before I could say anything another girl loudly proclaimed “If you don’t want them looking, why did you dress like that?” Another girl handed the young lady a sweater jacket to put on. Then the young lady came up and whispered “May I have a bathroom pass?”
I gave it to her and put my note aside to see what happened. 10–15 minutes later she came back wearing an over sized PE uniform t-shirt over her clothes, handed the sweater back to the girl it belonged to, looked at me and then at the one who had spoken up and in a very soft voice said “I guess I didn’t think. It won’t happen again.” It didn’t.
On October 25, 2009, I was working like I always did and my supervisor came up and asked if I wanted an early out. I didn’t usually take early outs because I was a single mom and my supervisors knew it. I shocked him because I agreed to leave early. I said it’d be nice to have some extra time with my kids. I went to the babysitter’s house and her brother told me that she took my kids to her grandparents farm and he’d let her know to bring them straight home when they got back. I left there and at a stop sign and ambulance went flying past me and I had such a strong urge to follow it but I talked myself out of it. I went home and was pulling stuff out of the fridge when my phone rang. It was the sitter’s cousin asking me where my kids were and I told her they were with Nikki and then she told me that Nikki was in a head on accident and they may have to life fight her. She swore my kids weren’t with Nikki and I knew they had to be. After that Nikki’s boyfriend called me and told me that Nikki and my kids were in a head on accident and I must have let out a really loud scream because my neighbors heard me in their house. I called my parents as I rushed out the door and I asked them to keep me calm until I found my kids because they were in a head on accident. I didn’t even notice my neighbor standing in the yard. Apparently they heard about the wreck on the scanner and then heard me scream so they’d came out to drive me wherever I needed but I didn’t hear him talk to me. I was too focused. I had no idea where to go so I decided to go straight out the direction that I saw the ambulance go earlier. I came up to an accident and I tried to get past all of the cars and a police officer stopped me and said I couldn’t go any further. I told him it was my kids without knowing 100% at the time but just by my gut feeling. He called ahead to another officer and he said they were okay but my son’s face was cut a little bit from the airbag and his glasses. They allowed me to drive up to the ambulance but I still wasn’t allowed to see my kids. I followed them to the hospital. From the look of the truck, I knew the police officer was wrong. It took over 2 hours to be able to see my kids from the first call. I only got to see them when once the arrived at the hospital. My son’s face wasn’t just cut a little it was several cuts and two black eyes. My son ended up with permanent brain damage that was diagnosed later on. He didn’t want to walk and we just thought it was because he was scared so we carried him home. He’d just crawl on the floor and not walk. When we took him to his so called specialist, he told me I needed to institutional him because he’d never be able to learn again because he no longer had a short term memory and part of his long term memory was gone. I fired him and worked to teach my son how to walk, use the bathroom, and worked with him on his schooling. I’d enrolled in college just to help him learn. I needed to know how the brain worked to teach him and him retain things. He did learn it and more after I was told he never would. He also had whiplash extremely bad. Our attorney found it in the x-rays but the hospital never mentioned it. My daughter had to be potty trained again and she had severe whiplash along with a severe concussion. For the police to tell me they were fine I knew they weren’t. especially after seeing the truck. II wish my intuition was wrong that day. I’m fortunate that I didn’t lose my kids but we still lost my son as we knew him. When my older kids saw the actual changes in him they broke down crying. Fortunately it wasn’t all at the same time. As for the child the told me to institutionalize because he’d never learn again and could never live alone, He proved them all wrong. He’s got an amazing job, lives on his own, drives himself to work, and is having a babe in a couple weeks. He thanks me all the time for not giving up on him. He and his sister are best friends because she stood up for him when he couldn’t. I hope I never ever get the urge to follow an ambulance again. That’s not something I’d normally do so that day I had gut feeling and I was right. BTW, the engine was pushed all the way to sit in the back seat where my daughter was sitting. Her seatbelt wouldn’t work so she wasn’t fastened in thank God. If my kids would of say any other way I probably would of lost one if not both. Good was looking out for my kids that day. I’ll never ever forget that day.
Tuscan-Style Ribollita
2024 02 13 08 10
Ingredients
6 slices (1/2-inch thick) day-old crusty French bread
3 cloves garlic
Black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon chicken broth
1 onion, diced
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 zucchini, sliced
1 yellow squash, sliced
1/2 sweet red pepper, diced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 cups torn escarole or dark cabbage
1 (16 ounce) can kidney beans
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can plum tomatoes, drained, juices reserved
1 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Oregano leaves (garnish)
Instructions
Grease a baking sheet. Put the bread on the sheet and bake at 350 degrees F until golden brown, about 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven.
Cut 1 garlic clove in half and rub on each side of the toast slices. Sprinkle with black pepper and set aside.
Heat the oil and broth mixture in a 4-quart pot. Add the onions and sauté until tender, about 10 minutes.
Mince the remaining garlic. Add the garlic, carrots and celery to the pot. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.
Add the zucchini, squash, sweet peppers and oregano; cook for 5 minutes.
Add the escarole, beans and tomatoes; cook until the escarole wilts, about 2 minutes.
Add black pepper. Pour the vegetable mixture into a 3-quart casserole and top with the toast.
In a large measuring cup, combine the reserved tomato juice and the broth; pour over the toast. Sprinkle with Parmesan.
Bake at 375 degrees F until the cheese has melted, about 30 minutes.
One night as I proceeded through an intersection when the light turned green I heard a car accelerate and saw it nearly t bone me. I made the stop and saw it was a local shithead kid I knew well as having a major chip on his shoulder. He blamed his faulty brakes to which I replied I’d have to impound his car for a safety inspection. At this point he changes his story and tries to reach down and roll the floor mat under his brake pedal to blame for the incident. I issued him summonses for unsafe speed, running a light a failure to yield with the warning to keep it on the straight and narrow. A short time later I received a call for a 911 hangup at his address. The door opened and a middle aged male walks out. I ask him if he was the homeowner and if everything is OK. He addresses me by name and says he’s a corrections officer and asks why his son was not given a courtesy and gives me a rehash of his sons version of events. I ask him if he called 911 over this event and he said yes he was trying to lodge a complaint against me. I replied that his son is a liar and that’s not what 911 is for. He went on grumbling about courtesy and I shot back neither you nor your kid know the meaning of the word. After that incident the kid was noticeably quieter during the numerous encounters we had with him and his delinquent crowd.
Yep, had a woman who did the same job as me on alternate days and was jealous as I was asked to do the important stuff so to speak on my shifts and not her, the boss, female would confide in me and not her as she was a straight out the door on the dot person and would never cover in an emergency etc. She started to file fake complaints on night reports …he didn’t do this etc but of course we had CCTV. She would send watsapp messages to me complaining and then the best one…my wife is Asian…one night she sent a message insulting my wife and Asian women calling them Ting Tongs and Asian brides.
What she failed to realise is that the CEO despite having an English surname through marriage was Asian. I simply replied… our Thai CEO will enjoy reading that
Years ago I was driving home from a night out in Memphis, TN. It was roughly 3 AM, and I was driving about 60 to 65 mph along Walnut Grove Rd through Shelby Farms. The speed limit stepped up from 40 mph to 55 mph pretty close to that spot, and I don’t recall which side I was on. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. I saw the reflection of my headlights on his patrol car and started to pull over before his blue lights came on. Once stopped, I rolled down my window and had my license and registration ready for him when he walked up to talk to me. He looked at them, at me, and at the officer decal on my windshield and said I could go. Greatly surprised, I asked him why, and I would never have predicted his response. “You pulled over so fast and in such a short distance that I don’t even have to go around [a mile or so down the road to a break in the median] and come back to my spot [where he had set his speed trap].” I was not intoxicated, and I was far from the fastest car to travel that road. But at that particular time I was the only driver around, so I got his attention. The whole thing was a bit surreal, but I was grateful for the outcome. I thanked him and went home to get some sleep.
I called for what I said was, I guess, a welfare check. I saw a young girl, probably mid-teens, walking on the rural road near where we live. I didn’t think much about it, even though there are few people who walk on that road, and very few homes. Later, as I returned home, I found her walking up the even more rural road leading up the mountain to where we live. I stopped and asked if she needed a ride. To my surprise, she said yes (her a young girl, me an old man). I asked her where she was going, and she said to visit someone. We passed my house, and she said to stop at a neighbor’s house. I asked who she was seeing, since I knew our neighbors, and she just said, “Someone.” I let her out and went home. I had to leave a while later and found her walking back down at the bottom of the mountain on the road near where I first saw her. I had also noticed that she had taken off her jacket and dropped it on the road. At that point I called the police and said that I was worried about her. I described her and told the 911 operator where she was. A short time after that a police car passed me going in that direction. I did not see the girl later when I returned home. I don’t know what happened, but she seemed troubled in some way, and was definitely acting odd. I hope the police gave her a ride home, or helped her with whatever her problem was, but I have no idea.
Ladies, this is the worst expression you could tell a man. Don’t tell him all men are the same because no one told you to try them all.
Men do not like to be told what to do and how to do it all the time.
When you ask stupid questions like “Do I look fat to you?” “Do you still love your ex?” “When I grow old, will you still love me?” “Do you think that woman is more beautiful than me?”
We all hate it when you bring up old things every time we fight.
Talking to your Friends about Anything and Everything
Men don’t like it when you talk about your exes, especially if you do it a lot or bring up details.
Even if you are just friends, men hate to be friend-zoned.
I was the IT manager at one of the Maryland Job Corp centers. I was in the process of upgrading government cast off computer equipment from 486s to Pentium Ones, if that tells u how long ago.
Being a nonsmoker, I never take breaks. Ever. I was coming across campus carrying 4 CPUs. I walk really fast so it alway looked like I was running to other staff. They’d joke about me working so hard, so fast. I stopped outside the admin building to catch up with the HR assistant. I was changing her computer next. In front of probably 10 of these smokers, my boss, the director of Finance and Administration took a puff and asked, “Christine, isn’t there someplace you should be?”
Dead, shocked silence.
The 60 hours I’d put in the week before, being forced to sign something that I was volunteering so wasn’t paid OT, and this comment flashed thru my mind.
I took a breath, bit back my inner voice’s come backs, smiled and set the computers down on the sidewalk.
I said, “There sure is.”. Smiled, walked inside, got my keys and kept walking.
When my older son was 7 (he’s about to be 28), the school nurse called because my son had an accident on the playground and sustained a large bump/knot to the center of his forehead. They said he was fine, but that I should probably take him to the doctor just to be sure. The nurse kept… almost giggling?… and when I asked what happened, she reiterated that he was okay, but that he would best be able to explain when I got there.
i should probably mention that he was already a big nerd, an advanced reader who used words many adults didn’t even use and wasn’t athletic AT ALL. He didn’t like to sweat or get dirty and was always afraid of injuring himself. Needless to say, all the way to the school I was perplexed at what MY KID could’ve possibly been doing so carelessly or vigorously on that playground to have injured himself.
When I got there he was embarrassed and mad af at himself but also laughing and I will never forget what he said. “My arch nemesis challenged me to a duel and I won. And it felt so good I couldn’t hold it in. I did a victory lap, but was stupid and did it with my eyes closed and ran into the tether ball pole. Mom, I gloated too hard.”
Months after buying a security guard company, from my former employer. one of my guards was involved in a fatal shooting at a nightclub. A drunk wielding a tire iron ran at him and the guard shot him once, through the heart, from about six feet away.
Houston Police investigated and eventually the guard was no-billed, meaning a grand jury declined to indict my guy, but that didn’t stop the drunk’s family from filing a wrongful death suit against the club and my company. My liability insurer wound up settling my part of the suit for $30,000 but after doing so they blindsided me by insisting that I fire the guard.
A couple of years earlier, while working for the man I bought the company from, he was involved in another fatal shooting at an apartment complex. In that case, a man shot at him from across a courtyard and his return fire struck the man in the head, killing him instantly. No lawsuit was filed in that case but my insurer still believed that two fatal shootings in such a short time indicated that the guard was too much of a liablility, so I was told to fire him or they’d cancel my coverage. I proposed giving him a job in my office so he wouldn’t be working a post, but the insurance company wouldn’t budge. I had 25 other fulltime employees to consider so I had to let the man go.
But I knew that a car dealer I provided security for was considering taking their security in-house, meaning they’d hire guards directly who’d work for the dealership. I talked with the owner and told him that my (former) guard would be a great choice to run his security team and, after checking the guy out, he agreed. I wound up selling my company and leaving Houston 10 years after I fired the guard but we’d stayed in touch over the years so I had a chance to visit with him before I left. He’d left the car dealership and was assistant security director for Occidental Petroleum. He said my firing him was the best thing that ever happened to him.
I use an iPad mounted facing down and connected to a projector as a document projector. The mount is flexible, so I can aim the iPad at the class, if I want to. If I suspect that students are cheating when I’m not looking, I just set the iPad to record a video or time-lapse, then quietly flex the mount, so the iPad is pointed at the students.
Then I walk around the room, making sure to turn my back on the students I suspect are cheating.
Then, I come back to the iPad and stop the video.
Finally, at the end of the quiz or test, I turn on the projector and show the students the beginning of the video I made. I pause it just a few seconds in, so they can think about the fact that I caught them on camera, and I ask the students to be honest with themselves and me. If they were cheating, let me know, before I see it in the video. It’s the right thing to do.
Most of them confess right then and there. Some of them don’t. We have to watch the video together and I have to point to the moment when they’re cheating.
If they know they cheated, but don’t confess, I show their parents the video.
Nazis had a pretty weird thing about blonde, blue eyed babies.
During Hitler’s rise to power, he initiated a program to raise the percentage of Aryan children. This was called a Lebensborn
program.
They basically made every available child to be in peak physical condition and made to match the Aryan race standards.
This included treatments such as: a very strict diet, early indoctrination with Nazi ideologies and even the usage of ultraviolet rays for hair color (in case a baby wasn’t blonde enough)
image 175
Most children came from German impregnated moms but after WWII started , the Nazis encouraged SS soldiers to ‘’get to know’’ the beautiful girls of Europe. They captured not only the best countries, but also the most Aryan girls 😉
If those ladies got pregnant, and their children were deemed as desirable, they were sent to a Lebensborn house where their kids would get a treatment like the one written above. The main ‘’factory’’ (besides Germany) was Norway, with 12.000 kids born during WWII.
When there were not enough moms available, the SS would simply kidnap children that fit their Aryan standards, as Himmler himself said
‘’It is our duty to take [the children] with us to remove them from their environment … either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people or we destroy this blood’’
The USSR, Estonia, Latvia, Norway and Yugoslavia were serious targets. Poland reportedly lost as many as 100.000 children during the whole war.
image 174
(abducted Polish children in a special labour camp)
After WWII, most children could not be found and linked back with their families because their program files were destroyed to hide war crimes. Hence, an exact number of Germanized children is impossible to tell.
Frid Lyngstad of ABBA is a known survivor of this terrible initiative. Her German father who was an officer in the German army, befriended her Norwegian mother to supply the SS with enough moms. After the war, she and her mom migrated to Sweden.
image 173
(The one with dark hair)
At least something good came out of this whole mess.
I worked for a very large, blue, trash company for about 7 years. After the first year I was running routes so efficiently that there were no improvements left to make so they pulled me from those routes and made me a swing driver. I started running everyone’s routes faster by an average of 3 hours per day, other swing drivers would take 60 hours to run the same routes it was taking me 36 to run and pick up what they missed. I did this for a long time and after several talks with management to make the pay more fair they told me that there was nothing they could do. We were paid hourly and thats it. I told them I was going to find another job then. They freaked out and I told them I wasn’t leaving just yet but as soon as I found something else I was leaving. Fast forward 3 years and I walk into my managers office to tell him I am quitting. He couldn’t believe it because it was out of nowhere in his eyes. I walked away from a fun fast paced job making $20 per hour getting anywhere from 33–56 hours per week depenfing on which routes i would run or who they would let me help. I am now working a job where I only work 6 months out of the year, easy work and make $120k and only requires 8 hours of overtime every other week. Now fast forward another 4 years and I run into the new manager and supervisor. We talk for a minute and the supervisor tells the new manager I used to work for them. He offers me my job back. Before I could even speak the supervisor tells him they can’t afford me to come back. I wished them a good day and walked away. So to answer your question, probably not fired but definitely passed up for promotions. That’s what they did to me.
Because of her eyes that were getting angrier at me by the day. Because of her eyes that were getting hungrier by the day, but not for me. Because of the divide that had started to appear, and there was nothing I could do about it.
It started with a crack (that I didn’t notice at first).
And when I did notice more cracks, only hours later — on that very same day — I realized that she already was in a very different place, and that she might be cheating. Her cell phone behavior had become erratic. Her reactions on my every sentence aggressive. Just like that.
She must have been hiding it, but now the cracks started to appear.
Hours later, in one of the longest nights of my adult life — and still on that very same day — she blatantly stated in the darkness of our cold bedroom that her love for me had faded. (“It was not like before anymore.”)
And day after day, week after week, the space between us became bigger, and the cracks grew into an abyss of anger and distrust.
At one point, the divide became too big, and she was standing at the other side — not even waving. She was just looking at me with empty eyes, as if she was not seeing me anymore. (And I think she really didn’t.) I would see that same empty look on her more than fifteen years in the future — in the awkward silence only separated people know — when she was in the final days of late stage breast cancer.
Much further away on the other side of the divide now, and about to disappear.
The problem is that back in the day, we were already married.
And there was nothing to call off except our every shared memory. As if life had become a text, written on a chalk blackboard.
A friend of mine was having a medieval themed wedding. She had this gorgeous green gown and planned this elaborate hairstyle with flowers braided in. She asked her best friend to be maid of honour, and I got to be bridesmaid.
Get to the big day, and maid of honor is a no show. No phone call, text or email either. So I get upgraded and asked to help with my friends hair. I know NOTHING about elaborate hairstyles, there was no way I could do the style she wanted. So we ended up settling on a simple braided style with green ribbons and flowers threaded in. My friend was pissed. Not with me, but with her now ex-friend. Rest of the day went without a hitch and was gorgeous. My friend thanked me for helping at the last minute.
She never did get an explanation from that other girl, and refused to ever see her again.
I’ve quit without notice twice in my life. The first time was when I was passed over for promotion at Walmart but was offered a 25¢ an hour raise, instead, in recognition of the good work I was doing for the store. 25¢ an hour came out to $520 a year while the promotion would have resulted in a pay increase of around $12,000 annually. I told the store manager to shove the raise and walked out.
Several years later I was working in IT for a clothing manufacturer but I wanted to leave because I was, once again, denied a promotion. I soon learned that my boss and her toadie were holding me back by giving tepid references when companies I’d interviewed with called, so when I finally was offered a job I accepted immediately and told them I’d start the following Monday.
Before leaving work on Friday I drafted a companywide email telling my boss, and her toadie, and the business owner exactly how I felt about them, and I delayed delivery until Monday morning, so it would be the first thing everyone, including the three stooges saw. My boss actually called me on Monday morning, around 5 AM, before the email was delivered and asked me to come in early because she was having trouble with a printer. I told her I’d be right in and then rolled over and went back to sleep. She never called me again.
An earthquake measuring Magnitude 7.5 has struck Taiwan, triggering a TSUNAMI WARNING!
From the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
The point of origin of this “earthquake” was ON the East Coast of Taiwan.
7 4 map
Also from the USGS, the Community “Intensity” Map rating the level of perceived shaking as LEVEL 9 – VIOLENT.
Location
This location is along the rugged, but very beautiful, Taiwanese Eastern coastline.
And when you use Google Maps to zoom in, you discover some interesting things packed amongst the quaint houses and highways there…
Taiwan base 1
Coincidentally…
President Biden, made an unexpected emergency phone call “HOT LINE” to Chinese President Xi Peng. Immediately, within hours, of the “earthquake”.
“Xi, Biden hold phone talks” by Xinhua Published: Apr 02, 2024 11:08 PM. Found HERE.
...President Xi underlined three overarching principles that should guide China-U.S. relations in 2024.
First, peace must be valued. The two sides should put a floor of no conflict and no confrontation under the relationship, and keep reinforcing the positive outlook of the relationship.
Second, stability must be prioritized. The two sides should refrain from setting the relationship back, provoking incident or crossing the line, so as to maintain the overall stability of the relationship.
Third, credibility must be upheld. The two sides should honor their commitments to each other with action, and turn the San Francisco vision into reality. They need to strengthen dialogue in a mutually respectful way, manage differences prudently, advance cooperation in the spirit of mutual benefit, and step up coordination on international affairs in a responsible way.
President Xi stressed that the Taiwan question is the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations.
In the face of "Taiwan independence" separatist activities and external encouragement and support for them, China is not going to sit on its hands.
He urged the U.S. side to translate President Biden's commitment of not supporting "Taiwan independence" into concrete actions.
The U.S. side has adopted a string of measures to suppress China's trade and technology development, and is adding more and more Chinese entities to its sanctions lists.
This is not "de-risking," but creating risks. If the U.S. side is willing to seek mutually beneficial cooperation and share in China's development dividends, it will always find China's door open; but if it is adamant on containing China's hi-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development, China is not going to sit back and watch.
President Xi stated China's position on Hong Kong-related issues, human rights, the South China Sea, and other issues.
When I lived in The ‘States, spaghetti was my primary food. It was affordable, tasty and easy to make. I would cook up hamburger (mince) and then add it to spaghetti with some peppers and onions.
When I moved to China, I learned about REAL noodles… and all sorts of different variations. All so darn yummy.
A popular classic Beijing dish, Zha Jiang Mian features ground pork and onion cooked in a rich savory brown sauce with a hint of sweetness, tossed with noodles and then served with crunchy cucumber. It takes no time to prepare, is easy to cook, and can be prepared ahead of time. It’s a perfect one-bowl dish for hot days and is great for meal prep as well.
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What is Zha Jiang Mian
Zha Jiang Mian (炸酱面), or translated literally, fried sauce noodles, is one of the most classic and famous dishes in Beijing cuisine. It’s not as fancy or well-known as Peking Duck, but if you travel to Beijing, locals will always recommend this dish to you.
My parents told me that zha jiang mian was a dish for poor people. The traditional recipe uses a thick salty soybean paste to make the sauce, together with a bit of ground pork and sometimes lard. The sauce becomes so rich and flavorful that you only need a small amount of it to accompany a whole bowl of noodles. This way, people don’t need to spend much to fill up their bellies.
Although it seems like a simple dish, it has a whole set of rules that govern how it’s served in Beijing. It is called Old Beijing Fried Sauce Noodles here, and this is considered the most traditional and authentic way to prepare the dish. In addition to the sauce made from yellow soybean paste, the dish is often served with sliced cucumber, sliced red radish, boiled bean sprouts, and yellow soybeans. By adding all these things to the noodles, you can create a balanced and flavorful dish that is refreshing and has a good texture.
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Why this recipe
However, the recipe I’m sharing today is different from the traditional way of cooking Zha Jiang Mian. This is a family recipe that was passed down from my grandma, and I think it tastes much better than the traditional one.
Secret Ingredient: Sweet Bean Paste
Instead of yellow soybean paste, my family uses sweet bean paste (Tian mian jiang, 甜面酱) to make Zha Jiang Mian. It is a thick dark brown sauce made from fermented wheat flour. Tian Mian Jiang is less salty than yellow soybean paste and has a slightly sweet flavor (It is the same sauce that accompanies Peking Duck and Moo Shu Chicken). It has a more delicate flavor and is less overwhelming than yellow soybean paste. Sometimes Chinese restaurants label it as hoisin sauce. But sweet bean paste is less sweet and has a deeper fermented umami than hoisin sauce.
You can find sweet bean paste at Chinese markets and many Asian markets. You can also purchase it on Amazon.
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A more satisfying sauce
The traditional Zha Jiang Mian uses very little pork in the sauce. Because the dish is created for a budget meal, like I mentioned above.
For the homemade version, my mom uses much more pork and chopped onion to create a much better texture and more delicious sauce. Since sweet bean paste is less salty than soybean paste, you will also use more sauce per bowl of noodles, which makes the dish more balanced and satisfying.
My mom likes to chop a fattier block of pork into small cubes instead of using ground pork, to achieve a better mouthfeel. Here I used ground pork to make prep much easier. But feel free to use cut-up pork for your dish if you prefer.
Ingredients
When you’re ready to cook, your counter should have:
Sweet bean paste and water
Sliced cucumber (and other toppings if you prefer)
Minced ginger
Shaoxing wine
Oil for cooking
Ground pork
Chopped onion
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Type of noodles for Zha Jiang Mian
There are a few options for Zha Jiang Mian. Traditional Zha Jiang Mian uses a rather thick type of noodles. It’s a bit similar to udon noodles in terms of thickness, but with a chewier texture.
If you have access to Asian market, try to find fresh noodles in the refrigerated section. The Lan Zhou Fresh Noodles or Da Xi Bei GunGun (my favorite) by HAVISTA, and the Plain Noodles from Twin Marquis are great options. You can freeze the portion you’re not using for up to 6 months.
If you can only find dried noodles, that’s totally fine. You can use either the thick type or thin types of noodles, depending on the texture you prefer. Make sure to use noodles made from wheat flour and water (there shouldn’t be eggs or other ingredients).
You can serve your Zha Jiang Mian with no toppings and the result will still be delicious. For a better texture, my favorite topping is sliced cucumber. Other crunchy vegetables such as sliced radish (red, daikon, or watermelon radish), blanched bean sprouts, and sliced carrots are great options as well. You can also add a small handful of salad greens to the dish.
TIP: If you find slicing vegetables too time consuming, use a julienne peeler to save time.
An untraditional topping
Unlike the traditional way of serving Zha Jiang Mian, my mom loves to add scrambled eggs and tomato as a topping. This is a family tradition and I’ve never seen other people serve Zha Jiang Mian this way. But I love how it tastes. The tender tomatoes and eggs add more volume to the noodles and balance out the rich brown sauce, making the dish so delicious and colorful!
How to cook zha jiang mian
Mix the sweet bean sauce
Sweet bean sauce is a thick paste that’s easy to burn in a hot pan. So you will need to add water to it to thin it out before cooking. It’s like the idea of miso paste, as you should dissolve it in water beforehand.
Cooking Zha Jiang Mian sauce
Gently cook the ginger
Pan fry the pork
Add the sauce
Simmer to bring the flavor out of the sauce
Add the onions and cook until tender
Stir and serve!
The sweet bean sauce needs to be cooked for long enough to bring out the best flavor. That’s why you will start with a diluted sauce, and it will gradually thicken until it’s done. Make sure to stir the sauce frequently during the cooking, so it won’t burn on the bottom of the pan.
When the sauce is simmering, you can start a pot of water to cook the noodles. Because the Zha Jiang Mian sauce will be piping hot once it’s done, you can boil the noodles at the end, when the sauce is almost ready.
To assemble, transfer noodles to individual bowls and add a spoonful of the sauce. And top it with vegetables as you like. Then you can mix it all together and eat it.
My family’s recipe not only preserves all the deliciousness of a bowl of traditional Zha Jiang Mian, but also tastes better and is super comforting. Add a spoonful of sauce to the noodles and gently mix them; you will smell the pungent aroma and be unable to resist picking up the chopsticks and digging in.
Guys, this dis is authentic, and super delicious. If you love American (Western) “spaghetti with meat sauce”, you will absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this dish. It is worth the time to prepare correctly.
However, if you are in the West, go to any Chinese family run… Chinese restaurant, and ask for Zha Jiang Mian.
Pronounced like a “ja”. Say it twice fast as in “ja-ja”. Add “mian” which is noodles in Chinese. You say…
Originally Answered: What is the most condescending advice you received from someone who assumed you were poor or less educated than they were?
I worked at Trader Joe’s for 3 years while I was pursuing my Ph.D. One day, a woman and her granddaughter came through my lane. The girl, about 12, remarked that she thought it would be fun to work at Trader Joe’s someday. Her grandmother winked at her and said, “Oh I think you can do a little better than that.”
I continued scanning her groceries and said, “Keep it in mind if you’re ever in school getting your Ph.D. The flexible hours and benefits are great so you can focus on your studies.” I looked directly at the grandmother and said, “At least that’s how it’s working out for me.”
The woman was embarrassed, but I continued, talking again to the granddaughter. “And, just remember, a job you love and enjoy is the most important part.”
This is just ONE example of hundreds. Customers coming through my lane acting as though the only reason for me being there was because I was too dumb, too lazy, too whatever to be their equal. I worked with people with their MBA, artists, and people who didn’t have a college degree but were the hardest workers I’ve ever known before or since.
Ukraine SitRep: A Hated New Commander – Critical Lack Of Infantry
The Ukrainian President Zelenski has fired the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces General Zaluzny.
Zaluzny was replaced by General Syrski, a somewhat unexpected choice as Syrski is hated by the troops for pushing them into meat grinders without a perspective of winning. Syrski, who was born as a Russian, had lost the cauldron battles of Debaltsevo (2015), Soledar (2023) and Bakhmut (2023). Currently Avdeevka is in a cauldron and likely to fall.
Rumors say that Syrski already ordered reserves to reinforce the troops in Avdeevka. Russian FAB bombs will welcome them.
General Syrsky has a reputation for being willing to engage the enemy, even if the cost in men and machines is high. He is a divisive figure who provokes strong reactions from serving officers. Some praise his professionalism, others say he terrifies his subordinates and rules by fear. He is less likely to question the priorities of his president. As he takes on the top job, he will have to soften his style of command and learn to speak truth to power.
The reorganisation will also cause disruption as officers shift to new positions in the chain of command. It is important that these changes do not degrade Ukraine’s capacity to fight. Before long, the country will need a new mobilisation even if General Syrsky uses his troops mostly for defence—as, for now, he should.
Ask yourself, why would Zelensky appoint a commander that the entire armed forces allegedly hates?
In fact, this is a ‘design feature’ not a bug.
Recall that the reason Zaluzhny was given the boot was he had become too powerful: he was too loved by the troops, and by the people. Why? One of the reasons is likely because he fought for the troops multiple times. In early 2023, documents were leaked showing that he nearly begged Zelensky to pull troops back from Bakhmut, but the narco-Fuhrer refused, wanting it as a symbolic city defense—perhaps taken with romantic delusions of Stalingrad.
During the grand summer ‘counteroffensive’, Zaluzhny pulled the brigades of the 10th Army Corps back and began to use them sparingly—much to the chagrin and disapproval of US sponsors—after the initial first few wipes devastated columns of Leopards and Bradleys along the infamous road of death near Rabotino and Mala Tokmachka.
Recently it was claimed Zaluzhny likewise attempted to get Avdeevka totally withdrawn. It does not seem that he likes to waste men for what he knows to be fruitless efforts. Syrsky on the other hand appears glad to grind them down.
So, has it become obvious yet? Zelensky needs a commander-in-chief he can control, someone not universally loved by the troops; someone who cannot use those troops at a time of opportunity to ‘march on Kiev’ and oust Zelensky from his citadel. Syrsky appears to fit the perfect prototypical role: undefiant, unpopular, uncharismatic, and most importantly, untempted by political ambitions—the ideal subserviant factotum to Zelensky’s regime.
There is no word yet what Zaluzny is going to do. He has the respect of the troops and good relations with the ‘nationalists’, i.e. the Nazi fringe militia of Ukraine. He also has the support of some politicians opposed to Zelenski.
A coup is thereby a possible outcome of this change.
Yesterday a Washington Post article, sources from interviews at the Ukrainian front, describes the utter shamble the Ukrainian forces are in:
In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Washington Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.
One battalion commander in a mechanized brigade fighting in eastern Ukraine said that his unit currently has fewer than 40 infantry troops — the soldiers deployed in front-line trenches who hold off Russian assaults. A fully equipped battalion would have more than 200, the commander said.
Under normal circumstances a mechanized battalion is supposed to hold a 3 kilometer long frontline. With only 40 infantry soldiers available that becomes an impossible task. The further deterioration from that depleted state will be rapid.
Oleksandr, a battalion commander, said the companies in his unit on average are staffed at about 35 percent of what they should be. A second battalion commander from an assault brigade said that is typical for units that carry out combat tasks.
Asked how many new soldiers he has received — not including those who have returned after injuries — Oleksandr said his battalion was sent five people over the past five months. He and other commanders said the new recruits tend to be poorly trained, creating a dilemma about whether to send someone immediately onto the battlefield because reinforcements are needed so badly, even though they are likely to get injured or killed because they lack the know-how.
“The basis of everything is the lack of people,” Oleksandr said.
“Where are we going? I don’t know,” he added. “There’s no positive outlook. Absolutely none. It’s going to end in a lot of death, a global failure. And most likely, I think, the front will collapse somewhere like it did for the enemy in 2022, in the Kharkiv region.”
The new Ukrainian mobilization law, which is supposed to refill the army with fresh bodies, is still creeping through the Ukrainian parliament. It will likely come into force only by April. The first new troops conscripted under it will take until July to be combat capable. One wonders is the current Ukrainian army can hold that long.
Posted by b on February 9, 2024 at 7:41 UTC | Permalink
My Wife/Her Friends Expected Me To Pay For Their $700 Dinner Bill, Instead I Walked Out!
There are already some good answers here. One type of crime that has a low solvability is the “one off” variety, e.g. an offense the perpetrator does once before moving on. Solvability gets even lower if the crime is committed with no other connection between actor and victim.
For example, say that I am on a cross-country road trip, and take a detour to Ames, Iowa. I’ve never been there. I take I-80 to I-35 North, and stop off at a gas station/convenience store somewhere around Ames. I cover my license plates just before I get there, park around back or some other place where there are few surveillance cameras, and walk inside, robbing the store. I go back to my car, drive a few miles before getting rid of the license plate covers, and resume my trip. I stop for gas only at stations around I-80, none on I-35.
I haven’t given the cops much to go on. If I’m careful not to leave fingerprints and wear some clothing that makes it hard to get a good camera shot of my face, the chance this crime is going to be connected to me is pretty low. If I get greedy and use the same tactics at other crime venues, I increase my chances at getting caught with each iteration.
Organized crime hit men use a similar tactic. They take on targets that are outside their usual haunts, and do the deed in a place there are few witnesses. The police local to the site of the crime won’t know anything about the hit man. A federal agent looking for behavior patterns (M.Os. or modus operandi) might pick up the trail, but even that is a long shot, one that gets longer if the M.O. hasn’t been tied to the hit man.
While there are some smart criminals, most people who make it a habit to commit crimes aren’t especially bright, and have signature behaviors that tie the crimes back to them.
There’s a sport called Airsoft. If you know about it, skip this part, but for those who don’t here’s an explanation.
Airsoft is like paintball, but a lot of its components, i.e. the guns, gear, etc. is a lot more realistic than paintball. A lot of LARPers and MilSim (Military Simulation) guys love doing stuff like that.
The sport started in Japan due to its tough gun laws but the sport soon spread to other places like Britain, America, and… oh… Russia for instance.
In America, MilSim events are huge. There is a lot of preparation involved. People will drop thousands on gear to look like this:
image 147
This is an image I found off Google. Rifle, easy with all attachments, $300+, not to mention any internal modifications he might have.
Helmet an easy $50, assuming its a nice one. Earpieces have wires, so they’re probably communication linked, noise cancelling and sound enhancing. Easy $70–80. Crye combat pants. $100.
Even vehicles, which probably cost thousands to kit out:
image 148
As you can see, American MilSimmers are rather dedicated.
However, compared to Russian MilSim events… Well let me just say this. Its like comparing a pickup game of basketball with the neighborhood friends versus an all out NBA game. Take a look at this video.
https://youtu.be/hVyWHsElhME
Fucking hell. Russians bring multimillion dollar TANKS to their Milsim events. Plus, as you saw in the second vid, Russian soldiers got involved to take blank potshots at people to add to realism!
Meanwhile in America you have people arguing about 10 foot engagement distances and bang killing.
Yep. Most Russian thing ever, bring a tank to a toy fight.
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca is a traditional Italian pasta from Naples that’s quick to put together from pantry staples. If you have canned tomatoes, garlic, olives, anchovies and capers in your cupboard, you can knock out this simple but flavourful sauce in a flash. It’s a stellar emergency meal everyone should know, with a “saucy” backstory of its own!
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Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
There are various colourful stories explaining how this dish came to be, and how Puttanesca pasta got its name. “Puttanesca” roughly translates to “working girls” in Italian (that’s a politically correct term I’m using there!) One tale tells how this dish was invented in the brothels of Naples so the smells wafting from the kitchen would entice potential … errr, clients. Another story claims this pasta was a quick and simple dish ladies of the Neapolitan night could throw together in a hurry in amongst their busy schedules.
Does this kind of talk on a G-rated food blog make you blush? 😉
Whatever the origins, today this is considered a classic and staple Italian pasta recipe. It’s budget-friendly, easy and quick to make, yet delicious enough to woo family and friends (or indeed, “paying customers” … 😉)
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Ingredients in Puttanesca sauce
Being such simple recipe, this is one of those dishes that genuinely benefits from better quality ingredients. In this pasta, the one ingredient I find is really worth seeking out is fresh deli-style olives in olive oil or brine, rather than cheaper jarred ones you find on supermarket shelves.
Oh, also, anchovies – the secret “why is this simple sauce so good?” ingredient. If you skip it, the sauce isn’t quite as good! However you can leave it out if you wish to make the dish vegetarian / vegan (add a little more garlic, capers and olives instead).
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Black olives – Try to use good quality, fresh olives from the deli. These come in either olive oil or brine and will add more flavour into the sauce as it simmers compared to bottled ones that come in sealed jars. Both pitted and unpitted are fine but pitting your own is best.
Anchovies – This adds savoury flavour and salt to the sauce without leaving it “fishy-tasting”. In fact, you’d have to have a highly attuned palate to be able to taste it at all. The anchovies are finely chopped and dissolve into the sauce, and any strong fishiness disappears leaving just deliciously deep umami.I prefer to use whole anchovies and finely mince it myself because it has better flavour than using anchovy paste. But paste is a handy alternative – my rule of thumb is 1/4 teaspoon of paste per anchovy (so use 3/4 teaspoon in this recipe).
Spaghetti – Traditionally made with spaghetti or vermicelli pasta (ie. the thinner spaghetti), though this recipe works just fine with any long pasta. Or short, for that matter!
Tomatoes – Not all canned tomatoes are created equal! Better ones are sweeter and break down better to create a sauce. TIP: If you find your tomatoes are a bit on the sour side, just add a touch of sugar to the sauce. It’s a cheat’s way of taking the sour edge off that is a game changer with for example, Spaghetti Bolognese.
Capers – Adds little pops of briny goodness and that unique caper flavour to the sauce. I usually use standard size capers. On occasion, I find they can be giant in size so I’ll reach for the baby capers instead. Both work!
Garlic – Because this is Italian food!
Chilli flakes (aka red pepper flakes) – A pinch of heat is wonderful in this sauce. It’s not a spicy sauce, here it’s just a background hum of warmth.
Extra virgin olive oil – For cooking and finishing.
Fresh basil and oregano – These finishing herb touches will really lift the dish and return some freshness to the sauce. But if you don’t have them, it is absolutely still worth making using a pinch of dried oregano. Don’t bother with dried basil, it’s basically flavourless.If you don’t have basil, serve with a sprinkle of parmesan instead. The extra flavour will compensate for absence of fresh herb flavour.
How to make Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
Start the sauce first and get it simmering, then cook the pasta. They’ll both finish at the same time, ready to toss together!
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This recipe serves 2. Use a medium size skillet here rather than a very large one, else the sauce will dry out too quickly when simmering. If you’re scaling the recipe up however a large skillet will be necessary to toss the pasta in the sauce (or use a pot for the sauce and tossing).
Sauté aromatics – Start off by sautéing the garlic in olive oil until it starts to go golden on the edges. Then add the finely chopped anchovies, capers, olives and red pepper flakes and cook for a further 1 minute.This sautéing step is key to the flavour of the sauce. It blooms the flavour of the red pepper flakes and even more importantly, takes the raw fishy edge off the anchovies while causing them to break down, ready to dissolve into the sauce.
Add everything else into sauce – Add the can of tomatoes, then add water by rinsing out the can. In goes salt, pepper and fresh or dried oregano, then give it a good stir.
Simmer 10 minutes – Once the sauce comes to a simmer, turn the heat way down to low and let it simmer gently, stirring every now and then, for 10 minutes while the pasta cooks. The tomato will break down, the water will cook out, leaving behind a nice, shiny and thickened sauce. If at any stage it looks like the sauce is drying out (probably due to heat being too strong or using a skillet that’s too large), just add a splash of water.
Cook pasta – Cook the pasta in salted water. Just before draining, scoop out a mugful of pasta cooking water. This is a key, essential step for cooking any pasta(well and properly!). We add a splash into the pasta sauce when tossing with the pasta. Starch that’s left in the cooking water helps emulsify the fats and water in the sauce. This has a thickening effect and also discourages the sauce from separating. The sauce clings deliciously to the pasta strands instead of leaving a watery pool of bland liquid at the bottom of your pasta bowl.You’ll see this step in every pasta recipe on my website. And every household in Italy makes pasta this way!
Combine pasta, sauce and pasta cooking water – After draining the pasta, immediately throw into the sauce along with about 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water. I rarely measure, I just eyeball it.
Toss, toss, toss! With the skillet still on a low stove, use 2 wooden spoons to toss the pasta vigorously for a minute. After 20 or 30 seconds of tossing, you’ll notice that the sauce in the skillet starts clinging to the pasta (thanks to the pasta cooking water!).The pasta is ready when the sauce is all stuck to the pasta rather than sitting in the skillet.Pasta/sauce gets dry – If at any stage the pasta (or sauce) gets too thick or dries out, rather than being slippery and shiny, just add an extra splash of pasta cooking water then toss more. This will resurrect the pasta and makes it “juicy” again. This is why we scoop out a big mugful of pasta cooking water! I do this multiple times when taking photos and shooting videos of pasta because it loses freshness within minutes and I can’t shoot that fast!Sprinkle with basil and serve immediately!
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Pro tip: warm your pasta bowlsWatch how to make it
Pasta is a dish that is at its absolute best served hot and fresh. It is never the same reheated. It is also one of the rare dishes where I make the effort to warm serving bowls, to preserve the heat of the pasta when eating. I just pop them in a 70C / 160F oven to warm before I start cooking, or in the microwave for a minute before serving. It’s worth the small effort, especially in winter!
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What to serve with Puttanesca pasta
Parmesan?
Puttanesca is traditionally not served with the typical shower of parmesan because it already has plenty of salt and savouriness from the flavour-packed ingredients. But I won’t stop you if that’s how you want to roll.
Having said that, if I don’t have fresh basil sometimes I use parmesan to compensate as a finishing touch (no it’s not the same thing at all, but I like to have a garnish).
Sides!
In my world, Puttanesca is planted firmly in the “emergency pantry meals” bucket so you won’t get a side salad if I make this for you. It’s also technically 95% vegetables anyway! 😉 However, if you’re after a super quick one that’s on-theme, Rocket with Shaved Parmesan fits the bill with a side of hot buttery garlic bread or focaccia (I’m very proud of this recipe, I hope you try it one day!).
Add a Tiramisu for dessert or Italian Almond cookies with coffee, and suddenly this humble “quick pantry dinner” has transformed into a full blown Italian dinner menu!
We had a 10 year employee working at my store named (ummmm) “Suzy”. She was the community out-reach leader (and amazing at it) and the intimates / beauty department manager. She had a perfect attendance record. She was one of TWO “Exceeds Expectations” leaders in the entire store. She went to EVERY fundraising event and was absolutely one of the most delightful human beings I ever worked with.
I was in the break room with the store manager. In walked “Suzy”. She opened the fridge, dug out a bottle of iced tea. Said (out loud), “No name! Fair game!” and opened it and drank it. We didn’t even have time to stop her. We saw her take an item from the fridge. There was no moral dilemma on our part. The front of the fridge had a sign on it saying, “If it’s not yours and you take it, it’s theft. Period.” We had a camera pointing at the fridge because food theft had been a past issue.
“Suzy” was walked off the property the same day.
She was stunned. “But I have perfect attendance. I’ve gotten exceeds expectations on every review. I’m the community captain.” It absolutely broke my heart (she was one of my all time favorite employees). We had to explain to her, “Nobody gets immunity to the rules. You cannot be the greatest employee ever and expect that you earn some kind of points that grant you forgiveness, especially in an area so critical to trust and morale. All theft is treated the same, regardless of size or intent. You took something that didn’t belong to you.”
Theft is and should always be treated with absolute zero tolerance. No exceptions ever. Making exceptions demands future exceptions for all people. Making exceptions about theft opens the door to low standards. Better to fire all the perpetrators and shut the unit down until backfill can be identified than to allow a thief to continue being employed for even one second.
My son stole $2000 in a locked box from under my bed as I slept. He knew I needed that money to do badly needed repairs on the house we had just moved back into after a divorce. He had just gotten out of a juvenile treatment facility. He refused to get a job. He kept bringing a friend over at night when I was working.
My house reeked of marijuana every morning when I got home. They ate my food. He was 18. A legal adult. When I discovered he stole the money I had him arrested.
He was put in jail. No one would bail him out so he stayed there for three months. At court I told him I did not want to see him until he was a contributing member of society. He had to have a legal job…not selling street drugs etc. He was given time served plus probation and had to pay restitution. He got out of jail and lived with the kid who had been hanging out at my house.
His mother kicked them both out. My son found his birth father and stayed with him. He soon learned the man’s sole goal in life was to stay high. My son then stayed with another friend, couch surfed.
Lived in an office building bathroom. Then with a woman who was crazy. Then a friend rescued him. He lived with them and their father for two years.
They made him stay clean, clean up after himself, eat healthy, get and keep a job. He then asked if he could come back home.
He is now 24. The other day he thanked me for holding him accountable. He has a job he enjoys and is saving money for a future. Some kids just need tough love.
My husband is a retired Royal Thai police officer. He rarely told me much about his days, not wanting me to worry, get upset.
He did, however, share a few events that had me laughing…
Story 1
Husband and his men were chasing a small group of meth dealers who abandoned their car and ran into the tall grass of a swampy field.
Husband has the usual regulation, very short hair and was wearing a bright orange vest that was clearly marked POLICE, front and back, in huge English and Thai letters.
He waded into the swamp and stood next to one of the meth dealers who told him to take off the bright vest because the police were searching the area!
Story 2
Husband and his guys raided a gambling den at dawn. The players, many of whom were very drunk, ran to their motorcycles, trucks and cars to get away.
Four men staggered to their car but were stunned because the police seemed to be keeping pace on foot with their ‘pedal to the metal,’ speeding car.
In fact, they had jumped into an abandoned car that had no engine and hadn’t noticed they hadn’t moved at all.
Story 3
‘Uncle’ Tan was a quiet, older man who grew veggies and sold them from the back of his pick-up.
Officers received a call saying that Uncle had unsuccessfully tried to rob a local shop with a plastic water pistol and was walking down the highway, TOWARDS the police station.
He seemed pleased when he was arrested.
As was the norm, he was told he could be held for 48 hours in the police station jail, longer if a judge deemed it necessary. Uncle perked up at the possibility of ‘longer.’
The officers were puzzled until the truth came out: his wife’s sisters were coming for their yearly visit, and Uncle said that he was just too old to go through that hell again. He had thought he would be in jail for weeks.
The judge showed leniency, asking the police to hold Uncle until it was deemed safe for him to go home.
Does it occur to you it could be the U.S. that could be imprisoned? If the U.S. ends up spending tons of money meaninglessly and without a return and yet it cannot stop spending billions to continuously do shit that don’t pay it is the U.S. that is trapped. China don’t gives a shit it simply just let the US waste all it money bribing nations who refuse to do shit, just to pretend to the world it has allies.
For us in Asia. Even Japan, Korea, Phillipines and India have no wish to do shit as it knows the repercussions and it has been China’s neighbour for some 5000 years! It may have no choice but to barked some shit on China to get the U.S. off its back. But sure won’t risk it to do more than that. So the U.S. having a pay billions get some pretend shit is outright silly and wasteful.
So who is trapped? China can and will do what it wants. And the U.S. has to stay and waste a ton of resources to get pretentious shit that China gives a damn. To me the U.S. is trapped in its own stupidity!
Groom yourself, even if you’re living alone . Keep your beard clean and trimmed. Girls may wax, if necessary.
Always carry a wallet, Comb, Belt, Perfume, a pen with you.
Workout at least 1 hour a day, it’s the least you could do for your body.This will keep your confidence up, your body healthy and your face free of pimples.
Cover your mouth while sneezing, coughing, etc. Say ‘Sorry/Excuse me’ afterward.
Invest in your own personal hygiene like flossing your teeth, cleaning your mouth, wearing cologne.
Speak a bit less and think before you speak because one wrong word can hurt your personality.
Talk looking into the eyes of the other person.
Be a man of your words , If you promise to do something for someone, make sure you do it .
Show respect for other person’s opinion. Never tell a person he or she is wrong.
Learn the difference between Ego and Self-respect. There’s a very thin line between them.
Hustle as much as you can. Fast success brings ego, slow success builds personality.
Do Meditation.(Meditation transforms you into a new human)
Never make fun of someone’s disability whether it’s financial, mental or physical.
Never hesitate meeting new people. People have own experiences and knowledge to share with you.
My coworker, Marty, at the Department of Correction was fired after bantering with our department’s business manager. She was a diva with a (very) high opinion of herself and one morning Marty told her that she looked “nice”.
She cocked her hip and smiled at him, and asked if he was implying that she didn’t look good every day. Marty responded that she did, indeed, look good and that she looked good enough to eat. That ended the conversation and I went on my merry way.
When I returned to the office late that afternoon, another coworker pulled me aside and asked, breathlessly, if I’d heard about Marty. I hadn’t — I’d been out installing computers in a prison all day — so she said that he’d been fired! For sexual harrassment! The diva business manager had filed a complaint against him.
I immediately tracked my boss down and told her the complaint was bullshit, and that I’d witnessed the entire exchange. She said that her hands were tied because Marty admitted saying the diva looked good enough to eat. It was considered inappropriate verbiage for the workplace and the diva insisted that she would be uncomfortable working with Marty.
I kept my contact and conversations with her to a minimum from that day on.
China has been excluded from the ISS project, which has greatly promoted the development of China’s aerospace technology.
You can imagine that 20 years ago, several young people decided to save money to buy a car and then use it together. The Chinese were excluded. He was told: Your money is dirty and we will not accept it.
You have to understand that Russia, which the United States considers an enemy, is accepted, while China is excluded. How humiliating is this to China?
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The young man decided not to pray to join but to work hard on his own. Finally, he made enough money to buy a car of his own. A new car that belongs only to him.
The group of young people who pooled their money to buy a car are still using that old car together, even though it is very old. All participants are not yet able to buy their own cars.
When they saw a Chinese driving a new car alone, they were filled with envy, but they said: His car is smaller than ours!
Let us assume that if China was allowed to join, what would be the result? They may have a module on the ISS, but they will never have their own CSS.
image 6
Now everything has changed
The Chinese space station is so advanced that they even use Hall thrusters to maintain orbit without having to consume a lot of fuel like the ISS.
Famous media commented that the interior of CSS is like an Apple store, while the ISS is like an old grocery store.
My father was a very serious and strict man. We lived in a nice house with a covered front porch on a hill overlooking a valley. One day when I was 10 yrs. old I was with my father on the porch ,there was a man dressed in a suit and tie and they were discussing serious business. I knew not to disturb them in any way. I had to remain quiet so I quickly became bored. I looked around the porch for something of interest when I spotted a small stone on the floor. When I picked it up I thought it was such a perfect throwing stone, the shape and the way it fit in my hand I just knew it would travel a record breaking distance down that valley. I took a few steps back so I would be behind dad’s peripheral sight as they both were facing the valley in deep conversation. I focused on a bush for my target . I took a couple deep breaths and threw the stone with every muscle I had.
To my horror the stone slipped out of my hand . I heard a deep moan as my father collapsed to one knee . As he grabbed his left ear he uttered”” “JUMPIN JESUS” WHAT WAS THAT ? I was so afraid I couldn’t speak. The stone had hit the bone behind his left ear and instantly a purple knot appeared . WELL , WHAT WAS IT ? I finally managed to say… a rock.. A ROCK ! Get in the house. Well, lucky for me their conversation lasted longer giving him a cooling off period. When the man left Dad gave me a lecture about throwing rocks and interrupting adults. Surprisingly there was no physical abuse which I expected. Now many years later even though he’s gone , I can hear his voice as if he just now said “WELL, WHAT WAS IT ?” And I get a good laugh about that frightened little boy .
Do you wonder why I put the Deng Xiaoping face on my post? Because the post I am writing tends to make sense for what I will try to convey. As you know, in the mainstream media, basically the West tends to use this Imperialist projection against the Chinese nation. It has become a human sin for the Chinese people to seek their old legitimate rights such as the right to become rich and powerful, the right to become among the most respected nations it used to be during the Ming towards Qing era.
The mainstream media has changed its focus from China’s rising economic threat towards China being the country seeking sphere of influence in Asia. This projection is among those who had committed this act before. History doesn’t lie, not do the suffering of the people they had to face from the British to the American Imperialism which still is going today in many forms.
China has now become one of the second largest economies in the world and the first if we see it through a PPP basis. The nation’s citizens are now enjoying a much better, high quality life in comparison to what their parents had to face under Mao respectfully. China, just like Deng envisioned, became the county that is leading the world in science, tech, and environment policies where China has been recently focused on being the country focused on building a strong green economy.
Media nowadays tends to portray China as aggressive and imperialist. Every investment China does in other countries is judged as a form of imperialism, every defense that China undertakes or its mission to uniting Taiwan is seem as foreign aggression by the West on China when they only want to take what was lost before. This judgment is not just fueled by the West but also by CINOs, or in other words ‘Chinese just in name’ that have Chinese names and ethnicity but they lack the Chinese spirit to show sympathy for their homeland. Most of these can be found in countries like Malaysia and Singapore or even U.S. who tend to side with the West’s aggression against China. This lack of knowledge is what has made ignorance prevalent today. The lack of the understanding the Chinese mindset and their way of doing things is what made them see China from a hostile viewpoint rather than a positive one.
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Socialism: what do I mean? Well to understand China’s foreign policy and the way how it perceives the world is through the socialist perspective. You see Socialism didn’t come out of thin air in China. People before Mao used to be exploited, oppressed by the Chiang Khai Shek government. The land was controlled by the foreign businessmen who used China as a source of destination to build capital under the Chinese labour. This unequal relationship between China and the West is what made the Chinese more angrier, coupled with the hate from their humiliation. The weakness of the Chinese civilization is what pursued the Chinese people to seek a new radical solution and that was Socialism which back then Chairman Mao worked tirelessly to increase the support and work towards unifying China.
Its basis was simple: to fight against oppression, build an equal society and bring back China as the nation it once was. Which means an independent, strong China without being anymore humiliated. Thus when Mao United China is the time where humiliation of China ended and China began to recover. During the recovery, China faced many obstacles. Once was the American aggression in Asia, the other was the restrictions which were put against China because they were “Communist,” then the aggression from outside. China, after seeing Korea fall to the American forces, was forced to send its troops and successfully push out the American troops and North Korea was saved. Hence the socialist and proletarian cause was built on self defense and defending neighbours from Imperialist aggression that came from thousand miles away.
image 143
After Chairman Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping came to power, which is praised for the new reforms that brought China to the place it is today. A new socialist modern economy built by Chinese people and a strong country looking to move forward even more and bring back the national rejuvenation to the Chinese people. The Deng Xiaoping goal was to always revitalize China which is now being carried by the leader Xi Jinping. Which meant a rich China which used to be under Qing before the Imperialist oppresion, a strong China in Asia and a China that is respected and seen as the gateway to the Eastern civilization and not a China that will replace the role of the West.
Deng Xiaoping in a public forum told others:
China shall always belong to the Third World and shall never seek hegemony. This idea is understandable because China is still quite poor, and is therefore a Third World country in the real sense of the term. The question is whether or not China will practise hegemony when it becomes more developed in the future. My friends, you are younger than I, so you will be able to see for yourselves what happens at that time. If it remains a socialist country, China will not practise hegemony and it will still belong to the Third World. Should China become arrogant, however, act like an overlord and give orders to the world, it would no longer be considered a Third World country.
What do these words mean? It is simple. The leader who laid out the reforms for his nation and the next vision, he is also the one who made sure to future generations to always see China as a nation similar with others of the third world. He never advocated a China which replaces the West’s role, he never advocates for a dominated Chinese power that controls Asia in the similar way of how United States has controlled South America.
This is also one of the main factors that led China into creating SCO and BRICS organizations, because the vision is simple: to build prosperity and encourage integration and connectivity with the third world that includes all of the former nations that were once colonized and exploited. Anti-Imperialism is after all something that has been pushed from Marxists itself, because the concept or freedom isn’t mainly focused on ending exploitation but also imperialism that caused the third world to suffer under the hands of the Western nations, that exploited its natural resources to feed their population.
Anyone who tends to see China in a Western way then that kind of thinking is bound to fail and even insult your own intelligence. No rational person would be crazy enough to compare China to a Western country and I believe the track records of US and other western countries, tells us a lot about the morality that the West loves to show many times.
But what kind of vision then does China see for the world?
image 142
Of course the role that China will play will fundamentally change the world in many ways, and right now we are already noticing many changes especially in Asia. We are seeing a role that keeps growing each year. And a strong China is at the same time bringing a good balance to the world especially when it’s necessary to counter the bi-polar world order by US
Multipolarism: China’s idea of Multipolsrism came even more to light after the importance and value of BRICS began to rise. This is in vision with Deng Xiaoping’s stance who’s always have said to never seek hegemony. China sees Multilateralism as the only way to bring equality to the world order where some certain nations seek a greater role in the world affairs and share a certain security to meet the world challenges.
New Financial system: Putin in the interview with Tucker laid out a very good critique of the US dollar. He mentioned how the United States’ policies towards other rivalries have caused mass panic in the world, and it is true in many ways. After the Russia war in Ukraine began, the West was so quickly to launch the heaviest sanctions in history. This didn’t collapse Russia’s economy and instead they shot themselves in the foot. Because the world for the first time in history was ready to move and make a change in the international order, which was the beginning of implementing new different currencies in trade with other countries. This thing is only going to become more common especially as BRICS advances.
Unity within their territory: Many people tend to see China’s actions in Taiwan in a wrong way but instead this isn’t the case. China has only sought to reunify its territories that were once lost. The ROC and PRC were at civil war which the ROC lost and retreated to Taiwan. Technically they are still at war, because considering that no peace treaty has been made or even ceasefire, this makes it legitimate for China to reunify Taiwan.
The development of BRICS: BRICS will continue to play even more important roles in the next decades, it will be more than just an organization. It will be the representative of the East and of the Global South. It will put the other part of the world in equal footing with the West. This balance is exactly what the whole world should pursue, because the moment there is a balance of power, then you will be at peace and respected. Though my opinion of BRICS might be optimistic, but as of now, I believe that all members have one desire, and that is to seek more independence from the US dollar regime.
Does it really matter which type of clock we are using?
Yes! It does.
Reason is “Those who use ‘Analog clock’ are more aware of the ‘time spent’ & the ‘time left’ than those who use Digital clock”.
How? Is what your question right?
Here we go. Let’s have a look at the digital clock.
image 9
What did we get? The time is 9:30 & that’s it. Only the current time.
Now, Analog clock.
image 8
Just look at it. Look at how beautiful it is. What do we observe here? 11:55. That’s it? No. But along with the ‘current time’ there is something else.
image 7
This we sense by intuition. An Analog clock resembles a pie chart which can represent self–expressive data.
Intuition matters! It is the advantage of having Analog clock.
This is not so easy with digital clocks. Because we need to force our brain to calculate the ‘time spent’ ,‘time left’, etc.
I’m not getting old. I’m there. I’ll be 77 years old in a couple of weeks, so I believe I qualify to answer this question.
I have a lover who is younger than I am. And if I were to “lose” him, I would readily find another, if I desired it.
However, I pay close attention to my figure, my wardrobe and my makeup. It takes me about half an hour to put my makeup on skillfully enough so I don’t look as though I’m wearing any. I dress nicely even when I have nothing important to do, although I am still in business, which keeps my thinking sharp. I watch what I eat carefully, most days keeping at 1200–1400 calories total for the day. This enables me to have lunch or dinner with my love or friends in a restaurant pretty much any time I wish.
I don’t exercise, though I know I should. However, I have two flights of stairs that I go up and down many, many times per day. I tell myself that this helps.
I read extensively, and not just on the damn internet. I have an immense library and continually add to it. I read in science and in the arts. Although I do try to avoid politics, these days. I am responsible for my feelings, and I like them to remain hopeful and serene. But my reading enables me to converse on many topics. And until Covid, I also traveled, an activity which broadens anyone’s perspective.
So in answer to the question, I feel just fine, thank you very much. And I also feel – and know that I am – desired.
I hope perhaps your young mind has been opened, even a bit. Thanks for the question.
A very good illustration
This is a good illustration why the size and growth of US debt is totally out of whack with the real economy.
American debt is already THE systemic risk to the world economy. There is not enough money in the world to satisfy America’s ravenous appetite, not even if it prints them for free.
This is why the BRICs are desperate for an option to the dollar.
Hubby and I went to a fancy steakhouse in Atlanta for dinner a few years back. Having checked out the restaurant’s online menu, we made sure we were appropriately dressed—me in a long Italian silk dress and hubby in some business casual outfit. We arrived at the time of our reservation and experienced multiple WTF moments—
1. We were led to a side dining room instead of the fancy main dining room shown on their website. The decor was shall-we-say interesting. It resembled a kindergarten cafeteria, with folding chairs.
2. All the other guests there looked like they had just attended a basketball game.
3. The female manager had a LOW-cut cami and jacket on. Her boobs were 75% exposed.
4. On my way to the ladies’, I passed the kitchen and caught a whiff of rotten fish.
5. Before the server set my plate of scallops down, I smelled a stench that could have only come from decayed seafood.
6. Service was slow, but that was the least of our concerns.
All this cost us $250, tip included.
If you wonder why we did not raise any issues about what we went through, it was a mystery shop. Essentially, I was contracted to observe anything about the restaurant’s operations. In the end, the meal did not cost us anything. We were actually paid some money for the effort. However, the experience was so bad that I did not offer to take the same assignment for several years to come.
Vintage Ads and Celebrities’ Glamour on These Classic Vespa Scooters
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The DELUSIONAL OBSESSION with 6-Figure Salaries in Modern Dating
Future cat ladies. (And I do love my kitties. But no man is going to be able to make them happy.)
https://youtu.be/GvNEtlEb2ss
Italian Drunken Noodles
Italian drunken noodles are my Italian fusion take on one of my favorite Thai-style dishes. Brimming with noodles drenched in a flavorful, wine-infused sauce, bits of spicy Italian sausage, plus sweet bell peppers, onions and basil, this Italian take on drunken noodles is not only scrumptious, but quick and easy to prepare as well!
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Yield: 6 servings
An Italian twist to a favorite Thai dish
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of trying Thai drunken noodles (or pad kee mao), you know what an amazingly vibrant, rich and flavorful dish it is.
With ribbons of broad rice noodles drenched in a sweet and savory sauce, charred red and yellow bell peppers and onions, a choice of spicy meat, tofu, or shrimp, and a light flourish of freshly julienned Thai basil, this dish always hits the spot when it comes to all those big flavors I crave in Thai cuisine.
I must admit, whenever I would enjoy this dish, it always made me wonder what an Italian version of it would taste like…
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How to Make Drunken Noodles with an Italian Twist
In keeping with those basic components of noodle, meat, veggie, sauce and herb, it’s easy to see how Thai-style drunken noodles can easily be “morphed” into a brand new, Italian-style dish with a distinctly different flavor profile, while still maintaining the spirit of the original.
This is what I love and appreciate about fusion food!
What I did with this Italian drunken noodles recipe was to substitute wide and tender pappardelle noodles in place of the broad rice noodles, and then switched out some spicy and rich Italian sausage for the tofu, shrimp or chicken typically served in the Thai version.
For the sauce element, I used a tomato base kissed with a hint of wine in order to make the dish a bit “drunken”, and then kept the classic vegetable medley of multi-colored bell peppers and onions, plus that flourish of fresh basil to tie all the flavors together.
Here’s a glance at my Italian drunken noodles recipe: (or just jump to the full recipe below…)
To get things started, I cook my pappardelle noodles according to package instructions, and keep them warm while I prepare the sauce.
For the sauce, I place a large, heavy-bottom pan over high heat, and add a drizzle of olive oil; once hot, I crumble in the spicy sausage and brown it until cooked through, then remove it from the pan.
Next, I caramelize my onions in the pan drippings, then add in my seasoning, followed by my bell peppers, and saute until golden; then, I add in my garlic and wine, reducing that just a bit.
Finally, I add the diced tomatoes, with their juices, into the pan, along with the browned sausage, and allow the mixture to simmer for a couple of minutes; and then, I finish the sauce with a touch more olive oil and some fresh herbs before adding in my warm pappardelle noodles, and tossing everything to combine.
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Ingredients:
8 ounces pappardelle noodles, uncooked
Olive oil
4 spicy Italian sausage links, casings removed
1 large onion, quartered and sliced thinly
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 red bell pepper, cored and thinly sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, cored and thinly sliced
1 orange bell pepper, cored and thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, pressed through garlic press
½ cup white white (I used Chardonnay)
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juice
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, chopped
¼ cup fresh basil leaves, julienned, divided use
Preparation:
Prepare the pappardelle noodles according to instructions on package; then, drain the noodles very well, and keep them warm while you prepare the sauce.
Place a large, heavy-bottom pan or braising pot over medium-high heat, and add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil; once the oil is hot, crumble the spicy Italian sausage into the pan in small chunks (you want to keep the sausage fairly chunky), allowing it to brown in the oil for a few moments on each side; once the crumbled sausage is browned, remove it from the pan/pot with a slotted spoon and place into a small bowl to hold for a moment.
Next, add the sliced onion into the pan with the sausage drippings, and allow it to caramelize and become golden for roughly 5 minutes or so, stirring to keep it from burning (add a touch more olive oil, if necessary); once the onion starts to become golden, add the salt, Italian seasoning and cracked black pepper, and stir to combine.
Add in the sliced bell peppers, and allow those to saute with the onion for about 2 minutes until slightly tender and golden; next, add in the garlic, and once it becomes aromatic, add in the white wine and allow it to reduce for a few moments, until almost completely reduced.
Next, add in the diced tomatoes with their juice, and return the browned spicy Italian sausage back into the pan, and gently fold the mixture to combine; allow it to gently simmer for about 3 to 4 minutes to blend the flavors, then turn the heat off.
To finish the sauce, drizzle in about 2-3 good tablespoons of the olive oil to create a silky, rich flavor, and stir in the chopped parsley and about half of the julienned basil.
Add the cooked pappardelle noodles directly into the sauce, and using tongs, gently toss and combine the noodles with the sauce and all of the ingredients in it; check the seasoning to see if you need to add any additional salt or pepper.
To serve, add equal portions of the Italian drunken noodles to bowls, and garnish with a sprinkle of the remaining julienned basil (you can even top with shaved parmesan, if desired, and an extra drizzle of olive oil).
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Tips & Tidbits for my Italian Drunken Noodles:
The larger the pan, the better: Use a large, heavy bottom pan (cast iron or a Dutch oven) for this dish, as it retains heat well and will give a little extra color and flavor to your peppers and onions; plus, it provides room to add the noodles directly into the sauce at the end, and toss ’em around.
Pappardelle are best, but don’t sweat it: Pappardelle noodles are the broad or wide egg noodles that look a bit like “ribbons”, and you should be able to find them in the pasta section in most markets—they really are best for this recipe; but if you can’t find them, feel free to substitute whatever type of pasta noodle you like. The flavor will still be amazing.
Go white or go red: White wine is what’s called for in this recipe, but red wine would also be a delicious choice; use whatever you’d actually like to drink with this dish.
Looking to leave out the alcohol? No problem: If you’d prefer to leave alcohol out, then simply substitute chicken stock for the wine, and add a little squeeze of lemon at the end for that “brightness” as well.
Go Veg: For a meatless version, omit the spicy sausage altogether, and enjoy just the veggies, noodles and sauce; but you can always use a vegetarian “crumble” in this dish as well, or even use cubed tofu to keep in line with the Thai inspiration.
Prep ahead: You can make the sauce element of this recipe ahead of time, such as the day before you’d like to serve it, which will actually give the sauce more time to sit and gain deeper flavor; just prepare the noodles the day of, toss with the warmed up sauce, you’re set to go.
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General Instructions
Place a large, heavy-bottom pan or braising pot over medium-high heat; add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Once the oil is hot, crumble the Italian sausage into the pan in small chunks, allowing it to brown in the oil for a few moments.
When the crumbled sausage is browned, remove it from the pan/pot with a slotted spoon and place into a small bowl to hold for a moment.
Place in the pan the diced bell peppers, salt, Italian seasoning and cracked black pepper. Stir to combine. Allow to sauté for about 2 minutes until slightly tender.
Add the garlic. Once it becomes aromatic, add the white wine and allow it to reduce for a few moments, until almost completely reduced.
Add the diced tomatoes with their juice.
To finish the sauce, drizzle in about 2 to 3 good tablespoons of the olive oil to create a rich flavor.
Add the chopped parsley and about half of the basil.
Return the browned Italian sausage back into the pan and gently fold the mixture to combine. Allow it to gently simmer for about 3 to 4 minutes to blend the flavors. Then turn the heat off.
During the debate, KMT Presidential candidate brought up a very good point. The US sold 400 missiles to Taiwan for $6 billion. That came out to be $15 million / missile. But then when the US was defending Israel from attacks they fired those missiles and were reporting that they were expensive $3-million missiles.
Why were they sold to Taiwan at 5x the price? It makes sense if the US is leveraging the reported danger to extract as much value as it can from Taiwan. It doesn’t make sense if it has intentions to defend Taiwan.
The Mainland is ending its preferential treatment towards Taiwan which would hurt the ability for Taiwanese products to be exported to the Mainland. The US can help mitigate the impact to the Taiwanese economy by increasing imports from Taiwan and signing a free-trade agreement but it hasn’t.
How can anyone expect the US to give up its lives for Taiwan if it can’t even give up a bit of its profit?
Always keep a diary and a pen with you. Whenever you get any intriguing idea, write that down in your diary. When you open this diary, you’ll realize that you have a great set of ideas.
Leave your comfort zone as nothing grows for good there. Take risks in your life. Risks come with reward. Look at the rewards and move ahead.
Introspect and improve. Realize your mistakes and improve them. Try your best to not to repeat your mistakes again.
Success is something you take by force. No one will give it to you freely.
The secret of success is hidden in booksand old-school wisdom. Yet most people hate to read books. No wonder, few people are successful.
Stop expecting instant satisfaction. Patience, persistence and perspiration are your best friends. Remember that there are NO shortcuts in life.
Cry as hard as you want, but make sure that when you stop crying, you never cry for the same reason again.
No matter how much it hurts now. Someday you’ll look back and realize, your struggle changed your life for better.
If you are an intelligent person, you will try to do what you love the most. But if you are a genius, you will only do what is needed.
Students believe that there is only one right answer to every question. That is why people always want to follow the crowd because they think there is only one right way to live life. Find your own way . don’t follow the crowd
Putting in the work daily without quitting. Going through the drudgery and mundane tasks repeatedly. Practicing everyday like insane just to master your craft.
Don’t bother about the judgements of society, friends, peers and relatives. You want it, go for it. Don’t give a fcuk about others , live your life , give your best
The Chinese Communist Party is not in charge of assimilating everyone into Chinese culture, and it does not promote it. In fact, the Party makes a big deal out of preserving minority cultures, and giving them special advantages such as in numbers of children they can have (unlimited), and giving minority students extra points in the highly competitive university exams. There is some grumbling from Han Chinese about all the benefits minorities get in China.
Some minorities such as the Manchus, some Mongolians and some Tibetans have been absorbed by Chinese culture, not by any government policy. The general rule in China is that any non-Han Chinese minority, if it adopts Chinese language and the Chinese non-nomadic lifestyle, will eventually disappear over several generations.
This is not done because of any government policy; it is just that Han Chinese language and culture have a very strong pull which is hard to resist over time. This is because more than 90% of China’s population is Han Chinese, and once a minority adopts the language and then culture, it loses its own identity.
This is not done under any threat of force, but is done voluntarily by individuals.
More fun with the the Vespa scoots…
We start with Ann Margret.
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It wasn’t so much what my boss said, it was more about what the company did. Being more specific, what the sales department and management did.
At the time I was a senior developer for a medium sized, privately owned and pretty much unheard of software company.
One day I found out, quite by accident, that the sales department had told a prospective client about some wonderful new software that we had.
The only problem with that was this wonderful new software didn’t exist!
So, sales lied to the client.
Then came all the fanfare, because they actually sold it to them… with an impossible delivery date, even for a team five times our size.
The plan was for the dev team to develop this new software working sixty hours a week without overtime pay, while management strung the client along until the final delivery more than a year later.
So there was this big pep talk meeting – you know the ones – we need you guys to help us deliver and all, and we’ll make it up to you afterwards, we promise. We’re a big family and we are in this together and all that kind of stuff.
I didn’t believe a word of it.
After the meeting I confronted my boss who said, “Well, you know how it works.”
At that moment I knew he didn’t have my best interests at heart and I looked at him and said, “I want no part of it.”
Then I got up and left the building without saying another word.
The next day when I didn’t show up for work my boss called me asking where I was. I told him, “Sorry, I thought I was quite clear yesterday, as I said, I quit!”
He said, “But you can’t quit! We need you! You’re our only senior developer!”
And I answered, “Watch me!” and hung up the phone.
It’s been four years now and the company still hasn’t delivered the final version of the software nor has it made good on its promise to their employees!
You ever have that goofy kid who could never take anything seriously? Who took any opportunity to be the center of attention? Who relished being the class clown and wore the jester’s hat like a triumph? That was Chad. I don’t remember how many grades in elementary school we had together before he and I transferred to other schools at the end of fouth grade, but it was at least a couple. He used to not only drive the teachers crazy but even us students too! Every day we had to bear witness to his never ending shenanigans, sometimes he would start up with a joke and the whole class would collectively groan and grab their faces. If I’m being honest, I was his friend but even I found him to be too much at times, too optimistic, too dramatic, too goofy, too Ace Ventura. I remember thinking, “why can’t he just be normal for a day?”
I went to middle school with some of the kids/friends from this elementary school. One of the popular boys, Randy was one of them. We were talking during free period one day when I brought up Chad. He also remembered him and smiled. We exchanged stories about his greatest hits and laughed. Then he told me something that absolutely broke my heart, and only spoke as a testiment to Chad’s resiliencey. He told me Chad’s stepfather used to beat him, often. At some point the authorities found out and removed him from his home. His everday life at home was hell, his only respite was during the time he was safe and felt safe at school, and Chad always made the most of each moment because he knew when he got home that day and every day after that, there would be no more laughter.
I hope he’s doing better, and I hope he’s happy where ever he is now. It goes to show you never know what someone is going through, even if they smile in your face everday. I have never forgotten about Chad, and I never will.
My twins birthday is coming up. And I was thinking of rewarding the missus by upgrading her car to something better.
A Range Rover Evoque 🙂
So the search started, and I finally scored a good deal on this particular high spec (and a higher priced) Evoque that’s is in a dealership nearby to my house.
Off I went. Arrived in my old e46, and I asked to see the car. This local Chinese chap took one look at me, and probably deduced that I was too young, or too shabby looking to even qualify to get an evoque, and decided to reject me.
He told me, put a deposit before even thinking of sitting in the car!
Before you think I made drama, let me tell you that the opposite happened: I smiled and walked back. I don’t necessarily like to deal with idiots, so I don’t mind looking for another.
For some reason, just as I was about to leave, another salesman from India who is working there came to me, apologized profusely and told me that he can serve me better.
I accepted.
I went to see the car, and told him that I would love to take it for a test drive 5 minutes away to my house to show it to my wife to ask her opinion on the spec and color. This guy agreed, and said we could do a short run.
So off we went.
The moment this Indian guy saw the neighborhood and my house, and the cars parked in there, he realized that he scored a lottery prospect.
After that, I was practically given free reign to do unlimited test drives and checks on that car, unaccompanied.
I saw the car on Wednesday. Thursday I contemplated on it with the missus between that or Cayenne. She wanted Range Rover, so be it.
On Friday I agreed and signed the papers in the AM. That evening the bankers called to tell the dealer that the loan passed. This coming Monday I am taking the car, once paperwork’s is completed.
$90 billion spent on disinformation about China, what did the US people get?
Of course, only Plato could answer this accurately but here’s my penny:
In Greek mythology, Thera and the eruption are missing and the explanation for this is that the eruption miraculously didn’t affect mainland Greece. The Greek myths that express their collective memory, although they involve foreign lands often, had to be of Greek interest and the eruption, no matter how cataclysmic it was, was not. So, Plato didn’t possibly have a clue about the events of the Bronze Age which took place almost 1,000 years before his time.
Security is better. When i studied in Chicago, I was told to always keep 20-dollar life money in the pocket in case anyone wants to rob me, and UChicago has the so called safe ride to take students home because walking alone at night is not safe. Here in Shanghai, Beijing or any major cities (except Guangzhou perhaps), it’s safe for girls to walk alone at night. And people don’t shoot people so often, especially struggling students don’t kill classmates or teachers. At worst, they jump from buildings without harming others.
Second, food is cheap and delicious if you don’t mind antibiotics, additives, pollutants etc. (If you count in unhealthy western food, the Chinese food is not that bad in quality.) Clothes are cheap and good quality. In fact most products made in China are cheap and accessible.
Third, online purchase and delivery and other services based on the internet is incredibly convenient. As long as you don’t care about personal information, China has all kinds of Apps to satisfy your physical and mental needs.
Fourth, the government agencies and hospital systems are much more efficient than those in USA. I am not saying the quality is better but the waiting period is shorter.
One thing I dislike is a must of vpn to access foreign media. But this is like a filter, the gov don’t want ignorant children and people to access to those anti-China information, because they can’t do critical thinking, so the gov thinks that if those were to be brainwashed, they would have to be brainwashed by us not the Western. I am neutral to it. Common people are like pawns, they’d better just stay where they were and do both to avoid being cannon powder.
I was 10 my brother was 13 and mom and dad was in there 30. We when to a old run down house that Dad was used to go on fishing trip when he was a kid. Mom said it so run down. Dad said it still got a roof on it. Mom said ok we stayed. We got what fews begs we have out of the car and we when into the house. it started to Strom very bad. We stayed dry in that old house. About two hours passed we was getting our sleeping bags out. We hard a loud pop. The wind had blown a big tree on to the car. The car was totaled. Mom said we 150 miles from home without a car. No one could sleep until the Strom had stopped that was all most 3 hours. By morning there was a new storm and like the other one it to blowed a tree down on to what left of the car. We ended up been there for over a week. Our foods ran out after five days. We all fished for our foods. 6 days in as we was all fishing. A big tree fell onto the dam house. If me and my brother was have been in our room a sleeping we were been hurt or killed.
GAMECHANGER: China Tests ‘Dream Shell,’ Achieving Mach 7 Speed
Both my wife and I worked, we both had good jobs and shared the childcare of our 4 children. I was always the more nurturing parent, if the children ever hurt themselves they would always come to me, I was more affectionate, I used to bathe them, read to them, tuck them in and look after them most weekends. My wife was extremely jealous of my relationship with the children and they grew up, we grew apart. She used to often go out with the girls on a Friday and Saturday night and occasionally wake up the following day with a hangover so bad she would spend the day in bed. Which was fine with me, meant that I had more time with the children and we used to find somewhere to go and have real fun.
Unsurprisingly after 13 years of marriage, when our eldest was 11, she decided to leave me, she had an affair and that was that.
What really sucks about being a man is the custody battle that I had after that. The standard custody model still is, for the father, every other weekend and maybe one night during the week. Everyone assumes that the mother is the ‘right’ parent for the children to live with and I had to fight that prejudice every day for a very long year.
My ex-wife even told me that she didn’t really want custody of the children, she only was fighting because the bigger percentage of time she got, the more Child Maintenance she would get. The first time that we were in court she started off by saying that I shouldn’t see the children at all, claiming that I had abused the children, hit them, raped her and had an affair with a teenager. The judge ordered that I didn’t see the children at all, while this was investigated. That was a hard couple of months.
After a year, meetings with social services, so many court visits that I had my own seat in the waiting room, I eventually got 50:50, the best a man could ever hope for in this world.
Even though we had exactly 50:50 I still had to pay Child Maintenance because she gets the Child Benefit. Guess why … Child Benefits default to the mother at the birth of the child.
I Visited World’s Largest Tech Show…You Won’t Believe What China Did
I once worked on a joint venture with an Australian company. At that time, I was both the Director of heated products in the American company, and the Project Manager for the project that I was leading in the Australian company. So I was wearing “two hats”.
The project was a clothes iron joint-venture.
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Now reporting to two different managers, one Australian and one American had its challenges. But over all it was positive.
But there was one thing, however that really made life difficult. You see, the American company Marketing Director (In Chicago) wanted to micro-manage the project.
And she would provide lists of technical issues that she wanted to be worked on… on a daily basis. Most of which were not germane to the projects and work at hand, and was a real headache.
Most of the things were trivial in importance and silly in scope. Like can the power cord go from 1 meter long to 1.2 meters long? Or, investigate if the temperature can be 5C higher on the plate. Now about making the logo bigger, then smaller, and then bigger again. How about cutting the size of the manual down?
These little tasks took 15 seconds to think up, and maybe 10 man-hours to work out each one of them.
So everyday, she was coming up with about 40 man-hours of work, and completely stressing the staff out.
I just wanted a fine working product. I believe in the 80/20 rule. Not the 100/0 perfectionist rule that the inexperienced seem to accept as “leadership”.
We held a number of meeting on this subject. But nothing ever got resolved, until one day, during a meeting in Australia, I stood up and pointed to a blackboard showing all the issues that she wanted us to work on.
And I really wanted to make a point. We needed to concentrate on the items that had the biggest gain; a weighted outcome, as not every issue is worthy of time to develop and flush out.
And said…
Don’t be like a dog. Going from tree to tree. Pissing around indiscriminately.
Everyone was stunned, and then the entire room burst out laughing. The Australians all got smirks on their faces and held up their finger like “what a great idea”. Ha!
Here’s one for you. We received a letter from school that my son was failing 6th grade math and we needed to sit down. When we got to the school there was a teacher and a vice principal waiting for us. The teacher started off with handing me a test my son had taken. I glanced over it the math was right but almost every answer was marked wrong. She informed me that his spelling was horrible.
I quickly informed her that we had been fighting with him about this for years. Back when the school was teaching – th (the) i for eye. I had my conflict with that teacher at the time.
This set the math teacher off! Me questioning a teacher! How dare I? Then she said something that set me off. Your son’s problem is because you’re an absentee father! Just as she said this the bell to change classes rang. I asked her to step out into the hall with me. As we did kids were going past us- you’d hear hello Mr. Y. several times as kids passed us.
I turned to her and said I am the soccer coach here at the school! Her face turned red. We went back in and sat down the mood had changed. Now it’s time for me to take her lags out!
I pointed at the letter she had sent to us about my son Brian. I laughed and said that my sons name is Bryan. You’ve been teaching him for 9 months and you still can’t spell his name correctly? I would like to see you right his name correctly 100 times each time you’ve spelled it wrong (we had all his test sitting right in front of us)!
I told her I was going to call the local news agency about the hypocrite at this school. The vice principal was getting scared and trying to talk me down. I wanted her job after her accusation about me and my son.
She quit! I found out later that she had been doing this to every boy in the class. Finding a way to flunk them. Parents had been complaining but no one got anywhere till me.
Yes the USA. Is poorer. If your neighbour who has the biggest house owed roughly 10 times the worth of his house and you living in a house 5 times smaller and don’t owe anyone a dime. You ie (Vietnam and Cuba) are much richer than the show off that is driving a Ferrari in the huge home that owes a ton of money that it could never pay off in a century like the U.S.
So stop asking silly questions to make yourself feel good. The U.S. is a huge Ponzi nation.
You may have noticed from the image that Nauru isn’t particularly large. In fact, it is just 21 km squared, which is eight square miles. That’s six Central Parks or 11% of Washington D.C. and only two countries are smaller than it, those of course being Monaco and the Vatican. In terms of population – well, you can see it’s not bursting with people, with 10,084 at the last census – that’s as many as Elkhorn in Walworth County, Wisconsin, which you’ve never heard of.
Why do I feel bad for Nauru? Because they messed up big time.
You see, the island of Nauru had a ludicrously high amount of phosphate.
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Phosphate is basically this important and expensive mineral which comes from bird poop among other things. Once it became a big deal in the 60s and 70s, and Nauru got their independence in 1968, they started to mine and export it to the rest of the world. And this went brilliantly well for them, with their annual GDP going from 15 million to 45 million in the space of eleven years. They had the second-highest GDP per capita in the world, behind only the UAE. Everything was going brilliantly.
And then, the inevitable happened. They ran out of phosphate.
That’s fine, isn’t it? We’ve got, like, a billion dollars now. Just invest it well and we’re sorted. Doesn’t matter that we have no idea what we’re doing, we’ll be fine – Nauru government, 1980 (paraphrased)
They weren’t alright, to say the least. None of their investments paid off at all. They had a billion Australian dollars and managed to lose almost all of it.
They bought a bunch of hotels and properties overseas, in Australia, the US, India and New Zealand among other places. They tried to get their national airline, inventively named Nauru Airlines, off the ground, but they couldn’t fill planes, so they literally let anyone fly. They put two million dollars into a terrible, terrible West End musical that everyone hated. The only purchase that really worked out was a block of land in Portland.
FUCK. – Nauru government, 1990 (paraphrased)
So now, Nauru barely has any money. They’ve got no real source of income, apart from being friends with Australia and a few other countries. Whilst they’re just about getting by for now, projections aren’t looking good. The entire middle of the island is basically unusable for anything, because it looks like this:
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The entire population lives around the coast in a coast-shaped blob, but because of rising sea levels, they’re gonna have to move somewhere at some point. Unfortunately, there isn’t really anywhere to go.
Nauru had so much luck in having so much minerals, but financial incompetence has led to the downfall of an island that could have been so much more than it’s managed to. We can only hope that they find a solution.
This wasn’t me. and it was as much weird as horrifying.
In June 2008, an 88-year-old retired nurse named Mary Ferns left her house in Livingston, West Lothian, saying she was going into the town centre to buy tights. Everyone assumed she meant Livingston town centre, about a mile from her home, but she never came home. CCTV showed her in Edinburgh, 25 miles away, heading towards Waterloo Place where she would have been able to get a bus back to Livingston (or to any of a hundred other places), so it looked as if she decided to go into Edinburgh to shop instead of to Livingston.
Between central Livingston and her home there are several routes which cross over bridges, and at the sides of the bridges there are steep slopes covered with bushes, leading down to the water. It was natural to wonder if she had returned to Livingston, set off to walk home instead of getting a local bus for such a short journey, had a heart attack or stroke while approaching a bridge, and rolled down into the bushes: but dogs couldn’t find her.
Then in April 2011 a skeleton was found under one of the bridges, and everyone assumed it was hers. But it turned out to be someone else entirely – a man who had been missing for 15 years, and who had evidently sat down under the bridge to get out of the rain, and then had a heart attack or stroke of his own.
Mary Ferns, meanwhile, has never been found. We don’t know if she was murdered, or met with an accident, or whether, despite her age, she chose to go missing.
Pol Pot (real name Saloth Sâr) was the dictator of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, taking power at the end of the Cambodian Civil War. As soon as he took power, He and his administration transformed Cambodia into a one party communist dictatorship. Over the next 4 years, he and his administration committed various human rights violations and carried out what is now known as the Cambodian Genocide. To go into more detail, Pol Pot and his administration:
• Forced the Cambodian population to work without pay.
• Made the Cambodian population live in the country side by forceful removing them from their homes in the cites.
• Destroyed Cambodia’s legal system and replaced it with re-education and interrogation centers. If they thought that you were guilty, you would have been very hard pressed to convince them otherwise.
• Caused much of the Cambodian populace to starve, many times to death.
• Killed anyone they either felt didn’t fit into their new society or deemed to even slightly be a threat to their regime. these included: people with connections to the previous government, Doctors, Lawyers, Intellectuals, Journalists, Business Leaders, Vietnamese Cambodians, Chinese Cambodians, Thai Cambodians, Christian Cambodians, Cham Muslims and family members of prisoners who were thought to be a threat to the regime. Even wearing glasses or being able to speak multiple languages could get you killed.
• If you were to be executed (which was very likely), you would have been taken to one the various “Killing Fields” and would most likely be killed with a pickaxe, so that they did not waste any bullets.
By the time they were overthrown during a Vietnamese invasion, the Cambodian life expectancy was about 18 years old.
As bad as rulers such as Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin and Mao Zedong were for their people, I believe no one was as brutal as Pol Pot was.
I feel like their motto put it best:
To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.
This doesn’t qualify as disgusting, but many years ago, I was involved with an Internet startup. They spent all of their time having meetings which achieved nothing, and were a complete waste of everybody’s time. One day, I was asked, no told, by the CEO to prepare a lengthy report on something that I considered ridiculous. I wrote 3 pages of it, and then decided to see what would happen if I didn’t finish it off, so I added 35 more pages of Loren Ipsum (Latin), and handed the report in. At the next meeting when everybody was present, I made a point of asking the CEO if the report was what he had wanted. He said “Yes, it was great”. I stood up, and told the entire room that this very important report that I had handed in, and which the CEO thought was great, actually contained 35 pages of Latin, proving that he hadn’t actually looked at it. I said “I quit”, and walked out of the door. The company went belly up 6 months later.
My wife had disappeared forever, and my boss knew that the ground was very cold. He also knew that my car was gone, and my house was under debate. Money gone as well.
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And in the middle of that struggle, he entered my office without knocking, and stated that I would have to move into the (smaller) office of a young colleague with severe psychiatric issues, whom he hated just like he hated me. When I asked him why I had to move (since we had plenty of room in our department), he stated with a smile:
“Because I said it — that’s why.”
He also said with the same smile that he was to chair my next HR committee soon, and that I could basically forget about my future. He said the same thing to the woman with the psychiatric problems.
He called us “the goofballs.”
But he forgot about the one thing he could not control nor understand, and that even we — the goofballs in that tiny office which leaked water during rain showers — understood. The secret force he tried to capture, because he did not understand how the goofballs kept coping with his constant harassing and mental torture.
And I will also never forget his expression when he was finally fired — that final sight.
I don’t know if it was disgusting, but it was rather a unique trick. I used this a couple of times on drug dealers.
When I worked undercover in narcotics I would be asked to buy street-dealer weight in either cocaine or Heroin. The designer drugs weren’t around yet and this new stuff called crack was just making its way onto the market.
One problem every undercover faced was the hand to hand delivery of the drugs. During the actual purchase, you needed to be able to testify that you gave the money directly to the seller and they directly handed you the drugs. ( AKA hand to hand purchase).
Drug dealers were wise to this. When an informant would introduce me to the seller they would take the money but they would only give the drugs to the informant and not to me directly.
I couldn’t testify that I got the drugs from the informant. That would require me to identify the informant and have them testify. No way I would do that. So I came up with a cool little trick.
I would give the dealer the money and he would pass the drugs off to the informant who gave them to me. I would look at the package and say it was light (not the correct weight) and throw the package back directly to the dealer saying I wanted my money back. Drug dealers are not in the business of giving out refunds.
I’d move in close seemingly to get my money back, but we’d talk a little and I would agree to the light package if he would agree the next package would be a little overweight.
As soon as the dealer agreed, I’d reach out and take the package back directly from the dealer, sometimes almost pulling it out of his hands, thus completing a hand to hand transaction.
We would let the case sit for six months before we made the arrest, so they would not remember what informant walked me in. But my little hand to hand trick worked every time.
I mean..this American senator keep on asking if Chew Sou Zi (the Tiktok CEO) is a Chinese citizen and a member of Chinese Communist Party even though the CEO keep repeatedly answering that he is a Singaporean citizen !
That senator apparently:
1.Could not tell the difference between China and Singapore.
2. Doesn’t know that Singapore is not a part of China.
3.Doesn’t know that a Singaporean person is not allowed to have a dual citizenship.
4.Doesn’t have a clue that only a Chinese citizen could become a member of Chinese Communist Party ( I’m not sure about USA, maybe in the US, a non citizen could become a member of senate?)
5. He probably doesn’t even know where the heck Singapore is!!!
And the fact is, he is a SENATOR ! He represents the people in america ! He went to Harvard, therefore he’s one of america’s best and brightest! He’s a decision maker!
Can you imagine the level of intelligence of the ordinary americans?
I was relief that the senator did not asking the CEO “have you ever ordered a Chinese takeout”?.
Italian Stuffed Meat Loaf
18521t6
Ingredients
Meat Loaf
1 pound lean ground beef
1 cup oats
1 (15 1/2 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce, divided
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon pepper
Filling
1/3 cup of any one or all of the following: sliced mushrooms, sliced ripe olives, shredded mozzarella cheese, shredded zucchini
Topping
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Ripe olives, sliced
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
For meat loaf, combine ground beef, oats, 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce, onion, Parmesan cheese, egg, Worcestershire sauce and pepper; mix well. Separate mixture into two equal parts. Shape each into a patty about 7 inches in diameter. Place filling on one patty to within 1/2 inch of edge. Place in prepared pan.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until meat is done.
Top loaf with remaining spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese. Garnish with olives.
So, we’ve got Liam Ashley, a 17-year-old dude from New Zealand who made a serious mistake. He took his parents’ car for a joyride without their permission. Yeah, not the smartest move in the book, my friend.
But here’s where things get real messed up. Liam’s parents, instead of just giving him a good old-fashioned grounding or some crap, decided to press criminal charges against him. They wanted to teach him a lesson, right? So they denied the poor guy bail, thinking that sending him to prison would fix everything.
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Now, I get it, parents wanna straighten out their kids, but come on! Liam had some minor run-ins with the law before, nothing too serious. And for that, they wanna throw him behind bars? Talk about overreacting, man.
But here’s the real tragedy. While Liam was being transported in a prison van, some dangerous psycho attacked him. And I ain’t talking about a friendly game of patty cake, my friend. Liam was brutally assaulted and, tragically, he didn’t make it. It’s a heartbreaking ending to a messed-up situation.
Ashley was killed by George Charlie Baker, a classified dangerous criminal, who strangled and stomped on the boy. Liam sustained severe brain injuries and his family decided to remove him from life support the next day. Baker was given an 18 year sentence!
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I mean, seriously, what the f**k? Liam’s parents thought they were doing the right thing, but their actions led to their own son’s death. It’s a harsh reminder that sometimes, people’s intentions can be all kinds of messed up, and the consequences can be devastating.
Yea I did. I was interviewing for a part time job in a small, higher end chain women’s clothing store. I just wanted a few hours a week in a nice atmosphere. This weeks to be the place. Then as I was doing my last interview with the store manager, she started telling me about the hourly sales requirements. Woman, what are you talking about? Well, the first hour you had to sell, say $10 worth of accessories. The second jour V higher dollar value, and it went in up to 8 hours and by the eighth hour you had to sell $50 worth of stuff. By the hour! She’s been very nice and told me she’d never seen such glowing recommendations from previous employees, she’d actually talked to them. So at the news of the hard sell requirement I was sitting there with it mouth agape in shock, I said, I’m 52, months his is a part time job I thought would be enjoyable, you just made it despicable, sorry, I’m not interested. It was a good thing, I found a job in a chain fabric store, they had about 200 stores nationwide, our store was very small, about 3500 square feet, but we worked our way up to a million dollars in sales so it was busy, fun and I loved it until the store manager stopped caring and was a pain in the butt. I loved to see, knit, crochet and do other fiber crafts. We sold fabric, yarn, lots of supplies for other crafts. And people were buying all of our supplies. But it went downhill, I left after 12 years and 18!years after I started they went out of business. It was sad, I couldn’t buy a sewing machine needle there at the end because the selection went from 20 types and sizes to 4 basic needles. And that was with everything.
JEFFREY SACHS FULL INTERVIEW ABOUT CHINA – U.S RIVALRY CONTINUE ? AND MORE
Oh my God. A deep madness.
https://youtu.be/cVYtF3HVSXY
Subtle Change in Ukraine Blame Means Deadly Trouble for Americans
OPINION-EDITORIAL — A very subtle change in the words coming out of the Russian Foreign Ministry signals the FINAL step before the annihilation of the United States. We have now reached the final step . . .
The wording used by the Russian Foreign Ministry was very subtle, but its implications are anything but. See if you can pick-up the subtle change in this excerpt from RT:
The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs who were killed last week when the Russian Il-76 military aircraft transporting them was shot down by Kiev’s troops, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has said.
On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a report stating that the cargo plane was destroyed using two US-made MIM-104A missiles fired by a Patriot air-defense system. The Il-76 came down in Russia’s Belgorod Region last Wednesday. All of those on board – 65 Ukrainian POWs, three Russian troops, and six crew members – were killed.
Russian investigators stated that Ukrainian troops fired the missiles from a staging area in Kharkov Region, not far from the village of Liptsy, some 10km from the Russian border. They based their conclusion on 116 missile fragments found at the crash site bearing inscriptions in English.
Responding to the report, Zakharova said in a Telegram post that US citizens “need to know where their money is going,” arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.”
Did you catch it? Did you pick up the subtle change in the language they used? It’s right there in front of you!
Here, let me focus it for you:
“The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs . . .”
Then again, in a later paragraph:
” . . .arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.” “”
This tiny and subtle change points the finger not just at the US Government, it also points the finger at . . . . YOU. And me! Individually. Personally.
This is a point I have made repeatedly on my radio shows in the past two years. I have earnestly pointed out that what our GOVERNMENT does, is being done IN OUR NAME.
Remember, this nation celebrates Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address wherein he posited that we have “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Ergo, when the US Government does something, it does it in OUR name. You and me.
The Russians have now made clear who it is they hold responsible for what the US Government is doing: YOU and ME.
You see, we . . . . you and me . . . . ARE in fact, to blame!
We sit back and do nothing while our government runs roughshod over the whole world. Sanctions on this one and that one. Military action here. Military action there. And whenever our Government engage in that activity, people we don’t know, in lands we’ve never been to or maybe haven’t even heard of . . . . die.
Oh, and while our government is doing all this crap to people all over the world, you and I sit back and do . . . . nothing. We don’t make a phone call to our members of Congress or the Senate. We don’t write a letter or send a fax. We don’t even fire-off an email. We sit on our asses and do absolutely . . . . nothing.
The Russians are now making clear it is YOU and I who are doing this. YOU and I who are to blame. Directly. Personally.
You know what? They’re right.
WE are to blame. We elect these people then sit back and tacitly approve of what they’re doing by our own, personal inaction. They slaughter people all over the world. They bomb countries back into the Stone Age. You and I sit back and do absolutely nothing. Or worse, we sing idiotic Beach Boys Parody songs like “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran . . . .” as if somehow what we’re doing is good. It isn’t.
A Russian guy I know cited US Senator Lindsey Graham the other day to make a very valid point to me. He showed me what Lindsey Graham, posted on “X” (formerly Twitter) wherein he said the following:
Then the Russian guy asked me “What if some member of the Russian Federation COuncil (i.e. a Russian “Senator”) Posted this exact message on VKontake (Russian Social Media) only changed the countries involved, like this FAKE SAMPLE:
FAKE RUSSIA SENATOR
In case the Putin Administration is wondering, it is abundantly clear to the United States and everyone else in the region, that the Administration doesn’t want war. But it will be difficult to tell the families of the fallen soldiers that the United States is not at war with us.
The United States is at war with Russia on multiple fronts through their proxies (Ukraine). Weak talk and weak action are putting our service members [in Ukraine], at risk. If the United States doesn’t pay a heavy price after the deaths of our service members, and the wounding of many more, then the Putin Administration is derelict in their duties to protect Russian personnel in harm’s way.
To the Putin Administration: Stop the weak rhetoric and respond with strength to protect Russian interests and lives. Your current approach to United States/NATO aggression is not working. Change while you can.”
Same words as Lindsey Graham. Same logic.
So I have to ask YOU, the Reader, if Lindsey Grahams words about Iran are good enough to warrant the US attacking Iran, would the FAKE Russian Senator’s exact same words about Ukraine, justify Russia hitting us?
Why not. Same situation!
You see, this is a big problem for my fellow Americans. We view the world as being ours to do with as we please. We never once stop to think how other powerful nations, might decide to use OUR logic, when dealing with . . . . us.
Now, some of you will react by saying “They wouldn’t dare.” Oh no? Why not?
And you would respond “Because we would nuke the living shit out of them.”
Really?
Because they can also do that to us.
Oh.
Yes.
Reality sets in.
And those same reactionary Americans who would say “They wouldn’t dare” would then likely say “They won’t, it would mean the end of the world.”
Yes. It would. And we would have done it to ourselves by the way we are behaving around the world.
Why should Russia sit back and allow us to supply arms to Ukraine, which are now clearly being used to kill Russians?
Why shouldn’t Russia tell the United States (again) to stop supplying weapons that are killing Russians and then add, or Russia will start hitting the United States?
Why shouldn’t Russia make it direct? Blunt?
Well . . . . turns out, they just began making it blunt. At the top of this Op-Ed, they have now begun blaming “American citizens.” You and me.
Where is this leading? Let me explain it this way:
What is the difference between “Killing” and “murder?”
Murder is the unlawful killing of an innocent. But “Killing” is allowable if it is “justified.”
For instance, if a guy is aiming a gun at you, and you do something which kills him, that is “self defense” and not murder, even though the guy is now dead.
So there is a difference between killing and murder. One may be allowed while the other is not.
Same thing with countries.
The U.S. is supplying weapons for Ukraine to use to kill Russians. Russia has repeatedly told the US and NATO to stop, but we are not stopping. ERGO, it would be “justified” for Russia to kill us in self defense.
Thankfully, the Russians have good morals and they know that perhaps the innocent American people ought not be harmed because of our evil government. SO thus far, they have not killed us.
I think the change in Russian Foreign Ministry wording mentioned at the start of this Op-Ed, tells us that’s about to change.
The official Diplomatic Corps of the Russian Federation is now openly, and publicly, laying the blame for the deaths of Russians, upon “the American people.” Me and you.
Having repeatedly told us to stop, the only thing left for Russia to do is to make us stop – by killing us.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has now begun laying the historical groundwork to justify exactly that.
By changing their statements to lay blame upon “the American people” they are building a record to justify killing . . . us.
Wise-up folks.
Unless we reign-in our wayward government, and stop them from running roughshod over the whole world, you and I __can__ be held accountable. You and I __can__ be stopped.
The clock seems to be ticking.
Now, you can either step up and start being an active and engaged citizen, and start telling your elected public servants to knock it off, or you can go right back to sitting on your ass and doing nothing until the brilliant white flashes start. Then you can feel sorry for yourself as you vaporize, except God already knows: You brought this on yourself by not getting off your lazy ass and stopping your own government while you still could.
Kevin is the gentlest man I’ve ever known, and we go back nearly four decades. He’s tall, well-built, and strong, yet he talks with a soft voice and always speaks kindly.
Kevin worked in a small, cramped Capitol Hill office with a Class A bully. This guy continually said nasty things to his colleagues. He was especially abusive to the women and, because of his kind demeanor, Kevin was one of the favorite targets. A bully loves attacking anyone s/he perceives to be weak.
One day, Kevin had enough. During a verbal attack, Kevin jumped up, grabbed this guy by the lapels, and pulled him from his desk chair. He then pushed the guy against a wall and put his face very close. Kevin told the guy that he could shut up, immediately, or that Kevin would shut his mouth for him. Kevin went on to explain that there’d be no more office abuse; if the behavior happened again, the consequences would be much more severe.
The guy turned bright red, then ghostly white. He had nothing to say. He sat down and spent the rest of the day looking terrified and shaking uncontrollably. He never bullied anyone again, and he left his job shortly after. Nobody was sorry to see him go.’
It was Dec 1982. I had just turned 16 in October. My two friends and I were walking home from the Christmas dance at the high school when I was hit by a drunk driver. She was driving home from a company Christmas party. I was the one closest to the street on the sidewalk and somehow she clipped me without hitting either of my friends. Best we can figure, I rolled up the windshield and off the side of her car.
I was knocked unconscious and woke up laying facedown on the street. People were already gathered by me, holding me down, telling me not to move. I was terrified that they knew something about my “condition” that I didn’t know. Fortunately, I had only minor injuries and a concussion. Sprained pinky finger, road-rash scrapes over the whole right side of my body from my ear to my knee, swollen knee and elbow, and that pesky concussion. No doubt, I was lucky.
Then there was another little “gift” that I didn’t realize I had for years. PTSD. I had to quit the school wrestling team after I had a panic attack and blacked out during practice. In the first few months after, I literally dove into bushes and onto lawns when I heard sharp sounds behind me – tires squealing, engine revving, door slamming – all sent me flying away from the road. I would get up and brush off the leaves while mentally chastising myself for being weak. Eventually, it got to the point where I’d just flinch and not actually leap, and months later where I’d just startle.
This was 1982, before MADD, before strict DUI laws, and in many cases, before any DUI laws. I was told she spent the night in the “drunk tank” and was released the next day. Her insurance paid the medical expenses minus the PTSD therapy because I didn’t know I had that. Insurance also paid for clothing that was torn or cut off, and I believe an additional $600 for “pain and suffering.” My PTSD lasted over two years.
I never drink and drive. Because I know the real cost. Because I know I got a small dose and some families pay a much larger cost. Because I couldn’t imagine sitting in a cell knowing I killed someone.
I had my fairly new license and was driving my parents car when a deer darted out in front of me. I swerved and put the car into a ditch. Not hurt.
I find a phone and call a tow truck. Get back to the car and there is a police car there. I explained I’d stayed with the car for 15 minutes but knew there was a gas station nearby.
He gives me a ticket for speeding because in his opinion that’s the only way this could have happened.
Now this is a small municipal court for traffic tickets. My license was from my parents home 3 hours away. He was expecting me to just mail in the fine rather than contest it. He approached me before court to “refresh his memory about the event” and naively I did. He gets called and testifies that I was speeding.
So, I asked him where he was when the accident happened and was able to witness me speeding. He said he passed me going in the opposite direction.
So, I asked: if you saw me speeding in the opposite direction & saw me wreck my car, why did I have to walk 20 minutes to the phone, call police headquarters to report the accident, and walk back before you wrote the ticket?
The judge stopped things at that point & dismissed the charges.
One morning as I was waking up, I looked at my 27 year old wife as she was sleeping and noticed the veins in her neck were throbbing. A few days later she was in the hospital getting excess fluid drained from her pericardium (sac around the heart) that was built up and putting pressure on her heart, and causing the veins to protrude. She had recently recovered from a stomach virus and doctors attributed this to a viral infection.
A few days later, it was happening again. That’s when the whirlwind began. She was put back in the local hospital for tests, within a day sent to John’s Hopkins for more tests, within another day sent right to the oncology unit. Her diagnosis was Angiosarcoma; the tumor was on her heart.
The outlook wasn’t good and I was getting a lot of percentages: “if we do this there’s x percent of this happening and if that happens there’s x percent that we can do this”, etc. I asked to speak with someone who could just tell me what the deal was, what to expect, what the reality of the situation was. They sent the head of oncology to speak with me, and I’ll never forget it:
“The tumor is on her heart…we can’t just remove the tumor because of the location, and because angiosarcoma has an almost liquid consistency operating is rarely successful. It’s extremely aggressive and once it gets into the bloodstream, if it hasn’t already, will spread throughout her body. You’ve asked me to be completely frank with you about your wife’s condition, and because you asked I am going to honor your request: the reality of the situation is that your wife is going to die, and the life you had together as you know it is over. It could be within six months, or because of the pressure on her heart she could go into cardiac arrest at any time. Now, I’m an aggressive realist, which means I’m going to aggressively try to change the reality of the situation. But the fact is that if this kind of cancerous tumor appeared in her leg, we would immediately amputate, and she would still not survive more than two years”.
This will not go down well with the electorate and, moreover, with the soldiers of the Ukrainian forces:
A poll published by the Kyiv Institute of Sociology in December found 88% of Ukrainians supported the top general. Zelensky’s approval rating, though also high, was considerably lower at 62%.
It is far from clear that any new commander will be able to improve Ukraine’s difficult situation on the battlefield without significantly more forces and weapons — precisely what Zaluzhny has demanded of Zelensky, adding tension to what was already a fraying relationship.
Zaluzhny’s popularity — both within the military and among ordinary citizens — makes his removal a political gamble for Zelensky. It also poses strategic risks at a time when Russia has intensified its attacks and Western security assistance for Kyiv has slowed. The general has built strong rapport with his Western counterparts and has often been able to advocate directly for certain materiel and seek counsel on battlefield strategy. … Both Budanov and Syrsky are considered favorites of Zelensky and Andriy Yermak, the chief of the presidential office and Zelensky’s closest adviser. Nearer the front, however, there seems to be little appetite for change.
“My personal opinion is you can’t do something like this right now — Zaluzhny is someone 80 percent of the military considers a good authority,” said Oleksandr, a battalion commander fighting in eastern Ukraine.
“For what is he being removed? It’s not clear. And who will replace him? Syrsky? God, I hope not. No one in the army likes Syrsky,” Oleksandr added.
The Bild publication writes that Zaluzhny wanted to withdraw troops from Avdiivka a few weeks ago, but Zelensky refused him this and on December 30 he personally went to the city to the front line to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters.
So all the coffins that arrived from near Avdeevka to Ukraine since December 30 are solely on the conscience of Zelensky and his passion for narcissism.
Avdeevka is nearly surrounded and any attempts to hold onto it will cost many valuable lives of soldiers for no discernible advantage. But, just like with Bakhmut, Zelenski wants to hold on to the city to be be able point his western sponsors to some ‘successes’.
My hunch is that, after Monday’s kerfuffle in Kiev, the decision to fire Zaluzny was still hanging in balance.
The change now only happened after the noeconservative destroyer of Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, had landed in Kiev.
When asked by a journalist whether Nuland had learned about Kyiv’s plans on the battlefield, she replied that, in her opinion, Ukraine would achieve great success.
“I have to say that I leave Kyiv tonight more encouraged about the unity and the resolve, about 2024 and its absolute strategic importance for Ukraine. I also leave more confident that, even as Ukraine strengthens its defenses, Mr. Putin is going to get some nice surprises on the battlefield and that Ukraine will make some very strong success,” the U.S. Under Secretary of State emphasized.
This hint does not foresee success on the ground but asymmetric operations within Russia or the Black Sea. More to the like of this which has happen last night:
Ukraine sinks Russian ship.
During a night attack by drones in the Donuzlav area, the Black Sea Fleet lost the Ivanovets MRK, built in 1989, 493 tons of displacement, armed with Moskit missiles.
Sinking that ship will do nothing to change the outcome at the battlefront. Nor would any attacks on Russia oil and gas infrastructure change anything.
Nuland’s remark also hints that the replacement of General Zaluzny will not come in the form of Army General Alexander Syrski, who is disliked by the troops for unsuccessfully holding grounds in Bakhmut and elsewhere at too high costs in men and material.
Nuland’s hint towards asymmetric operations points to the elevation of the Chief of Military Intelligence Directorate Major-General Kyrylo Budanov as a incoming replacement for Zaluzny.
Budanov has been responsible for some daring, if mostly unsuccessful, terror attacks on Russian land and interests.
Back in June 2023 the Economist explained why Zelenski might seek to elevate Bundanov:
Aides huddle close when the general speaks. Under his leadership, Ukraine’s main directorate of intelligence—HUR—has become a plucky, autonomous authority that punches above its weight. It resembles a gang. “Before we had managers, now we have a leader,” says one veteran officer. Oleg, an operative who has known General Budanov for decades, speaks approvingly of his ability to infect others with his fervour, comparing him to a snake “hypnotising you before he comes in for the kill. Restrained, measured, never panicked. You do anything he asks.” … As a confidant of the president—those in government call them kindred spirits—General Budanov is understood to be playing an ever-bigger role in behind-the-scenes peace negotiations. Sources say he is a conduit to secret talks with the Chinese, and he has also been in contact with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s mercenary Wagner outfit.
In conversation it is clear that General Budanov has been thinking hard about post-war Ukraine. Last winter there was talk of him becoming defence minister. He insists his only ambition is victory. Yet secret polls conducted by Mr Zelensky’s office show they are thinking about using the cult of their hero spymaster to counterbalance a perceived rivalry emanating from Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s likeable and independent commander-in-chief. General Budanov’s colleagues say they are convinced he is destined for a big political role once peace comes—if he lives that long.
To the TV producers (Yermak) around the former comedian actor Zelenski it is all about ratings.
Budanov may be good at marketing his image as a successful terrorist.
But he has zero experience of leading any size of unit in combat. You can not lead a company, battalion, brigade or army by ‘huddling close’ with aides. It needs long term strategic thinking just as detailed attention to all kinds of day to day logistics.
Leading an army is like conducting a huge orchestra through a four year long Wagner epos. Having played the first fiddle in a chamber quartet does not qualify for that.
I am sure that U.S. military is not happy about this move. While there were some disagreements with Zaluzny about the right strategies those were between military professional who allowed for diverting opinions. Zaluzny was seen as an experienced professional soldier. Budanov is seen as a spook who had never been in command of any real military. He well not be talked to at the same level.
According to one source, Zaluzhnyi’s senior staff are also expected to be removed from their positions.
With the new inexperienced leadership the situation on the ground will soon become a catastrophic mess for forces of Ukraine. There will be wrong priorities, miss-allocations of resources and large scale losses of men and ground.
On the other side terror attacks on Russian targets, industrial equipment as well as population centers, are likely to sharply increase.
The larger U.S. aim of all this, first announced as a 2019 RAND study, is still unchanged:
The study at that time recommended the arming of Ukrainian’s army as the best way to unbalance Russia. We have since seen the escalation of that strategy. The move from the battlefield to the realm of terror is a response to the degradation of the first by empathizing the psychological effects of the second.
The foreseeable outcome though is unchanged. Ukraine will be smashed, Russia’s power will increase and the global view of the U.S. as a reliable partner will be diminished.
Posted by b on February 1, 2024 at 14:48 UTC | Permalink
One of the first casinos I ever worked in had a policy that you had to wear black pants, a tuxedo shirt, a bow tie, black dress shoes, and black socks. The only thing they didn’t demand was the colour of your underwear (as long as a bra couldn’t be seen under your white shirt). The bosses were so strict that “uniform checks” were part of the norm – every couple of days a delegated supervisor would check everyone to see that they were wearing the right clothing. What stood out to me was when they’d ask you to pull up the leg of your pants to check your socks – sometimes both legs… just to make sure both socks matched and we’re all black (no stripes at the top).
This particular casino was an anomaly in the industry – it was many years ago and a small place so they didn’t have security cameras – none! One day I was on a game that required two dealers to operate and it happened that he was one of my best friends. There were no patrons in the casino at all – not unusual for an early day shift there. An older female supervisor came around announcing a “sock check”. I looked at my friend, he looked at me, we both unbuckled our belts and let our pants drop to the floor exposing the tops of our socks.
Neither of us ever had a sock check again.
No, we weren’t fired either… there was nobody in the casino at the time and the older female supervisor was a very nice lady with a great sense of humour – she (of course) told us to never do it again and almost stayed red-faced for the rest of the shift.
I exposed a huge scam by my local gas distributor (cooking gas).
This is a typical cooking gas cylinder in India.
As you can see (not very clearly though), on the neck of the cylinder, net weight and gross weight are clearly mentioned.
Recently, I read an article in ‘The Hindu’ that revealed that a lot of gas agencies/distributors/delivery persons in India are stealing cooking gas. They take out about 1–2 kg of gas from each cylinder and sell it separately in black. The loss in weight is too small for an unsuspecting buyer to notice. But in terms of money, this translates into a loss of about 60 INR per cylinder. The article cautioned everybody to get their gas cylinders weighed before paying the delivery person (Delivery persons are mandated to carry a portable weighing scale along with them by the Govt.)
At first I laughed it off. My agency was trusted. It would never do that. But then on a whim, I decided to try it out. When the next cylinder was delivered to my home, I casually asked the delivery boy to weigh it. The color on his face instantly changed. He started stammering, started insisting that there was no need for this because the bond of trust we shared! I immediately grew suspicious. I pressed him. He then started making excuses that he forgot to bring along his portable weighing-scale.
Luckily, I had my own weighing scale at home. I immediately brought it out and weighed the cylinder myself. The gross weight printed on the cylinder was 29.5 kg, whereas the scale read 27 kg. A difference of bloody 2.5 kgs.
The delivery boy started begging me not to register a complaint against him. And that he wouldn’t repeat the mistake ever again.
Apparently, this is a huge scam going on all over India. If you are reading this answer, please get your gas cylinder duly weighed before paying for it.
Once, many years ago, as a young lawyer, I was asked to help a family member, a crazy uncle, with his disability case. He was literally homeless, living on the street and crazy beyond description. His grip on reality was severely distorted, he was schizophrenic and had lost his job as a NYC sanitation worker.
Surely, you can get him SOME benefits to live on? This was the family’s charge to me as a brand new baby lawyer. Help Uncle X! He’s desperate. You gotta do this.
Okay, I’ll give it a try. How do you say no to something like that? I had never handled a disability case and really had no idea where to start. So, let’s start with interviewing the client and see what he can tell me. I didn’t expect much in the way of cooperation from a man who I knew was thoroughly and completely insane and off his rocker. I had heard the family stories.
I set up an appointment, nevertheless, and I prayed to God for wisdom to help me save this man from roaming half-naked on the streets of NY. I figured it might even be a public service.
One fine day he did actually show up in my office. At the time, I was working for an older gentleman lawyer who had a massively busy local general practice, the type you really don’t see anymore and before the days of “legal specialization.” This office truly tried to handle EVERYTHING! It was great experience.
The waiting room was full of people in need of one form of legal advice or another when my prospective client showed up. As I greeted him in the office full of these other waiting clients the first words literally out of his mouth are “Hi, you have nice lips!” Lol. Oh boy, this was going to be a real experience. I quickly and quietly shuffled him off to my basement office so we could get to work. My office didn’t even have a window.
Well, my client had brought a sheaf of disorganized, crumpled papers and, after organizing and unfolding them I started reading them. They consisted of his employment file and the stated reasons for his termination. He was quite literally unfit for employment. His record consisted of bizarre hallucinations, reports of “voices” and other strange phenomenon which he was experiencing which rendered him totally unfit for any gainful employment. There were also stacks of medical records indicating that he was suffering from a severe mental disorder (which was nothing but obvious to anyone spending one minute in his presence). He was very much totally out of his mind.
I felt sorry for him. I knew he would qualify for Social Security Disability benefits and would also be entitled to a sizable retroactive payment. All we had to do was apply and possibly have a hearing. I was confident I could win it. I started preparing the application, starting with the claim for “disability based on mental illness.”
Well, my uncle/client took one look at the application and said (I swear that I’m not making this up) “my disability is for hemorrhoids, not that!”). I was astonished! I expected anything but resistance. What was your disability?
HEMORRHOIDS!
Well, the medical records clearly stated that he DID have hemorrhoids but that was hardly his disability or his reason for not being able to work. The records were replete with references to paranoid schizophrenia and wild hallucinations. THAT was the problem, not hemorrhoids!
I tried to persuade him. I tried to convince him to proceed but he became agitated and uncooperative. Finally, he grabbed his papers and ran out of my office. I couldn’t stop him. He was gone.
My aunt, his sister, wanted to know how we did. I told her that the case went nowhere and that he was uncooperative. Back on the streets he went for another year or so. I couldn’t help him since he wouldn’t cooperate.
Then something amazing happened (after about a year). He returned to my office, looking for help, insisting once again that his HEMORRHOIDS were his difficulty. This time I agreed.
I applied for Social Security Disability ON THE BASIS OF HEMORRHOIDS. Of course, we were going to be denied but I had an idea brewing in my young lawyer head. Let’s see if this works.
After receiving the expected denial of our application I filed an appeal and asked for a hearing with a judge. It was granted as a routine matter, as I knew it would be. Now what to do?
Well, the date of the hearing arrived and we went to court in Brooklyn. I showed up with my uncle and the case was called. The judge (I still remember his name!) looked at the hearing application and said “this is an application for disability benefits based on…. what? Hemorrhoids? Really? Okay, counsel proceed.” He was shaking his head in disbelief the entire time he said this.
I politely asked the judge to exclude my client from the room. He looked at me and said “young man, this is a most unusual request.” Yes, judge but I have my reasons. “Okay,” he said, “please exclude the claimant from the courtroom. This had better be good, counselor!”
Oh, it’s gonna be good. I promise!
As soon as my uncle left the courtroom I gushed “judge, this guy is my uncle and he’s completely nuts.” I then proceeded to tell him the entire story and told him that the real claim was for mental illness disability but the client wouldn’t let me proceed on that basis, insisting that his hemorrhoids were the issue. The judge seemed to understand.
“Okay, bring the claimant back into the courtroom. You may inquire, counselor.”
I stood up and literally asked my client ONE QUESTION. It was truly only one question… no more. I said “Uncle X, please tell the judge what’s bothering you.” Then I sat down fully knowing what was coming next.
For the next ten minutes, until the judge could no longer stand it, the client rambled about “wires being crossed” and “Ring Dings and Yankee Doodles” and how the police were stalking him and many other bizarre and colorful statements. It was very clear that his grip on reality was non-existent. I doubt he could have told you who the President was at the time or what month it was. After hearing enough, the judge stopped him, clearly having heard enough to realize this wasn’t a put on, or a fraud. It would have actually been funny if it wasn’t so sad.
“Decision reserved,” the judge said and dismissed us from his court. I left feeling confident.
A few weeks later we got a decision granting 100% disability to my uncle with a retroactive payment of over forty thousand dollars plus monthly benefits of about $2500 for life, plus Medicare. It was a grand slam win! I was a family hero.
Years later I ran into the judge on the street outside the courts. I greeted him and thanked him for his help and understanding. He told me “I will never forget that case… It was textbooks!”
Not exactly fired, but we thought it was a great reaction.
After a recent merger between two rather large companies, it was necessary to reduce personnel, so each department was asked to cut staffing by a certain percentage.
To encourage volunteers, management offered to give a full week worth of salary and paid medical benefits for each full year a person had worked at the company if they took early retirement. And anyone who qualified for a pension also got the full pension as if they had not retired early.
One member of our team was about 14 months away from his planned retirement date when he would start receiving full Social Security and pension payments.
He had worked for the company for 45 years. After some simple math, we all strongly encouraged him to take the deal.
He got 45 weeks of full pay, a whole year of benefits coverage (negotiated with HR), his full pension, and they also bought out the almost two months of accrued vacation time that he had been saving up in order to retire a few months early.
He basically got a 12+ month paid vacation with full benefits. We will be having a retirement party for him on his original planned retirement date in a couple of months. 😀
I imagine that wasn’t what management had in mind when they made the offer, but everyone on our team was very happy for him to get it!
When I worked as a commis chef in a 5-star hotel, we had some guy come in and eat on his own, which was a bit unusual. He ordered some expensive food, but strangely finished with a starter which involved some salad. A waiter came through shortly after serving the salad to tell me that the customer was complaining as he’d found a slug in his salad, so I went out to speak with him. I explained to him that I was terribly sorry, but it just was not possible. The man was being quite rude with me, but I maintained my calm and he demanded to speak with the head chef.
The head chef came out and apologised to the man and stated that the slug was not in the salad when it was served to him. The man became outraged and the implication that he was a liar and asked how we could be so sure. The head chef said “If you would please follow me sir. There’s something I would like you to see.” The man stood up, shaking his head looking a bit smug. He seemed adamant that there was nothing we could do that would ever change his mind or prove that he put the slug there. As the head chef and I led him into the kitchen, the head chef explained the sections of the kitchen as he passed through and their function. Finally, he reached the garnish section on the other side of the kitchen and pointed. “We put the lettuce for your salad through this machine. We call this ‘a shredder’”
The man took a little time to think, clearly realising that there was just no way anything short of a small bug could have made it through there alive, and started to look a little panicked. He then started to grow embarrassed by the second, and finally apologised profusely. He said that he did not have the money to pay for the meal. As we called the police, he suddenly remembered that he did have the money and paid for the meal in cash. We never saw him again.
The Duran: NATO Crossed Putin’s Red Line and Russia is Ready to FINISH It
Many years ago, while working as a housekeeper, l had one very dirty client that always left notes about what they’d like me to clean that visit.
One week l arrived to a note stating that, they’d like me to clean out the bathroom cupboard.
When l opened the cupboard l found it to be full to overflowing with used sanity pads. The whole cupboard, not one or two. Not half a dozen, but hundreds of uses sanity items. A lifetimes worth.
The note stated…clean out bathroom cupboard and as this was the only cupboard in the room, l empied it and scrubbed it out, only to be met with a nasty phone call the following day stating l should not have thrown out anything. They were being saved. Hmm. Not what the not implied. But sure.
The following visit, another note, please clean out the kitchen party. So l put all like food together, such as 10 or so open packs of pasta together, sauces together, etc, wiped out all the shelves. It looked great.
Yup another phone call. How dare l mix up the food in the cupboards. There were other instances, so l stopped working for them. The house was always filthy and they would never employ me long enough to clean the house completely. It was always left dirty, with just a small area cleaned, which would be very dirty again by next visit.
It wasn’t that it was a messy house, it was filthy to the point of being unsanitary, so l was happy to never go back.l was always worried ld get sick just for being inside there.
I was an odd duck, partly because I spent five years overseas in a private school that catered about 50/50 to children of government workers stationed there and half to people working for various corporations also stationed there, all from English speaking countries looking for a school in English in the middle of Brazil.
Also, in retrospect, partly because I’m on the autism spectrum, although I had no idea that that was the case for some decades to come. Still, I knew, everyone knew, that I was a weirdo.
Well, I got to this new school (it had just been built, because town had expanded so fast that the original school had gotten overcrowded) and of course that meant so had all the other kids. And… I’m reconstructing this, mind you, and it’s just a guess, I’m really not great at understanding how people think, see “Autism” above… they didn’t know what the “pecking order” was. So they settled it with fights. You saw someone weaker than yourself, you beat him up, and that meant you were better than him, or he beat you up and then he was better than you, and it was all sorted.
Except I didn’t want to fight. Had no reason to. Didn’t make any sense to me. Wasn’t afraid, just, well, weirdo.
It seems one kid got it in his head that this was his ticket. If he beat me up, he had it made. So my turning him down, that was maddening. He kept after me about it for weeks. Finally, I agreed. Stay in the classroom when everyone goes to recess. The teacher wasn’t all that good about policing things, it was simple enough for us both to stay behind.
He said “all right, let’s fight!” I asked him “are you sure? I don’t want to fight you. Are you sure?” “Sure” he said. So I picked up one of those desk/chair things and hit him with it. Then I asked him if he wanted to continue. He said no.
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Don’t try this. It’s probably “assault with a deadly weapon” now. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t get hurt bad enough for anyone to find out, although in the 1970s I might not have gotten in trouble anyway.
Dad always told me not to fight, but if I had to fight, be sure to win, no rules.
That’s the first and last fight of my life. Maybe word got around? Maybe I just don’t have the look in my eyes of someone you should fight with. It could be the autism, sending weird signals. I don’t know.
No. But may I highlight a dirty trick by a phone soliciter?
I’ll take that as a yes.
A neighbor of mine was a saleman for Sam’s Club. The guy who makes a pitch to your boss, offering a discount to any of his/her employees who’d like the group membership, put on sales presentations at state fairs etc., cold-calling as well.
Then I moved halfway across the state. He calls me one afternoon, disguising his voice and acting as if he’s calling on behalf of some worthless telemarketing offer. Of course I, not recognizing him, utter some choice words before hanging up. He calls me right back, identifies himself and proceeds to ask me why I couldn’t be more polite in declining whatever it is that’s being offered.
I told him why. Said my peace and then we chatted about whatever he had really needed to talk to me about.
Many years ago I was in a chat room of a group with hundreds of members. Predominantly adults but, there were older teens. I don’t remember what was being discussed but, this kid (older teen) started making rude comments then started making bizarre comments about school shootings,violence and basically hinting he was going to do something. Quite a few people ignored it or told him he was being inappropriate and that he would be reported to moderator. Most in the discussion didn’t take it seriously. I went to his profile which fortunately wasn’t locked down. So concerning posts and was able to figure out the state, town and high school he attended. And his actual name. So I called the police in that town. Explained what I had seen, sent screenshots etc. While I was on the phone with a detective they got a call from one other man who had done the same as me. Surprisingly, the detective called me back a few hours later and while he didn’t give me many details he did say, that between myself and the other man they were able to locate the boy and that everyone was safe. I confess to stalking the FB profiles later and saw that he had been hospitalized so hopefully he got the help he needed. I worried I was doing the wrong thing but, I just kept thinking how hard it would be to live with myself if I saw news the next day of a school shooting and HADN’T called.
Nuclear Boy Scout
Now known as the “Nuclear Boy Scout,” David Hahn was 17 when he decided to earn an Atomic Energy merit badge by building a working nuclear reactor — right in the backyard of his Michigan home.
In the mid-1990s, Hahn painstakingly collected tiny amounts of radioactive material from everyday objects around his house.
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Image: David’s nuclear reactor can be seen
He almost had a working “breeder” reactor in his back shed when he caught the attention of local and federal authorities, prompting an FBI and Nuclear Regulatory Commission response with the evacuation of more than 40,000 people in the locality.
With the level of radiation in his basement 1000 times higher than normal; David declined to see a doctor despite having had significant radiation exposure (the skin burn seen in the image above came as a result).
Of course, it’s best to avoid bears in the wild, but if an encounter happens, you should know that the weakest skill of this animal is its maneuverability. Bears run very fast and crawl really well — but moving quickly around an object like a car or a tree is much harder for them. Sooner or later, the animal will give up trying to catch you seeing that this smart food (you) is not worth its energy.
However, don’t panic before a bear starts to act aggressively. If it’s just looking at you, standstill. There is a chance it won’t even understand who you are and what you are going to do. If it starts walking toward you slowly, walk backward slowly. Bears rarely attack people. Most likely, it will back off once it realizes you are a human.
2. Rip current
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If you accidentally find yourself in a rip current, it is completely useless to swim against it to the shore — you will only waste your energy. Try to swim parallel to the shore until you exit the current, and only then swim toward the shore.
3. Aspirin during a heart attack
Just one pill of aspirin can seriously improve how you feel. The person having a heart attack should lie down immediately and put something under their head or sit down and then take the pill. In order for it to work sooner, it should be chewed very well.
4. Diagnosing a heat stroke
The most obvious symptoms of a heat stroke are dizziness and nausea, but they can appear for other reasons too. In order to know for sure, you should eat something sweet, like candy. If the taste seems unpleasant, this is a heat stroke. For people who have any cardiovascular disorders, it is vital to determine the reason as soon as possible and get the right help.
5. A simple maneuver that will bring someone back to consciousness
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If you really need to bring someone back to consciousness, you should put them on their back and push their knees to their chest. This will make the blood flow to their brain and the person will wake up. But first, make sure the person doesn’t have any leg or body injuries, otherwise, the situation may only get worse.
6. Help in case of a venomous snake bite
Unlike some popular misconceptions, you shouldn’t suck out the venom, apply cold, apply bandages, or burn the wound. Before the experts arrive, the victim has to drink a lot and take an antihistamine. The area around the bite should not be touched because otherwise, the venom will just spread around the body faster.
7. Saving a drowning person
If you were able to save a drowned person, it doesn’t mean that they are out of the woods yet. You should take them to the hospital immediately, otherwise, they could die within several days if there is some leftover water in their lungs.
8. How to break car glass in case of an accident
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If you are in a situation where you can only get out of a car through the window and the door is impossible to open, remember that it is much easier to break a window by hitting it, not on the center but on the edges. By the way, if you can remove the headrest from the seat, you can use it to break the window. In different cars, headrests are different, so make sure you know how to remove the ones in your car.
9. Antihistamines should always be with you.
It may happen that you are allergic to something that you have never encountered before. And it could be such a severe allergic reaction that it might just be lethal unless you get qualified help. This is especially important on trips when people try new foods, see new plants, and go to completely new places.
10. Water on the beach is too far from the shoreline.
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When the waterline is abnormally far from the shore, this is a sign of a tsunami. If you notice this somewhere, you should warn everyone around and run.
Unfortunately, in 2004, people didn’t pay attention to this sign before a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Almost on the entire shore was exposed and people went out to collect fish and shells. And children were the most interested. However, there were people on 2 beaches that knew about this fact: a 10-year-old English girl named Tilly Smith and biology teacher John Chroston. They managed to save the lives of many people that day.
11. The rule of 3
If you ever find yourself in a critical situation, you should remember these numbers that can be used to describe the survival abilities of an average person:
3 minutes without air;
3 hours in extreme temperature;
3 days without water;
3 weeks without food.
So, if you can’t get your priorities straight, the chances of surviving are much lower.
My son has anaphylaxis inducing food allergies. The kind of food allergies where we had benadryl and epi pens in the nurses office and his backpack. In order to prevent an exposure I carefully packed his lunch every day. He had some money on his school lunch account so that on Fridays when they offered icy pops he could get one. Other than that, no birthday celebrations snacks, no school holiday celebrations, etc were allowed. The nursing staff knew, the teachers knew, even the principal knew this.
Apparently the stinking lunch aide didn’t know and didn’t care. One day my 7 year old son forgot to grab his lunch kit before heading to lunch. He told the lunch aide but she refused to let him go back for it. He begged but she instead marched him to the hot lunch line and made him buy his lunch. He came home covered in a rash, beet red and with severe stomach issues that kept him out of school for 5 days. When I asked him he told me what had happened. Fortunately he ate something off the minor allergy list so not an anaphylactic reaction.
I called every person I could think of and demanded answers. I went to school and demanded to talk to the lunch staff supervisor. That woman was re-trained and put on probation. I wish they had fired her but she claimed she had no knowledge about allergies and was just doing her job. Oh, and she avoided my son completely the whole rest of the year.
Young Wife Hid The Truth About How She REALLY Made $ In College, Now Hubby’s Family Has Video Proof
This is a great video that I will show to my daughter when she gets older. Learn from the mistakes of others.
Every Thursday night, a bunch of us university students would meet in the local pub. One night one of my closest friends says, that they are going to Hawaii for reading week (spring break) and asked if I would like to come.
Being drunk, I said that sounds awesome, he said ,sign a blank cheque and give it to me, and I will make all the reservations. I gave him the cheque and forgot about it. It was never mentioned again. Two months later I get home from the bar, on the Friday of reading week, and the phone is ringing, ( before cell phones) I answer it, and my friend says,”Where are you, the plane leaves in an hour and a half, and we are all at the airport lounge”
I lived 15 minutes from the airport. I threw my notes and text books, some jeans, underwear, socks and long sleeve shirts in a suitcase. I had no clean T-shirts, gym shorts or swim wear. I drove, parked in long term parking and just made it to drop off my luggage, at the last second. I met my friends in the lounge, and walked to the gate. If I had gotten home from the bar 10 minutes later I would have missed it.
I asked him why he hadn’t mentioned the trip in two months, and told him I had nothing to wear in Hawaii, and I needed to study for exams that followed reading week.
He looked stunned, he had completely forgot to tell me that he had booked the trip. Because the others had all been talking about it.
I had a great time in Hawaii, bought cheap T-shirts, shorts and swim wear, and never cracked a book.
I failed my first test, the day that I got back to university, and had to spend an extra semester in school to catch up. I should have said NO
I remember an incident in the late 1990s that happened on a Boeing 757 during a flight from Orlando to San Francisco.
As we were taxiing for take-off, we were enacting the required safety demonstration. A passenger seated in the over-wing exit row was talking loudly to his seatmate, creating such a distraction that some near him were having trouble hearing.
I leaned over and quietly asked him to hold his conversation until we were finished. He replied, somewhat condescendingly, “Look, I fly a lot. I know what to do. I’ve seen this so much that I already know it by heart.” And with that, he launched rudely back into his conversation.
I politely suggested that our demonstration was an excellent chance for him to review his knowledge, but he interrupted me, snarling for me to leave him alone because he didn’t need a review; he knew exactly what to do. I then flatly stated that his conversation was a distraction for others, and again asked him to hold until we were done, assuring him that it would be only another minute or two.
“FINE!” he snapped, heaving a melodramatic sigh, and glaring sullenly at me, he muttered something incomprehensible (and undoubtedly unpleasant) before continuing his conversation anyway, though quietly.
We achieved our cruising altitude at 35,000 feet and the ride was smooth. But about 90 minutes into the flight, we experienced an emergency when the cockpit was alerted by a sensor that there was a fire in one of the wheel wells. The proper procedure was to immediately lower the landing gear to extinguish the fire. But after the gear was lowered, the sensor still indicated the presence of fire. The Captain called to advise us that we would be making an emergency landing at the nearest airport, an Air Force Base in Meridian, Mississippi, and instructed us to prepare the cabin for evacuation.
Our descent was rapid, and we had only minutes to prepare. We advised the passengers on the situation, and began to prepare them for an emergency landing, including the possibility of a crash, and subsequent evacuation. The fear was palpable in the cabin, and everyone was paying very close attention to our instructions.
Our final action was a visual inspection of the cabin as we made our way to our jump-seats to strap in. As I hurried down the aisle, checking to see that passengers were prepared, I came to the window exit and noticed that the loud-mouthed passenger appeared rigid with terror. So I stopped and I asked, “Sir, are you OK? Do you know what to do when we land?”
He didn’t respond, and so I grasped his shoulder and with a shake, I said loudly, “SIR, CAN YOU DO THIS?”
He turned his gaze on me and I could see that he was in absolute shock. His terror-stricken eyes began to tear up, and the color drained from his face, turning it white as his mouth opened and closed, over and over, like a fish out of water. He couldn’t answer me. His mouth made little bleating sounds as he tried to force air through his larynx, but couldn’t seem to form words.
Time was running out, and others around could see that there was a problem. I pointed to the man sitting in the row behind and asked, “Can you do this?”
He fairly leapt to his feet, nodding and saying loudly, “Yes ma’am, I can.”
“Do you know what to do?” I demanded of him, and he replied with full confidence, “Yes ma’am. I look out the window first, and if it’s safe, I pull the cover off, and pull the handle down until the window opens, then lift it in, roll it onto the seats, step through and get off the back of the wing.”
“Then you and him change places… NOW!” I fairly shouted. I only had moments left; we were nearly landing. But the man in the exit was frozen with fear, unable to even comprehend what we were doing, let alone move himself.
At my shouted instructions, the second passenger and I, along with two other passengers, grabbed the terrified man by his arms and physically lifted him up, out and into the row behind. I yelled to the passengers next to him to buckle him in as the second passenger jumped into the exit seat. I fled for the back of the plane just as the Captain came onto the PA shouting “BRACE, BRACE, BRACE!” Diving for my jump-seat, I strapped in, pulling the last harness tight and snapping my body into the brace position just as the wheels touched down.
Fortunately for us, the landing was smooth, and before the plane came to a stop, the Captain announced, “REMAIN SEATED, REMAIN SEATED!” The fire was out, and we taxied to a stop. (We later learned that it was a malfunctioning sensor; there had been no fire in the first place.)
Air Force personnel brought stairs to the airplane, and all the passengers got off to stretch their legs and recover from the excitement. Inside the small terminal, someone tapped my shoulder. It was the man who had been so rude during our safety demonstration, who had frozen up when the actual emergency came.
“I want to apologize to you,” he said. “I was being an ass. I thought something like this would never happen to me, and when it did, I was terrified because I didn’t know what to do. Despite my rudeness to you, you still did your best to save my life.
“I was wrong, and I make this promise to you that I will never again ignore the safety demonstration, regardless of how many times I’ve seen it, and regardless of where I’m seated on the plane. I’ve learned a valuable lesson, and I have you to thank for it. I hope you accept my apology.”
When I first started working at Wolf Camera, I had a coworker that I’ll call John Doe. He was the type who was friendly enough, but didn’t have a particularly great work ethic.
Once, I was printing some photos. He was in the back taking a break. The phone rang. After a few rings, I answered the phone. When I was done with the call, I asked why John hadn’t answered the phone. He said something like, “Oh. I thought you liked answering the phone.”
Another time, he left work to take care of personal business. He said he’d be back in an hour or two to help close up. My brother and I were the only ones there. I didn’t have a key to lock up and I don’t think my brother did, either.
I was new enough at that point that I didn’t feel comfortable shutting down the machines by myself. We had to call someone to help close the store. I’m not sure if that ever made it back to the manager, as that incident didn’t get him fired.
One day, a camera goes missing. Our store had been flagged by corporate because we had enough inventory go missing, so we had to count the cameras every morning and every night. We also had them tagged, so we knew which camera went missing. A few days later, it appeared in the back again.
Shortly thereafter, we get a visit from corporate. Then, John Doe is suddenly no longer with the company. Officially, this is all I know.
It later came out that John had taken the camera and used it for photos on a dating site. How do we know? He left the pictures (of himself) on the camera’s internal memory.
Once upon a time, in a small suburban town, there was a high school named Elmwood High. Among the teachers at Elmwood High, there was one who stood out, Mrs. Anderson. She was known for her warm smile, her passion for teaching, and her impeccable professionalism. Students admired her dedication to her job and respected her greatly.
One sunny afternoon, a group of students was gathered in the school library, studying for an upcoming history exam. As they pored over textbooks and notes, a hushed conversation began about Mrs. Anderson. The students wondered about her personal life beyond the classroom, as she was known to be quite reserved about her own affairs.
Curiosity got the best of them, and they decided to do some sleuthing. They began by searching for her on social media, hoping to uncover tidbits of information about her life outside of school. It wasn’t long before they stumbled upon a social media profile that belonged to Mrs. Anderson.
To their surprise, her profile revealed a secret passion that none of the students had ever imagined. Scrolling through her posts and pictures, they discovered that Mrs. Anderson was an avid extreme sports enthusiast. There were breathtaking photos of her skydiving from high altitudes, snowboarding down steep slopes, and even bungee jumping off towering bridges.
The students couldn’t believe their eyes. The teacher they had always seen as reserved and composed was, in her free time, a fearless adrenaline junkie. They were in awe of the stark contrast between her adventurous hobbies and her calm, composed demeanor in the classroom.
As the students shared their discovery with their classmates, the news spread like wildfire throughout the school. Everyone was astonished by the double life their beloved teacher led. The revelation added a new layer of intrigue to Mrs. Anderson’s personality, and she became even more respected and admired for her unexpected passions.
One day, a curious student couldn’t resist asking Mrs. Anderson about her extreme sports adventures. She smiled and confessed to her secret hobby, explaining how it provided her with a sense of thrill and freedom that balanced the structure and responsibility of teaching.
Her revelation served as a valuable lesson to her students, reminding them that even those who appear to be one-dimensional may have hidden depths and interests that defy expectations. It was a moment of connection and mutual understanding that brought the teacher and her students closer together, deepening their respect and admiration for one another.
1920’s General Store OPENED After Decades of Closure: Exploring a long-Abandoned General Store
If we stopped launching satellites and rockets (I’m against this), how long will it take for Earth to be cleansed of all the space junk orbiting it?
The densest concentration of space junk – using the word “dense” very loosely – is in low Earth orbit and would mostly clean up after 10–20 years due to orbital drag. On the other hand, the debris in higher orbits might last thousands or millions of years.
On the gripping hand, space junk isn’t all that dense. The carefully guarded ISS has to dodge debris about once per year (and is armored for the very little stuff that is missed). Pictures like the following diagram incorrectly portray space junk that is the size of nuts and bolts as being the size of cities.
60 years of space launches have put a grand total of 7,500 tons of junk into orbit, which is equivalent to one day’s worth of domestic trash from a big city. Space junk, of course, is spread over a volume thousands of times greater than all the skies, waters, and lands of Earth.
that 95% or more of its satellites would de-orbit in a controlled fashion at their end of lives, and their low orbit means the rest will drop in a few years if they can’t make de-orbit burns.
used to be a major source of space junk because after some years in orbit their batteries or residual fuel would explode. They are now usually built to vent their tanks and batteries after releasing their payloads, while some operators try to set them up on atmosphere-skimming orbits or outright de-orbit them.
Geosynchronous satellites, which are far too high to de-orbit, now reserve fuel to kick themselves up to Graveyard orbits, which are a bit higher than geosynchronous and aren’t useful for anything except dead satellites.
So I was waiting on the check out line today at a grocery store, when this teenage girl clearly cuts in front of me. She sees that I’m there and just stridently moves in front of me. I want to say something but decide that it’s not worth it, but I have some fairly nasty thoughts about her being an entitled and rude brat.
Then I see her look back worriedly, looking really stressed. What must be her mother is leaning against the wall, looking quite ill. The mother has a cane and is barely able to walk. She’s telling the girl to hurry up already.
The teenager wasn’t cutting in front of me because she’s a nasty person, but because she’s stressed and a caretaker. She just wants to get her mother home.
I felt grateful I didn’t make a scene.
I realized that when people are cruel, many times, they have their own problems and you don’t have to take it so personally.
I was 16 and used to visit my boyfriend who lived in a large apartment building close to my house.
We’d hang out with a small group of friends in the parking lot listening to music, talking and loitering.
There was a lot of loitering.
(Wait. If you feel like this answer needs a soundtrack, play Raspberry Beret by Prince.)
One of my boyfriend’s neighbors would always come down and ask us to turn the music down. Her request was made with distaste, contempt.
It was like we had no right to occupy the space we did, like everything, including sound waves, belonged to her.
We never turned the music down. We didn’t mean to be rude but needed to stake a claim over our fundamental right to exist.
Today I live in San Francisco in a busy neighborhood. Sometimes teenagers park in the street right below my apartment. They listen to music and honestly, I don’t understand why they have to play such shitty music so very loud.
At least once a week I sigh and scrunch up my face and open the window, lean out and catch myself right before words pour out of my mouth.
It’s inevitable. You get old and become all the things you were sure you’d never be.
Yes. It was shortly after 9/11. I was a teenage girl, going to my dad’s job like I always had(we lived right around the corner). I pulled in, saw a guy waving at me, so I waved back and keep.goimg thinking it was one of his coworkers.
Well, it wasn’t a coworker, it was security trying to flag me down. I parked next to my dad’s car and was waiting for him to come out on lunch. This was before every teenager had a cell phone so I was just sitting in my car.
The security guy flew up to me, blocked me in and started screaming at me to get out of the car. They’d never had security before so I had no clue what was going on. I thought it was just some crazy guy. I got out the car(stupid, I know but teenage girl) and asked him what was going on. He yelled that he was calling the police and I was going to jail. I started crying and trying to explain that I was just coming to see my dad. He called me a liar and kept telling me I was going to jail.
One of my dad’s coworkers came over to see what was happening and saw it was me, he radioed in to my dad and a supervisor to come out right now. I was explaining to the coworker what happened and the guy kept calling me a liar. My dad and the supervisor came out and I kept trying to tell them what happened and the security guy kept saying I was lying and I was disrespectful and didn’t listen to his commands. I never even heard any commands except get out of the car.
The supervisor advised that they had cameras so he’d review them. The guy and the entire security company were let go the next day.
I still sometimes go to my dad’s work for different things and it’s been over 20 years since this happened.
Have you ever encountered someone who walks into a room and sunshine erupts from their pores? They crack a joke, and the room erupts in laughter. They ask a question, and everyone leans in, eager to share their pearls of wisdom. You leave the interaction feeling like you’ve known them for years, vowing to unlock the secret to their magical, instant likability.
Fear not, dear human, for today we delve into the Secrets of the Charmers’ Codex, a tome whispered through the ages amongst the effortlessly popular. Forget potions and magic spells (though a well-placed confetti cannon adds a certain je ne sais quoi); these are secrets of the soul, crafted from genuine human interaction and a dash of hilarious self-awareness.
Rule #1: Be the Human Sunshine: Let’s face it, negativity is the emotional equivalent of a rogue sock in the dryer – loud, obnoxious, and best left at home. Smile, not just with your lips, but with your eyes. Exude the warmth of a freshly baked croissant, the enthusiasm of a puppy greeting its long-lost chew toy. Remember, people gravitate towards light, so become a walking lighthouse of joy.
Rule #2: Listen Like a Ninja: Master the art of the attentive ear. Put away your phone, silence your inner monologue (unless it’s particularly witty), and focus on the person speaking. Nod like a bobblehead on caffeine, ask insightful questions (avoiding “Is that all?” like the plague), and remember details. Make them feel like they’re the most fascinating documentary on Netflix, and watch their walls melt away.
Rule #3: Humor is Your Weapon (But Use it Wisely): A well-timed joke can disarm tension, bridge awkward silences, and earn you eternal brownie points. However, wielding humor is like handling a spork (useful, but potentially dangerous). Know your audience, avoid offensive jabs, and embrace the power of self-deprecation. Remember, laughing at yourself is like wearing mismatched socks – quirky, endearing, and strangely captivating.
Rule #4: Empathy is Your Superpower: Step into someone else’s shoes (provided they’re not covered in questionable substances). Acknowledge their feelings, validate their concerns, and offer support without judgment. Show them you’re not just a charming surface, but a deep well of understanding. Think of yourself as a human empathy sponge, soaking up emotions and leaving behind a trail of emotional comfort.
Rule #5: Authenticity is Your Shield: Ditch the masks, the personas, the inflatable T-Rex costume (unless it’s thematically appropriate). Be your wonderfully weird, flawed, and fabulous self. Embrace your quirks, celebrate your passions, and let your genuine personality shine through. People connect with the real you, not some airbrushed version. Think of yourself as a delicious, homemade pizza (flaws and all) – infinitely more interesting than a frozen pepperoni disc.
Rule #6: Master the Art of Conversational Ping Pong: Conversations aren’t monologues; they’re a delightful dance of ideas. Share your thoughts, but don’t hog the spotlight. Ask open-ended questions, volley back engaging responses, and keep the rally going strong. Remember, the best conversationalists make others feel heard and valued, not like a spectator at a tennis match.
Rule #7: Sprinkle Compliments Like Confetti: Everyone appreciates a genuine compliment, so scatter them like glitter on a unicorn’s birthday cake. But remember, specificity is key. Instead of “You look nice,” try “That shade of blue makes your eyes sparkle like sapphires.” Or instead of “You’re funny,” share, “I almost snorted my coffee when you told that story about the talking parrot and the cheese wheel.”
Rule #8: Embrace the Power of Vulnerability: Sharing your flaws and fears isn’t weakness; it’s magnetic. It shows you’re human, relatable, and courageous enough to let others see the real you. Vulnerability builds trust, strengthens bonds, and makes you instantly more likable. Think of it as social kryptonite: It disarms defenses and reveals your authentic awesomeness.
Rule #9: Be a Name Magician: Remembering names is like casting a spell of instant connection. Use repetition, association techniques, or even write it down discreetly if needed. When you address someone by name, it shows you care and value their individuality. It’s like a verbal hug, without the awkward body contact (unless you’re into that, then by all means, hug away).
Rule #10: Radiate Passion: When you talk about something you love, your eyes light up like a Christmas tree on energy drinks. Passion is contagious, so share your enthusiasm for your hobbies, dreams, or that weird obsession with collecting vintage teacups. People are drawn to those who exude passion; it’s like a beacon of excitement in a sea of blasé conversations.
Bonus Tip: Embrace the Unexpected: Sprinkle your interactions with a dash of the extraordinary. Offer a stranger a high five for no reason, compliment someone’s shoelace-tying skills, break into a spontaneous interpretive dance (bonus points for air guitar solo). Remember, life’s a stage, and you’re the star of your own one-person show. Make it memorable, make it yours, and watch the world become your captivated audience.
So there you have it; the secrets of the Charmers’ Codex. Remember, instant likability isn’t about manipulation or trickery. It’s about embracing your genuine self, radiating warmth, and treating others with the kindness and respect you deserve. Go forth, spread your sunshine, and remember, the world needs more laughter, not more rogue socks in the dryer.
To delve deeper into this topic, you don’t need anything short of an intriguing book. Articles are not enough. Crack the code for instant likeability and charm. See my comment below.
The worst thing I have ever seen a parent do to their child in public is something that breaks my heart and makes my blood boil at the same time.:
I was working at a local gym and saw a woman carrying her infant child through the lobby toward the parking lot. I can only assume the baby became fussy because the woman became angry and stopped in the space between two sets of windowed doors, placed the baby on the floor, and began to hit the child (which of course made it cry, and did nothing to help whatever was the matter). This only lasted a few seconds, otherwise I might have dropped what I was doing and confronted her. My co-workers and I were stunned and horrified. We wondered in quiet conversation, “What kind of a monster does that to her baby?”
I have never forgotten this incident because it was so terrible, and because I would give everything I own to have a child of my own.
On the flip-side, one of the best things I have ever seen a parent do in public is this:
A little boy was with his mother in the grocery store, and he wanted a doughnut. I overheard his mother giving him a choice: “You can have a doughnut now, and skip (whatever it was) later, or you can have (whatever it was) later and not have the doughnut now.
I thought to myself, “This is a great way to teach good decision-making while instilling the importance of forethought and delayed gratification!”
The little boy chose the doughnut, and then said he still wanted the other item. To the mother’s credit she followed through with, a firm but gentle, “No.” He cried bitter tears, and I’ll bet he has never forgotten his choice and consequence. What a difficult but important lesson! I felt for the child, but silently applauded the mother.
Beef Braciole
The tomato-wine pan sauce is divine. Always serve spaghetti or other pasta on the side to complete the presentation.
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Braciole is a classic Italian favourite that’s sure to please the whole family. Tender slices of beef or pork are rolled up with savory fillings like Parmesan cheese, parsley and garlic before being braised in an irresistible tomato-based sauce. Serve it over pasta, or Polenta with a side of sauteed vegetables. Either way there’ll be no leftovers!
Slices of the top round (topside) can be quite large so if they are, you’ll want to cut them to make it the perfect size to accommodate two slices of prosciutto. It needs to be pounded to be thin and tenderised.
Braciole offers something special for any occasion; whether you’re looking for a hearty weeknight dinner idea or prepping ahead of time for entertaining guests this traditional dish packs all sorts delicious flavours into one impressive main course.
Ingredients
1 (2 1/2 pound) round steak
1/2 pound Italian sausage
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1 1/2 cups dry red wine (I use Chianti)
1 (16 ounce) can plum tomatoes
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf
Instructions
Trim all fat from steak. Cut into 8 equal pieces, then pound thin.
Remove casing from Italian sausage. Break up in medium bowl. Add parsley, Parmesan cheese, garlic, Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon salt and the lemon-pepper seasoning; mix thoroughly. Spread each steak with 2 heaping tablespoonsful of sausage mixture. Roll up jellyroll fashion; fasten with wooden picks.
Brown rolls 3 to 4 at a time in hot oil in Dutch oven. Add onion and carrot to pot. Cook until vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes.
Stir in wine, tomatoes, tomato paste, remaining 1 teaspoon salt and bay leaf. Bring mixture to boil; lower heat. Add beef rolls. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Remove from heat.
Remove wooden picks before serving. Serve with sauce and spaghetti or other pasta on the side.
We had a South American migrant as a sales guy. Fresh into the country. Great salesman. His product knowledge was excellent & customer rapport was brilliant. The only negative was he needed help planning his routes, as he had yet to learn the geography – but that was something we were willing to do for him. He never had a day off. He had no family in Australia, and never spoke about friends – only the occasional mention of a neighbour who he would have a beer with on weekends.
One Monday, he didn’t show. This was normal for most sales guys, as they hit the road – but not him. He liked to plan on Monday, spent Tu-We-Th on the road, and Friday back in the office to wrap up the loose ends from the week. He also lived only 5 minutes from the office, so it was convenient for him too (unlike those of us who lived 1.5 hours away!). Some of the guys would stay back on Fridays so they could go for a few beers, and he would join them – they were probably the closest to friends that he had at the time – remembering he’d only been in the country some 2 months by now.
I called his mobile phone, and got no answer. We decided at lunch time to go around to his apartment and knock. No response. The neighbour who came out said he saw him Saturday morning, and that was it. We got real worried. So we went to the local Police station to ask what could be done. They said they’d do a welfare check, but we told them we’d already been. They promised to call us back with anything they found. We did get a call shortly after – not from those cops, but another station, to let us know the company car he drove was parked in a M-F clearway lane, and was towed that morning. The location was the other side of the city to where he lived. By late afternoon the mystery was solved. He’d met a girl on the Friday night. She invited him to her party on the Saturday night. He drove over there, parked in a (legal on weekends) roadside spot. When he was crossing the road, he looked to his left (coming from a LHD country) to make sure the traffic was clear. He didn’t look to his right (we are a RHD country) and stepped out in front of a bus. He was in hospital, and survived with surprisingly few injuries beyond a couple of broken bones, fractures & bruising.
Second one:
Same company, couple of years later. Ironically the car that the guy above had was passed down to this salesman, as he’d been promoted and got an upgrade. It wasn’t unusual for this new salesman to have days off – particularly Monday. He would usually call in sick. If he didn’t, I would text him, and he’d reply that he was sick, and apologise for not calling. One week it went 2 days with no call and no text response. We feared a similar problem, so we drove the 1/2 hour to his house to see if he was OK. Car was in the driveway – a good sign. No answer on the door though. Called the cops and explained it. They went into the backyard and could see in through a window. He was passed out on the lounge in the back room. Turns out his father passed away (overseas) and he only found out Sunday night. He drank himself silly over 2 days.
Third one.
I didn’t call this in, but a neighbour did. Many houses in suburban Australia have a separate room for the toilet. Usually around 1500–1800mm long by 800–1000mm wide (5–6 feet x 3 feet). Most have a swinging door, that opens into the room. This particular house had one like this.
A lovely older lady lived by herself a few houses down from me. He first name was Mabel. Everyone called her Mrs Mabel. She was always friendly and everyone knew her. Her neighbour Ken would help her a lot, and came to get me for “big jobs” that needed 2 people. She was often in the garden, and had a little dog she’d bring out on a lead to enjoy the outdoors – sitting on the grass for hours watching her tend to the plants and flowers.
One day Ken said to me he hadn’t seen her all of the prior day. Also, overnight, none of the usual lights went on in the house. He was scared she might have died. I suggested she might have gone to visit one of her children and the grandkids, but he said he still heard the dog when it went out into the back yard (via a doggy door). I then felt a huge amount of dread too. So he called the cops. They came. No response. They tracked down one of her children and called them. Funny story about that – I knew the numberplate of her son’s car (I really liked the car) and the cops were able to find him from that.
Her son confirmed she had no travel plans, and he hadn’t heard from her for a few days. He feared the worst, and asked the cops to break in. Before they did any damage, they decided to jump the fence and check the back of the house. Back door was unlocked, so they entered.
They found her inside, but couldn’t help her. She’d fallen when getting off the toilet, and was stuck against the door. She couldn’t get up, and she was trapped in the room. Apparently she’d called for help all afternoon the day before, but nobody could hear her. The outside of the toilet door was very well shredded where her little dog had tried in vain to “dig” her out. They got the Fire/Rescue guys in, and they cut the door into pieces to remove it enough to get to her. After a stay in hospital, which was quite long (she developed a blood poisoning problem from the pooled blood trapped in her leg) she returned home.
Ken & I took the remains of the broken door off the hinges and cut it up so she could dispose of it in the household bin over a couple of weeks. Ken told her she doesn’t need a toilet door as she’s the only one in the house. She replied with “It’s a habit, and even at my age, I still maintain my modesty, but after a kind lecture from the Fire/Rescue team, I now realise that my safety is more important than modesty.”
Some time later she asked if we could fit a new door if she paid for it. This was puzzling, as we knew she didn’t need it. But she explained that with grandchildren in the house of a certain age, it was very difficult to stop the grandson from teasing the granddaughter when she needed to use the toilet! She promised to only use the door when they came to visit. One of her children also got her a necklace that has a button you can press in an emergency. They also feared she may fall in the garden and not be able to get up.
We have had the same worry for my mother-in-law, so last year we got her an Apple watch so she can at least call, or give an SOS signal. She now proudly calls us from it, out in the garden, saying how great it is that she doesn’t miss any messages (she would leave her phone inside, or on silent in her pocket)! She’s good with tech though, and uses the watch and phone like someone half her age. It has put our minds at ease, knowing she won’t be all alone & helpless like Mrs Mabel was. She wants to renovate the bathroom and toilet soon, so I have suggested she get the door jamb for the toilet turned around so the door can open outwards, and replace the round knob (that’s hard to grip) with a lever style handle. Fortunately she has agreed with me.
Incredible Civil War Collection Hidden 50 Years in Secret Room Behind Steel Doors, REVEALED!
When I lived in Indiana, it was an experience in extremes. The Summers were roasting hot. And the Winters were frigid and cold with gusts blowing and wind chill factors in the negative double digits.
To keep warm in our mobile home, we supplemented the heater (which was kerosene) with electric space heaters. And it worked out fine.
This is… or was…
Until my one cat, Scooby (might have been another) decided to pee on the heating coils of the heater.
Of course, we didn’t know this occurred until the very moment we need to use that heater.
Ah. It was a howling cold night, with wind gusts and sub-freezing temperatures. And so we pulled out the old space heater and fired it up.
Let me tell youse guys… nothing quite stinks like well heated, year old cat urine. Lordy!
I’ll tell you what…
I turned that thing off and threw it in the snow. It was horrible. I think that the stench permeated everything and it took weeks to air out the house in that particular Winter.
A word to the wise; never heat up cat urine. You will despise the experience. Ugh!
Having worked at gas stations off and on for decades, I have a few more than normal, but this is the one that keeps me going with “what were they thinking”.
Many years ago, the owner of the gas station that I was working evenings at volunteered one of the garage bays to Fish and Wildlife as a weigh and tag station during hunting season.
This vehicle pulls in and the driver goes up to the state biologist completely chuffed with himself. Apparently he had just bagged the biggest deer he had ever seen. I got work to do inside, so I keep on going until the biologist walks up to the counter and tells me to call the troopers, and have them send along a sergeant, cause “They are going to want to see this.”
I make the phone call, and about ten minutes later, two state police cruisers pull in. and at the exclamation of “You sorry SOB.” had to step outside to sate my curiosity. Turns out this out of state hunter had not bagged himself a record white tail deer, but a good sized Jersey cow. Almost certainly the best milker in that farmers herd.
Gentleman winds up arrested, car impounded, rifle confiscated, hunting permit revoked, fine to the state, and one hell of a payment to that farmer.
The Chinese
The PRC is nowhere sitting idle. It may not speak a language that you (or I or the West) understands well but it acting decisively.
China is diplomatically much less cautious than they used to, too. But their real target audience isn’t the West, it is the rest of the world. And I think they’re winning that discussion fair and square.
Why you’ll love this lemon butter garlic pasta sauce
It’s ready in 15 minutes. You can have a bowl of delicious garlic lemon butter pasta in your hands super fast. Just what I want to hear when I’m pressed for time!
It’s super versatile. This creamy lemon butter garlic pasta sauce is great on its own but also perfect with prawns, chicken or salmon.
It’s loaded with flavour. Lemon, butter and garlic are an amazing flavour combo just perfect for a no-frills pasta dish.
What goes into pasta al limone?
Olive oil — Use the best quality extra virgin olive oil you can for this recipe for the best flavour.
Butter — Unsalted butter is best for this garlic lemon butter pasta sauce. if you use salted butter, you may not need to add any extra seasoning.
Garlic — Feel free to add as much garlic as you like. I like to make this sauce with at least six cloves. You can either finely slice the garlic or mince it.
How to make garlic lemon butter pasta?
Cook the pasta al dente in salted water according to the instructions on the package. Reserve 1-2 cups of pasta water before draining.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pan or Dutch oven and melt the butter in it over low-medium heat.
Stir in the garlic and red chilli flakes and cook for 1-2 minutes until the garlic changes its colour, careful not to burn it.
Transfer the cooked pasta to the pan and toss well with a pair of kitchen tongs to cover it in the butter sauce. Add a splash of pasta water if it looks too thick.
Recipe notes and tips
To make sure the pasta water is extra starchy, cook the pasta in less water than you’d usually do. The starchier water will make the sauce creamier.
It’s always a good idea to grate your Parmesan or hard cheese yourself because freshly grated cheese has more flavour than bagged cheese.
Pasta al limone is best served immediately, and I don’t recommend reheating it.
This is something my husband did to help a young lady who was being followed after a road rage incident.
He was in the military and they were putting him through Graduate school so was in good physical shape. He was on his way to class around 1:00 and as he pulled into the parking area for the college and got out he heard someone crying and heard what sounded like someone being thrown against the chain link fence.
He ran down and saw a man throwing a young college girl hard against the fence and then would let her drop to the ground and do it again over and over while yelling at her the entire time. There was blood everywhere.
He ran to help her and grabbed and threw him to the ground. He jumped in his car and left fast. My husband memorized the tag and turned to help the girl. He yelled at another student walking by to call 911. (No cell phones then)
She was shaking, crying and in shock. He said he would stay with her until the ambulance came and asked her name and number so he could get a hold of someone for her. The ambulance was soon there and immediately took her to the hospital.
He met with the Police and after telling them everything he called the number and left a message telling which hospital she was in and what had happened and left his phone number and name if they had questions.
Later that evening a man called and thanked him for protecting his daughter. He said, “I’m her Dad and just wanted to thank you for saving my daughter today. I truly believe you saved her life. She had broken ribs, stitches in her head and a concussion but wasn’t hurt worse because you stepped in to help. You can rest assured he is in jail as we speak and by the way, I am the Superintendent of the Police. Thank you so much.”
~ You may never know whose child, sibling or mother you might be saving or who might be watching.
“A few apples fell from my neighbor’s tree branch which hangs over onto my property. I picked them up and kept them. He called the police on me for “stealing food” and threatened to sue me. Will the police do anything? Does he have a case?”
Here, no. Oh, he can sue you. Lawyers love this as it means money for them, even if they can’t win. Parasites.
But, his property was on, or over, your property line. So, if it falls naturally, it’s yours. You can TRIM the tree back, but not go over and cut it down. He can trim it so it’s not over your property, but he can’t go over and collect “his” fruit that falls or it’s trespassing.
The most we would do is explain this to him and leave.
However, when you go to court, it’s anyone’s guess. Lawyers and judges, kindred souls, tend to do whatever they want. Unless you have someone who can play the game, you might very well have to pay him for the “stolen” food, damages, and emotional pain and suffering. Heck, maybe even court costs. Criminally, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, but…
I’ll tell you, growing up, kids used to pick an apple or two to eat and it didn’t cause any problems. It was only if you picked the whole tree, or took more than you needed, that people complained. Even apple orchards didn’t freak too much. If it fell on the ground, it was “free.” In fact, some even liked for you to clean this up for them to keep wasps and other insects from feeding on them and making a mess.
Oh, and another thing, those will be some expensive apples for him. Court isn’t cheap and neither are lawyers. Were they golden apples, maybe? If so, he might be worried you’ll plant the seeds and grow your own gold apples, stealing from his market.
You know, if he claims the apples, you might be able to make him pay for the leaves and branches that fall on your property. Clean up and damages, if you get my meaning. I figure there are a lot more leaves and branches that fall than apples, and, while you’re at it, how about the damage that those apples did to your lawn when they hit it? If you didn’t pick the apples up, they could attract wasps, which could sting you, and possibly dull your mower blades or become risks, such as slipping.
I arrived at my doctors office 15 minutes early for a routine visit in the evening. I paid my $5.00 co-pay. The receptionist informed me that I was early. I thought that was strange since most people arrive early for doctors’ appointments. There was a couple waiting to see the only doctor on duty. The receptionist called the woman’s name so she was the patient. I am a registered nurse and the patient did not seem to be in any distress. She and her male partner went into the doctor’s office. I waited an hour. It is none of my business what the patient and the doctor talked about but talking with the same patient for an hour seemed a bit long to me even if she had cancer or some other serious chronic disease. I patiently waited for the hour.
A young male patient came in and he apologized for being late. The receptionist said it is okay and he will be seen next. He did not seem to be in any particular distress. I had been waiting for an hour. I informed the receptionist that I am leaving. She asked me if I wanted to re-schedule the appointment and I said no. I went home and I filed a complaint with the HMO. The doctor’s office had to respond to the complaint. Eventually, they sent me my $5.00 co-pay. I did not care about the co-pay. I was concerned that I was waiting for an hour and the couple was still seeing the doctor and the young man, who was late for his appointment, was going to be seen before me.
I changed primary physician offices. When I called the office of the doctor I eventually selected I asked them how their appointments go? Is a patient generally seen within 15 minutes of their appointment time? They said yes. They also said I can call before my appointment to see if they are exceptionally busy. I have never had an experience like the one I just reported ever again.
I get choked up telling this but I will. In 1987 I was 7 years old, my parents had divorced and my father paid my mother $20 a month for 3 kids. Now this was pretty pathetic already, but he had not paid her for 6 months. Anyhow my mother was struggling to make ends meet, we had very little food in the house and I did not know it at the time but my mum was starving so the food would last longer for us kids. Christmas day my father turns up and accuses my mother of being a drug addict (I assure you she’s not) and told her I’m not paying cash anymore or she will spend it in drugs. He gave her a Christmas card and inside was 2 gift cards for the local supermarket totalling $200, he even said “Merry Christmas” to her as this was all the owed money and then some more. My mother did not care, she would have used $200 cash for food anyhow. She took what little she had in cash and used it to buy fuel for her car, we drove to the supermarket and loaded two trollies (1987 $200 went a long way) mum even purchased Froot Loops for us kids, it was a happy day…… Well until we got to the check out. The bill came to $199.90, mum presented the 2 gift cards, they were both declined. People stared at her, and the store accused her of stealing the gift cards, they told her to leave or they would call the police. People stared at us, and my mother left so embarrassed. My younger brother was 4, he was crying as the Froot Loops were taken from his hands.
What actually happened: My deadbeat father stole the gift cards from the store, however their is no money in them despite them saying $100 on each. You see if you want to purchase the card you need to take them to the counter and pay the face value, then the card is activated and can be used in the store. A few days later my mother collapsed from starvation, we had apple trees next door at the neighbours farm, we took some for my mother, she ate apples for 5 days straight. It gets worse however, when my father was confronted by my mother a big argument broke out, my father accused my mother of lying and then refused to pay her any child support for another 4 months as he had given her $200.
Over the course of 6 years my father paid a grand total of $60 for us 3 children. In 2002 when I was 22, out of sheer coincidence, I saw my father enter a bar. I sat next to him he pretended like nothing had happened, he offered to buy my drink I told him “I don’t want anything from you” and paid for my own drink, the tension was so thick at this point. He started talking about how “that was the past and it’s okay now.” I finished my drink, opened my wallet and pulled out $60. I sat it in the bar in front of him and said “that is everything I owe you, don’t you ever f@cking contact me or my brother’s again.” Then left the bar, I honestly have no idea where he is today, and I really do not care.
EXTRA PART.
I have had a few people question about the last time I saw my father as a child, this includes my own daughter, well it was not at age 8. When I was 8 he started to hardly ever see us, he saw us once a month, then on our birthdays and Christmas, then he called us on these days. Now when you are 8–10 years old a month is a long time, so as a child I was always wondering if I had done something wrong. Yes my mother comforted me, but deep down you can not shake that “why was I not loved enough to want to see me” feeling.
By the age of 10 he had barely seen us for a year. On my 12th birthday be turned up with a fantastic cake, it had a fighter jet on it made out of icing, he remembered I liked fighter jets. He was such a loving father that day, I don’t know why, but he was. I remember him going, telling me “I will see you again real soon son,” then he left. That guilt feeling went away, I still felt I had done something to upset him, that’s why he left the first time, but I had now been punished, and forgiven. I felt my nightmare was over, I could live a life with a loving father again.
That night I went to bed and I recall my mother asking me if I had a good birthday? I told her “today has been the best day ever,” it really had. I rang dad’s phone about 2 weeks later as he had not contacted us, I was excited to talk to him, the number was disconnected, I had no address and I was 12. Mum could not contact him either, I don’t know if it was deliberately done, or if the phone was disconnected, I really don’t know. What I do know is that he knew our number and our address, but didn’t want to know us. I had a $2 coin that I would put in the pay phone near my school every afternoon while waiting for the school bus I would dial his number over and over. I had a special tiny bag I kept that coin inside, I still have this coin today. I keep it in a display, a reminder if the pain I felt every time I rang that disconnected number. About a year later the phone rang, the person who answered did not know my father, obviously the phone company had recycled the number.
My daughter has asked why I keep a normal $2 coin on display in my office. I have never told her, but I guess she knows now, you see I did not know she was on Quora, I had no idea she was following this post. Everytime I look at that coin (everyday) I am reminded of the hurt a parent can inflict on a child. My father never beat us, or did anything like this, but I think I would have preferred this as opposed to the emotional torture he gave us.
I live my daughter, she turns 15 soon (May 22nd) and I would take a bullet for her if that was ever the situation, I can’t image her putting $2 in a pay phone everyday for over a year (yes I know we have mobile phones now). I would feel bad if I slept in on her birthday, let alone didn’t turn up altogether. She has no wish to meet her grandfather and I doubt she will after reading this. She loves her grandmother, she looks up to her as a role model, and what a great role model to have. She’s a really smart person, even when she was 8, I explained to her the reason we live so comfortable is because of the sacrifices her grandmother made, she understood completely.
With few exceptions, the biggest stars tend to be the nicest people. Why? Probably because they’ve achieved their greatest ambitions and have nothing to prove. Too, most of them had to endure a lot of rejection before finally getting their big break.
In 1990, I worked with Martin Sheen and LeBar Burton producing their voiceovers on an environmentally themed charity album entitled “Put On Your Green Shoes.” Sheen was so nice, he refused to be paid for his contribution, which caused us some problems because AFTRA insisted that he receive scale for the session. As one would expect, Burton was a true gentleman and did take after take because he wanted nothing else but to serve the project.
I wrote a song for Tim McGraw’s “All I Want” album and he proved to be one of the nicest, down-to-earth superstars I’ve ever met.
I’ve written in Quora about my disappointing encounters with certain rock stars… Kevin DuBrow, Mike Love, and Todd Rundgren, in particular, were extremely unpleasant and rude personalities.
A chance meeting with another celeb was also disillusioning. The first movie soundtrack I was involved with was the original Vanishing Point, circa 1971, starring Barry Newman. About 8 years later, I ran into Newman who, by then, had starred in the CBS series Petrocelli.
I was arriving at an LA tennis court as he was leaving. “Barry Newman! Vanishing Point!” I exclaimed, as he approached. He just scowled at me and marched past. Thinking he might be more open to giving a co-creator a hello, I said, “I did some songs in that film.”
“Yeah, sure,” he grumbled, and walked on. I certainly found that extremely rude and disrespectful. Still, I have no idea whether Newman was surly by nature or whether he was just having a bad day.
They move from slavery to colonialism and to virtual colonialism ie. Rules Based International Order.
Rules set arbitrarily and unilaterally by white Caucasian. Anglo European stock to ensure that the rest of the world are fully submissive and subservient to them in a set of rules that favours them and it ensure that the world is theirs to take, loot, steal as they please. They enriched themselves and the coloured people toils and slaved for them.
When the rules are not suitable they simply change them. The rules are set by them, change by them, ratified by them, policed by them and judged by them! To ensure they write what is right and what is wrong they monopolised the media that says the white is right, the white is moral, the white is honourable, the white is pure!
Everything black is bad. Black magic, black cat, black out, Black Friday, black Monday black listed…The media and the European stock can demonised anyone that refused to be submissive and subservient to them. They can even kill, murder, slaughter, rape at will! To enrich the west they get the biggest muscle in the room US to be their henchmen.
They can even murder 3 million in Vietnam and Indo China. And the media say it is to prevent communism, 2 million in Korea to stop communism and 2 million in Iraq to install western value like freedom! Then 1 million in Afghanistan to protect women’s right! It is up to what sells best to the fools in the west!
So after 300 years of enslavement and colonialism and another 75 years of virtual Colonialism that is about to end. The west blames China or Russia but frankly if you are anyone of the 175 non beneficiary nations, the 87% if the world or the so called Global South, everyone wants out! And it will be history whether the beneficiary scream, shout or threaten genocide we will stop at nothing!
Europeans and go cheat on each other and steal from each other.
My buddy had the same problem. He had addressed several times but the teenaged son continued the behavior.
He took matters into his own hands. He did not damage any property. He took come plastic valve caps and superglued a simple BB into the top. He then snugged up the valve caps so it just slightly depressed the Schrader valve, slowly releasing air from the tires. The next day all 4 tires were flat.
The neighbor had the vehicle towed to a repair shop. All 4 tires checked out as good. The vehicle was driven home, with the same caps installed by the repair facility. Next day, all 4 tires were flat. The car was then towed to repair shop again. All 4 tires check out again. That shop reused the caps again.
Finally on the third day of towing, the repair shop found the BB’s and replaced the caps. When they returned home all my buddy did is was grin at them as they drove in. His lawn never was driven over again.
Well, it was my co-worker, and we were both let go due to layoffs. Actually, we were let go after the ‘official’ round of layoffs were completed and we thought we were in the clear. For me, it happened just a few days after it was completed. After our weekly IT meeting, I got called into HR (thinking it was an IT issue) but got ambushed by our manager (cisco VC call from TX) who promptly explained about the firm consolidating and removing redundancies.
Due to NY state law, HR was required to give me a list of employees being let go that day (just their age, department, and title) to show there was no discrimination by age or other factors.
After I left the building, my co-worker came down to say his goodbyes, and asked about the whole procedure. Then I showed him the list that HR gave me. He then noticed the age and title and said that was his, and then the realization that his last day was today too. Sure enough, he saw a missed call on his phone from someone in HR.
He went back inside, and sure enough, about 15 minutes or so, I get a text from him saying he was let go too.
But for me the key consideration is the attitude of shops and customers service in Hong Kong is atrocious.
I had to buy a new phone 2 years ago and dread doing it.
You go into shops ask for something and they’ll try sell you something else when you say no thanks you get a tirade of abuse.
A bicycle company that has shut down did this. I wanted a bicycle tyre he tried to sell me 19. I wanted 23. He gave me an earful of abuse about how he knew better than me and how 19 was the way to go.
Here’s Why America is About to be Bankrupt AND Everything You’ve Worked for Means Nothing!
We hired a young man just out of high school who needed a break. Bright, motivated, smiled and nodded to everyone. We qualified his on forklift in shipping department. He was so happy his life was on track. He got his first apartment and got engaged. I was very proud of him and we chatted now and than about his future.
He was off one day. This was a couple weeks after we were told the plant would shut down in 6 to 8 months.
Our HR lady got a call from corporate telling her to fire him today. He was hired 89 days ago and if he was here 90 days they had to pay unemployment. So they called him in for some BS reason. I tried to find his number, call him and tell him to turn his phone off and don’t come in but I couldn’t get it.
He came in and went up front. Came back to his car and left. I could see him tearing up. Once again his world had been upended. I had told him before all this that qualified forklift operator opened a lot of good paying jobs if he ever left.
I felt so bad for him and contempt at the company for saving a few bucks and not caring about people.
If I lived in a smaller town with a diner or two around and a couple of fast food places and one Olive Garden, it would be heaven on earth. A clean place to sit down and eat with gobs of salad, a friendly waitstaff, and interesting combinations of food that I just couldn’t get anywhere else. If you told me that it wasn’t authentic Italian food I could only say, “So what?” It is a comfortable dining experience in my little town and the food tastes pretty darn decent. That Olive Garden would be a special treat for me and my family.
I live in a much larger community and there are two Olive Gardens near by as well as a plethora restaurants and cafeterias around. Once a month or so my wife and I get a take-out from Olive Garden. She always gets the lasagna (her only go to meal at Olive Garden) and I usually ask for my own concoction of a pasta with Italian Sausage with meat sauce with the gnocchi/chicken soup. She loves the lasagna and I really like what I get. We are not looking for a particular Italian experience, we are looking a particular food we appreciate.
So my suggestion is that Olive Garden is not bad at all. Is it exquisite dining? Not at all. Is it authentic Italian? Nope. But exquisite dining and true Italian are available to me when I want it. The Olive Garden is not a replacement, it is simply an additional option. Others must agree with me because these places around me are invariably crowded.
Mom: I couldn’t find my saved money, I need to pay the deliveryman.
Dad: Don’t worry, you’ll find it. How much for the deliveryman?
Mom: 5 thousand rupees. I ordered some groceries and essentials for the house.
Dad paid the deliveryman and we eventually got busy with our daily work.
The next day, Mom, Dad, and I were cleaning the kitchen, when my mom shouted.
Mom: Look, I got my money, it’s in the cupboard. I was so foolish, I searched the whole house for it.
Mom looked so happy because she saved it for her friend’s birthday gift.
But the situation was something else.
Dad got out of the house to smoke a cigarette and I ran behind him.
I said “Why did you do that?’
Father asked: ‘Do what?’
I replied “I swear I have seen you taking the money out of your wallet and putting it in the cupboard.
Dad smirked and replied: “You know she was everything for me! I can’t see her getting sad over the little money she lost yesterday. Because I think we need to care for the person, we love the most!”
Dad takes out a handkerchief and starts putting off his sweat.
I said “Dad, now why are you using mom’s handkerchief? Is it a sign of your care towards Mom too?”
Dad “Nope, because it still has her fragrance”
This was something that changed my whole point of view not only towards life but also towards love too.
You weren’t wrong, but depending on circumstances, a better approach might have been to be nice. Especially if your boss had no say in the decision to furlough you.
If the boss was the one who made this decision, and you don’t like him, then what you did was a perfectly reasonable response.
The large company I worked for, was bought out by another company, and they laid off 1200 people in our company, immediately.
I was one of the casualties, but they were nice and gave me severance plus an extra day to clean out my office, which I spent copying files over to the people left behind.
The very first day, my coworker, one of 4 from a group of 13, that survived the culling, called me asking me for help. I gave it to him, no sense making a friends life miserable. Everyday I spent 15 minutes with him. He wasn’t qualified to do my job, and he knew it, but he was just doing his best.
On the sixth work day, our partners complained that they had agreed to let our company manage the project, and paid our company outrageous money to do so, because I was managing the contract and not some unqualified guy.
I was brought back on contract, paying far more than my old salary, to manage the contract. The CEO of the new combined company had to sign off on any laid off employee, being brought back on contract, in less than a year. There was a lot of flack flying in the company over hiring me back after a week.
The deciding vote to bring me back, was the fear of my being bitter and taking revenge on the company by sabotaging the project. Once it was explained that I had copied all the data I could to the relevant people, after being laid off, and spent 15 minutes a day helping the company, it was decided that it was worth the risk, and I was contracted back. I was the only one of 1200 people brought back in the first year.
Some companies are reluctant to bring back people they view as bitter. Even if you have every right to be bitter.
A co-worker – he was 21 years old – and another co-worker – she was 19 years old – decided to take their morning 15 minute break in the janitor closet. An employee came with her water can to get water for her plants. She opened the door to the utility closet and dropped her can and screamed OH MY GOD. She ran and got security. The young man was in a standing position, nekked from the waist down. The young woman was kneeling, nekked from the waist up. The young man zipped up, zipped out and fled outside to smoke a badly needed cigarette. The young woman had to do more work to get decent. The guard caught her. He asked her “Where is your partner in crime?” She replied “I am sure he is outside smoking a cigarette. This is his name and this is what he looks like.” So, both criminals got caught and fired right away. The young man went home right away. The woman actually finished out her work day, her head held up high, not embarrassed or uncomfortable or anything. She caught me and two other people talking about her. She actually came up to us and stated “I don’t think you should be talking about my private life in public.” Can you believe it …..
I was making good money in NYC, but I had had enough of it. It was becoming too dangerous a place for me to raise my wonderful kids. I didn’t want them to have the same upbringing as me. I’m your typical, cynical, non-trusting, New Yorker. I wanted them to have a better outlook on life.
I managed to find a job in Vermont that payed half what I was making in NYC, but, allegedly, the cost of living was cheaper. In some ways, that was correct, but in others… well, there are things about VT that are MORE expensive than NYC. We were struggling for those first years.
Four years later and I’m making a little more than I made in my best year in NYC. My daughter thinks I Yoko-Ono’ed her bond with her friends and she’ll probably never forgive me for that, but you know what? One of her best friends (15 years old) was recently found, in broad daylight, passed out drunk in a stall in Panera Bread. So maybe moving her away from that may have been a good thing. She’ll never see it though.
My dad was freaking out when I informed him of my intentions to move. He claimed that I’d never have the opportunity that I had enjoyed in NYC. I have changed jobs 3 times since moving here, and I finally have probably the best chance to enjoy retirement from the job I have now. It’s been a blessing, mixed at times, but a blessing.
Take chances. You never know what you’re missing if you don’t.
And this is going to make a lot of Quorans think less of me. But I’m just being honest.
No sarcasm in this answer either.
I’m very much biased against illegal drug users. This is because of my experiences growing up with an older sister who was a drug addict. I saw what it did to her. I saw what it did to her daughter. But mostly, I saw what it did to my parents.
I don’t have any friends anymore anyway… the wife and kids take all of my time, and I’m an introvert… but, when I was younger and did have some friends, I’d cut them from my life the moment I found out they did drugs.
In my early 20s, I had some coworkers who smoked weed on a regular basis. I didn’t think too highly of them. They were mainly middle-aged men who were still doing entry-level and part-time work. Were they happy? Sure. Did I want to be like them at their age? No. I just avoided talking to them unless it was work-related.
I don’t get preachy with drug users. (It’s pointless.) I know some of the people I interact with on a regular basis here on Quora, my “Quora friends,” use drugs. I’ve seen their posts about it. The fact that we only interact via the written word in a virtual world is the only reason I don’t care about it. If this were the real world, and you were sitting in front of me now, discussing how you planned to get high this weekend, I’d politely excuse myself from the table. I don’t need that around me in the real world.
You do you, but respect that I don’t want any part of anyone who does those things.
For me, personally, I suppose it’s like someone who grew up with an alcoholic parent, and made it a point to never be around people who drink a lot. It just brings up bad memories that you don’t need in your life.
It’s something that my family (well, my wife and oldest daughter) have noticed for years. They used to encourage me to make some friends, but I guess they gave up on that.
I have coworkers with whom I talk about work-related things. I have neighbors I chat with when I happen to be outside at the same time they are. I have Facebook friends who are old real-life friends from high school, none of whom I’ve seen in real life in 20 years, and will likely never see again.
And that’s it. I have my family, and a bunch of acquaintances, but no real friends.
That’s not a complaint. I’m happy this way.
The last real friend I had… someone with whom I’d hang out on the weekends… I haven’t spoken to him since 2007. We were friends and roommates in college, and I worked with him for a little while, but once we both got married, got our careers, got our houses, and had our children, we just kind of grew apart.
I’m not anti-social. I’m asocial. It’s something I don’t even think about, unless someone else points it out to me. Here it is, a Saturday night (St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Chicago, no less), and I’m answering questions on Quora in the gap time between tucking in my children and going to bed myself. I suppose that sounds sad or pathetic to people who value their social lives. Not to me, though. It sounds comfortable. I like comfortable.
RIA-Novosti press agency published photographs taken from the Facebook account of Alexis Drion, one of the casualties of the Russian bombing of Khirkov/Kharkov on January 17.
The Russian Foreign Ministry continues to claim that the building targeted by the Russian strike was hosting “foreign mercenaries”, mainly French. On its side, the French Foreign Ministry denies just as vigorously the presence of French “mercenaries” embroiled in the conflict.
Understandably, Russia is trying to present evidence that French soldiers were in Ukraine carrying out a mission, which would constitute an act of war.
After publishing the names of 13 of the victims of the January 17 bombing, the agency dug deeper and stumbled on an Facebook account <Facebook
> created in December 2011. Though relatively inactive, an image can be spotted of the young man from 2013 in military uniform, at the age of 27. Various photos seem to link him to the Foreign Legion. In the latest pictures, we find him in Ukraine brandishing an insignia of France and the OUN, the militia of “integral nationalists”.
image 173
Alexis Drion during a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
Russian press issues list of 13 French “mercenaries” who died in Ukraine
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 22 JANUARY 2024
image 172
While the French authorities have formally declared that there were no French “mercenaries” in Ukraine, the Russian press has published a list of 13 names corresponding to some of the victims of the 17 January bombing on Kharkiv/Kharkov.
• Albert Emeric (d.o.b. 22 December 1999), • Alexis Drion (13/06/1986), • Béranger Guillaume Alain Minault (30/12/1978), • Valentin Dupois Mel (02/01/1994), • Gilles Bernard Sylvain (10 /27/1980), • Jacques-Pierre Gabriel Evrard Philippe (29/09/1987), • Jean-Pierre Bonneau Chris Heray (17/07/1999), • Maris André Dubois Clément (28/09/1995), • Marcellin Demont (05 /23/2002), • Sébastien Claude Rémy Benard (04/04/1974), • Thomas Jeremy Nathan Gourrier (24/02/1996), • Charles Bertin Roussel (01/09/1996), • Emmanuel Tanguy Kenneth Delange Grandal (26/09/1996) /1998).
Russian Duma to address French Parliament
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 19 JANUARY 2024
image 171
The Russian Duma will address the French Parliament regarding the presence of French “mercenaries” in Ukraine.
Officially, France is not engaged in military operations in Ukraine, but supports the latter by providing it with weapons. If French soldiers were involved in the fighting, the French Republic would be at war with the Russian Federation.
It would seem that the Duma is intent on disclosing the presence of French Special Forces, which are in Ukraine without authorization from the French Parliament.
Article 35 of the French Constitution stipulates stipulates as follows:
“The Government informs Parliament of its decision to have the armed forces intervene abroad, at the latest three days after the beginning of said intervention. It specifies the objectives pursued. This information may give rise to a debate which is not followed by any vote. When the duration of the intervention exceeds four months, the Government submits its extension to Parliament for authorization. It may request the National Assembly to make the final decision.”
It was at an office BBQ with our families, it was hot, and there was a wasp.
The bosses eight or nine-year-old daughter started screaming that there was a bee in her shirt. She was wearing a spaghetti top. Everyone panicked.
The thing about me, is that a Bee sting is much like a mosquito bite, it swells up a little bit and itches. No big deal. Some people, a bee sting would kill them. If I did nothing, would she die?
I calmly asked her if I could put my hand in her shirt. She screamed “YES! YES!”
In front of her panicking dad and mom, she pulled her top open and I reached into her shirt and grabbed the Wasp. I pulled my hand out and threw it on the ground and stomped it. I looked at my palm. It had stung me, so I bit the wound and sucked, then spit. I got stung a few times every year, no big deal.
Then I realized that I had just had my hand down the front of a little girls shirt in front of thirty witnesses.
But everyone treated me like a hero, especially my boss. Go figure.
Heeeee! I oughta say “don’t ask,” but can’t resist.
I took over a job that had been occupied by my eminently sensible, smart, and long-suffering cousin. That last adjective — long-suffering — is the operative term. She put up with the guy’s sh!t (a euphemism, we might say) until she went off to marry a handsome and rich young rancher and live happily ever after.
Totally naive, I applied for and got her job.
What.
A.
Jerk.
The.
Guy.
Was.
The day I came in and found an incredibly NASTY note in the middle of my office floor — he was unhappy because I’d thrown out some trash — mostly ads — without shredding every sheet of paper and envelope — was the day that I took everything I was supposed to be working on, dropped it smack in the middle of the office floor, went out the door, locked it behind me, jumped in my car, drove away, and never came back.
From there the next move was to go back to graduate school. Get a job teaching freshman comp for peanuts (I was used to the “peanuts” part by then…), complete the Ph.D., get my book published, and land an academic job. A job, we might add, where the bosses more or less treated you like you were human. Well. Almost as human as they were. 😀
What do you do if you get fired from your job? CELEBRATE!!!!!
Met a woman in a busy local mall after chatting with her online a few times. Met her through a horrendous online dating app. Made sure lots of people around in case things headed south. Bought her lunch and we sat and ate as she just kept on and on. Saying nothing until she says I have something important to tell you. Ohhhh okay. I just got out of prison. Oh yeah? Umm what for I asked. Bank robbery in Nevada. A casino heist. Oh really? So what brought you to Florida? I met my husband as a penpal in prison and we wrote back and forth for years. Husband? Yeah he recently had a massive heart attack and died. Ummm ok? Yeah he was 25 years older then me and lives in Bonita Springs. He had a vending machine business. Ohhhh. So did you at least stash some of the stolen money away from your heist? She said that her 2 “ friends” left her behind and she got busted and they got away with several hundred thousand dollars. So you never caught up with them? Nooo, she couldn’t find them and never saw them again. Attractive well endowed blonde woman . Spent a good 1/2 hour talking . Nice girl but a bit tooo much baggage for me.
An employee can be fired by phone, though I wouldn’t recommend that. California requires that you hand an employee their final check (and a few other documents) on their last day. That would be very difficult to accomplish over the phone, right. You might have an out:
this is an on-the-spot firing because you just learned that the employee did something so bad that you have to term them immediately. California law gives you 72 hours to get the check to them if it truly is an unplanned termination.
the employee agrees to something like having their check delivered to their door by courier, say within the hour. (I agreed to that when I retired. I was recorded, with my permission, waiving my right to come in and pick up my check and other documentation in person.)
My aside brings up a key point: what did you say? What did the employee say in return? An unrecorded phone call leaves you with a he said – she said. That’s not going to be a fun day if the employee decides to challenge your firing.
Some states are single party consent, meaning you can record the call without the employee’s knowledge or consent. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. You can quickly gain a bad reputation in the labor pool and with recruiters and agencies for having shady, though legal, HR practices. “You don’t want to work there! They call you first thing in the AM, fire you and sneak record everything you say.”
My friends and I witnessed a fantastic scene on a public bus last November.
A few stops after we got on, two young boys waddled onto the bus. They were maybe about seven or eight years old, small enough that they were practically dwarfed by their puffy winter coats and colorful backpacks.
As soon as their fathers sat down, the two kids began quietly talking to each other. Based on the things they were saying, it sounded like they were trying to recreate what they’d learned in some kind of anti-bullying assembly at school.
“If you don’t let me play with you,” one boy whispered, “that’s bullying!”
“But if you do let us play with you,” the other boy whispered back, “that’s respect!”
“If you push someone over on the playground, that’s bullying!”
“If you help someone get up after they fall, that’s respect!”
Their secretive whispering gradually evolved into enthusiastic shouting as they applied this newly learned dichotomy to scenario after scenario. After a few minutes, it became clear that they’d started to go off-script.
“If you never ever say sorry again, THAT’S BULLYING!”
“If you say sorry a hundred million billion times forever and forever until you die, THAT’S RESPECT!”
“If you go on the toilet and you forget to flush but then you go back and you see the poop and you flush it, THAT’S BULLYING!”
“No, wait, I think that’s respect.”
“That’s respect?”
“Yeah.”
“No, but I think the poop makes it bullying.”
My friends and I were sitting at the back of the bus throughout their conversation, trying our best to hold back our laughter.
I have a friend who worked for a small firm as a graphic designer. He was the youngest and newest, and felt like he was underappreciated and under paid. Also, he thought his boss was a moron. When the business hit hard times, he saw cutbacks coming and decided to just do whatever he wanted until they let him go.
Monday morning, an hour after he was supposed to be in, he called and said he’d be out all week, and would be in Friday, then hung up before he got a response. He watched TV and played video games for four days straight, taking breaks to look for a new job.
On Friday he rolled in two hours late, not at all surprised to discover that his boss wanted to see him in his office.
“The company has needed to do some restructuring and make some tough choices. I need to inform you-”
Here it comes, freedom at last from this awful place!
“- that we’ve let everyone else in the creative department go, and you are now our lead designer. We’re ready to give you an immediate raise of 20% and creative control over all projects. Also, it looks like you’ve needed a break this week, so we’re also ready to offer you more vacation days.”
By the end of the discussion, he not only got more vacation days and the 20% raise, but also got to work from home every Friday. I guess being absent all week made his boss realize how valuable he was to the company.
Edit: There were some questions as to why my friend was the only one kept on, so I’ll elaborate. The company had two web designers, a graphic designer, and my friend, who did video directing and editing. It just so happened he was also a great designer, artist, and could do web design. Everyone in the department could do their job, but he could do everyone’s job.
I was a Probation officer, and I had a probationer back before the court for a probation violation hearing. There were several charges, but one charge was the guy had shown up for an urine screen, and claimed he couldn’t urinate for three hours, even though I saw him go to the restroom twice. (He said he was just testing.) Anyway, I told him to come in the next morning at eight. He showed up at eleven.
At the hearing, the attorney who was a friend of mine got feisty for some reason. After I testified that I told him to report back at eight, the defense attorney asked me, “And did he?”
I replied, “Well..”
“Yes or no answer,” he snapped.
I turned to the judge and said, “It’s not a yes or no question.” (I wanted to say that he showed up at eleven.)
The judge said, “ If the defense attorney wants a yes or no answer he’s entitled to it., Ask your question again.”
“Officer Davis did my client show up at 8:00AM as you told him to?”
“No”
He got an additional charge. I later told the judge in private, and we had a new hearing where he had two months of his eight months in jail reduced. But if I’d been a jerk his attorneys showboating would have cost him two extra months.
Before freezing to death, people tend to remove their clothes.
Yes.
This is called “paradoxical undressing”, a phenomenon frequently seen in cases of lethal hypothermia. Shortly before death, the person will remove all their clothes, as if they were burning up, when in fact they are freezing.
When people feel cold, the most important thing is to ensure the function of the brain, internal organs and other major organs, so the blood vessels at the ends of the body will automatically contract to ensure adequate blood flow to the major organs.
In this state of stress for a long time, the muscles that contract the blood vessels fall into fatigue and can no longer work, and must take a calm “rest”.
The peripheral blood vessels on the surface of the body will all open, blood will quickly flow to the end of the limbs, and the long-term cold limbs will be immediately filled with warm blood, resulting in the illusion of “very hot”. When this signal is sent back to the brain, the brain will send the wrong instructions to the body, so that people may think that it is really hot, take off all the clothes.
At this time, people who are on the verge of dying get up and struggle to undress, thinking that undressing is good.
I was a reservist in the ’90s. I got put on guard duty a few times.
One night, I had to guard a building. They gave me a rubber duck weapon. (An M-16 made out of rubber. Yes, they exist.) I had to walk the perimeter of the building every hour with the “weapon.” I had to note anything out of the ordinary.
When I guarded the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), they gave me a real rifle and a full magazine. There was classified information in there that I didn’t have the clearance to see. I didn’t even know what I was guarding.
They briefed me on the use of force. Basically, you halt the person. You get their ID, detain them and call the commander of the relief. If they don’t halt, you shoot center of mass. There are no warning shots.
Yes. They will kill you if you don’t halt and follow their orders. They have orders to do so. They will follow their lawful orders. National security is no joke to them.
I was 19 and working at a major retailer, I’d rather not mention but is definitely a conglomerate. I went on lunch break, had a drink with a coworker, and returned to post. My manager instantly smelled alcohol on my breath, idiot I was didn’t try to hide or cover the pungent odor that is Seagrams gin. Manager notified the higher ups who put me in a room and three higher ups sat at a table opposite of me. They began asking where I got the alcohol, did I drink with anyone, and saying that they saw us on cameras. I was to rat this coworker out with a written statement. I wound up writing that I drank alone like George Thurgood and not one person laughed. They decided to fire me and I happily left. I was mentally ready to leave that place. The only thing I regret is when I have to answer for it at job interviews even thought it’s been nearly 20 years.
We had an 18th disco-style birthday party for our daughter at our house, with the expectation that it would wind up around 11pm. By 11:30 it was still going strong with music blaring out loud and kids dancing and drinking a little too much (beer and light drinks only allowed).
My Father-in-law was living with us at the time – an ex-Grenadier Guard and Seargent-Major. Seeing our frustration and not dealing with it adequately, to his mind at least, said he would deal with it.
At 11:50pm he walked into our large lounge, cleared to be a dance floor, switched off the music and switched on the main lights and announced.
“In 10 minutes, it will be Sunday and at 12:05 I will start a religious service. I expect anyone still here to attend”.
The place cleared by 12 midnight.
Quantum Leap: Russia-China’s Quantum Communication Test
Went to a bar in Australia, saw that no-one was tending and joked with the next guy that walked in, that he needed a bartender, else I’d pour my own, he said, ok, come pour your own. I did, with a near perfect head, and he said, can you start here? now? today? sure I said, he left me there for 4 hours to run the bar. I worked there 2 years.
Went to an bar in Shanghai while travelling, the Bartender there was a Kiwi, it was an Aussie bar, after I asked for a drink he asked me, what I was doing in Shanghai, and I said, looking for a job (I was interviewing for English Teaching jobs) and he said, Well, you sound Aussie, you can work here if you can pour a beer. I started that night and worked for a half a year (ESL teaching in the day, bartender at night).
Went to a ESL School for an interview in a new country after that, walked into the wrong dept, and asked for the head of dept (as it was all I had to go on) and started the interview from my end, and half way through she realised I was in the wrong place, but then asked me how I would deal with businessmen instead of kids. I said, ‘under the suit, they’re just kids’ she hired me there instead, I stayed in that country 10 years.
Generally, when this happens, especially in a salaried position, your current employer will pay you for the final two weeks. If the employer doesn’t offer it, ask for it. It never hurts to ask. It’s just easier and safer for your employer to pay you off than to make an issue of it.
Years ago, as a recent college graduate with an accounting degree, I was an employee in good standing, working as an office supervisor, while I searched for an accounting job. When I was hired by a new company as an accountant (at a significant pay increase,) I gave my two weeks’ notice, fully intending to use the next two weeks to make the transition as easy as possible for my current team. My manager didn’t appear to be angry or resentful when I resigned, but two days later she told me that she didn’t think my mind was on my work. She instructed me to pack up my personal belongings and leave immediately. She told me the company would pay me for the remaining portion of my final two weeks.
What did I do? I packed up and left with no cross words or fanfare. Then I enjoyed an unexpected, 10-day, paid vacation on my old company, knowing I would be starting a better-paying job in my chosen field at the end of my break.
My First Time Hearing Zhou Shen – Floating Light REACTION
I don’t think of it as revenge, but just standing up for myself.
I was a sergeant for a large California police department. I was working swing watch for a lieutenant that was worse than an asshole. I can work for an asshole if he is competent regarding the job, and if he is consistently an asshole. This guy was worse than an asshole in the following ways: some days he’d act like your buddy. Some days he’d say ‘Do X,Y, and Z’ and the following day he’d say “No! I said do Q,R, and W’. He would also tell me how he didn’t trust a large number of our officers. He had quite a paranoia about him. Just a miserable human being who I believe was trying to mask some serious insecurities.
One day I came into work five hours early as a favor, due to some gang murders and a trial that ws going on. I had a squad of swing watch officers assigned to me for this detail. Around 2:30pm the lieutenant came into work with his nasty mood on full display. He started complaining to me about some of the swing watch officers being lazy. I countered by saying if they were so lazy, then why did they come to work 5 hours early to work a stressful assignment? The lieutenant’s office door was open and our argument could be heard in the hallway.
I realized there was no salvaging a professional demeanor with this guy during this shift. My solution: I told him (it was the beginning of our ten hour regular shift) that I had a splitting headache and was going home. There was nothing he could do. He knew he’d get stuck doing a lot of my work. I had to train my boss to be better.
Fortunately, we had our biannual sign-up shortly thereafter, so I signed up for day watch, just to get away from this guy. Within a week of the sign-up results being posted, he was banished to an undesirable post. (Management personnel can be moved at the whim of the chief.) Worse for him, his commute went from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. There were rumors floating around the station. How bad must our captain have thought about this lieutenant to get him shipped off to Siberia?
Our captain had only been at our station for about two months when this happened. He knew me when we were both officers and he knew of my work ethic. He confided in me that when he saw that I signed up for a shift I don’t even like, that there was a BIG problem with this lieutenant. It also solidified the old saying that sergeants run the stations. Things got a lot better for the whole station once that jerk was kicked out.
This isn’t a very popular opinion, especially in veteran’s circles, but it is a fact and therefore, it should be said:
The casualty numbers sustained by the so-called “Resolute Support”
[1]mission in Afghanistan are so ridiculously low that it cannot even be called an armed conflict or a war.
In 2018, the United States military had the highest number of casualties from all “Resolute Support” contingents. Altogether, they lost seventeen soldiers, sailors, and Marines in Afghanistan. If you compare this to their absolute numbers (1,358,190 active military personnel) you have a casualty rate of Soldiers Killed in Action (KIA) of about 0.0012%. If you count only personnel deployed to a combat zone (around 18,000 in 2018),[2]you get around 0,09%. Not very impressive. Being a US soldier isn’t even in the TOP 25 of the most dangerous professions in the United States.[3][4]To compare this number to other modern conflicts, the German army in WWII lost around 26.6% of their soldiers in the Soviet Union, while during the Vietnam War the US lost 40,000 of their soldiers on the battlefield (KIA rate of 8%).[5]
In 2018, the German Army’s contingent in Afghanistan didn’t lose a single soldier while at the same time eight soldiers died at home in various accidents.
[6]Although it was one of the years which saw the highest number of German military personnel deployed to crisis regions, 2018 was also the year the Bundeswehr lost the smallest number of soldiers in its history: only 8 were killed. In comparison, in 1962, long before any foreign involvement, the Bundeswehr lost 166 soldiers, most of them in accidents.
Of course, every dead soldier is one too many, but the probability for a US or an Allied soldier to get killed in Afghanistan is much lower than, for example, that of a Russian or Israeli soldier dying during military training.
Next time, we hear people calling to “bring our troops home” or thanking them for their sacrifice, we should put that into perspective. This is also the reason why the “war” in Afghanistan takes so long: the price is paid by the Afghan civilian population and not by our soldiers and Marines.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was the founder of the US Nuclear Navy and is a man clouded in legend. There are a number of stories about him, some of which most certainly are true. Others may or may not be true, but certainly do fit his rather unique style of command. As an example, and this is 100% true because I’ve seen it, and it still sits in the Naval Reactors office, during their interview, Admiral Rickover had his prospective officers sit in a simple office chair… with four inches cut from the front legs.
One story details one of The Admiral’s tours of Nuclear Power School. He decided to enter a classroom, perhaps during the lesson or during study. He entered the rear of the room where he quickly and silently suppressed the impending calls to attention.
At the front of the room, a junior sailor, maybe a Third Class Petty Officer, was working an assigned problem on the board. The Admiral approached the student and, from a short distance behind him, observed the student’s work over his shoulder.
After some time, the student got frustrated. He turned to The Admiral and stated, “Excuse me, sir. I’m trying to work this problem here,” and resumed his work. The Admiral wordlessly departed the classroom, assuredly to the dumbfounded looks of the sailor’s classmates.
As the story goes, later that day, word reached the sailor that The Admiral offered him a commission as an officer in the US Navy.
The U.S. thinks and fooled themselves that the world thinks highly of themselves, they most certainly don’t.
Who thinks highly of America? Some very young starry eye highly naive spoilt brat kids perhaps! Or some totally ignorant bigoted white supremacist mainly older, less travelled, less educated people in America thinks America is good!
Everyone else don’t. In fact they don’t think they know US is not at all a good or honourable or caring nation to its own people and certainly very barbaric to the world!
Even most of US slave nations such as Germany, Japan or Korea don’t think so too. They may be forced to but deep inside the disdain America. British, Aussies, Kiwis, Canadian and fellow despicable former colonialists don’t too, they may suck up to the U.S. or at least they use the U.S. as a shield against others who may want to hurt them but they think little about America!
So in percentage it may be as little as 1% thinks they are good. 99% thinks they are barbaric, inhuman, inconsiderate parasite that they cannot respect but some 15% of the world fear them or at least wants their protection. So they pretend to have nice word for the US.
According to Rommel’s diaries, Hitler said to Rommel that the war was lost late 1943 when Rommel was appointed Inspector General. That makes sense as it was after Kursk, which in a way the Germans won (losses) but they were routed anyway because unlike USSR, Germany could not make up for their losses and this would have been clear at the highest level.
Hitler said to Rommel that from now on it was a question of creating the best possible position for negotiations.
Rommel expressed disappointment, so at this point it was only seen vy those who wanted to see.
As for reactions they were not the sane across the fronts.
Kesselring (Italy) reacted well before this by building fall-back positions planning an incremental withdrawal already early 1943.
On the Eastern front this was forbidden by Hitler which meant withdrawals were often unplanned and more costly than needed. Stalingrad is a good example, but other units, cities or regiments were ordered to fight till death as well.
Is it bad? Not at all. In fact, it is actually quite liberating.
I was hired to work as a computer support tech at a community college but the man who offered me the job resigned, unexpectedly, just days before I was scheduled to start. His replacement was on the panel that interviewed candidates and he preferred another candidate over me, so he went to his boss to have my job offer revoked. His boss refused to do it and that made him incredibly angry, so he decided to take it out on me by micromanaging my every move.
He had no experience as a manager — he’d been a systems admin at the school before being named interim IT Director — and he didn’t like working with older people. This was unfortunate because I was 58 years old at the time and the ony other support tech was 63 years old, so interim enjoyed trying to embarrass us. He called us both out in front of a room full of people for running a network line incorrectly, and we angered him by telling him to finish the job up while we went to lunch.
My coworker decided he’d had enough at that point and took that afternoon off before sending interim an email stating that he wouldn’t return. Interim tried to write me up for insubordination but his boss wouldn’t let him and that made a bad work relationship even worse. I took to working in empty classrooms and lecture halls to avoid interim, and spoke to him only when directly asked a question.
Two years after my old coworker quit I turned in my resignation — the letter simply stated that I was resigning and that my last day would be in two weeks, on a specific date. When interim — yes, after three years he was still interim IT director — showed up he walked over to my office and stood in the doorway, and asked me why I was quitting. I usually offer up a vague response like, “It’s time to move on” or “ I want to try something new” but this time I told interim that I could no longer stand to work for someone I did not like or respect. The look on his face — shock, dismay, anger — was worth having to sit and twiddle my thumbs for those last two weeks. That’s right — he pulled all the work he’d assigned me to punish me. Needless to say, my new coworker didn’t appreciate that move.
I was a straight A student in high school, and in my sophomore year I was receiving brochures from college. I had some spread out on the kitchen table, and Mom and I were discussing which ones would be worth a visit during my junior year. Dad came home from work, noticed the brochures, and scoffed, “She’s not going to college; I’m not paying for her Mrs. degree like her sister!” I started to explain to him what degree I wanted, and wasn’t going to college to get married, as my sister had done. Mom cut me off, stood up and got in Dad’s face. She sternly pointed out that he HAD paid for my brother’s B.S. and M.S. and if I wanted to go to college I DAMN well was going to go! Dad and I both stared at her, our mouths agape, because Mom never contradicted Dad in front of us. (As it turned out, I earned enough scholarships and had a parttime job on campus, that I was a bargain, costing them very little out of pocket.)
Yes! Our neighbor, a pastor, invited us over when his wife was away. They had very old fashioned roles, she did housework, he earned money. When we arrived he asked my husband to help him install a hanging lamp. He asked me to start dinner. All he had was stuff for salad. I went home and got some steak and potatoes, cooked it while they worked. After dinner i did the dishes and he told me to take out the trash. I said “ Excuse me?”. He laughed and told me to take it out its “womens work”. So not wanting to alienate someone we had to share an property line with, i did. When my husband and i left He turned to me and said “ What the heck was that?”. I said, he took advantage of our kindness! He got free labor, a free dinner, and free maid service! We never accepted another invitation for dinner! This is the same guy who adopted an African baby so he could “ Get over being a bigot, like my father”. Cant make this stuff up!
Hardly as bad as pulling a shirt off, but an episode in my Catholic high school has passed into legend.
One student I’ll call Henry was an easy target for one particular bully. He spoke strangely as a consequence of a congenital hearing defect, wore a bulky hearing aid, carried an extra forty pounds, had a bad complexion and was 100% nerd right down to the pocket protector and slide rule.
His bus arrived early. Early students had to wait in the cafeteria until home room opened. Henry would turn down his hearing aid, open a book, and write computer programs or do math problems. He would place his lunch – a sandwich in a small paper bag – on the table next to him.
His nemesis would yell in his ear “how are you this morning, Henry” while he smashed the sandwich flat. Henry had had enough. One morning he put in the bag a piece of cardboard with thumbtacks pushed through the cardboard pointing up. The bully, as usual, smashed the bag flat. He let out a howl as he pulled his hand away with a dozen punctures streaming blood.
One of the nuns heard the howl, figured out what had happened, and dragged Henry by his earlobe to the Director of Discipline, Fr. Huller. Huller was a regular guy. He had landed in the second wave at Normandy and seen a few things.
Huller listened to the nun’s version and then to Henry’s version. He asked the nun to leave so that he could speak to Henry privately. Huller could barely keep from laughing. He tried to say something several times but couldn’t get the words out. Finally, he told Henry “just don’t do that again.”
Huller then asked to see the bully who had been patched up by the school nurse. He told the bully that his impalement was punishment enough but if he smashed any more sandwiches he’d be expelled.
I sure did. I was working for a company helped them open their location. They had me doing supervisor duties with the promise of soon getting that position. I was young and dumb not realizing that was a mistake. I did it for about 6 months working my tail off and never missing work and always coming in early and or staying late. When it came down to it, they said they were giving the position to a new person that was new coming in and just gave me a $.10 raise. It was a slap in the face. Thinking about all those extra duties I put in. The times they would keep calling me on the ear piece even when I was just going to go pee they called me. Then one day on my day off when I went to pick up my check, the boss said a bunch of people called off and they only had 1 station open, 1 employee there out of 6 15 minutes to open, and 2 bus loads of kids coming in. He then told me he needed me to start right away. I told him I didn’t have my uniform. He told me to grab one from the back, but those were dirty. I said ok sure. I went to the back and said good bye to everyone. They asked where I was going and I said I quit. Never done that in my life. Felt awful but it was a turning point for me to never let anyone take advantage of me again.
This happened about 20 years ago. We had a cheap and cheerful washing machine. It was 15 years old and had required a few repairs in the recent years; new door seal, new belt, new motor brushes etc. Problem was the the motor commutator had become scored and the brushes didn’t last too long and really the motor needed replacing. We also wanted a machine with a higher load capacity so we went shopping. We chose a high spec Bosch washing machine with a 9kg load capacity and a 3 year extended warranty i.e. to 4 years. It cost about £450 which was a fair amount at the time.
Just over 4 years later the machine was on its spin cycle. There was an enormous series of bangs, the machine threw itself around the floor and ground to a halt. A repair technician was called but found that the machine was completely destroyed. We commissioned an engineers report. This stated that the tub counterbalance had become detached. It should have had say6 studs and nuts holding it in place. A couple were missing completely and the rest had sheared off. The tub spinning at high speed had been thrown around the inside of the machine, slicing through wiring and pipes, smashing the control circuit board and even causing large dents in the steel panel at the rear.
Bosch’s attitude was unbelievable. Essentially they said that “it could not be a manufacturing fault as it would have shown up during the warranty period” and “what did you expect as it was now outside warranty”. Apparently although a cheap and cheerful machine would last 15 years with a few cheap repairs but a quality one was expected to self destruct as soon as the warranty period expired. Eventually they did consent to a small amount of compensation but left us massively out of pocket.
I’ve never bought another Bosch power tool, fridge, freezer or anything else since then
I went to court, fought the ticket, exposed the lying cop, and got my charges dismissed. The judge offered his “congratulations, on an excellent defense”. I went into court prepared, righteous, and loaded for bear. I fought a handful of tickets, over the years, and won every time. They were all bogus. For a couple that I got, which were legit, I was able to get reduced fines, or even deferred adjudication.
Know the laws on the offense you’re charged with, AND the fine schedule and other possible punishments. I prepped a friend, for his seatbelt ticket defense. He was told he would be fined $250, and then he brought a printout of the state law, which called for a $66 (or thereabouts) fine. He then said he wanted to know just whose pocket the rest of that $250 was going into. The charge was dropped, and he was sent out the door. The city prosecutor, and whoever wrote the fines, hadn’t bothered to see if the numbers matched the legal amount set by the state.
I was hired with the promise of being the #2 in the company as CIO. One hour into the first day, the CEO comes into my office and asks me to call somebody at our other office to help him with a problem. He told me that I worked for him as well since he was in charge of the department over there that ran a document scanning operation I had not been told of.
So much for only having to worry about one unqualified person telling me how to be a CIO, I now had two. I knew then I was dealing with somebody who tells someone exactly what they want to hear. It was too late, as I’d already moved the family, etc… Had to try to make it work. Developed clinical depression as a result.
I did have the honor of watching the CEO get deposed from a company he owned a majority of stock in (only way that happens is extortion or blackmail by the other shareholders), and having the new CEO grovel at my feet when I left him after a year of his abuse. Then I watched the company implode, first by closing down the scanning center (the only profit generator for the company – brilliant people), then having everybody else bail because they no longer got paid.
I waited on Nicholas Cage one Sunday morning in Vegas. He, the lady he was with, and his young son were the only guests at the time. I greeted him as Mr. Cage and at the outset he seemed very nice. I informed the manager (goof) and he immediately said to ask him for a photo as “corporate”loves that. I have waited on other celebrities and I would take a bullet before doing something so gauche. Mr. Cage did take some photos with other guests as the restaurant filled. He was very polite the entire time. At the end I said “Mr. Cage I am great admirer of your work”. I mean c’mon after Moonstruck? It was totally the truth! He said, “John it was a pleasure meeting YOU”! I had to go out to the parking area as he left his credit card on the table. Did he give me a nice tip? Yes. Was it outrageous? No. All class.
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Just an hour ago, My girlfriend offered to buy me Lemon soda in one of those small roadside shops. We were regulars there.
I was thirsty so I finished my drink fast. She was halfway through her glass when a Traffic policeman approached the shop.
Him: One lemon juice please.
Shopkeeper: Sure sir, please wait for a minute.
He makes the juice and hands it over to him.
My Girlfriend starts drinking the juice very slowly. I asked her what happened.
“I’m just waiting to see what he’ll do” *points at the traffic policeman*
After he was done with the drink.
Him: Thanks. *Leaves without paying*
The shopkeeper just continues with his work.
Her: Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Pretty common sight in India. Cops get freebies in a lot of roadside stalls and they don’t even think for a second that the small amount of 10–15 rupees is the shopkeeper’s hard earned money.
In the city I used to live in photo radar was set for 13 kmph over the speed limit, about 8 mph. There are no demerits for photo radar, just the fine. Its a great cash cow, because it catches all of those who are momentarily not paying attention, as well as those who are purposely speeding. The province refuses to allow photo radar on its highways. Because they say its just a cash cow.
In the little town that I retired to, they thought they were going to get rich off of speeding tourists. They moved the speed limit signs so that it dropped from 100 to 80 to 50 kmph farther outside of town, and they bought a $125,000 photo radar, and said it would pay for itself in two months. The main tourist drag through town was a provincial highway. They sat the only town police officer at the edge of town, and ticketed away. In the very first month a guy fought his ticket, and the judge ruled that it was illegal to use photo radar on the highway. Rather than move it to other streets, where most of the offenders would be locals, they sold the photo radar for about half of what they paid for it. When it was working, they had looked into hiring a second officer to bring in more money, but once it was scrapped, all talk of a second officer was cancelled.
The fact that they wouldn’t use it on non tourist streets, moved the speed limit signs out of town, and talked about hiring a second officer, but only when they were using the radar trap, and dropped the plan as soon as they dropped the radar, pretty much tells you the intent of the radar trap.
The photo radar was still perfectly useable, except that you had to actually stop the car and write up the ticket, check licence and registration, sobriety, etc , exactly as the province required.
But, because of the time required, the town said it wasn’t economical to give tickets to people doing less than about 25 kmph ,15.5 mph, and there weren’t enough of them to make it worthwhile.
So there you have it, if its automatically sent out in the mail, the limit is 13 kmph over the speed limit, if they have to check to make sure you aren’t a mass murderer, driving a hijacked car, its almost double at 25 kmph.
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I had a manager who was putting me on a last and final write-up (next step suspension / terminated) for something I didn’t do. I refused to sign the write-up until I talked to the director (his boss) about the situation as I hadn’t made an error. The manager replied, “It would’ve been easier if you would’ve just signed it!” He goes through the steps of bringing on another manager to witness me refusing to sign the paperwork, as was protocol for this type of situation, and I went about the rest of my shift.
What my manager didn’t know was my wife, who happened to be an auditor in the company, had made me aware of the situation before I went into work so I was able to research things before my write-up was going to be given to me. I was able to see that my manager had changed some of the data I used to complete my daily reports, which caused my paperwork error. I printed the evidence showing he caused the error and held onto it until the meeting with the director.
So I’m meeting with the director and the manager is going, “… does sub par work, careless with his reports, yada yada”. My director then asks me for my side of the story and I tell him, “The manager changed the data I use to run my daily reports”. The manager was offended and says something along the lines that I was wrong. I then show the screenshots of when the information I used was changed and who doctored it. The information was changed 30 minutes after I left work for the day by my manager making him responsible for the error. The meeting ended about two minutes later with a half-hearted apology.
Edit: So there have been a few comments on why the manager wasn’t fired for his actions of doctoring a record. The overall reason was we had just started using a new computer system a few months prior and there was still a lot of growing pains with everybody figuring it out. I don’t think the manager’s actions were malicious with the error, it was part of the learning process. I even learned better procedures to follow to prevent the error from happening again. At first it was for CYA, then it became the procedure I taught to others to guarantee accuracy of the reports.
I had this friend in college who would always eat my lunches. I didn’t really mind and it’s not because she didn’t have any money or anything it’s just that she never made lunch for herself and when she did she still thought mine were more appetizing.
I shared my meal everyday with her and I would often make more for the two of us.
One day I didn’t have time to make lunch and she didn’t bring one so I suggested that we go eat at a small bistro near the school. She ordered a big meal and everything and paid. When it was my turn I didn’t have any money because I left my wallet at home. I asked her to lend me some money and told her I would pay her back. She refused saying that it’s my fault that I was poorly organized and I should always have my wallet with me. She then told me I purposely forgot my wallet and that it was a plan for her to pay me back for all of the meals that i shared with her.
I didn’t eat lunch with her. I just left and blocked her. Never thought people could take so much but never give when needed.
JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?”
DeGaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop.
When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ’empire building’ by George Bush.
He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of Its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, One of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. How many does France have?”
You could have heard a pin drop.
A U.S. Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French navies at a cocktail reception. He found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, “Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?” Without hesitating, the American admiral replied, “Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. “You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.” The American said, “The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.” “Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France !” The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchman to show a passport to.”
My friend punched a girl back. In fact 3 girls. He asked me to take him to court when he was prosecuted for it. The evidence was on CCTV.
When I saw the video I was shocked how they attacked him in the street first by punching him then using their stilletos. You could see the injuries just below his eye and on the top of his head.
The prosecutor said he’d used too much force when he punched them after their THIRD wave of attacks. They’d pursued him through the streets, stolen and hidden his jacket and car and house keys as well.
The reason given was that they didn’t like it when he was passing one of them in a club and said how nice she looked, and when she swore at him he’d said how unpleasant she was. They’d followed him out of the club and attacked him from behind in the street.
The prosecutor admitted that the worst of the attackers should have been in the court for assaulting him with a dangerous weapon – a stilleto in the eye causes blindness. Instead she accepted a caution and no further action was taken.
It was evident he’d been trying to escape the area and to find his jacket. He was acquitted. The case was thrown out with less than 2 minutes consideration by the magistrates.
So, yeah, if a male or female attacks you to that degree then striking back as a last resort is what you might need to do, even though it is heavily looked down upon.
Do you mean the worst loss or the most aggressive win. The bloodiest fight I was ever in took place in a bar. I’m going to give them short version of this night because I don’t want to type it all out. Because of a little scuffle at a party I was at all my friends got turned around. We all went different ways. I ended up ina bar laying low wondering if cops maybe looking for me. So already pumped up from the fun at the party I wasn’t going to say away from nothing. In the bar got a beer and walk towards the pool tables. Now I’m not a big guy about average five nine and 170 poundsat 21 years of age hanging drywall for a living and trying m.m.a. 5 nights a week. I was in better shape than most men. But I my leather riding jacket no one could see i wasn’t in great shape looked like a skin nerd. My whole life people challenged me. I can’t remember the exact words that where said to me but my response was I fuck bitchs bader than you. Witch led to him thinking he needed to prove me wrong. Mind you’ve all ready been in a fight that had a lot more involved than just 2 men and ran I don’t know how far. I knew I had to win fast as I got pounding on this guy I didn’t notice his two friends jumping not knowing exactly what was happening I pulled my knife just a small lock blade. As used it on one of the guys the other ones wanted nothing to do with it. This small hole in the wall tavern didn’t have door men. But cops had been called they showed up took me to jail at first charged with assault 2 weapons enhancement. I ended up plea bargaining to a displaying a weapon with intent to harm and or intimidate. Did get a strike but got 60 months in a maximum security penitentiary. That was the worst fight I’ve ever been in.
I was being given a severance package. While it was something I had negotiated and was okay with (finally), the setting was a bit strange.
I had walked into the meeting with my coat and bag and was ready to leave. The HR rep (with whom I was on good terms) and my boss were waiting for me. The rep was laughing. I asked why and he said that he’d bet my boss 20 bucks that I’d be all ready to go.
My boss objected saying “Yeah but I added that he’d have all the cards and cell phone and company stuff in an envelope too.”
I smiled and took an envelope out of my bag and slid it over to the HR rep.
At that my boss started in on his spiel but was flustered. He stopped and said “I guess you know all this. Here’s the pertinent papers. Good luck!” He handed me a few papers and envelopes and beat a hasty retreat.
Later when I got home I found a printed email that he’d sent to the president of the company explaining why they’d had to give me the package. One line stood out. “I’ve been trying to get him to quit for a year and it hasn’t worked.” In his fluster he had passed me stuff that he shouldn’t have.
Yeah. It cost ‘em.
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I had a lot more sex in my late 20’s, which was fun. My endless pursuit of it also derailed a lot of golden opportunities life handed me in a golden basket. It was like:
“Here’s a free basket of incredible things for you, Stephen!”
“Wait. What? What’s that stuff?”
“An amazing cornucopia of gifts, just for you!”
“NO!”
Why did I do this? Because I couldn’t think about anything else besides sex. Ironically, I had all that fun when I was an incredible jerk to people. (If anybody on Quora thinks I’m a jerk now, you’re not totally wrong, but be grateful you didn’t know me back when I was 27. Whew. What an asshole.)
In my early 30’s, I was consumed by weepy nostalgia and crippling loneliness. This also caused me to pass on a lot of great opportunities. Life, but especially North Carolina, handed me a lot of amazing options… and I threw those back in its face, because I was obsessed with running into the past. At 33, I was still such a baby. An egocentric little whiner.
I finally hit a pretty good stride in my late 30s. And my 40’s have been amazingly calm overall. Don’t think too much about the past, don’t have to battle hormones so much, not rich but not broke either. Haven’t been in a relationship in several years, which is dumb, but also haven’t had to deal with all that madness, which is refreshing. Things are alright, really.
Done more travel globally in the last five years than I did at any point in my late 20’s or early 30’s, because I couldn’t afford it back then. And the quality of that travel has improved. Hard to say why. (I still stay at hostels sometimes, it’s not like I travel in swanky luxury today.) But the experience just seems richer and more interesting. A more mature appreciation of things, I guess. Art seems more profound, because I know more about humanity. Humanity created art. Food tastes better. Don’t know why, it just does. I’m definitely a better cook.
At 43, I’ve obviously read more books than at any other time in my life. The cumulative effect of a lifetime of reading has an impact on you. You can sit down and read William Wordsworth or Alexander Pope and think “This guy gets it.” At 21, I would have no idea what the hell they were talking about.
YouTube and the internet seem incredibly boring. Facebook: mindnumbing. Except for maybe Google Maps, you really feel like you’ve reached the end of what the internet has to offer.
Chronic indigestion is slowly killing me, even though I don’t have any sins anymore besides a few beers a week and a cigar. I can’t even really do that anymore. Every time I eat, I have to drink some baking soda dissolved in water just to control the indigestion. It’s awful. Eat a cookie: burp. Eat a banana: burp. I’m seeing a doctor in March. This is the only thing (so far) about getting old that just absolutely sucks.
Speaking personally here, because honestly I’m at a stage of life when a lot of people go through mid-life crises and resort to hookers and vodka to make themselves feel “young” again, but I feel less angst-ridden now than I ever did at any time in the past. My early 30’s were a disaster.
The only real question I have is why more women don’t find guys who’ve dumped most of their chronic bullshit appealing, and why women keep gravitating toward dumb suckers in their 20’s and 30’s. (Oh shit, eureka, I’ve found the answer: because women do exactly the same thing men do!). I’m not as “exciting” as I used to be. Yeah, and I’m not as stupid and rude.
But do I want to jeopardize what I have just to a have a woman in it? I mean, I like women a lot. But right now, no, I’m not jeopardizing my piece of mind just for anybody. I’m holding out for someone who is sheer gold.
Greek Salad
lemon salmon greek salad 8
Ingredients
Salad
1 bunch Romaine lettuce
1 small red onion
1 cucumber
4 Roma tomatoes
Kalamata olives
Feta cheese, crumbled
Dressing
1/4 cup good olive oil
3 to 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 or 2 cloves crushed garlic
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Instructions
Whisk together dressing and let it sit while you prepare the vegetables.
Wash and spin dry lettuce, tear into pieces. Slice onion, tomato and cucumber. Add olives and feta to taste.
Whisk dressing before pouring on salad and toss.
Serves 4.
This goes well with focaccia bread or pita and hummus.
In college a guy accused me of stealing his bike (yeah I know) came to my dorm room drunk and tried fighting me in front of the whole floor. I tried getting away by closing my door but he forced his way in. He grabbed me and dragged me outside into the hall. He pushed me into one of those fire extinguisher cabinets with the break away glass. It shattered immediately. I grabbed the extinguisher and hit him in the face knocking out his front teeth. The return swing dislocated his shoulder. The third crushed the orbital of his left eye. Everything happened in about five seconds. I needed forty stitches in my back and arm from the glass. He was over 18 but thinking like he was in high school. He got arrested for breaking and entering, assault, and battery. He was found guilty of assault and battery and witness tampering. I hadn’t stolen his bike, I’d never seen his bike, and I let the police search my dorm room all they wanted. They never found his bike.
Yeah. I was just minding my own business and this classic comes on.
“Come On Eileen” is a song by the English group Dexys Midnight Runners (credited to Dexys Midnight Runners and the Emerald Express), released in the United Kingdom in June 1982 as a single from their second studio album Too-Rye-Ay.
It reached number one in the United States and was their second number one hit in the UK, following 1980’s “Geno“.
The song was produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley and was initially claimed to be written by Kevin Rowland, Jim Paterson and Billy Adams, although Rowland later stated that the essence of the tune should be attributed to Kevin Archer.
“Come On Eileen” won Best British Single at the 1983 Brit Awards, and in 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation’s sixth favourite 1980s number one single in a poll for ITV. It was ranked number eighteen on VH1‘s “100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s” and was Britain’s best-selling single of 1982.
There’s nothing particularly special about this song except that it represents a specific time in my life. And when I heard the song, I was transported to that time, and in that place.
I had over a hundred toxic exposure personal injury cases pending against a major chemical company. To save money and gain a strategic advantage, the defense attorney filed motions in every case across the US to compel participation in a single deposition of their product development expert. Known as a de bene esse deposition, the transcript would be read at all trials instead of the witness’ live testimony. It would prevent live cross examination in front of juries, and updating questions based on new developments or ongoing testimony in the various cases. it was scheduled to occur within a few days at the company’s HQ in another state.
I had sent this company detailed interrogatories and records requests delving into their knowledge of the dangers of their product/similar products and pertinent scientific literature. This information was critical to adequately prepare to cross examine the witness. Despite my demanding this for months, they had never responded. Thus, part of my answer to their motion to compel the deposition was a counter motion to compel responses to my discovery requests.
On the day of their motion, moments before we appeared before the judge, the defense lawyer handed me the company’s responses. Despite the fact that I had asked at least 60 questions [including sub heading follow-ups], and requested numerous user safety documents required by public health laws, the “answers” [mostly consisting of “irrelevant,” “unavailable,” “objection – confidential proprietary information,” etc] were contained on two typed sheets. There were no documents. The company lawyer smirked at me, thinking he had deflated my best argument, and further, condescended to a female attorney 20 years younger than he.
His motion was called, we both stood, and he argued confidently that his client should not be burdened by multiple depositions all over the US, and that we plaintiff lawyers would all be asking the same questions in any event. He argued that judges all over the US had already granted this motion to “streamline” the litigation.
Then it was my turn. I asked the judge if I could approach the bench. He raised his eyebrows, but he consented. I handed him the “answers” to the interrogatories, explaining that I had just received them moments ago. I asked him to please read them. He looked annoyed but did so—- it took about two minutes. He looked up at me a little impatiently and said “Well?”
I replied: “Your honor is now as prepared as I will be to take the deposition of this absolutely critical witness on behalf of all my clients. I respectfully ask you: do YOU feel adequately prepared?”
He sat back in his chair and smiled, cocked his head, looked at the defense lawyer and ruled: “Your motion for de bene esse deposition is denied. Plaintiff’s motion compelling discovery is granted. Call the next case.”
Modern Wife Instantly Regrets Divorcing Good Husband
It is so difficult being a single parent. It makes me want to cry.
Invited to dinner by a friend of mine, we were listening to music afterwards and I mentioned that there were annoying vibrations coming from the right channel of his sound system.
“Yes, I think the speaker’s blown. I’m going to buy a new set.”
I listened some more.
“I don’t think so. Let me have a look.”
I took off the front of the speaker and almost immediately discovered a screw was lose and this was the source of the vibration.
Have you got a Phillips screwdriver?”
He gave me one, I tightened the screw, fix completed.
A couple of weeks later I was in my local bar chatting to a friend and she suddenly asked me if I could look at her sound system.
I was puzzled.
“Why? I don’t want to buy one.”
“No, it’s not that. Greg told me you fixed his and mine isn’t working properly. Could you see if you could fix it, please?”
I explained that all I had done was tightened a screw and I was by no means a sound system repair man, thus destroying my chances of developing a side gig as a sound engineer.
Some people are easily impressed and, it would appear, rumours of non-existent competence can spread rather easily.
I say this as someone who has been teaching middle school (students aged 11–14) for over 15 years now, and who worked in special ed before that:
A nontrivial percentage of behaviors which fall under various special education diagnoses are, in fact, learned behaviors.
Learned helplessness, for example. That seventh grader who needs someone else to write down their assignments for them, because they “can’t focus enough” in class to write it down themselves? It’s no coincidence that that’s the same seventh grader whose parents have coddled them and treated them like a toddler well too far into adolescence.
Sure, now your kid can’t do that for themselves. Now your kid is far behind their peers in terms of independence. Because you taught your child helplessness by doing everything for them. What came first, your teenager needing to be treated like a toddler, or you treating your teenager like a toddler, even when they probably didn’t need it anymore?
And so you take your kid to a doctor, and the doctor diagnoses them with ADHD. Sure, they have ADHD. Anyone can see that. But what caused it? Or, rather, who caused it? Not all of you, but some of you parents need to look in the mirror for that answer.
Oppositional Defiance Disorder is another one. Yes, your kid has a problem with authority. Was your kid born with this problem? Not likely. They picked it up somewhere along the way. And who, more than anyone else in their life, is responsible for making sure they respect authority, to keep themselves out of trouble?
Maybe the kid who always gets in trouble at school has some sort of chemical imbalance or some major trauma in their past. It happens. It’s also equally possible, I believe, that that kid’s parents just did a shitty job of preparing their child for a world where they have to listen to authority figures to stay out of trouble.
But they can take their kid to a doctor and get a diagnosis of “O.D.D.,” so they sleep a little better at night, thinking that it’s not their fault that their kid can’t stay out of trouble. It’s a medical condition.
“Executive functioning problems” are another one. Is your kid so disorganized because they were born with some special need which made it difficult for them to be organized? Or did you just never take the time to teach your child how to stay organized, until it was too late? Perhaps it’s not your fault. Or perhaps you really dropped the ball when your kid was younger, and now that ball is too heavy to pick back up. Both possibilities have about the same chance of being true.
To be clear, I’m not saying all of these issues are caused by parenting. I’m not even saying most of them are. I’m just saying that some of them are. Enough of them that it’s statistically relevant.
Of course, I can’t prove any of that. I’m just calling it like I’ve seen it, year after year, for the last two decades.
Back in December 1983, Chicago spent 100 hours below -20F. Wind chill made it -86F. I worked downtown back then. No elevated train until a decade later, so the buses went down I-55 into the Loop. (Small edit: the buses were for shit, wind would come in through the doors and the window slats. The Orange Line could get you downtown in 20 minutes, the Green Limousine (our nickname) took about 90 minutes on a good day.)
If you wore wire frame glasses, they would freeze to your nose momentarily. You layer up and you don’t bother to color coordinate. Look like a clown astronaut, no one will care. You’ll even blend in. Your nose might run waiting on the bus, it will freeze. Wiggle your nose and the ice will fall away.
Don’t walk anywhere without the intention of stopping. Back in the 70s, I was walking only about a half mile to get a bus, and part of my brain kept saying to stop. Sit down on that bench. Rest. You’re halfway there. This was at midnight. Somebody would have found my body, no doubt frozen to the bench, in the morning.
A few have asked, or questioned why *I* never said something, as if *I* don’t exist, and that really frosts my cone. again, sun was out. If a piece of ice can snap away without breaking, it is warming up. Holding the icicle for ten seconds, my hand would be colder walking to the end of the driveway to the mailbox and back.
Plus: why would I give my dog something that might hurt his tongue? Chicago beats all logic.
Ray Dalio Explains Why America is Entering A Horrific Financial Crisis
Ive been blessed with cracks between the worlds now and then.
I woke up one morning and told my late wife that we must cancel our trip to town as l had seen a “dream”, that a tree would fall on our vehicle. We had not been together long enough for her to know me all that well yet, and she got very upset because her heart was set on town, we were homesteading and needed some things she considered desperate ( like coffee🤣).
So after lots of persuasion I agreed to go. It was a two hour trip one way and I was keenly keeping an eye to where my vision had warned of the tree coming from, and sure enough, I caught a glimpse of the exact same tree coming at us. Because I had the warning and was looking for it , and my quick reactions of youth, I Swerved and slammed into it as it hit the road just in front of us, instead of ON us. We totaled our vehicle, but survived.
After that ,she always listened to my “hunches”(as she called em).
Greek-Style Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Greek Stuffed Chicken 1024×768 1
Ingredients
6 boneless chicken breasts
1 (10 ounce) package frozen spinach
1/4 pound feta cheese
3 tablespoons Romano cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup white wine
1 tablespoon oregano
Instructions
Thaw the spinach and drain as much of the moisture as possible. Mix with the crumbled feta cheese, grated Romano, salt and pepper.
Make a slit in the side of each chicken breast. Fill the slit with the spinach mixture and close with wooden picks.
Heat the oil and butter in a large skillet. Brown the chicken breasts on both sides and remove to a warm platter.
Sprinkle the flour into the same pan and integrate with the remaining oil. Cook for about 1 minute. Slowly, add the wine and chicken stock and stir until a smooth sauce has formed. Add the lemon juice and the oregano, salt and pepper to taste.
Bring to a boil and return the chicken to the pan. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes until the chicken is very tender.
Zhou Shen’s new song “Floating Light” is sung for the first time tonight! REACTION – BEAUTIFUL!
Back in my 20’s while working at a popular coffee shop, I had about an hour to go completing the graveyard shift, I was on the floor with an older gal about 45, 7 construction workers came in for breakfast and sat in her station. She went over to the table, and after about 5 minutes she stormed over to me and said “no way am I waiting on those jerks!, they are telling dirty jokes and everything”, so I told her I would wait on them, and I gave her 2 of my 4 top tables in exchange. I went over to their table, and they immediately began telling me the jokes, I looked at them and smiled saying “hmm, I’m not sure what that means but I can laugh”. The man who apparently was the foreman immediately told all the men to shut up and stop with the jokes, I suddenly became someone like a “daughter” he needed to protect (innocent). The service went great and they were all respectful of me, that foreman made each person leave me a 5.00 tip! That was a 35.00 tip on a 7 person breakfast that only came to about 45.00! OMG, now the trouble started, the other waitress saw what I got and ran to the manager demanding that I split that tip with her because after all, it WAS originally her table! The manager told her “hey, you told Linda to pick them up AND she gave you 2 of her tables to make if fair, so if you don’t agree with that, you can go”. The next week, the guys returned and she RAN to get them in her section, they began their dirty jokes, and this time she went along with them, and when they left, she got ZERO tip! Why? Because they saw right through her, I stopped by their table a few times to say hi, and was respected. Was she mad? oh HELL yes!
Last Summer, I was sitting on the dock at my town’s marina watching boats being launched. A new-looking 25 foot boat was being launched from a trailer. There was some water coming out from a fitting near the stern. It seemed unusual but the launch angle might have caused some bilge water to move towards the stern where the bilge pump is normally located.
After launch, I couldn’t see much while the boat was tied to the launch dock. Its captain drove the trailer to a parking area and returned twenty minutes later to board with his family of young children. As the boat left, I could see that water was still coming out from the fitting.
I suspected that the owner had neglected to install his bilge plug. I called to the captain to point out his problem. His bilge pump could barely have kept up with the leak as long as his engine was charging his batteries but he would be in real trouble if he anchored somewhere. By the time he noticed, the boat would be settling in the water with dead batteries and the starting motors immersed in seawater.
At first, he gave me the look of someone who did not want to be bothered. He proceeded past my position before thinking better of ignoring my warning. He stopped to inspect his bilge and quickly headed back to the launch ramp. It took him about an hour to haul his boat, install the bilge plug and re-launch. Had he continued without installing his bilge plug, his new boat would surely have gone down.
China ANGERS The West, “We Won’t Destroy Our Economy For You”
Years ago, there was a couple who sat in the parking lot with signs that read “Unemployed, four hungry children, please help. God bless you.” They had been doing this for over a year when our local newspaper interviewed them an published their story. This couple stated that they lost their good jobs due to the recession and just wanted jobs so they could feed their kids and, maybe buy a house some day – to be back on their feed again. After the story came out, they were flooded with job offers from all over the county.
Yeah, they turned them all down because panhandling was much more lucrative.
I worked in the city and there were quite a few off ramp and street corner panhandlers – the same ones every day. One day, I saw a young woman who left her corner, walked to the convenience store parking lot and got in to her brand new Honda Accord and drove home. Shift was over, I guess.
Now for a good story: There were two men who stood at the end of exit ramp I took on my way to work for about seven years. One was older, missing teeth and looked like he had led a hard life. The other was young, maybe early-mid 20s and he wore a funky top hat and played guitar and sang – he was really talented and all songs were his own originals. No sign, he just played his music. I am a go-with-my-gut person and never once did they ever made me feel uneasy.
After having enough experiences in horrendous traffic jams and snow stoms, I always keep protein or granola bars and a few bottles of water in my car. I would give them these when the light was red and, very occasionally, enough cash to buy a meal and they were always so kind.
I hadn’t seen the young man for a couple of months until, one night, I stopped at the mini mart on my way home from work for a diet soda and there he was. Working behind the counter. He looked healthy and happy and was so glad to be working. We spoke for a few minutes then he came around and gave me a big hug – man, did I get a lot of dust in my eyes.
Greek Orange Cake in Orange Syrup (Pontica)
Greek Orange Cake in Orange Syrup Pontica
Ingredients
Syrup
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
Cake
1/2 stick butter, melted
6 eggs, separated
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
First make the syrup by combining the orange juice, water and sugar in saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove the syrup from the stove and allow to go cold.
Butter an 8 x 12-inch baking pan with all the melted butter. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl. Beat the egg whites until stiff and they can form a peak.
In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks until light yellow; add the sugar, orange rind and vanilla and blend well.
To the egg yolk mixture add the egg whites a little at a time, alternating with 2 tablespoons of flour mixture until all used. Pour the batter into the pre-buttered baking pan.
Bake for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Remove the cake from the baking pan and cut into diamond shapes. Place the cake pieces on a large plate that will trap the syrup when poured over.
Pour the cooled syrup over the still warm cake. Allow the cake to cool completely before serving.
Yield: about 15 pieces
A crying mother cat brough her dying kitten to a man. Just unbelievable!
Of course we didn’t know they were cut until the Cable Guy asked us if we had any enemies. Which shocked us, until we realized what had happened prior to us leaving for vacation…
We have Wi-Fi through Comcast. We pay for that service. We realized that the neighbors across the street were stealing our Wi-Fi. So we put a password on it. For security reasons. Nothing wrong with that, right? WRONG!
They (four men) would sit on their porch with their laptops. We thought it odd since it wasn’t a comfortable porch and they were all crammed together. More of a doorway and just some stairs. We didn’t have a relationship with them, just the occasional neighborly wave. My brother is the one who enlightened us to the fact that they were outside because they were hooking up to and stealing our Wi-Fi. He told us to put a password and watch what happens. So, they were outside, we put a password, their connection died, they stared at our house, and closed their laptops and went inside. We giggled like little schoolgirls and went on with our lives.
About two weeks later, we went on vacation. And when we came home, none of our electronics worked. Called the cable company. They couldn’t get any signal so they sent the technician. He looked outside, and that is when he asked if we had any enemies. All wires had been cut. Could you believe it? They got mad at us for taking away something they were stealing! And of course, without cameras, we had no proof.
Taiwanese did not choose war. Taiwanese did not gave a single seat out for an outright pro independence party! That party lost every SINGLE seat in the election.
DPP Tsai Ing Wen party and now Lai Cheng Te took over is pro independence favouring party that recognise the one China policy. It assures its voters they won’t harm cross straits harmony. Yet it could garner a mere 29% votes and lost the parliament to KMT by one seat and now need a coalition to even has a say!
What will China do? China will let the U.S. implode further, will let the Taiwanese people realise it does not want a Ukraine. And they don’t! China is sitting pretty. The U.S. is totally fxxked up!
Taiwanese are Chinese stock just like me of Hokkien origin. We know that by sucking up to the U.S., Ukraine lost 500 thousand men, 9 million seek asylum, 4 regions to Russia and 1/3 of their land and almost the entire Black Sea coast! Taiwanese voted for kinda an economic union with China and some special status of being independent somewhat! They voted against outright independence and they are very wary of the U.S. and its influence.
The real question if you are smart enough to ask is, does the billions of CIA, NED and other government agencies money spent on Taiwan worth anything? Does it pay off?
The answer us zero and nil. Once again the US is taken as a sucker!
Wife IN SHOCK After Husband Uploads Her Cheating Videos To Website And Sends The Link To EVERYONE
There was a pretty epic incident from a few years back.
There was a dead man in the Denver hospital (Denver Health), in their morgue or some holding area. He had recently passed.
One of the nurses was apparently impressed by his manhood, enough so that she went and told the other nurses something to the effect of, “You have to see this man’s D!”
She and 4 other nurses went on to go look at the deceased’s manhood.
Unfortunately for them, someone overheard the conversation and reported them. An investigation was then launched by risk management which resulted in 4 of them being suspended. (Source: Nurses who opened body bag to view size of dead patient’s penis suspended. Smith, Lydia. The Independent)
One of them also resigned from her position following the incident.
The man must have had quite a member there. And they do say that your body gets stiff after you die…
I had a best friend from 14 till 29. For her 30th she threw herself a party, it was set to be wonderful, great food, drinks, friends a bonfire, just a wonderful evening. She and I hadn’t spent a ton of time together for several months before due to work and such so I was elated to hang with her and actually get to know this guy she’d been seeing for 6 months or so.
My friend was always a bit of an entitled princess but I usually ignored her when she did that. This party every 5 min she’d scream at the new guy: “go get me a drink” “are you stupid? My drink has been empty!” ”why haven’t you been paying enough attention to me it’s my biiiiiiirthdaaaay” it was annoying but hey she’s a bit drunk, oh well. Then as her bf is talking to HIS SISTER and I she walks up behind him and smacks him in the face full force. Her reason? “I knew what he was going to do, pay attention to other women and say things I don’t like so he deserved it.”
After that smack I quickly got ready and left. A week or so later I met her for lunch and confronted her, thinking perhaps she didn’t recall due to alcohol and I could encourage her to get help. Nope, she remembered just fine and felt she was justified to get her way. That was the last day of our friendship.
Japan is in a dire need to go back to the drawing board. It needs to rethink blind allegiance to the U.S., it needs to rethink Japanese only mindset, it needs to rethink helping the U.S. doing shit on China. It needs to grasp how humongous China is, and that how influential it is in the world today.
It needs a fresh perspective, soft power is good when you are winning competition, Japan is not! Soft power is good as an icing on the cake. Today Japan has lost its cake all together.
Steel is gone, Ship building is gone, electronics is all but gone, infrastructure building is gone, high speed train is all but gone and so is automotive industry, tourism is useful but cannot sustain high cost of Japan as a subservient and submissive country to the U.S.
Japan’s economy is fine if the west and the U.S. represents 60% of the world’s demand. Today it is less than 30% of world’s demand. Sucking up to the 30% and offending the balance 70% is a suicidal strategy. It’s population dwindled a million a year! It domestic demand is fast evaporating. It’s export machine has all but stopped except perhaps for some super high end products that has a minute market!
Japan’s biggest dilemma is between sucking up to the U.S. or facing reality. It has chosen being a slave vassal state of Uncle Sam! Can it survive? I very much doubt so!
At best it gets to play a house slave role but at a cost of an imploding an economy. It’s debts us already the largest versus its GDP on planet earth.
Roman gladiators had a very strange place in Roman society.
First off, we need to remember than gladiatorial combat was staged and hammed up for dramatic effect, and was rarely to the death. It wasn’t any more “real” than pro wrestling is today. It was a show, and sex appeal was a big part of the show.
On one hand, Gladiators were slaves, the lowest of the low. Furthermore, entertainers of all sorts (actors, dancers, etc) were infamia — outcastes, basically. A Roman citizen lost many of their rights if they were infamia. An infame had nothing to lose, socially or legally, by prostituting themselves.
On the other hand, gladiators were famous and glamorous slaves who were often invited to mingle with and entertain the highest social classes.
And gladiators were expensive slaves. A good gladiator might sell for 500,000 sesterces or more. A unskilled laborer in good health was worth maybe 1,500-2,000 sesterces. (Translating ancient currency into modern currency is basically impossible and misleading, but as a rough guide a skilled tradesman might make 8000 sesterces a year)
All slaves and entertainers were expected to have sex whenever and with whomever their owner or employer commanded. Even for free entertainers, prostitution was part of the job description. It’s likely that most slaves were at least occasionally rented out by their owners as prostitutes. That undoubtedly included gladiators. It is not a stretch of the imagination that a slave owner might have hired a gladiator to stand at stud with a slave girl he wanted to breed. The Romans regarded slaves the same way we regard livestock.
Roman culture was bi-normative; they didn’t have words for “gay” or “straight.” There was nothing shameful or unusual about a man having sex with another man. What was shameful was to be the bottom to someone of lower social status, or allowing yourself to be used for someone else’s pleasure. Roman values were centered around power and control; being the receptive partner in sex was seen as giving up power and control. A rich Roman citizen would likely have viewed fucking a gladiator as a demonstration of their natural superiority.
Roman women had much less sexual autonomy than men, but it was recurring gossip that Roman women (up to and including the Empress) bedded gladiators for sport. Gladiator sweat was also sold as an aphrodisiac (seriously).
My little sister was two years younger and two grades behind me in school. She found me and my sports teammates one day and complained to me that a certain boy in her class has been bugging her, pulling her hair, trying to pull her bra strap and other such nuisances. So I told her, lead the way, little sister.
My teammates knew who this bully was and followed a bit behind me without me knowing it. I’m not that big of a guy but a couple of my teammates were. I figured I could just scare this bully and it would all be over. I rounded a corner with my little sister and she pointed out the bully. He was half a head taller than me and 30 or 40 pounds heavier. I gulped and I think everyone in the hallway heard it.
I walked up to the bully with my little sister and she menacingly said to him, “I told you I would get my brother to come and take care of you!”. Unbeknownst to me, that was my friends’ cue to come around the corner and stand a bit behind my sister and me. I took one more step up to the bully and told him he better leave my little sister alone or else…. I thought he was looking at me, but he was looking over my shoulder at my friends, and just nodded his head, then walked away.
When I turned around and saw my big friends, they were laughing at me and jeering, “OR ELSE!”. I started to laugh too. My little sister was happy – she would let us know now and then that the bully never bothered her again, and in fact had almost stopped bullying everyone.
And that became my friends’ catch phrase. Anytime I would make a statement, one of them, right on cue would add “OR ELSE!” Yah, that only lasted 2 years.
When I was 22 I dropped out of college to have and raise my daughter. People were astounded I’d do that, as I also had to give up a full ride Air Force ROTC scholarship (I’d been introduced to the Governor of Oregon when I received it, made the newspapers).
Anyway, she was 6–9 months old and one of my soon-to-be-ex-college buddies called. I answered the phone as I was scooping some sweet potatoes into her, the airplane was coming into the hangar! She was in her high chair with her mouth open like a baby bird, hands up in excited fists giggling in anticipation of the plane vrooming some more sweet potatoes into her mouth.
He made the comment “I don’t know why you left school, you could have just had her get an abortion. You really messed up your career path. Think of all the money you’re missing out on.”
My daughter was looking me in the eyes smiling as he said that. I immediately hated his goddamn guts. So, excused myself from the phone call. I maintained contact over the years just to see how things panned out between us.
She grew up to be an EMT. She drives around saving other people’s lives, and has 4 kids herself. When she turned 19 and got her EMT certification, I went back to school and got my engineering degree.
Now I make more money than he does, have a superhero daughter, and 4 grandkids, and pictures of one million trips to the zoo, amusement park, daddy-daughter dances, holidays, etc. He has no children, grandchildren. He has a cat.
When my wife and I were first dating her electric bill in an apartment complex seemed high. The final straw was when she was gone for a two week trip and her electric bill was even higher than the previous month. I looked at the electrical panel and did a check on each circuit breaker, tripping it and seeing which lights or appliances were without electricity. I then marked them with a file sticky tab indicating what they went to. Two of the breakers didn’t seem to shut anything off. I told her to leave them off until we figured out what they went to.
Two days later an apartment maintenance worker was working on the apartment below hers. She noticed the worker, but it didn’t register to her why the worker might be there working on the apartment below hers.
The next day there was an electrician there and the “light bulb” in my girlfriend’s mind came on. She asked the electrician what kind of problem they were having, the electrician indicated that several appliances in the apartment suddenly went dead and had no power being supplied to them.
Turns out the two electrical breakers that I had tripped went to the water heater and the A/C unit for the apartment below hers. The apartment maintenance worker spent the whole day working on the problem for the apartment below hers before calling the electrician to perform the proper checks and determine the problem.
She told the electrician what I had done. He checked the breakers and told her that she had been being billed for the electricity to run the water heater and the A/C unit in the apartment below hers.
She asked if the electrician could fix the problem and take out those two extra breakers in her electrical panel. The electrician worked for several hours and then came back and said that the problem was fixed. The electrician had done one better, the people below that had been jerks while working to fix the problem. They now supplied electricity to run her water heater.
She never mentioned it for the two years that she lived there thinking it was probably going to even out over time for the electricity that she had previously supplied to the apartment below her.
The people below her complained several times about the increase in their electrical bill over what it had been prior to me tripping the breakers and discovering the electrical syphoning that had occurred.
No one ever came to check the electrical circuits for the rest of the time she lived there.
So I’m sitting on the hotel terrace in Düsseldorf, Germany sipping a wheat beer on a warm summer night last June.
Three American late-middle-age men sharing the table next to me with a similarly-aged German are debating the pros and cons of their company health care plans.
One guy prefers low premiums, with higher out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. Another travels a lot and doesn’t want to be tied to one network. The third guy is in great shape and argues for a high-deductible health plan with a tax-advantaged health savings account.
They try to outdo each other with lower copays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums. Then they start in on horror stories from friends and family about outrageous billing, uncovered services, out-of-network charges, and medical bankruptcies.
The German listens politely until one of the men asks him if medical bankruptcies are a problem in Germany.
He answers, “oh no, all our costs are covered by the medical insurance.”
One of the Americans immediately cuts in and says, “oh, that’s right, Germans have really expensive universal coverage. I’m so glad we have freedom of choice in America.”
The Americans then continue their internal debate without asking the German another question.
“American ignorance” is not the problem, most people, from all countries, myself included, are pretty ignorant about a lot of things in life.
The problem with these Americans was not ignorance, it was an utter lack of curiosity and interest in anything outside their scope of experience.
Ignorance has a cure. Indifference is usually terminal.
Death of Gonzalo Lira, Crumbling Ukrainian Air Defenses, Growing Russian Military Capabilities
My mother in law has no net worth. She was a single mother working multiple minimum wage jobs, to get her daughters raised. My wife told her mother, that she did a great job, and that my wife had everything she needed as a child. Then my sil had a baby while still going to school, my mother in laws days, of supporting her grand daughter just started. She only had a month or two worth of expense money when she retired.
When she was 65 she moved into a seniors centre.
In Canada we have CPP, which pays out according to how much you pay in. She didn’t pay in that much, we also have OAS that anyone who has lived in Canada for 40 years, before turning 65 is entitled to. It pays $742 a month, finally we have a Guaranteed income supplement, to top up your retirement. If you have little income, like my mil, it pays out $1065 a month. So my mother in law earns $1800 a month, $21,600 a year. There are a lot of people like this.
But being in progressive Saskatchewan, my MILs senior centre charges her a percentage of her income, if she had more income, they would charge her more.
Until covid hit, she took a taxi to the nearest cheap grocery once a week, now she has it delivered, at 93 she can’t handle shopping for groceries.
She spends time either visiting or being visited by kids, grandkids, great grand kids, and great great grand kids. Or having coffee with her few remaining friends. Until recently she prepared meals and vacuumed at her granddaughters place, while they were harvesting.
She watches TV, plays board games at the senior center, does puzzles and crosswords, or plays Yahtzee with relatives. Up until recently she would go for walks to the farmers market near her. She is constantly giving out small amounts of money, to her relatives, for treats.
She is afraid of flying.
So this is her life, she was very happy until covid, then she got isolated and lonely, and hasn’t quite sprung back.
Not everyone would be happy with this life, but its heaven to her. When she grew up on the farm, they didn’t have running water. Being able to use an indoor toilet and get water from a tap, in her old age, is a step up from her childhood.
Working a long-term undercover assignment, you become close to your target. They learn to trust you and let you into their very closed little world. This happens over an extended period of time. When it’s time to conclude an assignment, it’s natural for the target to feel played, betrayed, and downright pissed.
I recall one gang leader in particular who argued with the detectives, refusing to believe I was an undercover cop. I watched this from behind a one-way mirror. Several minutes later, I entered the room, still sporting long hair and a grungy beard but with a gold badge hanging from a chain around my neck. The man jumped to his feet and screamed, “You’re dead!”
His face turned beet red, and he had to be restrained even though he was already cuffed. This was one pissed-off bad guy. It’s important to note, we knew he had killed before and was about the last person on earth I wanted to seek revenge.
I tried to sit and talk to the man, but he wasn’t ready to listen. A few weeks later, I was allowed to meet with him in jail with his lawyer present. He now seemed willing to hear that working undercover was part of my job and was never personal. I told him that I understood his feeling betrayed and didn’t take his death threat seriously. He didn’t reply, which concerned me greatly.
I had kingpin drug charges on him, which should have meant twenty-five years in prison. However, he cut a deal by pleading guilty and was given just nine years. I would meet him again less than five years later, as he was already out. He sought me out while I was on duty as a uniform sergeant on a call at a bar. He told me we were cool and didn’t blame me for doing my job. He also told me he was going straight and had started a job as a welder.
I didn’t know what to believe, but in the end, it didn’t matter. About a month later, he was shot dead by a member of a rival gang. Problem solved.
I don’t know if it is ignorance, stupidity or just entitlement, but this just happened a couple of days ago at Barajas Airport, Madrid:
So anyone who has travelled to Europe and entered the Schengen Area knows that there are two queues, one for EU citizens and one for all other passports. You also might have noticed that airport and immigration personnel is usually right before the queues telling people where to go.
Anyway, along comes this sharply dressed “gentleman”:
Upon being told to go to the ALL PASSPORTS queue you can probably guess what he said to the lady directing people: “I’m American, I’m not standing on that line, it’s too long”. The lady just told him, quite tersely “European Union passports over here, all other passports over here” and then turned her back on him. He then proceeded to stand on the EU queue anyway.
I loved the look on his face when he got to the booth and the immigration officer told him that he could not go through and had to go to the back of the All passports queue!
It is something we should all read at least once a week! Make sure you read to the end!
Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio.
“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 42 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short – enjoy it..
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.
9. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
10. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
11. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
12. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
13. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it…
14 Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
15. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
16. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
17. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
18. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
19. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
20. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
21. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.💖
22. The most important sex organ is the brain.
23. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
24. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’
25. Always choose life.
26. Forgive but don’t forget.
27. What other people think of you is none of your business.
28. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
30. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does..
31. Believe in miracles.
32. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
33. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
34. Your children get only one childhood.
35. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
36. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere. (I love this one)
37. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
38. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have not what you need.
39. The best is yet to come…
40. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
41. Yield.
42. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.
Well, I just retired at age 68 from being a Silicon Valley software development engineer for about 30 years. I probably literally have hundreds of interviews behind me. Some of them were quite funny and/or strange. But, the wildest one happened somewhere around 2014. (I may be off by a year or two either way.) Anyway, I was working for a small startup in Mountain View, California and it wasn’t going well. I had concerns about their future viability. And, so, I sent out my resume to my usual crowd of recruiters.
One of those recruiters got me a phone screen interview with Apple for an undisclosed position. (Meaning I had no idea what the job consisted of.) I had worked for Apple three different times in the past for a total of about 12 years — and, that included my very first job in 1990 as an entry-level engineer. I took the call on my personal cell phone while walking around in the parking lot because I didn’t want to be heard by my current employer. I just pretended that it was an important personal call (which I guess it actually was?) The phone screen interview was with the lead engineer of the team. I was under the impression that this was merely an initial screening and an in person interview would follow if I did well.
As best as I can remember the conversation went something like this after our initial greeting and exchange of names and background:
Interviewer: “Mr. Ussery, this job is an hourly contract position in support of Apple’s factory automation/robotics software as used in China and Ireland. And, it requires travel. Are you interested?”
Me: “Yes, I guess so, but I would like to know more about it.”
Interviewer: “Do you have any experience in this area?”
Me: “Absolutely none whatsoever.”
Interviewer: “Are you willing to travel and stay overseas for about six weeks, and do so for up to four times a year?”
Me: “Yes.”
Interviewer: “Do you have a current passport with a China work visa?”
Me: “I have a passport but it is expired, and I’ve never been to China.”
Interviewer: “I see. But, you have been overseas before?”
Me: “Yes. I have worked in Apple’s facility in Cork Ireland for six months in 1995.”
Interviewer: “That’s great! That is where I live and where I am currently calling you from. This position is home-based in Apple’s main campus in Cupertino, California. I spend about half my time there when I am not in China. Did you like Ireland?”
Me: “Yes, very much so.”
Interviewer: “How do you feel about working in China.”
Me: “I don’t know anything about it. I have never been there?”
Interviewer: “But, you would be willing to do so?”
Me: “Yes., I think so. Again, I would like to know more about it.”
Interviewer: “How many years of experience do you have with programming in C++?”
Me: “Over 20 years.”
Interviewer: “How many years of experience do you have with programming in Objective-C?”
Me: “About 15 years.”
Interviewer: “Have you programmed in non-MacOSX operating systems.”
Me: “Yes. I have programed on Linux and the Windows operating systems.”
Interviewer: “Do you know anything about factory operations, processes, and how final assembly of product are done?”
Me: “Not a thing. I don’t have any experience with that.”
Interviewer: “Do you know anything about factory quality control?”
Me: “No.”
Interviewer: “I see. Mr. Ussery, we would like to offer you a position working on our team. How soon can you start?”
They met me in person on my first day of work two weeks later.
And, that was how I got the best job I ever had — and up until very recently, the best paying job of my career. They even paid me while I had my butt parked on airplane flying to China or Ireland, and they paid me while I was in a shuttle bus going to and from a factory. (About two hours a day when I was in China.) Plus, they paid all my travel expenses and meals, and even put me up in four star luxury hotels when I was overseas. It was a great job, and it lasted about four years before I was replaced by a cheaper employee. I loved that job!
I think you’ll have to agree that the interview was pretty crazy. By the way, I made many really close friends while doing it, and that includes the original interviewer. My 60th birthday was a real blast too. I celebrated it eight years ago with six very drunk Irish engineers in Shanghai, China. I had a big hangover the next day — but it was worth it.
C’est la vie.
I Miss Living in CHINA! | America is SO Far Behind China
I like the idea of a self checkout for people who are in a hurry or don’t mind ringing themselves out. And that’s how the self checkouts were around here for the first decade or so that they existed. But, predictably, many of the businesses that I go to eventually replaced almost all of their employee checkouts with self checkouts.
I like having it as one of two options. I don’t like when it’s the only option. Or, as it is often around here, the only expedient option.
What a lot of places around here have done is to keep just one employee checkout open, and convert everything else to self checkout. The employee checkout always has a huge line (more spiteful customers, like me), which makes the self checkout seem like a better option. And that’s one of the points of only having one employee checkout open—to encourage customers to just use the self checkouts instead.
I remember, about 12 years ago, flying somewhere with my wife. When we got to the airport, an employee from our airline directed us to a self check-in kiosk. I said “no thanks,” and started to go to the counter to talk to a human about checking in. The employee literally stood in front of me and started going over the benefits of using the kiosk. I wasn’t interested. I know he was just doing his job, but the more he spoke, the more I was determined to not use that self check-in kiosk. According to my wife, I literally pushed the guy out of my way, so I could talk to a human. I don’t remember that, but I do remember being very mad that the guy wouldn’t shut up about the damn kiosk and just let me walk up to the counter.
Since then, I’ve quit patronizing two local fast food places which only have self-serve kiosks now, and no humans to give your orders to. Why? Spite. That’s why.
Also, in one of those places, I walked in with my prescription sunglasses on, and I literally could not see the screen on the self serve kiosk. It’s like it was polarized the same as my glasses. But I also couldn’t see it well without my glasses, because I’m very nearsighted. I had to walk back to my car to get my regular glasses. I just walked back to my car and went elsewhere instead.
I recently read a thread on social media. The topic was “I’m with the Boomers on this one.” It was basically all younger people saying that the Baby Boomers were right about not liking the creep of technology into every aspect of our lives. There were a lot of people who claimed to be “with the Boomers” when it comes to not wanting to use self checkouts. I am one of them.
Others that I agreed with were:
Not wanting to scan a QR code for a menu at a restaurant. Or anything, really. I’ve made it all the way to 2024 having never scanned a QR code.
Not being forced to use an app for something you used to be able to do without an app, like pay a bill or make a reservation. Apps should be for convenience if you want to use them, not for necessity because they are the only choice.
Not being prompted to tip all of the time.
Wanting the option to purchase a new vehicle without a giant iPad-like screen in the dashboard.
Wanting actual physical, metal keys for cars and doors, which you have to actually insert into a keyhole in order to open a door or turn on a car.
Preferring RPG video games that have a top-down, 2D view, and not a 3D “open world” concept.
Technology is great, but it doesn’t have to be in everything. Just because something can be done with technology, doesn’t mean that is should be done with technology. For self checkout, I know that the primary motivation is to save money for the store. That’s understandable. I just wish stores would understand that there are guys like me out there would would gladly pay a little extra for an employee checkout instead.
I think it’s difficult for people under the age of 35 or so to understand just how quickly technology has changed the basics of functioning in modern society, and how annoying that can be for those of us who remember a world before high-speed internet and smart phones.
Thanks to a broken washing machine, I recently had to spend some time in a laundromat. My two hours there felt like what someone 40 years ago would have described as “dystopian.” All of the machines were set up to use an app. Fortunately, they kept some of the machines quarter-based, for people like me. It cost $5 to wash one load, and $1 to dry it. Everyone there, from the employee to the customers to the customers’ kids, had on headphones. No one said a word the entire time I was there. I was the oddball for bringing a book to read, rather than a screen to look at while I waited. Everyone other customer—literally about 20 other people, and their children, some just toddlers—all of them, when they weren’t moving their laundry into a machine, or folding their laundry, were staring at their own individual screen. The place had TVs, too, but they seemed pointless, as no one was watching them, because everyone had their own screen.
It’s not like I was going there to make a friend, but still. For someone who remembers when the Walkman came out, seeing everyone of every age in the same place at the same time, but each in their own little technological world… there was something really sad about it.
Anyway, to answer your actual question: I, for one, hate the self checkouts because of what they represent. More technological creep into my life. I hate them out of spite.
When I was 10, my parents signed me and my younger siblings up for the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Kids Birthday Club. Basically, I gave Krispy Kreme my address and birth month and they would send me a coupon for a free dozen doughnuts every year on my birth month until I aged out of their Kids Club at age 12— ‘cause this is just for kids, OK?
Sweet deal.
But Krispy Kreme forgot to ask for the year in my birthday. They have no clue how old I am.
So I’m now almost 25, and I’ve been a member of the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Kids Birthday Club for 15 years. That’s a 180 free doughnuts for me, plus another 180 for my sister and 180 for my brother.
540 free doughnuts.
They’ve since closed the loophole to new signups— first you had to list your full birthday down to the year to join the Krispy Kreme Kids club (which they temporarily and unfortunately called “KKK”, no joke), and now they don’t even offer it. Adults can sign up to get one single donut on their birthday and some special days (tax day, Halloween, National Doughnut Day), but that’s it.
Will anyone at Krispy Kreme ever notice that I’ve been “under age 12” for 15 years? Tune in next year to find out.
Edit 2018: Nope, didn’t notice yet.
Edit 2019: More donuts.
Edit 2020: Happy donut day!
Edit 2021: Still more donuts.
Edit 2022: Congratulations to me, I’ve been “under 12” for 19 years! Can we get to an even 20?
Edit 2023: Happy 30th birthday to me! Either my donuts are late, or someone at Krispy Kreme is among the 1 million people who read this answer. It’s been great!
I am 21 years old. When I was in 10th grade there was a girl A in school. Just like typical teenagers she had many rumours surrounding her. I ignored those and went ahead and made friends with her.
In some months we started dating. We were head over heels for each other. We had everything going great so shown in movies. One day when we were on a date, after coming out from washroom she gave me her phone. There she had written something which changed all my views on her. She wrote that she was raped at the age of 14 by a guy who forced her to be his girlfriend so that other people won’t suspect a thing.
Fearing society and her parents, she didn’t tell it to anyone. But had to undergo therapy. Her parents were totally unaware to real reason behind her behaviour. She lost a ton of weight and was living on medicines. This was really shocking for me. Then I had flashback of all the times when she had certain insecurities and why she required so much time to trust a person. She also had intimacy issues because of this. And that person had told her to shut her mouth or he’ll leak the tape which he had recorded. This rumour was spread in our school by her friends isolating her.
But now she’s a healthy person pursuing her career in engineering and I am a proud boyfriend.
I’ve been an RN for over 45 years. With each passing year I’ve grown progressively more tired of humanity. It’s true I’ve met some lovely people. However, the proportion of rude, abusive individuals seems to be rising with every month.
I’m tired of toxic individuals. To me they are everywhere I look, and not just within hospitals. They are on the roads and in the supermarkets. They are politicians and CEOs. They are all over the media. I barely recognise the world I live in any more. People have changed so much. To the point that I no longer feel compatible with anyone. We are deep in a pit of moral decay that’s every bit as malignant as Covid. I believe there are good people, but nowhere near enough to counter the trend in self absorption.
I want a little piece of land away from the world. A dog, a couple of chickens, and a garden. I want a simple and as self sufficient life as I can make it.
I prefer to make friends with animals, plants and the stars To attempt to treat the planet with more respect than the majority of my counterparts.
It’s something I intend to make happen within the next few years.
Yes they do, they use the thin veneer of I just hate the communist party.
You know the group that gave increased levels of prosperity to Chinese people?
We can literally see this with attacks on Asians in western countries. How are those CCP members?
We can also see it with the WIDESPREAD dehumanisation that has somehow been normalised. Look how normalised it is and accepted it is to dehumanise Chinese people, the prevailing thought by most Americans is we’re literally insects. This can be seen by their politicians who are VOTED IN BY THEIR PEOPLE.
Westerners ‘are accepting of’ Asians/Chinese when we’re seen as servants, those who deliver things, cook your food, do your laundry but once they as some of them say get uppity (you know aspire to be more) out comes the white supremacy.
Greek Hot Potato Salad
2024 01 23 16 18
Ingredients
4 to 5 large potatoes
1 large onion, sliced
1/2 cup celery, diced
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
Parsley, chopped
Instructions
Boil potatoes until tender and keep hot. Slice onion into a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and cold water, and allow to stand about 5 minutes; drain.
Slice hot potatoes and add to onions. Add olive oil, lemon juice and celery. Mix well to absorb dressing. Season to taste, and garnish with chopped parsley.
I have traveled to the Philippines many times, but my first trip was the most memorable.
My flight was on PAL, Inc. (referred to by all proper Filipinos as Plane Always Late If Not Cancelled), from San Francisco direct to Manila, back in the 1990s when they still flew that route.
I wore jeans and a T-shirt for the twelve-hour flight, and the tag on the T-shirt was sticking up. One of the flight attendants tucked it in for me. I am a bit of a jokester and told her “Thank you. My wife dressed me this morning.”
So for twelve hours the flight attendants talked to me like I was an imbecile: “Can you read the menu?” and “Do you need help going to the toilet?”
It seems that Filipinos (at least the ones who work for PAL) take things rather literally, and I got a good opportunity to practice humility.
The flight back was memorable, too. As we taxied down the San Francisco International airport at the end of our flight from Manila, emergency vehicles surrounded our 747 and sprayed foam and water all over it. I looked at the cabin crew and they did not look worried at all, although some of my fellow passengers looked like they were ready to activate the emergency doors and jump.
It turned out that this was the senior captain’s last flight; he was retiring that same day, and this was a traditional means of celebrating.
You’d think they would notify us passengers first …
A visit to a Greek restaurant anywhere in the world is likely to feature waiters setting this dish ablaze and parading it through the room, accompanied by an appreciative “OPA!” from the guests.
Greek Fried Cheese Saganaki
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
1 egg, well beaten
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1/2 pound kasseri cheese*, sliced 1/2 inch thick
2 tablespoons brandy
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Instructions
Heat the butter in a large heavy skillet over moderate heat.
Beat the egg and flour together, and dip the cheese slices into the mixture. Fry until well browned on both sides.
Remove from the heat and add the brandy. Carefully ignite the brandy with a match, and shake the skillet until the flame is extinguished.
Squeeze the lemon juice over the cheese, and serve from the skillet along with crusty bread.
Notes
* Available in finer supermarkets and Middle Eastern specialty shops. Parmesan or Romano cheese may be substituted.
The thing that was stolen from me was my childhood. I was born the oldest of two sons to a violent and entirely unpredictable man. He abused his wife and sons until we three left (vanished really) one morning while he was at work.
He first abused my mother and I when she was 8 months pregnant with me (an unplanned pregnancy) by beating her and then punching her in the stomach. He then kicked her out of the house into a terrible Maine winter with no shoes or coat. A chance passing of people from the church choir she sang in got her into a warm car and a safe haven for the night.
With no means to get anywhere or escape, she returned to him.
I was born a month later hemorrhaging and required emergency medical treatment. A month later he began crib slamming me (to stop my crying)—and so began a 17 ½ year hell from which there was no escape and no hope of rescue. When I was 7 my little brother was born, a planned pregnancy this time. From the time of his birth our abuser tried desperately to drive a wedge between us—BUT HE FAILED.
More than brothers we turned to each other to lend strength and support to each other; we became like soldiers in combat that never ended.
The dynamics would take more space to explain than I have here. But I was assigned the role of Black Sheep and to blame for ALL the rage and violence in the household. This conditioning was something that my mother and little brother still clung to LONG after we had left, and our abuser was dead. But the bond between my little brother and I was still made of the hardest steel, forged in the very fires of hell.
I lost him in 2015 at the age of 47 to a massive heart attack. Our mother would survive 5 more agonizing years without him before passing away in 2020. It was only recently that I realized that our abusive father had caused my little brother’s death…his compulsive eating had led to his overweightness and blocked artery condition.
When our mom passed away in 2020, I became the last member alive of our nuclear (and dysfunctional) family. I have been left to try and clean up all the mess left behind by their passing, alone. Mom died with never having had another relationship in 40 years. My brother destroyed himself without ever realizing it was our abuser reaching out from the grave to destroy him. I have been left with the guilt that I never realized it myself until after my brother was gone.
Every year he told me he would kill me. He also said he would never be charged either, he would get away with it because of his masonic ties. Twice (age 15 and 16) when he was beating my little brother in the living room, I tried to take a kitchen knife and go after him—my mother stopped me both times telling me it was just what he wanted, he was waiting for me. Frankly, I did not care then, I just wanted to save my little brother and make the screaming stop…I would have rather died for him. I see now that this was how he planned to kill me without consequence.
He stole 17 ½ years of my childhood making me live in fear and doing nothing to prepare me for life, ruined my mother’s adult life and leaving her unable to find love in a relationship, and killed my little brother from the grave with the patterns he instilled when my brother was young.
THIS theft was worse than anything material I have ever had taken since. THINGS you can buy, but those years of my childhood, the years of trying to rebuild my life (and still trying in my 60s), and the loss of my little brother so young are a violation of my very soul. HE HAD NO RIGHT, and in fact had a RESPONSIBILITY to protect me from those kinds of things and to nurture me as the bright and imaginative child I was. Instead, he threatened to kill me and seemed to try every week.
30+ Rare Finds From Star Trek Previews All in 1 Video!
People can be crude. People can be rude. And certain people can be childish assholes. We all know this.
When I was unemployed, I managed to find work as a french fry flipper at a fast food restaurant. And so I endured this low pay, thankless job.
But… as a man, you do what you need to do.
Anyways there was this cashier that had a fun time making my life Hell. You see, every time someone places an order of French fries, she was to yell it out. But for fun, and being a real asshole, she called for fries at every order, and I, dutifully doing my job, would make them.
The situation arose that only two fries (boxes) were ordered, but I had made 64 boxes.
Got me in trouble, and I got my pay docked because of that.
Oh yeah…
I wizened up over that, and and other stories ensued. But the point that I am making here is that if you have a co-worker doing this kind of shit, can you image what they would do later on when they are better experienced and more capable.
I spent over 30 years as head of the HR function at two very successful biopharma companies and as a co-founder of a SaaS company.
After I’d had enough experience to form an opinion, I went on a campaign to get a consensus from the SVP of administration and the CEO of the S&P 500 company where I spent most of my career: we accept all resignations.
Some of the reasons:
Countering a departing employee is news that gets around and becomes assimilated into the culture. Far better to pay at your intended percentile range in the market (25th-50th? 50th-75th?) and let people leave. It avoids creating an incentive for people to resign as a form of manufactured crisis where the company is known to cave.
Managers need to know how to replace a person quickly and effectively or to redistribute and redesign the work pattern to reduce the criticality of that person. They shouldn’t allow operations to become too dependent on a single, critical employee without knowing what to do if that employee resigns.
People at work sometimes act like the “Meister” system of guildsmen of the Middle Ages, who literally covered their workbenches at night with cabinetry designed to conceal how they did things. Even the great Mercedes-Benz suffered from this problem. They didn’t know it or face it until they got massive competition from good-enough luxo cars from Japan in the ’90s. In response, M-B had to understand its operations in a different way. They discovered that 60% (!) of cars on their assembly lines went backward for reworks. It was costing them a ton. All a meister at the end of the line had to do was say “send it back and repaint the hood.” Didn’t have to explain why. That was evidence that M-B didn’t really understand or own its standards and criteria. Some mis-motivated employees had created fiefdoms where secrets were power.
You’re a new boss. This all may be just an organizational theory to you. Explain to your boss that you don’t think it’s good for the company or the operations to allow this person to be treated as indispensable. Ask for your manager’s participation in the response. Then, accept the resignation. You may respond with a part-for-part replacement or you may reorganize the work at that person’s workstation. It may be some combination.
Whatever it is, by the time you solve the problem you will understand that job a hell of a lot better than you ever did before. You won’t be as paralyzed when the next person decides to resign. And, you’ll probably be motivated to understand and better document your work processes.
It benefits some 0.01% of America and hurt 99.99% of Americans. But unfortunately the 0.01% owns America!
They choose the candidates for you 99.99% of Americans to pick! Heads they win, tails they don’t lose! When you have a good President like Kennedy the 0.01% Will assassinate him!
How can spending more on military than the next 20 nations be good for the U.S.? How can you sell this to the 1 million homeless in the U.S. or the 35% of Americans who will die of illness because the cannot afford health insurance?
China DESTROY Europe BRANDY And WINE In Retaliation Sanction
For me I was getting to know a woman who treated me incredibly, she was beautiful, a great listener who would ask me lots of questions. She was sexy and great around other people and all my friends loved her. The problem was she had no other friends. She would talk about a friend here and there but I never met any of this people and she was never doing anything social outside our relationship. Basically every decision (what movie we went to, what restaurant we eat at came down to what I decide. It concerned me of course but she was naturally submissive and the dating world was so awful that it was easy to just ignore it. BTW she was one of the smartest person I had ever met.
We moved in with each other and slowly things started to unravel. Took a couple years for me to figure out she suffered from something that I knew nothing about. She suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. It was a nightmare getting out of it.
Ironically, phones are no longer for talking for me. That’s the last thing I want to do on them.
It’s amazing that so many people (cough*women*cough) can talk for hours and hours on the phone.
I try to call my parents once a week at least. We talk for 10-20 minutes typically. That’s about the extent of my calling.
I had a girlfriend who literally talked for 2-3 hours on the phone every single day.
And unfortunately, if her roster of friends were unavailable, I’d be the recipient of those hours of talkage.
I’d sit at my computer on auto-pilot, “Uho….oh wow….that’s crazy.”, as she told me this long story about the bad customer service experience she had that was basically her fault to begin with.
I’d install a new solid state drive in my computer as she debated out loud with herself about the proper wedding present for wedding #400 that year.
I remember lying on my bed, putting the phone on speaker mode and setting it on my chest.
I’d stare at the ceiling and wonder weird things, like if there was another duplicate galaxy out there, with a sun, an earth, a moon, and a Sean lying on a bed at that exact same moment, with a girlfriend telling him a longwinded story about how a girl named Becky said “Hi” in this really rude way the day before.
Luckily the Middle East Conflict has caused a major change in plans for the West for at least another year
The Plan was to bleed out Russia, weaken Russia & focus on Taiwan by 2024 May or June and push China into an aggressive action
Instead Russia is now stronger than ever and Putin isn’t going anywhere so Ukraine has been abandoned and will be fully abandoned in the next few months after a last aid package of maybe $ 30 Billion being approved after a lot of arm twisting
Yet the Middle East will be a considerable strain for the US whose production is by no means what it used to be
It would be a weakened US who would be facing China
Now Taiwanese aren’t Ukranians
No way will they choose to die stupidly
No way will they sacrifice their own lives
Same with the Japanese
So Taiwan WILL EXPECT the UNITED STATES TO DIRECTLY FIGHT CHINA. It means US Troops and US Body bags
That will be WORLD WAR III and both have NUKES
image 138
Hard to believe Trump or the Pentagon would prefer a World War with China
Trump wants to return US to it’s former greatness
A Possible Nuclear war would be the worst outcome for such a vision
If Trump can be assured that US will remain Number 1 for his term and possibly a decade or so after , if US can reduce its debt, China supports the US in restructuring Debt and reduce the deficit
HE MAY ACTUALLY ALLOW CHINA TO INVADE TAIWAN OR OPENLY DECLARE THAT IF TAIWAN DOESN’T RESPECT STATUS QUO, THEN US WONT INTERFERE IF CHINA RETALIATES
Do everything you want to do. Don’t take the little things for granted. Life is short…
I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at age 15.
Since I have done everything I wanted to do.
I’ve traveled the country, and I even rode my last roller coaster ride about 12 years ago.
Now, I am incredibly weak. I cannot talk very well, my voice is hoarse, raspy, and down to a whisper. I have to take breaths in between every three or so words.
I can’t walk more than a few steps.I have a wheelchair now.
I’m constantly tired by noon.
Even eating is a challenge. A simple slice of pizza takes about 30–45 mins to eat.
I’ve been cheated out of a normal life, and it hurts.
Live your life to the fullest. It’s the little things in life that make it so much better…don’t take it for granted
I am now 31 and have, at most, 1 more year left to live.
Written by my brother
Chicken Paprikash
chicken paprikash 1 11
Ingredients
Chicken
2 whole fryer chickens, cut up
1 medium onion, diced
Sweet Hungarian paprika
Vegetable oil
8 to 12 ounces sour cream
2 cans chicken broth
Spaetzle (Sinkers)
3 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
6 to 8 eggs
Pinch of salt
Water, if necessary
Instructions
Chicken: Sauté onion in about 1/3 cup vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1/3 cup of paprika, being careful not to let it burn.
Place chicken in skillet to fry, dusting one side again with paprika. Brown about 6 to 8 minutes, turning occasionally. Take chicken out and place in roasting pan.
Add chicken broth until it covers chicken. Cover the pan and bake at 375 degrees F for about 2 hours or until the chicken is tender.
Remove chicken from roaster. Cover and set aside. Put roaster on top of stove and bring remaining contents to a slow boil.
Gravy: Mix sour cream into some of the hot broth from roaster, whisking until smooth. Add back into roaster with boiling broth.
Pre-mix flour, water and salt. Whisk until smooth. Gravy should have a nice salmon color. Add more paprika if desired.
Spaetzle: Mix ingredients in a bowl. Dust hands and mix with flour. Knead into a ball. Flatten to about 1/8 inch thick.
Boil chicken broth in a pot. Keeping a spoon wet, section off pieces of spaetzle dough. Cook in the broth for about 3 to 6 minutes.
Place chicken and spaetzle on a plate and cover with gravy.
When I lived in what was considered a bad neighborhood in Salem MA (I didn’t think it was that bad, but it was cheap for Massachusetts) four boys moved upstairs from us the week after we got there.
Long story short, they were meth dealers (but not manufacturers, thank God!), and every weekend they threw open parties to get more business.
Idiots.
This lasted about six weeks before the Salem Police took them in, and we never saw them again. Hey, paperwork takes time. 😉 To be honest, it probably was quicker because all three were on probation.
Idiots.
So about a month after they went to jail (one went to custody of his mom), we got a ring on the bell. It was a large, muscular, threatening looking middle aged dude. He asked me what I knew about the boys, and I told him they’d gone to jail a month ago, and the place was looking for new tenants.
He narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t lie to me? People aren’t happy if they lie to me.”
I assured him I wasn’t lying, and their arrests had been in the newspaper, and were public record.
So he leans in, towering over me, and says, “You tell those punks they owe me $35K, and if they don’t cough it up, doesn’t matter where they are hiding. You got that?”
Looking up, I smiled and told him I didn’t expect or hope to see them again, but if by chance I did, I’d tell them.
I saw him get into his shiny black SUV, noted the plate, and went back inside.
Called the police desk and told them the story and the plate.
“Oh, can you get that for me?” he asked, tilting his head towards me and pointing to the cup on his dresser.
I nodded politely, and stood up to get it for him. As I made my way to his dresser, I noticed the piles of clothes he had lying around on the floor, crumpled and dirty. I don’t care about that I tried to convince myself as I handed him the cup of tea and sat back down.
This was our first date and we had begun to talk about life and our more personal beliefs. And when I say “we”, I actually mean him. For the next three hours, I had a total of about two minutes to share anything about myself.
I asked a lot of questions, sure, but every time I offered any input, I would be cut off immediately by another long-winded 18 minute story about his life. Again, and again.
And after about two hours, I decided to get up to go to the bathroom to compose myself and think about an exit strategy. So I got up and entered the bathroom in his apartment only to find… nothing.
Nothing.
Not a single bar of soap, not a toothbrush, not a towel. And worse.. not even toilet paper.
It was as if I had walked into a showing for a new apartment. I tried to look frantically in the drawers for something, but I found nada.
I was beyond shocked, especially because he had gone to the bathroom earlier for more than just a quick look in the mirror.
So if the two hours of lecturing from him was not enough, the bathroom was the signifying factor for me that I had to leave.
This is pretty much how he spends 23 hours every day. And he is for the most part untrainable. He is both incredibly lazy and incredibly stubborn and is not motivated by anything. Not praise, not treats, nothing.
One day last week, we were going for our daily walk. We usually walk around 1–1/2 to 2–1/2 miles every day, depending on the weather. We had only gotten a block from the house when two pitbulls that I had never seen before came charging at us. The fist one to get to us immediately tried to bite Ivan but just got a mouthful of hair.
I took a step back and made sure Ivan had enough slack in his leash so that he could do whatever it was he needed to do to defend both himself and I. I don’t think it took Ivan 5 seconds to send both of those pitbulls running for the hills. The noises he made sounded as if a demon had been unleashed.
And then we continued on our walk. And once we got home, he resumed his usual position, curled up on the couch.
Great Pyrenees dogs have been bred to be guardians. No training required. It’s just in his blood.
Spring of 2012, I was 56, and I had completed my bloodwork in preparation for my annual physical. My GP called me and said, I need you to redo your bloodwork. I went to see the vampires again and gave another sample. Two days later during my physical, the GP tells me, “Your platelet count is really high, 1.6million per microliter”. (Normal is 150k to 450k) “l want you to go see this blood specialist”. The previous year, my platelet count was normal.
Ten days later I am sitting with the Blood Swami who tells me, “Dave, you are a walking potential blood clot just waiting to have a stroke or heart attack. You have a condition known as essential thrombocytosis and I am prescribing hydroxyurea to treat it. This is a pretty strong chemotherapy drug, and there is a risk that you could develop leukemia in 20 years. If you do nothing, you could throw a blood clot causing a stroke or heart attack at any time. I am also going to order a bone marrow biopsy from your hip to rule out cancer, which can cause platelet production to spike.”
Post bone marrow biopsy, which by the way, was excruciating, it turned out I had a genetic mutation which resulted in runaway platelet production. 11 and a half years later I am still on the drug, my blood guy and see each other quarterly, and although there has been some yo-yoing of my platelet count, we are keeping the count pretty much under control, and knock wood, no signs of leukemia.
Side note: when I was diagnosed, my mom told me she had developed essential thrombocytosis a year earlier, and her doctor did not order a bone marrow biopsy. Two months after my diagnosis, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was dead in 3 months. I have always wondered if she had had a bone marrow biopsy when she was diagnosed, would they have caught the lung cancer when it was more treatable.
The commonest complaint with which people consult a cardiologist is chest pain. People believe, and rightly so, that chest pain is the classical hallmark that the heart may be in trouble. But fortunately, most chest pains are not cardiac.
–
The following ones makes us yawn.
‘Pain Right at this point.’
‘Pinprick type pain.’
‘Pain shifts here and there.’
‘Pain lasts for few seconds.
‘Feels like an electric shock’
‘Pains as I touch here’
All these have a low likelihood of being cardiac pain.
I examine them, ask for an ECG etc etc – all routine.
And most often they turn out to be normal.
–
The following gives us nightmares.
The phone rings.
‘Can I talk to the doctor?’
‘Yes please’
‘Doctor, I have some kind of discomfort of my lower jaw, I had a ECG done and it was normal. Just wanted to…..’
‘Tell me that again. Jaw pain? I need you to come down to the hospital ASAP’
–
ECG of someone who had a littlejaw pain.
Here is his ECG
image 19
ECG (the last 3 leads) shows runs of VT (very fast heart rate). Precursor of a cardiac arrest.
–
Coronary Angiogram
image 18
Critical narrowing of a heart artery (Left Anterior Descending Artery)
–
A pain, ache or discomfort of the lower Jaw, or a discomfort radiating (spreading) from chest, neck to the lower jaw is highly likely of cardiac origin.
A chest pain can happen because of muscle pain, cartilage inflammation, and many such minor stuff but a jaw pain, though a lesser known and an uncommon manifestation of cardiac disease, if present, strongly indicates that the heart may be in trouble.
–
5-Minute-Teach
If you have a aching pain or unexplained discomfort of your lower jaw, go to your cardiologist and not to your dentist.
I was working in a Bangalore in one US based company.
I had team of 2 which I was leading and was working on Automation and I was the one who started this work.
Work was going fine and things were happening on deadlines. I had direct manager , no lead in team.
One fine day my account VP called me .
Account VP: your attitude is not good ( fyi I used to come office early in morning by 9am and complete work by 4:30–5pm and then leave) about why I am leaving so early when all other people stay late ( other people used to come by 12:30–1 PM and leave by 9PM) ,
Me: my work is going fine and my manager doesn’t have any issue with deadline and work( that time my manager was in USA)
A VP : you need to improve this , can’t work like this.
Me : what you want more time or better efficiency?
A VP : do your work but you need to stay .
Me: sorry , I can’t do that as I am coming early when no one is in office and completing mine work and team is also doing same.( Team people used to stay till 6:30–7PM for no reason).
Next day I was called by my HR director , when I reached there I saw VP sitting with him.
HR director: I was told that you are behaving properly and not working properly.
Me : work wise you can ask my manager and even I do direct presentation to India head and people in US.
HR D.: U need to stay also ,that’s how everyone work here.
Me: I am not everyone and I won’t work like that. When required I do stay but can’t do it daily for no reason.
HR d- this is not way you can work here.
Me: then I don’t want to work here, you guys don’t understand the problem. By sitting till late doesn’t mean you are working more. And I can’t stay without reason.
HR D: your behaviour is not good , Not good way to talk, Better you leave.
Me: ok. I will send a mail and I am leaving. Can’t work in this kind of environment.
Later in same month I got another job with very good hike 80% and again 17% in next 4months during appraisal.
FYI,
I completed 2 projects in 7months and after I left , responsibility was given to senior developer and few months later when I asked my team mates , they told me that there is no progress and they are almost still stuck where you left . One person left one month after I left and one was working there.
Oh, you wouldn’t believe what happened with my neighbor last summer. So, there I was, enjoying a quiet Saturday afternoon in my backyard, tending to my roses — you know, the usual weekend relaxation. Out of nowhere, I hear this loud, screeching sound. I look up, and there’s my neighbor, Dave, flying a drone right over my fence!
At first, I thought, “Okay, maybe he’s just testing it out.” But no, this drone starts hovering over my yard, and I swear it’s like it’s spying on me. I’m waving my arms, trying to shoo it away like a pesky fly. And then, the unthinkable happens — this drone swoops down and knocks over my prized garden gnome, shattering it into a million pieces. That gnome was a gift from my late aunt, and I treasured it.
I marched right over to Dave’s house, ready to give him a piece of my mind. But here’s the kicker: he opens the door with this innocent look and says, “Oh, did my drone accidentally wander into your yard? It must’ve gone off course. Sorry about that.” I mean, the nerve of some people! It took every ounce of patience I had not to escalate things.
So, lesson learned — always keep an eye on the sky when Dave’s around. You never know when a rogue drone might invade your privacy. It’s funny now, but at the time, it was like something out of a sitcom!
Having lived for three years in Germany, the one thing that really struck me about Germany’s advantage over the US is Germans’ deep feeling of personal liberty. Americans believe we have personal freedom, but we really don’t compare to Germans.
Germans have a very generous social safety net that Americans do not have. In Germany a person can quit his job to start a business of his own without fear of losing his health insurance. This relieves a lot of the stress and risk for someone who wants to pursue a lifelong dream to have their own business. The government will even partially subsidize the business for the first year to help him get it started effectively rather than having to scrape together dimes and nickles and fail due to a lack of support. This makes it entirely possible for someone to start something they really want to do.
Education is fully subsidized at all levels. If a German wants to be a doctor, they go for it. An engineer, they go for it. An artist, a musician or a teacher, they go for it. The education is available to become anything they want to be, regardless of their ability to pay. Germans have freedom to pursue their dreams where Americans are enslaved by debt or cannot afford to go to school at all.
A person who loses his job in Germany may receive 60% of his salary for up to a year while he searches for a new job. This prevents him from being forced immediately into a lower-wage job as Americans frequently are when their personal savings runs out.
Free healthcare, of course. Germans don’t have to worry about whether they can afford their medications or medical treatments. Sickness doesn’t drain a person’s bank account.
The elderly are taken care of. Those who have retired will receive a pension sufficient to allow them to live the rest of their lives with dignity. The government provides substantially for elderly people who need to be in a nursing home or in a hospice, relieving families of the crushing financial burden Americans face as their parents grow old.
My experience brought me to the conclusion that Americans have as much freedom as they have money. People who have little money become risk averse and are not free to pursue their dreams—especially when they work pay check to pay check and are one car repair away from bankruptcy. If they have college debt, Americans live like slaves for many years. The German system, on the other hand, allows people to live free, to try things, to fail perhaps, and keep right on going until they succeed. The quality of life is therefore higher and people are free to do what they want with their lives.
Hanging by your fingernails over the edge of a cliff is not freedom.
Argentina is not joining BRICS? Where is its right wing President leading its people to?
Argentina went hard butt-fuck with the United States, and this has “sort of” messed up the global realignment.
Yes. Leanne. A rather entitled millennial who thought the sun shone from somewhere it didn’t. She told her manager to F-off.
She was put into a tech assistant role, supporting George, a category manager who had been working for the company for close to 50 years. He retired when he hit 50 years of service – he was 72 at the time. After retirement, he stuck around part-time for a few years as a consultant too – he was that knowledgeable, and important to the business.
Anyway, what George didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. He could tell you the names of staff going back to the early 70s. He could also tell you when something was made obsolete, and what replaced it. He was a walking archive of catalog information going back to before I was born. If you couldn’t find an answer, George was the one who would know it. He was extremely well respected. He had 2 assistants working under him, doing daily tasks like tenders and quotes, warranty checks, stock orders, and general technical assistance for distributors and customers.
Jovic was a fellow in his mid-30s when I met him. He was George’s protégé, and he had already learned a lot from George – having worked under him for nearly a decade. His only career plan was to step into George’s role when he retired. He did (and still does) a cracking job.
Leanne was employed a year or so before I came along. She was lazy, and slow to reply to requests for help. Customers complained to both Jovic and George about her. Jovic was growing tired of having to carry Leanne’s shortcomings and begged George to do something.
George worked out she would be better doing analytic tasks like price increases, manufacturing updates, large pricing tenders, and stock monitoring – so she wouldn’t have to talk to customers anywhere near as much. She was taking a week to do a tender than George could do in a few hours. Admittedly, George could look at a partial part number, or a description, and instantly know the correct number. This took Leanne a lot of time to search. But she was also partial to online shopping and would spend hours browsing fashion sites. She would also call her friends and spend hours going through fashion websites, deciding what to buy. This was the main reason she was so slack.
George had gone to HR several times about her lack of competence in the role, her time wasting, excessive personal calls etc, etc. She was given numerous verbal warnings and a couple of written ones. She was on thin ice. One afternoon George was frustrated that a deadline was coming up, and she hadn’t started a tender that she’d had for over 2 weeks. He walked up behind her desk to see she was browsing a fashion site, and yapping away on a personal call. He interrupted her and asked her to focus on the tender. Her response “Fx off George.”
George had never been short with anyone before. So his next outburst was a huge shock to us all. He bellowed (loud enough for whoever was on the other end of her phone to hear it) “That’s it, we’re going up to HR right now. You had your last chance, and you blew it.”
Her response, which was heard right across 60+ people in an open plan office – people who had suddenly become silent after hearing George’s outburst, was “You can’t sack me you crusty old cxxx. I quit first.”
Because of that retaliation, and the language used, HR refused to give her a reference as she was marched from the building.
George was the most patient guy, but Leanne pushed him way too far. We were all glad to see the back of her.
Jovic has since become “George 2.0” – although his knowledge isn’t as impressive as George’s, he still has some 25 years to get there.
I pressed the button for floor number thirteen. The only other occupants of the lift were two cute girls, who were talking to each other in a highly fake American accent.
At the fifth floor, the lift stopped, the door opened, and I was surprised to see an African man standing in front of us. True that Delhi is a favorite destination of international tourists, but people of African origin are still a rare sight.
The lift was again on its way.
I turned my attention back to the girls. Suddenly, one of them started signaling the other, making big round eyes, first pointing towards her, and then towards the African guy. For an instant, the second girl seemed confused, but then she realized what her friend was trying to point to and both of them burst with silent giggles. I felt really bad for the African guy, who seemed strangely calm. He didn’t seem to mind at all. Emboldened by this, the two girls began talking loudly, but this time, they strategically switched to Hindi.
“Kitna bhadda lag raha hai ye kalua!” (He’s so ugly, this Blackie!)
“Haan, sahi kaha. Baal dekh iske, jaise ghungrali ghas ugi ho sir pe.” (Yep, you’re right. Look at his hair. Looks like his head is covered with curly grass.)
At this, both of them again started guffawing with tears in their eyes.
“Itni badsurat shakal kisi ki kese ho sakti hai!” (How can somebody have such an ugly face!)
I was really embarrassed. Was this my incredible India?
The lift stopped. The African guy adjusted his backpack and proceeded to step out. Then suddenly, he turned around, and in impeccable Hindi, said –
“Badsurat dil hone se to badsurat shakal hona achha hai!” (It’s better to have an ugly face than an ugly heart!)
And then, he was gone.
The expression of utter shame and embarrassment on the girls’ faces, turned red with rage and humiliation, is something I still cherish to this day.
Not sure if it ended the lieutenant’s career or not, but if it didn’t it was definitely a CLM (Career Limiting Manuver)
Friend of mine was engaged to an enlisted guy in the army. Dude had his paperwork, and was a couple of weeks from being a civilian. He was scheduled to do some final training for newbies *in a week*, but didn’t have any real duties until then. Gal’s Mom dies somewhat unexpectedly. They set up the funeral for Saturday, she calls (still crying) tells guy, wants him there. Guy’s LT is standing right there, so guy asks LT for a weekend pass to go to funeral. LT says something (loudly, knowing gal is on phone) to the tune of ‘No, you aren’t leaving the base so you can go with your c*** to a funeral’
Short version: Gal’s dad gets pissed. Calls local Senator – who just happened to be the chairman of the Armed Forces budget committee. They go to the Senator’s office, start explaining what happened, and the Senator stops her: “So, your guy doesn’t have any duty for a week, you are on the phone grieving, and the LT called you a what?”
*2 hours later*, LT is helping dude pack his bags…..
The son of our friend Mario has tried to take his own life on the weekend. Together with his family and parents, he had a nice quiet dinner where he had too much to drink, and this made him so drowsy that he ended up fast asleep in the spare room of his parents’ place.
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When Robin woke up, he was extremely erratic (“What am I still doing here ?”) and ran to the garden, where a noose was tied to a tree, ready to be used.
It took his parents and sister more than two minutes to cut the cord, but he was still alive. His wife wasn’t there to help him, by the way, although she was on the premises “minding her own business.” After a while — essentially after he caught his breath and was able to talk again — he became so dangerously aggressive that he was involuntary committed to a psychiatric ward.
It was the third time in as many months that Robin tried ending his life, and it was the third time that an act of pure coincidence “saved” him. The first time it was sleeping pills (but he vomited and was found), the second time he drove his car into a log carrier, which he miraculously survived (although his car was totally wrecked).
Robin has a three-year-old son. And he also has a wife.
And she has told him five months ago that she wants to work on herself, and put their marriage on hold (“and maybe the kid was a mistake”).
It shattered his every dream of becoming the best dad in the world and a good husband, and the forth time around may well be the last. In matters of the heart, the mind often fails to survive and Robin is drowning in a shockwave that is totally beyond his control now.
For his wife, it’s a mere ripple.
SOURCES: paintings by Stephen Early and Nicola Samori.
Money. I got money for free. Thanks American Express.
I worked for a professional service firm early in my career and standard practice was a corporate credit card (American Express) which I could use for work expenses like travel, food, accomodation and limited rewards for my team members within certain limits. Sometimes I’d shout Friday drinks on the firm as a reward.
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I’d submit my bill for payment every month; my boss would always authorise and all was good.
Then after a few years I resigned as I got a better offer from another firm.
I handed back my corporate credit card and did the usual handover of everything belonging to the firm before I left – security pass, phone, laptop etc.
Several months later I received a corporate credit card bill saying my account was not closed. So I contacted American Express explained that I had left and they should seek payment and sort out any outstanding amounts from my previous employer as I could no longer process any payment.
This process repeated itself for about a year. I would either email or phone explaining the situation or else ignore the bill.
Eventually I’d had enough and resigned myself to visiting American Express pay the bill myself, and settle this thing once and for all.
So apparently, I don’t know the difference between a credit and a debit balance, and it was American Express who owed me money and could not close the account.
When I got there and identified myself they gave me the cash over paid on the credit card, then closed the account.
The terms and conditions of the card made me responsible even after I resigned for card payments (and overpayments).
Free money.
The Kitten Held Out His Paw Every Time Someone Passed Him At the Shelter
The long answer is this: If I smash a beer bottle over your head I will be charged with assault and probably various other things. If you invite me to smash a beer bottle over your head and refuse to press charges, I will be charged with nothing.
By voluntarily stopping, I’m inviting you to smash me with a beer bottle and I won’t press charges. But if you try to stop me against my will, you’ve just smashed me with one without my consent and the story gets radically different.
People stand in those receipt lines because of sheep mentality. These businesses know this and take full advantage of it. People are generally idiots that will do what they see other people doing – so if there is a line that terminates in the parking lot, where customers on their way out want to be, they will typically join that line. Show a receipt? Does it mean I get to my car eventually? No problem!
A receipt is a proof of purchase. Barring some evidence or suspicion of shoplifting, the business has absolutely no legal authority to detain you – they simply hope you don’t know that and are, in fact, an idiot.
Back in about 2003 I was buying a shit ton of PC builds from a store called Fry’s (Think Costco of electronics) in Burbank, California. I needed to fill an office of twenty or so terminals and would make thrice weekly runs to Fry’s ending in shopping carts full of things. There was at least a twenty minute line to check out. Then another twenty minute line while some dipshit checked every item at the door. I eventually decided to detour and was stopped, multiple times….
In each case, it escalated to a manager and in each case, I was apologized to and “let go”…and when I say “let go” I mean that I voluntarily left after staying voluntarily. I never showed my receipt because the bluff was called.
No matter what anyone says, unless you are part of a membership based retail chain with implicit contractual conditions, there is no way any retail establishment can force you to show a receipt upon exit of premises unless said receipt is to be used for in-store reimbursement. At all. Ever. In any store.
So walking without stopping at the hall monitors exit is more or less a test and they’re hoping you’ll blow it and submit to some bassackwards receipt check that serves no real loss prevention purpose.
I do stop for adorable old people though – because that’s like their last thing that means anything. I’ll easily wait 2 minutes while some octogenarian verifies I actually purchased only shampoo, diapers and a fifty inch TV.
I regularly have to trample all over student’s dreams and crush their ambitions utterly. I hate doing it more than anything else, but it’s my job.
For some reason people believe it’s fine to lie to kids with intellectual disabilities. They think it’s okay to tell them massive untruths because it makes them smile for a moment. And immediate, short-term happiness is all a lot of people consider when interacting with kids with intellectual disabilities.
I’ve been working in special needs education and I’ve lost count of the number of girls I have taught who honestly believe they have what it takes to be a great singer. They’re convinced that they’re just as good as anyone they see on TV or hear on the radio because that’s what people tell them. They belt out a tune and friends and relatives gush and talk about what a great voice they’ve got and how they’re better than Taylor Swift etc. And the kids believe them, because everyone says it and they have an intellectual disability so they believe what people tell them.
I’ve personally seen it happen. I’ve watched girls sing in school concerts and hit roughly half the notes they were aiming for and exhibit no sense of rhythm but generate the sort of praise that Pavarotti used to get from sycophants. People tell the student that they’ll be a great singer one day which they know is a complete and total lie.
My role as a teacher is to try and get them into employment. I try and find work experience, work placements, further education and job opportunities so they can leave school with a career path. Which means I have to ask them what they want to do for a living and they look at me with conviction and say they want to be a singer. Despite the fact that their ability is well below average, they dream of being a pop star because everyone tells them that they’re going to be the next great singer. And then I come along and talk seriously about maybe getting a job stacking shelves in a supermarket. I tell them that getting a high-school certificate is essential and they need to focus on their school work and start thinking of realistic career paths. I don’t actually tell them outright that their singing is terrible, but my job is to be the voice of reason and realism among the chorus of liars who tell them they’ll be a great singer. And I watch their dreams slowly die.
It’s not just singers. I’ve helped crush the dreams of actors, stand up comedians and sports stars. I’ve always encouraged them to follow their love as a hobby and keep at it but if they ask me (and most do) if they have what it takes to accomplish their dream then I’d be doing them a horrible disservice if I wasn’t honest.
I’ve written this story before but I can’t find it.
I’m a pilot, not a flight attendant.
One day, I was traveling from a trip to my home base. I really wanted to be home but all the passenger seats were full and the cockpit jumpseat was full too. In those days, it was allowable for me to travel on the flight attendant jumpseat but it didn’t happen often. So I asked the flight attendants and they were good with it.
So I thought I’d be a nice guy and offer to help out. Unfortunately, they took me up on the offer.
I spent the first 30 minutes of the flight making drinks in the first class galley. Then they sent me to the aft galley where I swear I loaded 300 sodas on carts in a 737. When that was done, I started heating the meals and setting up each tray for the coach meal service. Those little foil dishes were super hot and I had to pull them out with an oven mitt and then remove the foil and put the meal on the tray and make sure the other items were in the right place. Then I put them into the carts as the flight attendants rolled them out for service. Then the trash started coming in and I pulled out the plastic bags from the carts and put in new ones and pulled out the carriers with the old trays and stowed them. After that was finally done, it was time for another beverage service! I had to clean out the beverage cart and put in fresh cans of soda, lots more glasses and ice. Then another trash pickup with dirty cups.
It was finally time for a break but…no, the moment I sat down on a jumpseat, people started trooping past for the lavatories. Many wanted something like another can of soda or some kind of snack or just wanted to chat or complain or ask which gate we’d use or about their connection or seat assignment or some other unanswerable thing. I said “I don’t know” a lot and most of the people were not in the mood to understand. It was exhausting.
Finally, they sent me back to the first class galley and she asked me to serve the cockpit which was kind of fun since they don’t often get service from a uniformed captain. They could tell I was wrung out. I went back to my galley and cleaned up the surfaces and put stuff where I was told to put it and make sure all those little doors were closed with the latches turned. She collected and service items and I stowed them where I thought they ought to go.
I was elated when the airplane started descending and even happier when they turned on the fasten seatbelt sign. A ten minute break!
We taxied to the gate and I was the first one off.
I had no idea how continuously hard the work was in the cabin. Those poor people never get a moment’s rest. They’re always “on” and have to somehow try to be courteous to everyone. I’m not a particularly outgoing person and it sapped my energy. It is far, FAR easier to be a pilot than a flight attendant.
Edit 1: I forgot to note that this was the flight attendant’s third leg and they were doing one more that evening. How do they have that kind of endurance?
I got a lot of new respect for the profession and I wish more pilots would do a “flight attendant appreciation flight”.
1.Women as the safest place for him to go on the planet
Your arms, eyes, and lap, those have to be a refuge for him. If you become the safest place on the planet for his heart’s secret needs; he will never leave.
2. Women who make them feel like they matter
Appreciate him when he goes out of his way to buy a gift or provide you with much-needed emotional support. Tell him that he made a difference in your life.
3. Women who accept them for who they are
If you can encourage him to be his authentic self, it makes you extremely approachable and lovable. When he feels safe and comfortable, he’ll open up to you.
4. Women who push them and inspire them
A woman who excels in her pursuits, whether it is career, fitness goals, social milestones, or anything that truly fits his description of excelling at life, can be extremely attractive to men.
5. Women who are secure in the relationship
Men are attracted to strong and confident women, period. Confidence is one of the most attractive traits a woman can have. If you are secure and confident, he will feel the same, and this will lead him to open up more about himself and be able to show his vulnerable side.
6. Women who share their sexual chemistry
Physical intimacy is important in adult relationships. Men want their women to be open with them about sex and confident in their sexual encounters with them.
If you can radiate this confidence and openness to him, he will not only be attracted to you in the short-term, but also see you as a viable long-term romantic partner.
7. Women who are open to the idea of love
If a woman is resistant to being loved, a man will quickly lose interest. He won’t be able to open up or show love if he is continually being shut down. You need to be open to the idea of love and communicate your intentions and emotions.
8. Women who don’t fight their femininity
Men love to be with a woman who is authentic and confident in expressing her feminine side. Men are task-oriented and love it when their efforts are validated and valued, especially if it’s a physical task. So if you feel like he’s taking charge or trying to help you, it’s okay to lean back and let him do it occasionally.
9. Women who don’t play mind games
For instance, not answering calls or texts promptly is part of the mind games that can be counter-productive. This may lead to him acting nonchalant as well and not committing himself fully to the relationship.
Men like women who are honest and open with them about the things that really matter.
My first 18 months in the USMC, I got to basically turn my brain off, because I was a PVT. Everything of any importance, or which required intelligence, was handled by NCOs and commissioned officers, not by some just-out-of-high-school junior-enlisted punk.
I was a Baby Grunt who just did what my higher-ups told me. Once I reached E-4 and above, though, I was entrusted with tasks that required more attention, thinking and care. I got smarter, and more careful.
Still, I could always rely on my company commander to take care of me, I never really worried about where my next meal would come from, or anything like that. Things worked out for me, pretty much, or at least I stayed alive and out-of-trouble.
I never got lost, or got demoted or thrown in the brig. I kept my nose clean and did my job decently, because no-one who was under my command died. That’s good enough for me, that I made sure I got all of my soldiers home alive, and except for one person, home in one piece.
Lots of things can go wrong at any moment, and everything is determined by luck and chance. You can die anytime. But at least they’ll take care of your family. And the chances of you dying get pretty low if you don’t take risks you don’t need to.
In my case of being wounded, that was no-one’s fault, except the Iraqi who placed it there. If I died, I would’ve done so knowing that I’d done my country and my men a good service.
Just do what everybody else is doing (most of the time, there are some cases where you should go your own way, especially if you’re surrounded by inexperienced, or just plain dumb, people) and things will turn out okay. Don’t worry, the Corps has things handled for you.
You might get your deployment extended, or sent out on back-to-back missions, but that’s not the worst thing that can happen to you. There’s a bigger picture.
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Russian soldiers taking a break during the battle of grozny
My wife Sonia was 21 when we met. I wasn’t much older but had seen more of the world, whereas she came from a small town in Upstate New York and had never been on an airplane. I decided to surprise her with a trip to the Bahamas. When we embarked on our flight, Sonia wore a woven beach hat and beautiful sun dress. She was wide-eyed and adorable (still is). A true Audrey Hepburn. As we approached the screening area of the airport, Sonia said, “What is that?” She pointed to the large x-ray box for scanning carry-on luggage. Without missing a beat, I said, “Oh, if this is your first time flying, they screen you in the box.” I thought she would laugh. Instead, she started to climb onto the conveyer belt. I had to pull her back and then explain to the startled TSA agent (this was pre-9/11) that my girlfriend had never flown before. Sonia was suitably red-faced (and even more adorable). She proceeded to slug me (much deserved).
We’ve flown together many times since. I always make a show of trying to hold her back from climbing into the box.
I used to wait tables at a Denny’s in Lawrence MA. One instance, I was off the clock and having coffee with a couple of friends when 3 teens literally ran out the door. Found out that they had run out on the bill so we gave chase and got their plate number. Called the cops, filed a report, and about an hour later a very angry father showed up with the 3 boys in tow. His son had borrowed his car. The officer on duty (we had a detail officer during rush periods on the weekends) was aware of the incident and told them to pay the bill. Then he “strongly suggested” that the boys leave a generous tip for the waitress. They had the money, they just didn’t want to pay. After all was said and done, and the father had torn his son and son’s friends new ones, the officer arrested the 3 boys for theft. They were charged, given a deferred prosecution agreement, and sentenced to perform community service. Once they completed it, their records would be wiped clean. I believe two of them completed the DPA, the third ended up failing it and going to jail for a little while. Seemed fitting.
Yes due to my second layer boss simply didn’t have a common sense.
I have this habit while I was working in a client facing side where I occasionally check my work calendar on weekend in case any of my clients do schedule a meeting last minute.
While I was checking, I got this weird meeting invite on the next Tuesday with my boss, my boss’s boss and the HR team (1st red flag).
I figure there might be 2 options either I’m canned or maybe they’re gonna move me another team. I tried to contact them and ask what’s happening but well the HR and my second layer boss doesn’t have the balls to answer me and just ignore me till our meeting (2nd red flag).
My boss did respond though, through our call I found out that he did not know anything (or did he?) Well anyway I trust him, he’s a good man after all.
Well long story short, here I am writing this experience and my second layer boss got canned too 3 months after that.
Preview The MASSIVE 1/35 Akagi Flightdeck and Bridge W/ 1/35 Kate Torpedo Bomber
30 years ago, my SIL was worried about her 2 year old son. His tummy hurt and he wouldn’t eat much. Their doctor said it was a mild stomach flu, he’ll get over it in a few days, soft foods for a while.
When he started wheezing and coughing at night, the doctor said, “It’s just a little cold, he’ll get over it in a few days”, gave her a ventolin puffer (inhaler) and a spacing chamber, but no instructions.
Asthma runs in that family, because my son was also diagnosed with asthma, as had their shared grandmother. My son’s asthma specialist trained me how to administer the meds, so I taught my SIL.
My nephew’s legs were bruising from the inside of his legs, it seemed, because he was now too weak to move much. The day care called my SIL because he had a fever and they couldn’t wake him! She took him to Urgent Care, which sent them to the Emergency hospital.
The paediatrician diagnosed him with late stage leukemia and admitted him immediately!!
The Hospital staff reviewed what they could find of his records from the family doctor. The staff called their lawyers and the Medical Board before informing my SIL that her “doctor” was not trained or certified as any kind of medical practioner at all!
She declined to join the class action suit against him, or to file suit as an individual.
He survived, and is now a lawyer and owns an apiary.
The day the divorce was being finalized I went to the courthouse.
My about to be ex didn’t bother to appear though his lawyer did.
Judge reads over the paperwork, asks me a few questions. Announces he is finding in my favor in any disputed issues because if the ex cared about the outcome he should have appeared. BANG.
Divorce is final, see the clerk for copies of decree.
Ex’s lawyer turns to me and asks if he can buy me lunch.
Judge: WHAT?
Lawyer: Lunch. My treat. Least I can do.
Courtroom is full of muffled laughter.
Judge: Explain yourself, counselor.
Lawyer: Your honor, this lady and I have been the route together. My client-
Judge: This lady’s former husband. That client?
Lawyer: Your honor, my client is a squirrel. He messed this lady about for no damn reason, kept asking for changes, kept demanding she sign off on things then failing to sign the paperwork himself, that kind of thing. He regularly failed to pay the agreed support. For that matter, he hasn’t been all that great at paying me, either. I’ve spent more time on the phone with this lady than I have with my client.
Judge: Okay. Anything else?
Lawyer: Your honor, my client is a squirrel and as of ten minutes ago he’s not my client anymore and he’s not her husband anymore. I feel like this lady and I have been through a lot together and before we go our separate ways I thought it might be nice to sit, eat a nice lunch and not talk about the squirrel at all.
Judge: Out of my courtroom. Now. (Looks at me) Make him buy you the biggest steak on the menu.
I rented a u-Haul truck. It was a clapped out broken piece of garbage that was noisy, didn’t steer right and the passenger door would pop open whenever I hit a big bump. But that’s not the issue.
I rented it on Friday and needed to return it on Sunday before 9am so not to be charged an extra day. So Sunday I got up early and was there by 8am. The place was closed! And the lot was full of people either trying to return trucks or pick them up for the day. Apparently the opening guy was a no show!
I stood around with all these folks about a half hour. Then I wrote a note dated and time marked 8:30am. I wrapped it around the keys and put it in the night slot. I felt bad for the folks waiting for trucks who had to move that day!
I get the bill by email the next day. I’m being charged an extra day, them stating the truck was logged in at 12:30pm! I call the office and explain myself. The numpty explains that the time stamp was 12:30 so the charge was correct! I retort that they were closed during business hours! He responds that yes that is true, and there was chaos and the manager had to come in, and he didn’t get to logging the truck in right away, so the charge was right! I gave up, and hung up.
I called corporate and got a reasonable human on the line. He understood right away. Situation instantly rectified!
Well, it was somewhat entertaining. I had reserved a car at EWR (Newark Airport). I used to live in NJ, and i knew very well that I wanted a SMALL CAR because that’s what you want in the part of NJ I was headed for.
So I get there, I walk up to the counter, give the guy my res number. He puts on a big smile, “would you like to upgrade to a sports car”. No “Woudl you like to upgrade to a full-sized sedan?” No “How about a Prius?” No Ok then. (do the usual dance about CDW, yadda yadda) He hands me keys. I look at the ring. It says “Ford Explorer”. Yeah. That’s what it said! So I asked, can I have a compact like I asked for, please? “No, we’re out, but you could upgrade to a sports car!” Does that cost more? “Well, it’s $110 a day.” (the compact was 39/day plus fees) So, how much is this Ford Exploder? <guy winces> “Well it’s to fulfill your reservation so it’s the same price as the compact.”
Yeah, so I was moving about NJ in the Iowa Class of Automobiles. I think I got about 11–12 MPG.
When Susan Kuhnhausen walked into her house, she immediately knew someone was in her home.
It wasn’t just a sixth sense. Things had been moved. Curtains were now open, moving as if they’d recently been touched. Things on her table had been moved. She lived alone and she knew where everything belonged.
She walked through the house uneasily looking down hallways. In the kitchen. Moving quietly.
She walked past her bathroom. She turned into her bedroom.
Standing there was a bearded man, holding a hammer. He charged her and swung his hammer, hitting her on the side of the head. She fell down. He got on top of her and kept hitting her.
They then began wrestling.
Susan was a larger woman, who was particularly strong and worked as a nurse in the ER, trained on how to subdue wild patients.
After being hit several times, she managed to get her assassin pinned to the ground in a sleeper hold.
She began choking him. When she released him his throat had been crushed — he later died (after Susan called an ambulance for him).
The assassin had been sent by her husband.
Their marriage had fallen apart and he wanted her dead. He’d paid the assassin $50,000 to kill her. (Source: A Hit Man Came to Kill Susan Kuhnhausen. She Survived. He Didn’t. Slovic, Beth.)
She was later treated for injuries and made a full recovery. Her husband was then sent to jail for the remainder of his life (he died in prison).
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Her would-be assassin’s last words, during their fight, were “you are strong.”
I opened a Christmas gift from a female kindergarten student. She really wanted me to open it in front of her. It was a teal negligee. I was speechless. She was very excited to give it to me and I said it was beautiful.
I put it back in the gift bag and said that it was so pretty I wanted Mrs. L (my good friend) to see it. I told the student to just leave it on her desk because Mrs. L is very busy and to come right back to class.
My friend was in mild hysterics over this gift and she proceeded to quietly pass it around the school. Another teacher who had taught the older siblings came to me and said mom works in a factory and probably made the negligee herself. That’s why there were no tags.
I kept it for years and wrote a lovely thank you note, of course.
I have a bold and, perhaps, strange proposition for you: I want you to start naming inanimate objects in your life. Not all of them. Just five to ten will do. You can name them anything you’d like. Why? Because it will enrich your life, teach you to appreciate these objects, and promote fun and creativity. It can even defuse arguments.
For example, my partner Laura and I are constantly at odds over the thermostat. She generally wants the house so hot that the paint peels off the walls. And in her defense, I prefer an arctic winter. As a compromise, I bought her a few warm blankets, wool socks, and a sweater.
There is one brown blanket, which we originally named, “Big Brown”, but have now named it, “The Nuclear Option.” No heat escapes and if you dare sleep in it, you risk overheating. Sometimes, when we are discussing the temperature, I will say, “Want me to get the nuclear option for you?” She will look at me in horror, as if to beg, “N-n-no…please don’t.” It generally lightens the mood.
People generally buy and own too much stuff, but that doesn’t mean we can’t name our chosen objects. Naming something changes our relationship with it, altering how our brain encodes the information. The object gains meaning and becomes more memorable. For example, small children are more likely to notice and remember features of stuffed animals if a name is attached to it. Whereas they become far more disinterested in the absence of names.
Naming objects also gives a sense of psychological comfort and control. Your garage machinery no longer feels like machinery, but instead, happy, willing employees, your allies in oiled arms. Names can also enhance the intended purpose of an object.
For example, my dad was a Navy SEAL, and in training, there are these big logs they carried and did sit-ups with, grunting and enduring torturous exercise. But if trainees did something egregiously wrong, they had to carry an extra large log that is twice the weight of an already heavy log. They call it “Old Misery.” No SEAL forgets Old Misery, and its name is part of its menace.
Per Dr. Soonkwan Wan, Marketing professor at Michigan Tech University, “You may drive exactly the same car I drive. But my car is my car. It’s part of me and part of my history, so that makes it different. In this way, you kind of decommodify this commodity.”
A few examples
One trick is to think of singular objects in your life. There’s no sense in naming an apple, in a pile of many apples. Think of those things that stand out.
During my childhood Floridian summers, we occasionally got rain downfalls that felt like a biblical apocalypse to some, but were grounds for incredible childhood fun. I had a big clunky red bike that was remarkably good at riding through high waters due to its big wheels. Every other bike immediately got stuck and fell over. So, I nicknamed this one wave runner:
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(Sister. Me in the middle. Johnny. Wave runner on the right. You might notice Johnny running for the car in the background. He’s rushing to tell the car not to try. We spent the day helping these cars get out of this street turned pond.)
Naming objects creates a bond with it, despite it not having any real feelings or thoughts. We are tricking the mind to care, and this is good because it elevates our sense of belongingness. I can promise you — as silly as this entire exercised seems — when you start naming things, watch as you suddenly start valuing these objects more.
My grandfather was eternally cheap after a bleak childhood during the great depression. He grew up in abject poverty, with a single mother and seven siblings. He took that frugalness far into life with him. Despite having plenty of money, he still drove this hideous Ford fiesta, with cracked and peeled off paint. It barely ran, and made us nervous on steep bridges because we weren’t sure if it was going to make it up the slope.
My mother pressured him to at least paint it and later regretted that. We came out one day — to see he’d taken cheap silver spray paint and made it look like the tin foil man. It was utterly embarrassing to ride in. But in good fun, and despite it topping out at 55 mph, we decided to name it the “Silver Bullet”. It took the whip off of the experience.
You might notice that my examples are throwbacks from many decades ago. Naming of these objects imprints them in your mind. You’ll tend to remember stories about them and have a stronger narrative of your life story (which is often anchored in these objects).
My friend James was given a plant 20 years prior at his Uncle Walter’s funeral (he died young and unexpectedly). They’d been very close. James named the plant Walt, and it is still living in his kitchen. When he sees it each morning, he says, “Hi Walt.”
Another friend named his Roomba, Hank, and talks to it every morning while it does zig-zagging routes through his house. I was visiting and was quite surprised by how authentic he sounded talking to it. He had a mock argument with his Roomba, just as Tom Hanks did with his volleyball Wilson — which had me rolling.
There are few rules to this exercise. Sometimes, naming breaks up the mundane. Other times, it’s a needed coping mechanism.
My aforementioned Grandfather was a World War 2 pilot, and named his bomber plane Blitz Buggy. Not only was naming planes tradition, but also a means of attaching value and trust in a machine that is deeply important. Its health was tied to your very own.
The big idea here is to have fun and find meaning. Naming objects will give you a sense of solidarity and trust with everyday things. It elevates that objects status to a character in your life.
Have the courage to be a little quirky and name five to ten objects over the next month. Think of the things you use most frequently, or of the things that aren’t like the rest. I think you’ll be surprised by how fun this exercise actually is. You’ll feel a bit of youthful vigor and creativity, and sometimes, some well needed sincerity.
I’d also love to hear from anyone who has already done this, and if there is a story behind these names.
She forced me into a position I didn’t want to take. To do something I didn’t want to do
I was working for small company, a husband and wife operation. They bought overruns from manufacturers and repacked them into pre packs of assorted sizes and colors. It was all clothing. I and five others called up companies and sold the pre-packed clothes into off price retailers.
The receptionist had worked with them for years. One day I saw some people come in to the showroom and pick out some clothing for their small store. I’ll call the girl Mary although not her name. They gave Mary $100 bill and she went to get change. She opened the petty cash, took out the change but as I walked out of the office I dropped my pen. As I’ve bent over to pick it up I saw Mary put the $100 bill in her pocket. So I started keeping an eye on her.
A week later I saw her take 8 pair of Levi’s home for her son to try on. She only brought back 2 and paid for two. So she came out with four pair of free Levi’s.
At this point I had to go to the owners and tell them. It broke their hearts and cost her her job. I remember the boss lady crying because they thought so much of her they had put her in their will as they had no children.
I felt so bad that she put me in that position. But I had loyalty to my bosses.
Almost 20 years ago I worked for a large chain craft and fabrics store who’s name rhymes with Sew Fan’s. It was a great place for a creative person with no money concerns to work, but corporate also didn’t seem to care two farts in A windstorm about the employees and were regularly instituting years long freezes on wage increases and cutting hours to under 22 per week to avoid having to pay any benefits. If I were ever to go back to working there it would only be to bring in the union. Those workers sure needed it. My first Christmas season there I was working the closing shift and saw a box that had originally had probably about 48 snack packs of cookies and crackers. It was down to maybe a dozen packs of crackers, as the day shift had pretty much decimated it. That was our annual Christmas bonus. One foot by one foot box of inexpensive snacks to share between both shifts. At least they let us do gift exchanges.
The next place I worked for had a prime rib feast, $25 gift cards and a turkey. It was pretty nice!
I was in my classroom after my class had left for the day. They had made a bit of a mess, so after I’d tidied the place, I got out the vacuum and began to run it around the room. I wanted it to look fresh for the new teacher’s aid who I was going to interview that afternoon.
A young man came in, looked at me, but didn’t say a word, didn’t introduce himself, just sat down at my desk!
I asked him, “Can I help you?”
He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Just clean up and get out. I’ve got an interview with the Head Teacher at 4.”
I shrugged and got on with it. After about five minutes the room was clean and I put away the vacuum. As I was coming back to the room, the young man came out looking annoyed and said, “Look, pass on the message to the Head Teacher that he’s late for our interview, so I’m leaving.”
I glanced at my watch, said, “I’m so sorry, but you did imply that you didn’t mind waiting, as I was cleaning up. It’s now 4.05.”
He stared at me. “What’s it got to do with you?”
I held out my hand to shake his. “I’m the Head Teacher. Do you want to go back now for the interview?”
He stared, then went several shades of red and left. Needless to say, if he’d stayed for the interview he would have had to be truly exceptional for me to overlook his silly gender bias that I was “supposed” to be a male, and his assumption that a Head Teacher can’t clean up as well as a professional cleaner. And just for the record, our cleaner is male.
Chicken Kiev
The chicken is pounded thin, rolled with a filling of seasoned butter, breaded and then either deep-fried or baked.
2024 01 09 20 17
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
4 large whole chicken breasts, split, skinned, de-boned
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon thyme or marjoram
All-purpose flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup fine bread crumbs
Salt
Instructions
Pound breasts thin between plastic bags, keeping the smooth side of breast down.
Mix next 4 ingredients. Shape into 8 elongated oval pieces and freeze.
Wrap chicken completely around butter and dip each chicken piece into flour.
Next dip into eggs and finally coat with bread crumbs.
Fry in hot oil (375 degrees F) for 10 to 12 minutes or bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Drain on paper towels. Salt after cooking. Chicken will keep in a 200 degrees F oven if placed, uncovered, on a metal tray.
This may belong to the blond joke section, but here goes –
A blonde is flying down the road in her little sports car, convertible top down, music blaring, signing away, going way over the speed limit.
Before long, she sees the flying cherries of a cop in her rear view mirror, so she pulls off to the side of the road. The cop walks up to her door and leans in and says “Do you know you were going at least 40 over the limit back there? I need to see your license please”.
The blond starts rummaging through her wallet, and before long she is obviously flustered, and turns to the cop and says “I’m sorry, what is it I’m looking for? Can you tell me what it looks like?”
The cop takes a deep sigh and says “Umm, your license?? it’s about the size of a credit card and has your picture on it???”.
So the blond rummages again and finds a little compact mirror in her wallet. She looks closely at it and sure enough sees her picture, so she hands it to the cop.
The cop, who it turns out is also blond, takes a long hard look at it, then hands it back to her and says “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were a cop, you can go.”
Don’t call someone more than twice continuously. If they don’t pick up your call that means they have something more important to attend to.
Return money that you have borrowed even before the other person remembers lending it to you. It shows your integrity and character. Same goes with umbrellas, pens and lunch boxes.
Never order the expensive dish on the menu when someone is treating you for lunch/dinner. If possible ask them to order their choice of food for you.
Don’t ask awkward questions like ‘Oh so you aren’t married yet?’ Or Why didn’t you buy a house?’ For god’s sake it isn’t your problem.
Always open the door for the person coming behind you. Doesn’t matter if it is a guy or a girl. You don’t grow small by treating someone well in public.
If you take a taxi with a friend, and he/she pays now, you pay next time.
Respect different political opinions.
Never interrupt people talking.
If you tease someone, and they don’t seem to enjoy it, stop it and never do it again.
Say “thank you” when someone is helping you.
Praise publicly. Criticize privately.
There’s almost never a reason to comment on someone’s weight. Just say, “You look fantastic.” If they want to talk about losing weight, they will.
When someone shows you a photo on their phone, don’t swipe left or right. You never know what’s next.
If a colleague tells you they have a doctors appointment, don’t ask what it’s for, just say hope you’re ok. If they want to talk about it they will and you don’t put them in the uncomfortable position of having to tell you their personal illness.
Treat the cleaner with the same respect as the CEO. Nobody is impressed at how rudely you can treat someone below you but people will notice if you treat them with respect.
If a person is speaking directly to you, staring at your phone is rude.
Never give advice until you’re asked
When meeting someone after a long time, unless they want to talk about it, don’t ask them their age and salary.
Mind your own business unless anything involves you directly — just stay out of it.
Take off your sunglasses if you are talking to anyone in the street. It is a sign of respect and more eye contact is as important as your speech.
So during college, I was visiting a small town, with my crappy car.
Of course, that means I broke down making a grocery run, and this old gentleman with worn out denim coveralls said he would call me a tow truck and have my car towed to the dealership.
Then I broke down because there was no way I had money for a tow let alone repairs. The old guy sat with me and calmed me down. He said the dealership was known to be reputable and would help me out of my jam.
Long story, but a couple days later I picked up my car and I went to pick up the car, having made arrangements to make payments.
They said there was no bill as Mr.Smith (not real name) had paid it. Then I realized the dealership was Smith Ford.
I Then went to get my car. Well they had totally detailed my car and even I could tell that I had new tires. I found a note on front seat saying pay it forward when I could.
They had done over 2,000 in repairs to a 500 dollar car. I can’t even list everything they did. But new tires all around, new brakes, oil change, filled gas tank, just to start.
Edit: Many people have asked if I have paid it forward. My wife and I have indeed done so, in many different forms over the years. We have been blessed, and consciously pay it back when we can.
Back in the day, I would periodically use hydrogen peroxide to clean my ears out. This was done by my family doctor and he recommended it along with soaking my head in a bathtub of warm water.
You see, I had a problem with excessive earwax fabrication. Oh, not a common problem for certain, but I had to maintain this particular issue with my body.
So one day, my ear got stuffed up, and when I tried my hydrogen peroxide solution, it only seemed to make things worse. Instead it got more and more clogged up. Indeed, for an entire month, my ear was caked full of earwax and I was at a loss as to what to do… not so serious to go to the doctor, it’s earwax after all, but serious enough to be a real problem personally…
…enter a business trip. I went and interviewed at a hot water heater company in Tennessee. And after the interview and meal, I went to the hotel. I drew a tub full of hot water and lay down to soak in it.
I soaked for a good hour, and then I held my breath and tried to blow the water out. And then it happened!
An explosion of earwax released, and many it was a sight to behold. Where the heck was all this earwax from? I don’t know, but I must have had globs and globs of the stuff. It was amazing!
Of course it ended up falling apart in the hot water, but you could tell, it was like thick honey that turned to slimy powder. Quite the experience, I’ll tell you what.
Here’s a LEGO Millennium Falcon, retail price $100:
image 163
Here’s another LEGO Millennium Falcon, retail price $7:
image 163
Back in 2004, scammer Bill Swanberg realized that Target, Walmart, and other stores sold both of these sets. Here’s what he’d do:
First, he went into a store, and bought both sets. Totally legitimately. He took the smaller one, and scanned in the barcode. Next, he re-sized it so that it would be the same size as the barcode of the larger set— and printed out gobs of them on glossy sticker paper.
Next, he’d bring a few with him into an unsuspecting store. He’d find the LARGE version of the LEGO Millennium Falcon, and cover up the barcode with one of his stickers of the SMALL set’s barcode.
Then, he’d trot up to the register, and the associate would ring them up. “Woah, this big set only costs $7.00?” “Yeah, it must be on sale, that’s why I grabbed it, LOL!” “Wow, nice find!”
Then he’d leave, remove the stickers carefully, and sell them online at a “discounted price” of, say, $50. Everyone online was amazed at the great deal, and lined up to buy them. They expected he got a great deal on them, but 50% off didn’t seem like it was all that suspicious.
He did this for quite a while— but gradually the various stores became aware that their inventory wasn’t lining up. Target noticed the pattern in 5 different states, and eventually had a security guard stop him in a store in Portland, Oregon, after he bought 10 copies of the same Millennium Falcon set. In his car, he had over $6000 of LEGO, as well as a laptop denoting other stores in the area that he planned to visit (or had already visited).
Upon review, Target alone estimated that he had resold over $200,000 worth of their merchandise— and that he had sold over $600,000 online for the past couple of years (much of it likely being from similar scams).
Why is China so afraid of asking for help when there is a virulent virus outbreak?
In 2008, a Richter Scale 8.0 earthquake shook the mountainous Sichuan province in China. When the dust settled, ~ 70,000 people were dead. ~ 20,000 people were missing, presumably dead. ~ 375,000 people were injured. ~ 5 million people were left homeless. It’s one of the greatest natural disasters in the twenty first century. The disaster was so great, that China immediately asked for help from the rest of the world.
The US government gave ~ $4.5 million in aid, plus a guy to the Beijing Earthquake Center to look at their data. So that’s what, 80 cents for each affected person?
The rest of the world pooled together ~ $450 million, plus some emergency supplies. Most of it came from China’s immediate neighbors.
The Chinese people donated $1.5 billion within the first 2 days.
The Chinese government gave the earthquake-stricken area $130 billion. 98% was spent in the first 3 years. 100,000 PLA troops rushed into the earthquake area within 2 days to help.
This was back in 2008, when China’s GDP per capita was only about ~ $3,500 a year. Now it’s over $10,000.
So I don’t think China is “afraid” of asking for help. They are realistic. They simply don’t expect to get much help. Something symbolic, maybe, which will be much appreciated, but they must do the heavy lifting themselves. Big countries must stand on their own two feet, because you really can’t expect a bunny to lift up a fallen elephant! The elephant needs to get up on its own. Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake – Wikipedia
No normal country should count on foreign aid to solve their problems.
In the current Coronavirus outbreak, China is mostly helping other countries: It isolated and published the sequence of this new virus, developed diagnostic kits and diagnostic protocols, and shared all these with the WHO and the world. It has put in border controls aimed at keeping infected people from going abroad. It publishes treatment protocols and regular updates as doctors discover and develop their knowledge of this disease. It has put 50+million people under quarantine. It is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the global management of this novel disease.
PS: The US gave Haiti $12 billion in aid after Haiti earthquake. 2010 Haiti earthquake
Haiti is right at America’s doorstep, and the American people are very generous towards Haiti. Today Haiti looks like this:
Turned out that a big chunk of that $12 billion was the US State Department writing checks to the US Department of Defense for sending 200 guys to Haiti to “provide security”. The rest mostly went to NGOs’ hotels, jeeps, salary, and “hardship pay”. It’s a legitimate question to ask if International Aid is really worth it, not only for the Chinese People, but also for the American People as well.
“USAID has spent about $1.5 billion since the earthquake,” Johnston told Goats & Soda. “Less than a penny of every dollar goes directly to a Haitian organization.”
Where I live anything that the courts could say was a trap was illegal. I had people cutting across my property to get to the river, the previous owner had just laid razor wire coils in the bush. If anyone had got hurt on it. I would have gone to jail. So I carefully pulled it all out and placed monster boulders everywhere. No one can say a boulder is a trap.
There was a guy who had a private road leading to his place. People kept tearing it up after it rained in their 4×4 , side x side, and atvs. He had no trespassing signs, and private road signs, and people ignored them. So he stretched a steel cable between two trees, with a padlock, so he could open it. He could only put up the cable where he had two big trees close enough to the road, to string it, and enough trees to stop them from driving around the make shift gate, so it was about 50 m up his road .
A teenage girl on an ATV drove by his private road and no trespassing signs, and got knocked off her quad by the rope. They sued the land owner and won. This is in Canada, rules might be different elsewhere.
A few years ago, when I was agonizing over my future career path, my dad told me to make a list of the things in life that make me happy.
Then, split the list into two categories.
The first category includes any type of happiness that you can feel instantaneously. Sipping hot chocolate on a chilly day. Hitting the snooze button to steal another five minutes of sleep. Binge-watching the new season of your favorite show.
The second category includes any type of happiness that takes a long time to appear and a long time to fade. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Mastering difficult skills. Building closer relationships with the people you love.
Some of the items in the first category, my dad explained, might clash with the items in the second. The more hot chocolate you consume, for example, the less nutritious your diet becomes.
But a few items in on your list, just a few, might actually fit into both categories. The best painters in the world obtain joy both from the instantaneous act of painting and from the ultimate goal of becoming a world-class artist. The best soccer players love being out on the field just as much as they love becoming better athletes.
Circle these items, these things that bring you both short-term happiness and long-term happiness.
These are the things that you can spend your life doing, and never feel like you’ve worked a day.
You ever been to a Mcdonalds where the manager is an ass and the employees have had enough of it?
I once went to a Mcdonalds that had a mass quit a few hours later. I went up to the counter and ordered a Mcchicken, a regular coke, a small fry and an ice cream cone.
They take my money and a few minutes later come back with my order, which is… heavier than normal. And my ice cream cone is a foot tall. And my coke is a large.
image 115
(It looked like this)
“Woops.” says the cashier. “Looks like we accidentally supersized your order.” she says with a wink. I could tell from the sarcastic tone that there was no accident about it.
I returned to my table and sat down, and noticed that my McChicken wasn’t alone, there was also a chicken select sandwich in there. I was a really, really poor kid at the time. The Mcydee’s dollar menu was a rare treat for me, and getting one of the main menu items was just amazing!
image 114
Definitely still my favorite Mcdubbers sandwich.
My ‘small fry’ took up an entire large fry box, and then there was about a large fry’s worth of loose fries in there. Like the entire bag was drowning in fried potato goodness.
So intentionally giving me a lot of extra food to spite your boss? That’s the strangest way my order’s ever been messed up. Part of me wished I had ordered more.
Edit: So Quora apparently thinks I need a credential to prove that I sometimes eat fast food and sometimes get my order messed up. This is what happens when you let an AI make decisions.
I knew my dad was a Bad Ass early in my youth. I didn’t realize how much of a Bad Ass he was until last spring. You see my father served in WWll with the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team in France and Italy. A segregated US Army regiment made up of Americans of Japanese ancestry from the US mainland and Hawaii. A large portion of these warriors came from “internment” (prison) camps from which their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and family were incarcerated. These guys had something to prove. We are AMERICANS! And prove it they did. For their valor the 100th Battalion/ 442nd Regimental Combat Team has been recognized as the most decorated unit in American history. The 100th Bn/ 442nd RCT earned more than 18,000 awards, including 9,500 Purple Hearts, 5,200 Bronze Star Medals, 588 Silver Stars, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 7 Distinguished Unit Citations, 21 Congressional Medal of Honor awards and the Congressional Gold Medal. Now that’s BAD ASS! My dad was gravely wounded in Italy and left to die on the battlefield as he was not believed to survive his wounds. When the burial detail came upon my father he was still alive and eventually recovered after a long convalescence. We know this story as it was told to my cousin by the soldier who found my father still alive. Unfortunately I never had the pleasure to meet his as he passed a few years ago. My father was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and other awards for his efforts. He was never better than 70% disabled and eventually upgraded to 100%. So I had the opportunity to travel to France and Italy last year on a tour that follows in the footsteps of these American heroes. I walked where they walked, saw the trenches whey they lay and climbed the slope’s and mountains that they climbed. But I did it in the daylight. They did it at night in the cover of darkness. These were the mountains near Carrara Italy. Impressive just to do this in daylight. Crazy to think it could be done at night! That’s when I knew how much of a BAD ASS my father and the Nisei warriors of the 100th Bn/ 442nd RCT were. I could not be more proud. R.I.P. dad. PFC Roy T. Tsutsui Co. F 442nd RCT
Whenever I was in public school, I had fairly good grades, I didn’t study much so it was crazy how good I was doing. This all lasted until 4th grade, whenever I got put in this horrible woman’s class. I was the kind of child to speak my mind and get SUPER excited about things. This woman (not calling her a teacher because she doesn’t DESERVE the title) did not LIKE that. She decided to target me specifically for her relentless bullying of literal infants. Anytime I would get excited about anything, she would tell me to flip my card (yknow, the stupid elementary punishment bullshit). Anytime I would do something that would be considered out of place in a classroom, she’d make me flip my card. She would rally my classmates to bully me too.
As the school year went on and the bullying from the woman and my classmates got worse, I started falling into a deeper pit of my own depression stemmed from the abandonment of my dad, over-protective (yet still somehow neglectful) mom, and the bullying I had to suffer at school. This made my grades drop HARD. Specifically in my math and science class, as I was not being properly taught by this woman.
Every time we would get to a new part of our science workbook, we would get given a science study guide that we had to fill out ourselves that she would then grade and fix whatever mistakes we had made. A month prior to the specific incident I’m about to tell you, my mom had noticed how bad my grades had dropped and made sure I studied (which did NOT help). She always made sure I had my study guides and stuff I got from school.
It was a regular school day for me, we had just gotten a new study guide that we were going to fill out. The woman decided to put us in pairs to do them so we could discuss the answers and stuff. She put me in a pair with the nicest girl in the class (picture the human incarnate of an excited golden retriever) and we began working on it. We finished around the same time the others did and submitted our papers. After we all finished, the woman started grading our papers. Whenever she had finished, she handed most of them out, but she held on to two of them, my friend and I’s. She waved them around in the air and said “THESE two don’t have any names… Oh well… Who wants to play 20 pickup?” and then ripped them to shreds and threw the remains on the floor. My friend and I were crushed (and fucking humiliated) as we both really needed those papers and here we were, watching our classmates pick up and fight over who could get the most pieces like it was some sort of game played at a birthday party.
A few minutes later, she picked up her copy of the study guide and said to us, “I’ve got one more left. I’m thinking of a number and whichever one of you can get closest to it wins the paper.”
I ended up winning and she gave it to me, which I instantly started working on. I figured she would want me to redo it as soon as she gave it to me. About a minute passed and she walked to my desk, swiped it from me and gave it to my friend saying that I “Wasn’t paying attention”. I felt like absolute shit the whole day.
My mom had asked me where my study guide was, and I told her what happened. She went on an absolute RAMPAGE.
Luckily the next parent-teacher conference was pretty soon after and she didn’t want to embarrass me by showing up to the school while my classmates were there. I don’t know exactly what happened during the meeting between her and my mom as I was sat outside the classroom. All that I know is that whenever the door opened, the woman looked pale and terrified and my mom had her classic murder look that she would get after laying heavily into someone.
She never told me what she had said or done, but that woman never dared to bother me again. She didn’t even like LOOKING at me. Anytime I did something she didn’t like, she would glare at me like I just killed her entire family and set her house on fire and reply something passive aggressive.
My mom ended up finding out that she had done this to other kids too at other schools. Pretty sure the bitch was on tenure though, so there wasn’t anything we could’ve really done.
I still see her around town though and she acts overly excited to see me. The first time I had seen her after I finished 4th grade, I was about 13 and was super socially anxious and had panic attacks whenever I was reminded of that experience, I was at the dollar store with my grandma and the woman came up to me and started talking, I of course was trying to keep my shit together and not start having a full blown panic attack so I was very quiet. She said “Aw, what’s wrong? Are you shy now?”, all of my fear was replaced with rage and I had to stop myself from giving her the sickest right hook of her life. I regret not doing it while I was still a kid and wouldn’t have had very many repercussions for it.
SO, I’m not going to name-drop her, as I’m pretty sure that’s illegal, but I will say that if you live in or are planning on moving to Sabine parish, LISTEN to your kids if they tell you about bullying from their classmates or any of the school staff. Hell, do that even if you DON’T live in this area.
Burkina Faso’s President Has Good News for Africa but Very Bad News for the West
My parents started middle class and worked their way to the 1%.
It isn’t this huge party. But there are some basic things you don’t worry about as much.
It is weird because I didn’t grow up wealthy at all. And had a strict-as-hell dad.
At some point after I left home, things really ramped up. My dad left the military and became a high ranking exec with SAP.
My mom started a vineyard at their farm. And sold off a lot of great real estate investments she’d made over the years.
But you would never know it if you bumped into them at the store or something. They have very humble personalities. If you went to their home however..
image 113image 112
When I wake up in the morning in their guest room I get to enjoy a view like this:
image 111
When I visit they spend most of their time working around the house and on the farm. We don’t really sit still much. And even when we are it is because we are working on something. We are worker-bees.
Also, I think everyone has a misconception as to how wealthy the top 1% is. 10 years ago, even I had the impression that 1%ers don’t work hard and take 9 vacations a year. I think it is just different if you started small and got there in your middle age and have kids.
At that point, you are more concerned with managing everything and making sure your kids are doing OK.
(Maybe that it is .01 percenters that do all that laying around by the pool…)
Either way I love visiting my parents, but every time I get home here in Florida my house feels really really small! 🙂
My last name is Warehouse, just like the building. This has led to lots of interesting things, like getting calls at my work about finding things at our district warehouse or getting my account banned on Quora back when they cared if you used a fake name. It also means I get weird deliveries.
One day a big cardboard box showed up addressed to my wife, so I left it on the table without really looking at it. A few days later it was still untouched, so I asked her why she hadn’t opened it yet.
“That’s not mine, it’s got sports stuff all over it.”
And it did! Now that I looked, the box clearly had a Nike logo on it. And on closer inspection, its address tag was a mess. There was a weird poorly printed label that said “redirect” that had my wife’s name and our address in California on it, slapped over a very official looking original label that said the box was bound for a warehouse in New Jersey.
And that’s how I ended up with a bow of 24 pairs of XXL Nike football gloves meant for the New York giants.
In 1981 I worked as a computer operator for a company, then owned by Tex Schramm (owner of the Dallas Cowboys). There was a young woman, from a well to do family and graduate of Radford, working there. She was really into women’s lib.
There was also an older gentleman, long past the possible retirement age. One day I was in the lobby as the young woman, who I had recently begun dating, was ready to leave. The older gentleman was leaving, and held the door for her.
She lit into him. “Just because I’m a lady, you don’t have to hold the door for me.”
The response: “My dear Joanne, I do not hold the door for you because you are a lady. That would be presumptuous of me. I hold the door for you because I am a gentleman.”
In my second year at my current job, a lady was hired to replace my senior who had resigned.
The job was in a public office and for the most part was quite easy going. Somebody off the streets could learn the essentials in just a few hours.
The lady who came had seniority and several years more experience than me working at a different branch. I therefore expected her to have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with me.
‘How does this work again?’
‘Did I do this right?’
‘How about you be the one to do that? You’re so good at it.’
‘Can you show me how to do (such-and-such) again?’
The lady transferred from a location that had the exact same type of system and technology as mine yet she had not a clue how to do anything!
How was this woman in a senior position? She didn’t know anything about the job. Was she dumb?
A week of ‘training’ had passed and she didn’t really learn anything and had to be supervised at all times. Before I could find out how it was that she was so slow she suddenly vanished.
She stopped turning up at work and calls to her phone went unanswered. I sent an email to HR explaining that she had gone AWOL. They gave some half-assed reply. A few months later, after she had long been forgotten, I get a frantic letter from HR saying that they have been paying her salary and they’ve just become aware that she has not been turning up to work.
‘No shit,’ I say in my mind.
HR investigates and finds out that she had accepted another job elsewhere the entire time and was gladly accepting two salaries. HR demanded that she return the unearned salary. She said she would but she was going through financial distress at the moment.
She never returned a cent. HR washed their hands of the matter and kept it hush hush.
Turns out she wasn’t dumb at all.
So my answer to the question ‘what sets off red flags on an employee’s first day?’
When I was small, my parents sent me to my grandparents (who lived in a rural area) every summer so they could look after me when school was out.
My grandpa was born late 191x or early 192x – even he didn’t remember exactly.
When I was 6 years old, I started going to elementary school which started to have summer assignments. So, when my parents sent me to my grandparents for the “vacation”, I brought my textbooks and books with me to study. One day, I remember, I brought a book to my grandpa and asked him for some help with my summer homework. He smiled, “Oh, sweetie, I can’t help you with that!”. “Why?!?!”, I was surprised, he’d never said “No” to me. A second of hesitation, then he said, “I don’t know how to read”
It didn’t make sense to my 6-year-old me; but later, when I grew up, I knew, it was the result of war and poverty, my grandpa never went to school.
Anyway, “But you know EVERYTHING!”, the little me was shocked and questioned him. He stroked my hair, “Ah, I just don’t know how to read texts in the book. I can read other things. I can read leaves to know their trees. I can read the soil to know what I need to do to get more produces. I can read the river to know if it’s safe to go down and play. I can read the night sky to know if tomorrow it will be rain or shine”, he explained to me.
A light bulb went off in my head; he taught me to ‘read’ some of those things, why didn’t I teach him to read texts? So, I offered him, “Do you want to study with me, grandpa?”.
So, I started to be his ‘teacher’. I taught him a, b, c. He studied, then forgot everything in the next summer because he didn’t use it frequently enough; so I had to teach him again.
I taught him to read, every summer, until he passed away.
I have had a number of jobs in my time. I’ve been a framing carpenter, finish carpenter, furniture maker, the army, and being in the office in the construction industry as a project manager for the last 16 years.
Working in the trades can indeed be very lucrative, and I know a number of plumbers and welders that do significantly better than me financially, but from someone that has worked in the trades and in the corporate office, there are a lot of benefits of the office world that help pull people away from going into the trades.
The first is simply being warm when it’s cold, dry when it’s raining and cool when it is hot. It’s pretty tough going to work everyday to be freezing cold all day or burning up hot. Secondly, you can do stuff after work without needing to take a shower or change clothes first. Third, you don’t beat up your body so much working in an office. I’m 47 so still well short of retirement age and I really can’t imagine doing the type of work I did in my 20’s all day, every day. That was tough work and I got injured a lot and had to just suck it up and work through it. Injuries these days take a lot longer to heal too.
Occasionally I get all nostalgic about walking floor joists 30 feet up with a 16ft 2×8 on my shoulder, then I’ll have a flashback to what that actually feels like doing it every day and appreciate very much my AC and roof and clean clothes. My nostalgia forgets doing that same joist walk with feet numb from the cold, or sweat in my eyes or a lingering injury.
The trades are good, solid, well paying professions, but if you have any other alternatives they are definitely a young person’s game. The people I see my age still working in the trades (doing the work, not management like me) are physically beaten down for the most part with bad backs, bad knees, and a collection of scars that make anyone take notice.
The Duran: Neocons want WAR in Middle East and Israel, the US will LOSE Big
https://youtu.be/k8AHFfv-pA4
Serbian Skillet Pork (Muckalica — Yugoslavia)
Muckalica
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
3 medium onions, sliced
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 medium green bell pepper, cut into strips
2 ounces feta cheese, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
Hot cooked rice
Instructions
Trim fat from pork. Cut pork into 1/2-inch slices; cut slices into 1/2-inch strips. Heat oil in skillet until hot. Cook and stir pork in oil over medium heat until brown, about 15 minutes; drain. Add water, onions, tomato, salt, paprika, pepper and red pepper. Cover and simmer until pork is tender, about 30 minutes, adding water if necessary.
Add green pepper. Cover and simmer until green pepper is crisp-tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Top with cheese.
When I was about 21 or 22, I worked for this remodeling contractor. My dad does remodels and has rental properties, and I’ve always been a DIY type of guy, so I learned young and had about 10 years of experience at the time. Anyway, one day I was at work, and the boss nor the crew lead could figure out how to solve a problem with some vinyl flooring and the customer was there watching them for a good half hour or so. I repeatedly tried to make suggestions but just kept getting ignored. Finally I just stepped up and tried something and it worked. The next day the owner told me that work was slow and he didn’t need me to come in. That same afternoon he called me and let me go due to “not having the quality of work that his company is known for”. I’m sure he was just upset that I made him look like an ass in front of a customer. Anyway, fast forward to a week later, this customer had a family member that was also gonna get some work done by the same company. The previous customer gave the family member my Facebook info and she contacted me and asked if I could do a job for her. About 3 days in, my old boss came and the look on his face when he saw me doing the job he came to bid for was priceless.
1. Don’t call someone more than twice continuously. If they don’t pick up your call that mean they have something more important to attend to.
2. When someone drops something on the floor by mistake or drops food from the plate or doesn’t know how to use a knife/fork don’t stare at them. The same goes to people sneezing, coughing or even an uncontrollable fart. It’s an involuntary reaction.
3. Always skip using the washroom beside the occupied one. It makes it uneasy for the person in the occupied washroom as well as yourself if you occupy the one right next to theirs.
4. If you’re talking to someone and notice any of the following, they’re trying to end the conversation:
Their eyes keep darting away.
They angle their body away from you.
They give you rapid one-word answers.
5. When someone you know has an obvious change in appearance, e.g., weight gain/loss, bald spot, acne. never comment on it until they talk about it to you, they already know what is happened to them.
6. If a colleague tells you they have a doctors appointment, don’t ask what it’s for, just say hope you’re ok. If they want to talk about it they will and you don’t put them in the uncomfortable position of having to tell you their personal illness.
7. Treat the cleaner with the same respect as the CEO. Nobody is impressed at how rudely you can treat someone below you but people will notice if you treat them with respect.
8. Do not make plans in front of those you are not involving.
9. When meeting someone after a long time, unless they want to talk about it, don’t ask them their age and salary.
10. When a friend/colleague offers you some food, you can politely say No. But, don’t do this after tasting or smelling it. It’s an insult to the one who has offered it to you.
This is John Eisenman. He lost his daughter to s-exual trafficking. She was sold for $1,000 in Seattle Washington. He did what a father should do and researched, investigated and found out about her abduction. He RESCUED her HIMSELF. He found out the person who sold her into trafficking was her 19 year old boyfriend. He met up with him, abducted him, bludgeoned and stabbed him to death in Nov, 2020. The authorities found him [dead AF boyfriend] in Oct 2021 in the trunk of the car he abandoned. John Eisenman sits in jail knowing his daughter is safe and growing up after he has already lived 60 years of his life. I bet you, he rests easy. Live your life to the fullest. He did his absolute best to make sure his child have the opportunity to do the same no matter what the sacrifice.
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My POV:- I think justice can’t be black or white, it’s a greyish territory. I’m not a supporter of taking revenge but rather law doing the job. Although, we all know how deeply fukced up is our law and order.
The decade of the 1950s was the time of my well-remembered childhood. Some of the memorable un-nice features follow:
Coal shuttles in basement windows to fill the coal bins for the furnace that kept you alive in subzero weather. The loud roaring rattle of the coal can never be forgotten. My wife grew up in destroyed Berlin where the kids snuck onto the train tracks to steal coal for cooking and winter heat, especially before 1950.
Ice trucks for the “ice box,” which was the refrigerator of the day. Great fun to persuade the iceman to chip you a sliver (possibly unsanitary) in the steaming summer.
Raking and burning leaves either in the curb or in our own home trash bin (a large ugly concrete “bathtub” for burning all wastes) beside the separated garage.
After we graduated from paying marbles on the sidewalks, the never-forgotten aroma of the lightly powdered flat bubble gum accompanying Topps baseball cards used for flip-card contests. Still remember the rules.
Friends and relatives died a lot. Lost a cousin to polio despite her father being chief of staff of the largest hospital in St. Louis. Lost two more to a house fire and others to asthma. I narrowly avoided rheumatic fever and a close call with total vision loss from measles. Number 1 brother developed Type 1 diabetes, but that was hereditary (skips a generation); lasted a LONG time.
Turning on the lights to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night and watching hundreds of roaches scurry across the floor into the corners and cracks.
Sticky asphalt from the tarred streets that would permanently ruin any carpet in a snooty home.
Kids (and adults) hitch-hiked. I hitch-hiked regularly many miles to high school and college and back rather than take buses with long cold/hot waits and transfers. Just after the 50s, noticed how remarkably easier it was to hitch a ride when in my ROTC uniform.
Teenagers still in school who had never worked had no vote in national elections.
No air conditioning. Vornado floor fans, window fans blowing over block of ice, or car rides with windows open down to “Cool Valley” (yes, a real town) a low-altitude area with much lower temperatures were our only options when temperatures soared far over 100 degrees and humidity was ~80%.
Construction sites were wonderful if dangerous playgrounds for kids. Unsafe, with nails sticking out, deep ditches and holes to avoid. Taught caution and the value of tetanus shots. Learned aromas like the smell of wet concrete, rebar, freshly cut wood; mountains of dirt for King of the Hill games, playing “war” with wooden toy 1904 Springfield rifles in literal miles of dug-up ground for the interstate highways.
Homes and office buildings were insulated with asbestos, long before attorneys and asbestos-removal firms became millionaires from it.
Local stenches were many and varied. Worst were from the fish processing plants and cattle/pig stockyards, with the “nicest” smells being chemical fumes from riverside plants.
Working on the USS Admiral, was required to check for “floaters” under the port paddlewheel every morning by opening the trash slot over the water.
Learned to water-ski on the turd-filled muddy Mississippi.
US Army chemical warfare testers sprayed my hometown with zinc cadmium sulfide, a fluorescent additive of some kind and a possibly radioactive agent to secretly study possible bio/chem weapon vectors … later explained “to protect us from potential Soviet attack”.
Nearby communities (Weldon Spring, West Lake and Berkeley … but not CA) were being contaminated by toxic waste buried by one of my future employers after they processed the uranium for the first nuclear weapons. Not done on my watch; however, as an adult I did work at a number of the other tainted sites: their original chemical plant and their radiological branch.
Cap guns: actual gunpowder explosives were loaded in a tight roll to be fired by your Lone Ranger or Cisco Kid cap gun. Bangs and sparks with gunpowder’s sulpuric stench …
Bows and arrows (with real points).
Jungle gyms were tall blocks of hard unadorned steel pipes over bare dirt dusty in summer and frozen in winter.
Complete and utter obedience to our family’s Commanding Officer who actually posted duty rosters for my 4 siblings (girl was exempted) which I was required to enforce as senior NCO.
Amused myself by playing war battle games with bottlecaps. Falstaff, Budweiser and a few Stag … strewn from the six-pack dad chugged every night. Didn’t realize he was a drunk until years later.
Black and white TV with the Indian-head test pattern after midnight when all stations went “off the air.”
TV showed stereotypical characters in every show like: the Howdy Doody Show; Kukla, Fran & Ollie; Texas Bruce’s Wranglers’ Club; Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, Zorro, etc.
Friday night fights: boxing matches every weekend.
Racism was acknowledged but not celebrated. Had black school/playmates (parochial school) and babysitters who all lived in a nearby section of the city.
Racial mockery was the basis of much TV/radio humor. Amos & Andy on the radio, Milton Berle’s burlesque schticks, Pat & Mike Irish insults, Sid Caesar’s fake Japanese babble, Jose Jimenez jibes at Mexicans on the Steve Allen Show … don’t remember German accents being considered “funny” until Hogan’s Heroes.
Classmate who later became a Japanese citizen used to play records advocating anti-Communism from John Birch (didn’t know of his Society then). Nothing mean or nasty that I remember from those lectures but quite un-PC now, I guess.
BB guns: never permitted in our home, with 4 boy, 1 girl; but vet dad built us an actual shooting range for my 13th birthday present, a .22 bolt-action Winchester … a literal deep sandbox at one end of the basement under a steel sheet canted at a 45 degree angle. Access controlled by dad, of course.
Joined my school’s rifle club in 1959 when they (not me) won the national championship with open sight .22s mounted on Garand 30–30 war surplus stocks. Kids shot rifles as a matter of indifference. Safely too, because safety was taught, responsibility was demanded … and disobedience was both unthinkable and unacceptable.
History will one day see how the U.S., its dog nations, the EU, its fellow colonialists and native slaughtering nations and its slave nations, treatment of China. Is a modern version of African slavery, Nazi Crimes, barbaric colonialism by the Europeans and the Savage rape and murder of Nanking!
How do they treat China and the Chinese race. Terrible, obnoxious and despicable. What more to say! Slurring at every turn, blindly accusing China without facts, evidence and proof calling them copy cats, stealing intellectual property, cheating, for being aggressive and threatening nations, genocide that never happen, causing Covid! All are no different from the Nazi blaming of the Jews!
Just backed by a pack of lies. And using coercion and bribery to get a dissident or two to cast doubt on China! If you are one of the group I single out please stop being a pawn or a parrot in these fake news. China won’t yield to these ludicrousness and shameful act of throwing shit!
To me you can accuse China of not bordering about its cosmetic cover up of its desire to ensure that the century of humiliation can never happen again and that it will do everything in its power to get back it’s rightful place in history. Remember how thousands of black people are wrongly accused by the white people for all sorts of thing and them lynch them!
History will show the truth that the U.S. and the west are doing the same to the Chinese. Sure without the lynching!
I owned a flying school and had a receptionist who was good with the customers.
One day I got a phone call at about 4PM from a student asking why we had shut early. I assured him we hadn’t as we had people flying till 7 that night. He told me he was standing outside and the doors were locked.
When I came in next day I checked CCTV and sure enough she had locked up at 3:30 whilst people were still flying. She returned at just before 5:30. I checked the day before and the same thing had happened. She locked up at 3:30 and returned at 5:30. It was near the end of the month so I waited till the end of the month to see what hours she had claimed for.
I also called a government employer hotline that is set up in the UK to give free help and advice. After explaining the situation they told me she was in breach of her contract, and it was gross misconduct which is a sackable offence. They said she was “stealing time” from me. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt so I decided to listen to her before I took action. The helpline advised that if her answers weren’t agreeable then I should suspend her on full pay whilst I investigated.
Sure enough she had claimed for her full allowance on her payslip so I called her into my office to explain herself. She claimed to have “forgotten” to take it off her hours worked. I was more concerned about leaving the building unattended whilst we had students still flying. What happened if we had an emergency? She refused to answer me so I was left with no option but to suspend her.
I studied the CCTV for previous 30 days and she had done it for almost 50% of her shifts! Despite this I didn’t want to lose her, the students loved her.
So I invited her back for a formal interview and offered to allow her to bring a witness. She declined the representation. I explained that the interview was being recorded and I had my solicitor on speaker phone to listen and ensure we both were acting within the law. It was to protect both of us.
I asked her for her reasons and she said that she had been visiting her boyfriend and having lunch together. He was an instructor pilot for me but had never left mid-shift. I then explained about why it was wrong to leave the premises whilst we still had aircraft in the air. She just shrugged her shoulders. I asked her to wait outside whilst I spoke to my legal adviser.
Truth be told I couldn’t afford to lose her. I had previously told the helpline that and they recommended “based on my explanation” that I give her a final written warning. This should be enough to make her realise it was wrong. I decided to go down this route.
After 5 minutes I invited her back into the room to give her the final written warning and a good explanation why this was happening. As I said to her “Thank you for your patience,” she replied, “Are you really doing this?”
“I am.”
Then she erupted! Quite a verbal assault against me! Then she pulled out an envelope and handed it to me saying, “I can’t believe you have blown this out of proportion, here is my 30 days notice, and as you owe me some holidays I will be taking them so I don’t have to work with you any more.”
I just calmly said, “Don’t worry about the 30 days notice, you won’t need it because I’m letting you go for gross misconduct!”
*screaming at me*“YOU CANT DO THAT!”
*a tiny voice on the telephone*”Yes he can, you stole from him and he is within his rights to terminate your contract with immediate effect and without compensation. Now if I was you I would leave quietly or Mr Savage could have the police involved for theft.”
A week later I received a letter asking for a reference as she had found a new job!
While writing this answer, I called my wife (I’m at work) and asked her to send me the photo of this knife from our kitchen. I hate using it, especially while cutting soft veggies. It is dull, useless and cheap-ass piece of cutlery. I bought it for $0.50.
With a kitchen knife exactly like this one shown in the picture.
I was going to work, when I came across a domestic street brawl. Men and women screaming, abusing and beating each other. I remember a wooden ladle in action too.
It was too awkward for me not to do something. I had no cellphone back then as it was too expensive and uncommon.
I tried calming them down with help of a few neighbors.
And during that peaceful effort… a young man out of nowhere attacked me with this kitchen knife. The swing was so swift and forceful that it scared me if this connects at all. I tried to grab his hand but the knife pierced my palm and popped out from back of my wrist.
Now I wish to stress couple of issues here.
A knife is a knife and it does not matter if it is big, small, sharp, dull, scary or funny looking. When used with intentions to inflict damage… it will damage the body inflicting stab and slash wounds, and might very well cause fatality.
And even more importantly…
This was quite a harmless bout, typical domestic quarrel between two neighboring families that usually just ends up with them receiving a bruise here and there, a noisy chest thumping exercise for the most part that goes around here over stupid disagreements.
Still…the moment I saw that guy approaching me with knife, his glowered and gloomy expressions alarmed me of imminent danger, I understood this is not just a warning… this guy wants to hurt me. To anyone else, he might not seem to be posing a palpable peril towards the cop but I as a cop perceived the incoming.
I was unarmed; I could not protect myself intelligently.
What if I was armed that day? To whom do I look up for the use of deadly force authorization?
That’s no one else’s but my decision to make.
It is my judgment call even if it is objective or weak in other’s opinion. If I have reasons to believe the person is a threat and warnings don’t serve the purpose, I have to neutralize the threat. I don’t want to hurt anyone; that’s the last and the most distasteful option for any cop in all sincerity. But at the same time, I want to protect myself and others with my best effort and ability.
I assure you, it could have been a fatal blow.
The department would have lost one of theirs, my mother would have gone crazy upon hearing of this news. All of this because of someone’s absurd, idiotic and senseless aggression.
I don’t deserve that.
No cop deserves that.
So in my opinion, if a knife-wielding person advances towards the cop and chooses to ignore the warnings – and sends an apprehension that he actually might attack the cop –
I’d consider that a legitimate threat.
And using deadly force to neutralize that threat is justifiable legally and morally.
We were married in Las Vegas over a weekend, never had a honeymoon, and it appears there wouldn’t be much romance or emotion, which appeared to suit both of us fine.
My life goals had always been to earn as many degrees as possible and to have a significant career. When my husband said he wanted to apply to law school, I stuck around to find out what would be happening.
On our fifth wedding anniversary, I was working on my masters’ degree and pregnant – not in my life goals, but I was accepting of the situation. We were both graduate students, living off student loans with no money for anything.
When I woke on our anniversary day, my husband presented me with a six page long poem he had been writing for days. He called it “FANGS for the memories.” The poem was written in the cadence of the song “Thanks for the memories” which would have been way too sentimental for either of us.
It’s been 45 years later and I still have not only that poem but also the poem he wrote on our 10th anniversary.
This past year we celebrated our 50th anniversary and not one celebration. But I do have two amazing sentimental and romantic poems to read and reread over and over – I will never forget those!
My camping experiences have uniformly been terrible. No matter what year it is, who I am with, or what my age is… it doesn’t matter what season, time of the year or whatever… it always rained.
Rain
And that meant, yeah you guessed it, sleeping in the rain, wet, cold, freezing with no real sleep and eventually waking up to a cold gloomy grey morning before everyone else does.
Sigh.
Never the less, I have romanticized the idea of camping. I imagine how great it would be to merge my “keg parties” and late-night bonfires with the idea of sleeping comfortably nearby.
kegger
My bother has become adept at it and loves to hike in the Colorado mountains with his wife and huskies. Which, by the way, they love all the snow.
camping in colorado
It’s could out, I know (if you are in the Northern climes), but if you are in Australia, it just might be perfect camping weather. I just cannot imagine it gets snowy, just temperate at night. But, honestly, I’d be afraid to sleep there in the brush. The snakes (I hear) are quite deadly, as are the spiders… the toads… the beatles… the ants… and you are apt to run into a wild herd of wallabies. Yikes!
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I’ve seen the you-tube videos… frightening!
Snakes, critters with strange names, and frogs that re inside out and just don’t die. Burrrrr!
But if you are the brave sort, as most Aussies are, going out into the brush is just as normal as downing a pint. A natural part of the ebb and flow of life.
Ah. One day. One day.
camping in the outback
Sounds great… if you have a local to keep you out of trouble, but I have to tell you all what…
You won’t be able to get me to drink beer out of a stinky old shoe. No way!
Let me help you guys unpacked how Trump fxxked up Apple. Yes he fxxked up Apple one of the world’s most admirable company.
Step one. Trump and later Biden thought that they can fxxked up Huawei and China. They both didn’t. Expect China and Huawei to survive! Let alone excel. Well they don’t know mathematics for a start. A billion and a half Chinese including me a Chinese origin turn around and patriotically chose Huawei over Apple! And poor Apple got fxxked up! For no reason but just bad politics by their racist government!
One they and their contract manufacturer Foxconn switch just 5% of their manufacturing to India and they both got fxxked up badly. The failure if Apple Phone 15 made in India is so high it lost all trust on their customers. Now Foxconn wants our right away! But India says not so fast. And Apple brand name is already thoroughly fxxked! In Asia the Apple users insist it has to be MADE IN CHINA!
But that is a smaller problem. Now let me introduce you guys a great lesson that doing shit don’t pay! China and Huawei took a mere 3 short years to do what the U.S. thought China has to take at least 30 years! And it actually made a phone better, faster, cheaper than iPhone! Plus a billion people on earth wanting to show displeasure at US and Trump and Biden shit! In January 2024 they decide to teach the west a lesson! Try imagining a perfect storm!
That is what the US is facing. It’s own products are fxxked up, its shit is not working yet it spends billions if not trillions to coerce and bribing nations and companies to do shit! That is the real USA today!
And let me help you. You ain’t seen nothing yet! Decoupling or de-risking from China is the last thing you ought to do!
Nope, the underlying problem reminds the same. US strategists feel they must retain US hegemony and its rules based world order in order to thrive. And Russia/China refuses to accept those rules not supported by the UN Charter.
2023 was a year, US officials feels they must moderate their confrontation with China due to negative headwinds from a losing fight in Ukraine war, a uniting global South dedollarising fast and near record inflation from years of Tbill printing. They fear Chinese aggressive selling of Tbills will worsen the US inflation and Tbill printing situation only. Nothing has changed.
China on the other hand has fears that an over intense US China confrontation can worsen global demand and that can complicate the delicate balance they have in sustaining the Chinese economy without HUGE STIMULUS. China is still preparing to retake Taiwan, and there are still key steps needed including doubling nuke deterrence, training PLA personnel with so many new toys, supplies and economy in case of sanctions. Plenty to do in next few years. So, China is also receptive to moderating tension while work continues.
So, this is a tactical pause only, the strategic picture has not changed at all. USA is hoping to unite West to win, and Russia/China is hoping to unite the global South to push a new world order. And to dedollarise under BRICS+ (BRICS Pay) to burst the US Tbill bubble. THAT IS STILL THE GLOBAL BIG PICTURE, THIS IS A FIGHT FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER.
I invited a very close friend with her sons to come for Christmas dinner. I was a single mom, and so was she. I invited a few other single parents too. Christmas can be a challenge for singles.
I was cooking up a storm all day. I made a lot — she had 2 sons who were big kids and big eaters. She had promised to come this time. The year before she had canceled the day before. My “friend” called an hour before dinner to tell me that she had gotten “a better offer” and wasn’t coming to dinner. (In case you’re wondering, I’m an excellent cook.) I couldn’t believe she was so rude. Plus, she waited so late — I ended up with way too much food left over.
You won’t believe this, but when the next holiday came, she hinted that she wanted to be invited. This happened for years after, but I never, ever invited her for a holiday meal again.
Don’t know how clever it was, but a client of mine had been picked up because he was in a minor accident and had an open container of beer with him. When the cops were taking him to the station, they asked him whether he wanted a breath test or a blood test (Colorado law gave the accused the choice, after which no change was allowed). He opted for a blood test, but explained that he was Russian and had ‘fat skin’ (his term); they’d need a doctor to draw the blood. He was told ‘Paramedics are what we have and paramedics are what you get.’
He sat there patiently while the paramedics stuck him about seven times, never able to draw blood. Finally losing patience, the cop with him told him he was getting a breath test, and my client refused to participate.
Under implied consent, they charged him with DUI and called him an ambulance (he’d suffered minor injuries in the crash. Nothing to make the delay over the testing any issue). The paramedic in the ambulance set an IV with no problems (of course, nobody tried to get blood then) and took him to the hospital.
When we got into court, I got the cop on the stand to agree to the main points, i.e. that the accused had opted for a blood test, he’d been patient while repeated attempts were made to draw blood and that the police then demanded the breath test, which he refused. No problem; the cop admitted each point. I then turned to the judge and said (approximately; it’s been twenty-five years or more), “Your honor, the law prevents the accused from changing his mind after he’s made his choice. If he can’t change his mind, the police can’t do it for him.” Then I shut up.
The judge thought about that for all of about a minute before dismissing the case.
My eldest daughter went into IT in my footsteps. I was so very proud of her when she got a chance to join a start-up that ended up being wildly successful. One of the founders was a bit of an arrogant little prick. One Sunday my daughter was over for dinner and we were talking shop. I asked how it was going, and she said fine except for little prick. She volunteered that the crew had found out he had two panic points. He was deathly afraid of both little people (dwarves/midgets) and scared shitless of clowns. I duly noted both. April 1 was coming fast so good old dad got busy and found…drumroll please….a midget clown stripper. Sent her into the business during lunch on April 1. Daughter said little prick screamed like a girl and ran out of the building. Didn’t return for two days. Everyone said it was the best practical joke they’d ever seen.
Originally Answered: What is the furthest you’ve seen somebody reach to be offended at something?
A few months ago I was in my local Home Hardware picking up tools – a pack of blades, some feeler gauges, etc. Sometimes I forget to put my tools back into the toolbox and they tend to…go for a walk.
While I was there, I noticed a woman and a girl in her late teens staring bemusedly at the long racks of tools. The woman had a list in her hands, and was dubiously looking at the endless choices.
Not at all hard to see what was happening; I’ve seen it dozens of times. Once, a long time ago, the woman was the friend that had taken me in after I had left my mother.
When a young person joins a technical Trade, he/she is expected to arrive at training with the required tools for the job. Parents will often gift the tools to their kids – since a basic entry-level tool collection costs easily $200* it’s a good way for parents to support their kids.
(*That swells – fast. My current toolbox is worth – at an estimate – about six to seven thousand dollars. I have two or three instruments that are worth twice that each; though in those cases the Company reimbursed me for those purchases.)
Quality tools cost – but cheap tools cost far more in the long run.)
I knew what was going on, so I drifted close as the women were looking at the hammers. “This one looks nice?” the woman was saying.
I introduced myself, and offered my help. I learned that I was right – the lady’s daughter had been hired by a factory and was following the millwright trade.
Excellent! Millwright is a superb trade; solid machinery and repair skills. The ability to understand and repair anything mechanical is a valuable ability. I cannot recommend the Millwright trade highly enough.
Every trade needs bright new apprentices and every apprentice should have generous parents willing to help.
I looked at the cheap rubber-handled claw-hammer the woman was looking at and shook my head. It looked like this:
image 480
These are fine for home use. But not what the lass needed. I pointed out the problems with the rubber grip: with regular use it raises blisters. It’s not well balanced; it’s not heavy enough to be truly efficient.
While I’m no millwright I AM a Journeyman Pressman and I repair, maintain and adjust my printing presses to a high degree of competence and know what the list meant when it said “hammer”. I show the lady this instead:
image 479
Simple, solid, reliable. It will never slip, it will never bind, it will never raise blisters. When holding it at the balance point this hammer will do an excellent job and be an extension of the young woman’s hand. (Using a hammer takes skill.) When covered in oil, in grease and filthy, this hammer will ALWAYS do exactly what you want. THIS is the hammer the lass needs – and the one that the lady hadn’t been looking at because the coloured rubber handles of the others looked better.
EDIT: A Journeyman carpenter commented that I was wrong in this particular point: using a rubber-handled does not raise blisters if it’s used correctly. Thanks for the correction; I’m glad to learn something new.
Down the list: Allen keys.
The lady looked at a set of chromed Allen keys. They looked great – and were expensive as Hell. I guided her away from them, and pointed to cheaper, solid ball-end keys instead.
image 478
(These look great.)
image 477
(THESE work!)
By this time, one of the red-shirted salespeople had joined us. She was in her late 40’s, blonde, and had the easy confidence of someone who really knew their trade. It doesn’t take much for one Journeyman to recognize another. (As a side note, Home Hardware hires a LOT of Journeyman-status salespeople. The red-shirted people selling tools and lumber often REALLY know what the hell they’re talking about.)
I smiled and bowed out – this was the Journeyman’s job.
The next item on the list was a wrench set. Wrenches are the stock in trade of any machine operator and it’s best to get a good set.
The red-shirted Millwright (I learned her status later when chatting) offered a pack I was uncertain of. I shrugged, offered my opinion and pointed out the one I would suggest.
At that point the daughter – who the tools were for – turned around and angrily told me to butt out. The woman would help them, thanks.
The mother agreed, and told me to shut up. She was DONE with ‘mansplaining’ and told me that I was just helping them to bolster my fragile male Ego. They would do VERY well without me.
The look that went across my face could best be described as a ‘very thin smile’.
At which point the red-shirted woman rounded on the lass and asked her if she wanted a career in the Trades. The teenager shrugged.
At which point the Millwright pointed out if the girl ever hoped to earn her Red Seals, she would have to learn that when a Journeyman speaks, apprentices shut the hell up and listen.
The girl was shocked into silence and I compared notes with my fellow Journeyman. I pointed out the value of the other set of wrenches. The woman agreed, but pointed out a few issues I hadn’t realized – I quickly agreed the set she suggested were the best. (I’ve since bought a set of those wrenches. They’re AMAZING and if it wasn’t for that Millwright, I’d never have realized it.)
I tried to help – and because I was a ‘guy’ I was ‘mansplaining’ – when the female Journeyman showed up.
It didn’t bother me at all – I’ve seen so many Apprentices fall by the wayside that one more failure doesn’t affect me in the slightest. I just thought it was neat that this girl just entering the Trade got a wake-up call:
The Trades don’t give one CRAP about your gender. They only care about your skill, and you are only EVER as good as your last work.
This project is led by retired US Air Force Colonel Raymond Powell, in collaboration with counterparts from the Philippine Coast Guard and some officials from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. They plan, strategize, and execute this project, engaging in confrontations, provocations, and standoffs with the China Coast Guard.
According to Project Myoushu’s claim, it “seeks to develop more effective tools to shine a light into the gray zone of China’s maritime coercion strategy.” Powell occasionally releases satellite images and trajectory maps of Chinese fishing vessels and government ships. All of this is done intentionally to create a tense situation in the South China Sea region, particularly in disputed areas between the Philippines and China, such as Huangyan Island or Ren’ai Reef.
image 45
It is a good thing that China uses large ships and vessels. The numerical and scale advantage of the Chinese Coast Guard actually helps to avoid more serious confrontations, as fleet conflicts would be more imminent if both sides were evenly matched in size.
image 476
However, regardless of the circumstances, Western media always portray China as a bully. This is the true purpose of this project and the goal set by the US – they use the so-called “confidence in transparency of reporting” to create propaganda against China. They claim it is transparent because Western media bring cameras, media personnel, etc., to document the process and report it to Filipino audiences and the world. It is understandable that this signifies something – the US wants to undermine China’s reputation.
The Philippines had a highly productive and friendly relationship with China, such as collaborative projects in the BRI, which greatly enhanced the economic advantage of the Philippines. However, President Marcos clearly has his own ideas about the arrangements from the US. He has never explained to the Filipino people why he has shifted back towards the US. In the South China Sea issue, Marcos’ policies are filled with hostility and aggression.
In fact, the Filipino people are not concerned about the South China Sea dispute. A survey report released by Pulse Asia
[2] in September 2023 showed that only 7% of Filipinos are concerned about the South China Sea dispute, while 93% of the population is primarily concerned about controlling inflation, employment, reducing poverty, and fighting corruption.
image 475
The US has exerted mass pressure, demanding that the Philippines continue to “contain” China. If this continues, Marcos’ policies will only become further detached from the demands of the people. It appears that Marcos is going to have a tough time in the upcoming new year.
Never compare your sex life with porn videos. Because porn videos are totally fake.
Never be sad for losing someone. No one lasts for long period of time. Even, you are gonna lose your beauty, money and health with age.
Never underestimate failure.Only a failure gives you the proper perspective of success.
Never “Trust” easily on anyone. Because trust is the most expensive thing and so don’t trust blindly. Even, your friends get jealous when they see your progress.
Never share your password of social media accounts, email, Internet Banking, and ATM pin\CVV number with anyone. Never!
Never get involved in sexual activities till you are not serious in your relationship.
Never believe on that girl\boy who have lots of relationship in their past. They can easily manipulated you by crying their bad past.( Exception is everywhere)
Never try to hurt your parents. They have lots of expectations from you.
In any situation, Never think about ending your life. Even plants regrow leaves after one leaf shed.
I walked into a bank one morning in Florida to find it totally empty of any customers and only one teller behind the counter and another lady at her desk opposite. As I approached the teller, she scolded me for not first stopping behind the yellow line on the floor before walking the 3 steps to her counter. She was not busy at all. “Sir!!! Go back and stand BEHIND the yellow line!!” Me; “Ok, but I saw you are not busy”. I went back while she watched me. As soon as I was standing still behind the line, she nodded and immediately said; “Ok, NOW you can approach”. I asked her politely if there was any reason for having a customer stop behind the line in an empty bank. Her; “Because the sign says so!!!” she scolded. “And I say so!!!” The only other bank employee looked at her and rolled her eyes. Just then, a phone (Land line) rang and the teller picked it up still snarling at me. She was quite an unpleasant lady to the caller too. Just then, she starts to walk away at a brisk pace, forgetting the phone was not a cordless and the cord stretched as far as it would go and then phone sling shotted out of her hands and flew across the room and skidded to a stop on the floor. She looked at me right away to see if I saw what happened and I could not hide my grin which just set her off all the more. She turned red and it was clear she was not having a good day. I almost felt sympathetic.
Just a minor example of Karma, but it was pretty funny.
Whenever you are starting a new job, always let them know that you have 4 alive grandparents. Then you have 4 pre-made excuses for whenever you don’t want to come into work.
When you’re shopping online and need to reach a threshold for free delivery, simply add a gift card to your order. The next time you make a purchase, you can use the card and repeat the process.
When dining alone at a restaurant, bring a notebook. Write in it occasionally. The staff might think you’re a food critic, and they’ll likely try their best to impress you, maybe even treating you to some free food.
If someone ever calls you fat, tell them you used to be 75 lbs heavier. It will make them feel guilty for saying it to you, while also making you look accomplished for losing weight.
Use airplane mode to hang up on people. They will see “call failed” instead of “call ended”.
When you’re looking for a job, post a fake ad for a very similar position on the internet so you could check out the resumes of your competition.
Don’t show your Tinder profile or Instagram to your date. Show your profile on some niche platform like luxyor Mensa to go from being average to standing out.
If your girl ever gets mad at you and won’t speak, just tighten up all the jars in the house. Eventually she’ll have to talk to you to get your help opening up one of the jars.
If your coworker ever calls in sick for work, you can do the same 1-3 days later. Your boss will think you have the same thing and it’s “going around the office”. Your boss may even do the same shortly after you. It’s called the “fake flu”.
lf you want people to stop letting dogs sh*t on your lawn. Instead of a sign saying “no dogs allowed”, put up one saying “Lawn recently treated with toxic pesticides”.
Nobody would let their dog anywhere near your lawn ever again.
If you’re in a taxi and you think the driver is purposely driving slow to get the meter up. Just cough or sneeze to make yourself seem sick and watch the driver speed up to prevent catching something from you.
If you want to slack off at work, slack off but act annoyed or frustrated around your boss. This will give the impression that you’re working hard and the job is getting you heated.
Experiences
Mia’s Asian Chicken Salad
Asian Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Thai Dressing
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sesame oil
2 teaspoons ginger
2 teaspoons garlic
4 green onions, minced
1 bunch cilantro, minced
1 teaspoon chili paste
Salad
Napa cabbage
Carrot peel
Green onions
Cooked rice noodles
Thai dressing
Instructions
Marinate chicken breast with Thai dressing for 4 hours, then cook on grill.
Serve grilled chicken on top of salad with dressing drizzled over.
My son was denied membership in the National Honor Society as a junior in high school. He fit every qualification for membership, but two of his many teachers just didn’t like him. It was pretty obvious that he had been “blackballed”.
I went online and checked out the rules at the national level for bestowing membership. They clearly stated that “blackballing” was illegal. They also stated that the records of the votes by the teachers must be maintained for a certain amount of time after the vote for membership. So, I went to the school and asked for the vote tally. They refused to give it to me. I filed a freedom of information suit against the school.
A few days later, I got a call from an attorney at the state capital. He was representing the school, and he asked for my lawyer’s name and contact info. When I told him I was representing myself, he started in on me. He told me that I was sure to lose the suit and that I would then have to pay all of the schools costs, which would include his bill, and it would come to thousands of dollars. He told me I had better just withdraw the suit. I said no, and we hung up.
The case was scheduled for an appearance before the judge. The attorney called me again about 3 days before the scheduled appearance. He went after me again on what it was going to cost me when I lost the suit. I again told him that I was not dropping the suit.
We went to the courthouse when the appearance came up, and we both arrived at about the same time. He went ahead of me into the courthouse and introduced himself to the judge. I went in just after him and looked up at the judge and said, “Hi, Jim.” The Judge looked at me and said, “Hi, Eric.” The look on the lawyer’s face was priceless.
The judge listened to each of us and told us that the school was required to provide me with the information I was seeking, and would be responsible for paying all of my legal fees. He then asked me what my fees were. I told him that it was such a trivial case that I didn’t incur any costs, I just wanted to see the information.
Oddly enough, I never did get to see the vote results. Seems the school was so confident in victory that they had thrown the results in the trash some time earlier. Instead of pursuing it, I let them know that they needed to read the NHS rules and follow them more closely in the future. My son was inducted his senior year.
Years ago I operated a full service gas station. There was a young lady who’d come in and have freon added to her AC. Back then freon cost just under $1 a pound. She’d come in and I added 3 or 4 pounds of freon. I’d charge my labor equal to what the material parts installed on the car. So 4 pounds of freon = $4. Meaning the total cost for my work was $8. It only took a few minutes to do.
After a few days she’d show back up to get another recharge. On the third visit I asked her “ Why don’t you let me find the leak and fix it so I can charge the unit properly and you won’t need to do this anymore. “ She refused and told me just to charge/add the freon.
It wouldn’t have cost her anymore than $50. If it was a hose or fitting leaking even less. If it was a pin leak in the high pressure coil? I could get one out of a salvage yard.
If it was a pin leak in the low pressure coil? I could fix it with epoxy. Then evacuate the system and add new freon it’d be like new.
Edit: I thank everyone for their responses.
But for the ding-dongs who are saying things like I should lose my license or charging a leaking system is illegal…. THIS WAS IN THE 70s.
There WERE NO license. There were NO laws preventing the sales or use of freon. PLUS…. back then… car AC units were designed to leak. That way the people who looked at their car dealer as the ONLY place to have the car repaired ends up giving more business to the dealerships.
I say to those people…. “ Sorry to burst your bubble… But there was life BEFORE 1985.”
I was never a professional mechanic, but this one was fun. A friend of mine was looking for a “small but fun” car back in 1993. We happened across a 1977 Datsun 280Z that was priced at $650. It needed paint, but had zero rust, which is hard to find on an old Z. The seller told us that it ran fine, and that it had a low-mileage Japanese import engine and transmission in it. We went to test drive it, and it missed horribly. I couldn’t get it over 45mph.
The seller wouldn’t budge on the price, but he said he’d take $50 off to have a diagnostic run at a local shop. He told us to take it home overnight. I insisted on stopping to get a set of plugs at AutoZone. Back then, Nippondensos were 88 cents apiece. When we got to the house, my friend gapped the plugs while I removed and installed them. I expected to see either a plug that was totally fouled with carbon, or one with zero gap. Instead, I noticed the order on the numbered factory wires:
1,3,2,4,5,6! What’s wrong with this picture?
Surely not, I thought. It just couldn’t be that easy.
I put the wires, in the correct order, on the new plugs. 5 minutes later, we were flying down the road at 120 mph, laughing our asses off. The engine ran smooth as silk. Needless to say, my friend bought it.
Some time later, I ran into the previous owner, who asked if we ever got it running right. I told him we had, but that it was very expensive and labor intensive. He said he knew it would be a difficult problem, because he and his brother had tried for two years and couldn’t figure it out.
Sometimes all it takes is a new set of eyes.
China is both cool and interesting
NASA’s Webb Captures an Ethereal View of NGC 346 (MIRI)
Yes. I went shopping for a particular Barbie for my niece’s birthday. I couldn’t see it on the shelves, but when I spoke to a member of staff she very kindly went out the back and managed to find one for me. I was just thanking her when a little girl ran up, squealing “Mummy, that’s the Barbie!” The employee said she was sorry, but I had the last one and there wouldn’t be more for a few days. The mother asked me if she could have it, to which I said no as my niece had been looking forward to it. The child went into demon mode, screaming “Mummy!” at the top of her voice and the woman asked again, saying her daughter is getting really upset. I again said no and tried to walk away. She then followed me, saying loud enough for customers to hear that I’d made her daughter cry. . That was it for me. Even though her child’s wailing had settled into a whimper by this point, no-one wants to be publicly accused of that. It was obvious that this woman was used to getting what she wanted and her daughter had learned from her mother’s example. She knew making noise would get her what she wanted, and couldn’t understand it not working in a shop when it clearly worked at home. I told the woman that (a) no child was entitled to get everything they wanted, (b) she should be aiming to raise a child with good manners, not a misplaced sense of entitlement, and (c) if she wasn’t careful, her only success would be in raising a child as bratty as herself. . I didn’t shout or swear, but I was very clear and she was so shocked that someone had stood up to her that she went the other way and started begging me for it. I told her that she had been very rude and wasn’t getting the doll from me, so if she wanted to go back to screeching and being abusive she was welcome to. Several people were watching by now, and they openly laughed when I told them what had happened. What made her finally shut up? Another customer telling her that she sounded like she needed a doll herself and should be quiet otherwise she’d end up on Facebook looking like a fool.
Not my case but a 17-18 year old boy accused and found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl he’d come across in the street late one night as she was making her way home after a big night out and yes, she was drunk, not that it makes a difference.
He dragged her into a nearby park and was in the process of trying to remove her clothes while she tried to resist him when a police patrol turned and caught him in the act. He had been spotted forcing her into the park on a CCTV camera and the operator had called it in and reported it.
Evidence is gathered, court case goes ahead and our lucky lad (please recognize the sarcasm) is found guilty and facing a minimum of XX years in jail. Judge thanks jury then sets aside the verdict/suspends the sentence and puts him on a good behaviour and some very minimal mount of community service.
Why, you might ask?
The judge said “as the boy was attending the ‘high-brow upper-class very expensive private school’ and had a promising future ahead of him, having a custodial sentence on his record would not be good for him, the court on this occasion could be lenient.”
The interesting thing about the boy with “a promising future ahead of him” was that he already had a shady past, three prior charges for things like assault, public lewdness and another sexual assault charge.
I spent 29 Christmases in prison. During this time I saw it change over the years on what they gave the incarcerated
The first few years I was in prison were like this. A huge holiday meal that took up two trays. One tray consisted of ham, turkey dressing, rolls, mashed potatoes with gravy and usually a serving of something else that was different every year it seemed. The second tray was a slice of pumpkin pie (or sweet potato pie), cool whip, a small container of ice cream and a soda
You were also given a bag of various nuts and another bag of candy. You were given a few Christmas cards to send out and $5.00 on your account. They stopped putting the $5.00 on everyone’s account after my 3rd year in prison.
The two christmas bags eventually changed to one. It consisted of shampoo, ramen soups, candy bars etc and was and to my knowledge still comes from Joyce Meyers Ministry
Over the years the size of the Christmas meal got smaller. But like the Thanksgiving meal they are still the best meals served in prison.
For many people in prison this is a hard time. Some stay in their cell all day and will not even go eat the Christmas dinner. They say things like “if I can’t enjoy Christmas in prison I don’t want to eat the Christmas dinner” I had a little different outlook. While I was a little down because I wasn’t with my family, I wasn’t going to go to that extreme. I put myself in prison and I know my family would want me to try to enjoy the meal. And I did, all the while thinking those who don’t eat the Christmas meal could give it to someone else
The one thing I did refuse was Christmas visits. Now I would let them come up before or after Christmas,but I wanted my family to spend Christmas at home , not visiting me in prison. They agreed to this under one condition. I had to call them. It is hard getting on the phones at Christmas. These days it is easier because they have tablets. The call was probably the hardest, because I could hear the sadness in my mom’s voice. One Christmas it was all I could do to hold back the tears. They had me on speaker and I said that I wished I could have sent them more for Christmas than a card. My mom said “ I think I speak for everyone when I say that just hearing your voice is the greatest gift you could give us” The others agreed and I about lost it Wow, I am sorry . I did not mean to get that personal, but maybe it will give you an idea of how Christmas is for the incarcerated. At least when I was in prison
Not really a bully, but a relevant story, nonetheless.
Years ago my family took a self defense class together. Our daughter, Katie, was a petite 15 year old high school student at the time and worked part time at a frozen yogurt shop. She arrived a couple of minutes late one day and her large male co-worker asked her why she was late. She explained that she got out of self defense class a few minutes late. He scoffed and said, “That stuff wouldn’t do you any good if someone my size came at you!” She replied, “Maybe, maybe not.” Then he said, “If someone did this there isn’t anything you could do”, and leaned toward her grabbing and twisting her shirt at the neckline. Less than a second later she was standing over him looking down at him. He was not hurt, but was lying on the floor on his back, looking up at her, with the most surprised look on his face! It was absolutely awesome! Three cheers for our self defense instructor who had taught us that day how to handle that event!!!
A Latina and her daughter (preteen) were at the milk aisle speaking Spanish to each other. As I grab some milk, I hear this older lady (50+) say, ”SPEAK ENGLISH, this is America!”
I was a little perturbed by this and began to stare at her in embarrassment. The young girl, in a calm and delicate way, dropped some history bomb on this older lady. She said , “America doesn’t have a national language because this land was founded by the Dutch, French, the English, and, most certainly, the Spaniards. And next time old lady, go read a book and learn, that’s what I did.”
I laughed so hard her mother smirked. It was obnoxious for the older lady to interrupt a mother and daughter shopping at the grocery. I wish I had recorded the interaction.
This country is built by people from all walks of life. In times like these, we have to remember this land was built for you and me 🙂
I was on Temporary Duty (TDY) for training at a USAF tech school and while there I was appointed Barracks Chief for the TDY enlisted barracks. Now NCOs were exempt from details but lower ranking airmen were not. And as Barracks Chief I was also exempt.
We took our classes in a huge three story tall building with no windows. Because everything inside was highly classified; so only people with clearances could enter the building. This meant that on Saturdays there was a large detail to wax and buff all the hallways. It took about 4–5 hours for a 50+ man detail to do this job.
There were at least 500–600 lower ranking airmen who were at the school full time for entry level training in the field. We were all graduates of that program. When I had attended the school this duty got rotated among the entry level trainees, I’d done it a couple times in my schooling.
The First Sergeant of the Training Squadron had decided that this detail should be done by visiting TDY airmen who obviously had clearances and access already approved.
The problem was that while the detail required 50 people we typically had about 30 Airmen on TDY at any time (most TDY courses were 6–10 weeks to teach now experienced graduates added systems). So he would round up other trainees from among those in entry level training, to fill out the roster.
The problem of course is that it meant that the visiting airmen had the worst, nastiest, longest detail possible every single Saturday they were at the base. You couldn’t even go out clubbing on Friday because the detail started at 0700.
When I approached the First Sergeant about the problem on behalf of one of my guys the First Shirt explained this was completely fair because the detail was ROTATING — as soon as we had more than 50 guys in residence the extra guys would be excused based on how many times they had done the detail. Never mind that in ten years they had never had more than 45 or so TDY personnel at any moment — if they ever had 51 then one lucky guy would get one Saturday off…
I tried pointing out the obvious — that you cannot rotate a 50 man detail among 30 men and that in reality no one would EVER be excused from the detail but it simply did not register. I don’t know why.
(We made a visit to the base Inspector General and registered a complaint — it is not appropriate to require a small group to bear the brunt of the longest and dirtiest detail every single weekend. No one objected to doing a detail; even this detail would be OK once in a great while, it comes with the territory… The IG upheld the complaint and they changed the detail.)
We had en employee retire. Not exactly “legend”, eh?
“Frank” was a thirty-year employee, a good worker, and not seen by Managment as a “troublemaker” or problem employee. One Monday, during a staff meeting, Frank just exploded. He launched into an obscenity-laced tirade against his boss,and his bosses boss! He used every dirty word you can’t use on TV, and the most blunt, vulgar criticism of the company, managment and some staff.
Frank’s boss, and his bosses boss just sat there, speechless, as Frank went on for almost five minutes. Finally, Franks boss said “Frank, we’ve heard enough from you. One more word and you’re fired!”
Frank replied that “You can’t fire me, I RETIRE!” The then stormed out of the conference room, flipped his desk over, and began handing out $20 bills to the “people he liked” in the office, about 20% of the staff.
Managment called security, and they escorted Frank out. As he was passing the Receptionist, he turned to her and said “Coming in every day and seeing your (blank) was the best thing about working in this (blank).”
Everyone I know has talked about quitting / retiring in a “blaze of glory” from at least one job. He actually did it!
Everyone who witnessed this still talks about it at office parties. It’s been years!
Footnote: six months after he left, Frank asked for a reference, as he wanted a part-time job. That didn’t go so well.
37 yr old single father with nearly 8 years in recovery.
I spent nearly 3.75 years incarcerated during my addict years at my rock bottom.
Bottom bunks are the most valuable, often paid for, bullied from, fought for or earned thru a medical “bottom bunk pass” if you have a disability limiting you to the bottom bunks only.
Medical passes in jail are like gold, the officers have to abide by them, inmates without them hate them.
I had a bottom bunk pass for 2/3’s of the time I spent in jail, a 2nd mattress pass, etc after breaking my back in 2011. I spent well over a year on a top bunk.
Why are bottom bunks the ones normally wanted the most? I’ll give you a few reasons from my experience’s.
The lights.
a. In jail the lighting is very obnoxious and bright, you only get a few hours of lights out (Usually from 11 PM – 4/5 AM but it’s never totally dark due to safety bulbs in each florescent light.
Being on the bottom bunk you can avoid the bright light in your eyes which is a horrible way to wake up at 4 AM. You can also have more privacy by hanging a towel, sheet or clothing item which bring me to my 2nd reason.
b. Privacy.
By hanging a towel/sheet you can basically eliminate nearly all the light in your bunk, not have 3 dudes watch you sleep, or do whatever criminal thing you would want to get away with out of the view of the cameras or simply have a get away from the other 16 dudes you share your unit with.
2. Ease of Access.
a. Let’s face it, jumping down on to a cold concrete floor 8–10 times a day for standing head counts isn’t easy on the knees or your ankles. Climbing back up is a wicked pain on the knees and lower back.
b. You also better hope you get along with your bunkie because you step on his things, his blanket/mat, etc and you’re going to have problem. I would’ve if it happened more than once after explaining the inmate rules, you make it clear very quickly to a new bunkie how the system works.
You don’t have many rights left in jail so your cleanliness is one of the only things they can’t take away from you.
New inmates learn very quickly that those on bottom bunks have the seniority in that unit which comes along with more respect from new inmates.
There’s a few more reasons I can think of honestly but I don’t want to make this too long.
Bottom bunks are earned by seniority, bottom bunk passes, and/or muscles.
One graveyard shift, I was driving west on Sunset Blvd around Fairfax. I always drove with my window down. I heard a small, brief, horn-honk and a car pulled up alongside. “Officer, pull over, I need to talk to you!” We slowed ourselves, stopping the car, and gave our location.
The driver, later ID’ed as, “Nick”, exited his car, as did my trainee and I. As he approached me, he suddenly reached deep into his right front pants pocket. My left hand already had my flashlight illuminating him, while my right hand went to my gun, unsnapping it and beginning to rock it toward drawing down on him. Suddenly his hand emerged containing nothing more than a glass tube. He threw the glass tube, the type used for the smoking of rock cocaine, onto the hood of my police car. Nick looked at me and said, “I need you to arrest me and put me in jail. I am addicted to rock. I can’t stop, please help me!”
I was still in the single digits of years of sobriety. I told him I’d do what I could. Nick was going through withdrawals only, he was not under the influence at the time.
I arrested Nick for violation of 23152(c) CA Vehicle Code – Addict Driving. It was the only time in my 30 years that I used that section to arrest anyone. You need not be under the influence of anything, your life just needs to be horribly upset by your addiction. I gave Nick his Miranda Warnings, which he waived, and asked him about his daily life and use of rock cocaine. A picture of a life destroyed by drugs emerged. He signed his statement, gratefully, and happily went to jail. Weeks later, I got an on-call subpoena for his case, but was told he’d copped out. The courts sentenced him to treatment.
Months maybe a year, later, I was off-duty and at the L.A. Convention Center attending a talk by Father Joe Martin, a Roman Catholic priest who was very active in recovery work. I was in line to get a soda, when there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see NICK!, who gave me a hug and told me he’d been clean and sober since his arrest. Nick said that I had helped save his life.
This is almost the largest territorial (territorial sea) sovereignty change in the world since the end of World War II. Such information has not received any attention in the Western mainstream media.
The reason given by the Americans is: According to the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”, they began mapping the submarine continental shelves in these two areas in 2003 and discovered their geographical connection with Alaska. So in December 2023, they cited the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” The Articles of the Convention “ ECS” lay out claims to this maritime area and put them on the map.
What is embarrassing is that the United States is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at all. This means that the United States wants to occupy 1 million square kilometers of high seas based on a treaty that it has not signed.
There are huge amounts of flammable ice, oil, natural gas and mineral resources under this sea area.
The questioner asked: Why did no country object?
Of course, the only one who objects is Russia, because they are the only neighbor in this sea area.
Given the relationship between the United States and Russia, I don’t think Russia’s opposition will play any role.
Eventually, the map of the United States will most likely expand by 1 million square kilometers.
No country will care, or in other words, they will all quietly shut up.
Note to readers: This is a repost of an article I wrote and was published on June 18, 2022 – 18 months ago. That was long before I started a Substack account. Some of you may already have read it. When it was published on “the saker” blog, the Russo-Ukraine war was still young but an obvious civilizational conflict was underway. This article was an attempt at describing some of the forces driving the conflict, including economic ones.
The article went viral and got republished all over the place in many languages – including on Zerohedge. I have no idea how many views it got in total but it was hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. I suspect it was one of the most read articles on geopolitical/economic issues in 2022.
The geopolitical conflict is far from over and the scenarios outlined in the article are probably not going to be realized for some time (if at all – let’s hope!), but I’m curious to hear what you readers think of the current situation in the world and where we might be heading – either with this article as a framework or in general. It’s also healthy to revisit one’s thinking in the past and evaluate it.
Be warned that the article contains some doom-porn, but according to global web traffic results humans like nothing more than porn!
This is however not the main reason I’m posting this old article here on Substack. The reason is a book that was just published which addresses in detail one of the main points of the article; the enormous global debt and how it may be resolved.
The book is called “The Great Taking” and is authored by David Rogers Webb. I haven’t read it yet but I plan to. I heard it is quite interesting and you might want to take a look if you are looking for something to read between Christmas and New Year’s.
World War 3 for dummies
By Gaius Baltar
Some knowledgeable people, apparently including the Pope, are beginning to suspect that there may be more going on in the world than just the war in the Ukraine. They say that World War 3 has already started and things will get worse from now on. This can be difficult to determine while we are participating in the unfolding events and do not have the benefit of the historical perspective. It is doubtful that people back in 1939 realized that they were looking at the start of a major worldwide conflict, although some may have suspected.
The current global situation is in many ways like a giant jigsaw puzzle where the general public only sees a tiny part of the complete picture. Most don’t even realize that there may be more pieces and don’t even ask these simple questions: Why is all this happening and why is it happening now?
Things are more complicated that most people realize. What they see is the evil wizard Vladimir Saruman Putin invading innocent Ukraine with his orc army – for absolutely no reason. This is a simplistic view to say the least because nothing happens without a reason. Let’s put things in perspective and see what is really going on – and why the world is going crazy before our eyes. Let’s see what World War 3 is all about.
The pressure cooker
The West (which we can define here as the US and the EU) has been maintaining pressure on the entire world for decades. This does not only apply to countries outside the West, but also to Western countries which strayed from the diktats of the West’s rulers. This pressure has been discussed widely and attributed to all kinds of motives, including neocolonialism, forced financial hegemony and so forth. What is interesting, particularly during the last 20 years, is which countries have been pressured and what they do not have in common.
Among the pressured countries we find Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Serbia, Thailand and Iran to mention a few. There have also been recent additions, including India and Hungary. In order to understand why they have been pressured, we need to find out what they have in common. That’s not easy since they are extremely different in most ways. There are democracies and non-democracies, conservative and communist governments, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist countries and so on. Still, many of them are very clearly allied. One must ask why conservative and religious countries such as Russia or Iran would ally themselves with Godless communists in Cuba and Venezuela.
What all these countries have in common is their desire to run their own affairs; to be independent countries. This is unforgiveable in the eyes of the West and must be tackled by any means necessary, including economic sanctions, color revolutions and outright military aggression.
The West and its NATO military arm had surrounded Russia with hostile countries and military bases, armed and manipulated Ukraine to be used as a hammer against it and employed sanctions and threats. The same thing was and is happening in Asia where China is being surrounded by all means available. The same applies to all the Independents mentioned above to some extent. In the past 10 years or so the pressure has increased massively on the Independents and it reached almost fever pitch in the year before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
During the year before the Ukraine war, the US sent its diplomats around the world to tune up the pressure. They were like a travelling circus or a rock band on a tour, but instead of entertainment they delivered threats: buy this from us and do what we tell you or there will be consequences. The urgency was absolute and palpable, but then came the Ukraine war and the pressure went up to 11. During the first month of the war, the entire West’s diplomatic corps was fully engaged in threats against the ‘rest of the world’ to engineer the isolation of Russia. This didn’t work, which resulted in panic in political and diplomatic circles in the US and Europe.
All this pressure through the years, and all the fear and panic when it didn’t work, are clearly related to the events in the Ukraine. They are a part of the same ‘syndrome’ and have the same cause.
The debt dimension
There have been many explanations for what is going on and the most common is the fight between two possible futures; a multipolar world where there are several power centers in the world, and a unipolar world where the West governs the world. This is correct as far as it goes, but there is another reason which explains why this is happening now and all the urgency and panic in the West.
Recently the New Zealand tech guru Kim Dotcom tweeted a thread about the debt situation in the US. According to him all debt and unfunded liabilities of the US exceed the total value of the entire country, including the land. This situation is not unique to the US. Most countries in the West have debt which can only be paid back by selling the entire country and everything it contains. On top of that, most non-western countries are buried in dollar-denominated debt and are practically owned by the same financiers who own the West.
During the last few decades the economy of the US and Europe has been falsified on a level which is difficult to believe. We in the West have been living far beyond our means and our currencies have been massively overvalued. We have been able to do this through two mechanisms:
1. The first one is the reserve status of the dollar and the semi-reserve status of the euro which have enabled the West to export digital money and receive goods in return. This has created the enormous financial power for the West and enabled it to function as a parasite on the world economy. We have been getting a lot of goods for free, to put it mildly.
2. The second falsification mechanism is the increase in debt to a level where we have essentially pawned everything we own, including our houses and lands, to keep up our living standard. We own nothing now when the debt has been subtracted. The debt has long since become unserviceable – far beyond our ability to pay interests on – which explains why the interest rates in the West are in the neighborhood of zero. Any increase would make the debt unserviceable and we would all go formally bankrupt in a day.
On top of all this, the falsification has created artificially strong currencies in the West which has boosted their purchasing power for goods priced in non-western currencies. These mechanisms have also enabled the West to run bloated and dysfunctional service economies where inefficiencies are beyond belief. We have giant groups of people in our economies that not only create no value, but destroy value systematically. What maintains the West’s standard of living now is a small minority of productive people, constant debt increase, and parasitism on the rest of the world.
The people who own all this debt actually own everything we think we own. We in the West own nothing at this point – we only think we do. But who are our real owners? We know more or less who they are because they meet every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos along with the western political elites who they also happen to own.
It is clear that our owners have been getting increasingly worried, and their worries have been increasing in sync with the increased pressure applied by the West on the rest of the world, particularly the Independents. During the last Davos meeting, the mood was bleak and panicked at the same time, much like the panic among the western political elites when the isolation of Russia failed.
What is about to happen
The panic of our owners and their politicians is understandable because we have come to the end of the line. We can no longer keep up our living standard by debt increase and parasitism. The debt is reaching beyond what we own as collateral and our currencies are about to become worthless. We will no longer be able to get free stuff from the rest of the world, or pay back our debt – let alone pay interest on it. The entire West is about to go bankrupt and our standard of living is about to go down by a massive percentage. This is what has our owners panicked and they see only two scenarios:
1. In the first scenario most countries in the West, and everything and everyone within them, declare bankruptcy and erase the debt by diktat – which sovereign states are able to do. This will also erase the wealth and political power of our owners.
2. In the second scenario our owners take over the collateral during the bankruptcy. The collateral is us and everything we own.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which scenario was chosen. The plan for the second scenario is ready and being implemented as we speak. It is called ‘The Great Reset’ and was constructed by the people behind the World Economic Forum. This plan is not a secret and can be examined to a certain degree on the WEF website.
The Great Reset is a mechanism for the seizing of all debt collateral which includes your assets, the assets of your city or municipality, the assets of your state and most corporate assets not already held by our owners.
This asset seizure mechanism has several components, but the most important are the following four:
1. Abolishment of sovereignty: A sovereign (independent) country is a dangerous country because it can choose to default on its debt. The decrease in sovereignty has been a priority for our owners and various schemes have been attempted such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans Pacific Partnership. The most successful scheme is undoubtedly the European Union itself.
2. The down-tuning of the economy: The western economy (and indeed the global economy) must be tuned down by a very significant percentage. This down-tuning is necessary because the western economy is massively falsified now and must be taken down to its real level – which may be as low as half of what it is now – or more. The slow takedown has also the purpose of avoiding a sudden crash which would cause massive social unrest which would be a threat to our owners. A controlled takedown is therefore preferable to an uncontrolled crash. This controlled takedown is already happening and has been going on for quite some time. Many examples can be mentioned of this takedown, including the EU and US energy policy which is designed to sabotage the western economy, and the obvious attempts at demand destruction during and after the epidemic, including the fairly bizarre logistical problems which suddenly came out of nowhere.
3. Asset harvesting (you will own nothing and be ‘happy’): All assets that can be considered to be collateral to our private and collective/public debt will be taken over. This is a clearly stated aim of the Great Reset but it is less clear how this would be carried out. Total control of western governments (and indeed all governments) would seem to be necessary for this. That precondition is closer than one might think because most western governments seem to be beholden to Davos at this point. The process will be sold as necessary social restructuring because of an economic crisis and global warming and will result in massive decrease in living standards for regular people, although not the elites.
4. Oppression: A great many people will not like this and an uprising is a likely response, even if the takedown is done gradually. To prevent this from happening, a social control mechanism is being implemented which will erase personal freedom, the freedom of speech, and privacy. It will also create absolute dependence of the individual on the state. This must be done before the economic takedown can be completed or there will be a revolution. This mechanism is already being implemented enthusiastically in the West as anybody with eyes and ears can see.
Russia, China and other Independents
How do Russia and China, and the war in Ukraine, factor into all of this? Why all the pressure from the West throughout the years and why all this panic now? Part of the reason for the pressure on the Independents, particularly Russia and China, is simply that they have resisted western hegemony. That is enough for getting on the West’s naughty list. But why the increased pressure in recent years?
The reason is that Russia and China cannot be subjugated through bankruptcy and their assets harvested. They do not have much debt in western currencies which means that the people who own the West through debt do not currently own Russia and China (like they own the West and the indebted ‘third world’) and cannot acquire them through debt. The only way to acquire them is through regime change. Their governments must be weakened by any means, including economic sanctions and military means if necessary -thus the use of Ukraine as a battering ram for Russia and Taiwan for China.
Subjugating Russia and China is an existential issue for our Davos owners because when they take the western economy down, everything else must go down too. If the western economy is taken down and a large economic block doesn’t participate in the downfall, it will be a disaster for the West. The new block will gain massive economic power, and possibly unipolar hegemony of sorts, while the West descends into a feudal Dark Age and irrelevance. Therefore the entire world must go down for the Great Reset to work. Russia and China must be subjugated by any means, as well as India and other stubborn nations.
This is what has fueled the situation we now find ourselves in and will fuel the continuation of World War 3. The western owner-elites are going to war to keep their wealth and power. Everyone who resists must be subjugated so they can follow the West into the planned Great Reset Dark Age.
The reason for the current panic among western elites is that the Ukraine project isn’t going as planned. Instead of Russia being bled on the battlefield, it is Ukraine and the West that bleed. Instead of the Russian economy crashing resulting in Putin’s replacement by a Davos-compatible leader, it is the West’s economy that is crashing. Instead of Russia being isolated, it is the West that is being increasingly isolated. Nothing is working, and to top it all off, Europe has given the Russians the means and motive to destroy the European economy by partly shutting down its industry. Without Russian resources there is no European industry, and without industry there are no taxes for paying for unemployment benefits, pensions, all the refugees and pretty much everything else which holds European societies together. The Russians now have the ability to engineer and uncontrolled crash in Europe which is not what Davos planned. An uncontrolled crash might see Davos heads roll, literally, and that is causing fear and panic in elite circles. The only solution for them is to move on with World War 3 and hope for the best.
What to do
The Great Reset of the world economy is the direct cause for World War 3 – assuming that is what is going on. What can be done about this? From inside the West, little can be done. The only way is to somehow remove Davos from the equation, but that is most likely not going to happen for two reasons: The first one is that the Davos great resetters are too entwined in the western economy and politics. Davos is like an octopus with its arms and suckers inside every country’s elite circles, media and government. They are too entrenched to be easily removed. The second reason is that the western population is too brainwashed and ignorant. The level of their brainwashing is such that a large part of them actually want to become poor – although they use the word ‘green’ for ‘poor’ because it sounds better. There are, however, some indications that there may be divisions within western elites. Some of them, particularly within the US, may be resisting the primarily Europe-designed Great Reset – but whether this opposition is real or effective remains to be seen.
However, outside the West, there are certain measures which can be taken and must be taken. Some of those measures are drastic and some of them are being done as we speak. Among the measures are the following:
1. The Independents, led by Russia, China and India, must create a block to isolate themselves from the radioactive West. This isolation must not only be economic, but also political and social. Their economic systems must be divorced from the West and made autonomous. Their cultures and history must be defended against western influences and revisionism. This process appears to be underway.
2. The Independents must immediately ban all western sponsored institutions and NGOs in their countries, regardless of whether they are sponsored by western states or individuals. Furthermore, they must ban all media receiving western sponsorship and strip every school and university of western sponsorship and influences.
3. They must leave all international institutions up to and possibly including the United Nations, because all international bodies are controlled by the West. They must then replace them with new institutions within their block.
4. They must, at some point, declare the dollar and the euro currencies non grata. That means that they should declare default on all debts denominated in these currencies, but not other debts. This will most likely come at a later stage, but is inevitable.
This will create a situation where the West will descend into darkness without pulling others down with it – if we manage to escape the nuclear fire.
Cool things in China
Yeah. I keep forgetting that the rest of the world doesn’t do this…
Originally Answered: What was something that someone did that made you think they were really smart?
When my son was really young (about 3) we were at a summer bbq in a friend’s garden with a few other friends and their kids.
The kids were a range of ages, up to about 8 or 9, with my son being the youngest. One of the kids was playing with a ping pong ball which he’d accidentally dropped into a narrow hole in the grass about 8″ deep (where a fence post had recently been removed from) and became upset that he wasn’t able to get the ball back out.
A few of the other kids were trying to help, by squeezing their short fingers into the hole to retrieve the ball (unsuccessfully) while others attempted using sticks to wedge it out to no avail. All the while, my son was closely watching the other older kids in their endeavours.
When my son asked me to take him to the kitchen for a glass of water, I assumed he was just thirsty. But he took the glass of water undrunk and walked back out to the garden. He then went up to where the other kids were gathered, still trying to retrieve the stuck ball and proceeded to pour the whole glass of water into the hole. . The ping pong ball then floated up to the top of the hole, where one of kids grabbed it and a couple of them cheered.
My son didn’t say anything but I was watching on the sidelines, absolutely taken aback at the ingenuity of it – displaying lateral thinking when he wasn’t much more than a toddler.
As a scientist myself, I was delighted to realise my young son had apparently discovered Archimedes principle all by himself!
He’s almost 8 now and is definitely still passionate about science, maths and nature.
NASA’s Webb Snaps Supersonic Outflow of Young Star
I had my condo for sale for a year, at the end it was done to 60percent of comparables, and I didn’t have an offer.
I took it off the market removed the wall paper, and painted the entire house, put in new cheap carpet, with a thick plush underlay. I got laminate flooring on sale. I tore out my old carpet and hauled it to the dump. I bought clearance blinds to replace the old faded drapes.
I had bought the condo during a low in the market in 1986, for $42,000 , I had tried to sell it in 2000 , for 100,000 and dropped it to $59,900 and never had one offer. There were no condos on the market for less. I had a 3 bedroom, and 1 bedrooms were going for more.
I spent 6 months renovating, and put it back on the market for $110,000 and sold it for asking price the same day.
I spent $4000 on painting, flooring, and blinds.
The place had wall paper when I bought it, and I hated it, but was too cheap to replace it. But to make a sale, I painted. It had linoleum and I replaced it with laminate, The drapes with blinds ( which were popular in 2000) . Then I scrubbed it spotless.
My realtor told me that I was foolish to spend $4000 on cosmetics, because people would want to pick their own stuff. But I think doubling the value in 6 months, shows that cheap cosmetic changes paid off.
I don’t guarantee that your house needs the same things as my house did 23 years ago
Webb Celebrates First Year of Science With Close-up on Birth of Sun-like Stars
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Attempted ‘color revolution’ in Serbia: What we know so far
Opposition activists forced their way into Belgrade city hall after claiming a municipal election was rigged.
23DEC23
Opposition forces in Serbia breached Belgrade’s city hall amid mass protests on Sunday. They claim the recent municipal election in the capital, won by the ruling party, was rigged. Senior national officials have described the protests as an attempted “color revolution,” and said they had been forewarned by Russia.
Mayorship
Belgrade is home to roughly a quarter of the Balkan nation’s population of over 6.6 million. The office of its mayor is viewed as one of the most important in Serbia.
Members of the city council, who vote the mayor in, were elected on December 17 – the same day as a national election and several municipal votes were held.
The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of President Aleksandar Vucic won the most seats in the Belgrade City Assembly. The opposition Serbia Against Violence (SPN) alliance claims the outcome was achieved through voter fraud.
Early violence
In the week that followed the elections, the opposition staged several rallies in Belgrade, some of them marred by violence.
During a demonstration in front of the Republican Election Commission last Monday, leading Serbian statistician Milorad Kovacevic and several of his associates were reportedly attacked by activists. Police seized several knives and bats from protesters, local media said.
Election officials react
The Election Commission denounced the violence and claimed the rally was an attempt to disrupt its activities. The head of the commission, Vladimir Dimitrijevic, expressed hope that it was an isolated incident and that any future attempts to challenge the election result would remain legal.
The body investigated opposition claims that ‘phantom voters’ had been allowed to cast ballots in Belgrade, but reported on Sunday that it had found no evidence that the election had been “stolen.”
Sunday riot
On Sunday evening, hundreds of pro-opposition demonstrators gathered in the center of Belgrade after being rallied by the SPN. Opposition leader Marinika Tepic, who declared a hunger strike last Monday and claims to be living on IV infusions, was barred from entering the Election Commission building. Meanwhile, an improvised stage was erected near the presidential residence, with speakers and performers whipping up the crowd.
Later in the evening, some activists stormed city hall, claiming they were seeking “to liberate the institutions.” The police intervened and drove them out.
Aleksandar Sapic, head of the temporary city administration, shared images of the damage caused by the rioters in the historic building, calling it “irreparable.” He declared that Serbia must be protected from the use of violence for political gain. He used the term “Maidanization,” referring to the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, which set the stage for the current hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.
‘Color revolution’
President Vucic denounced the riot, calling it an attempted “color revolution” and claiming that a foreign nation had warned his government about the threat beforehand. Prime Minister Ana Brnabiс thanked the Russian special services for providing intelligence to Belgrade.
The term ‘color revolution’ is often applied to the mass uprisings by ostensibly pro-democratic political forces in the 1990s and 2000s, including in Yugoslavia in 2000. Russia and some other nations perceive the wave as masterminded by the West to further its geopolitical goals, and executed through NGOs, media outlets, and parties funded by the US and its allies.
The Vucic government has been presented with a dilemma amid the current confrontation between Russia and the West. It is seeking EU membership for Serbia, which would require the realignment of Belgrade’s foreign policy with that of Brussels. However, Vucic has rejected Western calls to cut ties with Russia and join the US-led sanctions campaign against Moscow.
Responding to the turmoil in Belgrade, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed it was an “obvious attempt by the collective West to destabilize the situation in the country through ‘maidan coups’,” according to RIA Novosti.
Webb Reveals Intricate Details in the Remains of a Dying Star (MIRI image)
My ex-husband & I had been married for a few years before I opened up to him about the sexual abuse I endured as a teenager, at the hands of my father. Naturally, he was upset and wanted to know why I’d waited so long to tell him about it. I informed him that while it was an awful point in my life, I had long ago dealt with the pain & made peace with myself about i, that it was something I didn’t think much of anymore, but that I had always intended to tell him when I felt the time was right. He seemed sat with my response, and we went on business as usual.
Fast forward 3 1/2 years later… we had a brutal argument one day about his habit of not coming home til the wee hours of the morning. His shift at work would end around 4pm each day, & while I understood the need or desire to have the occasional few beers with the guys after a hard day, it was happening far too often & he was being inconsiderate by staying out so late while I was left alone to care for our children (mind you, I also worked every day, as well.) Apparently, that enraged him and out of nowhere, with this extremely cold glare in his eyes, very calmly stated, “I bet you enjoyed what your father did to you…” I was crushed! The debilitating emotions I’d felt so long ago came rushing back to me, and I suddenly felt as if what I’d experienced in my childhood had just happened. I was violated all over again.
He did eventually apologize for what he’d said, but I was never able to look at him the same way. Three years later, we divorced.
The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA’s Webb (NIRCam and MIRI)
Somalia is not a real country. Somalia is a geographical expression which exists only on maps and in the minds of believers.
This is what Somalia looks like in imagination with its imaginary capital of Mogadishu.
image 483
And this is what Somalia looks like in real life.
image 46
The red part what the UN-recognized Somalian government in Mogadishu (sorta) controls. When people talk about the “country of Somalia”, they’re unintentionally referring only to the red areas. That being said, the map is a little misleading. Even in the red area, the government lacks control over many local communities, especially in the northeastern area of Puntland. And the internal borders change on a day-to-day basis.
The yellow area is called Somaliland. It functions as an independent country. The government in Mogadishu has no control over Somaliland.
The gray areas are controlled by tribal communities and terrorist organizations. The government in Mogadishu has no control over the gray areas.
This is partly why Somalia is a developing country. The official government has control over less than half the country. This means that there are no nation-wide social services. No national education system; people are often unable to receive a non-religious education. No unified foreign policy. No well-maintained national infrastructure. And the people of Somalia are kinda too distracted by violence and political instability to invest in their futures. Large parts of the country are controlled by terrorists organizations.
Despite the above, Somalia does have a stable informal economy, based upon (mostly subsistence) agriculture. But no country every became wealthy by growing plants.
NASA’s Webb Findings Support Long-Proposed Process of Planet Formation
I heard this story from my neighbour, and it happened to them about a month ago.
So my neighbour (27 male) was going on a road trip with his father (about 55 or so) and they had to pull over on the side of the road, only about a half mile or so from the city limits. The traffic was pretty bad, and obviously the person behind them didn’t appreciate having to wait for them to pull over through two lanes of traffic, and followed them off the road. My neighbour hadn’t noticed the man following them, until he got out of his car (a work ute for a construction company) and pulled out a metal pole from the back of his ute. He came up and smashed the back windshield of the car, swore at the father (who was driving) and began walking back to his car pretty slowly.
Before he could start his car again, my neighbour and his father had walked up to the other man’s car and pulled out their badges.
Both of them are cops, the father is the police captain of the station. My neighbour said the man smelt like heroin, so they checked the car and found a bunch of drugs and equipment for druggos.
He then told the man that he would have a lot of paperwork to fill out.
I love that story. Be careful who you mess with.
NASA’s Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf (NIRCam Image)
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Not to play
Nearby Planetary System Seen in Breathtaking Detail, Fomalhaut Dusty Debris Disk (MIRI Image)
I was 17, hitchhiking my way to the South of France after leaving home for good. I was waiting at a spot on the Route Nationale 7 in the northern part of Lyon. Not a very good place if you wanted to go south, but it was the best I had been able to do.
An open Mehari with a long haired young man at the wheel passed. Thy guy grinned, honked and then shrugged in the universal gesture of: “Sorry, can’t help you, mate.”
image 482
Citroen Mehari, based on the 2CV, image credit: radicalmag
About half an hour later a police car stopped next to me. To my surprise it was the guy from the Mehari. Hair tied in a neat bun underneath his kepi, his bright and colorful clothing replaced by a sombre French police uniform.
He asked me where I was going. In abysmally bad French I explained that my destination was Toulon.
He told me to enter the car. My heart sunk as I thought my short lived adventure was already over and I would be returned home to my mother in Germany.
Well, from what little I understood he told me he needed to go a certain route, which he did. After about an hour’s worth of driving through all sorts of strange neighborhoods he dropped me off south of Lyon at the RN7, an ideal spot to get to where I was going. He wished me luck, waved once and sped off.
BTW, my French is much better these days
NASA’s Webb Scores Another Ringed World With New Image of Uranus
My first instinct is to say “going into debt for a worthless degree.” At age 18, I took on almost $120k in debt for a B.A. in Communications from DePaul University in Chicago… a private, out-of-state university for me. After spending six years doing jobs that didn’t even require a degree, I had to go back for my Master’s in Teaching (also from DePaul) in order to get a career I wanted: teaching. Now, at age 40, I’m still paying for classes I took when I was 18… some $400 per month. That’s down from the $650 per month I paid right out of college, mainly because my father died and some of the loans were in his name only. I will be paying my student loans until I’m 52, assuming I don’t pay them off early.
But, then again, I met my wife in college, and she and the children she gave me are the best parts of my life. So maybe I don’t regret going into debt for college. Maybe it was worth it, after all.
My second instinct is to say “moving far from home for college.” When I was 18, I was so eager to spread my wings that I moved four states away for college. I went from living with my parents, to visiting them just once per year… then once every two years. There were so many times that I could have been there for my parents, but I was too far away. I gave up the chance to have a close adult relationship with them, before I realized what I was giving up. I hurt them and, as the years go by, the more I realize that I hurt myself, too.
But, then again, I met my wife in college, and she and the children she gave me are the best parts of my life. So maybe I don’t regret moving so far away for college. Maybe it was worth it, after all.
So my biggest regret is, I guess, not taking better care of myself when I was younger… particularly in my mid-20s, when adult responsibilities of a career, marriage, and children came along. The first thing to go, once my plate got full, was time at the gym. Then I started stress eating rather than stress working out. I worked hard in my early 20s to get in shape… lost 130 pounds in the process… and I squandered it all by the time I was 30. Now it’s starting to catch up to me. I’m sitting here, writing this now, when I would rather be riding my bike. It’s a nice day outside, but my left knee is in pain and stiff. According to the doctor, I have “more arthritis than they’d expect for a man my age,” but “that can happen when you carry a lot of weight around your whole life.”
If I could do it all over again, I’d go back to about age 15 and change only one thing: I’d only drink water (no soda, no coffee with cream and sugar), and maybe even go vegetarian, just for the reduced calories. Fast-forward 25 years, and I’m a much healthier 40-year-old man, still happily married and still with awesome children.
NASA’s Webb Reveals Intricate Networks of Gas and Dust in Nearby Galaxies
I lived in an apartment building. The upstairs neighbor seemed to think he was back in the dorm: parties all night, every night… people tromping around… music blasting with the bass turned all the way UP.
I tried a white-noise app. I got earplugs. I tried playing music next to the bed. My work was suffering.
Then I addressed him directly: I would go upstairs and politely ask him to please be a little quieter. No dice. I moved through the let-my-frustration-show stage… the angry stage… the I’ll-call-the-authorities stage…
When I couldn’t take the experiment in sleep deprivation any longer, I contacted our local city council to find out my options. Turns out there are regulations having to do with “health”: exceptionally loud noise is on a list of “stressors.”
They sent him a warning letter, saying if there were more complaints they might go so far as to serve eviction.
The following weekend a man turned up at my door. He was well-dressed, polite – older gent. He said he was Upstairs Neighbor’s father and could he talk to me?
Well, hey, I like to think I’m a reasonable person. “Sure, c’mon in…”
He pulled out the letter the Health Department had sent the UN and started waving it about, accusing me of intolerance, trying to cause problems for his son, on and on. He told me I should move out – “Nothing wrong with people having company and enjoying music. I’ve been in his apartment and the music is never loud.” As if the kid would give the old man full blast and prove I had cause for complaint.
I was taken aback, as much as anything because it never occurred to me a 30-year-old would have to send “Daddums” to confront a neighbor. Father wanted me to withdraw the complaint. I refused. He ranted some more, then got up to leave, crabbing the whole way about “How do you have the nerve” and so on. I saw him to the door, and as he stepped into the hallway he turned and said bitterly, “I am so disappointed.” “I understand, sir. If I had children who behaved as your son has, I’d be disappointed too.”
He was at a loss for words. It was so gratifying. 😉
NASA’s Webb Telescope Captures Rarely Seen Prelude to Supernova (NIRCam and MIRI Image)
When I was 18, I placed second in the state finals of the 50 freestyle — and wish I’d just gotten last. At that stage of my life, everything was about swimming. I obsessed over it and hoped to go to the Olympic trials some day.
The worst part, I lost by .03 seconds. It was a sickening moment as my biggest goal of the year slipped between my fingers. I grew up with competition dripping from every corner of my home. Both of my parents were competitive swimmers and my identity was all tangled up in the sport.
It feels weird now, looking back and realizing this was still a moment for celebration and appreciation. Second in the state was nothing to hang my head over. But I’d fallen victim to zero sum thinking that is so common with competition — and often quite toxic.
The curse of second place is even scrutinized by academics. In a study led by economist, Dr. Adrian Kalwji, researchers studied the life expectancy of 978 US Olympic medalists from 1904 to 1936. On average, gold medalists lived to 73. Bronze medalists lived to 75 and silver medalists lived to 70. The study speculates that dissatisfactory outcomes for silver medalists have lasting effects on their life, both in socioeconomic status and psychological contentment. Their insights aren’t merely for sports, but extend to human thinking on competitive systems. Why is second place so fraught with disappointment?
When I won silver, there was a feeling of squandered opportunity. I was so close I could smell it. I walked into the showers after my race on the verge of tears, and thought through the small mistakes I made and questioned everything. Could I have reacted quicker off the block? Could I have timed my turn better? Was my training wrong?
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Second place hits hard because we use “relative standing” when analyzing outcomes. A silver can easily make you feel like the first loser. In a study of social comparisons by Dr. Abraham Buunk, his team found these comparisons make us feel better or worse, depending on which direction we focus on. Moreover, it is less the outcome that determines our feeling, and more how we choose to interpret it.
We anchor our self-perception to the nearest reference points which creates a framing problem. For example, in one study, participants said they’d rather live in a world where the average salary was $25,000 and they earned $50,000, than one where they earned $100,000 and the global average was $200,000. It is strikingly easy to look up, rather than down.
Which brings to mind one of my grandfather’s funnier moments demonstrating this concept. As young children, my sister and I would stand at attention in front of him after doing a task. He would sit in his recliner as we recited what we’d accomplished like we were military cadets. In this case, it was related to a cleaning chore.
We stood at attention and, as a reward, grandpa pulled out a five dollar bill and handed it to me in full view of my 4-year-old sister and said, “Here you go!” Then, he reached into his wallet and handed my sister a one dollar bill. She looked down at it, grimaced in anger — then crumpled it up and chucked it at the wall. He immediately started laughing and then gave her five dollars. It highlighted the constant comparative thinking, which is why managing our expectations is so important.
After losing my 50 free, I went on to swim in college the subsequent year. I placed 3rd in the 100 free at the Atlantic 10 Championship and was thrilled. I’d barely qualified for finals and was in the outside lane. That bronze medal is my most prized accomplishment in sports and much of it is because of how unexpected it was. It felt like a gift.
Technically, I’d still lost the race. Why couldn’t I be happy about every defeat as I was with this one?
Why you should embrace 2nd place
When we are upset about an outcome not matching expectations, we often warp reality and use counterfactual thinking. Famed social economist, Daniel Kahneman, did an exercise where participants were told of two people, Mr. Crane and Mr. Thomas, who were rushing to catch their flight and were 30 minutes late because of their driver. Mr. Crane missed his flight by 30 minutes and Mr. Thomas missed his by five. Nearly every participant said Mr. Thomas was surely more upset than Mr. Crane. Why? Because he was so close to catching his flight.
In reality, the discrepancy didn’t matter. You either catch your flight or you don’t. The outcome has already occurred and there is no benefit to resenting one’s self over it.
Dr. Sergio Pellis studied how rats play fight during development. Often, a large rat will jump on a smaller one and have an immediate advantage and be poised to win. But around 30% of the time, the initiating rat will allow the other to win. The act of getting second place is fundamental to their bonding, contentment and development. If the larger rat dominated every time, he’d lose his training partner, peer, and they’d both miss out on learning. Without realizing it, they celebrate their silver metals.
Competitiveness that’s focused on improving a skill rather than dominating others is proven to increase satisfaction and competency. It is healthier and more logical, because losing is an inevitable consequence of competition. In my case, losing that swim race in high school lit a fire under me, and allowed me to perform well in college. I swam far better times and appreciated the consequence of small improvements to my stroke. I never forgot that .03 second gap. Heck, I’m here writing about it 22 years later.
Lastly, I urge you to stay gracious in victory or defeat. How you conduct yourself impacts your own psyche and how people perceive you. An amazing thing happened after losing my race. The guy who beat me, Eric, was so cool about the whole situation. The next night, we competed in another finals. Just before, we were standing in line for the walkout where they play music to hype up our race. I was standing by him and casually turned and said, “Good race last night. Congrats. It was close.”
He smiled, patted me on the back and said, “Hey, it was all luck. Good race.” And I so appreciated his humility in that moment. He could have been arrogant as many good swimmers are, and said, “Yeah, I could have swam a half second faster if I tried more.” But instead, he paid homage to his competitor.
Remember that the bitterness of losing is a comparison problem. Being outperformed can be a way to bond with others and appreciate how far you’ve come. It can be motivation to study your performance and your victor’s. Beware of making counterfactual comparisons, and building in a bunch of assumptions about why things happened the way they did.
Perhaps on that night, I swam faster than I ordinarily would have. Maybe my opponent had a slower night than usual. There was no use blaming myself. It was an honor to compete and feel alive.
Losing does not put you on a moral low ground. Appreciate the coveted fire of motivation that competition gives you. Give thanks for the competency it instills. It is as my coach often reminded me, “You are in a one person race with yourself.” Focus on progress, not domination. A setback has transformative power, if you allow it.
NASA’s Chandra, Webb Combine for Arresting Views (Pillars of Creation)
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Female friends?
Oh I am so glad that I do not live in the West.
I think that I am going to try to reincarnate as a cat.
Banbury Tarts
Banbury Tarts
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups flour
Seedless jelly or jam (preferably currant or raspberry)
Instructions
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
Beat in the egg yolks, then the vanilla extract.
Slowly beat in the flour until combined and smooth to form the dough (the dough will be a bit stiff at the end, and you may need to add the last cup of flour by hand).
Form the dough into small balls and make a depression in the middle with your thumb.
Spoon a teaspoon or so of jelly in the depression.
Space the cookies about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet and bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.
We’re not fat because we’re lazy. We work harder than thin people do. Strap a 50-pound sack of flour on your back and keep it on all day, every day. You’ll then be working as hard as a fat person.
We’re not fat because we have no self-control. We control our diet far more than naturally thin people do. We resist things that thin people don’t think twice about.
You bitch that you can’t find clothes you like. We would love to have the opportunity to bitch that we can’t find clothes we like. Our problem is finding clothes at all. The fashion industry hates us because we don’t represent the image they want for their garments. We have to take whatever fits, whether we like it or not.
Weight is set by a complex collection of factors including genetics, hormones, metabolism, lifestyle, and even intestinal flora. Of these, lifestyle is the only one we have any control over. It’s not a sign of moral turpitude.
Airplanes are misery for us. Airlines brag about their legroom and let you upgrade to seats with greater distance between them. They never talk about hip and shoulder room and offer no options to improve that except upgrading to business class, which costs thousands.
Even some GPs (primary care physicians) have contempt for us and let it show. [2]
Doctors have a tendency to blame medical problems on weight rather than diagnosing as carefully as they would with a thin person. [3]
We are a prime target for scammers. The only people scammed with phony products more than we are are men with anxiety about their penises.
We are ashamed much of our lives. Ashamed to be seen to be out of breath, ashamed not to fit in a crowded elevator, ashamed to bump into people in crowds, ashamed when a nurse weighs us, ashamed to meet people who knew us before we were fat. Why have I never been to a high school reunion? Shame.
I once employed a guy that was dubious at best. He was always talking flat out. In his words he would say “Yeah that’s the dexies mate” when I would ask him to slow down. This is when I was in my mid 20’s and Google wasn’t a thing yet. Yahoo and Alta Vista were, however I had bigger things to fry let alone checking out what “dexies” meant.
Anyway, one day we’re in the car together. This isn’t my favourite thing to do with this particular employee however, he was the only one not waist deep into a job working on the pinball machines, arcade video games and jukes boxes we would repair and sell. We were close to my house and I thought I would drop in and grab something before going back to work. Forgetting who was with me I got out of the car and walked inside. The guy followed, that’s okay. I didn’t give it a second thought until he said this:
“Nice house, lots of nice cool stuff here (as he was looking at the big (for it’s time) 68 cm Sony CRT TV, Slim line Sony DVD player, and stainless and glass custom built cabinet.” He was scanning the house, when I remembered he had told me once he had spent some time in jail. I remember holding my breathe for a second and thinking “Shit… what have I done here? Is this guy taking inventory of my house?”
Then he said this:
“I see you have an alarm box out the front and your key pad is near the telephone which is near the sliding (glass) door. Don’t do that.”
I looked at him a bit puzzled. He had cased my house in less than 5 seconds. When he told me how a criminal would think. He said this:
“Look you have a bowling green style front lawn and a good looking house, like some of the other houses on this street, it’s nice. So, people are going to look… like a nice looking car. Then if your house peaks someones interest, they will case the house when you’re not home, or maybe while you are mowing the front lawn because, you can’t hear them, and you’re intently watching the lawn mower to make sure you don’t run over sprinklers. The guy would see you have an alarm box out the front and be looking for where the phone is through your nice big glass sliding door window.”
Then the guy took me out the front and told me exactly what “his people” did when we were looking at the alarm box.
He pointed up the alarm box and said: “We buy / steal a can of “Space Invader” (This is a can of expanding foam. Ironic I was in the arcade game industry and this guy is telling me how people break into houses using a product called “Space Invader”) from the hardware store. You take the bottom of the can and you smash the blue light. No alarm is going off yet. You then shove the tube of the Space Invader can into vents on the side of the alarm box and fill the box until the Space Invader oozes out of the box. Then you go to where the phone is.
This is the product called “Space Invader”
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It works like this. Spray it in… and in seconds it will expand after spraying and dry.
This is what Wikipedia says:
“Spray foam is a chemical product created by two materials, isocyanate and polyol resin, which react when mixed with each other and expand up to 30-60 times its liquid volume after it is sprayed in place.”
They would spray it into one of these:
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They would spray the stuff into the vents on the side. The one I had was made of metal back then. This is also the light they would smash off with the base of the Space Invader can.
He continued:
“You get to the window / door that is closest to the phone. By this time the Space Invader will be close to dried. Wait a few minutes. (which I remember he said “When you first start doing “breaks” (short for “break and enters”) those few minutes with your heart racing can feel like hours. All you can hear is your heart racing in your chest) Then smash the window, there is no “quietly”… just do it fast. Get in and take the phone off the hook. This will stop the alarm system from calling the alarm company. The alarm will be going off out the front however, it will be muted, no one will be able to hear it, the light is gone, the cops aren’t coming. Take your time, don’t rush, or you‘ll miss the good stuff. Move quickly, but don’t run. Take what you need / want and leave”
In about 30 seconds he had summed up the “How to break into a house and get away with it” question I had never asked myself.
And then he said this.. “Oh but you have a big dog, you’ll be okay” as my dog Zanni rounded the corner to see we were inside the house and he was outside checking out who was inside.
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This is Zanni. (He doesn’t normally wear a tie, however he had his best suit on as he was waiting for his date to come over before they went out on the town that evening.)
This was the best thing a criminal ever told me. The phone was moved, the alarm box was put way higher and in an awkward place to get to, let alone “install” and we did the rest of my neighbours houses as well.
Good to know how others think. I don’t have an alarm now. I have CCTV and a dog.
image 487
This is Mr Leo. He has taken over from Miss Jen, who took over from Zanni. All have put in more than 20 years of service.
There was this boy in my class at school in 7th grade. He was short for his age. He kept to himself and never really mixed with anyone. He always ate his lunch alone on a bench seat which was on the edge of the playground just staring into space. It was like he was in his own little world and nothing mattered to him. I never saw him smile in all the time i knew him.
He would get called all kinds of names that really hurt him deep down. But he never retaliated or showed how much it hurt him, which seemed to infuriate his tormentors.
They were relentless. Mean. One day he stepped in front of a car outside of school and stopped in the middle of the road as if waiting for it to hit him. The driver screeched to a halt only inches away from his body. He was frozen and only moved when the driver asked if he was OK. He hung his head and walked away slowly.
Nobody chose him for team sports during PE and when he was the last one left everyone called him a loser and laughed at him. He hung his head and went to the far corner of the gym and sat down hiding his face in his hands.
They tormented him in the change rooms and started calling him a ‘homo, faggot and perv’. It wasn’t long before it had got around the whole school that this boy was a ‘homo’ and so everyone started calling him those terrible names.
He had fruit thrown at him from behind so that he never knew who it was. It hit him in the back of his head knocking him down to the ground. With tears in his eyes he tried to stand up but they came at him again and knocked his books out of his hands making him go down again. People laughed at him. He got up, grabbed his books, and ran outside and kept running till he couldn’t run any longer. He ended up walking for 10 miles just following a road not knowing were he was going. But he didn’t care if he died that day.
Still he didn’t retaliate. Or tell anyone. Or complain. The next week he wasn’t at school. Someone started a rumor that he committed suicide. Everyone laughed. Nobody called to see if he was all right. Nobody missed him. Nobody cared.
What they didn’t know was that his stepdad had hurt him so badly and that he was in hospital for three days. Too sick to attend school. He never told anyone about what happened when he returned to school. When everyone saw that he was still alive, they were disappointed. And told him to go kill himself. “Do it properly this time”.
He was still not well from what his stepfather did to him. When they pushed him into the lockers at school or tried to jam his head in the door, he let out a yelp. But the pain was not from what they did to him.
One day after PE he was acting very strange. He stood facing everyone with his head hanging low. As if his whole world was about to come crashing down. He was trembling. There was an unusual silence in the room that scared him. It was then that everyone saw his body. Covered in black and blue welts across his back, legs and arms. He had tears falling from his eyes and was clearly ashamed of his body.
The shower stung like a 1000 bees.
They didn’t touch his clothes or call him names or hit him; this time they left him alone.
That boy is me.
I never told anybody what had happened to me. I knew that if I snitched on my stepdad it would be 100 times worse. I was 12 and as far as I knew, nobody would help me even if I asked. I was too afraid of what he would do to me. I woke up every day hoping things would change. I didn’t hold grudges and never have. It helped me get through some depressing periods while i was at school.
I just wanted a normal life and to be happy.
I can’t say that I have found that dream and I probably never will. But at least I am in no danger now and I deal with the consequences of my childhood as it surfaces and as an adult I can put it in its proper place.
Because you, a normal people, who lacks bilingual ability and critical thinking, can’t distinguish truth from the sea of infomation in which propaganda hides.
If I say the “criticism” and “democracy” are just camouflages for America’s real intention to overthrow legitimate government, and 2019 riot is actually a West backed color revolution in the coat of “pro-democracy protest”, you must think I’m brainwashed.
However, I’m not. Simply because I’m bilingual. The organziers and main activists confessed they are funded and instructed by CIA and NED, also including MI6, and some other NGOs, but your media didn’t report this. And apparently you don’t read Chinese so you don’t know this.
This, in the academic field of Media and Communications, is called GATEKEEPING.
The news agencies had the right to decide which piece of news is to be reported. And the final news outlet is a result of FRAMING the narrative via news stories.
Narratives in news refer to news stories framed and presented to us about what’s happening in this world, and one major function of narrative is to shape our views on this world. And these views consist our attitude toward someone/something.
Like in this question, you think CCP is evil, evil is a attitude, which can be shaped by narrative, and narrative is the product of a series of news outlets.
As a passive receiver, you can’t ask news agencies feeding you whatever you want to know, but whatever they want you to know.
So, where to find the truth?
First, be bilingual, or at least knowing where to find the opposite voice. There are always English information from the other side, but you need to find it yourself.
Second, be of critical thinking. Some information is misleading, sometimes they even hide or delete something from the internet. When there’s only one side’s voice, it’s dangerous. Like Russia-Ukraine war, when Russia’s voice is muted, what you receive is the selected information.
Third, be open-minded to different voices. When I told you you’re brainwashed on HK matters, don’t argue back or leave, try to compare the differences and seek more information to verify yours or mine opinion.
Beef and Onion Stew (Stifado)
A traditional Greek Beef and Onion Stew makes a comforting cold-weather meal.
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Ingredients
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 (2 pound) boneless beef chuck, tip or round, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely-ground pepper
1 bay leaf
1 stick cinnamon
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 1/2 pounds pearl onions, peeled
Crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
Cook and stir chopped onion and garlic in oil in Dutch oven over medium heat until onion is tender; remove with slotted spoon.
Cook beef in remaining oil, stirring frequently, until all liquid is evaporated and beef is brown on all sides, about 25 minutes; drain fat.
Return onion and garlic to Dutch oven. Stir in remaining ingredients except onions and cheese. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Add white onions. Cover and simmer until beef and white onions are tender, about 30 minutes.
Remove bay leaf and cinnamon. Garnish with feta cheese, if desired.
I drove out into the middle of a forest on a mountain. Accompanied only by a man that I barely knew. Without telling anyone where I was going. To a place with no cell phone service.
I was 18. He was 25 and attractive. I had known ‘of’ him (he worked at my company, in a different department), but I didn’t really actually know him. We both ended up at a party one night and, after chatting, we exchanged numbers.
He asked if he could take me hiking, and I said sure!
On Saturday, I packed up and he drove us for 2 hours into the wilderness of Mt. Baker. Halfway up, I realized… shit! I hadn’t told anyone where I was going (which you ALWAYS do if you’re going to be in the wilderness).
And my cell phone was out of service now.
And… who really was this guy next to me?!
I started to panic, as my anxiety fueled brain came up with bizarre ideas of what could happen.
“He could totes murder me and leave my body in the middle of the woods. This place is 119,989 acres… nobody would ever find me. And nobody knew I went with him for the day. If I were a murderer this would be, like, my dream come true.”
Luckily, I played it cool and halfway up the mountain blurted “Yo, don’t murder me bro!”
So smooth.
It turned out fine. He and I still go hiking together. But, in all fairness, it was one of the dumbest/ most naive things I’ve done.
Always tell people if you’re going into the wilderness. Don’t go off alone, out of cell phone service, with a man you barely know.
I was in Chattanooga working at a franchise restaurant as a waiter after the mortgage crash some years ago.
We advertised specials on the weekdays and it would draw in a crowd that was less affluent. That’s fine, I get that people like to eat out and I provided them with the same outstanding service (I was always #1 or #2 in tips).
We had this one lady that would come in every few weeks, eat her food, and then complain to have it comped. There was nothing wrong with the food, etc. Of course I wouldn’t get tipped, either. The folks she would eat with were invariably embarrassed, but did nothing.
After enjoying this (not!) several times she came in again. They sat in my section. I notified the manager we had a comp. coming.
I took their drink and appetizer orders and, when I returned, I asked if they were ready to order their meal. When it was her turn I had to say it…
“And what free meal will you be ordering this evening?”
The table was silent. The manager on duty looked at me like I’d lost my mind but was smiling. In fact I think the whole restaurant got quiet as the end of my employment drew near.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, loudly and indignantly.
It was so quiet you could hear the dishwasher run in the back.
“Well,” I said most matter of factly, “in my times serving you you’ve always complained and gotten your food and drinks for free when in reality there’s absolutely nothing wrong. I don’t get it. You’re not homeless, you’re well-dressed, showered, and obviously didn’t walk here (or anywhere, I’d guess), so you must like going out and eating for free. It’s happened here and probably going to happen again tonight. I thought I’d just clear the air a bit.”
Yes, if I had to do it over again I’d have rhymed off what she had ordered and not paid for, LOL.
She wasn’t happy, as you may imagine, and got rather loud in that very quiet establishment.
Good news is I don’t think she came back.
Bad news was neither did I.
The Enduring Stellar Lifecycle in 30 Doradus (Composite: Infrared + X-ray)
“If I don’t call my mom right now, she’ll call the cops.”
Some background:
My mother devised a system of codewords and numbers that if used in certain ways meant different things. My older brothers would sometimes party with their friends in some not-so-great areas, so there were things that could be texted or said over the phone that saved them from bad situations. Maybe a rival gang showed up, the cops showed up, or there were unknown drugs on the scene (hey, we’ve all smoked a little weed).
The words were: breakfast sausages, kitty litter, tampons/pads/period (any could be used), ice cream, garbage, recycling
The numbers were 1–10.
”Breakfast sausages at 10?” Meant “Something is happening here and I feel unsafe”.
My mom would question “Does that work” for “do you need me to come get you”. Yes meant she came, No meant she alerted the cops who would usually just drive by.
So, how did this help me?
I was at a party where a guy was very insistent on getting me alone, and much bigger than I was. Upon getting me into a bedroom alone, he proceeded to push me down on the bed, and get on top of me. Over the noise of the party, screaming wasn’t working so I struggled, kicking and wiggling. When he grabbed my hair and yanked me up, I caught an old school alarm clock familiar red numbers and then started “freaking out”.
”Oh my god it’s so late I’m going to be f****in killed!” He stopped for a second, confused, and I said “I need to call my mom right now or she’ll call the cops! I was supposed to be home an hour ago!”
Immediately he was off of me and my phone was in my hand. No one wants cops at a party. My exchange with my mom went a little something like this:
”Hey mom, super sorry that it’s so late. I hope I didn’t worry you I lost track of time.”
”I thought you were going to stay with Theresa tonight after your party?”
”Oh crap yeah mom I’ll switch out the kitty litter tomorrow by 9. I’ll make sure I’m dropped off early so it’s done before the garbage is collected. Can you grab me some tampons at the store tomorrow?” (My would-be assailant is looking rather uncomfortable)
”I’ll throw on a robe and be there in 5. Be ready for me to scream.”
My mom proceeded to yell some rather nonsensical things at me over the phone, as I’d requested with “tampons”. “Garbage” was that whoever I was concerned about was near me, potentially being able to hear the phone conversation or read texts. “Kitty litter” meant I needed to leave ASAP, “9” meaning without cops.
My would-be assaillant was very uncomfortable and I left the room without a word, my mom yelling on the phone, and an overly exaggerated wince on my face. I reconnected with my friend and told her what happened, she walked me out with her boyfriend and ended up telling me that same guy had told her he thought we’d “really connected” and wanted my info.
In the end, I lied. But I would’ve been raped if I hadn’t.
It’s a system I’m glad to pass on to my daughter!
Reefer Madness 1936 | Full Movie | Louis Gasnier | Cult Classic | Dorothy Short | Kenneth Craig
Today I visited Quora, and saw a post written by my half-sister. She is my father’s daughter with his second wife. And it was a tribute to my dad.
I hadn’t talked to her since my dad died, and she lives in Erie, and I have long forgotten about her. I left a comment to her… telling thank-you for her tribute to our mutual father. Nine sentences.
I do not want to open up dialog with her, as I have long since given up on my old family back in the states, but I did get something nice out of it. I got a picture of my father when he was in the Air Force in his 20’s.
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I will still stay away. I have ZERO interest in any continuing dialog for any reason. But in regards to this, let me show you all my father… handsome man.
Years ago my son was working as a tow truck driver. He was sound asleep at 2 AM when he got a call. He jumped up finishing getting dressed as he was running out the door. The call was for a car on the freeway so those are a priority. He drove to the car and found the guy had gotten out on the side of the freeway and locked himself out of his car. It was not hard to figure out he’d probably been drinking a little and stopped to urinate. So my son got there and quickly opened up the car and told the man the fee is $185. That is the standard fee for a call to the freeway. The man flipped out and told my son that was ridiculous and he was NOT paying that kind of money. My son explained that was the standard fee of all the towing companies for a call out to a freeway. My son was polite and professional the entire time but this man said: “That took you two seconds and I’m not paying $185 for that!!”. My son finally just looked at him and said “You’re not? Ok then” and my son walked over to the car, tossed the keys on the seat, locked the door and walked to his tow truck and got in and drove away. I guess that man didn’t understand that while it took my son 2 seconds because he’s good that my son had already worked all day and was sound asleep at 2 AM. My son doesn’t make any $185 for that call but instead was making $15 an hr. He could have not answered the phone at all at that hour but he’s a good person. He gets up and goes out. I sure hope that the next car that came by was not a CHP and that guy ended up with a DUI. If he did then he was wishing he paid $185. He had to pay it anyway when the next truck came from some other company.
My boss asked me to deliver a lamp to a photographer at Condé Nast publications in New York City. They are the publishers of glossy magazines such as Vogue, W, Glamour, Allure, Self, Teen Vogue, Lucky. Their offices and studios are absolutely stuffed with gorgeous women; some for photo-shoots, but also many models who retired into the fashion- magazine business.
I got into an elevator which was immediately packed with a crowd of stunningly beautiful young women headed to various photo studios. I inhaled the intoxicating perfume and slyly whispered to the elevator operator, “Now THIS is the happiest place on Earth.” He chuckled knowingly.
I delivered the lamp, and caught the down elevator. When we got to the main floor, the elevator emptied, and I asked the operator, half-kidding, “How does one get a job like this?”
I was surprised when he responded, “You just apply at the front desk in the lobby. The pay is really great, full benefits, AND since most of the models are lonely and from out-of-town, you can date all the hot supermodels you could possible want. So make sure you pick up an application on your way out…then take the bus to Cleveland.”
“Cleveland?” I asked.
“Well,” he grinned, “That’s where the back of the line is.”
Gulyas (Hungary)
“Gulyas” means cattle- or sheep-herder in Hungarian. This hearty soup has traditional roots in the foods prepared by rustic herders, long ago. Serve the soup in bowls topped with sour cream.
Wipe beef with damp cloth; cut into 1-inch cubes. Place oil in Dutch oven. Add beef; brown well on all sides. Remove from pan with slotted spoon; set aside.
Add onions and garlic to pan; cook 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add paprika, cayenne, stock, the 2 cups water, caraway, marjoram, salt, pepper and meat. Stir well. Bring to boil over moderate heat. Reduce heat to low; cook, covered, 45 minutes.
Add tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and peppers. Stir well; return to boil. Cover; cook 30 minutes.
Combine flour and the 2 tablespoons water; stir to form smooth paste. Add slowly to soup, stirring well. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened. Drop Csipetke (noodle/dumplings) into soup before serving, if desired.
I have a friend from my graduate days. A quiet, gentle, unassuming guy, with a permanent smile on his face. I never saw him agitated. Or elated. He took everything as it came – the good and the bad.
Being academically average, the both of us started our MBA prep in the third year. Attended the same classes in our fourth. During the mid of the year, I relocated to Bangalore for a 6 month internship, he stayed back at campus. He always aced his mock tests, but, unfortunately, just a few months prior to D-Day, his father passed away. He didn’t do as well in the actual exam as he could have. Consequently, he couldn’t make it to a good college.
Now being the sole earner in the family, he took up the best offer at hand. A mass recruiter paying around 3–3.25 lpa and resumed prep for the next year’s exam. He didn’t make it this time either. Not one to get disheartened, he tried again the following year. They say “third time’s a charm”, and it was for him.
He got into one of the best MBA colleges in the country, worked hard for another 2 years, and graduated with honors (top 5% of the batch). Landed himself a cushy job with a boutique trading firm making 10x of what he was.
During all of these years, I never heard him rant about his rotten luck. Or bitch about his problems. Or complain about the unfair advantage that the rich and powerful have. He just kept his head down and kept working with what he had (talent) and what was handed to him (luck).
So, “what is the single most underrated trait a person can have”?
Freshman year I was living in the dorms. I was living in the cheapest dorms on campus, so it was me and a roommate living with 30 other girls with two communal bathrooms on the 11th floor.
I was on that unlimited meal plan flow, and the freshman 15 had become a reality. I decided it was time to go on a health kick.
I had an (illegal) crockpot in my dorm. One of these bad boys.
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I bought myself some fish (I think it was tilapia), rice, and broccoli.
I threw it all in that crockpot with some vegetable broth, turned it on, and went to the gym.
I stayed at the gym for 3 hours, then got some food afterwards for a total of four hours.
I returned to my dorm and got on the elevator.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, a stench of fish attacked my nostrils. It permeated every corner of the 11th floor.
I knew immediately I had made a big mistake.
My RA was searching every inch of our floor for the source of the smell. Girls were out in the halls spraying Febreze. People were speculating that some girl on our floor was having major lady problems.
I waited until my RA was no longer in sight of my room. I opened my door. The stench of fish almost made me pass out, it was so strong.
I ran and turned my crockpot off and bagged all the fish up and put it in my refrigerator. No one could know it was me.
I was lucky that my roommate went out of town that weekend so she didn’t have to know about it.
Since I didn’t have a sink in my room, I’d have to wash the Crockpot out in the public bathroom, which was a high risk situation of me getting caught.
I first decided to soak it with dish soap and water which I carried in a water bottle from the sink to my room.
Then, when it had soaked, I took it to the shower so I could wash it behind a curtain to lower the risk of anyone seeing me.
I disposed of all of the evidence before my roommate came back.
Our entire floor smelled like fish for four days. It was bad.
By the time my roommate came back, I had done my best to air out our room and febreze everything.
However, every fabric held a slight smell of fish. All of her and my clothes, our bedspreads, and our carpet had a small stench.
She would notice that her clothes smelled like fish every once in a while and she’d say “How did this happen? Do your clothes smell like fish too?”
I’d be like “Yeah, that is so weird. It’s probably the water here.”
I was successful, no one ever found out that the source of the fish stench was me and my crockpot until years later, when I willingly told some of my friends. (Which they now never let me forget)
But I learned an important lesson that day, one that all college freshman should follow:
My first husband passed away in January, 2001. My daughter was 16 at the time, in 10th grade. I permitted her to take a week and a half off to grieve, but getting homework assignments from her teachers.. When she returned to school, her history teacher told her that she had a report due that day. She had not been made aware of the assignment, as the teacher had only given it a week prior. The teacher told her. “ Well, you should have been here when it was assigned. “ She told her that her father’s death was not a good enough excuse for missing class. She came home in tears. I called the school the next day and spoke with the principal. He agreed that the teacher had been out of line. The teacher was made to apologise to her in front of the class, and was written up for being insensitive. I asked the principal if I could schedule a grief instructional seminar for the staff, and he agreed. The seminars still happen every year. I also spearheaded a grief counseling group, headed by a wonderful hospice nurse. It still exists today in that school. Not really policy changes, but changes nevertheless.
I am not a surgeon but a Trauma Nurse. But I did have an interesting case.
One night shift an elderly man, 80’s, comes in complaining of abdominal pain. We started an IV, sent blood to the lab to see if he had an elevated white cell count which would point to appendicitis.
On physical examination he had a scar from a previous appendectomy, a soft abdomen, no reflex on palpitation, but a hard, firm mass about the level of his navel to pubis. So we sent him off for an X-Ray of his abdomen.
On return from X-Ray the tech put the films on the viewer and left without a word. When I looked up there, as big as life was a 1 liter Thermos sitting just past his rectum in his large intestine.
I informed him that he was going to be admitted for removal of a foreign object when the OR opened the next day. He asked if I would call his wife to tell her he was being admitted.
When I informed her that we needed to keep him overnight she stated, “Not that thermose again is it? Well you tell him he can take a taxi home because I ain’t picking him up again.”
I had always worn el cheapo suits, just something to look professional at work. But my girlfriend thought I should get a once in a life time, show off suit, as I was in the fittest shape of my life. So we went to Holt Renfrew to buy a suit, I was thinking Armani because it sounds impressive, but really I just wanted a suit that made me look good. No one was rude or anything, but no one approached me as I was browsing. I just got the vibe, that I wasn’t welcome.
I went next door to Harry Rosen, and as soon as I started browsing, I was approached, and asked if I would like a cappuccino while we picked out a suit. I was hooked, it might be a gimmick, but it made me feel special. They showed me that a Canali looked better on me, than the Armani, and suited my physique better. They asked if I wanted the name, or the look. Because no one would know that it was an Armani if I didn’t name drop.
I took the Canali. After it was fitted and adjusted, I went back to Holt Renfrew to compare prices, while wearing my new suit, shirt, tie and shoes.
I had someone asking if they could help me in seconds.
Maybe the first time everyone was busy at Holt Renfrew, but after that I bought a lot at Harry Rosens. Nothing as expensive as that suit, but nice clothes.
It will speed up China’s ascendency and swiftly destroy the U.S. economy. Over time the U.S. will implode and break up into 5–6 different nation. It will start a class war in the U.S. and polarise the U.S. as never before.
But heck, ignore my advise and do it anyway! Trump is very smart he will say all what you and for, but do 1% and fool all of you while he enjoys popularity! Biden is not too clever he will do 10% and screwed up the U.S. and spend the rest of his term negotiating with China! He get screwed from left and right.
Chinese will do precisely what the U.S. do but it hurts you ten times harder!
This happened to my wife. She interviewed for a position, she nailed a software testing interview to a point where some interviewers in the interview panel said after the interview, it would be a crime if this company did not pick her.
She was obviously over joyed and waiting for the offer. The offer did come 2 days later; she stated her current compensation and they agreed they would give at least 5 K more.
2 days later the company came back with close to 20K less than her current compensation saying that the company’s CEO said that the job and the person who interviewed for the job did not deserve such a high compensation and that since the office locality was already closer to her place the company was doing her a huge favor already.
My wife politely declined the offer saying she was happy with her current job( which she was except for the commute) and she said she would join the company if they offer her the same compensation. The recruiter went back to the CEO and after 2 days of serious discussions with CEO, the recruiter came back excitedly and said the company was willing to offer 5 K more than their previous offer( which was still 15K lesser than the previous offer ). My wife was amused by the recruiter’s excitement and said it was lesser than her current compensation and declined the offer.
At this moment the recruiter should have left it like that and moved on. But she suggested that my wife was lying about her total compensation and that the position did not entail such an high pay in the current job market. This came after the recruiter accepted my wife’s initial proposition and after one of the interview panelist stated that my wife had done the interview really well.
Till this moment we were actually in a dilemma because the commute was really frustrating( 2 hours one way commute), after this discussion my wife made her mind to stick with her current job and try for a different job later.
My wife got a better paying job 1 month later within 5 mile radius. One of the panelist in that interview became family friend and said they were still looking for someone to fill that position( after close to two months) and that the CEO suggested that he would actually reach out to my wife again with a better TC.
The Confederacy was a midget taking on a giant. It trailed the Union in population, manufacturing, economic might, transportation networks and available capital. It was a miracle it held on as long as it did.
Let’s start with population. At the start of the war, the population of the Union states was about 22 million. The entire population of the Confederacy was about 9 million, but 3.5 million of those were slaves. As a result, during the war, the Union raised 2 million troops. The Confederacy raised fewer than 1 million.
Similarly, the GNP of the Union states was about three times that of the Confederate states, and most of the Union GNP was manufactured goods even though the Union had triple the arable land. The Union had five times as many factories as the Confederacy, and most Confederate factories were focused on agricultural processing.
The Union had two and a half times more railway mileage than the South, and it was better connected. Most southern railways just ran to the coast.
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Not long into the war, the Confederacy had practically no gold, and thanks to Union blockades, had trouble exporting goods to raise more. Both sides printed currency, and although the Union currency wasn’t popular, the Confederate currency pretty much quickly became worthless.
The Confederacy knew it couldn’t defeat the Union. It’s only hope was that the Union would tire of the war and sue for peace. However, the Confederacy, despite a couple of really competent generals, couldn’t form a strategy that would force the Union to the bargaining table. Yes, Union attacks at the heart of the Confederacy were generally unsuccessful, but on the Mississippi the Union pretty much won every battle and managed to stop Confederate trade dead in its tracks.
Well not many besides people I went to school with and my parents know this story but I figure what the hell! It’s a long one just a warning. I was bullied all through out my grade school and middle school years. I was a chubby over weight girl and far bigger then most of my fellow school mates.
It started with the usual name calling and pushes in the hallway, but it eventually got much much worse. My worst experience would have to be in 8th grade, when one of the boys I had a crush on pretty much the most popular boy in the school, was coaxed by a group of girls to “Ask me out”. Me being the dumb kid I was thought he was being genuine.
He asked if I would go to the school year end dance with him. I was excited I made my mom buy me a new outfit and I had my hair professionally done basically went all out. Well (now this is where it gets hard for me to talk about) I got to the dance and hooked up with a few friend waiting for my “date” to arrive I was so happy and excited.
He showed up and asked me if I wanted to dance. We danced not to a slow song or anything but danced together. Then the girls showed up. These girls were some of the meanest bitches on earth I swear. They came to the dance floor and well they were being nice.
Complimenting me on my outfit and hair saying how lucky I was to snag the hottest guy in school. Well my date then asked if I wanted to go sit on the bleachers for awhile and talk. I went sat down and we started talking and it was like everyone melted away. He then asked to be excused and one of the girls came up and asked if I would go with her to the washroom so we could “fix our make-up”. I walked into the washroom and there were at least 8 girls in there.
They grabbed my hair and ripped me down to the ground they literally ripped all my clothing off. I mean everything and dragged me by my hair out of the washroom one of the three girls stood by the back entrance so I couldn’t get out that way and one other girl locked the bathroom door from the inside so I couldn’t run there. Then my “date” came around the corner said I was a disgusting whale and he would never date someone like me he then grabbed my hair and two other girls grabbed my arms and they dragged me out into the gym dropped me and took off as teachers came running. Two other girls snapped pictures before taking off as well.
so there I was on the gym floor in front of 150 students..teachers and parents…naked..beaten up and crying. If that wasn’t enough one of the girls who snapped a picture of me. Had it developed and used a photo copier and posted the pictures all over the school on the last day. None of the kids involved were ever punished as the princible said ” It’s the end of the year none of these kids will be coming back here anyways”, What they did to me was wrong but I grew from it and I swore come high school I was not going to be some victim.
I joined the football team the first day as the first female linebacker ever and I kicked ass for 3 seasons. I was pretty popular I had tones of friends and even though I was popular I NEVER EVER put anyone else down.
Oh and over the summer I ran into my “date” I went up to him called him a fucking loser and kicked him as hard as I could in the balls.
He moved away…Two of the head girls who did me the most damage I went to high school with….as popular as they were in middle school they were shit in high school one is now a meth head..The other is on welfare with 4 kids!
Our daughter has taken after her mother in that regard.
My daughter was on her way to her office after a lunch with me, waiting for the elevator and a man (30–40s) came along. Made a bit of small talk, and then out of nowhere, he said and I quote what my daughter said “You don’t really have to work. Just show off those knockers to a rich daddy who’ll take care of you and those things”.
When he cleared three interviews (technical, informal, different teams + hiring manager), he was face to face with my daughter, who was the HR boss. She just played the video she got from security from the elevator.
He had to be escorted off, coz he wouldn’t stop accusing her of torpedoing him and turn to begging and than back to accusing.
Needless to say, his career in consulting for retail isn’t going anywhere and my daughter made sure every big employer in the narrow field knows about that man.
I was a proud daddy that week, and you couldn’t do anything to take off the smile off my face.
But the western world will seek the extermination of Chinese.
The western world already wants to exterminate us. Note how the Chinese exclusion acts are being made law in the US right now. Not just Chinese citizens. US born Chinese. Most westerners welcome such laws.
But the Chinese economy will COLLAPSE
But isn’t the Chinese economy ALREADY collapsing?
If anything a massive super heavy casualty war is desirable. Taipei turned into Gaza is desirable… what’s that? Ah yes you’re already sanctioning and accusing us of genocide. So what you gonna do? Sanction us again?
In short anything you can do to us, you’ve already done.
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
I was eight seconds late getting back from my break. I got wrote up for being late. EIGHT SECONDS.
I usually worked through my breaks and part of my lunch because I just liked doing what I was doing without interruption. (My bosses knew this, too.) But for some reason, on that day, I did take my allotted break, and was late.
After being disciplined for my tardiness, I took every single break, every single time. Right down to the last second. I didn’t work nearly as “hard” as I did previously, either. (I like the t’s crossed, and the i’s dotted. That evaporated. My work was still accurate, but I didn’t go the extra mile.) My employer lost a lot for that eight seconds. However, the most valuable thing that was lost was the respect I used to have for my job and boss.
I was a big and athletic kid but I also moved a lot when I was in elementary school. Each time we moved I had to prove myself all over again.
Being the “new kid” meant that I was bullied by all sorts of kids from all sorts of groups, at least until I fought back.
And I learned to fight back pretty quickly. You don’t really have to win all your fights, you just have to prove that you’re willing to fight. That’s the key. And that you won’t back down.
I particularly had a tough time moving from St. Pete, Florida, to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1980 between 6th and 7th grade.
St. Pete was awesome. We lived on the water in a great community. We had power boats and sail boats and I had lived there for a couple of years so I had a bunch of friends (Little League and Pop Warner).
No offense intended but the suburbs west of St. Louis sucked in comparison.
Anyhow, as a 7th grader I went to South Senior High School which had grades 7 through 12. My first week there I got into a scrap with some kid and did pretty good. The problem was that he had an older brother, a freshman, who later cornered me when I wasn’t expecting it and gave me a bit of a whooping.
I was so disappointed in myself that I decided to fight the older brother again. So the next day I ran up and basically tackled him in front of all of his friends and fought him until teachers broke it up. I didn’t win but I sure as hell didn’t lose.
But that was enough. Nobody messed with me the rest of that year. Attacking a high school kid got me a lot of street cred with the kids in 7th grade. I was suspended for a couple of days but my Dad was old school so he was proud of me for sticking up for myself.
But then we moved from St. Louis to the East Bay of San Francisco between 7th and 8th grade and I had to do the same thing all over again.
I had a business trip to Las Vegas some years ago. I was traveling with a friend, who frequented LV to gamble several times a year. He suggested we play craps and gave me a book on how it is played.
When we got to the tables, he carefully selected a table, based on the laughing and sport the players were having. His comment: play with people who are having fun. I was next to a guy who had at least $5K in chips. I had my measly $200. As play progressed, my slot had increased to about $400 and I felt great. The guy beside me had at least $25K in his. Then, we all crapped out. I was down to about $300 total, with $100 more than I started with. My friend insisted we leave the table and go for a walk and get a cup of coffee.
We took a walk, had a coffee, etc. My friend told me we’d stop by that table in about an hour and find the same $25K guy playing. We did come back and he had less than $2K in his slot. He had lost over $20K while we walked. My friend told me that many people gamble and do not stop until they lose everything they brought. This was an interesting lesson for me. Gambling can be fun, but one must limit the loss.
Every living creature has an anus: Ants, horses, eagles . . . And us. While most creatures’ anuses do their jobs with little fuss, not so with human beings. The design of our anus is Providence’s little joke to keep us humble.
Consider, for example, the horse. We live across from a horse breeding establishment so I’ve had ample opportunity to observe these estimable animals in action. While they shit copiously they never get any on their hair (when was the last time you saw a horse’s behind fouled by its own waste?). The reason for this lies in the design of the horse anus. It is an extensible device that, when a BM is about to pass, protrudes a few critical inches, allowing the manure to drop straight to the ground without mussing a single hair. To further forfend fouling, there is no hair in the immediate vicinity of the horse’s anus, nor on the extensible process itself. What a remarkable design.
Not so with us. Our small orifice is buried deep in a meaty cleft, the margins of which have to be spread to their limit if there is to be any chance the thicket of long, nasty hair in the cleft will not be fouled by the passing of stool — a vain exercise in 99 cases out of 100. Moreover, while the horse can defaecate while standing, just let a human being try that! No we must squat. But not only squat, we must go through all sorts of contortions to minimize the amount of feces that will cling to the surrounding parts — which, as we all know, is another futile exercise.
To accommodate our flawed design, we are taught from birth to use wads of paper, magazine pages, dried corncobs and even stones, to wipe our filthy behinds. And this we must do! If we did not wipe, we would reek of dung from the cake of dingleberries between our cheeks and our pants, skirts, caftans and burkas, would be fouled with nicotine stains and clouds of flies would follow us down the street like goslings.
I worked in a high tech company and moved up the ladder from bottom level CSR to a business manager overseeing a 60 million dollar product line by the age of 30. I was the best in the world at what I did but I had two huge strikes against me. One was my absolutely shitty attitude. I have written about attitude before. You must always have a great attitude, even if you have to fake it. No single thing is more important to your success in life than your attitude. But mine sucked. The second thing that worked against me was that in many companies, no matter where you are or how good you are, many people will see the guy who started at the bottom. In the eyes of Management, I was the customer support lackey who fixed broken things for them, not the guy making them 60 million dollars a year. There was a distinct lack of respect and that contributed to my bad attitude.
A new manager was hired for the department. He was an angry, mean jerk whose approach to everything was “shoot first ask questions maybe – they don’t deserve your consideration anyway.” I could no longer take the contempt and I quit.
A few months after I left the company began to realize its loss. I am not bragging about myself here. I did good work and I was the best at what I did. I designed the products. I knew absolutely everything about them. I was the sales troubleshooter who went on hundreds of sales calls per year. I knew every weak link in the competition. I knew how to present the product in the best light. I could give stellar presentations to huge audiences. I was making them a lot of money.
So they approached me at my new job and said they wanted me to come back. Everyone wanted me to come back except for that new asshole who had been, and would be my manager. He had been tasked with bringing me back but he didn’t want me back. I outshone him at every level. I could do his job in my sleep. But he was the guy they tasked with bringing me back. So he asked me to dinner.
When you’re going to bring someone back and you ask them to dinner you don’t take them to McDonald’s to make your pitch. We were suit and tie guys and wearing a suit and tie at McDonald’s was a surreal experience. I let it go. I wanted to hear the offer.
And so Greg made the offer. They offered me the exact same money I was making at my new company and that was it. No bonus. No extra stock. No retained seniority or vacation time. He was going through the motions because he was told to go through the motions. But his entire attitude was resentment and anger. For a few minutes I thought I was misunderstanding him; the offer was so lame as to be not even worth the time at McDonald’s. I had to ask for clarification.
He looked at me with contempt and said, “That company you’re at now is going down. We can offer you any terms we want and you’ll take it because you don’t want to be part of a sinking ship.” I might add that my old company that was trying to get me back was also doing a fair imitation of the Titanic at the time, too. I was absolutely stunned when he said it. I couldn’t believe it. So I laughed a little bit, got up and left.
That was a slap in the face offer.
I told a few old friends at my old company what had happened and it got back to the President. He called me personally on the phone and invited me to dinner. It was at a four star restaurant. When I got there he asked me what happened. I told him. He apologized. He said if I came back they would make it worth my while. I asked him if that guy would be my boss. He said yes, there was not much he could do about that. So I thanked him and said no. We ate and talked and then I left.
Two years later my old company was being sold to Compaq Computer on the back of a product I had designed years earlier. Even though I had been gone for two years, I was credited in a speech by the President for the work that made them successful in the sale. By then I was the senior manager in the department of my new company making much, much more money than I ever dreamed possible. I attribute my success in the new company to my new and improved attitude because attitude is everything.
I was in the infantry in 1969, we were at a small, one-company firebase in the Mekong Delta. The Army did not “allow” drug use among its soldiers but it happened anyway. A guy who bunked across from me openly shot heroin. This obviously wasn’t sanctioned by the military. One night when we had set up a standard L-shaped ambush, this fellow decided he wanted to go home and walked right out into the middle of the ambush. Fortunately, nobody clicked a Claymore handle and he was retrieved safely. But the safety of an entire platoon had been compromised.
The very next night two VC walked right through the middle of our ambush site and nobody opened fire or set off a Claymore. We weren’t certain it wasn’t our drug-addicted soldier trying to head home again.
As for alcohol, all we had was beer when the little beer window was open. Pabst, aka rat piss, was 25¢ and the much-preferred Black Label was 35¢, and we sometimes had Bud. There was no hard liquor because there was no PX from which to purchase it. I never saw marijuana use but I’m sure it was widespread in other companies. Heroin was the problem.
So I suspect the next question would be: Why wasn’t this reported to the higher ups? Well, soldiers learned to be remarkably tolerant of their fellow GI’s. There was no upside to creating problems in the platoon, too many opportunities to become a victim of “friendly fire” on a dark night in the boonies. One soldier, on rare stand down days, played “Black Pearl, Precious Little Girl” endlessly on a 45 rpm player and nobody complained.
In summary, the Army allowed drinking because soldiers have consumed alcohol since, well, forever. Drug use was not allowed but it happened anyway, and this was well before the advent of drug testing. Everyone was trying to figure out his own way to get back home safely and the solutions were never that simple.
I worked for my best friend and he got into a bad motorcycle accident he was in coma and had to learn to walk and talk again so I took over doing everything for the company I worked 16 hr days 7 days a week for a year never asked for anything just wanted my friend to have everything he has before the accident. so after a little more than year he was back at work so I asked for a day off he said no he wife didn’t stick up for me or anyone in his family and they all knew what I did for him so I told him I quit he said fine so I went to our 3 big company’s we did work for and asked them if they wanted to learn what we did for them and I told them what my boss did that night we went out bought 3 trucks and I trained them how to do what we did my boss lost over a 1,000,000 because of losing those company’s work and then list his wife and everything he owned because what I did by taking those company’s away
My high school crush was a beautiful girl named Adrian, a year behind me, and it seems I was the only person in the school who had ever seen Rocky and got the ‘Adriaaaaaaaaaaaaaan’ joke she kept making.
She was maybe 5 foot 4, adorable, and had a propensity for sitting in my lap in the lunchroom and stealing my food (I made my own lunch through most of high school).
She also ended up dating a guy who was, to be fair, scum. He had that ‘bad boy’ charm that young women seem to enjoy, I suppose, but he was borderline retarded and generally violent.
One day in 2014, I was sitting around bored and decided to reconnect with people from high school. Would not recommend.
I found her Facebook page, and noticed that literally nothing had been done to it in years.
Then I found her obituary, and his about a month later.
I talked to someone from her circle of close friends in high school, and it sounded like when she graduated, they moved in together. She was bound for great things, musically and mathematically talented, and he was bound to wind up in the gutter.
Sadly, it sounds like he dragged her down, talked her into ‘experimenting’ with drugs, and both died of heroin overdoses.
A Student at Tsinghua asked Ren Zhengfei of Huawei this question
Everyone says China steals from the west. What should we do when someone says that
Zhengfei replied
Keep Innovating. Only the day you become more innovative than them and beat the West on their own terms, would you be in a position to convince yourself that you did not copy from anyone.
That’s your answer
Stealing can only take you so far
So wait and see how China does and then we decide whether China steals or innovates
Unless of course you are the fox who finds the grapes sour
Debate many westerners for a short period of time, what happens? Many of them will turn to racism and dehumanisation when they start losing the debate.
Yesterday for instance somebody posted a comment on the atrocities of Britain against India. He called the atrocities fiction.
I provided counter evidence and he started to dehumanise me and said it was all CCP propaganda.
Except I had been using WESTERN SOURCES.
He couldn’t respond to that so continued to make racist comments at me. They of course don’t see this as racist, much like war crimes against brown people are considered OK because they’re not really people!
You see television and culture of western countries makes them usually white people think they are the master race, that’s why there’s so many self hating Asians in the western world. They’re taught conditioned and trained that whiteness is GODLINESS and many of the people there run with it, as such they feel they can do no wrong, they are the BEST and only humans possible!
I’m in my second week of at home suspension for striking a teacher. He locked me in a classroom and attempted to assault me when I wouldn’t consent to his advances on 14 year old me. The knock on the door was a deputy that served legal papers in our little town. The papers he served me was a summons to court for legal action pertaining to expenses incurred from point there after. I’m being sued by this teacher. My dad exploded, that jerk has bigger problems than money, just wait I don’t care if he’s in a courtroom. OMG I was saying daddy calm down a lot, I only call my dad “daddy” when I need him to calm down and focus on me so he doesn’t get into trouble or worse. The day of court arrived and there stands Mr Smug in his neck brace, bandaged nose, and black eye. I am holding my dad by both hands, telling him to look at me, please I don’t want you in jail dad. It doesn’t help that I’m shaking and I’m sure dad can feel it. Then the judge starts reading the case notes, Mr Smug is suing one Miss Key for medical expenses incurred during an altercation that resulted in a fractured nose, two chipped teeth, severe painful swelling in the groin, blurry vision, slight concussion, and upper neck pain. So young lady how do you plead? I asked the judge if I could present my papers (please don’t laugh we couldn’t afford a lawyer). He accepts my papers which are the affidavits from the custodian, vice principal and teacher (the witnesses that pulled me off of Mr Smug), the arresting deputy, and the school nurse that treated me before my dad arrived. His whole demeanor changed. WTH?! You mean to tell me that you are suing this girl because she kicked your but during an assault? His lawyer started trying to make an argument about me being malicious, and over bearing about defending myself. The judge told him to shut up, in what world does a 30 year old man believe he has a case against a 14 year old child that he is attempting to assault? Lawyer sets in with that is just allegations and hear-say, there’s no proof. I didn’t ask you lawyer I asked your client because as it stands this is the stupidest case I’ve ever heard of. In fact it’s so stupid that I’m dismissing it without prejudice, on grounds of incomprehension and competence. And might I extend my gratitude to you Mr Key for raising an able and resourceful young lady.
Hunter’s Stew (Bigos — Poland)
bigos
Ingredients
6 pounds canned sauerkraut
1/4 pound bacon or salt pork, diced
3 large onions, chopped
3 tart apples, peeled and chopped
2 cups beef broth
1 cup sherry or dry red wine
Salt, pepper, sugar, to taste
3 pounds smoked sausage, sliced
1 bay leaf
Instructions
Rinse sauerkraut in cold water and squeeze out juice well, reserving some of the juice. Put sauerkraut in large kettle over low heat.
Meanwhile, render the bacon or salt pork. Add bacon bits to sauerkraut.
Sauté onions in bacon fat until golden; add chopped apples and cook until slightly browned. Add all to the kettle. Add sausage. Add enough beef broth, bay leaf, salt, pepper, a little sugar and some of the sauerkraut juice for tartness. Simmer slowly for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Add wine and let stew bubble up. Cover and let stand until ready to use.
I went on an interview for a job I was grossly overqualified for, but I was unemployed (to finish my degree, which required internships), then the sequester hit when I graduated, and I needed ANY job so I could find one that was a better fit.
The boss told me the job paid $28 to $30. I was shocked, because that was extremely low, but they hired desperate people and they could smell it.
I then went through the interview process with the team lead and the office manager. Everything went well, and I headed home. It was a long drive, but that’s where business opportunity was.
While driving, I took a call from the office manager. She has been authorized to offer me the job at $10/hour. I did not laugh. I said “that is significantly lower than (boss) indicated the position paid.” Manager says, ‘you didn’t think $28 to $30 meant per hour, I’m sure? (Of course not, but the position SHOULD have paid much closer to that). $10/hour is the same as $28 to $30 thousand.’
I’m driving down the highway at 75 miles per hour, and very calmly said, no, I knew that was the annual salary. But $10/hour is $400 per week, at 52 weeks per year is $20,800 per year. and I did NOT say “if i can do the math in my head while driving, i’m pretty sure you can do it at your desk with a calculator at your disposal!”
Manager says “I can go check with (boss) to confirm – do you want to hold?”
I said “no, you were going to send me an offer letter? Why don’t you tell me about the benefits you mentioned, and when you send the letter you can make sure the figure is correct.”
An offer letter was not one this company typically provided because they liked to bait and switch – pay $8/hour when they’d offered $12, because you had no proof. I learned this later, and was SO glad I’d gotten a letter. When it came in, it was for the $28k figure.
My three-month review never happened, and at five months I had a nice offer from a much better company and I’m still there 5 years later. Making what I’m worth.
Sometimes you have to accept a slap in the face, but don’t let them step on your neck while they’re doing it.
Def-Con 4 (1985)
I remember this one. A cheesy B-grade movie, but I well remember enjoying it. You all have fun.
It is strange that the contemporaneous things going on today Geo-politically is much worse than what is described in this movie. Ugh!
Full Movie! Please watch the first 25 minutes. It’s all gold.
When I was growing up, I referred to my Maternal Grandfather as “Uncle”. Mind you, this was in a Irish Catholic household, and unless you were the first husband, and the father of the mother, you became “uncle”. Not grandfather.
So…
My grandfather on my mother’s side was “uncle”, not “grandfather”, because as I surmise today (as a much older man) he was not my mother’s father.
Ok.
They, like my father’s family had separate bedrooms for the man and the woman. My grandmother had her bedroom, and my “uncle” had his own bedroom. This was actually quite common in my family, as the men-folk from both families all started to snore when they turned 40 or so.
LOL
The poor women would never get any sleep unless that arrangement occurred. Yeah. It was never really explained that way to me. It’s just that you figure out these things over time as you age. Otherwise, it’s just a “family affair”, and something that you are supposed to “understand” and absorb like osmosis.
Jeeze!
That was not the only room that the women and the men folk didn’t share. Oh no. They also did not share the bathroom.
The men’s bathroom, for the people on both sides of my family was in the basement. This also included my father. Who had a little cubby hole under the basement stairs. As well as all my uncles. Later on, when I was much older, and my father was in his 70’s this arrangement continued with his new wife. She had her own bedroom, and bathroom, and so did my father. And his bathroom was in the basement… yet again.
…
Anyways, one day we (as kids, I was perhaps 14 at the time) were visiting my maternal grandmother, and she and my brother was in “uncle” Frank’s bedroom. And going through his credenza. And she was all Hell bent on giving away some of “uncle” Frank’s old items that he never wore.
And he just stood there. Really kinda emotional.
He had a leather jacket, “bomber “highwayman”style with a logo on the back that dated to the 1940’s and my grandmother was giving it to my younger brother Daniel. It fit him perfectly.
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But, it was painful to watch because my “uncle” Frank did not want to part with that jacket. It’s not that he ever wore it, but it held some important memories and emotions to him, but my grandmother seemed oblivious to his emotional state.
I didn’t understand.
Two years later… he died. I was working in the mines, and it was mentioned as an off-hand remark at the dinner table one weekend. “Oh, by the way… Uncle Frank died”…followed by “please pass the peas”, and “How’s your cheerleader project going…” (said to my sister).
…
Odd. Really odd.
I have never been able to go though the emotional disconnect with “uncle” Frank and my grandmother, as all my uncles and aunties. When I checked on ancestry dot com, he is officially listed as my maternal grandfather… so what is up with that? Eh?
It only seems to point to another man being my mother’s father. But I’ll never know the truth.
An “official” father, but referred to as an “uncle”. Hum… Was a different “father” involved?
Anyways… here’s to Frank.
You were certainly unappreciated, and not as well respected (I believe) that you deserve. Perhaps it’s an Irish-American thing, but this little post will allow you to live on somewhat… in the minds of thousands of strangers.
…
As far as the leather jacket was concerned, yeah… my brother loved it and wore it all the time in his high school years and into his college years. It was a “truckers leather jacket” (highwayman) and fit him well.
highwayman leather jacket 1940s
And Frank. When you reincarnate… please never allow yourself to be P-whipped by anyone. It’s not becoming. Your clothes are YOURS. No one else’s.
I think I may have answered a similar question before but the best response I’ve heard was from my wife. She was a senior manager in Children’s Social Services in the UK. She was involved in a very unfortunate case about a social worker with Schizophrenia which came before the Family Court. Due to the social worker’s condition it was felt that her child needed to be taken into care for their protection. In challenging this, the social worker’s barrister quoted from a manual providing guidance to social workers. My wife challenged his defence saying that he was taking the particular section out of context and what was really intended was something quite different.
The barrister then challenged her in the sort of language beloved of smart-arsed lawyers ‘Oh, you are blessed with this wonderous gift denied to us mere mortals that you can look at the written page and and read the mind of the author when they wrote it’.
My wife then replied……
‘If you look at the author’s name on the front page of that document, you will see that I did indeed produce that guidance. ‘
The judge was covering his mouth with his hand to hide his snigger.
Deactivated or deleted all my social media – this removes the temptation to look.
Deleted their phone number and any trace of them that I could – photos and any other memorabilia I had.
Went on a long holiday on my own somewhere warm by the sea, sparsely populated and that I’d never been to before.
When I got home, I came out of my very early retirement (at 50) to throw myself back into my work in law and business so that I could direct all of my energy & emotion & passion into something positive that ended up making me quite a bit of money. I was so busy that I didn’t have the time to feel sorry for myself or miss her.
I got fit. I was never obese and had been quite fit & athletic up to my 40’s which was a hold over for my military service, but I was middle aged and starting to feel it. I worked out 5 times a week like a mad ba$tard, walked 3–4 miles every day, dropped 42lbs and looked 10 years younger. I’d never felt better, more energy, less aches and pains and my libido went through the roof 😁
Two years and six months later my life was completely different and I didn’t care about the Narc anymore.
I will admit that despite all of this I do still miss her sometimes… for maybe about ten seconds – or at least I miss the illusion and dream of who she led me to believe she was. But in focusing on myself I was able re-establish my own identity again which then reinforced the fact that it wasn’t my fault. That I wasn’t to blame for what happened.
Because some people are just wrong in the head and can be quite toxic & poisonous to the people they latch onto.
The moral of this story is that when you leave the narcissist, you have to focus on YOU! Fuck them, try and forget about them as best you can and work on yourself. It doesn’t matter what you do or where you are, but if you concentrate on levelling up and doing whatever you can to better and improve yourself, you will eventually heal and no longer give a $hit about the Narc.
And your life will be better too!
I promise.
Bread and Butter Pudding
Bread and Butter Pudding
Ingredients
Butter for greasing
5 slices white bread, crusts removed, thinly spread with butter
1/2 cup raisins
2 pieces lemon rind
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 medium eggs (at room temperature)
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon brown sugar
8 ounces heavy cream, lightly whipped
Instructions
Thoroughly grease a 6-cup round ovenproof soufflé dish.
Lay a slice of buttered bread, butter side up, in the base of the dish, sprinkle on a few of the raisins, and repeat until bread and raisins are used up, reserving enough raisins to sprinkle on the top.
Slide the 2 pieces of lemon rind down into the dish on opposite sides from each other.
Place the granulated sugar in a mixing bowl, break in the eggs, and beat for 1 minute with a balloon whisk or electric hand mixer.
Add milk and mix well. Pour over the bread and push the bread down so that it gets soaked, then sprinkle the brown sugar on top.
Heat the oven to 425 degrees F and after 5 minutes of preheating, place the pudding in oven.
Bake for 30 minutes until the dessert has risen well and the top is crusty and golden brown.
Serve immediately with whipped cream.
Secret Door Reveals Killer’s Darkest Secrets | Documentary
The world—American or otherwise—should bear this in mind.
Chinese ports handled 300m containers last year.
To put the number in context, American ports struggle with 50–60m, with the 10% increase during covid provoking loud creaks of protest from the antiquated system, resulting in transpacific shipping rates going up by an order of magnitude, or >10x.
China is the truly the world’s factory. It imports plenty, and exports plenty.
A naval blockade of China equals a naval blockade of the world, tradewise.
What happens to the >1t in annual revenue that American MNCs generate from within the mainland? Note this is not visible from bilateral trade figures.
What happens to Wall Street?
Good luck with that foolhardy scenario, which will lead to material collapse of civil society everywhere, because China is indispensable to the global supply chain.
Cheese and Onions
Serve with potatoes.
Cheese and Onions
Ingredients
7 or 8 large onions, peeled and sliced
1 cup water
14 ounces extra sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded
Instructions
Put half of onions in a microwave proof dish and add water.
Microwave about 15 minutes, drain and put into a glass casserole dish.
Put half of cheese on top of onions. Repeat with remaining onions, adding them to dish when cooked in microwave and adding remaining cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until cheese is browned to your taste.
I was eight months pregnant, and I was huge. I was at the grocery store and I had just gotten in line and was putting the items on the conveyor belt when a very strong contraction hit, you know, the stop you in your tracks kind. While I was standing there trying to catch my breath and wait for the pain to pass, the customer behind me, who was apparently in a hurry, told me to “move my fat a@&^$” on so she could go. The cashier, who knew me figured out what was happening, had already reached out to her supervisor and was closing down the line so she could help me, when the customer said really loudly, “That fat cow just peed on the floor”, ( my water hadn’t broken, but it had started leaking). Hilarious chaos ensues, I’m hunched over the counter being yelled at by the customer, the cashier and my friend are both yelling at her, and the supervisor is trying to herd the yelling customer and the others, who are trying to see what’s going on, to another line to get them checked out. The last thing I remembered was being called a “fat cow”, everything else receded into the background. What I remembered of that incident was what the cashier and my friend told me when they visited me in the hospital. The cashier later told me my friend ripped that woman a new one while the paramedics were putting me into the ambulance.
This happened to me. A woman wearing a hijab was in my seat. I politely said “excuse me but I think this is my seat.” The man next to her, by the window, very sternly said “no, this is my wife and she will stay here.” He was middle eastern. I say this not because I’m racist but because I realized there was a culture concern here. I showed him my ticket, but he very rudely proclaimed that his wife was not moving. The poor wife never spoke, but kept her eyes down the whole time.
The flight attendant came over to see what was going on. The husband was very rude to her as well and said his wife would not move. After some more conversation, in which the man wouldn’t budge, the flight attendant looked at me with a bit of desperation in her eyes. I knew that if things escalated, the man and his wife would be removed from the plane and we’d all be delayed. She asked me if I would consider changing seats with the woman, whose assigned seat was a couple of rows back.
I looked at the rude man and said, “No, I don’t mind. All he had to do was ask me.”
Part of me wishes I had made a thing out it, because his rudeness should not have won, but ultimately I didn’t want the plane to be delayed. The person I felt sorry for was the embarrassed, subservient wife.
Fear
Rare Ferrari Daytona Found After 40 Years In Japanese Barn
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Many thought this car didn’t even exist.
Ferrari had, in fact, only ever commissioned one street version of its Daytona with a full aluminum body. Completed in 1969, the car was exported to a Japanese dealership in 1971 and then featured in the January 1972 issue of Car Graphic, a Japanese motoring magazine.
After passing hands several times, it ended up in the barn of its last owner, Makoto Takai, some time around 1980.
The car is in “barn find” condition and is being put up for sale unrestored. The odometer displays just over 22,000 miles. RM Sotheby’s expects the car to fetch up to 1.7 million euros ($2 million), according to the auction catalog.
It’s jury selection for a medical malpractice case. It’s tedious, and the judge appears to be asleep. Lawyers have questioned a dozen potential jurors already. “Do you know anyone on the witness list?” “Have you ever been harmed by a medical practitioner?” “Has anyone you know been harmed by a medical practitioner?”…he’s reading the questions off a clipboard and making notes from time to time.
They get to one juror and before questions even begin he’s giving lawyerman the eye, like “Tread carefully, sir.” Lawyer doesn’t seem to notice.
“Do you know anyone on the witness list?” “Yes.” Eye. “Who do you know?” “The doctors listed as expert witnesses for the prosecution.” Eye. “All the doctors listed as expert witnesses?” “Yes.” Eye “How do you know them?” Juror sighs. “Through my…profession.”
He’s clearly trying not to provide extra info, but lawyer plows on. I’m already smirking. I don’t know what’s coming, but I sense a train wreck. The lawyer looks at the juror expectantly. The juror finally says, “I’m an investigator.”
“Of what?” “Insurance fraud.” Oh snap.
“CHAMBERS NOW,” says the judge. Oh hell, I guess he wasn’t asleep after all.
They ended up dismissing the whole jury pool—we’d been hopelessly tainted. The judge was pissed. I just thought it was hilarious.
One day,a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus and drove off along the route.
No problem for the first few stops,afew people got on , a few got off and things went generally well.
image 492
Google image
At the next stop, however,a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet height, built like a wrestler,arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, “ Big John doesn’t have to pay!
image 491
Google image
The driver was five feet three,thin, and basically meek.
Naturally,he didn’t argue with Big John,but he wasn’t happy about it.
The next day the same thing happened. Big John got on again,made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down.
And the next day, and the one after that..
This went over the driver,who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.
Finally he could stand it no longer.
He signed up for body building course,karate,judo and all that stuff.
By the end of the summer,he had become quite strong and the big thing is that he felt really good about himself.
So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” The driver stood up,glared back at the passenger and screamed, “And why not?”
With a surprised look on his face,Big John replied, “ Big John has a bus pass.”
Like the story above, most often in life, without realising the basics of the problems,we work hard finding solutions at the cost of time, effort , money and relationships. But in reality the problems are not that big. This is an ugly truth of life.
I had a patient with Shy Drager Syndrome. Nothing at all wrong with her mind, but she had very limited use of her body. She was a very nice person who used to drive a school bus. She was in her mid 40s. She was incontinent of bowels and bladder.
There was a CNA (certified nursing assistant) on my hall who was kind of tough. She had a harsh demeanor and some patients and other employees were a bit afraid of her. I wasn’t.
One day I heard a commotion down the hall. I went down there to find my patient crying and the CNA speaking to her in a very loud and rude voice. She had had a bowel movement in her briefs and had tried to make herself more comfortable because she hadn’t been checked by said CNA and I’m sure it was cold and lumpy and uncomfortable.
The CNA was loudly berating her for everyone to hear. She was saying. “You’re disgusting, Margaret! You are so nasty! Do you think I want to deal with this mess that you made”??? Oh hell no. I was livid. I called another CNA to please tend to the patient while I had a talk with the bully CNA.
She didn’t want to hear what I had to say and gave me attitude so I told her to gather her belongings and clock out. I told her that she was no longer employed by us. I advised her to find a line of work where she wouldn’t have the opportunity to terrorize helpless human beings who depended on others for care. She gave me the side eye but left with no issues.
News travels fast and soon the whole facility knew that I had just fired her. They advised me to have someone walk with me to my car that night. They feared retribution. I was called Monday by the administrator to discuss the situation. He was in agreement with me. Problem solved.
When I was 16 I was driving to a friend’s house for the first time with only an address (pre-GPS – pre-cell phone). It was the dead of night and I was having trouble reading the numbers on the houses so I got out of my car, left it running to read the numbers on a house. I read it and realized I wasn’t close so I ran back to my car only to discover that I had apparently hit the door lock on my way out. I stared in horror at my locked car, running, with lights on, in the middle of the road. Finally I went to the house I had looked at and explained the situation. My window was cracked so I asked if I could borrow a coat hanger to try to lift the door lock. I was 16, the man was a full adult and taking pity on me he not only got a hanger but came out to the street to try to unlock my car for me – which was so huge for me as a teenager! As he is is working on it the street lights up. We both look up and a HUGE craft is sailing over us trailing PURPLE fire! I was speechless. We both were. After it passed, the man turned to me and said ‘I’m so glad you’re here… no one would ever believe this….’. He succeeded in unlocking my door and I told everyone this crazy story about a space ship that flew RIGHT OVER ME.
A couple of days later the local paper had a story about it. Apparently it was a satellite burning up during re-entry. Nevertheless it is the most astounding thing I have ever seen with my own eyes.
Probably a long shot that the man who helped me that night will see this but OMG you saved my life that night. 30 years later I still feel immense gratitude, I’m sure 16 year old me did not express that adequately and I’m glad that someone else saw this with me!
Scientists Think There Could Be LIFE on Europa and It’s Even Weirder Than We Thought!
So I went to market yesterday with my mom to buy some vegetables for home. I always purchase vegetables from a specific vendor, as he gives me fresh vegetables in lower price than the market and his respectful behavior towards me. A person came out from a BMW car with his small daughter to buy vegetables. I asked mom to look at his car and said that it costs around 80 lakhs. He was in hurry and asked the vendor to pack 1 kg of tomatoes and cabage with some other vegetables. And then he asked to sum the bill. The vendor said ₹135 . He gave him a 100rs note and started leaving towards his car.
image 49
Then the vendor yelled – Bhaiya ji aur 35 rupay.
Brother you need to give me more 35 rupees.
He – Aree ho jayega rakho tum.
Keep it. It is sufficient.
Vendor- Nahi bhaiya, nhi hoga. Mera khareedi bhi nahi hai utna.
No Brother. Even my purchase is not that much.
He – Tu na kisi aur ko thug na.
You, deceive someone else okay.
Vendor – Nahi, bhaiya meine aapko bahut kam rate lagaya hai. Aapko itne kam mein koi nehi dega.
Nope brother, I have gave you these in less price possible. Nobody is gonna sell you vegetables at this price.
He – Aree hojayega tum rakho na.
Come on ! Keep it na
Vendor – Bhaiya agar aapko nahi lena hai toh aap rakhdo, parr mein itna kaam mein nahi de sakta.
Brother, if you don’t wanna take it then let it be, leave these vegetables. I can’t give you in this cheap price.
After that the person threw all the vegetables in front of the vendor and said ‘rakhle apna Sabji, sadh jayega magar koi nahi lene wala ‘.
‘Keep your vegetables, nobody is gonna take this and it will be rotten’
Me – Aree aapne aise kyu feka Sajiyo ko, usne jab aapko diya tha toh ache se diya na
Why did you throw these vegetable ?! When he sold you the vegetables, he gave you with respect right.
He – Bhai tu apne kaam se kaam rakh.
Bro, you mind your business.
Me – Aap unke boss nahi ho jo aap unse aise vyabhar karoge. Aapko nahi lena tha toh ache se bhi lauta sakte the.
You can’t behave with him like that as you are not his boss. If you wouldn’t want to take vegetables, you could’ve given it back with respect.
He – Yeh kya tera Mama lagta hai ? Tu kyu uska wakil ban rah hai.
Is he your uncle ? Why you are being his advocate!
Me – Han yeh mere mama lagte hai, aur mein banunga uska wakil. Tumhe kuch problem hai
Yes he is my uncle and I will be his advocate. Have any problem?
To divert the argument between us my mom yelled at me to keep quite and said , ‘Bhai Saab aapko toh sabji lena nahi hai, parr hume late hora hai. hume sabji kharidne dijiye’
‘ Brother, you don’t need vegetables, do you ? We are being late so please let us shopping for home.
That person threw daggers at me and finally went away.
Like what’s the benifit to maintain a BMW car when you don’t have money to buy vegetables.
So coming back to the question
What instantly makes a person less attractive?
Abusive behaviour of a person towards the people who stands on the road side whole day to provide us service and feed his family. Towards those people who considered as lower class according to our so called society. Showing your rude behaviour to others won’t make you look either rich or cool. It certainly makes one less attractive no matter how much rich he/she is or how great he/she looks.
Spreading kindness is not that expensive. But the love that we get in return is priceless.
5 Times TikTokers Messed With The Wrong Cartels
Watch this.
Now read this…
From a follower…
This is legit; Gordon Duff claimed years ago that the Mexican cartels (heavily involved with Mossad) own the entire legislatures of many southern states. NM and Az are 100% cartel.
Connecticut and New Hampshire are also fully controlled.
Flabbergasting, right?
2 of the richest, "whitest" states and yet cartel controlled.
As I knew years ago: the US isn't even a country anymore, just competing, very dangerous factions vying for control. The US military (Navy and Army deadly rivals) is still the top faction for now holding it all together.
Intel agencies half compromised. Irish/catholic and Mormon mafias fight for control FBI and CIA.
But for how much longer?
The "jews" are just minor players despite what everyone seems to think. But definitely the money guys.
Interesting times.
And this shows up on Hal Turner.
As the Domain said: by 2024 the US won't be in a position to make war on anybody.
Looks like something is definitely happening at the border, regardless.
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/news-nation/flash-u-s-border-being-over-run-by-cartel-trucks-in-arizona
Cheddar Cheese Soup
Cheddar cheese originally came from the English town of Cheddar, where it was made as early as the sixteenth century.
2023 12 27 19 57
Ingredients
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium stalk celery, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can condensed chicken broth
1 cup milk
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
Paprika
Instructions
Cover and simmer onion and celery in butter in 2-quart saucepan until onion is tender, about 5 minutes.
Stir in flour, pepper and mustard. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth and bubbly; remove from heat.
Add chicken broth and milk. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute.
Reduce heat to low. Stir in cheese; heat over low heat, stirring occasionally, just until cheese is melted. Do not boil the soup after the cheese has been added, as the soup may separate.
Sprinkle soup with paprika.
The TERRIFYING Last Minutes of Lynyrd Skynyrd
I was in university when this happened, and we were all big fans. We were shaken to the core! Fact.
I grew up (in my elementary school and high school years) in a small town in Western Pennsylvania. And in this small town, was a fair and relatively calm life that in many ways resembles Mayberry RFD… A “small town America”.
We had a “cigar store Indian” at the local Hardware Store.
We had kids riding bicycles and had newspaper routes.
We had PTA clubs, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts. And Friday football games.
And we also had a small family store with a large “Pickle Barrel”. This was a wooden barrel that was perhaps one yard high, and filled with pickles and vinegar. And if you wanted a pickle, you would just reach in, and give a nickel to the old man at the cash register.
I believe that these things disappeared during the 1980’s. But the death knell occurred under the “food safety standards” of the Clinton administration.
Anyways… I well remember the days when my father would place 25 cents (a quarter) on the counter, and would buy all of us some nice delicious pickles. These weren’t small either. They were HUGE!
And I do miss those days where I would hold a pickle in my hands and munch away happily. Sigh… a long forgotten time.
Yes. The bride felt “pressured” into the marriage. Traditionally, the bride or her parents hire me. It’s quite rare for the groom or his parents to hire me, but it happens infrequently.
Leading up to the wedding (it was a destination wedding), there were several hints that the bride wasn’t interested in choosing a dress, the flowers or any of the aspects in the planning process. I found this odd and one day about a week prior to the wedding, asked why? The bride felt inadequate. Everything was decided for her. She felt uncomfortable speaking her mind or making a decision. Her fear that the marriage would be a “follow the leader” lifestyle was the reason for this.
After saying “I don’t,” I took her from the altar to the dressing room to give her a moment while stunned guests and family members sat open mouthed.
We needed time to decide if this was “what she really wanted” without the audience. I should add that I’m also a Premarital Counselor with Two Together In Texas, so I’m familiar with awkward situations.
The bride told me, “If the rest of my life will be spent saying yes, I prefer to say no now. My family loves him. He’s successful and a good catch. However, his parents make most of his decisions. He works for his father and I may never measure up to his mother.”
I decided to bring the groom and both sets of parents into the dressing room. This bride needed to voice her concerns and find a resolution or peace. She had waited two years to speak up and it was two years too long.
The end result was they worked it out. They found a middle ground to move forward, and the marriage went on. I flew to California to baptize their baby and the family is doing well. They are happy and well adjusted.
The mother in law now allows the bride to do things her way and the mother no longer pushes her daughter to do what she thinks is best. The mother viewed this wedding as the one “she never had.” The mother in law wanted everything perfect. The bride wanted happiness and the groom simply wanted to please his mother, her mother and finally, the bride. The bride or groom should come first. They are the life partner. They are the person who will stand beside you through thick and thin, and they deserve a voice in decisions and especially the planning process.
The bride wanted a mariachi band at the reception. Both sets of parents were against this idea and found it to be “tacky.” I found a short notice mariachi band and the bride was absolutely thrilled.
Quite frankly, if a marriage isn’t going to work out, I prefer for someone to say “I don’t” and discuss with them their reasons to before announcing a cancellation of the wedding to the guests or finding out if a resolution can be found.
My reasons for addressing an issue on wedding day are that divorces are emotionally devastating. What began with joy ends with sorrow.
Couples should discuss things that bother them long before committing to planning a wedding, although it’s easy to get “caught up in the planning.”
Couples should feel comfortable communicating their feelings and open to discussing issues that are disturbing before planning a life together. I believe in Premarital Counseling because it offers couples an opportunity to discuss their future together.
Weddings aren’t all about the parents. They are all about the couple, regardless of who is writing the check.
This Is What Women Will NEVER Understand About Men’s Dating STRUGGLES!
If you’re not familiar with Christmas, among other things, it’s usually the biggest gift-giving day of the year, at least for us Americans. Also the celebration of the birth of our Savior and all that jazz…
Anyway, this is how gift-giving works between my wife and me—a veteran married couple. This is also how it works between most veteran married couples I know:
We just tell each other what, exactly, complete with pictures and Amazon links if necessary, we want our spouse to get us for Christmas.
Sometimes, we even buy it on their credit cards, since we share finances anyway.
Sometimes, we even buy it ourselves, wrap it, put it under the tree, and tell our spouse that we “took care of it.”
There have been times when my wife opened her Christmas present from me, and I was just as surprised as my children were when we saw it. I got you a new pair of running shoes. Nice.
In the past, I attempted to deviate from my wife’s official Christmas list. You know, to surprise her. I was trying to be romantic.
It rarely went over well, particularly if I attempted to get her clothes or perfume.
Just stick to the list, married guys. Perhaps it’s not as romantic, but it’s still the best option. If you want to deviate from the list, make sure you get everything on the list, too.
This year, my wife requested something that I had to purchase in a showroom and have delivered at a later date to the house. I facetimed with my wife while I was in the store, to make sure I was getting the exact one that she wanted. It’s being delivered on a day when she works from home. She’ll have to be there to receive it. And they say romance is dead…
Licking blocks of ice during the heat wave, NYC, (1912)
I was called to the 6th floor of a 6 floor tenement building for a “seriously unwell child”. A woman was waiting downstairs, and she said “I’m going out, but I think my son is dead. He’s had a cold for a week.” And she left.
I had the jump kit (a first aid kit) and my partner had the oxygen and suction- I went up the 12 set of stairs two at a time (oh, to be young and foolish again…) so I got there before he did. A man was there with 4 kids who all looked very scrubby but also very alive. He said “He’s on the sofa”. And then, they went back to eating.
The little boy was 4 or 5. He was so hot to the touch, and although he had a pulse, he wasn’t breathing. He was wearing red flannel cookie monster pajamas… I will never forget them.
I grabbed him in my arms, started mouth to mouth, and headed back down the stairs. The father actually said “Hey! Shut the door!”
I was busy. I met my partner halfway down. He took one look at the kid and said “Oh Fuck, we gotta get him out of here…”
I jumped in the back, but we were only 5 minutes from the hospital so I just kept him in my arms and did rescue breathing. I didn’t want to delay … my partner was there in less than 3 minutes. His heart was still pumping.
I brought the lad in, the staff took over. We were getting the truck ready when the doctor came out and said “which of you tech’d him?” I told him I did. (Tech-ing means you’re the one with the patient)
He said “You’re going to need a lice treatment.” I sighed.
He said “We can do it inside”. Now that was weird… but when I got inside, he said “I needed to talk to you privately… he died of bacterial meningitis. Did you do mouth to mouth?” Of course I had, he was a little kid. Bacterial Meningitis is spread through saliva and nasal secretions. I was (potentially) screwed.
So, they did blood work and I had to take evil antibiotics that turned everything yellow (INH and Rifampin) for a year. I was there for at the hospital for hours before I got sent home with a month off work to make sure I didn’t have bacterial meningitis too.
Now, I’ve driven way too fast, driven on roads that weren’t safe to walk on never mind drive, worked on cars while traffic buzzed past, turned over an ambulance (wasn’t my fault, honest), gone into burning buildings, gotten blood and lots of other “body stuff” on unprotected skin, walked into domestic violence situations, gone into freezing water to get some one else out, extricated people from a car on the edge of a ravine, been to a plane crash, extricated people from a burning car, talked people down who were holding guns to their own head- but all those times, I could see the risk in front of me. Had I taken the time to look at the kid’s rash, I might have seen the risk but his condition and the complete apathy of his parents drove me to not see the risk- and not assessing for the risk in what you’re doing is the single most dangerous thing anyone can do.
They were 5 minutes from the hospital, and no one cared enough to bring the kid there. Did I tell social services about the apathy of the parents? You can be sure I pursued the matter like a slightly yellow hell hound.
Well I was the uniform manager for a marching band and what we did worked fairly well. We kept an assortment of sizes on hand and when we got a new member, we had them try on those in stock uniforms until we found their best fit. Then we would place the order to replace the one they were issued from stock. There is a lot of variation in cuts of shirts, and one company’s medium might be another company’s large. If someone comes in who looks like a large and says “oh I’m a medium,” say “Here is one try it on; be aware these tend to run small so you may need to move up a size from what you usually wear.” The employee gets to save face, and you don’t have to be rude and say “Oh I can tell by looking at you a medium will never fit.” If I were ordering a large number of shirts, I would first order a selection of sizes for people to try on. Then launder those sample shirts and put them away to issue later to new employees as they come in. If these are something more fitted than a T-shirt or polo shirt and this were going to be a large order, it might be good to have a representative from the uniform or shirt shop to measure people and order one that best fit them.
An Ojibwe Native American spearfishing, Minnesota, (1908)
A few years ago our city decided to try to alleviate the homeless problem.
They bought a large two story motel that had become a bit rundown located along a major freeway.
They spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars fixing it up and remodeling every room into small studio apartments.
Then they let homeless people to live in the apartments.
We would drive by the apartments periodically and every time it looked more rundown.
This went on for a couple of years until one day it was burned to the ground. A news story said one of the homeless people decided to build a fire in one of the apartments. I guess he just like the look of a campfire.
Eventually, the building was demolished and the city sold the land at a significant loss.
Giving a house to every homeless person is not financially feasible. No government entity can afford that.
And, even if it was, it would not solve the homeless problem.
The only way to fix the homeless problem is to help a homeless person, who wants help, become stable and productive so they can eventually afford their own home.
Homelessness isn’t solved in mass. It’s solved one homeless person at a time.
Generalissimus Jiang Jieshi (蔣介石), also known with the Wade-Giles Romanization Chiang Kai-Shek.
image 53
Born 31 October 1887, he was a professional soldier and one of the most genuinely talented soldiers China has ever produced. His tragedy was to live in one of the most tragic eras of China ever, to encounter superior enemies, and having an army full of rotten and corrupt subordinates. He fought a hopeless war of which he had no hopes of winning, yet he did it with utmost courage.
The death of Sun Yat-Sen (Sun Yixian) in 1925 had left China in a power vacuum and interregnum, and the land collapsed into anarchy known as Era of Warlords. China became a Warlordistan. The control of the country was divided among former military cliques of the Beiyang Army and other regional factions from 1916 to 1928.
Chiang raised the National Chinese Army, allied with the Communists led by Mao Zedong, and crushed the warlords, unifying the country. And alas, the Communists proved an unreliable ally – and the Empire beyond the sea, even more unreliable. Japan attacked China in 1931 after the Mukden incident.
The Japanese army was superior in technology, fighting spirit (dao), discipline and logistics. The Guomindang army of Chiang suffered from poor equipment, corruption, lack of patriotism and poor logistics – it was an “army of lions led by jackasses”, but its commander was the alpha lion.
Way too little has been written about the China-Japan war 1931–1941 and China’s part in the World War Two. But China has been one of the main theatres – and one of the main sufferers – in the war, and the Japanese praised the Chinese soldiers, insisting them be second only to the Australians in their will to fight.
Meanwhile Mao Zedong conspired to overthrow Guomindang (or Kuomintang, if you prefer the Wade-Giles Romanization), and after the liberation of China, the civil war re-emerged. The Guomindang army was tired, consumed and exhausted, while Stalin eagerly supported the Communists, finally overcoming the Guomindang 1949. Chiang and the Nationalist refugees fled to Taiwan.
The Communist Chinese propaganda has done all it could to stample Chiang as an unpatriotic American stooge and a traitor, while the Guomindang in Taiwan set up a Western-style state under Christian and Confucian principles.
But nobody could deny Chiang was a true Chinese patriot. His last will was that his body be buried in his hometown Fenghua.
Loyal Husband Finds Out Wife Participates In “Events” While He’s Away Working (She’s Toast!)
When I got into IT I got in the habit of showing up early to prepare for my day. I spent a lot of time traveling to various facilities as a computer support tech so I’d come in to check email and make sure there wasn’t something I needed to do in the office before loading up and hitting the road.
Many of my younger coworkers would clock in on the hour but our business manager, who didn’t clock in, had a bad habit of showing up 15 minutes late each day. (She also had a tendency to leave 5 or10 minutes early, but that’s another story for another time.) One week the IT Director and our boss, the Deputy IT Director, were both out of town so the business manager decided that she could show up whenever she felt like it.
She was at least a half hour late on Monday through Thursday, including 45 minutes late on Wednesday, so when she showed up at 8:15 on Friday morning I exclaimed, “Gee, Linda, this is the earliest you’ve been late all week!”. Everyone got a laugh out of it but Linda, apparently, didn’t think it was funny because she called my boss at the seminar that she was attending to complain.
The next thing I know my boss is calling me and asking what I said to set Linda off. So I told her what had been going on all week. She told me that Linda was offended by my comment and asked if I’d be willing to apologize, and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Then I said, “No.”
If Linda had told me to eff off, or kiss her butt, or just about anything else I would have taken it in stride but her calling the boss, when she was in the wrong, pissed me off. I’d asked your coworker if he/she signs your paycheck and when they answer in the negative, tell them when you come in is none of their business. But I can understand where they’re coming from, especially if you have a problem getting to work on time.
Jewish women and children arriving at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, Poland, (1944)
This is going to be fun. But let me tell you, its more like what I thought she was like and how she actually is…
When we first met through parents, she looked like a shy girl next door. She was smiling and feeling awkward a lot. After we got married and a little more comfortable, she walks around house naked, has 0 level of shyness.
I thought I was getting cold feet. She was being forced. Turned out she had insisted to her parents that she wanted to get married, like literally told them in a complete sentence, ‘Dad, I want to get married. I don’t have any boyfriend right now. Search a groom for me.’ I’m not even exaggerating, her parents tell this story all the time.
I thought she didn’t like talking. WRONG. She NEVER shuts up. If she does, I’ll wake up. Lol, I’ve started to enjoy it.
She’s frigid. WRONG. Once comfortable, she’s a freak.
She’s so slow and, unhappy person. Wrong. She is hyperactive and becomes happy just about at nothing.
She doesn’t like me. Big time wrong. Turned out, she has liked me since day 1. She loves me.
She’ll probably never fight or argue. Wrong. Loveeess to argue, though I don’t like to admit it much, she’s usually right about things. And people too.
Is probably passive aggressive. Wrong. Tells me when things bother her, almost immediately.
Is dumb. Wrong. She’s really smart.
She does not feel much. Wrong. All of her emotions are intense.
Is very serious. Wrong. Very very wrong. Can’t go on a day without lame jokes. Lame jokes are lifeline to her. She knows they are lame but loves it.
As for the changes, she hasn’t changed much. Can motherhood be included? Anyways, it suits her well.
She’s staying at her parents place with our boy. I miss her. Its been just a day though. I guess, I’ll call now.
Unusual Abandoned Cat Came Into Shelter And Amazed People With Its Size
My Mom…
My Mom once told me that she walked into a room where a couple of friends were discussing her, they didn’t know she was there. She shook her head, smiled and walked away. 🕊
My Mom also told me that she had a friend who talked bad about her, she never knew that Mom found out, Mom never mentioned it. She smiled and walked away from this friendship. 🕊
She told me she had family who chose to shift her out of their life because she stood up for herself for a change. And because she stopped crossing oceans for them when they would not even help her cross a bridge. She smiled, shook her head and walked away. 🕊
So I asked her how she could just walk away from people that betrayed her while pretending to be her friends or family? 🕊
She answered that every time she came to a crossroad like that, she had to decide who will be going forward on her journey with her. This showed her who she cannot take along with her. 🕊
So she explained to me that you should never get mad at a person who betrays you, even in the name of friendship or family. Just gracefully bow out and enjoy your journey with all the new people God puts in their place. 🕊
10 years ago I was an IT consultant, traveling every week. I would also always book a Marriott hotel if one was close to the customer, all paid for on my American Express card.
Marriott awards you points for your stays with them. Once I had at least 100, 000 points I’d call them and request gift certificates. 100, 000 points would give you $1,000 worth of gift certs to pay for your hotel.
Back then, at the end of your stay, someone would come around in the middle of the night and slide the invoice for your stay that week. That invoice would show they charged my AmEx card for whatever the cost was.
Now that invoice was completely processed then. While it says it charged my card, they actually didn’t really do that until the afternoon after you checked out.
So what I would do is I’d go to the front desk with my invoice and my gift certs and tell the clerk that I would rather pay for my stay with the certs rather than my card. Then they’d issue me a new invoice showing I paid in certs. However I still had the original invoice. That would be the invoice I’d submit in my expenses. So every couple of months I’d be reimbursed $1000 so I could pay my cc bill, but since I actually paid in certs that 1000 bucks was essentially free money I’d drop into my savings. I and every one else I knew did it all the time, it was really an awesome little loophole
Beef Steak and Kidney Pie
steak ale prop
Ingredients
Filling
3/4 pound calf kidney or beef liver
Salted water
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds beef steak, cut into bite-size pieces
4 tablespoons butter
4 shallots, finely chopped
1 cup beef bouillon
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
Pinch of ground cloves
Pinch of marjoram, crushed
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced and sautéed
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Pastry Topping
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons cold water
Instructions
Filling: Clean and split kidney; remove fat and large tubes. Soak in salted water 1 hour.
Dry and cut into 1/4-inch slices. Mix flour, salt and pepper; roll kidney and beef pieces in flour mixture.
Melt butter in heavy pot and sauté shallots. When shallots have taken on a little color, add beef and kidney; brown lightly, turning.
Add bouillon, bay leaf, parsley, cloves and marjoram. Stir; cover and simmer 1 to 1 1/4 hours, or until meat is tender.
Add mushrooms and Worcestershire sauce. If liquid is too thin, thicken with smooth paste of flour and cold water.
Grease a deep 10-inch baking dish. Place pie funnel in center. Add meat mixture and allow to cool in refrigerator.
Meanwhile, prepare Pastry Topping. Place pastry over meat, sealing pastry edges to edge of dish. Make vents in pastry to allow steam to escape.
Bake at 450 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes; lower heat to 375 degrees F and continue baking 15 minutes, or until crust is golden.
Pastry Topping: Cut shortening into flour and salt until particles are size of small peas.
Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans sides of bowl, adding 1 to 2 teaspoons water if necessary.
Gather pastry into a ball; shape into flattened round on lightly floured cloth-covered board. Roll out to fit top of casserole.
My best friend had a defective heart. I don’t know the exact term for that, but her heart was on the right side of her chest among several other defects. She couldn’t walk farther than 200m, and her finger tips would always turn black.
When she was born, the doctor gave her a life expectancy of 2 years. She surpassed that. Her parents took her to all the best hospitals in the country. Another estimation: 10 years old. She surpassed that too. She completed high school, she got into college. And she always was a cheerful girl to be with. (Sometimes, her mother kicked my ass out of the house because when we hung out, we laughed too much. Laughing would consume oxygen from her heart and her brain so she would suffer from headaches afterward).
One day, when she was at the university, her heart collapsed. Her doctor demanded her to drop college because it was too much for her. She came back to our hometown, and became an at-home teacher for the kids, and still was a cheerful girl.
After that another year, her heart collapsed once again. She was hospitalized. Her doctor informed her parents that there was nothing more they could do. Her family should consider to unplug the machines and bring her home.
Her mother called me. She said “We are bring [my friend’s name] home”. I rushed into the hospital. Her mother was on one side of her bed holding her left hand, I was on the other side holding her right hand when they unplugged her.
That moment, her mother collapsed to the ground and screamed: “I’ve lost her! From now on, I don’t have anyone to take care of anymore!”
At that moment, I know that just being born normally to be able to live a normal life is extremely lucky. Also, having someone you love by your side, even that means you have to take care of them all the time is also lucky.
Well, not the above but the other way around. In 2014 we were looking to buy a replacement for my wife’s car, and were at the Skoda garage checking out a very-nearly-new Fabia. It had been the showroom’s demonstrator model for a few months, had just a couple of hundred miles on it, but the salespeople had been showing that vehicle to people day in, day out.
We looked in the boot. My wife’s a bee-keeper and a “must have” for her was to be able to get a bee-hive in the back. To do that meant taking the rear parcels shelf off, which I did myself to see how easy it was to do and to replace, since this would be a common action. Putting it back, I noticed you could put it back either in the “conventional” position, or in a half-way house lower position. “Hey, “ I said. “That’s a nifty feature – allows you to put larger items on the parcel shelf but still have it hiding stuff underneath.” At that the salesperson looked in, looked at the shelf, the boot, then went over to his colleague and said “Come over here. We’ve found a brand-new feature!”
We bought the car, still got it now. Don’t think we’ve ever used the parcel shelf in “half-way” position.
My father had been terminally ill for a decade. He was a perfectionist in everything in his life and no detail was ever missed. He was also very stubborn. If there were ever odds almost insurmountable, he always prevailed. This was part of why he’d been terminal for so very long.
One day before, my father agreed that it was time to bring hospice in and make final arrangements. My parents had two other daughters, I was the only one who lived in the same town. Because of my location, he wanted me to be at those meetings.
I was working in the executive offices for a local bank. The woman I reported to was exacting in everything and expected perfection to be performed with minimal preparation and no clarifications. She wanted a mind reader who loved emergencies and placed her on a pedestal.
After that phone call, I was shaken up. It wasn’t unexpected, but you are never really prepared for the situation when you are facing it.
“Something has come up. It’s a delicate family matter,” I said.
“That’s just not convenient,” she said. “Even if it’s life or death, it’s not convenient. I have a series of reports that are due today.” This was news to me. “And I’m expecting that you will be here long after hours.”
“It actually is life or death,” I said. I was about to elaborate when she cut me off.
“Is it your life or death?”
“Honestly, no.”
“Then it’s not convenient.”
“I’m afraid that poor planning on your part really isn’t my problem.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“No excuse for you and your lack of planning. I’m quitting as of,” I looked at my watch, “about two minutes from now. Just long enough to get my purse and log off the computer.”
“You can’t do that,” she said.
“Can and did.”
I grabbed my purse and left the building.
I replaced the job with a much nicer one in about two days.
My father passed less than two weeks from my exit. The new job, and I only worked it for two days when he died, not only let me have the time off to complete his arrangements and his funeral, sent flowers. One week later, HR from the bank called, offered me a raise and an apology. “I’m sorry. That’s just not convenient.”
I once attended a court case to support a friend. Her sister was accused by a nasty neighbour of breaking into the nasty neighbour’s home, stealing items, and trying to assault her (on more than one occasion).
My friend and her sister were both black women. It was no secret that the neighbour was this old racist woman who routinely called the police on the sister and her boyfriend when they were minding their own business. When the woman invited her sister (my friend), and her kids to come to visit and swim in their pool, also to use the tennis courts and fitness room that was shared by the condo complex. The boyfriend was also black.
When called to testify the nasty neighbour gave detailed dates about the break in and mentioned her “fox fur coat, some diamond jewellery and several hams and frozen meat”, being taken from her home. She swore that she came home to see the women and her boyfriend running out the back door at night with the merchandise in a leather suitcase.
When the lawyer for the woman questioned the woman and her boyfriend, who each took turns on the stand, it was proven that the neighbour lied by showing that:
My friend’s sister, who worked as a passenger flight attendant, was working on a flight that was on its way to Singapore during the very night and time when she was supposed to have broken into the neighbour’s home. (It’s hard to break into a home when you’re two hours into a 12 hour flight that is 39,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.)
She and her boyfriend were also vegetarians who never ate meat nor wore nor owned leather and fur since they both believed that “meat is murder”, and to wear animal furs and leather was “cruel and inhumane”.
The boyfriend was also on his way to Singapore flying from India the afternoon before, to meet up with his girlfriend after a business trip for three day vacation, before they’d fly back to Canada. He proposed marriage while they visited Singapore (she said “yes” and did marry him). So they were in Singapore the day before “the break in” at the neighbour’s home and they didn’t return until three days later.
The lawyer for my friend’s sister and her boyfriend also presented pictures of the very “stolen” items in question taken by the police when they were recovered from pawn shops and a consignment store. The items were pawned by a young white man, a known drug addict with a lengthy arrest record who happened to be the neighbour’s nephew whom the neighbour gave money to on a regular basis (not helping him at all).
Before the judge dismissed all charges he ordered the neighbour to be taken into custody for “fraud, perjury, aiding and abetting a criminal” and a few other charges.
In the end the neighbour lost her house and all her savings when my friend’s sister and her boyfriend sued the neighbour for slander and defamation of character. They won a large sum in court and the neighbour ended up spending four years in prison for additional charges which included drug possession on top of what she was already convicted of.
I guess nasty racist people get what’s coming to them after all.
College students pile into a Volkswagen Beetle, (c. 1965)
For those that do it full time, very tough. They have to stand up in front of the crowd and make them laugh. Do you realize what it takes to do that? Then there is the travelling and eating crap food and nerves. For those starting out it is not easy at all. For those on top, well, they have to keep coming up with acts to stay on top. As I did both, a standup comedian and professional drummer in a band, playing in a band was far easier. Below is a little of my stand up act.
I was a part time stand up comedian for awhile along with being a professional drummer. I auditioned for a few shows in local comedy clubs. They must have liked me, I got jobs. I was usually the start off guy, first one out. I had my own shtick. The guy who showed up at the wrong event.
I’d walk out then somberly say, “ I realize this is a sad time for most of you, but Mary, bless her soul loved humour.” Then I’d look behind me and kind of look around confused, then I’d turn to the audience. “Um, Mary’s passing surprised many, especially Mary. I think she’d like some humour at her funeral. She often said that “to laugh at something heartily means that you think it’s funny,” and I heartily agree. I always thought Mary was a deep thinker and that proves it right?
“She was 81, poor Mary. Actually, a woman’s life expectancy is 80, so hey, good for her. Now a man’s life expectancy is 76. If I make it to 76, I’m going to have a sex change. Right? I’ll beat those odds. So I hope to add a bit of humour to Mary’s funeral, wherever she is,” and I look around again for Mary.
Suddenly a sharp whistle from the stage side. I’d stop and walk over with my mic.
“This is not a funeral home. This is a comedy club,” the stage manager would tell me so the audience would hear.
“What? This isn’t Roses Funeral Parlour?” I would say surprised. The crowd would start laughing.
“Do you see Mary anywhere?” he’d ask.
“Actually no,” I would say looking around. “How much do you pay here?”
“$250.” he’d tell me.
A few seconds of silence then I’d say, “Sure, what the hell, Mary won’t miss me,” then I’d walk back center stage where people would be giggling.
“Okay, who here had a good shit today?” Well the crowd would laugh. Somebody always raised a hand, I’d try to pick a girl.
“You did, great, good for you. I won’t ask you details okay?” The girl would laugh.
“So do you know there are many types of shits? There’s the peanut butter shit; that’s the one where you can use up to three rolls of toilet paper, the upside down volcano shit, the totally air shit which isn’t even really a shit though it felt like it was going to be one,,” the shart which is a shit that felt like air but wasn’t, the bombing raid shit and the ghost shit.” Then I’d stop and go back to the girl.
“Okay, I was just wondering what came out that made it such a good shit? We all want to know don’t we folks?” I’d say looking around and people would start applauding. Of course the girl would laugh and hide her face in her hands. “Okay forget it. Tell me privately later. People, I’m going to tell you what the best shit of all is. It’s the Ghost Shit!”
“This is the one when you have to go so bad and there’s no restroom around. It’s turtling so bad it’s stretching your underwear. Suddenly, by some miracle, you find a restroom. You fly in there and sit on the toilet after near ripping your pants off. And ….. it starts.”
“Like the RMS Titanic, this thing is moving out with no effort and it seems like it’s going forever. You are wondering how this thing is going to go down that little toilet hole. It’s embarrassing if you are at someone’s house and you come out of the bathroom and ask, “Hey, have you got a plunger? A good one? One with a lot of suction?” You always get a strange look when you ask that don’t you?
Anyway, so the Titanic has left the dock and you are feeling suddenly very hollow inside, and relieved. You grab some toilet paper and wipe. Nothing! Not a speck of shit on your ass. Puzzled, you stand up and look at the toilet. It’s looking back at you innocent as hell. THERE IS NOTHING IN THE TOILET! What the hell? You look around; nope, not on the floor! It’s nowhere but you felt it by God! That ladies and gentlemen is the Ghost Shit, or maybe I should have called it the Houdini Shit.
Crude yes but it got me back to the comedy clubs. People loved me talking about shit because they all go through it every day.
I used to be hired to give speeches at weddings. Just before the actual person would rise to give a toast to the bride, I would jump up and interrupt him.
“Thank you, thank you. Ah, the lovely bride. Leona, you’re looking great.” That was never the brides name. I’d make one up and the people would laugh. I did the same skit to friends of my sisters who were getting married.
“So, a toast to the bride huh? I’m supposed to come up with some funny stories about her, and some heart warming ones.” Silence from me for a few seconds as the people would snicker. “I have nothing,” I would say, “but I do have a few, should we say naughty stories of Leona. And I promise I will say nothing of that disease you had a few months ago,” I’d say looking at her and pretend I was zippering my mouth.
That would be the cue for someone to say, “That’s not Leona, that’s Shirley!”
I would look up surprised, then look around.
“This isn’t the Wright Patterson wedding?” I would ask. Yes, I know, that’s an air base. I’d be told no it isn’t.
“Jesus,” I would say, “Um, were you going to say something?” I’d say to the guy who originally was going to give the toast to the bride, and I’d run out.
I had fun doing them and I had a few different ones so I’d change them around. I wrote my own material. You can tell? That’s good.
When I started to get quite busy in my pro drumming career I left the comedian stage. I missed the laughs. But I’d do them at get togethers at friends houses and parties.
Being a comedian is a nerve wracking but fun gig. Loved the laughs.
Cab stand in Madison Square Park, New York, (ca 1900)
When I was doing my graduation, I stayed in a hostel, which provided lunch and dinner but no breakfast. You had two options for breakfast: Go out to a restaurant nearby and have a hot breakfast or eat what most of the students ate – mashed banana and flattened rice (it is called poha or chura in India). I chose the second option since the first option was too costly. The food in the hostel was neither good in quality nor enough in quantity. So most of the times, I was famished.
I used to pity myself till I had a discussion about hunger with one of my classmates. He was worse off than me. His father was dead and his mother used to serve tea and water in a government office in a desolate tribal village. In short, he had enough money to have just one meal a day. I asked him what he did when he felt hungry. He said he would drink water.
This classmate of mine was a good student but did not have a clue about what to do after his graduation. In those days, IT was booming in India and I convinced him to do get a Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He got into one of the best Universities of India.
I did not meet him when we were doing our Post Graduation since I was at a different University. I met him a year after both of us had started our careers. He came to meet me. He was working for the largest software company of India and was on his way to his first foreign assignment. I felt very happy at how he had been able to turn around his fortune. He had started from a village which did not have electricity and his relatives and friends had not even seen life outside their village.
I am not in touch with him. But I searched the net and I found this photo. He is happily settled with his family in the USA.
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So how do you deal with being too poor? Work hard and have patience. Things will turn around.
Unemployed men outside Al Capone’s soup kitchen in Chicago during the Great Depression, (1931)
Is earth round? Does waves rush to the shores?, Do the sun rise in the east?
Let me see, the US has a doctrine, it’s call Monroe Doctrine. It says no power big and small cannot come near North America and when USSR wanted to arm Cuba nuclear missile, the U.S. threaten to start a nuclear war! And duly blockade and sanction Cuba for 62 years straight! Is that hegemonic?
The U.S. has invaded 68 nations and counting since its nation is formed after doing genocide on its inhabitants and rightful owner the native Indians. Is that hegemonic?
It has cause millions upon millions of deaths due to regime change, coup orchestration by the U.S. it send out millions of CIA and NED officials around the world to destabilise nations so that they can set up puppet and sham governments to act on U.S. behalf and for US interest! Are these actions hegemonic.
Are all these actions that in total caused up to 100 million deaths, hegemonic? Or according to your media it is doing Mother Teresa role!
In my second year of university, I was summoned to a police station without knowing why. My father drove me and had to wait outside the office while I was being questioned.
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The reason why I was summoned was quite a surprise.
Together with a good friend and a girl I was seeing at the time, I had smoked some weed and drank a couple of beers, and much later that night my friend had been robbed by a couple of low-lifes. So he called the police and explained his predicament.
The problem was: (1) my friend was drunk at the time; (2) round about that time my friend was starting to show the first signs of the paranoid schizophrenia that would later ruin his life.
So my friend told the police a story that did not make sense, and after a couple of questions, the story had gotten even worse: he claimed that before he was robbed, he had taken hard drugs together with the girl and me, and that the girl was actually a drug dealer. But he had forgotten the girl’s name.
Not mine, of course.
So instead of focusing on the robbery, the police men focused on the “hard drugs” and the “drug dealer.” And I was the one who would tell them the girl’s name. Which I didn’t.
After a lot of repeated questions and repeated threats — in which they refused to acknowledge the mental condition of my friend — they called in my dad, and explained to him that I blatantly refused to give them the girl’s name. To which my father said:
“This is ABSOLUTELY the right thing to do, and I am VERY proud of him. I would do the EXACT same thing.”
The police men did not know what to say, and not much later I was released after paying a ridiculous fine. When we left the office, they kept staring at my dad, a grey-bearded man with fierce eyes and thundering charisma.
Lightning had struck.
And the hammer had spoken.
SOURCES: the first drawing is taken from the book Nordiska Gudar by Johan Egerkrans; the second image us my own.
World War II propaganda posters in Port Washington, New York, (1942)
Focus on giving key people you work with what they want. At the end of the day, all people want to hear is “i’m going to fix your problems”.
Trust your intuition. People will try and fill your day with shit that doesn’t matter, do what YOU know does matter.
Make some friends, even if just to keep your sanity.
Don’t participate in shit talking. If a co-worker decides you are their confidant, just nod along with them—but never engage directly in the shit talking. You’ll save your own reputation and as a bonus you won’t feel shitty about yourself.
Say NO more. people respect people that can say no and don’t rollover for everything. Saying YES to everything just leaves you running on an endless treadmill.
Under-promise, over-deliver. always.
Make every effort not to give concrete deadlines, because you won’t be able to meet them anyway. Your credibility will falter. Unfortunately you’ll probably have to give them at some point.
Don’t try and be the best. Instead, make friends with people in a position of power and be at least competent.
Learn empathy. In reality, people don’t really care what gets done if you make them feel important and like they are achieving things. People just want to be heard, man.
A lot of these suck to admit….but it’s the way things are. Whether that’s because of some bullshit implicit social contracts or just the way we’re wired….its what corporate life is really like.
I had what seemed like the ideal bachelor life. Oh, and terror of getting trapped in marriage.
I mean, I was living the dream in college.
Living in a fraternity house with my buds.
Cute girls constantly around.
Parties every weekend.
More alcohol than common sense.
My parents paid for my college expenses. I worked every summer to make money for my personal expenses. So when school started I could focus on it and having fun.
Like I said I was living the dream.
But a weird thing happened. As I faced graduation the fun had worn thin.
I was tired of being hurt in relationships and hurting others.
I hoped there was more to life than one continual party.
I longed to share life at a deeper level with someone.
And I knew I needed to stop drinking so damn much.
Shortly before graduation two things happened that changed my life.
I went through a spiritual experience that transformed me.
And I met the most beautiful girl I’d ever know. Unfortunately, she had zero interest in getting to know me.
We eventually started dating. My persistence won out. And a year later married.
I look back over my life and think of all the blessings of marriage I’d have missed as a bachelor.
Someone to love and who loves me. Even sometimes when I’m, shall we say, less than lovable.
Sharing life together. The good, the bad and the ugly. And most of all the beautiful.
Raising our children that filled our lives with occasional frustration and even more love.
Conquering life together. Strengths making up for weaknesses. And glad she didn’t keep score.
Caring for each other in sickness and enjoying each other in health.
Laughing, crying, rejoicing and celebrating.
And at night, when I drift off to sleep, holding her hand and feeling a contentment I simply never could have imagined.
So for some, singleness works.
For me I can’t imagine having missed marrying my wife. And for her? I think she feels the same. At least on most days.
You’ll find a depth of life in marriage you cannot experience outside of it.
My house has a two person jacuzzi tub with mirrors on three walls around it. When I was looking at the house there was a four post canopy bed with a mirror inside the canopy. Needless to say, the previous owner had his thing.
When I was moving in I found in the basement a bar with cuffs on either end hanging from the ceiling and two eye bolts in a board on the floor that would have made this a perfect place to tie someone up spread eagle. I strongly suspect that is what it was used for.
I have a room that used to be a bar (previous owner took the bar itself with him despite it being a built in). It has a dropped ceiling and the lights are above with clear panels to let the light thru. I was moving ceiling tiles to change a bulb and got hit in the face by what I’m guessing was a home made sex swing that was bolted to the rafters above.
I’ve been in this house 3 years and I still occasionally find a secret panel in a wall. It seems anywhere there was an extra bit of space he put a removable panel to make a hidden storage space.
And despite all that, the single most surprising thing I found in this house is the light switch in the bathroom that has power going to it but doesn’t seem to actually switch anything in the house! What do you do about a mysterious switch?
We also found a stack of acrylic paintings in the basement, all very amateurish. Subjects ranged from creepy little girls to 70’s psychedelic nude ladies. Realtor told the owners to pick them up, or they would end up in the trash. They showed up a year later asking for them
Bonus, junk removal guy loved the 70’s nudes, asked to keep them.
It has nothing to do with “authoritarian government” it has everything to do with China not playing by U.S. “rules” that requires China to be submissive and subservient to the U.S. if you are observant you will noticed that the nations that the U.S. and the west have been giving negative press are all nations that refused to be submissive and subservient to the west.
The west merely represent 13% of the world? In fact the west is controlled by the the U.S. which represents 4% of the world. Should the 96% or the 87% of the rest of the world kowtow and let the west walk all over them? And dictate what they do? Who they make friends with? What they buy, how much they ought to pay? What religion they believe or what cloths to wear or what food they eat?
Let me give you an American answer! Over our dead body! It ain’t gonna happen!
The Global South is drifting away as we speak. No nations will buys your shit anymore. We decide our own fate. China certainly won’t. But so is 175 out of the 195 nations on earth. The faster you westerners get this, the better it is for you. Stop thinking about decoupling or de-risking China, the world is decoupling and de-risking from the U.S. and the west!
Your media and your government can lie and fabricate all you want but the bus has left the station. Authoritarian or CCP or communist or dictator are all excuses not reason for hating China and Chinese. These are narratives for the simple mind. It is demonising because it can’t get its way. Like a toddler throwing tantrum, that is what it is. Frankly if you are a westerner, your government is trying to hoodwink you! Not U.S. because we are not fools. We know lies when we see it.
Sidewheeler Tashmoo leaving wharf in Detroit, (ca 1901)
When I was younger, I was the Assisstant Manager of a Pizza Hut. I was moved to this particular store with the expectation that the Store Manager who was there had set me up to become the next Store Manager. When he resigned I was passed over for a 23 year old nobody with no experience or work ethic. He worked 25 hours a week and had me do most of his duties on top of my own. He would often show up in the middle of dinner rush with his posse, ask how things were, I would tell him it was terrible and we needed help, he’d see that we did, and say things like “Sounds good” and walk out.
Week after week people in my Store were getting overworked and burned out. I constantly hounded my Area Manager to let me hire people, often being turned down. He woul even turn down temporarily allowing neighboring stores to send their workers to my Store to keep up with demand. So week after week we would have at least 1 person quit.
Even when I was allowed to hire ONE person, that person would freak out on day one because of the workload pushed upon all of us. They would typically last 1 day, maybe a week, before quitting.
One day we were told we were having a store meeting with the Area Manager so I typed up my resignation letter preemptively and attended. We were told how terrible our customer service scores were (mostly hold time issues or delivery time issues because we couldn’t keep enough people to staff the whole store, so delivery drivers were cutting and boxing pizzas, answering phones and taking orders, THEN delivering them) and how we needed to shape up. I spoke up and said we desperately needed more employees and I was waved off again. So I finished my shift that night, put my resignation letter in the fax machine with my end of day paperwork, locked the door, and dropped my security key and door keys in the mail slot. The next day I was inundated with phone calls from the Store Manager and Area Manager, which I ignored for a few hours. Then I picked up, the Area Manager begged me to come back and said he’d do anything if I came back.
“A raise?”
“Sure, whatever you need.”
“4 more employees?”
“No, you know you’re not getting that.”
*hangup*
I never talked to them again.
Titanic sinks on April 15, 1912. Newspaper boy Ned Parfett sells copies of the evening paper bearing news of the disaster.
As a car mechanic, what is the craziest discovery you have found on an automobile?
I’m not the mechanic, but I know of one crazy discovery. My father purchased a brand new GMC Suburban in the 1980s and gave me his old pickup truck so I would have a vehicle while attending college. He occasionally heard a strange knocking noise while driving that Suburban, but neither he nor the dealer could ever figure out what was causing it. Since he didn’t hear that noise very often, and the vehicle ran great, he just kept driving it and eventually simply ignored that occasional knocking noise. The transmission needed to be rebuilt when it was 9 years old, so he took the Suburban to a shop that pulled the transmission and rebuilt it. While reinstalling it, the mechanic spotted a small hand-held air impact wrench hanging from a bent welding rod between the engine and firewall. He called my father, who then went back to the shop and took photos of the impact wrench and welding rod before and after they were removed. The wrench had “Property of GM” engraved on it.
Since it appeared the impact wrench had been hung there while on the assembly line, my father took the photos, impact wrench, and bent welding rod to the dealer who had sold it. The dealer wanted to send everything to GM, but my father would only agree to let him send copies of the photos. A GM lawyer called him the following week and offered to pay $500 for the return the impact wrench and welding rod, provide and release all prints and negatives he had taken of them to GM, and for his wife and him to sign a non-disclosure agreement concerning any and all possible “manufacturing flaws” involving that Suburban. My father made a counter offer of $5000. The lawyer said the most he was authorized to offer would be a $3000 manufacturer’s credit towards the purchase of a new GM vehicle. My father countered again by asking for both the $500 and $3000 credit towards a new GM vehicle. The lawyer agreed and then arraigned to have the dealer handle the exchange and witness my parents signing a non-disclosure agreement. My parents then negotiated with the dealer to buy a new car for my mother, and then applied that $500 check and the $3000 manufacturer’s credit towards the purchase of it.
After that impact wrench was removed, my father never heard that knocking noise again. Since I knew about this “manufacturing flaw” before they signed that non-disclosure agreement, I’m not bound by it. But my surviving parent could be subject to significant financial penalties for discussing this story, so I am posting this anonymously to prevent any possible repercussions. However I seriously doubt GM would want to have people going through records more than three decades old just to determine who my parents are.
I’ve told this story elsewhere but it fits here as well.
In a prior life I worked for a major multi-national and the division I worked in was managed by somebody based in Europe (let’s call him George). But he had direct reports in a number of cities around the world including New York. So during one of his visits to New York he speaks to Fred and tells him that things just aren’t working out so he should find another job. Nothing out of the ordinary and not adversarial in any way.
So about a year later George is in New York and sees Fred sitting in his office wearing jeans and track shoes, feet up on his desk reading a newspaper. So he says “Fred, why are you still here? Didn’t I tell you to find another job?” And Fred’s response was classic “Yes but my contract requires one year’s written notice and I’ve never received anything.”
To make a long story short, George was off to HR and after a discussion with legal Fred got a year’s salary plus the cash value of all the benefits he would have rec’d during the year. Given how senior Fred was I’m sure that check would have been at least $400 K (and more likely quite a bit north of that).
So way back in 1984 I worked a summer in Yellowstone national park. During training I learned a lot about dangers in the park. For example, bison kill many more people than grizzly bears. That being said at least one person a year is kill in the park by a grizzly bear.
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But I digress.
The dumbest question that a tourist asked me was a question that they warned me I would be asked and I laughed like it was a joke. They seriously said no you will get asking this and please don’t embarrass the tourists who ask it.
So a couple days into the Job I am standing there and this nice looking middle aged American woman who seemed she had all her senses came up to me and looked me straight in the face and asked,
“Where do they put the animals at night”?
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I was gobsmacked!
This woman actually thought that all the animals were gathered up at night and put in cages. Just like I was warned, someone asked me the question I thought I would never hear.
And no, she most certainly wasn’t the last tourist to ask me that!
My two week notice was a long time coming. I was sick of working in finance, at that company, and for that boss. I slept terribly the night before, having fevered dreams of a squandered future. But I knew I needed some upheaval. I was forging a sad, bitter storyline that would haunt me forever.
As I embarked on my new journey as a writer, I unpacked my new life, and all the stories from that dark chapter, all the moments of pain and frustration, came with me. As with many of you, these scenes replay more vividly on my lesser days. It’s as the incomparable Frederick Nietzsche wrote, “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
Old embarrassments — losing my temper with someone 20 years ago, making ill advised comments, and moments of rejection — come bubbling up for no reason. Why could I see these scenes so easily and with 8K clarity while the amazing moments hid in the shadows?
Per Dr. Daniel L. Schacter, we remember the past so vividly because it’s a means of envisioning the future. We use it as a modeling tool, a form of mental time travel, where our mind anchors moments in time. The word “anchor” is key — because many of these images and stories become crystallized and of cognitive convenience.
For example, you might experience something I do when reading books: anytime there is a scene with a bar, I can’t help but see the same bar in my mind — to the point of it being annoying. If there’s some type of battle scene, I always see an old field I played in as a kid. This is the mind anchoring and why it’s so easy to recall the same negative moments over and over.
Per research by psychologist, Dr. Linda Levine, we tend to interpret past events through an emotional filter of the present. The same facts on paper suddenly look different. Negative moods — such as being tired, annoyed, or frustrated — evoke specific and detailed bad memories that often hit harder. Good moods — such as being well rested, jovial, excited, or in good humor — tend to evoke broader and more general memories. Unfortunately, negative memories are much more powerful and easily evoked.
We tend to apply a filter of our self-concept — who we’d like to be, and what our “ideal self” is and how we’d hoped to be perceived. Which is why our subconscious searches for contradictions to this ideal self.
For example, I’m generally a pleasant and nice person. Which is perhaps why my mind dredges up instances of me being unpleasant. I hate thinking of those times because when I do, I feel like I’m standing right there in that same room 15 years ago, watching my former self act out and be nasty with someone I loved.
The mind tells me, “Remember this person? You could be this person again if you don’t behave.” So how to we rewire this toxic pattern?
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Rewriting your narrative
A few years ago, I thought, “Why am I beating myself up all the time?” I had so much to be thankful for. I’d brought plenty of good into this world, been a good friend and family member. I’d fought hard to win a better future but still bludgeoned myself over bygones that nobody else remembered.
I met with a therapist a few years ago and had tremendous improvement in dealing with negativity. He was a silver haired man, with black rimmed glasses and a quiet, friendly demeanor, and a PhD hanging on his wall.
As we began talking, he nodded his head in understanding and began giving me homework assignments anchored in cognitive behavioral therapy which, per the American Psychological Association, is as effective (or more) than other forms of psychotherapy and medications in dealing with negativity.
He said, “We often tell our life story to ourselves in excessively harsh terms, and jump to instant conclusions at our own expense.”
One exercise he gave was to practice reframing the stories with less certainty. Instead of saying X results in Y, explore alternative causes and remove unhelpful thoughts.
For example, during college, I was dumped by woman I was totally in love with. I deserved it. I was being irresponsible and drinking all the time and she finally had enough. For years, I was sure that my poor decisions had cost me my soulmate. But I learned this was totally unfair thinking.
Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. Perhaps she was just losing interest and this was her way out. And if I’d stayed with her, I’d have never met the incredible woman I now have. Even more so, the concept of a soulmate felt a wee bit irrational and limiting.
When you map out events, and deconstruct the narrative you tell yourself, it can look entirely silly sometimes. The exercise also helps reframe the memory more constructively. I can confidently say getting dumped caused me to stop partying so much and may have saved me from myriad legal and health problems.
Another strategy was to build a mental rolodex of positive memories in your mind that you can return to. Doing this, and rapid fire indulging these memories can counteract your negativity instinct, and tends to put me in a much better mood.
A quick forewarning, I’d make sure to write this list out. I initially thought I’d be able to manage it in my mind, but it was much harder to build out and think through.
Here are a few from my list:
Picking up my 8-week old golden retriever from the breeder. He was a fat marshmallow shaped dog with a permasmile, who brought me so much dang joy in life.
Having Christmas mornings as a kid with my grandparents and the love they surrounded us with.
Going on walks with my beloved partner on St. Pete beach and sitting quietly with her in the sand and drinking a beer while we read books.
Helping raise money at events for wounded soldiers, and volunteering with the Special Olympics.
One last strategy is exploratory processing, which takes the opposite approach. You list out the painful experience just after it happens and leave two lines below it. Then, after one month, you return to write in the blank what you learned. Then, six months later, you list something positive that came from the mistake.
For example, when I bought my house, it was a complete circus and the inspection went poorly and I fought with the builder and the realtor. The entire experience crashed my hopeful vision of home ownership. I put this down on the list as my first entry. Then, I came back a month later and wrote about how the experience taught me the importance of having a home inspection (which I almost skipped doing).
Then, at the six month mark, I put that this experience still resulted in me owning a great home that I can now rest in knowing is safe. I know that it has given me and my partner new friends in the neighborhood. The house has also appreciated significantly in value.
Remember, it’s entirely normal and common to have tons of negative memories that pester you. Most major life changes are precipitated by bad experiences and it’s easy to carry those stories with you.
Consider compiling a list of positive memories to return to and combat that trend. Reframe your experiences by exploring the possibilities of how they came to be, and how you might be irrational and excessively harsh in reviewing them. Lastly, use exploratory processing just after something goes wrong. Approach the experience with curiosity rather than judgement. Something good usually comes from all of the chaos we endure.
I keep my hair short. Very, very short. Before joining the Navy, I was already doing so, but for the past twenty years, I have been unable to go much longer than a couple of weeks—or, in the warmer months, a week or so—before it feels as though something is wrong. Oddly, I don’t mind skipping a shave for two or three days, but actually wearing facial hair (beard, long sideburns) is out of the question.
While I’m not fanatically neat, I do try to keep items off the floor. Gear should be stowed somehow, whether in a desk, in a cabinet, on a shelf, or even on a table. The deck should be kept clear.
I understand the distinction between a command (Do it now!) and an order (Get it done!).
I am almost never, ever late, even to social engagements, as gauche as that may be. And “on time,” in my book, means approximately six to ten minutes early (no more).
Generally, I am far more situationally aware and cognizant of potential risks and dangers than I was before joining. People don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.
A day without some kind of PT is somehow misspent.
I still lace up my shoes in a crisscross pattern, with no “bridge.”
Most of the year, regardless of whether I’m dressed formally or informally, I wear a T-shirt of some kind as an initial layer. If the temperature goes past about 75°F or so, I’ll wear either a T-shirt or a polo shirt. But even in the heat, I don’t like wearing a dress shirt without an undershirt.
I tell time with the 24-hour clock and write the date in the day-month-year format. This dovetails nicely with living in Europe.
Having qualified as an Expert with the 9-mm pistol and a Marksman on the M-16, I have contempt for gun nuts who brandish their weapons in public, exhibit no discipline or respect for them or consideration for others, and lack the faintest idea of what they are talking about.
A German soldier after being captured by American troops near Nicosia, (1943)
Last year, Carl Sergeant, 49-year-old politician, took his life after losing his job as secretary
image 569
The cause? False sexual abuse allegations.
The sentiment of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is being jettisoned. Now, mere accusation alone is enough to ruin someone’s career. Do you understand how dangerous that is?
Quote from BBC News:
“The family wish to maintain the fact that Carl maintained his innocence and he categorically denied any wrongdoing. The distress of not being able to defend himself properly against his unspecified allegtions meant he was not afforded common courtesy, decency or natural justice.”
You can’t make the cost of sexual interest the complete desolation of a man’s career, his reputation and even his life. We can’t keep branding people who sent a risqué text or blew kiss a pervert.
We’re now witnessing the birth pangs of the sexual reformation, the fallout from the sex abuse scandals that have plagued the entertainment industry, politics, and are now spreading throughout society as a whole. Third-wave feminists have been largely discredited over the past five years – just 18% of women in the US identify as feminist. Even less in the UK. Rights that actual feminists fought for a hundred years ago have been achieved, which is why radical feminists and SJWs need to hijack or invent new outrages to push their primary narrative and create more gender division.
Remember Zaira Wasim? Last year, she said she was scared when a man sitting behind her was touching her waist with his legs. At first, she ignored it, thinking it was due to turbulence, but didn’t tell anyone about it – not even the crew. Zaira put this allegation on a man named as Vikas Sachdev, a 39-year-old father and husband.
He was arrested. His wife defended him as innocent, but to the baying mob, allegations were all that were required to pass judgement.
image 568
Now don’t get me wrong, if sexual abuse is admitted or proven, those people should be punished to the full extent of the law. Hollywood and political peadophile rings should be exposed. But trial by a social media mob outage isn’t justice, and it sets a horrific precedent. Women are now jumping on the MeToo hashtag bandwagon so they can smother themselves in attention-seeking victimhood – not because they’re actual victims, but in one case because a man looked at them.
Another story was whipped up about Adam Sandler touching Claire Foy’s knee on a talk show.
In another instance, an MP was outed after he described a woman as “attractive, intelligent and charming”
Another case involved Michael Fallon trying to kiss a woman.
See the trend here? Everything is being conflated, to the point where making a pass at a woman is placed in the same context as actual rape.
There has to be an understanding that mere accusations alone are not proof. We have to put a check on this call of instantly believing the accuser without any regard for evidence.
It’s one of those David vs Goliath academic tales that’s as absurd as it is commendable.
image 48
Knorozov was a Soviet linguist – not a guy you’d expect to crack a Mesoamerican code. He got intrigued by the Mayan glyphs while rummaging through old dusty books in the off-limits section of the library. The glyphs hadn’t been fully understood for centuries.
The declassified Dresden Codex landed in his lap. It had been through hell: World War II bombings, water damage, and general neglect. But this old thing was a Rosetta Stone waiting for its sober lover.
While World War II suppressed the free exchange of scholarly thought, Knorozov was insulated and incubated over in Mother Russia. He faced another kind of battle, though: stifling Soviet oversight and scarce resources.
But undeterred, Yuri used his noggin. He hypothesized that the glyphs weren’t just individual pictures or symbols. They were indicative of phonetic sounds, a theory vastly different from what the scholarly mainstream believed.
Where many saw walls, Knorozov saw doors.
He hammered away at this theory, marrying the dots and bars of the Mayan numeral system to the text surrounding them. It was as if he spoke directly to the ancient Mayans, bridging a chasm of silence that had lasted since the fall of their civilization. Bit by bit, he began matching sounds to symbols.
His breakthrough publications hit in the 1950s. And like most disruptors, he was met with academic side-eye. It was the ‘newbie rocking the boat’ scenario. Many Western academics clung angrily to their dated theories, as if they were good luck charms.
But as time marched on, so did progress. Others began taking swings with the bat Knorozov had crafted. Additional findings corroborated his theories. The wall of mystery surrounding Mayan writing was getting holes punched into it, letting light in.
By the time of his death in 1999, Knorozov had seen his theories widely accepted. Mayan glyphs were readable, weaving tales of kings, conquests, and the cosmos.
What Yuri Knorozov did single-handedly is akin to solving a 1,000-year-old crossword puzzle without any clues, which makes you wonder, how many other historical whispers are just waiting for their translator?
From my home in Portland, OR, I look at Knorozov’s story as a beacon of hope for every solo scholar out there staring at an uncracked code. Keep at it. You might just be onto something.
Yes, but it had nothing to do with the procedure being inappropriate; it was an issue of consent.
I was called by a clinician to put a drainage catheter into an abscess, a pretty standard procedure; I was told that the patient had been reluctant, but had agreed to go ahead. Naturally I spoke with the patient myself, and discovered that she had not given any kind of meaningful consent; instead she had said something like “whatever”, just to get rid of the clinician, whom she described as a moron.
I called him up, with the patient in the room (but not listening in on the phone); I explained that I had spoken with her in person, and she was clearly unwilling to have the procedure. He then described her as a “seed person”, his term for someone who distrusted conventional medicine and preferred natural remedies; while I sympathized with his preference for proven treatments, it was clear that his attitude towards her was one of contempt, and that she had picked this up. He asked if he could speak to her; I told her he wanted to talk with her, she absolutely refused, and I conveyed this to him – softening her language slightly.
I then wrote a lengthy note in her chart, summarizing my discussion with her, quoting her comments, and explaining that as she had no intention of giving consent for this procedure, I was not going to perform it. I felt that she needed it, and I had explained this to her as clearly as I could; but as I was not her parent or legal guardian, I was professionally and ethically obligated to respect her wishes.
The right of a mentally competent adult patient to refuse treatment is absolute, whatever the consequences. My job is to explain those consequences as clearly as I can. The patient’s job is to make the choice.
An ex of mine, we dated for 3 months. He was significantly older.
In that time he got progressively more controlling. One day he heard a rumour I was cheating on him.
How I was meant to, I don’t know as I was always either at work (and replying to his messages) or with him.
He decided to throw me around and threaten me with 2 knives. Both of which he pressed against my throat. He also threatens to kill the friend he decided I was sleeping with. Luckily he gets angry enough and storms out of my home as there was no way I could physically move him and I lock the door.
I call my mum to come and get me away, she calls the police. All the time he is banging on the door threatening me and my friend. He keeps accusing me of calling “my other boyfriend” and how he will kill him when he gets there. He realises I’ve called the Police and goes for a walk away from my home.
I show the Police the knives and give a statement at the Police station. He is arrested and pleads guilty to the Police.
The Police Officer I was speaking to unofficially advised me to submit a request against Claires Law which eventually informed me that he had been connected to 5 other women in domestic violence cases. The last one whom he attacked with an axe, he went to prison for 3 months for that incident. These are just the reported cases, I have no doubt there are more who did not report him.
My case was deemed only to be a Magistrates case. The Magistrate on hearing the guilty plea gave a 12 week suspended sentence for 1 year so he could work on his mental health, a Restraining order for 3 years and “compensation” of £150.
I can’t believe the magistrate had a clear domestic abuser who showed clear escalation patterns increasing in violence to women ranging from stalking, assault and sexual assault and gave such a ridiculous sentence. It showed a lack of respect for female lives. I was advised not to attend court, it’s probably a good thing as I doubt I could have stopped myself shouting at the magistrate.
I had to flee my home, upend my entire life, develop ptsd and the perpetrator got a slap on the wrist.
A Nihang Bodyguard, (c.1865)
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When Evil Parents Realize They’ve Been Caught
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Holy FUCK!
https://youtu.be/31AZ3x17Aq0
Curb Market in NYC, (ca 1900)
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27 Minutes Of Rude Karens Vs Judges!
GOD! The USA is so messed up!
Observer on Iwo Jima, (1945)
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A Massive Cat Abandoned at the Shelter Gets Adopted Within Hours
Crowded Bunks in the Prison Camp at Buchenwald, (April 16, 1945)
In the first place, I would like to say that you are right, to some extent. I agreed with you that we are somehow forced to learn some very entry level Classical Chinese, during the compulsory education stage (year 1 to year 9). This is the fact about Chinese education.
In the second place, since you asked why. I will try my best to answer your question.
The importance of classical Chinese:
In the narrow sense, Classical Chinese is the language which was actively used between Spring and Autumn period through to the end of the Han Dynasty (5th century BC to 2nd century AD). It soon became the formal written language in the Chinese society all the way until the 1910s when the Qing Dynasty was overturned. More than 2000 years of history was documented by using classical Chinese. It carried the invaluable heritage of our civilisation. In my opinion, it means much more to us than Latin to the European society.
In the broad sense, Classical Chinese is contrary to the Morden Mandarin, including classical Chinese (narrow sense), poems, novels written in the vernacular Chinese etc. It draws a whole picture of our great 5000-thousand-year civilisation, keeping people with hopes even in the darkest time of our nation.
Why government decided to introduce classical education.
China is a civilisation state instead of a national state. Anyone who recognises Chinese culture is considered as Chinese and could be integrated into the mainstream society, even he is not a Han Chinese. That is said Chinese people was united by a common written language, a universal value and a general social norm, even they may speak different dialects, live in a different region and have a different clan. This is also the most powerful argument to against the claims such as Cantonese is a distinct language instead of a Chinese dialect. The reason why schools in China teach both classical and Mandarin is, I think, it works better if taught together. Mandarin is the main structure and classical is a supplement of it. Mandarin is superficial which could not teach students some fundamental and abstract concepts. For example, people who only received Mandarin education would probably not able to understand the connections between the full moon and home sick (like a metaphor), autumn and depression etc. Therefore, promoting classical education would further strengthen the sense of national identity bound by the language and culture. That is the how to keep the nation united for more than 2000 years (Since Qin Dynasty firstly published a set of national standards). That is the political concern of the government. And this is also the answer to why not only Han Chinese, other ethical minorities are (not forced but encouraged) learning Chinese.
“月落乌啼霜满天 江枫渔火对愁眠” （The moon is setting. The crows are crying. The atmosphere is heavy with a chilly autumn frost. The maple trees and the lights of the fishing boats are reflected in the water. Yet I am unable to sleep because of sorrow.）This short poem was filled with culture symbols such as “moon, crow, autumn, red leaves and fishing boats”. Those culture symbols was consistently used till today, they speak themselves without the need of explanation. But it almost undecipherable for people without classical education.
Social response
In fact, there is far less unfavorable voice against teaching classical in school rather than that of English. Ministry of Education is planning to make the English language an elective subject in the College Entrance Examination (aka. Gaokao), but removing classical content is out of the question, definitely. Personally, I, although not excel it, rather enjoy learning classical than modern Mandarin. It is so concise, splendid, touching my soul so deeply. I was hoping one day I could like those famous poets, to put own feelings into such powerful words. People used to say ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’. Some classical quotes certainly could do the better job in the appropriate circumstance. Many Chinese leaders would like to quote some classical or come up their own.
President Jiang Zemin’s calligraphy, quoting national hero Lin Zexu’s poem. （were it to benefit my country I would lay down my life; what then is the risk to me）
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao wrote on the blackboard after 2008 Sichuan earthquake. “challenges make a nation much stronger”
Chinese also tend to use classical to name their children, their company etc. A name with good meaning would give people a better first impression. Actually, not only Chinese, people from East Asia and Vietnam will also use Chinses classical when giving the name. e.g. all Japanese emperor’s title of reign is based on Chinese classical.
Lastly, China, together with Korea peninsula, Japan, Ryukyu and Vietnam, shared a long history bound by classical Chinese language. All most all the history was written in classical Chinese. Due to some political concerns, both Korea and Vietnam abolished Chinese, making it a great loss in their culture. Now people living there could not understand what their ancestors wrote when they are visiting their historical sites. I can never imagine this happens in China one day, when our children visiting forbidden city and asking what exactly did the emperor write on the wooden boards. What a ridiculous thing?
Ps. It is rather funny to ask in such way. Forced?
It could be better to rephrase the question to ‘why Chinese student nowadays still need to learn classical Chinese’
He sacked a colleague the day my colleague was leaving for a family holiday. My boss (and owner of the business), Paul, just liked to show people he had the power. He was often petty and a micromanaging control freak. He seemed to like me, so most of the time he left me to do my thing.
My colleague, Ian, had become a friend, and we’d hang out after work. He had been planning an overseas family trip for some time, and had been talking about it for a couple of months in advance of the date. He had requested leave, which was approved, before making the booking. He was a friendly, genuine guy, and most of us in the office shared his enthusiasm for his holiday. We could see he was looking forward to taking his family away.
He was due to fly out on a Saturday. On the Friday, Paul called Ian into his office and told him he had changed his mind, he was revoking the leave. Ian tried to argue that the tickets were non-refundable, everything was booked, his wife had taken leave, and they had permission to take their children out of school. Paul wasn’t swayed. He made it clear, cancel or be fired.
Ian asked what was so important that he needed to stay, Paul didn’t give a real answer. He just shrugged and said, “it’s my company, my call.”
Ian called his wife, and then decided to do the holiday. He didn’t want to lose the money or let his family down.
He came and told me just before lunch what had happened, and suggested we go for a farewell lunch.
I was incensed! I immediately wrote a handwritten resignation, left it on Paul’s desk, packed my things, and went to lunch. I told Ian and some other colleagues at lunch that this was also MY farewell.
As lunch wrapped up, the others drifted back to the office, and it was just Ian and me, commiserating over a beer, when Paul came in, in a fluster. I had never seen him in such a state (I later realized it was because he was no longer in control). Paul loudly tried to convince me to stay, offered me everything (other than more money!). I just said no, calmly. He left saying something like “you’ll be back when you can’t find another job.”
I called in on another friend on my way home, and had a job offer that afternoon.
Beer Battered Fish and Chips
Beer Battered Fish and Chips
Ingredients
2 to 4 potatoes, scrubbed and cut into fingers
1 pound fish (cod, halibut, polluck, etc.) 500g
1 (12 ounces/355mL) can beer
1 egg, beaten until fluffy
2/3 cup milk 150 mL
1 teaspoon canola oil 5 mL
1 teaspoon baking powder 5 mL
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 mL
1/4 teaspoon salt 1 mL
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 375 mL
1/2 cup second flour amount for dipping 125 mL
3 cups canola oil for deep frying 750 mL
Instructions
Pat potatoes and fish dry with paper towels.
Heat oil to a frying temperature of 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). To cook potato chips properly, it is important to maintain this frying temperature. You may wish to increase the temperature slightly before adding potatoes as oil temperature will drop when food is added. Fry 5-6 minutes or until golden brown. While potatoes are frying, prepare batter for fish.
To prepare batter: Mix together beer, egg, milk and canola oil. Add baking powder, cayenne pepper, salt and 1 1/2 cups (375 mL) flour all at once, mixing only enough to dampen the dry ingredients.
Remove potato chips from the canola oil with slotted spoon, drain on paper towels, and season to taste.
Coat fish pieces in 1/2 cup (125 mL) flour before dipping in batter. Gently place in hot oil to deep fry. Cook until golden, about 6 minutes.
Remove from oil with slotted spoon; drain on paper towels.
When my grandmother found out she had terminal cancer, she gave away a lot of her things to her children and grandchildren. She gave my cousin her 6 year old car, she gave me her expensive vacuum cleaner, she gave my mother an 8 foot tall grandfather’s clock, that had been hand made by my mothers great grandfather, those are the only three I remember, but she had two children and six grandchildren, so you can see by the gifts, that they weren’t terribly expensive, but had some value.
She still owned her own condo, and had some savings.
Shortly after my grandmother had died, and the will had been read, I over heard my uncle talking to my mother. My grandmother had split the estate between my uncle and mother. My uncle wanted everything that my grandmother had given away, to be given back to the estate, as he felt that they were just loans. Then the estate would be split between him and mom. If the grandkids ( including his own kids) wanted what they had been given, they could buy it from the estate.
I was shocked, I had always loved my uncle, he had never seemed like a greedy man. But inheritance seems to bring out the worst in people. My mother and uncle fought for the first time that I ever knew of, and some nasty things were said.
Evidently he approached his kids to get the gifts back, and they formed a united front, and told him he was wrong. So he backed off. I would have never have known that he had a greedy side to him, if I hadn’t overheard that conversation. He died about 10 years later, and I never looked at him, quite the same as before I overheard that conversation.
When my grandmother found out she had terminal cancer, she gave away a lot of her things to her children and grandchildren. She gave my cousin her 6 year old car, she gave me her expensive vacuum cleaner, she gave my mother an 8 foot tall grandfather’s clock, that had been hand made by my mothers great grandfather, those are the only three I remember, but she had two children and six grandchildren, so you can see by the gifts, that they weren’t terribly expensive, but had some value.
She still owned her own condo, and had some savings.
Shortly after my grandmother had died, and the will had been read, I over heard my uncle talking to my mother. My grandmother had split the estate between my uncle and mother. My uncle wanted everything that my grandmother had given away, to be given back to the estate, as he felt that they were just loans. Then the estate would be split between him and mom. If the grandkids ( including his own kids) wanted what they had been given, they could buy it from the estate.
I was shocked, I had always loved my uncle, he had never seemed like a greedy man. But inheritance seems to bring out the worst in people. My mother and uncle fought for the first time that I ever knew of, and some nasty things were said.
Evidently he approached his kids to get the gifts back, and they formed a united front, and told him he was wrong. So he backed off. I would have never have known that he had a greedy side to him, if I hadn’t overheard that conversation. He died about 10 years later, and I never looked at him, quite the same as before I overheard that conversation.
They taught us how to wear boots. At the beginning of the session, the tough looking DS looked at us the only way a DS can do it.
I thought what the hell? Put them on and lace them up. Oh no. There was the Army way.
We found out how important the simple sock was in the Army.
“Socks must be pulled up TIGHT! No wrinkles or seams. Loose socks in your boot can be a painful thing and cause blisters quicker than your daddy’s willow switch. Pull them up tight. Keep them dry. Wet socks are not a soldier’s friend. If a soldier’s feet are unusable because of blisters, that soldier is unusable. Take care of those feet. Also, mark those socks.”
We had to make sure there were no wrinkles on the inner sole where the foot goes in.
“If there’s a wrinkle in your boot lining, give ‘em back and you will be issued new ones. Wrinkles cause blisters. Make sure your boot is TIGHT around your foot. Do not let your feet ‘float’ in boots. Floating feet cause blisters!”
“The boots are laced diagonally with the excess lace tucked into the top of the boot. Metal cleats and side tabs are not authorized for wear. Steeled toed boots are not authorized for wear. THAT gentlemen is why these are NOT steel toed boots. If they were, you would be crippled within two weeks. There should be at least a 3/4-inch minimum additional length at toe. DO NOT soak boots in water or bake in an oven to break-in. Boots should be worn in gradually at first with ever-increasing walking or marching distances while remaining comfortable.”
“The back of your boots must also be shined. Just because we’re looking at you from the front, wise asses, doesn’t mean we won’t give the about face order.
“The tongues of your boots will lie flat all along the top of your boots, not squished in like a piece of toilet paper shoved up the crack of your ass. Squished tongues cause blisters. We don’t want blisters around here. Blisters mean there’s a man out and the rest of you do twice the work. If I find a squished tongue in your boot, and I’ll check at times, it’ll be YOUR tongue lying on top of your foot under the laces!”
“If you do not follow these instructions, you will get my right boot up your ass and I’m telling you now, IT WILL HURT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
This DS had at least size 13 boots. We understood.
I got an email a few days ago. The writer was pretty critical on my habit on covering all sorts of subjects and omitting the ET and the UFO stuff. Demanding, in a (almost) sarcastic way that I am somehow “fake” unless I spew out “lore” on a daily basis about “black hats” and “reptilians” and all that stuff.
Guys. I don’t know all that much. I have a connection to the Domain Commander… and it’s damn tight. Sometimes I wonder if I was domain before I incarnated… it’s that strong. But what I know is though two venues.
[1] MAJestic, and direct communication with the [2] Domain Commander.
Note that I did not include the venues on the internet about other stuff. Whether it is Farsight or some other venue. The events and states are often well apt to be misinterpreted by myself because of my own unique experiences. In my own reality.
And also… I grow and change.
Right?
So the view and observations that I held ten years ago are often quite different today. And I’ll tell youse guys… nothing is more sublime than my belief in “reptilians”.
Oh, Lordy!
You see, and many of you all know that I (for the longest time) ridiculed the “reptilian narrative”. And as such, I often confused the charlatans that monetized this narrative over the reality… even though it was not MY reality that I experienced. Oh man! I was wrong! Wrong! WRONG!
I asked the Domain Commander for a full information data dump.
…
This occurred when I was chatting with a MM follower. (You know who you are.)
And so I asked for the data dump.
I will post the details in a Patreon video or a separate post all to it’s self. But here’s a summary…
There are “reptilians” in the universe. It is a (branch) of an approved archetype.
Their normal environment is NOT around a G class star, like our sun.
They can live in our environment for short periods in a physical form.
They are “intersectionals” or “”interfrequency” beings. Meaning that they are a separate classification somewhere between a physical being, and a spiritual being.
Many of these beings have “advanced civilizations” and have shape changing technologies.
Some of them have visited the earth and occupied roles in this environment.
However…
The internet is flooded with disinformation regarding these creatures.
There are many people who have monetized this narrative. You need to be wary of that.
…
Remember people…
Reptilians exist. They have the ability to enter and leave our reality and realm at will. They do occasionally visit the earth, and when they do; they suffer though various limitations.
However…
There are greedy and ignorant folk that has taken this situation to extremes, and has created a fiction that is easy to get lost in. Please be cautious.
Today…
A daily dose of funk for today…
SOS Band reunion. No lip sync. I looked, if they are doing so… well it’s damn good.
Anyways. I love this band, and I had such a great crush on this lead singer. She’s still a looker… I’ll tell you what.
I grew up poor. Our house was bare wood, no paint. My parents had to drop out of school after grade 9 to help support their families. When I was in the 6th grade, my parents told me that they hoped I would be able to go to University, but they had no money to pay for it.
I started mowing lawns and shoveling snow in grade 8. In grade 9, I started working 20 hours a week. In grade 10 it was 30, and in grade 11 and 12 it was 40 hours a week.
I stayed at the university dorm, sharing a 12×14 ft room with a room mate. I worked in the dorm cafeteria.
During summer break I got a camp job, with free room and board, working 360–380 hrs a month .
I graduated university with no debt. I went back to school a couple of more times over the years, whenever I wasn’t happy with my career. I would get another career.
I enjoyed my careers because I would change if I didn’t, life is too short to be unhappy.
I made good money. Then I retired comfortably on a fixed income on a paid for house in the wilderness.
Col Douglas Mcgregor: “We CANNOT Recover from What has HAPPENED! TOTAL DEFEAT ON ALL SIDES!!”
Colonel Douglas Macgregor delivers a compelling analysis, expressing the impossibility of recovering from the catastrophic events in Ukraine while highlighting the moral and financial losses incurred by supporting Israel. His assertion of a comprehensive defeat across all fronts for the United States indicates a poignant examination of the country’s geopolitical stance. Viewers are invited to explore Macgregor’s insights into the extensive implications of these interconnected situations.
My husband and I were in the computer sales/repair business for many years. One day an elderly woman came in, asking if we could fix her computer. She said it had gotten so slow she could barely use it. She told us her 15 year old grandson also used the computer “for his homework,” and she wanted to be sure he could get his work done. I went to her car and brought it in for her, since she had trouble carrying it. My husband set it up on his bench, and pretty quickly told her that she needed to add more memory, as she had a lot of large graphic and video files. She had a limited budget, so he suggested she delete some of the large files to free up memory. She wanted him to do that for her, so he had her sit beside him and go through some of the files to decide which ones to delete. After opening a few older .jpgs, which were photos of a family reunion, he opened one in a more recent folder. I was at the front counter by then, but went to the repair room when I heard a loud shriek of “Oh, lord Jesus!” On the screen was a photo of a man with a foot-long … er, appendage, and a woman kneeling at his feet … you get the idea. The recently-downloaded short videos were all pornos. Once all that was deleted, she was happy with her computer, but not so happy with her grandson. As I loaded the computer in her car, she was muttering under her breath, “good whuppin’ is what he needs.” I don’t know if he got the whuppin’, but I’m pretty sure he lost computer privileges.
The US congress is turning off the tap. No more billions, not especially with a looming recession crashing head-on into bitter election season.
Ukraine’s economy is practically non-existent, with half the population gone with the wind, significant devastation, and the ongoing conflict. Ukraine is operating on fumes, and without US/NATO support, the country will struggle to function as a society.
Volodymyr isn’t the great statesman the free press trumpeted anymore. He is now an assassination target, with significant fractures developing within the command structure. What happens when the soldiers do not receive their wages? What about arms delivery?
Even with the full backing of NATO, Ukraine never matched Russian firepower on the battlefield, and Ukrainian soldiers suffer casualties at 5:1 to 10:1 rates compared to the Russians. That will be an optimistic loss ratio in 2024, as a severely degraded Ukrainian military fight on with dwindling support. Even fighting men are in short supply, never mind equipment, ammunition and real-time intelligence. Ukraine has practically zero industrial capability to sustain warmaking, other than growing its own food and making basic items.
Good luck hanging on to Odessa.
Normalized in a relationship
Ginger Beer
This is alcoholic, so please don’t let the children drink it!
47c1984a9c14f6cf131e342ceee9cf1c
Ingredients
To Make the Plant
2 ounces fresh baker’s yeast
2 level tablespoons superfine sugar
2 level tablespoons freshly ground dried ginger, bought from a spice store and NOT a supermarket
To Complete the Process
19 cups cold water
2 large fresh lemons
2 1/4 cups superfine sugar
Instructions
Mix yeast and sugar together in a small, clean plastic or china bowl with a small wooden spoon.
Add ginger and slowly mix in 1/4 cup of hand-hot water. Stir until well blended, then add another cup of hand-hot water and place in a very clean glass jar and leave, uncovered, in a warm place.
To Feed the Plant: 10 level teaspoons freshly ground dried ginger and 10 level teaspoons superfine sugar
Each day feed the plant. Do this by sprinkling onto the surface 1 teaspoon superfine sugar and 1 teaspoon ginger. Do this for 10 days.
When you have fed the plant for 10 days, dissolve the 2 1/4 cups superfine sugar with 3 3/4 cups of the water in a heavy-bottom 4-quart saucepan. Heat slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon, until he sugar is dissolved. It will not take long.
Using a thoroughly cleansed 10-quart plastic bucket, pour in the sugar and water mixture. Add another 2 1/2 cups cold water and the strained juice of two lemons. Now add the remaining 12 1/2 cups of water. Take the plant you’ve been feeding for 10 days and strain the liquid through muslin into the bucket. Save the sludge if you want to make more. Stir all the liquid well and pour into screw-top bottles. The 2 1/2-liter plastic screw-top soda bottles are ideal for this. Using a funnel, fill each bottle, leaving about a 2-inch air gap at the top for the ginger beer to breathe. Place the tops on, but don’t tighten down until the following day.
Sample after 5 days, covering the neck of the bottle with a cloth when opening. A small amount of sediment may collect at the bottom of the bottle. Decant the contents of the bottle into a pitcher, taking care that the sediment remains in the bottle. Serve chilled. Dilute with a lemonade soda or beer to make a refreshing drink.
To continue the plant: Divide the sludge into two glass juice containers, add 1 1/4 cups of hand-hot water to each and feed the plant in the previous manner. You’ll then be running two plants and will be making double the amount.
No. The Chinese can detect, track, follow, and “lock on” to any and all American submarines. This includes the highly vaulted USN “stealth” submarines.
This has been demonstrated in numerous ways, and though back channels to “key players” in the Pentagon. The public displays of this ability has been disguised as other events.
Oh, I am confident that the guys at NAS China Lake NWC will come up with methodology and techniques. When that will happen is unknown. But I am sure that some ideas are being researched and some preliminary studies are being conducted.
I have a reasonable expectation that some technologies will be fielded before 2030.
There are (highly likely) “black” projects currently in development that will eventually result in some great engineering direction. Of that I have no doubt. But it would be silly to assume that the Chinese are unaware of them. By the time they hit pilot field trials, China will already have counter-measures in place and fielded.
China, as of the time of this writing, has a very strong and significant undersea detection ability that spans the entire Pacific Ocean. This includes the Western coastline of the Americas. I do not know about the rest of the globe, but it can be inferred that the waters in and around Australia are under this umbrella of coverage, as are the Indian Sea, and the Northern navigable ocean.
So, to answer the question, more specifically…
Can American submarines bypass China’s surveillance and enter China’s territorial waters?
No. Any American submarine in the Pacific Ocean, near Australia, near the Indian Ocean, and in the Arctic Ocean can be detected by China.
If China determine that it is a threat, it will warn it away. This will include non-destructive methods such as the “sonic bomb”, and the “sonar ray cannon”. The warning usually is enough to cause the skipper to scamper away, as has already been demonstrated. In the event that the skipper is too recalcitrant, China has the ability to suppress the undersea vessel with extreme prejudice.
…
SOME IMPORTANT NOTES
Technical abilities of all military systems are hidden. The closest that the layman can get to understanding what they are is to either work with publicly available guesswork (such as JANES), or to actually have experience in these technologies.
If you regurgitate public domain evaluations (such as JANES) you are apt to copy the misinformation purposely fed to the periodical.
If you offer your personal experience in these matters, you are apt to be called a “fake news shrill” by a host of miscreants.
No one knows the true and real capabilities of the USN and the PLAN. However, people who have worked in these regimes, can make educated guesses and extrapolate towards highest probability conclusions. This is what I have done here.
The alternative is to rely on the public discourse, which is highly inaccurate, and intentionally misleading. If you feel that the anti-China disinfo is of better value to you, then go quite ahead and ignore this answer. No skin off my back.
Count me in that group. I’m a disabled veteran, but my disability is not service-related. My disability insurance is SSDI; it amounts to $1069/month.
Stateside, subtract a hundred off the top for Medicare premiums. As a single male, the wait for Section 8 housing was longer, frankly, than most doctors said I could expect to live. A cheap rat-trap apartment near a VA ran about $640+ utilities ($120 electricity, water and trash). Meds related to my disability (multiple sclerosis) had a copay of $75. Add the cheapest liability insurance for my cheap motorcycle, $37.
See anything wrong here? Like…$90 for food and gas for a month IF nothing bad happens.
Before the death of my wife in 2017, we scraped by on my SSDI and her SSI. By late summer in 2018, I was sponging off my little sister and saving up for plane fare.
I landed in the Philippines with $800 in my pocket and a livein caregiver waiting to help me settle in. My rent was 5000 Philippine pesos (php) just under $100. My caregiver got twice that plus room & board, and she did all the grocery shopping with less than $65 a month.
Now, I have a fiancée instead of a caregiver, we live in her home in Bohol (no rent; she owns the place)
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and I easily support her and her 2 daughters in simple comfort.
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My meds are replaced with local herbs that grow wild, we grow or catch most of our food,
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(Spearfishing for personal consumption is unregulated and the snorkeling is excellent physical therapy!)
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We even manage a weekend at a beach resort every other month or so.
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Yeah, it’s not just better…it’s a tropical paradise lifestyle on a bargain budget income and even my health is an order of magnitude better. I’ve outlived the docs’ prognosis by 3 years, and I got no plans to die sooner just to spare them the embarrassment of being wrong.
The quiet kid was me, and it happened during lunch. We had a really small cafeteria, with long tables set up. You couldn’t choose where to sit, you just sat at the next open spot. While you could control who sat on either side of you while you were in line, it was a crapshoot as to who was going to be sitting across from you.
There were 3 boys who had been taunting me since 4th grade (this happened in 8th grade). I was born with a minor birth defect. The obsolete name for it is “harelip”. (Clefting is repaired at a very young age, so really I had a scar on my lip.) So I got my tray, sat down between a couple of friends, and across from me was my chief tormenter, sitting between the other two tormentors.
Everytime I had gone to a teacher, the principal, the dean of students, the student counselor….any adult…the boys were always admonished that they weren’t being “nice”, and I was given the lecture that I had to develop a thicker skin, I was “better” than to let them get to me by calling me that name, that I should try to avoid them and that would solve the problem.
I was already having a bad day. It started as soon as I put my tray down. “Oh, god, it’s Harelip! Gross! I’m gonna barf! How can anyone eat having to look at that ugly harelip face?” On and on for about 5 minutes while I stared down at my tray. At my tray filled with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and chocolate pudding. In all, a very gooshy lunch.
I leaned over, grabbed the corners of his tray (he hadn’t eaten much), and flipped it over on him. His face now dripped sliced turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and chocolate pudding.
My absolute favorite teacher in the world prevented the dean from suspending me, pointing out that I had been asking for and begging for the authorities to do something about these assholes, and had been ignored.
I can’t remember if they were punished for bullying me, but at least those three stopped calling me harelip.
What you need to realize is that, the Dollar being a primary reserve currency has been an issue that many countries have secretly not been very comfortable with
It was one of the not so public reasons for the existence of the EURO
Many Nations especially the Middle East Nations felt it very wrong to sell their oil and keep all the money earned from those sales in Accounts in the United States
However back then the US was too powerful
Saddam Hussain tried and ended up being murdered after a bogus invasion
Gadaffi tried and was killed in a color revolution sponsored by the United States
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The Saudis, the Qataris, the Iranians all felt like being under a Colonial Dictator who decided and controlled every aspect of their life using the dollar
The US was making up rules and using the power of sanctions and its military to destroy anyone who did not toe the line
Thus the fact that the Dollar was the Primary reserve currency was not something everyone was happy with even from the mid 1990s
The UK had decided to tolerate this because they were too badly broken after World War II and needed the US to survive as a developed nation
Every 3 out 4 Dollars they needed came from US Banks & US Federal Loans.
Europe too
Russia due to it’s incompetent leadership under Geriatrics like Brezhnev, Andropov and Gromyko and Chernenko plus Idiots like Gorbachev also needed US Dollars to rescue it’s economy from collapse and hyperinflation
China was happy earning dollars and building its reserves and growing 14% a year
In short the US had forced these Nations into situations where the US and it’s Dollars were indispensable to them
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Today things stand different
The US is much weaker than it was
The same Nation that could probably once control a conflict from DC alone, is unable to rein in its most dependent lackey ally – ISRAEL
It is riddled with Debt
It has sanctioned and played unfair so many times that IT’S CREDIBILITY IS ZERO
So every Nation that once tolerated the US Dollar as primary reserve, is starting to trade in other currencies including the Yuan, the Ruble and their own Local Currencies
Energy & Food is now being sold in Yuan and priced in Yuan
Qatar sells LNG to China pricing it in Yuan as do Saudi Arabia and Russia
Brazil sells Soybeans and Ore priced in Yuan to China
The US may still be very powerful against any attack on the US itself but their offensive warfare capabilities have significantly become weaker and weaker.
The Military Leaders are weak
The Politicians are imbeciles – either Neocons or Corrupt Ideologues or Neo Liberals
Hence DE DOLLARIZATION HAS BEGUN and will continue
One currency as primary reserve and One Nation as a Hegemon was always wrong
Maybe it was unavoidable from 1945 to maybe 1975 when the world was still recovering from the World War and Anti Communist Wars
However it should have started focusing on a Multipolar World and a Variant currency reserve from at least 1975
Yet the US kept it’s hold as a Hegemon and it’s currency as primary through:-
Removing the Gold Standard and adopting the Bretton Woods system forcing Europe to accept both
Adopted the Plaza Accords in 1985 and finished Japan as a potential rival
Invaded Iraq and sponsored color revolution in Libya to ensure no other player even thought of going against the Dollar
Sadly today the US cannot continue this
Putin, Xi are TOO STRONG
The BRI has ensured that most of the Global South no longer kowtows to the US blindly but rather would do what’s best for them, best example being Vietnam
Also the US thanks to 30 years of bullying and intimidating has now a foreign Service and diplomatic service that DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE WHAT IT MEANS TO NEGOTIATE OR BARGAIN.
The crop of idiot diplomats know only to threaten and bully
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Like Daleep Singh, the numbskull who threatened India with Sanctions when he could have offered a nice tech transfer deal plus a nice $ 100 Billion swap facility in Mumbai and maybe swayed India on his side
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Or this brainless fool who could have easily offered China, a full tariff waiver for 3 years, a written guarantee on their US Investments plus a mutual guarantee on Taiwan (You don’t attack Taiwan and we don’t supply weapons)
China may have agreed to move away from Putin
If that was the case Putin would have lost by June 2022 and the West would have won
[Again I use MAY. Wang Yi and Jaishankar are too astute to trust the US but Modi is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and likely could have forced JS to toe the line]
So Yes the US Dollar is going to lose its Primary Reserve Status
By 2030 I believe the USD will have a reserve of around 46%, the Yuan at 13%, Euro at 10%, Yen at 5%, the BRICS Settlement CBDC at 5% and Local Currencies at 21%
In high school I had this crazy idea that nobody believed would actually work, but it worked like a charm.
Writing the formulas to the blackboard.
Normally I am good at math, but some of the formulas, there tons of letters were involved were simply not getting in. And a lot of others had the same problem. It was nobody’s favorite subject, except maybe a select group of uber nerds. So I took a gamble. I was gonna fail with or without the formulas, so I figured I wasn’t actually risking anything. So the last break before the exam I wrote some of the formulas I was struggling with and left it out in the open. Just like that.
Teacher probably never even thought to check the blackboard. Why would he? Surely we wouldn’t be stupid enough to cheat so blatantly..
Would we? 😂
Occasional giggles only confused the teacher, he told us to keep quiet. We seriously could not believe this was actually working. There it was, the formulas, written in huge puntos, so out in the open as if it was begging to be seen.
It was probably one of our most nerve racking but also funny experiences throughout high school. I don’t know clever, but it was certainly outside of the box.
My dad, a retired pastor, tells a story about a wedding he officiated for a couple in their mid-40s who were both on their second marriage.
The groom was what my dad affectionately refers to as a “good old boy,” which is polite for redneck.
The bride was quite well-endowed, and was wearing a strapless dress.
Whenever my dad would officiate a wedding for practicing Christians, part of the ceremony would be the celebration of the Lord’s supper, as a way of indicating that in a Christian marriage, the relationship is not only between the husband and wife, but also their savior. My dad liked for the groom to perform the communion rite with the bride, while dad spoke to the congregation about the symbolism of what they were doing, as inevitably there would be non-Christians there who didn’t understand what was going on. But in this case, the groom didn’t feel comfortable doing that and asked Dad to lead the two of them through the communion together. They chose to kneel down in front of the altar to take communion. Once complete, they were to stand and continue the wedding ceremony.
You can probably guess where this is going, but it was fortunately that the bride and groom chose to face Dad instead of placing him between them and the congregation because when they finished communion and the bride went to stand up, her dress was caught beneath her knees and pulled the front of her dress down so that her breasts popped out and landed on the table.
Dad describes it as if you were to lay two loaves of bread side by side on the table.
Far from being mortified for his about-to-be-wife, the good old boy groom just looked over at the bosoms lying there on the altar, gave a long whistle, and exuberantly yelled, “shooo weeee!”
I was shopping for some clothes as a teenager in the 1980s and I had a $250 gift card (equivalent to about $500 or more today) for a store that was slightly upscale and popular with their name and reputation.
When I approached a sales clerk who was only a few years older than I was, perhaps 19 or 20, and who was this entitled snobby rich kid and asked her about some types of ‘stonewashed’ jeans which were the big fashion craze at the time, she clearly stated; “We do carry them but you probably can’t afford them so don’t waste our time”.
I was shocked but also very hurt since I did come from a poor single parent family and I was very self conscious about my circumstances since I attended a high school that had a lot of those snobby rich kids who looked down at poor kids which was a big deal in the 1980s and probably still is today.
I had received the gift card in a prize draw at some local community fundraiser and it was one of those rare times when I’d be able to shop for clothes that put me in the same fashion league as the kids who have everything that I didn’t have including a dad who paid child support and was part of their families.
After speaking with an assistant manager who showed me where the items that I wanted to try on and buy, that same sales clerk called the mall security and a loss prevention officer who followed me to the dressing room after I exited wearing a pair of stonewashed jeans, and I was questioned.
I was asked to change back into my own clothes and leave the store and I was escorted out.
When I got home I told my mother about what had happened and I broke down in tears.
A week later my uncle Bob, who was married to my auntie and who was a lawyer, escorted me to the same store and helped me buy some of the clothes with the gift card and he also treated me to a few items as well and we saw the same sales clerk.
She quietly went over to my uncle not knowing that we were together since he looked at some items on a display several feet away from me and she tried to tell him about me and warn him that I might shoplift and that ‘people like me were not welcome in the store’ and told him to watch his wallet in case I might steal it from him.
My uncle demanded to speak to the manager, and after a brief conversation, he got the number to the head office of the retail chain.
As far as I remember being told weeks later, the manager for all the human resources for the entire chain in Canada flew out to Winnipeg where their largest store in the city was so that he could personally fire her from the company, and he offered me a sincere personal apology and a $1,000 gift card for their store.
I also remember that the sales clerk was friends with some of the rich bullies who attended my school, and her younger brother was in my class and rumours spread as fast as a virus that I had been evicted from the store and that I supposedly tried to shoplift from the store, which only further caused more bullying about me being a ‘poor white trash’ kid who was beneath everyone.
My uncle Bob was again called, and he stepped in and met with the sales clerk who had been fired from her job and was slapped with a lawsuit, and he sued her and her family on my behalf. We ended up receiving $20,000, which in the 1980s was still a lot of money.
That money helped me attend a better school, my mom took some vocational training, and we were able to buy some nicer clothes for her and me and move to a better neighbourhood.
I don’t know if there really is some moral to this story but probably it’s a good idea to NEVER assume anything about anyone and be careful what you say because it could be expensive if whoever you’re talking about files a lawsuit and sues you for slander.
This is Christina Revels-Glick- a 36-year-old Georgian woman.
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On July 1st, 2021, Christina went to the beach on a mild day. While there, she found a secluded spot near the water and inserted a “toy” into her….. ya. As she was leaving, the police arrived. Apparently, a family had seen something and called the cops to report her, and they had nothing better to do.
Christina was honest with the police, told them what happened, and was promptly arrested.
Then- to make everything worse, the entire arrest was publically released. Of course, the YouTube video went viral, and articles were written left and right lambasting and humiliating her further.
8 months later, Christina took her own life.
Now I think body cameras are good. They help expose injustice and help the public get a clear view of what police do.
When an officer uses deadly force, it should be investigated because murder is murder. This is a complex issue that is being glossed over here, but 1 step I think most agree on is that a body camera should be used.
There is a downside, though. Everyone has a bad day; everyone makes mistakes. Christina didn’t hurt or traumatize anyone; she made a silly mistake that didn’t cause any harm. Yet her life was ruined all the same. We need to decide where the line is. Should every police interaction be a public record? Should it confined to instances where violence was used?
If you touch China with the intent to hurt China, China will make sure you are hurt at least twice as hard. What do you expect China to do? Accept 10 million deaths and say it is fine, we still have 1.39 billion more?
China don’t want war, it never wanted, and it will always prefer peace. That you must know. But don’t ever confuse that with fear or weakness. It must be seen as it is. China is a very mature and responsible nation.
Actually China has defeated the U.S. militarily, economically and politically without shooting a single shot. Economically China overtake the U.S. in real value GDP since 2014, it’s growth on average over the last decade is 50% bigger than the entire G7 nations put together. China now makes the most computers, smartphones, vehicles, and almost everything the world needs. China also overtook the U.S. in the most important statistic of all, the life expectancy by 2 full years at 78 years old.
Politically China is supported by 175 nations out of 195 nations on earth. It even made peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran! Militarily, China makes more ships, more fighter jests and more weapons with 3 million soldiers ready and waiting in case the U.S. make the mistake of underestimating China.
There is 100% chances they will load all there nukes to destroy the U.S. and the North Koreans will hide in the biggest and deepest bunker for the next 100 years. Meanwhile 20 of your U.S. cities will be nuked that are 1000 times more powerful than the ones that destroyed Hiroshima. That kill 100 thousand people, imagine what the 20 nukes on New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco…. will do to you guys! I think 300 million out of 330 million will evaporate into nuclear dust
So you want to know how long ? I think 300 million gone in a week! So you still like to start this war?
My late wife took a job that didn’t really interest her.
She was a new college graduate and took a job at a large hi-tech company. She wanted a job in her chosen field; there just weren’t any openings. So she took what this company had to offer. Above all else, she just thought a job at this company was a good starting point. They offered good benefits and seemed to be going places.
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She was in document control, of all places. She performed well and got to do some “creative” things that improved the department, but it wasn’t the world’s most exciting job.
After more than a year, a position opened up that was more to her liking: marketing. In this role, she got to travel all over the world and enjoy some pretty expensive dining, all on the company’s dime.
After our daughter was born, frequent travel didn’t work for her anymore, so she started looking around again.
She found an opening in the legal department. It wasn’t as glamorous, but it was steady work.
After a few weeks she discovered she freaking loved it. Her job was to write threatening letters to all customers who misused the “Intel Inside” logo. Though she really was the nicest woman in the world in person, for some reason she really loved writing threatening legal texts to people violating Intel’s trademarks.
My wife didn’t really find her “right fit” until she settled for something else. By taking that first job, she found something better and then something perfect. You might not know what your “perfect fit” is until you try something else.
Good luck!
Scientists FINALLY Found the Location Of Malaysian Flight 370!
As of March 2005, Defense had trained more than 18,300 Afghan combat troops-over 42 percent of the army’s projected total of 43,000-and deployed them throughout the country.
Source: GAO analysis of Department of Defense data.
United States Government Accountability Office
In addition to being good at escaping and surrendering, have you seen any puppet army trained by the United States that is good at fighting?
Ngô Đình Diệm’s South Vietnamese army, or Syngman Rhee’s South Korean army, which puppet army was not trained by the United States? Did they have a record of defeating the Northern Army? If the United States had not intervened in the Korean civil war, the Korean Peninsula would have been reunited by the DPRK a long time ago. As for Vietnam, it is an indisputable fact that it was unified by the North Vietnamese.
After experiencing the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Chinese People’s War of Liberation, the Chinese people knew that the “Imperial Association Army / 皇協軍” trained by Japan and the Kuomintang (KMT) Army trained by the United States had no will to fight.
During the victory in the War of Resistance, the CPC led the army in 125,000 guerrilla battles against the enemy, annihilating 527,000 Japanese troops and 1,187,000 pseudo-armies.
In just three years, the KMT, a big paper tiger with eight million troops armed to the teeth with US gears, was torn apart.
Because they can never resolve the question of who to fight for? For their own ethnic group – Chinese nation or for their foreign masters?
The People’s Liberation Army of China is different. They fought to defend the sovereignty of their countries and the integrity of their territories; they fought for their people. They are indomitable warriors.
One of the weird things that Americans believe is that the cost of pharmaceuticals is driven by production costs. They are not. Some pharmaceuticals cost a lot to produce. Most do not.
For example, a vial of insulin (10–15 days supply) costs about $10 to produce but in the United States can cost up to $300. Most Americans who need pharmaceuticals, even ones with insurance, can have trouble affording medication they need to survive.
Now, a simple comparison of brand name drugs to generics shows that the brand names are far more expensive except, of course, they’re otherwise identical.
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Generics are, of course, perfectly legal. Once a drug patent runs out, it can be manufactured and sold by anyone. Generics go through the same supply chain as brand names, so they’re just as safe.
But to get a patent, you have to tell all your secrets, essentially telling anyone who wants to copy your drug exactly how to do so. Copying drugs under patent is, of course, a breach of patent law that will get you sued and put out of business (although here in Canada generic drug companies can get rights to produce some patented medications).
This is where counterfeiting starts. Like I said, it’s not impossible to set up a pharmaceutical factory, and the materials you need are available on the open market. Given the cost of brand name medications compared to their production costs, the ubiquitous presence of the internet, and worldwide courier services, a person with a larcenous bent can produce real drugs overseas and find customers both in the United States and in other countries where the drug might not be available. Mind you, counterfeiters aren’t the most careful of people so ingredient contamination or product contamination could be deadly (The FDA was started when someone substituted lethal propylene glycol for harmless glycerin – they taste the same). However, you can produce something like Viagra for pennies a pill and sell it for dollars a pill and still undercut legitimate pharmacies. Put a fake company logo on it and you’re golden.
Of course, it takes money to set up a pharmaceutical factory, and it’s likely to draw attention, so a lot of criminals don’t bother – they just fake the whole thing. People will get suspicious if you order Viagra precursors, but no-one cares about gypsum and blue food dye. Price it cheaply enough and people will buy it. It won’t help their ED, but it’s not likely to kill them. It’s sold through the same sales channels.
He worked in a private local company. At the end of 2017 the owner of the company changed which means the head of the board of directors changed (let’s call the new guy Jim). Obviously, Jim wanted to make some changes himself, mostly to establish dominance and show he’s the new sheriff in town. Rumors say he promised to double company’s profit in a single year (remember this). There’s a thin line between ambitious and cocky.
The first move he made didn’t have anything to do with the increasing work efficiency or meeting heads of departments or actually know the work that is done in that company. Jim had installed one of those time clock machines where employees check in when they get to work and check out when they’re done. Something like this:
only they didn’t have tokens, but cards. Installation and writing guidelines took about a week after which he announced to heads of departments that every employee must check in and check out themself even when they’re going out just for a break. Also, heads of departments should’ve forward these news to employees. The thing officially started second or third week in January of 2018.
At first, employees didn’t take it so seriously and some of them didn’t check in/out every day or didn’t (sometimes even forgot to) note down their breaks. At the end of the week, Jim would go through every employee’s record to see does any of them have less than 40 hours. (Notice he wasn’t interested in those who had more than 40 hours.) Friend told me that most of employees were in the range 38–45 working hours and a very few around 37 but none under 37. Jim called for a meeting with heads of departments every Friday to inform them about the records and to warn those who work less. Also, there was no compensation for those who work more (stay late or work on weekends).
Employees protested about that kind of behavior and wanted time clock out. That only made Jim to push that thing even more and convinced the board of directors and the owner that the time clock is necessary. So it passed.
The thing is that the work climate has changed. Everyone was more concentrated on if they checked in and if they worked enough than the actual work and the pressure started to build up. The thing went on for two whole months until the most of the employees (friend said 80% but maybe he exaggerated a bit) decided to come to work, check in, work their 8 hours at a moderate pace, check out and head home. No overtime, no working weekends, if the clock hit 16:00 people would leave midwork or in the middle of the meeting not giving a shred of an F. Their excuse was that they did their 8 hours and if they want them to stay, they want a written notice (which is a proof of working overtime and must be paid).
This way every single employee had 40 working hours a week and not a minute more or less. But you know what? Jim wasn’t satisfied. Why? Because work suffered. He made the employees numbers and working slaves that have only one purpose – to work. This killed all the passion people had towards the job they were doing. It demoralized people. They had a feeling that someone is standing above their head every second of the day. And the time clock might not be a bad thing to check employees every once in a while, but to terrorize them like Jim did made them do anything just in spite of that work regime.
After 3 and a half months, the moment of truth came. The first quartal report came. It was a bit better than the last year so Jim stayed at his position. Employees continued with their strike. The second quartal report came and the profit was ~8% less than the same period of previous year (maybe 9% I don’t remember). Jim ascribed it to a bad economy in the country and stayed at his position. Employees were informed about the drop in profit which made them to continue their strike. The third quartal report came. The company’s profit was down by amazing 34% compared to the same period of the previous year. Jim was fired on the spot (even though his mandate supposed to last 5 years) and time clock was left just to control employees every now and then.
Conclusion: Treat your employees as humans which they are and maybe consult someone about your radical actions.
My father decided to become a minister when I was 14.
We moved in December from central Colorado to Fort Worth, Texas, so he could begin attending the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in January of 1973. As a student, he didn’t have to change the registration and license plates on our two cars.
In the summer of 1973, I was 15 and old enough for Driver’s Ed and my learner’s permit. In the spring of 1974, I turned 16 and got my honest-to-God Texas driver’s license. Like every 16-year-old, I was thrilled in spite of having to take my driving test on the LBJ Freeway in Dallas, Texas, during 5 o’clock weekday traffic. (A nightmare much worse than parallel parking.)
While still in seminary, my father was offered his first church in a very small rural town in East Texas. By very small, I mean a population of maybe 500 (counting pets) with no traffic lights and just a post office and a gas station. I had gone from my sophomore high school year at the largest high school in Fort Worth (my class had about 1000 in it) to a tiny high school where my junior class was the largest in school at 20.
The nearest city of any size was 13 miles away, which is where everyone went for groceries, doctors, hardware, entertainment, etc.
As a newly minted driver in the state of Texas, I, of course, volunteered to drive back and forth on the 26-mile round trip for errands. (Much more fun than unpacking.)
Now the encounter with the local deputy sheriff:
On my way home from one such trip, i was, perhaps, driving a little bit over the speed limit and got pulled over for the first time in my life. (In spite of the 55 mph speed limit, if you drove under 70 in Fort Worth, you got run over.)
I just knew that my father was going to kill me when I got home with my first ticket.
Deputy: “You know how fast you were going, son?”
Me: “No, sir. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” (It’s not like there was any other traffic at all on this little country road.)
Deputy: “Well, this here speed limit is 55 and you was going 68.”
Me: (Gulp!) “Uh, sorry officer.”
Deputes (getting out his ticket book): “Let’s see your license, registration, and proof of insurance.”
I fumbled around and handed him all the requested documents.
He started sifting through everything, totally unreadable behind his mirrored sunglasses. (Remember those?)
Deputy: “Is this address on your license correct?”
Me: “Uh, no sir. We just moved here.” (I gave my new address.)
He heaved a big sigh.
Deputy: “Lemmee get this straight. You got a local address. Your driver’s license has a Fort Worth address. This car is registered to your daddy and has Colorado plates and registration but the addresses ain’t right. Is that about it?”
Me: “Yessir.” (It’s humid, hot, and July, so I’m sweating bullets.)
He just stood there for probably a minute or two (seemed longer to me), and then handed everything back to me.
Deputy: “Son, I’m letting you off with a warning. You slow down to no more than 60, ya’ hear?”
Me (relieved): “Thank you, sir!”
Deputy: “You’re lucky, son. It’s hot, and it’d just be too complicated to write you a ticket. You have a nice day, and slow down.”
I nodded, and that was my first ever traffic stop.
He told a teacher he was picking on him because he was black. He is not black. He is 100% British white.
Telling the dance teacher that she could not choreograph a funeral procession.
Smacking a big guy across the face for using the F word.
Telling a boy that if he wants a good “kick in the vagina”, he should carry on disturbing the class.
His biology teacher has a unibrow so he told him that he needs to take a major pair of tweezers to ‘that small rodent’ on his face.
Completely losing his shit, trembling in the corner when a spider ran across his desk.
Going to non-uniform day in a loincloth, “as Jesus on the cross.” He said that ‘he nailed it.’
Telling the maths teacher he was ‘getting his period’, after being silly in class.
Telling the headteacher he was nothing but a “Mr Shitty” who could not run a hotdog stand, let alone a school.
Hijacking the PA system to sing “There are Worse Things I Can Do”, 1/4 tone sharp.
He continues to call the school prison and refers to his classmates as “Lifers”. The teachers are the C.O’s and lunch is chow.
He insists he is a lesbian due to the fact that ‘gay sounds like a minority’??
The class was asked to name one of the biggest influencers of peace in the 21st century. While most suggested the Pope and Mother Theresa, his suggestion was the Kardashians.
When the Notre Dame cathedral burned down, he stated, “Well, I cannot see what all the fuss is about – I mean, we’re talking about a church, not the Moulin Rouge.”
Guinness and Ginger Loaf is a fabulous holiday cake. It is particularly beautiful when decorated with a vanilla glaze and candied ginger.
guinness ginger loaf
Ingredients
1 cup Guinness stout
1 cup molasses
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
3 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 tablespoon grated ginger root
Instructions
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, line the bottom and sides with parchment and grease the parchment. (Alternatively, butter and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan.
Combine the stout and molasses in a large saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the baking soda. Allow to sit until the foam disappears.
Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and the granulated white and brown sugars in a bowl. Whisk in the vegetable oil.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, ground ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom.
Combine the stout mixture with the egg mixture, then whisk this liquid into the flour mixture, half at a time. Add the grated ginger and stir to combine.
Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake until the top springs back when gently pressed, 1 hour. Do not open the oven until the gingerbread is almost done or the center may fall slightly.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
The top may be glazed, if desired, with a vanilla glaze, and decorated with candied ginger. Alternatively, it may be dusted with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.
Their tail rotors are also known to chop people up like sushi, presumably sushi with some sort of death wish.
Airplane propellers can mince you up too. This one cropped off a mechanic’s arm while he was working on it while it was running, you know, like ya do.
image 537
Most cheap plastic household fans are pretty harmless, but you’d be wise not to assume so; even small spinning things can be deadly. This guy was flying an RC helicopter in a park in Brooklyn when it sliced the top of his skull off, bisecting his brain and killing him instantly as friends and bystanders looked on in horror.
image 536
But on the other hand, one must put such things into perspective. The park this happened in is named after famed architect, Calvert Vaux, who was largely responsible for the design of Central Park among other things, and who while walking one night in the area, tripped or fainted, hit his head, and drowned in Gravesend Bay.
Many years ago, I did retail PC repair at a local computer retailer. Not one of those big-box stores, but an independent shop that had opened sometime in the late 80’s and was barely struggling by when I worked there, around 2005 or so.
We accepted walk-ins for PC repair, so we got all kinds. All sorts of stupid, weird things walked through the door, but the one I remember the most…
An elderly lady, in her late 60’s at least, brought her PC in. It was a fairly recent eMachine, from right before they got bought by Gateway, so only a few years old. Still, the eMachines were never known as a reliable brand, and this was square in the middle of the Great Capacitor Catastrophe of the mid-2000’s (if you know, you know), so I wasn’t super surprised when she said that it’d “just stopped turning on,” as this was a common occurrence with medium to low end PC’s at the time.
I took it in and put it on The Rack to be looked at later. This was a first-in first-out shop, meaning that we worked on the oldest support tickets first. We always wanted to get to every PC as quickly as we could, but when things stacked up it sometimes took a day or two to get to.
I started to notice that, every time I’d walk past the PC while it sat up on The Rack, I’d smell something weird and my eyes would start burning. To be clear, I’d smelled it when she brought it in, but I was young and I figured that she was either using some weird perfume I’d never smelled before, or she burned incense or something in her house. But the PC stank. And it made my eyes burn just to stand near it. And it wasn’t even a few hours.
So I bumped her PC to the front of the queue, dragged it off the rack, and cracked it open. I immediately spotted the problem with it, and gave her a phone call to ask some questions.
*ring ring*
Customer: Hello?
Me: Hello, [Customer Name]? This is John at [PC Repair Place].
Customer: Oh, hello! Is my computer fixed already?
Me: I’d actually like to ask you a couple of questions, if that’s OK?
Customer: Oh, well, certainly.
Me: Do you, by chance, have cats? Or small dogs? Specifically shorthairs?
Customer: …Oh, uh, well… yes, I have cats. Several.
Me: Do you smoke cigars at all?
Customer: …Why do you ask?
Me: Well… it would help me make sense of what’s happening inside your computer.
Customer: …Yes, I do smoke the occasional cigar.
Me: OK, another question; at your house, where you use your computer, do you leave it on the floor or on your desk?
Customer: Oh I put it on my desk, next to the screen.
Me: Alright, I think this is the last question… are any of your cats un-neutered male cats?
Customer: …Now look here, I really don’t see-
Me [cutting her off]: because what I see here is that your PC is full of ash and cat hair, and it smells incredibly strongly of cheap cigars and cat piss. Can you check the spot behind where you normally put your computer and see if there’s any urine marks on the wall? Because I think that one, possibly more, of your cats is pissing into your computer case from both the front and the back, and I’m also pretty sure you’re putting your ashtray right in front of the PC, where the air intake is at the bottom. And that’s been sucking ash and cigar smoke in from the front of the PC. Did you know that both ash and urea, as in urine, as in cat urine, are both used in the production of concrete cement?
Customer: [total silence]
Me: And, well, unfortunately, I think the thing is a total loss. I have no idea which component in your computer is bad, and I don’t think you can afford to pay us enough to actually find out. I mean, everything inside the entire case is coated in damp, sticky cat hair, held together with tar from cigar smoke and fine ash. It’s like a quarter inch thick everywhere, and an inch thick on the bottom. It has an intake fan in the front, and that’s glued shut and doesn’t spin. It has an exhaust fan on the back, in the power supply, and that’s glued shut and doesn’t spin. And it has a fan on the processor, which also doesn’t spin and is covered in cat hair.
Customer: [more silence]
Me: [also silence]
Customer: …Can’t you just… I don’t know… clean it off?
Me [stunned]: [silence. somehow emphatic]
Customer: Hello?
Me: Ma’am, not at these hourly rates, no, I won’t clean it off. My suggestion to you is to go out and purchase a new computer. This one will never run again without a hazmat team and a chisel and hammer. Please come pick up your computer, free of charge. My eyes burn when I walk past it.
In the last decade alone the U.S. debts increased from 10 to 35 trillion dollars. This is a 350% increase in 10 years! What do you think the U.S. debt will be like in 10 years from now?
Let us say it slowed down the increase from 350% to 250%. That will be USD 87,500,000,000,000 debts. Today the U.S. has to pay roughly 3% interest, say by that time the U.S. has to be 5% interest per annum as it is fast getting insolvent. That will be 4,750,000,000,000 or 4.75 trillion dollars interest payments alone each year!
That itself will bankrupt the U.S. Never mind it has to pay for its dozen aircraft carriers, its 800 plus military bases, fund 1–2 forever wars, fund regime change and colour revolution. If the U.S. do what it is doing now it will totally collapse in a decade at most.
Don’t forget in 10 years the dollar will be used by less than 25% it is being used for international trade now! The US inflation itself will hit the roof! The homeless will grow from 1 to 10 million people across the US. What a sight!
And you worry about China? China is too smart. It knows what to do. I suspect it will keep 500 billion dollars, loose change to China buying 5% earning US bond to help keep the US spending habits going! They will bring out their soda and popcorn and watch how the US will go from there!
I had been non-stop vomiting for 5 weeks. I lost so weight, and despite already being very tiny at 4’10″ and 98lbs, I was down to a measly 70lbs. I was dying and no one knew what was causing my illness. I couldn’t even keep down water. It would instantly come back up. I had been admitted to the hopital for a week and given IVs with sugar and vitamins to rehydrate me and help keep me alive. I was also given medication to help the vomiting. Upon discharge, I was told to return to the ER in 72 hours if I continued vomiting even water. Well, 72 hours later, i returned as directed to the ER.
By this point, I had severe bruising in both arms from the IVs during my hospital stay, as they needed to replace the lines daily due to dehydration and my veins collapsing. I had track marks. It was ugly, but clearly not intentional. Upon my arrival at the ER, the attending physician entered the room, took 1 look at my arms and instantly assumed I was a drug addict. He asked when I last “mainlined”. When I replied disgusted, and stated my reason for being there, and the reasons for my track marks, he proceeded to tell me to enter into a facility that treats eating disorders. Now, I was beyond disgusting. He hadn’t even taken 1 look at my chart/history. Had he done his job instead of making assumptions, I could’ve been helped faster instead of laying there and dying, using every last ounce of energy I had to even speak. Despite my interjections, he literally asked me to “prove” I wasn’t making myself vomit. I smiled, and said, “Sure. Pass me a small cup of water.” I took a gulp and instantly projectile vomited the water. When he learned shortly therafter that I’m in school to be a Dr, and that my Aunt was the Head of Hospice Phsycician for the hospital, along with my mother being the head nurse practioner for hospice, he resigned. Good riddance! You’ve clearly lost your compassion when you instantly make assumptions about people instead of learning their history and trying to help heal.
Originally Answered: How advanced are Chinese high-speed trains?
I had my first opportunity to ride the high-speed trains last week when I had a business meeting in Zhengzhou.
image 549
As someone who grew up with a disdain for public transportation (not sure why the US hates it so much), I was dreading the experience. I pushed hard to fly, but was told that it would be much better if I took the train.
The train was amazing. I had traveled on an Amtrak train before in the US, and hated how slow it was and how many stops there were. Chinese high-speed trains are on a different level.
First, when I say they are high-speed, I mean they are high-speed.
image 550
This was taken on my ride back to Beijing.
The trains are clean and the seats are huge. There are ample power outlets and you can’t even feel how fast the train is moving. If there were no windows, I wouldn’t be able to tell when we were stopped or when we were traveling at 300 km/h—it is that smooth.
My train wasn’t full, so on the ride back, I had an entire row to myself. You can use your cellphone on the train (looking at you Chinese flights—you need to learn from the trains) and you generally have full service.
The trains are very advanced and the stations are new. The terminal in Zhengzhou looked like you could fit a million people in it even though it isn’t a Tier-1 city. It had shops and a food court and the trains would silently pull in and out of the station perfectly on schedule.
image 551
I’m traveling again this week by train and I’m excited.
The high-speed trains are incredible.
Delta Worker GOES OFF On “Non Binary” Passenger CRYING Over Being MISGENDERED
Russian Missile Traverses Poland; NATO’s Much-Vaunted Air Defenses, Never Responded
Last night, a live Russian missile entered POLAND Air space, traveled dozens of miles inside Poland, then turned into Ukraine. During that time, NATO air defenses failed to react!
Last night, as reported elsewhere on this site, Russia launched the largest missile attack upon Ukraine since the start of hostilities between those two countries. Upwards of 150 Missiles were fired by Russia.
At least ONE missile, fired from inside Russia, crossed through all of Belarus (Russian ally) then entered eastern POLAND air space!
The missile continued traveling southwest, remained in POLAND air space for several minutes, then turned to the southeast and entered Ukraine. The map below shows the missile track.
2023 12 30 10 04
In the lengthy time the Russian missile was inside Poland, the much-vaunted NATO air defenses . . . . did nothing.No alerts. No radar tracking. No radar lock-on.
What’s even more interesting, the missile flew over forward-deployed NATO TROOPS! Right over their heads!
Very interesting probing of NATO air defenses, while attacking Ukraine. Looks to many people like NATO failed the probing test.
UPDATE 12:31 PM EST–
Poland now says their air defenses DID track the missile. They say the missile was in Polish air space for “three minutes” and they scrambled a fighter jet to shoot it down.
(HT REMARK:I leave it to your good senses to decide if they could have scrambled a fighter jet in three minutes.)
There was this guy that I went to college with. He was a real life Casanova. I mean it, a day did not go by without out him bedding (or boning) a new girl. He went through them like a sick person goes through tissues. And all us “normal” guys were terribly jealous of him.
I swear that of the 60 or so girls on our dorm floor, he must have had sex with perhaps 45 of them. Pretty damn impressive… seeing that I was a virgin throughout my college years.
This was in the 1970s. And yeah. I was the nerd bodybuilder planning to be a spaceman.
Virginal. No distractions.
On. My. Grind.
…
Ah. Memories.
During one of our Friday dorm parties, while I was a tripping on blotter (Acid = LSD), I noticed one of the girls on our floor; a particularly beautiful girl, flirting with him.
And myself, with all my inhibitions set to “off” went up to her and asked her point-blank.
“Why are you flirting with him”?
And I never forgot her answer.
“It’s fun”.
…
Duh.
…
Of course, this was a decade before Cindy Lauper sang “Girls just wanna have fun”….
And while I remembered the answer, I didn’t manage to put two plus two together. i still couldn’t figure out girls. Ah, perhaps it was because I was so fixated on “my grind” and trying to fly spaceships etc….
Which happened… well, sort of… don’t ya know.
…
But yeah.
Guys… men… we are too simple. If a woman wants something she gets it. Even at the detriment of her relationships, marriages, or physical health.
Keep your life simple.
Accept that women do what they want… FIRST.
And continue to do so until they hit an unyielding wall, And, as a man… our rules, relationships, structures and beliefs are that wall.
(Read that twice.)
And when that point comes… be prepared to… walk away.
‘That no one else knows about’ does not apply to my answer. But the most horrible thing was a schoolgirl aged about 15 came to see me when I was School Psychologist at her school. At the end of the session she said she had written a diary and had it with her and would I care to read it, as she wanted me to know what it was about.
I took it home to read that night in preparation for seeing her the next day. It was full of clearly suicidal thoughts. She was an alcohol user, too, and had already done some self-harming. I had to cope with the revelations overnight, spending my night not so much in sleep as in deep concern. To add to the difficulty, her mother’s sister had not long previously committed suicide. This would be a further load on her mother.
I did see her and was obliged to speak with her mother and get permission for referring her to an agency with more specialist capacity to help her. There was some opposition to the idea, but in the end the permission was given.
But knowing what she had revealed and not being able to do anything about it immediately was very stressful.
I grew up in West Africa. We didn’t just boil eggs; we superboiled them. We threw them on the stove, boiled them for 15 or 20 minutes or so, then took them out very satisfied that the egg was well cooked.
It was as though we wanted to let the yolk know that we hated it, along with its ancestors, parents, siblings, and extended family. The yolk, understandably would come out of this process looking pallid, forlorn, and dejected. The pale yellow would be covered in an equally pale grey, with the overall appearance of a strange, lost planet.
image 466
Why did you have to treat me so?
For my eternal fortune, at the age of 15, I moved to the United States, a land that was said to be paved with gold. I didn’t find much gold, truth be told, but I found the concept of a hard-boiled egg, which made me wonder whether there was such a thing as a soft-boiled egg.
Is it like when I accidentally “undercook” my eggs?
I googled it and found a chart like this:
image 465
Oooooooooooh!
I’ve never looked back.
This is what I made tonight.
image 464
This, my friends, is what you call perfection. The yolk is smiling at you suggestively, sending you an amorous look, beckoning you.
Come hither!
How can you resist? Of course you will kiss and treasure and savor it.
C’est ça, la douceur de vivre.
Yes, yes, it’s me in the picture. I’m wearing boring socks tonight. Deal with it.
My grandfather on my dad’s side, as a child me and my younger sister would visit our Nan and Grandad every other week just to spend time with them. My Nan loved having us at times, my Grandad however was a different story. He would always drink every time we went round there and constantly sat on the couch.
On one occasion I was play fighting with my Nan in the living room once and out of nowhere he screamed at me from the top of his lungs to “take it in the other f***ing room!”. My mood was instantly killed and I remember hiding from him in a cleaning cupboard because I was terrified. There was another time where I accidentally turned off the lights for the living room, he screamed at me saying “Turn those f***ing lights back on or I’ll throw you onto the street!”. When my mum came back to the house that night I was hiding behind her and she had never seen me so clingy so she knew something was wrong.
When we got home that night I told my parents what he had said to me about the lights and how he had made me cry on multiple occasions that I began hiding in the cleaning cupboard. My younger sister was also a witness for every occasion he was horrible to me so she confirmed my story to them. After this they decided he wasn’t going to see us as much as he used to.
We found out many years later that his drinking caught up with him and he was suffering from cirrhosis. He also had a cancer in his leg that he’s now recovered from. When the whole family found out about his cancer, all my uncles said they wouldn’t miss him if it killed him because of how terrible of a dad he was when bringing them up.
I also recently discovered that before I was born, My Grandad and Nan had asked our parents to look after their house while they went away. They forgot to mention to our parents that they owed this criminal some rent money, so one night this crook comes breaking the door down and demands the money. My parents being completely ignorant to the truth of course refused to pay the rent and so they contacted my Nan and Grandad asking what this guy’s business is. They tell my parents the truth but then refuse to pay the rent, saying they assumed their son (my dad) would’ve payed it for them. They had both already refused to pay the rent so as a result this crook gives my dad a sucker punch to the face in front of my uncle’s daughter who was there at the time.
Because of this, most of the family don’t associate or even think about him anymore. My mother has real beef with them both because of the incident with the rent, when I told her about the threat my Grandad gave me and how my Nan said nothing to defend me, that was the icing on the cake for both my parents and as a result we talk to them less.
We’re in an okay place now but we hardly talk to them anymore, we only see them once a year now, sometimes there are years we don’t see them once. My uncles each have different reasons for not associating with him anymore but I’d be here all day if I wrote them out.
But first the U.S. that orchestrated the break up of the world and the creator of animosities amongst us must accept reality first and recognised that it no longer has the ability and the means to war monger any more.
The western media must accept that sowing hates is not good for humanity, spewing hates hurt humanity and destroying earth. They need to know that lying is lowdown and simply despicable and it makes many people ignorant and naive.
Westerners need to reject them and condemn them and stop reading or listening to them. Westerners must want the truth not lies, propaganda, fabrication and half truths to fit bias hateful narratives. The western media so discord and hatred on anyone or any society that refuse to be submissive and subservient to the west.
The U.S. led them into this depth of crisis it must lead them out of it. Otherwise the 87% of the global south will leave you behind, they are moving on. Germany, Japan, Korea must stop being a faithful brain dead U.S. lackey and a lowly dog.
UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, grow some balls or forever be US dog, you deserve to sink with the world’s biggest trouble maker the U.S. Another dozen or so dog nations. Rise up and abandoned the U.S. EU abandon NATO.
Together you helped the U.S. bring the world into a chaotic, dangerous place ready to erupt into another world war but one that can end the entire human race. Act before it is too late. Let there be strong pillars of powers working together doing good and not keep one power doing bad.
Asian Cucumber Salad
Ding Tai Fung Cucumber Salad I Heart Umami 700×1050 1
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large cucumber
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 red jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
Minced fresh cilantro
Instructions
Mix lime juice, water, sugar and salt in non-reactive bowl.
Cut cucumber lengthwise into halves, then seed and thinly slice. Add cucumber, onion and pepper to lime juice mixture; toss.
Cover and refrigerate, stirring occasionally, at least 1 hour.
Not most obnoxious but a good example of why Europeans view Americans as obnoxious.
We were in a resort sauna in the Italian alps with 3 other couples (2 German, 1 Swiss) and single German woman. We’d enjoyed a couple of peaceful and wonderful rounds together.
A few minutes in to our 3rd round we heard them coming – Americans! They were talking and cackling very loudly. They opened the sauna hot room door and looked around – holding the door open, letting the heat out and cold air in. They received a loud round of ‘close the door’ in 3 different languages.
A few minutes later an American couple entered the sauna in their swimsuits. One of the German women told them that swimsuits aren’t allowed in saunas. The American’s scoffed and said certainly not and proceeded to sit down. I tried to explain to them that suits are indeed not allowed because of bacterias and odors. And that they also should have showered before entering the sauna. They slowly began to get the picture. They eventually left and we later learned that they’d complained to the resort mgmt about the no swimsuits rule and us.
Here’s the thing. There were numerous places in the hotel information stating that the sauna area (large changing and shower area with two saunas and a turkish bath) was a nude area and that suits were not allowed in the saunas or turkish baths themselves. And that this was a QUIET area.
There were big signs entering the spa and sauna area that said ‘SILENCE’, ‘QUIETNESS IS EXPECTED’ and ‘IN THE SPA YOU SHOULD TALK LIKE YOU ARE IN CHURCH’ and other sayings. If you closed your mouth for a few seconds you’d realize that there were a number of conversations happening but you couldn’t hear them. Except for Americans.
There were signs above the hooks where people hung their robes that stated not to wear swimsuits in the sauna. This is also standard throughout much of Europe.
The hotel manager told me that this was not an unusual event with Americans. I understand people being uncomfortable with the nudity element and that’s fine and those who are uncomfortable just don’t use the sauna. FWIW, about half of Germans and other Europeans aren’t comfortable with it either and simply don’t use public saunas. I have a fear of heights so I won’t go on most chairlifts or trams which means I can’t see many spectacular areas of the Alps. That’s life.
I think it takes a special kind of ignorance to not realize how loud and obnoxious Americans are, given how often it’s written about. Yet Americans continue to act loud, obnoxious and ignorant.
Because I worked with persons with Borderline Personality Disorder I was used to being fired. I enjoyed the phase of therapy where I could ask “remember all the times you wanted to fire me and the couple of times you actually did?”
As I type I remember seeing a guy with BPD who fired me and stayed away for three weeks. I had a hunch, so I kept his slot open. When he returned he told me he fired me for “not caring.” That was because he was pretty sure I was yawning at the last session. It was a great starter for talking about interpreting vs. over-interpreting social cues from other people.
It finally became a joke between us. “Any cruel evil unfeeling bastards yawn at you recently? Obviously torture and death is the only answer for them.”
One of my favorite techniques with Borderline folks in recovery was wild humor like that. They often lived and felt in extreme ways and had a hard time finding their “middle.” Taking a feeling to a silly and impossible extreme could prompt a response of “well, maybe not that bad.”
Developing the ability to scale feelings is critical for folks with BPD.
Long story short, make an appointment with your therapist and get on with it.
I was in a Video Conference yesterday. There was this slick controller from Cisco. I picked it up and turned it around to see the sticker that said: “Made in China”.
We have all heard the phrase. So much so that it has become a cultural meme, like this creative advertisement.
image 462
Every machine, and I mean it in the broad sense of the word, people use, almost certainly, has components made by the most populous nation of the world.
We are at a stage where manufacturing is synonymous with China. China’s total exports in 2017 were more than the GDP of India, at ~$2.26 trillion.
US is close with $1.5 trillion, but there is the catch.
US exports are primarily expensive stuff like airplanes, gems, assembled cell phones etc. But China makes the “cheaper” things — the components of your phones, the clothes you buy, the filaments in your bulbs, the shoes you are wearing right now.
More than a decade ago, a US family tried to rid themselves of all things “made in China”
[2] . Here are some excerpts from their experience.
When our son, then 4, needed new shoes it took me two weeks of frantic mall trips and phone calls across the country before I located Italian-made sneakers. (They cost almost $70, an obscene amount, and I bought him just that one pair of shoes all year to compensate for my excess.)
We boiled water for coffee every morning after our drip machine broke and the only affordable replacements we could find were made in China. Kevin stole —he likes to say borrowed—sunglasses from the lost-and-found at our kids’ preschool when he needed new ones and the only ones that fit our budget were made in China. We were barred from the market for humane mousetraps (I made my own), birthday candles (we used votive candles on our cakes instead) and the monster trucks and light sabers that our son dreamed of all year.
As December approached, we made lousy homemade Christmas presents, spent too much on toys from Germany and waited for the year, and our boycott, to fade into history.
And Chinese manufacturing has become even more pervasive and ingrained in the last ten years. Good luck with your attempt!
Originally Answered: What’s the most embarassing misconception you’ve ever held?
When my best friend and I were around 16 years old, we always did homework at her house, as my house was usually occupied (my mother was… friendly).
Anyway, one afternoon, we were in the middle of English Lit. homework, and I asked her if she had a dictionary. She said, “I have an Onary, but not Webster’s.”
I had never heard of an Onary dictionary before, but I figured it was no big deal. She told me where it was, and I went to the bookshelf and grabbed it.
The front cover was missing. Across the first page, in bold capital letters was ONARY.
I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop. She came over and started laughing, too, asking me what was so funny. I said, “Sardee, your dictionary is missing the front cover. It’s a Webster’s dictionary.” She said, “I don’t get it. It says ‘ONARY’, right there.”
So, I grabbed a piece of notebook paper, laid it next to the book, and wrote DICTI.
I’ve never seen someone go from confused, to embarrassed, to doubled over in silent laughter, so fast in all my life. She and I laughed so hard, for so long, that our stomachs ached for days, afterward. Every once in a while, over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to bring it up, and it’s never failed to make us giggle. In fact, one of her sons, just yesterday, asked if anybody still bought dictionaries, because we can just Google everything, now.
I couldn’t even answer him. I just got up, told him to go ask his mother, and walked outside. Two minutes later, here comes Sardee. I just looked at her, and she said, “Shut up.”
She’s kinda awesome. Even if she was dippy in high school.
Originally Answered: Was the battle of Stalingrad really as bad as in Enemy at the Gates or is this overexaggeration?
Really as bad?
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Was there any cannibalism in the movie? There was at Stalingrad.
Did you see any wounded with gangrene and maggots crawling in their wounds? No? Maybe a bit too much for Hollywood, eh?
How about extended scenes of vicious and literal hand-to-hand fighting, with the combatants using knives, spades, teeth and whatever else came to hand on each other. No? Maybe those were left on the cutting room floor?
I don’t recall seeing anyone crawling along on their hands and knees with their intestines hanging down and getting tangled in their legs, while their enemy jeer and laugh from cover a few yards away.
And we never saw anyone pouring their toes out of their boots, with a lovely long lingering reaction shot of the rotting frozen flesh on their own face because of frostbite.
I don’t recall seeing anyone screaming as they were burned to death, either. And the film doesn’t really convey that ‘roasting flesh’ smell too well. Human flesh smells like pork!
‘Enemy at the Gates’ is an entertainment product. It’s designed to be able to be watched while eating popcorn. War, on the other hand, is the worst thing that organised groups of humans can do to one another. So don’t compare the two. A movie cannot be compared to reality.
My late husband died 11 years ago. I have a box full of his things. One of the things he loved having was this old alarm clock. There was certain dings and scratches on it that made it unique. At one point it broke and he took it apart to solder some wires together. It was obviously a homemade repair, but you couldn’t tell once it was put back together. Well after he died, we ( our son and I ) moved several times. At one point our things were being stored in a friends garage. For some reason, i never got my husband’s beloved alarm clock back, it some how got mistaken for junk and was tossed out. I was very upset over the loss of his alarm clock. Several years later i was living on another side of town and a friend stopped by on mothers day to show me a box of things she found in a dumpster. ( a weird hobby i know) I noticed immediately an old alarm clock exactly like my late husbands. I picked it up and examined it, and i recognized the dings and scratches on it. So i flipped it over and unscrewed the bottem to inspect the inside where my husband had made repairs on it. It was unmistakably my husbands old alarm clock, and my friend graciously handed it over.
I was in clinic, seeing patients when one of my colleagues came up to me. He was a pleasant fellow who always looked like an un-made bed. Shirt rumpled, tie askew. I hasten to say, he was an excellent physician.
“Maureen, can I curb-side you?”
“Sure. Whatcha got?
“Twenty-year-old woman with complaint of throat pain. I saw her a couple of days ago. I investigated everything I can think of but she’s back with the same complaint. Now telling me she can’t swallow”
“Trauma? Fever? Weight loss?…”
“No.”
We puzzled and puzzled.
“Probably send her to GI for a scope.”
“Maybe just do a quick x-ray to see if anything obvious is going on structurally.”
Off the young lady goes to X-ray.
Colleague sticks his head into my office.
“You have got to see this.”
I take a look at the film.
We both shake our heads.
“How did that get there?”
On the film, plain as day, is the outline of a toothbrush, lodged in her throat.
“What did she say when you showed her the film?”
“She said that she wondered where that went.”
“What’s she look like?
“Painfully thin.”
“I’m guessing an eating disorder. She was trying to induce vomiting and went too far and lost her grip. She’s too embarrassed to tell you.”
That turned out to be correct.
So, yes, the fact that she had lodged a toothbrush, deep in her throat, would have been useful to know.
When my parents first met, my dad was living in a teepee in the woods, and my mom was living on a commune that could only be reached by boat.
When my older brother was conceived, they decided that being that remote would not be safe in case of complications with the pregnancy, so they moved somewhere a bit closer to town. They got some land, cleared it, dowsed and dug a well, and my dad started building our house.
My brother was born. I was born. The foundations of the house were laid, and the bottom floor was built. 4 rooms total. We moved in. My sister was born. Dad kept building. When I was about 4–5, we got electricity. That meant an electric pump, and running water.
When I was 11, the second floor was mostly done, which meant more rooms. I got a bedroom to myself. Mom got a job “in town”. We got an indoor toilet. That flushed.
The third floor got done when I was in high school. Mom worked as a youth counselor in town. We gradually got to be more “in the world”.
The folks split after my first year of college. Dad kept the house, Mom moved into town.
Dad finally finished the house and sold it. It was really way too big for one guy to live in. He died about 15 years ago.
My mom is 70 now. My brother owns an organic farm; she helps him out with canning and preserving his produce, so those old back to the land skills still see some use. Mom does grief counseling and hospice care as a volunteer. They never really lost their hippie ideals, but they modified them as dictated by circumstance and life.
The first time I met her, she was in jail. She was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and plastic slides. The officer undid her handcuffs so I could examine her and he waited outside the exam room.
She was pregnant. I always ask my incarcerated patients why they are in jail (mostly in case it was for killing their former obstetrician). Invariably they will say “it’s for violating parole“ and eventually we will get around to why they are on probation in the first place.
Her’s involved a significant amount of theft.
I was immediately disturbed and put off by her handmade swastika tattoo.
She was always polite and respectful. She was released from jail prior to giving birth. She gave birth to a beautiful baby and was a conscientious mom and did a nice job breast-feeding.
She saw our lactation educator many times to help with the breast-feeding. After a year her baby self-weaned.
But she kept pumping. And pumping. And pumping. Once a week she would drive 30 miles to the nearest NICU and drop off a freezer full of breastmilk.
SHE DID THIS FOR TWO YEARS.
For two years she helped feed a NICU full of small and sick babies of every ethnicity and multiple nationalities.
She still has the swastika tattoo. Every year I see her I always look for it, hoping she will have had it covered up. I’ve never asked her about it.
I do hope that one day she covers it up.
But she is reminder to me that our worth is not simply equal to the worst thought and the stupidest decision we’ve ever made.
US politicians want a Taiwan war. No doubt. Because MIC & politicians who buy MIC stocks feed on wars.
Warmonger Americans also want war because they think it is noble to support Taiwan democracy. Without understanding what is behind the war.
Let me share an article:
On the surface, it is noble, for a foreigner, to support Taiwan independence, in name of democracy or whatever.
Since WW2, 82% of riots/wars incl independence movements in the world are actually instigated by USA+allies. So as to control other’s strategic sovereignty, economy & natural resources. It is modern-day colonization without occupying other’s land.
No country will tolerate secession & subversion. I am sure not your country either. They will use military to stop secession when necessary. Biden deployed 10,000 armed personnel in the 2021/1/6 riot. UK also said they may use military to deal with Scotland independence.
In case of war, there are blood & deaths. If you cannot feel this pain, go to Ukraine & stay there for 6 months.
There may be legitimacy for independence. But we must know the history first. Otherwise we may accidentally support a devil instead of the righteous. Let me take the example of Tibet independence.
Before CPC China liberated Tibet in 1959, Mao Zedong had a 1-country-2-system, allowing Tibet to run their old system which was a slavery system. 5% of rich Tibetans OWNed 95% of Tibetans. Slaves sometimes fought with dogs for food. The worst part of cruelty was that owners could arbitrarily peel off (pretty) skins from slaves for crafts & gifts to foreigners. Pretty probably means young people’s skin. There is a museum in Tibet today to show this cruel history.
USA instigated Tibet independence in 1959 after USA lost the Korea war in early 1950’s.
When suppressing Tibet independence movement, China liberated Tibetan slaves at the same time. Today Tibetans have education & income, and can own business & property. It is only now they are treated like a human.
Next time when you as a foreigner support Tibetan independence, do not ask the 5% but the 95%. Do not ask those who live on political donation/corruption overseas & shout empty slogans. Instead ask those who work hard to earn an income to support life.
Likewise, dont ask the corrupted separatists in Taiwan who are, like the 5% of Tibetan, will only tell you China is bad, bad, bad. Try to independently learn Taiwanese history. Listen to the story of both sides – China & Taiwan. Ironically, it is the rebels whose propaganda stir foreigners’ emotion.
Remember: no country will allow secession & subversion. Not your country either.
Also remember: when there is war, there will be blood & deaths.
When I was in the eighth grade I had to bring home a report card with an F on it. For Spanish. Courtesy of Mrs. X.
I was a pretty good student, but I despised Mrs. X. She had the maturity of my fellow classmates and a mean streak a mile wide.
She was quite popular. Her mocking of the customs and ways of various Hispanic cultures always drew laughs from my fellow eighth graders. She taught us how laughably stupid and lazy Mexicans are for instance.
She also liked to gossip about other teachers. She once insinuated that a certain English teacher who was an ex-nun was probably lesbian.
I would rebel against her obnoxiousness by not doing homework and shrugging my shoulders when asked a question in class. I would aim for a 60 on all of the exams to show her I could do better if I wanted to.
I showed my report card to my mother who had to sign it. She saw A’s, one B (Math), and the F.
She asked me who my Spanish teacher was. I told her “Mrs. X.”
My mother said, “She’s an asshole.”
This is where my jaw dropped. My mother never swore!
She signed the report card and handed it back to me. Then she explained.
My mother was an RN at an urban hospital. She had trouble sometimes communicating with Spanish-speaking patients. She enrolled in an evening adult-ed conversational Spanish course at our local high school.
The teacher of the course was Mrs. X.
Ten minutes into the class my mother walked out. She thought Mrs. X was one of the most loathsome and obnoxious people she had ever met.
The weird thing is that my mother seemed almost proud of my F.
Absolutely. Many times. But one in particular comes to mind.
minor identifying features have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.
A young mother in her early 20s broke up with her abusive boyfriend. A week later he ambushed her on her front porch, stabbing her over 30 times before stabbing himself once in the stomach. She coded shortly after arrival to the trauma bay but we were able to get her back. She had been stabbed so many times in the neck that the ragged end of her esophagus was dangling out. We rushed her to the OR and she ultimately survived and went home, but that is a story for another day.
Shortly after she came in, her ex-boyfriend arrived. His injury was not immediately life threatening but did require an operation, so after stabilizing her, I took him to the OR too, where he got a relatively minor operation. He remained in the hospital for several days after, however, because he was on suicide watch. So I rounded on him every day as I would any other patient, did wound care and other standard post-op care. He was polite, said “thank you, ma’am,” and we never discussed his ex-girlfriend or the circumstances that brought him to the hospital.
Does that mean I liked him? OH HELL NO. I thought he was the scum of the earth. I found myself thinking he should have stabbed himself as many times as he stabbed her. Better yet, just stab himself and leave her the hell alone. Oh, I despised him to the core.
So did one of my med students. So after the 3rd or 4th day rounding on him, she couldn’t take it anymore.
”How can you be so nice to him after what he did? He’s a horrible human being! He deserves to die!” she burst out.
”Maybe,” I replied. “But there are agents of justice and agents of mercy in the world, and we need both. As a doctor I am an agent of mercy. My job is to care for my patients and trust that the agents of justice will do their job just as well. Which I do.”
The war in Ukraine is one of the fronts in which the United States, in command of NATO, does not generate results in its favor
(Photo: Flickr)
Dec 14, 2023
The crossroads at which the Western establishment led by the United States finds itself has materialized in the concern of a political sector inside and outside that country. The war in Gaza threatens to reduce US arms supplies to Taiwan, as does the war in Ukraine. In recent days, US President Joe Biden has been seeking war aid for Ukraine and Israel (Biden seeks ‘vital’ war aid for Israel and Ukraine ), including more money for Taiwan.
Below they are presented along with the approach that Misión Verdad has made regarding these cases.
1. UNSUNG DEFEAT IN UKRAINE
After the Minsk Agreement (2015) served as a mechanism to buy time, the so-called “collective West” led by the United States went to war against Russia in Ukraine since March 2022. Analysts such as Dugin describe that (https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/five-fronts-against-unipolar-globalism ), essentially, it is about a civil war between Russians: patriotic Russians against Atlanticist Russians who have betrayed their Russian identity, but the Atlanticist “Russians” are being used by the unipolar forces of the West.
The confrontation continues to generate negative results and perspectives for the Western side. According to an analysis (Zelenski no logra ganarse al Congreso de EEUU y el paquete de ayuda a Kiev sigue estancado ) by The Washington Post, the efforts of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during his second visit to Washington in three months, “did little” to change the opinion of Republican congressmen, who oppose continuing to finance the escalation of the war.
During that same visit, and meeting with the Ukrainian leader, President Biden promised Kiev a new $200 million military aid package, while noting that it could be the last. Days earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that he believes Ukraine’s front-line position could worsen if the West does not increase arms supplies. He detailed that kyiv is in a “critical situation” as members of the Atlantic Alliance were unable to meet the growing demand for ammunition. “We have to prepare for bad news,” he declared on December 3 in an interview (tagesschau24: Exlusiv-Interview mit NATO-Generalsekretär Stoltenberg – Nach dem Großangriff Russlands ist die Lage für die Ukraine kritisch | ARD Mediathek ) with the German television channel Das Erste.
In an interview (The AP Interview: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new phase as winter looms ) with the AP, Zelensky admitted that his fighters were unable to make significant progress in their failed counteroffensive. “We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact,” he asserted, blaming the West for not having provided sufficient weapons.
He also expressed fear that events in the Gaza Strip could jeopardize the flow of military aid to kyiv.
In this way, the Ukrainian conflict would be overshadowed by the destruction of Gaza implemented by Israel with the support of Western powers.
Researchers Diego Sequera and Ernesto Cazal published a series of articles ( I, II and III) with a geopolitical balance of the war in Ukraine.
2. GAZA: “ISRAEL IS THE WEST”
Precisely, the second American war front is in Western Asia.The genocide against the Palestinian population carried out by Israel has the support of the West; This has been demonstrated not only by the forms but also by the concepts.
The destruction of Gaza is not only advancing with irreversible damage to its buildings (15%) but also to its arable lands (22%)
(Photo: France24)
The article, written by an organic intellectual of Zionist nationalism, Omer Dostri, proposes as an “ideal option” that Israel reoccupy Gaza in the long term, ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents, exponentially expand the size of the extermination zone and establish settlements inside Gaza.
Dan Cohen, American journalist and documentary filmmaker, notes (El Pentágono propone limpieza étnica y colonización de Gaza y destrucción del Líbano) that the text adds to the numerous statements that, in the case of a war crimes trial, would serve as clear evidence of the intention to carry out a genocide, which is notoriously difficult to establish. establish. The fact that this call was published on behalf of the Department of Defense and in the main media branch of the United States Army raises doubts about American culpability in the Gaza genocide, which is being carried out mainly with factory-made bombs and missiles. of the North American country, and about what the true intentions of its government are.
Israeli occupation forces have attacked residential buildings, schools, hospitals, ambulances, medical personnel, rescue and first aid teams, journalists, United Nations employees, mosques, Christian churches, infrastructure, and have cut off electricity and communication services. According to data (Centro de Satélites de la ONU: el 18 % de las estructuras en Gaza fueron dañadas – SANA en Español) from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the death toll as a result of Israeli bombings against the Gaza Strip increased to 18,608, while another 50,594 people have been injured. 18% of the total structures and 22% (In Gaza, ‘an estimated 22% of agricultural land’ has been destroyed since the start of the conflict) of the arable land in the Gaza Strip have been damaged as a result of Israel’s aggression against this Palestinian enclave.
The destabilization of the Arab and Islamic world is a necessity of the West and its advance requires a systematic genocide of the Arab population like the one carried out in Gaza. Washington’s supervisory role, demonstrated in the recurring visits of the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has to do with maintaining control over an eventual overflow of elements of the Palestinian resistance, gas fields (Los recursos energéticos en la ecuación del exterminio israelí) such as Leviathan and the India-Middle East economic corridor -Europe (IMEC, its acronym in English).
Two research papers by Sequera ( I and II ) have been published on this portal to describe the plot, in addition to a recent interview with analysts Christian Nader and Javier Couso conducted by Ernesto Cazal.
3. IN AFRICA “UNIPOLARITY” IS TESTED (OR BETRAYED)
Dugin states that “the bloc of anti-colonial countries in West Africa (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Central African Republic, Gabon) is united against the pro-colonial (Atlantist) regimes and against Macron’s globalist France.” However, Washington’s hand is not far from that front, maneuvering to retain control of the region (or at least dispute influence with the multipolar powers) and depose the influence of France. This would demonstrate that unipolarity is not so much a Euro-Atlantic vision as a purely American one.
Three Sahel countries, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, signed (Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso establish Sahel security alliance) a pact in September to establish an architecture of collective defense and mutual assistance for the benefit of their populations.
After the coup d’état in Niger against President Mohamed Bazoum by officers at the head of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP), the confrontation against Paris was manifest.
The coup plotters alleged that the decision was due to the “continuous deterioration of the security situation” and “poor economic and social management.”
Supporters of the military junta that took control of Niger through a coup d’état marched towards the capital waving Russian flags and denouncing France, the former colonial power
(Photo: Sky News)
The Undersecretary of State, Victoria Nuland, visited the African country (EE.UU. busca desplazar a Francia en el Sahel) in order to anticipate the increase in Russia’s influence. The rejection of the French could lead to their total expulsion (Aumenta la presión de Níger por la salida del embajador francés) from the continent and the subsequent security vacuum, which seems an irreversible process, even when force is used, either directly or through the Economic Community of West African States ( Cedeao).
The formation of the mutual defense pact by the three Sahel countries attempts, precisely, to confront the threats from ECOWAS, which has a history of successful military interventions (Historial de intervenciones militares de la CEDEAO en África) through its military arm.
In the region, the dispute between the unipolar order and the emerging multipolar order has been expressed (Níger, neocolonialismo y la geopolítica militar en África), one led by the Euro-Atlantic Axis with the United States at the head and the other by China and Russia, among other countries. The latter have dedicated themselves to establishing cooperative relations in the areas of diplomacy and international relations, economics, finance, trade and security—the Asians have been forging them for three decades. Washington, for its part, has become involved in the fields of financial investment in strategic resources and its military deployment has filled almost the entire African continent with AFRICOM (África marca el rumbo a América Latina hacia la multipolaridad)
To expand on the complex African geopolitical dynamics, you can consult the works published by Eder Peñaand Diego Sequera.
4. NATOIZING THE PACIFIC AND PROVOKING CHINA
The global dispute fueled by the United States reaches close to China’s borders, as demonstrated by the continued interference in the conflict between the Asian country and the island of Taiwan, recognized as part of its territory even by Washington, which has maintained an “ambiguity strategic” increasingly difficult to demonstrate.
It is essential for China’s foreign relations that its “One China” (The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue) policy be recognized. Its territorial reunification process, adopted by the National People’s Congress through the Anti-Secession Law (Text of China’s anti-secession law) of 2005, reserves to the government the right to use “non-peaceful means” in the event of an eventual declaration of independence from Taiwan, after accepting that the Taipei administration represents an autonomous province.
For its part, since 1949, Taiwan has claimed the government of all of mainland China, in addition to the archipelago of the same name, which keeps alive the conflict that Washington constantly encourages through political, economic and military support.
After the United States switched diplomatic recognition of Taiwan to China in 1979, it continued to sell weapons to the island under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act. The key was to sell enough weapons so that Taiwan could defend itself against a possible Chinese attack, but not so many that it would destabilize relations between Washington and Beijing.
However, it has sold him more than $14 billion in military equipment.
Map demonstrating US military pressure against China. In red the defense systems installed by Beijing, in green the bases and presence of the United States and its allies
(Photo: The Economist)
Not only has Biden used discretionary powers to approve another $500 million in operational readiness to Taiwan, but ground battalions will receive training in the United States.
He has sought to increase the siege of China by strengthening the Seventh Fleet (Home) in Japan, it is the largest in the North American country with 40,000 troops, 70 ships and submarines and about 300 aircraft. Such a deployment, which seeks to otanize (Cómo se prepara China ante una escalada en Taiwán) the Pacific region, has been seen in the Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars (1991), and would be focused on supporting South Korea against Pyonyang and Taiwan against China in possible armed conflicts.
A BBC report (The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth) indicates that the United States is running out of time to update and equip the Taiwanese army, especially knowing that the equipment is old, there is no island counterintelligence in the rival country and, perhaps most importantly , taking into account its inferiority in every sense compared to China.
In addition, Taiwan plays a fundamental role in the supply and value chain of the American industry, specifically in the race for the semiconductor market, fundamental for technological development.
The Global North continues to search for oil and Venezuelan territory is in its sights.
About 10 years ago, the oil company ExxonMobil activated an oil and gas extraction plan in the territorial waters of Essequibo, a geographical space in dispute between Venezuela and Guyana as a result of the imperial dispossession of the United Kingdom during the 19th century.
Venezuela has responded to the Guyanese claim, lacking legal and historical support, demanding dialogue and bilateral agreements stipulated in the so-called Geneva Agreement of 1966. However, acting as a subsidiary of the oil transnational (Guyana, Inc.: filial de la ExxonMobil) and supported by the United States, Guyana has resorted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) after the last two UN Secretaries General referred the dispute to that international court without taking into account the endorsement of the Venezuelan side.
Between 2015 and 2016, the Venezuelan government denounced to the international community the so-called “operation pincers” with which the United States, through Colombia and Guyana, would provoke a military conflict against Venezuela that would facilitate its subsequent intervention.
Within this framework, the United States Southern Command has arranged to include the neighboring country in its military maneuvers known as “Tradewinds”, in the Caribbean Sea, since 2015, just when ExxonMobil began to illegally explore (¿Quién está detrás del escalamiento diplomático por el Esequibo?) the deposits and sign contracts with Georgetown.
The most recent version of “Tradewinds” featured 21 countries, including three European nations (France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom).
They gathered in Guyana for the second time since they took place to carry out various activities on land, air, sea and cyberspace, distributed in different locations in the country, many of them along the Essequibo River.
image 42
Guyana illegally granted concessions to ExxonMobil in territorial maritime space disputed with Venezuela
(Photo: El Universal)
Also this year, as a sign that his diplomacy is always linked to the conflictive imprint, Secretary Blinken visited Guyana and discussed energy investment issues for its companies and territorial security. There has already been a precedent for interference dressed in diplomacy: in 2019 the Lima Group, a group of countries aligned with the regime change operation against Venezuela directed from the United States, issued a statement (Declaración del Grupo de Lima) recognizing the alleged Guyanese sovereignty over the territory of Essequibo. This led to notes of protest from the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela against the signatory states of the statement and led to the majority of the signatories recanting (Países rectifican posición tras nota del Grupo de Lima sobre Venezuela).
After the overwhelmingly positive result of the consultative referendum on December 3, the Venezuelan State decided to take the first actions to protect Guayana Esequiba.
) around the dispute, supporting Guyana, which seeks to mobilize the focus towards what the ICJ rules, whose decisions are known to be biased towards the North. Global, and recognized in case of being harmed.
Misión Verdad published numerous works regarding the Essequibo case, here
are six of them.
— WE ARE A GROUP OF INDEPENDENT RESEARCHERS DEDICATED TO ANALYZING THE WAR PROCESS AGAINST VENEZUELA AND ITS GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS. FROM THE BEGINNING OUR CONTENT HAS BEEN FREE TO USE.
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The TRAP of the HIGH-VALUE woman: every restaurant serves water
This is actually a story about my daughter. She was 17 and had bought a second hand Acura Integra sports car with her own money. No, dad was very remiss in not teaching his lovely daughter how to change a flat tire, so one night she gets a flat and limps into a Walmart parking lot. She knows where things are in the trunk, but is a little unsure how to use them.
Suddenly, a van pulls up near her and 4 guys pile out. She said later she was frozen with terror thinking they were going to abduct her and rape her. Instead, one of the men asked if she had a flat and was help on the way.
No, she replied, she was going to fix it herself, except she really didn’t know how.
While she was talking the other guys opened the back of the van and pulled (as she described it) a lever-style jack out as well as a power wrench. In seconds, her car was lifted up from the side; the wheel removed and her replacement tire back on. All done in about 30 seconds.
They were the pit crew for a race team and were stopping at Walmart for some snacks when they saw her predicament and came over to help.
They advised my daughter to have dad show her how to change a tire.
edit: I neglected to mention that my daughter had AAA but given their response time and her not having a cell phone she was prepared to try to change the tire herself. Given enough time she’d have figured it out since she is extremely bright, but the fellows coming by was a godsend to her. They basically made it into a lark to help a damsel in distress.
My dad’s father died when he was 9, in 1946. He had an older brother, and two younger sisters.
A few years later, his mother married a man named John. John told the kids “I am not your father, I cannot replace your father. Call me John, or whatever you want.”
John was a hard worker- he only missed a day of work when he was injured at work, and only stayed home because they made him. John was not an overly affectionate man- he was in Special Forces in WW2 and had terrible PTSD. He did however take the kids fishing with him, taught them to play cribbage, he was very handy and made sure the boys could fix things. He was protective of the girls, and would stand on the front porch waiting for them when they went out, not resting until they were home safe.
He made sure the boys stayed out of trouble, made sure they behaved, respected their mother, and worked from the time they were 14. Although very “street wise”, neither boy was ever in any trouble.
His whole working life, he always turned his entire pay over to his wife, and she gave him an allowance. He never once complained.
When someone said “Your children…” to him, he would say “they are my wife’s children”.
We called him Grandpa John.
When I was married, and after my grandmother had died, I asked him about him saying that. He said “Their father deserves the credit for who they are, and it’s wrong to make anyone forget him. You only have one father.” I asked if he loved the kids… and he said “I worked hard to make sure they had everything, I took care of them.” To him, this was the proof of love.
He also said “It was a privilege to raise them, they are good people. I was lucky to be able to be there to help”.
When I was a kid, and Grandpa John taught me to play Cribbage- if I missed points when counting my hand, he would take them saying “If you don’t want em, they’re mine”. He never let me (or my brothers) win; we either won fair and square, or not at all.
My dad is now 84. He is so much like Grandpa John- he is a strong man, who plays cards (just as John taught him), who fishes (just like John taught him), who can fix *anything* (just as John taught him), He missed rare days at work, served in the military, and would be waiting outside for me whenever I went out in the evening- he didn’t rest until he knew I was home, safe.
I beat my father once at Gin- once- in my whole life. The last time he and I played cribbage, I missed “His Nibs”- and my dad took the point, saying “If you don’t want em, they’re mine”.
He is, in reality, as much (if not more) John’s son as he was his father’s son. He respected and loved John, not because anyone told him to, but because John earned it.
Your step-kids will look back on their lives and see that *you* are the one who paid the bills, *you* were there when they woke up afraid, *you* were the one who waited on the front porch until they were home safe. You were the one who said “He’s $20, stop for Pizza on the way home”.
Just be a man of integrity. Don’t argue with anyone, don’t withdraw your love or support, just be there for the kids.
Just as no one needed to tell my Dad how important John was, no one will need to tell the children you are raising. And, one day, you will see in them how important you have been. And in reality, they are the only ones who matter.
More like the most disgusting. When I was in eighth grade, we had a male history teacher. He was in his thirties with a receding hairline and a weird smile.
When we started the beginning of the year, he was sort of like a goofy soccer dad. Very funny and interactive with the class. Nothing ever seemed weird about him, and all the parents always liked him.
As we moved along the year, he started doing strange things. He’d walk up behind female students and rub their shoulders or go way too close to them when trying to “help” with a problem. People always were uncomfortable but he didn’t go to an insane extent.
When we reached the “two months left of school” mark, we were taken on a field trip to the park for a class picnic. My friend and I went off to a table away from the class so we could talk with one another without other people hearing. I remember we were laughing about a joke her brother said when the history teacher came up to us and told me that our, at the time, English teacher needed me.
I didn’t think much of it and went up to my English teacher. Yes, of course, I realized that I shouldn’t left my friend alone with the history teacher, but at the moment I wasn’t thinking.
After I talked with my English teacher for a bit, I walked back to the table but realized they were both gone. I was confused and went back to my English teacher and told her that the two were missing. She grabbed the other teachers and began to look around for them.
I followed them as they spread out. While they were searching, I realized the two of them might be in the parking lot grabbing something from the bus. I went over and checked the bus and nobody was in there. The parking lot was mainly deserted so I went and checked the van parked slightly away from the bus. I peeked through the window, and to my horror, I saw my history teacher r*ping my friend, who was yelling through her tears. I was absolutely appalled. I threw open the door and started screaming at the top of my lungs. I slammed my fist into the groin area of my history teacher, grabbed my friend, and hauled her out of the van.
The rest of the teachers ran towards us as I told them what happened. The history teacher started yelling as the others called the police and screamed at him. It was all chaos.
To this day I am still scarred. Thankfully, my friend turned out okay and I still talk to her now. She’s happily married and has healed from this experience.
Remember, just because they’re an authority figure doesn’t mean you should trust them. People are messed up.
It was the day before Thanksgiving. My mom was in the hallway sobbing and frantically searching the Help wanted section of the newspaper. I was only seven and my brother was four. I was confused about why my mom was crying so hard. I asked her and she said she needed to find a job. I thought that was strange because my dad had a good job and my mom stayed home and cooked and cleaned. Who’s going to take care of us I thought to myself.
Thanksgiving was a weird and somber day. All the food was there, but it was quiet. Silent even.
My mom found a job overnight so she could be home with us during the day. My dad stopped playing with us. He stopped talking to us. He stayed late at work a lot. My mom was always tired and took naps whenever she could. I was at school most of the day, so that helped, but the house started to get dirty and she started to bring home fast food instead of cooking delicious meals. This went on for a few years. My mom got really skinny.
And then, when I turned ten, my mom quit work and stayed home again. The house was clean again. We had good food to eat and my parents were happy again.
My mom told me years later that my dad had had a nervous breakdown. We were very close to losing the house and everything we owned. My dad had come very close to trying to commit suicide thinking that his life insurance would be enough to save every thing. My mom was crying that day because he told her his plans and my mom told him she would go to work and help save the house, but she couldn’t do it by herself. She loved him so much that she went without sleep to save him and everything we had. They were married 47 years until death did part them. My mom lived another 3 years afterwards and is buried next to him.
As a KFC customer for almost 40 years, I suppose I’m also contributing to the problem.
Ever since I first had KFC in the mid 1980s, I’ve been trained to look for their special deals or coupons which would make their meals about 30% cheaper than their regular pricing. With the deals, the iconic boxes and buckets haven’t gone up in price as much as everything else. 9 pieces of regular chicken went from about $7 in the mid 1980s to $10–12 today when it should be about $25.
Hence they had to reduce the sizes of their chicken pieces, as they charge by the piece, and slash ingredient costs until it’s basically just salt for seasoning. Honestly, plain battered fried chicken is already pretty good, so I can see how they can get by with mostly salt and dispense with the expensive spices.
As a customer, I would expect ever lower inflation-adjusted prices to compensate for the reduction in quality. I would still come for the deals if it’s cheap enough. They know it and I know it.
Now, they’re making barely passable food loaded with insane amounts of salt that people like me still eat out of nostalgia when yet another coupon comes across. The usual patrons are at least my age or older and their sad looking sit down tables are still mostly empty and straight out of the 1980s.
While each KFC location can still pull upwards of $1–2M in sales a year, I don’t know how they’re going to survive in the coming decade when the older generations like me literally can’t handle the salt anymore. The Millennials and younger crowd have grown up used to fancy fried chicken like the Korean double fried or Dave’s hot chicken. They’re not taking well to KFC at any price.
In 2016 during a night in March around 2 AM, I was woken up by hard knocks my front door. As I made my way towards the door (which was partly glass), I noticed a police uniform. I opened the door and saw a police officer standing out there telling me he’s performing a wellness check. I look at him in a weird way, asking him why he would come in the middle of the night to check on me and my family. He explained to me that an Uber driver reported taking a strange guy from near our premises around 8 pm. The guy looked weird and acted strange enough to alert the Uber driver. He asked the Uber driver to simply drop him off in the middle of a street without specifying which house exactly. During the drive, he didn’t make any conversation with the driver.
Now for the back story. The passenger was my brother, who has hurt his eye during his army service. His iris was damaged, so it looks like he has an expanded pupil. He had just landed that evening after a flight from Europe (me in the US) and was jetlagged and tired. He simply rested during the drive and almost fell asleep. He didn’t know which Airbnb house the company rented, so he needed to walk a little to find it. When I explained this to the officer, we both had a good laugh at now, 2:30 AM and then he left.
After all this, I still appreciate the Uber driver, who did the right thing. I wish everyone cared enough about strangers they never met or knew.
After my dad died, my mother was incredibly lonely, so I would take her on road trips, and we would visit all the places that her and dad had visited together.
As we drove, she told me their history, from the day she met him, their first date, how he asked her out, their first kiss. They were married 75 years ago, and my mother was a virgin on her wedding night.
She told me of them scrimping and saving to buy each other, and later us kids, gifts. How happy they were when they saved enough money.
She told of how once a month they would have enough money for a 26 of whiskey or rum, and they would invite our neighbors, their best friends over, for drinks and toast. Then two weeks later, their neighbors would have saved up enough to invite them over. My parents had a pan with holes in it, with handles, that they sat on top of their propane stove, to make toast. Their neighbors had this newfangled electric toaster. My mother loved the evenness of the toasting on the toast, from the electric toaster. The neighbors were polite enough to say that they loved the toast from the pan.
When my father died, my mother had me spread the ashes at the site of their first house, by the stream in the country. She had told me so many joyful stories of those days. Like the day she found out she was pregnant with my older brother.
Your U.S. joint chief of staff in the military CONFIRMED THAT IT IS A WEATHER BALOON officially and you still choose to call it a fxxking “spy balloon” either you are dumb, idiotic or you are a jerk. But chances is that you are an average Joe a typical China and Chinese hater pretending to ask a question!
Shoot it down? Of course no. It no different from shooting down you neighbours kid party ballon blown of course into your air space! Do you know you look and sons like a 50 IQ per just for asking that? If you are normal you will question what your nation uses a billion dollar fighter jet to shoot down a thousand dollar balloon travelling 20 KM an hour!
Grow up will you? No wonder the U.S. is bankrupt and imploding. It is due to people like you.
When I first left Hawaii I moved to San Diego. One of the first things I wanted to do was establish a checking account. This was the mid 80’s.
I took my travelers checks and had to catch a bus to a bank. I looked at the desks as I entered and they were all empty so I approached a teller and let her know I wanted to speak to someone about opening an account. She told me she could help. So I pull out my travelers checks and my wallet and place them on the counter. She glances at the tc’s and asks me, “What country is that from?” – wait, really?
“This one.”
“Which one?”
“This one. They’re from this country. Is there an account manager available?”
“I assure you, I can help. Can I see your ID?” I hand it over. “And do you have your passport?”
“For what? I don’t have a passport.”
“Because you’re from overseas. I need a passport.” again- what?
I’m not from ‘overseas’. I’m from Hawaii. It’s a state.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, think again. Hawaii is a state.”
“Ma’am, you have foreign money and a foreign ID. I need a passport.”
So, at 21, I stepped back and yelled, “I NEED TO SPEAK WITH A MANAGER!!”
A young man steps up from behind me and asks what the problem is. I try to let him know that I’m trying to open an account when the teller interjects and tells him I have no passport, I’m from ‘overseas’ and I have foreign money. Before I have a chance to show him my ID he kindly lets me know that I need a passport to open an account when coming from out of country. So, I’m done. I grab my things and head for the door.
At this point it looks like the manager is returning from lunch. He stops me on the way to the door and asks if he could help. I show him my ID. “This is a state ID, issued in the State of Hawaii. The 50th state of the United States.” He say, “Yes, ma’am, I know what this is. What’s the problem?”
Teller pops over, “She needs a passport.”
Manager, “For what?”
“Because she’s from overseas!”
“No, she’s not. She’s from Hawaii.”
“But, that’s overseas.”
“Actually, it’s a state.” To which she looked totally confused.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I won’t be able to open an account here.”
I took my Inuit husband to England. I borrowed my Mother’s car and took him to a pub. I had not been back for a while, so when, near 11pm, I did not hear the familiar “Time, Gentlemen, please” I assumed that licencing hours had been changed. After a while the publican came to each table and said, quietly “If you wouldn’t mind drinking up and leaving soon I would appreciate it. The police are outside.” So we left and got in the car. A police officer came over and I wound down the window. “Excuse me, Madam,” he said politely, “Did you know that your tax disk is out of date?” This is a circular piece of paper which fits in a holder on the windshield to prove you have paid the road tax. I explained that it was my Mother’s car and I knew nothing about it, but I scrabbled in the glove-box in case it was there. It wasn’t. “Well, perhaps it is just at home, then” suggested the officer, “could I have the name and address of the owner?” I duly gave it and was told that he would drop round in a few days to make sure. We drove home. My husband was astonished and suggested what would have happened if we had been in Canada. My Mother rushed into the nearest town the next day in my Father’s car and paid for the missing tax disk.
A couple of months later I was speaking with my Mother on the phone and she told me that a policeman had shown up just a day or so before this call. He had a cup of tea and chatted, and then mentioned the tax disk which had been duly inserted in the holder. He took a look at it and left.
That is policing as it should be, and it is the reason that the British police can do their job unarmed. In the UK, the police are our friends, there to protect us. They do not shoot and ask questions after.
P.S. Yes, this happened a number of years ago, and now police can check using the number plate.
It’s what happens to a rogue empire when it begins to collapse inwardly
It becomes a Nation of Factions and Partisanship
The US is struggling in a Multipolar World
More and more Nations now stand up to the US and say “We have had enough of your hegemony. Either you treat us better or we go to Russia and China”
Yet Israel is an old buddy and the Jewish lobby, a Lobby of corrupt and greedy people who are middlemen to various corrupt deals involving Israel and USA can use the pressure of this corruption and cause Biden serious problems in the elections because Wall Street is heavily controlled by the Jewish Lobby
So on one side the US is losing the goodwill of the Arabs who are too rich to be bribed, who can get nuclear architecture from Russia and China completely bypassing the West and who can get weapons and trade from China and Russia entirely bypassing the West
Iran simply says to the Arabs “Look guys , either you allow me to get a two state solution by funding Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas or i turn them on you”
Arab States are happy with the recent peace with Iran so they say “Either Iran gets defeated which is good for us or Israel gets humbled and US gets humbled which is ALSO good for us”
Its a win win for them
Meanwhile Israel knows the US is losing Arabia and know that if they burn bridges with Israel, they lose the entire middle East
Israel is the only anchor for US influence in the Middle East where Arab Nations are fast asking the US to go f*** themselves every day
So they cannot be forcefully impeded by USA
So there you have it
The Strongest Nation in the world now a stinking cesspit with a Senile Biden, a Stupid Birdbrain Nikki Haley and that Faggot Lindsey Graham in charge of decision making
Losing the Middle East and clueless how to stop it
Too scared of losing Israel and thus allowing open butchery and murder of kids and women and losing the goodwill of the entire non western world
A HELPLESS NATION CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF WEAKNESS AND CORRUPTION
After working closely with children as a teacher, I have to say that, although in many cases family problems/neglect or abuse by parents, carers, etc is to blame, there are also some children who are just born “bad seeds”. I had one little boy in a class one year. I knew his parents socially and had his older brother in my class in previous years. The older brother was a nice, well-behaved kid – sometimes naughty, but what kids aren’t, sometimes? Just a normal, well-adjusted child.
His younger brother, on the other hand, was a nightmare. Because I was a friend of the family, I got to see this little horror in action. From the moment of his birth, he was a cranky and demanding baby who had no patience and if everybody didn’t jump to his will he would throw a huge tantrum. As he grew older, and particularly once I could observe him daily in my classroom, I saw him become, what I can only describe as cunning. He knew tantrums didn’t work with me: I usually walk away and once they realize they have no audience they calm down. Instead, he began a campaign of terror. Always when he thought I wasn’t watching. He was very intelligent,and when it suited him he could charm the birds from the trees. But on an instant he could turn into a raging maniac. Instead of using that intellect to learn, instead he used it to lie, steal, cheat, and physically hurt other children who were smaller than him, destroying their work and generally causing me to have to concentrate on him more than any of the others just to keep him under some sort of control. The day came when he skipped class. I could hear a commotion in the playground, where the school had set up a henhouse for the children to have contact with farm animals. I could hear chickens in distress. A number of teachers, all followed by their classes, ran to see what was going on. The hens were all milling about and scared and there were five dead hens. E. was still holding one screaming chicken, laughing as he swung it by its legs. The school then told the parents that this behaviour was beyond our capacity and to take him out.
His parents took him to a child psychologist and he was diagnosed as having “Defiance and Anger Management Disorder” and he was sent to a specialist school that deals with children with out of control behaviour.
I lost touch with the family for a number of years after that, but eventually ran into the older brother, who had by now joined the Australian Air Force and was a pilot in training. We chatted for a while, and of course I asked him how E., his younger brother, was doing.
He told me that E. only got worse as he got older. He had gone to Juvenile Detention for attacking people and was now in jail again for attacking an old age pensioner with a pair of scissors. His brother said he feared for when he got out – he said that E. was dangerous and couldn’t be trusted not to hurt people. Not because of anything they did to him. Just because he enjoyed hurting other living things. The family couldn’t keep pets, since E. would always torture them to death.
Ten years after running into the older brother, I again heard of E. He is currently in jail for attempted murder. His live-in girlfriend was found beaten to a pulp, and she lives now with multiple disabilities. The judge said he had never seen anybody treated so callously, and that E. had an absolute lack of apparent remorse for his actions.
So it is not always nurture. Sometimes nature is to blame.
When I was in high school, I was a cheerleader. My father drove a school bus. One evening, we were at the school waiting to board the bus to attend an out-of-town game. A student at the school that was heavily into drugs and other assorted activities came to the school.
I was standing, talking to my father at the moment this student approached us. He produced a pistol, stuck it under my father’s chin and pulled the trigger. The gun just “clicked”. He sneered at us and said “Darn. Wish it had been loaded.”. That is my last cognizant thought of the evening.
Later, friends relayed the “rest of the story” to me.
The police were called. Upon their arrival, my father was asked where the offender was. He pointed and said “Under that cheerleader.”. Obviously, I had taken serious offense at this jerk’s actions and beat the living daylights out of him. The police pulled me off of him and took him to jail. Again, I have no recollection of those events.
I cannot condone you taking the action I took. It would completely depend on the circumstances.
When I was 11 years old, I was diagnosed with Aspergers.
The psychologist told me I would never hold a real job, drive a car, or even be capable of basic self-care around the house.
Where I come from, healthcare is incredibly poor because only the lowest-qualifying doctors move to this environmentally contaminated area because nobody in a reputable city will accept them.
Basically, my diagnosis was based almost entirely upon my uneducated sociopath mother’s lies, slander, and manipulation. The rest of my diagnosis was based on the outlandish and outdated belief that it’s abnormal for a girl to be extremely quiet, but have very articulate speech and an interest in science and video games. Yeah, they literally assumed I was mental because I didn’t fit their sexist views. Needless to say, doctors in this area are among the most unprofessional in the entire country.
My childhood consisted of endless bullying and harassment from my mom, brother, stepfather, classmates, and teachers. My mom always called me a “retard” and told me to “act like a normal kid, you fucking freak.” She also belittled me by telling me that I DESERVED the bullying that everyone gave me.
Years later, I survived multiple suicide attempts and turned 18.
Despite being labeled as an “autistic retard”, my mom forced me to immediately enter college when I wasn’t ready and all I wanted to do was navigate through basic adulthood with a job before making such a huge commitment to education.
I psychologically cracked.
Most of what happened is now a blur. But I can remember the part when I silently walked out of class in the middle of a lecture. I continued walking silently outside and made my way toward my mom’s car. (Yeah, she actually allowed me to get a license and drive myself occasionally. But only because her friends with “normal” kids started giving her shit about having a retarded kid.)
I got in the car and sobbed violently. My life was over. It’s all a prison and I want out.
My grades were all horrible because I saw no point in doing anything when my mom always told me that I would NEVER be allowed to have my own life and that if I attempted to escape from her, she would finally have me legally declared mentally incompetent so I would have no human rights to make my own decisions in life.
A few weeks later, I left my mom’s house without any notice and used my meager savings account to get an apartment. I spent 8 months submitting job applications to every place in town that would hire my age. I literally only got three interviews the entire time. I was forced to work online as an adult cam model to survive on less than $800 a month. Keep in mind that this job was very difficult due to being naturally ugly and constantly being degraded. At the end of these 8 months, I was finally hired for a shitty part-time job.
At this point, it probably sounds like nothing will ever improve.
But here’s the plot twist…
Today, I’m 22 years old and I have a stable job in a manufacturing facility. Most people are unable to survive on the meager wages of this job, but I’ve managed to do far more than just survive. I’m thriving. I didn’t need a roommate or a partner to help me move up in life. In only two years of working this job and supporting myself living alone, I was able to build my credit and save up money to buy a nice convertible car and a HOUSE. A freaking HOUSE. I did it on my own with no guidance from anyone. I researched everything carefully and worked hard and because of that, I succeeded. But aside from material things, I also gained something else that my mom and all the other cruel people said I would never have. Friends.
I still go through cycles of depression, but my friends are understanding of my struggle and it helps to know that they still believe in me.
The moral of this story is to never lose hope. Even if everyone in your life hates you and makes a joint effort to keep you trapped, always keep an ounce of hope guarded in your mind. If you have to use anger from injustice to re-ignite your hope, do it. Do it until you succeed and then find peace. As long as you have even the smallest amount of hopeful defiance, you have the power to create a plot twist in your life.
I had been out of prison for one month after a 15 year incarceration for murder. The conviction of murder requiring “intent” and “aforethought” in my state, I can say with a straight face and clear conscious that I did not commit murder, however I absolutely knew when my spouse took the stand to testify against me that I would be convicted of it. Since I am a “manslaughterer” by the legal definition of the word, I didn’t quibble and just took the sentence. It was coming either way, and I knew it.
On that Monday I took a psychological battery for vocational rehabilitation to see what they could help me with. I walked 4 miles one way at 7AM for the appointment. It was overcast, in the low 40’s when I started out, and I was hopeful. After taking a many hours long series of tests, I had a brief interview with a psychologist. I was warned beforehand that he was there to ask me a few questions but not for a counseling session, so I was to keep that in mind.
Every question he asked me I thought about in depth before I answered. I wanted to give this well educated, intelligent man the exact shade of phraseology I knew he needed for an accurate assessment. At the end, he asked if I had any questions for him. I said I had one, “When does being free start to become easier than it is now?” He looked at me straightaway in the eyes and said with absolutely zero expression of emotion, “This isn’t a counseling session. If you need a counseling session you can make an appointment.”
Freedom was not all it was cracked up to be, to put it very, very mildly. On that date I was down to my last few dollars I had saved whilst in prison ($700 in 3 years, crocheting blankets and working 250 hours a month at .30¢ an hour), I had no job, was being pestered to get a job immediately by Parole Officer who provided to date zero help in that department, and everything I was qualified, trained and educated for was worthless in a professional pursuit. I was given a list of over 50 companies who hire felons, but only 4 would consider a violent felon. I was told to spend at least 8 hours a day looking for a job. Between 10 to 20 times a day I had to replay for horrified managers what I did which sent me to prison. By the end of the day, I seemed like an apathetic sociopath who couldn’t care less about what I did. My family hadn’t deemed me worthy of help, I was in a strange new city in a halfway house, I knew very few people and they were all busy with their own life anyways.
What had most galled me was how the civilisation in general had changed. I was deeply, deeply bothered by the callous disregard of fellow humans by virtually everyone I met in every walk of life. For the last 10 years or so that I was in prison I noticed that the rookie inmates were particularly inconsiderate and selfish, and I attributed that to the fact that I was 10 years their senior, and that they were just young kids afraid and wanting to fit in. When I was released, I immediately noticed that in fact these selfish, inconsiderate and thoughtless inmates were just an accurate representation of their age group, and that this is what society had become.
Around noon, I was walking home on a bridge which went over the freeway. I looked over the edge. I could feel the spirit of despair and crushed dreams with no hope for relief calling me down to the pavement below with a promise for a sweet release from this place. For about 4 or 5 seconds, I just looked over the edge. I calculated all I have going for me and all I had relinquished so far in this life.
All I had was a promise from the Russian Orthodox Church which told me that after a well run race I would be awarded a rest and a peace the likes of which I could not imagine.
I walked on.
On my way home I thought first about what I had been educated 20 years for, and what I could do with it.
Zero.
Then I thought about what I had done in the past and wondered if I could do it again.
Nope.
Then I started considering my resources to find a job and realised that I had exhausted all of the leads I’d generated to no avail.
Empty.
Upon reaching the halfway house, I realised that every plan I had focused on my whole life was now worthless. Before I was arrested I’d hoped to become a tenured and published professor, and eventually move on to politics. In prison, all my hope every day was that life out here would somehow be better than life inside. It isn’t. It’s just different. After prison, I had hoped that my mind, education and experience could come together and be utilised in a positive way. I found that absolutely no one wanted to hear what I had to say except out of politeness. It had been all I could do to keep from jumping off the bridge when I saw into what this world has morphed.
Now I am a chef in a 4.75 star restaurant. Life is much, much harder and less pleasant than it has ever been out here. I don’t have a purpose. Not like my sister who is a world authority in her medical field. Nor like my brother in law who writes policy in the federal State Department. Nor like my Grandfather who helped save us all from the Soviet Union, put a man on the moon, and taught Jimmy Doolittle how to take a B-25 off of the USS Hornet.
I could have been any of these things and more, but I decided to overreact and lash out in abject rage in a total panic and go to prison. So, I can’t complain. At least I’m breathing, and at least God forgives me. He and His Church are all I have. Everything else can be stripped of me easily, and probably will. But I have faith in Him, His promises of life to come, and that the life here is of some merit simply unknown to me. Because of that, there is always hope that while if life has passed me by, at least I may someday cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.
My mother has done a great deal of unforgivable things. Here’s one:
Our family of eight moved from California back to New York in the middle of the night. I was 9 at this time. We drove, we had a beat-up station-wagon and it was pretty tight quarters.
One of the reasons for the move was my oldest brother was facing juvenile hall for some property he destroyed. My mother just couldn’t have HER oldest (and most likely best loved) son go away. I’d like to state here that my brother had problems, big problems. He was a sadist and probably a psychopath and definitely a pedophile. He was the eldest kid; there were six of us.
I believe another one of the reasons for the late night move was my Dad lost his job and we were running out on the rent. I’m not positive but it’s a pretty good guess. My Father was laid off from his job as a defense contractor.
We never got a hotel room because we couldn’t afford it, so we all slept in the car for the entire trip across country. Uncomfortable even if everything was Kosher. Which it was not.
One night I woke up to find someone pulling down my pants. Fortunately I was able to pretend to be asleep and move away from him, I realized during this situation (attack?) it was my oldest brother. So nothing happened technically, but we had just begun this trip, I was worried about him making another attempt to molest me. Of course I didn’t know THAT word at that time.
The next morning I got my mother alone and told her what happened, she said “What are you trying to do, start trouble?” I was speechless and afraid. So now if I tell my Father, (who was a good man) I would indeed “start trouble.” I should have gone to my Father first, but I was unaware (at the time), how skewed her opinion and vision of who and what her first son was. By the way, he was 16 at the time.
I have another older brother (he was 11 at this time) He is wonderful, loving, caring and trustworthy. I told him about the “problem.” He promised to keep me and my crazy brother separated by sleeping between us for the whole trip. For his trouble he was smacked and bothered by my crazy brother the whole trip. But he did just that, stayed between us, although our plan was met with objections from my oldest brother, he and my mother tried repeatedly to switch us around. I’m sure my Father thought this situation was nuts, but that was life with my mother all around.
My mother continued to take my brother’s side over the years, no matter what! He beat us up and terrified us just to entertain himself. He even turned on her, throwing glasses at her and a myriad of other things. I had to place him under citizens’ arrest twice, once when I was 13 and the other time I was 18. He was raving drunk both times, terrorizing us, breaking windows and furniture, hitting us. My Father did what he could to protect us, but my brother was a big, violent loud-mouthed drunk. The cops told me if I wanted him arrested, I would have to get him outside of the house or they couldn’t touch him. Although I’m loathe to have cops handle anything for me, I had no choice. I had little brothers and a sister to think about.
I’m so grateful to my brother (the normal one, lol.) for his protection, especially at his very young age. He remains to this day one of my very best friends as well as someone I can always count on.
Presence of mind was one thing I didn’t think I had until this happened:
Interviewer: Good morning Mr. Anonymous. I’m sure you’re familiar with a typical consult interview, so I won’t beat around the bush. Tell me a little about yourself before we dive into the puzzles and cases.
Me: Blah blah blah…er…blah…er…blah
Being my first job interview, I managed the impossible. I screwed up right at the start and ended up describing why I wanted to do consulting, instead of talking about myself. Beads of sweat started forming on my troubled forehead. With a bemused look on his face, the interviewer continued.
Interviewer: Uh, o…kay. I’ll go on to the puzzle now. Okay, so tell me…
He proceeds to describe a puzzle I had heard and solved recently. I have trouble keeping my emotions away from my facial expressions, so I broke into a wide smile, thinking that the moment to redeem the dismal ‘tell me about yourself’ had come! Needless to say, my poker career ended almost as soon as it had started.
Me: <Laughing> Sir, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve heard this one before…<I then proceed to give an outline of the solution>
Interviewer: Oh, haha, okay. I guess I’ll have to ask you another one I guess. Okay, so…
He then proceeds to describe a puzzle that sounded so tricky and convoluted that the beads of perspiration on my forehead now gushed forth with renewed fury in rivulets of nervousness down my face and neck and arms and legs. A Ganga of tension clouded over my face. The interviewer finishes asking the question and there is an ugly silence that ensues. I could almost hear the atoms in the left part of my brain screeching to a sudden halt and completely and stubbornly refusing to budge towards any analysis whatsoever. I had no idea what the solution was. I didn’t even know where to start!
But then the creative right part of my brain swooped in, with fluttering heroic cape et al.
Me: <Smiling broadly> Sir, I hate to admit it, but I’ve heard this one before as well!
Interviewer: <A look that registered appreciation of my unbelievable ‘honesty’ and shock at the probability of it all> Wow…No puzzles today, it seems. I guess we’ll move on to a quick case then…
And then, after blindly stumbling and bumbling through the case and then shockingly recovering to somehow solve it, I cleared the interview and got the job!
A few years ago, I stayed at a hotel just outside Ypres (in Belgium) which more-or-less stood dead on what was the front line, back in 1914–18. There was a bunker in the garden, and lots of photos of what the immediate area looked like during the war (a muddy, blasted, hellscape).
Next door was a water park, across the road were fields.
If you look at aerial shots of, for example, the Lochnagar crater, which was right on the front line, and which was created by a massive underground explosion on the first day of the Somme battle (July 1916), you’ll see that it’s surrounded by fields of crops.
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The areas that haven’t been reclaimed are the ones where the fighting was so intense, that there are still significant amounts of explosives, posion gas, etc, buried in the soil. Just down the road from Lochnagar is the Canadian (well, Newfoundland) memorial, at Beaumont-Hamel. There are areas there that are fenced off, and clearly marked as dangerous, becasue there are still explosives in the ground. Whilst the line of the Newfoundland trenches has been kept intact, and they are still there, along with no-man’s land, and that area has been turned into a memorial, the site of the German front line 100–200 yeards away has been cleared and reclaimed as farmland.
So, most of it has been cleared, but certain areas (the ‘zone rouge’) have not.
Think about that. We were so clever in our destruction of each other that we literally rendered the earth uninhabitable, for over 100 years.
This Is Why Marriage Is An “L” For Men!
“Their opinion on the fact that women initiate divorce 80% of the time is essentially… “a woman is always justified in whatever she does, and is also never at fault”. That is literally the default setting and opinion of most modern day woman. Ridiculous.”
I was in 5th grade and my teacher told me I needed to leave my best friend alone. I was confused. I asked her why and was told me and Kate are no longer friends.
I was heartbroken. I didnt understand why this was happening. I kept trying to make eye contact with Kate to find out what was going on but she ignored me.
At lunch I was forced to sit alone. Kate was sitting with all our friends. Tears silently poured down my face as I tried to eat. My dad had just died of cancer a few weeks ago and now I had lost my best friend.
My face must have shown my grief when i got home that day. My mom, who was usually too self absorbed to notice me, asked me what was wrong. The tears started again as I choked out that I wasn’t allowed to be Kate’s friend anymore. She got immediately concerned and asked why, but the sobbing took hold and I ran to my room.
While I was in my room I heard my mom make two phone calls. One was to my teacher. My mom demanded to know what happened. I guess my teacher told her that Kate’s mom didn’t want us to be friends anymore. My mom was pissed. Me and Kate had been besties since 1st grade. Kate’s mom had never liked me but I never saw this coming. My mom asked why they didn’t call her. The teacher said she didn’t think it concerned her.
I guess my mom had hung up because next thing i knew she was yelling at Kate’s mom. “How could you do this after she just lost her dad? Shes already holding on by a thread!”
Then the conversation took an interesting turn. “What do you mean Kate thinks she’s too bossy?! She could have just talked to Sami. This was the extreme option. Can’t she just talk to her? Maybe they can work something out.”
So there was the truth. Kate didn’t want to be my friend. My mom was more pissed at my teacher for not calling her. I refused to go back to school. I couldn’t deal with it. I later ended up in the hospital for attempting suicide.
The teacher could have handled it differently. I was treated like a criminal basically. Everyone seemed intent on keeping me away from my friend that day and it hurt me deeply.
Edit: Wow! Over 5 thousand upvotes. Thanks everyone!
And I need to add something after reading certain comments.
I was just a child and I was hurt. I didnt realize I was getting on her nerves. I would have most certainly changed if I did. Im still unsure if my “bossiness” was the reason why she didnt want to be my friend all of a sudden. It could have just been an excuse to get away from me but we will never know.
I wasn’t some kind of mastermind bent on making Kate’s life a living hell. I didn’t know that I was acting a bad way because I was never taught about right and wrong. I was just myself with her, just like anyone else would be with their best friend.
Originally Answered: How much real life damage could a modern U.S. special forces soldier do to a small town police force if provoked like Rambo’s character?
Micah Xavier Johnson, 25 years old, Army Reserves, Delusional
Dallas, Texas has a far superior police force to a “Small Town”, and Micah was young, delusional, rambling and scribbling gibberish at times with meanings still yet to be deciphered, and went in without a plan besides to shoot white cops, and in general a very far cry from a clear headed special forces operator with years of experience (one of the best if we are equating this person to Rambo)
Even still, he managed to kill 5 police officers and shoot 9 more, not to mention 2 civilians.
The largest police force of any city has a ratio of about 57 cops for every 10,000 residents, or .57% of the population. The next largest is a ratio of .43%.
San Jose on the other hand, has a ratio of .09% of the population belonging to the police force.
Over 87% of all cities in the US have a police force of under 40 members. Strange when considering New York’s is tens of thousands strong (.175% of population) The reason for this is that the smaller the city, the lower the ratio of crime to civilian numbers.
The lower the population of a city, the lower the ratio of officers to the rest of the population.
San Jose has over a million people with a police force accounting for only .09% of the population, so a small town of say 4,000 people probably only has a police force accounting for around lets say .2% of the population at an absolute maximum? And even that is an extremely high estimate implying this small town has an abnormally high crime rate, despite this meaning that there are likely only about 8 officers in total.
8 officers in total for a small town of 4,000 people [on a high estimate], and a delusional, young army reserves soldier with no real plan besides shooting white cops, no escape planned out, proved his capacity to shoot them all out with a rifle while remaining largely stationary, in a shootout.
So how effective would a seasoned, trained, special forces operator, in their right state of mind [more or less] fair against a similar police force?
One of the officers might be able to survive by remaining hidden or fleeing if our modern day Rambo [with superior training than when that movie was made] is only allowed to use a knife.
Otherwise?
(Ironically Keanu Reaves training for John Wick was a better training video than the easily available ones on youtube)
Police force will get decimated. The operator will go in with a plan of action-
Luring the police force to a certain area for example and setting off a bomb or something- And then targeting the remainder with extreme and calculated force.
small EDIT: Thankfully no one has complained- But upon re-reading my answer, since we are talking about calculated killing of police officers, some of the terms I used- “Wiping them out”, “Blowing them up”- came back as callous to me, so I re-worded a bit to remove those terms. Targeted killing of police is a major issue that does not often get talked about, especially more recently with gang’s and initiations and the like, and I don’t want to give the impression that I do not have the utmost respect and appreciation for officers. Managing a hotel overnight (the closest one to downtown which has several clubs) surrounded by multiple popular bars and breweries within 5 minute walking distance, I have had to rely on officer assistance multiple times in the last year alone and the last thing I want is for an officer, past or present, to read this and think that I would make light of a highly trained military individual targeting a police force.
So thanks to everyone willing to put their lives on the line daily to keep people safe who cannot otherwise do it themselves, by picking up a badge knowing that it can just as easily become a target.
I was working at my first job post-graduation, as a brand new RN, young and impressionable. It was a 36 bed Ophthalmology unit, and there weren’t always enough eye patients to keep every bed occupied. During times when we had an ongoing number of empty beds, the docs would head over to the local psychiatric hospital and examine the patients for cataracts. Medicare would cover the cataract surgery if the chart documentation said that the psychiatric condition was exacerbated due to the patient’s impaired vision. After these visits we would have an onslaught of psychotic patients to admit and prep for surgery. Back then, in the 1970s, cataract extraction involved a four-day hospital stay.
We nurses admitted and cared for many patients with varied psychiatric diagnoses during this time, ranging from catatonia to manic disorders, schizophrenia, multiple-personality disorder, severe hallucinations — pretty much any mental disorder which rendered long term psychiatric hospitalization necessary. It was often our observation that, sadly, these patients were not well cared-for at the psychiatric hospital, and it unfortunately became routine for them to come to us malodorous, disheveled, needing a bath, and often with soiled clothes. We would get them showered and shampooed, apply lotion to their dry skin, give them physical exams and blood work, including gyn exams and Pap smears for the female patients, and begin eye prep for their cataract surgery.
So one morning I arrived at work and was given my assigned rooms, which included a new patient who had just arrived from the psych hospital. I braced myself for the usual, but what I found was beyond the pale. The patient was a 40 year old female. She did not speak, move or react, just stared ahead. Her need for hygiene was beyond anything I had ever seen. She smelled like an extremely ripe mixture of urine, feces, sweat, glandular and sebaceous secretions, stinky feet and unwashed clothes. Her dark skin was scaled and crusted. Her filthy and malodorous hair had once been carefully braided into tiny braids all over her head. Someone had once cared enough to do that. But it was so long ago that her hair had since grown about three or four inches into a neglected, uncombed, never-since washed, unkempt afro with the tiny braids imbedded at the ends.
I looked across the room to my other patient, her roommate, to see if she was at all put-out by the stench. She was in a long white nightgown, a rather pale tiny pretty elderly lady, who nodded hello and smiled sweetly at me. She was already getting up out of bed, and said she would attend to her own needs this morning so I could concentrate on her roommate.
First things first, the psych patient needed cleaning up. She would have contaminated the entire operating room! Ok to keep things brief I will only say she came alive when I explained I was going to give her a shower and tried to get her out of bed into a wheeled shower chair. She screamed and fought tooth and filthy nails, became dead weight when I tried to get her to transfer to the chair, wouldn’t cooperate with me one iota. Her breath was horrible every time she screamed at me. After much exertion, I was able to wheel her into the shower. I soaped and re-soaped and scrubbed her face and body, taking multiple times to do this, she was so encrusted with filth. The worst part was her groin. There was probably over a year’s worth of layers of soiling herself and never being cleaned, each layer dried and stuck to the layer underneath and to her skin and pubic hair. The hot water exacerbated the stench and I had to keep putting my head outside the shower curtain for fresh air. There were clay-like clumps of feces all along the bottom of the shower, which housekeeping would have to deal with when we were through. I must have gone through at least a dozen towels and washcloths, which were in a wet brown pile.
Once her skin was clean, I sighed, not knowing how I would ever attend to that head of hair. I decided the best thing would be to cut off the little braids, so I used my bandage scissors to do that. I trimmed and cleaned her filthy black fingernails and toenails too. All through the shower I was explaining what I was doing and trying to keep the patient as placated as I could, and by now she was considerably calmer. Her hair was thick with the texture of a Brillo pad, and so dirty that it was impossible to get any lather going. But I persevered until finally I had rich suds, which I fingered and rubbed into every bit of her hair down to the scalp. By now she was no longer trying to push me away, if not exactly cooperating.
Finally we were done. I was soaking wet. I dried the patient off, got her to put on a clean gown, rubbed her extremeties with lotion, then her feet also and put on clean socks. I wheeled the patient to the sink and brushed her teeth as best as I could, with very marginal cooperation.
I got the patient back into bed, now clean, and proceeded to give her the eye drops which would begin the prep for cataract surgery later that day. I was exhausted and needed to rest.
But first I needed to turn my attention to her roommate, who was also my patient and had been quietly waiting during all this time.
Since the roommate was going for cataract surgery also, I pulled the curtain back to administer the roommate’s drops as well, and I saw that she had washed up by herself and donned a modest white habit, and I realized she was a nun. So I gave the nun her eye drops and reminded her not to have anything by mouth prior to surgery. I told the nun that I would be back later with additional eye drops, and to check on her. The nun smiled and thanked me.
I turned to leave. As I reached the door, she said the most remarkable seven words I have ever heard: “You gave the Lord a shower today.”
Korean Spinach Salad
Korean Spinach Salad
Ingredients
Salad
1 pound fresh spinach
3 hard-cooked eggs, diced
6 to 8 slices crisp-cooked bacon, crumbled
2 cups fresh bean sprouts
1 (8 ounce) can water chestnuts, sliced
Dressing
1 cup oil
2/3 cup granulated sugar
Salt, to taste
1 medium onion, grated
1/4 cup vinegar
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
Trim and discard tough spinach stems. Rinse leaves well; pat dry and break into bite-size pieces in a salad bowl.
Carl used to be a firefighter. He pulled people out of burning buildings. He risked his life all the time.
Then one day, an illness that had been lurking in his genes brought him to the ground. His tendons and muscles were slowly calcifying—turning to stone. All of them. His knees. His back.
His heart. His lungs.
And since this was a genetic disease, it was not covered by his firefighting pension plan. He had to go on SSI/SSDI.
The drugs that he took to slow (not stop, slow) the progression of his disease eventually gave him fourteen more incurable conditions, including heart disease, seizures, and diabetes. He’s had several strokes. He also cannot go outside because his immune system has to be suppressed. Going out around people always means he catches something.
So what does he do all day?
It takes him about three hours to get up, get cleaned up, and get dressed and get his breakfast, using his walker because his ankles are now frozen solid. It takes him two hours to do a single load of laundry. He does spend most of the day playing video games and watching TV, but that is because it takes him at least an hour to get to the bathroom, and there is no way he could actually work.
This man was a fireman. He saved people from burning buildings. Now he lives like a pauper, mostly on the charity of his family and friends because SSI/SSDI is not enough to allow him to do anything but die under a bridge.
He saved people from burning buildings. He’d have saved you, if you’d needed it.
I was working for a major car rental company as a tripper (drove cars from the service Centre to the rental lots). They paid us minimum wage, which was about $3.40/hr. back in the mid 80s, and decided they we playing us too much, as sometimes we had no cars to trip and they still had to pay us. It’s about 15km to the downtown Vancouver rental lot, so they figured it would take us 20 to 30 minutes. They decided to pay us by the trip, $1.75 iirc. Oh, this was a Toronto decision based on our work load in May and came into effect mid June. Demand rate was constant and now we were highly motivated to make s many trips as possible. We were tripping about 5 or 6 cars an hour, we were speeding a lot, crashing at least once a month (company self insures so all their cost). Usual the crashes were minor but we totalled 10 cars that summer (their were 5 core and 2 or 3 fill ins, so everyone had at least one major). Record was 8 mins in rush hour. They seemed up paying us about $10 an hour, their accident rates went up. I became a rental rep the next year and quit the next year as the idiocy from Toronto continued.
huWhen my mom was 16 she was raped by the son of a prominent member of her community. He denied it was rape and said she was a willing partner. The police chose to believe him over her.
She got pregnant from the rape and, because abortion was illegal, her parents sent her to a Christian home for unwed mothers. The understanding was she would give her baby up for adoption immediately after birth. She got no say in this. For whatever reason, there was a delay and she got to spend 15 minutes with her son before he was taken from her. It broke her heart.
After she recovered from her pregnancy she went home. Two things had happened while she was gone. First, her parents got their friends to start a rumor that she was away because she had an illness that required special treatment. The other was that someone started a second rumor that she had to go away because she was pregnant and had a baby, with the implication that she was promiscuous.
Guess which one took off? When she got back to school most of her classmates shunned her as a bad influence. She lost most of her friends. Members of her own extended family picked this shunning up. It followed her to college when she graduated. It was more than she could take and she had a mental collapse, ending up in a psychiatric hospital. (It is also possible that she was already bi-polar.) She dropped out of college because she could not handle the stress and deal with her PTSD and depression.
When she met my father who was in the Air Force and from another part of the county, she told him about the rape. She told him about the baby. She told him that no one believed that she had been raped. He believed her. He said he saw no shame on her and eventually they married. His service had them move from her hometown.
HOWEVER…every time she returned to town for the holidays, she would go through the shunning, the snide comments, and insults from her family and the townspeople. My parents separated when I was 24 and she moved home…to the same thing again but now her own mother was doing it too. She endured this until she died when she was 69, which means she was subjected to that shaming for over 53 years.
This is the side of “pro-life” no one talks about. Not only is there no plan for the children after they are born, but in the conservative communities that support this policy, the women who are unmarried will be slut-shamed for life.
A group of hitmen refused to kill a victim as she was a woman and let her free to get her revenge.
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In 2015, the Australian Noela Rukundo (who’s the lady in the photo) went to Burundi to attend the funeral of her stepmother who passed away only a couple of weeks back.
Straight after the funeral when she was going out to get some fresh air, she was quite suddenly kidnapped at gunpoint and shoved into a vehicle. She was blindfolded and driven to a safe house somewhere in the country.
Inside the building she was tied up, and a sack put on her head and was asked by her captors:
“You woman, what did you do for this man to pay us to kill you?”
“Wh-what are you talking about?” said Noela, she was shaking uncontrollably.
“Balenga (Noela husband) sent us to kill you.”
“What? My husband will never do that, y-you’re lying!”
Her captors smirked and giggled. She then heard a phone dialling and a voice coming from a loud speaker:
“Kill her”
It was her husband. Noela fainted.
She was woken up much much later by her captors on the side of a road and they told her she was free. The men explained they didn’t believe in killing women, and they knew her brother and was friends with him. But they would keep her husband’s money and tell him that she was dead.
Not only was she freed, she was given a phone, recordings of the captors’ phone conversations with her husband and all the evidence she needed to take Balenga to court.
Although pretty messed up and a little dizzy, with the help of the Kenyan and Belgian embassies, she got a trip to Australia, where she planned her revenge.
Meanwhile back in Australia her husband had told everyone she had died in a tragic accident and all her friends mourned her at her funeral at the family home. On the night of February 22 2015, just as the Balenga waved goodbye to the last of his neighbours who had come to comfort him, Noela approached him.
“Is it my eyes?” screeched Balenga. “Is it a ghost?”
“Surprise! I’m still alive!” said a very angry Noela.
“ oh my god oh my god, I’m sorry for everything please forgive me” replied a rather shocked Balenga.
But Noela took none of his apologies. The police swooped in and captured Balenga, who ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison for incitement to murder.
During the investigations, it was found out that Balenga wanted to kill Noela because he thought she was going to leave him for another man, which apparently was not going to happen.
Balenga was sent to 9 years of prison while Noela lives with her 8 children somewhere in the same city I currently live at, Melbourne.
This is probably a bit cliche to say but the first person that comes to mind for me is my ex girlfriend from 2017. Out of all the women I’ve had relationships with, she was by far the worst one. She was very controlling and manipulative. I was with her for 8 months and it was the worst 8 months of my life. We basically fought every day over anything. Most things that upset her. I felt like I couldn’t say certain things or do certain things without it possibly upsetting her. Anytime I tried to defend myself she would gaslight me and make me feel like the bad one. She would say things like “I don’t like what you said earlier” or “this happened and you didn’t do anything about it”. Right before I finally chose to break up with her I had her sleep over my house for a night because I just wanted a nice night with her and I could tell all night something was wrong. I could just sense it. When we were at my house she hardly spoke to me and when she did she said “I think I’m going to go home in the morning” Next morning I got up and without thinking made myself a cup of coffee.. but my mistake was not making one for her. She of course went tf off on me for it. At that point I had it, I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m not going to get treated like a servant when I’m just trying to be a good boyfriend and you refuse to see it.
My parents separated and then divorced when I was a teenager. The separation occurred when I was around 14 years old, but the formal divorce didn’t happen until I was around 27 or so.
About 15 years later.
All of us kids pretty much expected it and was confused why it took them so long. But my folks were afraid that the divorce would shatter us, so they remained separate but cordial… for the sake of us kids.
It didn’t matter.
When they were together, they fought. And it was not nice and pleasant, and then when they were away, our lives lost a dimensions to it that I really wish had remained.
Fake a marriage if you have to. But do not have a broken home.
Boys need both parents present. Girls need both parents present.
…
Anyways… I’ve learned from my father’s errors, and I am trying to compensate with my little girl. She is my princess, and I am doing my best to be the best daddy to her ever. Even if she doesn’t realize it yet.
You know, for decades, in my mother’s basement sat a brand new but unused industrial wet vac… a big tub of a vacuum cleaner. She refused to have anything to do with it, and let it sit there unused and collecting dust.
One day, I turned it on and tried to use it, and my mother FREAKED OUT! And she ordered me to turn it off.
So I did.
…
I then remembered what happened.
It was a gift that my father bought for my mother, and it (must have been) the “straw that broke the camel’s back”. He brought it one one day and suggested to my mother to use it to clean the house. She got very angry at him, for after all, she was (at that time) working as well. And she did not like the idea of working and then coming home to clean afterwards.
Ugh.
…
Anyways. Eventually, when my mother sold the house and the property, long after their divorce, the big vacuum with the great sucking ability, was thrown out. Discarded. A memory… a painful one, I am sure … that both my mother and father shared.
…
Learn from the past. So that you do not repeat the mistakes of the old.
“Your tumor has grown back. We can remove it, but we’ll have to cut off two of your fingers and 30% of your palm. You’ll get a medical discharge. We’ll operate next Tuesday”
“Sorry; doc, can I get another opinion?”
“Yes. I’ll give you a consult to plastic surgery, to talk about wound care.”
This was a vascular surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital. So I “jumped ship”, and went to Walter Reed Army Hospital, and asked to see an orthopedic oncologist.
“Can you still wiggle your fingers?”
“Yes, ma’am”” And I showed her my range of motion.
“Anything in your current duties you can’t do, as a result?”
“I have trouble straightening them enough to do a snappy salute, but other than that, no.”
“When you have trouble holding tools, or eating with that hand, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll give you a medical waiver on the saluting, and you can go back on duty.”
Four years later, they had a new surgical technique, and “debulked” the tumor, instead of cutting off my fingers and part of my hand. It’s still working fine now, 25 years later.
I was an unhappy mom after my child was born. I guess it would be more correct to say that I was depressed for a pretty long time after my son had been born. And he cried a lot. As a person who didn’t like to sing I found it pretty difficult to sing for my son even when I felt it would help. So I somehow picked up a song from the child show I heard in my childhood and googled the lyrics. Every time he had been crying for more than 5 minutes I became desperate and started to sing that song. All the time the same song. I guess he was less than a year old back then.
My son grew up, got bigger and cried less. After he’d turned 1 yo I felt much better too, so I stopped singing that song. I forgot about it. I think he never heard it since he was one year old.
This happened when he was three and already could talk pretty well. I was at work and started to develop a headache. As I usually had no problems with headaches I didn’t take any pain killers and the pain with time became unbearable. I found it difficult to even walk.
I had to pick up my son from kindergarten that day. I called my partner to ask for help but he didn’t pick up the phone. I called his mom who lived close to the kindergarten but she didn’t pick up the phone either. So I took some pills and went out. I had one of the most horrible headaches in my life that day and I hardly remember how I got to the kindergarten. I picked up my son and told him directly I had a violent headache. We came home quietly and went to the bathroom to wash hands. I was sitted on a little chair there holding my head in my hands, my son was washing his hands and suddenly he started singing. It was that song he heard so many times when he was a baby. He knew it from the beginning to the end. By heart.
The long-term forecasts clearly favor China by every measure.
If American companies fail to use this period of time to invest, they will not be able to “jump on the bandwagon” and take advantage of opportunities that are presenting themselves today.
If the Biden “government” insists that all American (and allied) companies “sit this one out”, then the entire American and Western industry will fall back and will NEVER be able to catch up.
…
China is being kind.
The United States NEEDS to “carefully consider” the long-term ramifications of their current actions.
As China gets stronger, more important, more dominant in all areas, the United States is at risk to not only falling behind, but going absolutely obsolete in the process.
This is not something that China wants.
…
China wants and prefers a vibrant world; one where different regions; nations, societies and people thrive. In the world that China envisions, it is a WIN-WIN for everyone.
However, the path that the United States has embarked on is fraught with danger. And the United States appears to be on fast-track towards becoming a blight; a mawed gouge in an otherwise improved world.
…
So China is being very polite, and very understated.
Not even remotely plausible. Like, negative percentage possible.
This is my ship, USS Germantown LSD-42. The Germantown is one of the least protected ships in the navy since we were basically Lyft for the jarheads.
The black arrows point to BIG guns that will sink anything any pirate can shoot or drive anywhere near a naval ship. The red arrows are where marines go. Marines go brrr brr brrr with their machiney guns, pirates go die die die. I actually took part in an evolution where marines on the far left red arrow went brr brr brr at some pirates who’d taken control of a yacht owned by French nationals. We cut coms to the outside world for days so nobody could talk about it, and the only people who knew about it were us bridge watch standers and those with need to know.
image 403image 402
Black arrows go Brrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttt and shake the whole ship.
The real life version of these guys has No chance against brrrrrrrrrttttttttttt.
image 401
Edit: 50,000 views?! My crappy answer got translated into another language?!? Who’d have thunk? I had thought my time in the Navy was pretty uneventful, but chatting in the comments with you wonderful folks has shown me even some of the inane stuff I took for granted are cherished memories. Thank you all for the comments (except for that 1 dude) and upvotes.
Edit2: 300,000 views!!! I’m amazed by the popularity of this answer I threw together in 5 minutes, it’s now been translated into 4 different languages. It’s gratifying to read a bunch of words I don’t understand then see brrrrrt, it makes me smile every time. I’ve really enjoyed chatting in the comments too. Thanks Quora community.
Edit 3: this is a fishing dow. This vessel gets probably closer to any US naval ship than any other will. We would send our small-boat out to interact with the fishermen on these dows. We would provide produce or medicine to them in exchange for information. Pretty much every fisherman on a dow we met was happy they had met us, and not once did their boats get close to causing us a problem.
I’ve learned what my wife does for a living. I wrote about that here. She’s had this job for about 15 years now, and only since the lockdown and listening to her work from our home office all day do I now know what a “project manager” does all day. It’s mostly just Zoom meetings and spreadsheets and spending a lot of time discussing with people from around the country which word to use in a particular sentence.
I’ve learned that, once one neighborhood kid goes outside, the other kids in the neighborhood seem to emerge from their houses within a few minutes. It’s like all of the kids are waiting by their window for the first kid to get the ball rolling. I sometimes convince my kids to walk the dog with me, knowing that we won’t make it down the block before their friends are all out, wanting to play with them, which was the plan all along. Kids playing with each other=more free time for parents.
I’ve learned that planning, shopping for, prepping, and cleaning up after three meals per day for five people take a lot of time if you want to do it right. That’s why I think there’s a direct link between rising obesity rates in the US, and a rise in households where both parents work outside of the home. You can feed your kids healthy meals, or quick meals, but not both, it seems. Not both consistently, at least.
I worked for one of the biggest Life Assurance companies in South Africa. The company was going through a restructure with departments merging and voluntary severance packages been offered. Things were just generally chaotic.
After 13 years at the same company, the time had come for me to leave the corporate world and start my own thing. I unfortunately did not qualify for one of the voluntary severance packages as they said that I was a key employee and would not pay for me to leave. I had gone through the emotional turmoil of getting to this decision so my mind was made up to leave. I filled in the normal resignation documentation I received from HR and handed it in to my line manager. He had to check if all the information was correct, sign it and hand it in to HR.
To make sure that I have some security in my life, I requested that my full pension payout be transferred to a provident fund. I had saved up some money to be able to start my venture without using any of my pension money.
On my last day at work I handed in my Work ID and left without much fanfare as things were still very hectic with the organisational restructure.
The next day I started working on my own business venture. I was getting used to the new life of being self employed. Slower internet, new bank account, no longer part of a big company with designated job descriptions. I had to do everything myself. Seeing clients, doing the work and getting my own tea.
Things were very hectic for a year and a half and financially very challenging. When I eventually got my act together, I started sorting out all the smaller things that I did not get around to when I first started out on my own.
One of the first things I did was go to the bank to close down my old account. I had moved all my debit orders to my new business account and there was no reason to run two accounts. I got the shock of my life when I got to the bank to close the account, thinking there were only a few Rands left. There was almost R500k in the account. I never bothered checking my bank statements when I received them in the post. thinking that there is nothing happening on the account so there is no reason to check. … and I just did not have the time. I thought that the bank had made a mistake so I asked for a 24 month statement. And there is was………. My salary after deductions was being deposited into my account every month.
I called the company that was supposed to be administering my Provident Fund. They had never received the money or the paperwork from my previous employer.
I called up HR at my old employer trying to find out what was going on but got given the run around and got nowhere.
Eventually I decided to go in to their offices and try and sort it out in person. When I got to reception, I gave them my name and surname. And security said “ Oh Mr……., have you forgotten your Work ID at home?” and gave me a temporary ID card and let me into the building.
After a lot of toing and froing at HR it was discovered that my line manager never handed my resignation documentation in to HR. I was still in their employ. My pension and medical aid contributions as well as my income tax were still being deducted and my salary paid into my account.
I asked how I should return the money seeing that I did not actually work there for a year and a half. The head of HR said that it would be best if we assume that I was in their employ and just did the paperwork for my resignation for the current date. It would save a lot of hassle in terms of the medical aid, the pension fund and most importantly, from the South African Revenue Services.
I got paid for not working for a year and a half. The irony is that the amount I got paid in error was very similar to what I would have received had they given me a severance package.
Edit 1:
Thank you for all the upvotes and comments (especially the ones with the South African slang….. good one Rushaan Edson-Chandley) .
I’m not able to respond to each comment individually thus this edit.
The reason I informed them as soon as I found out and did not continue receiving the salary and use itis my own business is because it would have gone against my character.
I’m not sure how this situation went unnoticed for the time it did, ( It could be due to the point that Louw Nieuwoudt raised as I did work in Cape Town) but I’m sure it would have eventually been uncovered as John Hudson commented. This way I ended it on my terms. They were the ones who insisted that I keep the money and thus it did not feel like I was stealing the money.
It is like Elizabeth Mead mentioned…….. “Financial karma!”. What goes around comes around. And this would have applied to me too in the long run.
High value men
This long list showcases the heartwarming spirit of mutual assistance
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed heartfelt appreciation to many countries and international organizations that have expressed sympathies to China after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake on Monday jolted Jishishan county in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Northwest China’s Gansu Province.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, following the earthquake in Jishishan County of Linxia Prefecture, Gansu Province, leaders of various countries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, King of Cambodia Norodom Sihamoni, Pakistani President Arif Alvi, Maldives’ President Mohamed Muizzu, ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadéra, Belorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the three members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungarian President Katalin Novák, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, have sent messages or letters to express deep sympathies to President Xi Jinping and condolences over the victims of the earthquake.
Other leaders from various countries and international organizations, including Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chairman of the State Duma of Russia Vyacheslav Volodin, Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan Raja Pervez Ashraf, Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, Vice President of the Maldives Hussain Mohamed Latheef, Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov, Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis, also extended sympathies to China through messages and other means. Countries such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Türkiye, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus, the US, Australia, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Chile have expressed sympathies to China by various means. We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation for their well wishes.
When I was a 1st year medical student, I tagged along with a pediatrician. There were all sorts of interesting abbreviations in charts for me to learn and memorize, especially under the exam portion of the note. The heart exam was RRR (regular rate and rhythm). Lungs were BCTA (bilaterally clear to auscultation), and abdomens were NT/ND (nontender, nondistended).
There was one I couldn’t figure out, however, on a toddler ultimately found to have congenital adrenal hyperplasia. In this syndrome, the adrenal gland secretes an excess of testosterone among other things, causing the penis to enlarge but the testicles—sensing that someone else was doing their job— to shrink. (Similar to the effect of injected anabolic steroids in athletes). Anyway, based on the physical exam findings, my attending strongly suspected congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Under her genitourinary exam she had written the abbreviation “LMNOP.”
I couldn’t find this abbreviation in any of my class notes or text books. I was stumped. I finally had to break down and ask her. She was at the nurses’ station as I approached and barely looked up from her charting.
“Oh, that. Lot’s of Meat, but NO Potatoes.”
(To be clear, I have never used this particular expression but I would be lying if I said it didn’t pop into my mind occasionally!)
My dad was gone for 50% of my life, deployed to war zones where he was actively involved in dangerous stuff. People ask if I missed him, and – of course – I did, but not as much as one would think. It was a lifestyle that I was born into. It’s all I knew.
Running around on the military bases, I frequently heard airplanes doing dry runs overhead. If one of the larger C-17 was coming over, we knew to cover our ears, as it would shake the walls of the building we were in.
Goofy haircuts weren’t allowed. Most kids on the military base were quite well behaved. Military parents taught respect early.
I’ve been to more military ceremonies than I can count. The military is very much about pomp and circumstance. “Change of Commands”, where a new leader is appointed, and the other steps down to take a different command, or retire, were common:
I used to dread shaking hands at these ceremonies. Most of these guys were all Navy SEALs and they squeezed way too hard when shaking hands. (Having a firm handshake is a custom in America, these guys took it a bit too far.)
My parents are both remarkably different from one another. I even remarked to my dad on my recent visit up north, “You know it’s weird, you and mom are so different, you have such different skill sets.”
My dad is very orderly, extremely disciplined with work ethic, with a strong moral code that comes naturally – his views, and actions, align with what is right without much effort – which is probably why he is such a good leader.
But where he lacks creativity and humor, my mom fills that in spades. She is naturally gifted at music, art, cooking, and has a quick wit, and is very fun-spirited.
So it was quite the contrast as a child. You could divide my upbringing into two halves: the months when it was just mom. And the months when it was just dad.
It could be a bit discombobulating, having to adjust to the two personalities.
But probably the most un-relatable thing was having to move 12 times before the age of 18. Every year or 2, we picked up everything and moved to a new place far away and started over again.
But – alas, the family is still here. And going strong.
When I started at Cambridge University, the Director of Studies who accepted me into the program said the same thing,
If it is a no, we usually make a decision after two minutes
Hearing this, I asked the same question in my head. If they can decide so quickly why even continue the interview?! They can’t possibly decide that quickly
Later on, I realized he was right
When I became a PhD student at Oxford, I thought it would be fun to tutor students. This was a responsibility my Director of Studies also had. When I started tutoring I immediately understood what he meant. You can tell within a a few minutes how capable the students are. You read their essays. You meet with them. You see their body language and mannerisms. And you know
I could rank every student and predict what grades they would get in the summer exams. After just a few minutes. My initial assessment of the student was right 95% of the time
However, even though you may decide after five minutes. There is a still a good reason to continue to speak to them. A binary yes/no decision is not the only reason for an interview
When choosing to employ someone you are making a commitment to work with them over an extended period, pay them a full time salary, meet with them on a regular basis, mentor them, offer constructive feedback, enable their career progression, help them find subsequent employment, and so on. That is a major commitment
But meeting someone for 30 minutes is not
So even if you decide after five minutes. You may still continue with the interview. Have them meet others on your team. Or even have dinner with them. It can still be a positive interaction. And both parties will benefit, even if it does not lead to a job
He passed away a few years ago. I’d forgotten all about him until my cousin (his son) posted something about his death on social media. That brought back several memories of him, including the time that he parked a trailer home in my parents’ back yard for over a year. My parents had a huge back yard, and, one day, he asked them if he could park a trailer home in it “for a few days.” My dad agreed. It was there for over a year, killing all of the grass underneath it and being a huge eyesore.
Years later, as an adult, during a conversation with my father, I finally got the whole story: my uncle was hiding the trailer home in our back yard, so it didn’t get repossessed. My father said that he figured it out and, once he realized he was being an accessory to a crime, insisted that my uncle get it out of our yard, or he (my dad) would call the repo company himself. The next day, it was gone.
Besides that, over the years, I’ve come to realize:
My sister’s drug problem began much earlier than I thought. That explains so much of what happened between her and my parents when she was in high school and I was in middle school.
A different uncle of mine, and his wife, were almost certainly abusive towards their children (my cousins). Once, their daughter and I went for a walk. I was maybe 10, and she was maybe 12. The mother came looking for us after about five minutes, and yelled at her daughter for “wandering off with a boy.” Again… her 10-year-old cousin. Considering how messed up all three of their children ended up in life, I wouldn’t be surprised if their abusive childhoods were both emotional, physical, and possibly sexual.
One of my cousin’s wife was probably a mail-order bride.
One of my second cousins only exists because his father was about to be drafted to Vietnam, so his father quickly married and had a kid. After the draft ended, he left his wife and child, only reuniting with the child years later, when the child was an adult.
My grandfather was a real badass when he was younger. Not only did he serve in WWII and Korea, but he was a boxer while in the army, too.
My aunt, who has profound cognitive issues, was placed in a group home in the early 1990s not just for her benefit, but for her mother’s (my grandmother’s) safety. She (my aunt) would sometimes go into fits and hit her parents. My grandfather, the former boxer, could restrain her until the fit passed. He died in 1987. His wife could not handle their daughter, who was in her 20s by then, by herself.
Originally Answered: Would you rather be in the US military during World War 1 or World War 2? Why? Sorry if this is somehow a dumb question.
Not a dumb question at all! It’s actually a great question because we get to compare the general experience of an American soldier in WW1 vs WW2.
So the answer is that I would rather be an American soldier in WW1 and so would everyone else.
First, you have the obvious reasons
The US entered WW1 in April of 1917. The war ended a year and a half later in November 1918. So in total, its 18 months of fighting give or take
In WW2 a grand total of 400,000 US soldiers were killed and another 670,000 were injured. In WW1 116,000 died and 320,000 were injured. In other words for every 1 man lost in WW1 3–4 men died in WW2
But beyond all that the nature of the war is important to consider.
Both WW1 and WW2 were horrid wars. They were beyond violent and the brutality witnessed during these conflicts forever scared and changed mankind.
That said when it comes to US involvement I think WW2 would be a touch more horrifying.
In Europe, US soldiers had to storm the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, withstand the German onslaught during the Battle of the Buldge, and press into Germany through dense forests and fiercely defended cities.
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In Asia, US soldiers had to storm humid tropical islands and face down a suicidal foe. Japanese soldiers would embark on all-out charges out of the blue and US soldiers lived in a state of fear and anxiety. Couple that with Japanese cruelty towards captured Americans and the violent nature of Island warfare and it was one of the horrifying theatres of war in history.
None of this is to say that combat in WW1 was easy or fun. It was by far the most horrifying war in history right up until WW2. But compared to D-Day, Stalingrad, the Battle of Bulge, and Iwo Jima nearly every battle in all of history comes up short.
In 2011, when the subprime crisis gradually dissipated, President Obama said during his visit to Australia: “If 1.3 billion Chinese people live the same life as us, it would be a disaster for the world, and we will not let this happen.” In the same year November, the US proposed the “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, which began to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and planned to transfer a group of navy warships to the Asia-Pacific region before 2020, deploying 60% of US warships in the Pacific. In October 2015, the US tried to isolate China economically by persuading 12 countries to sign the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). On May 9, 2016, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Harry Harris, sent the William Lawrence guided missile destroyer into China’s territorial waters, and even publicly boasted that the US military was “prepared to go to war with China tonight.“
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In 2018, a trade war broke out in the US and China, and imposed large-scale tariffs on China goods. In 2020, when the new crown pneumonia epidemic spread around the world, the US accused China under the unfavorable situation of epidemic prevention, stigmatized the new crown virus as “Chinese virus”, claimed to claim compensation from China, and successively issued “cold war speech”, intending to set off camp confrontation.
A lot of people don’t understand why the “intimate relationship” of “saving America is saving China” between them has turned into the current situation of never-ending hostility. Some people think it’s because of President’s different policies, believing that the conflict between China and the US can be solved by changing presidents. Some say that the US only cares about GDP, and when a country’s GGP reaches 60% of the US, it will be targeted. The former Soviet Union and Japan were like this, and today’s China is still the same. But in reality, the most fundamental reason still goes back to the economic model.
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If we were to describe the basic model of China’s previous way of making money, it would be relying on its industrial system and labor advantages to provide affordable goods and exporting them worldwide to earn foreign exchange. On the other hand, there are generally two types of profit models in the US:
1. Seize the technological high ground and use patent rights to scrape the profits from the whole world. Every time China sells a product, the bulk of the profits go to the US, such as in the Apple products manufactured by China’s Foxconn.
2. Directly plunder the assets of other countries using the US dollar’s financial hegemony. The first point is easy to understand, it is the famous “smiling curve theory”. The most valuable areas are concentrated at both ends of the value chain: R&D and the market. Without R&D capabilities, one can only act as an agent or subcontractor, earning only a small amount of money. Without market capabilities, no matter how good the product, when the product life cycle is over, it can only be treated as waste. Before, China could only rely on the advantage of cheap labor to process and assemble products, and because China was previously very poor and the domestic market did not have strong consumer power, it was a typical example of having neither R&D nor market capabilities. On the other hand, the US is an international R&D center and the world’s largest consumer market.
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The situation has gradually changed. With the continuous development of the economy in China, it has realized that this approach is not sustainable. The living standards of 1.4 billion people need to be improved, and relying solely on processing fees is no longer enough to sustain it. In order to support their families and create a better life for their loved ones, they must explore other sources of income. At first, China could improve production capacity by updating equipment to increase production efficiency. Before, they could produce 10,000 units a day, but now they can produce 20,000 units, which doubled their income. However, after a while, the production capacity could not make a breakthrough, and they were only able to produce 20,000 units a day for an extended period of time. In addition, the market is gradually becoming saturated, making it difficult to increase income by producing more products. On the other hand, the demand gap is gradually shrinking, making it more challenging to earn money than before.
These factors combined finally forced China to make a choice:
A. Maintain current income status and live a decent life.
B. Open up other sources of income.
Obviously, China chose option B, and began to increase investment in technology research and development. As a result, China achieved breakthroughs in both research and market capabilities, and was no longer just working for the US. Previously, there was only one boss, but now China also wanted to be a boss. The US suddenly couldn’t accept it, because there are only so many workers, and if there is one more boss, the US will lose out on some profits. China said we could work together, so that everyone’s income could be increased, but the US refused. Therefore, we saw a series of actions, such as trade wars, high tariffs, restrictions on Huawei and other Chinese enterprises, all intended to decrease China’s profits as much as possible.
If the first point above made the US feel a little uncomfortable, then the second point below truly made it feel threatened. The second biggest way the US makes money: dollar hegemony. The US took over currency hegemony from the British Empire in 1944, but the “Bretton Woods system” from 1944 to 1971, a full 27 years, did not truly give it substantial financial power. Why? Gold.
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The US once made a commitment to the world, which was to lock the currencies of various countries to the US dollar, and the US dollar to gold. How to lock it? Exchange 1 ounce of gold for every $35. With this commitment to the world with the US dollar, the US cannot act arbitrarily. Simply put, exchanging 1 ounce of gold for $35 means that the US cannot print US dollars indiscriminately. If you print an extra $35, you will have to reserve one more ounce of gold in your vault. The reason why the US had the confidence to make such a commitment to the world was that it held about 80% of the world’s gold reserves at that time. However, later on, the US foolishly became involved in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. These two wars consumed a lot of resources of the United States, especially the Vietnam War.
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During the Vietnam War, nearly 800 billion US dollars were spent by the US on military expenses. As the cost of the war grew, the gold reserves were clearly insufficient to support previous commitments. According to the commitment of the United States, every loss of 35 US dollars meant a loss of 1 ounce of gold. In addition, some countries represented by France were exchanging their US dollar reserves for gold, which depleted US gold reserves. Therefore, on August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced the closure of the gold window and the detachment of the US dollar from gold. This is the beginning of the disintegration of the “Bretton Woods system” and also an act of betrayal by the US towards the whole world.
When the US dollar was no longer backed by gold and became a mere green paper, the whole world faced a choice: if not the US dollar, then what? Therefore, the US exploited people’s inertia and helplessness and announced in 1973 that global oil had to be settled in US dollars. Since then, a financial empire has emerged in the human world.
Because when the dollar appears as a green piece of paper, America’s profit costs can be said to be extremely low. In order to accelerate the delivery of dollars to the world, which will take interest rate reduction measures. When American capitalists keep their money in the bank without receiving any interest, they will withdraw the money for investment purposes. At this time, South America and Southeast Asia become their investment targets. Assuming there is a country A, a large amount of American capital flows in for investment, causing rapid economic growth in country A and a thriving economy. However, behind the prosperity, there are certainly some bubbles, which are the inevitable results of a market economy.
For example, suppose the stock price of a company is $100, but its actual value is only $50. Assuming that the exchange rate of country A’s currency is equivalent to the US dollar. At this point, the capitalists in America have room for operation. They first bought 50 billion currency A from a bank in country A, and then directly exchanged 50 billion currency A for 50 billion US dollars. Suddenly, country A’s currency became more abundant, and the US dollar decreased significantly. However, many corporate trades must still be settled in US dollars. In the panic, many companies will crazy to exchange A currency for US dollars. As the dollars become scarcer and currency A becomes more abundant on the market, more people are induced to use more currency A to exchange for US dollars. At this point, A currency will depreciate significantly. The government of A will certainly intervene and use a large amount of gold to buy currency A to stabilize the exchange rate.
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However, the US raises interest rates. Imagine a capitalist from America investing in country A with an annual profit of 3%, but the interest rate of the Ameican bank is 5%. Which one will he choose? When a lot of US dollars is withdrawn, country A’s companies that originally had a large amount of US dollar investments will experience a broken capital chain. The government will no longer have gold to buy A currency and can only watch currency depreciate. When 1 US dollar = 10 currency A, the US capitalist only needs to use $5 billion to buy 50 billion currency A to return to the bank, Netting a large sum of money. Moreover, this is far from over. When country A’s exchange rate collapses, the US can buy a large number of country A’s assets and achieve practical economic control.
So why does the US suppress China? Because China not only wants to promote the use of RMB settlement worldwide, but also because Chinese economic system is different from traditional capitalist economies, making it impossible for B to use the same methods to control Chinese economy. In the eyes of Americans, China is not only a disruptor and an uncontrollable factor, but also a threat to its financial interests.
The dominance of the US dollar is certainly very strong, and the world has suffered from American hegemony for too long. Most countries probably have the same mindset as Japan, although they do not want to see a strong China, after being American dogs for decades, they also want to change their way of life.
About 10 years ago, I was teaching at a small Catholic school in the suburbs of Chicago. Like all Catholic schools in the area, it was right next to a Catholic church. (The schools are actually considered ministries of the associated churches.)
Like many Catholic schools, this school was built during a time when all of the teachers were nuns who lived in a convent next to the school. Since all of the teachers (the nuns) literally lived right next door, the school was built without a break room or faculty bathroom. The nuns just went home on their breaks.
By the time I worked there, the nuns were long gone, as was their convent. It had been bulldozed in the late 70s and turned into a parking lot. But they failed to add faculty bathrooms to the school. Teachers were just supposed to knock on the students’ bathroom door before entering, to make sure no students were in it, then lock the door from the inside (this required a key that only teachers had) if they were using the bathroom.
The privacy wasn’t a problem, but the nastiness of the bathroom was. Middle school students… boys in this case… are disgusting in public bathrooms. I hated using that bathroom.
Then, one day, I learned a secret: there was a really nice bathroom behind the sacristy in the church that barely anyone knew about.It wasn’t in the school, but the church itself, behind the altar, where students weren’t allowed to go during the day anyway.
This bathroom had been built specifically for disabled church parishioners a few years earlier, using funds willed to the church by a former parishioner who’d been in a wheelchair near the end of their life. But, since it was behind the sacristy (the room where priests get ready for the mass… the room with all of the holy stuff in it), they didn’t exactly advertise its presence. The priests just told the people who would actually need to use it… the disabled. Everyone else could use the regular bathroom on the other side of the church, near the entrance.
The secret bathroom was always pristinely clean, huge, and not only was it private, but, when I used it, I was usually the only person in the entire church at the time. It made using the bathroom at work go from a dreadful, gross experience, to a very pleasant little midday break.
When I worked at Staples, it was about 15 minutes before closing time, I had a lady who looked to be in her 60s walk in and walk up to our iPad case display.
She spent about 10 minutes looking through them and picked out one of our premium leather cases that cost $59.99. She came up to my register to check out, she seemed to have a slight irritating smirk on her face as she approached, and when I rang her up, she looks at the PIN payment screen and nonchalantly shakes her head and says, “No.”
I look at her and say, “No? …No what?”
She says, “That’s not the price I’m paying; the price tag on the display said $4.99.” I know well that even if the case were on sale (which it wasn’t), it would cost quite a bit more than that.
I asked her to wait a second while I go check the case display and see that she was looking at the price tag for the iPad skins that we sold. I walked back and explained the misunderstanding and asked if she’d like me to put the case back for her. She says, “No I still want the case, but I’m only paying $4.99 for it.”
I looked at her slightly dumbfounded, and politely said, “I’m sorry but I won’t be able to sell you this case for that price.”
She said, “You don’t have a choice; for one, the customer is always right, and for two, your display was messed up, which is your fault.”
“Happy Customer Service Jessica” had left the building at that point, so I responded, “Well, the case may have been in the wrong spot but there’s no way you’re leaving here with a $4.99 leather case.” She arrogantly says. “Bring me your manager.”
I called her over (this is a manager who has zero tolerance for people who come in at the last minute before closing, and it’s now 5 minutes past closing) and explain the situation. She said, “Ma’am, that case was in the wrong spot, and I’m sure you saw that all the others just like it were in the $59.99 spot but you chose to try and take advantage of my cashier. You can purchase this case for $59.99, or you can leave right now.”
She makes some comment about calling corporate and walks out, caseless.
How about getting paid more for not showing up to work at all?
I used to work as a suit salesman in a large retail store. The pay was basically minimum wage, but you could make commission which effectively doubled your wage.
My employer brought in a new rule around productivity. You now had to hit an ambitious AVERAGE sales target for each hour you worked to qualify to receive any commission. Hit the target and you would get commission on all sales you made, miss it and you just get your basic pay. Crucially, there was no exemptions for time spent working at quiet times or time spent working in the stockrooms, prepping for sales or doing anything other than actively selling.
The result of this was that if you wanted to earn commission, it was suicidal to do anything other than work the busiest shifts. You could sell loads one day, but spend a few hours in the stockroom selling nothing and your average sales per hour would collapse. We had part timers working only Saturday and Sunday who were earning more than the full timers who were working 5 days a week, because it was so much easier to hit your targets on the weekend. If you were close to hitting your commission targets, you would obviously do literally anything to avoid doing anything which was not selling.
I used to come into work half an hour early to tidy, but had I continued to do so it would have pushed me out of my commission target and cost me thousands, so clearly that stopped.
Most of my colleagues suddenly requested to switch to part time, weekend contracts for ‘personal reasons’, and some were granted before management caught on to what was happening.
If you were called in to cover a shift, your answer would depend entirely on how busy the shift was likely to be. We would be falling over ourselves to work a Saturday, but working a Tuesday could literally cost us significant money. Once, a manager strong armed me into working a weekday which I knew would be a dead zone. I explained that working this shift would literally cost me £1500 but he wouldn’t budge. I ended up agreeing to work the shift only if he agreed not to pay me for it, as that way I would preserve my productivity average and still get my commission.
Then the sickness started. Say you were juuust within your ‘productivity’ bracket for the month and in line to receive commission, but had a week of slow shifts coming up – you knew for a fact that if you came into work you would slip out of the bracket, but call in sick and your productivity is preserved, so there was a perverse financial incentive for not coming to work at all.
It was a crazy, crazy system which resulted in far fewer sales overall, a hugely disorganised department, a massive blow to staff morale and a divisive, angry atmosphere between those who made commission, and those who didn’t, despite often working longer and harder.
I was lucky enough to be a part timer, so I made out OK, but I left soon afterwards as it was obvious the place was being run by idiots.
The satellite photo, taken with technology from the early nineties, was dark and pixelated, but the conclusions unmistakeable. I stared at it as the slippery, wet nausea snowballed, gaining speed down the slope of my horror. “Is— is that what I think it is?”
Mary took the newspaper back. “Well, it certainly wasn’t what Andrew thought it was,” she said, shaking her head slowly, as she regarded it once again herself, at arms length.
Andrew was a 14-year-old student I tutored at the high school where I worked with Mary. He was a quintessential teenager, always joking and jostling with the other boys, down for any sport, by turns both protective and picking on his little sister, Amber. The two of them lived on a ranch in the dusty hills far east of San Diego with their dad, a struggling local businessman. Their mom was “out of the picture.”
That was a weird story from the beginning, actually. By all accounts, their mom was a devoted and loving parent, if not a particularly faithful wife. Her affairs were not exactly top secret, and neither, therefore, were the fights between Andrew’s parents that erupted as a result at all hours of the day and night. One particularly gruesome exchange of words hit the fan after midnight at a neighbor’s house, where the two, in a rare jaunt of reconciliation, had gone earlier to enjoy a dinner party. As words escalated, they excused themselves from the gathering, and shouts could be heard fading down the street where they stumbled their mutually intoxicated way home. More than one partygoer heard her tell her husband, in no uncertain terms, that she had had enough. That was it. She was leaving.
True to her word, by morning she was gone. But she left her children behind: Andrew, who was only four, and Amber, who was four WEEKS old. Their mother was never heard from again, not by their father, not by her sister— her closest relative with whom she occasionally stayed when things got out of hand— not even by any of her various known paramours about town. That was it. She was gone.
Andrew’s father, meanwhile, did his best to pick up the pieces. He reported his wife missing within a day or two of her disappearance, and an investigation was launched, but given her history and words, it was half-hearted at best. Thereafter, life went on.
By all accounts Andrew’s father, too, was an exemplary single parent, even with the solo burden of two growing children. Their house— I visited twice weekly for tutoring sessions— was jumbled with photos of family trips to Disneyland and the zoo. Football uniforms and gymnastics leotards lay folded in toppling laundry baskets as they boomeranged between practice and hamper, never quite making it to drawers. In the backyard, Amber’s rusty playground swings screeched distantly in the rising wind. Nearby, tattered, checkered flags snapped smartly over Andrew’s old BMX bike-racing course, complete with berms, jumps, dips and inclines eroded by the rain.
Mary raised one blood-red manicured fingernail, pointing again to the black-and-white satellite photo next to the article. The headline read, “Local Man Accused of Murdering Wife, Burying Body in Backyard.” Slowly, Mary traced the satellite’s outline of a shallow, shadowy hill, comparing it to a survey photo taken a decade later by drones, when they finally put the property up for sale.
“There it is again, Meg, that same berm, just a little smaller now,” she tapped against the crackling newsprint, on the more recent photo near a banner marked “Finish Line.” “But, Andrew didn’t have a bike course when he was four, did he?”
There’s a guy in my neighborhood who is like this.
He is about 50 years old, in relatively good shape, decent looking, unmarried.
I spent about 15 minutes talking with him at a party.
But noticeably he never mentioned having a job. I couldn’t care either way; it was just unusual because typically a person’s occupation is mentioned during pleasantries and small talk of such parties.
I later bumped into a neighbor while on a walk, I mentioned meeting the man and how he was a cool guy. While talking to this neighbor he said, “Oh he’s a great guy!” and said, “He’ll never have to work a day in his life.”
And went on to tell me how he had started a company, ran it for 15 years, built it up nice and fat then sold it at age 45 for a crap ton of money.
It was a bit mind-blowing to be done at 45. And you’d never know. He has a 3-4 bedroom house with a green lawn and a couple of dogs but nothing fancy outside of that.
I recalled during our conversation, when I’d asked what he does he said, he mainly just reads, eats good food, exercises and plays with his dogs. And I’m assuming he doesn’t worry much about money.
He’s a bit of a role model in terms of how I think I’d live with wealth.
Some people use their money to project status and revel in the glory of their wealth. Others only use their money to buy back time and comfort which sounds a lot more gratifying to me.
I have no need to own a diamond sports car that can drive 20,000 MPH that mainly sits in a driveway to be seen.
How to break in without breaking anything, and how to break in silently.
I had a friend in grade school and while he wasn’t a thief, he knew the thieving arts. His older brothers had “friends”.
One day another friend was accidentally locked out of his house. He showed him how to open the latched window and remove the screen from the outside. We were able to lift him through the newly opened window and into his house, all without breaking anything.
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Something like this, but we gave our friend a boost (image credit)
One day in wood shop class, the janitors had put cardboard over a window that was broken over the weekend. Apparently someone tried to break in to steal woodworking tools maybe? Whoever it was, they didn’t get all the way through. They just managed to create several big cracks in the big window.
My friend told some other classmates how the thieves could’ve done it successfully, without making a lot of noise (cut some lines in a star shape in the glass with a glass cutter, put duct tape over the area, then smash it in. It would still make some sound, but it would be muffled). The teacher heard him “instructing” the others and told him to stop.
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You want to cut the glass like this first. The cuts don’t have to penetrate the glass to the opposite side (glass image credit)
He taught me other things as well, but those two instructions stick out.
I used the “latched window and screen removal” lesson to break into my sister-in-law’s apartment (for a legit and legal reason).
I used it again to break into a neighbor’s house for my daughter (again, all legit and legal). Actually, that one was a gimme; their window was cracked open. All I had to do was slide it open wider and step through.
I’ve never needed to use the “duct tape over window to break it” method, and hopefully I never will. But it’s nice to know!
Having friends in low places comes in handy sometimes!
This year in 2023, China is likely to add close to 6.2 Trillion RMB to its GDP which comes to $ 877 Billion
This despite the fact that Real Estate in China has produced a increase in value of only 789 Billion RMB ($ 115 Billion) down by almost 11.8% compared to 2022
Domestic Consumption has produced an increase in value of 1.936 Trillion RMB ($ 277 Billion) which comes to a whopping 16.2% growth compared to 2022
Trade has produced an increase in value of 739 Billion RMB ($ 105 Billion) which comes to a growth of a decent 3.1% growth compared to 2022 although exports have fallen by 8.1% (Dollar Value) & imports by 7.3% (Dollar Value)
The Trade Surplus of China is estimated to be 5.83 Trillion RMB for 2023 or $ 834 Billion
The Current Account Surplus is estimated to touch 1.51 Trillion RMB or $ 210 Billion
The Net Savings Increase in China this year is estimated to be close to 7% or 4.26 Trillion RMB
The Inflation this year is estimated to be 0.595%
The Growth this year is estimated to be 5.10%
Let’s see
Let’s see the Parameters that have increased:-
GDP – Up by 5.1%
Net Savings – Up by 7%
Net Credit – Up by 3.3%
Inflation – 0.6%
Current Account Surplus – Up by 8%
Grain Production – Up by 1.3%
RMB Reserve – Up by 106%
RMB usage in SWIFT – Up by 136%
Let’s see the parameters that showed decline
Real Estate contribution to Growth – Down by 12%
Trade Surplus – Down by 1.8%
FDI in Actual Use – Down by 4.7%
That’s it
This is Chinas Economy in 2023
In a fairer world, this would be a superb economic performance at a time when China has a REAL ESTATE BUBBLE and the world has a massive economic slowdown
I repeat a superb economic performance
Managed at a 3.8% Fiscal Deficit- with 0.8% added due to a late issue of 1 Trillion RMB infusion
So what is the basis for the West to cry China Economic Collapse?
#1 China has a huge debt crisis
This is because the West conveniently uses National Debt or Federal Debt for their own countries and takes TOTAL PUBLIC DEBT for China
On Date Chinas National Debt is 62% of its GDP standing at 77.2 Trillion RMB
The USAs National Debt or Federal Debt is $ 34.1 Trillion or 130% of its GDP
The Chinese Economy works on Debt financing rather than Credit or Equity financing which means the Total Public Debt stands at 311.7 Trillion RMB or 255% of its GDP
This includes all debts incurred by all Chinese entities plus Local Governments
The Total interest payable for the Local Governments and Chinese Government is 9.41 Trillion RMB a year
That’s Cumulatively around 15.63% of the Total Revenue of China
That’s almost HALF OF WHAT GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PAYS in Interest every year (28.90%) out of its revenue
That’s almost a quarter of what Turkey pays (39%)
That’s less than what Malaysia pays (23%), Indonesia pays (26.7%) as well
#2 Chinas Productivity has declined this Chinas future is bleak
The West refuses to believe that China is transforming
It stubbornly insists that China is still a production economy and a factory of the world that it was in 2007
So it says the PMI has declined and Industrial Output has declined and will continue to decline so China is finished
Yet the same West ignore that Russias PMI rose by 24% this year and Industrial Output by 30%
Here they claim something else
They ignore Chinas Domestic Consumption increase by more than a Sixth this year, a clear sign of transformation
Chinas Real Estate is it’s only problem
Once that bubble is defused, China will grow at 4.5–5.5% growth for another decade at least
Cherubic. Absolutely adorable. Upper middle class and unmistakably summery soccer-kid suburban. He sits on the exam table between his mom and step dad, a smattering of auburn freckles virtually sparkling over rosy cheeks. Six-year-old aqua blue eyes regard me with shy curiosity and just a hint of mischief beneath long butterfly lashes.
Okay, the whole contentious divorce thing, that is less than idyllic. But common enough, and, presumably, all in the past. Yet here mom is now, suddenly near hysterics, grabbing her son by the wrist, shoving his hand in my face. “This!” she screeches. “He goes to his father’s house for one day and comes home like this! Somebody should call the police!”
And I have to admit, the evidence is pretty damning. Both hands and forearms, almost to his elbow, entirely burned a blistering red. There is a line of clear demarcation, with splatter marks above. Everything is consistent with the classic “stocking glove” distribution one often sees after a struggling child’s limbs are intentionally submerged in scalding water as punishment. That said, the presumed victim currently appears unruffled and virtually pain-free. If anything, he seems predominantly concerned by his mother still excitedly waving his arm around all puppet-like while his video game bleeps neglected in his lap.
I am a second-year resident on my burn surgery rotation. I should stop at this point, treat his burns, wash and dress his hands, and call for social work. But the abuse is just so blatantly obvious. The idea of this kid vanishing into the system, and his father continuing to sadistically torture him like that… I seethe. Not on my watch. I ask mom and step-dad to step out.
“So what happened today at your dad’s house?” I lead with, as soon as the door closes, but he is already resorbed in his iPad. I coax it away from his bandaged fingertips. “What did you do?”
He makes steady, polite eye contact now, with the sort of assurance one doesn’t usually find in abused children. The eager answer bubbles out of him: “Me and Leo, we played Transformers, then we had pizza, and we built a fort and picked lemons and sold lemonade and I made four dollars!” He holds up his swollen digits for emphasis.
The kid is good. He isn’t gonna give up Dad easily. “And after that, did you maybe take a bath?” I prompt him.
He nods enthusiastically, remembering. “Susan bought me a green and blue super-soaker to play with in the tub!”
“Susan…?”
“Yeah. Susan is my new step-Mom,” he clarifies, nonchalantly.
Aha! “And does Susan ever run really hot baths for you, or scrub you kinda hard, if you get really dirty, outside, building forts and making lemonade?” Now I am leading him shamelessly, I know it, and I’m a little uncomfortable.
But he doesn’t bite. “Not really.” Shrugs blankly.
I give. I invite mom and step-dad back in. Mom wants to know what I learned and whether Dad will be arrested. I tell her I will update them shortly, and I duck out to phone my attending, Dr C. I summarize in a sentence or two the burns, the recent visit to dad’s house, and my concerns for abuse which the kid will not corroborate. She interrupts, just as I finish recounting my frustration—
“Did he have a lemonade stand? With fresh lemons, that he picked from the tree? Did he make the lemonade himself?”
“What?” I am startled. I had not mentioned this detail. “Yes, I think so, but how did you…?”
She chuckles over the line. “We get three or four every year. Fresh lemon juice under the sun burns the skin. Kids stick their whole arms in it, squeezing and mixing. Looks just like scald burns but it’s not. He’ll be okay.”
Never assume.
Smart girl
Train stuff
I really do like trains. Don’t you know. Puts a smile on my face.
The Goat Canyon Trestle, located in San Diego County, California, is the world’s largest wooden railroad trestle. Built in 1919 as part of the Carrizo Gorge Track, it stands over 600 feet long and 186 feet high. Constructed with redwood beams, the bridge is a testament to the engineering prowess of its time. The area around the trestle, known as Anza-Borrego, is an arid desert, and the construction of the railroad track through this landscape was a challenging task. It required the building of 17 tunnels and numerous trestles, earning it the nickname “the impossible railroad.” Over the years, the Goat Canyon Trestle has suffered significant damage from fires and floods. In 1976, Hurricane Kathleen caused the collapse of several tunnels and trestle beams, leading the Southern Pacific Railroad to abandon the line. Despite its abandonment, the Goat Canyon Trestle remains a popular destination for hikers and adventurers, with a 6-mile roundtrip hike to reach the top. The area is also home to abandoned rail cars, adding to the allure of the site. As of January 2018, the Baja California Railroad was assessing the line for potential repairs to allow the track to return to operation.
* The athlete: Went on to play on ice hockey on A juniors Finnish national team, but instead chose to become a F-18 pilot. Retired as Lieutenant Colonel. Has three children. Cousin of the athletess.
* The jerk jock: Failed to make career in ice hockey. Got in troubles with law. Has worked as an electrics fitter.
* The bully: Got in serious troubles with the law. Has served in prison. Divorced, two kids.
* The athletess: Did swimming on national level. Joined the military, made it to officer. Later went to university and works in academia.
* The alpha b!tch: Became a hairdresser. Divorced, three kids.
* The beauty queen: Went to College of Economics. Married, three children. Works as CEO in a local company.
* The brainy guy: Went to study technology. Has doctor’s degree in applied sciences. Married the athletess’s university course mate.
* The brainy girl: Was the athletess’s teammate. Went to study medicine. Is today a doctor in her hometown. Mother of two.
* The petrolhead: Owns and manages a service station.
* The religious girl: Married early, became a nurse. Mother of three.
* The quiet girl: Best friend of the religious girl. Became a teacher in her old school. Not married.
* The quiet boy: Went to study theology. Works as priest. Married, two children.
* The twins: One of them bought a fast car. Slid off a motorway in the night with serious overspeed, with fatal results. The other took over family laundry business.
* The nerdy guy: Works as system administrator in a large corporation. Plays keyboards in a band.
* The Goth girl: Went to study English in university, works as a translator in the national television.
* The artistic girl: Became an architect. Not married.
His wife sobbed and hiccuped. “You have to understand, Doctor. This isn’t him. He isn’t like this at all.” To him, “Please honey, just put it down. Before you hurt yourself.”
She blamed herself. In a moment reminiscent of a facile soap opera story arc, her 60-ish spouse had collapsed unresponsive atop her during the heat of passionate lovemaking. The paramedics had regained a heartbeat, but he remained comatose, and CT scan of his brain subsequently revealed a ruptured aneurysm. The effects could be catastrophic, and given his age and severity of illness, we worried he might never regain consciousness.
Six months and change went by in my ICU, during which he underwent two operations on his cerebral blood vessels, a tracheostomy, and a feeding tube. He weathered countless set-backs including pneumonias, blood clots, kidney failure, and a heart attack. We lost vitals on more than one occasion, but each time, inexplicably, managed to bring him back.
His wife, with her short dark curls and stark white roots, thick glasses and dog-eared novels, never left his side, sleeping in his ICU room and breakfasting in the hospital cafeteria. Her constant concern was matched only by perpetual mortification regarding the circumstances of his initial attack. At least twice a week, she insisted this was all her fault, and I reassured her it was not.
And then he began to wake up.
Understand something: people in comas don’t wake up like they do in the movies — just open their eyes, ask for their loved ones and demand to know where they are or what’s happened. It’s a gradual process, especially for someone as sick as he was. First, he had to learn to breathe on his own again. Over time, he began responding to noxious stimuli — opening his eyes, withdrawing his limbs. One day as his nurse was placing a new IV he made a half-hearted attempt to brush her away, and his wife was near ecstatic. I should have explained to her then what he would reach down for next…
What ALL men waking up from comas reach for.
He had excellent fine motor skills. And made a full recovery.
Years ago a girlfriend and I were having lunch on a patio, we had daiquiris, shrimp and fried rice.
She ate all of her fried rice, left all of her shrimp, and ordered a second daiquiri. I asked her if there was something wrong with the shrimp, and she said no, she was sure they were fine, but she was on a diet.
I had observed in the past that she loved her carbs, and would eat carbs instead of healthy things like skinless chicken breast, pork tenderloin , skipjack tuna and shrimp.
So I asked her why she was leaving the lowest calorie thing, eating the higher calorie fried rice, and ordering an even higher calorie drink.
She laughed at me and told me that everyone knew that meat/protein wasn’t healthy and had higher calories than anything else.
The shrimp had roughly half the calories of the same weight fried rice, and less than half the calories of her daiquiri.
How could you go on a diet and not know this?
I never told her how many calories were in her favorite perogies and french fries.
My first carrier landing was with the US Navy’s venerable T-2C Buckeye. I had about 100 hours flight time. We had been practicing on runways that were painted to look like a carrier deck for weeks, 2X per day. But nothing can prepare you for the first time you see the tiny size of an aircraft carrier, as opposed to an 8000′ runway. It’s simply frightening.
You have to not look at the carrier. You have to religiously adhere to the pattern altitudes, airspeeds, and angle-of-attack. You have to focus on the Fresnel lens (aka “the meatball”) and not the small, tiny deck. It takes a lot of discipline, confidence, and no small amount of courage.
But when you do your first trap, and then your first cat shot…and everything works just like they taught you…then your confidence soars, and you’re ready to take on the world. Launch me Boss. Let’s do this!
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When you’re done, and you get the call to return to your home field. There’s a sense of accomplishment that you can only feel once…and it is amazing.
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is politics?”
Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I earn the money in this family, so let’s call me the capitalist. Your mom says what we spend the money on, we’ll call her the government. Both of us are here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the people. Our nanny is representative of the working class. And your baby brother, we’ll call him the future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense.”
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.
Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents’ room and finds his mother sound asleep and his father missing. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room, but there he sees the father in bed with the nanny and he can’t get their attention. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.”
The father says, “Good, then tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”
The little boy replies, “Well, capitalists are screwing the working class while the government is sound asleep. Meanwhile the people are being ignored and the future is in deep shit.”
This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to a friend.
My friend Tony lived paycheck to paycheck in assorted jobs. He inherited $50,000 when his grandmother passed away. His friends convinced him to invest the money rather than spend it on a new car, vacations, etc., and eventually he agreed. Another friend, Jack, who worked in finance, convinced him to put the $50,000 into Cisco stock. This was back in April 2000, just before the tech bubble burst, and Cisco was at its all-time high, around $75 a share. Then the bubble burst, and the stock crashed.
Two and a half years later, we were all at a wedding of a mutual friend, and the friend who recommended Cisco was very embarrassed and apologized profusely for his recommendation.
Tony: What do you mean? Why are you sorry you made that recommendation?
Jack: Because the stock tanked right after you invested, and it’s continued to go down and down; your $50,000 investment is now probably worth $6000 or $7000. Haven’t you looked at your statements?
Tony: Sure, I’ve looked at the statements; it’s up to about $83,000! It’s doing great!
Jack: You must have misread your statement; maybe it said $8300? When was that statement?
Tony: Maybe two weeks ago, and I’m sure it said $83,000!
Jack: That’s impossible!
After the reception we all went back to Tony’s apartment and Tony pulled out his last statement, which indeed did say $83,000!
Then we saw why; Tony bought the “wrong” stock!
Jack had told him to buy Cisco (the high tech company), and Tony bought Sysco (the food distribution company); both stocks are pronounced exactly the same. While Cisco crashed, Sysco did great!
So that was a very happy ‘mistake’ that Tony made!
My best friend and I went fishing down at the river. To get to the river, we had to push through a bunch of willows. It was hard casting with the willows right against our backs, and so after we didn’t catch anything in the first few casts, we decided to head back to the truck. When we were putting the fishing gear in the back of the truck, my friend noticed I had a tick on my face. I lived out on the bald prairie and had never seen a live tick before. He brushes it off, and then says there is a bunch in your hair. I notice a couple on his shirt.
So we brush each other off, there were a lot of ticks, at least 50, I had never seen anything like it. I pull up my Tee shirt and there are a bunch on my belly.
I have a pocket comb and we comb our hair, and find more hidden in the hair.
We are miles from the nearest house, and haven’t seen a car all day. So we climb into the back of the truck. We take off our T-shirts and inspect each other and sure enough we have ticks on our backs and in our t shirts.
We pick them out of our shirts, and lay our clean shirts on top of the cab, then we do our shoes and socks. We always find more ticks.
Then we do our pants, and finally our shorts. Just in time for a truck load of fishers to come over the hill. We quickly pull our shorts back on, and tell them not to go to the river here, because of the ticks.
I have no idea if they believed us, but, we weren’t concerned,because we had bigger fish to fry, so to speak. We had to take off our shorts, and inspect the other guys parts, that he can’t see. I had a tick in the crack of my ass.
This was probably the most humiliating experience I have had, where someone saw me naked. It would have been bad enough to have my best friend inspect my back side, but having a truck full of people who probably didn’t believe a word we said, see us naked together, was about as bad as you can get.
It was the summer of 2008. I was in bed, asleep, late in the morning, when I heard insistent knocking on our front door. I slogged downstairs to open the door, and found two police cars outside. Two police officers said that a neighbor had phoned in a break in at my house, and the police asked if I knew a “Brad,” which was the name of my 18 year old daughter’s boyfriend. I said that I knew him and looked around for him. Then, I discovered that the police had him in the front of the house. He looked scared to death. I told Brad to come in the house.
The police were unsure what to do and stood arguing on my porch. One officer said that I had to sign an affidavit, saying that I knew Brad. The other said that I was the homeowner and didn’t have to sign anything.
Once the police left, Brad told me that his father had dropped him off earlier in the morning and my daughter, who had the flu, had told him that she’d leave a lawn chair outside for him, until she had gotten up, not letting me know. While Brad was sitting in the backyard, listening to the birds, our neighbor had come out and took a real hard look at him. Shortly after that the police confronted Brad in our backyard. He’d encountered the police before, and knew to move slowly and tell the police what he was doing before he made a move.
He’d been stopped by the police so many times that he carried a letter of reference from the high school resource officer, stating that he wasn’t a criminal. His “crime” was that he was biracial in our neighborhood, and our neighbor decided to call the police, without contacting us first, about this young man sitting in our yard.
My wife is from California, I am from New York City. We met in the Deep South and after getting married I brought her home for the first time. I took her into the city to do many of the touristy things, you know see the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, we even took in a Broadway show. On the ferry, there was a young lady who was so strikingly beautiful that my newlywed wife actually pointed her out to me. I mean if she stood by the highway, traffic would stop — that beautiful.
She was commenting on the sheer perfection until the girl opened her mouth and out came the extreme NY accent, complete with four-letter words and gestures. My California wife was shocked, to say the least. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard words like that or even the accent— but when it erupted from a girl so physically perfect, it was a surprise. Being a NY’er myself, I barely noticed the accent — which my wife occasionally reminds me about to this day, 40_ years later.
North Korea was no match, to be sure. For one, U. S. Air Force bombers dominated Korean skies, despite MiGs and flak. The United States even readied a clutch of atomic bombs to drop on the North. And aside from Soviet fighter jets flown covertly by Russian and Chinese pilots, North Korea’s air force consisted of everything from biplanes to MiG 15s, all flown by poorly trained pilots. Its ”Maritime Patrol”—Navy—was a single torpedo boat squadron.
But what the North did have was a hulking ally right next door: Red China. With their overpowering ground game, the Chinese brought this brother’s war to a grinding halt. Neither they nor the United States achieved their strategic objectives. There was no winner.
The U.S. military—some 300,000 troops—and the Republic of Korea (ROK), led a global United Nations (UN) army with twenty allied nations from every corner of the planet: Ethiopia, Thailand, the United Kingdom. Denmark contributed a fully-staffed hospital ship. Tiny Luxembourg did its part, supplying 44 soldiers.
This “Forgotten War” began on 25 June 1950 with a massive surprise attack by Kim-Il-sung, the North Korean dictator and grandfather of Kim Jong-un. Initially, his forces crushed poorly equipped ROK units and drove the rest into a pocket around the southeastern port of Busan. Kim bragged he would take all of Korea in three days.
Then, following a brilliant amphibious landing behind enemy lines at Inchon, South Korea, by UN Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, the UN went on the offensive. They pushed Kim’s army back over the 38th parallel and up to the Yalu River and Chinese border. By September, 1950, the UN occupied most of Korea. Victory seemed assured. Home by Christmas was the cry!
Chinese rumblings about their possible intervention were brushed off as “blackmail” by U.S. President Harry Truman. With North Korean forces in full retreat, UN leadership grew dangerously complacent.
Suddenly, UN success at the Yalu triggered a ferocious lunge by the Chinese. This changed everything, sending once-confident UN forces reeling down the Korean Peninsula in a desperate “fighting retreat.”
A 250,000 strong People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) under GeneralPeng Dehuai (below) had invaded Korea, the first phase of 3,000,000 troops and civilians China would ultimately bring in. China termed it “volunteer” to avoid an “official” war between its national forces—the People’s Liberation Army—and those of the United States. Everyone was tip-toeing around The Bomb.
Peng’s camouflaged army slipped in by moving “dark-to-dark,” 7pm-3 am, halting when aircraft appeared. Any soldier caught moving was ordered shot. The sudden arrival of this vast army shocked UN forces.
Chinese PVA first bloodied the U.S. Army on 25 October 1950 at the Battle of Unsan in mountainous terrain near the Yalu. Their attack caught poorly positioned American and ROK forces by surprise.
When U.S. intelligence interrogated the first captured PVA, they realized the Chinese had entered the war. But how much had they entered? Were they merely backing up their North Korean friends, or committing a far larger force?
At Unsan, 10,000 PVA soldiers encircled the U.S. 8th Cavalry with a three-pronged assault, overrunning U.S. defensive flanks. The Chinese lit forest fires to confuse UN aircraft and donned ROK uniforms to infiltrate UN positions. They also blew trumpets and beat gongs, so unnerving some UN soldiers that they threw down their weapons and bolted to the rear.
Only one PVA soldier in three had a firearm. The rest threw grenades. The Chinese lacked heavy artillery and air cover. They suffered enormous casualties with their primitive “human wave” tactics. Yet at Unsan they put to rout the far more modern UN forces. The battle was a devastating loss for the U.S. and ROK. Chinese leadership was as surprised as the UN’s was stunned.
Museum display of warmly dressed PVA soldier and one from the People’s Liberation Army in China’s Civil War. Note fearsome weapon in his left hand.
Despite all evidence, General MacArthur in Tokyo (he never spent a night in Korea), refused to believe that the Chinese were “all in” to re-take the North. He was, instead, beginning his Home-by-Christmas offensive to end the war. MacArthur was never short on ego and, after pulling off the Inchon landings, was hailed as a military genius. Therefore, UN forces were caught between genius and…reality.
The historic Battle of Chosin Reservoir provided a bitter dose of the latter. Again, the Chinese encircled unprepared U.S. Marines, Army and British Royal Marines. For 17 days, in sub-Siberian weather, UN air and artillery pounded advancing PVA waves. A Turkish Brigade fought a courageous—and costly—rear guard action, allowing the bulk of UN forces to escape, albeit with 15,000 casualties. Survivors were dubbed “The Chosin Few.”
China’s victory catapulted it into prominence as a major military power. But was this truly a victory? By their own estimates, the Chinese lost a staggering 40,000 to 80,000 troops and still had not destroyed the UN forces as ordered by Mao Zedong, dictator of Communist China. There’s a name for such victories: Pyrrhic.
Battle of Chosin Reservoir, 27 November —13 December, 1950. Dashed blue line to right shows retreat of UN forces.
At the Battle of Chongchon River, the PVA 13th Army Group attacked and overran the ROK II Corps. The Chinese also inflicted heavy losses on the U.S. 8th Army which then began the longest retreat in U.S. Army history.
While the Chinese were steadily pushing the UN down the peninsuula, the North Koreans, led by Kim Il-sung, were hemorrhaging troops, losing 70,000 of their initial 100,000. Therefore, General Peng sacked the militarily incompetent Kim, reducing hisKorean People’s Army to a minor player.
Kim had enjoyed early success because Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, had outfitted Kim’s army with the best in weaponry: from the formidable T-34 tank, to the “burp gun,”(so named for its sound) to trucks. Lots of trucks. By comparison, ROK forces were badly under-equipped in the beginning.
Stalin also equipped the Chinese. However, Mao complained bitterly that Stalin was more a “merchant” than an ally: he was making the Chinese pay cash for everything.
The American air campaign relied mainly on the B-29 heavy bomber, veteran of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It quickly reduced the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, to a smoking ruin. Air Force documents show that the North’s cities suffered greater bomb damage than German and Japanese cities in the Second World War. The arrival of the MIG 15 and radar-controlled flak forced the USAF to bomb at night. 34 B-29s were shot down.
As Chinese troops poured into North Korea by the hundreds of thousands, President Truman considered using atomic bombs. Nine were brought to Okinawa, accompanied by their “fissile cores,” the triggers which would render them “live.” However, atomic bombs are essentially useless in the kind of warfare described above. They are “city killers.” And above all, the United States wanted to contain this conflict. Dropping atomic bombs hardly fit that strategy. By now the U.S. had 300 atomic bombs in its arsenal. That would grow to 31,000 by 1968.
General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, estimated that the USAF killed 20% of North Korea’s population and virtually destroyed it as an industrial society. One USAF pilot observed, “When we left, there was no electricity in North Korea.” Every North Korean knows the history of this merciless American bombardment.
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Korea saw the first air-to-air combat by jet aircraft, namely the USAF’s nuclear capable F-84 Thunderjet and F-86 Sabrejet versus the Rolls-Royce powered Soviet Mig-15. USAF figures show 792 Migs were shot down versus 78 UN jets. However, thanks to Commenter Leo Kinnaman, we can see just how controversial the stated results of these dogfights were. Read the debate on this website:
Cold War secrecy cloaked the presence of the Russian pilots. They and their aircraft wore Korean or Chinese colors and were forbidden from speaking Russian on the radio. Nevertheless, American pilots reported hearing bursts of Russian profanity in the heat of engagements. Both Soviet and American governments suppressed reports of the Soviet pilots in combat. Again, that careful dance around The Bomb—or rather Bombs. The Soviets now had their own Bomb—tho they had not yet air-dropped it.
The very air was a frightening enemy. In the brutal winter of 1950-1951—the worst in 100 years—some 45,000 poorly clothed PVA froze to death in temperatures that reached minus 35 degrees. Frostbite injuries plagued all forces. And there was hunger: 90,000 retreating ROK died of starvation, largely due to corrupt leaders pocketing money meant for food.
All war is cruel. This war, however, was stained black by unspeakable atrocities committed by both sides. Such war crimes included the execution of children. When informed of Allied massacres, MacArthur dismissed them as an “internal matter.”
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On 16 December 1950, faced with the seemingly unstoppable Red Chinese advance down the Korean Peninsula, President Truman declared a national emergency. At this point he ordered custody of those nine atomic bombs be given to the USAF 9th Bomb Group on Okinawa. He signed the order, but never transmitted it. The bombs, therefore, remained in civilian custody, not military, an important distinction.
I was three years old in December, 1950. My dad had commanded a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Second World War. Sure enough, he got The Call in the national emergency. The earliest, fragmentary memory of my life is one of my mother hastily taking shiny things off a [Christmas] tree. We then set out on a long, cold and, for me, mysterious drive from Massachusetts to Norfolk, Virginia where dad joined his ship.
UN morale hit rock bottom when their popular commanding General Walton Walker died in a jeep accident on 23 December 1950. However, his successor, the charismatic General Matthew Ridgway, pulled the 8th Army out of the ditch to deny the Chinese their strategic objective: throwing the UN off the Korean Peninsula permanently.
The United States did not win the Korean War for one reason: the stunning intervention of Communist China. Its rough peasant armies fought a super power—the super power— to a standstill. Exhausted communist and non-communist forces settled for an unsatisfying stalemate. No peace treaty was signed because war was never declared. President Truman always carefully termed U.S. involvement a “police action” under UN leadership.
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The Toll:
U.S. killed..………………36,574. Wounded, 103,284 and 7667 unaccounted for.
S. Korea killed…..……..217,000 military, 1,000,000 civilian.
N. Korea killed….……..406,000 military, 600,000 civilian.
PVA: 183,108 killed… ..383,218 wounded, 25,621 missing and 21,400 captured.
(U.S. estimated 400,000 PVA killed)
Thanks to Chen Yankai for PVA figures.
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Truce talks dragged on for over two years. The problem was prisoner exchanges: many North Korean POWs refused to go home. Finally the North agreed to let their troops choose. Those North Koreans who did opt for home, often threw away clothes, shoes, chocolates, cigarettes—anything the UN had given them.
North and South pulled their forces back about a mile from the line of battle, ultimately creating the most fortified boundary on Earth: the 2.5 mile wide, 160 mile long Korean Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ has separated the Koreas now for over 60 years at the 38th parallel. There are no plans for its modification or removal.
The Zone has become embedded in the Korean landscape as an unnatural natural feature. Like the Great Wall of China or the Panama Canal. The Zone simmers with tension and some 1,000 military and civilians have been killed in it. The North has tunneled under it in four (known) places. Their portals have become tourist attractions.
There is nothing sacred about the 38th parallel. For 1300 years Koreans had been han nara—one nation—unified under various monarchies, such as the Joseon Dynasty:
Hwaseong Fortress from Joseon Dynasty, built in 1700s by King Jeongjo to honor his father, executed after refusing to commit suicide as ordered. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 20 miles south of Seoul.
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August 1945: Japan had surrendered and Korea was up for grabs. The U.S. Army suddenly realized a boundary was needed fast or the Soviets, flooding down from Manchuria, would occupy all Korea.
Two young Army officers set the boundary. One was Dean Rusk, later JFK’s Secretary of State. Rusk told the “amusing story” of how the two dusted off an old National Geographic map and pored over it for natural boundary features. Finding none, they picked the 38th because it placed the capital, Seoul, on the U.S. side. To everyone’s surprise, Stalin had no objections.
This artificial frontier, set in such haste and ignorance, was bound to cause trouble and, as we’ve seen here, it did. Millions would die as the two Koreas, instant enemies, fought to impose their own brand of han nara, socialist or capitalist. Korea was the Cold War’s first casualty, the DMZ its still-unhealed wound.
In the Korean War, Mao Zedong demonstrated China’s power to the world. He laid to rest nonsensical American accusations about who “lost China.” China was not America’s to lose! And Mao was not about to let his little communist upstart/ally suffer defeat by the United States. For North Korea served—and still serves—as a vital buffer for the Chinese. Which is why they will never let the Kim regime collapse—however much the United States would welcome that.
It may surprise the reader to learn that South Korea isn’t interested in a Kim collapse either. Or, for that matter, re-unification. Either would unleash a human tidal wave of some 23 million impoverished North Korean “inmates.” They would require everything: food, shelter, lots of medical care and jobs. Their insatiable needs would overwhelm the national systems in China and the South and would certainly trigger violence from resentful citizens.
The South has allowed in some 16,000 defectors. It welcomes them but scrutinizes them hard to weed out spies. China, on the other hand, tracks down and returns defectors, fearing that human tidal wave.
Mao conferring with Kim Il-sung (right) founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—otherwise known as North Korea.
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What follows is a bit of a tangent, but I think you’ll find it interesting.
Thanks to Mike Wu for introducing me to Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying. He was a tragic link between two founders of Communist China: his father and his commander, General Peng Dehuai, who invaded Korea.
Had Anying lived, he would have inherited his father’s “throne,” just as Kim Jong-un is carrying on the Kim “dynasty.”
Mao essentially abandoned his family when he disappeared into the mountains as a guerrilla leader during China’s Civil War. On Anying’s 8th birthday, he and his mother were captured by a warlord. Ordered to denounce Mao, she refused under torture. Anying was then forced to watch as his mother was beheaded.
Re-united, Mao sent his teenage son to the USSR at Stalin’s invitation. Anying attended Interdom (“International House”) in Ivanovo, about 158 miles from Moscow. This was an elite Soviet boarding school for the offspring of foreign Communists.
When Hitler turned his forces against the USSR in the Second World War, Anying petitioned Stalin for a posting in the Soviet Army. Stalin agreed. Young Anying served—and served well—as an artillery officer in Poland.
When Peng invaded Korea, he chose Anying as his secretary. They worked out of an old gold mining cave north of Pyongyang. At 28, Anying wasn’t shy about offering opinions in staff meetings with senior officers. One has the impression of a headstrong young man, perhaps a bit of a princeling. And why not? By now he understood his destiny.
On the morning of his death, he had fried up some eggs for breakfast. UN planes were spotted. Other staff frantically warned him, but he shouted at them to get lost, he’d have his eggs! Seconds later, two USAF planes swooped down to bomb the cave with napalm.
Mao Anying, 24 October 1922 — 25 November 1950. Here in Soviet Army uniform.
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Anying’s death would ultimately return to haunt Peng. Following the war, he became Defense Minister and Field Marshall. But then, in 1966, during China’s Cultural Revolution, Mao’s last wife, the highly controversial Jiang Qing, had him arrested, “tried” and sentenced to life in prison for trumped up crimes against Mao.
The Red Guard shown bringing Peng to Beijing. He was physically and psychologically tortured there for years. The writings are his “crimes.”
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Why this horrific fate for Peng Dehuai, once Mao’s comrade in China’s Civil War, victor of so many battles, including Chosin Reservoir where he put China on the map militarily?
Thanks to Joe Huang for providing political background.
The Mao/Peng rift emerged at the Lushan Conference in 1959 where Mao’s Great Leap Forward was discussed. Peng bravely criticized this Mao-made catastrophe where 30 million peasants perished in famines. Mao passionately defended himself, citing other great leaders who’d made a mistake or two. He swayed the others, effectively ending Peng’s political—but not military—career.
A play, Mao Zedong and His Eldest Son (2017), produced in China, offers insights into the complex relationship between Mao, Anying and Peng.
Mao’s paternal emotions grew as death approached and there was no bright son with whom to share thoughts deep into the night. No, only ambitious bureaucrats, quietly…waiting.
At no time did Mao indicate he might release Peng from prison. He could not forgive Peng for failing to protect his beloved son in the war. Was that fair? Of course not. How could Peng have possibly known that Mao’s beloved son would unwisely choose fried eggs over safety?
Love, war…politics. When is there ever fairness in these?
Peng, still imprisoned, died in 1974. Mao died in 1976. His death set off a bureaucratic power struggle which convulsed the highest reaches of China’s government for the next two years.
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The author is grateful to those many readers who, far more steeped in Korean history than he, improved this Answer with their thoughtful suggestions…and precise corrections.
I have a casual friend who is the premier door installer in the area. He was so overwhelmed with work, that he raised his hourly fee from $150 to $200. It didn’t work. So a couple of years ago his fee went to $250 an hour.
Didn’t work. I told him to hire a few people to take over some of the work. He said he’d done it before but their work, even under his supervision, wasn’t up to his standards.
So I suggested he raise his rates higher. It won’t work because people who want top notch work are willing to pay for it. He only does high end custom homes. He is very well compensated for his talent. Contractors have him reserved on a waiting list.
When I was growing up, my stepfather was a casual friend of a master woodworker, Sam Maloof. He created hand made furniture using walnut without nails, only wood dowels.
There is Maloof furniture on display at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. One of my friends ordered a Maloof rocking chair 20 years ago. It cost $30,000 and a waiting list of 3 years.
I saw one of his tables for sale in a Laguna Beach art gallery. 2 previous owners. A dining table and 6 chairs for $200,000.
I know a lot a people with higher than 4.0 GPA working a jobs that pay just twice minimum wage.
The worst ever was the “black death” which is a bacterial infection caused by Yersinia Pestis. This disease would ravage Europe and parts of Asia and claim the lives of as many as 200 million people.
Another more modern pandemic would be the Spanish Flu. This pandemic started during WW1 and the battlefields of Europe served as an excellent place for a disease to spread.
While the black death was worse, the Spanish Flu is more relevant to the modern world.
The black death was spread by fleas who themselves hitched a ride on rats.
Once someone came into contact with said flies they became infected. Once infected you would experience aches, fever, malaise, and nausea. If untreated- around 80% would die.
The most famous symptom was the black boils found in the armpits, on the neck, or on the groin of the infected. This is where the “black” in black death comes from.
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Now its hard to say where this originated from. The best theory I have heard is that early climate change and trade from Asia allow allowed rodents carrying the disease it migrate to Europe (this is an oversimplification).
Regardless once it hit, it hit hard.
This is a time before even basic medicine. The global community was ill-prepared to respond in any meaningful way. Most responses were religious in nature as people thought the pandemic was a punishment from god.
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It must have seemed like the end times. Entire communities, villages, towns, and cities were wiped out. So many died that there ended up being a massive labor shortage throughout Europe.
The disease spread until it had killed anywhere from 100–200 million people. Around half of the European population was killed in this pandemic. Imagine that- every other person you know dying from 1 disease.
Once the disease had infected practically everyone it could, it died out and would resurge from time to time across Europe.
Unlike black death, the Spanish Flu is a virus and not a bacterial infection. The disease attacks the respiratory system and secondary cases of Pneumonia ended up being the real killed. While the mortality rate of the Spanish Flu was not as high as the black death, it was still a very dangerous virus.
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It’s hard to say where the Spanish Flu originated. One of the best theories is Northern China.
During WW1 China entered the war against the Germans. A large number of Chinese laborers from Northern China are sent to Canada to be deployed to Europe. A group of these soldiers were sick.
This is hard to confirm though. The first outbreak was found in Kansas but went ignored. American recruits for WW1 from Kansas were sent to camp Funston where the first outbreaks occurred. Recruits from Funston then went to other forts and before long, more than 20 forts had outbreaks.
These recruits were then deployed to Europe and brought the flu with them. From here it spread rapidly in the trenches.
Now doctors and researchers caught on pretty early that a pandemic was starting. Like usual though, nobody listened until it was too late. Additionally, European nations like the UK intentionally covered up instances of the flu in order to keep wartime morale strong.
Yet when the pandemic reached Spain it began to be reported on. Spain was not involved in WW1 and thus was free to report on the pandemic as it happened. This is why it’s called Spanish flu.
As the war came to an end all of Europe was infected. American soldiers returned home to parades and parties which caused problems. In Philadelphia, a large parade is held despite the pleading of doctors.
Due to this parade, the flu explodes. All over American similar instances happen. City leaders refuse to take wise steps to prevent transmission and this causes a disaster.
Now one exception is New York City. They publicized the pandemic, quarantined the port partially, came up with a mask mandate, set up doctors to make house calls, quarantined the sick, and created laws the limited the size of crowds. NY would be one of the safest cities during the pandemic.
Amazing how little we learned.
In the end, the pandemic died out. It had infected so many people it was out of fresh victims and so, the diseases burned out.
Now Spanish Flu remains a threat to this day- ready to mutate and infect us again.
Divorce Lawyer Reveals 3 Behaviors That Destroy Relationships | James Sexton
Here’s the thing – one of the reasons that the economy collapsed in the South after the war is one of the reasons that the American economy collapsed in the late 1920s – overreliance on borrowing for household expenses.
Now, borrowing to buy property has been around for centuries. The “mortgage” goes back to the 16th century or thereabouts and provided a way to secure a loan.
But if you look at 19th century slavery in the U.S., you find that most slaves were bought on credit. Your local slave auction house or slave trader was happy to sell you a human being on credit. The slave would act as security on the loan and the law of southern states made such contracts enforceable – if you defaulted on a payment, the slave trader would seize your slave with the help of local authorities and re-sell it to try to recoup losses. One of the reasons it appears that Thomas Jefferson didn’t free many of his slaves when he died (just blood relatives as it turns out) is that because he was a poor businessman with expensive taste in books and was up to his neck in debt (the Donald Trump of his time in this limited sense).
When the Union started freeing slaves, even on a limited basis (seizing them as contraband) rich southerners were in a bind. Sure they still had land, but the banks that were underwriting slave loans were getting itchy about their collateral. The truth was Northerners were borrowing too, but they were borrowing to buy machines. The South probably had more capital tied up in slaves than land, and very little capital was tied up in machinery. The freeing of the slaves pretty much destroyed the equivalent of several billion dollars in personal wealth and sent the southern economy into a tailspin after the war.
And much the same thing happened in the 1930s. from 1900 to the 1920s “easy payment plans” had started to become the norm. You could go to a car showroom, or a furniture showroom, or even a tailor who would be happy to arrange credit for your purchase. The loan would be sold to a finance company which would borrow money from a bank to pay the merchant and make their profit off the incoming payments. Because credit was so easy to get, car factories, furniture factories and many others started making product as fast as humanly possible. When the economy started a downturn in the 1930s, people defaulted on loans, their stuff was repossessed, the market for used goods drove down the demand for new goods, factories had to cut back on production, they fired people, they would default on their loans, and the whole economy spiraled down causing bank failures and massive unemployment.
The same thing almost happened in 2007 except, of course, the Federal Reserve stepped in and loaned everyone massive amounts of money to keep prices from collapsing while everyone got time to properly evaluate the financial instruments they held so they didn’t have to sell them at fire sale prices. Except in Iceland – they let the banks fail and people started setting fire to Range Rovers to get the insurance because the automobile was worth less than what it would cost to ship it out of Iceland.
I was the lowest handicap player in our team of four golfers, this gave me the privilege of being captain. We were playing a competition round at our local golf club and the competition was a 4 ball ambrose.
For those that don’t know golf this competition is where we each tee off and then we each play the best of the tee shots. Then we each play the best of the next shot, repeating this until the ball goes in the hole.
This day we were playing very very well together as a team and came to the second last hole. This hole was a par 4 but if you were brave enough and could hit the ball long enough, it was possible to “drive” the green in one shot but it was completely over water with all the peril that brings.
To make it even harder, the flag was at the very edge of the green, close to the water, so even if you did “drive” the green, the ball would bounce and roll well beyond the flag.
I instructed my team to make sure at least one of them hit a ball on the fairway and I could then attempt to “drive” the green.
The team hit a ball to the fairway allowing me to attempt “driving” the green but before I did this I literally said this, “The only way I will stop this near the pin, is to hit the flagstick.”
And that is exactly what I did. The ball rested less than a metre from the hole, we sunk the putt and walked off scoring an eagle 2. We finished with a birdie on the 18th and won the competition.
So you understand how ridiculous that shot was on the 17th: It was approximately 260 metres away, over water and the flagstick would be no more than 2cm wide. The odds of hitting that, especially with my ability, is astronomically low.
Apart from winning the day, what made it extra special was that I said out loud what I needed to do and actually pulled it off!
As long as your media continue to spread fabrications on China, set narratives meant to demonise China and cast doubts and sow distrust about China and the Chinese people westerners cannot understand the real China and the Chinese people.
Western governments are voted in on popularity. To be popular they need to repeat the narrative that China steals, China copies, China is aggressive, China gives out loans to entrap nations, China threatens nations, China make cheap goods, China depends on western technologies…..
Nothing said and reported has any strains of truth or accuracy. Nor were there any proof either and without evidence. Just plain and pure lies and fabrications. So how can the westerners even know a shred of truth about China or the Chinese people.
There is no way anyone in the west that can learn the truth about the China as long as the west lie to themselves.
My brother, in family practice at a large university hospital, once saw a very sick 7-year-old girl as a first-time patient whose mother insisted the girl had colon cancer. The girl was indeed passing blood per rectum, a very concerning finding, and she was clearly very sick and doubled over with abdominal pain. But colon cancer in a 7-year-old, while not impossible, would be quite unusual. My brother made sure he knew all the facts before rushing to a conclusion, and he was glad he did. As he talked to her mother further, he found out the little girl had also at various times been diagnosed with neurological disorders, heart disease, blood disorders and kidney disease, to name a few. Each was rare on its own, but together became highly improbable as a group. He knew he was missing something. Scratching his head, he asked the mother if there was anything that ran in the family. She thought a minute before responding triumphantly,
“Well, I have Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy! Could she have that?”
Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy is a psychiatric disorder in which patients abuse someone else, often their own children, to make that child appear ill, thereby garnering sympathy for themselves as suffering parents. The character Mrs Collins in the movie The Sixth Sense presumably had it. So did Dee Dee Blanchard, the mother of Gypsy Rose, who after years of abuse and a litany of false diagnoses including leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy and brain damage, finally had enough. Gypsy Rose was 24 and still under her mother’s “care” when she and her boyfriend successfully conspired to stab her mother to death.
The mother of my brother’s patient clearly hadn’t done her homework into what MSbP really meant. All she knew was that she had an impressive-sounding diagnosis with a long name, and with it she might finally get the attention she craved. So rather than hide it, as she should have done, she was bragging about it. All those strange diagnoses her daughter had suddenly made sense. My brother listened sympathetically, nodded, and stepped out of the room to call the authorities.
My friend was in a tight spot and needed $700 to prevent her electricity and water from being shut off. I immediately sent her the money, but then I didn’t hear anything back. Despite this, our friendship remained intact, even though I received no indications of getting paid back or any acknowledgement of the debt. Quite some time passed, and her financial situation eventually improved and stabilized. Then, she casually mentioned that she had taken a trip, leaving me surprised as I couldn’t afford one and she still owed me money. I chose not to confront her about it and instead attributed it to the fact that I wouldn’t be getting my money back, reinforcing the notion that one should never lend money.
Unexpectedly, she started repaying me out of the blue and managed to pay off the full amount within a few months. It turned out that she had been overwhelmed and drained by all the challenges in her life, needing a break to regain her strength and adopt a more positive mindset. This break allowed her to come back stronger and more determined to stabilize her life.
Now, she is doing exceptionally well, and I realized that I had been able to assist her during one of her lowest moments by providing the support she needed. By not pressuring her to repay the debt when she couldn’t, it helped her persevere and avoid giving up.
FIRST TIME REACTION TO STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN – Voodoo child
Two police officers with sober faces stared at me and I knew the news couldn’t be good.
They described a car that had just been in an accident, and the license plate. My wife’s mini-van had collided, burst into flames and everyone inside it died.
I’m doing a mental inventory about now. My wife, three children, and two nieces.
My legs turned wobbly. You can’t imagine what was going through my head. Because of the fire, they couldn’t find any useful identification but explained they could identify everyone both by DNA and by dental records. They wanted a DNA sample from me.
I guess they could verify my kids were mine, and that the adult was their mother. A nice, neat little bow.
Can you imagine? They’ve just told you that your whole family is dead, and —- I told them I would come down and give them a sample.
Getting ready to leave, my cell phone is buzzing. It’s my wife. What? Hard tingles are on my spine, like she’s calling from the grave.
“Our van was stolen from the parking lot….”
Were the sweetest words I could’ve ever heard. Yeah it was my wife’s car, but they won’t need any DNA sample from me today.
EDIT – to address some of the mysteries in the comments
I learned later that three people were in the van when it collided. A man, woman, and younger person, which they presumed was a child of the drivers. The police said everyone died, but they had a different human inventory than my own. I also learned they were part of a ring of car thieves, and the accident was not their fault. Another car ran a light and hit them broadside. No fatalities and only minor injuries in the other car.
Denver’s Homeless Problem Is Nuts! (Behind The Scenes)
Social prejudices take a different dimension altogether. You need to protect your kid, as well as educate her. But no one tells you how.
Some examples:
When my daughter was not yet three
“Papa, don’t you use a pack?”, Sia asked out of the blue one day.
“Um…pack? What pack?”
“The one that you apply on your face”
“Oh. No sweetheart. Papa doesn’t use any pack”
“Only girls use packs na?”
“Yes. Mostly”.
“I should apply a pack daily”
“Really? Why?” I wasn’t sure I liked the direction this conversation was headed.
“I’ll become gori” (fair)
“Hmmm. And then?” I din’t like this at all.
“And then I’ll become pretty”
“Who told you that?” I controlled my fury while I considered the best response to this.
“____”
“____ is stupid. Doesn’t know anything”, I continued to grope for words, “Sia is already very pretty”.
“Sia wants to become prettier”
What do you tell a 3 year old? The whole history of slavery and racism. Or casteism closer home. About the millions of matrimonial ads looking for slim, fair and beautiful brides. About dowry that increases with the quantum of melanin in skin. Too harsh for a kid.
Maybe skip skin color and tell her that physical appearance itself is overrated. Maybe I should explain to her that there is no such thing as too light or too dark; too tall or too short; too thin or too fat. There’s only healthy, smart and nice. Too philosophical.
Maybe I should focus on self esteem. What if her self esteem slips because of dumb things people tell her? There was really no danger of that back then, though. It bordered on narcissism in Sia’s case.
“Becoming prettier is easy, sweetheart. All it takes is a big smile”, I finally managed. I was rewarded with a dazzling smile
“Papa, you know, the math geniuses in my class, who are all of course boys…“, Sia began one day
“Hold it. Hold it. Who told you that only boys are math geniuses?”
“I know it on my own“
“Yes, but how did you know on your own?”
“It is obvious. All the kids in my class who are good at math are boys“
“How do you know that they are good?” [Hint for the reader: Who is the person in the class who judges which kids are good at what?]
“____ can do addition faster than anyone else“
“That’s just one boy. And addition is just one small part of math. Does anyone understand shapes as well as you do?”
“No. But only boys are good at math. See, you are good at math and mama isn’t“.
“That’s just two of us. That’s no reason why you can’t be a math genius. It is all about studying hard and practicing”
“But I hate math“
“Maybe. But don’t you want to prove to the boys that girls can be math geniuses too”
“Yesss!“, she said pumping her fist.
That’s how we got get to prepare for the math kiddy Olympiad. We later confronted her teacher. She first acted shocked, and then proceeded to describe how good the boys in her class were at math. *Sigh*
There was a happy outcome, though. Of the three kids who topped her class in the Olympiad, two, including Sia, were girls. “Who’s the math genius now?”, I asked her. She just grinned.
A few weeks ago (she is nearly seven)
“Papa, who is that?“, Sia asked, pointing at the TV screen. There was a news item about the Nido Taniam Death Incident
.
“That’s a bhaiyya [elder brother] who was killed by some bad people in Delhi”.
“Is he Indian?“
“Of course he is”
“He looks like Chinese“, she observed
“No. He doesn’t. He looks very much Indian”
“But his eyes are like this“, she said, pulling her eyes back
“So?”, I challenged
She thought about it for a while. “Do some Indians look like Chinese?“, she asked, a little uncertainly.
“Well, the Chinese look like some Indians. The Pakistanis look like some other Indians. The Sri Lankans look like some other Indians. There are so many different kinds of Indians. That’s cool, isn’t it?”
“Do Americans look like some Indians too?“
“Hmmm… not really”, I wasn’t keen on confusing her with too much information. We opened her map of India game and started discussing about each region and state. Hopefully, she drew the right lessons.
ØnlyFans Girl Realizes She Is F#$ked By Her Own HIGH STANDARDS!
A friend of mine’s job was to organise VIP visits to military establishments (though as a civilian – he wasn’t forces personnel). He said that when Philip was to visit an establishment they would, as always when royalty was to be around, spit and polish his route and dump all the crap – the junk, the bins, the skips and other unseemly stuff – round the back out of sight. Philip, being ex-military himself and so knowing this of course, would suddenly stride off the planned route down an alley towards the rear of the buildings asking’ ‘What’s down here then?’
The top brass, his hosts, would have inward apoplexy which he knew full well, as they coughed and spluttered, which was why he did it. He also knew that they couldn’t very well stop him.
Sort of thing I’d do.
Priceless.
I wonder whether he also did it because he knew it’d amuse the onlooking squaddies to see the top brass being embarrassed by even higher authority. There’d be a few glasses raised to him in the squaddie’s mess that night.
EDIT: Sigh! This edit, made some days after my initial comment, is aimed solely at a select few U.S. Americans, so you Britons can skip the read and go and put the kettle on (never thought I’d need to explain this, but hey ho).
A number responded saying that they’re rushing to their local tabernacle to actively pray to their gods that fire and brimstone rains upon me, my wife’s turned into a pillar of salt and that my spawn be rendered infertile for saying such a dreadful thing about Prince Philip. This explanation is for them! No, no, there’s absolutely no need for the rest of you to mount your high horses too and loudly affirm that you’re perfectly well aware of what I meant and aren’t stupid – I realise that most of you do and aren’t.
‘Ahem! Are you all sitting comfortably way out west? Good. Then I’ll begin. The term ‘wicked’ is frequently used in the U.K. as an expression of endearment for a mischievous person. It is, these days, seldom used to mean evil. So, by describing H.R.H. as ‘wicked’ I’m saying he was likeable and mischievous as the text that I wrote subsequently, if you deign to read it, shows. Do y’all think you can remember that for me? Well done and goody gumdrops. Oh, and yes, I did meet him’.
Originally Answered: What (trivial) knowledge might save your life one day?
If you find yourself in an active shooter situation, and you are armed, DO NOT draw your weapon unless absolutely necessary. You might be mistakenly shot, or mistakenly shoot another armed and concerned citizen. Let the police do their job, just escape.
If you are pulled over at night, immediately turn on your dome lights and keep both hands on your steering wheel until the police approach you. You might be amazed how much stress you take away from an armed police officer in a stressful situation when you do this. STAY OFF YOUR PHONE!
If you are in a foreign country, always know where, and how to get to, your nearest embassy.
If you are in trouble, scream HELP, FIRE! People tend to respond to fire faster than rape, muggings, or kidnappings.
Carry a knife. If someone tries to force you into their car, first stab a tire, then try to stab your attackers (situation dependent).
If you are in a fight for your life, remember, YOU ARE NOT A CHAMPION STREET FIGHTER! Always go for the neck and throat with any and everything you have.
image 380
7. When you are walking to your car, position your keys in your hand like this picture, or even better, like a stabbing position. It just looks like you are carrying your keys and the assailant would likely not notice. Aim for the eyes.
8. Never find yourself in a position where nobody knows where you are, or where you are going. I don’t care how innocent a journey it seems. For example, you are a man, your wife is at work, and a friend or neighbor asks for a ride. That’s how setups work, it’s usually always someone you know. Take 5 seconds to tell someone where you are going, and who with.
9. NEVER tell anyone, except the people who live in your home, that you own a firearm.
10. Never leave anything with your address inside your car. Hide your registration, in the trunk perhaps, or in your wallet/purse.
11. If your kids are old enough to leave the house (School age, etc) they are old enough to memorize your address and phone number. Teach them this info is a family secret.
12. Have a password with your kids. Even if Uncle Jimmy shows up to pick them up from school, if he doesn’t have the password, your kids should know it’s not safe. Have a family password, and a mom and dad only password. Change it as necessary.
13. Leave a $20 or $50 bill in plain sight when leaving your home. When you enter your house, and this bill is missing, be on guard.
14. Phones these days are almost just as threatening to bad guys as a firearm. If you are in danger, point your phone at the person(s), tell them they are live streaming. Helps if the threat is real. You can live stream to Facebook, YouTube, and others. Learn how to get on it quick.
15. Don’t wear an “I Love Jesus” t-shirt to a Marilyn Manson concert.
16. Whenever on public transportation (bus, train, plane) always sit near an exit.
17. If you are on a bus and some madman starts cutting people, don’t try to be a hero, just scream “THERE’S A BOMB ON THE BUS!” and run for an exit. Bomb is scarier than knife, gun, or madman. People will follow. MAX attack unfolded quickly: Extremist cut three in neck, police say
18. If you are ever forced to make a hostage video, look at every person present (make eye contact), or blink with both eyes once, for each person. This will let responding forces know how many people are in the room.
19. If you are in a hostage situation, and a gunman is using you as a shield, fall dead weight to the floor. Make them drag you. They won’t. Give the good guys a clear shot.
20. If you are lost, or in distress, “Three” is the international sign of distress. Three piles of rocks or fires in a triangle, three gun shots or whistle blows. Distress signal – Wikipedia
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EDIT: Lots of people have commented that tires are near impossible to puncture, and that it would blow your hand apart.
First, tires are ridiculously easy to puncture in the side walls. When I was a teen, my 16 year old girlfriend flattened one of my tires with a tiny two inch folding pocket knife on her first try.
Next, there is only 32-35 pounds of pressure in a car tire, there is NO WAY your hand is going to be blown apart. The air just wizzes out and the tire slowly deflates.
They took my dad’s P-38 can opener. He’d had it since Vietnam.
image 379
If you’ve never had the pleasure of using a P-38 can opener, you can barely open a can with one without some practice, and even then, a brisk pace for a can of tuna is about two minutes.
Theoretically, you could cut someone with the pointy bit, but honestly, how? Just about any way you hold it, your fingers either eclipse the tooth or you don’t have a stable grip.
If someone randomly threw ten other can openers at you, the P-38 would undoubtedly be the slowest, least intuitive, and least useful as a potential weapon (unless maybe you tried to poison someone with it).
Add to this that my dad is 5′3″ and was over 70 and it just seems kind of cruel. He’d had that can opener for over 40 years.
Fortunately, he had three other P-38s, all of which were confiscated by the TSA within the next three or four years. He liked wearing them around his neck and it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to forget you’re wearing, especially if you aren’t a frequent flyer.
I still have one P-38 in a sewing kit for when I go camping, in case I forget my Swiss Army Knife or can’t find a rock. There are a few, rare people out there who can fly with a P-38, but most people take at least a few minutes to figure out exactly how you’re supposed to hook it to the can, then immediately give up and ask if you’re fucking kidding them. How is this worth saving a few ounces?
I’ve never seen anyone open their first can in under 20 minutes, and again, most give up immediately if any other option is available.
I can’t imagine anyone deliberately attempting to hijack an airplane with a P-38. It’s incredibly satisfying just to see someone actually open a can with one, and I think you’d have trouble vandalizing a bicycle tire. They just aren’t conducive to doing much of anything, even opening cans.
I served for 6 years, and there are just some things ingrained in me that I’ll never be able to get out. Most of them are positive habits, as well. For instance, waking up early without a clock, just pure instinct or something. I wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning most of the time, and am fully showered, shaved, dressed, and fed by seven o’clock.
If I say I’ll do something, then I will do it. I don’t procrastinate or break promises unless I am, quite literally, forced to.
I still use military time and terminology. This confuses people a lot, but after a few years of knowing me, they get used to it and understand me perfectly.
I’m very rigid and studious about cleanliness and perfection. The military turned me into a neat freak, and that is a great habit to have. I don’t even think about leaving my house if the beds are unmade, floors unswept, clothes not put-away, and every surface hasn’t been scrubbed down. Including walls, doorknobs, cabinets and tables… especially kid’s rooms! You’d be surprised how much gunk can build up in as little as three days.
I rush a lot. If there’s some kind of an event at six o’clock, I’m ready by four. My wife and kids really hate this a lot. They can never understand why I rush so much, and how it’s humanly possible to perform the three S’s in 15 minutes (shit, shower, shave in that order.)
It’s incredibly productive though. I always have a lot of extra time on my hands, because I simply do not tolerate lollygagging. I can get so much done in a day, it even amazes my own self!
I can do the three S’s, eat, take the kids to school and go to work, wash my car and perform maintenance on it, hang up pictures, clean, go grocery-shopping, do laundry, and help my wife prepare dinner without even thinking about it. I know some people who take much longer to do this stuff (no shame on them, everyone has their own paces, but still) or don’t even think about it until somebody reminds them.
Of course, there is bad stuff that comes with being in the military, especially when you’ve fought in a war. I can be really bossy, controlling, and just harsh sometimes. I mean, I can see how and why, it’s not classed as cool to have your dad yell at you to wash the dishes and sort out your clean clothes when your friends are over. It’s just the way I was taught in boot camp, the way I learned, the way they instilled discipline and decency in me.
I did manage to work on these issues, and be a more understanding father and husband, while still imprinting necessary habits and values into them.
Another habit is that I still like to dig holes, especially at the beach
Imagine you walked into the doctor’s office. You sit down in your assigned room waiting for the doctor to come in.
You look up.
And up there on the wall was your doctor’s diploma.
“…Institute for Racial Purity.”
And that is literally one of the schools where Dr. Mengele, a.k.a. The Angel of Death, studied.
His thesis from college? In layman’s terms: how to determine someone’s race by their lower jaw.
Glad they checked that box. Huge sarcasm.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a doctor who more violated the Hippocratic Oath (don’t harm your patients) than Dr. Mengele.
Him, featured in the middle:
image 377
And in this picture, he is the only one who wasn’t hanged after the war ended. And he sure as hell deserved it.
Much of his research involved race and racial supremacy in some way, and was often carried out on people who were deemed as outside the circle of purity.
He did twin studies where he purposely killed one twin to test the reaction of the other twin.
He sewed two children together just to see if he could artificially create Siamese twins.
He had a woman’s breasts tied off to study how long it took her baby to starve to death.
I’ll stop.
Just know this — there’s a long list of absolutely nightmarish experiments that Dr. Mengele carried out on other human beings. He often frequently brought candies and did nice things for children in his prison camp, only days before he turned them into white smoke in the chimneys. He was a truly, truly, truly twisted man.
After the war ended, he escaped to South America where he lived decades longer, a free man, dying of a stroke in 1979 at age 67 in Brazil.
If ever there was a doctor deserving to die by execution, it was Mengele.
I’m not a surgeon, but heard this story from a family friend who used to work at the NIH with a highly successful and recognized surgical oncologist (I’ll call him Dr. S) who told this story.
I heard it secondhand, so don’t have all the details, but think it’s a pretty amazing story regardless (apologize in advance for my clear lack of medical terminology).
Anyway, Dr. S gets a patient with late stage cancer, who had a good sized tumor somewhere in his midsection. It’s believed to potentially be operable on, so the man is prepped for surgery and Dr. S begins by opening up the patient’s abdomen.
To go off on a quick tangent, do you know why cancer is called cancer? It’s no coincidence it has the same name as the crab in the zodiac. Tumors are rarely one self contained sphere — they have “legs” that branch out in all different directions, and kinda sorta resemble a crab. I encourage you to look it up, and it’s one of the reasons it’s so much easier to treat cancer when you catch it early…usually the small “lump” is only the visible portion of the tumor”
Back to the story, as Dr. S described it, it was one of the worst tumors he had ever seen, and the cancer was so developed that surgery was going to be impossible. So, the good surgeon had no other choice but to sew the patient back up and give him the prognosis. There was no further treatment that could be done.
About two or three years go by, and Dr. S sees a patient’s file with a familiar name come across his desk. Dr. S recognized it as the man he operated on a few years prior, but no way it could be the same guy, right?
The man had come back in for something unrelated to his cancer (though I think something that involved a CT scan). When Dr. S went to see him, he saw none other than the patient he sewed up two years prior, standing there in good health. Despite having had treated thousands of patients, Dr. S was in shock. They talked for a few minutes, and I wanna say Dr. S got permission to look at the man’s most recent scans, and there was no sign of the cancer. Zero. It was completely gone.
No, the guy hadn’t found another surgeon nor underwent chemo, in fact, Dr. S was the last person to have even operated on him. The only explanation was that the immune system had recognized the tumor as a foreign body / threat and destroyed it.
____
With parents in the medical field, I have heard several other similar-ish stories, but this one by far is the most amazing one I’ve heard.
As a disclaimer, this is very much a true story (though I don’t remember the type of cancer or the name of the doctor). Although what happened is extremely rare, it’s not impossible — the human body and immune system are capable of extraordinary things. It’s no surprise there are several cancer treatments that focus on simply getting the immune system to recognize and fight the cancer.
Not exactly ignorance, but certainly displaying a certain amount of naïveté was the following incident.
I was an exchange student in 1969/70 in Wayne Michigan. My American host family were very friendly with their neighbours, so I got to know them quite well as well during the course of that year.
Anyway, after a year in the USA, I went back to finish my degree and after graduation and landing my first job soon saved up enough money to revisit my host family and introduce to them my long term girlfriend, who came along.
We didn’t forget to visit our old neighbour Pat, who by then had bought a dilapidated golf course up North in Michigan and moved there living in a trailer, while he did the place up.
What struck me though, was what he said after greeting me enthusiastically. He just couldn’t believe fresh out of uni, I’d already saved up enough for two plane tickets and a short US holiday. He said: “I thought we were the richest nation on Earth? I worked all my life and never been to Europe. Couldn’t afford it! And here you are again?”
I think many Americans cannot comprehend the fact that per capita GDP and disposable income in most West European and Scandinavian countries is at least similar, if not higher as theirs.
image 376
My host family’s house and my brother for the year, Ed junior.
Cantonese Shoyu Chicken
Shoyu Chicken Recipe 5 Edit
Ingredients
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped
1 1/2 cups water
5 cloves garlic, grated
1 seed star anise
1/4 cup scallions, cut into 1/2-inch lengths
1 (3 pound) fryer, cut up
2 tablespoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons water
Instructions
Bring soy sauce, honey, brown sugar, water, ginger, anise, garlic and scallion to a boil. Lower heat and let simmer for 2 minutes.
Add chicken; cover and simmer for 40 minutes.
Arrange chicken on a platter.
Mix cornstarch with water; add to sauce to thicken. Pour sauce over chicken and serve.
I was arrested in 1987 at the age of 17. Up until then I lived the simple life of a farm boy. There was no internet cell phones etc.
In prison I was schooled by old heads who taught me how to do time. I wasn’t a knucklehead kid coming to prison like many today. I listened to what they told me. Many of them did not believe I should be in prison. One even said I wasn’t a criminal even though I committed a crime in the eyes of the law. Anyway, I was influenced by their thinking and what they told me. Some may say they brainwashed me . I say they were trying to keep me alive. MSP was a very dangerous and violent place. I did my entire 29 years based on what I learned from them.
Now it is 2016 and I get out of prison. Two things you have to realize. One is I went to prison in the 1980s and I got out thinking people would still have the same societal thinking as the 1980s. While some thinking is the same or similar a lot has changed in the way people think. The second is I came out with a prison mentality that even 7 years later I struggle with sometimes
Everyone thought I would have a hard time adjusting to technology. Even I thought that. However, I caught on to that pretty quick. I mean, I still have things to learn , but I know enough to get by. It is fascinating that I am writing this and as soon as it is posted , someone anywhere in the world can read it. The same with emails, messages etc. Absolutely amazing to me.
The hardest thing has been adjusting to society itself. Most of my life has been spent in prison so for awhile it was hard just to get used to doing things without being told I can do it. I mean for the first week I was out I would not even walk outside without someone going with me or being told .lol I laugh about it now. I wouldn’t turn on the TV because it wasn’t mine. This confused those In the house. They finally made me do it. But first they had to show me how the remote worked. Then there was being in public. I really do not understand young people. Many do not like you to hold the door for them.Many young women take offense at being called “Miss” or “ma am” This is how I was raised and I am just trying to be polite. One incident was weird to me. I was standing in line at Casey’s and there were two teenage girls behind me . One says “He has a nice a**” I turned and said “I am old enough to be your father” To which she says”I was just giving you a compliment. I have a boyfriend. Chill old man”
Another amazing thing to me still 7 years later is just going into a store. I don’t like being in them if they are crowded, but the wide variety of things to buy is amazing to me. People think I am amazed because the prison commissary didn’t have much. Well that may be part of it, but there is even a wider variety in stores now then before I went to prison. I am live in a small town and grew up in a small town and there is one thing I missed in prison that is still common in small towns. I don’t know about big cites Anyway that is the friendliness of people once they know you. I can go out in public here in town and people will greet me and ask how I am doing. Talk about the weather etc Just today a guy said to me “Harve how are you doing? When are you going to let me buy you a beer?” I respond with “When they let me off parole”
I’ve answered this question numerous times before.
Listen up!
Most of the products exported out of China… outbound to the United States…are made by American companies, making American products, to an American audience, and being sold at American prices, and the American owners obtain the profits.
The only Chinese component to this system is the workers who assemble those products, and the raw materials that are obtained out of China.
…
It is important to those (whom ever they may be) who run the United States “government” to keep the American people ignorant, and stupid of the actual Geo-political realities regarding China.
To this end, they distort numbers, figures and data to provide the ILLUSION that…
The United States is stronger than it actually is.
China is weaker than it actually is.
A good case in point is “export data” that promote the idea that of the total exports out of China, a massive “Lion’s Share” of it goes to the United States. Depending on the source… all Western sources… the percentages vary from 25% to 60%. So the viewer would obtain an impressive picture of the relative strength of USA – China trade.
This is a laughable distortion.
Remember… those figures are American companies, collecting American profits, on American products… made in China using inexpensive Chinese labor.
The actual number… ACTUAL Chinese products exported to the United States is around 3.2%.
You will see them in the USA from time to time. But their actual value is really quite low.
Huawei
Gree
X-Peng
ShaoMi
Most of that enormous product flow that is so touted about leaving China fore the United States consists of …
GM transmissions
iPhones
Nike shoes
SONY electronics
All of which are American, or Western products. Not Chinese products.
…
So let’s answer this question…
If America stopped importing goods from China, could the country survive?
China would survive, most certainly. China manufactures for the world, and the United States market is a small, nearly insignificant amount. 3.2% as a whole.
The USA would not survive. Unless the United States found a suitable nation that could provide factories, inexpensive labor, a skilled work force, and a focus on quality… most Americans would be flat out of luck in buying and using products.
At the age of thirty-six, I was pregnant for the first time. Because of my age, my doctors advised me to have an amniocentesis to make sure everything was okay. After an amniocentesis, you have to wait about ten-to-twelve days to get the results. I had the test and I waited…and waited.
After twelve days, I started to call, but the results were not there yet. Something seemed wrong. Finally, after fourteen days, the genetic doctor called me. The results had come back and were devastating. The amniocentesis showed that the baby had a double set of chromosomes. This is a rare condition and almost all embryos with this condition are miscarried early, often before the mother even realizes that she is pregnant. Very few make it to birth, and if they are born, they die soon afterwards. The condition is just not compatible with life. The genetic doctor was surprised that I was still pregnant and informed me that I would soon miscarry.
I was of course devastated as were my husband and mom and everyone. I went to a medical library and it was difficult to find anything on this chromosomal disorder since so few live births occurred, but I did find a couple of articles. Only two babies (at the time) had been born alive and both had died within two days. One of the articles had a picture of one of these babies. She was blind, deaf, and deformed. This was what I was told that the baby that I was carrying was facing.
My obstetrician wanted to do an abortion. Instead, I made a decision to repeat the amniocentesis. The genetic doctor admitted that there could be a one-in-a-thousand chance of a mistake, but then he changed his mind, and said there was no chance of a mistake, and I just needed to accept this diagnosis. In a few days I went in and had another amniocentesis. For twelve days I waited for the results to return. I cried and cried while I was waiting. Finally the results came back and showed that a horrible mistake had been made. The test showed absolutely normal chromosomes. I went on to have a healthy pregnancy and a beautiful baby. This baby grew up, graduated from one of the finest universities in the world, and now has a beautiful baby of her own.
My parents told me this story. When I was 8 years old living in the UK, my dad took a job opportunity in the USA and we emigrated. My parents decided to rent out our home in the UK so before we left we were showing the house to perspective tenants. One was an American guy. Turns out he was from the same city in the US that we were about to move to in a few weeks time. They laughed over the coincidence and the American guy said that his adult daughter is still in the US and we should look her up when we get there. He gave us her name and that she works in a particular restaurant in the city.
Fast forward a few weeks and fly to the US. we arrive at the airport, tired after flying halfway across the world! We are met at the airport by a representative of my dad’s new company and he drives us to a hotel. On the way we stop for some food. It’s late and there’s not a lot of places still open. The rep says he knows a place that’s open late. Yep, the same place the American tenant’s daughter works at. We end up getting served by her! So we rent out our UK home to a random American guy and move to America and end up meeting the guy’s daughter working half an hour of leaving the airport!
The Bourne Identity (2002) | *First Time Watching* | Movie Reaction | Asia and BJ
Her name was Monica. She was a 16-year-old cashier, and “epic” is a great word to describe how she quit. This was in the mid 90’s, and I was an assistant manager at that time for a very small movie theater in Louisiana. Monica was a box office cashier, and Eric was the general manager. Now that I’ve set the scene, let’s begin.
First of all, it gets hot in Louisiana during the summer. Really hot. The theater opened at 11 AM every day, so by then it was already a scorching hot day. Every morning, one of those sweeper trucks would go through our parking lot and remove all of the trash from the night before. On this particular day, they hadn’t shown up. I can’t remember if the truck had broken down or if they had just forgotten to show up. Regardless, there was trash EVERYWHERE in the parking lot. Popcorn bags, cups, cigarette butts, dirty diapers, you name it.
Eric was very lazy. He was the kind of manager that just sat in the office all day and would never help the employees. No one liked him, but he was the boss. When Monica came in, Eric told her to go outside and pick up all of the trash in the parking lot. I told Eric that wasn’t her job, and to call the sweeper company. He refused. I told Eric I would go outside and help her then. He refused and told me I was going to go to box office and sell tickets. I told her to just pick up the big stuff . Monica took a trash bag and went outside. Through tears she started picking up trash. She was out there for over an hour. Through the box office window I saw her picking up every cigarette butt, every popcorn kernel, every dirty diaper. By the time she finished, the trash bag was completely full, and Monica was a sweaty mess. She also hadn’t gone to the dumpster with the trash bag, but had walked into the theater with it. Her tears were gone. Then, I saw one of the greatest things I had ever seen. Eric was sitting at his desk with his back to the office door. He didn’t see Monica walk in the office. She took that full bag of nastiness and poured it over Eric’s head. Old soda, cigarette butts, and stale popcorn landed on his head and all over his desk. She then took the now-empty bag and tossed it on his head as well, smiled, then said “I quit” and walked out. At that moment, she became a hero.
The story of the wife that assisted in my “retirement” from the ONI; MAJ is a long one and very painful for me to revisit.
You see, I was the FOURTH “husband” that she “retired”.
I originally thought it was two, but I discovered out later that she had three previous "husbands". Of course, they were bad, bla bla bla... And yes, each one ended up with problems. Where she profited greatly.
And while I don’t know ALL the details, it appears that I was the one that she got NOTHING out of. For she was living off the collective finances of the three previous “husbands”, whether insurance, alimony, or selling their resources. She got none of that with me.
Because of this…
… because of this failure in her efforts (sure she got me arrested, and I lost everything, she gained nothing.) She ended up with nothing. No profit. No money. No resources. No insurance settlements.
I think when you are expecting millions of dollars from bringing in “one big fish” only to see it go South, it turns you a little crazy. Or “crazier”.
And she has kept on doing everything in her power to “trip me up” and give me a hard time. Here is one such story…
…
When I was in the ADC, prison, I had to endure an all morning lie detector test. I, along with another 16 inmates were marched down to the gym, and waited as one by one, we were given lie detector tests. This one was quite different from the stuff that you see on television.
While it did measure heart-rate, body temperature and nerve impulses, it also measured voice. It was designed to look for changes in frequency and amplitude. Which was a novel idea. I had never thought about this. So all these measurements were taking place while watching my pupils dilate and all the rest. The system was designed to see ho my body reacted to all sorts of personal questions of a sexual and an interactive nature.
I answered as best as I could, and at the end the investigator told me that I wasn’t hiding anything. And of course, I wasn’t. As at that time, I had given up everything. I was stripped, defeated and was completely unguarded… an open book. Once you lose everything, you just don’t give a fuck any longer. It just doesn’t matter.
In fact, the other inmates made fun of me saying that “you can’t lie for shit“. I was that much of a predictable open book.
The point of this was to adjust our threat level. There were three threat levels. And when I was “retired” from MAJ in the ADV Pine Bluff, they established the lowest threat level for me.
But, apparently, my ex-wife, the one trying to poison me as part of my “retirement” wanted to raise all sorts of Hell for me, and this was one of her efforts. So she got the ADC geared up to give me a hard time. Sigh.
Federal Rules for classification are fixed.
I have level one. I possessed illegal pictures.
Level two would only be granted if I had physical contact with a minor.
And Level three was bodily harm to a minor.
So there was no way that my level was going to change. But they had to run a lie detector on me, by request by my ex-wife, to make sure that I wasn’t hiding anything. Sheech!
And if they suspected anything… they could keep me locked up indefinitely. How about that for control and power?
…
Ugh. Memories like this really get me into MAJ induced rages. Good thing that I auto calm, and am way, way, way outside the USA right now.
Not me but happened to a friend of mine: she worked in a large law firm in Dublin, Ireland. Her boss was a total prick, probably a psychopath. During the recession they cut people’s wages and even stopped serving coffee at meetings in order to cut costs – not that any of the senior partners took wage cuts. It is very expensive to live in Dublin; the situation was so bad that there was a constant stream of young, under-paid, financially struggling solicitors entering his office and begging for a pay-rise, any kind of pay-rise. With every one of them he pointed to a tray on his desk filled with c.v.’s and said if you don’t want to work here I have a large bundle of applicants who would be happy your take your job. No one got a raise.
Things came to a head when my friend entered an open competition for a position with the state-run Residential Tenancy Board, a kind of mediation body for disputes between landlords and tenants. It was known that my friend, along with several others in the same firm had sat the exam, and she scored extremely high, placing near the top of the panel. It was rumoured that the boss had applied as well. At the end of the office day he approached her desk and basically accused her of rummaging through another colleague’s desk and stealing his notes for the exam – something along the lines of “How can you prove to me that you didn’t go through Brian’s desk, and read his notes?” (Not that he gave a shit about Brian). This is a lawyer, asking another lawyer to prove her innocence under the presumption of guilt, that she was guilty until she could prove herself innocent. She knew this situation was untenable and said well I wouldn’t do that because it’s immoral, and illegal but it now seems clear to me that it might be best if I work somewhere else – she basically quit there and then in the most tasteful and honourable fashion. He exploded on the spot, demanding to know who would take over her cases and workload. She replied, “Well, you have a large bundle of c.v’s on your desk, hire one of them.”
China has been the biggest power for 4800 out of the last 5000 years yet China did not invade or colonise nations thousands of miles from their shore!
China will not do what the U.S. do. That is for sure. It does not want to dictate to the world. It is too mature and responsible. China don’t see it is right or is it worthwhile for it to interfere and intervene every where. The repercussions to the U.S. is much greater than the U.S. dares to admit and bit by bit the U.S. benefits will evaporate and the humongous cost to the US will come home to roost.
China wants a free and vibrant world that is doing well and prosperous. When a peaceful and harmonious world becomes a reality China will trade with everyone. That is good for China, the Chinese people and the world too. Wars, interference and interventions are costly and harmful for the world. China sees it vividly and clearly that respecting the sovereignty of all nations is good for the world.
Just think about the U.S. spend billions building aircraft carriers and spend further billions to manned it and spend more billions circling the globe aimlessly. And if these interference lead to war, more billions need to be spend to fight these wars. And what does the US gets in returned? Mainly hates and disdained is all that they earn!
China is not blind and it is certainly very smart. It won’t want to do what the U.S. do. Not now, not in the past and not in the future! To China, the U.S. is “throwing sand in the sea” and basically self destructing.
Thirteen years after my dad died, we were notified that his father purchased land in another state, now owned by his children. A gas well was drilled on the property. Since my dad had died, his portion went to his three children. This is where the greedy part comes in.
My mom heard about this, I assume from my sister. She discovered that only us kids got to divide my dad’s portion. This news pissed her off to no end. Immediately, she got an attorney and demanded her share of the gas lease.
When the company that drilled the gas well communicates with the family, they copy EVERYONE. This is how I learned that my mom hired an attorney to ensure she got a piece of the pie. (I have been no contact with my narcissistic mother for fifteen years.) My mom took me out of her will years ago; she wanted to make sure I didn’t get too much. My mom’s actions were out of revenge and greed. If she couldn’t get it ALL, then she was going to make sure that I didn’t get more money than her.
Here is the best part. After years of waiting, my husband and I finally got a big check. One day, out of the blue, we received a envelope which we thought was another letter about the gas lease. After opening the envelope we could see it was a check. We were in disbelief, our jaws dropped, we could barely contain our excitement. As we looked at the numbers on the check, our minds began to wonder about the amount that was on my mom’s check. This was unreal. It was like no other point in our lives. This check changed our lives. It was the answer to our prayers. It proved to us the existence of karma!
After my husband and I calmed down, we started discussing how and where we would spend our $35.00. But more importantly, we laughed all the way to the bank, thinking about how much money my mom spent on an attorney to get a check that was less than $50. It was the best check we had ever received!
My dad’s share of the lease was 1/8th. Since he had passed, his three kids would split that into three equal portions. From what we can tell mom got 1/2 of dad’s share and left the other half to be split into thirds. In the comments people say that my mom is entitled to my dad’s share. I agree, yes she is. But the way she went about it was based on anger, revenge, and manipulation. I would have gladly given her my share if she’d asked. The last time my mom and I talked it was on this issue, I told her if I got any money from this I would put it in savings for my son – her grandson – who has a neurological disease. She decided to get the money for herself, which meant that she was so mad at me that she would take money from her grandson.
I worked in security at Heathrow Airport for a number of years and one of my roles was to process departing passengers. One day a tallish man tried reaching over a perspex barrier to retrieve a bag that was emerging from the x-ray machine. I was in the process of removing it in order that it could be inspected. He said “Do you know who I am?
I did. I won’t name him but he was the son of our serving prime minister at the time. He was the one who got lost for a few days whilst engaged upon a car rally across the Sahara desert.
Had he been as important as he thought he was he would have been escorted by the security service.
When I was a young boy in Calcutta, one of my mother’s friends used to come over to our home on Sunday evenings and enjoy a glass (more like 7 glasses) of scotch. He was the MD of a medium size publicly listed company, a colourful character, had led an exciting life and always had stupefying stories to tell. He later went on to become the chairman of a very, very large listed Indian steel giant.
It might just have been the alcohol talking but he told us this.
He was at work one day when an ordinary looking man entered his office without an appointment. He invited himself in, sat down across the desk. Put his hand inside his bag, took out a sleek black pistol and put on on the table, barrel facing the Managing Director. He said, “look how bad your current security is, I could get in with a gun and so can anyone else. I represent XYZ Security firm. Our retainership amount per annum is Rs ABC. When do we start?”
When we moved in to our new house in 2020, my then 17-year-old son got his own bathroom. It wasn’t an en-suite, but it was right next to his bedroom and rather isolated from the rest of the house, so while others may use it, that was “his” bathroom.
One of the first things he did after moving in was get a nice-looking basket which he filled with a selection of high quality feminine hygiene products and placed on the back of the toilet.
He had read that a courteous host does that to make the women in their lives feel comfortable and welcome and to save them embarrassment if the need arises.
I think your husband’s friend needs to grow up at least as much as my teenager.
Edit —-
Before you think he’s too awesome, realize if I didn’t clean his bathroom, no self-respecting woman would ever use it.
I had tickets to see Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young at the Tampa Bowl on a nice warm evening. We got there early and as it was stadium seating we spread our blanket maybe 20 rows from the stage, right in the center. When the band came out they announced that they had a permit that would allow them to play into the wee hours but they were going to start the concert with some acoustic music.
During the first bars of the first tune the boos started. “We want rock and roll!!!” and so on. The noise from a mob of clowns down front was drowning out the music. Then someone threw a beer bottle onto the stage. The concert stopped abruptly. One of the singers again announced that the would play rock and roll until the wee hours but they intended to play an acoustic set first. The cheers drowned out the boos.
They started again but the assholes made it difficult to hear. For the second song, Neil Young sat down at the piano and started doing a solo. You may not believe this, but a “cool” thing to do among assholes back the was to get a mouthful of lighter fluid and as they spit it out they’d light it. People were shooting flaming liquids toward the stage. Finally, the police came in and hauled off a couple of morons. Young started to play again and there was more shouting and a beer bottle landed in the piano. Then a cherry bomb landed on the keyboard and exploded. Young got up and walked backstage.
The stadium went silent. Ten minutes later a helicopter landed behind the stage and it took off right away. The stadium lights came up and a guy walked out and announced that the band had left and the concert was over. We headed towards the other end of the stadium and out because we feared what the scumbags might do. That was the entire concert.
The tattoo is supposed to be a very serious and deliberate thing because it is permanent in a sense. However, here are some people who did a very funny tattoo in Chinese character. Maybe they did not know what is the real meaning of these Chinese or, I don’t know, they just want?
I saw many tattoo pictures of the non-Chinese person on the Internet and they can be roughly divided into three kinds.
1. Chinese old sayings
People did this type of tattoos generally know the meaning of that, but Chinese people rarely tattoo them on their bodies.
Beckham’s Chinese body tattoo
image 372
(Translation: Life and death are fated, riches and honour depend on the appointment of heaven)
Kenyon Martin
image 371
(Translation:Worry about personal gains and losses)
This Chinese idiom refers to very selfish people who pay too much attention to their own gains and losses.
Jameer Nelson
image 370
(Translation: Nothing is a taboo.)
2. Chinese food
A 20-year-old British designer fancies Chinese cuisine very much. One day, she came up with an idea that tattooed Chinese cuisine names on her waist.
image 369
(Translation: Sweet and sour chicken; fried noodle with beef; fried rice with egg and chicken meatballs.)
It looks like she printed a Chinese restaurant menu on the body. Next time she walks into a Chinese restaurant, all she has to do is rolling up her tops and say: I want this. Interesting.
This man got “Fried rice with pork” on his calf.
image 368
(Translation: fried rice with pork)
???
Are these people trying to cook themselves?
image 367
(Translation: Fish ball soup and sweet sour meat)
3. Some very confusing tattoos that are beyond my imagination
This is the funniest part. Many tattoos are far beyond my understanding.
My husband had been raised by his grandparents so felt he owed them. We devoted our time to taking care of them and their house. We took them shopping, did the gardening, painted, built the wheel chair ramp and anything else they wanted. They had a daughter and grandchildren who refused to do anything. She said they lived their life now we are going to live ours. Then grandparents and us got the flu, they had a disabled daughter who was staying with us since grandma was in the hospital. She got released and we were told not to go near her. We asked the daughter to go get her and take her home, she sent the granddaughter. Granddaughter let her out in the street and drove away. Grandma called us and disabled daughter wanted to go home. I called the other daughter and told her off, granddaughter had to go to the airport to get her boyfriend. Why couldn’t she come after she got him, or her married brother? Her brother had to be home with the wife and kids. Grandma said let the disabled daughter come home. Grandma defended the daughter’s family. My husband was not included in the estate only his aunt. He was nothing to them but a handyman. He gave up and said we were moving unless he was in the will. We moved away and let them take care of the grandparents however they want. Grandma was widowed by then. Not sorry I told off his aunt. I never lose my temper or use harsh language, so they knew I was mad.
Chicken with Mangoes
Mango Chicken 3 1
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 whole chicken breasts
1 (2 x 1-inch) piece fresh ginger root
8 scallions
1 (15 ounce) can mangoes
3 cups vegetable oil
3 tablespoons white vinegar
3 tablespoons dry sherry
4 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon granules
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
Combine flour, 1 cup of the water, the salt and baking powder. Beat with whisk until blended. Let stand 15 minutes.
Remove skin and bones from chicken and discard. Cut chicken into 1/4-inch wide strips. Mix strips into flour mixture.
Pare ginger and cut into wafer-thin slices.
Cut onions into 1/2-inch pieces.
Drain mangoes and cut into 1/2-inch wide strips.
Heat vegetable oil in wok over high heat until it reaches 375 degrees F. Add chicken, one strip at a time, to hot oil (cook only 1/4 of the chicken at a time). Cook until golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain on absorbent paper. Repeat to cook remaining chicken.
Remove all but 1 tablespoon oil from wok. Reduce heat to medium. Add ginger to oil in wok. Stir fry until ginger is light brown, about 2 minutes.
Combine remaining 3/4 cup water, the vinegar, sherry, soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, bouillon and sesame oil. Carefully add to ginger all at once. Cook and stir until mixture boils.
Add onions. Reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes.
Mix chicken and mangoes into soy sauce mixture. Cook and stir 2 minutes.
There’s a newspaper in St. Catharines, Ontario, called The Standard.
The lady who worked the classified ad desk never missed a day of work. Rain or shine, sickness or health, she was there taking orders for classified ads which, at the time (the 1990s), were the lifeblood of any newspaper.
Then, one day, she had to be rushed to hospital.
And that day, ad revenues were twice what they had ever been.
A quick check of actual advertising revealed the paper was only being paid for half the ads they ran. An investigation showed that their classified clerk was moving large amounts of money through her bank account, mostly to go on shopping sprees.
They quickly figured out the reason she never missed a day is that her replacement would immediately notice that a lot more money was coming in than usual, which would indicate she was skimming half the proceeds for herself.,
I was working in Manhattan. I got a call from my kid’s school that he wasn’t feeling well and had to go pick him up. I had just finished developing a CD-based training program (this is early 90s, before this stuff was done online). On my way out, my assistant told me the CD master had just arrived and gave me a little plastic bag with the CD in it. I was in a hurry to leave and figured I could drop off the CD at home with my kid before returning to work.
Getting around Manhattan basically means getting into and out of yellow cabs. It’s pretty easy to find one.
image 355
Typical New York street
I catch a cab to my kid’s school. About 15 minutes later, I get dropped off. I greet my little one in the headmaster’s office and tell him we’re off to the doctor’s. As I’m waving down a taxi with my kid’s hand in mine, I realize I don’t have the CD bag. We go back into the school and it’s not there. Nobody remembered seeing me with a bag and, frankly, I didn’t remember having it in hand when I walked into the school. Oh, well, I thought, that was stupid. This was before Uber where you could call your ride to check on the back seat. This was, in fact, before everyone had cell phones. The bag and CD were gone.
I refocused on getting my kid to the doctor. Got him checked out. Got into another cab to a nearby pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Walked home and dropped my kid off with his nanny who was waiting there.
All this time I was hopeful they would be able to reproduce the CD master, wondering how long it might take, if it might delay the project, if I should tell my boss, etc.
I wave down a cab to go back to my office. While I’m thinking about all these things I see a bag on the floor. I pick it up and pull out my CD.
My assistant sees me walking in with the bag. “How is your baby? I thought you were dropping that off at home.”
“Kid is fine. Oh, the CD, yeah…” I figured she wouldn’t believe me if it told her the truth.
I watched an investigative reporter type show look at liens in Ontario. It turns out that in Ontario they have this weird, habit of leasing hot water heaters, like it’s a car or something expensive. When they install the hot water heater, you sign a contract that lets them put a lien on your house until the hot water heater is paid off. They were typically 10 year leases. The lien is on the house , regardless of who owns it, and new owners just continue paying the lease, if you don’t pay it out. Anyway, there were some crooked companies that took advantage of this, and wouldn’t let you sell your house, without paying out the lease, and they wanted huge penalties, tens of thousands of dollars for early payment. Picture this, you have sold your house for $800,000, and everything clears, but it can’t be completed, because of this lien. They ask you for $15,000 to break the lease on a hot water heater that was worth $800 new. What do you do? Lose the sale? Pay the breakage fee?
So I would do what you can to find out early, because you don’t want to be held over a barrel when you go to sell it.
When I was in, I think, my 2nd or 3rd job in computers, my company was rolling out email and word processing applications on our central computer. This was the late 80s and it was all green screen with satellite offices using PCs as dumb terminals.
I was sent out to all the sites to do maintenance on the PCs and train the personnel how to use the new applications.
Our business was primarily prepacked concrete mix for contractors and homeowners. At each location they would mix and bag the product for distribution to their regions.
At every plant I went to, when I opened the PC case, there was a 1/2in of powdered concrete covering the motherboard. It’s a wonder any of the machines didn’t crash from overheating!
Decades ago, I received a past-due notice for a loan payment to a bank I’d never done business with. Puzzled, I called the bank. After explaining my confusion three times, I finally was talking with someone who had sense enough to look into it instead of fobbing me off to someone else.
“Did you make a purchase from Such-and-such Music Store?” Indeed, I’d purchased a piano for my wife a month or so earlier. (Might’ve been nice if the salesman had mentioned they’d turn the loan over to a third party, but whatever.)
I then asked the bank worker how the *very first* communication I’d received from the bank could be a past-due notice.
“You should have received a payment coupon book,” she said. (As indicated, this was ages ago.)
“I’ve received nothing from you till this,” I replied.
And then, to my everlasting amazement, she said, “I know. The printing company we use had an equipment breakdown and the coupon books haven’t gone out for a while.”
That “I know” blew me away. The bank *knew* their customers weren’t being told when their payments would be due, and how much they would be—and, in cases such as mine, didn’t even know their loan had been sold to that bank—and instead of notifying people, they just sent out overdue notices.
With a late fee attached, of course.
So I told the nice lady that I’d be happy to make the payment, but I would not stand for a late charge.
Now it was her turn to be puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t late—*you* were!”
In the end, she had to have a VP call me later, and after I went over it all again, he agreed it was kinda dumb for them to send late notices to people who didn’t even know they had a loan with that bank, he waived the late fee.
I got my driver’s license near the end of my sophomore year of high school. I got my first car a few days before that… a used ’86 Bonneville.
From that week forward, I was 100% responsible for getting myself anywhere I needed to go, including to and from school, my friends’ houses, and my after-school job. I already had a key to the house. I had a “curfew” of 10pm, but my parents always said that “whatever side of the door I’m on when they go to bed at 10 is where I’m going to be all night.” They had a chain lock on the inside of the door, so my key was useless if they locked it that way, which they did every night when they went to sleep.
Fortunately for me, I wasn’t very social and I didn’t stay out late anyway. They made exceptions for nights when I was working. I was a prep sports stringer for the local newspaper, and some nights I didn’t get home until 1am because I was covering a game several counties away.
My parents never actually locked me out. My sister, on the other hand, was locked out a few times because she missed curfew. My father was nice enough to put a recliner and a blanket for her on our screened-in porch. She slept out there more than once because she got home late.
It was the South, so it didn’t get too cold most nights. I doubt I could get away with that with my kids here in Chicago.
In 2015, one day a school boy named Amit was going to school. On the way he was hit by a car. Amit was bleeding, he needed immediate medical help but that car driver didn’t even stop and he didn’t feel to take Amit to nearby hospital. Amit was lying on the road, some people came and took him to a hospital but unfortunately he died. Amit’s dad Jitendra ji came to see his son and he was shocked to know about his little child is no more. Amit’s mom was in deep grief. In just a moment a happy family was shattered.
image 353
Image source: Web/Google
Jitendra ji filed a complaint but the police didn’t investigate. They even closed the case without informing Jitendra ji. This was ridiculous!
Jitendra ji and his wife just wanted to know his son’s killer. They wanted to question that man why he left Amit alone to die, he could have been saved if he was taken to hospital on time. They just wanted a Sorry. Was that so difficult??
Jitendra ji decided he will find that man who killed his beloved son. On the accident spot, he found a broken rear mirror and a broken car number plate. Car number was not full, but on the mirror there was a number. He asked from the local service centre but every time he got dissappointment. One day with hell lot of efforts a mechanic told him that this mirror is of a Maruti Car. Jitendra ji went to the manufacturing unit of the Maruti cars. He told his story and there people helped him. With the mirror number he managed to find the car registration number and with registration number he found the car owner’s name – Gyan Chand. It took 8 years for Jitendra ji to find the real culprit.
He went to police again with all the proofs and now again police disappointed him by not filing the complaint. He then moved to court and here also he didn’t get justice, his plea was rejected not just once but 4 times repeatedly. In Jan 2023, he again appealed to court for the 5th time. This time court accepted his request and asked the police to re-open the case but till now no arrest has been made.
Jitendra ji fought 8 years to find all the evidence and the person who killed his son. He is still fighting for the justice and he has told that he will fight till his last breath untill and unless his son’s killer get punished.
This story is deeply heartbreaking…….
image 352
Image source: Web/Google
I Salute Jitendra Ji from the bottom of my heart🙏
Amit would be Proud of his Dad❤
**Update : On 21st Oct 2023, Police has arrested the accussed, Gyan Chand.
One of my former student’s mothers. This was several years ago now. Her son was in 8th grade and read at a second-grade level. His handwriting was illegible. When he typed his assignments, his sentences were incoherent or not related to the assignment at all.
This was made worse by the fact that he was not a discipline problem. He sat quietly in class and looked like he was on task and understood the material. But he didn’t. He didn’t understand any of it. Even the easiest things in all of his classes were well over his head.
His mother said, at every single parent/teacher meeting, that her son was “a nice kid and just a little slow, but he would get it together soon.”
No. He needed special education services that our school couldn’t provide. The mother had been told that for years, but she didn’t want to hear it. In her eyes, her son was perfect. She was paying for private school for the purpose of avoiding the “special ed” label they’d give him at the public school.
So, the teachers did the best they could to accommodate his needs. Of course, it wasn’t enough, because he really needed a one-on-one, full-time tutor.
I actually know what happened to him. I heard through mutual friends that he went to a private high school which did have a special ed program (although they called it something else), he graduated from that special program, and is now working full-time as a helper in his uncle’s business. Good for him. That’s probably the best thing for him… to find meaningful work with a trusted family member.
I never really had a last conversation with my mother. She was in a memory ward in a nursing home. She had been having strokes was no longer able to walk, and the strokes had affected her swallowing. Her care was beyond us.
Unfortunately, COVID hit and the nursing home was locked down so we couldn’t go in to talk with her. We had been visiting almost daily. The conversations had become one sided due to the alzheimers, but at least she remember us. The day came when we got the call that she had slipped into a coma and that we had finally gotten permission to go in and see her. My last words to my mother were that I loved her, that she had been a great mother/grandmother and that it was OK to go home. She seemed to be waited for my sister to get there and say her goodbyes. My mom died a few hours after my sister left.
No matter how much time you have, somehow it’s never enough.
MY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL SAVED ME FROM HUMILIATION.
It was the evening of farewell for our 10th Grade. Our juniors had arranged an eventful farewell for us.
After all the entertainment and other stuffs, it was time to felicitate the top rankers of our class. I was called on stage to receive the award for securing the 1st Rank in the class.
I went on the stage brimming with pride to receive my prize from the School Principal. Little did I know what a blunder I was going to commit.
Here, 2 things you all need to know are:-
First, this was the first time I was going to stand on the stage in front of 100s of people. You can deduce what my condition was, from the fact that I was so immature that I didn’t even know what stage fright was!
Second, this whole scenario was taking place in the Evening. (Yes this is important to know!)
Then came that doomed moment. I was asked by the school principal, a young and kind-hearted lady, to speak a few sentences about my experiences in this school and the hard work behind my academic achievement.
I held the mic, still happy on receiving the award. As soon as I formed a few sentences in my mind and was just about to utter those words, the reality hit me. I saw an ocean of heads staring at me curiously to listen to what I am going to say. I went numb. I forgot everything I wanted to say. There was a complete silence for a few seconds. I knew I had to start. And then my brain which had ceased to work since a few moments, told me, “OK buddy, it’s not that difficult. You can begin by greeting the crowd .”
Feeling the breeze of that contrastingly cold evening, I gathered courage, forced a smile and softly greeted the crowd by saying, “Good Morning”.
There was a dead silence. Before I could even realize what a silly and humiliating mistake I have just committed, my principal took the mic from my hand, turned towards the crowd and said ,“As this is his first appearance on a stage, this is a new morning for him. So, it’s not a Good Evening but a Good Morning to everyone from this bright young kid.”
And then I realized what a silly mistake I just did. I felt embarrassed but at the same time I stood there in utter disbelief and appreciation of the intelligence of my principal. She just protected her student by her brilliant presence of mind.
I can’t think of a better instance of presence of mind in my whole life.
In 1859, a geomagnetic storm called TheCarrington Event¹ disrupted electrical infrastructure across the globe.
…what there was of it.
…which was telegraph service at the time.
(and that’s pretty much it)
The Event was perpetrated by solar flare activity so unprecedented that the Auroras Borealis and Australius were visible from both poles to the equator, with such an intensity that night became day, disorienting humans and animals alike.
Telegraph offices that failed to go offline in time caught fire and burned, and those that did shut down remained operational for hours, despite being disconnected from their power source, due to the massive worldwide electromagnetic surge.
All news, for all intents and purposes, was once again local for the duration of the aftermath.
Newspapers couldn’t report on events outside horse riding distance.
The 19th Century reverted to the 18th Century in one fell swoop.
Now…what we do know for certain about the Carrington Event is that it wasn’t a one off.
It had happened before and it will happen again.
And THE NEXT TIME, unlike 1859, we will likely have satellites in orbit, and planes in the air.
…and cars that run off batteries, and those that don’t which have electronic ignitions.
…and power lines to heat our homes in the winter and cool our homes in the summer.
…and an Internet that we’ve basically come to rely on to maintain a global economy.
(that too)
And all those things are gonna go bye-bye for a time.
The quote about living “in interesting times” is erroneously attributed to the ancient Chinese, but it was actually coined by the American politician Frederic R. Coudert on the cusp between the Great Depression and a second world war.
No matter how bad things get for Mankind, we can all rest assured of one thing for certain:
It certainly can be. On my second trip to India I suffered a broken cheek bone and two black eyes at the hands of several youngsters who were barely teenagers. It was my completely my fault, by thinking that playing Cricket twice at school would allow me to play with these kids who live and breathe it. Having came across a game just starting my Indian friends talked themselves into playing and must have imagined that being English I played the game. But being brought up on a council estate in London it was football or boxing never cricket or rugby. I had played it twice at school and never even touched a bat. Anyway I thought I’d have a go and how hard can it be? Fucking hard thats how hard. The bowler could only have been 13 at the oldest so I was not worried I stood there holding the bat as I had seen them do it on tv. I then saw him running up, his arm lifted to throw and then white light and pain as I stepped forward straight into the bounce of the hard cricket ball. Wow I felt stupid and had a few weeks of discomfort. But I did gain respect for cricket and often go and watch it at Lords. I always support India(unless playing England) in thanks for this lesson.
My mom died when I was 9 of a cancerous brain tumor. It hurt like hell and it took me years to recover. Maybe I still haven’t.
My Grandma, a widow, got remarried when I was about 15 or so to a great man, and when I left at 19 to do a couple years of volunteer service at my own expense in England, I remember hearing he wasn’t in good health. About 4 months in, I learned he also passed away.
It was at this time I got a letter from my oldest sister. As I pulled it out of its envelope (most letters still went this way), a small slip of paper fell out. On it was written, in my sister’s handwriting, in a purple pen, just one sentence, “Aaron, always remember to be my strong little boy” and under it was something that looked like somebody trying to get a pen to work – quick scribbles back and forth in a small area.
I thought it cute, but odd, and set it aside, then I read the letter. My sister quickly said, “Aaron, I was going through an old drawer of things today, cleaning it out and found this. In her last days, Mom asked me to write out a little note to each of her kids, and then she signed them at the bottom. I’m sorry it’s not very legible”.
I immediately began sobbing as I picked up the little paper again and felt the warmth of a mother’s love well 10 years after her death.
Dan and I were headed into the Canadian Rockies in September. The weather was miserable. On the way it a younger guy had passed us by. He was carrying a day-pack sized backpack and he made fun of our big “old-style” backpacks. He was nice enough about it and we just smiled and watched him fly by.
A couple of days later we were camped in place just below timberline and it was raining hard, windy and not far above freezing. We were comfy and dry in our tents, had hot food, good raingear and all was well, even if it wasn’t all that much fun. The young guy came into the area and set up his camp. He had a thin foam sleeping pad, a thin down bag, and a tarp measuring about 8′ x 8′ that he set up very low to the ground.
The next morning it was still drizzling and cold. The young guy came over to our camp. He was shivering and soaking wet. He had a light rain jacket and no rain pants. Also, he was barely coherent. “Ggggguys …. I … I … I’m uh, I’m ….uh …. I need help.” We sat him in the entrance of Dan’s tent and gave him hot coffee and some oatmeal. We got him out of his wet raincoat and wet shirt and wrapped him in a fleece jacket. He began to relax. We all decided the he just needed to get out of there ASAP. Dan and I went over and packed up his gear. It was like a wet sponge, all of it.
When we got back he was doing OK. He had semi-dry t-shirt in his gear and he put that on plus his wet raincoat. Dan walked down the trail with him for a mile or so. When he got back Dan said that the kid had warmed up and seemed good to go. Oh, and that he’d apologized for making fun of our packs.
It happened last night. To be fair, she was likely 18–22, so barely an adult.
STORY! My husband and I went to our city’s downtown area for dinner and a carriage ride. We paid for dinner and realized we needed money to tip the carriage driver because we only had a $50 on us. DOH!
Note: No, we aren’t bougie like that. My company paid out a small company bonus with $50 bills.
It was okay – there was a candy store and we had time. We poured out a small scoop of chocolate and checked out. There was some issue with the cashier understanding that us paying $50.04 for $6.04 was in her favor, but math is hard.
Now, this is what the US $50 bill/note looks like:
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Actual quote from her: “Who’s on the $50 bill? Is that King Edward?”
Blink. Blink. What? A KING?!
We had to explain to this adult that no, this was not a king. It was Ulysses S. Grant. There’s even a county in my state named after him.
Her manager, who was a few years older, then said, “Oh yeah! I remember his picture on the wall in my history room. Didn’t he wear a really tall black hat? He looks fatter here though”
We pulled out a penny and asked if she was thinking of Abraham Lincoln. The manager then said, “Oh yeah! That’s the guy. Isn’t that the same guy?”
Oy. I’m sure President Grant is rolling over in his mausoleum.
My cousin had an old beater car. He always drove it on empty, and only added a dollar or two of gas at a time. He didn’t think it was worth stealing, so he left the keys in it, in his back yard, while he ran into the house to get something.
He heads back to the car, just in time to see it go around the corner. He calls the police, expecting he will never see the car again.
The police phone him 10 minutes later, to tell him that they have his car.
Its at the local gas station. It had run out of gas, they had pushed it in the last few feet, and filled it up with gas. But we’re having a hard time starting it, after it had run out of gas. The gas station was only a few blocks from the my cousin’s, and the attendant recognized the car, and called the police. It was a very distinctive, beat up beater.
My cousin needed a boost to get it started, and then worried that the weight of the full tank of gas would wreck his car, because it had never seen a full tank before.
It turned out to be a bunch of teen joyriders, and the charges were dropped against them. My cousin said that they doubled the value of the car, by filling it up, so he wasn’t too stressed.
So in this case the first thing they did after stealing the car was fill it up with gas.
I’m cranky and I’m tired, and I worked hard at school…
Not me, but my sister. She was a manager for a membership warehouse and they had this one woman that would come in once a month, demand a one-day pass, do her shopping and then pitch a fit when she couldn’t use her credit card (it was cash or debit card only). And she did this every month. Well, she demanded to speak with a manager and since my sister was on duty, she got to deal with her. Once again, my sister explained the rules to her and offered to take care of setting up a membership right then and there. The woman didn’t want to pay the $55 and began to berate my sister who was waiting her out. Finally, the woman shouts at her “To go to hell” to which my sister responded, “Ma’am, I’m already there.” Could have heard a pin drop in the membership areas as all the employees turned to stare at her. The “customer” had nothing further to say, so my sister calmly turned and left.
*The woman never came back to that warehouse. My sister wasn’t fired (for that) although her boss had a good laugh about it.
Two effing massive barbecue grills that I didn’t order that were on my back door when I got home from a business trip around midnight. Thankfully UPS or whoever delivered it (can’t remember which carrier) was naive enough about cyber security to have included the correct recipient’s phone number on the shipping label.
I texted the correct recepieny about it and, being way too nice, told them that I have a pickup and could deliver them but they were way too heavy to load on my own so someone would have to come help me load them.
The husband came over, we loaded them, i delivered them and we unloaded them at his house – all was well. Years later I still get packages and mail for them. I realized that we have the same numbered address and street but I’m SOUTH xxxx Avenue and they’re NORTH xxxx Avenue.
The mail that comes omits the north or south so I assume they’re too dumb to specify that important data element when giving out their address (because the address on the envelope, each time doesn’t specify north or south). it’s happened way many times to just be a coincidence.
So now I don’t bother delivering items, I text them that it’s happened AGAIN and ask them if they want to come me pick it up from my front porch or have me mark it as “wrong address” and see what happens.
In 1967, Doug Hegdahl was on a recon mission in the Vietnam War.
His boat cruised along the river, and as he it did, a battle broke out and he was thrown into the water. He panicked and swam for shore.
Unfortunately, Doug swam towards the Vietcong side of the shore. They greeted him with prompt beating and dragged him ashore screaming.
Doug was tied up and thrown in a cage. They debated on whether to execute him. As they interrogated Doug, he realized they were trying to determine his usefulness. He gave goofy, incoherent answers, talking crazy. Then he repeatedly shouted, “No water buffalo!”
In Vietnam at that time, owning a water buffalo was a sign of moderate wealth. He was saying he was poor.
Being poor was good. The Vietcong hated wealthy people. His rambling earned him the nickname, “The Incredibly Stupid One”.
And while other US soldiers were tortured and killed, the Vietcong felt too bad for him. They thought he was an American version of the poor, dumb man forced into the front line in a war.
Little did they know, he was gathering information. During his years in prison, he memorized the names of 200 prisoners of war, along with the intimate details of the enemy base.
During a negotiation, the Vietcong chose him as their release thinking he was a simpleton and no threat.
Doug got home and immediately gave a press conference.
He told the US of those prisoners, and their freedom was obtained.
image 358
He memorized the 200 names using the song Ol’McDonald Had a Farm. He even needed to hum it when reciting the names back over.
You may not relate to his situation, but Doug’s experience gives insight into dealing with dangerous authority figures.
For example, if a cop pulls you over, it is better to play dumb rather than listen with your mouth, and explain everything you didn’t do wrong.
More broadly, it’s generally better to be guarded with what you know. True genius is knowing when not to reveal it.
Chicken with Walnuts in Plum Sauce
Plum Sauce Chicken Recipe3
Ingredients
1 cup walnut halves
1 teaspoon beaten egg
1 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon cornstarch
6 chicken thighs (1 1/2 pounds), boned, skinned and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 cup oil
2 teaspoons plum or hoisin sauce
1 (1-inch) piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
2 green onions, finely chopped (garnish)
Instructions
Pour boiling water over walnuts and let stand 5 minutes. Drain and pat dry.
Combine egg with 1 teaspoon oil and cornstarch in small bowl. Add chicken pieces and toss gently to coat them evenly.
Heat 1/2 cup oil in wok over medium high heat until haze forms.
Add walnuts and fry until golden about 45 seconds. Remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
Add chicken to wok and cook until golden, about 3 minutes. Drain well.
Pour off all but thin film of oil. Return pan to heat, add plum or hoisin sauce, ginger, sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil and stir until combined. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring constantly until sauce begins to glisten, about 1 to 2 minutes.
Add chicken and walnuts and mix thoroughly with sauce.
Transfer to heated serving platter and garnish with chopped green onions.
Today, my friend told us a joke. 70 years ago, the United States led 18 countries to fight with a P5 country on the Korean Peninsula (let’s call it a draw). 20 years ago, the United States led 11 countries to invade a small country with domestic troubles and foreign invasion ( eventually failed). In the past few days, the United States found 10 countries to against Yemeni Houthi. Because of the shortage of troops, they even ask China join them，China certainly refused without think too much.…Fighting with a Yemeni local armed force, even ask China to help big hooligan?(´•ω•̥`) 🐼: I suggest you back home,massacre the kindergartens and sweep the geracomiums…
Houthi isn’t ET…
The changes of opponents by the US Army shows they are more and more laggard indeed.
Now they even often make this kind of arguments,enough to explain two problems:
Some US people already brain dead.
The infrastructure in the United States has been in disrepair for a long time, and even the frequency of failure is ‘on and off like a light switch’.
So, we don’t care what you say，today communications ‘on and off like a light switch’ and tomorrow there will be more things ‘on and off like a light switch’.Keep complaining, you’ll get used to it.
The U.S. Navy has ‘experience, the PLA-N has ‘experience’ in reading about what the U.S. is doing, and how they do it. Asking ‘probing questions’ (even here on Quora) is one direction, as well as ‘working’ with Canada, which has a record of ‘loose lips’ regarding ANYTHING military that China seeks.
I’m sure China has some ‘tricks’ up their sleeve as well. This is one of their newer ships (21NOV23) in which they ‘seem’ to be ‘faking’ damage to their ship, which may come in handy when they DO find themselves under attack. NOTHING would break-off an attack faster than ‘looking like this’:
One morning, a new guy showed up. As was customary, he “shared” his tale with the rest of us.
He was legally blind, but somehow managed to work as a successful stock broker. Unfortunately, on the side he had also developed one hell of an addiction to crack.
One Christmas morning, he had dressed up as Santa to entertain his kids. But he needed to sneak outside to take a few quick hits of crack before the family woke up.
Due to his visual impairment, he didn’t see the cop car rolling up the street. He got arrested.
Next day the local newspaper featured the headline that a crack-smoking Santa Claus was arrested Christmas morning.
I looked down at the grass. Clenched my jaw. glanced around and people were desperately trying to contain themselves.
The guy said, “it’s OK. Go ahead and laugh, guys. You have to.”
It was a full minute before we’d laughed off the image of a crack-smoking Santa Claus in cuffs.
I and a couple of friends headed to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for a conference followed by dinner. We ate at the Tir Na Nog Irish pub and sat next to the windows that looked out over the little amphitheater space where street performers entertain tourists. Lovely view of the corner of the harbor and the other pavilion. Directly below the window was a vendor’s cart selling all sorts of electronic gadget accessories (think cellphone covers, etc).
As we were eating, I watched the crowds milling around the plaza and people buying stuff from the cart. Then I saw a teenager sneak around the back of the cart (which was facing the window) and start pilfering stuff from the cart. He just jammed it into his backpack with glee while the vendor was busy talking to customers on the other side.
Turns out those “customers” were the teen’s parents. Once the teen had filled his pack, a second younger child moved in and did the same thing while the other one kept watch. Then a third child, even younger, darted in and took stuff as well. The vendor finally caught on to the scam and screamed for police. The BCPD always patrol that plaza to protect the tourists, so three bicycle cops appeared pretty quickly.
Meanwhile, we watched as the three kids met with mom and dad to show their loot. Then they spotted the police and all three bolted in three different directions, which appears to have been predetermined as a method of escape. One of the kids wasn’t so lucky and got pinched.
Mom and dad were screaming bloody murder about the police harassing their children.
At that moment I realized how stupid we’d been up in the restaurant because none of us thought to video the incident. But we all felt we owed that poor vendor some help, so down we tromped to the plaza, leaving one person to man our table so no one thought we’d jumped the check.
We informed the police of everything we saw, that the kids were the shoplifters, but that the parents knew full well and participated. The officer asked us if we would testify to that and we said of course.
End of the story: All three kids were arrested, but the police didn’t have enough to arrest mom or dad (because that’s how the scam works). We were called back to Baltimore to testify. The kids were really hard core according to the prosecutor. They were playing all sorts of innocence BS. But when she told them four witnesses were primed and ready to name them all, they folded and agreed to plea deals.
Very sad day for American childhood that parents used them in this way.
There is no such thing as the world’s best? Each country ought to have what they each see as the best for their nation and their people under different circumstances unique for them, over a development level that is different from country to country.
You can say every nation thinks they have the world’s best for themselves. They ought to be. Otherwise why would they choose it? Surely they all want to do the best for themselves right?
These words or symbols or slurs such as Communism or Democracy or Socialism are tags for various purpose. Some times to simplify some times to discriminate one against another or worst to slur and demonised. These labels meant nothing more, as each nation is shade of grey and not black or white.
The U.S. for example calls itself Liberal democracy. But in reality it is neither democratic nor liberal at all. Is 0.8% of the rich or and powerful decides that the 60 odd % of their people who bother to vote have only two choice Biden a senile or Trump a perpetual liar to choose from, surely that is not democracy!
The U.S. with a mere 4% of world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoner’s population, surely it cannot liberal nor free? But U.S. can called itself whatever it wants!
China calls itself socialism with Chinese characteristics but the U.S. insists on the label. “Communism” for worst connotations to cast fear and hate on them! If you repeat it like this questioner do, it simply help your media cast hates on China.
To me if the west can call the U.S. a Liberal Democracy why can’t they tern China as Socialism with Chinese characteristics? It is no different from Western media calling Palestinians as “terrorist” and Isreal as freedom “fighter” These slurs and suggesting good is clearly a set. narrative!
It goes well for several months. They begin to squabble a bit and have disagreements.
He figures, if they don’t get along, they should just break up.
Later, he begins dating Rebecca. She’s pretty. But after a few months, he realizes she’s not smart enough for him. That relationship ends too.
Later, Mike begins dating Katie. Katie is super brilliant. And cute too. But he realizes he doesn’t think she’s cute enough. He wants brilliant and super cute.
And funny. Where is funny?
Finally, he meets Angela. Angela is smart, pretty, and funny. But not exceptional at either three. So he ends things with her too.
Mike never ends up settling down. He ends up living as a lonely old man in his final years.
He became a victim of advice taken too literally and at too much of an extreme “don’t settle”.
The truth is – we all settle. In some form or another. People regularly subject themselves to unfair expectations of a prospective partner.
We all have work to do. It’s better to find someone to do the work with. Or accept them as is and forget the work.
Remember, with any advice you read, from me, or anyone else, there is a huge grey area to work with. I can’t tell you how to read that grey area. That’s where you’ll need to swim on your own.
Don’t be a knucklehead who only thinks in black and white. We have enough knuckleheads in the world already.
It was a small local ‘high-class’ restaurant (no longer in business) I went to with some colleagues to celebrate one of their birthdays. The first thing I thought was a joke was the uninformative and poorly-formatted menu that contained things like “Different fish and chips 12”, with not another word to explain what was different about it and the ‘12’ meaning a price of £12.00 being far from obvious.
Even more of a joke was the way the food was presented. I ordered a burger from the main course menu (described of course as something like “house burger 11”), expecting something that would fill the plate and come with chips and salad as is the norm. No, what I got was a tiny bun less than half the size of the plate containing an equally tiny burger, a slice of tomato and a lettuce leaf, all by itself with not a single side. The punchline of the joke: to make it look bigger and fill the empty plate, the burger was served ‘open’ with the top half of the bun placed alongside it for no apparent reason!
I ate the whole burger and someone else’s leftover chips but was still hungry and had another meal when I got home. The whole experience still feels like a surreal joke, yet was deadly serious, and I wasn’t at all surprised when the place closed down not long afterwards.
Because Alexander the Great’s Army was leagues ahead of every other Army on earth. There was no close second. Alexander himself gets the credit but I don’t think this is fair. I honestly think Alexander was “meh” and won thanks to his great Army.
Let’s start by breaking it down.
1: Foot Companions
The regular infantry was called “foot companions”. These guys wielded a very long spear/pike and a small shield. Now at this time, everyone fought with a shield and spear however most spears were rather small.
It took years of training for the soldiers to learn to use the pikes. Additionally, these guys were all trained in small unit tactics, hand-to-hand combat, and all sorts of special stuff.
image 357
2: Companion Cavalry
The Companion Cavalry was the greatest unit of cavalry ever (arguably) and certainly the best at the time. Cavalry at this time were mostly scouts and fast-moving infantry. They couldn’t really charge into enemy lines given stirrups were not around.
Alexander’s cavalry was unique. These guys were trained for years and years on fighting on horseback. They could charge an enemy head-on, flank around them, or dismount and fight as infantry. They were the elite of the elite.
3: Shield Bearers
The Shield bearers were the “SpecOps” of the Macedonian Army. These guys fought like standard infantry with shorter spears, swords, and shields. They were hyper-flexible, extremely well trained, and capable of nearly anything.
Alexander’s Army was capable of things NOBODY else could do. They could fight in the trenches, outmaneuver an enemy, perform complex tactical actions, and do it all with ease. These guys were the most experienced, best-trained, and most elite soldiers on planet earth.
In a time when armies were civilian-based militia with a small core of trained troops, Alexander had a professional Army at his back.
A stack of bricks isn’t a house as much as a mob of men is an Army. Make sense?
Now, most give credit to Alexander and his brilliance but I disagree with this.
Alexander made mistakes. At the Battle of Granicus Alexander recklessly charged across a river with a waiting enemy Army on the other side. This would have been a disaster for any other Army in history except Alexander’s and even Alexander’s Army took way too many losses.
Alexander was overconfident. In engineering, there is an acronym called “KISS” which stands for keep it simple stupid. Warfare is much the same. If tactics are overly complex then it creates situations where things could go wrong. No plan survives contact with the enemy so plans need to be simple and flexible.
Alexander didn’t create anything. This great Army Alexander had- it was created by his dad. These guys also gained experience fighting for Alexander’s father. Alexander didn’t unite Greece nor was attacking Persia his idea. Sure Alexander did conquer Persia however his Empire immediately fell apart because he was a terrible King and a terrible State-builder.
Alexander was wreckless personally. Alexander’s job was the lead the men, not fight with them. Yet Alexander led every battle from the front. Sure this is brave and all but this is the wrong place for a General. In an Army of 50,000 there are lots of fighters but only 1 leader. Caesar for instance would place himself behind the crux of the battle, issuing orders and watching as things develop.
Alexander the Great’s father was Phillip the 2nd. This guy fought and won dozens of Battles and conquered all of Greece for the first and only time. Was Phillip the greatest General ever? No. Like Alexander, Phillip benefited from a highly experienced, highly trained, and uber-expensive professional Army.
Hiring for our county office out in the boonies was done centrally, so often times someone was hired before we knew who it was. So when we saw the name Jim (redacted), we let out a collective moan.
Jim was well known around town. He was 6′7″, about 325 pounds, and was mean looking as hell. He often did rent collection/ evictions for local landlords, usually by intimidation. I mentioned this to HR, and was told to “work with him.”
So he started in our office. First order of business was to banish certain words from his vocabulary. Words like “wetback”, fag*ot, and of course, nig*er. Also, because he had contacted so many of our clients from his rent collecting days, often when clients found out he was to be their worker, they immediately withdrew their application for welfare. They were terrified of him.
After a couple of months, he seemed to have calmed down and was doing an OK job. But then, in the break room, he said the following:
You know what would be fun? If (co worker) Corrine would drive around in a convertible with a bikini on, and when someone would hit on her, I would be hiding in the back seat with a shotgun, and would suddenly sit up and point the gun at them, and watch them sh*t their pants!
This was it. The next day, three fraud investigators (armed) plus two sheriff deputies came in and escorted him out. I wanted to call HR and tell them “I told you so” but everyone was just glad he was gone; especially Corrine.
Note: he also helped get the head of HR fired. When he was removed from the office, he was put on paid administrative leave pending his firing. But the head of HR had a fear of lawsuits due to improper firings, so he was on paid admin leave for almost a year! Worse yet, there was another guy that had been on paid admin leave for even longer. So the HR manager eventually got fired…with no paid admin leave, just gone out the door!
I come from a family that struggles with finances severely. In the second grade my teacher noticed that the few clothes I had were now Ill fitting so she bought me new ones so I would fit in. I lived in a very, very wealthy area and because of this I was already being bullied for not having what other kids did. I was happy to receive the clothes. I came home with them that night and my mother, who spent our food stamps on cigarettes (the cashier at the liquor store rang them up as other things) and a disgusting quantity of mountain dew every month, walked into my school irate and high off of my ritalin prescription ( that was prescribed to me for my ADHD, as an 18 year old I still haven’t had thr medication that I need since I was 6), bypassed the office and walked into my classroom and began to yell at the teacher. I thought the bullying was bad then, she made it a lot worse. I am thankful for that teacher though. My mother threw the clothes back in her face (literally) and so my teacher kept them in the classroom for me to change into when I got to school and washed them for me. This is only one of several scenarios involving my mother. To put it shortly, I had my first suicidal thoughts around 11 and the state took away her rights to custody when I was 15. You are not your situation, you are how you deal with it. To anyone in that situation or any situation they don’t want to be in, it gets better.
Maybe it is just my imagination, but I think my “locked up” ploy has somehow made the rounds of all those backroom scam operations which call to say your computer has a virus.
Initially, I kept the “agent” and his manager on the phone for nearly an hour, until they finally just gave up. The exchange went something like this:
Scammer: Please press the Windows and CTRL key at the same time.
Me: I can’t. The computer is locked up. It won’t respond to the keyboard, and the mouse does not move.
Scammer: Turn the system off, then turn it on again.
Me: I can’t. The computer won’t shut down.
Scammer: Use the power switch!
Me: I did. Nothing. It stays on, but doesn’t do anything.
Scammer: Then unplug the machine.
Me: Ok. Still nothing. It stays on, and is still frozen.
Scammer: How can that be?!
Me: I don’t know. I guess it just switches over to the internal battery.
(Then, a manager is put on the phone, and promises to make the machine right if I pay $99 for a one time fix, $200 for an annual plan, or $499 for a lifetime plan)
Scammer: Which plan do you want?
Me: Uh, lifetime, I guess.
Scammer: Ok, please give me your credit card number.
Me: I don’t use credit cards. How about PayPal?
Scammer: We can’t take PayPal.
Me: Hey! Wait a minute! The machine just started working! It’s perfect! Everything is working! What did you guys do?
Scammer: That’s impossible! We didn’t do anything!
Me: But, didn’t you say you had detected a virus on my machine?
Scammer: Yes, that is why we contacted you.
Me: So, that must mean you were connected to me, right?
Scammer: No. Your machine sent a message to us!
Me: Ok, so I was connected to you, but you weren’t connected to me?
Scammer: That’s not how this works!
Me: Well, you must have done something, because everything is fine now.
Scammer: It is not. Machine still infected. It will lock up again and be destroyed. You still have virus!
Me: Wait, wait. I’m going to shut down and reboot. Hold on.
(I tap a few keys to make noise, then…)
Me: Ok, I shut down and started up again. Now, I am running a virus scan. Hold on… ok, scanning memory, registry, hard drive, checking for malicious code… stand by, almost done. Great! No virus detected! Fantastic! And, it seems to be running faster than ever!
Scammer: That is not possible, it will fail!
Me: Look, I don’t know how you fixed it, but I would like to send you $100. I’ll send a check. What’s your name and address?
Scammer: We can’t accept checks.
Me: A money order, then?
Scammer: No money orders. I think you are bulls****ing me.
Me: Do ya THINK?!
Scammer: I will f**k your mother!
Me: You like f**king dead people? You’re going to get a sooty Johnson; she was cremated.
Scammer: Click.
I can’t recall when I have had a more uplifting conversation, but the ultimate result has proven to be the most valuable. For several months after the above exchange, I would continue to receive the virus calls; but the moment I said the machine was frozen, the caller hung up immediately. So now, I just say, “Am I ever glad you called, this machine is totally locked up!” In response, a reassuring click.
Saw this question and immediately thought: Teresa.
Teresa is my sister in law’s best friend. She was also good friends with my brother, Dale. When Dale disappeared, Teresa was right there grieving with us. She shared stories about things she and Dale had done that had me rolling with laughter. Teresa is a bright spot where ever she goes.
Teresa is a respiratory therapist. Been doing it for years. Been single for years. Been putting smiles on peoples’ faces for years. She collected crochet afghans to give to her patients. They loved it. They loved her. She retired recently, bought a house in another state, and moved there on her own. I will miss her.
It was 2020, the year we buried my brother’s remains, after he had been missing for many years. It was around the time of the services, and I was having a rough time. Crying a lot. Teresa popped in one day and called me out to her car. She dug around in some bags and boxes in the back seat, and pulled something out. “This is for you” she told me. It was a cross made of wood with fragments of broken glass glued to it to make it shine. And in the middle it said simply, “laugh”. She told me she thought of me as soon as she saw it. It touched my heart. It made me realize maybe it was time to laugh more than cry.
Teresa is a special person. Salt of the earth. We need more like her.
huawei mate60 is using 5nm chips from unknown source, but for sure its made in China with 100% Chinese technology. Although it’s not the most cutting edge technology yet, it is the most widely used. So it’s going to bring down the price of all chips and ASML EUV will be too expensive in terms of producing chips. China is infamous for it industrial crushing ability, Whatever technology they proceed they will smash the market price to under half even to just 10% of the original market price. everyone in the same market will be gone in no time
On August 2, 2007, Majid Kavousifar was excuted along with his nephew Hossein Kavousifar for the assassination of Masoud Moghadasi ,a judge from the Islamic Revolution Court in Iran.
Masoud Moghaddasi was one of several judges of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court, that collectively sentenced more than 2800 to 3800 political prisoners to execution during the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners.
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Majid Kavousifar showed no remorse to hangman in his last words, telling them “I reached the point at which I decided to eradicate any injustice.”
His last words before being hanged next to his nephew Hossein Kavousifar:
“My name is Majid Kavousifar, I am Iranian
I didn’t wait for someone in this world to give me my right
I reached the point at which I decided to eradicate any injustice
I smile because I know that a small smile at that moment will be a great message of hope for every oppressed human being on the face of the earth.
The memory of Majid Kavousifar and his triumphant smile will live forever in the hearts of freedom lovers in Iran and all over the world.
Actually, a police officer once said to me: “What did you do with my patrol car? Why did you steal it?”
The back story is that when coming out of the back door of the courthouse late one evening my friend and I saw a running, unlocked police car sitting in the driveway between the jail and the courthouse. My friend and I wondered why this was and decided to watch a while. After 10 minutes nothing happened and the car was still parked, unlocked, and running. My friend and I decided something needed to be done to prevent the car from being stolen so we flipped a coin and I lost so I got in the car and drove it around the corner and turned it off, locked it, and returned to await the arrival of the police officer who had been assigned the car. My friend and I watched and waited and about a half an hour later the offending officer came out and found his cruiser missing. Since he left his radio in the car he couldn’t radio the missing car in and he’d left the jail and the return door was locked. He panicked and started running around in a confused state. My friend and I who were hiding began laughing and he couldn’t understand why. He was really confused and upset. I held up the keys and told him I’d “stolen” it to keep it safe and showed him where it was. He was both relieved and highly pissed. Relieved at first and the gradually more angry. My friend and I just kept laughing and he got even madder. Then he said he was going to arrest us. I said why? It’s not stolen and who’s going to prosecute me, I’m the County Attorney? Then he said he wasn’t worried because he knew the judge would put it on me because he was a good friend of the judge. I just kept on laughing because my friend who had been standing in the dark background listening came forward and said, “You mean me, Steve?” And the judge began to laugh too. He then said he’d get us both hand I said, “Go ahead! How do you think the Chief is going to feel when he learns you let your cruiser get “stolen” under these conditions? He didn’t say much else but just took his keys, got in his car and drove away. So that’s the story on how the Judge and I stole a police car.
My husband got offered a higher paying job with a different company, and one that treated their employees better. He tried to refuse the exit interview, but when pressed, agreed, if the big boss was in the room. He proceeded to tell the room exactly what led to his exit, and then they had the nerve to ask for 2 weeks notice. He looked the big boss right in the eye and asked if he would have gotten a 2week notice if he was being fired. The boss’ eyes dropped to the floor and he said no. My husband then asked if he could expect any changes to be made in policy regarding the treatment of blue collar workers. The boss again said no. My husband said, “ok, don’t consider this a ‘quit,’ consider as me firing you as my employer.” Then he walked out. We had to wait almost a month after he left to receive his last paycheck, even after calling the state labor board.
Christmas Watch-Along / AMA / Goof-off
Lot’s of good stuff in blurbs in this fun video. Grab some popcorn.
I enjoyed all of them, but my favorite is Non-geological shock. HAARP.
As a boy, living in Pennsylvania, I possessed the normal (and perhaps natural) brick-a-bract and flotsam and jetsam that accompanies most boys in the 1960’s. Model airplanes. Cubscout uniforms. Bottle collections. Debris that I picked up here and there. Scale models. Baseball playing cards, and the like.
Some of my most prized treasures consisted of my arrowheads… and my Indian-head pennies (and Buffalo Nickels). These were kept in an old Mason Jar on a shelf in my room.
Every now and then I would take them out. I would hold them. Fondle them. Feel the weight of them, and look at the details on them. I would then put them back, and go on with my life.
Eventually I went to university. During that time, my brother was selling odds and ends of mine for money or trade. I started to notice that things were missing, but since I hadn’t been “playing with them” for four years or more, it just didn’t seen significant to me.
…At that time.
…
Tiny treasures. Lost in time.
My unappreciated fragments of my life, discarded by others who cared not for their significance to me personally. They just did not care.
This trend continued throughout my life.
Tiny treasures. Lost in time.
…
Things that were important to me. Things that mattered to me. Things that represented memories, thoughts, ideas, and my personality… discarded by others who did not share my emotions about them.
Yes. The first year that they opened Buckingham Palace for tourists, I happened to be in London and got tickets. We had the girls and the wait was long so we walked behind the annex and let them move around. There was a gift shop I bought a catalog from.
When our ticket time was close to the front when we came back. There was a lovely Japanese women who was working the crowds and checking tickets. There was a fiftyish woman who tried to walk by her. She politely asked for her ticket. It if course was for a much later time. I only want to (looks at the catalog) buy one of those. The guide politely refused.
Then it came. She loudly screeches, “Do you know who I am. I am a millionaire in the US.”. I quickly interjected that most of us were at her age. I knew I had to shut her down before she got going and the guide was terrified she was so antagonistic. “Luckily you do not need to go in there if all you want is the guide and told her where to buy one.” She of course stormed off. I apologized for my fellow countrywoman. I told her you have to nip them in the Bud or you have an incident. The philosophy is to create such a scuffle you let them through. That is not wise when other people are waiting in long cues. Could not believe it.
I was on a flight to Mexico City, my daughter and I were sitting in business class. My daughter was 6 then and she was reading a kids book, the flight attendant started talking to her since her niece read the same books.
She was nice and asked for a pic with my daughter and the book etc. When we deplaned, I forgot my ipad on the back of the front seat. I didn’t realize that until 5 hours later which was the time of our layover so I only realized it when I had to go through the security point again.
I went to lost and found and they had nothing, I called American Airlines and they had nothing. Then one day later I got a phone call from the flight attendant telling me she had my ipad.
The passenger on the return flight found it and gave it to her. She should have turned it into security, but she knew if she did that I would not see it again, instead she had someone check on my details and get my number so she sent it via FedEx to me and made sure I got it when I was back in Miami.
My daughter chose a nice art craft thing in Oaxaca and we sent it to her as a token of appreciation. She went out of her way to make sure I got my ipad returned to me and for that I will always be grateful.
Edit 1: Thanks all for you nice comments and upvotes, even to the skeptics that thought this didn’t happen. Trust me it did. Thanks!
This is DISGUSTING and Biden is about to sign it into law
My brother called me to let me know our dad was in the ER and it didn’t look good for his survival. I drove like a bat out of hell the 120 miles to get there. In the ER waiting room sat my brother & his wife, who knew nothing and had not been given any info or updates on our dad in over 2.5 hours.
I went up to the admitting desk to ask for an update and was told to sit down…that the clerk at the desk was busy and couldn’t deal with me. Unacceptable response so I just marched into the actual ER room to find my dad. Brother and SIL followed.
Found my dad and he is basically gray with no one attending him. The attending comes up to me and starts screaming at me. I asked him what was wrong with my dad, (who has a heart problem and has a pacemaker). The Dr responds in a horrible accent and terrible English that my dad has vertigo. It took several tries to figure out what he was saying and even the nurses were having a problem understanding him.
I lost it and didn’t care if I got arrested or not. I loudly proceed to tell the Dr that my dad is gray, not green, indicating heart problem & that my dad had his last heart surgery at this hospital 1 year prior. That I want a heart monitor on my dad ASAP.
The smug Dr asked me where I my medical degree. I smiled and again, loudly said that I didn’t have one but that I had a law degree. That I hoped he enjoyed his sojourn in the US because by the time I’m done suing him, deportation will look like a good option.
He quickly put on a heart monitor on my dad and it showed my dad was having a heart attack as they attached it. Luckily, they were able to treat him and he lived many years after that.
3 things:
This was at a top nationally ranked hospital
I filed a complaint with the BoD and the Dr was let go due to his repeated negligence.
I was bluffing — I don’t have a law degree!
Respect is earned not demanded
Grilled Peanut Butter Sandwiches
image 107
Ingredients
Peanut butter
Sliced bread
Butter
Chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions
Spread peanut butter on one piece of bread and put another slice on top to make a sandwich.
Butter the outsides and cook on skillet until golden brown.
Flip and cook the other side.
Notes
Chocolate chips can be added to the peanut butter if desired.
This girl had to have surgery, it was her 9th but 7 of the surgeries were done when she was a baby (all by the same surgeon). She has these tubes called shunts that drain the excess fluid from her skull to treat a condition called Hydrocephalus. Well after she went into the ER with abdominal pain (she had appendicitis) they checked her shunts to make sure they weren’t what was causing the pain. They were working but unfortunately one of them needed to be fixed later because it was disconnected. (Her neck muscles kept the space open to let fluid out.)
A few months later she returned to the surgeon who had done those 7 surgeries (she sees him every year for a checkup) and surgery was scheduled.
The day of the surgery arrived. She checked into the hospital with her parents and was wheeled back to the OR. The anesthesiologist told her to breathe in the laughing gas. He asked if it was working. She said “No…no…no-yes! Yes! Yes!” As she said that she began to lose consciousness which frightened her so she began to cry out “I’m scared! I’m scared! I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!” The anesthesiologist removed the mask and said “It’s ok, you’re ok, you’re not going to die.” But she was still crying and scared.
To try to soothe her, her neurosurgeon came to her side and said, “Hey, why can’t dinosaurs talk?”
“Why?” She asked
“Because they’re dead!” She burst out laughing and passed out.
She woke up perfectly calm and not the least bit anxious.
How do I know this story?… That girl… is me.
*Drops mic. Walks away*
In all seriousness though, I remember every detail of that. It was very scary. I later told my surgeon that I remembered all of this by saying, “Hey I have a joke for you!”
He asked “Is it about dinosaurs?”
“…yes.” I said smiling sheepishly.
“I fell unconscious really quickly.”
“That would be the propofol. Either that or you were so tired of my bad jokes that you passed out.”
I laughed “Maybe.” I said.
So there’s my weird story! I hope you liked it!
(I’m ok by the way. My post op appointment is on the 15th.) I’ll update on Monday if you guys want, let me know in the comments!
Update:
I had my pst op appointment today. Everything went well.
I was waiting in an exam room with my dad when my neurosurgeon popped his head in the door and said he’d be in in a few minutes and asked if I was behaving myself. (He was kidding of course as I was just sitting there.)
A little while later he came back and asked how I was doing. I said I was doing well, he examined my scar, and said that other than a large amount of scabing (which will eventually come off) everything looked good. He instructed us to come back in 6 months and asked what I planned to do over the summer.
We shook hands and then I headed back to school.
Are all men a 10?
This is How Delusional Modern Women have Become ft.
As you drive through the state, you’ll see a pattern of strip clubs and adult cinemas sandwiched between churches, Jesus billboards, and gruesome pro-life medical photos.
It feels like the state can’t make up its mind on what it wants to be. Consequently, our cities have super strange laws and weird rules around adult entertainment.
For example, in Tampa, you can’t drink alcohol at a fully nude strip club. Yet if the dancers have (tiny) tape over their nipples and crotch, you are free to drink your face off.
In 1983, it was even stricter, with a full anti-nudity ordinance in place.
Someone went to an exotic club and then filed a complaint about strippers showing too much skin. Which invites the question, “Why are you even going to the club and getting mad about what you paid for?”
In reality — it was probably part of an investigation, reserved for a few senior police officers who went “undercover”. I’m sure they enjoyed the investigation very, very much.
Three exotic dancers were dragged into court and put on trial for indecency.
The actual court case
The women weren’t even dancing nude. They were wearing crop tops and tight, short shorts while dancing on tables. Their underwear was visible.
A freelance photographer, Jim Damaske, was given a call by legal aid, “You might want to stop by this trial on Tuesday. You’ll be able to capture a very unique shot.”
The photographer wasn’t disappointed. The below photo was part of the trial and evidence. It was not a stunt intended to disrespect the judge:
image 11
The 20-year-old dancer was trying to show that her underwear wasn’t too revealing.
The decency law stated that underwear could not substantively reveal a woman’s privates, including highlighting any lines or curvatures of her lady parts.
Initially, the lawyer for the three dancers suggested the women would be happy to dance in the courtroom in their work attire — as a form of evidence. Judge David Demers ruled this was too much. He was also apprehensive about the defendants bending over in court.
Judge Demers had only been elected 4 months prior and worried about compromising his position as judge.
The defense lawyer suggested that the women could bend over at their law firm, photos could be taken, and brought into court. Judge Demers insisted it would need to take place in court in order to count.
The women did not see this case as a joke.
Indecent exposure can bring a large fine and up to a month in prison. Typically, the law would apply to someone running around naked in public. Or, if a man stands in his home and presses his junk up against a window towards the street — that would count as well.
Three decades later, the judge was interviewed about the bizarre scene.
image 104
He is aware he’ll always be remembered for the photo.
He said that when they took the photo, “I looked at the girl and thought, whatever happens, I shouldn’t have any facial expression. Don’t smile, don’t frown. Do nothing. Because whatever it is, it will be misinterpreted.”
“When you look at the photo,” said Demers, “my face is as blank as possible — and that was pretty deliberate.”
Why even sue dancers?
This was likely a moral crusade of a district attorney or other official with strong conservative convictions.
It failed.
The women won their case.
The photo was so compelling that Playboy magazine featured it in their photos of the year collection. Also, I have to mention — look at the stenographer’s face:
image 10
She’s thinking, “What sort of bizarro land career have I taken up?” And then, she has to decide what exactly she will write to document this event in court.
I also couldn’t help but wonder if the dancer was making eye contact with the judge. And was she smiling?
In all seriousness — this case was yet another example of my local tax dollars going to a grotesque waste. Tampa Bay has all manner of crime issues and our legal system is prosecuting strippers for stripping.
We have more strip clubs per square mile in Tampa Bay than any city except Las Vegas. The adult industry generates huge, huge revenue for our city, and stuffy politicians can’t stand it — unless they are the one getting the lap dance.
I’m proud to be American but we are the epitome of hypocrisy. We do so much moral posturing and pass stupid indecency laws — while also hosting the largest pornography industry in the world.
Or perhaps this is right on brand with being American. We only operate in opposing extremes. We are both the most brilliant and stupid people you will ever meet.
You might think that the ancient Romans were clueless about medicine and hygiene, and that they just let their wounds fester and rot. Well, you’d be wrong. The Romans actually had some pretty advanced techniques and knowledge for their time. They were not afraid to cut, stitch, and cauterize wounds, and they used various substances to clean and heal them. They were not barbarians, after all. They were civilized people who built roads, aqueducts, and colosseums.
One of the things they used to treat wounds was opium. Yes, you heard that right. Opium, the stuff that makes you high and addicted. The Romans knew that opium had pain-relieving properties, and they used it to numb the pain of surgery and injuries. They also used scopolamine, a plant extract that causes drowsiness and amnesia. They would mix these substances with wine and give them to the patients before operating on them. This was their version of anesthesia. Not bad, huh?
Another thing they used was vinegar. Vinegar is a type of acid that kills bacteria and fungi. The Romans would soak a cloth in vinegar and apply it to the wound. This would disinfect the wound and prevent infection. They also used honey, wine, and olive oil as antiseptics. These substances have natural antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and they also help keep the wound moist and promote healing. They would mix them together and apply them to the wound, or use them separately. They were like the original Neosporin. 😁
Now, you might be wondering, did they use worms like in the movie Gladiator? The answer is no. They did not use worms to treat wounds. That was a Hollywood invention, not a historical fact. The movie Gladiator is a great film, but it’s not very accurate when it comes to depicting ancient Rome. It’s full of anachronisms, errors, and exaggerations. For example, the gladiator fights were not as brutal and bloody as they are shown in the movie. Most of the time, the gladiators did not fight to the death, but to the first blood or surrender. They were valuable assets, not disposable slaves. And the emperor did not sit in a box and give thumbs up or down to decide their fate. That was a later invention, too. 🙄
The use of worms to treat wounds is actually a modern practice, not an ancient one. It dates back to the American Civil War, when some doctors noticed that soldiers who had maggots in their wounds healed faster and better than those who did not. They realized that the maggots ate the dead and infected tissue, leaving the healthy tissue intact. They also secreted substances that killed bacteria and stimulated healing. This was called maggot therapy, and it was used until the discovery of antibiotics. Nowadays, it’s still used in some cases, especially when antibiotics are ineffective or unavailable. It’s not as gross as it sounds, trust me.
This is How Unattainable the 1% MAN is For Women
The Boiling Hot End to a Cook Accused of Poison in Henry VIII’s England
On April 5, 1531, hardened London spectators of public punishment gathered at Smithfield, joined by others who were too curious to stay away. An execution had been announced of a type that none had witnessed in their lifetimes, nor ever heard of. The condemned man, Richard Roose, was to be boiled alive.
Roose was not the sort of criminal that usually met his end at Smithfield, located just beyond the London Wall. He was convicted of high treason, yet he had not sought to harm King Henry VIII nor his queen, Catherine of Aragon, nor any royal councilor. He had not tried to overthrow the kingdom’s government. Roose, a cook, was accused of murder by poison.
His two victims were an obscure gentleman in the household of Bishop John Fisher, Bennet Curwen, and a destitute widow who accepted the bishop’s charity, Alyce Tryppytt. The target of the poisoning was assumed to be Fisher himself, the Bishop of Rochester. Ironically, Fisher did not eat the soup—sometimes described as porridge—that Roose prepared and so was unharmed.
Roose admitted to the poisoning but claimed it was a joke gone wrong, an accident. There is no testimony for us to examine, because Roose had no trial, by command of the king.
In the words of the Greyfriars Chronicle of London, a contemporary document: “This year was a cook boiled in a cauldron in Smithfield for he would have poisoned the bishop of Rochester Fisher with divers of his servants and he was locked in a chain and pulled up and down with a gibbet at divers times until he was dead.”
Roose’s crime, the legal method of his condemnation, and finally the form of punishment create a bizarre chain of events that, in a more modern age, might well have raised questions of motive in several parties, including that of Henry VIII. Although there is no question of who did the killing, this is still a tantalizing Tudor murder mystery, and reveals some of the peculiarities of the early modern age, when laws existed and homicide was considered a heinous crime, but there was no trained police force nor forensic science.
Why did Henry VIII demand this punishment of a lowly cook? Why was Roose executed as a traitor when his crime was murder of commoners? The answer lies in the King’s complex feelings for Bishop Fisher.
John Fisher was made bishop of Rochester by the King’s father, Henry VII, in 1504. Fisher performed the funeral services for Margaret Beaufort, the king’s mother, and Henry VII himself when they died, within months of each other, in 1509. In the first 20 years of the reign of Henry VIII, Fisher was considered “the greatest Catholic theologian in Europe, without any rival,” writes Eamon Duffy.
But by the time of the crime in question, King Henry was no longer proud of Bishop Fisher, 62 years of age. It would be safe to say he considered him an enemy. And it would have made the King’s life much easier if Fisher had lost his—if he had consumed the soup.
In 1527, when Henry VIII, desperate for a male heir, began his public quest for an annulment from 42-year-old Catherine of Aragon to marry the delectable young Anne Boleyn, Fisher became one of his most serious obstacles. The question of the royal marriage was a theological one, and if Europe’s most respected theologian had agreed in the rightness of King Henry’s cause, it would have done a lot to bring about the annulment. But Fisher took the side of Catherine of Aragon. The marriage was legal and could not be dissolved.
In 1529, Bishop Fisher announced at the trial of the royal marriage that it would impossible to die more gloriously than in the cause of marriage, as John the Baptist did. In that same year, when a proposal came to Parliament to dissolve the smaller abbeys—the beginning of Henry VIII’s destruction of the Catholic monasteries—Fisher “openly resisted it with all the force he could.”
Enter one Richard Roose. One of Fisher’s earliest biographers, Richard Hall, wrote in 1655 the most complete account of the poisoning. He is the only source to say that Roose was not the chief cook in Fisher’s household, which is significant: “After this the Bishop escaped a very great danger. For one Richard Rose came into the Bishop’s kitchen, being acquainted with the cook, at his house in Lambeth-marsh, and having provided a quantity of deadly poison, while the cook went into the buttery to fetch him some drink, he took his opportunity to throw that poison into a mess of gruel, which was prepared for the Bishop’s dinner. And after he had waited there a while, he went on his way.
“But so it happened that when the Bishop was called into his dinner, he had no appetite for any meat but wished his servants to fall to and be of good cheer, and that he would not eat till toward night. And they that did eat of the poisoned dish were miserably infected. And whereof one gentleman, named Mr. Bennet Curwen and an old widow, died suddenly, and the rest never recovered their health till their dying day.”
An inquiry began at once. Although a salaried police force did not yet exist in England, criminal investigation was taken seriously. Justices of the peace, appointed by the monarch, received and investigated complaints; coroners viewed dead bodies and ordered arrests. Now if a suspect was bound over for trial, freedom was unlikely. Defendants charged with felonies or treason did not exist. In fact, murder trials rarely lasted more than 15 minutes.
Roose was soon apprehended, and admitted to adding what he believed were laxatives to the soup as a “jest.” No one believed him. The always skeptical Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote a slightly different version of events to his master, Charles V, the nephew of Catherine of Aragon:
“They say that the cook, having been immediately arrested… confessed at once that he had actually put into the broth some powders, which he had been given to understand would only make his fellow servants very sick without endangering their lives or doing them any harm. I have not yet been able to understand who it was who gave the cook such advice, nor for what purpose.”
We share Chapuys’ frustration. Who gave the cook these powders and told him that they would sicken and not kill anyone? If that information was obtained, it was not shared with the public. No transparency.
Sir Thomas More, the lord chancellor, informed Henry VIII that there were rumors that Anne Boleyn and her father and brother, Thomas and George Boleyn, were involved in the poisoning attempt. The king reacted angrily, saying Anne Boleyn was unfairly blamed for everything, including bad weather.
The murder motive and the question of a larger plot were soon obscured by Henry VIII’s drastic actions. He decided that Roose should be condemned by attainder without a trial—a measure usually used for criminals who were at large. Roose was sitting in prison! Nonetheless, Parliament passed “An Acte for Poysoning,” making willful murder by means of poison high treason even if the victim was not head of the government of the land. And boiling to death became a form of legal capital punishment. This crime was especially heinous, the king’s representatives said, and thus called for such measures.
Several biographers have noted King Henry’s extreme fear of poison. Although the monarch’s paranoia became infamous in later years, there was some basis for concern. Everyone had heard the stories of murder by cantarella in Rome during the time of the Borgias. Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, died—perhaps of poison slipped into his food at a banquet—during the reign of Henry VII. Cantarella was believed to have been arsenic trioxide.
If poison was ever suspected as the cause of death at this time in England, there was no way to scrutinize its damage within the corpse to confirm. And should the poison itself be obtained, the field of analytical chemistry was four centuries away.
Not surprisingly, rumors ran wild. Poisoning was rumored (never proven) to be the cause of the deaths of Queen Anne, Richard III’s wife; the eventual death of Catherine of Aragon; and the agonizing death of Henry’s son, Edward VI. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written in the reign of Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, employed poison. Shakespeare wove it into five other plays too.
But there was more to this than royal terror of a poisoned dish. As historian K.J. Kesselring wrote in The English Historical Review, “This may explain the severe, exemplary punishment of boiling, but not the need to label the offense treason.”
In April the crowds of Smithfield witnessed Roose’s death. According to an eyewitness: “He roared mighty loud, and divers women who were big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw, and were carried away half dead; and other men and women did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would prefer to see the headsman at his work.”
The story of the king and the stubborn bishop doesn’t end there.
When, after the king married Anne Boleyn, Bishop Fisher refused to swear an oath of supremacy to the king, he was arrested. The pope made Fisher a cardinal to protect him, but it only enraged the king more. Once the monarch had ordered a savage punishment of the man who tried to kill Fisher, and now Henry VIII wanted Fisher gone.
After a difficult imprisonment, Fisher was beheaded on June 22, 1535 on Tower Hill. The crowd gasped when they saw him on the scaffold for he was “nothing…but skin and bones…the flesh clean wasted away, and a very image of death.” In his speech to the crowd, Fisher is said to have shown a calm dignity.
According to Fisher’s biographer: “And here I cannot omit to declare to you the miraculous sight of his head, which after 14 days grew fresher and fresher, for that in his lifetime he never looked so well…. the face looked as if it beholdeth the people passing by and would have spoken to them. Which many took as a miracle.”
In 1886, the Catholic Church made John Fisher a saint.
How to Build a Working UFO | Alien Reproduction Vehicles (ARVs)
Monday morning and it’s cold and raining. I had asked everyone to be in an hour early because we were getting an early delivery of concrete. Three of my most trusted employees made it in like I asked. Although, a little hungover from the night before, at least they were present. Now Tony the fourth guy I have on my payroll was nowhere to be seen. I kind of half expected it. I could never rely on him, but this was the final straw. I ring him up and the phone rings out. I try him again and he picks up. At first he doesn’t say anything, then suddenly I hear sobbing down the phone. “Is everything alright,” I asked feeling a little concerned for him. I hear sounds of dry heaving over the phone. “I’m sick. I so bloody sick. He continued to repeat how sick he was in between inconsolable crying. I was beginning to feel bad for him. “Jesus Tony, you sound awful, how sick are you?” I asked. There was a momentary pause over the phone. “Well boss, I woke up naked from a heavy night drinking and my sister is in bed beside me.
I was traveling overseas. When I do, I have a special little leather bag on a long string that’s just the right size for my passport, which I never let out of my sight while out of the country. It’s about four inches by five inches by maybe a quarter in thick, if that. Basically flat.
I string it around my neck so I don’t lose the passport. I usually tuck my tickets and ID in there as well because it’s almost impossible to pickpocket.
Flying to Switzerland, I have a small overnight bag and my laptop computer. Woman at the counter says “Whoa there big fella! You have three bags. We have to charge you $100 for the extra bag.”
I stared at her. “What three bags?”
Of course, she pointed at the carryall, the laptop, and then my little passport holder around my neck.
I said “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She said, “If I can see it, it’s a bag, no matter the size.”
So I stuffed it into my slacks. “Can you see it now?” I asked.
She glowered and said “No.”
I said “Have a nice day.”
What a bunch of tools to consider a passport holder a “bag”.
I was working a 12 hour shift as a gate guard on a military base. 8 PM to 8 AM, in this case. ’Round about midnight, it got VERY boring, so I came up with all sorts of ways to keep awake and keep moving. I’d tune the radio in my little weather shack to NPR, Go out into the middle of the street, and ‘air-conduct’ the orchestra in my mind. Got pretty good at it, actually.
One night, about 3 AM, a Jeep Cherokee came round the corner onto the base entrance road. I snapped to attention, checking the plates and glancing at the decal on the vehicle. The Base Commander. I gave him my best parade ground salute, and waved him through, but he paused, rolling down his window and staring at me for a few seconds.
“Petty Officer Harrison, what in the name of the Most Holy God were you doing?”
Now, I can imagine it must have looked terribly odd, to see his gate guard waving his arms and poking at invisible things in the dead of night, with classical music blaring in the background. Don’t know what he made of it. Maybe he thought I was hallucinating, or something… But I gave him my best sheepish grin, saluted again and replied.
for cello and orchestra. The second violin is a bit behind the beat…”
He sighed, shook his head, gave a vague sort of wave and said. “Carry on, then.” and drove off.
Two days later, a new standing order was published. “All gate guards will be issued batons and metronomes at the beginning of the night shift, in order to keep that pesky second violin in line. Said equipment will be returned to the Armory at the end of the shift along with the duty weapon.” The look of disbelief on the department head’s face was priceless… 🙂
In 2012, the United States discovered suspicious Chinese access to the country’s critical infrastructure.
After some research, security officials found the culprit. It was not a Chinese hacker, but a Verizon employee, simply called “Bob.”
Bob did not have criminal intentions, as everyone initially suspected.
He did not feel like working hard all day and had found a creative way to enliven his day with more pleasant things.
The 40-year-old programmer had managed to outsource his work to Chinese programmers. He had physically sent his RSA token to a Chinese company so that Asian programmers could use his credentials during his working hours pretending to be him.
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This is an RSA token. It is a security id, a kind of “ID card” of the employee.
Chinese programmers received less than 20% of his six-figure salary.
Over the years, Bob had become a highly regarded employee for his “clean, well-written” code. He was called ‘the best developer in the house.'”
In reality, however, he spent his days on Facebook, Ebay, and Linkedin, watching many cat videos.
At 4:30 p.m., before the day was over, he would send a report to management.
After the investigation, Bob was obviously fired, and presumably his Chinese colleagues also lost their jobs.
Which, in my opinion, was not smart on the part of the company. Because the Chinese had really shown themselves to be trustworthy.
All of my classmates were “popular” from my outside-of-the-social-circle view. But here is what I know caused the “downfall” of two of them who were particularly popular. I graduated in 1998, and this is all from what happened when we were still in high school, what I’ve heard through the grapevine in the 22 years since, and what they post on Facebook:
Martha – Was one of the most popular girls in school, mainly because puberty had been very kind to her. She was dating a man in his 20s when she was a junior, so she was either 16 or 17. She was in his car one night when he flipped it over twice on the highway. It was a single-car accident. I believe alcohol was involved. She never came back to school after that. She survived, but was never quite the same. The man she was with died. Later, the rumor came out that her parents didn’t even know she was dating him. Had he survived, he could have been arrested for statutory rape.
Kyle – The school’s token “surfer dude.” I grew up near the beach, and surfing was a popular pastime with the rich kids. He was the most popular one in that group, and he even looked the part: dark tanned skin, bushy blonde hair, fairly “ripped,” etc… So he was popular with the girls in school. That popularity lasted beyond school and, sometime in his early 20s, he got caught sleeping with someone else’s wife and got the crap beat out of him. As in, an extended hospital stay for facial reconstruction kind of beating. The assault even made the local news. I’m not sure if the guy who beat him did any jail time, but I know that, according to all of our mutual friends, Kyle’s life hasn’t been very great since then. Everyone just describes it as “sad.” Did you hear about Kyle? It’s so sad, what’s happened to him…
I had a friend who was let go before his three month probation period was over. He was competent, I had worked with him before, and he always got his work done on time, when I worked with him.
His wife was suspicious that somebody was finding out where he got a job, and phoning in a bad reference. I don’t think that was the case, but its possible.
You know how some people have whats called a resting grumpy face. Well he had a resting happy face. It looked like he was always smiling. So when his boss would explain something serious to him, he would be smiling like he had not a concern in the world. He also had a sense of humor that alternated between dry and sardonic, that many people didn’t get.
Some people were insulted by his humor, because they didn’t get it. Then they would ask for an apology, and he would have the biggest smile, while he apologized.
I think that was his problem. But he didn’t even know he was constantly smiling. So he was totally unaware of the effect it had on people.
I’ve been in restaurants with famous people—I’ve been on film sets WORKING with famous people.
One time—long ago, on lunch break from working on the film “Pump Up the Volume” [1991] —was director John Waters—having lunch with porn star Traci Lords—an odd pairing, I thought—but not too odd.
I just noticed and didn’t bother them.
When I was a young fan—in film school—being exposed to the NYCity celebrity scene—I got a few autographs—Robin Williams, Peter Frampton, Monty Python Terry Jones, Charles Durning, Mike McGear [Paul McCartney’s brother], Joey Ramone.
But once I was in the business—it seemed kind of weird.
Especially with people I worked with—Christian Slater, Robert Englund [Nightmare’s Freddy!], Paul Dooley, and others.
Funny thing is—I’ve met far more celebrities “off the clock” than I did working in the business.
And oddly—I’ve been in LA for over 32 years now—and I think I met more in New York than I have here.
Being on foot in NY is more common than being on foot in LA—where I’m mostly in a car. This allows accidental meetings to take place more often.
Just not talking to women
Grilled Lasagna Sandwiches
Grilled Lasagna Sandwiches
The recipe ingredients are per sandwich.
Ingredients
2 slices bacon or ham
2 slices mozzarella or Swiss cheese
Sour cream
Tomato paste
Bread
Oregano
Instructions
Spread sour cream and tomato paste on bread and sprinkle on a little oregano to flavor.
Fry bacon or ham and put it between two slices prepared bread.
On his 18th birthday, I sat him down in front of the television and played him a video of his three-year-old self.
He burst out laughing so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks.
The video was an experiment based on delayed gratification, known as the ‘Marshmallow Test’.
In a classic experiment from the 1970s, a psychologist named Walter Mischel placed a treat in front of children and offered them a choice – they could either enjoy the treat now or wait a brief period to get two snacks.
When the experimenter left the room, many of the kids couldn’t wait and ate the treat (often a cookie or marshmallow), but a portion of the kids could delay the urge to enjoy the treat and wait for the reward of getting more delicious goodies.
What Mischel concluded was that the kids able to delay gratification had several advantages later on over the kids who could not wait.
The children who waited performed better academically than kids who ate the treat right away.
He found kids who delayed their gratification also displayed fewer behavioural problems and had much higher SAT scores.
His findings have since been largely debunked for not taking into consideration socio-economic factors. The latest research suggests there is a lesser correlation between the results showing willpower, and a greater emphasis on delayed gratification being an indicator of intelligence.
I don’t know if it matters to this, I only did it as a bit of fun.
In the video, I sat my son down at the kitchen table and placed two bowls of sweets in front of him; one bowl had five sweets, the other just the one.
I told him he could have the one sweet now, but if he could wait for five minutes – and I pointed at the minute hand on the clock and showed him where it needs to go to – then he could have the bowl with five sweets.
I then left the room.
His facial expressions were hilarious.
The angst.
His face alternating from contemplation to expectant glee and then more angst.
He employed diversion tactics… looking away, checking the sweets, looking at the door, checking the sweets, studying the clock, checking the sweets.
Rubbing his eyes, checking the sweets.
His 18-yr-old self was in kinks at this 3-yr-old child.
He couldn’t remember doing it and it brought him to tears of joy.
It was brilliant.
I recommend all parents do this… for the fun of it alone.
Five minutes later, I returned.
He had not eaten the sweets.
His face was a picture of delight.
He grabbed the bowl with 5 sweets and stuffed them in his pockets.
Smiling like a lemon shark.
Then, an afterthought… he went back to the table and took the single sweet too.
I had a friend in my school. In Class 10th, the registration forms for boards were getting checked by our class teacher. He was calling each student roll-number wise and asking their details. When his number came and he was asked, “ Father’s occupation”, he replied, he is a house husband.
Our Sir mocked him saying, “So, he packs your tiffin boxes, hahaha!! ”
My friend also laughed at it, taking it a good joke.
Actually, my friend lives in my colony. His mother is a nurse in a reputed govt. hospital and his Dad stays at home, doing all the works a genuine housewife does.
They are well economically. The husband is damn caring. Each evening, he goes hospital and takes his wife to home, lifting her bags in his hands. Both are happy.
But the man is nothing but a laughing stock in our colony. No man, literally no man is his friend here. No one talks to him as he is busy in his house chores too and he doesn’t do “manly” activities. He washes clothes, wipes the floor, maintains bills, buys groceries etc. But he is mocked behind his back. People say words like,
“E kouno kaam na Kari…jeevan bhar aapan mehraaru ke kamaayi khhat rah jaayi.”
He’ll never do any work and will keep feeding on his wife’s earnings forever.
But have we ever asked any women like, “Why she’s a housewife?”
In fact society’s eyes start glittering when they hear that this woman is a housewife.
But being house husband is shameful, malicious, atrocious, non-manly thing.
What do you wish was socially acceptable?
That if a couple has agreed to their terms that one will work and others will stay home, then we must shut our mouth if the gender is not suitable to our eyes. Neither housewife nor househusband is a pity task if the couple has decided to work this way.
my father was a great parent, but he was often not home, and when this incident happened, he was fighting the Korean War. I was not quite five when I discovered that my mother was basically a piece of garbage. Dad traveled a lot with his work after the military, and my mother would have never done any of this stuff when he was around.
Going back to age 4, we were shopping for new Easter dresses. I saw a pretty pale blue flowered dress that I really wanted. I was born blind in one eye and you could tell. I was skinny and had kinky black hair while my older sister was very pretty and blonde
My mother told me I could not have the blue dress because ugly little girls should wear brown and dark green so people would not notice them. I threw up on the floor of the store. She bought my sister the blue dress I got a dark green checked dress, that was so ugly. I have torn up any picture that ever showed any sign of it.
Now if this was the only thing my mother ever said to me like that, it would be OK but it wasn’t. But she never hurt my feelings again because I thought she was a drunken piece of garbage. In fact, I kind of got a kick out of the things that she said. My favorite was when she told my too much younger sisters, that they should be very careful or they might end up like me, not a normal woman. My little sister laughed at her and said“yeah, we might grow to be lawyers too. shoot me now“
My husband told me that my father‘s funeral was the worst display of emotion that he had ever seen because my father had five children who adored him and overtly mourned his passing. I did not see a tear at my mother‘s funeral.
if I could change things in my childhood, I would want a mother who loved me and a mother that I loved.
Ah, the classic cheese question. The red layer you’re referring to on the outside of cheese is known as the rind.
image 12
The first thing to know is that not all cheese rinds are created equal. Some are edible and tasty, others are purely functional. But let’s talk about the red rind, specifically.
That red layer is often found on a type of cheese you might see on a pub menu or nestled in a fancy charcuterie board: Gouda, Edam, or sometimes even Cheddar. It’s a wax coating, and it serves a grand purpose. The wax prevents the cheese from drying out and also protects it from unwanted nibbling critters while it ages to perfection.
So, should you eat the wax? I’ll stop you right there. No. Wax is not meant to be eaten. It’s like the shell on a peanut; it’s part of the packaging. You’re supposed to peel it off and discard it. Now, some might argue that there might be a cheese or two where the outer layer is dyed but isn’t wax. It’s rare but in these cases, you can eat it. However, the real star is what’s inside.
Now let’s go a step beyond. Some cheeses do have rinds that you’re meant to eat. Think Brie or Camembert with their soft, white mold rinds; they’re part of the experience. The rind adds texture and flavor complexity that cheese lovers seek out.
But back to the red wax. When you’ve got a chunk of Gouda and you’re really getting down to it, you’ll cut away the wax as you slice off delectable pieces to enjoy.
To wrap up—pun intended—most red layers on cheese are like a book cover for your cheese, telling you a bit about what’s inside and keeping it in good condition until you’re ready to dive into the story. It’s not part of the meal, it’s just a protective layer. Peel it off, toss it aside, and enjoy the cheesy goodness within.
Enjoy your cheese adventures, and remember, just because it’s wrapped up doesn’t mean it’s meant to be eaten. Happy cheese hunting!
Right now, as I type this, I’m in Florida helping care for my mom. My dad and I have been doing 12-hour shifts with her, because she needs round-the-clock care. Between that and all the thousand things around the house that need tending to that my dad isn’t able to, I haven’t been sleeping much.
Last night at about 5am my mom started having trouble breathing, so I called 911. We just heard from the hospital 10 minutes ago. The cancer has spread to her lungs and brain. She really wanted to make it to her birthday in 6 days. The doctors don’t think she’ll make it.
So I’m not maybe the best person to talk about loving life right now.
And yet…
A few days ago, my wife and I spent a couple of hours at the Festival of Lights in Cape Coral. They had hot cocoa and a campfire with marshmallows.
When I stumbled out of bed this morning (well, technically this afternoon), the first thing that happened was my mom’s cat sat at my feet, meowed at me, and headbutted me to say hi.
image 101
Right at this very moment, I’m looking out the window onto my parents’ patio, where three squirrels are chasing each other across the screen roof, and it’s delightful.
I was born just barely early enough to see humanity walk on the moon—-some of my earliest childhood memories are sitting in front of a B&W TV watching the Apollo launches. Odds are good I will see humanity walk on Mars. Isn’t that amazing?
I am surrounded by love. I’m spending Christmas with my Talespinner. My life is filled with creativity and joy—I write books with some of my lovers, my wife and I created the Borg Queen xenomorph parasite cosplay from an idea she had three years ago, I’m teaching myself CNC machining and laser engraving.
I live in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity in human history. We can fly through the air. Every day, we learn more about the universe.
This photo:
image 100
was taken by a probe that landed on a comet. We have the capacity to launch a probe that can travel for years and then arrive precisely on a small rock traveling at 84,000 miles per hour, which is about like a person in Boston shooting a rifle and hitting a golf ball in midair in Moscow. (Bizarre how many people think science is “just another belief system,” eh?)
And, I mean, I get it. The world isn’t all roses. Right now, far too many people in my country are too uneducated in history to recognize when they’re being lied to by yet another populist grifter selling them the same old tired lie that all their failures are the fault of somebody else.
We have a political party that takes gleeful, sadistic delight in mendacious cruelty, and a voting populace that sincerely believes it’s okay to vote for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party because surely the leopards won’t eat their faces—only the faces of the Mexicans and the gays and the trans people, right?
image 99
There is pettiness, and cruelty, and meanspiritedness. There are people who make voting choices because they want to hurt other Americans just to own the libs.
But viewed on a large enough scale, the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. We may be in the “one step back” part of the “two steps forward, one step back” cycle, yet this too shall pass.
I want to be here to see what happens next.
Saving the cub
Disney Left Out the Most Gruesome Aspects of the Original Snow White Story
Oh, Snow White, that classic, if a little retro, fairytale of good triumphing over evil. It’s a sweet story of an innocent young beauty who is banished by a vain, cruel, and jealous stepmother and who, with the help of seven lovable dwarfs, ultimately finds everlasting true love. Walt Disney turned the fable into the first full-length animated musical feature film in 1937. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is to this day one of the top-10 films of all time (adjusted for inflation), beloved by generations of children.
It turns out the American animator left out a few gruesome details. Disney’s well-known Snow White is a sanitized version of the original German Brothers Grimm fairytale, which was a lot more, well, grim.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm didn’t actually come up with the story of Snow White or Cinderella, Rapunzel, or any other storybook princess associated with their (and now Disney’s) name, for that matter. The Grimms were German scholars, researchers, and authors who collected folktales that were part of a rich oral tradition, having been passed down from generation to generation of women telling the stories to pass the time. In 1812, they published the collection as Nursery and Household Tales.
Despite its title, the book was not originally intended for children. The text included violence, incest, sex, and perhaps most deadly of all—footnotes. In the Cinderella story, for instance, the stepsisters cut off their toes and heels in order to fit into the glass slipper.
In “Little Snow-White,” as the original story was called, the Evil Queen asks a hunter to take Snow White into the forest to kill, as happens also in the movie. (In the original version, the child is also only 7 years old, as opposed to Disney’s 14. Neither seems old enough to consider marriage.)
In the Grimm version, the Queen orders the huntsman to bring back Snow White’s internal organs, saying “Kill her, and as proof that she is dead bring her lungs and liver back to me.”
He kills a boar instead, and brings back to the Queen the boar’s lungs and liver—which the Queen thinks belongs to Snow White and so promptly eats. Ewww!
“The cook had to boil them with salt, and the wicked woman ate them, supposing that she had eaten Snow-White’s lungs and liver,” as the Grimm brothers wrote.
The Queen tricks Snow White three separate times in the Grimm version. The first time, she has Snow White try on a corset, which is so tight, Snow White passes out. (The dwarfs save her by cutting the laces.) The second time, she sells Snow White a poisonous comb, which the young girl puts in her hair, causing her to pass out. (The dwarfs take it out.) The third time the Queen tricks her with the same poisonous apple we see in the Disney film.
Having fainted and presumed dead, young Snow-White is placed in a glass coffin in both book and movie. When the Prince happens by in the Grimm version, he insists on taking the deceased beauty away, even though he’s never met her. The dwarfs hesitantly agree, but as they are carrying her coffin out of their house, one of them stumbles. Jostled from her resting place in the coffin, Snow White spits out the apple lodged in her throat and is immediately revived. Without the influence of the Prince’s kiss.
In movie and in folklore, Snow White and the Prince fall in love and get married (never mind that in the original tale, Snow is only 7 years old). In the movie, the seven dwarfs chase the Evil Queen into the forest, where she tumbles off a cliff—with a push from a convenient lightning strike—and falls to her death.
In the book version, the Queen attends their wedding where she is meted out a just punishment of dancing to her death. (Perhaps this last was thought up by a 19th century noblewoman forced to dance endlessly to the 1812 version of Bruno Mars’s “Marry You.”)
The more Grimm version of the Queen’s death goes like this: “They put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead.”
You can see why Disney wanted to clean up that unsavory image!
I am working as a police sergeant in a small city in the midwest. A man comes in, wearing a very nice suit. A young woman is standing next to him. He tells me that about an hour ago one of my officers pulled over his 16 year old daughter. The gentleman says the officer told the young woman she would have to give him oral sex or he would write her a ticket that would cause her to lose her probationary license. The man wanted the officer terminated immediately or he was going to call his friend “the mayor” and have both of us fired.
I asked to see the citation he is holding. I asked if his daughter would be willing to give a sworn statement so I have evidence of the situation I can use for further action? He agrees. I bring a court reporter and an audio recorder. I date and time stamp the start of the tape and ask her describe the situation that occurred when she was issued citation number XXXXXXX on this date.
She gives a full complete account just like the details her father had given to me a few minutes before. When she concludes her statement, the court reporter asked her to sign a promise that all information is true and factual to the best of her with the understanding it may be used in criminal actions in this matter.
At this point I only know what I have been told by her father and her. But I knew something the father and daughter do not know. About a month prior to this event the police department installed cameras in all the squad cars. Whenever the red lights are activated the camera starts recording and microphone mounted on the officer’s shirt picks up audio and puts it on the tape (it was the initial use of squad cameras, we used VCR tapes, But the officers had no ability to over write or erase recorded tape).
The court reporter took the dictated statement to the girl and had her sign, and her father had co-signed because she was underage, the court reporter then took the statement upstairs to the clerk of court for filing.
I went to to the Evidence Room and watched the video tape of the traffic stop that had been recorded on our new squad cam system. 15 minutes later I came back to the interview room. The father was mad this was taking so long. I explained we had some new systems and I was reviewing how they matched up with his daughter’s testimony. I put a tape in the VCR and played every second of the traffic stop from the time the lights were turned on till officer ended the recording by manually shutting off the record feature by turning off his red lights and camera. The officer was professional and told the reason for the stop and requested the driver’s license, registration and insurance card from the driver. He went back to the squad with no further discussion other than to tell her to remain in her vehicle while he checked her status and wrote her citation. He came back to her car explained the citation, she asked”Isn’t there something I can do to get out of this ticket?” The officer said, “no, the citation has been issued, pay the listed fine or appear in court on the date shown, just slow down in the future, please use caution merging back into traffic. And then the officer walked back to his squad as the young lady drove away.
No sexual offer from the officer to void the citation, no discussion outside of the details of her responsibility to handle the fine or appear in court. And a standard warning to use caution merging back into traffic.
The father stood up, looked a little embarrassed. He said they had taken enough of my time and they should be going. I told him he was free to leave but his daughter filed a false police report. And Juvenile Probation Officers from the county were enroute to the station to charge her as a minor and determine if she should be placed in protective custody. I urged the father to remain and meet with JPO. I looked at the young lady and told her how lucky she was this happened when she was only 16 years old. An adult making the same false accusations would face felony charges. I told the father they could remain in the interview room until JPO arrived. If they tried to leave she would be taken and place in our juvenile holding area.
He was most cooperative at that point.
Now I believe the young lady thought a dramatic story would deflect any anger her father felt towards her for the citation. I am sure she did not realize how this would spin out of control and her father would make an official complaint. But if we did not have cameras the officer would have been been pulled from street duty and placed on an administrative assignment till Internal Affairs had completed their investigation. If they failed to find evidence enough to charge the officer I am sure Daddy would have have made loud and angry complaints to his friend the mayor.
There are many, many cases throughout law enforcement, public employees and private business where males in positions of authority have pressured women. It still happens today. Remember many but not all are true. I used this story for many years to convince officers that the need to document what they do correctly outweighs the same amount of time one of them does something bad.
And when they do we catch them, punish them and fire them. Camera system are expensive and keeping the recorded files is a logistical nightmare…but it is all worth it. Maybe we could require all politicians to wear cameras every day?
I don’t think, I know. each sanction lead to more sanctions and each new sanction will create an anti sanction action. Countries throughout the world will pad themselves with measures where sanctions will be nullified and totally ineffective. More sanctions is pushing a new world order in that everything western and U.S. will be replace and alternate anti sanctions mechanisms and systems that make future sanctions not work any more.
That is what all sane and sensible people will do and react when you fxxked them up. They have dumped the dollar faster, they will stop using SWIFT, they will not accept western standards and set up their true world standards, the will avoid western banks, the will stop depending western financial institutions and system. They will ignore western rating agencies, they will stop depending on the west swiftly and speedily. That is what I know happened.
To me the U.S. are losing its unfair advantage. And each new sanctions is like another nail in coffin of the western rules based international order. I am certain the U.S. sanction because it getting desperate to keep its rules based international order but instead it is speeding the demise and implosion of the U.S.
That is what is happening in the world each time the U.S. sanction.
U.S. Military Has More Unfeasible Plans For Ukraine
Yesterday the Biden administration ‘declassified‘ laughable numbers about alleged Russian losses. It did not help. Zelenski’s mission to get more money from Congress has failed:
Following a roughly 30-minute meeting with Zelensky – their first one-on-one encounter – House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Biden administration’s response to congressional Republicans’ demands has been “insufficient,” and reiterated his stance that a deal remains unlikely without a “transformative change” at the border.
The Republicans also asked the White House for its strategy in Ukraine. But as the New York Times reported yesterday, there is none.
American and Ukrainian military leaders are searching for a new strategy that they can begin executing early next year to revive Kyiv’s fortunes and flagging support for the country’s war against Russia, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. … The United States is stepping up the face-to-face military advice it provides to Ukraine, dispatching a three-star general to Kyiv to spend considerable time on the ground. U.S. and Ukrainian military officers say they hope to work out the details of a new strategy next month in a series of war games scheduled to be held in Wiesbaden, Germany.
That the counter-offensive had failed has been obvious since mid of June. A reason for the failure were fake war-games during which the parameters were skewed until the games showed that Ukraine would win:
Logic dictates that any responsible use of the KORA simulation system would have predicted the failure of the 47th Brigade’s attack. According to The Washington Post, the officers of the 47th Brigade “planned their assaults and then let the [KORA] program show them the results – how their Russian enemies might respond, where they could make a breakthrough and where they would suffer losses.” The KORA simulation allowed the Ukrainian officers to coordinate their actions “to test how they’d work together on the battlefield.”
Given that the Ukrainian force structure was insufficient to accomplish the mission-critical task of suppression, there was no chance for the Ukrainian forces to accomplish the actual assault requirements of a breaching operation – the destruction of enemy forces on the opposite side of the obstacle barrier being breached. The Ukrainians, however, came away from their KORA experience confident that they had crafted a winning plan capable of overcoming the Russian defenses in and around Orekhov.
When one examines the structure of a KORA-based simulation, it becomes clear that the system is completely dependent upon the various inputs which define the simulation as a whole.
Now the U.S. is sending one of its generals to take command of the Ukrainian army and will launch more war games. To what outcome will their parameters be skewed.
Apparently the time since late June was insufficient to come up with a new strategy for Ukraine. This will not do:
Some in the U.S. military want Ukraine to pursue a “hold and build” strategy — to focus on holding the territory it has and building its ability to produce weapons over 2024. The United States believes the strategy will improve Ukraine’s self-sufficiency and ensure Kyiv is in a position to repel any new Russian drive.
The goal would be to create enough of a credible threat that Russia might consider engaging in meaningful negotiations at the end of next year or in 2025.
At the same time, Ukrainian officials are examining strategies that build on their successful deep strikes on Crimea last fall. They are searching for creative ways to keep Russia off balance with attacks against arms factories, weapons depots and train lines for moving munitions, and to score symbolic victories. One Ukrainian former senior military official declined to discuss the proposals but said the new plan is being refined and is “very daring.”
The plan is that Ukraine will go into defense mode while committing more terrorism. But why would Russia let Ukraine build real defense lines? Ukraine is starved of artillery ammunition. It does not have the troops to hold all lines.
And whatever line it can build will break under intensive fire.
In the Summer of 1943, after German attack on Kursk had failed, the Soviets went into an offensive mode that did not stop until its troops captured Berlin. The German army retreated to defense lines, then retreated again and again – all the way back to Berlin. It took nearly two years, but the outcome was obvious as soon as the attack on Kursk had failed.
Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the top American commander in Europe, has been taking a bigger role in coordinating with Ukrainian officials.
The Pentagon has also decided to dispatch Lt. Gen. Antonio A. Aguto Jr., who commands the support of Ukraine from a base in Germany, to spend lengthy periods of time in Kyiv. General Aguto will work more directly with the country’s military leadership to improve the advice the United States is offering, American officials said. While the White House has opted not to have U.S. military advisers in the country permanently, General Aguto’s frequent rotations in and out of Kyiv would inch toward the end of that restriction.
A three star general does not come alone. He has a full group of staff, dozens, which will now become military advisors on the ground in Ukraine. They will also become priority targets.
And what do those advisors know about an industrial warfare that Ukraine soldiers do not know. Well, nothing.
I for one see no change yet of the trajectory Ukraine is on. It is losing badly while its propaganda is still claiming victory. Consider this from today’s Washington Post:
Loud explosions jolted many residents out of bed around 3 a.m. in central Kyiv, followed by air raid alert sirens a few minutes later. Ukraine’s air force said that antiaircraft defenses shot down all 10 ballistic missiles that were launched at Kyiv. That assertion could not be independently confirmed.
Multiple missile impacts happened BEFORE the air alarm went on. But the Ukrainian military claims to have shut all incoming missiles down. That does not sound like a plausible time line to me. I, in fact believe that the few air defense system Kiev was give, like its artillery, pretty much out of ammunition.
With no further aid coming from the U.S., and potentially also not from Europe, it is high time to shut the war down.
Posted by b on December 13, 2023 at 15:04 UTC | Permalink
WW2, the deadliest conflict in human history. Yet there are some incredible stories of survival by soldiers. I’ll give two.
image 106
One was Alan E. Magee. He was a gunner on a B-17 bomber.
He was on a mission over France in 1943 when his plane got hit by German flak and started to go down.
He tried to bail out, but his parachute was damaged and he couldn’t open it. So he decided to jump anyway, hoping for a miracle.
He fell 22,000 feet without a parachute and crashed through the glass roof of a train station.
He survived with only some broken bones and cuts. He was captured by the Germans, who were amazed that he was still alive.
They treated his wounds and sent him to a POW camp, where he spent the rest of the war.
He was liberated in 1945 and returned to the US. He lived until 2003, when he died at the age of 84.
There’s another guy who might be even luckier.
His name was Alistair Urquhart, and he was a Scottish soldier in the Gordon Highlanders regiment.
image 105
He was captured by the Japanese in Singapore in 1942 and sent to work on the infamous Death Railway in Thailand.
He endured torture, starvation, disease and beatings for years. He was then put on a cargo ship that was torpedoed by an American submarine.
He survived the sinking and spent five days floating in the ocean with sharks and corpses.
He was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship and taken to Nagasaki, where he was forced to work as a slave laborer.
He survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 and was freed by the Americans shortly after.
He returned to Scotland and lived until 2016, when he died at the age of 97.
Women’s Dating Standards have Ruined Relationships
Number of close relationships…
What was the most satisfying conversation you had with someone who tried to intimidate you?
What was the most satisfying conversation you had with someone who tried to intimidate you?On first impressions, Frank was a nice guy. He extended his hand the moment he walked in my door, “How the devil are you?” he said, all bright and cheery.
Frank spoke and acted like he was my new best friend.
I’d asked for a move back to street duties – a year of pandering to our self-aggrandising chief had been enough. I’d got my wish and Frank was taking over my job, Sergeant of the Safer Streets Scheme. Despite the title, it was a political role. Allegedly, its remit was to make our streets safer – in reality, it was to make our chief look good.
I handed the reins over to Frank.
Within a day, he was badmouthing me behind my back. Within a week, he wasn’t doing half the things I’d shown him. Within a month he was taking credit for several of my long-term operations.
Within three months, they promoted him.
But that’s okay because they promoted me too.
A few years later, my boss urged me to apply for a post at headquarters. It would mean another promotion if I got it. They accepted my application and the next step was an interview.
I don’t know how he found out I’d applied, but I got a phone call from Frank.
Frank informed me he had also applied for the position and that we were the only two to go forward for an interview. He boasted that with his ‘superior CV’ he was pretty much guaranteed to get the job. It wasn’t a friendly call; Frank was trying to mess with my mindset. He tried to belittle me with insults.
The good thing about that kind of behaviour is, if you have a little emotional intelligence, it’s easy to deal with.
When people are nasty to you, do this one thing — imagine the person is talking about themselves and go-ahead and agree with everything they say.
It works on two levels.
First, you don’t get upset. In trying to cause offence, bullies tend to say things that would upset themselves and what upsets them is the truth. More often than not, people like Frank are merely describing themselves.
Second, the intimidator gets no fulfilment. Their goal is to upset you, but by agreeing with them you show you are not concerned by their words — there is nothing so dispossessing as indifference. You own them.
So that’s what I did.
The day after his interview, Frank called me again.
“Congratulations,” he said, all bright and cheery as if I was his best friend again. “I’ve just been told I didn’t get the job, so well done.”
There is a sweetness in settling an old score, and Frank deserved the bombshell I had for him.
“Frank,” I said, “you must have had a terrible interview because I decided I didn’t want to work at headquarters and withdrew my application last week. That means you were the only person in the process and still they didn’t want you!”
Italian Sandwiches
6117 4k
Ingredients
4 sub buns
4 Italian sausages, sweet, mild or hot
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 jar pizza sauce
Instructions
Grill sausage until done.
Slice buns open like a hot dog bun.
Spread some pizza sauce inside, then place a sausage and cover with cheese.
Wrap with foil and place over coals or on grill just long enough to melt cheese.
Add mushrooms or whatever other garnishes are desired and available.
I had a messy divorce with children. Wife left the children at home alone while she traveled out of state to see her new internet boyfriend. The children ran out of food and were scared to be home alone. They called the court appointed attorney ad litem. She called me. She told me – send your client to pick up the children immediately. She told me that she was going to set a hearing and tell the judge about the wife leaving the small children (all under 14) home alone for days with no food. I called Dad. He said “I am getting read to pick up my date and I am going to have sex tonight.” I told him to cancel his date and go get his kids. He refused. I asked him if I could have his mom (grandma) pick them up since they were home alone and hungry. He said no and refused to allow me to ever talk to his mom again. I had to call the court appointed attorney ad litem and tell her what was going on. She had to find someone else to pick up the children that night. I had represented 3 generations in this family for many years about all their legal issues. His mom kept calling — but I could not talk to her since he had instructed me not to do so. She was so angry at me. She “stalked” me for over a year. I really wanted her to know what her son did – she would have “kicked his butt”! Plus, he never paid his legal bill. This case was a real disaster and I’d spent hours working on it. As I recall his legal bill was over $10,000. I withdrew from the case. I was so mad. I had worked for months to get him primary custody. I worked hard to get the court appointed attorney ad litem was on Dad’s side. I actually watched the trial because I was so pissed. Dad came off as a total jerk with his new attorney. Mom’s attorney “got her to clean up” and ditch the internet boyfriend. Mom had a really good attorney who worked with her client to make her seem like a great parent. Mom was given primary custody of the children.
My Christmas wish is that grandma see what I wrote and understand why I withdrew and what her son did. This was probably 20 years ago and the kids are grown. I don’t know if grandma is alive. But due to this crummy client I never got another call from anyone in that family again.
In Texas, we have attorney-client privilege. If a client says you cannot talk to anyone, then you cannot. You cannot even defend yourself when they call you and scream at you. It can be frustrating at times.
Many years ago I had a nut case of a Regional Manager named Bob. Bob got a bonus based not only on sales, but lowering expenses
At this time, phone calls were not free, even local calls cost around 10 cents per minute. Bob walked by my office while I was on a call with a customer and waited for me to finish. Then he said to me “asking the customer how he was doing today cost us 10 cents, stop wasting money”. Thereafter everyone made calls only when he was not around, and productivity dropped
The office was in New Jersey where it was at that time illegal to have self serve gas stations. One day he announced that all our gas receipts had full serve noted, and we were wasting money by not using self serve. Any receipts not marked self serve would be rejected. We all drove across the border to NY in order to pump our own gas, for 20 cents more per gallon.
He posted a sign stating that if you made more than 4 photocopies of something, you must go up 6 floors to the copy center and use the massive copy machine, not the local one. He said it saved .03 cents per copy! Someone posted an analysis showing the electricity for the elevator up and down cost more than .12 cents.
For the answer to this question one need look no further than Titanic’s sister ship, RMS Olympic. What most people don’t realize is that, as the older sister, Olympic was much more well known. All those superlatives we associate with Titanic — ship of dreams, floating palace, world’s largest moving object, etc. — were originally lavished on Olympic. In 1911, when she was launched, an entire issue of the trade publication The Shipbuilder was devoted to Olympic, with barely a passing mention of the other sister then under construction. Before the sinking Olympic was far and away the more famous sister and arguably the most famous ship in the world.
Unlike her ill-fated little sister, Olympic apparently WAS unsinkable. She had three serious collisions in her career, the first of which (with the warship HMS Hawke) left her severely damaged but still afloat. The second such incident was in 1916 when Olympic turned and rammed a German U-boat that had tried to sink her; the U-boat attempted to dive but to no avail — Olympic’s propellers tore open the sub’s pressure hull like it was aluminum foil. The liner emerged from the encounter with a slight dent on her lower prow and a legendary reputation as the only civilian vessel to sink an enemy warship in World War 1. Finally, in 1934, Olympic collided with and sank the Nantucket lightship LV-117 in heavy fog. Again Olympic escaped serious damage.
Olympic transported thousands of troops to and from the theaters of war in WW1, earning the undying devotion of those who traveled upon her. They called her “Old Reliable” because she always brought you home. Others referred to her affectionately as simply “Oly.” Captain Sir Bertram Fox Hayes, Olympic’s longest-serving commander and a towering figure in British maritime history (he was in command when they sank the U-boat), called her, “The finest ship, in my estimation, that has ever been built or ever will be.”
But alas, all good things must come to an end. The Great Depression hit the shipping companies hard, and by then Olympic was over 20 years old and showing her age. When White Star merged with Cunard she was retired. She was sent to the scrapyard in 1935. Fortunately some of her interior fittings and panels were preserved and can now be found in the White Swan Hotel in Alnwick, England.
A YouTube user, Neville, posted a video that completely changed the way I look at Social Media.
He and his wife suspected Facebook was listening to their phone calls. They started noticing ads popping up that were eerily similar to the things they’d been talking about the day before.
They decided they would do a test.
They didn’t own a cat. They hadn’t had a cat in 20 years. They never talked about cats.
They set up a phone call, where they both repeated the words “cat” and “cat food” over and over again during a 10-minute phone call.
A few days later:
Both his and her Facebook feed were filled with cat food commercials.
image 108
After seeing this video, it primed my awareness to it, and I immediately began noticing the same pattern on my own Facebook feed. And this has since been tested by other users who confirmed similar creepy results.
Social Media Apps can and do listen to your phone calls.
Why?
The more targeted they can make their ads, the more they can charge companies for those ads. To make more highly targeted ads, they want to get right inside of your head and know everything about you.
If you don’t want Facebook (or any app) to listen to your calls, you need to go into your settings on your phone, find the app, click on permissions, and disable access to the microphone.
Social Media companies will get as much information as possible about you with little regard for what is right or wrong. Just as long as it is legal (enough), they’ll do it.
Chinese houses tend to be quite different from those in the West.
For one thing… they are smaller.
They also (well many of them) are in huge complexes with yards-people, security, surveillance, electronic gates, walls, and facial recognition.
They tend to be stone… polished marbles, granite and other types over cement, and tend to be opulent.
For the longest time, I progressively moved into larger and larger homes, with my last two on the 300+ sq/m side. These are enormous by Chinese standards, and honestly, I found them to be too big for our little family.
But you know what?
As you move into larger homes, so does your possessions. They start to fill up the house, and before you know it, you need extra storage rooms to hold all your “stuff”.
So right now, we are living in much smaller homes.
Oh, sure the place is small and tight… with an over abundance of toys… I’ll tell you what. But it’s all we need.
Downsizing… or “right”-sizing has advantages if you look at the bigger picture.
The Chinese will move only when there is a perfect wind. They need to be absolutely sure that the Taiwanese will approve of an eventual unification. Even if the Taiwanese openly reject Independence at any time and prefer Status quo until eventual Independence, China would gain enormous face
I predict the following scenario:-
Revolt by Taiwanese Army against the Taiwanese leadership on charges of corruption
Taiwans defences under complete control of the Army faction
Arrest of Senior Leaders of the Taiwanese Government
Permission to China to fly over Taiwanese Airspace and for Chinese Navy to land in Taiwan for “Securing peace and avoiding Civil War”
This is the only scenario where China will be able to walk into Taiwan and have the Full support of the UN and 90% of the world
Every law will support China in this scenario
If any Japanese or Korean or US vessel interferes, China can LEGITIMATELY declare war and have the whole world back China because TAIWAN IS INVITING CHINA
Even if the US allege that this is a coup de at, the law says it’s still Chinas problem to solve the issue because of the ONE CHINA POLICY
At this stage, North Korea can legally threaten South Korea and checkmate Seoul while Russia can checkmate Japan in the Sea of Japan
Both would be within their rights as Allies of China because Japan, Korea and US would be the aggressors NOT CHINA
It would be like if Kashmir had a separatist movement and Kashmiris begged the Indian Army to help
Nobody can stop the Indian Army because India is within the law
That would be the scenario China would typically envision
I am certain China has a very strong group ready for such a rebellion within Taiwan
Take over Taiwan by revolution and then legitimately arrive in Taiwan to solve the crisis which would be fully legal due to the One China Policy
It’s a Legal masterpiece
The US can at best sanction China and do what they did to Russia but China has had time to slowly plan alternates
Even if Taiwan declare Independence, this would be Chinas counter plan
I can answer this one and I’ll give you the no-frills version: Your husband obviously has a high security job. He cannot talk about the work he does or he will lose his job and possibly go to prison. My late husband had that kind of job in the Army. You just don’t ask. My thought was that if he didn’t tell me anything, I couldn’t accidently repeat it. He would come home from work and I would ask “How was your day?” and he would tell me if so-and-so was in a bad mood or if they had a surprise inspection or if the soda machine was out of Coke, but NEVER any specifics of the job. Sometimes he’d tell me it was a rough day or a quiet day, but nothing else. You have to understand this and accept it. If you can’t, then divorce. The other thing I want to address here is you say is he shuts down and is cold. He doesn’t have much choice. If you are badgering him about details about his job all the time and he has told you he cannot tell you, then stop. Just stop. Who would want to come home to someone asking the same questions over and over when they’ve been told they can’t know? When he comes home, ask the simple, easy questions. “How was your trip?” “Did it go well?” Don’t even ask about the weather, since he might not be able to even tell you where he was. I believe it takes a strong person to be a military spouse, and not everyone can do it. You need to decide if this life is for you or not. Just some info: My soldier was gone a lot during one of our stateside assignments. We lived in one state for almost 5 years and he was gone at least 2.5 years of that time. Not usually more than up to 6 weeks at a time, but many of those trips were ones where he could not even call home. Make some friends, get a job, get some hobbies (I read all the books in the fiction section of the tiny post library, among other things.) And, most of all, love him when he’s home.
I was at a restaurant with my son. It was around 2:00 p.m., and the store was relatively empty, so we were relaxing, chatting, going over the menu, and pretty much inclined to just settle in, take our time and enjoy, not only the food, but chatting with our server…you know, a nice, relaxed family time together.
About 15 minutes later, a couple walked in, he in a blue suit, and she in wedding gown and veil. A bit surprised, I smiled, they returned it, he with a grin, she with a brilliant, happy smile. I was confused, though. Bride, Groom, obviously directly from the ceremony – alone?
So, I’ll admit it, I eavesdropped, just a little – enough to determine that no one came to their wedding. They were alone.
This made me sad, and my son kept saying, “Poor kids.” So, I did it. I ordered them a bottle of champagne and asked our server if, since it was slow, the kitchen could whip up some kind of wedding cake or dessert.
I wish you could have seen their faces! I’m actually tearing up now remembering it! They toasted me and Chris, and asked if they could take a picture with us. So, Chris and I are in a wedding photo album, somewhere in Ohio.
It turns out, they were both in “the system,” both were 18 and had just been dropped by the system. I’m not sure how they met, but they decided that, having no family, they’d make one of their own.
Great kids! Absolutely stellar human beings – and so sweet!
The School phoned me up as my son was being extremely disruptive and arguing with the teacher in class. I was to come down and speak to the hear teacher abotu this and what can be done etc etc etc.
Now, to be fair on her, she did not know the details at this time, but she was right in that he should not have been acting up like he did.
Now, I got to the school, asked at reception for the Head Teacher, and we both went to her office, where my son was sat down. looking a bit like he was up for it I have to admit, and I was really annoyed and so we asked WTF has just happened and why was he arguing with the teacher?
It was all down to the teacher telling the class, that Evolution is not proper science, because it is only a theory! – My son, correctly pointed out that somethign in science only makes it to a theory once it has been shown to be right. Now, so far, I have not mentioned that he was 9.
I started to laugh and I then sided with my son 100% and I said to the headteacher that the teacher was clearly wrong, and that my son would have just been arguing because he was being told wrong information. The Head did agree with me that the teacher was incorrect on this. The head said that she will have a talk with the teacher, however, this to me was simply not good enough!
I argued, that we need to go back to the class NOW, and you need to enforce the fact that the teacher is wrong and that my son is absolutely correct. The head did NOT want to do this, however, I then told her that if she did not, then I will go to the local papers and I will do whatever I can to get hat teacher fired. ( Yes, I am a git at times ).
So yeah, the teacher was absolutely horrified that the head was correcting her and that a 9 year old child had made her look like a moron.
I am NOT going to allow that level of ridiculous nonsense to be taught to my kids.
I dont care if they want to believe in any religious stuff, but if they do, then they need to have solid reasons to do so, and of course, when you understand how science works, it kind of stops you from believing in such hocus pocus as religion.
I graduated high school with an Honors Diploma, 3.98 GPA. I went to a trade school for HVAC and Refrigeration. Took right at 18 months to complete and get my technical degrees.
While in HVAC classes, I decided to doubled up and got my digital and analog electronics certifications. I was in trade school right at 2 yrs. Came out debt free.
Those 2 years a worked at a local factory.
1 month out of school, I landed a job at one of the largest hospitals in my state, as a boiler/chiller operator.
Within 1 yr at that job I moved up to lead hvac tech. Stayed there for 10 yrs.
I took every class they offered in my field. Left that hospital with certifications in building automation controls, deep knowledge in commercial HVAC, chillers, high pressure steam boilers, etc.
Moved on to a higher paying job with my states goverment general service department. Worked there for 6 yrs, gained even more knowledge and certifications.
I now part of a commercial HVAC service business. Have seven people in the company, all with extensive knowledge in commercial HVAC service work. Each of us making well over 100k a year.
I was the first in my family to not go to a traditional 4yr college.
My parents supported me in that. With that support, I was able to do what I was passionate about. I was the first, in my family, to get a job within my choosen field, without major debt.
25 yrs later, Im also the first in my family to stick with my degree and advance it/add to it, still without taking on any debt.
All this to say, support your son in what he wants to do.
Getting into the trades is looked down upon, but if it wasn’t for the trades, the world we live in, would not be remotely the same.
If he feels he can make it work, support him.
And if he fails, stand beside him with a supportive attitude and not a “I told you so” attitude.
Our kids need to make their own successes and failures.
As parents, when our kids hit a certain age, we have to let them fly on their own and hope and pray our guidance and teachings was enough to mold and shape them into productive, happy members of society.
This isn’t to say we stay totally hands off.
My two oldest children (22 and 20) still ask advice on things.
I give my life experiences on the subject matter they ask, and what worked for me. It’s up to them to take the advice, modify it to their life and run with it.
“The Stand”: US Biological Laboratory Leak Leads to 99% Global Fatality
I proudly was the nasty co-worker in the teacher’s lounge. I worked with a woman who thought she should be in charge of everyone because her husband was campus security. On more than one occasion she had let me know that she thought my lunch was “odd.” I had changed my eating habits, increased my exercise resulting in a major weight loss that was being recognized. This other woman was larger than the size I was when I embarked on my health journey. I am not fat-shaming, I am just pointing out that she was not a role model for healthy eating and lifestyle. The things I was eating were working for me.
I was in the teacher’s lounge getting my cup of coffee before I sat down to eat. The only place to sit was next to Mrs. Campus Security. I sat down, then opened my lunch box, pulled out my can opener and a can of pork and beans.
I had only one bite out of the can when I heard in a disgusted tone, “You’re not really going to eat out of the can?”
“Why, do you want some? I can scoop some out for you.” I said in reply, trying to ignore her rudeness and half a pan of lasagna that she was eating.
“That is the grossest thing I have ever seen anyone eat for lunch. You’re eating those nasty greasy beans out of a can… cold!”
“Yep, that was my plan to eat these ‘taste’ nasty beans right out of this can.”
I thought that would be the end of the conversation. All through lunch she had a comment about, “How gross I was for eating beans” or “How my beans smelled bad.” When I finished my beans, I pulled out my treat: a can of peaches in fruit juice.
I started to open the can when I heard, “You got to be kidding me! Are you going to eat those out of the can too?”
I couldn’t resist the moment and began singing a song by Presidents of the United States of America, “Peaches come from a can they were put there by a man in a factory downtown…” The other staff began laughing at the song. We were all tired of listening to Mrs. Campus Security grumble.
We had a staff meeting that afternoon, after school, that controlling lady was still complaining about my lunch. Her still being riled about my lunch led to me being inspired; I decided, right then and there, that I needed to eat the same thing daily while sitting next to her for the sheer entertainment factor.
The next day, she flipped out when I casually sat next to her, then had the same lunch as the day prior. Now, I started making comments about, how flavorful the can makes the beans. I loudly scraped my can sitting next to her while railing on about how delicious they were. The day after that, I did it again. I did it every day for a month. A few days into my inspired entertainment, the other staff realized what I was doing, they started to bring pork and beans for lunch also. Mrs. Campus Security quit coming into the teacher’s lounge during lunch because of being grossed out by us co-workers. The rest of us enjoyed our lunch period much more after her departure.
China is like a man who put on a lot of fat and muscle in order to become strong. Now it wants to improve its health by losing fat while keeping muscle through a tough diet and training regimen.
Chinese society and its economy are now going through that transition.
Up until about 2016, growth in China was easy because it was fueled by manufacturing and rising real estate prices. Most exports were made for foreign brand companies like Apple. Following this growth model, China was able to grow stronger in manufacturing by building multiple supply chains and developing its technology.
With Trump’s election in 2016, the U.S. made it clear that it would not allow this growth model to continue because it believed that China was getting a free development ride at the US’s expense. Trump started with import tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S., and when that did not generate the desired results, he called for U.S. companies to lesser their reliance on Chinese manufacturing by moving to more friendly and compliant nations like Vietnam and India, a policy which Apple has been following.
The Biden administration has continued this policy and added to it by adding technology sanctions to U.S. IP and chips, and has encouraged companies like TSMC to build chip fabs in the U.S.
What we are learning now is that the Chinese government and Huawei in particular have been secretly preparing for this worst-case scenario for at least five years and have been building their own technology, manufacturing and supply chains which are completely free of western IP. Now, the Chinese are positioning themselves to sell their own indigenously-developed technologies and products worldwide under their own Chinese brands instead of western brands. The Chinese will compete by offering what are now considered expensive high-end features in Western products as standard features in Chinese products.
Chinese companies are already doing this with electric vehicle automobiles and mobile phones, and will do it with other products. There will be a very bloody price war between Chinese and Western brands, and in order to survive, western brands will have to accept lower profits.
Domestically, the Chinese government has worked off its dependency on real estate to fuel domestic growth, which is why Evergrande, Country Garden and other real estate developers are in such trouble.
Make no mistake, this is a tough and painful transition, but there are good reasons for the short-term sacrifice.
China has always been about the medium- and long-term, never about the short-term.
In a saucepan melt 2 sticks butter. Add onion and celery and sauté. Add creamed corn, water, poultry seasoning and pepper. Bring to a boil. In a very large bowl, pour this mixture over stuffing mixture. Toss lightly then stir in eggs. Shape into tennis ball-size rounds. Place on a sheet pan. Brush with 1 stick melted butter.
The check they sent you is fake. It probably looked like a money order. The scam goes like this: They buy something from you and send you payment for too much. They tell you to go ahead and deposit the check, but to send them the balance. They may even tell you to keep a little extra “for your trouble.”
So you (the mark) deposit the bogus money order and send a check to the “buyer.” The bank quickly discovers that the money order is fake, and debit your account for the amount. You’re out the $1,200 or whatever you sent to the fraudster.
I had this happen a few years ago. I was selling an old TV for $25.00 on Craigslist. I got an email asking if it was still available. It was. He was on vacation in England, so he’d have his “assistant,” who was somewhat local (100 miles away) send me a check and pick up the TV.
A few days later, I got a money order for $1,300 in an envelope with a Sacramento return address. Then I got an email from the “buyer” telling me his incompetent assistant had sent me the wrong money order. Could I please deposit it and send a check for the excess? I could keep an extra $25.
I replied that I’d just send them the check back and wait for one in the correct amount. The “buyer” began to get angry, sending me emails threatening legal action if I didn’t comply with his demands. Out of curiosity, I called the credit union printed on the money order—they were several hundred miles away, in San Diego. They told me it was not anything they had issued. Shocker.
I looked up the physical address on Google Earth the “buyer” told me to use to send the “refund” to. It was a mail drop in London, probably with some sort of forwarding arrangement.
After several angry, threatening emails from the “buyer,” the whole thing just faded away. I still have the bogus money order as a souvenir.
Sadly, just like the venerable “Nigerian Prince” scam, there will be people who fall for it.
Hopefully, gentle reader, you won’t be one of them.
What Happened to the President? in The Walking Dead – What We Know Now
When I was married to my first husband, my family hated him so much they managed to get me kicked out of church. From across the state.
There was an AME church directly behind where we lived and I attended there. I wasn’t raised AME. I don’t raise my hands like I know the answers. I don’t dance around. I just wanted to worship with fellow Christians.
Despite me being white, these people accepted me in and made me feel comfortable. Some of the older folks actually got between me and some younger people who didn’t want me there and we’re going to “make me leave”.
They explained that skin color has nothing to do with WHO we are… that how they acted tells everything about WHO they are. And it was unacceptable.
The folks apologized to me and would look for me each week.
I didn’t want any trouble. I didn’t want to be a distraction. I just wanted to worship. And I didn’t care who was around me.
I don’t care what color someone’s skin is. I never have. It’s about who we are, not what we look like.
When I wouldn’t show up, usually because my first husband used to beat me mercilessly, they came by to get me.
The ladies saw me in a pathetic state and they would get the men… who explained to my husband how it was unacceptable. Sometimes in forceful terms.
They helped me escape.
THAT was the most Christian loving thing I’d experienced… and I’m a preacher’s kid.
I’d just finished 37 years of working in IT. I wrote a tiny piece of code used in the Internet. I ended up working in a warehouse. Their internet connection sucked and was made far worse by my boss’ insistance of watching videos all day causing print jobs to fail and produce scanners to act up.
Using ordinary user computers I’d bring up the DOS prompt and show her the crappy network numbers. She forbade me from doing it, saying I was “hacking”.
She was constantly on the phone with her Pastor. Once a month she’d be doubled over with cramps, throwing up all over the offices but refused medication because it was “sinful”.
My coffee consumption is measured in pots. The coffee pot was a one minute walk away but she’d be constantly complaining “you’re taking your coffee break now???” until I made it clear that I wasn’t taking the mandatory 15 minute coffee breaks and often working through lunch, threatening a “work to rule”.
The last straw was when she went on vacation, failed to show up when she was supposed to, failed to contact her supervisor and left me trying to do two jobs.
Her replacement was even worse. When I informed management I was fired by her for insubordination for identifying an unsafe working condition.
Yes. A parent was furious and called to scream at me when I said their child couldn’t play right now. Their child had knocked on my door, and I politely told the little girl she could come back and play tomorrow.
Her mom called and went off on me. She said I was selfish and a bully and that I let everyone else play at my house but her child. I tried explaining that her child had literally played at my house every single day for the last few months. I told her that during the last month, I fed her dinner almost every day and also took her with our family to the park, movie theater, and school functions.
I then stated that I was a single mom of 3 and needed a day to myself to catch up on household chores and run errands. I said I had been working 7 days a week and also needed a couple hours to just lay on the couch and rest with my family. She screamed that I should be ashamed of myself for making her kid sad. Now, keep in mind she was married, only had one kid, and never invited my kids over to play even though she was unemployed and home 24/7.
I later learned that mom was an addict and she wanted her kid out of the house so she could do drugs with no interruptions.
This probably isn’t considered “disgusting” to others, but it was to me. I was hired as a bartender/night manager for a small beer and wine pub-type place by the owner, whose adult kids worked at his restaurant next door. His daughters were nice – I was actually referred by his younger daughter who’d been a customer of mine at another place I tended bar. But his son – WOW! I don’t know why he hated me on sight, but he did. Unfortunately, he was the cook and I had to deal with him whenever one of my customers ordered food, and he would go out of his way to insult or belittle me.
It was my last shift before Christmas and I wanted to be a little “extra”, so I put on a super cute red and white outfit with black boots and a Santa hat. I felt incredibly festive and cute and was really looking forward to my shift. I was, that is, until I walked into the restaurant to get my till. He came out of the kitchen as I was standing there, and he literally started laughing hysterically, pointing at me and saying awful things about how he couldn’t believe I’d worn that and how stupid I looked. Somehow I was able to hold back the tears until I was back at my bar alone, but I bawled, hard. He was always mean, but that night he was especially cruel.
For the record, my customers loved my outfit and tipped me generously, being that it was so close to Christmas. And yes, I did try to speak to the owner about his son’s behavior several times, and each time he said he’d take care of it, but it never got better, which is why I quit as soon as I found another job.
My niece and I were standing in line at the grocery store check out. There were 2 Spanish girls behind us talking away in Spanish about how they were running the streets and what guys they were hooking up with . My niece who is as white as can be pulled out her food stamps to pay for her groceries. The two girls behind us started making fun of her because she was on public assistance and were calling her all kind of derogatory names and jokes. Now my niece grew up with Spanish people and also took Spanish in school so she turns around and responded to the girls in Spanish that at least she could afford to take care of her family instead of running the streets like they obviously did. They were so dumfounded they just looked at her and couldn’t respond. We just gathered up our groceries and walked out while the check out lady was laughing hysterically at the two girls.
I was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer the week I turned 34.
Tumors were all over my bones and broke my spine, hip and cracked my ribs. Several of my vertebrae collapsed and I now have kyphosis.
My disease was stable for almost four years, but slowing tumors started growing again in my spine, and this past year have spread many to other bones plus my liver and lung.
Recently a skull tumor spread into my brain and I have partially lost control of my right foot. Several of the tumors in my spine are currently threatening my spinal canal. Since that area was radiated before, it cannot be radiated again, which means that there is a very high chance I will be paralysed from the arms down before I die. That’s if I don’t die before of liver failure.
At this point I’m hoping my liver will fail before I am paralysed. I dread that so much.
That’s for the physical hardship, there’s also knowing I won’t be there for my young daughter as she grows up, that my parents will see their daughter die before them.
So to sum it up: because I’ll be missing out on more than half of my life (based on my predicted life expectancy at birth), because I’m leaving behind an 8 year-old daughter, because I could be almost entirely paralysed the last weeks or months of my life, because this is something that my child and family will have to witness… I feel like I would have good reasons to complain and feel sorry for myself.
And yet I don’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I am mad it happened and definitely wish it never had.
But it did and it does every day to too many people. You draw the short straw, or maybe just feel like you do because we don’t know what everyone else goes through. I do grumble about my uncooperative leg (now also known as “dead weight”). I do cry and often feel sad beyond words but honestly don’t feel any point in wondering “why me?”
My body reacted in such a way that made it possible for rogue cells to grow. I was otherwise young, relatively healthy, and with no cancer history in my family. It was very unlikely to happen but it did. The bodies of some people just react that way. Why not mine?
I do hope for the best, in other words a treatment that will buy me some time, but I’m also very aware of the limitations of our current medical knowledge and its unability to cure my type of cancer. (And please don’t suggest random cures in the comments, at the time of this post NOTHING has been proved to cure my particular disease).
As a terminally ill person, my thoughts converge toward what matters most: practical end-of-life arrangements, of course my daughter and leaving some sort of legacy behind. Things like expecting a miracle cure or indulging in self-pity would just feel like wasted time at this point.
This just happened to us, last month. It was my wife’s birthday, and some flowers were delivered to our house in a box. Thinking they were from our daughter, my wife took them out, and arranged them in a big vase along with a bouquet that I had brought home for her earlier that morning.
And, then, she noticed the card in the box … which read “Very sorry for your loss. Margret and Victor Voss” (names changed for privacy). We don’t know Margret & Victor and we hadn’t experienced any loss. So, she looked at the delivery label – which had OUR address on it, but not HER name. It was addressed to “April Andrews” – another name we didn’t know. And, again – OUR address.
So, I went online to the flower company website and did a live chat with their Customer Service. I explained the situation to them, and said that we didn’t know April Andrews. And, I asked them what they wanted us to do. They told us to keep the flowers, and that they would straighten out the problem. It was, after all, actually my wife’s birthday.
Well, a day and a half later … our doorbell rings. And, there stands a woman we didn’t know, but who apparently lives down the street in a house whose number is a transposition of our house number. She introduced herself as April Andrews and said that she understood that, “We have her flowers … seeing as how her father just died.”
So, instead of the flower company “taking care of the problem” by finding out the correct address from the senders and delivering another bunch of flowers – what they did was notify the local flower shop who originally made/delivered the bouquet. And THEY chose to “take care of the problem” by driving back over to the Andrews house and POINTING them up the street at our house as the place where they left the box.
Again, the flowers were now 2 days old and intermixed with others. We didn’t have any simple way to just “turn them over”. And, we were told to keep them. (I had the chat transcript in email to prove it).
But, now we have a neighbor whose first impression of us is “the people who stole their dead father’s sympathy flowers.” Real damn nice!
Glad you asked. I have about 500 of them but most cannot really be shared. This one ended up in the newspaper so I think we are pretty clear to talk about it.
About 30 years ago (when I was a paramedic) there were several guys in their late teens and early twenties fishing in a lake near town. This lake is a pretty large, man-made reservoir and a place for boating, sailing, camping and fishing. It also happens to be the scene of about 375 of the 500 “now that was stupid” moments I mentioned above. These guys were fishing from the shore and I guess the fish weren’t biting all that much so they were able to spend more time on their other pastime; drinking beer. Well, as young boys will, they started thinking about what funny thing they could dare each other to do and of course one of them suggests eating their bait. Their live bait. Minnows to be exact. These small fish (about the size of a carnival goldfish) could easily be swallowed whole with a half can of Keystone Beer. After one or two rounds one of the guys decides to take it up a notch and he pulls out a red ear sunfish he caught a few minutes before. They look like this.
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His was just slightly smaller than this one but not by much. Notice the very spikey dorsal fin on this fish. They tend to deploy them like that when they are alarmed or threatened. A good example of that “threat” would be an 18 year old boy attempting to swallow you whole with a river of beer. The perch made it about a third of the way down his esophagus before becoming lodged. He swallowed it head first (because he didn’t want to get poked by the fins…. Smart) but his swallow was too slow and the fish too large and it got stuck. The tail of the fish was visible in the back of the throat so his friends tried to grab it with needle nose pliers and pull it out. That was a mistake. The dorsal fin then entered the esophagus and the fish was incredibly lodged. And alive. Very alive. And the tail was flapping back and forth over the glottis causing a major airway issue.
He was taken by ambulance to the ER and he nearly died. His friends succeeded in tearing most of the tail off the fish but it was still alive. He ended up with a cricothyroidotomy and a trip to the OR to have the fish removed surgically. As his friends messed around with the fish in the back of his throat he vomited of course. Lots of beer. This was even more of an airway issue.
So, if you’re thinking about swallowing a live fish of any size remember this. The surgery is a massive deal and fish are not sterile. Those fins often contain a deadly mix of bacteria (especially catfish) and occasionally even venom. After the acute phase of treatment….assuming you live…. You are still facing a long road to recovery. Holes in your esophagus allow gastric contents through as well and that is a major problem for your lungs and heart. Better by far to stick to those little yellow cracker goldfish snacks with beer.
The Dark Ages were not only dark – they were cold as well. In 535 Krakatau erupted and pushed in so much volcanic ash that the average temperature sank with several degrees, and historian Prokopios describes 536 as a “year with no summer” and the sun shone gloomily and did not warm. These events are recorded also by the Barbarian poetic epics. The Kalevala records this as Louhi stealing Sun and Moon, and the Eddas record 535 as Fimbulvinter.
Not only did crops fail and people all around Europe die from hunger, but in 541–542 the Justinian Plague swept over Europe and killed 50% of Europeans, whose immunity had been compromised by malnutrition and hunger. This plague – caused by the same Yersinia pestis bacterium as the Black Death in the 1300s, was a worse catastrophe than the Black Death itself, and finally killed off the Antiquity.
6th century was the worst century of the whole Dark Ages. The Frankish Kingdom was wrecked by the petty civil wars of the Merovingians, Britain lapsed back to Paganism due to the Anglo-Saxon conquest, Hispania was wrecked by the wars of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Visigoths, and Italy was wrecked by the Eastern Roman Empire reconquest – Rome again belonged in the Empire.
The climate change, which had begun in the 3rd century, had reached the pessimum by 550 AD. After that, climate again began to warm, reaching the global average by 750 AD.
My now ex-wife and I were shopping used vans. In one used car business, we found one of the make/model vans we were interested in. But the price was almost double what we’d budgeted to pay. Along comes a salesman, we chat and tell him it would need a deep discount for us to be able to consider it. We did the test drive, liked it but got no assurance that it could fit our budget, so we made to leave. He said we should let him give us a quote for their best price. We agreed, told him we didn’t want to do the whole back and forth with the manager thing, and he agreed. So we go inside the building and wait to get this quote. And we wait, and we wait. I had the feeling there was a hidden microphone at the table where we were seated, which was verified by the fact that after I said “Let’s go” they magically appeared with the quote. It was $500 off the $20k listed on the window of the van. I handed back the quote in disgust and we continued out the door. I swear three people came after us, yelling “Wait, wait!” at the back of our heads. They even knocked on the windows of our car as we were pulling out. Car dealers, don’t ignore the things we tell you, lie and use sleazy tactics to try and sell.
In a corporate setting, my best buddy, a successful consultant, once faced an intriguing challenge. He was called in to assess a project that was significantly behind schedule and plagued with bugs. The project had been in development for almost a year, with parts being tested by end-users, only to find them too buggy to put into production. Additionally, several critical functions remained unimplemented.
My buddy’s task was clear: take the project’s current state and chart a path to completion using the existing staff. Upon analyzing the original specifications, he realized that the project was essentially a straightforward database application with a few user forms required for various tasks. Taking the project home on a Friday, he dedicated his weekend to it.
On Monday, he returned to present the completed project to the manager. To the manager’s surprise, all screens worked flawlessly, with no bugs in sight. All user interfaces were in place and functioning exactly as they had been originally whiteboarded.
At first, the manager hesitated, assuming these were mock-ups. However, upon realizing that my friend had accomplished in a weekend what the manager’s team had struggled with for a year, the situation took a turn. Instead of accepting the code, the manager paid my friend for the hours claimed and forbade any further communication with the project staff or associates.
This incident underscored an important lesson that my buddy had learned over the years as a consultant: often, in complex problems, there’s a simpler solution waiting to be discovered if you’re willing to look for it.
About 2 months ago, I received a card in the mail from my uncle (Mom’s youngest brother). In the card was a check for $250.
His wife had read something I posted on Facebook, as a comment to a friend of mine. It was about being so broke that we didn’t have any food right then and would be using old gravy packets to make “soup”. I tried to make it sound like a joke, but my Uncle saw through it. Things weren’t quite that bad but they were close. I’m trying to support 3 other people who either won’t work or won’t pay to live in my house (long story but two are family) on less money than I need to do that. Although two of them have food stamps and buy food for the household, it’s still running me into bankruptcy.
Here’s what killed me though – My Uncle was fighting Stage 4 cancer at the time and he apologized in his note that he couldn’t send more!
With all he was going through, he took the time to think of me!
That check arrived on a day when I was so very low because I just didn’t know how I was going to get any food in the house to last us until the food stamp cards refilled.
I wrote him a thank you letter, and I’m glad I got it sent out right away. Less than 3 weeks later, my uncle died. I didn’t know just how sick he was until the day before he died, when his daughters posted a photo of him in a bed in a hospice. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know.
I’m still in shock that he’s gone, and still grateful beyond words to him for his help.
Cody Johnson was a 25-year-old country boy who loved cars and the wilderness.
He was looking for a church-oriented woman he could share his life with. He met the tall, pretty brunette, Jordan Graham and they began dating.
You would have never guessed they had issues if you saw their smiling pictures on Facebook. They presented a great front and Cody didn’t grasp the depth of their problems.
Cody was head over heels in love with Jordan. He cooked for her and brought her gifts and gave her tons of much attention.
A week after meeting Jordan, Cody told his mother, “I think I met the woman I’m going to marry.”
However, Cody’s friends grew concerned as the relationship seemed one-sided. They’d never seen the two of them kiss or hold hands. Jordan was cold and distant.
Jordan was extremely religious and wanted to wait until marriage before having sex. Cody was fine with it.
But he could hardly get her to kiss him. She reassured Cody that she loved him.
One year into dating, he proposed and she said yes — which is where the path to ruin began.
The wedding plans
Jordan’s friends said she was excited anytime they talked about planning the wedding, the party, and all it involved — but never said anything about Cody.
On her wedding day, as Jordan walked down the aisle crying, onlookers smiled, but her maid of honor, Katrina Martinez, was horrified.
She knew Jordan and knew this wasn’t a “good cry”.
Jordan had been asking Kristina in the weeks leading up to the wedding if she should go through with it.
Katrina told Jordan, “I can’t make that decision for you. You need to talk to Cody.”
Cody’s best man knew there was trouble beforehand too. He said he told Cody not to marry her. Something was off.
He could tell Jordan wasn’t in love with him.
But Cody was blinded by his own feelings.
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The day before getting married, Jordan had a massive meltdown, telling her friend she’d “Made a mistake”. But then changed her mind and moved forward.
Ominously, they had a custom song made for their wedding and one of the lyrics said, “You helped me climb higher for a better view. You’re my safe place to fall.”
The murder — 8 days later
They attended church on the Sunday morning of July 7th, 2013. On the way out, witnesses said she’d told her husband she had a “big surprise” for him.
Prosecutors later alleged Jordan had promised to do something sexual with Cody. He made excited comments to friends before they left. And they later found a blindfold at the crime scene.
The next day, Cody’s work called and asked where he was. His boss, Cameron, was excited to congratulate him on the wedding.
Cody didn’t answer his phone so Cameron went to his house looking for him.
Nobody answered the door. Cameron sensed something was wrong and broke the door in.
Nobody was inside. He said the home gave him a terrible vibe.
He wandered through the quiet house and eventually found Cody’s phone on the ground in the garage — which was totally unlike him. Cody always had his phone.
Cameron rushed to the police station and reported Cody missing.
The cops immediately wondered why his wife wasn’t the one reporting her husband missing. A friend finally got ahold of Jordan and asked her if she’d seen Cody.
She said she didn’t know but later told cops, “He went out with a bunch of friends I’ve never met. I don’t know anything more, any of the whereabouts or anything.”
Friends and cops were immediately struck by how unemotional Jordan was with Cody’s disappearance.
When friends came to her house to provide support and comfort, she grew agitated that they were there rather than upset Cody that was missing.
At one point, she got upset and threw her wedding ring across the room — which caught sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
Then, there was a random email that Jordan received from a mysterious man named Tony The Carman, “Hello Jordan. My name is Tony. There is no bother in looking for Cody anymore.”
Cody is gone. Call off the search. He fell off a cliff at Glacier National Park.”
She took the message to the cops.
Search parties went out. Jordan participated and drove with her friends to the park.
During the drive, she was happy, singing songs and hanging her hand out the window, flying it in the wind. You’d have never known her husband was missing.
At the park, Jordan led her group to the exact location of Cody’s body. She said she “Just had a feeling he’d be there.”
His body was at bottom of a steep, remote cliff, in terrible condition.
She told her friends, “Cody told me he wanted to see this spot before he died.”
This drew even more scrutiny to Jordan. She started fudging details and changing her story during an interrogation.
Jordan didn’t help herself when authorities asked, “How did you locate his body so fast?”
This time she said the spirit of Jesus Christ led her to his body.
Cody’s best man said, “I almost instantly thought Jordan did something.”
At Cody’s funeral, Jordan sat in the front row, playing on her phone, smiling and unaffected.
People who only passingly knew Cody were more emotional than his own wife. It was at this point that her friends all concurrently knew that Jordan had murdered her husband.
Cops later confirmed that the mysterious email from Tony the Car Man had been sent by Jordan on her dad’s device.
The partial confession
Jordan admitted to pushing Cody.
She said they’d been in a fight. She said she was so upset that when he turned his back to her, she shoved him hard in the back, sending him over the edge.
He fell 300 feet to his death, landing headfirst.
There wasn’t even a struggle or self-defense argument made. She said she just did it because she was angry.
But because of so many other lies, mounting evidence, and a complete lack of caring for her dead husband, it was an obvious case of murder.
She entered a guilty plea.
On March 27th, 2014, Jordan was sentenced to 30 years in prison with no possibility of parole.
Cody’s mother is inconsolable and his family is still coping with the loss.
Cody was murdered eight days after their wedding ceremony. It’s hard to imagine how things could go so wrong so fast.
It’s even harder to fathom how someone could find breaking a person’s heart harder than killing him. But stranger, darker things have happened.
One of my old managers was a great guy but didn’t take crap from anyone.
There was a guy we worked with that was a total jerk. He liked to act all rough and tough whenever the manager, AGM or I weren’t around (I was a lead/MIT)…He especially had a history of intimidating the young shift leaders and other coworkers (especially the females). He constantly denied this but we had no reason to doubt our leadership team.
We heard through the grapevine that he was going to call out for a weekend as he felt entitled that he didn’t have to work weekends and we were assholes for scheduling him. That Friday night he texts the manager to say he was going to be out for awhile due to a “family emergency” and we better not put him on the schedule him until he says it’s ok too.
Two weeks goes by and my manager texts him to come in and we would go over his new schedule. The guy came in expecting us to give him the schedule he felt he deserved…instead he handed him a blank calendar and said that was the best we could do…basically he made the guy drive in with the sole purpose of firing him…the look the guy gave was priceless.
First things first, anyone who has ever attempted to bathe a cat knows that it can be akin to a kind of very small, domesticated warfare. Cats generally do not like water. Not only is this aversion instinctual, but it’s also part of their self-grooming pride. They spend a significant slice of their waking hours meticulously cleaning themselves with their tongues, so in their eyes, getting dunked into water is completely unnecessary.
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Now, is it cruel? It can certainly seem that way, especially with all the hissing, clawing, and Olympic-level gymnastics they do to escape a bathtub.
However, there are exceptions to the no-bath rule. If your cat has rolled around in something toxic or sticky, or if they have long fur that’s become matted and dirty beyond the help of their own tongue, a bath isn’t just kind, it might be necessary for their health.
The key is technique and preparation. Unlike dogs, most cats aren’t going to jump into a bath with wagging tails and excited eyes. You have to be methodical. Prep the area with all the tools you’ll need – shampoo, towels, a non-slip mat, and perhaps even a cat bathing bag if you value the skin on your arms.
Warm water is a must. Not hot, not cold – think baby bath temperature. And always talk to them in a calm voice. Granted, they might not listen because they’re shrieking louder than a banshee, but at least you’ve done your part to maintain a façade of serenity.
After the bath, the tricky part might be drying them off. Some cats tolerate being swaddled in a towel; others might handle a blow-dryer on a low, quiet setting. Above all, ensure they’re fully dry before they saunter off because a damp cat is a cold cat, and a cold cat is a grumpy cat.
So cruel? Not inherently. But bathing a cat should be done with careful consideration and only when necessary.
And remember, while a picture of a wet cat might fetch a good number of likes on social media, your cat’s dignity and your unscratched arms might be more worth it.
This happened at all three banks where I was previously employed, before I retired.
The rule was that we were to answer the phone after the second ring. No exceptions. The tellers, New Accounts Representatives, anyone except the men. Well, I answered after the first or second ring, if I was available, and didn’t already have a customer at my desk. If I was opening accounts, doing a Stop Pay, preparing paperwork for a Foreign Wire Transfer, and the other hundred things you help customers with, yes, I would let it ring .
If you get in your car, make the trip to do some banking in person and are sitting at my desk , I am NOT going to be so rude as to ignore the customer in front of me to answer questions on the phone. (Examples: can you see if my Social Security has been deposited? What are your CD rates? Do you have any specials? Can you do a Stop Payment for me? Why is my account negative? My mother died and I am checking to see if she had any accounts with you. How late can I make my loan payment? What is the cutoff time for a Wire Transfer?)
I wouldn’t do this if a guest was in my home, so the same etiquette should be at work.
I once closed a newish account because, as I was being helped at the teller window in the lobby, the teller actually paused the transaction to answer the phone and do bank business with the person on the phone. Unacceptable!
I noticed the loan officers, the President. Vice President never answered the phone when they had a customer at their desk (and most likely could not answer questions about accounts anyway, which is the Operations side of the bank). They were on the Loan side of the bank.
I briefly mentioned this in a different post but that most angry neighbor that ever came to our door was my husband’s Commanding Officer.
He was livid with anger. He was shaking he was so upset.
When I asked him what was wrong, sir? he yelled that my 5-year-old twin boys had come to his quarters and pulled every plant from his carefully tended garden. Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, even a few stalks of corn.
After my husband and I got him calmed down I called the boys into the room and ask them if they had done that. They surprised me by proudly declaring they had.
It turned out, that afternioon while I was shopping and they were home with the maid, the 10 and 12 year old boys next door had told my little ones that the Commander was transferring (was well understood by two Army kids) and his garden had to be completely cleared. And that he would pay a dollar a piece to them to do it.
He gave them each a dollar and headed for my next door neighbor’s house. I don’t know what happened to those two boys.
I bet it was not pretty.
The Stand (1994): Super-Flu Virus. The Dark Man is Coming.
He asked waiter about the menu and placed his order.
After a while a family came on the table next to him & placed their order.
To the guy’s dismay, they got served FIRST.
They started laughing and eating. One of them bragged how he knows someone in the hotel.
The guy called the waiter and asked.
The waiter calmly replies: Yours is a special order being prepared by the Chief chef. Theirs is a regular order prepared by the students in attachment because the top chefs are preparing your order. That’s why it’s taking time.
Please have some juice in the meantime, he said and left calmly.
Short after six waiters brought this guy’s order. Unknown to the guys, the hotel owner was his long lost friend who recognised him and decided to surprise him.
He changed his simple meal to a Five-star meal. The people next to his table were shocked. They couldn’t stop staring and started mumuring why he got such VIP treatment.
This is life.
Some people are ahead of you, eating their meals, mocking you & talking how they are better than you. How well connected they are.
You are waiting for your meal and wondering why is it taking so long. You endure the taunts, mockery and humiliation.
May be you are going through stress, anxiety or depression.
Don’t worry…
The owner of the world has seen you and he doesn’t want to serve you a simple meal.
Yours is a special order hand made by the top chefs. That’s why it’s taking time.
When it comes the laughing party will be silenced for good.
I worked for a mid size firm in the technology field for 25 years. Over time technology changed and eventually the system i supported was outdated. I never was really interested in learning the new stuff I was aging and I was pretty much burned out in that job. As time went on my system was phased out and eventually eliminated. I knew my time was up. I waited for that pink slip for over three years whilst doing nothing but surfing the web, catching up on current events and social media. By that time I was so bored, felt so useless and the days dragged on so long I was ready for that pink slip. When it finally came I was so relieved I was ecstatic. It took me several years to find another job that paid 1/4 of what that job paid and I worked my ass off for that tiny wage. But at least I felt worthwhile and somewhat useful. It’s not all about the money.
Three or four years ago, I, along with several of our day-shift officers, was dispatched to a theft call at a local grocery store. The complainant, an elderly lady, told us that while she was shopping, a man grabbed her purse from her shopping cart and ran from the store. She was very upset, as she had quite a bit of cash in her purse, along with some jewelry and other valuables. We went out into the parking lot and a woman told us that she had seen a man run from the store with a purse and that he ran around the corner of the building toward the back. I sent three officers around the back of the store to look for the suspect and told two other officers to canvas the parking lot and try to locate any other witnesses.
I then drove around to the back of the store where the officers were looking in every possible hiding place for the suspect. After a few minutes, one of the officers shouted that she had found something. She was holding up a purse matching the description of the purse the complainant told us had been taken. The purse looked as if it had been ripped open to make it easier to quickly search for valuables. While some of the items remained in the purse, most of the contents, including the valuables appeared to be gone.
I radioed one of the officers in front of the store and asked him to bring the complainant around to the back. When she arrived and got out of the police vehicle, I showed the lady the purse that was found and asked if it was hers. She took it from me and frantically started looking through the the remaining contents of the purse, discarding what appeared to be trash and items of insignificance as she searched. “It’s not here!” She told me. “My mother’s wedding ring set isn’t here!” She was distraught. “It appears that the thief took everything of value,” said one of the Officers. “Maybe we can get a description and find it at one of the pawn shops.” The woman was inconsolable. She explained that the ring set was the only thing she had left to remember her deceased mother. “How would he have found it?” she asked, “It was hidden in the lining.” She showed us where the ring had been concealed in the lining of the purse. We had to admit that it had been well concealed and it seemed unlikely that a thief who was in a hurry to get away would have taken the time to check for anything hidden. However, the purse had been torn, so it did seem possible that the ring fell out of the purse when the thief tossed it as he made his escape.
“Where did you find the purse?” I asked the Officer who had located the item. “It was right there, in that dumpster,” the Officer replied, pointing to a large dumpster behind the grocery store. We all walked over to the half full dumpster and took a peek. “It was right here,” the Officer told us, gesturing to one end of the container. Another Officer who was peering into the dumpster contents reached in and retrieved a pen that appeared to be expensive. “ Was this in your purse, Ma’am?” The Officer asked her. “Yes it was,” the lady replied. “My grandson gave me that pen about six months ago.” “Well,” I said to to the officers, “Who wants to go dumpster diving?”
The chances of finding the ring set seemed remote, but we decided that it was worth the effort. We agreed that each of us would take a turn digging through the dumpster for 20 minutes at a time. After gloves were passed around, the first officer went in. After 20 minutes, we switched out and the next Officer took the plunge. After about ten minutes of foraging, to our dismay, from the bowels of the dumpster came a cry of triumph from the second Officer, “Found it!” The Officer popped up out of the dumpster, proudly clutching the ring set. I’m not sure who was more pleased; the lady, who probably thought she would never see the ring set again, or the three of us who had not yet taken a turn digging through the dumpster. The lady was in disbelief (so were we), and very grateful. With tears in her eyes, she insisted on giving us a reward. I explained that while we appreciated her generous offer, we did not accept rewards and that we were just pleased that we had been able to help her. After several more minutes of discussing the miraculous recovery of the ring set, obtaining a description of the thief and a list, description and value of the stolen items, the lady left the scene.
As the five of us stood near the dumpster, I noticed for the first time how truly filthy the two Officers were who had climbed into the dumpster. “I can’t be sure until we have an expert make a determination, but it’s my guess that those uniforms will need to be incinerated,” I told them. “You guys did a great job today,” I told them. “Go home, take those uniforms off and put them in black plastic bags and then take at least three hot showers. See you tomorrow.”
The actions of those Officers that day were by far the dirtiest thing I have ever seen a fellow police officer do.
Thanks,
Captain John Sharp
The Stand – Explosion in the last scene “I brought you the fire” (S01E08)
Let me help to makes western admirers amongst orientals and Chinese nations such as Japan-and South Korea, people from greater China such as Hong Kong and Taiwan and neighbours such as Phillipines and Vietnam see light.
I am qualified to advise and share my experience. I was born in Malaysia and now a Singaporean who were a starry eye west admirer for say the first 20 years of my life.
Today I am a practical and pragmatic person who sees things differently. If your nation is a direct neighbour or in Chinese neighbourhood, try to comprehend the following.
China has been around for 5000 years as your neighbourhood and during 4800 out of the 5000 years China were really really strong. In fact so strong it could if it wants to, to walk right into your nation and claimed it for good. But they didn’t. Japan, Korea, Philippines, India and others remained a fully sovereign nation. Appreciate that.
Just look at the nation that lies and spread fear about China, the U.S. it is barely 247 years old yet it started as a 13 states union and in less than a hundred years it stole another 37 states from its neighbours. And what did the U.S. do in Asia! It murdered 3 million Vietnamese, a million each in Philippines in Mindanao, Laos and Cambodia, and at least 2 million suspected communists in Indonesia and colonised the Philippines for close to 50 years.
And they do that as a nation 10 thousand miles away from Asia! China is stone’s throw away from your shores yet you are independent! So be logical and honest about who is the aggressor and who respects your sovereignty? If you are fair China has a 5000 years gentleman. The U.S. is a 247 years hoodlum you never want to get close with
Next let me help you know your future. China is the world’s most humongous market. Your nation is blessed to have such a huge market at your door step. They can buy your products and resources and yet supply you with value for money product at a song.
They are not the despicable west who wants to change your way. They even say their socialism with Chinese characteristics is not exportable and urge you to seek your best political and social system going forward. US says it is their way or the highway! In fact the murdered 5 million Indo Chinese to make them democratic unsuccessfully.
Go to the U.S. to have fun and travel around, do business with them as they are a big spender. But whatever you do remember who really is with you and where is your future with. Most of all remember where is your nation is geographically and China will always be there! It cannot be floated away and so are you stuck there.
Don’t ever let your nation be another Ukraine, the U.S. want your people to die and your nation to be destroyed just to poke China in the eye, just like how they used Ukraine to poke Russia in the eye, unfortunately one time too many. Don’t let them have even one CIA or NED officials in your nation. And don’t ever be used as a cannon fodder.
Grow up and know right from wrong. Korea for example, whether you stay rich and get richer depends on China not the U.S. The only thing the U.S. can help you is simply to get your nation destroyed! China will always be there, it will grow to be 4–5 times the size of the U.S. economy before then of this century. And as a market for Korea, it will be bigger than your next 20 biggest market! So get real, grow up like me, be a realist and be smart.
Vote in pro Chinese candidate. Vote in a leader that has no inclination to do shit for the U.S. And telll the US. that you are a friend and a partner of China, and that you want them as tourist and investor. But under no circumstances will you allow them to interfere in your nation and in Asia. Asia is for Asians. If you have issues involving the US is a sure way to implicate issues and create discord.
The Search for Noah’s Ark and the Aliens in the Book of Enoch
Alien Abductions in the Book of Enoch and the Search for Noah’s Ark Enoch warned the Giants and the Watchers of the world. Repent or feel God’s wrath. They ignored his warning.
The floodgates of Heaven burst forth and water rushed over the Earth, destroying everything. The only thing to survive is a single vessel, a huge ship: the Ark. 5 months later, the waters recede and the Ark made ground on a mountaintop. A man named Noah emerged, and civilization began again.
Some version of the Noah’s Ark story exists in almost every religion and every culture on Earth. But did Noah and the Ark really exist? There’s evidence that they did. So much evidence, that it was classified by the CIA for almost 50 years.
But why classify it? Well, there are two problems with the Noah’s Ark story. One, the Ark is much older than anyone thought. And two, the man named Noah? He wasn’t a man. At least, not a man from Earth.
“What’s the worst accident that you’ve witnessed at work?”
Back in 1998 to 2000 I was an IT consultant supporting the computers at The RAND Corporation. My first office was a bull pen with a window facing the tunnel where Interstate-10 becomes CA-1 the Pacific Coast Highway.
I heard a crashing noise through the window. I looked towards the tunnel. Out of the tunnel came a couple of cars tumbling as they decelerated from freeway speed to zero. Unfortunately one person was not wearing seat belts. The body flew out of one of the cars. One of the other cars smashed into the road at that point where the person had hit the road. Most of the body was ejected away from the wreckage. I had nightmares for at least a year.
I asked for a different office. My new work station was in a janitor room with a window. I worked in a room with mops, cleaning chemicals, a tape drive for computer backups and a couple of computer terminals. The window looked the other direction out of the building so I could see palm trees and most of Santa Monica Pier.
Actually at the office the worst accidents were cuts from metal edges. Go get a tetanus shot. Maybe a stitch. As data centers improved it got to be rare that anyone would get cuts.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind Air Traffic Control Scene with airport deleted scene included.
Generals love new toys, especially cool looking toys that their soldiers get to wear. They love adding things to improve their soldiers. Sometimes those things are, in fact, cool and useful!
They do tend to forget however that soldiers are human and must then carry, in substandard conditions, that cool piece of gear.
Thus I give you the most useless piece of gear I was ever issued.
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The IOTV deltoid protector.
Looks cool? Check.
Actually protects the soldier? Check!
It’s a win!
Not quite.
I was issued these lovely pieces of equipment and then promptly sent to Iraq in May.
You might not know this, but it’s REALLY hot in Iraq and that heat ramps up around April. Given my position as a SAW gunner, I was already carrying 95lbs of kit, not counting an assault pack, in temperatures that were quickly approaching 95–125 degrees. And my 1st Sgt informs us that we’ll all be wearing these beauties on patrol. I am not impressed for three reasons:
1: It was already hot as hell and one of the few places my sweat could soak through and cool me off was my shoulders. Now those would be covered. I’m up to 120 weather on patrol.
2: Several studies have shown that infantryman carrying more than 1/3 of their body weight suffer severely adverse consequences to their ability to fight effectively. I was already carrying 95lbs. 3–4 lbs might not sound like much but when your body armor is already creating incipient back problems, those pounds add up. Imagine getting up off the ground from a prone position, rushing 10 to 15 yards and throwing yourself bodily down on the ground with a 90 pound rucksack on your back. Then imagine someone asks you to add more weight to that.
3: Of all the places that I would choose to get shot if I had to, I’d love to get shot in the shoulder. I could fight more effectively with one hand then I can with a wound in my abdomen, very little in my shoulder is vital, and frankly the benefits just weren’t there given the cost required of me.
Fortunately my chain of command saw sense and after about two weeks of using deltoid protectors we were given permission to remove them from our kit. I put mine away and didn’t even look at them for the rest of the deployment. I did have to pay for one I couldn’t find when I got out… Those things are expensive for such a useless piece of equipment!
In 1978, I saw a guy dressed like a bum in a bar. He asked several people to buy him a beer, and they refused and make negative comments about him. I felt a little sorry for him the way he was being treated. He came up to the bar, sat beside me and asked me to buy him a beer. I brought him a few and we talked. I found him to be quite intelligent. He then said he had the next round and would buy me a beer and I could keep the change. He put what I thought a 1 dollar bill on the counter. The bar tender gave him change for $100.00. At first, I refused to take his money until he told me who he really was.
He was a millionaire and half owner of a racetrack. He explained as a rich millionaire. He had no real friends. People only pretended to be his friend because his is rich and hoping to get his money. He had no wife or girlfriends for the same reason. His rich backstabbing associates were no better. He said money is not everything and that he has a sad and lonely life. He said sometimes he will dress and act like a bum to see how people will treat him if they thought he was not rich. Some people heard what he was saying. The next thing we had, people flocked around us. He said see. At first, they didn’t want anything to do with me. Now that they know, I am a millionaire. Now they want to be my friends. I didn’t know who he was at first. But still treated him with respect and ended up with $98.00.
The word “missing” is not that appropriate here I think. I have to say in the beginning that listing things that are better in China as compared to India doesn’t mean that China is superior to India. There are also numerous things that China needs to learn from India.
First and foremost, there’s the talk about infrastructure. The roads in China are always smooth as silk. Railways that seem like they could host a ballet. And don’t even have to mention the power supply. In comparison, India is often grappling with pothole-ridden roads, crowded and aging railways, and power outages.
Then comes the education scene. The level of education among the labor force in China is something we all can learn from. It’s not just about degrees; it’s about a certain finesse, a skill set that makes the workforce a well-oiled machine. In India, they’ve got the brains, but sometimes it feels like they need to fine-tune the engine a bit.
Diligence. Chinese folks are known for their hard work, their commitment to their craft. It’s like they have an extra gear that many missed. Not to say that people in India aren’t hardworking, but sometimes, that extra pinch of diligence can make all the difference.
Public Safety and Discipline. China is known for its strict enforcement of laws and regulations, resulting in low crime rates and a generally safe environment. Public spaces are often well-maintained, and there is a strong emphasis on social discipline. In contrast, India, like many countries, grapples with issues such as crime, traffic management, and maintaining public spaces with the same level of discipline.
Business Environment. China has often been praised for its business-friendly environment and efficient bureaucratic processes, attracting significant foreign direct investment. India, despite improvements, has faced criticism for bureaucratic red tape and regulatory complexities that can hinder the ease of doing business.
Lastly, sanitation. China has been on a cleanliness drive that’s nothing short of impressive. Public spaces are spick and span, and the streets seem to sparkle. In India, while they have been making strides, there’s still room for improvement.
China’s Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in the Lingdingyang waters.
Well, this is not exactly a teacher-student lesson, but a lesson which put me right in my place. I’m a physicist and have a solid base in mathematics. So when my younger brother asked me to solve this, I took one look at the problem and blurted instantly: “oh come on, man! You find this crap hard? Try solving Schrodinger’s equation to start with!”
“Just solve it, Neil!” He insisted.
I was at my usual coffee shop, having breakfast and was a little annoyed at the way I was interrupted. Nonetheless, I decided to switch on my Show Off Mode and solve the damn thing.
I grabbed a serviette that the waiter had given me and scribbled him the answer and sent it through Whatsapp. As soon as it got sent, I sat back and smiled, quite content and proud with the answer that I had given him.
So, here’s the question
image 140
And here’s my answer:
image 139
Well, 3 unknowns and 3 simultaneous equations, piece of cake, right?
Half an hour later my brother messaged me back.
Noel (My Brother): Shit, man! What a nerd! I totally see the physicist in you taking over.
Me (gloating with pride): So, did you get it?
Noel: Sure did! But I solved it in a different way.
Me: Aaaaannd you got the same answer?
Noel: Yes, I did!
Me: Wow, really?
Noel: Well, all the figures appear twice in the first three diagrams and if you add them all up you get, 2(x+y+z) = 10 + 20 + 24 = 54. So x+y+z = 54/2 = 27!
Me (my pride nosediving): Hey, that’s not bad!
That’s the day I realized there’s always a simpler explanation to everything. You just need to keep your mind and ears open to get it!
Once upon a time, maybe even until the early 2000s, the Western Media had CREDIBILITY
They followed the five principles of INVESTIGATE JOURNALISM
Find the evidence
Establish the facts based on the Evidence
Try to destroy the facts yourself to see if they can stand up to scrutiny using the RED TEAM BLUE TEAM ANALYSIS
Build the Narrative
Write about and Talk about the Narrative
It’s why their coverage of the Vietnam War or the 91 Gulf War or the 99 Kosovo Crisis was so appreciated and admired
image 138
Today or even over the last decade, they have started a different course
First Build a Narrative based on what Money Interests & Politicians want (Russia is losing, China is collapsing etc)
Then start selectively FINDING AND TWISTING facts to fit the narrative
Then start FINDING the evidence to fit the narrative and IGNORE all the contrary evidence
Attack anyone who tries to counter the narrative by going personal on them and accusing their integrity or morality or accuse them of racism and bigotry
image 136image 137
The Best example was the Ukrainian Crisis :-
First the Narrative was Putin has missiles only for 3 months
That was obviously nonsense
Next was the Narrative that Putin and his economy was collapsing
That was nonsense too
Next was Putin’s ISOLATION
That turned out to be nonsense too
Now it is the fact that Putin has lost 300000 men so far
Again that is nonsense of the highest order
The Narrative becomes lesser and lesser credible and more and more bizzare and weird
The Western Media finds so called ‘Experts’ who will shamelessly fall in line with the narrative even if they know they will be embarrassed later
So many Military experts have been humiliated by their predictions on Putin and yet without a shred of shame, they still go around talking and giving expert opinion
The Real experts like Brian Berletic, Scott Ritter, Colonel Kassad, Doug Macgregor etc have been saying the perfect truth for over a couple of years now
They still follow the old method of journalism
With China the Narratives have changed
First it was Uyghur Genocide
That was nonsense
Next it was Slave Labor
Again Nonsense
Next it was Cultural Genocide
Again Nonsense
As each Narrative becomes more and more unbelievable , the newer narrative becomes even more bizzare
Like this China and the Hard Landing
Every ‘Expert’ who predicted a collapse of China and there have been 60 of them across the last 34 years – have missed their deadlines by almost a decade at least
In 1990, they said China would collapse before the new Millennium (1/1/2000)
Then they said in 2003, that by 2011 China would collapse
Then by 2015 (In 2005)
Then by 2025 (In 2010)
Every single time they are proven wrong
Every single time they double down and give a new date
image 134
Even now when China, for a $ 19T economy delivers a 5% growth against a very low global demand and a real estate slump, it’s regarded an economic weakness whereas every economist of repute regards it as EXCELLENT RESILIENCE
Yet when India with its $ 3.53T economy manages 6.5% growth , it’s regarded as a boom when any economist can see that it’s a result of spending and inflation mostly
Likewise UK or Germany are completely ignored
So the Mainstream Media doesn’t any longer have the CREDIBILITY they so enjoyed
Their Economic Experts are shameless men who don’t care how many times they are proven wrong
They are ready to risk their reputation again and again and have lost all their credibility
They all have Political Agenda now
image 135
The best way to handle them is like is like our friends the Afghanistan Taliban
Their simple response is “If you publish lies about us, we will burn your daughter alive while you watch”
Crude but Brutally effective 😁😁
Worked well with Laura Ingraham who was so terrified she stopped entirely
The kids in my daughter’s nursery get a milk carton every day in school during milk and fruit time. The milk comes in a paper carton with a small straw attached to it which is wrapped in a small plastic cover.
We just found out today that one of the kids at the beginning of the year struggled with opening her wrapped straw from the cover so my daughter helped the kid unwrap it. And because pretty much all the kids struggled with it, they all gave their milk cartons to her so that she could unwrap it.
So apparently, every day during lunch the kids form an orderly queue so our little one can unwrap each and every kid’s straw in the classroom.
My daughter is lactose intolerant so does not drink milk. She brings her bottle of almond milk with her from home. She unwraps every single kid’s milk carton before she goes about drinking her own almond milk. When the teachers told us that today, my wife cried a little bit inside! Very proud of our LO!
I grew up in a small, rural area in the midwest. Our school bus was the only one with racial unrest. A handful of black children went to the school and all rode this particular bus to school. They had to endure a great deal of harassment, including name calling.
At the beginning of one school year, a new family moved in. The mom was white. The dad had some mixture of black blood. They had a number of children including two middle school-aged boys. The trouble on the bus began almost immediately.
A tall, high school-aged white boy walked up to one of these boys (he was probably about 5’7″ with sandy, curly hair) and said, “Move over n—–.” The new kid replied, “Say it nicely.” The big, white kid repeated, “Move over n—–!” He now had an audience and was enjoying this. The new kid repeated, “Say it nicely.” By now everyone was watching to see what would happen. The big, white kid shoved the new kid to show him who was boss. The new kid calmly stood up, and beat the living daylights out of this big, white kid with his bare hands. He, then, calmly sat down and said, “Say it nicely.” I don’t remember anyone bothering him, or his sisters, ever again.
1K Upvotes! Thank you, everyone. And, yes, this is a true story. I was an eye witness to this event, and was sitting in the next forward seat of the bus. All I had to do was turn around in my seat to see this played out in living color.
“Blood” here refers to family background or lineage. Obviously, I am not referring to the color of blood in a person’s physical body. We often speak of ‘Irish’ or of ‘Italian’ blood.
Seeing The Future Of The Strong Independent Single Women
Chicken Cordon Bleu
A slightly unconventional, but delicious, recipe for Chicken Cordon Bleu.
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
6 chicken breast halves, skinned and boned
Salt and pepper
6 thin slices ham
3 slices Swiss cheese, halved
1/2 cup Ritz cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
3/4 cup margarine*, melted
Instructions
Place chicken breasts on a cutting board; cover with waxed paper, and lightly pound to flatten the breasts. Do not cut through meat. Discard waxed paper.
Lightly salt and pepper the breasts. Place a slice of ham and 1/2 slice of Swiss cheese on each breast. (Cheese may need to be folded to fit on breast.) Roll the breast, jellyroll style; secure with a wooden pick.
Combine cracker crumbs, Parmesan cheese and parsley.
Melt margarine* and dip rolled breasts in the margarine, then in the cracker crumb mixture.
Place in a greased 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Originally Answered: If employers rejected you, does it always mean you are worthless or incompetent?
Well….
No. Definitely not.
Take this example, of a clearly worthwhile human being who was rejected for employment by Cadbury in the UK.
image 133
Now, Mr. Jones CLEARLY had great worth and was a fine example of a human being. It’s possible his approach to Cadbury when seeking employment could have been improved somewhat, but how could you call him either worthless or incompetent?
He had submitted a very creative sketch of an “Everlasting Chocolate Bar”; who couldn’t get on board with that idea?
He obviously had some good feedback from his various eBay transactions that he was able to provide as proof of his worth.
Who’s really to say that he actually never did “super-secret spy work” that he legally couldn’t talk about?
And consider the kindness and thoughtfulness it took for him to “pay it forward” and include a £5 note with his application so that the hard-working human resources clerk could have lunch!
See? An employment rejection letter sent to a very worthwhile and competent human being.
I loved the good ol’ army surplus stores, and as a boy, I would go over to them with a fist full of changes and some bills and pick up a odd surplus item or two to dink around with.
I had a Vietnam war era canteen… aluminum, not plastic, and it leaked. But I would wear it with my web cargo belt as I rode in my hikes thought the nearby forests. I also had a mess tin, with massive silverware, fit for a giant, but I really never did anything with it.
army and navy store
When I was 13 years old, I had a surplus German world war II pith helmet from the Africa Corps that I wore all the time, and I would wear it as I spent my summers golfing and then swimming. My friends all got ones as well, but theirs hardly lasted past a week. It would get wet… one excuse or the other …and be ruined. But unlike them… I treasured mine.
Army supply
My brother had a cameo dentist smock that was really cool, and for a spell I lusted over it. It looked really cool. Don’t quite know how he ran into it, but the Army and navy store was constantly getting new and one-off items throughout the Summer months.
One week before I left for China, I went into the “old” store and I hardly recognized it. Mostly empty with a warehouse “feeling” to it. Many cheap goods, and not much to interest me. I bought a black backpack and it was the only thing that survived my trip to China. The rest of my belongings were lost in transit.
I suggest that if you have an opportunity, take your early teenagers to a local Army and Navy store and let them explore. Who knows what they will find.
I bought a house and was moving out of the previous home, in which I had a 6-car garage full of toys, along with many items stored outside. That month, I sold six Harleys, brought home three more, and sold them. Now that I would have half the storage space, I sold several other items, such as boats, offroad vehicles, and toy haulers.
When each of these items was sold, I would rubber-band the cash in $10k bundles, and anything less would be placed on the top shelf until it could be bundled with other funds. I’d frequently toss the bundles into the safe for the time being. At some point, when I did the math in my head, I felt I was missing a $10,000 USD bundle.
I had too much on my plate with the move to be concerned about whether or not I had lost money. But I’d catch myself doing the math in my head while driving or having a meal, and it wasn’t adding up, so I’d somehow lost a bundle.
The safe was left at the house due to its size and weight. I had to come back for it after enlisting some assistance in moving it. I had already emptied out its contents while rearranging a few of the internal shelves.
Once I realized I was going to be transporting the safe on its back instead of upright like before, I decided to remove all the interior shelving this time, as it would have come apart while being transported on its back. That’s when I found the missing $10,000. bundle.
It’s a good thing I hadn’t sold the safe with the cash inside.
I used to work for a large rehab company. I was a licensed occupational therapist. One year, we had a new girl start there, who was from Europe. She was also also a licensed therapist, but had two years of additional training. She was also on a work visa. At first she was friendly and agreeable, but soon began to show her true colors. She started making snide comments about people behind their backs, and then proceeded to say them to their faces. She told me that where she came from, I wouldn’t be considered a real therapist, because I had only studied for two years.
We had a few Rehab assistants that she proceeded to lord over, because she had a college degree and they did not. But they worked hard and did their jobs. One day she sat with us at lunch; myself, and two rehab assistants. She proceeded to make rude comments about certain ethnic groups in the company, claiming that they had chips on their shoulders. I told her that her remarks could be construed as racism, and that she had better knock it off. She scoffed, and went on making rude comments. When she left the room with a big smirk on her face, one of the aides told me that she had been making unflattering comments behind my back, too. I decided that she needed to be taught a lesson. I contacted our clinical director and reported her behavior, especially the racist comments.
An hour later, she came walking down the hall, smirk replaced by copious tears. She had been warned that if she continued with her behavior, she would be shipped right back to Europe.
I was an assistant manager for a large auto parts company. Our district manager (DM) was a real POS. I avoided him as much as possible. One day he came to our store, very pissy, and the manager was trying hard to appease him. After the DM left, I looked at the manager and told him he just brown nosed to his ankles. He didn’t say anything, just gave me a funny look. Two days later, after his “weekend”, he handed in his notice. He looked so relieved and happy those last two weeks! He was dating another manager, so we all heard when his dad, a real sweetheart who used to come in frequently, passed away. Other than his girlfriend, I was the only person from the company that attended the funeral. He told me then that my comment was a major wake-up call and that he realized he was no longer willing to work in that environment. His new job made him much happier.
I grew up in a semi-rural area, the child of homesteaders. We had food. Food was never good or bad, it was on the table, and you ate until you were full.
We ate very well, but worked for that food.
My mother had a huge chicken coop, so lots of eggs and chicken.
We planted and harvested about 2 acres of fruits and vegetables of all kinds that could grow in our area. My father had a greenhouse about the size of a single car garage, so we were able to extend a growing season.
Summer weekends were spent in the bush, picking all sorts of wild berries.
We made our own jams, jellies, cordials, chutneys, different kinds of pickles, canned fruits and berries. We processed veggies for use during the winter. This involved sterilizing jars, picking and cleaning foods, slicing, dicing, blanching food, boiling sealing jars, bagging and freezing.
My father bought the rest of the food we couldn’t grow or source naturally.
Sundays, we always had a huge roast, all kinds of roasted root veggies, and devil’s food cake with 7 minute frosting. Most often, dessicated coconut was also put in the frosting. This is exactly what it looked like
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During the week, a normal meal was soup, meat and 2 veg, salad, some kind of pickle, and dessert. Dessert was usually fruit, either fresh or home canned in heavy syrup, and ice cream.
When I was young, our home had a wood stove – so fire wood had to be chopped. We didn’t have running water, so water had to be carried by bucket. We had a coal furnace, so coal had to be shoveled in, several times a day, outside of the summer months.
Because we didn’t have running water, we used an outhouse, which was in the far corner of the property. Even going to the toilet, you walked half a block each way.
When I started kindergarten, the school was almost 2 km away from my home (just over a mile). The only time you were allowed to stay at school for lunch is if the temperature was colder than a high of 0F (-18c). So most days, I walked about 8km, just to go to school and back (x2).
The girls all played jump rope at recess. Do children still do that?
We very rarely ate outside our home, except as guests at other people’s homes. When we would go on camping vacations, our first meal out, and last meal coming home would be KFC – the real stuff they used to make with the cream gravy. So if that is the fast food we had, we had it twice a year.
We used to get a bottle of soda when we went to Grandma’s house. That was about every second week. But we used sugar like crazy. Tea and coffee always had at least 2 tsp of sugar in it. Canned fruit was all in heavy syrup. When the large bottles of cola began to be sold, they were terrifically expensive. The 2 quart bottle was over $4. Considering the first apartment I ever rented a couple of years later was $125/month – you can see what a luxury item Coca Cola was.
Basically, I would say we ate very well. There were plenty of treats, but we were always walking/running and working in the yard. Even the simple things took a lot of work. There was no turning on the tap, that water had to be hauled into the house.
So what I would say is this. Previously, there was little junk food. My mother even made home made marshmallow. Food was processed at home or in restaurants (eg. no pre-formed patties) There was no plastic sort of food, such as Cool Whip (introduced in 1966) People didn’t eat away from home very much. People had to work much harder for food. People worked and walked much more in their lives. The food of the past is very different than the food of today.
I am a 100% disabled USAF Veteran, and I carry a concealed handgun legally. I have had all the background checks that the FBI and Federal Government require and although not of sound body, am of sound mind (my ex-wife may disagree!). I was legally carrying when I stopped in San Antonio to get some fuel. I was in my pickup truck which is wheelchair equipped and it was on the back of the truck and I have Texas Disabled Veteran plates on my truck.
I used my credit card to get the fuel and this was about Christmas time. I am a Christian and love that part of the year. As I was finishing up I was approached by a young man in his late teens and early 20’s who had been watching me since I arrived. I am Italian, and he isn’t (you will figure out his heritage in a moment). He asked how my “Christmas was going?” I replied, “It’s a great time of the year!”. He stated “I’m having a horrible Christmas; I don’t have any money and my kids and wife will get nothing from me this year – can you help? I replied that I carried no cash and he had seen me “use my credit card at the pump!”
He then became directly confrontational and pointed his finger in my face and stated “Then you can take your honky ass into the ATM, use that card and get me some cash!” I backed off 2 steps and stated “I don’t know you and I am not in the habit of giving anything to people I don’t know”. His response was to pull back his jacket and show me a large hunting knife handle that was stuck in his pant and state “What if I show you this knife?!”?
My response was to draw my weapon and point it at his chest and state “What if I show you this gun?” He backed off quickly realizing the crippled Veteran was not as easy a target as he thought!
I was unaware but that store clerk was listening in on the speakers that are at the pump and had summoned the police. They arrived as I was pointing the weapon at the suspect. As soon as they arrived I reholstered and the store clerk told them what she had observed, and I verified the situation.
The Officer asked “Why didn’t you shoot him? He has been a problem for months around here!” My response was “he backed off and I think he would have bolted had you not arrived”. He was taken into custody for attempted armed robbery and I testified at his trial about 11 months later. He was given 7 years in the Texas Department of Corrections. Turns out he never had a wife or children.
What was I given? My life. It could have gone very wrong was I not armed. It could have ended in the worst way.
Guns aren’t meant to fight fair. They are meant to win. They are meant to give people control over what happens to them and to protect themselves, the public, and even you from serious bodily harm or death.
It’s not cowardice – it’s prudence.
I am here today because of that weapon which I still carry faithfully – always knowing it’s there but also always hoping I never have to use it.
“Can I trust you?” she asked me quietly as we walked in the school grounds.
She didn’t even wait for me to reply.
“My father was diagnosed with cancer. Two years ago. Of the prostate. He was under treatment since then, but these days, he’s been getting worse. And we don’t even have that much money, we’re a simple family.”
Sarah was the ‘weird girl’ in the class. Or that’s how the others saw her.
She was always energetic. So much that you’d think she was high on caffeine every day. She had a prominent personality, something so sun-bright that you couldn’t help but notice. And being talkative and making loud, obnoxiously lame jokes were a fundamental part of her.
Sarah was just so fullof life. The fullest you can be. The fullest I’ve ever seen someone.
I think that’s what began, slowly but surely, irritating others in a way.
She would laugh at her own awkward jokes and people would roll their eyes. She’s so random and so extra, they’d say.
She became the class clown.
One day, during the sports class, the conversation written above took place.
And I couldn’t help but silently wonder: how/why was she so buoyant and full of life all the time?
A second later, the tone of her voice shifted.
“You wanna know why I’m so cheerful all the time?”
It’s like she read my mind, I swear. I looked her in the eye, then quickly looked away.
But what she said left me open-mouthed because it was completely different than what I expected.
“You know, I believe that you have to create what you want for yourself. As I see it, everyone has to create their own happiness. There is no other way out. I have so many things to be sad about. But that is exactly what I won’t be. I just work like that,” she shrugged.
And suddenly, just like that, I saw her in a whole new light. And I’m not even exaggerating. It was literally like depicted in the movies.
In fact, I felt guilty, on behalf of my class, that we’d been so utterly stupid.
Not to be dramatic or anything, but Sarah taught me things that I have not learned from anyone else.
I’m not gonna lie and say that since that moment, I’ve been the happiest person alive. I haven’t. It’s a slow process. But I see myself getting there very soon.
Sarah reminded me that one has to create their own happiness. You can’t rely on life or its circumstances to do that for you. She was a living example of the quote: “When life knocks you down, smile and stand up taller than ever before.”
First EU told China they were not buying enough EU Products and importing enough EU products and the Trade deficit was widening quite a bit between the two nations
China replied that most of the EU Imports they formerly imported, they now had excellent quality import substitution within China like Industrial Chemicals or Industrial Technology Machines or ICE Cars
China also said the EU had restricted things they were most keen to import like EUV equipment or Deep UV Lamps or High Grade Etching Equipment
So China said “We have an open market. Bring your products and COMPETE. We have no tariffs here on your products”
The EU want China to keep buying ICE Cars and Industrial Technology at 3 times the price just to ensure a better balance of Trade
China said “How is that Capitalism? Free market?”
EU couldn’t respond
China did point out that Chinese imports of Advanced Lenses and Pharmaceuticals from the EU had risen by 41% across 4 years
The EU claimed China was violating and helping Russia bypass their sanctions. In fact I believe this was their main purpose in visiting China. They accused China of selling to Russia all the Industrial Spares and Manufacturing Parts plus enough goods to keep their purchasing intact
The Chinese replied they were not at war with Russia and EU sanctions were not sacrosanct to other nations. China brought out Lithuania and Australia and asked the EU if the EU recognized Chinese Sanctions on either nation and honored them
China asked if tomorrow China sanctions Taiwan, would EU agree to follow the same and not help Taiwan bypass sanctions
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Ursula mumbled something about democracy and China told her to “Get Laid”
The EU finally accused China of protectionism and subsidy of NEVs that allowed NEVs to be sold cheaper in Europe
China categorically rejected this as wholly untrue and explained how EV subsidy was aimed to help CHINESE CITIZENS buy EVs and spearhead EV transition fully by 2030. They explained how the subsidy was at the tax level and the manufacturing subsidy provided to BYD was used only for their sale price to Chinese Citizens
The EU of course knew this very well
They have advisors who told them the same story
China then pointed out the EU subsidies to their mobile providers of almost € 63 Billion to help them buy the more expensive Nokia equipment for their 5G instead of Huawei
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Again Ursula mumbled something about Democracy and China told her again to “Please get Laid” emphasizing on the “Please”
Simply speaking China is bewildered at all these leaders repeatedly coming to China and demanding things that are entirely against free market and capitalism
They offer investments but into the most mundane things like mass manufacturing and medium grade manufacturing that China isn’t interested in anymore. China has much more money than all of EU combined and can easily bankroll their manufacturing
They want TECH INVESTMENTS, the ability to identify good tech and invest in the same
EU doesn’t want this at all because of US orders
EU wants the World to remain in 2010 but the world is in 2023
**Wanted to add, I only just realized I misread the title as WERE banned, not are. My apologies!**
I was banned from my local Walmart because I miss scanned an item. I went to self checkout one day because I had 4 items and wanted to teach my sons how to scan items. To make the story easier to understand, I had a tshirt, set of bras, shorts and some socks. While scanning, we had accidently double scanned the bras rather than scan the shorts, honest mistake. We finish up and as we are heading out, loss protection stops me and says “My name is XXX I’m with loss prevention please come with us” I was genuinely confused, my son got scared because of how aggressive they were but we complied. While in the security room they proceeded to rummage thru my bags and asked to search my purse. Again, I complied, but they never explained why I was pulled in. They searched cameras for probabaly 20 minutes. At one point, I hear one of the workers call across the radio “We need security detail for an escort.” I started getting REALLY scared and demanded an answer. Finally, they explain I miss scanned an item, because of this I am being escorted out of the building and will not be allowed back on property, should I step foot on property I will be arrested. I was baffled! They didn’t even give me a chance to fix my honest mistake! Needless to say, again I complied, but I put in a call the corporate after leaving, they reached out to me and lifted the banned immediately, apologized, and fired the entire loss prevention team. It wasn’t the first time they had abused power!
This guy was new and he was hired by someone else and put on my team. He messed up because he said he got his degree the same time I did. At the same school. In the same program.
I always research my team beforehand. But, this time it was pretty short.
He failed out his third year and didn’t come back to school. At least not mine.
I figured maybe he fibbed and graduated later. I checked with my school. No record of graduation.
He walked up to my team after he got to work. Asked him to follow me and we went to HR.
We sat down and I asked him about his degree. He repeated his resume exactly.
I stood up, said thank you and good luck. We’ll be going in another direction. And HR did their thing.
We don’t ask about degrees, but we do check your resume for lies. And, we don’t care if you have a degree. Just don’t lie about it.
That means that you are probably going to lie about your work. And, that is pretty toxic.
Committing a felony. I didn’t set out to break the law, I was a law abiding citizen for 59 years.
I was suffering from a deep depression and began self-medicating with Methamphetamine. The depression and drugs led me to some questionable online activities which, to me, seemed harmless. Without my realizing it though, I had crossed into the dark web.
My first inkling that I was in trouble was when 7 sheriffs came to my house with a search warrant. 6 months after that I was arrested on 23 felony charges.
Over the next 6 months my lawyer negotiated that down to 5 charges in exchange for me pleading guilty which I eventually did – I did not have the money to pay for a trial defense, and even if I did, a loss would have meant that I would die in prison – I was 60 years old.
I was extremely fortunate, mostly, I think because I was a first time offender, with a lifetime of abiding the law. I was sentenced to 5 years probation and 3 years prison suspended – no jail time unless I screwed up.
I lost a very successful career and income as a software engineer – no one would hire me with a record. My wife died of a stroke, partly due to the stress of the legal proceedings. Her family completely disowned me (my own family was gone) so I was completely alone in my grief.
I was forced to retire at 62 and live on social security (my first wife got my retirement in the divorce) and I have almost no friends.
Because of one mistake fueled by depression and drugs, my life was destroyed. I have to submit to monthly drug tests and meetings with my probation officer (a significant expense on social security as I have no car and he is 30 miles away), and in constant fear of having my probation revoked for breaking a probation rule (anyone who’s ever been on probation will understand what I mean).
If I could go back to mid 2018 and seek professional help for the depression, I would do it in a heartbeat. If I had sought treatment then I wouldn’t be where I am now.
EDIT:
I have received a lot of comments with people complaining that I’m not taking responsibility for my actions – this is completely wrong.
I take full responsibility for what happened to me. I made the decision to self medicate with meth rather than seek mainstream treatment. It was my decision to engage in the actions which led to my crime. Nobody made me do it but me.
I was arrested on evidence I cannot deny and sentenced fairly according to the law. I was a law abiding citizen for 59 years and believe strongly in the rule of law and the need to uphold it. I have absolutely no complaint about how I was treated as the result of my actions. The legal system and all of its agents acted exactly as I expected in doing their part to enforce the law and maintain societal controls.
That said, I have no doubt, with God as my witness, that I would have NEVER broken the law had my faculties not been impaired by drugs – in a sober state I would not have engaged in the actions that led to my crime. My values and critical thinking were subverted by the drugs – there is plenty of medical and psychiatric evidence of this. That is not an excuse, it is a simple fact.
I wished the interviewer luck in finding a candidate with the credentials they were looking for, when it became known that I didn’t have the right credential to teach what they wanted me to teach.
They waited until the interview to tell me that they were specifically looking for a teacher with a Reading Specialist endorsement, which I didn’t have. They could have checked my resume before they called me in for the interview to see I didn’t have that, but whatever. My lack of the proper endorsement brought the interview to a quick close, and I wished them well in their search for someone with that particular endorsement. I knew they’d have a hard time finding someone with that who was willing to work at a private school. Public schools, which pay better than private schools around here, are quick to grab the Reading Specialists.
About three weeks later, I’d completely forgotten about that interview, and they called me in for a second interview. I checked their school calendar. They were two weeks away from opening day. I knew they were desperate. I was desperate to find a position too, so it all worked out. I went in for the second interview, and they offered me the position, even though I didn’t have the specific endorsement they wanted. Private schools are flexible when it comes to those things anyway.
They remembered me from the first interview because I was nice to them. I ended up working there for two years. It was my first real teaching position, and I loved it. I got the experience and connections I needed to make finding new teaching positions in later years so much easier. The first position is always the hardest to get.
Were you here? I am here and I was here on Sunday election day.
Yeah and? You hear 10,000 police deployed across the city! OMG.
What I saw? I went cycling early in the morning. I passed the election polling station, a small queue and a load of villagers.
The two police officers? They were stood about 10 metres away outside to one side.
That’s not an unusual sight. You see police standing around busy bus depots and MTR stations. The only ‘heavy’ presence was a couple months ago where desk job police were walking around. I scooted in between them and NOTHING happened.
We Have a Problem – The Actual WAR INVASION of the USA **IS** Planned and now, We have a date range . . .
America, we have a problem. While it has long been rumored that foreign countries are planning to invade the continental USA, we’ve never seen evidence of any such actual planning; until now. . .
For years we’ve all heard rumors of Chinese troops being massed in south-central Mexico, but never any proof to bolster such claims.
Two years or so ago, we all found out that Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada signed a Treaty with China allowing the deployment of People’s Liberation Army troops in Canada, and the Treaty prohibits local Canada governments from having __any__ say where those troops are, or what they do while in Canada. That Treaty has been verified and __is__ real.
So if one believes the rumor about China troops in south-central Mexico, and we already have confirmation they’re entering Canada, that would mean invasion of the continental USA would be possible from both the north and the south.
Then, too, for years, we’ve all heard rumors that Venezuela would send troops to Cuba, to join with Cuban troops to invade Florida from Cuba — but ZERO evidence of any such planning has ever been offered or produced by anyone.
NOW, THOUGH, we have something very real, from deep inside Russian Intelligence.
Below from inside the Russian FSB, we now have concrete proof an actual INVASION of the United States of America is, in fact, being planned, and the date range for that invasion has already been decided. It appears we have less than one year.
The evidence, obtained from inside Department “C” of the Central Security Service of the FSB of Russia, appears below, and is for SUBSCRIBERS TO THIS WEBSITE, ONLY.
Back around 1990, I was about 23, two babys and wife at home, and got laid off at the light bulb factory in Plymouth Florida. So I went to work selling veggies at the flea market and working on VW’s while looking for a job. I had been rebulding Bug motors for some time and it had become quite a routine. Well I had this old bus, it was a 1962, 23 window Kombi wagon. Pulled the motor, did the thing right, line bored, new cylinders, pistons, all the bearings, oil pump, Bosch 009 distibutor, new carb, everything top-knotch. The owner wanted it right, so he spared no expense and I was happy to oblige. The afternoon arrived and i finally had the motor back together and up in the bus. It was bolted in and I was hooking up the wires and needed a new connector to hookup the new distributor and when i went into my shop to find one, i noticed this little silver thing laying on the bench. Picked it up and eyed it carefully. It was half of a cam bearing. Yup, I had left out half of a cam bearing shell. Had to pull the motor back out, break it all the way back down, and sure enough, there was one shell missing. Put it in and back together it went. Ran like a top for years! Thankfully, I didn’t try to fire it up!
Campfire Dutch Oven Chili with Cornbread
campfire dutch oven chili cornbread
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
Chili
3 pounds ground beef (90% lean)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, ribs and seeds removed, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes & green chilies, undrained
Heat briquettes up in a chimney, then make a layer of hot briquettes on the ground, a fire ring, or other metal structure.
Place the Dutch oven on the briquettes and allow Dutch oven to get hot.
Add oil to the Dutch oven and sauté onion, bell pepper, and jalapeño pepper stirring occasionally until tender, approximately 4 to 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional 1 minute.
Add ground beef to Dutch oven and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, breaking beef into small crumbles and stirring occasionally until browned. If Dutch oven starts to cool off, add more hot briquettes on the bottom.
Add chili powder, paprika, cumin, oregano, black pepper and salt; cook for 1 minute.
Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes & green chiles and beer; bring to a boil. Cook for 30 minutes.
Prepare cornbread mix based on box instructions and pour over chili, spreading into an even layer.
Heat approximately 20 additional briquettes. Cover Dutch oven with lid and place hot briquettes evenly on the top of the closed lid.
Cook for about 10 minutes, checking halfway through. Check to see if cornbread is done by sticking a wooden pick into cornbread. If the wooden pick comes out clean, it is done.
I worked as PC tech early in my career for a man that was a total control freak. Very military. One of his expectations was that everyone was sitting at their desk exactly at 8am. No excuses. Well, I was transferred under his department after my previous manager retired. I had been working without complaint for over a year.
If I knew I had a busy day I would come in early to get things done without interruption. I had been late a few times during the previous month as I was a new Father. But, as I said, I came in early, and stayed late so my work was never affected.
I also was a contractor, not an employee. And my contract wasn’t a 8 to 5 time clock, but a work level, number of tickets thing.
Anyway, this particular morning I came in about 30mins early to finish up a repair from the day before. No sooner than I had walked into my office the Plant Manager walked in. He was having a problem. So, off I go.
Well, it was about 45 minutes later when I walk back in to get a replacement hard drive. There stands my Boss. He starts in on me about me not being at my desk. Yelling at me like I’m a dog. I just stand there. Finally, he says I’m fired. I’m to pack my “stuff” and leave. Which I do. As I’m about to leave I tell him, Oh by the way, the Plant Manager (his Boss) was waiting on me. His face dropped.
I walked out.
About an hour after I got home I get a call from my company. The Plant Manager called them. He told them he wanted me to come back. I declined. He then called me. He paid me directly to come fix his computer. And my Boss got fired.
This kid was the other way around. He was considered as a brilliant geek, and I believe he suffered a lot from the constant bullying by the other kids. He scored very well in Olympiads, and also scored high marks on subjects such as Math, Physics and Chemistry.
In his spare time, he read Math books, studied Bridge and entered in semi-professional competitive Bridge games — I guess that was one of the reasons why he was seen as a geek.
Several teachers were convinced that Terry would ace university and become a brilliant scientific researcher, but reality turned out to be very different. He first tried engineering studies but failed miserably, and then spent some time in the professional Bridge circuit, but he never reached the level he thought he would.
Some years later, I was a surveillant at a Linear Algebra exam for freshman Informatics students (I was a postdoctoral researcher at the time), and there he was, trying once again to obtain a degree. And he flunked again. Not much later he left academics, and I kind of lost track of his life.
At reunions, those that do not show up are the people that died young, those that hate their past more than anything else, and those that failed in life. The future definitely turned out differently than Terry had hoped.
But luckily, we did not know this when we were seventeen.
My MIL was absolutely the best. Once we had settled on the number of guests we could afford to invite, she offered to contribute toward the wedding so that more guests from their circle of family and friends could be invited. Because I wasn’t sure if we could afford an open bar, she offered to cover it and did so. She organized the rehearsal dinner and did an absolutely splendid job. The day after the wedding, she put together a breakfast for some of our out-of-town guests at her home. On the wedding day, she stayed low profile so that my mother could join me in getting ready with my bridesmaids (and this I regret, not asking her to join us, but I was young and naiive at the time and it didn’t occur to me). On the day of the wedding, she took care of little things that others didn’t, like collecting the bridal gown after I’d changed into my travel clothes. When we traveled to another city, she asked a family member who was visiting her for the wedding to let us use their apartment so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel. She’s the best MIL one could hope for!
I was down the pub one summers day pre-Covid with a good mate of mine called Dan. Dan’s originally from Texas, ex-US Army 1st Sgt, and now living in the UK with his lovely wife. He’s been here long enough to have a good grasp of the British sense of humour.
We’re having a drink and chatting when my phone goes off, a number I don’t recognise and I answer, putting it on speakerphone. A thickly-accented Indian voice (who claims to be called ‘Hank’) on the other end tells me that he is the FBI, that i’ve got multiple warrants out for my arrest etc, but that if I pay them I won’t have to be arrested-bear in mind i’m in the UK and the FBI has no jurisdiction over here. Having sunk a few pints by then, i’m in the mood for a wind-up. I ask for details of these warrants, tell him that they’ll never catch me, then I ask him if he knows Special Agent Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson’s character in ‘Criminal Minds’). He replies that Agent Hotchner is on holiday at the moment. I tell him that I know this as he’s sitting right beside me, and he’d like a word with him. I hand the phone to Dan and sit back to enjoy the show. Dan goes all in, quoting legal codes, threatening traces, freezing of their assets, criminal charges, the works! Needless to say the call ended not long after
China has a really sweet deal with Russia right now. I can not think of a single reason to change it (from China’s perspective.)
China is desperately short of fossil fuels and Russia is a huge exporter of fossil fuels. They are even willing to build multiple pipelines to get natural gas to China.
Everything Russia sells to China goes at a 40–50% discount because of China’s manipulation of its two-currency system.
Everything Russia buys from China comes with a 40–50% markup. Same reasons. Some things that are sanctioned go for as much as 4,000 times their original cost.
China is selling Russia billions a year in heavily marked up “dual use” goods such as military grade tires, military vehicles, body armor, night vision devices, helicopter engines, field medical kits, and even entire field hospitals. They also sell them considerable sanctioned goods, especially electronics, that Russia cannot make for itself.
They are compatible authoritarian governments.
China and Russia make an impenetrable voting bloc at the UN. Together, they can block any international initiative against either of them.
Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home (BEST QUALITY SOUND)
I once had a client who was, literally, the strongest man I’d ever seen. Harry was well-built and about 6′ 4″. Even though he was large to begin with, his sheer strength to size ratio was off the charts.
One day we were driving in the car together and a guy in a Mercedes cut Harry off in traffic. Harry expressed his displeasure at this move by honking his horn. “Mercedes guy” proceeded to flip Harry off and then he pulled over – I guess he was looking for a fight.
Harry pulled in behind him. He got out, then Harry got out. The other guy was about 6′ tall and slightly pudgy, but not small by any means. However, once Mercedes guy saw Harry, he hurriedly returned to his car. BUT, he forgot one very important thing. His sunroof was open.
Harry, usually a fairly reasonable guy, was beyond pissed off. He went up to the guy’s car, PULLED him out THROUGH THE SUNROOF, put him on the street, turned him upside-down and STUFFED him back in his car, once again THROUGH THE SUNROOF.
Then Harry calmly strolled back to the car, got in, and we drove off. I glanced in the side view mirror and could see Mercedes guy’s feet sticking up through the roof kicking around a bit. Too funny!
I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. Harry passed away a few years later, but I’ll never forget him or what he did that day. It was an awesome sight!
Running late
The other morning as I was running late for an appointment I drove past a park and from a distance, I saw this young girl sitting on the bench and it looked like she was crying… I continued to drive and I thought to myself “what if that was me or even worse.. my daughter”.
So, I turned around and pulled into a parking spot, opened my car door and walked over to her and set down beside her.
She was crying so hard that she didn’t know I was there until I tapped her on the shoulder and asked: “Are you okay?” She looked up at me and said “No” “He cheated on me” “I don’t want to even live anymore” I knew at this point, I needed to take as much time as I could to talk to this young girl.
image 97
We sat there on that bench and talked the entire afternoon about relationships, life, and future goals and when the time came we finally said our goodbyes so I walked back to my car and as I started to back out, I looked back at her and she was walking towards me with her head down.
When she came up to the window, she confessed to me that she thought about taking her own life and because of me stopping and talking to her she decided that wasn’t in her best interest anymore.
Needless to say, I might have missed an appointment but I also might have saved a life.
Sweet, sweet summer child. Let me share with you a day in the life of a young Japanese Salaryman, if you’ll indulge me.
Clearly, you have never heard of the dreaded company 飲み会。
Ah, that magical moment when your boss tells the faculty, “Today was a good day, let’s go out drinking!”
“What’s that you say? You have plans? No, no, clearly you are mistaken. Because WE, the employees of the company have decided to go drinking. We have all made this decision, subconsciously, the very instant, I, the boss, mentioned it. 空気を読んで！ Are we not the pinnacle of unity and harmony?”
And now, you’re off to a wonderful night of drinking with your coworkers. Who must drink with the boss, as long as he wants to drink.
“What’s that you say? You don’t like drinking？ NONSENSE. You merely have not found the appropriate drink, which, I, the boss, know is just right for you. Have another cup with me!”
“Another!”
“Another!”
“Eh? Eh? You don’t feel so good. Fie, I say! You just need another drink. Perhaps a different sake.”
That’s going to go on for a bit, until you, the newbie, and your coworker, who has learned how to hold his liquor better, are on a street corner outside a hotel in Tokyo, the coworker kindly holding your head as you throw up everything you have ever eaten. They are kind and will give you water afterwards, as you swear you will never drink again.
I worked at a company where they were getting rid of a bunch of flat panel displays. They were old and had a funky plug on them, but worked perfectly fine. I asked the powers that be if we could take them home, since they were just going to trash them anyway. I was told that if you can bag them up, you can walk right past security in the lobby and you’ll be fine. You can’t just carry them out the door, though.
It turned out that one of my coworkers had a girlfriend who worked in a place that sewed custom bags for various industries. I gave him dimensions and 3 days later, we had bags we could use. Between the 6 techs I worked with, We walked out with about a dozen displays. We benefitted, the displays didn’t end up in a landfill, and a new line of bags was developed at my buddy’s gf’s company. It was a win-win-win.
At some point early in my marriage, we had a relatively large 6 bedroom house on a golf course subdivision with a pool and clubhouse. I had bought the nicest Lexus sedan I could afford, and a large SUV for my wife. We had two young kids. And we were miserable.
It wasn’t just about the money. These things were expensive for sure, and definitely weighed down our budget, but we could afford it.
The problem was time. I was busy with my business, working almost 7 days a week. My wife was taking care of the babies AND helping with the business. We almost never took vacations. A rare weekend off was like a vacation.
I’d be reading or playing with the kids and the phone would ring. The laughter turned off like a switch while I go to another room to talk. It’s like the world paused while the family waited to hear if I had to leave or not. Sorry, gotta run! I’d leave before even hearing if the kids said “bye daddy.”
I’m sure you’ve seen the Disney movie, Aladdin. I was the Genie. Giver of gifts. Solver of problems. All powerful being. But no more than a slave. The business owns you. Clients own you. The mortgage owns you. Just like the Genie, I longed for freedom.
One day, my wife and I looked at each other and asked “what are we doing?”
I started interviewing for jobs and got hired relatively quickly. Within a few months, we closed the business, sold our house, and moved. It was like Aladdin setting the Genie free.
It turned out that I work half the time, making pretty much the same as before.. I still drive the same car, which is now 15 yrs old. We live in a house half the size of what we had. I see my kids more than most dads I know. I am an equal participant in their homeschooling. We go on vacations multiple times a year.
Life isn’t perfect, but definitely there is more happiness now.
Addendum: Thanks for reading and the upvotes!
I’d like to add that it’s definitely possible to have a business or earn a lot and have a big house, nice cars, etc. AND afford family time. It’s not mutually exclusive at all. I know a lot of people who have it all. If you can find that lifestyle, go for it. I just didn’t have it in me, but that’s OK.
I applaud those who answer these types of questions honestly. After all, I believe that the younger ones who ask these questions want honest answers as to what they have in store. What they don’t want is old people trying to prove they’re doing great and that they’ve still got it, without offering any balancing disclosures.
I get irritated with people who answer these questions with only a list of all the great things they’re still able to do. They sky-dive, hike, kayak blah blah blah. They so desperately seem to want to come across like they’re still twenty. THEY ARE NOT. And the men nearly always have to show off about how they’re still sexually active (failing to mention they need boatloads of viagra to do it.) And no offence, but NOBODY wants to picture old people still at it.
Now some of these people are flat-out lying, and some are being honest. But, my irritation isn’t because some are truthfully still active and fit; it’s because, whilst crowing about their experience of older age, they’re leaving out the shitty parts of ageing.
It’s perfectly okay to admit that despite still being fit enough to kayak, and despite being generally content and more enlightened, you’re also struggling with physical issues, fears, societal prejudices, or sadness.
You’re struggling with friends who have cancer or have already passed.
You’re struggling with your own mortality.
You’re struggling with the knowledge that you’ll soon enough be of no real use to your children anymore.
You’re struggling with the saggy stranger you see in the mirror.
You’re becoming more invisible to the public at large.
You’re struggling with lessons learned too late in life.
You’re struggling with questions like ‘What the fuck was all that about?’
You’re struggling with dodgy knees, age spots and overall deterioration.
You’re struggling with energy levels and motivation (not all the time, but certainly some of the time.)
At times, you’re struggling with boredom; not every old person is sky-diving 24/7.
Your memory is not what it used to be.
Weight (for many) cannot be managed, no matter what.
The absolute worst part is losing friends and relatives along the way. Your social circle becomes smaller and smaller.
Then you have widows and widowers who have to grapple with a whole new way of life at their age after having relied on another person for decades.
It unnerves me that so many people are so hell-bent on proving something rather than sharing the reality, inevitability, vulnerability and, even the beauty, of life’s cycle. That you know your time is gradually coming to a form of decline and close, despite the fact that you might still be able to kayak.
There’s just something very self-congratulatory about those proclamations. Something which I imagine makes certain other older people feel like they’re failing or not doing enough, and that also sets young people up for thinking that ageing is one big picnic.
It’s okay to still be enjoying your life at whatever age without portraying ageing as a hunky dory affair. It isn’t. On some fronts, it’s way, way better, but on other fronts, it positively stinks. (Just as I imagine most teens would describe their teenage years.)
It was in the military boot camp. Finnish military is based on conscription; it is colloquially called as “penis tax”. It means if you are a boy, you have to serve in the military on pain of imprisonment. Girls may volunteer, and I volunteered.
Draft dodging is made almost impossible in Finland, which means the military gets almost the whole cohort to service (except those who are exempted for health reasons or who chose civilian service instead). It is a genuine cross-section of the whole society – which mean that the military does not get only the best of the boys to rank and file, but also the worst.
It means you have to serve with people you would attempt to avoid at any price in civilian life; bullies, thieves, blue falcons, pranksters, antisocial cases, substance abusers, weakly talented etc. And then there are always those, who have an intention to make other people’s time miserable.
We girls slept in a separate dorm, but practised with boys. And unfortunately there was such Arschloch in our company. He especially picked on us girls (as we all were volunteer), and especially me.
In the end his picking, teasing, harassing and pushing my button went far enough. My service motivation was already on the rock bottom, and to say, he had harassed me to corner.
I didn’t care anymore if I lived or died. I just wanted it to end.
Puukko, the Finnish knife, is the only civilian item along the eyeglasses which can be carried while in uniform. It doubles as a sidearm and Every Finn has one, and getting one’s first puukko is a kind of coming to age ceremony for boys and girls. So I drew mine. He drew his.
We were now staring each other, with drawn knives, ready to strike and fight to death. I was ready to kill. I did not care anymore. He stared me with expressionless gaze. It was as if his eyes had been bottomless wells. I could sense no emotion.
Then the drill corporals came. They separated us, and I got yelled upon and roasted for good.
Yet military is a strange place. It works on its own rules. In civilian life, this would have been either an illegal threatening or an attempted manslaughter, and prison would have ensued. But nothing ensued; we were told to get shut up and not to say a word on what had happened. The noncoms did not want any troubles and fuss. It was as if they wanted to sweep everything under the carpet. This is understandable as the materiél is heterogeneous: internal squabbles and quarreling happens almost daily. Everyone was aware I had been pushed and picked on, and they realized it was a primitive reaction.
Strangely, I was left alone after that. Nobody picked on me anymore. But it was the absolute nadir of my military time.
Not only they are offered food, but also Polish families accept them in our homes (in fact I did too), and get everything free until they find a job or decide to leave. In fact, just today NGO’s helping Ukrainians stopped taking gifts. Their warehouses are full, there is more help than people that need it for now. (PS – Poles reading this – seriously, look at the FB groups what is needed, because there is more stuff that they need, and there are some things we lack. For example pampers’s and other baby and toddler stuff, as well as school utensils. But not everywhere, not in every city, watch your own, don’t just throw in gifts, volunteers are already overwhelmed with that kindness, nobody expected it will be so much)
Four main reasons: 1. For several hundred years we were one country:
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(that red part) We accept our families and relatives, that is normal. We see them as our kin.
2. Belarus president Lukashenko admitted that he deliberately flew Middle Eastern and African immigrants to our border in order to wage hybrid war against us, and use them as weapons. And Belarus is now a combatant country against Ukraine side by side with Russia. We don’t negotiate with terrorists like this man, neither we bow to such threats. So against as he called it “war” declared, we stood an army on the border. Pretty normal thing to do with somebody threatening you with war, isn’t it?
3. We strongly believe that a war refugee should stay in the first safe country. For Ukraine we are the first safe country.
4. In our culture, it is expected for men to fight the war, or rebuild their country. Not to flee. And from Ukraine, we receive women and children. Not 80% males in military age. Those, in Ukraine, stay and fight. They are not let our by Ukrainian forces anyway.
No matter if someone finds those reasons valid or not, those are them.
As someone who hails from a culture where people typically their outdoor shoes before entering a home/temple/office/etc., I can only share my experience from that end of the spectrum.
The answer is simple and practical – we don’t want to track in dirt, mud, and the one billion other stuff that you can’t really see with the naked eye into our homes/temples/offices/etc.
For myself, I’m closer to the extreme end of the spectrum.
When I come home, not only do I remove my outdoor shoes and slip into my “indoor slippers” before stepping into my home, but I then go and change into my “indoor clothes” as well, before doing anything else.
Seeing people immediately plop onto their beds, still in their “outdoor clothes”, after arriving home makes me uncomfortable.
I also have an area in my apartment for setting aside “stuff I take outdoors but bring home”. Like the bag I bring to work, and all the coats, clothes, I wear to work – they all get neatly placed in this area before I go change into my “indoor clothes”.
And this is not just at home.
Although not all work places have an “outdoor shoes off” policy, the game studio I work at does.
And it is strictly enforced – if you have a “brain fart moment” and forget to take off your outdoor shoes before stepping into the studio proper, you’ll have quite a few people springing out of nowhere, breathing heavily down your neck, who will smile and politely point out that you’ve violated the rules of the inner sanctum and would you please go and take your outside shoes off and use the mop to wipe that part of the floor that you’ve stepped on with your outside shoes.
There’s even been talk of implementing a demerit point system to cut down on colleagues who have these “brain fart moments” – although I think it’s unlikely, as I’ve seen it happen only twice so far this year, and usually both times the guilty party was deep in thought about something work related (which makes the transgression somewhat forgivable…) .
It applies to everyone.
Doesn’t matter whether you’re the Director himself, a Lead, a Junior, an Intern, an External Freelancer, a Client, or the Cleaning Lady – everyone takes off their shoes before stepping into the studio proper.
That’s why we have a “take your outdoor shoes off here” entrance area right after you enter the main door.
You immediately take off your outdoor shoes and put it into one of the four tall shoe cupboards located to the side of the main door.
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We also have a couple of these “shoe benches” in this entrance area. These are for people who need something to sit on while taking off / putting on their socks and shoes.
These “shoe benches” are also where we place our “inside slippers”.
It’s convenient – once we take off our “outside shoes” on one of these “shoe benches”, we can immediately reach for and slip into our “inside slippers” before then placing our “outside shoes” into the shoe cupboard.
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We also have a few areas around the studio where there’s a low floor table with floor cushions to sit on.
These areas are used for group discussions, brainstorming sessions, tea-drinking sessions, I-just-need-to-take-a-short-break sessions, I-just-need-a-20-minute-nap sessions, etc
My favorite one is the one where it’s practically an indoor garden and we’ve outfitted the place to make it look like you’re inside a gazebo, with tea cups and tea pots on a side table.
Knowing that no one has tracked in dirt, mud, and the one billion other stuff that you can’t really see with the naked eye into the studio allows me to sit in these areas and enjoy my morning/afternoon tea with peace of mind.
Might not qualify as the weirdest flex but certainly one of the most bad ass.
Kerry Packer was Australia’s richest man worth around 8 billion some 20 years ago. His gambling feats were legendary. He would often go to casinos and win or lose 10 million plus in one sitting. One time he won $26 million playing 6 hands of blackjack at $200,000 each. That’s $1.2 million per hand.
On top of that, whilst some of these may not be 100% accurate (Urban legends can get twisted over time) they all have some element of truth.
He’s been known to tip croupiers and waitresses 100s of 1000s of dollars and paying off their mortgages. Once he accidentally tipped a waitresses tray and apologised and arranged to pay her $100,000+ mortgage. Another time a dealer was offered an $80,000 tip by Packer but respectfully declined, informing him dealers are not allowed to accept gratuities. Packer called over the Pit Boss and demanded the dealer be sacked on the spot. The Pit Boss fired her. Packer then pushed forward the $80,000 worth of chips before demanding the Pit Boss re-hire her.
But then came the Texan oil tycoon coin flip…
Packer was playing every box at a blackjack table and not allowing anyone else to play or back bet at the table. This was a common practice by Packer and indeed a lot of big gamblers. But one time there was a braggart Texan oil baron throwing his weight around, complaining and telling all and sundry he was a big deal. He’s rich, he doesn’t have to wait for a table and who was this buffoon hogging it…Packer doesn’t walk around telling everyone how good he is and he doesn’t like people who do…
So Packer swivels around in his seat only for the Texan to double down, pointing his finger at the face of Packer and yelling some choice words finishing with, “I’m worth $100 million!” Packer slowly leans back in his chair, pulls a coin out of his pocket, stares at the Texan and calmly says, “So you want to gamble hey? I’ll flip you for it.” He was serious.
As the Texan quietly slunk away into the shadows, Kerry turned back to the table and continued like nothing had happened.
Bad ass…
Cabbage Patch Stew
84774cfdd5416aacc5f661f3dbf51227
Ingredients
1 pound ground meat – beef, turkey, venison
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped cabbage
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 to 2 teaspoons chili powder
Bisquick dumplings
Instructions
Cook and stir ground meat in Dutch oven until browned. Drain.
Add onions, cabbage and celery. Cook, stirring, until vegetables are light brown.
Stir in tomatoes, and kidney beans (with liquid), water, salt, pepper and chili powder. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer until cabbage is tender.
Meanwhile, prepare Bisquick dumplings. Drop by spoonsful into boiling stew. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes.
I picked up the phone (old school landline back in the day) and heard an angry voice say, “Where’s my money?” Since hanging up would only have convinced the caller that I was indeed the object of his rage, I stayed on the line and had what was for me an amusing conversation.
“You have the wrong number,” I said.
“What are you trying to pull?” he said. “You owe me $600.”
Further questioning revealed my interrogator was a drug dealer, had fronted an acquaintance a considerable amount of money, and was trying to collect with the (incorrect) phone number he’d been given. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I know where you live,” he threatened. “I’ll come over there and kill you “
“Do it,” I said. “Since I’m not who you think I am, it’s no skin off my teeth.”
The conversation went on, I was unfailingly polite the whole time, I eventually excused myself and hung up, and he called back and tried again. Finally I said, “Look, man, your friend cheated you. I hope you find him, but I’m not your man.”
“Yeah, thanks anyway,” he said in a dejected voice and hung up.
I’m gonna have to say Charlie Sheen takes this award.
He was making tens of millions of dollars each year with his Sitcom, Two & Half men.
In the acting world, sitcoms are the best gigs.
The acting demands are super easy. The scripts are cookie cutter. After a few laps around the track, you learn to crank these episodes out one after another.
You come in, you shoot, boom you are done. They shoot entire seasons over a few weeks sometimes.
But he started in with the cocaine and we all know what happened next:
image 90
And what stinks (for Charlie) is that, around this time, he had gone through a divorce and judges issued alimony/child-support payments based on his current income.
He was paying his ex-wife Brooke Mueller $55,000 a month in child support AND his ex-wife Denise Richards $50,000 a month.
His income instantly ceased when he was on TV, going on these crazy tirades that were funny in the moment but catastrophic to his career.
What producers wants to work with a liability like that? Who wants to be publicly targeted by one of your own actors?
Combine his alimony/child-support payments, his drug habit, and preference for high end prostitutes.
And you have a dead career, HIV and a quickly depleting bank account.
I remember when I had one ten year old in my class, and we were oil and water to each other. One day I chastised her for swearing in class and she told me that she was going to get me back and I’d be sorry (presumably for scolding somebody as important as she was). The next day, my colleague, a teacher who was senior to me, came to me to tell me the student had complained I’d hit her. When I told him that it was a complete fabrication on her part, he told me, and I quote, “Well, she wouldn’t lie.”
I told him that I was offended, since the clear inference was that he believed I was lying. And I resented the implication that I was a liar who would abuse a child.
I was very relieved when she moved to his class the next year and decided she didn’t like him anymore than she had liked me and began to spread stories about him. When he complained about her in the staff room, I looked him in the eye and said, “Well, she wouldn’t lie.”
In Boston in the early 1700s Cotton Mather introduced variolation for the treatment and prevention of Smallpox. In those days, Boston was a town (it didn’t become a city until 1822) of about 4000 people. Every year AT LEAST 30 percent of the population came down with Smallpox, a virulent disease which disfigured the survivors, turned their teeth black, and caused them enormous pain. In a town with only 4000 people where everyone literally depended on everyone else, having 1200 people laid up meant that at least another 1000 had to be caring for them – or digging graves.
And then came the miracle of variolation. For the first time the possibility of ending this horrible scourge was REAL. It was no longer necessary to organize long and tedious and useless prayer vigils. There was science and medicine that had a REAL IMPACT and saved many people from the hideousness or scars and rotten teeth or worse, death.
Do you think the citizens were excited about this? NO THEY WERE NOT. They tried to kill Mather; they tried to burn down his house. They tried to kidnap his children because they were innoculated and therefore “impure”. You see, catching a horrible disease and becoming scarred and even dying at the age of six month was GOD’S WILL. If GOD wants you to get sick, who are YOU to interfere with his plan? Those people were the worst kinds of hypocrites. They wanted to do whatever they wanted if they weren’t caught or “seen by God” (such as the city Father offering to commute Mary Dyer’s death sentence if she slept with him. She didn’t and she swung.) but other than that they have to “virtue signal” that God was in charge and therefore YOUR CHILD had to suffer and die from Smallpox (especially if mine did last year).
The people in Texas are largely brainwashed by religious morons who fly big jets paid for by the suckers who are willing to fight to let any number of women and children die in childbirth or otherwise because a Rolex-wearing priest told them it was GOD’S WILL and we are not to interfere with it (while those same pastors get plastic surgery and drive Bentleys)
Eventually, the people of Boston woke up to the benefits of variolation and inoculation and many of the people throwing bricks through the windows of Mather’s house during the day suddenly showed up at midnight with their children and begged for the scratch that would change their lives for the better, the same way that Republicans fly to Massachusetts from Texas when they need an abortion or real medical treatment but put their boot on the neck of the poor and force them to die or give birth to a rapist’s child. Ken Paxton is absolutely no different from the Magistrate who tried to extort sex from Mary Dyer – then hanged her when she refused.
China has set up special financial facilities for Iranian accounts that are immune to us Treasury sanctions, because the entire payment mechanism is independent of the US dollar.
In other words, the US cannot threaten hegemonic destruction, unless they are willing to attack key nodes in the Chinese financial system.
Besides, the US is ALREADY sanctioning both Iran and China. Iran’s sanctions approach that of an embargo while China has been busy fending off America’s “maximum pressure” strategy that includes illegal tariffs, the closure of a consulate, a genocide determination, the removal of Hong Kong’s special status, the economic slaughter of Huawei and other Chinese companies, and many, many more direct and indirect acts of malice.
China must have thought since we’re already under maximum pressure, what China does or doesn’t do no longer matters because America can always pin something on us.
With or without Iran, America will bring it on and up the pressure game.
What we don’t know is when the Chinese will start baring teeth and attack instead of parry.
My younger self is a guy who never took anything seriously in life, who never studied in the least, who was happy with a pass mark in most exams and was happy go lucky
I would pick the books, visit a friend named Sairam who was what you would call a Nerd on the LAST DAY and study from the beginning and get a 45–50 mark score without understanding too much
My 21–22 year old self went to a Grindlays bank interview, couldn’t answer a SINGLE QUESTION put to me on world affairs or anything else
I was literally like Santhanam in Vaalu
Total Humiliation
image 89
My rebirth was after this interview
My second innings began after this
Reading books in English, Dickens, Forsyth, Le Carre
Membership of British Council and reading books on History and Geography
Learning Economics in evening classes while working in the morning
It was a wake up call
Without that interview, I would have ended up definitely in a place where I simply wouldn’t even know what Quora is
The British government may want to attract Hong Kongers for financial reasons. The British public may be less welcoming.
I think a large percentage of immigrants are experiencing dissonance between what they expected and what they are experiencing. Many are unemployed or underemployed because of language and education/skill incompatibilities. There will be culture shock, feelings of alienation, depression, family problems, financial issues, etc.
Whether they want to (or can) come back to Hong Kong is debatable. Some sources say many do not plan to, despite the problems they are having. If they left because of anti-China/anti-government sentiments, then they cannot reconcile themselves to return. If they were involved in the 2019 riots, they may fear arrest (or “persecution” from their point of view). But more likely, if they sold their property in Hong Kong, they cannot afford to start over.
The immigrants are only in UK on a five-year visa, after which they can apply for settlement and citizenship. I suspect that a lot of them will find that citizenship is not forthcoming. What happens then? Do their visas get renewed or do they have to leave? If they have to leave, where can they go?
My husband saw a woman at the dry cleaners who was acting very badly. Rude, entitled, aggressive – nearly spitting her words – the customers behind her were visibly uncomfortable, eyes lowered, feet shifting. It was one of those cases where you cringe inwardly for the employee being berated unfairly. Even if she was having a very bad day, this was – in my husband’s words – “…way over the top.”
She then made the great mistake of believing that she had supporters among fellow customers. In a plea for crowd support, randomly turning toward my husband, she said: “You agree with what I’m saying, don’t you?” Sadly for her, my husband had witnessed the conversation from start to finish.
“No, ma’am. I heard it all, and, I don’t agree with what you’ve said or how badly you’ve acted. First, you treated this store employee with blatant disrespect while he is trying to assist you. Second, you’ve inconvenienced other customers waiting for your tantrum to subside. Third, I am a small business owner, and if you acted like this in my business you would be asked to leave. You need to get ahold of yourself, and you owe this man (the store employee) an apology.” The woman then spun on her heel and walked out – and my husband was met with applause from other customers and a look of sheer relief from the store employee.
I honestly cannot stand it when I see a store employee being verbally abused. Cheers to my spouse for being a stand-up guy!
I have a relative who has never been outside her comfort zone. She’s in her 70’s and lived with her parents until they died, and then continued living in the same house she inherited. She never leaves her home village, and doesn’t have a passport or a Driving License. She’s never left the UK. I doubt if she’s ever left England. She’s never had a romantic relationship and obviously never been married.
She’s remarkably unambitious and satisfied. She is very sweet and quite eccentric, and lives surrounded by toy owls and cats. She complains about her health issues, but she’s quite positive generally. She used to do the hairdressing at a local old peoples home, but lives off the state pension now. She’s poor but perfectly happy.
I’d say that living a happy life is for her a good thing that has come out of staying in her comfort zone. We aren’t all the same.
I don’t have a television, In fact, I haven’t had one since around 2004.
It’s not that I can’t afford it, it’s just that I am not interested in one. I occasionally watch movies, but those that I do watch are downloaded torrents, and I watch them either on the laptop of on one of the (too many) pads that we have lying around the house.
Sure, there are television shows in China, and I could watch them, but they are all kind of silly and are of no interest to me. Shrug.
Were I to purchase one, it would be a big waste. Just running all day as “background noise”. With perhaps a video or kids show every other day. Ah. We have different priorities.
Sometimes I wonder if I am an outlier. Or is this just the way that society has changed? I don’t know. I really do not know.
Maybe it was me that changed.
Or perhaps… just perhaps… I am no longer addicted to that propaganda box. And once away from that “drug” I find that I no longer need it.
The sanctions are actually quite deadly, if it was some other country.
The US used SWIFT as weapon on Syria, Iran, and Russia in recent years.
Banning someone from SWIFT should be the strategical threat, like nuclear weapon. However, the US probably really doesn’t have any more conventional method to force the “enemy states”.
When the atomic bomb got dropped, the world suddenly realized that it’s not that devastating.
With enough countries being considered as “enemy”, they are now able to form their own environment. It means that they are able to establish an internal circulation, so that the sanctions from the western group became virtually invalid.
Iran now is able to sell its oil to China or with currencies other than USD. This does not only lowered the usage of USD in international tradings, but also partially took the right to price the oil. Petrol dollar is the foundation, at least one of the supporting pillars, of nowadays US economic hegemony.
It’s the same for the Entity List of US government. When there were only a few companies and organzations on it, they were technically isolated from the world, and it was devastating.
However, with enough companies being sanctioned, they are able to support each other. US government sanctioned Huawei, so that TSMC cannot make chips for Huawei. However, conveniently, the US sanctioned SMIC too, which is a Chinese chip maker in Shanghai. Now SMIC is able to hold hands with Huawei with no hesitation.
It used to work because after the collapse of USSR, there was only 1 world leader. It was either the US way or the highway.
Then the US pushed Russia into the corner and hoped Russia to kneel before it. This reached a peak when the US successfully launched a color revolution to overthrow the pro-Russia authority. What the White House didn’t expect is Putin putting his pride aside and holding hands with China.
Russia has sources, China has manufacturing, and both countries are vast.
They are forced by the US to became the leader of the “evil world”, and started to provide sanctuary for countries which have nowhere to go.
Logic of the US: You are my enemy if you are not my friend.
Logic of China: We may not be friends, the least we could do is to coexist in peace.
The US on one hand doesn’t want China to be in its group, because China is not Japan or South Korea, it doesn’t just do whatever the US wanted; on the other hand, the US doesn’t want China to be in other groups, including forming its own, because that will weaken the control power of the US group over the world.
You cannot have everything.
It might be the case in the 90’s because the US was the only super power.
But time has changed.
Maybe one day Russia would turn against China, but that would for sure be after the decline of the US.
The Tiny Cell called “Little Ease” was the Most Feared Room in the Tower of London
little ease
The story of Little Ease begins with a prison break from the Tower of London.
In 1534, a man and woman hurried past a row of cottages on the outer grounds of the Tower. They had almost reached the gateway to Tower Hill and, not far beyond it, the city of London, when a group of yeomen warders on night watch appeared in their path.
In response, the young couple turned toward each other, in what seemed a lover’s embrace. But something about the man caught the attention of a yeoman warder. He held his lantern higher and within seconds recognized the pair. The man was a colleague, fellow yeoman warder, John Bawd, and the woman was Alice Tankerville, a condemned thief, and prisoner.
So ended the Tower’s first known escape attempt by a woman. But Alice’s accomplice and admirer, the guard John Bawd, was destined to enter the Tower record books too: he is the first known occupant of a peculiarly infamous cell used during the reigns of the Tudors and early Stuarts.
The windowless cell measured 4 square feet (1.2 meters) and bore the faintly prim name of Little Ease. Its effect was simple. The prisoner within it could not stand nor sit nor lie down but was forced to crouch over, in increasing agony, until freed from the suffocating, dark space.
In 1215 England outlawed these kinds of grim practices through the passage of Magna Carta, except, however, by royal warrant. The first king to authorize it, and he did so reluctantly, was Edward II. He submitted to intense pressure from the Pope to follow the lead of the king of France and demolish the Order of the Knights Templar, part of a tradition begun during the Crusades.
King Philip IV of France, jealous of the Templars’ wealth and power, had charged them with heresy, obscene rituals, idolatry, and other offenses. The French knights denied all, and were duly tortured. Some who broke down and “confessed” were released; all who denied wrongdoing were burned at the stake.
Once Edward II ordered imprisonment of members of the English chapter, French monks arrived in London bearing their dreaded instruments. In 1311 the Knights Templar “were questioned and examined in the presence of notaries while suffering under the torments of the rack” within the Tower of London as well as the prisons of Aldgate, Ludgate, Newgate, and Bishopsgate, according to The History of the Knights Templar, the Temple Church, and the Temple, by Charles G. Addison. And so the Tower—principally a royal residence, military stronghold, armory, and menagerie up until that time—was baptized in pain.
Did the instruments remain after the Knights Templars were crushed, to be used on other prisoners? We cannot be certain, although there is no record of it. The next mention of a rack within the Tower is a startling one—an unsavory nobleman made Constable of the Tower pushed for one to be installed. John Holland, third duke of Exeter, arranged for a rack to be brought into the Tower. It is not known if men were stretched upon it or if it was merely used to frighten. In any case, this rack is known to history as the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter.
It was in the 16th century that prisoners were unquestionably tortured in the Tower of London. The royal family rarely used the fortress on the Thames as a residence; more and more, its stone buildings contained prisoners.
And while the Tudor monarchs seem glittering successes to us now, in their own time they were beset by insecurities: rebellions, conspiracies and other threats both domestic and foreign. There was a willingness at the top of the government to override the law to obtain certain ends. This created a perfect storm for torture.
“It was during the time of the Tudors that the use of torture reached its height,” wrote historian L.A. Parry in his 1933 book The History of Torture in England. “Under Henry VIII it was frequently employed; it was only used in a small number of cases in the reigns of Edward VI and of Mary. It was whilst Elizabeth sat on the throne that it was made use of more than in any other period of history.”
Yeoman Warder John Bawd admitted he had planned the escape of Alice Tankerville “for the love and affection he bore her.” Unmoved, the Lieutenant of the Tower ordered Bawd into Little Ease, where he crouched, in growing agony.
The lovers were condemned to horrible ends for trying to escape. According to a letter in the State Papers of Lord Lisle, written on March 28, Alice Tankerville was “hanged in chains at low water mark upon the Thames on Tuesday. John Bawd is in Little Ease cell in the Tower and is to be racked and hanged.”
Today no one knows exactly where Little Ease was located. One theory: in the dungeon of the White Tower. Another: in the basement of the old Flint Tower. No visitor sees it today; it was torn down or walled up long ago. Besides Little Ease, the most-used devices were the rack, the manacles, and a horrific creation called the Scavenger’s Daughter. For many prisoners, solitary confinement, repeated interrogation, and the threat of physical pain were enough to make them tell their tormentors anything they wanted to know.
Often the victims ended up in the Tower for religious reasons. Anne Askew was for her Protestant beliefs; Edmund Campion for his Catholic ones. But the crimes varied. “The majority of the prisoners were charged with high treason, but the taking of life, robbery, embezzling the Queen’s plate, and failure to carry out proclamations against state players were among the offenses,” wrote Parry.
The monarch did not need to sign off on these kinds of requests, although sometimes he or she did. Elizabeth I personally directed that torture be used on the members of the Babington Conspiracy, a group that plotted to depose her and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots. But usually, these initiatives went through the Privy Council or tapped the powers of the Star Chamber. It is believed that in some cases, permission was never sought at all.
Over and over, names pop up in state papers of those confined to Little Ease:
“On 3 May 1555: Stephen Happes, for his lewd behavior and obstinacy, committed this day to the Tower to remain in Little Ease for two or three days till he may be further examined.”
“10 January 1591: Richard Topcliffe is to take part in an examination in the Tower of George Beesley, seminary priest, and Robert Humberson, his companion. And if you shall see good cause by their obstinate refusal to declare the truth of such things as shall be laid to their charge in Her Majesty’s behalf, then shall you by authority hereof commit them to the prison called Little Ease or to such other ordinary place of punishment as hath been accustomed to be used in those cases, and to certify proceedings from time to time.”
After Elizabeth and the succession of James I came the most famous prisoner of them all to be held in Little Ease, Guy Fawkes. Charged with plotting to blow up the king and Parliament, Fawkes was subjected to both manacles and rack to obtain his confession and the names of his fellow conspirators. After he had told his questioners everything they asked, Fawkes was still shackled hand and foot in Little Ease and left there, though no one knows for how long.
And after that final burst of savagery, Little Ease was no more. A House of Commons committee reported the same year as Fawkes’ end that the room was “disused.”
In 1640, during the reign of Charles I, the practice was abolished forever; there would be no more forcing prisoners to crouch for days in dark airless rooms, no more rack or hanging from chains. And so, mercifully, closed one of the darkest chapters in England’s history.
In the 1950s and 1960s, China needed Penicillin very badly plus Sulfonamides
The US used a harsh Korean War rule to restrict all shipments of Penicillin and Sulfonamides to RED China and passed a law demanding that Hongkong, Singapore and Philippines have END USER CERTIFICATES for shipments of these drugs
So THE US MAKERS SIMPLY ADDED CALCIUM CARBONATE TO THE DRUG MIX and sold the same penicillin plus calcium carbonate for 40% extra cost which the Chinese paid
It was deemed very legal in federal and circuit Court and UPHELD in 1967 as ‘Fair Business Practice’
So ultimately when there is demand, there will be a supply
Nobody can change that
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Raimondo is no fool
Privately she knows none of these policies would work and she knows that she is butchering the same FREE TRADE principles that kept the US as the world’s most reliable nation all these years
Yet the fact is Chinas growth has stunned them all
That China is narrowing the tech barriers at such an astounding rate is something nobody expected
In the 2018 paper to the Congress, the Technological Independence of China was predicted to be 2048 , in THIRTY YEARS
Trump later said he had pushed that further
Yet in 2021, the same experts reassessed and claimed Chinas Technological Independence could be as early as 2035
Now it’s 2032, DESPITE THE EXPORT MEASURES
In fact the stronger these restrictions are, the more likely China will need to break strangeholds and that would lead to newer Independent Technology
Today China can buy Less Sophisticated AI Chips from Chinese Entities
The Quality is same as NVDIA
Tencent for instance makes excellent high quality AI Chips at the lower and mid levels of computing power that are now the lock, stock and barrel for Russian and Belorussian markets and even the Saudi markets
Only the last two generation or the most sophisticated AI Chips made by NVDIA has no rival in China domestically
It is these Chips that China wants
If China doesn’t get them, NVDIA will sell them to China by producing a slightly less sophisticated version (Maybe throw in a few transistors less) with say 97% efficiency and sell them to China by passing the sanctions and winning legally
You see the problem
If US sells China everything openly, China will beat US by 2030 in every field of emerging technology like AI and Quantum computing
If US restricts exports to China, China will develop it’s own high tech supply chain and that may delay it’s ascendancy until 2035 but after that China no longer needs any Tech from the West and the whole world will have a Multipolar world where US can no longer use it’s technology as a bargaining Chip
Either way the Writing is on the Wall
Zydeco’s Pork Tenderloin Etouffee
2023 12 10 17 11
Ingredients
1 ounce oil
1/3 pound diced onions
1/3 pound diced celery
1/3 pound diced green bell peppers
1 teaspoon garlic puree
2 ounces tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon basil
2 tablespoons honey
1 quart veal stock
1/4 cup light corn syrup
Pinch of thyme
Pinch of chili powder
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of black pepper
Instructions
Sweat onions, celery and bell peppers in the oil.
Add the tomato paste and garlic.
Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes.
My uncle was an outlaw, an honest-to-goodness criminal who did multiple stints in prison. He was a biker, but he wasn’t stable enough to be a member of the Hells Angels. He was a small guy who looked a lot like Charles Manson.
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People didn’t mess with him because he was prone to violence, skilled at fighting, and willing to use weapons when he had to. He fully embraced the criminal lifestyle. Around Christmas, the largest of his pot plants would usually be decorated as a Christmas tree.
One evening on my grandparent’s farm, he decided to make a bonfire out of an old date-packing conveyor belt. The flames must have reached 50 feet or more into into the sky, and were likely visible from any nearby farmhouse. The fire department sent a truck out to extinguish the fire.
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But my uncle wouldn’t let them put out his bonfire. Faced with an angry, shirtless, tattooed guy who looked like Charlie Manson. They called in the Sheriff’s Department.
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A youngish Hispanic Deputy got out of the car. My uncle thought he could push this guy around like he did the fire department. This young deputy had been a college wrestler. When my uncle tried to stop the fire department again, this deputy gave my uncle a first class attitude adjustment.
He was wearing the bruises from his arrest when my grandmother bailed him out of jail.
Lucky Luciano Put a Hit on a Rival Mob Boss using Fake IRS Agents
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Born Salvatore Lucania (but better known as Lucky Luciano) in Sicily in November 1897, the future brains of the New York mafia took the name Charles Luciano after he was arrested for dealing heroin and his parents disowned him. By the 1930s he was known as “Lucky” Luciano, although no one can say with certainty what first prompted the nickname.
The leading theory for his being known for his remarkable luck was his surviving a savage beating in October 1929. Luciano was not only beaten but stabbed by a group of men who then dumped him on a beach on Staten Island, left for dead. A police officer discovered him, and Luciano was taken to the hospital. As a result of the attack, he had a deep scar on one side of his face and a permanently drooping eyelid.
His attackers’ identity was murky. Sometimes Luciano said it was three police officers who beat him, other times it was thugs sent by mafia boss Salvatore Maranzano because Luciano worked for a boss that Maranzano was at war with. Whatever the reason for the attack, within two years, Maranzano was dead and out of Luciano’s way in his meteoric rise to the top.
The 1920s were in many ways flush times for the underworld, thanks to Prohibition, which handed the Italian, Irish, and Jewish gangs lots of opportunities to make money. But the New York City underworld was in the throes of a deadly rivalry between two men: Sicilian immigrant Joe Masseria, known as “Joe the Boss,” and the more recent arrival, Maranzano, driven out of Italy by Benito Mussolini, who hated the mafia. Following restrictions on immigration by Italians to the U.S., mafia members fleeing Mussolini applied for political asylum, saying they were oppressed by fascism.
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Luciano worked for Masseria–which is why he was beat up and left for dead–but he was weary of the turf wars, because they were keeping people from making money in not just rum running but gambling, racketeering, robbery, and prostitution. He was part of an up-and-coming gangster class, along with Frank Costello, who despised the “old country” ways of the Sicilian bosses they called “Mustache Pete’s.”
Luciano had been a criminal since his early teen years. He dropped out of school, and at 14, took a job delivering hats, but there was heroin hidden in the hats. He later explained his fondness for crime by saying, “I never was a crumb, and if I have to be a crumb, I’d rather be dead.” After a prison term of one year for drug possession, he flourished in an East Harlem gang, and was mentored by Arnold Rothstein, the racketeer who is believed to have fixed the 1919 World Series.
Luciano decided to double-cross his tiresome boss Masseria, so he made a deal with Maranzano to kill him and in return take his place and cease hostilities. He invited Masseria to a lobster lunch in Coney Island, Brooklyn, on April 15, 1931. “Before dessert arrived, Luciano left for the toilet,” wrote Selwyn Raab in Five Families. “Mysteriously, Masseria’s bodyguards vanished from the restaurant as four of Luciano’s killers suddenly appeared and riddled Joe the Boss with a volley of gunfire.”
But if Lucky Luciano thought that matters would improve after he took his boss’s place, he was wrong. It was set up that there’d be five families controlling their own gangster turfs in New York City. Maranzano, however, declared himself capo di tutti capi, boss of bosses, and imposed a lot of rules on everyone. Now Luciano decided that he needed to eliminate the boss of bosses.
Doing so wouldn’t be easy. Maranzano was always accompanied by a fleet of bodyguards, he drove a bulletproof Cadillac, and his office was in a fancy building overlooking Grand Central Station, with the address of 230 Park Avenue (later the Helmsley Building). But Luciano was able to learn that his target was having tax problems and Maranzano had instructed his bodyguards to not carry guns to the office because, any day now, the Internal Revenue Service was expected to descend on him.
At this point, Luciano turned to his old friends, Jewish gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. When he was a child, Luciano lived on the Lower East Side, on 1st Avenue between 13th and 14th streets. He became close friends with his neighbor Lansky and then Siegel.
For the hit on Maranzano, they came up with the idea of outfitting a group of men in suits and ties–and guns and knives.
Saying they were with the IRS, the assassins showed up at Maranzano’s 9th floor Park Avenue office on September 10, 1931. At that point, Maranzano was fanatical about only employing Italians, and he insisted that the whole mafia do business with exclusively other Italian gang members. None of the “IRS agents” looked at all Italian, so Maranzano believed they were genuine and went into a room with them. There he was killed.
And with that, Lucky Luciano rose to power in the New York City mafia, and as the man who put the “organized” into organized crime, eventually became the Number one gangster in the entire United States.
One: Just because the bank approves your $800,000 loan doesn’t mean you can afford the payments.
Two: Buying a fancy custom home that has unique designs and architecture.
Per my inspector, those homes have the most problems and leaks of any of them. If you buy a standard house design, or one in a neighborhood with a bunch of similar houses all clearly built by the same builder, you set yourself up for success more. Those homes, even if they seem boring, are proven models and have been built over and over by the builder. All the problems have been worked out.
Three: assuming a fixer upper is going to be easier than it is. When you walk through a house, you may see a few items that you can easily fix. Make a list of those items, count them up, and when you get home—triple it. If you can still manage that much work—have at it.
Four: carpeted floors. It tends to get super smelly and is harder to clean.
God forbid you have carpet in your bathrooms or by water sources.
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Then, you are just asking for it. I can smell the mold from here.
In 2025, The U.S. Will Finally Begin Preparing To Fight A Nuclear War With Russia
A point of view out of the United States. Trust me, it's bad, but NOT dire. Do not freak out. -MM
Will the upgrades that are coming to our strategic nuclear arsenal be ready in time? Right now, hopelessly outdated Minuteman missiles that first went into service in the 1970s form the backbone of our strategic nuclear arsenal. The silos where they stand ready to be launched still use rotary phones and 8 inch floppy disks in many cases. Once they are launched, the brand new S-500 anti-missile systems that the Russians have deployed will be able to intercept them. Meanwhile, the Russians have introduced a brand new intercontinental ballistic missile known as the Sarmat. A single Sarmat carries enough firepower to destroy an area the size of Texas, and our anti-missile systems are not able to deal with this new threat. The balance of power has fundamentally shifted, and so we desperately need to update our capabilities.
Unfortunately, this process will not even begin until 2025.
So we better hope that we do not get into a shooting war with Russia during the next couple of years.
The U.S. has been developing a brand new ICBM known as “the Sentinel”, and it is desperately needed…
The control stations for America’s nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles have a sort of 1980s retro look, with computing panels in sea foam green, bad lighting and chunky control switches, including a critical one that says “launch.”
Those underground capsules are about to be demolished and the missile silos they control will be completely overhauled. A new nuclear missile is coming, a gigantic ICBM called the Sentinel. It’s the largest cultural shift in the land leg of the Air Force’s nuclear missile mission in 60 years.
The silos lose power. Their 60-year old massive mechanical parts break down often. Air Force crews guard them using helicopters that can be traced back to the Vietnam War. Commanders hope the modernization of the Sentinel, and of the trucks, gear and living quarters, will help attract and retain young technology-minded service members who are now asked each day to find ways to keep a very old system running.
This is something that I have been warning about for years, but most people didn’t want to listen.
Now our military is in a race against time, because the clock is ticking.
Overall, 750 billion dollars will be spent to overhaul our strategic nuclear forces, and it is being projected the silo work for the Sentinel could begin “as soon as 2025”…
The Sentinel work is one leg of a larger, nuclear weapons enterprise-wide $750 billion overhaul that is replacing almost every component of U.S. nuclear defenses, including new stealth bombers, submarines and ICBMs in the country’s largest nuclear weapons program since the Manhattan Project.
For the Sentinel, silo work could be underway by lead contractor Northrop Grumman as soon as 2025.
I am glad that they are moving forward.
But if work will not even begin until 2025, when will it finally be completed?
Until the Sentinel is ready, the Russians will continue to possess a major strategic advantage over us, and they know it.
If the war in Ukraine spirals out of control, we could easily find ourselves facing a nightmare scenario.
The Russians have been steadily gaining ground in Ukraine in recent weeks, and over the past few days they have started to gobble up significant chunks of territory.
The Ukrainians are running out of warm bodies to throw into the fight, and that is a major problem.
They are also running out of ammunition and equipment, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just made a trip to D.C. to beg for more money…
Zelensky is in D.C. to ask Congress to pass $61 billion more for Ukraine, on top of the $113 billion they approved early this year. However, it looks increasingly likely that any more funding for Ukraine will have to wait until next year.
The Biden administration requested the funding as part of a $106 billion package, which includes only $13 billion for securing the border, but Republicans say it does not go far enough, and are calling for a number of reforms to reduce the number of asylum seekers and illegal border crossers, which recently hit 12,000 per day.
Johnson said at a Wall Street Journal event on Monday that Democrats and the White House must agree to some or all of the border-security measures outlined in H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act.
Even with all of the money that we have given him already, his forces are still losing.
And even if we give him what he is asking for now, Russians forces will continue to advance.
Zelensky is holding a losing hand, and as the Russians advance he is going to become very desperate.
And very desperate people do very desperate things.
Eventually, I expect that events in Ukraine will force the U.S. and Russia into a showdown.
When that day arrives, will the U.S. be ready?
Earlier today, I came across an article about a calendar that is being sold in Russia that shows “a Russian soldier outside the US Capitol building in Washington DC with a drone and helicopter overhead”…
A Russian veterans organisation is selling a 2024 calendar featuring a muscle-bound Vladimir Putin.
The calendar continues a series of propaganda images including one showing a Russian soldier outside the US Capitol building in Washington DC with a drone and helicopter overhead.
Many Russians believe that a war with the United States is inevitable.
The first thing to understand is that commercial shipbuilding and building warships are completely different businesses.
Commercial shipbuilding is like building a family car. The technology, equipment, and quality standards used in the two businesses are very different.
Just because a country has strong commercial shipbuilding capabilities does not necessarily mean that it has strong warship manufacturing capabilities. For example, South Korea has huge commercial shipbuilding capabilities, but it does not have strong warship construction capabilities. Their naval equipment is almost entirely dependent on American technology authorization.
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China has huge commercial shipbuilding capabilities (accounting for 60% of the world’s total). Will this help their warship manufacturing?
Helps keep costs down during peacetime.
China’s large shipyards are typically dual-use, meaning they are building container ships at the same time they are building Aegis destroyers.
The commercial business dilutes the shipyard’s operating costs, and various costs are allocated to commercial projects. This makes them offer very low prices when building warships. The Burke III destroyer costs approximately US$2 billion, while China’s similar Type 052DL destroyer costs only US$500 million.
Obvious advantages in emergency situations.
1. Numerous facilities
In order to build very large commercial ships, China has countless giant shipyards and gantry cranes. They have 50 giant docks and supporting large equipment that can build aircraft carriers. The only one in the United States is Newport News Shipbuilding.
2. Large supporting production capacity
Warships require not only shipyards, but also countless raw materials. From the most basic steel and non-ferrous metals to diesel engines and steam turbines. In order to satisfy commercial business, China has huge production capacity for these things.
3. Abundant talents
The shipbuilding industry has limited automation and a high proportion of manual work. A large number of skilled shipbuilders were needed. In order to meet the annual shipbuilding needs of 20 million tons, China maintains a team of 180,000 to 200,000 skilled workers (some surveys say that including various small shipyards, the number exceeds 500,000). The United States only has a shipbuilding business of 100,000 tons per year and only has 18,000 skilled shipbuilders.
When the Navy needs it, they can clear out commercial projects and put all their resources into warship manufacturing. The picture at the beginning of this article shows the ability of a Chinese shipyard to build 6 052D destroyers and 2 055 cruisers at the same time (5 ships are being built on the slipway, and 3 ships are outfitting equipment).
Imagine that starting tomorrow, China and the United States begin to build warships with all their strength. The materials, facilities and personnel required by China are all complete. As long as they get the order, they can immediately start construction of 10 aircraft carriers, 20 Aegis destroyers and 8 nuclear submarines at the same time.
However, the United States has limited resources and can only start construction of one aircraft carrier, two Aegis destroyers and one nuclear submarine immediately. At the same time, the United States needs to urgently build large shipyards, purchase and install large cranes, purchase equipment and train workers, and gradually expand production capacity within 2-3 years.
By the time the U.S.’s manufacturing capabilities reached a level similar to China’s, China had already built ten times as many warships as the United States.
Solution to the Fermi Paradox Found! Scientists Hope They’re Wrong
That employee was me. I managed a division of AECOM, a huge multi-national architect/engineering company and was laid off along with many others because I was not billable. The person who made the decision was at least 4 levels above me and I had never even heard of him. My boss actually called me at home and asked me what in the hell was going on because he wasn’t even consulted. The reason that I was not billable was because I was meeting with potential clients and writing proposals along with managing the division. The division went from about 100 engineers and designers to around 12 in about 18 months because I was the person who brought in the work and nobody filled my role when I left so the work ran out. As it turned out I was hired literally the next day by our biggest client who wanted to develop their own engineering capabilities and within a couple of months I brought around a dozen of my former employees over to the new company.
Years ago I had a blind date. We had talked on the phone and the guy asked if he could take me to lunch. Not MEET me for lunch, but take me. He was inviting me so I assumed he would pay.
We met at a casual inexpensive chain restaurant. I had something modestly priced – it was probably around $7 (like I said, years ago). When the bill came, he told me what my share was – he actually said, “You had the french dip plus an iced tea, so your total is…..” I was pretty surprised but I figured that the cost of my lunch was worth finding out what a cheapo he was so I wouldn’t waste any more time dating him. But here’s the kicker – he had a Buy One Get One Free coupon! So his meal was free and I paid for mine! That was enough for me. He walked me to my car and asked if he could see me again. I said, “No” and he looked surprised and asked why. I said that anyone as cheap as he was shouldn’t date. Thank goodness he never called again.
$500 tip on a $12 meal. It was at a diner in New Jersey. When my father was about 80, he lost interest in eating. My brother and I finally insisted he have dinner at a restaurant every night. My father reluctantly agreed. He found a local diner where he felt comfortable. Over time, he became very friendly with a waitress there. She treated him like royalty (in fact, all the staff did). He was by no means wealthy, but he always left a generous tip. The waitress would give him cookies to take home and was genuinely happy to see him every day. Many times when I would go with him, I would see her smile when he came in, run over to hug and kiss him, and just take wonderful care of him. It was one of the only joys for the last years of his life. Earlier this year, my dad died. When I went back to handle his estate, one evening I went to the diner for dinner. I told the waitress that my dad had died (she suspected as much, having not seen him for over a month)…and after eating there, I left her a $500 tip. She deserved every penny and more.
Tracking him through “discarded DNA,” police arrest a 72-year-old “suburban grandfather” suspected of being the Golden State suspect
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For years a serial killer and rapist traumatized the entire state of California, committing at least 12 murders, before coming to a seeming halt some 40 years ago in his horrific spree of violence. For victims and families of victims, not knowing who committed the crimes caused lasting emotional damage. That changed on April 24, 2018.
“In a perfectly executed arrest, my detectives arrested Joseph James DeAngelo, 72 years old,” said Scott Jones, Sacramento County Sheriff, at a press conference. Police were able to match DeAngelo’s DNA to evidence from the investigation, saying they used “surveillance and discarded DNA.”
USA Today published a story saying that police investigators submitted the DNA of someone whom they believed was the suspect, gathered at a crime scene, to Ancestry.com, not officially as police detectives but as a regular customer of the genealogical research site, and were then able to narrow the search through matches to relatives of the person with the mystery DNA, using “trees.”
This use of Ancestry.com is raising questions. In a story published by the Associated Press, Steve Mercer of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender said there aren’t strong privacy laws to keep police from trolling ancestry databases. “People who submit DNA for ancestors testing are unwittingly becoming genetic informants on their innocent family,” Mercer said, adding that they “have fewer privacy protections than convicted offenders whose DNA is contained in regulated databanks.”
However, the arrest of DeAngelo is also sending shock waves of relief throughout California. He is believed to be responsible for 12 murders, 45 rapes, and more than 120 residential burglaries between 1976 and 1986.
According to an interview in the Los Angeles Times, Jennifer Carole, the daughter of 1980 victims Lyman and Charlene Smith, “said she had long thought that the person who bludgeoned her father and stepmother to death had probably died in the following decades. To find out he was not only alive, but living among them in Sacramento, was an overwhelming revelation, she said.”
“In my mind I thought he was dead the whole time,” Carole said to the press. “I’d compartmentalized it. But to find out … he’s been in Sacramento, where all my family lives … it’s unbelievable. How can he have just been here?”
A cold-case unit with the Ventura County district attorney renewed their efforts to find the Golden State Killer within the last two years. The FBI offered a reward of $50,000 for information leading to an arrest in 2016. “We all knew we were looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert.
A series of rapes in an area east of Sacramento in 1976 were first linked by the authorities because of their proximity and the similar description of the rapist — a white male with blond hair who was close to six feet tall — and the sadistic rituals that he inflicted on his victims. His targets were women home alone and women at home with their children. The suspect went on to rape women with their husbands present and then the two of them would be murdered.
Neighbors of DeAngelo, whom the Washington Post described as a “suburban grandfather” in a headline, said that he kept to himself and sometimes yelled at people over infractions like mowing their lawns too early in the morning, but gave absolutely no indication of anything more frightening. He showed an interest in model airplanes, some say. He was the father of three daughters and had a number of grandchildren.
DeAngelo was a police officer in Auburn, California, in the 1970s but was fired after being accused of shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent. He retired last year after working 27 years at a distribution center for Save Mart grocery stores, the chain confirmed.
Public interest in the Golden State Killer was sparked this year with the publication of the true-crime book I’ll be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, written by Michelle McNamara, who died in April 2016 before finishing it. The book, published in February 2018, was completed after her death by a journalist and researcher recruited by her husband, the comedian Patton Oswalt.
The Golden State Killer was believed to have tracked the movements of his planned victims. He wore gloves and a mask and spoke in an angry whisper. Investigators at the time suspected he had military or law enforcement training.
The New York Times wrote, “Mr. DeAngelo was arrested by investigators using some of the same tactics employed by the suspect to stalk his victims — the police surveilled his movements, studied his routines, and pounced when he left his house.”
Eagles – Hotel California (Live 1977) (Official Video) [HD]
China would need to spend 1 Billion RMB a day to fight in the South China Theatre across the Taiwan Straits and Sea of Japan
Quad would need 2.5–3 times this or around $ 400 Million a day to be able to equal China given the cost and scale of production that is severely lagging
This means a 100 day war would cost China around 100 Billion RMB ($ 14 Billion) versus a whopping $ 45 Billion for Quad
Assuming a 3 year war, that would be 1 Trillion RMB ($ 140 Billion) for China versus $ 450–500 Billion for Quad
I am sure only one guy will be coughing up all that money and that’s USA
India, Australia, Japan combined won’t cough up $ 1 Billion
Since China now pays for its food and fuel in RMB , it can easily afford 1 Trillion RMB
The US needs to print $ 450–500 Billion and already the strain of printing $ 170 Billion for Ukraine is showing
Next would be the Logistics
Quad has an arsenal of 960 Missiles combined on their patrolling vessels and carrier groups (720 US, 240 Others)
Add another 320 with Japan and Korea and maybe 160 from Taiwan
That’s 1440 Deployable Missiles
China has 2400 Missiles on its Patrolling Vessels and Carrier Groups plus 1200 Land Battery Missiles plus 800 Intermediate Range Launch Missiles all aimed for the South China Sea
That’s 4400 Deployable Missiles not to include 90–110 from North Korea
That’s 3:1 in Chinas favor in just the South China Theatre
Let’s see the Weapon Supply status
Japan, Australia and India are Net Importers of weapons with a near zero indigenous supply line in most naval equipment or aerial equipment or even Intelligence gathering
If India risks it’s limited advanced equipment imported on this theatre, Pakistan can have a field day and so can the PLA on the Arunachal Front or the Ladakh front
Same with South Korea
Thus US has to supply all the intelligence gathering equipment and by chance some fall into China, that’s years of priceless IP reverse engineered
Today US has 20 key pieces of equipment over the Baltics handing intel to Ukraine against 90–120 key pieces handing intel to Russia and owned by Russia
Even if the US manages to quadruple it’s Ukraine strength and bring in 80 pieces of key intel gathering equipment like advanced radar etc, China has close to 250 and that’s 1:3
China will always have the Intelligence advantage
Bottom line is NO
QUAD will lose
QUAD cannot win
Quad will rely on a shock attack and HOPE China has an internal coup and regime change within 60 days
It didn’t happen in Russia and it’s more unlikely to happen in China
The US is too far away and China aint Iraq or Afghanistan
Others are too insufficient to take on China
In its theatre, China is not likely to be defeated
The only thing that can change this equation is if SOMEHOW Russia can be convinced to fight against China on another front
The one bodyguard assigned to Ford’s Theater to protect President Lincoln abandoned his post for a drink on the night of the assassination–and wasn’t fired for it
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On the night of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln decided to take in a production of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater, in Washington, D.C. The one policeman assigned to guard the president on that fateful night left his post—to go next door for a drink.
Whether from hubris or humility, Lincoln was unconcerned about his safety, even amid near constant death threats. In August of 1864, he survived an assassination attempt, when someone fired a shot at him as he rode a horse—all by himself. (His hat was recovered the next day, with a musketball hole through the side.) It seems impossible to imagine today, but the president was known to go to plays, to church, and on walks without security.
John Parker was a carpenter and machinist born in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He moved to Washington and joined the Metropolitan Police Force when it formed in 1861. He was not an exemplar. The force cited him for conduct unbecoming an officer, drinking (and sleeping) on the job and frequenting a whorehouse, according to Smithsonian magazine. He had 14 disciplinary infractions on his record. Somehow he managed always to get off. When a four-man detail was created to protect Lincoln in 1864, Parker was selected to join the team.
Parker was late to his assignment on April 14, showing up at Ford’s Theater at 7 P.M. instead of 4. Lincoln and his party arrived at his box in the balcony at 9 P.M., after the play had already started. The actors stopped mid-scene while the orchestra played “Hail to the Chief.” Lincoln bowed to the actors, and the play carried on.
Parker was stationed outside Lincoln’s box, in the passageway by the door, a good place to guard a president but a lousy place to take in a play. The bored Parker moved down to the first balcony to better see the performance. During intermission, he went next door to the Star Saloon for a drink with Lincoln’s coachman and footman.
As it happens, John Wilkes Booth was also at the Star Saloon, having a shot of whiskey before his nefarious mission. When Booth arrived at Lincoln’s box, the chair in the passageway was empty. Booth went into the box, shouted “Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!” and shot Lincoln in the back of the head. Booth leaped to the stage, exited the theater, and escaped on his horse. (Booth would be tracked down and killed within two weeks.)
It is of course possible that even had Parker been at his station, he might not have stopped Booth’s assassination of Lincoln.
“Booth was a well-known actor, a member of a famous theatrical family,” Ford’s Theater historical interpreter Eric Martin told Smithsonian magazine. “They were like Hollywood stars today. Booth might have been allowed in to pay his respects. Lincoln knew of him. He’d seen him act in The Marble Heart, here in Ford’s Theater in 1863.”
But Parker’s fellow guards never forgave him, nor did Lincoln’s widow.
“It makes me feel rather bitter when I remember that the President had said, just a few hours before, that he knew he could trust all his guards,” William H. Crook wrote in his memoir. “And then to think that in that one moment of test one of us should have utterly failed him! Parker knew that he had failed in duty. He looked like a convicted criminal the next day. He was never the same man afterward.”
Parker was charged with failure to protect the president, though the charge was dropped. The public did not know of his culpability, though Mrs. Lincoln did. Remarkably, Parker stayed on the White House security detail, at one point being assigned to Mrs. Lincoln, who confronted him as recounted in the 1868 memoir Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four in the White House, by Elizabeth Keckley.
“Why were you not at the door to keep the assassin out when he rushed into the box?” Mrs. Lincoln said.
“I did wrong, I admit, and I have bitterly repented it, but I did not help to kill the President,” Keckley recalled Parker saying. “I did not believe that any one would try to to kill so good a man in such a public place, and the believe made me careless.”
To which Mrs. Lincoln responded, “I shall always believe that you are guilty,” and sent him away with a wave of her hand.
Parker stayed on the Metropolitan Police Force three more years before finally he was fired for sleeping on the job in 1868. He turned back to carpentry and died in 1890 of pneumonia, an all but forgotten man in the drama of Lincoln’s assassination.
The grocery store I managed allowed cashiers a margin of error of $5.00, plus or minus. Most of the cashiers were usually within $1, either way, but a newbie that the store owner ordered me to hire — she was a friend’s granddaughter — was short a total of $16 dollars — $1, $5, $5, $5 — over her first four days. The cashiers were rarely on the money (zero balance) and most were proud when they were 25¢ or less off either way, so I found it odd that this girl was off by whole dollar amounts on each of her first four days.
So I put a camera on her.
She was scheduled to work a six-hour shift and at the end she was, you guessed it, $5 short. So I reviewed the video and watched her pocket a dollar here and there; she’d appear to be putting it in her drawer but each time her hand would go into her pocket. She did this five times and I knew that I had her.
I went to the owner and he called her into his office before her next shift. He told her what I’d found and that she was, obviously, fired, but he wanted to know why she did it. She said she didn’t want to work as a cashier. She didn’t like the pay, or the hours, or the “stupid people”, and she thought she deserved more for putting up with it all. She also said she didn’t pocket more than $5 because she knew she’d get in trouble if she did. She felt that she was “allowed” to take that $5 each day.
The owner was dumbstruck and decided to lower to amount cashiers could be over or short to $1. And he never forced me to hire anyone else.
I used to teach Special Education. And, I’m here to tell ya that I’ve had arguments with a nine year old kid with a 40 IQ about how to spell a word.
Joey, brain damaged at birth, was capable of learning the correct spelling, just barely capable, but he was entirely convinced that his version of the word was the correct spelling. I took a very long time to gradually get him to change that view, because I could see that it wasn’t about how to spell a word, it was about nurturing in Joey what was plainly there: his love of correct spelling. He was proud of his version, doncha know! And also, of versions of other, much more important things too.
Joey the Saint
Joey had a fixation — he was an assembler of trophies. His father was in business selling trophies and plaques, ya see, and Joey would make bowling, golf, baseball, etc. trophies out of the pieces his father could not use in the business and gave to Joey to play with. These were scuffed or dented, but to Joey they were GOLD. He made some of the goofiest looking amalgams — football players in full stride with a football tucked in one arm and a tennis racket in the other, for instance. And it was always catch as catch can, but Joey didn’t care. He just loved assembling them, thought they were very marketable, thought of himself as a businessman like his father. Oh, he was full of esteem about it, let me tell ya. It was, you see, just about the only thing Joey could do well “in his own eyes.” With a 40 IQ, Joey was looking at a future like a life sentence without a chance for parole.
But Joey was happy.
And Joey taught my class, in one stroke, something more important than ANYTHING I ever taught anyone in that class.
One day, Joey came to school with three big boxes. His father helped him bring them in. And his father and I stood there and watched Joey teach us all. Joey opened the boxes, and out came a special, unique statue for every kid in the class. 18 statues made by Joey who couldn’t spell the word “statue.” 18 statues that were to Joey, by his own inner logic, as precious as fingerprints that could only be assigned to one and only one person. 18 statues in boxes that Joey knew so well that he could dive into the boxes after saying each pupil’s name and instantly pull out Pedro’s statue, then Anna’s statue, then Cathy’s statue . . . 18 statues with names assigned to them. Joey knew which was to go to whom.
Silently, for Joey could hardly talk, he gave each statue out like it was a soul. And every kid there opened themselves to Joey’s vision of the moment and took their statues into their hugging arms like each trophy was a newborn babe. Joey gave everyone a symbolic kiss on the forehead to take home. Everyone deserved a symbol of “job well done,” thought Joey. And 18 kids with almost no chance to succeed in life, hummed with delight.
And no one I’ve ever seen in my whole life was as happy as Joey that day. He so innocently beamed his love.
That’s my goal in life. Be as happy and as wrong . . . and as right as Joey.
Addendum. So very grateful for all the heartfelt responses. When I wrote this decades ago, Joey was so much fresher in my mind. I now see that writing style as a bit “much,” but I dare not change a word. Also, the title question is not my doing, so I cannot justify changing it either.
This essay’s success is due solely to Joey — not my writing. This essay is his, not mine.
I worked for a financial call center. I excelled there and loved my job. I was there for nearly 3 years and during the last 6 months my attendance suffered greatly. I had pain from a hernia and had taken time for those occasions and had repair surgery, so I had STD for that. I was also going through a very bad divorce and the emotional distress was so extreme that I couldn’t eat or sleep. I worked odd hours of the night because I was working during UK operating hours and by the time I would finally fall asleep, I’d have to be up 2 hours later.
My manager knew all of the issues impacting me, yet, never thought to look into how to help my situation at work (being an exemplary employee). I was one day called in to HR and was terminated. I later found out that I could have taken another short term for stress, and had I been informed sooner, it could have saved my job.
I explained these things to HR, but it was too late. Apparently, my manager had become intimidated by me and the success I achieved in a short period of time and didn’t want to help me, I learned.
After my termination and the walk of shame, being escorted out, HR summoned my manager to discuss what I had to say. That woman began text messaging me, upset that I would place any kind of blame on her. I told her that I was no longer an employee and to stop messaging me. She still messaged me.
Next day, I contacted HR about her harassment of a non employee and she was terminated.
Instant karma!
The only unsolved skyjacking case in U.S. history might have a break: “D. B. Cooper” is Robert Rackstraw, a Vietnam vet and ex-CIA operative, investigative team claims
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On November 24, 1971, on a rainy afternoon in Portland, Oregon, a man approached the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines. He wore a dark raincoat, a dark suit with a skinny black tie, a neatly pressed white shirt, and loafers. He appeared to be in his forties, nearly six feet tall, with receding hair. “He looked like a business executive,” witnesses said later.
Using the name Dan Cooper, he used cash to purchase a one-way ticket to Seattle on Flight 305. The man, who carried a black attache case, sat in the last row of the Boeing 727 for the 30-minute flight, seat 18-C, ordered a bourbon and soda. After the plane took off, he handed an attractive flight attendant a note, which she slipped in her pocket and ignored.
A bit later, when the flight attendant passed by him, the man leaned toward her and whispered, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”
With that, the legend of D. B. Cooper was born.
Hours later, in the Seattle-Tacoma airport, Cooper, now wearing sunglasses, boarded a second plane empty of passengers and with only a flight crew. After he showed the flight attendant on the first plane the bomb in his attache case and she conveyed the note’s contents to the pilot, his instructions had been followed.
He now had four parachutes and a briefcase containing $200,000 in $20 bills. (What he did not know was that while the plane circled the Seattle airport, FBI agents photographed the money.) It was now night time, and rain was getting heavier.
The man had more detailed orders to be followed: the plane would follow a southeast course to Mexico City at the minimum airspeed possible at a maximum 10,000 foot altitude. The landing gear would have to remain deployed during takeoff and the cabin be depressurized. As with all of his communications, he was quite polite.
According to the FBI document on the case: “Somewhere between Seattle and Reno, a little after 8:00 p.m., the hijacker did the incredible: he jumped out of the back of the plane with a parachute and the ransom money.” Two aircraft from a nearby air force base had been following the airliner, but saw nothing.
Extensive searches on the ground found no trace of Cooper, his parachute, or the money. The FBI says, “Calling it NORJAK, for Northwest Hijacking, we interviewed hundreds of people, tracked leads across the nation, and scoured the aircraft for evidence. By the five-year anniversary of the hijacking, we’d considered more than 800 suspects and eliminated all but two dozen from consideration.”
It is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in FBI history. Despite theories put forth in books, documentaries, symposiums, and an enthusiastic website, no one has proven the identity of D. B. Cooper (a journalist mistakenly turned “Dan” into “D.B.” and it stuck). None of the photographed money turned up until 1980, when a boy found three packets of the ransom cash in a stream near Vancouver, Washington.
One of the most widely believed theories was that Cooper died in his audacious jump from the plane. He had a parachute that couldn’t be steered, he jumped at night into a heavily wooded area, in the rain, in clothes certainly not practical for such an act. On July 8, 2016, the FBI announced that it had “redirected resources allocated to the D.B. Cooper case in order to focus on other investigative priorities.”
But in late January 2018 a startling claim was made to the media: D. B. Cooper was actually a former CIA operative named Robert Rackstraw, alive and well and living in Southern California.
A team of private investigators hired by TV producer Tom Colbert that has been working on the mystery for several years said they cracked a code proving the infamous hijacker is, in fact, a man who has ties to the San Diego area named Robert Rackstraw, and he is still alive. Rackstraw is a decorated Vietnam War veteran and, according to the investigators, an ex-CIA operative.
2023 12 13 19 04
Portion of Brian Ingram’s 1980 discovery
The code was contained in a Dec. 11, 1971, letter the cold-case team got their hands on that they say was sent by “D. B. Cooper” to several major news outlets. The taunting letter, which the newspapers did not publish at the time and officials said were a prank, was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
“The letter, which went to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times and The Washington Post, contains strings of letters and numbers at the bottom of the page,” according to the Seattle Times.
A code breaker on Colbert’s team, Rick Sherwood, was able to decode the letters and numbers, and he said they pointed to the three Army units Rackstraw was connected to between 1969 in 1970 when he was in Vietnam.
The encryption was meant to serve as a signal to those in his units who knew the code that he was alive and well after the jump, Colbert said. He also taunted law enforcement by including “SWS” in the letter, which stands for “Special Warfare School.”
According to the website dbcooper.com, “Colbert said Pentagon records he obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show detailed skill sets Rackstraw received from Green Berets in 1968, including 400 hours of Special Forces classes, HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) parachuting, psychological operations (PSYOPS) and other training.”
In addition to claiming to have found the real D.B. Cooper, Colbert said he has strong evidence that the FBI deliberately worked to keep the hijacking case unsolved —due to Rackstraw’s CIA ties.
Although his CIA employment is not confirmed, Rackstraw, 74, was not an angel by any definition. He was charged with murdering his stepfather but acquitted in a trial in 1978.
He once reportedly tried to fake his own death by using a Mayday call and bailing out of a rented plane–it quickly unraveled. He was even arrested in Iran and deported back to the United States, which certainly doesn’t happen every day.
According to the Washington Post, “he faced charges of aircraft theft, possession of explosives and check fraud … Colbert said Rackstraw was convicted and spent more than a year in jail before being released in 1980. Rackstraw’s attorney said he couldn’t confirm those details.” Those who feel that D. B. Cooper was a polite mastermind who behaved like a business executive are unconvinced that Rackstraw, who hit lists of possible Coopers in the late 1970s, was this man.
When tracked down recently by a TV crew, Rackstraw, when asked if he were the real D. B. Cooper said, “What difference would it make?” Rackstraw’s attorney has said that he denies any part in the skyjacking.
He was 28 at the time of the skyjacking, and one of the original flight attendants, when shown photos of Rackstraw, said he did not resemble the man she saw on the plane in 1971.
In a press conference in front of FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., Colbert said, “The FBI may hold the strings, but Rackstraw holds the ripcord. And thanks to his coded bragging, it’s now been pulled. We’ll be waiting for him at the drop zone.”
More doom and gloom out of the United States. Ugh. Not. That. Bad. Don't buy into all the fear mongering. -MM
Time is running out. Lately, I have been hearing from so many people that believe that 2024 will be the year when our society goes over the edge. Our financial system is teetering on the brink of disaster, crime is absolutely exploding all over the country, homelessness is rising at the fastest pace ever recorded, food banks are facing unprecedented demand for their services, and I believe that 2024 will be the most chaotic election year in the entire history of our nation. And of course all of this is happening in the context of a global environment in which war, pestilences, economic problems, famine and natural disasters are all on the rise. A “perfect storm” is raging all around us, and millions upon millions of Americans have become deeply concerned about what our immediate future will look like.
So where will you be when things finally hit the fan?
During the past several years, we have seen a mass exodus of conservatives from blue states. For example, Fox News is reporting that 65 percent of those that have recently moved to the state of Idaho are Republicans, and only 12 percent are Democrats…
Data published by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office shows that out of the nearly 119,000 people who recently moved to the state, 65% registered as Republicans, compared to just 12% registering as Democrats.
The data, which was reviewed by Fox News Digital, show that out of the roughly 20,000 Americans who moved from Washington state to Idaho, 62% registered as Republicans, compared to 12% as Democrats, 24% as unaffiliated and 2% as “other.” The percentage of registered Republicans originally from Washington who recently moved to Idaho is actually higher than the state’s overall percentage of registered Republicans, which sits at about 58%.
Out of the nearly 40,000 people who left California for Idaho, a whopping 75% registered as Republicans, the data reviewed by Fox News Digital show. Only 10% of the California pool registered as Democrats, 14% as unaffiliated and 2% as “other.”
Wow.
Real estate agents in Idaho are urging potential clients to “escape liberal hell” and to get to the state “before the coming collapse”…
The Seattle Times noted that real estate ads advise residents in states such as Washington to “escape liberal hell” and move to Idaho.
“Time is not on your side, flee the city NOW before the coming collapse!” another ad for a house listing in Idaho states, the outlet reported.
Perhaps you are thinking that you should move to Idaho too.
Unfortunately, for many Americans it is already too late, because property values in some areas of the state have more than tripled.
Of course property values have also skyrocketed in desirable areas in many other red states as well.
Meanwhile, mortgage rates have also soared, and as a result home payments have risen to absolutely absurd levels during the Biden administration…
WSJ analysis of the housing market:
Average monthly new home payment when Biden took office: $1,787
Average monthly new home payment today: $3,322
You can still try to relocate.
But it will cost you much more than it would have a few years ago.
Renting is also an option, but we have just been through a period of time when rental prices have also jumped substantially…
After suffering through a three-year period when rents jumped by 30% or more in many U.S. cities, renters are now starting to enjoy small breaks like this.
Ultimately, if you were planning to relocate, you should have already done it by now.
But the good news is that conditions are still at least somewhat relatively stable as we approach the end of 2023.
So if you want to get out of Dodge, you can still do it.
In fact, for many of you this may be your last chance.
But don’t wait too long, because the clock is ticking.
At this point, most Americans can feel that something has gone horribly wrong. The warning signs are all around us, and conditions are getting worse with each passing day.
Even Warren Buffett can sense that a really big shift is coming. During the first three quarters of this year he sold off a whopping “$28.7 billion of stock”…
Warren Buffett’s firm Berkshire Hathaway sold $28.7 billion of stock in the first three quarters of 2023 in a move that some economists have interpreted as ringing alarm bells for the American economy.
According to the company’s earnings, the Nebraska-based firm of the legendary investor and billionaire, known as the Oracle of Omaha, sold a net $10.4 billion of stock in the first quarter of the year. In the second quarter, it sold close to $13 billion of shares and bought less than $5 billion. In the third quarter, it sold about $5.3 billion worth of stocks.
As Buffett is considered one of the greatest investors of all time, as well as one of America’s richest men, his moves are closely observed and analyzed.
He didn’t make so much money by being stupid.
Buffett may not fully understand all of the specifics, but he realizes that something is up.
As our society crumbles, most of the population is not going to be able to handle it.
For the third consecutive year, many psychologists across the country say they are seeing patients struggle with worsening symptoms, many of them needing longer treatment times.
Those are among the findings of an annual survey by the American Psychological Association, released this week. The APA first launched this survey in 2020 to gauge the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on practicing psychologists.
A majority of psychologists reported that more people are seeking mental health care this year, adding to already long waitlists. Over half (56%) said they had no openings for new patients. Among those who keep waitlists, average wait times were three months or longer and nearly 40% said that their waitlist had grown in the past year.
Global events just continue to accelerate, and 2024 is less than three weeks away…
Abandoned in space in 1967, a U.S. satellite started transmitting again in 2013 Nov 28, 2017
After learning that a satellite that’s been silent for decades has suddenly started sending out new signals you may, of course, suspect that the device has been hijacked by aliens now trying to communicate with Earth. Perhaps they’re warning us that they are planning an invasion!
It’s possible such thoughts ran through the mind of Phil Williams, an English amateur radio astronomer based in Cornwall, who was the first person to pick up the strange signals coming in as “ghostly sounds” in 2013. It turned out that the transmitted messages were coming from an abandoned LES1 satellite, but experts needed three more years to authenticate that this was indeed the American satellite that was “lost” in 1967.
LES1 was one of several units produced and launched into space by the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in between 1965 and 1967. These units, primarily designed for testing new satellite communication technology, were each labeled with numbers, running from LES1 to LES9.
As it turned out, the launch of the first four satellites did not go that well. LES1, in particular, failed to reach most of its planned objectives. Contact with the satellite was completely lost two years after its launch, and it has ever since revolved around our planet, staying entirely out of touch. Things went better for the later four, LES5 to LES9 units; the LES7 unit was canceled as the program was then coming to an end and there was no more funding for it.
What surprised everyone in 2013 is that LES1 started sending signals in repeats of every four seconds. Phil Williams has suggested that a failure in one of the device components is what perhaps caused it to start sending signals again.
The designated frequency of the signal is 237 MHz. However, the satellite manages to send the transmissions only when its solar panels are directly exposed to light. The signal reportedly ceases once the craft’s panels fall into the shadow of the satellite’s own body. “Tension in the solar panels jumps, and it can do the phantom signal,” Williams has stated.
It is probable that the satellite’s on-board battery is entirely diminished by now, so what powers the transmission of the signals is a bit of a mystery. As to whether LES1 poses any threat, there is apparently nothing to fear. This is yet one more piece of space junk spinning around in orbit.
What’s more striking is that the electronics used in LES1 were produced five decades ago and though they’ve been exposed to the severe conditions of space, they still appear to be in some sort of working order. And five decades ago is a long time in terms of the technology and its development.
LES1 was launched more than a decade before the probe Voyager-1 was launched into space to explore the outer realms of the solar system. And the electronics used back in the 1960s were way simpler than those used since, hence, perhaps, their durability.
The news of this out-of-date satellite coming back online after so much time staying silent has certainly surprised everyone within the scientific community. The satellite was launched February 11, 1965, from Cape Canaveral. It ceased sending signals just two years later. Still, this is not the only case of a satellite having been lost and then found again.
It also happened to the much more costly Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft (SOHO), which disappeared without a trace back in 1998. SOHO stopped sending signals while conducting its mission of observing the sun. NASA astronomers eventually located the lost craft and re-established contact with it as it was helplessly spinning in space.
In the case of SOHO, it was reportedly a glitch in the software that led to the craft’s malfunction. The satellite was eventually fully recovered, and it continued its set mission. But in the case of LES1, it all seems a lot more strange and way more unexpected as such an old piece of equipment had been long forgotten.
The Feed Bag Chicken Gumbo
pot of chicken sausage gumbo 1200
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
4 to 6 chicken breast halves
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup fresh or frozen okra
1 cup fresh, frozen or canned corn
1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon Cajun Seasoning
Dash of red hot sauce
1 tablespoon gumbo file (mixed with water until gooey)
3 (14 1/2 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
2 cups uncooked rice
Instructions
Place chicken breasts in a kettle with enough water to cover. Cook until done, about 20 minutes. Remove chicken to a platter. Strain chicken broth.
Return broth to kettle. Add celery, green pepper, onion, okra, corn, thyme, oregano, garlic powder, Cajun Seasoning, hot sauce and gumbo fil paste. Bring to a rolling boil.
Chop chicken into bite-size pieces and return to kettle. Add tomatoes. Bring back to boil. If soup is too thick, add chicken broth.
Cook rice according to package directions.
To serve, place desired amount of rice in serving bowl. Add gumbo.
52-year-old Washington woman, Susan Shannon (pictured below), wanted to destroy the life of her old friend, a successful US Army colonel, David Riggins, and possibly make some big cash out of her bogus claims, but she never expected the outcome of her decisions.
In 1986, Sussan and Riggins were both cadets at West Point, the U.S. military base in New York. While Sussan dropped out of the military, Riggins excelled. But just before he received a major promotion in 2013, Sussan started dropping bombs on her blog which haunted Riggins.
image 88
In her blog posts, she claimed she was brutally r-aped by Riggins while the two were cadets. Her claims got to the authorities leading to Riggins’s dismissal, this hurt him badly because he was just about to receive a life-changing promotion when the chaos started.
Once he left the military, Riggins fought back and sued her for defamation. Following several probing, investigators discovered that Sussan had made everything up.
image 87
She was asked to pay $8.4 million in damages to Riggins: $3.4 million in compensatory damages for hurting his reputation and lost wages, and $5 million in punitive damages. This will keep her a pauper for life.
In the fall of 2008, a few months into the Great Recession, my family was actually in a pretty good spot, financially. My wife and I were both working full time, we were renting an apartment, and we had only one kid at the time. We were saving to buy a house.
One night, I convinced my wife that we would be stupid if we didn’t take advantage of the stock market crash. I’d been interested in purchasing stocks, we had about $30,000 in savings for our house, and stocks were at near record lows. She agreed to let me spend just $1,000 on stocks.
The idea was to start with $1,000, and buy a few more stocks each year. We never followed through with that. We ended up opening college funds for our kids and IRAs for ourselves instead, but my original stock account from that night still remains.
I considered buying some stock in Apple. I was still a PC user then, but I really liked my iPod. I wanted to purchase stocks in companies whose products I used.
But I decided against Apple. I went with Disney and a few other companies instead.
My original $1,000 investment is worth about $3,500 today.
The day I decided against Apple stock, it was selling for around $13 a share. I could have bought 77 shares for $1,000 that day.
Today, those shares would be worth almost $16,000.
Had we skipped the house and put all of our savings into Apple shares that day, we could have sold all of that Apple stock today and bought a half-million dollar house in cash.
I was downsized from a company I had been with for a pretty long time. Every year I would work really hard to make my goals so my bonus would be maxed. The cap was $1000. The CEO of the company had 4 houses, several race horses, and 3 private jets. The company made a ton of money. I moved on to another, much smaller company about the middle of September the same year. Needless to say, my bonus that I had been working for most of the year evaporated. I didn’t give it much thought beyond just being grateful I found another job that paid me equally. Christmas came around and I didn’t think much about it because nobody had ever mentioned anything about bonuses and I had only been there about 4 months. The last payday before Christmas the CFO popped in and just casually asks everyone if they’d received their bonus, tells everyone not to eat too much, and he’ll see us all next year. I didn’t even bother to look up. During lunch a coworker asked me what I was going to do with my Christmas bonus. I told her that I didn’t get one and that was to be expected since I had just been there a short time. She told me I should check my bank because the CEO was very generous and isn’t the type to leave someone out. So, I checked. There was my paycheck direct deposit and holy crap! Another deposit for $10,000 from the company! I later found out that mine was a gesture compared to some others. I’ve been there 8 years and counting now. The cash bonuses fluctuate more now than they did back then, but I’ve never gotten anything disappointing. I’ll be there the rest of my life.
Albert Einstein’s Strict List of Conditions for his Wife to Follow
Albert Einstein’s relationship with his wife was a bit rocky to say the least. In contemporary times, prenuptials seem to be almost as common as vows. Before you walk down the aisle and say, “I do,” you first have to sign here, here, and here.
Contracts are not a new element of marriages. The act of getting married is, itself, a legally binding contract — provided it meets the requirements of the state or country in which the ceremony takes place. For example, according to New York City Bar, in New York, as in many other jurisdictions, “If either of you are still legally married to a former spouse, or do not meet the age requirements, then you are not legally married.”
Throughout history, marriage contracts have been negotiated between rich and influential families, with papers signed outlining the gains and losses of each party in the union — such as dowries payed and lands redistributed. To this day, you need to obtain a license to have a marriage legally recognized.
Today, a growing number of engaged couples wanting to avoid upset in any potential future dispute sign a formal prenuptial agreement — a private contract that both parties agree would be a fair way to split their combined assets.
It outlines dos and don’ts, haves and have nots, should the couple choose to split up in the future. They’re an increasingly popular element of a marriage, especially in the celebrity realm.
In some cases, postnuptial agreements come into play. These are agreements in which the couple draws up a contract after they are married, outlining certain requirements for the continuation and betterment of their union.
History provides an unfortunate example of a celebrity postnup that only served to make matters worse: it was written by Albert Einstein to his first wife, Mileva Marić. Einstein met Marić in 1896 at the Zurich Polytechnic, Eidgenossische Technische Hoschule, when she was studying for a teaching diploma in mathematics and physics. FemBio notes that Marić was the “second woman to finish a full program of study at Department VI A: Mathematics and Physics.”
Over the years, the friendship founded through their shared work interests developed and eventually lead to marriage in January 1903.
Their union was blessed with two sons, Hans and Eduard; but speculation exists, based on letters sent to each other, about a first child, born out of wedlock the year before the couple was married. Her fate is unconfirmed.
After 11 years of matrimony, though, the couple agreed that there was no longer any romance between them. Einstein and his wife agreed to approach the subject logically. They didn’t want to divorce recklessly, so for the sake of their children’s continuity, they decided to stay together.
According to Walter Isaacson in his book Einstein: His Life and Universe, Albert Einstein’s wife had some behavioral conditions to follow, which he outlined in the following list:
“You will make sure: that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order; that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room; that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.”
“You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, You will forego: my sitting at home with you; my going out or travelling with you.”
“You will obey the following points in your relations with me: you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way; you will stop talking to me if I request it; you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.”
“You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior.”
Concise and direct, the list drives a hard bargain. It sounds particularly harsh considering it was issued from a husband to his wife. Mileva agreed to his conditions anyway.
Logic can’t dictate such a strong emotion as love, or lack thereof. A few months went by before Mileva changed her mind. Taking their two sons, she left her husband in Berlin and moved back to Zurich. They officially divorced five years later, having not seen each other all that time.
He may have been able to calculate the amount of energy contained in a given mass, but Einstein couldn’t write the perfect formula for maintaining a marriage.
My old dongle died… and / or was orphaned when my Lunix Mint updated the OS. In any event, I needed a new one.
A “dongle” is something that you plug into your computer. Like though a USB port.
Wifi is exactly that. While my laptop has a builtin wifi, I am running Lunix Mint, and the chipset is Microsoft Windows propriety.
American versions were about 10x the price of their Chinese versions. So I bought a dongle out of Shenzhen. It’s a good unit.
I bought a nice 2.5G / 5G / 6G version. It ran me about $10 us (65 yuan). The American version is about 800 yuan + taxes + 25% import tax. Is limited to 4G. No 5G and 6G.
The American version is ten times more expensive, and has less functionality.
The Chinese version is AWESOME!
It runs on Ubuntu. Which is a Linux distro.
Lunix
…Ubuntu
……Lunix Mint
………Lunix Mint Cinnamon
When it was plugged in, nothing happened. Bummed me out, but I didn’t freak. And calmly looked up on Lunix.
But I went on a Lunix forum, and followed the instructions found there….
I ran…
inxi -Fxxxrz && rfkill list && lsusb && mokutil --sb-state
I figured that I had previous bad or broken versions. So a clean-out might be necessary.
Followed by…
apt --fix-broken install
Then I ran the commands to pull the driver from the Ubuntu repositories, and then the Linus Mint translation runs…
My little girl goes to a preschool and she has little cute friends there.
Since it is the time of winter vacation, they had a small cute little party on the last day of school before the break. They had a performance, where almost every child performed (except one who refused to smile and was upset with his mummy over something- he was so cute).
Anyway, after the performance, there was an arrangement for refreshments too. Some was arranged by the school and some were contributions.
image 72
Since it is a preschool and children studying in the school are 25–30, arrangements were done accordingly.
When the food was served, I took a plate, added a cupcake for my girl, a cracker, grape-cheese stick, a cookie and a very small piece of cake. I took it and led my girl to a chair where we ate from the same plate.
There was another mother who sat next to me. She brought two immensely full plates. I don’t really mind people filling their plates as long as they can finish the food but her girl took a bite of a cookie and left entire things as it was and she had cakes and muffins and then she said, “Oh! I can’t finish it off. Too much sugar. I guess I will have to leave that. See, even my girl didn’t eat a thing. She insisted to get muffins and cakes and chips and now she doesn’t want to eat”.
I was astounded. How could someone be so inconsiderate. We all could see that food spread on the table was meant for everyone present there. That was the reason I took refreshments, not a meal. This woman had no guilt over wasting so much food. Why did she take such big portions in the first place? Even my girl wanted two cupcakes but I suggested that she have to finish the first and if required we would take the other one of different colour. She agreed and chose a pink one!
The same lady was also talking about how she purchased three umbrellas because she didn’t like the colour of the first or the style of the second, how she purchased clothes worth 500 dollars for her three-year-old in a single day, how she overspends on weekly groceries, what she shops and from which brand et cetera.
Similarly, there was another lady who overfilled her child’s plate and left her eating while she had her share.
We all know how little a three-year- old eats. Even if the child is very hungry, let him/her finish some portion first and then refill. We have no right to waste food. It makes you look so uncool even if you carry Kate Spade bags and wear Zara blazers.
In August 2023 a group of 11 Russian and Chinese warships conducted “exercises” near Alaska’s outlying islands. They were tracked by US Navy destroyers but remained in international waters which was perfectly legal. It made page 5 of the Washington Post (below the fold). In September 2022 a convoy of three Chinese and four Russian vessels, including a destroyer and a guided missile cruiser passed by the US island of Kiska (near Alaska). It was shadowed by a US Coast Guard cutter but nobody got too offended.
Pictured below Russia’s Viktor Leonov (SSV-175) an armed surveillance vessel that loves to loiter just outside the 12 mile limit of US territorial waters along the east coast. Or, as the question puts it “floating just off the coast”. Some of its favorite spots are the US naval bases at Norfolk, New London and Cape Canaveral. It has been doing this for years.
image 67
Apparently it occasionally gets bored with “floating just off the coast” and tries to break the 12 mile limit, in particular disrupting commercial shipping lanes. What has the US done about these repeated unbearable provocations that hurt the feelings of the American people? The Leonov is shadowed by a US Navy destroyer, lately the USS Mahan, whose primary task is to tell the Russian vessel to get the hell back outside the limit. That’s the response when alien warships are “floating just off the coast”.
Below is the AGI Yantar, a Russian vessel optimized for intelligence gathering and mounting deep sea submersibles. It likes to hang around the east coast underseas cables. One more thing for 2d Fleet to keep track of.
image 66
FWIW: we’ve had Russian nuke boats cruising around for decades now and managed not to get overly excited about it. They usually get shadowed by 2d Fleet but that’s about it. There is a debate over whether current Russian sub activity off the E. Coast is greater or lesser than it was in Soviet days.
Dad was straight Chevy/GMC product. I was strictly Ford. 2002 we changed places and neither of us were happy. He had a book of somewhat minor but annoying problems right from the start. He had the car for a few months. Went to pick up his grandson from school one day. On the way home, grandson made to roll the window down. Did not budge. As soon as he dropped him off, he zipped straight to the dealer. He wasn’t as gentle shutting the door as normal. Stepped up to the counter and proceeded to read them the riot act working in the point that he never had problems like this with his Chevys through the years. They told him to go to the waiting room where there was a fresh pot of coffee and sit back. They would check it out right then. He stormed in there poured his coffee, his butt brushed the chair seat not even fully seated yet when the tech opened the door telling him he was good to go. He exploded. You haven’t even had the time to pull it around yet and you’re telling me it’s ready??? I can’t believe you’d even think of trying that. I’m so fed up. It takes 3–4 trips in to fix anything and now it’s fixed in 30 seconds? Tech just grinned and asked him to come out to the drive. Put him in the driver’s seat telling him to position himself as if he was driving. Tech walks over to the passenger side to show him the window is working. Dad is flabbergasted. Tells the tech he knows that wasn’t working when he came in so what was wrong? Well sir, turn your head to see just where your arm is now. Looking under your elbow, do you see that switch? That’s a lockout button for all the windows so that kids can’t play with the windows. With that switch activated, the switches in the other doors are bypassed and will not work. Redfaced, embarrassed, he was apologizing for his attitude. Asked them what he owed for a checkout fee. They laughed it off telling him the entertainment value he brought in more than paid for it.
In 1960, after winning over $100,000 in the lottery, a sum equivalent to around $3 million today’s money.
A thing that could have been a cause for celebration for many became a curse for Australian Bazil Thorne.
image 65
His winnings set the stage for a harrowing sequence of events, propelled into motion when newspapers, in a spectacular breach of privacy, splashed Thorne’s details across their front pages.
Shortly after, his son, Graeme Thorne was kidnapped for ransom.
The kidnapper stated: “I have your boy. I want £25,000 before 5 o’clock this afternoon. I’m not fooling. If I don’t get the money before 5 o’clock, I’ll feed the boy to the sharks.”
The situation spiraled out of control as the kidnappers panicked upon realizing the police were involved.
In a desperate and senseless act, they murdered young Graeme before the exchange could occur.
On Tuesday 16 August, nearly six weeks after the kidnapping, Thorne’s body was finally discovered hidden on vacant land, sending shock waves across the nation.
The meticulous police investigation culminated in the apprehension and conviction of the perpetrator, Stephen Bradley, a Hungarian immigrant.
The trial, lasting nine days, resulted in Bradley receiving penal servitude for life, the severest sentence available in New South Wales for murder at the time.
This heartbreaking story reverberated beyond personal grief as it spurred a permanent change in Australia’s laws, cloaking the identities of lottery winners in anonymity to protect them from such fates.
With what I’ve heard and read about past winners, this sudden wealth that many fantasize about might just as swiftly transform into a curse for some.
Refuel Café Louisiana Buffalo Shrimp
Forget the wings! Now you can have delicious Buffalo Shrimp.
louisiana buffalo shrimp
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients
5 ounces Louisiana-style hot sauce
1/2 pound whole butter, cold, unsalted, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 pound jumbo Louisiana shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole milk
2 eggs
6 cups oil, preferably canola
1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
Instructions
In a small saucepan, reduce the hot sauce until thick, add the heavy cream, bring to a boil, and lower the heat.
Over low heat, stir in the butter in stages, keeping the sauce hot the whole time. Set aside, but make sure it stays hot.
Heat oil to 350 degrees F.
Whip the eggs and add the milk for an egg wash.
Bread the shrimp by rolling them into the flour, then dipping them into the egg wash, and rolling them in flour again.
Fry shrimp in the hot oil for 3 minutes (depending on the fryer).
Remove shrimp from oil and dry with a napkin.
Put shrimp in a large bowl, add the reserved sauce, and toss.
Plate the shrimp, draining most of the sauce from the shrimp as you do so, and top with bleu cheese crumbles.
Yesterday actually. I was coming out of a store and I heard something behind me. When I looked back I saw a family behind me of two young girls, a mother, and father. They were white. The two girls were acting like monkeys and making monkey sounds. The mother and father were laughing. I got in my truck which was facing them and started it up. I really wasn’t sure who the gestures were being directed at until they did it again just before getting in their car which was right in front of mine while looking at and laughing at me. I looked at the mother and father and, as the mother laughed, I looked at the father just to see if he actually saw and was okay with what they were doing. The smirking sneer on his face said everything. They meant for me to see that. To feel that. And although I have confronted racism and racist people before, I think it was the kids doing what they did that hurt me more than I had felt it before. The mere fact that kids had been taught that kind of nastiness and that it was being deliberately directed at me for no other reason than I’m black just brought immediate tears to my eyes. I couldn’t even help it. I looked the other way so they wouldn’t see me.
Green Acres – Eb & The Flying Saucer
WARS ARE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANS, ANIMALS AND NATURE EDITOR’S NOTE
So it finally happened. The US Empire literally overextended itself in lies and conflicts, and ended up showing the world it is no longer a credible Hegemon.
Undeniably, the epochal turning point, so eagerly awaited in the Global South, came when Russia’s armies clearly defeated—against massive derogatory prognostication—the military might of the collective West in Ukraine, a gigantic accomplishment, while China quietly became the most powerful industrial engine in history. What’s probably most embarrassing to the West’s ruling cliques, those still capable of self-reflection, is that the rapid emergence of these two formidable peer powers resulted in large measure from pathetic policy errors that could have been easily avoided. Washington and its criminally complicit allies didn’t have to lose their supremacy so quickly, but greed, contempt for life and truth, and terminal corruption, not to mention the mounting, incurable ills of capitalism, their true religion, took their toll and imperial arrogance did the rest. The US and the EU are now tottering, flailing about on the world stage, showing the ravages of massive leadership failure. Dangers aside, this is good for the rest of humanity.
Washington’s problem is systemic and organic. That’s why in the midst of this self-inflicted crisis the West’s huge disinformation machine is showing signs of disarray. The totalitarian degree of censorship and deception required to deny the truth about Ukraine and now Israel apparently stressed and finally broke the walls protecting the official narrative, and now the truth, so long repressed, is pouring out from a million places like a mighty tsunami. Since truth improves the chances of survival for everyone, this is to be celebrated.
Ironically, the unmasking of the Empire occurred because Israel—Washington’s pampered Zionist protegé—has behaved in such a manically depraved way, its criminal acts so cowardly, repugnant, and unrelenting, that even parts of the mainstream media have begun to crack under public pressure and report, however gingerly, vital truths. This has sufficed to show the sheer evil, blatant hypocrisy and complicity of the Empire, further shredding the remnants of its reputation. The upshot is that the onetime feared American Empire—from its core to its satrapies—is now stuck in a multilayered, multipronged crisis, not the kind of crisis that a pathetically mediocre and often half-delusional leadership can handle. The world can do a lot better than this, and with just a little bit of luck, it will. —PG
IMPORTANT: The Greanville Post is today the best edited and annotated hybrid “aggregator” of anti-imperialist articles in the anglophone world (we print original and external materials). Don’t let it die at a moment when a victory in the battle of communications for a new type of world is more crucial than ever. Mass political enlightenment precedes mass mobilisation.
Ah, “Not For Hire.” This is actually an interesting piece of trucker lingo that can lead to a bit of confusion if you’re not in the know.
image 7
So, when you see “Not For Hire” emblazoned on the side of a truck, it’s basically saying that the truck, along with its driver, is not available for commercial services. It’s like a taxi with a “Off Duty” light, except the truck was likely never on duty to begin with.
Why display this, you ask?
Well, it has to do with regulations. Commercial trucks are governed by a slew of regulations that include commercial licenses, logs, maintenance standards, inspections, and insurance requirements. When a truck is “for hire,” it means it’s operating under a commercial entity that conforms to these regulations and is available to transport goods for others for a fee.
A “Not For Hire” truck, on the other hand, is typically privately owned, and they’re declaring that they’re not subject to the same degree of government oversight because they’re not making money from transporting goods. This might be a business transporting its own products, like a farmer taking his produce to market, or a company truck carrying equipment to a job site.
The designation helps law enforcement and other authorities quickly identify what kind of regulations to enforce with that particular vehicle. After all, nobody wants to get bogged down in paperwork for no reason – the truck isn’t a commercial service, so it doesn’t need the same level of scrutiny.
And for any would-be regulators or officers eyeing the rig with thoughts of a potential infraction, that sign is saying, “Move along, nothing to see here.” It’s a bit of a bureaucratic force field.
But let’s be clear, “Not For Hire” doesn’t grant immunity from all laws; these trucks still have to comply with safety regulations and general traffic laws. It just means they’re not engaging in the business of hauling other people’s stuff around for profit.
When push comes to shove, “Not For Hire” trucks are just out there doing their own thing, not soliciting commercial transport business, and hence they’re playing by a slightly different set of rules. It’s one of the many nuances of the road that keeps things interesting – and complicated. Just like life, right?
My Dad walked to and from work everyday. He also walked home and back at lunch time.
I didn’t give a thought to his habit of walking. Growing up in a small town, we all walked , more so than other places. We never had a huge distance to get somewhere. Or to get back.
Mom got her drivers license after she was 40. We had always traveled in my dad’s fuel truck if we needed transportation. Mom couldn’t and wouldn’t drive it. In warm weather, my sister and I rode on the outside of the truck.
image 68
It had little cubicles we could fit down into. On rural trips, we often rode on the front.
When Standard Oil sold, Dad changed jobs and we got a Plymouth. A big boat of a car! Unless we were unable to get somewhere on foot, it sat at home.
My father walked that road to and from the school where he worked, rain or shine. Hot days and snowy, freezing cold days. He never missed a day of work.
When cancer invaded my dad’s body, he became unable to care for himself. It was heart wrenching to see him humiliated by others seeing him so vulnerable. Modesty was only one thing he had to let go of.
During his illness, I saw his poor misshapen, swollen knees. He had never said a word about his painful knees to any of us kids.
Mom said he suffered terribly because of this for years.
I was saddened and humbled by what he did to provide for all of us.
Being Icelandic, and being so few people here, we are more in touch and know our story quite well.
image 69
Our graveyards are full of these. 6 siblings that died in a span of a month. Every spring, what was known as child illness moved across the country and took kids everywhere. Parents were helpless and could just cry as they lost all their kids. Even I am connected to these poor kids. The parents did have more kids and most of them became adults. The illness was called diphtheria. One relative of mine has over 20 kids which all were lost to this decease and in the end they had 2 kids that survived.
This was harrowing and unmeasurable sadness.
Since the late 1940–1950, we haven’t had any such illnesses. Nothing. Polio is unheard of but is making a comeback.
People are simply idiots, morons and easily convinced of stupid things. Propaganda works.
If Magnus and Ingibjörg, the parents of the above children could tell you anything, they would tell you to vaccinate your children.
There is a saying that no one should bury their children, yet there is a group of people who seemingly are anxiously waiting to do that.
But here is the sad part. The top antivaxers, the people on TV in interviews and “news hosts”, who tell people to not get vaccinated, they are all vaccinated themselves. That includes Robert Kennedy jr.
Hi, Sinkei428. Thanks for the interesting question.
Of course you can!
As long as you have money and a mobile phone with which to scan the food seller’s QR code and make a mobile payment, you can have as many meals as you want!
Food can be very cheap and affordable here, so feel free to splurge and eat as much as you like.
The 肉夹馍 (Ròujiāmó, a.k.a. Chinese burger) shown in the picture below is filled with stewed pork and eggs and only costs 8 yuan (USD 1.12)
You can add some 凉皮 (Liángpí, cold skin noodles) and snacks to make it a more substantial meal.
Should set you back no more than 15 – 20 yuan (USD 2.10 – 2.80)
You can also use a variety of apps to have food delivered to you. Food is literally at your fingertips 24/7.
image 73
3
Red Fish Grill Remoulade
102 2600
Ingredients
1/2 bunch chopped parsley, finely chopped
1/4 bunch green onion, finely chopped
1/2 sweet onion, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 lemon, juiced
2 cups ketchup
1/2 cup Creole mustard
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup hot sauce
2 tablespoons fresh horseradish
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups vegetable oil
Instructions
Combine all ingredients, except for the vegetable oil, in a food processor or blender. Process until smooth.
Slowly drizzle in the vegetable oil with the blender or food processor still running.
I had an old boss speak to me that way. I made a mistake and said , “I’m sorry.” He responded, “You’re right. You’re sorry. Your a pathetic excuse for a human being.”
I was fresh out of high school. Very shy. And this 40+ year old man just ripped me a new one. I looked at him, and told him “I apologized. I made a mistake. But it is not okay for you to speak to me that way.” And I walked away. He later came and apologized to me. He was retired military and had a habit of speaking to employees that way. He never did it to me again.
On another occurrence, I had another employer be rude and disrespectful in front of an all staff meeting. She shushed me during the meeting when I brought up an idea. Then after went into her office. I told her that, “that her actions at the meeting were not acceptable. You tell me how valuable I am to the organization then treat me like you don’t want me here.” She didn’t remember doing it and then started to cry. I stood up and said, “You shushed me. You were disrespectful and rude. And I’m the one supposed to comfort you? I’m going home for the rest of the day.” While normally i don’t recommend leaving- in my scenario it was okay as I was almost done and salary. And honestly I did not care at that point if I got fired. I found a new job a month later.
Say something and if warranted start looking for a new job. No job makes it okay for anyone to belittle you-ever.
I live in Hong Kong, which has the highest per-capita ownership of Rolls-Royces of any city in the world. The thing is, most of the Rolls-Royces you see here are chauffer-driven. So no, I don’t assume anyone driving a Rolls-Royce here is wealthy.
image 71
The Peninsula hotel has a fleet of 14 Rolls-Royce cars, which are used to ferry its well-heeled guests around town.
I do know a friend who owns a Rolls in Hong Kong. He loves it and enjoys driving it himself. But I had to laugh when he complained to me that everyone who saw him didn’t believe it was his car and thought he was the chauffeur.
This stupidity is prevalent in most democracies including India
If you have a problem in your street , you blame the Chief Minister and the Ruling Party and the Prime Minister
In China, things don’t work that way
If you have a problem in your street
You speak to your Residential Block Party Official , a Party member who is chosen for every 15–20 blocks
You speak to your Coorporation Committee Official
You speak to the Hotline and demand immediate service
You don’t talk to your Mayor or Governor or the Politburo or Xi Jingping
Localization is why China is so efficient
If people have problems, they will be dealt with by officials at lower levels and their performance decides their promotion
image 70
This man is the equivalent to say a Major MP in a State in India
He single handedly saved a huge amount of crop despite two floods
The problem didn’t even escalate to Xi Jingping or Li Qiang
It’s called SUBORDINATION
The Topmost Level discuss POLICIES
They discuss this with inputs from the Central Bank, the Economic Board, the Caixin Board, the Independent Experts and the Party Intelligentsia
They FRAME POLICIES, MODIFY POLICIES
Implementation of these Policies is done at lower levels
Provincial Committees, State Committees, Governors, Mayors, Residential Block Officials etc
The CPC will decide “We want to lock down based on a 3% or higher positivity ratio”
The Lower levels must make the lockdown as comfortable as possible and if they don’t, they are roasted by the people and blamed and their career suffers
The CPC will decide “We believe that Businesses should be given a tax break of 25% this year”
The Lower levels must frame the rules and regulations and efficiently bring about the policies
Indians won’t get it
In India, the MPs and MLAs have no role except to win elections and campaign
All the focus goes to the CM and the PM
So much so that more than half the people have no clue who their MP or MLA is
Not so in China
During every February (New Year), a full list of officials, their phone numbers and wechat numbers will be dropped in every Apartment
Updated list of Patrolling Policemen , Block Police Chief
The Officials are the ones who handle the problems all the way including protests
If the Covid 19 protests went sour due to lack of vegetables, the official will be taken to task
Hell, when a policeman kicked and killed a dog in Wuhan, the Official was axed for not implementing the Lockdowns properly
So Citizens ALWAYS speak out against the Government in China
ALWAYS
Much more than India at least
The problem is, the protests are always dealt with at lower levels and never escalate to attract the attention of the parasitic western media
It is only maybe 1% protests that are targeted at the CPC in Beijing
Mainly about the Lockdowns or Taiwan related
It’s why you rarely see any protests in China
Because they are done at a low level and sorted out or handled at a level that makes very little traction
Those protests you see covered by Global Media
They are those very rare protests that happen due to major policy decisions
Plus most of these protestors are Resident Taiwanese rather than Mainlanders
The simple way is THE SIGNS WILL ALWAYS BE IN ENGLISH for the Western Media
Highschool electronics class. Teacher wheeled in the A/V cart with TV and VCR. Yeah, this is an old story.
Anywho, he plugged in the power strip and inserted the VCR tape with the lesson for the day.
Couldn’t get the TV display to come on. TV was completely dead. Worked with buttons for ten minutes, checked wall plug, nothing. Finally gave up and moved on.
Later, guy in the front row got up and plugged the TV into the power strip. Seemed to work pretty well at that point.
This wasn’t the first spark of brilliance from this teacher. A few of us dropped the class. I went to Auto shop and learned how to rewire most of a 1996 Dodge Dakota.
I wrote about this cat in another post. She was the kitten next to the bigger cat cat that was hit and killed by a car in a rainy Kentucky night.
Life moved on, and I was living with my cat, and two others (Texie and Smokie) and we were living in Milford Mass. Nice place. At that time, my wife and I were separated. She was in a mental hospital and under treatment for her raging mental illness. Yeah. Overall, we were functionally separated. And I was living with this slim blonde model named CJ.
She was a stunner. Really.
But her personality was a real shit, and she caused me a Hell of a lot of grief until I was finally able to kick her out.
But I will tell you that when I came home, this cat of mine… tiny and tender Phelie was always crying hysterically, and literally leaped into my arms, and while I was in the house she would not leave my side. She just hung out on my shoulders.
I thought that she “just” missed me.
What I know now was that CJ and her “friends” were probably terrorizing my cat. This went on, I am sure, while I was at work. This must have been true, even though, on the surface, she actually loved (or at least pretended to love) cats.
What I know now…
…
Sorry Phelie.
I let you down. I was too soft and too kind to others. I gave THEM the benefit of the doubt, instead of standing beside those that loved me unconditionally.
Be aware of the signals and the vocalizations of the ones you love.
Chinese companies will continue to work and innovate, and make new products to sell at prices about 30–50% what western multinationals charge.
One unsubstantiated rumor says that President Biden recently watched a product presentation made by Richard Yu 大嘴鱼 of Huawei。 It is said that the esteemed president became upset halfway through the presentation and and threw and smashed the notebook computer he was watching the presentation on.
In the next decades, American presidents will have plenty of opportunities to throw and smash their computers after watching Chinese new product presentations.
China simply has sufficient laws and regulations and doesn’t have the cut throat capitalism that the US has
In China – for every $ 100 spent for Pharmaceutical Research, a whopping $ 69 comes from the State and $ 31 comes from Private Industry under law
As a result, Chinese Researchers don’t have that IMPATIENCE to rush through research that US Researchers have
US Pharma Research is now almost entirely funded by Private means.
This means there is always a bottom line, a ticking clock and deadlines and timelines which are decided by PROFIT AND LOSS
Every Drug Research in US has its path decided by potential profits and as a result, even if clinical trials are unfavorable, they are rushed through
It’s a cold blooded calculation
A Pharma company invests an average of $ 600 Million on Research for a Drug
Once the Drug hits the market, it averages $ 3.5 Billion in revenue in a single year
It makes $ 7 Billion Revenue in 2 Years
If the drug has problems later, the drug is withdrawn from the market and some 2000 victims are paid $ 500,000 each , that’s $ 1 Billion
Add another $ 400 Million for Lawyers fees
Thus even a bad drug earns a Pharma company $ 5 Billion profit across 2 years
So US Pharma no longer has any ethics left
Even a bad drug will not cause any problem to the company because they make enough money to pay off any potential victims of the drug
They have enough money to pay top class Politicians , Lobbyists to blame something else and to take the attention from the drug itself
In China, the laws are different
A Bad drug pushed to the market is blamed on the officials of the company who will face jail or even the firing squad
Plus the deadlines aren’t so pressurizing and Chinese scientists can be a little more relaxed with their research schedules than the American scientists
Yes. About 30 years ago I was living in London and had traveled up to Northumberland to visit friends. I was driving back home and a mate was following behind in his Lada (this is all just context) and he drove into the back of my car while searching for his bag of crisps that had fallen into the passenger footwell. I was in my first car, a Ford Capri (go boy racers!). We pulled over and the back of my car was caved in – there was no damage whatsoever to his bloody Lada!
Fast forward a few months, I’d bought a new boot door for my car from a scrapyard and had it all repaired. But the door was red whilst my car was silver. (Again, context – but important).
My friends and I went up to Northumberland again, only this time Mr Plod pulled me over. I was puzzled. I hadn’t been speeding or driving dangerously, so I was intrigued as to what the officer had seen that required me to stop. I got out of the car and, in my best innocent look, I asked him what the problem was. He said this…
“Hello sir, I was just wondering whether you knew that your boot door is a different colour from the rest of your car?”
Several answers flipped through my mind. I could’ve slapped my forehead and shouted, “Never mind the back door, where’s my caravan?” Or I could’ve been incredibly more sarcastic.
Instead I settled for, “Bloody vandals! They’ll spray paint anything!”
He didn’t laugh. Instead he asked me to produce my licence at the station when I got home. He asked where I lived so I said London. He sighed, put away his ticket book and said, “Never mind. They never send anything up here anyway.”
Many years ago, I worked at a factory that did plastic and wax injection molding. The guy running the place had worked there since he was in his early 20s, so you’d think he’d have a good handle on how things were done.
The problem with his leadership was that he had come up through the ranks as a salesman. He spent little to no time actually doing engineering or production. He was a wonderful salesman and a couple times landed contracts that were a great boon to the company. The man had a gift. He could have sold manure to a cattle farmer.
One of his biggest contracts was a government contract. We were going to be making parts for the US military. During wartime, these types of contracts are as good as they come. The type of high demand production runs that fill bank accounts. Workers were asked to work a minimum of 60 hours a week, with unlimited overtime pre-approved. Some of us younger workers were working 80+ hours a week – only going home during the work week to get some sleep, then coming right back at 5 a.m.
Bank.
I was running a machine that made a part, we’ll call it Widget X. Well, Widget X was a fairly large part that required a lengthy cooldown phase. You can’t just inject molten wax into a mold and expect it to hold shape until it has properly cooled. We only had one machine that was large enough to make Widget X, so it ran 24/7.
A few months into the production run, management was in a bit of a panic. Widget X was one of the most important parts of the contract and we were falling behind on production schedule. Engineering and quality control were asked to find a way to speed up production, but they told management the biggest time sink was in the cooling phase. There just wasn’t any way around that. If they lowered the temperature of the wax, it would be too thick upon injection and break the fragile ceramic cores in the mold. If they actively cooled the die, the wax would solidify unevenly and cause warping.
Mr. Leader, despite the fact that he had oversold our production capabilities, insisted that there was a way to increase output to meet demand. So he began looking into each and every step of the process.
Back to me running the machine. As I said, there was a very lengthy cooldown phase where the machine remained locked shut until the part was ready. During this phase, I took a little time to pick a new CD to listen to while working. (I said this was many years ago)
Seeing me “dicking around” with my Discman, Mr. Leader went into a fit of rage.
“NO WONDER WE’RE SO FAR BEHIND SCHEDULE!”
“That’s it! No more listening to music while working. We need to get back on track and I don’t want to see another set of headphones in this place until we do!”
If you’ve never done it before, injection molding has to be one of the most boring jobs on the planet. You press the two start buttons, wait for the machine to close, do its thing, then wait some more until the part is ready. You remove the part, push the buttons again, and wait. That’s the whole job.
Music was one of the few things that made the job bearable. We could disappear into our own heads and only surface every few minutes to restart the process. Now that we couldn’t do that, the boredom was up in our face. Staring at a giant metal press for 5–15 minutes at a time was dull. Very dull.
So, we had to find ways to amuse our minds for that time. Being the social creatures that we are, we turned to our neighbors and began talking to each other. The problem is that machine shops are really really noisy. In order to have a conversation that is not at a scream, we’d often have to take a few steps toward our neighbor.
This, as you could imagine, meant that the machine operator’s attention was not focused on the machine they were running, but on their conversations. Then when the machine was done running, they’d take a few seconds to finish their sentence and walk back to their machines.
Production slowed. In cases like the machine I was running, not by much. However, some of the smaller parts only had 30 – 60 second run times. An additional 10 seconds per part added up very quickly. Now parts that were running on-time were running behind.
Two weeks into the new rule, the owner of the company paid our department a visit. This almost never happened. He was always in his office on the phone or out on business. He had found out that every single part we were working on had fallen behind and wanted to know why. Mr. Leader had fed him a line that he didn’t buy for a second and was going to figure it out himself.
Luckily, the owner of the company understood production because he had done it early in his career. He knew how boring the job was and that asking employees to sit and stare while doing nothing was cruel.
He rescinded the no music policy immediately and production resumed at a normal pace. He also then called one of his friends in the business and subcontracted some of the production of Widget X to him.
In the end, nothing changed about how fast we could produce Widget X, but at least the rest of the contracts were back on schedule and we could listen to music again.
So I’ll let Isaac and JC Denton from Deus Ex do the heavy lifting here:
image 6
On governmental power
Isaac: “*China is the last sovereign country in the world. Authoritarian but willing — unlike U.N.-governed countries — to give its people the freedom to do what they want.*”
JC Denton: “*As long as they don’t break the law.*”
Isaac: “*Listen to me. This is real freedom, freedom to own property, make a profit, make your life. The West, so afraid of strong government, now has no government. Only financial power.*”
JC Denton: “*Our governments have limited power by design.*”
Isaac: “*Rhetoric… And you believe it! Don’t you know where those slogans come from?*”
JC Denton: “*I give up.*”
Isaac: “*Well-paid researchers — how do you say it? — “think tanks,” funded by big businesses. What is that? A “think tank”?*”
JC Denton: “*Hardly as sinister as a dictator, like China’s Premier.*”
Isaac: “*It’s privately-funded propaganda. The Trilateral Commission in the United States, for instance.*”
JC Denton: “*The separation of powers acknowledges the petty ambitions of individuals; that’s its strength.*”
Isaac: “*A system organized around the weakest qualities of individuals will produce these same qualities in its leaders.*”
JC Denton:“*Perhaps certain qualities are an inseparable part of human nature.*”
Isaac: “*The mark of the educated man is the suppression of these qualities in favor of better ones. The same is true of civilization.*”
On September 11th, 2017, I overdosed on heroin in a Starbucks parking lot. Between the paramedics and the police, a total of six shots of Narcan were administered to revive me.
image 61
Photo is my own.
I was fined $454.96 which I paid in full the following week. I paid it right away because I knew my probation officer was going to lock me up when I arrived at my appointment at the end of the month.
It’s been documented since my childhood that I have a problem with authority figures. My teachers, the police, my probation officers and every counselor I’ve ever had reminds me of that fact.
The truth is, it feels like they have a problem with me. They go on and on about social norms, the rules, the laws and the consequences of my actions. Ohhh the consequences.
It seems to me that once you’re in the system, they do everything in their power to keep you there.
No slack. No second chances. No excuses.
It pains me to think of all the police contact I’ve had. And it always ended the same.
They. Win.
So I walk into my probation appointment sweating bullets. I knew I was going to county lockup that day so I left my phone, my wallet and my keys with a friend. I walked in with just an identification card. That would make processing me into county jail so much easier.
After signing in to adult probation, my p.o. called me up to the fourth floor.
He handed me a specimen cup, knocked on the bathroom door and walked in with me.
I unzipped, turned towards him and sealed my fate.
After failing the urinalysis, I handed him the above-pictured ticket, along with the receipt (as if that’s gonna change anything) and told him exactly what happened.
He gave me the courtesy and respect to explain that I had a problem. He never interrupted and never actually looked at the ticket.
He handed the still-folded ticket back to me and explained the position that I was putting him in. It was complicated. I had already been to jail, while on probation, three times. Probation already sent me to rehab, twice.
I sat there silently. I already had my turn.
He told me, Mr. Brennan, I don’t want to lock you up but I’m supposed to if you catch any new charges or get a tech.
A tech is a technical violation. The difference between a new charge and a tech is pretty simple.
Rob a bank — new charge — bank robbery.
Late to an appointment, fail a drug test, don’t show up to a counseling appointment or overdose on heroin — no charge — but, I’m violating the agreement I made with the courts for the remainder of my jail sentence to be walked off on the street.Those are called techs.
So it’s really a no-brainer. He has to or is supposed to lock me up for 90 days.
Here’s what he said: Thank you for being honest. That shows me that you respect me. I spoke with the judge a few days ago. He left the decision with regards to your freedom up to me. Because you were honest and told me exactly what happened, I’m going to put you on walk-in-status for the remainder of your probation. If you screw up, you go to jail.
Walk-in-status — Instead of meeting with him once a month, I had to meet him every five days for the remainder of my probation. I couldn’t be late, by even a minute, to any scheduled appointment. I had to take three drug tests a week and pass. I had to attend intensive outpatient therapy and get help.
I agreed to the strict(er) guidelines and walked out that day when I knew for sure I wouldn’t.
Before I left, I thought of something. How could he have talked to the judge before I told him what happened? So I asked.
He told me that when I overdosed, the police put my information into their database. When they did that, he received an email because my Social Security number was tied to his caseload. He knew the day after I was hospitalized what had happened.
After he talked to the judge, he decided that if I was honest I’d go free. If I lied, I wouldn’t.
Not every authority figure is the same. They are people, just like me. Collin (name changed) helped me when I was struggling. I’m still eternally grateful for his help in getting on this path.
Notes: I was reminded a week ago that I’m coming up on 1 year since I last shot heroin. Everyone’s so excited. Except for me. I mourn. I mourn the loss of heroin. I feel like I couldn’t figure out how to be a successful junkie. I feel like I failed at doing what I loved. I feel like I’ve lost my identity and I don’t fit in with anyone. I’ve been quiet because I don’t have anything nice to say. I’m sad and it comes out as anger. I hurt the people I love with words when I’m angry.
Nods: Thank you to B.B., B.G., and my girlfriend for all your help this week. I know I can be a self-centered miserable bitch. I try not to. I’m sad.
I moved to a new state for my husbands career and made fast “friends” with a retired neighbor. I went all in with this friendship. Birthdays, Christmas’s, holidays, I always made sure to bring her food and gifts, and to invite her over to celebrate. She never reciprocated gifts and never came to our house unless other friends and neighbors came over too. I knew she had no extra spending money and is retired, so I didn’t consider that a red flag. I’ve lived next to this woman for 3 summers now. Well, we were just given the company home we live in and I got a new job making great money and now this womans ugly side has been coming out loud and clear. She would always make snide comments about my husband “putting work before me” and just somewhat hateful things, but I always chalked it up to her being a crotchety old lady and I would razz her about it, thinking it was all in good fun! I guess that’s what rose colored glasses can do to someone. Well recently, I went to St Vincent’s to buy some hangers (I have 5 kids so even though we do great financially, I try to be frugal with this economy) and the credit card machine wouldnt work, so I said to the cashier it’s nbd and I’ll come back tomorrow. A lady came up to me and handed me $5 and said here ya go, pay it forward and I was so grateful for that $5, bc of the kindness of this woman and bc I had no cash on me either. I went home and ran into my neighbor and told her what had just happened, and she just looked at me, scoffed, and said, “you look poor, that’s why she gave you the money”. That’s when I realized, nothing I could say or do for this woman would ever make us friends. She helped me realize that most people just make summations of who you are in their eyes to make themselves feel better. I went inside and blocked her landline phone number and her email (the only ways she communicates outside of in person). I also learned, if someone can’t be happy for you for $5, they’ll never be happy for you for anything!
China a nation of 1.4 billion lose less than 5000 lives to Covid-19. The U.S. with a mere 330 million people lose 1.1 million. Lives to Covid!
China used the Covid-19 locked down between 2020–2021 to refreshed their economy from low to middle level technologies to building the biggest ships and jumping from 3rd biggest vehicle’s manufacturer to being the 1st in 2023. During that time China launched its own jet planes, expanded its infrastructure!
The U.S. meanwhile provoked and goaded Russia into a war that it is losing badly now and running out of ammunitions!
China acted decisively and locked down cities and regions. And that stop the worst of early pre vaccination infections by at least hundreds of millions people. It saved their lives. China waited and checked and checked till it became 100% safe to totally let a much weakened strained of the virus to infect everyone and get immune to Covid.
China showed that in the event of pandemic, the Chinese government of socialism with Chinese characteristics is best suited to overcome. Challenges and difficulties. Liberal Democratic type of government simply could not match!
Mid 80’s, only female in a pretty hard core, rough talking oil field sales office. I had only been there for a few months and we were all still getting to know each other. Worth noting, I was kind of foisted on them, hired downtown and sent out to the field office.
My probie self was quiet and hard working with no input into the some what adolescent big men trying to shock me.
I had two kids, both in elementary school.
One morning the school called to advise I needed to come pick up my youngest as he clearly had chicken pox.
I walk into the boss’s office to let him know. He says – much to my amazement – well now, do you want to work or do you want to be a mama?
I couldn’t believe that he said that! 1989 not 1900!!!
My nonprobie real self surfaced. I straightened in my chair, preparing to rise looked him straight in the eye and – let’s just all do what’s right and see where we end up.
That was Thursday, when I returned on Monday no one said anything. I stayed another 8 years.
A wealthy man walked into a bar in Miami. As soon as he entered, he noticed an Afr*ican woman, sitting in one corner. He walked over to the counter, removed his wallet and shouted, “Bartender! I’m buying drinks for everyone in this bar, except that woman over there!”
The bartender collected the money and began serving free drinks to everyone in the bar, except the Afr*ican woman. Instead of becoming upset, the woman simply looked up at the guy and shouted, “Thank you!”
This infuriated the wealthy guy. So once again, he took out his wallet and shouted, “Waiter! This time I am buying bottles of wine and additional food for everyone in this bar, except for that Af*rican sitting in the corner over there!”
The bartender collected the money from the man and began serving free food and wine to everyone in the bar except the African. When the waiter finished serving the food and drinks, the Afri*can woman simply smiled at the man and said, Thank you!”
That made him furious. So he leaned over the counter and asked the bartender, “What is wrong with that woman.. I have bought food and drinks for everyone in this bar except for her, and instead of becoming angry, she just sits there, smiles at me and shouts ‘Thank you.’ Is she mad”
The bartender smiled at the wealthy man and said, “No, she is not mad. She is the OWNER of this establishment.”
May our enemies work unknowingly in our favour…….
Semolina’s Muffaletta Pasta
50f89ddae78ff6df5cee37cadce66354
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
Olive Salad
2 1/2 cups green olives
1 cup black olives
1 cup diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons diced pimiento
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons basil
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
Muffaletta Pasta
1 1/2 ounces ham, cut in sticks
1 1/2 ounces Genoa salami, cut in sticks
1/2 cup olive salad
2 cups cooked penne pasta
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
1/2 cup provolone cheese
Chopped parsley
Instructions
Olive Salad
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
Muffalette Pasta
Sauté the ham and salami in the olive oil until lightly browned.
Add the olive salad and the penne pasta and cook until the pasta is heated through.
Transfer the ingredients to a serving plate and garnish with the remaining ingredients.
New Evidence For The Simulation Hypothesis? Donald Hoffman on The Simulation Argument
I see two great failings. Which one is the “greatest” depends, I suppose, on what day of the week it is, and what the phase of the moon is.
So, in no particular order:
Information by itself almost never changes attitudes. Liberals tend to be policy wonks, living in what Karl Rove sneeringly dismissed as the “reality-based community.” Liberals let facts speak for themselves. Meanwhile, millions of people in this country sincerely, truly, absolutely believe in a conspiracy where Democratic political leaders are running a sex slave ring from the basement of a pizza shop that doesn’t have a basement.
Liberals believe the fact that there is no basement in Comet Ping Pong Pizza means it’s quite clear that there is no child sex traffic ring in the basement of Comet Ping Pong Pizza. Ah HA ha ha ha ha. If only.
In the real world, which liberals claim to believe in, simple observation tells us that people reach conclusions based on emotional impulses, then their rational brains follow along behind. Yet liberalsconsistently, over and over, refuse to acknowledge this; they cling to this weird delusion that if you show someone facts, you’ll change their minds.
Liberals eat their own. To far too many liberals, if you agree with them 98%, you aren’t an ally, you’re 2% enemy. conservatives tend to construct vertical social hierarchies based on submission to recognized authority. Liberals tend to construct horizontal social hierarchies based on ideals of egalitarianism. Liberals clearly hold the moral high ground here, but in functional terms that means if a conservative is told by a recognized authority to vote for a convicted rapist and conman, he will crawl through broken glass to vote for a convicted rapist and con man. If a liberal’s favored candidate said something in 1977 that might possibly be construed as not fully supporting whatever the liberal cause du jour happens to be today, the liberal will reject him utterly.
Any person insufficiently ideologically pure is evil. There can be no disagreement, no nuance, no difference of opinion, oh no; if you don’t agree with me, you are actively evil. It’s about virtue, not governance. There is no room for nuance, no shades of gray, no legitimate disagreement, no complexity; you are 100% with us 100% of the time or you are cast out. Liberals love the way it feels to cast out the wicked and the impure. Picking up the torches and pitchforks feels good. It feels righteous.
One of these leads to better outcomes than the other.
I’m not sure what birdhouse you’re referring to. The number of times I’ve thought about eating a birdhouse is exactly the same number of times I’ve thought about eating a car tire. Which is exactly zero.
Some of my close friends say that I have a habit of overthinking things – and I admit I do – but when it comes to food, I stick to edible things. Why would I eat a birdhouse or a car tire when I can eat some rice / noodles with vegetables and meat?
A thought just occured to me. Are you asking this question because YOU feel like eating a birdhouse and are ashamed that you might be judged for it and thus you busied yourself with concocting this very interesting question instead?
In that case, I would encourage you to go for it. Don’t let shame and guilt stop you from chasing your dreams.
Remember – if you can dream it, you can achieve it, Alexander Plishko !
You know what? Another thing just occured to me, Alexander Plishko. Your inability to see what Chinese are eating could be a result of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). I mean, in your profile picture, you look like you’re in your 60s. At that age, you want to get your eyes checked often. AMD is a disease that affects a person’s central vision – and if left unchecked, can result in severe loss of central vision. I would advise making an appointment with an ophthalmologist – eye issues at your age are no joke and you should get a professional to check out your eyes as soon as conveniently possible.
I’m always serious about my health and will never hesitate to make an appointment with a doctor or specialist if I feel something out of the ordinary going on with my body – if there is really something wrong with your eyes, I would strongly advise you to do the same as well.
Now, given that you may be having some eye problems and thus are probably finding it difficult to make out what you’re seeing, I wouldn’t be surprised if you mistook what you saw some Chinese folks eating for a birdhouse.
Some of my fellow Chinese Quorans have already mentioned bird’s nest soup, but I highly doubt it, given that bird’s nest soup is almost never served in Chinese restaurants that cater to Westerners such as yourself.
I think it is far more likely that you were seeing Chinese patrons digging into a Cantonese dish called 雀巢海中宝 [English: I think “Seafood Nest” is an okay translation, though I have seen some menus refer to it as “Seafood Bird Nest”, which is where your confusion might stem from, given that a bird’s nest can also be thought of as its house, amirite?]
Basically, it’s seafood placed inside a “nest” made from deep-fried julienned taro. The nest is crunchy and edible.
I ate it a few times as a kid, but haven’t eaten it since. But I know that this is one of those old Cantonese dishes that got “exported” to the Anglosphere and became more popular in Anglosphere countries than it ever was back home.
I’m not a fan of this dish – just not a fan of deep-fried anything. But if you’re curious and thinking of giving it a try, then I encourage you to do so, if only so that the experience helps to broaden your culinary horizon.
Went to the ER with symptoms I believed were cardiac in nature. As a nurse, I knew that heart attacks in women do not always present with the classic signs. I was very light headed and short of breath, but no chest pain. All the heart markers were negative. I was feeling pretty good just resting on the stretcher. That was until the doc comes in, pulls the stool up close to me and puts his hand over mine. Oh F$?K, I think. Turns out I had acute leukemia. Boy did things start happening fast! Well, I didn’t get home for 104 days!! Eventually had a stem cell transplant and I’m around 7 years later, telling my story.
In Nigeria, you’ll have to be rich to convince people you’re only walking for the love of it.
Walking is considered poor by many and the distance and pace with which you walk could determine your rank in poverty.
Similar to how some tribes or people consider the obese to be wealthy.
But in a couple of developed countries, I’ve been to, people walk a lot and walks super fast.
To them, walking is not just a means of getting from point A to B; it’s a sign of health-consciousness, a badge of environmental awareness.
I’m currently in Australia and walking is embraced with a sense of pride.
It’s not just about reaching a destination; it’s about embracing the journey, appreciating the environment, and prioritizing personal health.
People stride with purpose, their steps counted and celebrated on the latest smartwatches.
Public transport in these countries further accentuates this cultural divide.
In Nigeria, a day on public transport can feel like a trial by fire, a stark contrast to the efficiency, cleanliness, and reliability of trains, trams, and buses I’ve experienced abroad.
Nigeria, like many underdeveloped and developing countries, carbon footprint is not too big of a deal, yet, and as such, everyone wants to own a car, for comfort and dependability and most of all, for the pride of owning one.
One area I could forgive Nigerians is that our weather could get quite hot and humid most of the year.
Apart from the discomfort; there’s a practical aspect to consider—no one wants to arrive at their destination drenched in sweat. But even for exercise purposes, I don’t see a lot of people doing it.
If I’m not mistaken, walking for the pleasure of it is considered a rich people thing. I mostly see such folks walking about their estates once in a blue moon.
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It’s a sharp contrast to my current situation, where choosing the perfect pair of walking shoes has become some sort of a ritual—a ritual that is non-existent back home.
I chose to give a child up for adoption during a difficult time in my life. I chose a couple who could not have their own due to a tragic illness discovered on their honeymoon. I asked the universe to show me the way, and to give me confirmation that these were her true parents.
I allowed the adoptive mother to share my pregnancy journey. One day I asked her what names was she considering for her baby. Her reply was the confirmation I sought and one of the greatest “coincidences “ of my life.
She answered my question, “ well if it is a boy we will name him Paul and if it is a girl we are going to name her Madeline”. I was stunned because my father is named Paul and my mother is named Madeline.
My daughter Madeline is now 18 years old and starting college in the fall. I’ve not met her but I know her. When she is ready I am here to get to know the woman that she has become. I know that I was simply the vessel from which she was delivered to her true parents. I have NEVER for one second of one minute of one hour of one day of one week of one month of one year doubted that I made the right choice. This was the most fulfilling, selfless act of my life.
UPDATE: Since this post, I met my daughter Madeline just after her 21st birthday. It was so wonderful. She had so many questions only I could answer about her biology, inherited traits. Her mother called after the meeting to tell me that when she left and got into her car that she cried tears of joy because she was so happy to meet me and I helped her understand so many things. She resembles me so much.
The U.S. was the king of the blind in 1945 as the U.S. was the only major nation that was spared from the destruction and collapse caused by the 1st and 2nd world war. So Americans wrongly assumed it is exceptional. It is not. Not even close.
But in 1945 the U.S. economy is closed to 52% of the world’s GDP. Today it is barely 15% in real purchasing power terms! One by one, markets overtook the U.S. competitiveness and today the U.S. barely can sell a thing except from some destructive weapons and that too often coercion.
The U.S. suffers at least triple whammy. One it has a debts of 35 trillion dollars debt fast approaching 200% of the U.S. GDP. The WTO suggest keeping to 60% ceiling, so the U.S. has hit 3 times that! as a comparison China’s debts is just a little over 50% of its GDP, a very healthy level.
Two, the U.S. has one of the lowest propensity to save at less than 5% savings rate while China U.S. the world’s biggest savers at 35%!
Three the U.S. cannot stop spending it has fought 2 dozen wars from 1980 to 2023. China fought zero wars since 1979! While the U.S. spends on unproductive spending, China spends on productive investment on the state of the art infrastructure the U.S. borrows to make and spend on destruction and weapons !
So over time China’s investment will pay handsomely while the U.S. earn only hate and disdain! so the last time a U.S. president had a surplus is Bill Clinton some 25 years ago! A generation of over reach, over interference, and over spending has totally destroyed the U.S. economy and its capacity and capability to ever compete!
It is due to an improved diet with more protein, some fat and careful monitoring of carbohydrates.
If you go online on Chinese social media, you will frequently see younger Chinese women showing photos of their meals. A little meat, lots of vegetables, some fish, and some fruit. Little to no rice.
They also are into yoga and going to the gym.
(This observation is mostly about younger women living in or from tier 1 cities. I am sure that women in other cities are different but I have less contact with them.)
Worse than that, I’m afraid: when you find a solution, you outright reject it, because you’re persuaded that it’s not a solution, or that it’s the solution to the wrong problem(s).
What we’re seeing in the United States isn’t multiple different solutions to the same problem: in reality, what we’re seeing is that both sides of the aisle identify different ‘problems’ and therefore reject any solutions that don’t match exactly what they envision. Let’s use immigration as an example:
Immigration continues to be a ‘problem’ for the United States because it (mind-bogglingly) remains a popular destination for people from Southern American nations, primarily due to the draw of work and consistent wages, as well as being a safer environment than some of the more dangerous nations south of the US-Mexico border. However, this is identified as a ‘problem’ in different ways:
Democrats view immigration as a net positive (largely because it has been proven to be of significant benefit to the economy, particularly with migrant labour filling the gaps in the labour marker that ordinary Americans refuse to – largely due to low wages/benefits offered), but want to ensure that migrants are encouraged to enter through legal means, whilst those trying to enter through illegal means are caught and/or deported quickly.
Republican voters view immigration as a negative because they’re told that Democrats want to make citizens of migrants in order to improve their part of the vote share, and because they’re told that immigrants reduce wages and job opportunities for the average American (which simply isn’t the case). They’re told that the country is being ‘invaded’, and therefore that ‘white Americans’ are soon to be in the minority – something that scares them because they know how they themselves treat those in the minority!
Now, both go about dealing with these concerns in different ways. Democrats believe that we need to tighten up the border in an effective way, but also not to punish those migrants who are actively contributing to the economy.
Republicans seem to prefer more – shall we say inhumane? – methods:
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Or purely ineffectual methods that aren’t really designed to accomplish anything:
Here’s the disconnect: one side wants real solutions but ones that are practical, and suit the actual issues of the United States. You have to be considerate both of immigrants themselves (because they are human beings, oddly enough), but also the impact on the economy: too many migrants might cause economic issues but we also need to factor in the net benefit. Thus, the Democrats craft solutions along the lines of “Let’s allow for those migrants contributing to the economy to continue to do so through legal means”, largely because those individuals a) are coming into the country anyway, and b) are at least showing that they intend to contribute.
As I’ve said many times before, neither side really wants to resolve the ‘problem’, however: Democrats recognise the net benefit to the economy, whereas Republicans are blatantly misrepresenting the issue in the first place, so aren’t engaging with the issue of immigration on legitimate grounds. They want the issue so they can win elections: resolving it wouldn’t win them anything.
That being said, we can see this from the reality: migrant labourers only come into the United States because they know they can find work. If the US Government actively prosecuted American employers who provided those jobs for hiring illegals, that well would dry up fast, and the incentive to enter and live in the US would dry up pretty speedily. No work, no reason to come.
Why does no party use such an approach? Politics. Republicans don’t want to resolve the issue in the first place – they simply want the issue for elections (although it’s always amusing to note the high number of Republicans who employ migrant labourers – even Donald Trump being known to have done so!), and Democrats have a tendency of failing to explain their perspective in a way that catches the attention of the electorate. “We want to make life easier for those already working here” isn’t nearly as “sexy” (politically-speaking) as “Immigrants are coming to replace white people!”, which ends up being how the GOP’s propaganda machine ‘re-frames’ the ‘debate’.
The sad reality: if you can’t fit it onto a bumper sticker, most Americans aren’t going to pay attention long enough to hear the reality. That’s why propaganda works so well in the first place.
So…solutions. You’re not going to get any genuine solutions because neither side can agree honestly about what the issues are, and half the time, they’re misrepresenting the issues in order to muddy any possibility of an effective solution. That’s what corruption looks like, for the record: when politicians actively engage with the electorate in bad faith in order to misrepresent the issues that are important to the nation, in order to encourage them to vote for those who actually won’t solve the issues.
It’s a blatant lie to suggest that the majority of American politicians are actively working to resolve the actual problems facing the American people – in truth, they’re not, particularly with the crop of idiots currently sitting in the House of Representatives. And since nobody can agree on what the problems are (or even how to frame the problem correctly), you’re not going to get solutions. And any time on party comes up with a solution, the other re-frames it as a problem.
We just go round and round in circles, with trillions of dollars spent, and the needle rarely ever moving – which is why the United States is looking more and more dystopian, and why the world’s most powerful superpower is steadily moving towards an existential crisis. You’ll never get solutions until you force the political system to focus on what the actual problems are, and at the moment, the American people are entirely failing in their responsibility to keep politicians focused. You’re letting them tell you what’s important, rather than telling them what is important, and where to focus.
Get a grip, or grab some popcorn and wait for the explosions.
Ben was a radioactive employee and it didn’t take me long to realize it. He was a senior project executive, a big burly brown-haired man, who wore expensive frameless glasses that gave the faux impression of sophistication.
I was a doe-eyed young financial analyst at the large trucking company, which managed more than 10,000 trucks and 200 terminals. We shipped everything from diapers to oil to freon. We had trucks full of furniture and trucks on the edge of icy cliffs. The legal office controlled one corner of the building, dealing with a waterfall of business deals and personal injury claims.
Like many young employees, I was insecure and eager to please. My boss threw me in the deep end early, having me sit in on monthly meetings for my division, taking notes and assessing risks. Everything was by the books. I double checked every process and tried not to step on anyone’s toes or say the wrong thing.
Ben eyed me over during our first meeting without saying anything, and proceeded to direct people and ask questions. Nothing was unusual. But within a few months, he let his guard down and began being himself. The profanity began. The gruff shouting followed. I wrestled with his troubling lack of decorum and wondered if I should expect similar treatment, despite not even reporting to him. His anger and lack of empathy was palpable.
The biggest issue was his mouth. If there was a woman in the meeting, he was a completely different person and was relatively tame. However, most times, it was all men, and he behaved like a wild animal. For example, he randomly said, without any context, “I hate the Japanese because they bombed Pearl Harbor, and I hate the Jews because they killed Jesus.” It was one of those off-color jokes where you sensed he wasn’t really joking at all.
During another incident, a beautiful young female coworker walked by the outside of our meeting room, which was enclosed in glass windows and sandwiched between two hallways. As she walked by, her baby bump was showing and one of the team engineers said, “Oh, is Becky pregnant?”
Ben chimed in and said, in a deep southern drawl, “If she was with me, she’d stay pregnant.” It was this type of stuff that I dealt with over and over.
Perhaps a detractor might say, “OK. But he isn’t saying it to her directly, right?” Or, “He’s just joking, lighten up.” Even conceding that, it was still wildly unprofessional — to put it lightly. He didn’t set the best example and there was already a major cultural problem at the office.
My main frustration was that we couldn’t just have a meeting. There was always some distraction, be it comments or irreverence. I can’t even repeat many of the things that were said. To some extent, you expect a bit of roughness around the edges at a trucking company. Truckers aren’t known for their filters. But this was a nice, high end office, not a remote terminal near an oil field.
How his issues became more pronounced
Ben’s biggest career-threat wasn’t with his mouth, though that alone could have gotten him fired in many places. His biggest issues were interpersonal. He was an unreasonably difficult boss, in a Donald Trumpian way, who dropped the hammer too swiftly and too hard. He asked his subordinates incredibly specific questions about projects that were unrealistic to know. Then, he’d flip out on them in front of us all and make an example out of them. It felt like he was periodically reminding everyone of his authority.
I never saw Ben smile unless his own superiors were in our presence, and it was that switch that made my stomach turn. He’d spark a big smile and pretend everything was great, only to switch back to Dark Ben the moment his boss left.
And then one week, something changed. I’d just arrived that morning, and was weaving through the huge grid of cubicles, and saw Ben across the room talking to a coworker. Ben suddenly saw me and waved with a smile, “Hey Sean! How are you?” I looked his way, and held a stiff hand up as a wave but was perplexed.
“Did he finally see a therapist?” I wondered. He never smiled or greeted anyone. Then, all day, and through the week, he was extraordinarily kind to everyone — but it wasn’t out of charity. What actually happened, was that one of Ben’s subordinates, a fresh college grad who Ben had ridden like an exhausted pony, finally had enough and went to the CEO himself to complain.
It wasn’t the first complaint about Ben. The CEO pulled Ben into his office and, allegedly, gave him a stern talking to and scared him straight. Or you would have thought. Because within a few weeks, his facade of kindness started fading and he went back to his regular self: irritable, vulgar, and impossible to work around. He had the highest number of interdepartmental transfers of any manager and it wasn’t a coincidence.
Perhaps the most troubling part is that all these years later, Ben still works there. You might wonder, how could a company look past so many glaring issues that they knew about?
In my MBA program, our business professor, Dr. Fred Sturdivant, proposed an important philosophical question: “What do you do with a high performing jerk?” Generally, most people are quick to say they’d get rid of them. It is the moral, right thing to do and seems like a no-brainer, right?
Yet, in my years in corporate, it didn’t happen nearly as often as leaders would profess. When someone is great at their core competencies, in a way that is hard to replace, they tend to get enormous leeway. One former employer even had the mantra, “Performance begets privilege.” It’s no different than the problematic star athlete on a team. Coaches (and fans) will look past enormous character flaws, including violent legal trouble, all because of what the athlete does for them.
And this was the central challenge with Ben: He was fantastic at his job. His division was extremely profitable. He’d grown up in the trucking industry, and was trained on it from an early age. He was, and it pains me to say this, very intelligent when it came to the business.
Anyone who has managed people knows that, after dealing with a few underperformers, you learn to value your stars. All of that aside, I believe Ben caused enormous damage to the company’s culture and employee morale. After all of the interpersonal problems he created, I question how beneficial he actually was to the bottom line.
I learned from my father, who was a military leader, that no matter how far you rise in an organization, you should always retain your humility, and treat the janitor with the same respect you’d show to the CEO. Status should not create a personality filter. If leaders are flipping personalities like Ben does, it doesn’t promote a culture of mutual respect.
And if you are leader reading this right now, please have more discipline than our CEO had. Hold your managers accountable to conduct themselves like adults, and treat their workers like human beings. Leadership starts at the top, but is reflected at the bottom.
I picked up a young woman hitchhiking to Houston from San Antonio. She said her boyfriend kicked her out. She was going to her Mother’s house. She was noticeably upset. I stopped to get gas and bought her a cheeseburger and a milk shake. She said she hadn’t eaten since the day before. I drove her straight to her Mother’s house and handed her my phone and told her to call her Mother to make sure she is home. She called, her Mother had gone to get some groceries and she got back in a few minutes. We waited in the driveway. She and her Mother thanked me and invited me to stay for dinner, which I did. It was a chance meeting. I was nice to them and they were nice to me, no scams or any extra drama.
Letter in Tibetan from a monk to a government official to ask for blood, newly excoriated human skin for a ceremony to celebrate Dalai Lamas birthday. In the religion they believe that the dirtiest thing can purify the soul.
”Rab Ge:”
A Buddhist ceremony will be held here. We need meat, hearts, and blood from all kind of animals 4 human heads, intestines, pure blood, turbid blood, earth from ruins, the menstrual blood of a widow, the blood of a leper, water from beneath the surface of the earth, earth raised in a whirlwind, brambles growing towards the north, excrement of both dog and man and the boots of a butcher. All these should be sent to Tsechykhang on the 27th.
Tsechykhang , the 19th”
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Hands with arms cuts off as a punishment
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Homeless beggers in old Tibet.
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A serf whos eyes and hands cuts out
Was old Tibet a cruel serfdom (slavery) sociaty? Judge for your self. Do not believe me, just read the travel diaries and other documents from old Tibet by western adventurers.
In 2021, 215.37 kg of cocaine was found in 100,000 tons of soybeans exported from the United States to Qingdao port China. The next year, Shanghai Customs found the same thing. US Customs are wooden men，right?
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Entrainment of pests such as flies and mosquitoes in export goods (carefully packed with culture tubes).Intercepted by customs again and again.Everyone knows your purpose.
I’m too lazy to talk about you, you should be more sensible！
There is only one native caucasian* ethnic group in China: the Chinese Tajiks.
They are an Iranian-speaking ethnic group living in the Pamir Mountains in the extreme West of China. Most of them practice Ismail Shi’a Islam, but they are very secular. They don’t practice Ramadan. Many are also non-religious. There are still some Zoroastrian elements in their culture.
Pamiris (Chinese Tajiks):
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The ethnic group with the darkest skin color is probably the Wa. They live in the SW Yunnan Province and speak an Austroasiatic language. Traditionally they follow Theravada Buddhism or Animism, but there are also Christians since the 19th century.
Chinese Wa:
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*Note: I do not use the word ‘white’ here, because the notion of whiteness is a Western social construct. By Caucasian, I mean that these people have physical traits that would make them be categorized as Caucasian by a 19th century European anthropologist. They have nothing to do with being white as a race.
I am a retired Audiologist. About 15 years ago I was working in a practice in an upscale neighborhood. One patient, a well-known actor, came in for a hearing test. I was asking the usual history questions and he gave me the “Do you know who I am?” bit. I didn’t care for him to start with, but when you think you’re better than me just because your face has been on screen, you can jump in a lake. I’ll put my three Master’s degrees and one Cinical Doctorate up against your Academy Award nomination any day of the week. You may have entertained millions, but I helped people HEAR again!
Police in Australia got the shock of their lives when they busted a Meth lab in Sydney. They were expecting to find drugs and money and drug-making material, instead they came face to face with a 6-foot-long-meth-addicted python showing clear signs of withdrawal and acting very aggressively toward the officers.
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It’s believed the snake became addicted to the drugs when the fumes from the cooking of the meth were absorbed through its skin.
The snake was captured and sent to a rehab centre run by inmates at a correction centre.
It took seven months for the snake to return to normal under the care of 14 inmates who were selected to work the wildlife programme.
I worked for him for eight years in the 1990s, and Microsoft employees were privy to the company’s charity efforts in a way that the public was not. And Microsoft gave many millions to worthwhile causes under Gates’ leadership.
He also forced Microsoft’s insurance carriers to have same-sex domestic partners insured as “family” — a decade before other large companies were having that conversation.
The worst I can say about him is that he’s a technocrat, with a lot of technocrat blind spots. But he’s smarter than any-three regular geniuses put together, with a sometimes-frightening ability to synthesize information from different directions and perceive the hidden correspondences and implications, then devising a workable action-plan.
His work in the area of vaccines has been to fund the development of cost-effective treatments for what in public health are termed “Neglected Tropical Diseases.” They are neglected because there is literally no money in developing pharmaceuticals for them — they’re diseases of impoverished brown people in sh*t-hole countries — but Gates did his homework and decided that the most cost-effective intervention to lift those countries out of poverty was public-health measures like vaccination — so he is funding that himself. He also funded the development of a <$200 composting toilet for areas where water is precious.
So he’s not evil. He can be abrupt and abrasive, and does not suffer fools gladly. He’s not Batman, but at least he’s doing something useful with his wealth and he isn’t a Bezos, a Musk, or a Zuckerberg either.
Restaurant August BLT (Buster Crab, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich)
A fried soft-shell crab served open-face over toasted brioche and dressed with fresh vegetables.
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Yield: 1 sandwich
Ingredients
1 Louisiana soft shell crab, dressed
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup seasoned all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup mixed red, yellow and green grape tomatoes, peeled
1 dash 25 year old balsamic vinegar
1 pinch minced chive
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 slice brioche or challah, toasted
2 teaspoons favorite aioli
1 pinch micro greens
1 pinch lettuce sprouts
Salt and pepper to taste
Chive oil for garnish
Beet juice for garnish
Instructions
In a sauté pan, heat the canola oil over a medium-high heat.
Season the buster crab with salt and pepper. Toss into a mixture of seasoned flour and cornmeal. Place the crab into hot canola oil and allow to cook for 1 minute on each side.
Season the tomatoes with salt, pepper, vinegar, chives, and olive oil. Place the tomatoes over a well-toasted brioche and place into a serving plate.
After cooking the buster crab, remove and allow it to drain over some absorbent towels for a moment. Place the crab over the tomatoes and top it with a dollop of aioli, which you in turn cover with a pinch of micro greens and lettuce sprouts.
To serve, garnish the plate with additional chopped chives, chive oil and beet juice.
Filled with patriotic pride I can say with entire conviction and without a shadow of a doubt that this is the Netherlands!!!
Dutch traditional cuisine consists in potatoes cooked to dead and some other stuff all mashed and with some dark fluid called “jus” [ʒy].
The more modern Dutch cuisine consists in versions of Suriname, Asian or Turkish food mingled and massacred until any similarity with the real thing is pure coincidence and lacking any sort of taste.
Dutch cannot cook, except the few of us who have the fortune of some foreign ancestry or ascend. Our ancestral culinary arts consisted, as I already commented, in mashing stuff or making pancakes. Our modern cuisine consists in opening a package of some dull stuff and pouring it in cooking water. Or just call the pizza guy directly.
And what to say about the Crown Jewels of Dutch food: FEBO :
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Or our latest 100% Dutch culinary revolution: The Kapsalon (Literally, the barber shop). It’s basically shoarma meat (there’s a vegan option too!), fries, some lettuce and cheap Gouda cheese with some suspicious looking sauce all literally thrown together in a big tinfoil container. It was invented by a guy who went to a barber shop and used to order shoarma and fries from a nearby Döner Kebab, out of convenience he asked to have it all put in the same tray and this is how it was born. This is not a joke, this is the real history behind it.
And you just don’t want to know what my landspeople can make out of any international dish. Really not, you would get nightmares.
But as the Belgians say: “What do you expect from a bunch of kaaskoppen (1) that drink Pils from plastic cups”
A Chinese private company became the first in the world to launch satellites with rockets fuelled by methane and liquid oxygen on Saturday, beating SpaceX to the technology and raising hopes for its commercial applications.
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Rail Gun
Chinese Navy’s rail guns can fire 120 rounds of shells that move at a staggering speed of 7200 km/hr. They can hit targets 200 km away. No defense system can stop them!
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thorium-based molten salt nuclear power plant
The world’s first thorium-based molten salt nuclear power plant in operational in China.
Because the political ecological system is different.
For example, I come to realize why Americans are so zealous about voting and making speeches (“democracy” and “free speech”) in recent years: If you do not speak for yourself, defending your interest, then those what should be yours would be taken away by other people—legally—in American political game.
But Chinese government is a parental government in my eyes, or, authoritarian government according to Western standard.
Let’s compare what are the differences between the Chinese and Amercican government
In the end of 2022, a major snow storm hit America, some mayors told their people not to rely on the government
But in China, while the storm was still raging, government organized workers to fix the electric tower. P.S., in China, water, power and gas are controlled by government, they are run by companies, but the biggest share holder must be government.
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Communist party members were organized as volunteers to clear the snow and ice on roads
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Therefore, I conclude the difference between the two countries as:
In America, government only provides minimum services to people, making policies on behalf of its supporters and ignore the others.
In China, government provides overall services to all people, making policies benifits all (if not, then compensation must be count in), and no one is behind.
Another proof supporting my conclusion is, there were over 1800 government officials of different ranks died on their post from 2015–2022. Why? Because China launched “eradicate poverty campaign” during this period, officials were assigned to most remote, most poor, most underdeveloped areas, helping local people overcome poverty. The 1800+ died were died of over exhausted, or traffic accidents in the mountains, or flood when rescuing people. (That’s why Chinese people don’t believe in Xinjiang fake news, on one hand, Xinjiang received 5–6 times higher subsides and government investments than Eastern provinces, on the other hand, “genocide”?? What’s the meaning of doing so?)
So, when you have a government that’s dedicated to serve the people, what’s the meaning of opposition?
“I oppose the government serving me”?
Here I’d like to rectify a wrong perception that many Qurans have: Chinese government controls all media.
It’s not.
China-haters, West-lickers, foreign proxies, traitors can be found on every media.e
This lady worked for Chinese Central TV as host and journalist, with huge influence among people, had left CCTV after she found she’s not popular among people. Because her ideology is pro-West and think China should be the second class citizen in the world.
You may found there are numerous unfriendly, stupid or even hostile questions about China here on Quora, but I tell you, such things are rather stink on Chinese social media. Compare to those platforms in China, Quora seems to be very friendly…
The meaning of government controlled media is to provide the last and undoubtable information, to clarify the discussion and calm down the quarreling among people.
You can debate, you can quarrel, you can conduct personal attacks, but, once the government controlled media provided the most creditable information, all these vanishes.
So, no matter the policial ecosystem or media ecosystem, China and America are different.
WHY DID GOD PUT A CAT IN YOUR LIFE? || The Spiritual Connection of CATS
When I was a young boy, perhaps in second grade, we lived in Monroe , CT. It was a housing development that was being carved out of the forests, and was very nice. We only lived there for a year or so, before my father was transferred to Pittsburgh. We sold the place. Bad move, as the house ended up being worth millions of dollars.
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Anyways, at that time in my life, I loved roaming the woods. All 7 years old, and it was a big part of my childhood.
I would often go into the homes being constructed with wire cutters and rip out the wiring and electronics for fun. Oh, that is, until my father had a talk with a building contractor. LOL.
But, you know what?
Yeah, what I most remember about that time was spending all day hiking and exploring, and then coming home to a nice big “sit down” dinner. These were often improved upon as I got older, but at that time, my mother was just getting into her “stride” and it was simple but delicious fare.
Meatloaf, roasts, soups, chicken, and the like. All very delicious and filling.
Instant Pot Spaghetti 1
One of my fondest memories was the meat-laden spaghetti, with plain “wonder bread” on the side, and a nice large salad. Other popular meals consisted of pork chutney over rice, and submarine sandwich meals.
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But it’s the spaghetti that I miss the most.
one pot spaghetti and meat sauce image 9
I used to take the bread, and butter both sides. Then, I would spoon the spaghetti into the bread, making a fine thick sandwich. Oh, I was so simple and silly then.
I guess the MM audiences would go “ohhh yuck” at this story. But for me, nah. it’s good memories and good times.
I was a young, recently divorced, single mother of a 3 year old and one Christmas my grandmother gave me a HUGE box to open. In that box I found a little bit of everything! It had paper towels. Toilet paper, cleaning supplies, canned goods and many other items that you may want or need for your home and pantry! I was so grateful as it is pretty costly when you run out of everything especially all at the same time and because my Grandmother had no money she said she added everything a little at a time all throughout the year in order to help me the best way she could. My Grandmother was the sweetest, kindest Lady you’d ever know. I loved her with my whole heart!
I made $7.50 per hour for 3 years before I got a sweet .50 raise that catapulted me no where.
And I only got that because the lady was guilted into it.
I was told, as most people are, if you work hard and prove yourself, you will make more in time. Well that never really happened.
When I first started I just answered phones and worked the register. Then I got my vehicle inspectors license and begin inspecting vehicles. And answering phones and the register.
The business was a window tinting business, primarily, and they tinted vehicles, homes and commercial buildings. Soon I was prepping jobs for tint and doing bids for residential and commercial jobs. And doing well, I might add!
Then helping with the books. Opening, closing, picking up and dropping off customers. Driving out of town to pick up materials. And finally tinting commercial windows.
And I worked, often 80 hours per week. For $8 per hour. Which is a problem because at a certain point, over time starts to hurt. The extra would be taken out in taxes and the effort is not worth it.
Let me also mention that I didn’t have a car and used a company truck for company business but my commute to and from work everyday was just over 3 hours. I woke up at 4 to be there at 8:30. (Hitchhiked, rode 2 buses and walked…both ways…yep)
When I inquired about a raise she kept putting me off. She’d think about it. Couldn’t afford it, etc. Finally she said to me…
”It’s not like you need more money. It’s not like you have a family to take care of, house or car. It’s not like you have any bills.”
I will never ever, forget that. Ever.
Apparently it never occurred to her that I didn’t have any of those things because I was poor. And it was totally ok with her if I never had anything because it benefitted her.
And I had other issues with the place like rarely getting a day off and it would be the end of the world if I took a break at work because only smokers are allowed breaks. Twenty breaks, a hundred, doesn’t matter, because you need those cigarette breaks!
“If you don’t like it, then go work somewhere else.”
When she told me that.
I quit.
She was so certain I would come back because I had no prospects. Two weeks later, a friend told me she was looking for me, she wanted me to come back.
Why, you might ask??
Because she can’t find any decent help (read: people who’ll work for nothing!). And she wanted me to come back for…
Wait for it…
$8.50!!
See, I needed to understand that she could not afford more than that.
I told her. “No thanks.”
Then she called me selfish. She was struggling to find help and I didn’t care. Selfish!!
She ended up having to hire 4 other people. And for the next 5 years she contacted me off and on to try to get me to come back.
“Ok, how about $9! Be reasonable!!”
So on and so forth until she got to $12 over time.
I can’t honestly say I was irreplaceable. I can say that she needed a lot more help after I left. I can also say the business did not exist the fifth year after I’d gone.
I learned a very important lesson working for her. I needed to look out for myself. Work hard but only stay so long, based on the rate, frequency and size of raises. And all the while, always keep my ear to the ground for other opportunities.
I need to look out for me with the same ferocity the companies look out for their own interests.
In 100 years 5% of those who use the U.S. dollar will remember how it look. And 15% of the nations who bought weapons in 2023 will still use weapons from the U.S. still! In 100 years US economy will be lying at best a distant 3rd behind China and India by a very long way. China will be roughly 5–6 times the U.S. size and even India will be close to double that of the USA!
The G7 at best is a fifth the size on BRiCS economy. The U.S. will be broken up into some 3–4 nations. And Democrats and Republicans are close to the full scale or outright U.S. civil war 2.0 in 2123! The U.S. and some 4–5 die hard dogs like UK, Australia and Canada will meet and still talk shit. But no one bother, no one even listen.
China has made the world 10 times more prosperous and 20 times more peaceful by then. Talking about the U.S. in 2123 is like talking about the former Yugoslavia today. By 2023 the U.S. would have long collapse and implode it’s economy and a full scale fight between Democrats and Republicans and also between the whites and coloured and also between the rich and poor has destroyed the so call liberal democracy.
In 100 years, China is selling moon and space tourism, become the leader in autonomous vehicles, supersonic planes, biggest ports and airports world wide. China will be in the business of hypersonic weapons, quantum computers. Artificial intelligence, Bio technology and nuclear technologies. A far cry from selling cheap T-shirts and plastic toys in 1980! By 2123. China has built an alternative Panama and Suez Canal 5 times its size! And a bridge to cross Russia to Alaska!
BRICS by that time consist of 50 nations. And gets supports from 190 out of 200 nations. Meanwhile as many as 10 million are living in tents homeless in the U.S. suburbs. Random mass shootings incidents happened at least 50 times a day in the U.S. killing roughly 100 people a day in the U.S. Confederate flag flies more widely than the Stars and Stripes in the U.S. in 2123.
China has just given warnings on visiting certain parts of the USA no different from the warnings of visiting Ethiopia or Yemen in 2000. That is what is likely happening in 2123 a hundred years from now. But the U.S. still scream liberal democracy like a 80 years old lone hippie!
My husband and I are avid cruisers, which means food, food, and more food. That being said, I typically eat what I choose, save the occasional pick of something that is just not good. I usually eat breakfast alone, as he is still sleeping, and I sit and people watch in the buffet. My breakfast is always the same: oatmeal with fruit, some scrambled eggs, and a couple of pieces of ham or Canadian bacon. The same as I eat at home, essentially. I get to witness the Sodom and Gommorah of food sin every day on a cruise, especially at breakfast. Football sized mounds of food get piled on a plate, and a lot of it is eaten. But it pains me to see a muffin with one bite. A bowl of cereal that had one bite, uneaten food galore. Yes, we pay for the food in our cruise fare, but it is as though we have no conscience when it comes to waste. We often stop in Haiti at the cruise line’s resort, and they prepare a barbeque style lunch there. What many don’t know is that the leftovers are given to the locals, and I have watched them pick a piece of discarded watermelon off of the ground and brush off the sand to eat. While people are tossing full plates of food into the trash, these people are desperate for our scraps.
Food waste bothers me. For the farmer that took the time to sow the crops. For the cow kept pregnant to provide milk. For the pig slaughtered to provide us with ribs and bacon. For the countless hours spent preparing the food. We don’t honor what we have. We assume it is there because most of us have not had to go without. I am lucky, I always had a meal to eat, and I don’t waste food. I eat leftovers until they are gone, I cut my own fruit so that I can get the most out of the rind, and I toss produce scraps out for the deer and groundhogs that frequent my backyard.
We don’t appreciate the food we have. That is the sin.
The future of American women
Cajun Chicken Club Sandwich
2023 11 11 20 23
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan salad dressing
4 hoagie rolls, split and toasted
8 slices tomato
8 strips bacon, cooked
Instructions
Pound the chicken to 3/8-inch thickness; sprinkle with Cajun seasoning.
In a large skillet, cook the chicken in oil for 5 minutes on each side or until no longer pink.
Place one slice cheese over each chicken piece.
Remove from the heat; cover and let stand for 1 minute or until cheese begins to melt.
Spread dressing over cut sides of rolls.
Place two slices of tomato on bottom of bun, top with chicken and two strips of bacon.
Serve with crispy fries or potato salad on the side.
When I was married to my exhusband, I got a ‘‘bee in my bonnet’ that I wanted to learn how to sew. I’d never sewed a day in my life. So we went to different places, looking at machines. Hubs was a ‘research on Consumer Reports’ kinda guy. He didn’t want to buy something that would fall apart. Who knows though, honestly, if I would suck at this?! I’m not sure if he looked at it that way. He just wanted to get me something good.
So, we kind of narrowed it down to a couple, and tbh, they were ridiculously nice. One was a Singer, the other I don’t remember but it was pricey I think like $800 in like 1990. Crazy, for just wanting to try something. It was going to be a ““surprise” for Christmas… but I sneaked a look in his wallet one night (I KNOW, bad wifey) and saw he bought the $800 wonder. I was SOOO excited!!
Christmas morning comes.
I’m still very excited, because this IS an awesome gift. Knowing did not diminish my excitement. I opened up the wrapping, and inside, it was a different machine.
Tears rolled down my face and I couldn’t speak. The $800 wonder wasn’t there. Apparently, he had exchanged it. For an upgraded, fancy $1100. Wonder.
It was amazing. It did embroidery, a zillion stitches. It was a very high quality name I can’t spell 😂 Husqvarna? But wait, there’s more. There’s another box. Inside that box was a 5 thread Serger, a BabyLoc. I had everything I needed to be successful.
I sewed my butt off for years.
But I’ll never forget that feeling of ““I want to give you the moon” that he gave me that Christmas. That was epic.❤️
If the controls are successful, they could handicap China for a generation; if they fail, they may backfire spectacularly, hastening the very future the United States is trying desperately to avoid. Alex W. Palmer, NYT.
The Chinese cannot understand why we fight with “Fists of Seven Injuries” (七伤拳), inflicting as much harm on ourselves as on our target. The sanctions hit our high-tech companies hard, as they lose not only their biggest market, but also important partners in their supply chain. Qualcomm’s profits fell 23%. Samsung’s dropped 95% . Louise Low. Face-off on the Grand Chessboard.
The year of living vulnerably: 2015
By 2015, when President Xi warned of China’s vulnerability to a chip embargo his team, led by the redoubtable Liu He, had spent two years preparing to create an indigenous chip industry. By 2022, the first fabs were producing commodity chips in high volumes at low cost and China spent $300 billion importing high-end chips.
The first breakthrough came when Huawei quietly released its 7 nm. Kirin 9000 chipsets, and its Mate 60 phone sales quickly surpassed Apple’s – as they were doing when the US embargoed Huawei. While the Kirin CPU was a remarkable achievement, professionals were more impressed by Huawei’s indigenous communications chips, like cellular modems, previously a Qualcomm semi-monopoly.
Three months later, YMTC shipped its 232-layer 3D TLC NAND memory chips. Their huge capacity and speedy 12 GB/s I/O make bleeding-edge drives possible.
But the sexiest market right now is insulated gate bipolar transistors, IGBTs. They’re the CPU ‘brains’ that conduct the orchestra of sensors and inputs and reduce EVs’ power loss and improve reliability. They’re expensive: 7% – 10% of an EVs’ final cost. Back in 2020, BYD supplied IGBTs for 20% of Chinese EVs’ and Infineon supplied 58%. The IGBT market has grown from $5.27 billion then to $8.42 billion this year and expects CAGR of 15.7% for some years.
There’s also money to be made in less sexy chips, like microcontrollers, says TP Huang. “Has anyone heard of Zhixin’s chips? You’ll find SMIC’s 40nm auto grade processor in Zhixin’s MCU microcontroller – domestically designed, fabbed and packaged entirely in China. This has huge implications for STMicro, Texas Instruments, Infineon and TSMC. Few automotive applications will ever need processes beyond 28 or 40nm, which is SMIC’s mass production sweet spot. Why wouldn’t Chinese automakers buy domestically? I bet Wall Street analysts covering TI have never looked into new Chinese competitors and considered what that entails. SMIC will be a monster soon enough”.
I was strung out for about 4 years from shooting up dope. After losing almost everything, I finally snapped out of it. It took, however, losing friends, my career, my therapist, my car, my motorcycle, my musical equipment, my instruments, my tools, my electricity, my water, all my savings which was in the tens of thousands, my sanity, almost my freedom, almost my life, and almost my house. I’m still in danger of losing it bc of unpaid property taxes of 3 years now going on 4. So when I was about 2–3 months sober, I had a friend drive me to Little Caesars to see if they were hiring. The manager was there. I asked. She said yes. Then she asked if I had manager experience. I said no…but I kinda did. I just wasn’t prepared for that gig being that I’m just barely out of a horrific addiction. She asked if I had an ID and a bank account for direct deposit. I said yes to the ID but no to bank account. She told me where I can get one at that moment and as soon as I get it to come back and I can begin to fill out the paperwork. Within 30 mins I was hired & started to fill out the necessary forms for employment. This was at the end of January this year and I’m still there and I’m sober.
I know this is a long story for such a question. My reason for including the other info is strictly for those that are currently where I was at when this happened. If this can help one person snap out of it then I will feel like I did a tremendous good for not just that one person but the world. Drug addiction affects way more than the drug addict. If you’re struggling, don’t give up. Be strong. It may take one time to quit or many times. Just don’t give up on yourself. I now have electricity and water and trash service. My house is still a wreck but it’s come a long way. I rode my bike to and from work which was 8 miles there and 8 miles back. But now I have a vehicle. I’m 6 feet tall and at the height of my addiction I weighed about 155lbs. Now I weigh a plump 210lbs. With time, that will change bc I want to be physically healthy. I am, w/o a doubt, physically healthier now than I was when I was using. And I prefer this to that any day. So if you’re reading this, you have to be strong and committed to this change no matter how tough it gets. It’ll get better. There’ll be shit days but it’ll pass. Keep going. We are made of sterner stuff. We’ve been through hell but now we are returning. And don’t think of it as starting over. You’re continuing your journey w a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. You may have lost everything but you’re not starting over. I wish you luck and lots of love. You’re not alone. I know that feeling of loneliness and despair. I felt lonely all throughout my journey through hell. But I wasn’t. You aren’t. If you need someone to vent w, message me. I’ll listen. I will not judge. If not me, reach out to someone. Anyone. And if you get rejected, fuck them. Move on. Don’t let that deter you. Look at me. I’m still here and am getting better everyday. Sure, we are all different but, in many ways, we are the same. We fuck up, and to fuck up is human.
One more thing: don’t beat yourself up if you quit and then go back to using again. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. Just don’t let that stop you from quitting again. I have days when I feel so weak. I miss it so much. Coupled w the overwhelming feeling of how far I have to go to get back to where I was before my downfall, it feels hopeless. These moments test me, and I’ve come so close to shooting up again but I haven’t. I hope I don’t. In my journey, I always feel so glad I didn’t give in. Those feelings will wash away but they’ll be back again like waves in the ocean. You just stay afloat. It’ll pass and you’ll admire yourself for not giving in after it flows away. You’ll be proud of how strong you are becoming.
Anyway, there are my 2 cents.
Love yourself.
Love those around you.
Don’t be afraid to say it.
Don’t be afraid to show it.
Amp It The Fuck Up!!!
Antony Blinken Wrecked By Protesters In Congress
Great episode, Lee. Your humor is top dog here.
China and the Chip Wars: a Battle It Cannot Afford to Lose
The race for supremacy in the semiconductor industry is about much more than just technological dominance. It is about shaping the future of civilization.
image 148
“Can China ace the chip wars?” This was the central question that framed my talk at the Future of Finance China Forum held in Beijing on July 28. The forum, run by The Asian Banker, served as a critical platform for thought leaders amid the unpredictable economic and financial landscape of 2023.
While these wide-ranging discussions were informative, my focus was squarely on the place and potential of China in the semiconductor industry. Instead of merely asking if China can win the chip wars, it’s more insightful to consider whether China can afford not to. This reframing provides a sharper understanding of the stakes for China’s economy and its global standing in the semiconductor industry.
Current situation
“Valuation extravaganza” is a phrase I use to describe the surging market caps of companies like Nvidia and AMD. The remarkable value growth of these companies has raised eyebrows and led to questions about whether we’re witnessing a semiconductor bubble. However, the rational ubiquity of semiconductors, essential to various sectors, might justify these high valuations.
In 2021, over 1.1 trillion chips were shipped worldwide, finding their way into everything from cars and consumer electronics to industrial applications. Semiconductors, quietly yet crucially, have become a part of nearly every aspect of modern life. According to a recent survey of industry executives, the industry’s future direction is being steered by emerging sectors like the metaverse, sustainability, mobility, and digital health – each calling for unique semiconductor capabilities.
This importance of semiconductors is reflected in the market’s response. Nvidia’s stock price tripled last year raising its valuation to more than $1 trillion with a Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratio over 240. AMD’s stock price has also doubled, its P/E ratio almost reaching 500. This valuation growth is partly due to the robust demand for semiconductors, with the global market projected to grow to $1.8 trillion by 2032.
Even with the current chip shortage, some industry observers argue that these high valuations are justified. They view the long-term growth prospects for the industry as strong and believe these valuations are based on the expectation of persistent semiconductor demand.
Despite short-term disruptions like the global chip shortage, the long-term outlook for the semiconductor industry remains bright. Semiconductors play an integral role in the global economy, and their importance will continue to grow in the future, shaping our tech-driven world in ways we’re only beginning to understand.
image 147
Future growth
We must also consider the potential drivers of future chip demand, taking into account the radical changes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) may bring. A compelling perspective on this comes from Sam Altman, a prominent figure in the tech industry and CEO of OpenAI, in his manifesto “Moore’s Law for Everything”.
Altman applies the principle of Moore’s Law, which traditionally refers to the exponential growth in computing power, to a broader societal context, predicting a future where rapid growth permeates all facets of our lives and economy. Coined by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore, the law originally observed that the number of transistors on a microchip double roughly every 18 months. Altman, however, envisions its implications beyond the realm of computing power.
This broader interpretation anticipates an era of abundance, where the ubiquitous adoption of AI causes a steep drop in labor costs that fundamentally transforms society. Altman posits that as automation replaces human tasks from plumbing to R&D, labor costs will plunge, leading to significantly cheaper goods and services. The cost of the essential inputs shifts from labor and raw materials to data, driving prices towards zero and marking the advent of an era of profound abundance.
But abundance here isn’t just about an increase in available goods and services. It’s also about equalizing access to these resources, democratizing what was once the exclusive privilege of the affluent. High-quality healthcare, education, travel experiences, and even a secure standard of living—Altman’s vision suggests these will be accessible to far more people, with the cost of a “great life” approaching zero.
At the core of this transformation is AI, its learning and decision-making abilities propelling us towards this era of abundance. Yet, the manifestation of this AI-driven prosperity depends heavily on a robust, efficient, and advanced computational infrastructure— semiconductors or chips. Semiconductors are the foundation of our digital world, powering everything from personal devices to advanced machinery.
The complexity and scale of AI necessitate more advanced and efficient semiconductors. The AI algorithms promising this era of abundance require enormous computational power to process large volumes of data and make complex calculations. The task of providing this computational power depends on a wide range of semiconductors.
The abundance that Altman predicts will not only be driven by AI but will also critically hinge on the availability and advancement of semiconductors. In the coming era of AI-driven abundance, those countries and companies that can ensure a stable supply of chips will hold the upper hand. Thus, as China strategizes to win the chip wars, the stakes become clear—it’s not just about surviving but thriving in this world of unlimited abundance.
image 146
Domestic politics and geopolitics
In the global context of the race for technological supremacy, the semiconductor industry is emerging as a key battleground. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), with its potential to usher in an era of unprecedented abundance and revolutionize labor economics, amplifies the national security implications of the semiconductor industry. Indeed, the ‘resilient redesign’ of the global supply chain is becoming an essential facet of national strategies to ensure sustained success in this critical sector.
The complex web of today’s supply chain, spanning continents and countless entities, is inherently vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and pressures. The need for countries to develop resilient domestic capacities is becoming increasingly clear. Governments worldwide are already showing a keen interest in the sector’s growth and security, a trend that is set to heighten as strategic reorientations, regulatory shifts, and a heightened focus on security come into play. The semiconductor industry is becoming a significant geopolitical flashpoint, a field of intense competition for technological dominance.
In the context of China’s domestic politics, this resonates profoundly with President Xi Jinping’s vision of ‘common prosperity’. The potential abundance enabled by AI could pave the way for realizing this vision, democratizing access to what is currently available only to the affluent and creating a more equal society. The era of abundance that Sam Altman envisions could, in fact, help manifest President Xi’s aspiration for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In this light, China’s broad conception of national security – which encompasses not only traditional military aspects but also economic and even cultural security – becomes particularly relevant. The advancements in AI, underpinned by the semiconductor industry, will be vital for maintaining and enhancing China’s national security in this broad sense.
Therefore, China cannot afford to lose the ‘chip war’. The stakes are beyond high – economic vitality, technological advancement, geopolitical influence and even the future of the human race. The semiconductor industry is not just another industry; it is a cornerstone upon which human civilization may be decided.
In conclusion, the race for supremacy in the semiconductor industry is about much more than just technological dominance. It is about shaping the future of civilization. For China, acing the chip wars is not just a matter of national security in the traditional sense. It is also about securing the future of its society and realizing its vision of prosperity for all.
Before a class room of three hundred 1st year students, I was teaching, and my cell phone started vibrating. And I totally froze.
Just a couple of months earlier, I had become a father for the first time, and my girlfriend and I had agreed not to call during class hours, unless it was an emergency.
Often, I muted my cell phone during class hours, but this time I had forgotten. And this time the phone also rang. My girlfriend was the only person who would ring me at this unearthly hour in the morning. And suddenly it crossed my mind. Something is wrong with the baby.
Instead of two minutes, I had more than fifteen minutes left to cover while my mind blocked my every mathematical thought. So I taught the rest of the class through a true other-worldly out-of-body experience — I literally heard myself talking to the students, explaining things on the blackboard, and answering questions, while I was constantly thinking —
Something is wrong with the baby—Something is wrong with the baby—Something is wrong with the baby—Something is wrong with the baby.
When class was over and questions had been answered, I immediately called my girlfriend. She had forgotten about our agreement.
I’m a landlord and went to renew the lease on one of my rentals once. And when I pulled in to the neighborhood and turned the corner towards the house, the very first thing I saw was the screen door hanging off the front of the house.
I pulled into the driveway, knocked on the door, and while I was waiting for them to answer I looked at the screen door. It was literally ripped off its hinges.
Then they came out and greeted me as if nothing had ever happened.. I asked what happened to the door, and I swear they both looked me straight in the eye and said..
“It was like that when we moved in.” I was absolutely shocked…
I said, “Doug. You two have been here for TWO YEARS. You signed a move-in checklist when you first moved in that said everything was ok. I took and have pictures of everything before you moved in. And last but not least, I was here exactly ONE year ago to renew your lease then! Now, is this seriously your story, and are you sure it’s the one you want to stick to??”
“Yes.. It was like that when we moved in.”
So I called bullshit and told them that I would not renew their lease, and to be out before the end of the week. OR if they wanted to stay then they could fix the door.
They fixed it – reluctantly. Still swearing that it was like that when they moved in.
When I was an administrative assistant to the dean of a department at a 2 year college, there were a couple times during the year that I ate at my desk for various reasons. There was another admin in a different department that took a dislike to me and tried to get me in trouble for only taking 30 mins to eat then leaving 30 mins early. She went to my boss and he said I had his permission to do so. She then went to HR to file a complaint and I got called in. After that, I requested a sit down with HR, my boss, her and her boss which we had. Over several weeks, I had documented everything she had said and done to undermine me and she turned beet red and had no real defense since she documented nothing. A couple of weeks later, she no longer worked there and they hired a woman who became a good friend.
Document everything—day, time, incident, what was said—and keep it in a safe place. I used an old fashioned college notebook and hand wrote everything with just a blank line between each incident. I about filled the notebook in less than a month.
He was the head janitor at my school, a teddy bear of a man, under 5 feet tall with the sweetest little smile and laugh. He had worked at the school since he was a teen and was due to retire.
Da Tuk (not his real name) was gentle, kind and generous, a soft touch for a sob story. He and his family had just enough but always ended with too little because of his ‘kindness.’
A relative had begged him for a large sum, almost all that Da Tuk and his wife had saved for a deposit on a home. He signed over a land deed to Da Tuk and then disappeared into the gambling dens of Klong Tuey.
When Da Tuk took his family to see the land, they found a hilly, barren, nowhere-near-anywhere, unsellable plot. Da Tuk was inconsolable, realizing that he had been duped and had lost almost everything.
Fortunately, the chairman of the school found a way to help the family to buy a small house and deal with the costs of their children’s educations. They never really recovered from the loss.
As the school grew, so did Da Tuk’s staff, to the point where he was overwhelmed. An ‘assistant’ was hired but was, in fact, in charge. However, he always treated Da Tuk as the boss and saw to it that others did as well.
For Da Tuk’s retirement day, the Board had arranged for a huge luncheon, and we were all seated, waiting for Da Tuk.
When he arrived, he looked stunned, which surprised us because everyone had been talking about the party and teasing him for over a month.
Then an equally stunned member of the Board made a shocking announcement.
Da Tuk had just been paid forty million baht (approximately two million U.S. dollars) for that ‘worthless’ land because it was adjacent to the planned eastern seaboard industrial estate.
I got laid off from my work. It’s an awful experience. I just had the yearly performance review and got a raise, I was thinking ‘life is freaking good’, then one fine morning, I woke up to a sudden 1:1 from my boss, and he told me I was let go (together with half of the company).
It’s unexpected, and I was shocked.
I sent my coworkers texts, told them my goodbyes and my wish to stay in touch with them.
All of them offered the same message:
Please let me know how I can help in any way at all!
I was touched seeing those messages, truly.
The only thing I asked from them was: I need to retouch my Linkedin Profile, the job market right now is super tough and competitive, anything can help my profile stands out would mean a great deal and I really appreciate a recommendation from them – if they have a few minutes to write me one. It would be a huge help.
Only 2 out of 10 people offered me the message to help in any way actually did give me a recommendation. And one of them actually referred me everywhere she could trying to help me to get interviews.
I don’t think any less of the 8 people that didn’t give me a recommendation. I understand perfectly that there are millions reasons for that, like I might not worth giving a recommendation, or they just simply forgot to give one, or writing a recommendation is not their cup of tea, etc… I just wish they didn’t tell me that they would help in any way if they didn’t mean it.
And I do admire the ones that offer and live up with their saying “let me know how I can help in any way”
Being a person of their own words is a super power.
Way out in the stick in the north of England there was huge project ongoing to build a dam. A new site manager had been brought in because workers were reportedly lazy, either turning up late or skiving off down the local pub (which I worked in) during working hours. On his first day on the job he grabbed someone from the admin office and headed off round the site looking for a sacrificial lamb. He was going to fire someone as an example to the rest of the staff.
After half an hour or so he came across a young guy sitting behind a building, against a wall, drinking coffee.
“Who are you?” he bellowed. “What’s it got to do you with you?” asked the guy. “I’m the new site manager, who are you, and where do you work?” “Fuck off, leave me alone!”, replied the young guy. “OK, you’ve had your chance, you’re fired!” He turned to the admin guy, “get his details, give him his cards!” The site manager then stormed off thinking this was a good start to his tenure.
Later that day I was serving behind the bar in the pub and the guy came walking in. “Give me a pint of Guinness, I’ve just been fired”. “Oh dear, first one’s on the house!” “Cheers, that’s very nice of you.” he replied. He had his Guinness then asked how much? I said, “no, it’s on the house. Anyone who gets fired from the site gets a free beer.” “No – it’s okay, I’d better pay!” “But you got fired – it’s free!” “I did get fired. I’m just sitting there having a cup of coffee when this idiot appears out of nowhere screaming and shouting at me, and fires me on the spot. He seemed so happy about it I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t work for him, and I’m just a hiker who had stopped for a coffee.”
Surprised My Cheating Wife With Divorce Papers at Her “Secret” Hotel Getaway Affair.
I nearly hit ENTER on my resignation email. I’d been with the company for 24 years at the time and I was tired of my boss contradicting everything I’d say. Sometimes he was right, usually he wasn’t but of course he only remembered that one out of 10 times he was right come review time.
Most people say I’m too much of a pacifist but he’d ding me as pointlessly argumentative. And, the reason why I was never promoted (he’d tell me year after year) is because I’d said or done “the wrong thing yet again to” and it would always be an unnamed executive. If I asked what I did or said, I’d get “you know I can’t tell you that” and if I asked who’s cage I’d supposedly rattled, it would be another “you know I can’t tell you that.”
This day, he said something that was completely wrong about a field he knew zero about and that I was an expert in. I should have known better but I said something just “in passing.” He erupted and screamed at me. “YOU ARE WRONG and you felt the need to ruin my day. I walked in here this morning feeling okay for the first time in months. You couldn’t let it go. Noooo … not you … you had to correct me and ruin my whole day. And you aren’t even right Mr. Know-it-all. Fine. You ruined my day so now I’m going to ruin yours. I expect a written apology, three copies, and this is going in your file.
I will then have your final written warning for insubordination and disrupting the office ready when you come back with your apology. IF I accept it, you will go on warning. But if I don’t like what you said, I tear that and the warning up and you will be done. You have pretty much just thrown away 24 years of work and any goodwill you might have built up with me because you just always have to say something.
You just can’t let anything go and you always have some story. No matter what anyone says, you were there, did that, had that or something too. Well now I think you can add fired for cause and blacklisted from a whole industry to your awesome list of life experiences. I’m giving you one hour. I’ll see you then or you can spend the time packing up your stuff. I really don’t care which at this point.
And because you are a critical employee with no backup or replacement, I will see to it that you pay for this for a long time to come if I have any say over anything. Now get going. The next time I see you, it will be either carrying your shit to your car or in here with a heart felt written apology.”
I typed out a resignation, just a terse one paragraph indicating only that I resigned effective that day and would agree to make my last day two weeks hence. Dated and my signature typed. I was ready to hit SEND and the email would go to my boss, HR and the Sr VP (who was the department head).
But then I thought: first, I’d be out of a job and it would not be easy for me to get another one. It’s next to impossible to describe what I really do — it’s a bunch of low level tasks where the high level aspect is that I can do them all. I already knew that no one in my industry was interested — had they been, I’d have been contacted at least one of the times where competitors or clients tried to grab employees from us. I was about the only long time employee who’d never been contacted by anyone.
My resume would make even less sense outside my industry. I’d at best have to hope for some small employer looking for a jack of many trades willing to work for next to nothing. Not very appealing.
He was right in one sense about something: whenever someone had a story, I’d often have a counterpart. I’m not a know it all, just a lot older than many of my colleagues and I’ve been around. I’d always thought I was just participating in a conversation but maybe that’s not the way some took it. Perhaps I should sit and listen more even if I did have such an experience myself and even if the teller was way off base.
So I resolved to say a lot less and not correct people unless there could be a serious consequence for letting it go. Even if I’d done whatever 50 times to their 1 and was considered an expert, just let it go. Let them tell their story.
Ruined his day? That was his responsibility. He was going through many personal problems but people other than I were getting tired of his ripping our heads off at work because his personal life was in a tailspin. I know that when I was having many issues one time (many years ago, different boss), my manager came along and told me I needed to straighten myself up.
He knew what I was going through and that’s why nothing had been said for a couple weeks. But now I had to pull myself out of it or he’d have to let me go. That was a couple weeks … but my current boss had been going on that way for months.
So there was wrong on my side and that was on me to handle. But I wasn’t responsible for ruining my boss’ day with an offhand comment of a factual nature. I needed to speak a lot less: not counter a story with one of my own, and don’t correct someone unless there was a vital business need for it. On the other hand, I was not about to take written responsibility for someone else’s life and emotions.
I apologized verbally including indicating where I was wrong and what I planned to do about it. But I made clear what I was apologizing for along with being clear without saying it that it would not be in writing. I also made clear without throwing anything in his face that if he chose to give me a final written warning, I would not sign it but rather resign effective immediately.
Nothing more came of it in large part because by the time I walked in there, the anger was gone. I dealt with this in a clear headed way and that’s the point to this long answer. Anger solves nothing, even if justified or at least partially so. We’ve probably all snapped at work and with what results? If you have sufficient clout, others might respond out of fear. But that never results in a good long term effect. You’re far better off resisting the urge to go off until you’ve had a few minutes to think about the whole situation.
I’m boy, When I was 13 , The principal always checks students’ hair and nails and punishes them if they were long
One day, he came to the line and checked our nails, I had forgotten to trim my nails for a long time, and my nails were long like a girl’s.
When he saw my nails, he asked sarcastically: Am I a girl?
I was embarrassed and lowered my head
The principal sent me to the corner of the wall and I stood facing the wall with my head down
he sent about ten other people to the side of the wall because their nails were too long
When all the students went to class, the manager and the principal came to us with a ruler, the principal said, we have to give them a nice punishment!
Principal said that we should paint their nails to make them girls!
They took us to the manager’s office and forced us to put our hands on the table
Then the manager took out a bottle of red nail polish from his drawer and started painting our nails completely
We felt ashamed and humiliated and our heads were down
They took us to the front of the line in front of all the students and calles us girls!
All the students laughed at us and we cried and felt humiliated
They hit our palms with a ruler to make us cry more!
From that day on, we didn’t have the courage to keep our nails long
1. Successful people don’t leave their life in the hands of luck. Life is too unpredictable to leave it in the hands of luck. Therefore, successful people choose to take control of things rather than sit around and wait for luck to finally smile at them.
2. Successful people take risks at the right place, at the right time. Successful people know that they don’t have the luxury to be taking mindless risks that can do more bad than good. Rather, they wait for that perfect timing and occasion when they can justify taking the risk.
3. Successful people trust their intuition. Many people underestimate the power of gut feeling. But in reality, it’s one of the most efficient and free tools you can utilize profitably. And successful people know how to do just that.
4. Successful people are the masters of their own destiny. Some people believe that one’s destiny is predetermined, and so they decide to simply let things unfold accordingly. But successful people prefer to take charge and carve out the destiny they aim for.
5. Successful people know the importance of having control over their emotions. They understand the impact emotional control or the lack thereof can have on their motivation, perseverance, and overall success. Therefore, they always try to keep their emotions under control so they’ll be the ones having the power over them.
6. Successful people practice positive self-talk. Successful people try not to listen to that negative voice in their head that tells them it is not going to work out. They don’t insult themselves, either. Instead, they train themselves to be compassionate, understanding, and encouraging toward themselves so they never succumb to the destructive effects of negative self-talk.
7. Successful people know that making mistakes is an essential part of the process leading them to ultimate success. They are aware that no matter how many mistakes they make along the way, they can make use of each by learning from them, guiding them toward success they’ve been working hard for.
8. Successful people know how to take constructive criticism well. Not only do they understand the benefits of constructive criticism, but they also appreciate getting it because they see it as a way to improve themselves or get closer to their goals.
9. Successful people have an unshakeable faith in themselves. Even if everyone else around them thinks they are just idealistic dreamers chasing after unrealistic goals, they refuse to see themselves from the same lenses because they know they have what it takes to get the things they are after.
My first thought was to say no but as I was paying for my gas I grabbed the milk. Outside was his girlfriend holding a box of cereal. He thanked me and I started to walk to my car. Something in me made me turn around. I told them I was about to get a car wash but if he wanted to wash it for me I’d pay him $20. We went to the nearest car wash and he had tears in his eyes after I paid him!
He told me that more than anything he appreciated me giving him the opportunity to be a man again in the eyes of his girlfriend and work for the money. The whole time his girlfriend helped him. It’s like she was proud of him. You could tell the love was so real. Real beyond material things and what he could do for her. She told him he did a great job and he couldn’t stop smiling. I had a long talk with him and her and he had a backpack full of paperwork from all of the places he’s been going to get help for them. I drove them to my apartment complex and gave him clothes for interviews and a few outfits and fitted caps. I don’t have much but life is about sharing what you do have.
Be a blessing to someone today because you could be in that situation before you know it! I gave them my number and I plan to take them to any interviews or appointments they have. It’s a great day to be alive no matter what your situation is. Someone has it worse than you! Share this message and inspire others to do good.”
Well it was a older Ford heavy duty truck, a three axle mini dump truck. It came in for brake work and when I opened the hood I discovered that most of the underhood wiring was redone with household electrical wiring cable, Romex and stripped Romex. It ran fine for a truck of the era that it was built and when the guy came to pick it up after the brake work, I had to ask about the wiring. He had the truck sitting unused for several years while he was working for someone and mice or squirrels had gotten in and destroyed the wiring and he had a roll of Romex in his garage and redid the wiring using another very similar truck as reference and got some bits from another truck he found in a junkyard. Mechanically the truck was solid and I was more impressed than anything else with the craftiness.
Woman Demands A Train Ran On Her! This Is Why Men Question The Value Of MW
Lack of purpose. All your young life you are given purpose of passing exams and learning, then all of a sudden you are thrown into the world and told to find your own meaning.
You can stay up as late as you want. But you shouldn’t.
Where did all my friends go?
Didn’t know that other adults have the emotional intelligence of teenagers and its almost impossible to deal with logically.
Getting burnt out.
Having to make dinner every. Fucking. Day.
Not having a lot of free-time or time by myself.
Figuring out what makes you happy. Everyone keeps trying to get you to do things you’re good at, or that makes you money, but never to pursue what you enjoy.
The more life you’ve lived, the faster time seems to go.
I once stopped to help a guy change a tire. He had an arm in a sling and two very young kids in his car. He thanked me saying he didn’t want to hurt his arm any more and wanted to get back to work.
Fast forward three months and I’m in a very ugly motorcycle wreck. One of the EMTs noticed my back was broken. Had they continued I’d have been paralyzed. His quick thinking prevented that.
After I recovered I got to meet the EMT crew that saved my life.
The guy that noticed my back was broken? The guy whose tire I had changed.
About 25 years ago, while living in Tucson Arizona, I received a phone call (bold = caller, non-bold = me):
Hi; Is this David Joseph? Dr. David Joseph?
Yes, who’s this?
Hi David!! It’s Garry Shandling!
Now at that time, Garry Shandling was a pretty well-known comedian, with his own show (“It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”), which was well known for its hilarious opening theme song. I was a big fan of his show, so I assumed a friend was pranking me:
Oh really?? Garry Shandling? Prove it; sing me your opening theme song!
He went ahead and sang me his opening theme song, and then went on:
David, how have you been? It’s been forever — can you believe it’s been over 20 years since we graduated?!
Since we graduated? Graduated what??
High School; Palo Verde??
Wait, I think you have the wrong David Joseph; are you looking for Dr David Joseph, the vet?
Yes; that’s not you? I thought your voice sounded different!
Yeah, that’s not me; I’m a people doc. I think that David Joseph moved away from Tucson a few years ago.
Oh, bummer. OK, I guess I’ll keep trying to find him — we were really close in High School.
Well, if you don’t find him, feel free to call me anytime; I’m happy to be your back-up Dr David Joseph!
Haha! Maybe I will! Thanks!
Good luck!
Then he called back a couple of hours later, explaining that he hadn’t been able to find his high school friend. We chatted a bit more, and then, once every few years, out of the blue, I would get a call from him, wanting to ‘catch-up with his back-up David Joseph.’
After I made a successful (static line) parachute jump – which turned out to be my first ever (and last) jump from a plane – I traveled back to the jump site three more times with Jeff C. to do it again. Various conditions prevented that from happening again, and after the third time that we were unable to jump again, we saw a fire a couple blocks off the interstate that was being fought by a team of professionals. A police officer instructed us to move along, but Jeff chimed in with “Why don’t they just let a good fire burn?” The officer walked to the front of Jeff’s car and wrote down the license plate and village sticker information, then asked Jeff AND me for ID. During the following week, I talked to mutual acquaintances of Jeff and related the aforementioned story to them. From one former coworker of Jeff, I learned that he was suspected of possibly starting two fires at his place of employment, with the second allegation causing him to be let go – I decided not to key ‘fi_ed’ – immediately. I no longer answered any of Jeff’s subsequent telephone calls, and did not answer the door when he came over.
Psychologist Addresses FEMALE DISRESPECT: why this is essential to relationship success
Damn! This is one HELL of a great video! Shit! Amazing video!
What most people don’t understand is that disrespect is a process. The best predictor of overt disrespect is covert disrespect. And this is why it is important to address disrespectful behavior while it is still in its nascent form. Failing to do so will jeopardize your relationship, primarily due to the fact that it is not possible for a woman to love a man she does not respect.
“Seeing how my now ex wife treated me compared to everyone else was an eye opener. I realized why everyone liked her, she treated them with respect and care, while I got the cold, cruel, disrespectful part.”
He beat me with a belt until I would bleed when I was very young and then when I became a teenager he would beat me with his fists. He broke my nose and blacked my eyes a few times. He’s dead now and I’m 69 years old. I have never for forgiven or forgotten. He beat my mom too. They divorced after I left home at 17. May he rot in HELL!
Oh man! I sure have. Often. Up until recently I worked, either with a guy or on my own, doing demolition, kitchen removals and buying/selling used building materials. I also ride a motorcycle. A big-ass noisy motorcycle. And, personally, I think I am a pretty nice person. I am considerate, kind and polite. But sometimes I am covered in drywall or brick dust, insulation, paint or sawdust. I usually carry Handy Wipes to, at least, wipe my face and hands clean. I may be dressed in work clothes and/or motorcycle gear. I am otherwise a well-groomed, clean, and pleasant 54 year old woman. I currently work outside all day and am in and out and crawling around assessing cars and trucks. Again, in work clothes or cover-all’s I am often dusty and wind-blown with dirty, with grease under my nails.
AND I GET TREATED LIKE SHIT.
I get followed, have had rude and disparaging comments made or completely ignored. Some staff treat me like I am invisible and are dismissive, assuming (I think) that I have no money to spend. At other times, they have been openly mistrusting and suspicious.
ALL BECAUSE I WORK FOR A LIVING!
Two of my very worst experiences occurred at places connected to religious institutions. One a church bazaar and the other a faith-based second hand shop. Another time I was speaking, as a counsellor, on a panel about alcoholism and addiction. Independent of each other, the hosts TWICE assumed that I was the newly recovered individual as opposed to the presenting professional.
In NO WAY am I ashamed of what I do or how I look. In fact, I am proud of who I am and the jobs I have done (and still do). I just wish people would judge me on my character or my actions rather than the way I look.
Bought a small place years ago that had a nice shed that could be used for tools, mower, etc and I asked if it conveyed and was told yes. Went to move in after settlement and no shed. Since it was in the contract, I called my realtor and told her the she came back or I would immediately stop the sale. No shed by the next day when promised so I notified the bank again that the sellers were in breach of contract. I was living in the house but had not put my furniture in yet, still in the box trailer belonging to a friend. The sellers had the shed at their new place but moving it damaged it so I refused to accept it and they had to order a brand new shed, same size, for the deal to be completed. The bank held the check, I finished moving in, and 2 weeks later the shed arrived.
Don’t try fast ones when selling since you may seriously regret the expense of fixing it.
Do what my garden-savvy cousin did to keep deer away from her garden. She set up hoses and multiple impact sprinklers with a motion sensor that set them off when deer approached, startling them and soaking them. Very effective, and not mean.
If the neighbor complains your sprinklers got him wet, say “Sorry, I had to do something to keep the deer/bears/monkeys/kids from stealing all my peaches before I can make pies/cobblers/jam from them.
You could even say, if I have a good crop this year, I’ll bring you a bowl of peaches.
In Chinese culture, sharing a meal with friends or family is a time to socialize. It’s actually something I very much enjoy being part of. As a Westerner, growing up in a Western and traditional Southern family, children were “seen and not heard,” and the talking points of a meal were, “Please pass the salt,” or “mind your manners.” The lively, upbeat, excitement that is exuded by Chinese people sharing a meal is something I adore.
When I bought my house the seller told me he had lost a ring a few years prior, and if I ever found it, it would mean the world to him to get it back. Three years later I saw something shiny while I was raking leaves. I picked it up and realized it was a ring encased in mud. I cleaned it off but didn’t think it could possibly be the lost ring. The stones were so large I thought it must be costume jewelry. I phoned the old owner and told him I found a ring but didn’t think it was valuable and asked if he could come take a look. When he saw it he started to cry and said it had great sentimental value. He offered me a reward but I declined. It didn’t seem right to take money for something that belonged to him. What I thought was a cheap ring with glass stones turned out to be $70,000 worth of diamonds.
a friend of ours who at the time was single mother of two, her son is autistic. She complained she had no heat in her mini van and winter in southern Ontario can be bitter cold. Local franchise repair shop quoted her north of $1700 to fix it!
I said let me take it to my trusted repair shop.
After a quick diagnosis he says “is she a teacher?” I’m like “how’d you know?”
He says “I cleaned a pile of papers out of the vents by the the heater core…lots of heat now!”
$75 and she had heat again…and was advised to keep papers off her dash!
Yeah actually… A few years ago I went out on the town for a mates birthday – straight from work. I’m carrying with me a £2.5k laptop and my mates got his full pay packet in cash and a thermos of soup given to him by a friend for his birthday (separate story).
These two kids come up to us and demand all of our worldly belongings. We dismiss them, as the bravery of a nights worth of fairly strong Hazy Pale Ale courses through our veins. As we walk off, the braver of the two pulls out a pretty small knife and demands more of our attention.
With a look from my mate we start off round the corner. Once we’re there we in whispered, quick voices form a plan and we wait for them.
I caught the first guy with a swing of my rucksack right under the chin and all 15” and 2.6kg of my MacBook Pro knocked his head back nearly off his feet. My friend followed with the Thermos on the 2nd. We didn’t hold back on those hits.
Once they recovered enough to speak, the braver one asked the other one if he was bleeding… he was… and the other guy told him.
Angry from the revelation he was bleeding, he said if he ever saw us again we’re dead… My friend, living round the area didn’t take kindly to this and threw the statement back at him. Told him, NO if you ever come back here YOU’RE dead and flew at the guy with the Thermos a second time. He chased them both up the street with that flask, with me laughing in hysterics at the bottom of the road.
In a strange way, being drunk that night changed the whole outcome of that encounter. Doubt we would have stood up to them sober.
He most certainly has a case. One of my neighbors tried to have two of our old silver birches and one 50-years-old Cedar tree cut, and it cost him dearly. It started with a Christmas tree though.
We came back from the United States, and as usual when we are back from holidays, I checked the garden — just to see how the plants, flowers and mushrooms (but also our rabbits and barn owls) were doing.
And then I noticed that one of our beautiful Christmas trees had been cut. The top half was gone, and no higher Mathematics was needed to conclude who had done it. One of our neighbors — I once had a relationship with his youngest daughter Ebba, but he seemed reasonably normal in those days — goes berserk if even only a couple of leaves fall on his property.
This time, he had cut an evergreen conifer, and we were sick of it. We called the neighborhood police man to sort this out, and he reprimanded the neighbor — to no avail. We decided not to go to court for the time being.
Instead, he sued us.
Together with another neighbor friend (who apparently also had problems with leaves and needles without us knowing), he filed a complaint against us in Justice Court. Big goal: having some of our trees (two old birches and an old Cedar) cut.
It did not quite work out that way, though.
Instead, he was forcefully reprimanded by the judge, who explained that leaves and needles are a part of country life, and that there was nothing wrong nor illegal about them falling in his garden.
The judge also dismissed the demand that our trees would be cut —
“It is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to cut old trees, Mister C., so NO ONE will touch them. And very high maximum penalties would be issued if someone would.”
(Goal not attained.)
Since then, our neighbor had become even more mental than before. He throws all the leaves and needles he can find in our garden, and he has, since recently, started to throw buckets of his own stinking urine in our backyard.
I’m also one of those foreigners who think China is not just good, but a great place to live in! After working in China for the past few years, I have realized so many reasons for loving China.
A quick list of my personal observations about China:
1. Life has been very peaceful in China: I am never worried about my personal safety, or disruption of work. Life has been going quite smoothly.
2. Cost of living: About RMB 5,000/month (~$700). For the quality of life that I have enjoyed in China, it can’t get more affordable.
3. Jobs: my job is going fine. No issues with salaries.
4. Tax holidays: expats from a good number of countries (including US) enjoy tax holidays in China (due to the Double Tax Avoidance Treaty). I have not paid any tax in China so far. 🙂
5. Great food: China offers one of my favorite cuisine (I also love Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Indian food). You can order from home. RMB 15 for 20 dumplings (饺子, jiaozi). Even if you cook at home, it can’t get cheaper than that.
6. Online shopping: you can buy almost everything online in China. Taobao is probably one of those few sites I visit every day. I buy something every day.
7. Cashless payments: we don’t carry cash in China. We just need to bring a phone, scan QR codes and pay. In fact, you can rent bicycles by just scanning QR codes (first 1hr ride is free).
8. I have a history of diabetes. Going anywhere, including back to the US, puts me at a very high risk of Covid-19 pandemic. There are great medical facility in China. Every Chinese city has a good number of hospitals. It’s very convenient to visit hospital in China (Btw, my city is virtually covid-19 virus free).
9. Learning Chinese: if you want to learn Chinese, China is the best place. The whole atmosphere is warm and welcoming. You’ll learn Chinese fast. This was also a reason for me to move to China.
10. Travel: Lots of nice places in China. Recently I visited Zhouzhuang (周庄), a water town (江南水乡). It was a pleasant experience. Chinese tourist attractions are generally very different from the typical western tourist attractions.
11. No illegal immigration: you can’t enter China illegally. You will be caught if you try. Penalties are heavy. You will be deported, however, only after serving the sentence.
Living in China is a very different experience. It doesn’t make sense to compare China with other countries (or vice versa). Explore what China has to offer, and you’ll love it.
Also, I wish to thank China for taking a good care of me throughout my China stay, especially during my diabetes phase. Otherwise, I couldn’t have survived probably.
The U.K.: much, much more working-class than Americans are raised to assume. It’s a textbook example of American ignorance that we tend to believe Brits are all very sophisticated and “aristocratic.” (And I don’t mean that as an insult, just a reality check.) Britain can be polished and classy, and it can be tougher than a bad neighborhood of Philly.
Ireland: deep beauty, deep gloom, too. Really depends on where you go and when and what you’re up to. One of the friendliest countries I’ve been to. Just don’t expect everything to be rainbows and sentimental fantasy and you’ll be fine. Again, from an American perspective: virtually all Americans need a reality check here.
Mexico: been there multiple times, still haven’t been killed. Haven’t witnessed so much as a mugging let alone a cartel operation. The worst thing I’ve seen is sexual harassment. The worst thing that personally happened to me was an epic case of farts. In general, what I’ve seen of Mexico is more truly cultured and sophisticated than a large chunk of the most hyped places in Europe and certainly more cultured and tasty than significant swathes of the United States. (Some of Mexico is pretty benighted, but the chances of you ending up in those corners of Mexico are next to none.)
The United States: lived here most of my life, still haven’t been shot. A country with places as diametrically different as Vermont and Miami Beach, New York and the Sonora. What’s pretty true about one place isn’t even remotely true about another. And contrary to the stereotype that Americans brook no criticism of our country, I think it’s actually the most hyper-self-critical country I’ve ever personally been to. If you can’t hear copious criticism coming out of the United States, see an ear doctor, your ears are plugged up. (Too much of this criticism is tribal criticism and not enough self-criticism, but Americans love to bitch and moan about the place. How do you not hear this?)
Canada: lovely people, lovely country, but nowhere near as happy or perfect as a big part of the world believes they are. Canadians are aware of their problems, because they’re honest. This isn’t a comment about Canadians. It’s a comment about the mystery of why so many other people aren’t aware of the problems and unhappiness that do exist in Canada.
Colombia: didn’t get killed. Didn’t see any obvious drug deals. Freakishly hot. Got horrifying Montezuma’a Revenge: do not ever ever EVER drink the water. Would I revisit? Yes.
Cuba: very much like the pictures of 1950’s cars and bars would have you believe. Fucking amazing to fly down there from Wisconsin in February: it’s not a long flight at all, but you feel like you’ve gone back 60 years in time and also dropped into what Southern Europe felt like a generation or two ago, not just the Caribbean. Lost worlds, truly. The sanitation will get you, though. The poverty is shocking. The people are wonderful but deserve so much better.
Italy: the only part I really liked was Sicily, where I didn’t killed by the mafia. Sicily was extraordinary.
Greece: incredibly cold when I was there. I think I picked up a minor case of pneumonia. It was March and I was freezing to death.
Turkey: went in 2002 and no Muslims killed me. The waiter brought his kid sister out, maybe 10 years old, to practice English. She giggled and thought Americans were funny. I thought the Turks were friendlier than the Greeks. But I was an asshole kid back then.
Bulgaria: also went in frozen weather in March 2002. Bulgaria was probably the closest to the grim Iron Curtain stereotype I’d sort of been expecting. (You half expected to see Stalin at the train station in Sofia.) But I’ve heard it’s changed a lot for the better. I was there 21 years ago. Would I revisit? Yes. In July.
Spain: didn’t see anybody going to bullfights. Tacos are not the dominant cuisine there. Paella is overrated tourist food. Seville beats Barcelona and Madrid. Go to Lanzarote for surreal quiet time (I was there last April, showed up in a tiny town at night, sat on the balcony watching the moon, and I was like “I’m in Spain and there’s no noise. This is weird.” Also, you’re more likely to see people having big parties than going to a Catholic religious procession. Spain has an exaggerated reputation for being “extremely Catholic.” The American Midwest is 10 times more Catholic.
Sweden: only went to Stockholm. Incredibly empty. Not very exciting. Dirtier than I expected.
Finland: severely underrated people.
Iceland: not as cold as Minnesota. (I’ve been to both in January. Iceland is Ipanema Beach compared to Minnesota.)
Portugal and Slovenia: Europe’s most underrated countries.
Czech Republic, Poland and Croatia: not gray. Everybody who heard I was going there said “that sounds so gray.” These places were bursting with color and life. Ate like a king for the price of a Big Mac meal in the U.S.
Bosnia: didn’t get killed. Contrary to stereotypes, that war ended 30 years ago. Being afraid to go because there had been a war and some bad shit in the past would be like being afraid to go to Germany in 1975, thirty years after WWII. Ridiculous. (I drove on some roads in Bosnia that were better than roads in Michigan. There are other roads where if you’re not paying attention, you’ll drive off a ledge and end up upside down in a cabbage patch.)
I’ve been to a few more countries, but that’s the gist.
One thing I’ve learned from travel is not to put too much stock in other people’s opinions. I’ve been to places they love that I hated. I’ve been to places they bashed or were afraid to visit that I thought were some of the best experiences of my life.
It’s not that I don’t trust anybody. It’s just that I’ve traveled enough to know that I’d rather go somewhere myself and form my own opinion.
Xi knows China needs the US, and of course the US needs China, maybe more so today.
Xi also knows that the world, which is facing more than enough difficulties right now, needs a stable US relationship and can not endure any major conflicts between the two largest economies.
Xi knows he can handle the situation here within China.
Then, looking around, who can help stabilize the bilateral relations? Who have a big say on the US domestic issues to try to calm down the sentiments there?
Is it possible, helpful and practical for him to talk to those big bosses of MICs, the Military Industrial Complex? Not quite possible — they prefer war than peace, they are thirsty for wars.
Is it helpful for him to talk to the US politicians? He has tried. He talked with Trump, and treated him well in Beijing, then what? Trump can tear down any agreements as he likes; He talked with Biden, last year in Bali, Indonesia, then what? Biden can’t even really govern his own administration team, neither the Democratics, let alone those from the GOP. But Xi tried once again, this time, he met Biden in San Francisco. But, again, then what? What if Trump came back after next election? He would again turn everything upside down.
Is it useful and helpful to talk to the general public? Might be of some help, but how many can he talk to? And how much help would that be of? No one really knows.
Then, who are left? The ones with a big say in the US politics, economy and even society — Yes, the business executives.
What they care more about is the market, the profits, the money, where China can offer. And with the money, they can stand with those candidates who are more practical and support a more pragmatic approach towards China, instead of those full of ideologies in their minds and even can’t wait to drum up a war with China.
Thus a comparably virtuous circle is hopefully to be formed to prevent the China-US relations from further spiraling down, which neither can China afford, nor can the US, as well as the whole world.
I joined a ship in Rotterdam and on sailing for Suez, noted that the generator oil temperatures were rather high. On asking the other engineers, they said “They’re always like that” which was often a reason given by those of an idle nature… I investigated and found that they had raised the alarm point to stop the alarms going off instead of actually fixing the problem, which I assumed to be the generator lube oil coolers being fouled. On arrival at Suez and waiting in the anchorage, we opened up the LO coolers but found that they were clear, though with a fine sand lying in the tube bottoms, suggesting a lack of seawater flow-rate. We transited Suez but on meeting the warmer seawater temperatures of the Red Sea, had to reduce the generator load to avoid them tripping out altogether. We put into Aden to fix the problem, blacked out and started working back from the seawater lines into the coolers to the pumps themselves, eventually having to take out just about all the seawater lines until on opening up the main piping from the pumps (some 650mm diameter) we found them to be just about blocked with an aggregate of mud, sand and shellfish, such that only a small diameter of some 250mm was available for passing water to the generator coolers. Out came the main length of piping and we started to shovel out the muck. As we cleared it, a large, Triffid/Hydra-like apparition started to appear, causing the more faint-hearted to jump back in alarm, though it was only moving by virtue of us shovelling out its supporting mussel bed… It turned out to be a submarine tree of surprising length and girth (around 5–6m long and about the diameter of my arm in the main trunk, with lots of squid like leaves on it which had been waving in the ever reducing breeze of seawater passing through the pipe. We eventually removed all the gunk and the “animal” itself and laid it along the plates for a photo opportunity (we only had the ship’s Polaroid instant picture camera in those days so I don’t have a record unfortunately).
How did such a large beast get into the system? Presumably it had entered as a micro-organism and found a handy place to anchor itself in the rubber jointing between flanges (its roots were entwined around the bolts) and then fed itself from the handy warm water stream passing its front door. It gradually grew, causing other marine life such as shellfish to cling on where the water was less turbulent, and then gathering mud and other essential nutrients from its environment. Amazing thing, but fortunately harmless in that it didn’t actually attack us… Being in Aden the temperature in the engineroom without the fans running was around 50C (we had to shut down the generators and rely on emergency lighting), such that we could only work for around 20 minutes each before having to go on deck in the (relatively) cooler air of some 35C Aden night time temperature. It took us most of the night to clear the piping and refit it – a big job indeed.
Final job on restarting everything was to wind the generator LO temperature alarms back to the proper alarm point; I checked back through the ship’s engineroom log books to see where the problem had first started, and it was some 3 years in the making without anyone investigating the slowly rising temperatures.
I was Marketing Director for a major, easily recognized company that manufactured female oriented products. Our President was in over his head, as evidenced by our declining market share and revenue. I was hired to help turn things around given my successful track record at other companies. However, the President couldn’t handle any outside suggestion or strategy unless it was his so I was constantly reprimanded for doing my job.
One day, my timid, suck-up boss sends me an email about a report she needs me to do ASAP. I scoll thru the entire email and at the end, I see it originated with a request from the President. Basically he wanted my boss to assign the report to me and once she had it to fire me. The email also contained some very derogatory & crude & inappropriate comments about my appearance.
I forwarded the entire email to my personal email account, HR and members of the Board. In exchange for me not pursuing legal action or sharing the incident with my press contacts (would have killed any credibility in the female marketplace), I received my bonus, 6 months severance including paying my health insurance, & a strong positive reference letter. I had a new position in 6 weeks.
The President was let go after about 2 months and it took him over 1 year to find a new position at a less prestigious company and lessor salary.
I wasn’t a mechanic, I was a service manager. A guy drove into the lot, he had poked a rod through his block. How the car was still running was a mystery. For some context, this was 1978, he was driving some little 1970 English import, a Vauxhall Viva, possibly. The blue book price was less than $500. He was a recent immigrant, with broken English, and obviously didn’t have much money, from the car he was driving.
I explained that it would cost twice as much to fix the car as it was worth. He didn’t appear to understand. So he called his pastor, who was his sponsor. I talked to the pastor when he arrived, and he called me a racist for refusing to work on an immigrants car. I explained it two different ways, and it didn’t make any difference.
I finally gave up, wrote up a work order, for $1200. Then I ran down the street to a convenience store, and bought an autotrader magazine. I handed him the work order first, and he audibly gasped. Yet it was just what I had verbally told him. Then I flipped the magazine open to a car like his, but in better shape, for sale for $500.
The light switched on. He wasn’t happy, but he now understood why I didn’t want to repair it. Since it was worth more than the car was to repair it, we would have required cash up front. Before starting the job.
My boss wasn’t happy with me, for spending my time driving away a customer.
I have no idea if the guy could have afforded to make the repair.
The next week the pastor started sending other members of his flock to us.
The following is a translation of a recent essay that examines the circumstances of close encounters between Chinese and U.S. militaries in China’s vicinity, explains China’s grievances, and identifies the factors that further heighten risks.
The author of this essay is Hu Bo, Research Professor and Director of the Center for Maritime Strategy Studies, Peking University, and Director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative.
Full text below.
______
Recently, the U.S. DoD “declassified” some of the videos and pictures of aerial encounters with PLA military aircraft in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, accusing China of “risky intercept” and “unprofessional behaviors.”
This is, of course, a one-sided narrative from the United States. The Pentagon has not made it clear where these air encounters took place or why they occurred. As the China-U.S. military competition intensifies, the frequency and intensity of air and sea encounters are increasing, and the risk of possible friction and conflict does exist.
However, the United States is hyping “anxiety”, partly because of real concerns about risks, and partly because it wants to take hold of the “moral high ground” in international public opinion and diplomacy.
In fact, in the waters surrounding China, such as the East China Sea and the South China Sea, despite the growing competition between the China-U.S. militaries as well as air and sea encounters, it is important to emphasize that the vast majority of the air and sea encounters between the China-U.S. militaries, which occur more than a dozen times a day and thousands of times a year, have been conducted in a safe and professional manner.
For example, in a 2022 emailed statement about transit through the Taiwan Strait, US 7th Fleet spokesperson Mark Langford said in an emailed statement that “all interactions with foreign military forces during the transit were consistent with international standards and practices and did not impact the operation.”
In August 2022, Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt told the press after the USS Abraham Lincoln, which she commanded, finished a deployment in the Pacific that “We were operating in the vicinity [of] Chinese warships at times, mostly … that shadowed our ship……It was safe and professional the entire time that we interacted with them. During some flight operations, our aircraft did interact with some of their aircraft, but again it remained safe and professional each and every time we interacted with them.” [1]
Both the U.S. and Chinese militaries have made it clear at the highest levels that they “do not want war” and want to avoid direct military conflict.
While formal communication mechanisms between the two militaries (e.g., the China-U.S. Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings, Defense Policy Coordination Talk, and China-U.S. Theater Commanders Talk) were interrupted after Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan, there are other channels of communication between frontline commanders, such as the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs), and the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), which was adopted in 2014.
High-level exchanges between the U.S. and Chinese militaries have also been slowly restarting since President Xi Jinping had a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali. Overall, the situation of China-U.S. air and sea encounters is not as dire as portrayed by the media and some scholars.
▲ Four scenarios for confrontational encounters between China and the United States
However, under certain circumstances, the risk of conflict could run high. When the United States and China talk about military frictions or dangerous encounters and blame each other, the first thing we should be clear about is where these frictions or encounters are taking place. For both sides, air and sea encounters in different areas have different legal and political implications. Most confrontational encounters between China and U.S. military forces occur under the following four scenarios.
1. When U.S. forces approach the territorial waters and airspace of mainland China or Hainan Island, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reacts vigorously, taking such actions as interception or forcing out.
2. U.S. forces enter the territorial waters and airspace of the Xisha Islands to carry out so-called FONOPs and are warned and driven away by the PLA.
3. When the U.S. military conducted FONOPs within 12 nautical miles of China-controlled islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands and Huangyan Island, The PLA warned and drove away the U.S. military. For example, on September 30, 2018, the USS Decatur conducted a so-called FONOP in the waters near Nansha Islands’ Nanxun Reef and had a close encounter with a Chinese warship. The two ships were only 40 meters apart at their closest.
4. Both China and the United States engage in close reconnaissance of each other’s military forces during military exercises, including live ammunition exercises. While mutual tracking and surveillance of military activities are common, the reconnaissance operations conducted by the U.S. military sometimes come dangerously close.
Particularly during the PLA’s live ammunition exercises, the U.S. military often disregards the no-entry notices and unlawfully enters the relevant sea and airspace. For example, in August 2020, a U.S. U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft intruded into the PLA’s Northern Theater Command’s live ammunition exercise airspace, and an accident was barely avoided.
▲ China has legitimate concerns about the close encounters between Chinese and U.S. naval and air forces
While China is dissatisfied with the U.S. military’s actions in the waters near China and believes that the root cause of the encounters at sea and in the air is the aggressively close reconnaissance and other targeted military operations conducted by the U.S. military, it nevertheless tracks and monitors the U.S. military in accordance with international conventions, which is no different from reciprocal reactions of U.S. and Japan for China.
China only reacts more strongly in the four above-mentioned types of military encounters, which is in line with international common sense. Any country would take all feasible measures to safeguard its territorial, sovereign, and platform security against any actions that attempt to approach its territorial waters and airspace or pose a threat to its training exercises.
Strategically, China opposes the continuous challenges posed by the U.S. to China’s sovereignty over islands and reefs and its national security. Technically or in specific actions, China opposes actions by the U.S. that endanger the safety of personnel onshore at sea and in the air. In addition to strategic and legal differences, China also has three legitimate concerns:
First, some of the U.S. military’s reconnaissance missions are too close to China and overly provocative.
For example, on September 4, 2021, a U.S. RC-135S Cobra Ball missile surveillance aircraft approached Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong Province for close reconnaissance, with its closest point of approach to the Chinese territorial baseline being less than 20 nautical miles. On December 8, 2022, a U.S. P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft flew over the Taiwan Strait, at times with a distance of less than 13 nautical miles from the Chinese territorial baseline.
Second, China has reasons to be concerned about frequent accidents involving the U.S. military. In recent years, the high frequency of U.S. military operations and the negative impact on training and proficiency have led to numerous unfortunate accidents (such as the collision incident involving the U.S. Navy’s USS Fitzgerald missile destroyer in 2017).
When the Chinese and American militaries come into close proximity, the possibility of accidental incidents occurring due to a decline in the professionalism of the U.S. military is increasing.
Third, the United States has intensified the public hype and politicization of encounters at sea and in the air and military actions. In recent years, the United States has amplified the political and diplomatic implications of its military actions, with the most iconic examples being the so-called FONOPs carried out by the U.S. military within 12 nautical miles of China-controlled islands in the South China Sea and its transits through the Taiwan Strait.
On October 27, 2015, the U.S. destroyer USS Lassen conducted a highly publicized FONOP in the waters near the Nansha Islands. Although the U.S. had previously conducted such activities in the South China Sea, they were rarely so open and high-profile. The same is true for U.S. transits through the Taiwan Strait. Since 2018, after each transit through the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. Navy would either feed information to the media or directly issue announcements, claiming to “maintain freedom and openness in the Indo-Pacific region”. Such hype and politicization have increased the complexity and difficulty of military communication between China and the U.S. and added to the risks of encounters between Chinese and American naval and aerial forces.
[1]Note: the original essay wrongly attributed the above quote to Rear Adm. J.T. Anderson, this newsletter corrected the inaccuracy.
You smile, bank the check and say thank you! I had a very small role in the Spiderman movie starring Emma Stone. The scene never made it into the final cut. It wasn’t necessary for the story line. But I got paid union rate and residuals and spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening filming a 2 person scene with Emma Stone, who was absolutely delightful and charming. No complaints. And they sent me the specially designed movie baseball cap. I was treated as a professional and my contribution was valued at the time of filming.
In many western nations it fails on both counts. What they have left is an electoral system that goes through the motions. I remember a module on Law I did at UCL. It’s an elected dictatorship mostly. Before you screech but you’re in China, yeah but I was born in the UK. I watche the 1997 election (too young to vote) participated in 2001, 2005, 2010 and sat out 2015. I had left the UK by 2017 and 2019.
We can go through the common failings:
We can vote out those who fail!
We can freely criticise our leaders!
We can vote somebody in new and different!
Western systems ensure the BEST standards of living
Western systems are accountable!
Western systems ensure the most capable people!
We can vote out those who fail!
Except you don’t. The Labour regime of from 1997 to 2010 didn’t really achieve anything. They had some decent literacy programmes with the gremlins campaign but this was dismantled by the late 00s.
We can freely criticise our leaders!
Less so now, the UK has massively restricted free speech since the 80s, it has massively restricted protest. And guess what? Call the current prime minister a bum what happens NOTHING to you and NOTHING to them.
We can vote somebody in new and different!
Except it’s a false choice. You can choose a Neoliberal or a Neoliberal. The policies are a venn diagram that is a circle.
Western systems ensure the BEST standards of living
Maybe in the past 70s, 80s maybe the 90s. But once it got Neoliberalised productivity got disconnected from wages and there’s been a massive stagnation.
Western systems are accountable!
Yeah, they apologise or say let’s draw a line under it and then simply ignore it. I still remember Blunkett UK MP (EDIT) simply saying I don’t accept that to dismiss a well crafted argument against him.
Western systems ensure the most capable people!
No it ensures popular people. The UK’s Johnson for instance. What qualities other than being popular did he have?
Now let’s return to the above:
For the people.
For the people, are your lives REALLY getting better? My life in the UK:
Access to medical care: As a child I remember being able to get appointments with Dr Sharma same day for the times I was ill. As a teenager when I was beaten up, I could be admitted to hospital pretty quickly. Nose operations to put it back were done in as little as week. Into my 20s. It became increasingly difficult. Barriers kept being put up to see my GP. First off it was you had to book a day in advance, then a week in advance. By the early 00s. My GP had a 10 minute window at 8am to book appointments. There were 10 available a day.
My commute times : Each year it took longer and longer. I recall sitting in my dad’s car. To get to the big city nearby it was 20 minutes door to door. We moved a couple miles East but by the mid 00s it was taking 45 minutes and by the 2010s it was taking an hour each way door to door.
Policing There was a small police station in my dad’s town. It was gone and consolidated by the mid 00s. My dad had things smashed and police would attend same day. By the 2010s they wouldn’t attend and simply give you a crime number.
Of the people.
There’s the odd outlier like Mahri Black? The youngest MP ever. But the trend is establishment candidates. Only those backed by the party apparatchik have any chance of success. Tons of people like Lord Binhead try.. or the Monster Raving Loony Party try but always lose their deposits.
Sheltered, to begin with. In elementary school, I thought that friends who lived on Park Avenue were middle class.
One thing, though, that many don’t understand — not all of the students in these schools are rich. The schools generally offer financial aid, and many students are from upper middle class families. Increasingly, they have some poor children as well.
But of course there are lot of rich kids at them — kids who go skiing in the Swiss Alps, kids with household staffs, what have you. This can leave kids from middle class backgrounds thinking that they are poor.
The schools themselves — mine anyway —
Very high standards. You did not skip class, and you were not absent unless you were ill or there was a major crisis like a death in the family.
Very solid, college preparatory curriculum with lots of electives. Math and language classes were tracked by ability. The curriculum was accelerated to the point at which many students went to college after their junior year — there just wasn’t much left to do.
No bad teachers; they ranged from good to superb.
Few bad students. Admission was competitive and those who couldn’t handle the work were asked to leave. All students went to college, any or most to Ivies or similar, and most got advanced degrees.
Small class sizes. Ours were about 15. Teachers had low course loads, and latitude in what and how they taught — no submitting lesson plans. And they could focus on teaching, rather on lunchroom duty and such.
No “teaching to the test.” But then, such a thing didn’t exist when I was in school.
That said, there was good prep for the SAT’s. This can’t make a dramatic difference in scores, less than 100 points, but it can make some.
Beautiful campus, also like a small college. Here’s where I went to school — that’s the library building:
image 144
9. Excellent facilities.
10. No bells, etc. But very high standards of behavior. You didn’t arrive to class late, and there were no fights or anything of the sort.
11. A friend who transferred in from public school told me that he was delighted to be at a school where the teachers actually liked the kids!
12. I recall visiting my cousin’s public school when we were juniors and was appalled at the way the kids were treated by the administration. Obnoxious.
13. Smart kids were admired rather than bullied or looked down upon.
14. Today, there is a lot of pressure on the kids to get into a top college. Less so in my day. In any case, the schools are feeder schools, known to top colleges. At my school, for example, six kids went to Yale every year. Not five, not seven — they had six slots set aside.
15. The quality of the students was remarkable — probably more so at privates that cater specifically to the children of the rich. Out of a class of 100, one of my classmates became the first female editor of The New York Times. One became a philosophy professor at Cambridge, the other at Harvard. Another became a physicist. Most became doctors and lawyers. (Only three of us, I being one of them, became engineers.) One of the lawyers worked for President Obama. Etc.
16. I asked a former teacher why it was that, on a standardized test administered to students in New York City, the public school students did better than the private school students, but that in life, the private schools students did better, and he said it was simple — the private schools taught the students to think. They don’t stuff your head full of facts like a public school, but you can write an essay or prove a theorem.
In retrospect, if there was a downside, it’s that we were so sheltered. But overall, my experience was just about as good as it could be, within our current educational framework and given the requirements set by the colleges. I wish that every student could enjoy a similar experience.
There is no threat to the Chinese political system. 95% of Chinese support China and its government. People live longer, today their life expectancy is 78 years old and the U.S. is 2 full years lower at 76 years old! They live better lives. Their real standard of living less inflation has grown 30 times in 40 years. Meanwhile during the same time. The U.S. real standard of living not only not grow. It deteriorated back 20 years into the 1960 level!
Chinese has full universal healthcare coverage and college education is free of charge if one qualifies for it. All of which is not free in the U.S. and close to a third of Americans are not covered by healthcare and may die if they fall sick! That is the U.S. not China! Kids gets into college debts before they even start life in the world.
So who want to change their political system? Well by trust on government measurement carried out by trusted western research in the west showed Chinese trust their government 95% and only 30% of American’s trust their government!
And your question is what is the biggest threat to the Chinese political establishment? Not what is the biggest threat to the so call US liberal democracy? Why do you not ask the obvious? And why do you worry about a non issue? Where is your intellect? Where is you rationality and sanity?
Ok I get it you are a China and Chinese hater and you term communism as a slur to demonised China. But let me help you. 87% of the world don’t buy your shit. Sure the 13% westerners may be fooled by your media but even that a higher proportion of westerners are smarter than you. They know this is a nonsense question. But I addressed it to call you out. If you can ask this question you don’t amount to much.
What was odd thirty years ago, is my new normal, but here are a few random remembrances from 1990 Germany, 6 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Brutal truth rewarded me when I asked “how are you?”. Replies weren’t always “great”, “awesome” or “just fine thank you.” Germans actually thought I cared (and eventually I learned not to ask if I didn’t).
Germans are direct. They don’t beat around the bush. When they have an opinion they share it with you. And they expect you respect it and deliver honesty in return. Political correctness was non-existent.
Service workers didn’t smile and chirp sugar-coated pleasantries. Shop attendants ignored me unless I asked for help. Restaurant meals were uninterrupted by the obligatory-every-five-minute repetition of “is everything OK?” I learned to ask for the bill rather than wait for it.
Smiling at strangers often seemed to discomfort them. I soon learned to recognize when a smile was welcome and when not.
Football (soccer for me at the time) rules. The 1990 World Cup began soon after I arrived. During games the world stopped. Loud cheers or groans occasionally livened up silent and traffic free downtown streets. As games ended, streets filled with honking cars waving huge flags (Italian, Spanish, Brazilian, Romanian and of course German).
I thought the Super Bowl huge, but the World Cup is much bigger.
Sporting events and television programs were advertising free. Ads appeared only between scheduled programming.
Everything was expensive. A used car with over 80,000 miles cost more than a new Hyundai in the US. A pair of brand name jeans cost 3 times more.
The electronics store salesman spent an hour trying to talk me out of a Toshiba television and a Samsung microwave. He insisted Asian goods broke as soon as the 2 year warranty expired. (The microwave is still going strong 30 years later, and the TV was only replaced because it was no longer smart enough for the digital age).
Nobody ever asked me about my religion or my profession, but damn were they curious about life in America.
Talking about money or charity is taboo.
Alcohol was everywhere. It was common to see people drink beer in the park or walking down the street. Lunch usually included a beer or carafe of wine.
There was no free water in the restaurants. And soft drinks were more expensive than beer. All drinks are served without ice.
Nobody littered! The public waste bins were emptied daily.
Germans pedestrians wait for a red light to turn green even on a deserted street at midnight.
Zebra-striped crosswalks get the same respect as stopped school buses in the US.
I was never asked to show ID to prove myself of legal drinking age. Sixteen-year-olds are allowed to drink wine and beer (even in a bar).
Magazines at the supermarket checkout featured naked breasts (no longer).
Shops closed at 6.30 p.m. on weekdays, 2 p.m. on Saturday and were all closed on Sunday (this has changed).
There were only three types of soda on offer, Coke, Fanta and Sprite (the selection is slightly larger now – but nothing like in the US).
Bagels and donuts were not to be found (that has changed too).
Bread was light on air and heavy on grains. My digestion became like an alarm clock.
Cities and streets are designed for pedestrians, bicycles and public transport – not for cars. Pedestrian zones are everywhere, parking is in expensive garages.
Downtown streets aren’t straight. They wander among the buildings and sites. Highways don’t mention north, south, east or west. They only tell you what towns and cities are ahead on the route.
Restaurant meals took hours not minutes and lack of television in the restaurants forced me to communicate with my friends. Meal portions were smaller and menus much more varied. Chain restaurants were rare. Tipping was optional and the wait staff gets 20 days of paid vacation.
Dogs are allowed in restaurants.
German flags were only displayed during the World Cup.
Everybody took a one hour lunch break and left work promptly before 5.30. People took three or four week vacations and left work behind.
Construction workers drank beer during their morning break. Obesity was unusual, beer bellies were not.
People walked for fun, but nobody seemed to run for fitness.
Some women at the pool sunbathed topless. Young children at the pool often wore nothing.
Public transport was immaculately clean and ran on time.
Brothels are legal.
Nobody ever seemed to get shot (though there were plenty of stabbings in Frankfurt where I lived).
Gas was four to five times more expensive than in the US.
My hour lunch break is over now. I’ll add to this if anything else occurs to me.
Back in the 70s, when smoking was legal almost anywhere except elevators. I stepped into an elevator in an office building with a coworker when another person stepped right in as the doors closed, smoking a cigarette. I pointed out it was illegal to smoke on an elevator and she replied, “what are you going to do, call the police?” My coworker, who happened to be a reserve police officer, pulled out his badge and said, “that won’t be necessary.”
Ah, I still remember her expression.
Varginha UFO Crash: Alien Contact, Government Denial and Coverup
You must be joking!!! I don’t understand how you could be unaware. China has been the target of massive anti-China propaganda in Western media for years.
And not only in mainstream media but in social media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and here on Quora.
Curiously, there are very few positive stories about China in Western media. They’re nearly all negative! How can that be?
Can a country that…
built the world’s largest economy from scratch within 40 years
lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty
created the world’s finest infrastructure of roads, bridges, high-speed rail, airports, etc.
landed on the dark side of the moon
sent an ambitious space mission to Mars
built the spectacular BeiDou navigation satellite system
reforested 34 million acres of land
produces the most renewable energy in the world
created the world’s best 5G technology
sent pandemic aid to dozens of countries around the world
…have practically nothing positive to report on at all?
Well, that’s what the American (Western) narrative is.
China don’t throw innocent people into jail like the how U.S. cook up some shit and throw the Huawei CEO daughter in jail in Canada. The 2 Michael’s are spies and doing things in China to hurt China and the Chinese people to spy for the 5 eyes. These are facts. These are self confessed facts. Canada, do the honourable think and apologise to China and the Chinese people.
Canada you are a hypocrite and a liar. You cohort with all the media to claim that they were innocent. Well they now says in their own free speech that they spied for you! You are lucky China don’t sentence them to death. China ought to. China should do. After all what they do could kill many Chinese.
The time that a white persons life is worth more than another race belongs to the 19th century today. We should sue every media that claims the Michael’s are innocent. We should end every journalist that lied. We should fine the media and politicians so hard the will never dare to lie again. Caucasians do the right thing. Do you like to be lied to? Again and again and again?
I thought that freedom of speech is so vital to you. And surely you want the truth, nothing but the truth? Why the hell are you keeping quiet? CNN and BBC. Why are you quiet as a mouse? Lying News channel?
I raised a young family in the 1970’s as a TV repairman. Made good money. TV’s were so unreliable there was a TV shop on every other street corner. Drug stores had a vacuum tube tester for DIY’ers (You can’t guess how many service calls I made where the customer had a bag of tubes they took out to test but didn’t have brains enough to read the tube layout on the inside of the cabinet to return them in the proper place.) When the RCA XL100 came out as one of the first solid state TV’s, repairs started a slow decline. When integrated circuits became the norm, the bottom opened. Microprocessors blew the bottom away.
Drive down ANY 5 streets and tell me how many TV repair shops you can find. Go ahead, I’ll wait………..
I saw the handwriting on the wall, jumped into early PC repair, became an electronics teacher, saw the build you own PC market crash, got into networking, watched Cisco plummet in the 90’s, did cyber security and retired. Modern TV’s are far superior to any previous generation by my firsthand experience. Not to mention a color tv in 1960 cost $300 – 500 dollars. Do the math with inflation vs any brand of 40″ flat screen. Be amazed.
image 149
This is what fed my wife and daughter for 12 years.
Because I got married and had her very early in my 20s, at that time, none of my friends had kids. My baby was the sweetheart for all the aunties – mom’s three close friends. We threw her a party.
It was fun. Each auntie got her a present. They handed it to her one by one so she opened it and got excited. To the last auntie, before she handed the present to my daughter, she ‘demanded’ my girl, “Say ‘please’ and bow, so auntie will give you the gift!”.
I thought she was joking, so I interrupted and told my daughter, “Auntie got you a present, you say ‘Thank you’ out loud!”.
My daughter exclaimed, “Thank you auntie!”, then opened the present.
It was a Lego Friends set. Needless to say, my daughter was so happy, and jumped up and down with the Lego set.
Then suddenly, the auntie snatched the Lego set from my daughter’s hands again, held it up above her head, and demanded my daughter, “Say ‘please’ and bow, or auntie’s gonna take it back!”.
This time, I knew she wasn’t joking.
I got angry but tried very hard to keep my voice calm, “No one demands my daughter to beg. We’re poor but we are not cheap”. “I was just joking!”, she said. “No, you weren’t.
That’s the second time and I don’t like it”, I told her.
Now she got angry, raised her voice with me, “Even so, this is an expensive toy, what wrong with begging a little?”. “You take the gift back and please leave”, I told her, while getting up and holding the door open.
She left and never came back.
The next day, I took my daughter to the toy store to get that Lego set. My friend was right. It was a damn expensive toy, it cost me a big chunk of my skinny paycheck and a friendship.
Of course it is the U.S. but to be fair the U.S. is the biggest threat to the entire world. China included. And the world. As a whole the world need to jointly and severally stop the U.S. excesses. I dare say for the good of the human race including the Americans.
The U.S. is the only nation that will push human into extinction through an all out nuclear war if uncheck. We humanoids on earth need to be very mindful of this fact and the U.S. powers must be checkmate at every turn and ever aspect. Militarily, politically, financially, economically and strategically.
The U.S. must be brought back into being a member of responsible human society where the common good of humanity must prevail over the selfish interest of the U.S. military industrial complex profiting from wars, chaos and violence worldwide.
China is a very peaceful loving nation and it survived 5000 years because it has a peaceful coexistence between nations as a priority. China don’t want enemies and certainly do not like war. Since 1979 some 44 years has passed since China last fought a war. But during that time China phenomenally grew rich and strong to deter any nation from threatening them.
China wants a peaceful world where we can live peacefully and harmoniously. We can all get prosperous and live better and longer lives. And we trade with each other. Today there are only some 12–15 nations that are part of these war threatening pack. Most of them are either forced into this pack as slave vassal states or coerced or bribed into this grouping. Glued together by the U.S. and the western media, this loosely defined as western powers need to be dismantled for good.
Chinese history
Cajun Beef Po’boy Sandwiches with Red Eye Gravy
For Cajun Beef Po’boy Sandwiches with Red Eye Gravy, sirloin steak is rubbed with espresso coffee powder and pepper, then broiled to perfection. Red Eye Gravy is added to the steak.
cajun beef po boys
Ingredients
Po’boys
1 (1 pound) beef top sirloin steak, cut 1 inch thick
6 teaspoons espresso coffee powder, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 large French bread rolls, split
8 slices tomato
1 cup shredded lettuce
Redeye Gravy
3 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup diced tasso or pancetta ham
1/4 cup diced onion
1 tablespoon Creole Seasoning
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/3 cup hot water
2 cups beef stock
1 to 2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce (Louisiana-style)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
Rub beef top sirloin steak with 2 teaspoons espresso powder and pepper.
Heat broiler to HIGH.
Place steak on rack on aluminum foil-lined broiler pan so surface of beef is 3 to 4 inches from heat. Broil for 16 to 21 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning once.
Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium heat; whisk in flour. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes until caramel color, whisking often. Remove mixture from pan; set aside.
Melt remaining tablespoon butter in same skillet over medium heat; add tasso, onion, Creole Seasoning and garlic; cook for 10 minutes until onion is translucent.
Dissolve remaining 4 teaspoons espresso powder in hot water; add to skillet and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until browned bits attached to skillet are dissolved and sauce is reduced almost completely.
Whisk in butter mixture until smooth.
Add beef stock, hot sauce and Worcestershire; bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until sauce is reduced to 1 cup.
Add roast beef to skillet. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes until heated through, stirring often so sauce coats beef.
Divide beef mixture between rolls. Top beef with tomato and lettuce. Close sandwiches.
There is no need to answer such boring questions anymore.
All infrastructure in China, including logistics, communication, power supply, water supply, and gas supply, is very complete.
In 2021, China produced 8.5 petawatt-hour (Pwh) of electricity, approximately 30% of the world’s electricity production.
There are two most advanced transmission technologies in the world, one called “ultra-high voltage transmission” and the other called “flexible direct current transmission“. China is far ahead of other countries in these two top technologies.
Overhead power lines can easily cause fires and can also lead to power outages.
Outdoor power poles and overhead power lines in China have been basically cleaned up during the renovation of old cities, and all cables have been buried underground without any exposed or disorderly phenomena.
If you have traveled to cities in Taiwan, Japan and Chinese Mainland, you will find that only cities in Chinese Mainland rarely see bare overhead power lines.
I haven’t experienced a power outage in China for 40 years.
Young people born in China after 1990 may not even understand what it feels like to have a power outage.
In China, even remote rural areas have stable electricity supply.
The Tibetan village at an altitude of 5000 meters has also been electrified.
But whether it’s India, Vietnam, or the United States or Europe, power outages are frequent.
The machines running in the factory require electricity, while the computers in the office require electricity. If the power supply is unstable, how do you make the enterprise work?
Taiwan’s power system has always had various problems. Taking TSMC as an example, due to a power outage in Tainan City, 30000 wafers on TSMC’s production line were damaged, resulting in a direct loss of US$200 million. No matter how rich TSMC’s finances are, it cannot withstand the losses caused by several major power outages.
Anyway, since you want to attract foreign investment, the first step is to ensure a stable electricity supply.
Otherwise, these enterprises will have to face downtime and production stoppage.
Through the the Belt and Road Project, China will help these countries improve their power systems and will actively transfer some enterprises to countries along the the Belt and Road.
China’s homegrown TP500 unmanned transport plane makes maiden flight, and transportation between Chinese cities will be faster in the future. Goods that originally took 3 days to arrive can be transported in 2-3 hours.
I was a workaholic, working 16 hour weekdays and 8 hour weekends. This was about 20 years ago.
It was Christmas eve, and I still hadn’t done my Christmas shopping, I had my list for everything, most of it specified by my nieces and nephews.
I had been reading how a few malls in our city were in trouble, as everyone was switching to big box stores to shop. They showed pictures of traffic jams in big box store parking lots. I was finally out of time and had to shop, and hope I could get the stuff on my list, at the last minute.
I pulled up to Sears at the local mall, that had been featured in the news, as being in trouble. The parking lot was empty. I was afraid it was closed. I parked in the closest parking spot to the door. I walked in and manager saw me enter, and was on me like glue. I was the only customer in the store, ON Christmas Eve!!
He asked me what I was looking for and I pulled out this long list. He smiled and called someone over to get me a hot chocolate from the mall, he sat me down in a recliner in the furniture section, and called two more workers over, and asked them to get the stuff on the list.
We talked, and I drank my hot chocolate. He was pretty sure Sears wouldn’t last another five years, and he needed it to, to collect his pension.
After about 15 minutes, the workers were back with my presents. I paid for them. They had a gift wrapping service, which normally cost extra, but he said that the staff weren’t doing anything anyway, so it would be free.
In another 10 minutes, they helped me load the wrapped presents in my car.
It was maybe 25 minutes from when I walked into the store, and I was done. Wrapped and everything.
I had almost never shopped at Sears, but after that I was a regular, until they closed the doors. I saw the manager until he successfully retired.
I later read that Sears ended up shorting the pension fund. I hope he made out OK, as I have never had service like that, before or since.
Just read this out to my wife and she burst out laughing. In 1996 I had been widowed over five years when a crazy woman burst through the door of our car sales site with so much enthusiasm and vibrance and chatter and said she wanted to buy a car. It was a quiet time so I stopped playing my guitar and set about helping her. She bought a car and left and I turned to my mate and said, ‘She’s totally bonkers’, he replied, ‘you’re telling me’, I replied, I could do with some of that’. I delivered the car a few days later and took her to the pub for a chat, after a few dates we were driving towards the Mersey tunnel, Merseyside from Wirral to Liverpool and I asked her if she would like to go on an adventure and her answer was yes, just then we entered the tunnel just as the petrol light came on, I said, ‘welcome to the adventure’.
We sold our houses, bought a B & B, called it ‘Firkin House’ and thirteen years later retired to sunny Cyprus and will have been married twenty years next May with lots of fun and laughs along the way.
Oh, boy. I’ll never forget this one as long as I live.
I had been living with my significant other for about four years. He always treated me well … but other people? Not so much. In this case, it was his grandparents, who I adored. They were just the sweetest people. They really loved their grandson, too, even though he rarely gave them the time of day. They wanted him to fly home for Christmas—I’d made plans with my family, so we were going solo that year.
Anyway, this guy refused to buy a plane ticket unless his grandparents paid for it. Here’s the kicker: he had the money to spend on plane fare. He just didn’t want to. A$$hole that he was. So, his grandfather, who was around 90, had said that he’d put the check in the mail. It hadn’t arrived, due to the holiday mail delay.
I bore witness to this guy browbeating his elderly grandpa into Fed-Exing another check over the phone. This was two days before the cut-off date to book the flight. So his grandfolks sent another check, because they wanted their grandson home for the holidays. These were old, frail people who barely got out of the house. Not good drivers. You know, why didn’t my S.O. just pay for the fare and let his grandfather pay him back once he was there?
A day or so after he left on the trip, his grandfather’s original check arrived in the mail. I looked at his spidery handwriting on the signature line, and I felt positively ill.
I ended up breaking up with my significant other because of that, and for countless other times that I’d seen him be really mean to other people who loved him—family members, even. I knew that one day, I could be next in line, and I wasn’t about to wait around for that to happen.
But 2024 is going to be different. How different, remains to be seen. But I have hope; I am optimistic.
It is the year of the DRAGON.
Chinese Horoscope 2024 – Year of the Dragon
The Chinese zodiac marks the start of a new cycle with the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, when one animal gives way to another. On February 10, 2024, the Year of the Dragon begins.
The Dragon is a powerful and auspicious creature in Chinese mythology, representing courage, creativity, and innovation. 2024 promises to be a year full of possibilities and opportunities.
According to the Chinese zodiac, the Dragon is the most powerful and auspicious animals. It represents strength, wisdom, luck and prosperity. The dragon is also associated with one of the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal or water. Each element gives the dragon a different personality and destiny.
The Year of the Wood Dragon 2024 is also known as Yang Wood on Dragon, or Jia Chen 甲辰 in Chinese. The fixed element of the Dragon (Chen) is Earth (Wu 戊), which represents stability, honesty and loyalty. The variable element of the Dragon in 2024 is Yang Wood, or Jia 甲, representing growth, creativity and flexibility.
The Wood Dragon is the most creative and visionary of the dragons. They are optimistic, ambitious and adventurous. They like to explore new ideas and challenge themselves. They are also generous, compassionate and loyal to their friends.
Therefore, the Year of the Dragon in 2024 is expected to be a time of visionary leaders, innovators and problem solvers. 2024 is also predicted to be a great year to start new projects, explore new opportunities and create value for yourself and others.
Some of the most promising sectors for business growth in the Dragon Year 2024 are fintech, AI, cybersecurity, blockchain, and solar energy. These industries are driven by innovation and demand for cutting-edge solutions. To succeed in these competitive markets, businesses need to embrace new technologies and communicate their value proposition effectively.
The year of the Wood Dragon 2024 is special because it is a rare combination of the dragon’s power and the wood’s creativity. It is a year of innovation, vision and growth. It is a year to pursue your dreams, express your ideas and expand your horizons. It is also a year to be generous, compassionate and loyal to your friends. The next Year of the Wood Dragon in the Chinese zodiac will be 2084, which is 60 years from now.
A Black and White Cat Kept His Owner Awake Until the Ambulance Arrived
Mr. Andrew Carnegie arrived in America in 1848, with no money and with no formal higher education.
His parents decided to move the Carnegie family to the United States after a famine hit the Scottish countryside.
At thirteen years old, Carnegie found a job that would pay him $1.20 for a 70-hour week.
During his free time, Carnegie read books loaned to him from one of the local libraries.
These books impacted his life so much that later he donated millions of his money to building over 2,500 public libraries and educational institutions around the world.
image 577
When Carnegie was about 18 years old, Thomas Scott, the owner of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, employed him as a telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week.
By age 24, Mr. Scott saw great potential in the young Carnegie, and promoted him to superintendent of a division of the Railroad Company.
Mr. Scott eventually became Carnegie’s mentor, a relationship that changed his future.
image 576
The experience Carnegie gained working closely to Scott was a vital ingredient in his success in the steel industry.
Years later, Carnegie sold his company to JP Morgan. That was what made him the wealthiest man on earth, and the philanthropist he later became.
To answer your question, what is the best piece of advice you could give someone about life?
1.- What are you filling your mind with?
Are you consuming your free time with worthless social media? Carnegie read books. He invested continuously in his personal growth.
Stop wasting your time!
2.- Are you trying to figure out how to do it alone! Who do you take advice from?
Carnegie was inspired by Mr. Scott. He listened to his advice. He was a hard worker. He was coachable.
In January 2019, Copdy Litz made a 10-foot snowman with his fiancée and his sister, and then posted this on Facebook:
image 579
It received a lot of admiration online as well as from his neighbours. However, when something marvellous attracts admirers, it also brings jealous assholes. Same thing happened with this snowman.
Turns out that one day when Copdy was away, a douche driver tried to destroy the snowman by ramming their car into it. To their horror, however, the result wasn’t as amusing as the driver was expecting.
When Copdy returns home, he sees this:
image 578
Tyre tracks leading to the snowman but they stop abruptly and the imprint of a bumper can be seen exposed in the snow. The snowman is still standing. Any idea how?
Do you see that black-brown part where there’s no snow? Well, that’s a thick tree stump used as a base for this snowman, but it was concealed by the snow. Hence, when the driver decided to ram their car into the snowman, they had no idea of the surprise they were in for, and ended up crashing their car into the sturdy stump. That’s why you see the imprint of a bumper on the snow and no more tyre tracks beyond the snowman.
[1] Sadly, the driver fled the scene after this surprise they received, and therefore, there’s no photo to show the damage on their car, but I bet it must be a good one (lol).
Copdy Litz later revealed in an interview that the purpose of using a tree stump as a base for this snowman was to teach vandals a lesson because such incidents were very common in his region. For sure other vandals must have learned the lesson.
Anyway, this display of instant karma seems pretty satisfying to me. If only I could see the damaged car, I’d be more satisfied.
I bought a car in TX. Private party. In winter. To drive to MN. On turnpike it was getting cold. I stop at Goodyear shop near a hotel. “I want radiator flush, engine block heater installed, -20 antifreeze”
got estimate, signed, walked to hotel, called with room info as next day Saturday they were open till noon. Next day 11:30 am check out, walk over. “owe did not have correct size front plug replacement block heater. So we put a lower hose heater in. We charged your card, here are keys we are closing early”
I KNEW lower hose not recommended. As angles all wrong. Warmed water flows to radiator first. NOT engine. But what can I do? So I will drive. Go to local Goodyear shop have it corrected.
50 miles hose blows apart. I had bought gallon antifreeze as knowing how shops screw filling empty radiator. But gauge looked great. Using knife I tighten hose clamps, add gallon antifreeze strait, limp to rest stop, gallon water, next town.
Get to local Goodyear. “we are not in same Goodyear chain as that place. But we will give you $5 off new hose, new frost plug heater, installation and full antifreeze replacement”. I did it myself.
Many years ago, I worked in a small sewing factory that made water ski vests. When I was hired, I was paid by the hour but was told that I would get raises based on my work, and the sky was the limit. I soon discovered that there was a very low cloud cover.
I got a small raise after one month. I was assigned to do the finishing job, but devised a new method and could complete 600 vests a day. The other workers could not keep up with me, and I had to learn all of the other jobs so that I would have at least 300 vests ready to finish.
Minimum wage increased; new employees were now being paid 10 cents an hour less than I was. I asked for another raise based on my performance and was told that if I kept doing what I was, I would get a raise in 6 weeks.
A month later, the owner brought in an “efficiency expert” who looked at my finishing job and suggested “improvements”. The improvements made me do twice the work for half the numbers.
The next day, I tried to talk to the owner about it. He told me to try it for six weeks, and I would get a raise. But, I was two weeks away from my promised raise. I said, “I quit!”
A couple of weeks later, I ran into my supervisor. She said she had to do my job until they could train someone else. After two hours of doing the “improved” method, she realized why I quit and went back to my method.
I also ran into the person they trained to replace me. She could complete 50 vests a day, instead of my 600.
The business went bankrupt 3 months later. There was a riot and police were called when the boss showed up with no paychecks on payday 🙂
I once responded to a job ad that advertised a pay rate of $10–25 per hour.
I showed up to the business to do an interview with the owner. The guy was busy so I had to wait 30 minutes past my scheduled time. Apparently, the guy didn’t even remember what was on my resume, nor did he seem to care. He didn’t even ask about my skills and mostly just talked up about himself and his business.
Finally at the end of the interview, he offered me the current minimum wage ($9.25 at the time, it was going to increase to $10 in a few months) and that we can “sit down and talk” about increasing the rate after a month.
This was an IT software and hardware repair shop and I had a master’s degree in computer science with several years of work experience. I wasn’t looking for a massive salary rate, but a side gig that paid reasonably well. I wasn’t going to work for minimum wage and then hope to God this business owner was going to be convinced to double the rate after one month.
I was really surprised by the salary rate, but I caught myself before I might have reacted negatively and said, “I’ll think about it.” I probably would have accepted it at $15 an hour, but minimum wage for a position that requires some technical knowledge, did not make any sense to me.
I thought about it and there were just too many red flags:
He didn’t read my resume, which isn’t respectful of my time to go to an interview.
Did not even offer the pay rate mentioned in the advertisement. He lied.
Clearly a sign that this guy is going to be very stingy, so the 1 month “sitdown” salary evaluation meeting did not look promising at all.
Doesn’t seem to be able to keep employees for very long. This was based on what I asked during the interview.
Needless to say, I followed up with an email saying that this wasn’t what I was looking for.
Update: Some bonus info I recalled recently. I remembered him mentioning in the middle of the interview that he had a mortgage to pay as if to get sympathy. I realized after the interview he was already thinking about making that shitty offer.
I used to be an Amazon Flex driver on the weekends to make some extra money. The base pay was $18 an hour and if I did my deliveries quickly, I was making more than $25 an hour.
They have a program where you sign up to be an “independent contractor” and get paid for delivering a certain number of packages in a prescribed amount of time. It was a lot of fun even though you have to basically fight other people online to get a run.
One day I was out making deliveries and I noticed a car pull over at a house where I had just dropped off a package. I thought to myself that it must be the homeowner and stopped to deliver the next. But, I kept an eye on the car and sure enough, they were following me and grabbing my packages.
I called the police and kept on delivering. Within 5 minutes, a police car pulled them over and as soon as I saw that they had them stopped I turned around and went to speak with the officers.
Come to find out that they had followed me out of the station and began taking my packages from the start. I looked in their car, and they had grabbed 9 of my packages! Had I not called the police, who knows how many more they would have gotten. They were arrested on the spot and taken away in handcuffs.
I was incredibly angry, because not only had they stolen my packages, but now I had to go back and deliver them all again!
It screwed up what should have been a very simple day, but I was thrilled to know that these porch pirates got what was coming to them!
Americans thinks the world thinks the world of them!
They are full of it!
Can you believe that the U.S. thinks people in Iraq welcome them warmly after they carpet bomb Baghdad killing civilians including women, children and babies! What Iraqis are doing is the lured them into the lions den and sniped them and bomb them into smitten! But U.S. officials and some Americans think the Muslim and Arab communities loved them!
About 20 years ago I worked for a huge Multinational American Call Centre that had opened a centre in Belfast. I worked hard and got several commendations and promotions, eventually being in charge of Annual leave for all the Call Centres in the UK. Problem was, the call centre didn’t want to spend money on software to track annual leave.
So I made it, on excel, as they didn’t support Access, go figure. Anyone who knows, will tell you access was far better for something like tracking annual leave for over 2000 employees across 3 sites on, but I am damn good at excel, and I made it do things its really not designed to do.
For 3 years I told them that it wasn’t fit for purpose and I needed proper software. Eventually we got a new director and they seemed to take note of what I was saying. So they looked at what I was doing, how I was doing it, and then decided to outsource it to a team in a South African Call Centre and Lipa City in the phillipines, apparently paying the two teams was less than my salary. They asked me to create an instruction manual for the tracker so that these guys could do my job, and they would move me to another department.
Once completed, they terminated me, paying me 10 weeks severance for my time served plus owed leave. I warned the centre Director he was making a mistake, he just laughed.
4 weeks later I got a phone call from a friend who still worked there, the Leave tracker had crashed as the teams running it weren’t doing the daily maintainence in the manual, they had also deleted the back ups to save disc space. There was no record of who had taken what leave and who had what leave left to take. So with 3 months left in the financial year, they ended up having to give all 2316 members of staff their full leave entitlement again (turns out payroll didn’t bother recording what they had paid to whom and for why).
I phoned the Director and simply said, “I warned you what would happen, but you decided you knew better, good luck.” He simply hung up, no response. 3 weeks later he was terminated for costing the firm millions in additional payments for all the extra leave.
I lasted just short of 8 years, he lasted just short of 8 months.
I worked for a large aerospace company in the Midlands. I never worked more than my contracted 38 hours/week, travelled away from base once a month and needed an overnight stay 2-3 times a year.
I was approached by a large consultancy to work for them and had a first round of informal meetings. Their HR person then phoned me and asked me about my current salary and expectation. Before I answered, I asked her to confirm what had been hinted at in the first meeting, 50–60 hours per weeks, 2–3 overnights a week. Yes she said. In that case, current salary +20%. She went quiet and then asked why I expected that much. Extra hours and nights away. We are only allowed to offer 7% over current. I replied “I’m sorry, but that fails the Tesco test.” What’s that she asked. “I could work the extra hours stacking shelves in my local Tesco for minimum wage, make more money and still sleep in my own bed.”
She Changed Her Face In Front Of The Camera Within 10 Seconds
A king is ruler of a sovereign country. An emperor is the ruler of the whole continent, considered to be higher than any other secular rulers. The Islamic equivalent is caliph, the Zoroastrian equivalent is shahanshah and the Hindu equivalent is maharaja.
Traditionally there were two Emperors in the Christian world: the Holy Roman Emperor (Western Emperor) and the Eastern Roman Emperor (Eastern Emperor).
Once the Eastern Roman Empire fell in 1453, the Russian grand prince Ivan III the Great assumed the title of Czar (from caesar) and Peter I the Great nominated himself as the Russian Emperor.
The French Revolution was basically a re-enactment of fan fiction of Rome. First they deposed the King, then they declared Republic (which went pear-shaped in five years instead of 500) and finally Napoléon imitated Augustus and declared himself the Emperor of France. By doing this, he juxtaposited himself with both the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire – itself more or less a fan-fiction of the Western Roman Empire) and Romanovs (Russian Empire – a fan-fiction of the Eastern Roman Empire). Naturally there could be only one, so Napoléon had the Holy Roman Empire abolished in 1806. Instead, the Habsburgs would claim the title of Kaiser des Österreiches (Austrian Emperor). Which made sense, as Czech was a kingdom, Hungary was a kingdom, Croatia was a kingdom and the rest of the Austrian lands were principalities.
Finally Germany unified under the Kingdom of Prussia in 1870. Since Germany was a hodgepodge quilt of kingdoms, princedoms, republics and city states, King Wilhelm declared himself as the Kaiser (Emperor) of Germany (from caesar).
All European Kaisers and Czars fell in the WWI. Ever since 1918, there hasn’t been an Emperor in Christian lands.
Also China and Japan have had an Emperor. The Chinese emperor was deposed in 1912, China becoming a republic, but Japan has maintained its emperor (mikado). The current Emperor of Japan is Naruhito, and his reign is called Reiwa.
I know the exact moment when I realized I was an adult.
It was the Christmas of 1998. I was in Beijing. I was one of those spoiled rich brats who went on a joyride with my fancy friends in my fancy car that my dad bought me. So that night, although none of us were Christian, it seemed like a good idea to celebrate some random holiday, drive to a dance club and have some fun. We were fully prepared to get drunk and party until dawn.
I was driving with 4 other friends in the car and I got into an accident. I was very scared, it was completely my fault. We realized no one was hurt and tried to leave. But the police arrived at the scene before we could drive off. And things got really serious.
I remember this old police officer, he had this “seen it done that” attitude, and asked “Who’s the driver?” I said that it was me. And he asked “Could you explain to me what happened?” I said “I want to wait until my dad is here.” And he asked again: “Are you the driver?” I said I was. And he replied, “If you’re old enough to drive and get yourself into this mess, you’re old enough to explain to me what happened and take responsibility.”
He was not mean, he was not angry with me or anything. He just said it as a matter of fact. And that’s the moment I realized I was an adult.
Why I choose to raise my child in CHINA and not the WEST
Nobody was talking about Chinese EVs until they took the world by storm at the Munich car show this year.
It was all Tesla, and more recently, the Germans and Koreans. The Japanese were not in the game at all, preferring ICE hybrids.
No one was paying attention to the charging infrastructure put in place in China, or the huge number of models from diverse manufacturers no one outside of China had any experience with.
My friend says there are at least 100 Chinese EV brands operating today.
100! China today is where the US automobile industry was pre-war.
Why isn’t anyone talking about the CPU? Because this is the English medium, and there is an automatic filter on any news that puts a positive spin against the narrative of the Chinese being a backward sub-human species who cannot innovate and therefore copy and steal exclusively from the west.
Read the Chinese to keep up with the Chinese.
Don’t read ABOUT them.
Otherwise, be prepared to be surprised/shocked repeatedly by the Chinese.
This Just ΗΑPPΕNED In The Netherlands, Υet Something Εven More Bizarre Is ΗΑPPΕNING IN AMERICA
It was 1989 in Richmond Virginia. Even though I was in my first year as a cop with the police department I was assigned a new recruit from the academy to be his field training officer. This young man was an immigrant from Jamaica. He said that his mother had read my future and that I needed this to keep me safe, and he handed me a bloodstone. As I was looking at it we got an alarm call for an industrial site that was a quarter of a mile away from where we were parked. I turned the key to the patrol car and nothing happened. I decided we would get out and run the distance to the site. When we were about two hundred yards away the building exploded, blowing the both of us back ten to fifteen feet. I still have scars on my left forearm that I instinctively put over my eyes. When we went back to the car it turned over the first time. My trainee looked at me and said, “My moms be looking out for you!”
If the car had worked we would have been there when the building exploded, and we would have both been dead.
My mother-in-law always pointed out that, if Hollywood were depicting medieval Europe accurately, between one-third to one-sixth of young adult women between the ages of sixteen to forty should be visibly pregnant when they waddle into range of the camera and every shot of urban areas should be swarming with young children (the majority of which will eventually die before reaching adulthood). You should have at least four children visible in every scene in which at least one adult is visible.
It was a world without legal birth-control, and women had a large number of children if they weren’t nuns. Walking down a medieval street, you would have seen swarms of children—think Rwanda-level disparities in the young compared to adults. Margery Kempe in the early 1400s, for instance, had fourteen children by the time she was forty. A reasonable guess at the normal number would be for an average married medieval woman to have ten children, of which fewer than a third would survive to adulthood. The most common cause of adult female mortality in the medieval world appears to be death in childbirth.
During each woman’s pregnancies, I believe there is little visible bulge until the the last few months of pregnancy. After that, she should be visibly pregnant. The swarms of children should be everywhere, running in the streets, crammed into alleys and houses, and pouring through doorways constantly.
A little background — I was working in a chain drug store in Southern California, the only employee who came to work, on Christmas Eve. We were a 24-hour store, so, having cleaned everything, and faced all the stock on the shelves, I was thinking how to murder the “dancing Santa” (bad recording, 2 1/2 feet tall, and poorly made).
10:30 (22:30 for 24 hour clocks) a guy comes in, freaking out. His wife has recently left him for her “hot stud boyfriend”, with whom she has a brand-new baby. They are divorced, but she got the kids on holidays. He had bought and wrapped the presents for the kids (daughter, son), and dropped them off at her boyfriend’s house — left them on the porch, because she refused to open the door until he left. He gets home, and finds the kids waiting on his front porch. His ex-wife’s mother had just dropped them off, and left them alone, because ex-wife, new baby, and “Hot Stud” were going to his parents for Christmas, and she didn’t want the kids “getting in the way”. Grandma had plans of her own, and refused to take the kids with her.
Ex-wife left him with two kids with no change of clothes, no presents, not enough groceries, on Christmas Eve. And there was no way he could not make her sound like the totally selfish bitch she was.
Semi-happy ending. I abused the hell out of my authority as the manager, and “store-used” or “over-ride discount”ed everything we needed to put together a Christmas for his kids.
Each of them got a ream of paper, the largest box of Crayola (crayons) we had, a generic fuzzy toy, and two other toys that he thought they might like. Each present was individually wrapped in a different paper, with big fancy (store-bought!) bows, and a Christmas card on each present, plus each one got a good sized bag of “stocking stuffers”. (Pocket sized toys and games, candy, fruit, nuts, etc). Then I threw in (from me) a couple of bags of Christmas candy and chocolates.
It’s Christmas Eve, and your mother has her mother drop you off at your father’s house — who isn’t even home — because she doesn’t want you, because she has the new baby that you aren’t even allowed to touch.
A few weeks before my nineteenth birthday, I was sitting to the right of my mom. When I went to look at her, she pointed out that my left eye did not track with my right eye, which made it look like I had a lazy eye.
image
The next day, after we had all laughed it off (because it did look quite goofy), my mom made an appointment with a neuro-opthalmologist. We went in on a busy Saturday and after he examined my eye, he requested that we make another appointment on a day when he would have more time to dedicate to me and the testing that would have to be done.
About two weeks later, my mother and I went to his other office and he examined my eye. He asked me if I had experienced any double-vision recently, and I realized I had. So, he explained the possible reasons for the eye (which he diagnosed as sixth cranial nerve palsy): it was an infection, or, in very rare cases, a brain tumor. He ordered a chest x-ray, blood work, and a head MRI.
The blood work and chest x-ray went well and nothing was found. Going into my MRI, my mother was optimistic, but I just had a feeling that the diagnosis was going to be bigger than a little infection. After the MRI, my mother and I got lunch and were high in spirits. When we returned home, I got to work on my classes (they were online- thanks, 2020). A few hours later, my mother ran into my room, very upset, and told me to come to the phone.
My doctor was on the other end. He told me that I had a mass in my brain that was pressing against my sixth cranial nerve. He suggested that it was a very rare form of bone cancer in my brain called chordoma that had grown on my skull base, in the middle of my head. I was diagnosed two days after my nineteenth birthday.
Since then, my diagnosis was confirmed and I had surgery to remove the tumor. I had many complications, like infections and brain fluid leaks, but I made it out. There was about 5–10% of the tumor left, so I underwent proton radiation therapy to kill the rest of the cancer. In a few weeks, I will have been in partial remission for a year 🙂 I also had eye surgery about ten months ago to correct my eye, which was stuck looking inward since my first surgery. Since then, I’ve been dealing with a lot of other issues because of my tumor and treatment, like chronic nerve damage/pain, Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism, but I have a wonderful team of doctors who have provided me with great treatments.
I was a freshman in college when I was diagnosed, and now I’m going to be a junior. I’m studying psychology and music, and I participate in my college’s choirs, theatre productions, and student life team. In the future, I’m hoping to get my Master’s degree in mental health counseling and work as a therapist for adolescents and young adults with disabilities, rare disease, and cancer. I would also love to perform professionally in my city’s symphony orchestra/choir and maybe even audition for America’s Got Talent.
If I were to pick the first biggest reason 2023 will be remembered (if it isn’t because of the brewing World War III that seems to be on the verge of breaking out) it will be as the year that A.I. became a reality.
Translator wages have been flat, and in the United States (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) there is the need for a total of 14,000 in the country at a stagnant average wage of about $50,000 with roughly 10% unemployment in the field.
Finding out
Bohemian Goulash Soup
Bohemian Goulash Soup
Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 1/2 pounds beef stew meat, diced
6 cups beef broth or bouillon
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1 tablespoon caraway seed
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cubed
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Heat butter or margarine in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Sauté onion until golden.
Stir in paprika and vinegar.
Add meat, broth, marjoram, caraway seeds, tomato paste, salt and pepper. Mix well. Cook gently, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until meat is tender.
Dilute flour with a little cooled liquid from pot. Stir into soup.
Add potatoes and cook until potatoes are tender.
Yield: 6 servings
Go and get it
Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations
WASHINGTON — The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.
Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.
But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.
Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in China, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build.
Assessing the fallout from an exposed spy operation can be difficult, but the episode was considered particularly damaging. The number of American assets lost in China, officials said, rivaled those lost in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of both Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., who divulged intelligence operations to Moscow for years.
The previously unreported episode shows how successful the Chinese were in disrupting American spying efforts and stealing secrets years before a well-publicized breach in 2015 gave Beijing access to thousands of government personnel records, including intelligence contractors. The C.I.A. considers spying in China one of its top priorities, but the country’s extensive security apparatus makes it exceptionally hard for Western spy services to develop sources there.
At a time when the C.I.A. is trying to figure out how some of its most sensitive documents were leaked onto the internet two months ago by WikiLeaks, and the F.B.I. investigates possible ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia, the unsettled nature of the China investigation demonstrates the difficulty of conducting counterespionage investigations into sophisticated spy services like those in Russia and China.
The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. both declined to comment.
Details about the investigation have been tightly held. Ten current and former American officials described the investigation on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing the information.
image
The first signs of trouble emerged in 2010. At the time, the quality of the C.I.A.’s information about the inner workings of the Chinese government was the best it had been for years, the result of recruiting sources deep inside the bureaucracy in Beijing, four former officials said. Some were Chinese nationals who the C.I.A. believed had become disillusioned with the Chinese government’s corruption.
But by the end of the year, the flow of information began to dry up. By early 2011, senior agency officers realized they had a problem: Assets in China, one of their most precious resources, were disappearing.
Better Understand the Relations Between China and the U.S.
The two nations are jockeying for influence on the global stage, maneuvering for advantages on land, in the economy and in cyberspace.
Wooing Indonesia: China and the United States are engaged in the strategic battle for influence over the resource-laden nation of nearly 300 million people. So far, Beijing has the edge.
Investing in Mexico: Alarmed by shipping chaos and geopolitical fractures, exporters from China are setting up factories in Mexico to preserve their sales to the United States.
The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. opened a joint investigation run by top counterintelligence officials at both agencies. Working out of a secret office in Northern Virginia, they began analyzing every operation being run in Beijing. One former senior American official said the investigation had been code-named Honey Badger.
As more and more sources vanished, the operation took on increased urgency. Nearly every employee at the American Embassy was scrutinized, no matter how high ranking. Some investigators believed the Chinese had cracked the encrypted method that the C.I.A. used to communicate with its assets. Others suspected a traitor in the C.I.A., a theory that agency officials were at first reluctant to embrace — and that some in both agencies still do not believe.
What we consider before using anonymous sources.Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
Their debates were punctuated with macabre phone calls — “We lost another one” — and urgent questions from the Obama administration wondering why intelligence about the Chinese had slowed.
The mole hunt eventually zeroed in on a former agency operative who had worked in the C.I.A.’s division overseeing China, believing he was most likely responsible for the crippling disclosures. But efforts to gather enough evidence to arrest him failed, and he is now living in another Asian country, current and former officials said.
There was good reason to suspect an insider, some former officials say. Around that time, Chinese spies compromised National Security Agency surveillance in Taiwan — an island Beijing claims is part of China — by infiltrating Taiwanese intelligence, an American partner, according to two former officials. And the C.I.A. had discovered Chinese operatives in the agency’s hiring pipeline, according to officials and court documents.
But the C.I.A.’s top spy hunter, Mark Kelton, resisted the mole theory, at least initially, former officials say. Mr. Kelton had been close friends with Brian J. Kelley, a C.I.A. officer who in the 1990s was wrongly suspected by the F.B.I. of being a Russian spy. The real traitor, it turned out, was Mr. Hanssen. Mr. Kelton often mentioned Mr. Kelley’s mistreatment in meetings during the China episode, former colleagues say, and said he would not accuse someone without ironclad evidence.
Those who rejected the mole theory attributed the losses to sloppy American tradecraft at a time when the Chinese were becoming better at monitoring American espionage activities in the country. Some F.B.I. agents became convinced that C.I.A. handlers in Beijing too often traveled the same routes to the same meeting points, which would have helped China’s vast surveillance network identify the spies in its midst.
Some officers met their sources at a restaurant where Chinese agents had planted listening devices, former officials said, and even the waiters worked for Chinese intelligence.
This carelessness, coupled with the possibility that the Chinese had hacked the covert communications channel, would explain many, if not all, of the disappearances and deaths, some former officials said. Some in the agency, particularly those who had helped build the spy network, resisted this theory and believed they had been caught in the middle of a turf war within the C.I.A.
Still, the Chinese picked off more and more of the agency’s spies, continuing through 2011 and into 2012. As investigators narrowed the list of suspects with access to the information, they started focusing on a Chinese-American who had left the C.I.A. shortly before the intelligence losses began. Some investigators believed he had become disgruntled and had begun spying for China. One official said the man had access to the identities of C.I.A. informants and fit all the indicators on a matrix used to identify espionage threats.
After leaving the C.I.A., the man decided to remain in Asia with his family and pursue a business opportunity, which some officials suspect that Chinese intelligence agents had arranged.
Officials said the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. lured the man back to the United States around 2012 with a ruse about a possible contract with the agency, an arrangement common among former officers. Agents questioned the man, asking why he had decided to stay in Asia, concerned that he possessed a number of secrets that would be valuable to the Chinese. It’s not clear whether agents confronted the man about whether he had spied for China.
The man defended his reasons for living in Asia and did not admit any wrongdoing, an official said. He then returned to Asia.
By 2013, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. concluded that China’s success in identifying C.I.A. agents had been blunted — it is not clear how — but the damage had been done.
The C.I.A. has tried to rebuild its network of spies in China, officials said, an expensive and time-consuming effort led at one time by the former chief of the East Asia Division. A former intelligence official said the former chief was particularly bitter because he had worked with the suspected mole and recruited some of the spies in China who were ultimately executed.
China has been particularly aggressive in its espionage in recent years, beyond the breach of the Office of Personnel Management records in 2015, American officials said. Last year, an F.B.I. employee pleaded guilty to acting as a Chinese agent for years, passing sensitive technology information to Beijing in exchange for cash, lavish hotel rooms during foreign travel and prostitutes.
In March, prosecutors announced the arrest of a longtime State Department employee, Candace Marie Claiborne, accused of lying to investigators about her contacts with Chinese officials. According to the criminal complaint against Ms. Claiborne, who pleaded not guilty, Chinese agents wired cash into her bank account and showered her with gifts that included an iPhone, a laptop and tuition at a Chinese fashion school. In addition, according to the complaint, she received a fully furnished apartment and a stipend.
Once, I was truly between jobs: had quit the old one, and a signed contract to start the new one in 2 months.
I was looking forward to spending 2 months doing nothing but sleeping, playing pool, drinking, and having fun.
Then an ex-colleague and friend called: the little firm he worked at was having serious IT problems; could I come in and consult/fix things?
So I put on a suit, pack a CV, head down to their office, and quickly see the worst computer setup I have ever witnessed on Wall St. Like, it’s a bundle of ancient Windows boxes doing God knows what. They couldn’t do things like keep the system running, never mind managing risk, or managing orders, or any normal business function.
I figure $40K for me, plus $20K in real server hardware, and they can have this on the road to fixed in a month.
My friend and I go into the CEO’s office, lay out my CV, I present a rough plan and cost estimates. The CEO just grabs a black marker and starts crossing out everything in my CV he feels is inapplicable: stuff like “Yale University” and “computer science.” Then he says “Your resume says you’re unemployed, $10K should be enough!”
My friend turns green with embarrassment, but I just get up and walk out. Through the trading floor of frustrated people yelling that the system has crashed again and they can’t enter trades.
This is a translated Chinese article pulled off the American platform Quora. Access to the article has since been "suppressed" and is not so easily found. Enjoy this article. -MM
Fact confirmed :
U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet announced Thursday night that the Electronic Attack Squadron 136 (VAQ-136) on the “Carl Vinson” aircraft carrier (CVN-70) currently operating in the South China Sea Commander Lieutenant Colonel William Coulter was relieved of his duties on the grounds that he “lost confidence in his command ability” Paul Ritter(Another military high rank in US navy), who was originally scheduled to serve as the squadron commander in April 2024, immediately Take over.
image 474
William Coulter is temporarily transferred to the Electronic Warfare Wing, Pacific. William Coulter has only served as the commander of VAQ-136 in January 2023, but was suddenly dismissed a few days after the “Carl Vinson” entered the South China Sea.
Speculation :
image 473
The F-18 “Three Brothers” on the US aircraft carrier. In the top is the single-seat F-18E, which is used for air control. The one in the middle is the F-18F multi-purpose type, which is mainly used for anti-ship/anti-ship and close range. the one in the bottom is an EF-18 “Growler” electronic warfare attack aircraft.
The fired electronic warfare commander (William Coultier) of the USS Carl Vinson managed this type of electronic squadron.
The strength of electronic warfare capabilities is extremely important for the US military’s aircraft carrier strike group (different from battle groups). Failure to obtain “electromagnetic control” means that enemy fighters, warships and even land-based anti-ship equipment will have a high chance of successful penetration, The warhead charge of modern heavy anti-ship weapons is no longer RDX, but CL-20 explosive (hexanitrogen), its power is three times that of TNT. The equivalent of about one ton of TNT explodes inside the aircraft carrier (more advanced weapons are equipped with armor-piercing nose cones, which can easily penetrate the aircraft carrier) with more than 6 times Mach impact energy, although the probability of sinking if hit by one is low, severe damage and loss of combat effectiveness are certain!
image 472
It is said last week, the US military’s EP-3E “Aries” electronic warfare aircraft encountered our military’s Y-8 electronic warfare aircraft over the southern Taiwan Strait. The two aircraft conducted a complex electronic offensive and defensive battle. The US aircraft did not gain any advantage, Evacuated the premise.
EP-3E is not under the management of the commander of the VAQ-136 Electronic Warfare Squadron aboard the USS Carl Vinson, which has nothing to do with his dismissal, but it is likely that he was defeated when he commanded the EF-18 to confront our J-16D, which resulted in the “Carl Vinson” being exposed to the firepower of our military.
image 471
Our army’s J-16D may be the most powerful operational/tactical electronic warfare aircraft in the world. It is derived from a heavy fighter, while the E/F-18 is a medium-sized aircraft. With comparable levels of electronic devices and integration technology, The former has a larger fuselage, higher engine power generation and greater power. It has a slight advantage over the “Growler” in interference and burn-through capabilities (anti-jamming), and our military has geographical advantages. “Growler” “It needs to take off from an aircraft carrier, and it is also at a disadvantage in terms of range and fleet size. However, our military can launch more J-16Ds at the same time to implement spectrum suppression (which can interfere with the Aegis radar on the Burke-class destroyer). This is all It was the reason that led to the downfall of the E/F-18.
image 470
The J-16D cooperates with other electronic warfare aircraft to compete for electromagnetic control rights, and then the H-6K carries long-range hypersonic missiles to strike. This is a tactic that US aircraft carriers cannot crack at this stage.
Needless to say, the struggle between our country and the United States is intensifying. In the past three or four years, when American aircraft carriers have entered the South China Sea from the Bashi Channel, our military will organize large fighter formations to conduct simulated offensive and defensive battles against them!
image 469
With the improvement of our military’s technology, the US aircraft carrier battle group can no longer show off its power like it did during the “96 crisis”. It has more symbolic significance than military significance. the US military’s four EA-6D “Prowler” electronic machines were able to interfere with telecommunications signals in most areas of Fujian and Zhejiang.
Conclusion of the speculation :
William Courtier putting the aircraft carrier at risk from our forces, and was dismissed.
Author Note :
US often send their war machine to china’s sea. do you really think US submarine hit mountain in South China Sea?
image 468
if you see the damage in that submarine, you can clearly see it was not caused by a breeding box, why because the upper part was not damaged. it was caused by a Chinese underwater drone, the best speculation due to damage is in the middle of the upper part of your so called sophisticated submarine.
The MWI is real, and it is valid. However, the idea in the movie that consciousness is equally shared between the world-lines is a tad distorted. Instead the centering of consciousness on a given world-line is the actual REALITY within this universe.
At a tense meeting with IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre, Waymond's body is taken over by Alpha-Waymond, a version of Waymond from the "Alphaverse."
Alpha-Waymond explains to Evelyn that many parallel universes exist because every life choice creates a new alternative universe.
In the Alphaverse, the late Alpha-Evelyn developed "verse-jumping" technology, which enables people to access the skills, memories, and bodies of their parallel selves by performing bizarre actions that are statistically unlikely.
The multiverse is threatened by Jobu Tupaki (Alpha-Joy), whose mind was splintered after Alpha-Evelyn pushed her to verse-jump beyond her endurance; Jobu experiences all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will.
She has created a black hole-like "Everything Bagel" topped with everything,[18] which appears as a toroidsingularity[19] that could destroy the multiverse.
Evelyn is given verse-jumping technology to fight Jobu's minions, who converge on the IRS building.
She discovers other universes in which she made different choices and flourished, such as becoming a kung fu master and film star; she also learns of Waymond's plans with the divorce papers.
Alpha-Waymond believes that Evelyn, as the greatest "failure" of all Evelyns in the multiverse, has the untapped potential to defeat Jobu.
Gong Gong is taken over by Alpha-Gong Gong, who instructs Evelyn to kill Joy to stop Jobu from using her to enter Evelyn's universe.
Evelyn refuses and decides to face Jobu by gaining powers through repeated verse-jumping.
Alpha-Gong Gong, convinced that Evelyn's mind has been compromised like Jobu's, sends soldiers after Evelyn.
While they fight, Jobu locates and kills Alpha-Waymond in the Alphaverse.
As Jobu confronts Evelyn in her universe, Evelyn's mind splinters, and she collapses.
Evelyn uncontrollably verse-jumps alongside Jobu across bizarre and diverse universes.
Jobu reveals she does not want to fight at all, but that instead, she has been searching for an Evelyn who can see, as she does, that nothing matters, while killing the Evelyns that do not agree with her.
She brings Evelyn to the Everything Bagel, explaining that she wants to use it to allow herself and Evelyn to truly die.
Upon looking into the Bagel, Evelyn is initially persuaded, and behaves cruelly and nihilistically in her other universes, hurting those around her.
As Evelyn is about to enter the Bagel with Jobu, she pauses to listen to Waymond's pleas in her universe for everybody to stop fighting and to instead be kind, even when life does not make sense.
Evelyn has an existentialist epiphany and decides to follow Waymond's absurdist[20] and humanist[21] advice, using her multiverse powers to fight with empathy[22] and bring happiness to those around her; in doing so, she repairs her damage in the other universes and neutralizes Alpha-Gong Gong and Jobu's fighters.
In her home universe, Evelyn reconciles with Waymond, accepts Joy and Becky's relationship and tells Gong Gong of it, and talks with Deirdre after Waymond convinces Deirdre to let them redo their taxes.
Jobu decides to enter the Bagel alone while, simultaneously in Evelyn's universe, Joy begs Evelyn to let her go.
Evelyn tells Joy that even when nothing makes sense and even though she could be anywhere else in the multiverse, she would always want to be with Joy.
Evelyn and the others save Jobu from the Bagel, and Evelyn and Joy embrace.
It is a fantasy. Which is still a fun illustration.
So that is OK, don’t you know.
10947799
But what does the audience get from this movie?
That there is a multi-verse; and MWI.
That you can travel between different world-lines.
That the traveling consciousness can absorb simultaneous experiences that color the actions in the reality.
I personally view this movie as an entry bridge towards enlightenment of the true and really pertinent reality that we all experience.
World-line slides… shown in the movie.
everything everywhere all at once
The three key points above are all in alignment with MM’s MWI narrative.
Edward. We called him Crazy Ed. At 12 years of age during a family reunion he grabbed his dad’s shotgun and started shooting. He got mad at his parents over some little crap. Shot his ma, pa, aunt and was chasing his uncle but ran out of shells. In a juvenile prison, this was the 1960s, he tried to poison a few people. And beat another thug with a broom half to death before they hauled him off. He was a polite, fairly polished, soft spoken youth. Looked like a mousy little accountant, glasses and all. He told people when he got he wanted to be a hit man for the mob. He enjoyed killing. I have no doubt that’s what really became of him.
I was an IT director for a company that had been acquired by a much larger company. When I declined to move to their IT location half a continent away, I was laid off. by phone. (my whole group was effectively laid off because they moved my group’s functions to the parent companies group much larger group and they all refused the move).
This was not unexpected, but the knowledge transfer had not taken place yet between the groups. (it was just beginning)
I accepted the severance package and told them we needed to call my counterpart in the corporate group to make sure the transfer was done securely.
When they asked why, I said that as an IT directory I have all the adminstrator passwords and could literally shut down the business if I was upset about the termination. I want to make sure that any issues that come up will not be pointed back at me or my team.
They agreed to conference call with my counterpart so he could take the necessary steps to secure the system.
The call went like this:
Me: Hey! You need to change all the administrator passwords on our unix servers and close out some accounts:
Him: Why?
Me: My group and I just got terminated and you need to secure these servers to make sure everything stays copacetic. You need to terminate my accounts, all access, and those of my team laid off effective immediately to protect corporate and customer assets.
Him: <explodes>What Assh*t did that? We haven’t got anyone to manage those systems, There has been no knowledge transfer on what the systems are used for, <folornly>I’m screwed!
Big Boss: That would be me. Just do it.
Him: OK, OK. I am logging on to the servers. What is the command? Oh Sh*t, I can’t ask you can I….
Big Boss (to me): This is a surprise. Would you be willing to stick around for a couple of weeks….
Me: Sorry- Even though I don’t particularly have an issue about being laid off, Corporate Security Rules identify me now as disgruntled employee and I am not allowed access to secure systems or even the building spaces.
When I was about 17 years old, my dad walked in on me and my then-boyfriend having sex.
The house I lived in at the time was located directly across from my high school. I was enrolled in a lot of sports, as was my boyfriend. Our practices often didn’t start until a half an hour or so after school ended, so most days we had a little bit of time to, um, kill. This particular day, I thought my dad would be at work. We raced to my house, went to my bedroom, and went at it. A few minutes later, without warning, my dad did the thing he always did – knock, then immediately open the door. Seriously? What was the point of knocking? I’ll never understand.
So there I was. His precious baby, naked with a boy. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to do a little *roll* off the bed, and then a second *roll* to hide myself underneath my bed. Leaving my bare-bummed boyfriend to the nightmare above me.
The only words my dad said was, “get dressed.”
I did not go to practice that day. Instead, I had to have dinner with my dad, alone. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I was mortified.
We tried to have small talk???? “How was your day?” “Fine, yours?”
Worst. Day. Of. My. Life.
Cajun Style Cube Steaks
2023 11 09 14 37
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
4 (4 ounce) beef cube steaks
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 (15 ounce) can no salt added tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of Cajun seasoning
2 cups hot cooked brown rice
Instructions
Place foil grilling bag on cookie sheet. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour in bag.
Arrange steaks in single layer on top of flour; top with pepper and onion.
In a small bowl stir together tomato sauce, Cajun seasonings, and remaining 2 tablespoons flour. Spread evenly over steaks and vegetables. Seal bag by double folding open end, leaving room for expansion.
Coat grill rack with nonstick cooking spray. Heat grill to medium indirect heat.
Slide bag from cookie sheet onto grill rack. Cover and grill for 35 minutes.
Remove bag from grill. Use kitchen shears to carefully cut open bag.
We had a a couple of very dear and long- time friends coming over to watch a DVD a few evenings ago. I went into the living room to make sure the sofas were clear of books, newspapers, knitting etc, but there was still some clutter around. The odd grandkids’s toys sitting in a corner. A laptop my husband was fixing for someone In bits on the coffee table. I said to my husband “ Oh, it looks OK. It’s only Angela and Colin coming.” Then I thought that’s a horrible thing to say! But then it occurred to me – it was, in fact, a great compliment. They were like family. I don’t do a big tidy up, making it pristine, if my daughter is coming with her children. Like them, Angela and Colin are part of our lives. It’s clean and comfortable, but it doesn’t have to be “ visitor ready.” When they arrived I told them what has gone through my mind, and they agreed – they would feel the same about us.
Newlywed Has MELTDOWN After Husband Gathers Proof Of Her Cheating For Their “At Fault” Divorce State
All these stories are so sad. But this one seems to be really authentic. The human situation sucks. Ugh. I am sorry for all three people.
USA and Australia are clearly stolen nations or stolen continents after barbaric and phenomenally cruel slaughter of natives living in their land for centuries. These lands don’t belong to the present inhabitants and it must remind all humans in earth of what savagery and imperialism occurred during the 1600–1900 where rampant European colonialism and aggression happened throughout the world.
Australia and the Americas have to be seen as naked aggression and raped of land and destruction and real genocide whatever culture is a 200–300 years old remnants of these atrocities.
China and Japan has long history spanning thousands of years. It possesses history and philosophy of life and both nations were helped by Confucianism and its ethics of discipline, hardworking, respect for the elders and authorities and constant learning and meritocracy. Both are highly educated and very successful societies. For a while Japan was infatuated with western style colonialism. Not the Chinese as it sees that is wrong to steal other people land.
Nations that grew out of stealing land that belong to others naturally sees themselves entitled. Dominate its regions. The U.S. Latin America and Caribbean while Australia the Islanders and thinks they have a right to command South China Sea too. That to me is clearly wrong and high handed with a tinge of colonialism.
Both Australia and the U.S. benefits from the so called international rules based order that favours the west at the expense of the developing world. But that privilege is being stripped away bit by bit. And truly free competition is beyond them. Hence the huffs and puffs.
Only one word RESPECT. Without respect US will always think their way is always the right way. China is not trying to change the U.S. liberal democracy. That is the U.S. way the U.S. sees fit for the U.S. it is the U.S. that insist China must not practice Socialism with Chinese characteristics! There lies the problem.
As long as one thinks and believed that they and only they knows best no relationship can work. The U.S. must know that to each it’s own. And one man’s meat is another man’s poison. I dare say the problem in the entire 100 years passed us that the U.S. wanted every nation on earth to be submissive and subservient to them!
China is very mature. China wants a rich and prosperous USA to sell to and to go for holidays. It doesn’t want to change a thing. The U.S. wants to weaken China. It wants China to be split into a 100 bite size nation for the U.S. to chew on it! It sees itself as the standard, the authority and the god ordained nation to rule the world.
That disrespect cannot go on. It gets no where. A 5000 years responsible civilisation cannot accept a 247 years old rogue stolen nation of cowboys telling them what to do.
This is HOW MUCH My Vending Machines Made in 365 Days!
I have taken a while to collect my thoughts. Some things need to be said.
This will be a disturbing post. So let’s cling precariously to reason. Please.
Two things are obvious here. The first is that the actions by Hamas rip a new gash in the face of humanity. No thinking person can deny this. Generally reliable news agencies like Reuters [1] report:
“We’ve seen dismembered bodies with their arms and feet chopped off, people that were beheaded, a child that was beheaded,” a reserve warrant officer identified only by her first name of Avigayil told reporters.
She said multiple cases of rape were found by forensic examination of the bodies, which have been stored in refrigerated containers.
A large number of international journalists have viewed graphic footage [2] that documents these atrocities:
Other sequences showed a militant with an agricultural tool hacking at the head of a man lying on the ground, gunmen killing wounded female Israeli soldiers and a jubilant Hamas fighter calling his family: “I killed 10 Jews with my own hands. I’m using the dead Jewish woman’s phone to call you now.”
Only a really crazy conspiracy theorist with his underpants on his head would doubt that these terrible things are absolutely, shockingly real.∗
But there is one more thing …
The other obvious thing
Hamas planned this attack meticulously over months—almost certainly with Iranian support.
[3] Israeli intelligence failed comprehensively. But no, these are not that obvious, other thing. The second thing is the answer to the question “Why?”
One answer is “Because Hamas hate Israel, hate Jewish people, and want to erase Israel from the face of the Earth, as they have often declared”. This is almost certainly true, but it is too glib. It is not the answer. If you follow this reasoning, then Hamas are like a fox in a henhouse—ripping away until no living thing is left alive.
The problem with this glib answer is that it doesn’t make complete sense. Yes, of course those who killed 1400 Israelis and kidnapped many more did so with almost indescribable savagery. Yes, of course they went out of their way to document the bloodshed and atrocities. And yes, of course, this is a new low—by even the lowest imaginable standard.
But this is far less than half the story. Those who set up this atrocity surely knew how Israel would respond. They could predict that Israel would pummel Gaza. They invited a blockade, and an invasion by the Israeli army. So the correct answer to that “Why?” question is …
This is all going according to script
Hamas knew that this would result in a huge number of deaths of their own people in Gaza.
Hamas are hoping that thousands—or even tens of thousands—of their own people will die. They have planned for a bloody fight in Gaza, with civilians all around. They want this. They want large numbers of children to die in Gaza. This is part of the plan.
At least thirty Israeli children died. By 24 October 2023, two thousand three hundred and sixty children had died and over five thousand had been injured in Gaza. [4] This is precisely what Hamas want. It is part of their plan. It is surely what they predicted. They are malevolent—but they are not stupid. So then, why did they do this?
Why?
They knew that Benjamin Netanyahu would have no choice but to retaliate not just in kind, but on a vast scale. They knew that had he said something like:
We will not descend to their level. We will hunt down every single one of these terrorists, but we will do this in our own time. Not one will escape. We will move mountains to preserve international law, and protect innocent civilians …
… then he would have been labelled ‘weak’. He would have been out on his arse. The atrocities were so bad that people would have demanded an immediate military response from his successor. This is the main reason why the atrocities were quite deliberately so atrocious.
So thousands of children are dead, and thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians of all ages will still die. Quite according to the script that Hamas has laid out. They don’t care. In fact, it’s precisely part of the plan.
Now you asked:
Will people forget the massacre of innocent Jews by Hamas after seeing the Gaza attack?
No, of course not
That day will live in infamy. But it won’t matter.
Because the countries around Israel will also never, ever forget the vastly greater number of children who died. They will never forget Israel’s response. And here’s the truly terrible thing.
For every one who died, several more will spring up, their heart filled with hate for Israel. There are about two million people [5] packed into the Gaza strip. It’s like a vast kindergarten—and from this kindergarten, hundreds of thousands of people will emerge, and none of them will forget Israel’s actions.
Israel is running things entirely according to Hamas’ script. And when they deviate, they do so in the wrong direction …
A bonus for Hamas
Israel has even provided a few unanticipated bonuses that make things worse. For example, Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan has accused the Secretary General of the UN as follows:
[6] The UN Secretary-General, who shows understanding for the campaign of mass murder of children, women, and the elderly, is not fit to lead the UN. I call on him to resign immediately. There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people. There are simply no words.
This was in response to his speech on 24 October, [7] that went as follows:
I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel.
Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.
All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.
Excellencies,
It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.
The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.
They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.
But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Another perhaps unexpected bonus for Hamas is how Israel has cut off supplies…
Fuel
By far the most important supply Israel has cut off is fuel. No, not water. Not food. Fuel. [8]
This is because the hospitals with their thousands of bomb-injured and crushed people need fuel to run. And water cannot be pumped (or even desalinated) without fuel. Oh yes. The Israelis also supply one third of the water to Gaza. And this has been cut off, too.
They are allowing a few percent of the supplies needed. This will result in multiple deaths, particularly of vulnerable people—the elderly, and children, and the sick.
The most disturbing bit
In the video clip associated with this post, the Israeli defence minister describes Palestinians as ‘human animals’—and says that this justifies cutting off food, fuel and water.
This is from the international playbook [9] of dehumanisation:
During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.
In summary
So this is the way I see it. Israel has provided a knee-jerk response.
In consequence, their entire state may not survive. This will likely take a few decades to play out—but I think Israel has just signed its own death warrant in the blood of thousands upon thousands of the sick, the elderly, and children.
This is precisely what Hamas scripted. Israel has simply followed the script.
I find this all tragic beyond words.
My 2c, Dr Jo.
∗
It’s sad we even need to say this. But already the conspiracy nutters are out there in force.
Image was generated by Poe/StableDiffusion in response to the prompt “a fox in a henhouse with lots of feathers and blood”.
Based on my observations after having lived in most of the Anglosphere and in West Europe, I feel that many of the people from said countries would not consider Singaporeans “Native English Speakers”.
Which is pure snobbery, in my opinion. I guess they see themselves as the gatekeepers of who can or cannot be a native English speaker.
I have been to Singapore several times, and in the early part of my career, I was even seconded there.
While it’s true that there are many Singaporeans who grew up in a Chinese-speaking (or Malay-speaking, Tamil-speaking) household and might not have reached the level one would expect from a native English speaker, I also came across many Singaporeans (admittedly, I only worked with Chinese Singaporeans during my time there), the young ones, especially, who could only speak English.
Sure, they’re ethnically Chinese, but their Chinese is…. below even the rudimentary level. Like, if you ask them something very simple and basic like “Can you state the four cardinal directions in Mandarin?”… they can’t.
If they can’t even do something as simple and basic as that in Chinese, and their main language, the one they’ve been using since birth, is English – then how are they not native English speakers?
If you don’t consider them native English speakers – then the question becomes: So, what is their native language?
They can’t, or, to be generous, barely, speak or read Chinese. The only language they know is English.
Shouldn’t that, by definition, make them native English speakers?
Or is it really possible for someone to not be a native speaker of any language?
I would definitely consider this demographic of Singaporeans native English speakers, but, you know, I’m not one of the “gatekeepers” mentioned above, so my opinion might count for nothing.
Taking my morning shower, I felt a twinge of stomach pain. “Man, I’m really hungry!” I thought. “I’ve got to hurry up this shower and get some breakfast.”
Then I started to feel a little light-headed. I put my hand out and braced myself against the shower wall. I felt even more faint. “I could pass out and fall in here,” I thought. “I’d better get out.”
So I did, and as I was toweling off, I started to feel nauseated. I went to the toilet and threw up—blood! Holy shit! I called to my wife, “I’m vomiting blood.” She came and took a look; “You sure are!” It wasn’t a whole lot, about 30 ml of bright red blood and mucus, but it was scary as hell. I was hoping it was only an ulcer or something, but I couldn’t help thinking cancer, especially since a friend of mine had recently died of stomach cancer. It was mid-January and my daughter’s wedding was coming up in April. “I’m not going to make it to Nicole’s wedding,” I said to my wife.
The nausea passed. I finished drying off, laid down in bed, and fell asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up, I threw up more blood.
It turned out that it was in fact cancer. I had a rare type called GIST—gastrointestinal stromal tumor. There was a tumor in my upper stomach exactly the size of a billiard ball. But I’m writing this 7 years later. I lost very little stomach to the surgeon—only an area a little larger than a (U.S.) silver dollar—and I was eating at a fine Italian restaurant in Houston five days after the surgery, everything from red wine to tiramisu. I danced with my daughter at her wedding and I’m a grandfather now. I’ve been fine and very healthy since that surgery. Scared the hell out of me in 2010, though.
I hope never to have another bathroom experience as bad as that one.
Baby Poo
Huawei and Meituan announce collaboration to develop HarmonyOS ecosystem
Huawei and Meituan announced a comprehensive partnership to innovate industries, apply technologies, and develop businesses using HarmonyOS. Huawei will fully back Meituan in launching the development of native applications for HarmonyOS.
The announcement comes on the heels of Huawei’s HarmonyOS Next is expected to ditch Android app support as early as 2024. Several of Huawei’s self-developed OS concept stocks rocketed and hit the daily limit after the news was released, according to ChinaDaily.
Huawei partners with Meituan for HarmonyOS ecosystem
Meituan is a Chinese tech giant that offers a wide range of services, including food delivery, online grocery shopping, and ride-hailing. It is one of the most popular apps in China, with over 600 million active users.
Huawei’s confidence in its alternative ecosystem strategy on the mainland received a boost in late August when the company launched its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, its first 5G handset since the Mate 40 series was released in October 2020.
The Mate 60 Pro was met with strong public support, and Huawei became mainland China’s fastest-growing smartphone vendor in the third quarter of 2023.
Recently, multiple job applications in China have announced the launch of HarmonyOS app development. For example, 同程旅行_旅游_旅游线路_旅行_出国旅游_自驾游_周边游_旅游网站 (formerly known as Tongcheng) announced the launch of HarmonyOS native version App development, with plans to complete core version development by the end of 2023.
In addition, a number of internet giants, including Meituan, have listed several job openings related to HarmonyOS. For instance, Meituan publicized a variety of HarmonyOS-centric roles, such as Senior HarmonyOS Engineer and HarmonyOS Infrastructure Engineer.
According to data, as of August 2023, the HarmonyOS ecosystem boasted over 700 million devices and was supported by more than 2.2 million developers actively contributing to its development. By October 30th, the number of devices upgraded to HarmonyOS 4 had surpassed the hundred million mark.
The connection between “body count” and “cheating while married to a man”
They are still slowly trying to clean it up. The areas that were too dangerous are called Red Zones. Restrictions within the Zone Rouge still exist today. After the war, the French government declared a 460-square-mile area unfit for human habitation or development. It stretches roughly from Nancy through Verdun and onto Lille, with various non-contiguous zones so riddled with unexploded shells (many of them gas shells), grenades, ammunition, and human and animal remains that it was simply too dangerous to enter.
In the 1920s and ’30s, the government oversaw the planting of 36 million trees, mostly pine and spruce, in part of the Zone Rouge. This the Verdun forest.
The Department du Deminage, was created after the war. Over the decades, it has helped to reduce the extent of the Zone Rouge, destroying hundreds of thousands of munitions and chemical shells, and has returned some land to civilian and agricultural use. They calculate that they have 300 years work ahead of them before they have cleared the whole battlefield. French farmers collect a huge amount of unexploded ordnance, barbed wire, shrapnel, and bullets every year. It is called the “Iron Harvest.”
Some areas remain entirely off-limits, the soil so full of arsenic that 99 percent of all plants die. There is still the ever-present threat of unexploded shells. There are many ghost villages that were left abandoned after the war, deemed beyond repair. The bodies of roughly 80,000 soldiers whose bodies were never recovered are still there. The bomb depressions are still there.
I mean, that’s the simple, and charitable, way to put it.
The more complex answer is…less charitable.
Most people don’t have moral principles. They have a general set of guidelines they absorb from the society around them without really questioning too much. These guidelines are tribal in nature, and as often as not are more about marking in-groups and out-groups than about a coherent, consistent set of morals.
A great many people want to think of themselves as “good,” but aren’t particularly interested in thinking a lot about it, and particularly aren’t interested in sacrificing comfort or lifestyle for it.
And given that what passes for morality in many folks is actually a set of tribal signifiers, they most definitely aren’t willing to give up social standing for it.
In fact, I’ll wager you that more than a few people who truly consider themselves moral, scrupulous people willing to give up money for morals, will still toss their values aside the moment they involve loss of social standing.
We are social creatures. We need the support and approval of the people around us to survive. Not just in the sense of an income stream to keep ourselves fed and a roof overhead, but in the sense of a social group—without that, we suffer.
So yeah, confronted with social censure for not adopting the opinion of the people around them, most folks absolutely will surrender their values. Confronted with losing money for not adopting the opinion of the people around them, most folks absolutely will surrender their values. If you’re reading this, odds are pretty good you’re one social smear campaign or a few hungry days away from letting go of what you imagine to be your most cherished moral principles.
Originally Answered: What is the best case of “you just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?
Ooh yes this brings back the memories from the early 1980s.
A bunch of us went to the next town for a few drinks and a laugh. I seem to recall one of the lads (not me) was getting married so for reasons that won’t become apparent we trooped off to a bigger town 10 miles away instead of our own little town.
We walked into a quiet little pub, grabbed some drinks and sat down on a round table which perfectly suited our group of seven.
The pub was totally empty apart from us and the barman. It was very early in the evening.
A group of three guys walked in and one of them looked very angry. Big and mean he was too. They walked straight over to us and the angry guy looked directly at me.
Angry – You! You’re a big cunt. Let’s have a fight now. Outside!
Me – No thanks mate. We’re here on a lads’ night out and don’t want any aggro.
The lads – Nah come on mate. We just want a drink. Blah blah blah.
Angry – Come on you cunt. Let’s fucking fight now.
By now he’d walked around to my side of the round table. He was a big and very tough-looking guy and I really didn’t want a punch in the mouth off him. I was probably the biggest in our group at 1.90 metres and 110 kg but even so, I didn’t want to fight this big lummox.
Me – Listen mate…
Angry punched me in the side of the face so hard I thought my head had come off. Blood spurted out but no teeth. It hurt a lot and I just held my face thinking “what the hell do I do now?”
I didn’t have to do anything. Andy, who is a very slender and weedy and very sweet young friend of mine stood up.
Andy – No-one hits my mate. Big mistake.
Angry – Oh yeah. What you going to do about it you strip of piss?
Andy sent him sprawling across the next table with one perfect punch to the face. Angry got up and together with his two mates left the pub without another word being said.
The barman walked over and spoke to Andy.
Barman – Wow. That guy you just floored is the hardest guy in town!
Me – Not any more he isn’t. Cheers Andy.
My face hurt for ages but thankfully no serious damage. Andy was our new top mate of the group.
I was offered a $500/month truck allowance, by my employer, to use my own vehicle on service calls. I bought a used truck, for that purpose. I had to carry a $1 million liability insurance policy, due to some customer’s requirements, in order to drive on their property, too. Then, he changed the number to $250. I told him that wasn’t what he had originally told me. That Friday, he gave me a note, as I left to do service calls, and said to think about it. All it had on it was “$350”. Monday morning, I showed up early, and loaded EVERYTHING that belonged to me into my truck. When he showed up, I gave him my building keys. He wanted to know what was going on, and I said “I’m gone.” When he asked if that was how I negotiated, my reply was “I don’t negotiate with liars.”
I sent postcards to the customers I did work for, telling that I was no longer with that company, but was available to keep their equipment running. I was the ONLY one at that company who knew how the stuff worked, and all the repair business went to me. The company had to down-size, and then sold out to a competitor, so my old boss went from owning his own business, to being just another employee.
Too late! The U.S. allows South Korea to produce chips in China, and China is not doing it!
Too late for South Korea, the China ship has sailed.
On a regular basis? Taking a giant gas guzzling car and lifting it to make it even less fuel efficient.
The trucks you see here in America are so obnoxiously big and with callous disregard for global warming. It’s crazy when you drive around here in Florida: 70% or more of the cars are SUVs or Trucks. Literally, 70% or more.
It’s definitely a cultural thing but I wish it would go away. The guys in these lifted trucks are almost always the hyper aggressive drivers the push up behind you and lay on the horn and then flick you off as they go by.
But then, a few minutes later, I’ll see one of them pulled over by a cop. That’s always the most gratifying feeling.
US Supreme Court Tackles Game-Changing Social Media Censorship Case!
Well that’s exactly the thing. The point of attacking the harbor was so they could take on America. There are two reasons that Japan carried out the attack.
The Paper tiger
The Japanese referred to America as a “paper tiger.” What they meant by this was that their military was all bark and no bite, and if the fleet was destroyed there was no way America could come back. What the Japanese underestimated was America’s production capabilities. America was at the time of 1941 one of the largest and most efficient producers of the world, and while FDR was of the intention to stay out of the war, the factories of the United States were churning out tanks, rifles, planes, and ammo to the Soviets fighting the Wehrmacht in the Europe, and Britain fighting the blitz, the Italians and Germans in North Africa, and the Japanese in Burma, China, and Australia. US Shipyards were just as impressive, with destroyers and merchant marine ships built by the hundreds, sold to Britain to protect against the u boats tearing up the Atlantic trade. Japan made the mistake of underestimating the capabilities of US industry. When the US declared war on Japan in retaliation, production went towards building their own military, including the navy. The US navy numbered in the thousands, from the dozens of capital ships to the hundreds of destroyers and submarines, and all of the auxiliary ships and escorts included. In addition, right after the attack the navy raised most of the sunken ships in the harbor. Of the eight battleships we lost, five were raised and went back into the fight, one of them sunk on refloating, and only two of them remain there, USS Arizona and USS Utah. Pearl Harbor remains one of the greatest tragedies in US history, but because of America’s industrial might, it was not the end.
2. The target
From a tactical perspective, another reason for Japan’s attack was what they believed they would destroy and how it would impact the fleet. The Japanese’ main target was not the many battleships and destroyers that were stationed in Pearl Harbor, not the oil tanks, command, or airfields- These were very significant, and their destruction was all devastating to our efforts in getting in the fight, but the most important targets were but one part of the navy:
The US Carriers
It is often said by historians that Pearl Harbor was the end of the days of mighty battleships and battlecruisers and the dawn of the carrier. The six Japanese carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Zuikaku, and Shokaku, were the most important part of the Japanese fleet, and carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese knew that the US would only have a chance against the Japanese carriers with the carriers of their own. Therefore, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor believing that the US carriers were there. Fortunately for the US, and the Allies as a whole, the carriers were at sea, safe from the carnage. As a matter of fact, the battleship USS Utah was painted to look like a carrier from the sky, to train US dive bombers, and because of this saw some of the heaviest bombardment of all of the ships, being one of the ships unable to be raised from the bottom. The assessment that the US carriers were essential to the US staying in the fight proved correct. The US launched the Doolittle raid the following year, striking Tokyo for the first of many times in the war from the carrier USS Hornet. The Shoho was destroyed in the following battle of Coral Sea at the cost of the carrier Lexington, but where we really see the tide turn in the Pacific is Midway. The carriers USS Hornet, USS Enterprise, and USS Yorktown crippled the Japanese fleet by destroying Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu. This would not have happened if it wasn’t for the stroke of luck we had with our carriers out at sea when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor.
Admiral Yamamoto, the brilliant Japanese commander who was behind the attack, which I should say despite its failure to knock out America was still a well planned and impressive attack, astutely believed that a drawn out war with the United States would end in defeat, and despite his best efforts to prevent a drawn out war, he was correct. In the film portrayal of Yamamoto in Tora! Tora! Tora! He is quoted for saying:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve.”
Yamamoto was killed in April of 1943, and with the carrier might have Japan gone as well, the rising sun was doomed to set.
Men are GIVING UP on Women and their hypergamy
There is such a serious problem with RELATIONSHIPS in the West.
Her department acquired a new department head, a newly promoted V.P.
One of his first actions was to identify all of the highest paid (and most productive) managers and terminate them as a cost cutting measure. At that point managers at my wife’s level were considered “at will” employees and, as such, could be terminated at any time with or without cause.
In any case, the V.P. then proceeded to fill the vacant management positions with much lower paid and less qualified staff. All of this happened within a matter of hours on a Friday afternoon. My wife was understandably quite distressed when she got home that evening.
Over the weekend, though, my wife received a call from the executive V.P. who oversaw her department. He called from his home in Southern France late in the evening so he could speak to my wife in the mid afternoon here in SoCal. He asked her to please report to work as usual on Monday morning.
When she got to work on Monday everything was back to normal and the new department head was gone. Fired for incompetence.
My wife stayed with the company more than a dozen years after that. She was eventually terminated permanently after her department had been sold to a different company. This time, though, she received a rather generous golden handshake — 32 weeks severance pay — as she left for the last time.
This is why men are no longer approaching women; Top 10 reasons WHY
I never experienced unconditional love until I got a dog.
Very likely. Their recent MOU to develop semiconductor lithography, naval shipbuilding, marine nuclear reactors are just another episode in that relationship. The glue that binds them is energy and technology. China needs energy and Russia needs technology. Trade between both countries are growing exponentially, currently at about 40% per year. Russia recently announced it would allow China to build a container port in Vladivostok, another indication China is preparing to use the Arctic belt road via northern Russia.
My opinion: There could be a day when Russia buys warships from China. It has already begun with Russia buying a Chinese frigate. It could also be possible that Russia and China will jointly develop gen 6 and gen 7 fighters and bombers, reducing non-recurring costs. Russia needs ‘China speed.’ China needs Russia’s energy from oil/gas to uranium. It is also likely that Russia and China will standardize military calibers and weapons between them so interchangeability and user knowledge will be compatible between both countries. The SCO makes the case for this standardization to increase to SCO members.
Both are BRICS and SCO members and both organizations are growing which gives them more world influence.
It wasn’t exactly on accident. I worked in the office of a commercial laundry business and they asked me to come in on a Saturday to mail out the monthly bills. During the time I was there the assistant manager came in and started hitting on me. He kept urging me to “go in the back and make out”. I refused and soon one of the drivers came in and he had to go talk to the driver. I finished up with the bills and went home. I told my boyfriend “Well, I don’t think I will be working there very ling”. Sure enough the next Tuesday I was let go for some “bookkeeping errors” that weren’t errors and I had been doing them for months without any problems.
What men and women want
Creole Meatloaf and Macaroni
2023 11 09 14 39
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 onion, minced
1/2 green bell pepper, minced
2 tablespoons butter
1 (28 ounce) can tomatoes
1 1/4 cups elbow or broken macaroni
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 to 1 1/2 cups meat loaf, cubed*
Seasoned salt and pepper
Instructions
Cook onion and green bell pepper in butter for 2 or 3 minutes.
Add next four ingredients and 1 cup water. Bring to boil and simmer, covered, about 1/2 hour, stirring frequently.
Add meat loaf and seasoned salt and pepper to taste. Heat through.
Notes
* Use leftover meat loaf.
What will these snowflakes do when things get REALLY tough? We haven’t even started yet.
For a serf: It sure beats being a slave. You are treated as a human being, you have your law-encoded rights and responsibilities, your taxes usually were reasonable and your lord had the responsibility to protect you and provide a free access to the castle. He also had the responsibility to provide you work and livelihood, and if he abused you, you had the legal right to flee to a town.
For a freeman (franklin or yeoman): You had the right to your life, body and livelihood, you could freely carry weapons outside a town, you did not pay rent to a lord and you could choose your profession. And should things go sour, you could freely move to a town.
For a town dweller: Towns were semi-independent domains who often were subordinate to the king alone, and while working can give you living, trade will make you wealthy. Townspeople usually were richer than countrypeople, and towns were bastions of freedom.
For a clergyman: You are the subject of the Mother Church and Father Pope alone, and nobody else. You are no more a subject of the lord, the king or the emperor. You will learn how to read and write, and you are free to pursuit your intellectual tendencies. If you join the Cistercian order, there are good chances you become a great engineer.
For a civil servant: You are the subject of the King alone, and nobody else. Same as with the church on intellectual pursuits, but you also may marry and have kids.
For a nobleman: You are first and foremost a soldier. You practice martial arts and train for war, military skills, leadership skills, equestrian skills and anything needed to serve in arms. You are exempt of taxes because upkeeping a military lifestyle is expensive. Your life is likely to be violent, nasty, brutish and mercifully short, but you might become a knight and a lord one day if you avoid that.
For a lord: You are a semi-independent ruler of your domain, and you are the lord and the hidalgo. You owe allegiance to the King alone, and you either pay it in taxes or serve 30 days in his service. Your main profession is to be the supervisor of the peasants who work on your estate, and maintain the balance between overworking them and providing them decent livelihood. Sorry, no ius primae noctis – that is an Age of Enlightment myth.
For a King: Think positively. You do not have the same absolute power as the sultans and czars in despotism, but neither you will face the same chances of getting assassinated or ousted or mutilated as they experience, and you do not need to kill your little brothers to ensure the throne. It is a good idea to run the country as a family enterprise – give important tasks to your younger siblings – and use the most talented of the lords as civil servants. Just maintain the balance between Church, Lords and Commoners, and you will do just fine.
If you are asking me personally, what is my biggest regret, I would have to say that I regret not taking more pictures of things I did when I was younger, and not documenting the adventures I had.
I find that after 50+ years on this earth, I remember bits and pieces of my life, but there are big chunks of my life that I cannot recall, so having more pictures of those events and having a documented record of those activities would be something that would truly bring me joy, being able to remember more of the life I lived.
My international company failed to have routine office supplies at our US location. Entirely. No office supplies.
So one day I needed a new pen. There were, of course, none. But rather than going out and buying my own at a local store, I decided to order one just to be ornery.
So I filled out the formal requisition form for one pen. I justified it (I wrote stuff and my old pen was empty), then used the proper channels to submit the requisition. The form:
Traveled from my California office to the main US branch office in Boston.
Boston routed the form to their home branch office in London.
London sent the form to the main International headquarters in Paris.
Paris approved the req. then…
Cut out one layer of bureaucracy by sending the approved form direct to Boston (the Paris and London offices hated each other)
Boston sent the approved req. back to my office.
I was then able to go out and buy one pen at corporate expense from the local store.
I was tempted to ask for a sheet of paper next, but Boston eventually decided to fund a small office supply in our location.
Oh. The Internet was around, but I should add that the original requisition form was hard copy. A piece of paper. That form physically travelled from California to Boston to London to Paris back to Boston then back to my office before I bought my pen.
This is what the Nile looks like when it goes through Sudan
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This is The Sudd. It’s Arabic for “barrier”. It’s also part of the Nile. It’s also much bigger than what you see here. It’s not much better even when it floods. Imagine you’re an explorer in, well, any time really and you come across this. The Ancient Egyptians tried to navigate past it for centuries. They utterly failed. Then the Romans decided to have a go at it. They failed too. Europeans tried in the 19th century. They had no better luck.
And where there’s swamp, there’s malaria. Good luck with that.
Europeans only found the source because they decided to avoid it entirely and attack it from the other direction, exploring into Central Africa. That’s not much easier.
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Richard Burton decided to make a go of it. He started in lovely civilized Zanzibar and worked his way overland until he found Lake Tanganyika. “Eureka” he exclaimed, “I have found the source of the Nile”.
However, the guy he brought along with him, John Speke, told him he was nuts. Tanganyika was too low and too small to account for the fact that the Nile never ran dry. Burton told him was an idiot and they returned to England triumph…. no, wait, the scientific community wasn’t convinced.
So Speke got to go on his own expedition. He turned north instead and found the much larger and much bigger Lake Victoria.
He returned to England well, not triumphant, but with enough good data to get funding for another expedition to try to make it to the Sudd and not only did he do that, he found another source of the river that met up in the Sudd, what we now call the “White Nile” as opposed to the larger source flowing out of Lake Victoria, the “Blue Nile”.
So, Speke gets the credit, literally for “connecting the dots”.
Image: Me sitting on my porch at my home in the Central Valley of California.
Well as a disabled person, I am legally blind the cruelest thing, in my opinion, was not said with words.
Deeds speak out loud and clear.
I took a class on a subject of interest to me.
The teacher with a happy smile in her voice told me she had a special place in class for people like me.
It was the back corner, furthest away from all of the others in the class.
Total isolation. I could hear the other members of the class, I could see the shadows o of the other members of the class.
When the class had a pot luck of snacks at the last week of class, somehow I didn’t get the e-mail to ask me to take in something. So I didn’t.
Then no-one actually told me directly that there were snacks available nor did they come over and tell me about the pot-uck offerings.
Though they did make quite a bit of a racket, going back and too to the snacks tables and telling each other who had brought which items.
Another classmate came to the class in about the second week and was sat close by in the same corner. She only attended one week and disappeared. She was profoundly deaf. We could chat okay as she could lip read. But as for interacting with the class it was difficult.
Me being bloody minded as I am, finished the class. I paid good money so I wasn’t going to surrender to unspoken insults.
Biden Angry, Calls Xi ‘Dictator’, US Business Applauds Xi; US Isolated UN SC; Sullivan Sleepless
Very good, and clearly explains the Geo-political situation today.
I was fired on the day I was going to hand in my resignation.
I hated the company: boss played favorites, personnel feedback was nonexistent, and they were very stingy with vacation time, even if you earned the days.
The third point I found out too late. After earning 10 days of personal time, I requested for time off six months ahead. Not only was it declined, I also got a stern talking-to by the same boss who played favorites.
I was so pissed off that I started looking for a job that very same night.
Within two weeks, I got an offer from a company I interviewed the previous year who kept my résumé in the active bin.
I moved my vacation date to the next month, upped the number of days, and got a business class ticket. I printed a resignation letter once I signed the offer at the new job.
The next day, I cared not an iota at work. I was just waiting for 5:00 so that I can hand in my two weeks.
4:30pm came and I got an email from the boss. I was being let go. They didn’t really say why (not that I cared) but they were going to give me a full month’s pay to help me find a new job.
i cleared out my desk, gave a quick thanks to my boss (co-workers have left at this point), and screamed when I got to my car.
I got the final pay the week after, then collected unemployment for a few weeks, and had a bloody fantastic time on vacation.
Growing up in Florida, we used to play at the beach almost every day. At least once or twice a week, we’d be building sandcastles, or kicking the surf when we’d watch a tourist with wide eyes knowing what’s to come…
I’m an empath, and often tried to warn them. As a pudgy six year old however; I wasn’t usually fast enough. By the time I’d be close enough to yell “don’t touch that!!”, the elderly tourist or drunk college kid was already screaming in agonizing pain! The Portuguese man o’ war looks like a shiny blue balloon, or plastic grocery bag. The venom is insanely painful. I watched about a dozen people pee on each other by the time I was 8.
Pretending you are not hungry when going to an expensive restaurant with friends, because you can’t actually afford to order food there.
Acting like you don’t like after-school sports, because you have to bolt to your after-school job, so you have lunch money and bus fares.
Pretending that family commitments prevent you from going on the school trip. You know there’s no way you can pay for it.
Declining invitations to weddings because you don’t have proper clothes to wear and because you have no way of getting there either.
Spending an extra hour in the supermarket so you can make the best choices with the $28 you have for food for a full week.
Listening with horror as co-workers trash the boss who only gave each a $20 gift Visa card. You, on the other hand, are silent and also excited beyond words – you plan to get much needed shoes, a winter coat, and a backpack at the Goodwill store.
Having teeth pulled, which should instead be filled and capped, because it costs one-tenth this way.
Talking to supervisors in chain food stores to find out what they do with damaged food. (Poor people know these stores often have a place where you can go to collect it.)
Adding water to the quart bottle of milk to stretch it.
Taking home unused sugar packets, tea bags and napkins from the fast food place and feeling grateful for them.
These are my memories of being poor. Although I am no longer poor, these memories keep me grateful, and, more importantly, I will always understand the behavior of those whose actions are continually checked by empty pockets.
After Denmark surrendered to the Nazis in April 1940 the status of Iceland was ambiguous. Although Iceland was an independent state, it’s ‘personal union’ with Demark, and dependence on Denmark for its defence and foreign relations, potentially meant it could be occupied by Germany. Its strategic location astride Britain’s Atlantic supply route to the United States made it vital to the United Kingdom’s security.
Britain invited Iceland to join the war as any and, when they rejected this, plans were made to occupy the island. Four Royal Navy ships led by HMS Berwick (above) deposited 745 Royal Marines in Iceland who met no resistance from the Icelandic police force, who were the only permanent armed presence on the island.
Iceland was occupied first by a British Division, then by elements of two Canadian Divisions and then by a brigade of US Marines. The latter arrived in June 1941, a whole six months before the United States officially join the war. This was one of Roosevelt’s most partisan decisions and greatly helped the British war effort as the Canadians could be sent to Britain, where eventually they would take part in the Dieppe raid and the battle for Normandy. Roosevelt sent the Marines as, being part of the US Navy, they were under his direct control, whereas sending the US Army would have required the approval of Congress, which was uncertain. The occupation of Iceland was not always popular with the locals, but one benefit of it was the construction of Rejkjavik airport.
Although planes and ships based in Iceland saw action, the garrison itself saw no action. There were, however, casualties as a result of the Icelandic climate and terrain. A five man patrol of the Kings Own Yorkshire Infantry were lost to the elements, for example. Despite the cold though, there were definitely worse places to spend the Second World.
NOTE
A lot of people have asked why the US Army couldn’t be deployed before war broke out. The answer is complicated, but it’s due to a policy decision rather than an act of the Constitution. Here are the details:
“At the same time, the War Plans Division raised inquiry concerning the effect of the legal restrictions that prohibited the National Guard, members of the Reserve, and men drafted under the Selective Service Act from serving outside the Western Hemisphere and which limited their terms of military service to a period of twelve months. For purposes of naval defense the President had placed the Atlantic frontier of the western world, quite arbitrarily, along the 26th meridian, which excluded the whole of Iceland. [25] The question was one of policy, not geography; and if policy for the moment dictated a course of exclusion, circumstances at any future time might well prescribe a change in policy. Whatever concern was felt during these first days in June seems to have arisen over the time limit rather than the controversial geographical restriction. On this basis it was entirely rational for the Chief of Coast Artillery to observe that selectees would have to be used in constituting the harbor defense regiment proposed as part of the Iceland garrison. In any event the problems posed by the legal restrictions did not seem insuperable as long as the 1st Division was being considered for the nucleus of the force. Although 75 percent of the officers of that division had been drawn from the Reserve, it was presumed that most of them would volunteer for duty in Iceland. The problem, in this respect, was considered to be one of maintaining secrecy. As for enlisted men, only a “small percentage” of them were selectees, and only about 10 percent of the men of the two antiaircraft regiments-the 61st and 68th-were subject to the restrictions written into the Selective Service and National Defense Acts. “
We were once renting a house and saving money towards a down payment to buy, when the owner came and told us he had to sell and had already and we had to be out by the end of the week. We refused since our lease guaranteed us 30 days. The new owner said that lease was void and had our utilities turned off. So as a goodbye gift, we went to the store and bought some old fish and 10 cans of cat food. There was a fireplace in the basement built of brick and had come separated from the back wall. We dropped the fish behind that. The cans of cat food, we opened and placed in crawl spaces throughout both floors of the house.
Well, according to my ex girlfriend of 40 years ago, I am blind, because I didn’t notice that the hostess, had sat down next to me, leaned in close to talk in a loud room, laughed at my jokes (hey, I’m funny) and played with her hair.
My girlfriend said it was so obvious she was about to throw up. Guys are oblivious.
Steve Jobs sold all but one of his stocks in Apple when he left in 1985, when Apple stock was at an all time low. He founded NeXT and was the majority owner when Apple bought the company, though at that point he was almost out of money, on the brink of bankruptcy. He also bought Pixar and it has been rolling out blockbusters every other year for 20 years. He also invested in other companies. Toy Story alone made Steve Jobs a billionaire because Pixar was publicly traded company.
Woz on the other hand gave away a lot of his stock. He financed more than a few huge rock concerts that lost a lot of money. He started a company making remote controls that failed and lost money. He got divorced more than a few times. He helps old Apple employees that are out of luck and deal with sickness. He gives away a lot of his money. But you don’t need to worry about him, he still has a lot and he is according to everyone who actually knows him, a super nice guy. He was never in it to have money, he just wanted a computer that he could fiddle with.
China Warns US “Don’t Try THIS” As Biden Prepares To Hug Xi
Just develop the smart bombs to change the equation from MAD to MGD – i.e., from the “old-fashion-not-so-accurate assured” to the “IoT-satellite-guided guaranteed” way of mass destructure.
These are the AI-enabled hypersonic bombs that cannot be defended against and only a few hundred launched from a control center are needed to completely annihilate the entire country the size of Russia, China or the U.S. Then the 5,000-plus warheads in the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the U.S. would become redundant and useless.
Even the triad security concept of land, air and sea delivery system becomes redundant. No need for those expensive bombers and subsmarines to deliver nuclear warheads as backup when those smart ICBMs can do the job.
The calculus for disarmament becomes very straightforward and simple.
War can be so simple when you know its guaranteed and forever.
And isn’t it why Biden is trying to deny China our advanced chips?
We were in a beautiful relationship for about 3 years. And then suddenly she over texts, broke up with me. No explanation given. Like every other guy, I cried, pleaded for just one reason, and all she said was it’s over, I don’t want to be with you. She has changed her college a month before the break up. And like I suspected she fell out of love with me because there is new guy who approached her. Quite similar to everyone’s love story. Lol
Anyway, I was literally shattered, and broken. I couldn’t believe the girl I thought to be my future left me in such a dire condition.
It’s been three years since she is gone. Yesterday, I got a phone call from her at 2am. Basic points from the calls were:
She was unhappy, crying profusely over the phone. She said she don’t have anyone to trust and talk to, except me. And yes, I talked to her because pretty much I loved her too much.
She said the guy cheated her, and when asked him for a breakup, he said he will going to kill her, he abused and hit her off. And she thought everybody will leave silently like me.
I asked her to do a police complain, she said, she doesn’t want her parents to know, she is stucked.
After few minutes on call, she was laughing, talking to me as if we were never separated, I was wondering how easy the things are for girls.
Then she told me even before her father and brother, I am the person she trust and respect the most. I was flattered but I knew, it’s no more important.
I was again at ground zero, I felt happy talking to her, but the wounds were yet fresh.
I tried not to make her feel bad and bid her bye.
Today I Changed my phone number, and email id!
I do love her a lot, still? Yes. But I cannot give her the power to destroy me again.
One day, I had a woman come into my checkout line and wanted to buy ALL the $1.00 Bic cigarette lighters at the checkout stand.
Between the two sets of lighters, she was purchasing about 35–40 lighters.
I was then ringing up all the rest of the completely full shopping cart of stuff she got in line with. At the end, she then handed me a bunch of coupons.
I was already on guard because buying so many lighters was very unusual. I looked at the coupons and there was a whole stack of them that were for $4.00 off of a $6.00 Lady’s Bic shaver.
She never purchased any shavers, and I told her these coupons could not be used, as she did not have the item.
She said they were for the lighters. I told her, “No, this is for 4 dollars off the shaver, not the lighters.”
She insisted that it would accept, and scan for, the lighters, too. I agreed. I told her I knew it would, but it was because of an error in the coupon codes, and it was not deliberate. We had been made aware of the error and did not accept it. She persisted in telling me that if it scanned, we had to accept it.
“No, Ma’am,” I said. “The coupon has to be for the item the coupon is for, not something else.”
What she was attempting to do was get 4 dollars off a 1 dollar item, giving her a negative 3 dollar balance with every lighter purchased. With about 40 lighters, that would leave her total at -120.00 dollars, which then got balanced out with all the rest of the items in her cart. Had I not paid attention to the actual coupons and just blindly started scanning them, not only would she gotten 40 dollars’ worth of lighters free, she would have gotten over 120 dollars’ worth of other merchandise completely free without paying a single cent.
I told her that what she was attempting was theft. She got irate and claimed it was not theft because she was not trying to take the items out without purchasing them. I told her that was exactly what she was doing by running what she knew to be a scam.
She then did not want to buy any of it, and wanted me to void off all the items.
That is when I got rather devilish myself. I told her quietly that no, she was going to buy everything rung up, as-is, without the scam, or that I would be calling the police for her to be charged with theft of well over 180 dollars’ worth of merchandise.
Either she got charged with theft, or bought what she wanted to buy at the correct total. But, it was not getting voided.
She bought it all.
I never saw her in the store again. Before that, she had been a semi-regular customer, always holding up the checkout as she constantly scammed coupons for far more than what the coupons were supposed to allow.
can’t do the 15th,” John said. “Can we push it back two weeks?” I looked at my calendar, trying to align the dates with our friend Derrick. Then, after finding a great window, John came back with another complication. I rubbed my temples in frustration.
I’m 40 and most of my friends are married and buried in toddlers. They also live in other cities. I try to arrange a trip each year, but coordinating it feels like pushing a boulder up a mountain. Beyond the scheduling conflicts, I’m in competition for their PTO with grandparents and extended family.
As a kid, it was all so simple. The only prerequisite for new friends was the spirit of play. If the other person was down, and nice, they became friends. In college, it was all about who I partied with and saw the most frequently. Everyone was so social. Then, this blur of obligations pulled us all apart.
As social primates, friendships are central to our health and happiness. Yet so many of us are painfully lonely and it isn’t entirely our fault. Since the 1950s, sociologist have asserted that modern life makes it difficult to meet the three conditions for close friendships: proximity, repeated and unplanned interactions, and an environment that encourages people to confide in each other.
Which is why it feels so forced to be planning hangout trips months in advance. It feels like I’m scrambling to keep legacy friendships on life support. I can scarcely plan to meet for dinner with people without complications.
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In school and college, it was so easy because there was endless time for socializing, and we were all on top of each other in dorms and classrooms. And, we didn’t have real bills and adult problems. So how can we make more friends as adults?
Converting new friends
Per one study, it takes 40–60 hours within the first six weeks of meeting someone to turn them from an acquaintance into a casual friend. It takes another 80 to 100 hours to elevate them to true friend status. Which feels like a ton of time as a career driven person. But these connections can be built up over longer stretches.
The obvious answer for me was work, back when I had an office job. But the people at my office weren’t necessarily the people I wanted to spend my time with. Sometimes, we just have to work with what is in front of us. It can even boost competency. Researchers found that doctor coworkers who became friends, performed better at their job. A personal connection and trust can boost performance in team environments.
In March of 2020, four teens were stuck on a boat in Cuba. They’d intended to fly back to the Netherlands. Then the pandemic struck and they decided to sail home. The intensity of spending weeks on the boat together, working to navigate as a team, turned them all from strangers into close friends. One friend said, “Being around someone 24 hours a day, you tell them everything. You don’t do that when you are home.”
My friend, who went to prison in his early 20s after being caught up with a bad crowd, said the same thing happened during his five year stint. Today, he is doing fine and in his late 40s, but is still friends with his former cellmates.
The challenge is that we apply more filtering mechanisms with age. We often filter people out by political views, social class, and do so without realizing it. It’s useful to be attuned to what you want in a friend, but beware of letting this turn into snobbish gatekeeping.
Getting a grip on potential friends
One study used Christmas cards in Western society to approximate social networks and estimated each of us have around 121 acquaintances. Other studies have found wide variances from this number. But it is exceedingly rare for anyone to have zero acquaintances.
These acquaintances are potential friends and not to be dismissed. Weak ties, as sociologists call it, are still great for mental wellbeing even if it is just a brief conversation. Today, I found out my beloved gym of seven years is closing. The owner, Joe, let me in for a final workout, even though the lights were off and they were cleaning up. We found time to chat about life and his decision to quit. I’ve always enjoyed talking to him so we exchanged phone numbers to potentially hang out. The other option is to reconnect with older friends you haven’t spoken to in years.
Accept that rekindling friendships is just more work in adulthood. Remember when your buddy got their first girlfriend or boyfriend and stopped hanging out? That’s everyone now. If you have a partner, it’s worth thinking through which potential friend has a partner who would vibe with them.
Also, practicing “self-disclosure”, or opening up about your life, is proven to boost connections with people. One study found three great insights about disclosing. One, people who give more intimate disclosures tend to be more liked than those who don’t. Two, people disclose more to those they like. And three, people like you more after you disclose. This comes with a caveat: don’t make it too personal, too soon. Avoid mud slinging from your divorce and giving play-by-plays from the bedroom.
The importance of maximizing time
My buddy has two kids and said he has one hour of total free time each weekday, and that when he finally gets that hour, he is desperate to decompress and have some time alone. Yet he also wishes we hung out more. This is a common theme around the country. People are lonely and crave more connection. Operate with this assumption, rather than starting from the assumption of someone judging or not liking you.
Remember to think about the places you frequent, and the potential friends you could make and maintain through those interactions. List out a few acquaintances and consider upgrading them. The key with any of these people is to also do things outside the place you regularly see them.
If you don’t see people on a regular basis, consider joining a club or taking up a hobby that involves other people. Then, get to work. Initiating doesn’t have to be heavy. Just something as simple as, “We should hang out some time.”
Lastly, be real and have conversations. Don’t spend 45 minutes talking about the weather. Vulnerability has a mutually boosting likability effect. You’ll both be happier in the end.
Don’t say “I am here if you need anything” when being more specific will truly help. “I am coming over tomorrow to drop off some soup” is way better.
Don’t glance over someone’s shoulder when they are in the middle of a story that matters to them.
Don’t look at your phone at all when you are spending time with someone.
On a plane if your seat is tight don’t recline it. Also, let the person squeezed in the middle seat use both arm rests.
Be extra nice if someone is serving you: giving you a manicure, bringing you food, preparing you a drink. Also please don’t hit on them. They are not charmed. They are serving you.
If anyone says “you hurt my feelings” the only correct response is “I am listening.” Not “I didn’t intend that” or “I was joking” or “wow you are sensitive.”
If you can make someone’s day a bit smoother, please do.
People want to feel heard more than they want advice.
People want to feel seen more than they want to be fixed.
People want to be sincerely complimented more than they want constructive criticism.
Say thank you a lot. Say it all the time. Add why you are saying it. “You always get my coffee just right. Thank you.” “You make my day sunnier. Thank you.” Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting on what I write. It encourages me. It makes my day.
American Couple React “America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better”
When life is hard… I often look backwards and try searching for pleasant memories.
Stand by me…
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One of my favorites is walking along the abandoned railroad tracks, along the river, in rural Western Pennsylvania. It’s a pure “Stand by me moment”. I lived this life in my early teens. And I often look back in time to this pleasant series of moments.
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Do you, fellow MM reader, have memories of your past that comfort you? What are they? A pet… a tree house… a uncle or auntie?
I’m good.
Don’t fret, though. I am just talking in general.
I have friends in trouble. But me, oh, I’m really good.
Chinese in China and Chinese in Taiwan will resolve the dispute if any between China and Taiwan. That is absolutely the right thing to do. The U.S. has absolutely nothing to do with this totally internal domestic issue. Any move to manipulate and war monger in Taiwan is totally and absolutely wrong you will certainly fail.
I am a Chinese ancestry from the same district that the majority of Taiwanese Chinese people migrated from. I have folks in China and Taiwan and we are of the similar stock. We certainly see that the U.S. trying to jam a spanner in the works as totally and absolutely wrong from Chinese people point of view and dare I say from the American point of view too.
How foolish can American think that it can shed blood and disrupt China by interfering in Taiwan? Do Yanks want to blow another 10 trillion dollars you don’t have to fight a war that 99.99% you will lose badly! Do the right thing pull out every single U.S. force out of Asia and make amends with the worlds most humongous market. Stop wasting more money flexing your sagging muscles by parading you aircraft carrier at a billion dollar a pop!
Your homeless need this money. Your uninsured healthcare citizens needs the money. Your infrastructure is dilapidated, Your streets are crumbling and totally not safe. Your banks are dropping like flies. You need to retrain the entire work force even compete with China.
What is right? The U.S. must get the fxxk out of South East China seas. And North Asia. You do that and Taiwan and China will resolved what ever issues it in a week. You can focus on making America great again. By being here you are helping g to make China great again!
Yes, Huawei will dominate the China and global south markets. But it will not in the global north market cuz the US will not lighten the pressure on Huawei.
However, Huawei makes not just phone, its strength is in network which is the weakness of Apple. No matter how good iPhone is, it’s limited by the network performance. While Apple created macOs, iPadOS and iOS (it’s a mess in my opinion) Huawei have unifies all in one OS; harmonyOS, an important step for the future IoT world. The US had inadvertently given Huawei a rare opportunity to self alliance and placing itself in a dominant position in the IoT market. Anyone wants to do business in China in the future should think twice being a lapdog of the US now.
Furthermore, Apple brags about their 3nm chip, yet it doesn’t have satellite voice communication compared to the less powerful Huawei Kirin. Indeed, it is impressive, but how does the 3nm technical supremacy benefit the users when Huawei offers more functions for less money? Trump started sanctions on Huawei, and Pompeo lied about China worldwide and now Biden’s growing pressure on Huawei, which invokes higher patriotism doesn’t help Apple sales in China. Apple will unlikely to regain market share in the near future.
Marriage is like a joint-stock corporation: you have to invest in it to have it run smoothly and both of you need to make a commitment to make it happy.
There are only difficult marriages and very difficult marriages. None are easy. But problems usually are resolveable.
All happy marriages are happy in the same way, all unhappy marriages are unhappy in their unique ways. This is known as the Anna Karenina principle.
Divorces follow the Pareto law. 80% of all divorces happen to 20% of people, 64% of all divorces happen to 4% of people and 50% of all divorces happen to 1% of people. Conversely, 80% of all marriages will last to death, and most people never divorce.
Learn to cook like your mom, not to drink like your dad.
Joker: The best thing a veteran can get is a strong-willed but a loving spouse who will take PTSD seriously and provide love and guidance when needed. My maternal granny was one.
Cajun Meat Loaf with Sweet Pepper Sauce
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Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
Meatloaf
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup finely chopped sweet red pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped sweet green pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 slices white bread, torn
1/2 cup milk
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup ketchup
1 egg
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
Sweet Pepper Sauce
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup diced sweet red pepper
1 cup diced sweet green pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
Instructions
Meatloaf
Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add red pepper, green pepper, onion and salt; cover and cook over low heat until very tender, about 8 minutes.
Remove from heat and cool slightly.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
Combine bread and milk in large bowl; let stand 5 minutes to soften.
Add beef, crumbs, ketchup, egg, hot pepper sauce and sweet red pepper mixture; toss gently to coat.
Spoon and pat into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour.
Let stand 15 minutes before serving.
Top each serving with a dollop of Sweet Pepper Sauce and serve.
Sweet Pepper Sauce
Heat in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the red pepper, green pepper, onion, water and salt; cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat until very tender, about 8 minutes.
Stir in cider vinegar, brown sugar and mustard seeds; cook over medium-high heat until most of the liquid has evaporated and sauce is thickened, about 8 minutes.
More Brinkmanship: NATO Shows Pics of Netherlands F-35 loaded with Nuclear Bombs!
NATO (i.e. the United States) has upped-the-ante-with Russia . . . again. They published photos of a Netherlands F-35 stealth jet with two B-61 nuclear bombs in its bomb bays – SIMILAR TO THE FILE PHOTO shown above.
No announcement. No publicized “threat.” Just loaded the plane with nukes, sent it into the air, told it to fly over a cameraman with its bomb bays open, and then publishes a photo showing the nukes are onboard.
Hal Turner Remarks
THIS is how NATO tries to intimidate Russia – over Ukraine.
Except the Russians don’t get intimidated.
We are still, very much, on the brink of outright nuclear war with Russia. And with NATO pulling crap like this, we get closer and closer as each day goes by.
Of course, no one in the Western “mass-media” bothers to show you how we continue to “poke the (Russian) bear” but I do show you.
I show you because when it actually happens, YOU will all know who it was that drive the issue. YOU will know it is OUR side that did it. ANd YOU will know who to hold accountable when they slither out from their bunkers in the aftermath.
When I was working in my job of 23 years for a company making a certain medical product, I was the sole full time employee with 2 directors.
I was getting older, my eyesight got weaker and the machinery more worn and needed more maintenance and broke down more often.
Production was lessening. I asked for a helper, but was refused!
Management then came up with a plan! They required me to write a daily journal of the work I did and the time taken and a detailed description of the work! On top, I needed to requisition any purchases required to maintain the function of the factory.
So, besides the set-up and operate of 7 machines, I had to clean my hands after each repair and sit down to fill in the journal. Any time I needed parts, I had to write a requisition, fax it to HQ, and wait for approval before driving to suppliers to buy them…one time, a machine was down for a month for want of 1 screw! They forgot because it was only 1 screw on the requisition!
Production plummeted, and eventually they moved back to the UK and set up there. Not a problem hiring 7 people to do the job I managed on my own for 23 years!
At least I got a decent severance and control of my pension fund…which was neglected as well!
Teacher: “So over 6 million Jews died in the Holo-”
Student: “Why aren’t we learning about the Confederacy? Why do y’all erase our Southern history but not the Holocaust?”
Teacher: *goes silent for a few moments*
Teacher: “Well, those are rather loaded questions. But can you tell me the name of this class?”
Student: “AP European History.”
Teacher: “…and where was the Confederacy?”
Student: “The United States.”
*The student continues to argue that we should still be learning about the Confederacy and not the Holocaust*
-A student with a thick country accent.
This is also the same student who wrote a huge passage from the Bible from memoryon the whiteboard when the teacher wasn’t looking. But I digress.
Teacher: “So which countries in Europe weren’t under communist control?”
Student: “China!”
-A very confident friend of mine in our AP European History class.
Teacher: “Sarah, pop quiz, how many states are in the United States?”
A very unconfident Sarah: “Oh, goodness… um, 51?”
Teacher: “Are you serious?”
Sarah: “Wait, there aren’t 51!? Is Puerto Rico not a state?”
-A former military officer and current teacher, chatting with a very aloof student before a Veterans Day parade.
Godfree Roberts talks about China
Author James Howard Kunstler questioned me about Why China Leads the World: Talent at the top, Data in the middle, Democracy at the top this week. He’s a typical, educated, intelligent American whose sole source of information about China is the New York Times. His tone was civil and he gave no clue that he believed nothing I told him. When he released the interview, he labeled me a troll.
Here’s the outline I sent him prior to the interview:
PARTY PEOPLE: The Communist Party’s ninety million members contribute a billion dollars in annual dues and billions of volunteer hours. They took an oath to ‘bear the people’s hardships first and enjoy the benefits last’. 48,000 of them flew into Wuhan when Covid broke out and 90% of staff deaths were members. Few work for the government and even fewer benefit from membership, yet they determine the country’s direction.
THOSE WHO PLEASE THE PEOPLE. China chooses politicians the way the US Navy chooses admirals and treats them similarly. Chosen from the top two percent of university graduates, theyspend years away from home, are modestly paid, earn PhDs, take orders, perform distasteful missions, observe a restrictive moral code, are held responsible for subordinates’ mistakes, constantly assessed, scrutinized, tried in special courts and punished more severely than civilians. China’s elite has always been non-hereditary, and they’ve been the country’s heroes for millennia.
DATA-DRIVEN DEMOCRACY. Constitutionally, electively, popularly, procedurally, operationally, substantively, and financially, China is democratic. The Carter Center oversees elections, voter participation is higher than ours and, in survey after survey, they trust their government and say it responds to their needs.
A DATONG ECONOMY. For seventy years China’s economy has grown three times faster than ours and, by 2028, will be twice as big. They spend four times more on R&D and lead the world in most sciences and technologies.
THE GRANARY IS FULL. Because Beijing allocates 59% of GDP to wages, incomes have outgrown GDP for decades and, by 2023, 96% of people owned a home and had a job, plenty of food, education, safe streets, health care and old age pensions. Their mothers and infants survive childbirth better, their children graduate school three years ahead of ours and live longer, healthier lives. There are now more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China.
A SAN FRANCISCO EVERY MONTH. China has built the equivalent of one San Francisco every month since 1951. Now they’re building City V2.0, a clean, green home for six million people that integrates 5G, driverless electric cars, maglev trains, vast wetlands and prevailing winds. Designed to pay for itself by doubling inhabitants’ productivity, it opens in 2024.
EDUCATION. Chinese youngsters graduate high school three years ahead of ours. Tier One urban teachers are limited to fifteen hours of classroom instruction weekly and their principals have chauffeured limousines and overseas sabbaticals. They take education more seriously than heart attacks.
LOST GIRLS AND HALF THE SKY. The first bill Mao, a lifelong women’s libber, signed in 1949 was the Equal Rights Amendment. The ‘missing’ thirty million girls have been found–beating boys in school–and their big sisters lead gigantic science and defence programs and comprise most of the world’s self-made female billionaires.
RELIGION. Two-thirds of Chinese are atheists and one-fourth non-religious Taoists. Though a Christian uprising killed thirty million people and brought down the Qing dynasty, the Constitution guarantees freedom of worship and the government supports seventy-four seminaries, one thousand seven hundred Tibetan monasteries, three thousand religious organizations, thirty-nine thousand mosques, eighty-five thousand religious sites and three-hundred thousand clergy.
CONFUCIAN ETHICS AND RULE OF LAW. Of all government services, the Chinese are happiest with their legal system. With one-fourth of our security budget, their police are unarmed, streets are safe, prisons are empty and reoffense is rare. The Supreme Court’s chatty website has had two billion visitors.
EARTH IS MY MOTHER. The Chinese have lived on the same land for thousands of years and it’s more productive today than ever. Thanks to the EPA, they avoided our environmental disasters and emulated our successes. Today, 42% of the country is wilderness and Giant Panda National Parkalone is bigger than Massachusetts.
HUMAN RIGHTS: Of the original thirty rights in the UN Declaration, China leads America in twenty-six and has proposed three that the US opposes: rights to food, shelter and national development.
CORRUPTION: The government, which tells the truth and keeps its promises, is the most trusted on earth. Though many local officials became dishonest during the boom, policy-making remained untouched. Now, AI and a dedicated, Cabinet-level anti-corruption department have the upper hand.
PROPAGANDA: xuānchuán, ‘transforming the people through exemplary behavior and instruction,’ has been a government responsibility since ancient times. China’s success in rolling out new programs depends on it.
DISCUSSION IS SUSPENDED. The Office of Chief Censor is two thousand years old and its incumbent is, and has always been, the country’s leading intellectual. Today, he’s a famous author and also a Cabinet member. He oversees the world’s largest, richest, most trusted media and his mandate is constitutional: “Once a policy has been widely discussed, voted on and legislated, discussion is suspended while everyone unites to implement it”.
THE TIANANMEN CAPER. Inflation, race, sex, wages and loss of university scholarships triggered the Tiananmen Square demonstration. President Clinton discussed it on Chinese national TV for an hour, but the story ended with an incamera trial in London’s Crown Court.
TIBET AND THE DALAI LAMA: More Tibetans can read and write their native language today than all the Tibetans who have ever lived, and those who have lived under both governments prefer the current one. Running water, schools, universities, hospitals, airports, high speed trains and forty years of rising wages have made a difference. As has the Lhasa Hilton.
HEGEMONY AND HUMANE AUTHORITY. China’s military, which humiliated ours in 1951, has more firepower than the US but plans to lead the world by virtuous example. Failing that, they’ll blow the US Navy out of the water with weapons a generation ahead of ours.
A DATONG WORLD. Ten years ago President Xi founded the BRI, promising to, “Jointly promote democratization of international relations by building an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity–a world community of common destiny, a shared planetary home for humanity.’
Oh I have a good one! Not only did this crazy woman run into me, she then tried to sue me!
I’m in the UK so traffic directions may differ in your country.
Here we go…
I’m turning right. I’m stationary waiting for a gap in traffic. One comes and I start to turn and – wham! – this lady runs straight into the back of me.
Took me a moment to realise what happened but I get out of my vehicle and check on her. She immediately states aggressively that it’s my fault. Errr, you run into the back of me I was stationary, love. She’s having none of it.
Anyway a police car happens to pass and stops checks that there’s no injuries. She is still ranting to the point even the policeman has had enough and points out she run into the back of me so it’s cut and dry your fault mrs.
So we swap details and I go home. As it happens I was turning into the street I lived at the time so no need recover my vehicle. I just park it and go to have a beer.
I call my insurance company and they’re not really interested as my car was worth £500 and with no injuries, there’s no money to be made. I was planning to scrap the car in three months when the MOT ran out so I just replaced the tire that was damaged, replaced the light cluster, tied a rope to a telegraph pole, straightened the chassis the old-fashioned way. Bit of duct tape on the bumper, and I’m good to go for the remainder of the car’s life. I wasn’t hurt so it’s all good.
That’s the end of that I thought… NOPE
Eighteen months later I get a court letter claiming against me personally. Not contact my insurance company just put in a claim for £4500 ish claiming I had overtaken a line of traffic and swerved in front of her not giving her time to brake. I know not even possible.
So I contacted my insurance company and they’re not interested. So fuck this I think I’ve never been paid for the damage to my car I’m going counter claim against the bitch.
So that’s what I did: I claimed £500 against her.
So the court day comes round and I’ve prepared my paperwork best I can do. I rock to court not really knowing what I’m doing but hey ho.
So I turn up early and don’t sign in; instead I sit close to the sign-in desk and wait for this nut job to turn up. She does with her slimy solicitor. So I let them sit and quietly go and sign in then I sit behind them so I can hear what they say. (Neither of us could remember what the other looked like of course).
He’s telling her I hadn’t turned up so they will win by default and as I was a day late responding to one of his slimy letters he was going get my entire case ignored through a loophole even if I did.
So the afternoon court session starts and off he goes up to the desk triumphantly stating that as I not turned up he expects this to go in his favour without a fuss.
Oh my friends on quora — if you could have seen his face when the nice lady paused, looked at him and said “but he is there” pointing at me. Sitting sneakily right behind him since he turned up listening to everything he had said. I know I shouldn’t have but I had to give him a cheeky wink. Lol
So we get into court — it was actually the judge’s chambers rarther than a large open court so there were only the four of us: me, crazy lady, her solicitor, and the judge . He starts off with his he wants throw my paperwork out through some legal loophole the judge looks at me and I come out with one of the finest lines in my adult life… I simply said “well that’s not cricket, judge”. I laughing as I recall this… the judge puts his pen down looks at this solicitor over the top of his glasses like a headmaster at a naughty pupil. He immediately retracts his request; I hold in my chuckle.
So the case carries on. Somehow my paperwork is far better than his and the guy is dying on his feet. I had just split from a solicitor I’d been dating for couple of years so I must have picked some stuff up. So this goes back or forward for 30 minutes or so and we get to the end. He sums up and he literally says “I surpose” … blar blar you did this, etc. Sits down.
Judge says to me right you have a go like he just has so up I stand… this is where I came out with the second best line of the day: “once upon a time… I was turning right… blar blar even the judge cracked a smile at my comedy genius.
She was psychotically jealous and eventually decided her husband can’t be with anyone else so she would take him off the market. She stabbed him seven times killing him.
To be clear, violence against wives/women is much more common—which is what makes these cases so interesting and unique.
This one was especially unique.
She stabbed her husband to death after seeing a picture of him with another woman. Yet she didn’t realize it was an old picture of her and her husband and she didn’t recognize herself.
I was a PFC in the USMC Reserves back in the 1960s and we were spending the weekend down at either Pendleton or Miramar, I don’t remember which, for our annual rifle qualification. Every Marine up to some high rank must qualify with a rifle every year. In the USMC, every Marine be they a cook or a company commander can put lead up the a$$ of the enemy just as well as an infantry Marine.
We were an artillery unit and our battery had finished our qualification with M-14s; we were told to stick around as we had to score and “pull butts” (mark targets with little discs to show where the shot had hit) for other regular Marines who were scheduled to qualify that day. One of my buddies was in the pit (200 yard range) and I was up on the firing line keeping score and recording.
An older Marine came up to qualify. He had a shooting jacket on so I couldn’t see his rank. We chatted for a while and when he was ready he began firing shots – I don’t remember the sequence but it was something like 10 shots prone, 10 shots sitting, and so on for – I think – 50 rounds to complete the effort. Depending on where you hit the target – bulls eye, or one of the outer rings, or missed completely (then the guy in the pits waved a red flag, which we called “Maggie’s Drawers”) you got a score for each shot. You had to get a score of something like 190 to qualify.
Anyway, this older guy started shooting and did a terrible job. He frequently hit near the edge of the target and even got a few “Maggies”. I made some joking comments about how he was going to get his a$$ kicked if he didn’t do better, then he changed positions and I could see he was a Major. That gold oak leaf peeked out from his shooting jacket, and I realized if he failed he might be retired out.
So I called my buddy in the pits and said we had a Major on the firing line and he had to qualify. No more Maggies and make sure he passes. We didn’t make him an expert or anything, but made sure he hit just over the minimum.
When it was over, I apologized for not recognizing his rank and saying “Sir”; he said laughingly no problem and then “thanks a lot, Marine” and went on his way.
From the 1950s to the late 1970s, the Shah of Iran robbed the country blind and sent all the money to the United States for investment.
Then a new government came into place in 1979 and demanded the United States return both the Shah (who was in the United States for “medical treatment”) and the Shah’s ill-gotten gains. When the Iranians stood by and let the American Embassy in Iran be taken over by “student protestors”, the United States implemented a complete embargo with Iran which effectively prevented them from repatriating assets in the United States. The United Nations soon followed suit, which prevented Iran from reaching its money in several other countries.
No-one is quite sure how much money is involved, but the low estimate is $100 billion U.S. dollars. China holds the largest share of that – $20 billion, but the United States still holds about $2 billion although it has over the years allowed Iran to repatriate some of its money on conditions of paying off U.S. court judgements.
Most recently, $6 billion in assets held in South Korea was transferred to Qatar for humanitarian uses. However, all the money still appears to be in Qatar.
Modern Woman’s Awakening: Choosing Family As Well As Career Success
I worked at the cookie store in the mall and there was a small seating area. A woman came in with an elderly woman who was clearly frail and suffering from later stages of dementia wearing a housecoat, slippers and what was clearly a bright yellow fall risk bracelet from the hospital, her frail body shaking as she sat making these soft whimpering noises.
The younger bought her a cookie and a soda and told her she’d be right back and took off, moving the elder woman’s walker well out of her reach and leaving the elderly woman alone. It didn’t take long before the elderly woman got more upset and kept trying to get up.
Our manager called security and went out to sit with her, but the elderly woman was scared of her, not knowing who she was. Security came and that just made the situation worse.
We ended up calling the police, the elderly woman had no ID on her (fall risk bracelets don’t contain personal information) and no way to call the younger woman over the PA system. Unfortunately this was not a high emergency situation for them and it was well over an hour before someone got there.
By the time the younger woman returned, social services had arrived and were loading the woman up into an ambulance.
She had abandoned her own mother for over two hours at the mall to go to dinner and shopping.
In 1977 I was in the army; a SP4 in the 978th MP Co., 76th MP BN stationed at Ft. Bliss, TX. My MP shift was was preparing to go to work and we had all just been issued our 1911 .45 autos from the arms room and were in the CO’s ready room. A soldier named Stone was issued a new holster and had taken the old one off his gunbelt and replaced it with the new one. They were of this type:
Stone had inserted his pistol into the stiff, brand-new holster. It was not easy. He hadn’t gotten it fully seated and the leather flap was still propped up some. I was standing right beside him and casually watching. We wore a white lanyard that attached to a loop on the butt of the weapon. When Stone tried to attach the lanyard, the 1911 discharged. His hand was nowhere near the trigger.
The Captain was in his office adjacent to where we 12 or 15 MP’s were and at the sound of the round going off he came storming into the ready room:
“Who the fuck fired that shot!??!!”, he screamed. “What the hell is going on here?!!”
Stone slowly raised his hand and the captain’s full and acidic ire and venom were directed at the young PFC. The cap called him every name in the book as he dressed the kid down a full minute or so for being reckless. Finally, at the end of his tirade the Captain asked, “Now where the fuck did that round go?!”
Stone had no idea where the round went and was near tears from the harsh words from the CO, especially since he hadn’t touched the trigger of his weapon at all. Everyone was looking around for the impact of the .45 ball round when I noticed a small, half-moon shape on the toe of Stone’s boot.
“Move your foot, Stone”, I said.
Stone shifted his right foot and there, in the floor under his boot was the bullet, fully imbedded into the tile floor. We all realized the round must have passed through Stone’s foot.
The transformation in the captain’s attitude was immediate and remarkable. Suddenly he became the very personification of the father figure, very concerned and compassionate about the young PFC.
“Sit down here son. Are you okay? Don’t worry about a thing..” he said as he took Stone gently by the arm and lead him to a chair. Medics were called and the CO continued to comfort Stone until medics arrived. Stone was transported to William Beaumont Army Medical Center.
So here’s the theory we came up with about how the round was fired and the remarkable path the bullet took:
Stone’s new holster was very stiff. We surmise that when he was shoving the .45 into the new holster the slide caught on the rough leather just enough to chamber a round and jam the hammer partly cocked, but not locked into place. As he was trying to attach the lanyard the hammer was released, causing the discharge. I have no idea if that’s what really happened, but I do know for sure he never touched the trigger and his hand was not on the grip.
The Path of the Bullet:
When the round discharged the bullet first blew out the bottom, including the small wooden plug, of the military holster. It then entered Stone’s right trouser leg about 5 inches above his knee (he was wearing fatigues). Amazingly, the bullet passed between his skin and the cloth, for about 7 inches or more, without contacting any flesh. It exited a few inches below the knee and continued to his right combat boot, entering at the toe. It passed though and entered the floor.
When he arrived at the hospital and his boot was removed, the doctors discovered that the big ‘ol .45 round had passed right through Stone’s right big toe without touching the bone. Now I don’t know how much meat you have on your big toe, but that was astonishing and very lucky for Stone.
Because there was so little damage, Stone recovered in just a few weeks. Had that big round entered his leg and struck his knee joint, I think it’s likely he would never have fully recovered the use of that joint. Thanks for reading!.
Cajun Pepper Steak
2023 11 08 11 31
Ingredients
1 pound beef (round or sirloin) cut into strips
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Tabasco sauce, to taste (that means USE A LOT)
1 1/2 cups water
2 large onions, cut into strips
2 bell peppers, cut into strips
2 tablespoons cornstarch (or all-purpose flour and a little water)
Steamed rice
Instructions
Brown steak in oil for about 5 minutes turning to brown both sides.
Add 1 1/4 cups of the water and Tabasco Sauce. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
Add the onions and and bell pepper and simmer until meat is tender.
If the gravy is too thin, thicken it by mixing 1/4 cup of water with the cornstarch or flour stirring until there are no lumps.
Remove beef mixture from heat and slowly add the thickening mix while you continue stirring.
Return to heat and simmer until gravy thickens.
Serve over rice.
Garnish with chopped shallots and make sure the bottle of Tabasco is on the table.
Not exactly, but I got suspicious of one dealership who serviced my car on a regular basis.
When I left the car, I set up a few things…
When I went to pick up the car, I paid the bill then went out and inspected the car. I then asked the service advisor to review a few things and he came out to the car with me. First thing I noticed was my right rear tire was inflated to only 15 lbs, which is where I’d adjusted it to five minutes before dropping the car off. On the service checklist it showed that all the tires had been checked for proper inflation. Service advisor commented the tech must have missed that one, and apologized. I said let’s look at the spare, it’s noted as being the right pressure too. I popped the trunk, lo and behold there was the gas cap sitting on the floor of the trunk. I pointed to the list and noted that I’d been charged for a fuel additive, so I asked if it was common practice to leave the gas tank cap in the trunk after adding the fuel additive to the tank. At that point the advisor ran out of excuses and started stammering his apology. He refunded my money and offered a free service job in the future. I took the money, declined his “free offer”, and never darkened his doorway again.
I went no further with that, but told several people I knew that used that dealership to beware.
If you are poor in Finland, you live in council housing.
image 14
Since Finland is located between 60° and 70° North, homelessness kills. The Finnish winter will simply kill you if you do not have a roof over your head.
Social housing – council housing – has been the thing since Industrialization. If your income level drops below a certain limit, your hometown or municipality will arrange you a subsidized council flat.
Poverty in Finland is essentially relative. Your basic needs (food, water, warmth, protection from weather, etc.) are covered, but you lack the means to attain the higher levels of the Maslow hierarchy of needs.
Köyhyys ei ole synti, mutta pirunmoinen häpeä. Poverty is no sin, but a god-awful shame, is said in my native Finnish. Yet it can be ameliorated, and for most people, poverty is a temporary state of things.
There are two sure-fire ways to become poor in Finland; one is divorce and the other is developing an addiction. Divorce and single parenthood are things which are to be avoided whenever possible, since they mean costs skyrocketing. Since both parents working (and sharing the costs of living) is the norm in Finland, divorce means there are now two separate households, but single incomes, meaning there will be less spare money to use and to invest. Developing an addiction (alcoholism, drug addiction, etc.) means skidding into antisocial lifestyle and derailment of the labour and workforce, meaning unemployment and unemployability.
Relative poverty usually hits families with young children worst. Since both parents are in the entry stage of their work careers, their incomes tend to be low, but their spendings high due to the children, and many of them actually do qualify for council housing. Things usually tend to get better once the children grow, and the parents advance in their careers.
The good thing with council housing is that, once you qualify for it and do not live in an antisocial, filthy or disturbing manner, you cannot be evicted. Many families with decent incomes, who once have been poor, actually choose to live in council flats, because that will leave them far more disposable money to use than if they lived in “good reputation” suburbs or purchased their own homes.
Yes. And he was very erudite, eloquent, and oratorially intelligent. Probably the best defense speaker at the trial. It didn’t stop the prosecution from convicting him, but most admit that it was an outstanding presentation. Maybe not all that logical, but it symbolized the Nazi mindset.
image 16
Herman Goring, Reich Marshall of the Third Reich, presenting defense argument at Nuremburg before sentencing.
Rather than being hung, he committed suicide by swallowing cyanide pills smuggled in to him.
Indeed, this is a question that many people are asking.
And precisely, because it is on many people’s minds, that I will answer it. Well, without a “crystal ball” perhaps, but in my own way.
So let’s look at the parameters…
[1] No actual leadership
President Biden is a figurehead. There’s no one “upstairs”.
This is not a political assessment. It’s an actual observation by anyone who watches the videos of him. He cycles in and out of clarity, and often appears to be suffering from pretty advanced dementia.
He goes though the motions. Read the teleprompters, and “kisses babies”.
But in the strategy briefing rooms, in high level discussions, and other important roles, he’s present but not proactive.
[2] Careening out of control
Without leadership, the “car careens wildly on the road”.
Financial opportunists place all sorts of bills and initiatives for personal profit “on the table”. These then “grow legs” and take on a life of their own. The Tiktok ban is one such example. Thus the Senate and Congress appears to be simply a forum for grandstanding while the “representatives” try to accept higher and higher piles of cash for their participation.
Congress more aptly resembles a shark feeding frenzy over a cow carcass.
There’s no real statesmanship, leadership, or forward planning. It’s all on “autopilot”, and being run by monied interests.
[3] The road is not empty
It wouldn’t be so bad if the “careening car” is on a wide and open empty highway. But it isn’t. There are many other cars on this road. There are cars with couples. cars with families, and school busses full of children.
It’s only a matter of time before the careening car smashes into someone else.
After smashing into Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, the car is now banging into a large clunky tractor-trailer; Russia. And, each time the tractor-trailer tries to get unstuck the car smashes again, and again, and again. It’s almost like the driver for the United States car has no brakes. It’s acceleration only. And Russia while dinged up, is still moving forward.
Now a big yellow bus full of school children looms up ahead. This is China, and it is enormous (being double-Decker), and powerful, and does not want to be hit.
And everyone around is terrified.
And what does the United States car do?
It “floors” the gas petal, and is zooming straight ahead. The driver seemingly wants to broadside the bus at high speed.
Conclusion
Is it no wonder why people are concerned? People are terrified.
At this stage of the game, and I am loathe to say this, there are only five (x5) things that can stop the upcoming disaster…
The car rams the bus full of children. There are deaths in both vehicles, and a chain reaction occurs where other cars start hitting the wreckage on the road.
The car runs out of gas, and stops dead in the middle of the road. It sputters, and dies.
The people inside the careening car take control of the wheel. And then, carefully and slowly, ease it to the side of the road.
The crazy car drives off the highway on it’s own, and destroys itself without hitting anyone else.
The tractor-trailer and the bus full of children coordinate and with their combined mass, push the madman off the road on their own. And other cars, acting in good faith, help in whatever capacity they can provide.
Well, this is the first post for my new series: “Correcting Society Ills“.
This new series, as I have mentioned previously, is concerned with RECONSTRUCTION of the West.
As I have already mentioned, the threat of Global War has passed the DANGER ZONE. That was in 2020 through 2022. What we are experiencing now is a “lesser” state of war. Oh, sure, nuclear weapon threats are being bantered about, and provocations are seemingly everywhere at a global level, but the unseen global counter-threats are not being made public and they will quench any aggressive moves against the great Asian powers.
So, global change resembles this dynamic…
Change; old to new.
Threat of war… either occurs or fizzles out with a *pop*.
I claim that it fizzled out.
What is left is a ruined Western society.
And a need for RECONSTRUCTION.
So we are going to discuss that reconstruction and what needs to occur.
Mind you, actual war can still occur, it’s just that it becomes less and less probable as time progresses forward.
In our reconstruction discussions and talks we will cover all sorts of issues and maladies that the West are suffering through. From fat-generating use of polyunsaturated oils in Western foods, to the destruction of family culture, and the strange ideas of modern Western youth.
You will find all sorts of videos and discussions on related topics herein. It’s part of a phase in our society, and the world must go through this to get to the other side; one of an overall better quality of life.
I can’t answer for near overseas Chinese (that is Chinese in Asia). I can write about my UK experiences.
It was Christianity and FG being a very distant second.
Christianity preyed on recent immigrant types and how they were often alone and isolated having migrated. I had numerous xian types try convert me constantly mistaking me for a migrant.
Same shit when my mother got cancer, some how the jesus types found out and went to find her to try convert her.
I told them to fuck off.
Mother told them to fuck off.
$240 Billion Lithography Machine Order Canceled,China Achieves Full Technological Autonomy!
SMIC, a prominent chip manufacturing company, operates in various areas such as chip design, manufacturing, packaging, and sales. The quality and efficiency of chip production heavily rely on the technological level and precision of the lithography machines, a crucial equipment in chip manufacturing.
However, due to escalating global trade tensions and US export control policies on Chinese high-tech companies like SMIC, the company has been unable to purchase advanced lithography machines and other equipment from the United States. This has prompted SMIC to cancel a $24 billion lithography machine order with the US company ASML, attracting significant attention and raising concerns about alternative markets for chip sales.
The cancellation of the lithography machine order by SMIC is influenced by both the global trade environment and domestic policies. As one of the largest chip manufacturers globally, SMIC’s decision has implications for the global chip industry. The uncertain global trade environment has disrupted the chip supply chain, while the Chinese government’s support for the chip industry has limited its domestic development.
The event’s impact on the global chip industry is two-fold. On one hand, competition in the global chip market will intensify, requiring major chip companies to enhance their technological capabilities and supply chain management. On the other hand, SMIC’s actions may inspire imitation by other countries, further intensifying global chip market competition.
Analyzing the impact of this event reveals that SMIC’s cancellation affects not only the global chip industry but also the US technology sector. Intel, one of the major US tech giants, has highlighted the significant impact on the global chip supply chain, prompting questions about the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s policies for the US industry.
Addressing this challenge requires several approaches. Firstly, China should strengthen international cooperation to collectively navigate the uncertainties in the global trade environment. Secondly, domestic policies should be enhanced to support and promote the development of the chip industry within China. Lastly, SMIC should focus on capacity building, continuously improving technological capabilities, and enhancing supply chain management.
China doesn’t use forced labour to make shoes and apparel. It is another political bit of nonsense that the US government made up.
The US government even claimed that China uses forced labour to pluck cotton, just like how the USA enslaved black people to pick cotton in the past. Goodness gracious, what nonsense, who even uses human beings to pluck cotton nowadays. That’s the old primitive way of the USA. Most of the cotton in China is machine-picked and high-speed packed.
So, This is Happening in West Maui, It’s changes EVERYTHING for Oprah & the Rock
The way these people have been treated is beyond disgusting. Greene lies through his teeth. Banks should freeze their mortgages for at least a minimum of three years to allow the people to get back on their feet.
Funny story. In 1986, I went through basic at Fort Cambell, Kentucky. I had a two-year degree, and so I entered as an E3. A couple of weeks into the training, the 1stSgt called me into his office. He’s reviewing my record and commenting that he thinks my records are wrong. Because of my two-year degree, he thinks I should have entered as an E4.
He looks at me and asks, “When you enlisted, did they promise you E4?” I quickly answered, “Yes, 1stSgt.” He quickly responds, “I knew it! I will have you promoted to E4, but it will take a week or two. I said, “Thank you 1stSGT!” and was dismissed.
A couple of weeks later, the C.O. of the training company stopped me on the way back from evening chow and said, “I wanted you to know that your next LES will reflect that you were promoted to E4. I cannot have you pinned while you are in basic, nor can you wear the rank because you would be the same rank as some of the soldiers assigned to the company, but, you have been promoted to E4.” I said, “thank you sir,” saluted and went on my way.
As soon as I graduated, I upgraded all my rank insignia to SP4. I get to Aberdeen Proving Grounds for schooling, and as I check-in, the soldier behind the counter asks, “Are you promotable?” I did not know what that meant, but I said, yes. Because I identified as E4 promotable, I was assigned to the barracks with all the other E4s and NCOs going through the same school for retraining. No drill sergeants for me!
My Mum was a very formidable Italian lady (all five feet three inches of her!) and took very little nonsense from anybody!! When my sister was 15 and I was 9 my sister went out for the night with a young guy who was 18 (Mum didn’t know this or it would not have been allowed) She was told to be back by 10.00 pm, no later! Midnight approached and my parents were not happy (this was in the days before Mobile Phones) They finally turned up and my Dad went out to remonstrate with the young man whilst my Mum exploded at my sister who was well aware what kind of trouble she was in. Dad came back in with a cut lip where the young Guy had punched him!! Mum grabbed one of my Dad’s hobnail boots went outside and proceeded to bash the young guy around the head and shoulders, loudly cursing him in Italian! The guy screamed at my Mum that he would get the Police on her, she shouted back ‘Do it! my daughter’s 15!! I’ll have you in prison! and every syllable corresponded with another blow to his head and face! After about 10 minutes of the the guy ran away screaming in fear. The next day, right outside our house, the pavement was covered with bloodstains!
New IRS $600 Tax Rule For 2023 (Venmo & Cash App & PayPal)
Americans screwed over YET AGAIN. Good thing, everything is in my Chinese family, not me personally. $20,000 threshold to $600. No fucking way!
You need a drivers license in order to drive your privately owned automobile on public roads. If you drive on your own private property, or someone else’s private property with their permission? No.
The whackos who told you that a driver’s license is for commercial drivers belong to a weird fringe conspiracy cult called “Sovereign Citizens.” To give you an idea how dumb these loonies are, they’re the ones that Flat Earthers point to and say “god, those people will believe anything.”
Sovereign Citizens have all kinds of bizarre beliefs that basically focus on the notion “you do not have to obey any law you do not consent to.” They believe they do not have to obey any law enforcement officers except county sheriffs, they do not have to pay taxes, and that (yes, I’m serious) the Federal government sells each American citizen at birth, and so a “birth certificate” is actually a record of sale to a foreign government.
As you might imagine, these dingbats get arrested rather frequently. When they do, they generally go into court shaking their fists and screaming that the government has no jurisdiction over them and no right to put them on trial, which…goes about as well as you might imagine.
People and people, but this will put Americans into a coma:
Older people going naked in city center parks. (I am not going to post pictures, because if I do I will get blocked by Quora moderators who obviously are not German and have never been to Germany).
16 year olds drinking beer or wine.
Kids riding alone on buses and trains.
Autobahn on a Friday.
Some people will behave like concentration camp guards but when you forget your credit card they will send it to you in the mail.
The U.S. thinks that it is exceptional and that the U.S. must always lord over the world. There lies the problem it is certainly not exceptionally strong or good. It may be seen as exceptionally cruel and evil to the developing nations of the world.
China’s phenomenal growth and rise in a way, together with the phenomenal rise of the non western world has resulted in the ending of a Western centric or U.S. dominated world that is in fact a virtual colonisation post colonialism for 300 odd years.
In effect the poor and underdeveloped countries were forced or connived into the so call rules based international order but in effect it is a set of rules to preserve the wealth of the west and continue the looting and theft of resources of the poor to enriched the west. From 1946-at least 2000. You can call this virtual colonialism.
China together with BRICS effectively put and end or at least the beginning of the end of this virtual colonialism order. That upset the U.S. to no end. That is easy to understand. If the biggest mafia in town lost its ability to steal, to or loot at will it may burnt down some buildings and businesses and probably go on a shooting spree. So you can expect war mongering and doing some shit.
But it does not matter what or how U.S. rave and rant. Asia alone represents 60% of the worlds GDP and U.S. is now a mere shadow of itself since 1945 where its economy alone represented 52% of the world’s economy. Today in 2023 China’s growth alone is 36.4% and the entire G7 including the U.S. together adds up to a mere 25.6%! The Ukraine war and the U.S. sanctions and pure robbery of Russia’s reserves will lead to the end of U.S. dollar hegemony and so will western financial institutions.
To me the more the U.S. try to curb China the faster China will eclipse the U.S. There is nothing the U.S. that can do that don’t make the status worst for the U.S. Today it tries to stop the export of Chips to China. It won’t work. It actually means it actually heighten. It’s inflation and suffer crippling shortages. You see China itself now represent 30% of world demand and another 30% of worlds manufacturing. This ban in effect, deprives the U.S. companies of doing business to 50–60% of the world’s demand.
This act will means bankrupting US and its allies chip makers. China will face some challenges. But in a short 5 years 90% of its chips requirements will be Chinese made and in a decade China will totally handle its own demand and it will totally kill off the U.S. chips. Like everything China will make it faster, better and cheaper.
ANGRY Young Man DIES; Meets ANCIENT Soul Family He Has Known for LIFETIMES!
Still shot of a Blackwater contractor during the Battle of Najaf in April of 2004
Service members of different stripes in a circumstantial combat situation can certainly order each other around if it’s in a joint environment, but in the most recent conflicts, now private military contractors may just be giving the orders too.
During the Battle of Najaf in the early days of the Iraq War, Iraqi insurgents from the Mahdi Army began to surround a Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Building within the city of Najaf. Within the confines of the CPA compound, the personnel consisted of CPA employees, Spanish/El Salvadoran soldiers, a detachment of US Marines, and an eight man team of Blackwater contractors.
The situation was deteriorating with insurgents having grabbed an unfortunate El Salvadoran soldier, shoving a grenade into his mouth then pulling the pin in full view of the CPA compound. This was on top of the firefights were breaking out between those in the CPA compound and insurgents who were now attempting storm the compound with the mob that had just killed the soldier.
While this was all occurring, a Blackwater contractor called for help to his higher up’s in Baghdad who had been monitoring the situation. The Blackwater contractors in Baghdad then made an ultimate judgment call to intervene with the CPA compound battle when it became apparent that the US military itself will not provide any sort of assistance in the confusion.
Three Little Bird helicopters were then loaded up with six Blackwater contractors coupled with one Little Bird filled with boxes of ammunition and equipment due to the CPA contractors notifying that they were now dangerously low on ammunition.
The contractors then flew to the CPA compound, unloaded the ammunition and additional support, then evacuated a wounded Marine who had been shot during the battle.
With the additional support of the contractors and ammunition, the combined force of Blackwater contractors, Marines, Coalition troops managed to keep the insurgents from reaching the CPA compound. CPA employees would reload empty magazines then run it up to the men who were fighting off the insurgents, keeping everyone busy.
The Blackwater contractors would find themselves dictating where the Marines and other troops to head to during the battle, which would later draw controversy from critics who claimed that now mercenaries were giving orders to military troops.
Eventually, the siege of the CPA compound would subside after almost two days of battle which could be viewed on many videos via Youtube.
Infamous video of Blackwater contractor Travis Haley during the Battle of Najaf. Critics would later use this video to denote how he had no qualms killing random people with a second nature attitude when he was literally going after insurgents attempting to assault the compound.
The Battle of Najaf would serve as an example of how private military contractors mixed with troops in circumstances that called them to fight side by side.
This does not look like it would end anytime soon with the Russo-Ukraine conflict where Russian private military contractors from the Wagner Group and Russian troops are fighting alongside each other in the conflict.
SCOTT RITTER, ANDREI MARTYANOV, AND GARLAND NIXON JOIN ON NATO, UKRAINE’S TIME RUNS OUT
In this special roundtable, Scott Ritter Andrei Martyanov and Garland Nixon join the program to discuss the ongoing developments of the Ukraine proxy war, what it tells us about Russia, and the growth of the multipolar world in the context of history.
I’m going to try to provide an answer with a slightly different perspective.
First off, I’m an Australian Chinese (in that order), born and educated in Singapore. My family is Peranakan or Straits-born meaning that we were the products of intermarriage between the Chinese and locals in what was then British Malaya.
So I grew up speaking English and Malay and a smattering of dialects. As I was educated in English mission schools, I did not learn Mandarin.
As far as I can remember, I was taught to hate Chinese and Communists. Pretty much everything I read about Communists described them as a threat peace-loving people everywhere. And China was communist.
I think I was 17 when I first read Dick Wilson’s A Quarter of Mankind. This was followed by Emmanuel Hsu’s The Rise of Modern China. In those pages I glimpsed a very different China. So I started reading Chinese history, from the Qin dynasty, and continued my inquiry at university.
Most of my working life was spent as a journalist, a sub-editor to be specific, and much of my work involved, among other things, fact checking.
Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy opened up a new era of ties with China and Singapore was quick to get in on the act (read quick to realise the profits that could be made trading with China. That is the subject of a whole different set of questions and answers). Trading with the enemy? No, it cannot be. But it was.
The opening up of relations with China also led to a relaxation of travel restrictions on travel to the Middle Kingdom. Up till then, I had visited Hong Kong and could only imagine life across the border. I also visited Taiwan and imagined China to be everything the opposite of Taiwan.
Fast-forward many years when I moved to Australia and started travelling to China (Shenzhen, Chengdu, Guangdong, and Shanghai).
I saw modern cities, efficient public transport, rampant capitalism, and I felt completely safe even in quiet streets in the wee hours of the morning.
Many of the Chinese I met were as friendly as people in other places that I have travelled. Often friendlier. Especially to an ethnic Chinese who did not speak the language (I started learning conversational Mandarin at 54 and can now read a write a little).
To the core of the question: Much of the information about China that’s peddled about is false. Many people have very wrong impressions and ideas about the PRC. And most of the people who hold these ideas will never go to China to see and verify for themselves if what is reported is anywhere near the truth.
So I, and many others, try to provide a balance by correcting the grosser erros of belief held by many as a result of, well, propaganda.
A footnote: In my youth I wanted to move to the West (America, UK, the Scandinavian countries, … thataway). If I were young again, I would go east. To China.
Netherlands Reconsiders Huawei After 5G Successes
“If US is not learning from China, it is more important that China learns from US. China should never forget who forsaken her in its hours of need. To be kind to enemy is to be cruel to oneself .”
I won a scratch ticket for $100,000 one hundred thousand. the accoutant handled the taxes.
After claiming my prize we had 2 weeks where different reporters were looking for pictures and wanting to do an interview with the store that sold the winning ticket. churches and charities knocking on the door looking for a slice.
3 people i went to grade school with came knocking I had not seen them in 10 years. Family calling wanting to get a share or asking for a loan they cant afford to repay.
people were confused when I told them I spent it all.
I divided it up 3 ways and gave equal amounts to my 3 kids for thier college funds. I
f I ever hit another winning ticket I am getting a lawyer to deal with the bullcrap and I am gonna move to Alaska to a remote cabin in the middle of nowheresville with no phone or roads.
That you can hope to understand China using the English medium.
I am confident I am in the top 1 percentile when it comes to Chinese proficiency in the pool of English speakers beyond the mainland.
I won’t be surprised if I am in the top 0.1 percentile either.
But if I were honest, I will admit as an east Asian that I find it difficult to keep up with the mainland, even though I possess skills and networks to access media and contacts within greater China.
No, it’s not just about the language struggle, which exists even for someone like me with more than a decade’s worth of formal education in the Chinese language.
It is about developing a contextual understanding for mainland frames of reference and how the mainlander thinks.
That is mostly absent in this medium, even among the rare pool of articles grounded in facts. Most are written by east Asians, not westerners.
My advice? Don’t waste time on the China expert who doesn’t speak Chinese. Even foreigners who do are often wrong or misguided, because that is what it takes to pass through the stringent msm filter these days.
The new employee was just starting, his first day, first morning on the job…
Every morning employees would gather all of their supplies, tools, etc. and load their vans to be ready for the day’s work.
All new employees are to ride with a senior person to gain knowledge and get the hang of things. This was our busiest season and the day was FULL of jobs that needed to be done – all previously scheduled and set in time slots.
This employee was in the process of helping load the van when he came to me and said:
“I need to go to an appointment today; I need the (driver) to drop me off and then pick me up, or wait for me to get done.”
Me: “I am sorry, we are too busy to be able to do all of that on work time. If it is important why don’t you just take the day off, go to your appointment and come back tomorrow ready to go?”
Employee: “Are you F@*king kidding me? What kind of place is this that you don’t care about your employees!!”
Me: “Ummmm, I said you can have the day off, it’s your first day here and I still said go ahead and take the day and come back tomorrow ready to go, I am not sure I understand?”
Employee: “This is BullS@@t, I can’t believe you won’t take care of your employees and have him drive me to my appointment across town and wait for me, you’re F@*ing ridiculous.”
Me: “Um, I am trying to be reasonable here and work with you. How about you can take your own car and follow behind him and when you need to go you can just cut out and go to your appointment. We don’t have the time to do that for you. ”
Employee: “This is ridiculous, I can’t believe you treat your employees this way, you are being so unfair, this is Bull S#@t, F@*!ng ridiculous!”
Me: “Actually, why don’t you go ahead and go home and not come back at all. Thank you for your time.”
Employee then was shocked that I fired him and could not believe or understand why I was letting him go.
This was truly shocking to me. Fired him on the spot within ONE hour of being employed.
“Ukrainian soldiers are being DRUGGED and forced to fight” Ex-CIA Larry Johnson
We now have reports that captured Ukrainian soldiers are turning up drugged out of their minds on some kind of inhibition blocker. Reports say these soldiers are going on withdrawals after being captured. Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson joins us to discuss.
The relationship with China from the U.S. perspective as always needs to be one of subservience and submissive to the U.S. That has been the default mode of what US expect it to be since 1945. Let’s call a spade a spade. The U.S. cannot deal with a nation that can and will say no to the U.S.
But if I should be completely honest to the US I will recommend to them to move on and keep your winnings. China with 1.4 billion highly discipline, extremely hard working people who are driven and industrious, today equipped with the state of art infrastructure and leading in 37/44 key and strategic technology cannot be push aside without untold damages to the U.S. itself.
But the U.S. political system, one based totally on popularity contest means that it cannot be pragmatic and realistic. It has to drain tremendous resources to try to keep its hegemonic place, even if it means bankrupting the U.S. that is precisely what the U.S is doing today.
For China is is so simple. Let the US have a long and strong rope to hang itself slowly to death. Lure the U.S. to fight China in a way that drains away the U.S. resources, influence and turned away its allies one by one. It does that be staying the moral high ground. It is the U.S. that is desperate so while the U.S. goes low, China stays high. It is winning without a fight. Remember Mohamad Ali “Rope a dope” the big George Foreman drains all its energy and knock him out in 15 rounds.
China is doing the “rope a dope” while the U.S. is ranting and panting away. Trump thought it wins popularity by starting the trade war with China. China pretends to avoid war but knows so well that it will hurt and harm the U.S. several folds of what it hurts China. Do you notice Biden wants to end the tariff and China says. Not so fast Amigo!
The implications to US allies are particularly bad and the more of a U.S. lackey the worst it gets. Asia is doing just fine and dandy.
How did it come to be? Well China grew astronomically strong economically, politically and even militarily and the U.S. is in denial and Americans are ignorant and naive about China till it is way past too late. The U.S. is in a quick sand. The more it struggles. The faster it sinks.
Since you asked about implications, The US pay the highest price for doing shit on China. The world is moving on faster than the U.S. realised. The U.S. dollar hegemony is all but gone. The U.S. and western order may appeal to a handful of its close allies. No different from a pack of street hoodlums hanging on to its biggest bully as beneficiaries.
US debts will reach 100 trillion in a decade, US deficits cannot go down. It cannot make anything at less than twice it cost worldwide. US standard of living has stagnated back 60 years to the 1960s. And the poor U.S. growing while it’s middle class is collapsing.
Meanwhile for China, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Once it made T-shirts and Toys. Today it makes your computers and smartphones. Soon it makes your EVs and AI and Jet planes. It middle class is now at 700 million will grow to 1 billion people within a generation. 4–6 times the size of the U.S. middle income.
Harvard Economist Reveals Shocking SECRET About China In 2023
Dr. Keyu Jin is one of the most outstanding China insiders. She is a professor at the London School of Economics and has an incredible knowledge of how the US and China both work. In today’s video I share with you her insights into China innovation and how China really works.
16 People Describe What A Dead Body Smell Like
1. “Understand that a pound or two of rotten meat only gives you a faint whiff of the smell of a full-grown corpse. The power of the smell is incredible. Personally, I’m not sure it’s describable. You want to gag when you’re fifty feet away. It can take years for the smell to leave a house. It just lingers in the background. Cars are totalled by the insurance company for the odor. And the guy driving the wrecker can’t drive fast enough to get away from the smell.
It gets on your skin and clothes. (People use bio-suits for body removal for a reason.) Maggots abound, fluids abound, and I’ve never read a good description of the experience. No matter how well you write, it will be but a pale imitation of the experience.”
2. “Buy a Boston Butt pork roast and let it rot. Pigs and humans are apparently similar, meat-wise. It actually turns like a sea blue-green color. (It smells like farts and then gets worse.)”
3. “A dead body, specifically a human corpse has a rank and pungent smell mixed with a tinge of sickening sweetness. Imagine a rotting piece of meat with a couple drops of cheap perfume and you’re halfway to understanding what a human corpse smells like.”
4. “It varies from person to person and how long they have been decomposing.
You get a very sharp, foul smell similar to horrible cheese mixed with the same smell you get from a full trash can in the sun.
If the body decompressed and they had a full bladder, you’ll also smell body fluids, so stale urine and straight fecal matter. For those who don’t know, toilet poop smells bad, but shit that is airborne, not water logged or anything is straight horrific on its own.
If you have flying insect and larva development increase smell this far times two. If it’s hot outside times three and if it’s cold out and the heat in the house is cranked it’s times five at minimum for the dry heat.
The worse part is the materials they died on. Wood mixed with death has a woody slime smell mixed with the death ratio above, carpet has a wet padding smell (like cat wizz) plus death and it’ll it’s on furniture it’s really fun as it usually leaks through to the carpet and wood subfloor.
If you’re smelling these things outside a house, you don’t want to be near it when they go in. Cleaning and deodorizing that is pretty rough.”
“I have assisted in an autopsy on a body several days old, and even though it was in a huge chilling compartment, the smell was in the whole complex. It smells like there are a million dead and rotting rats around you.”
5. “Rotten eggs, feces, and a used toilet left out for a month x 1000. It is unholy.
The smell gets into your throat and you can taste it. You will literally run to find some clean air. Even then, it lingers and you can’t quite get the smell away. Even though you can no longer physically smell it, you remember it and it takes quite a while to get over it.”
6. “A dead body to me smells like a cross between rotting meat and very dirty kitty litter box. Very distinct smell that you won’t forget.”
7. “You ever have like a dead mouse or something hiding somewhere and you just smell something awful? It’s pretty much that. The best I can sum it up to is like shit mixed with meat…in a weird way
8. “In my experience, any formerly living creature, whether human or non-human, has that same powerful, pungent, disgusting odor that I can only describe as a garbage can left to ferment in high heat for an extended period of time. It does vary some between species, though.
A couple of other answers written in this feed point to some things that are accurate. First, two chemicals, Putrescine and Cadaverine, are both found in decomposing tissue. Both are diamenes and they are produced as a result of amino acids (most notably Lysine) breaking down. They each gave their own characteristic odor which by themselves are bad enough. When they are combined due to the simultaneous presence, they are indescribable.
Second, pigs are indeed closest to humans in terms of the odor they give off when decomposing. Any animal with a musk gland (skunks, badgers, and muskrats are some examples. I’m sure there are many others as well) are also pretty stinky when they break down. All produce these same two chemicals because when you think about it, any creature that breathes in Oxygen and releases Carbon Dioxide is going to have a similar metabolic makeup that, when stopped is going to respond in a similar manner.”
9. “Once, I took a trip. When I returned, there was a terrible odor in my den. I know the odor of dead animals on the road or in the forests. Mom puts out poison for mice, so I have smelled them under things in her home. There was a rotten odor like this in my den, so I looked under everything, but I found nothing. The next day, I saw some cops and medics at the next apartment. I learned that my neighbor had died and decomposed for days before anyone found him. The odor is sickening. It’s hard to describe fully.”
10. “It depends how long it’s been dead but if you have ever smelled rotten meat it’s similar to that. some words commonly used to describe it would probably be rancid, foul, putrid, the smell of decay, etc. If it’s decomposed down to the skeleton there probably won’t be any smell anymore since the flesh, muscle, and organs are the ones that create the most smell and decay quickly.”
11. “I recently in countered a dead body that had been rotting in a van near my home for 5-7 days. At first, I though it was Korean people making kimchi, but after seeing the body removal with my own eyes I know that the smell was not of pickled vegetables. I work for a plumbing company so I’m always finding myself walking in raw sewage in basements. And I have to say the smell is similar to sewage or waste. Its nauseating and quite foul. Authorities have removed the body, but the area still smells of fragrant corpse. To be honest, I don’t know why you’d ever wonder about this. But yes indeed, it’s very disgusting. As a female I always find myself running out of breath when I’m dealing with sewage, but a body is about 10 times worse.”
Now, death depends on the environment in my opinion. I’ve smelt a few bodies in morgues and things like that, they just smell of death, it’s indescribable really, but you remember that smell. It’s a cold smell, a heavy smell (this is the best way I can describe it).
Rotting corpses of course just smell like any other rotting mammals, next time you spot some road-kill, stop and give it a sniff, pretty much what a rotting human corpse smells like.”
12. “I was a volunteer firefighter and police had to enter the residence before any of us could. The SCBA is automatic. So I quickly put it on a cop to enter the residence of a woman who neighbors haven’t seen in weeks. Those SCBAs block toxins and the cop ran out of the house drowning on his vomit. He claims he smelled her through the mask….That’s how bad a dead person smells. We eat everything. Those toxins in our bodies is what makes us stink so bad when we die. And to make it worse, when I got home I snorted soap while in the shower. A few hours later I began smelling the stench of her again. The bacteria is said to cling to your nostril hair and remultiplies later until it’s gone. I can’t tell you what it smells like. You’ll know it when you do.”
13. “Not very pleasant. It is a very strong, stomach turning, smell. It does in a way smell like rotten eggs, but it is much more intense. That is the best I can describe the smell, but I heard from someone else on how to make a small replica of it. Take a bag of soy beans, saturate them in water,let them stand a few days in heat above 70F while keeping them moist,crush some of the mixture.In a few days you will smell what decaying flesh/protein smells like.”
14. “My brother-in-law died in his appt. & was there 5 days before being found. When my wife & I went for the funeral (just a picture of him, no body) we went to help clean his place. I can’t describe the smell nor will I ever forget it. It permeated all soft things so badly they had to be throw out, we managed to keep a couple tables only. Even the TV stunk after airing out for week.
15. “Take some meat and leave it in a bag outside for about 3 days in the middle of summer. Then open the bag and mix in some Mexican food diarrhea. Add a good helping of the strongest catfish stink bait you can find. Mix well. This is the best that Death will ever smell.”
16. “Living in an apartment building and the guy next door fell in his bathtub (apparently). We didn’t see him often, so it wasn’t anything weird to not see him but his audio books were put on his doorknob and stayed for a couple days (he was blind, they delivered books to him to listen to).
Started smelling really weird, and since my son was just a baby at that time we’d initially thought somehow we hadn’t put a diaper in the garbage and it had ended up somewhere and was stinking up the place, searched high and low but couldn’t find it. The landlady knocked on his door (all our doors, handing out notices) and we mentioned we hadn’t seen him in a bit…half an hour later she was letting the police into his place.
I can’t imagine the smell in the same room though, it was bad enough being in the next apartment!”
No China don’t need the U.S. to survived or even to be a moderate growth economy in 2023. I will argue that containment, decoupling or de-risking of China which to me and most in the world means the same thing, is counter beneficial to the U.S. and good for China in the long term. The U.S. meanwhile loses the worlds. Biggest market or equivalent to the 2nd to the 10th biggest market for the U.S. put together.
There lies the enormity of the U.S. problem. Without China, the U.S. will suffer between 25–50% inflation which will highly impoverish American’s on the one hand with its U.S. brands becoming unsaleable and losing market share by half at least. All these while losing a humongous market.
By right the U.S. ought to not even dare to utter those threatening words but U.S. politicians lose too much to go soft after their media demonised China for a century. Sure China could be richer with the U.S. being rational. But China don’t take threats by the U.S lightly. The US political system is essentially a popularity contest and even if is suicidal the politicians compete to be a bigger China hawk while its own people suffer.
The trouble with threat is once you utter the word on banning China, sanctioning China, decoupling from China, containing China or even de-risking from China. China won’t hold back to defend itself. And China will make sure it will never depend on the U.S. and the west. That means China will totally do its own thing from now onwards.
That is very bad news for the U.S. as China do everything better, faster and cheaper than anyone on earth by a long shot. And the Huawei Mate 60 pro proved beyond doubt that there is nothing it cannot do! The U.S. should really think many times over before it challenge China for American sake. But the trade war and the chip ban proved to me and the world beyond doubt that the U.S. government don’t care about its own people and it’s own economy.
Don’t follow any instruction related to investing money or sanctioning a loan or allocating money UNLESS YOU HAVE A WRITTEN INSTRUCTION from your superior/cby email or whatsApp or paper letter
Never start smoking due to peer pressure or tension. Use bubble gum instead
First Beer with first month paycheck. First hard liquor after six months of paychecks at least.
Don’t express any political opinion or make any comment apart from work and movies and games and sports
Don’t ever go over your superiors head unless he is on leave or unreachable or is a total dumbo
When a woman wants to come to your office to talk to you, keep your door open or ask a friendly female colleague to sit in the office during the meeting under the pretext of taking notes
Never meet any Vendor or Supplier outside work or at your home. Always meet in office and keep your door open during the meeting and ask a colleague in to pretend to take notes
Never accept any gifts from Vendors or Suppliers whose value exceeds ₹2000/— unless everyone else is accepting the gifts and it’s been approved by your superiors
Never ever accept a meeting in a Hotel room with a potential client or customer. Always MEET IN THE LOBBY OR COFFEE SHOP where you have CCTV cameras
You may be finding yourself forced to spend a lot of money by being in the company of your superiors and indulge in pubs, golfing and high class call girls. Resist. Make excuses and resist until they get the message
No more than 120 ml of Scotch / Rum with 180 ml Club Soda Or Tonic Water Or 3 Tequila Shots at any office party , in fact my son makes the excuse that his liver is weak and avoids any drink entirely
Save around 45% of your paycheck if possible. At least 30%
Don’t ever eat Chickpeas, Beans, Cauliflowers, Kadalai, Sundal for breakfast. If you fart, you become a joke and it’s tough to recover your reputation
Never assume your female colleague who laughs and talks to you likes you romantically. Always ASK if in doubt. Simply ask “Are we friends or could this turn into something more”. Don’t presume.
She Is Against Mandatory Paternity Tests At Birth
This is trending in the United States. Jeeze!
“That woman who said requiring DNA testing would open up a can of worms scared the daylight out of me. Is she suggesting that a whole host of men are providing for children that aren’t theirs and letting this be known would blow up lots of families? What on earth have you women been up to?”
Graham Perry is a UK-based China observer, and wrote a good piece on China/US relations which is worth reading at length:
On the surface things look good in the US; unemployment is low; their economy is growing at 2.4% and inflation is falling. And yet consumer confidence, according to Irwin Stelzer in the Sunday Times, is at its lowest in four months. And Prof Percy Allen – in Pearls and Irritations – concludes that American society is more divided than it has been since its Civil War of the 1860s. “According to a Pew Research poll
about six in ten Republicans and more than half of Democrats have a very unfavourable view of the other party. Thirty years ago, fewer than a quarter in both parties rated the other party badly.”
A recent CNN poll showed almost 70% of Republicans do not accept the electoral legitimacy of the Biden administration. And almost 60% of voters lack confidence that elections in the US today reflect the will of the people.
Other polls by States United Action and Chicago University’s CPOST Research Centre found that over half US voters think elections won’t solve America’s most fundamental political and social problems, and almost half consider political elites, both Democrats and Republicans, are the most immoral and corrupt people in America. The US is fast becoming a dysfunctional nation – and that was before yesterday’s sacking of Speaker McCarthy.
But when it comes to China, Americans unite and rally around the flag. Hatred of China is the one single issue that brings America together.President Biden’s #1 worry
is that China will become the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. Biden has promised to stop that. He has referred to China as “bad people” who when they have problems do “bad things” The demonisation of China has clearly worked. The 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 83% of Americans hold negative views of China. The share who says China is an “enemy” is now 38%. AnIPSOS poll
found one-third of Americans view China as an imminent threat and two in five Americans think that war with China is likely in the next five years.
The US under Bush and Obama held to the view that China’s economic growth and increased prosperity would bring a relaxation of political rhetoric as the number of Chinese middle class citizens increased. Expanding economic rights would lead inevitably to increased political rights and the downgrading of the role of China’s Communist Party. China would become “compliant reasonable and accommodating”. It has not happened. Billionaires may flourish in China (800+ in number) but the Party remains at the apex of power. China has not changed.
Trump heralded a new and antagonistic approach to China when he started a trade war by unilaterally imposing high tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the US. And when that did not work, he resorted to allegations of genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang province to try to demonise China in the eyes of the world. But it, too, has not worked. China remains China and continues to be welcomed by the rest of the world in part because of its Belt and Road Initiative – as historian Professor Francis Fukiyama has said “China has lent more than $1 trillion to more than 100 countries through the Initiative, dwarfing Western spending in the developing world and stoking US anxieties about the spread of Beijing’s power and influence”.
Trump’s successor, President Biden increased economic sanctions on China and announced that “he would not allow China’s economy to overtake America’s” even though, as Prof Allen notes, most economists think that this is inevitable given China’s huge population and income gap.
The flashpoint is Taiwan for two reasons. First, China’s long-standing policy to reunify China with Taiwan and, second, as explained in yesterday’s Post #473, the US is worried sick that a confrontation with China could seriously jeopardise the US economy by impeding, even stopping, the export from Taiwan to the US of essential semi-conductors. Within the US hierarchy – the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff – there are those who want to give China “a bloody nose” and fundamentally derail China’s economic growth by military action – the Hawks – before China is way ahead and out of sight. “Act Today Because Tomorrow Is Too Late” is their cry.
There are also Doves who fear hostilities and prefer an uneasy but non-confrontational approach to China. For the Doves, second place to China is preferrable to war with China It is not clear who will win but certainly if the Hawks prevail over the Doves the world will be set on a most dangerous path.
Oliver Anthony- Rich Men North of Richmond (Remix Mashup ft Dax & Jo Tyler)
At Papa John’s Pizza I was getting fed up that they weren’t hiring the sufficient amount of staff to properly run the store. Along with doing bike deliveries I also cashed, took phone calls, entered orders, swept, mopped and emptied garbage. They kept a skeleton staff of 3 workers per shift and whenever they had to pay overtime they grumbled and wanted explanations as to why.
Frustrated and fatigued I applied for Dominos Pizza delivery. This is how snippets of the conversation went during the interview.
Interview Lady: We pay the highest hourly rate of all pizza restaurants. $21 per hour.
Me: Papa John’s paid $20 an hour. This is just a dollar more.
Lady: Yes! The highest rate for delivery riders in the country!
Lady: When you come to the restaurant you’ll be happy to see that you’ll be getting so much deliveries. Endless deliveries!
Me: How much do I get paid per delivery?
Lady: $7 per delivery!
Me: That’s the lowest delivery payment of all the pizza restaurants.
Lady: Yes but you’ll be doing so many deliveries, getting so much tips that it wouldn’t matter.
(I later found out that Dominos charged customers $20 for delivery, the highest delivery charge of all fast food restaurants in the country. They paid the driver $7 out of the $20 charge and the restaurant pocketed the remaining $13 for themselves.)
Me: What are the closing hours?
Lady: 10:30pm.
Me: You mean like only on Fridays and Saturdays?
Lady: No everyday.
Me: Thats a bit late and taxis round here stop working around 8pm. Any transport provided for me to get home?
Lady: No.
Me: Will I be able to use the Domino’s motorcycle to get home? (I was allowed this benefit in a previous restaurant I worked that had this same issue)
Lady: No.
Me: Can I leave earlier then?
Lady: Of course. Due to your transport situation we’ll allow you to leave 10 minutes earlier!
Lady: We are a very flexible organization.
Me: How so? (inwardly groaning, expecting more bullshit)
Lady: We give you the choice to work either as contracted or non-contracted.
Me: What does that mean?
Lady: Contracted means that you work somewhat as a permanent staff. You can work all the overtime hours you want. However overtime would be paid at the usual rate of $21 an hour. No time and a half. The same applies for public holidays.
Non contracted is like temporary staff. We pay the usual time and a half for overtime but as you are non contracted you don’t get overtime hours as we send you home after you’ve made your 40hrs a week. We don’t allow you to work on holidays so you basically get your flat salary every week whereas with a contract you are allowed more hours.
Me: More hours at the same rate?
Lady: Yes.
Me: Wouldn’t that be a lose-lose situation?
Lady: No. It’s a win-win!
Me: Am I entitled to a free meal?
Lady: No.
Me: And the uniform?
Lady: We are the only pizza restaurant that provides free uniforms for staff?
Me: How many uniforms?
Lady: Two free Dominos shirts and a cap. We are having them laundered after being returned by a delivery driver who recently left.
Me: You’re giving me a guy’s used clothes?
No: No. She only used them for two days. They’re practically new.
Me: You’re giving used female clothing?
Lady: It’s a free uniform!
Suffice to say I instantly and humbly returned to Papa John’s and their skeleton staff.
Mystery Cambodia
A nice fun video that takes you to another world. LOL.
It will probably upset some folks, but too bad. This is real life. This guy interviews some prostitutes in Cambodia. If you don’t want the experience then you can pass on this video. It’s ok.
Originally Answered: How can we become a Winner at everything in Life?
What made Muhammed Ali the best Boxer in the world? What made Michael Phelps go above and beyond every time he swam? How come Gandhi made so much more of an impact than anybody else?
None of them were exceptional people since birth.
Sure, there is the claim that Michael Phelps, for example, has double the lung-capacity of most humans, which has been disproven.
And while he does have some physical advantages, like longer arms and shorter legs, while being tall, so does everybody else he is competing against!
What made the difference in their ability was not their born talents but rather the way they approached what they did.
They were willing to work harder and produce more than anyone else was willing to.
They are willing to do whatever it takes, go the extra mile and do more than those around them, which is what eventually gets them to succeed.
I remember reading an article back when Michael Phelps was just getting traction, that talked about how ridiculous his training regiment is and how it was way too intense.
At the time many doctors and health experts argued about his routine.
Today, I cannot find any article even mentioning that he was doing too much anymore.
After about 2 days of looking for that article I gave up.
All articles about him only praise his efforts and his routine; obviously because it worked.
He revolutionized the field.
The same can be said about Mahatma Gandhi, who did something no one else dared to do to make a statement that inspired millions.
And the effort that Muhammad Ali made can be clearly seen by one of his quotes:
I don’t count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. That is when I start counting, because then it really counts.
That’s what makes you A CHAMPION. — Muhammad Ali
Each of them made their entire day about training, sacrificing a lot of their day so they could focus on just that one thing.
And then we wonder why we cannot succeed.
The big question you need to ask yourself is: Are you doing enough?
Are the results showing up in the way you want to? Are you succeeding or do you need to do more?
Now, I cannot give you the exact stats of the men named above, as every page I visited had different numbers they boasted about, most of them disclaiming each other.
So I will instead share my own story and numbers to make this point.
Now I am by no means even close to as great as the men above, but I hope the point still comes across.
I started out as a Writer with a WordPress Blog.
At the beginning, it was just to practice my consistency and I wrote about 300 posts in my first year, yielding a total of 20 followers.
This was very little and so I switched to a site called Quora. In my first 6 months there I wrote about 1,000 posts, averaging 3 a day, before I wrote one answer that went viral.
This was back in 2016. Since then I have averaged about 3 posts a day consistently over the years.
I have been published on The Huffington Post, Time, and many more sites, have over 75,000 followers, 60M content views and get over 1M views a month still, and none of it because I was a good writer!
My very first post that I wrote was a page long block of text that was essentially a Writer’s Nightmare.
The only thing that pushed me through was that no one else wrote that much.
Many people wrote one post a day, if that, some even less.
And let me tell you this, after 18 Months of writing every day, the one viral post did not feel like a stroke of luck anymore, it felt deserved.
The point I want to make here is it is not about where you start or what prerequisites you have.
Winning is not about being better than everybody else.
Winning is about being the last person running in a race where everyone else gave up.
If you want to win you have to break through the noise by either doing more than others are willing to or doing it longer than they want to.
I have seen so many amazing writers leave Quora to never write again because they just did not break through the noise.
Mahatma Gandhi just did not eat, Michael Phelps only swam a lot, and Muhammad Ali trained a bit.
We have all done these things before, they are nothing special when you look at them like that. It’s not like they invented something none of us could ever dream of or did something that was so unbelievable it looked like Magic.
What made them special was the fact that they kept pushing and kept going with it when many people around them gave up or would have given up!
So let me ask you this then: Are you doing anything that stands out?
When you are working out do you do more and take shorter breaks than anyone else? When you are with your partner do you give them more attention and love than they can handle? When you are working at your job, do you work 10x more than any of your colleagues?
Are you doing anything that stands out?
You cannot expect yourself to win by just doing what everyone else is doing.
Sorry, but you are just not that special!
You have to become special by doing something extraordinary, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible:
Extra-Ordinary!
That means you do not overexert yourself.
Don’t expect to be able to train 6–8 hours a day, 7 days a week after having done no training at all.
Take it one step at a time but work yourself up and stay committed to it.
If you have the time and energy, then you can push further faster; it will get easier.
The 3 posts I wrote took anywhere from 3–6 hours a day at first. Now I can often write better posts in 15 minutes.
It does get easier.
Pick something, anything in your life that you wish to win at, and commit yourself to more of that.
Even if it is just an hour a day, if you do it long enough you will become absolutely amazing at it.
Push your limits day by day, even one more minute each day gets you 6 hours more in just one year.
“Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.
It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain’t about how hard ya hit.
It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That’s how winning is done!” — Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa
Breaking US Sanctions: How Huawei Changed US-China Tech War
Carl Zha talks to tech expert TP Huang about how latest Huawei breakthrough in advanced chip design and manufacturing is a game changer in the US waged tech war and economic war against China. Why ultimately US sanctions on China will fail. The rest of this interview is on my Patreon site
During WW2 there was a company that always submitted excellent paper work, head Quarters noticed this and moved their clerk typist to Headquarters, Battalion noticed him and moved him up to their office, he continued to be so dependable the higher ups wanted him, so eventually he ended up in Eisenhower’s front office.
One day, A hard nosed colonel came in to the office and demanded to see Ike, now. The clerk typist asked him, what does this pertain to? The Colonel started getting loud, said he didn’t need to explain anything to a clerk typist.
Ike came out to see the commotion, the colonel again was indignant.
Ike looked around the waiting room, saw another colonel sitting there, took an eagle pin off that colonel’s collar, and pinned it on the collar of the clerk, and said “ Now tell the colonel what you want”, and returned into his office.
The clerk was a colonel for the duration of his enlistment.
On a daily basis, my team and I would clean toilets, floors, rooms, the kitchen, our rifles, the floor around the barracks, our vests, our magazines and even the dog who lived in the barracks. I hated it.
I truly did not understand why I was spending months of paratrooper training time to clean up places that were spotless, instead of shooting and learning to fight.
And then I experienced my first operation.
My team and I were sent with four vehicles to meet up with a field intelligence unit, and prepare for the operation.
I remember meeting the field intelligence guys. It was the first time in my service meeting men, on duty, serving in a different unit than mine.
Their gear was obviously ill maintained, their vehicles were disgusting and dusty, and I could see the soot on the barrels of their rifles who have obviously not been cleaned in weeks. I wanted to tell their commander he was doing a shit job at maintaining his team’s gear.
And then it struck me.
All that cleaning during training has turned me into a neat freak.
Everything, even now in my apartment, needs to be perfectly placed, spotless and maintained. There are no excuses, and there should be none. An organized living is the basis for an organized life.
The lesson I took from all this epiphany?
There is shit in life you will not want to do, and you might even hate doing it, but truly successful people do the things they do not want to do, as best as they can, because eventually it will pay off in the long run.
China-Japan-South Korea Upcoming Summit: What’s Behind this Surprising Diplomatic Shift??
In a surprising turn of events, China has recently announced its willingness to hold a summit with Japan and South Korea leaders. This unexpected move begs the question: what has prompted this significant change? Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, revealed that the three countries have reached an agreement to convene a meeting of their foreign ministers “in the next few months,” with the intention of facilitating a gathering of leaders as soon as possible. Undoubtedly, this initiative is driven by the collective interests of the three parties involved.
This development comes on the heels of China’s denouncement, in late August, of the statement released at the conclusion of the Camp David summit. The gathering, which brought together the leaders of the US, Japan, and South Korea, raised concerns about transforming the Asia-Pacific region into a geopolitical battleground. However, China’s willingness to engage in dialogue with its neighboring nations demonstrates an intriguing diplomatic shift. Be sure to subscribe to my channel for regular updates on global affairs & geopolitical shifts. Don’t miss out on my in-depth analysis of significant events shaping the world today!
The US is digging for a deeper hole.
As Washington reportedly plans to update its export curbs against China in October, an analysis report by a Dutch media posits that the previous export curbs imposed a year ago exposed the Biden Administration seem to have no clear idea of their objectives.
According to Dutch media Bits&Chips, the semiconductor restrictions against China are likely a product of the US struggle between hawks and doves concerning the China issue, leading to loopholes and a lack of clear goals.
To consider the interests of US-based semiconductor equipment and material suppliers, the US government allows the delivery of equipment that may be used to make advanced chips, highlighting the incompleteness and inconsistency of the curbs.
The US Bureau of Industry and Security set a threshold that requires exporters to get a license before shipping to China for equipment that can make logic chips with FinFET or GAAFET architecture of 16/14nm or below. However, the current export controls are insufficient if US export controls aim to deny China’s production capabilities of 14nm and below.
On the other hand, the US may not achieve its intended results if it aims to prevent China’s progress in the semiconductor industry, as demonstrated by Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro, which highlights the fact that China can make advanced chips without advanced equipment.
Huawei has obtained crucial patents on 6G technology, which may allow the Chinese company to thrive in the 6G era, according to Simon Chen, chairman of Adata Technology.
A green Toyota Celica drove into the customers’ parking space and a man alighted and walked into the store.
He was a first-time caller.
He was supporting his trousers with his hands.
‘Please I just need a belt. My belt snapped in the car, and I live far away from here. I am late for work and I don’t have money on me now. Can you trust me, I will bring the money at the close of work today’.
O My God!
First business of the day!
A man I never knew?
And here in this country, Nigeria?
‘Give him, he looks genuine. Could as well happen to you!’, one side of the brain was preaching.
‘Don’t!! Could be one of them. You’ll lose if you do!!’, the other side was screaming and countering.
‘Why can’t we live in a world where we can trust people and help them without fear?’, I was trying to make sense of this mental back-and-forth.
I gave him a very good quality belt, made the necessary perforations and he thanked me profusely and left.
5:06 pm:
The green Toyota Celica pulled up.
It was him.
To make good his promise.
Why isn’t life just this good!
Today, many years after that day, he no longer works around the area or passes through the route daily, but for such a small thing, he is one of my most valuable customers and has repaid the trust many, many times over.
Texas Jambalaya
2023 11 07 15 37
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup diced celery
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1 cup converted rice, uncooked
4 ounces smoked sausage, cut into 1/4 inch slices
4 ounces ham, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 cans Ro*Tel diced tomatoes and green chiles
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
2 cans Ranch Style Texas beans, undrained
Instructions
In a 5 quart saucepot over medium-high heat, heat oil.
Add onion, green pepper and celery; cook until onions are translucent.
Add garlic, cook 1 minute longer.
Add rice, sausage and ham. Cook 2 to 3 minutes to coat rice with oil, stirring frequently.
Add next 4 ingredients and heat to boiling.
Cover and steam 20 to 25 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed.
Remove bay leaf, stir in beans and serve.
The Exhausted and Unable to Survive, the Cat was Thrown Out on the Grass to Die
On the 1st of October, 331 B.C.E., the Persian king Darius III finally had that Macedonian pest Alexander the Great right where he wanted him – on a big flat plain where Darius could make full use of his cavalry and 2–1 numerical advantage against the Greek upstart.
The location was Gaugamela in what’s now northern Iraq. For the past three years Alexander had been making Darius’s life a living hell but it was payback time.
At the head of Darius’s forces were 200 heavy chariots. The plan was, as usual, to unleash these monsters running at full speed into the Greek infantry lines. The weather was good, the field was dry – perfect conditions for slaughtering the Greeks and sending them all the way back to the Aegean.
Things…. didn’t work out. As with any battle that took place 3,300 years ago there were different stories about what happened. The only things we know for sure are:
Alexander’s forces killed or captured most of the Persian army at a loss of no more than 1,500 troops; and
The chariots turned out to be entirely useless.
Alexander knew the problem posed by the chariots and was ready for them. He drilled his men to fall back into pockets that would allow the chariot to penetrate the line, only to be met by infantrymen with their spears jammed into the ground pointing directly at the pocket.
What would happen is the horses, running at full speed, would run into the pocket but, facing the spears, would stop suddenly. The charioteers would find themselves surrounded on three sides and no way forward, and horses and chariots don’t reverse easily. As you can see, the chariots mostly went through the gap in the Macedonian line, only to find Alexander leading a cavalry charge back at the gap that wiped them out entirely.
The tactic remained a military favourite against horse soldiers for most of the next 1,800 years.
When the tactic was revived in the 15th century, it similarly made knights on horseback pretty much obsolete.
After Gaugumela, Alexander’s tactics were similarly widely adopted and the use of chariots started to tail off as they became ineffective and easy to lose.
Rich Men North Of Richmond, but it’s a Rap Type Beat
Made a beat to the song everyones talking about rn – Rich Men North Of Richmond by Oliver Anthony. Had a lot of fun with this one, went from idea to finished product in a day. The song isn’t set to a bpm so forgive me for parts that are off time, it was tough putting it all in time. Also shoutout to @TimGuitarLessons I used his audio in some parts.
As you get older, you realize that people who lie constantly have some kind of mental problem. It might be a habit; a neurosis, or a DMS-4 illness. But they are not “right in the head”. Something (not saying what it is) is wrong.
Fully functioning adults do not need to lie. They say things as they are. If they don;t want to answer a question, they say so. They have self-confidence, pride and a sense of self-worth.
…
When I first came to China I started to compare my life as an American, to that of China.
And, as such, I quickly realized that SOMETHING was seriously, very seriously wrong with the United States.
The best way for me to describe this is to imagine that you are married to a mentally ill person. (I was, by the way. My first wife was schizo-effective; which had the worst qualities of bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia). Then you get divorced, and meet up with a healthy person.
It was like that.
…
I am in China. It is a healthy nation. It is calm and peaceful. The leadership works towards allowing people freedom and happiness, and it shows.
When I was in the United States, however, everything was a struggle. One problem after the other. And today, it’s only getting worse.
…
Why do I defend China?
Because a mentally ill nation is attacking it using every single DSM-4 technique in the book.
My girlfriend was to remove the patient’s prostate through a so-called radicalprostatectomy. It was Wednesday morning, a couple of weeks ago.
And Wednesdays can be tough.
A typical Wednesday typically includes brutally waking up very early, getting ready, driving to the hospital, and starting the first scheduled surgery at 8AM sharp. Usually a number of operations are planned, depending on the time they take, and urgency.
The afternoon typically consists of a large number of consultations.
After consulting, she usually drives to her father’s house (which is pretty far away from the hospital), because our daughter will be there, but before leaving the hospital, she always visits the patients who had surgery in the morning to have a little chat about the operation, about how the patient is feeling, and about everyday stuff.
When she was back home, we fetched a drink and talked about our day (“what a day, what a day, what a day”), and watched some TV before dinner.
Suddenly she shouted:
“I forgot to see my patient !!”
The prostate man. In all the Wednesday hubbub, she had totally forgotten about the patient, and driven out of the hospital with other things on her mind. She immediately called the hospital and asked a nurse to tell the patient that she would visit him first thing next morning — promised !
The poor man had been a bit worried, thinking that something was wrong, that the cancer was worse than she had expected, and that this was the reason why she did not come.
But next morning, when the doctor was in the house again, he was a happy man. The operation went as planned, and the cancer would be gone now.
Just because China puts up with US bullying doesn’t mean China has to put up with the same shit from a much weaker nation. In fact, Germany is seen kind of like a joke nowadays by the Chinese public, politically, due to it staying silent on NATO blowing up its Nord stream pipeline, and this public sentiment limits how much compromise the Chinese government can have with Germany. Instead of sitting idle and just take the unfair abuse on what’s now pride of Chinese companies for Huawei’s standing up to the US, China would more likely set Germany up as an example in the Chinese philosophy of “kill the chicken to scare the monkeys”.
I can see China starting by reacting proportionately with banning of Siemens from some operations inside China, as well as making life miserable for German cars, which are extremely dependant on China as their largest market worldwide and their factory as well since energy prices drove up costs in Europe, but China being China, it would reserve the stronger responses in hopes of descalation, and would only apply them if Germany escalates things further.
Things are going very, VERY, wrong; Netanyahu Tells Israelis to “Leave Egypt”
Things in the Hamas-Israel fight are going very much wrong for Israel. This afternoon, The US ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier Strike Group to move into the eastern Mediterranean Sea to be closer to Israel. This signals ALL the players that the US is moving-in to get involved militarily. The Players are NOT backing away.
Hamas: Moving the American aircraft carrier does not scare us, and the American administration must realize the consequences of this step.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office calls on Israelis to leave Egypt ‘as soon as possible.’ This is a HUGE . . . no . . . . GIGANTIC . . . flashing RED sign.
Egypt was the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel, and depending upon what course Israel pursues in Gaza (i.e. possible Ground Invasion) that peace with Egypt may now be in very real jeopardy.
The Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas, who was safely away in Jordan, is now leaving Jordan and heading into Syria.
In earlier reporting, I mentioned Intelligence info that Palestinians in Israel got word to their allies elsewhere to be ready to turn up the heat on Europe if Israel engages in a ground war. Now, we see they also got word to their pals in New York City, where, this afternoon, supporters of the Palestinians and supporters of Israel faced each other in Times Square. Chanting . . . for now . . . .
American Middle Class Is the New Poor | Renters Are Out of Options
Working and homeless! The new slogan. It’s not always drug addiction that leads to this. We NEED to stop this stereotype. Cost of living, especially rent is far outpacing wages which are not even remotely keeping up.. For people with no roommates or family to move in with and not making more than 75K, it’s rough out there.
I have (as of late) been drawn to the horrible stories about infidelity between married couples. Just terrible stuff really. And then one of my followers asked for help on this matter and I responded in a post.
When I get these urges, there are always deeper meanings underlying their intrusion into my consciousness. And it just occurred to me what is going on.
The “marriage” is the United States and China.
The United States is “having sex and fooling round”, and China knows all about it, but wants to keep the relationship stable.
So the United States denies, and denies, and then denies…
What are you talking about?
Nothing is going on?
You worry too much?
You are reading too much into the picture of me and a coworker…
…but the texting behind the back keeps on occurring, and the sex orgies still occur in (apparent) secret.
But China has a PI investigating everything and knows everything. China has transcripts of all the text message. China has videos of the sexual events taken from the phones, and the sexy pictures sent back and forth between them. China knows when, where, how and how often these events occurred.
But hasn’t shown its hand yet.
What will China do?
The normal thing (the most common event) is confrontation; a “lot of fireworks” and screaming and yelling, and then a hostile divorce.
But I really don’t think that China wants, or has any plans, to do that.
China does not want a divorce (a war; in any shape or form.)
However, if push comes to shove, China (as a partner) will make life a living Hell for the United States….
…if push comes to shove.
If all these non-stop provocations keep on occurring while the USA puts on the face that “all is just fine, nothing is going on. You are the one with the issue.“
And were a hard and harsh divorce were to manifest, it would be China who would hold all the cards. It won’t go in any way that the USA thinks.
…
All these are ugly thoughts.
The USA and China are (at least on the surface) making amends. Dating again, things are getting back to normal. Plane Flights are opening up. Businessmen are cutting deals and all the rest.
But the USA is still up to it’s old bag of tricks.
A “color revolution” in Burma by the CIA was just squelched. Lots of dead (CIA trained) insurgents.
“President” Biden got up and made a public warning to China to stop provoking The Philippines…
My gut feeling is that the Chinese know everything, and are just “waiting out” the United States. It will run out of money, resources, banking, finance, and cred sooner than later.
Ai! Hopefully the hidden texts, the late-night “meetings”, and all the rest will come to a quick and decisive end.
Hopefully.
One more year of Joe Biden. Sheech!
I don’t know if I can handle that. Oh Lordy!
I swear that he has his foot on the gas petal towards war and is FLOORING IT.
Well China gave the west a 2 century head start and caught it up in less than 50 years! Go figure. The west don’t have civilisation it has a war mongering barbaric mind set that thinks they are ordained by god to loot and plunder. Colonialism U.S. not civilised it is a cruel, despicable act of stealing land and carrying out genocides to slaughter most of the natives.
Civilisation is like the Chinese and Confucianism edicts on discipline, respect, compassion, hard work, eagerness to learn, winning without fighting. Murder, slaughter, genocide done by the west to steal land and resources is barbaric not civilised.
Star Trek: The Silent Skies | 1920 Universe
This is AMAZING!
Zero-sum mentality in US won’t halt China’s tech rise — Global Times
American automaker Ford said on Monday it’s pausing construction of a $3.5 billion electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in the US state of Michigan until it is confident it can run the factory competitively, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Although the US government is flexing all of its policy muscles available to suppress China’s high-tech industry, US competitiveness in cutting-edge technologies has continued to decline as a result of multiple factors.
Ford’s decision comes as the company is in the midst of national contract talks with the United Auto Workers union, which wants to represent workers at battery factories and win them top wages, according to the AP report. Intense competition among global EV manufacturers has unsettled the US automotive industry, which had been a pillar of the US economy, as US automakers are under pressure both at home and abroad.
On the one hand, competition from international competitors, including Chinese EV makers, poses a challenge to American firms, especially as Chinese companies have accumulated technological and price advantages against the backdrop of fierce competition in the Chinese domestic market.
On the other hand, deep-seated problems in the US economy, including insufficient labor protection and the widening wealth gap, have erupted in a concentrated manner. The car industry, like other manufacturing industries in the US, is facing increased pressure due to rising production costs.
As reported by the AP in March, Ford’s EV business has lost $3 billion before taxes during the past two years. If the US automaker wants to catch up with rivals amid intense international competition, one option for Ford is to collaborate with top Chinese companies.
Ford in February announced plans to build the plant in Michigan, betting that making the batteries in the US would help it and Chinese partner CATL attract US customers to embrace a lower-cost technology pioneered in China, according to Reuters. Honestly speaking, Ford’s cooperation with CATL benefits the development of the US EV industry. However, the sector’s survival opportunities are being stifled by politicians in Washington. Republicans in Congress have been probing Ford’s battery plant plan over concerns it could leave Ford dependent on Chinese technology.
As reported by Reuters, Rep. Mike Gallagher said lawmakers were “encouraged to see Ford take a crucial first step to reevaluate its deal” with CATL. “Now, Ford needs to call off this deal for good,” he added.
Not only in the EV industry, but also in most high-tech and cutting-edge industries, some people in the US possess an extremely unhealthy and unfair zero-sum competition mentality toward China. However, it is evident that this thinking is counterproductive in promoting the development of domestic US industries.
Apart from Tesla, other American vehicle companies still have a relatively low share in the domestic and international EV markets. Although the US government has devised protectionist measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act, it is still moving slowly in terms of addressing domestic supply chain issues, particularly in the production of batteries.
Washington is working toward a zero-sum competition with China, with American firms serving as victims. What Chinese enterprises need to do is to confront external challenges, continuously enhance their competitiveness, strengthen technological innovation, seize the opportunities created by Washington’s zero-sum competition mentality – which has caused difficulties for American enterprises – and continuously strengthen themselves.
China is becoming increasingly competitive in EV manufacturing capacity and technology innovation. Chinese EV brands, such as BYD and NIO, have made significant strides in developing advanced EV technologies, including battery technology and autonomous driving features.
China holds a superior position in the EV supply chain, with about three-quarters of the world’s battery production capacity. Moreover, China houses more than half of the world’s processing and refining capacity for lithium, cobalt and graphite, which are essential materials for making EV batteries.
The West’s narrow-minded, zero-sum game mentality has indeed put some pressure on China in the short term, but it cannot fundamentally hinder technological progress. If the US always opts for dirty tricks against China instead of learning how to conduct healthy competition with Chinese enterprises and develop its own economic competitiveness, this will just lead to a larger gap between China and the US.
If you don’t understand why I use the word “monster” to describe Huawei, please look at this picture. Here is a summary of the business Huawei is doing.
It is different from traditional foreign technology companies, such as Samsung, SONY, Nokia, and Alibaba, which only challenge advanced American companies in a certain field.
It has launched a comprehensive challenge to its American counterparts in almost the entire information technology industry.
It not only challenges, but has already achieved success in many areas, and this trend is getting faster and faster.
If the US doesn’t stop it, it will slap American companies on the butt in global markets. Just like Toyota and Honda slapped Ford’s ass back in the day.
Currently, high-tech companies are a key means for the United States to gain wealth from around the world. Once these high-tech companies are stepped on by Huawei, how can the United States maintain its status as a developed country and maintain Americans’ living standards?
Therefore, when American companies have no choice but to rely on the U.S. government to take action. Kill the monster before it grows up. As for the reason: threatening national security
Senior shelter cat desperately hugs woman for adoption
“I adopted the oldest cat my shelter had. She was owner surrendered at the age 15 which I just thought was wrong. I named her Hope and she gave me 4 of the best years of my life. Thank you so much for adopting a senior cat. I wish you many years of happiness and love with her.”
REPORTS: Thousands of Ukraine Soldiers SURRENDERING To Russian Army
A special radio frequency being used so that Ukrainian soldiers can safely surrender to Russian forces is now chattering like never before. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are opting to surrender to the Russian Army.
These surrenders were seen even by Clayton Morris, an American journalist, who expressed his astonishment and said, “this is a story the western media does not want you to see.”
Ukrainian forces are laying down their Western-supplied arms and surrendering en masse! Using emergency radio frequencies, they’re receiving food & medical care and even sharing critical intel with Russian forces.
Is this the final chapter?
As Zelensky hears of mass surrendering of Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines he will likely be very concerned. Not about the soldiers; about what happens to him
The question now is who gets to him first. The Russians will want him but the west may want him too. Dead.
They will not wish to have him expose the money laundering, child sex slavery and child organ harvesting that has been going on in Ukraine; the Globalist Parasites cant allow that.
Either way its not looking good for the man in Green.
By most credible accounts, the recent Ukronazi+NATO attack in the Kharkov area was even more costly in KIA/MIA, wounded and lost hardware than the attack towards Kherson. The combined losses from these attacks are staggering.
Yet there are all the signs that the Ukronazi+NATO forces are preparing for even more such attacks.
The Ukronazi+NATO seem happy to trade human lives for territorial gains, no matter how small or how irrelevant that territory is.
The Russians seem happy to trade space and time to protect the lives of their soldiers and equipment.
We could say that the Ukronazi+NATO are trading bodies for shells.
Let’s remember the two goals set by Putin for the SMO: denazify and demilitarize. Both of these goals are human-focused, not terrain-focused. In other words, if a tactical-level withdrawal allows the Russian to kill scores of Ukronazi+NATO personnel and destroy their equipment, they will gladly accept the trade.
The other goal was to protect the LDNR. Kherson is not part of the LDNR.
Territory can be reconquered, equipment is hard to replace, especially complex weapon-systems.
Soldiers cannot be resurrected.
It is absolutely clear that Ukronazi+NATO are “betting the farm” into these offensives. Not only is the coming winter a major threat for them, but the political chaos in the EU and the US this fall and winter means that now is the time to try has hard as possible to conceal the magnitude of the disaster for the Ukronazi+NATO.
So, most of what is taking place now can be summed up in this simple question: who will run out of resources first: the Ukronazi+NATO in terms of manpower and equipment or the Russians in terms of firepower (mostly artillery, missiles and airpower)?
I think that the answer is obvious: Russia wins.
U.S. Plans To Ethnically Cleanse Gaza
This is, presumably, the U.S.-Israeli plan for the Palestinian people in Gaza:
Amazing: President Biden is working on a plan with other countries that would allow civilians to safely leave Gaza and cross the border into Egypt. This is great news. President Biden is making sure that innocent people don’t die due to the actions of Hamas. That’s leadership.
No, it is not leadership. It is ethnic cleansing, a war crime disguised as humanitarian gesture. It is ethnic cleansing of people who’s land has been stolen by Zionist settlers. These people would have no right of return to the homes and land they once owned. People who have been put into an open air prison, who have no access to electricity, water and food and are currently under intense attacks.
Egypt, the only country where they potentially could be moved to, is already bankrupt. It can not even provide for its own people. Two million new people from Gaza, all poor and some of them radicalized, would undoubtedly unbalance the Egyptian state.
Should such a plan be put into action it would guarantee that the resistance axis, Hizbullah and various other Sunni and Shia groups in the Middle East, would step in. The would attack Israel to prevent such a move.
The U.S. thinks it can deter resistance action by threatening to move in with its own forces. That’s why the USS Herald Ford, its newest carrier, was moved into the Eastern Mediterranean. Rumors have it that a second carrier will come in too.
But the resistance can not be deterred by that. The last time the U.S. tried to intervene in Lebanon it ended up with 241 dead Marines and had to retreat in shame. Hizbullah at that time was only a handful of men. Today Hizbullah has tens of thousands of very well trained men. Then there are also Iran and Russia:
As I said in my analysis today of the NATO intervention in the Israeli northern front, it’s inconceivable that Russia should stay silent in the face of such brazen NATO overreach. This seat-of-the-pants, unmandated NATO panic move will speed up Russia’s pivot from pro-Israel to pro-Arab that started with the deaths of Russian airmen caused by an IAF aggression against Syria and was locked in with Netanyahu’s support for the nazi regime in Kiev.
The Russian military has long identified Israel as an enemy state and Putin is now conceding to them, acknowledging the failure of yet another one of his strategies, namely the political use of the Russian Jewish community in Israel via his “friend” Avigdor Lieberman. Russian Jews in Israel are virulently anti-Arab, so Putin tried not to upset them.
Today, however, with Bibi bringing in the full might of NATO to the Eastern Mediterranean to threaten not only Lebanon but Russian bases in Syria, it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy. With Patrushin and Shoygu holding the reins of state and a clear and present NATO threat on Syria’s doorstep, expect a strong and unexpected Russian intervention in the multifront Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war.
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut has not evacuated and is open and operating normally. Reports saying otherwise are false. For more information and travel advisories, visit our embassy website: lb.usembassy.gov
Posted by b on October 11, 2023 at 15:43 UTC | Permalink
When I was young I was pretty much left to my own devices as far as personal hygiene and was always had dirty clothes. My parents were drunks and as the youngest of 7 it was total chaos for me. For some reason though this girl in my class who was smart, funny and popular became my friend. She was just the best friend a girl could ask for. Her father was a prominent doctor and she came from a big loving family. Whenever she could she would include me in whatever she was doing.
We were freshman in high-school and were sitting having lunch and a girl who was just as popular invited my BFF to a party but told her not to bring me because her mother wouldn’t appreciate it if I brought vermin or disease into her house. My friend just stood up and told me that we had to get to our next class and didnt engage with her. The next Saturday was the party and I was home sitting in my room and my BFF showed up at the door and said she thought the party was boring and we ended up going to the movies and then to her house for a sleepover.
Fast forward about a week and the girl who had the party was talking about how her mother was upset because their house apparently smelled like something died in it. They couldnt figure out what the smell was. It was awful. My friend said to the girl that “maybe you have some type of vermin in your house.” She then said she didnt think she could hang with someone like her because there could be vermin in her house. This immediately caught my attention. I asked her about it later. She came clean and told me that when she went to the party – she brought with her some canned shrimp and discreetly placed the raw shrimp in places throughout the house. Under area rugs, on top of a grandfather clock even in the hem of the drapes in various rooms. She said that nobody fucks with me – and she would always have my back.
THAT IS A FRIEND
The Average Age Of Ukraine’s Army
Ben Wallace, the former Secretary of State for Defence of the UK, writes in the Telegraph:
Putin is desperately grasping at the final two things that can save him – time and the splitting of the international community. Britain can do something about both. We must help Ukraine maintain its momentum – and that will require more munitions, ATACMSs and Storm Shadows. And the best way to keep the international community together is the demonstration of success.
Ukraine can also play its part. The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40. I understand President Zelensky’s desire to preserve the young for the future, but the fact is that Russia is mobilising the whole country by stealth. Putin knows a pause will hand him time to build a new army. So just as Britain did in 1939 and 1941, perhaps it is time to reassess the scale of Ukraine’s mobilisation.
Let us not pause for one day. Let us see this through. The world is watching to see if the West has the resolve to stand up for our values and the rules-based system. What we do now for Ukraine will set the direction for all of our security for years to come.
Think for a moment what the aside insert “The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40” really means. Can Storm Shadows change that fact?
Sollte stimmen, was Wallace da über das Durchschnittsalter an der ukrainischen Front sagt, 40 Jahre, dann sind die schlimmsten Mutmaßungen über Verluste weit übertroffen worden. Paraguay 1870.
Translated from German by Google If what Wallace says about the average age on the Ukrainian front is true, 40 years, then the worst assumptions about losses have been far exceeded. Paraguay 1870.
Paraguay suffered massive casualties, and the war’s disruption and disease also cost civilian lives. Some historians estimate that the nation lost the majority of its population.
Ukraine ain’t there yet. But looking at pictures of Ukrainian soldiers at the front Wallace seems to be right. If you are forty or above are you really still able to run, react and fight like when you were twenty? I am not.
The young Ukrainians are gone. They either have fled from Ukraine or are wounded, disabled or died. You can not mobilize what is no longer there.
Have your chili 3, 4 or 5 ways, Cincinnati style. This is also great on hot dogs, smothered with shredded cheese.
cincinnati chili
Yield: 5 to 6 servings
Ingredients
Chili
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons mild chili powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
Have It 5 Ways
1 pound spaghetti, cooked
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup finely grated Cheddar cheese
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed, drained and heated
Hot sauce (your favorite)
Instructions
Brown ground beef, onions and celery in a large skillet, drain off all fat.
Place slow cooker ingredients into a slow cooker and stir well. Cover slow cooker and cook for 7 to 9 hours on LOW, or for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours on HIGH, stirring during last part of cooking if using HIGH setting.
Cook spaghetti 1/2 hour before chili is done.
To have chili 3-ways, serve it with spaghetti, chili and cheese.
To have chili 4-ways, serve it with spaghetti, chili, onion and cheese.
To have spaghetti 5-ways, serve it with spaghetti, chili, beans, onion and cheese.
Douse chili liberally with hot sauce, if desired.
US Shutdown CANCELLED, No Money For Ukraine, Economy In Ruins
At the last minute, the US Congress passed a Stopgap Bill to keep money flowing for government spending. However, funding was cut to Ukraine in a shocking move. This is most likely political theatre as American support will likely continue. Here’s why the US government is trapped and borrowing money will never end!
I was a store manager at family dollar and I inherited the store and like 6 employees. I was a new manager and didn’t have much experience in such a leadership role. Fast forward I am learning as the days go by. One of my employees come to me and ask me for a ride from work. I typically don’t mingle with coworkers or employees just to keep the possibility of drama down. Well long story short I ended up befriending this middle aged lady I worked with. She frequently got rides from everyone because she didn’t have a car. I ended up hiring another middle aged lady because she had to get a job to get her kids back from the state(I know I know not a good reason to hire someone but I was young soft hearted and above all a mother) so I gave her a chance. I worked around her visitation and allowed her to work a sporadic schedule. This went on for about two years. Well one day I came in on my day off which I frequently did just to make sure everything was up and running and things didn’t feel right. Everyday at a certain time the cameras cut off and reset to save memory or storage(one do them) well I see those two employees pushing carts full of merchandise to their cars along with other people. So I stop them and the people who were with them and ask them for receipts. They produced receipts for like 5 items but the amount of items In their carts greatly exceeded the receipt description. I fired them on the spot and they took two of four carts back into the store. Their family refused and I called loss prevention and police at this time. I was stressed out because she lost her job which means she was going to lose her children and I know it wasn’t my concern I just didn’t understand why she put her children in that position. They both had been stealing expired and new merchandise for the last 6–9 months. I was shocked at how they behaved so normally around me. I learned a lesson here though, I am more strict and don’t allow my heart to lead my professional decisions! I am an exceptional leader today because of my family dollar experiences!!
Not fight but they were hard to get back. As the younger brother, two years younger, of two older sisters, twins Lori and Tracy, I often had to go into their bedrooms and retrieve my stuff.
Yes it’s odd girls would be taking their brother’s clothes but mine did. Tracy would take my ball cap. She had a lot of blonde hair but that didn’t stop her from wearing my cap. She wore ball caps before girls wore ball caps and she got a lot of looks. She would also borrow a military style belt I had.
Tracy wore jeans ripped on the knees, purposely, to school one day before that came into fashion. The teacher sent her home. He told her that her knees were showing. She went home and changed into a short skirt and came back to school. The teacher stared at her shaking his head.
“Oh my God. My knees are showing. Should I go back home and change?” she said coyly. That was my sister. She was ahead of her time.
Lori would often take my school football jacket and wear it going to games with her friends. She often came to my games wearing it and cheered me on.
It was hard getting these things back sometimes and I’d have to sneak into their rooms that looked like cyclones hit them. Mom called them ‘Cyclonic Rest Areas.’ Fashion models since age 15, the girls had a lot of clothes and they were all over the rooms. You wouldn’t think they’d borrow their brother’s clothes having all those clothes in their rooms. Of course as soon as I got them back Lori would ask, “RJ, can I borrow your school jacket?”
I remember once I had to run out into the backyard to get the dogs out of the rain. Mom’s orders. The dogs never wanted to come in, even out of the rain. I had no shoes but there was a shiny pair of white boots by the back door. I was thirteen then. I put on the boots. I then ran outside and herded in the three dogs. Tracy, 15, was at the door with her friends. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING WEARING MY BOOTS? THEY ARE ALL MUDDY NOW!” She scolded. “Do you have any idea how much they cost?”
“Oh, but it’s fine for you and Lori to wear my ball cap, belt and jacket having them smell like perfume later!” I said to her as I took off her boots. She looked at her friends and laughed. She sighed. “Touché!” she said smiling at me.
I remember the girls were at a school football game I was playing in. One of the guys asked, “Is that Tracy wearing your cap RJ?” In those days, girls were not often seen wearing ball caps.
“Yep, that’s her,” I said.
“Wow! She sure looks a hell of a lot better wearing that cap than you do,” he said..
As Apple found out, limited amount of skilled labor and poor quality output. Apple tried to assemble in India and found they had a 50% yield rate and about a fifth of its required manpower needs. Further, as word got around, Europeans are not buying ‘made in India Apple iPhones. Almost all developing countries are similar in condition and experience. Simple things like garments work fairly well, but assembly of high end mobile phones are a bit harder.
While India offered what appeared to be the greatest possibility, Vietnam is always cited. Vietnam has limited skilled labor, lack of electricity, and lack of infrastructure. Again, garments, toys, and simple assembly are possible, but complex items get poor results.
Further, the supply chain is non-existent, so parts have to come from the supply chain developed in China. For Apple, lesson learned. It has lost $70 billion in this exercise to move to India, only to return to China and expand its operation there. The labor costs may be higher, but still cheaper than the US and the skilled labor is in quantity that Apple needs plus the yield rate is almost 100% and the supply chain is well developed.
I would also mention TSMC’s attempt to build a 4nm fab in Arizona, only to find lack of skilled labor, and work culture below that of Taiwan. It appears TSMC has closed the fab, laid off the workforce, and for all intents and purpose, shut down its US operations.
This break-up is epic. And classic. It was the ultimate f*ck you and the horse you rode in on.
A former co-worker had this “boyfriend” for four years. Didn’t want to marry her. “Marriage is just a piece of paper” and all that guff. So this woman was diagnosed at a fairly young age with cancer. Boyfriend still didn’t want to marry her; really, he didn’t want to have to deal with making her medical decisions, caring for her, etc. It became obvious during chemotherapy when she needed tending to.
Luckily, she had adult children and friends who stepped in and did all of the heavy lifting he was unwilling to do—and unable, by law, to do.
The cancer turns terminal. So, of course there’s the issue of inheritance to sort out and other financial and legal matters. This woman wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but she did okay. She had a house that was paid for, and some investments. A nice pension and Social Security benefits, and of course, health insurance.
The ne’er-do-well boyfriend has a lightbulb moment: he could get the house, basically double his monthly living income, and get really good health coverage, if he just married her. So he proposed when she was at her very weakest.
Not being a foolish woman, she told him to take a long walk off a short pier. He scuttled away in disgrace and let her spend her final days in the company of those who loved her.
When she did die, it was very sad. She was too young and still had a lot of living to do. But at least Mr. “marriage is just a piece of paper” didn’t profit out of the deal. Her adult kids got everything instead. To this day, I hold her in very high regard for not letting him bamboozle her.
He got nothing, nada, niente, as it should always be for people like that.
Oliver Anthony Rich Men North of Richmond”REACTION” It Just Got Real
China’s 18 main trunk lines of high-speed railways, only 6 lines are profitable, and the remaining 13 are loss-making.
In 2022, China’s high-speed rail suffered a total loss of US$15 billion.
Therefore, if all high-speed rail in China is regarded as a company, it is a company with huge losses.
image 82
But in the eyes of the Chinese, high-speed rail is not a business. They believe that high-speed railway is a kind of social infrastructure. The purpose of its existence is to provide basic services for the entire social and economic development without maintaining profitability itself.
Therefore, as a state-owned enterprise, China Railway Corporation must bear losses. The funds lost are subsidized by the government every year.
The question is, how can the Chinese government have so much money to subsidize high-speed rail?
The reason is simple. After the Chinese built the first key high-speed railway, the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, they were surprised to find that for every US$1 they lost on the high-speed railway, the economic growth generated along the high-speed railway would increase by US$1.8. Three years after the high-speed rail was completed, tax revenue from governments along the line increased by 68%. The economic growth is 1.5 times faster than that of other regions. This increased wealth is enough to build ten more high-speed railways of the same type.
At the same time, there are 140 core enterprises and 500 general enterprises producing high-speed rail parts in China, distributed in more than 20 provinces. A 200 billion yuan industrial chain has been formed, providing a large number of jobs. Just look at the construction process of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which involved more than 700 construction companies and provided jobs for 110,000 people.
Ultimately, high-speed rail became an engine of economic development in the eyes of the Chinese.
Wherever high-speed rail is built, wealth will be greatly increased. As for the funds invested in high-speed rail construction and operating expenses at a loss, they seem insignificant in the face of these increased wealth.
I worked in a small rural hospital in the central part of Texas. This hospital happened to be in between two high-security prisons. It was not a rare occurrence that while being transferred, they would stop at our hospital for blood work, x-rays, cat scans, etc. One time they brought two prisoners to the lab for blood work. (they remained chained and the officers kept weapons at ready.) I drew blood from the first guy. He was charistically covered with prison tattoos; tears, a clock with no hands, and several gang tattoos. He had one I never saw before. On his cheek were the numbers 5150.
I asked the other guy what 5150 meant. He said that guy is completely nuts! Nobody messes with that guy! What does 5150 mean? He said it is Part of the California penal code. It means criminally insane. I don’t who he is or what he did but he sure was creepy.
P.S. I got to know the transfer crews pretty well. we developed a practical joke with the prisoners. For all of their toughness, many of them were afraid of blood draw needles. When I was done with the blood draw I put a pink Barbie band-aid on the site. Then I told them they had to keep it on until they were admitted to their new home. The guards would back me up and say that they had to have proof that the blood was drawn. So the possibly badest, craziest, most evil, person I will ever meet wore a pink Barbie band-aid in prison because of me.
After a countless string of falsehood dangled by American leaders, government agencies, the mainstream media, thinktanks and intellectuals, why are we still debating if a particular American interpretation of China is credible?
Odds are it is false or embellished/exaggerated.
Remember this guy?
image 173
He made history becoming the first Cabinet-level official to be sanctioned by China, after passing a genocide determination on China’s treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang during his final weeks in office.
Surprisingly, few have spoken up for him, neither blue, nor red.
The State Department has quietly shelved his statement, with its lawyers concluding there was insufficient evidence to make the genocide designation. Antony certainly hasn’t acted on his predecessor’s words, even though the designation remains.
There was also balloon-gate, which was recently absolved by the Joint Chiefs.
“It was a weather balloon we shot down.”
It doesn’t matter how many warheads China has, because Zhou Enlai’s words remain relevant today.
“China has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world once over”.
Stopped a motorcyclist who blew through a 4-way stop intersection. The guy pulled over and after I got out of my car, took off.
I chased him down and again, he stopped. He continued to straddle his bike while I approached him. I asked him to shut down his ride and swing off of it. No compliance. I reached down and turned the ignition off and removed the key. He went ballistic and decided to fight. Guy was huge and clearly under some form of influence. Inhumanly strong.
Tried to mace him, only to have the wind push it back at me. I had left my baton in the car and all he wanted to do was grab my holstered service weapon. We had no portable radios. Frankly, he was besting me and all I could do was keep him from ripping my revolver away from me.
Very, very fortunately, a county traffic officer approached from the other direction and he called it in before diving into the wrestling match. A few minutes later, LOTS of needed manpower arrived and we got the guy down and cuffed. We got him to his feet and watched while he “stiff-legged” it back to my car. Went to put him in the back seat and he wouldn’t fold. Tucked his knees with my stick; nothing. We knocked him back down and shoveled him into the car for the trip to the jail.
Upon booking, he ripped his (artificial) leg off, hopping around and swinging it at the jailers and everyone else……again, subdued and hauled off…aggressive, foul-mouthed, non-cooperative. Next day at his arraignment, a totally different guy! Disabled Vietnam vet…..double amputee….off of his meds. Contrite and apologetic.
Even as the arresting officer, the magistrate gave me no opportunity to comment or o’wise condition the arrest. The vet pleaded guilty and drew a 60-day sentence for battery to police officer(s). To this day, not certain that justice was served, but rolling around in the street fearing for my life was an eye-opener!
Many years ago, I was walking down a road in Bristol (England) and suddenly, a figure burst out of a door knocking me over, He stopped dead, and apologised profusely, helped me to my feet and noting my accent said ’You’re Welsh,- me too.’
He took me inside and got me a coffee, and we chatted awhile, and he said, ‘You don’t know who I am, do you? I had to admit I didn’t, So He said ‘I’m Tom Jones’ You know, the singer?
‘Bloody hell, I thought you were in America’, I said He replied ‘I had a date to appear in the Colston Hall and didn’t want to let them down’, ‘What can I do to be sorry?’ he said. ‘You said you were looking for a short-term job, weren’t you?’ ‘Yes’, I replied, ‘Let me help’, said he, and got on the phone and arranged a job for me there and them with a famous wine importer, saying he’d vouch for me ‘cos I’m Welsh.
I was well received and took up the job for the remainder of the time I spent in Bristol, and it opened a new horizon for me to explore in work which changed my life. So, I’ve often looked back to that chance encounter with a bloke renowned for being brutal – but who changed my life.
China is more ADVANCED than we realised!
Since returning to China, our minds have been blown by the rapid technological progress we’ve witnessed! In this video, @Huawei invited us to explore some of China’s most cutting-edge technologies, including robotic arms, futuristic robots, 5G factories, and mind-blowing augmented reality experiences.
LOL. The rest of youse guys are just NOW figuring all this out?
If the PLA liberates Taiwan by force, 99% of Chinese want Japan to send troops to intervene in the China’s internal affairs or China’s civil war.
As for why the Chinese think differently than you think, I think Asians understand.
Even the dispatch of 1 soldier from Japan is something the Chinese would be happy to see.
In 1937, the Japanese launched the Marco Polo Bridge Incident under the pretext of the disappearance of 1 soldier, and began a full-scale invasion of China.
So, 1 soldier is enough excuse. New grudges and old grudges can be returned together.
One evening in the London casino I worked at, I was having dinner in the restaurant with another client.
Then at a nearby table very old Greek man had a catastrophic failure of his bowels. This is a very exclusive Michelin equivalent restaurant. The restaurant unsurprisingly cleared, leaving me alone with the incontinent gentleman and his wife. I shamelessly pulled rank and had one of the wait staff wrap a table cloth around the unfortunate soul and then informed our reception that we would take the member home in one of our cars.
The car took the old couple home. The restaurant cleaned up the mess. And we were down one Bruges lace tablecloth. I thought the matter dealt with.
I received a phone call the next afternoon from the irate wife of the unfortunate guest. She took great pains to inform me that the quick thinking car jockey had covered the £100,000 Bentley’s back seat with something like clear plastic wrap. Obviously this was deeply humiliating to the couple. Especially to her faeces covered husband. The fact that he was wrapped in tablecloth after soiling himself in a packed restaurant was apparently not even comparatively humiliating.
The wife demanded I discipline the very rude driver. I agreed* and promised I would, and that the next time anyone fouled themselves in my presence at work I would not try to protect the interior of a hugely expensive car.
*Obviously I did not discipline the driver. He saved us an obscenely large valeting bill!
America is one of the biggest criminals in this modern world. They fights for their economic interest. Media defames nations and leaders from the intelligentsia.
Today there will be talk of a leader whom most of the world considers as a dictator.
Who should have got the Nobel Prize. But got death. Unfortunately, people think them as a criminal.
Libya is an African country bordering the Sahara Desert. There 80% of the land is desert. Only 10% of the land is such that people can live. Most of the parts of the country are such where not a drop of water has fallen for 20 years.
When oil was discovered in the world, oil was discovered in every country. What was found instead of oil in Libya was astonishing.
500 meters down in the desert, a thick layer of water was found, its thickness was somewhere around 700 meters thick.
According to experts, this is so much water that it can give water to Libya for 2-3 thousand years.
Its importance can be understood for a country where 90% of the land is desert.
But extracting this water, sending it to other parts was nothing less than Bhagirath’s penance. The money needed for this work in 1960 was $25 billion. From today’s point of view, it will be above 100 billion dollars.
Consideration on this project was abandoned. But when Colonel Gaddafi became president, they started this work.
The West was opposed to Gaddafi. IMF, World Bank no one gave loan to Libya for this work.
Gaddafi took this impossible project forward by making arrangements with their own nation.
Engineers from South Korea helped in this. Later, UNESCO also trained engineers.
Large pipes were built. So wide that the metro train passes.
The project was inaugurated by Colonel Gaddafi on 28 August 1984.
500 meters deep, 1300 wells were constructed. Which used to carry water through a 4000 km long pipeline. So many dams were built that 12 Egyptian pyramids could be built. Astronauts can also see the well built in it.
$33 billion was spent by Gaddafi. The whole of Africa was expected to be green.
In 2008, the Guinness Book of Books included the project as the largest project ever.
People went crazy with joy when water reached the major Libyan cities of Tripoli, Bayanji. Irrigation started in 13 thousand hectares of land.
But in 2011, America attacked NATO by spreading propaganda against Gaddafi.
The surprising thing is that he dropped the maximum number of bombs on this project. Due to which more than 25% collapsed.
How Western countries have turned the boon to Africa can be seen in ruins.
Now urgently we will sell bottled water to Africa, some Mother Teresa will come and get her converted. The Nobel Prize will take the title of a saint.
Gaddafi was bad, so the people of his country would have understood, who are you people who dropped bombs and missiles.
Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, this is all he is saying. Your intention is not right. He says Britain robbed India 45 trillion dollars in 100 years. This is the research of UK universities only. India could not become a 5 trillion dollar economy in 75 years. So how much it will be looted can be estimated.
This project was made in collaboration with engineers from all over the world! What makes Gaddafi a great leader.
Burden X Steven James – Rich Men North Of Richmond Remix
My parents needed a new housekeeper because our old housekeeper was retiring, so with a very heavy heart — Hermione had become part of the family after all these years — they hired a new one.
And what a different person she was.
Vera was in her late twenties, good-looking, was energetic and quick, and had a smart mouth. We needed some time to adjust, but we immediately liked her.
Still, some things were really different. Sometimes she was caught red-handed leaving early, but she aways had some original excuse —
“My mom’s really sick. My husband needed urgent help. My boy needed an unforeseen ride. I started earlier than planned.”
It also happened a couple of times when my mom came home earlier than expected, that Vera was on the phone. (A classical rotary phone in the conversation pit in my parents’ living room.)
(Yes, dear reader. A rotary phone. With a cable.)
The excuse was always the same — urgent matters for sick people and needy children.
Till the day when my parents got the phone bill.
It was humongous, and an absurd number of very long calls had been made to an unknown number, each and every time during Vera’s working hours. When she alone was home.
It turned out that Very had a lover, and had used my parent’s house as a call center all along, so that her husband wouldn’t find out.
She was fired on the spot.
Not much later she left her husband for the lover, and that’s the last thing we ever heard of Vera. When Hermione heard the news some time later, she proposed to come back and spend one or two extra years in our family.
Purchase a marine air horn that works with a canister of aerosol gas. I keep two in my truck, one in each door panel. You may know them from hearing them at soccer matches in big stadiums. They are extremely loud and piercing. If you point one in a person’s face and discharge it with a long blast, the person would become discombobulated instantly. It is actually painful and can hurt eardrums. It would render them unable to hear for a minute or more and affect their equilibrium, causing trouble moving, walking, running, or aiming. The surprise effect is stunning; they do not expect anything like that. You then have the option of running and getting the hell away or physically counter-attacking. It is hard to defend yourself when your faculties are compromised. It is also hard to chase someone. Keep the horn in your hand and be ready to give them a second dose if needed. If you do the wise thing and run, you can keep doing short blasts as you are leaving. The beauty of this is that anyone who is within 100 yards of you will be alerted to that sound and will turn to look and see what is happening. The perp is put on full display and probably will abandon his assault attempt. This can be a lifesaver in a gas station scenario where you are pumping gas and getting approached by someone walking up to your car. I tried a test on a friend who was 3 feet away and his back was turned. A one-second blast, aimed at the ground, made him jump three feet and run about twenty feet away. He didn’t know what happened, he just wanted out of there. Think what a 10-second blast directly in the face would do!
Twenty years ago my wife and I saw an ad in the New York Times travel section. Round trip from JFK to Barbados on the Concorde, plus a week at the hotel of your choice (there were 5 hotels to choose from).
The Concorde? Let’s do it.
We called British Airways Holidays. (It was still the early day of Internet commerce. Back in 2000 you picked up the landline.)
“We’re flexible on dates,” I told the agent. “But the hotel has to be the Fairmont Royal Pavilion.”
No problem. The agent found a date that worked and took our money (about $13,000 all in). Pricey, but hey — the Concorde.
Two nights before our departure date there was a message on our home answering machine. “This is British Airways Holidays. We’ve had to make some adjustments to your itinerary. You will now be staying at the Royal Pavilion’s sister property, Glitter Bay.”
Sister property. It sounds like kind of the same thing. Except it’s not. Royal Pavilion is for adults only. Glitter Bay is for families with kids. Lots and lots of kids. We love kids. We raised two. But the reason we picked the Royal Pavilion was because we wanted to spend a week without kids.
I called British Airways Holidays. No answer. They’re not an airline. They’re just the travel planners for the airline and work from 9 to 5. We left a voicemail.
The next morning we called the Royal Pavilion and spoke to the General Manager of both properties. He said, “British Airways does this all the time. They take your money, and then they switch your hotel. Here’s what I can do. For the same price I can put you up in a large one-bedroom private villa at Glitter Bay. It’s off the beaten path, far from the kids, an easy walk to the Royal Pavilion, and you’ll have complete access to all our facilities and amenities. I’ll send my wife over to take photos of the villa.”
An hour later I got the pictures. It was incredible. We decided to take it.
British Airways never called back. The guest relations guy who met us at the airport in Barbados never told us we’d been switched to another hotel. He drove us to Glitter Bay. Or as we called it all week, Glitter Bait and Switch.
Let me sum up that week-long vacation: The Concorde was a once in a lifetime experience. Our villa was spectacular. But still, it wasn’t what we’d signed on for.
The General Manager was a total sweetheart. He suggested that I write to British Airways, but warned me not to get my hopes up for a refund.
We’ll just see about that decided the man who writes for a living. I spent days crafting the letter. A week after I sent it I got a call from a British Airways rep in London. She apologized for the “misunderstanding,” and asked how she could make it right.
I told her I wanted a public apology. An ad in the New York Times travel section telling the world what they had done and promising not to sucker in any more people. She said, “Sir, we can’t do that.”
I told her if she didn’t I would go public on this Internet thing that was still just taking hold and tell the whole world wide web what a bunch of crooks they were.
She said, “I’ll get back to you.”
A week later she called back. “We’d like to offer you and your wife an all-expense paid trip from New York to London,” she said. “We’ll fly you there on the Concorde, put you up in a five-star hotel, and fly you back first class on a 747.”
If she had seen the look on my face, she’d have known she had me. But she couldn’t see me. So I doubled down.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “You already flew me to a hotel I didn’t want to go to. Why would I want you to fly me to another place I don’t want to go to? I want a public apology. An ad in the New York Times.”
“Let me talk to my management,” she said.
Another week passed. She called back. “Sir, we absolutely can’t print a public apology. The best we can offer you is a full refund. Airfare and your entire hotel bill including meals and other amenities and services you may have charged. If you say yes, we will credit your American Express card with the entire amount.”
I grumbled, and told her that it wasn’t what I wanted, but she’d won. I begrudgingly accepted the more than $13,000 refund.
Then I hung up, did a happy dance, and told my wife the news.
The next day I called the General Manager of the Royal Pavilion and booked their best villa for a week the following spring. Three bedrooms. Perfect for me, my wife, my son, my daughter and their significant others. The cost of the villa, along with airfare (non-supersonic) for six people — a little over $13,000.
Best all-expenses-paid vacation ever.
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EDIT — Sometimes I post and hear crickets. But this one — over 100k views and 9k upvotes in less than 24 hours. That’s like Mach 2 in Quora terms. Thank you. Several people asked if they could see the letter I sent.
I’d have thought that after 20 years it would be lost to the ages, but I was amazed to see that it was still buried in my archives. It’s 1700 words, and I’d be embarrassed to reprint it. My recounting of the event on Quora was written with a smile on my face. The complaint letter is me at my pissiest.
But I can give you the highlights. Basically, the letter stated the facts. Re-reading it after 20 years, it’s clear that British Airways was even more underhanded than I remembered, so those facts were pretty damning. The manager of the Royal Pavilion taught me some of the tricks of the trade, and he explained why they waited till I was 48 hours away from departure, even though they knew they had overbooked weeks before. He also assured me that BA overbooked, not the hotel. I made sure they knew I was a very knowledgeable consumer.
My closing was this: “I feel violated and am angry enough to take my complaint to the FAA, the appropriate consumer fraud departments in New York, the travel press and travel newsgroups on the Internet. I also feel justified in pursuing legal action where I would seek compensation for both the cost of a lost vacation and for being the victim of dishonest business practices.”
But my best line was this: “Under no condition would I have considered a vacation at Glitter Bay, much less pay $13,186.90 for the privilege of living in the middle of a high rent day care center.”
It’s hard to go up against a corporate Goliath and win. But every now and then… I hope this is the kind of encouragement you need to never quit trying.
Russian Spetsnaz Captured German Army Officers in Ukraine! NATO Armies Suffer Heavy Losses!
The Kursk was an Oscar II class submarine, one of the largest and most powerful subs ever built. It was armed with 24 cruise missiles and 24 torpedoes, some of them tipped with nuclear warheads.
It was supposed to be a show of force and a demonstration of Russia’s military capabilities.
But something went horribly wrong on August 12th, 2000 around 11:30 a.m. local time.
According to the official investigation, one of the practice torpedoes that the Kursk was loading had a faulty weld in its casing, which leaked high-test peroxide (HTP) inside the torpedo tube.
HTP is a highly reactive substance that can explode when it comes into contact with metal or organic matter.
The leak triggered a catalytic explosion that blew off both the inner and outer tube doors, started a fire, and killed or injured most of the crew in the first two compartments.
Two minutes and fifteen seconds later, another explosion occurred, much bigger than the first one.
This one was caused by the detonation of five to seven torpedo warheads, which ripped a huge hole in the hull, collapsed several bulkheads and decks, destroyed the fourth compartment, and killed everyone who was still alive in the front half of the sub.
The second explosion was so powerful that it registered as a 3.5 magnitude earthquake on seismographs around the world.
The Kursk sank to the bottom of the sea, at a depth of about 350 feet. The rear half of the sub was still intact, and some of the survivors managed to seal off the ninth compartment and activate an emergency beacon.
But they were trapped, with no way to escape or communicate with the surface.
Meanwhile, the Russian Navy had no clue what had happened. They did not realise that an accident had occurred until six hours later, when they noticed that the Kursk had missed a scheduled communication check.
They did not initiate a search and rescue operation until 16 hours later, when they finally located the sub on sonar.
But their rescue efforts were hampered by bad weather, poor equipment, and bureaucratic delays.
They tried to attach four different diving bells and submersibles to the escape hatch of the Kursk, but failed every time due to technical problems or human errors.
They also refused to accept help from other countries’ ships nearby, claiming that they had everything under control.
It took them five days to admit that they needed outside assistance, and by then it was too late.
On August 21st, British and Norwegian divers managed to open a hatch to the ninth compartment of the Kursk, but found no signs of life. All 118 sailors on board had perished.
….
Now, there are those who believe that the U.S. Navy had something to do with the disaster, either by sabotaging or attacking the Kursk. Why would they do that?
– To prevent Russia from testing or deploying new weapons systems
– To send a message or a warning to Russia about its military ambitions
– To cover up an accidental collision or confrontation between U.S. and Russian subs
– To distract attention from other issues or scandals in U.S. politics
These claims lack substantial evidence.
Some people claim that there were two U.S. subs near the Kursk at the time of the accident: USS Memphis and USS Toledo.
Memphis
They say that these subs were spying on or harassing the Kursk, and that they either collided with it or fired a torpedo at it.
But there is no proof that these subs were actually there. The U.S. Navy denies any involvement in the incident, and says that its closest sub was hundreds of miles away from the Kursk.
Even if these subs were there, they would have no reason to attack or sabotage the Kursk. The U.S. and Russia were not at war, and the Kursk was not a threat to them. It was only carrying practice torpedoes, not live ones.
And if there was a collision or a confrontation, why would the U.S. subs not report it or try to help the Kursk? Why would they risk an international incident or a nuclear war by hiding their actions?
Some people claim that the second explosion on the Kursk was not caused by its own torpedoes, but by an external source, such as a U.S. torpedo or a mine. They say that the explosion was too big and too loud to be from the Kursk’s weapons, and that it left traces of uranium or plutonium on the seabed.
Again, there is no evidence to back up these claims. The official investigation concluded that the second explosion was consistent with the detonation of five to seven torpedo warheads, each containing about 500 pounds of high explosives. The explosion was big and loud because it happened in a confined space, and because the Kursk’s hull acted as a resonator.
And there is no proof that there was any radioactive material on the seabed. The Kursk’s reactors shut down safely after the first explosion, and did not leak any radiation. The traces of uranium or plutonium that some people claim to have found were either natural or from other sources, such as sunken ships or waste dumps.
Verdict:
There is no credible evidence to suggest that the U.S. was behind the Kursk submarine disaster. It was a tragic accident, caused by a faulty torpedo and compounded by a series of failures and mistakes by the Russian Navy. It was not a conspiracy, but a catastrophe.
The Chinese people are such a nation that when you give them comfort and enjoyment, they will self collapse, just like every dynasty change in China and the late Qing Dynasty.
But when external pressure is exerted to suppress the development of the Chinese people and limit their pursuit of happiness, the Chinese people will erupt in strong resilience, use their talents to break through the blockade, and ultimately achieve rise.
From resisting Japanese aggression during World War II to becoming the world’s second largest economy, the Chinese people have come step by step due to external concerns.
The characteristics of this ethnic group can be summarized by a famous quote from the Chinese Confucian philosopher Mencius two thousand years ago:Born in distress and died in peace and contentment
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Coincidentally, the United States is such an ultimate concern from outside, and its extreme pressure and sanctions unite all Chinese people. Regardless of whether they support the government or not, they have found that only by overcoming American oppression can they have a happy life and a bright future.
China has a population of 1.4 billion, and the number of university graduates in China far exceeds the total population of Japan. China has over 70 million science and engineering talents, which is a huge treasure trove of human resources.
For example, the Huawei Mate60 series, which was just released in September, under four years of extreme sanctions and pressure, more than 100 companies listed by the US Department of Commerce worked together to break the world’s strictest blockade and create 7nm chips with independent intellectual property rights and production capabilities. This is the first time in the history of a company or industry’s battle against the world’s only superpower.
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In the chip disassembly video, the encoding is all 2035CN.
CN is easy to understand, it implies China. 2035 needs to be explained as it represents China’s national research plan. If completed according to the plan, China will become the center of the world’s manufacturing industry and advanced technology by 2035.
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It goes without saying where the sword points
The local manufacturing of high-end chips means that the bargaining power of Chinese local chip consumers will be epic strengthened – the space for manufacturers to rely on exclusive technology to obtain excess profits will be compressed, and domestic companies that need chips to drive their own products will welcome a round of “technology driven cost reduction and efficiency increase” – industries such as AI, new energy vehicles, autonomous driving, etc. will benefit from this.
If this is just a celebration of the country and the company, it’s not a big deal. But Chinese consumers joined the frenzy, using their own income to support this domestically produced phone with fully autonomous and controllable technology, and even sparked a wave of frenzy.
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This high-end phone with an average price of over $800 sold over 1.6 million units in just 6 weeks, according to Counterpoint data. It is expected that the remaining few units will be sold over 5 million units in 2023, with a full life cycle sales of over 20 million units. Such sales have boosted Huawei’s sales forecast for 2024- reaching 60 to 70 million units. You know, this is the single market of Chinese Mainland, and $800 is not a small amount for a country with an annual per capita GDP of $10000.
Due to the release time of this phone, which coincides with the visit of US Commerce Secretary Raymond to China, Chinese netizens have divided and joked about Raymond and the US government, and even spliced the phone’s advertising image with Raymond’s photo, using the phrase “Raymond is a Huawei certified spokesperson” to mock the US blockade for not being able to stop China’s technological progress.
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In the capital market, after the release of mobile phones, there was a wave of enthusiasm in the stock market – various semiconductor related stocks have been strengthening all the way, and SMIC International has ushered in five limit up boards in the stock market.
China’s capital market has always been cautious, but now it is full of confidence. How did you say this confidence came about? I have not yet achieved satisfactory results in the journey of technology with my strength.
The wave of new products from Huawei shows this trend: consumers use money to support the products of consumer electronics manufacturers, and manufacturers can collaborate with upstream chip factories to strengthen production processes after withdrawing funds, gradually increasing yield rates, reducing costs, and polishing production processes to maturity.
Then the chip factory uses the money earned to encourage upstream equipment and material suppliers to upgrade and iterate. This is a virtuous cycle, driven by a large amount of capital and technological capital intensity, and an upward spiral towards development and progress.
In addition to continuously developing on the path of EUV，DUV, China is also exploring other surpassing and disruptive technologies, such as chip lithography factories.
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To understand the great significance of this scientific device, it is necessary to first briefly understand some basic knowledge of lithography machines.
As the most core equipment in the chip production process, the lithography machine mainly works by passing light through a specific mask, shrinking it through the lens, and projecting it onto the wafer – the wafer is coated with photosensitive photoresist, and after the development program, a specific pattern can be left behind.
This is the basic process of building integrated circuits on chips by a lithography machine. But with the development of technology, chips have become increasingly complex – in a limited space only the size of a fingernail, people need to put billions of transistors inside.
Therefore, the requirements for lithography machines are becoming increasingly high, specifically for the light source of lithography machines. Because if we want to achieve more advanced process technology, we must have shorter wavelengths.
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Early lithography machines used ultraviolet radiation emitted by mercury lamps, also known as g-line light sources, with a wavelength of 436nm.
The most advanced process capable of processing was 250nm. Later, with the development of technology, it was replaced with an excimer laser light source, which can emit deep ultraviolet light at 193nm wavelength, also known as an ArF light source – under the ArF light source, the most advanced manufacturing process is only 22nm.
But the problem is that technological development has no end. The 22nm process cannot keep up with the booming development of the consumer electronics industry, and people need more advanced chips. 7nm/5nm/3nm…
Although these data are common now, industry scientists have long anticipated this trend, and in fact, they have been launching impacts on these process nodes since the 1980s. The result of the impact is that there must be a new light source – the 193nm wavelength of the ArF light source is still too long to meet the requirements.
The final solution to this problem is the Cymer company in the United States, which provides an extremely complex light source – extreme ultraviolet light with a wavelength of only 13.5nm. The working principle of this light source is extremely complex: a high-energy carbon dioxide laser is irradiated on a dripping target of tin droplets with a diameter of only 20 microns.
This bombardment causes the tin material to instantly produce plasma, which emits extreme ultraviolet rays with a wavelength of 13.5nm – ultimately, these scattered extreme ultraviolet rays are gathered together through a complex lens group and projected onto the mask. This is the effort made by European and American companies and scientists to obtain an extreme ultraviolet light source with a wavelength of 13.5nm.
However, this type of light source actually has significant drawbacks. Firstly, it is too complex. In order to hit a tin target with a diameter of only 20 microns, a carbon dioxide laser needs to “shoot” 50000 times per second, and the evaporated tin target can also pollute the precision optical equipment inside the equipment – most importantly, the power of this light source is too low.
Under a 20kW laser bombardment, the radiation power generated by the plasma is less than 500W – not as powerful as a household refrigerator. Low power ultimately leads to impressive output; And the impressive output means that there is no scale effect and the cost remains high. But even so, this is currently the most advanced thing.
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Now, it’s time to talk about our so-called “lithography factories”. Huairou HEPS and Xiong’an SSMB actually belong to the same category, as both study “synchrotron radiation”.
And synchrotron radiation is a type of light source. The history of synchrotron radiation light sources is very long: in 1947, scientists first discovered a phenomenon on electron synchrotron: when charged particles with speeds close to the speed of light deflect in an electromagnetic field, they emit electromagnetic radiation along the tangent direction of the motion trajectory – this is called “synchrotron radiation”.
This type of synchrotron radiation has many excellent characteristics, such as high brightness, wide energy spectrum, high collimation and polarization. Therefore, since the 1970s, scientists around the world have been studying light sources based on this synchrotron radiation. In Chinese Mainland, we have four generations of synchrotron radiation light sources: the first generation stands in Beijing (BSRF), the second generation stands in Hefei (HLS), the third generation stands in Shanghai (SSRF), and the fourth generation stands in Beijing Huairou (HEPS).
And Xiongan’s SSMB is actually within this category, but SSMB has taken a step further – Steady state micro bunching, a new light source solution developed by Professor Tang Chuanxiang’s team from Tsinghua University in collaboration with German and American scientists.
The specific technical details are too complex, so we won’t go into more detail. What we need to know is that the most attractive aspect of SSMB light source is that it can provide a variety of wavelengths of radiation, not to mention extreme ultraviolet rays with a wavelength of 13.5nm. Soft X-rays with a wavelength of 5nm are also effortless, and the maximum power can reach 4kW, far surpassing Cymer’s “tin droplet bombardment method”.
Therefore, the implementation of SSMB-EUV light sources is expected to help China achieve leapfrog development in EUV lithography.
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At the same time, the SSMB accelerator light source can provide coherent radiation from terahertz to soft X-ray bands with high average power and narrow linewidth, and its time structure can be adjusted in a large range.
It can provide unprecedented tools and means for cutting-edge basic research and applied basic research in physics, chemistry, energy, environment, and other disciplines.
The SSMB accelerator light source has attracted widespread attention from the scientific and industrial communities With the deepening of physical research on SSMB storage rings and the mastery of their key technologies, SSMB accelerator light sources can be expected as light sources for the lithography industry and scientific research.
Their performance will also continue to improve, and the cost will gradually decrease. At the same time, the application of SSMB accelerator light sources will also be more widely expanded.
In summary, we can see that China’s scientific research team is not blindly following and catching up with the West, but is also developing the next generation of technology in a new way while following – this is not a “curve overtaking”, but a dignified linear acceleration overtaking.
I even think that the domestic lithography machine industry is highly likely to replicate the success of China’s new energy vehicle industry in the future: comparing the traditional “tin droplet bombardment” lithography machine is like comparing the engine and gearbox of traditional fuel vehicles.
Time is not waiting for us, and it is difficult for us to reach the most advanced level in Europe and America in a short period of time. But competing for the brand new SSMB light source is like competing for new energy vehicles, where everyone is on the same starting line, and we are even the leading one.
Therefore, I would like to end with Mao Zedong’s famous statement: “Imperialism blockades us, then blockade it. After ten to eight years of blockade, all China’s problems have been solved
‘Steve’, a new person at work (it was about his second or third week) called in one morning to say that his grandma had died. He was told he could take some time off, and get back to us in a few days and let us know how he was doing.
Soon afterwards, co-workers noticed that Steve had unfriended them on Facebook. All except for his line manager who, we can only presume, he forgot to unfriend.
A few days later, Steve posted on Facebook, saying that he’d been robbed.
By a prostitute.
In Ibiza.
When he returned to work, Steve was called into a meeting with the line manager, who opened with: “Sorry to hear about you getting mugged.” By all accounts, it was a short meeting.
Credit where credit’s due, Steve didn’t waste anyone’s time trying to claim that the Ibiza trip had been an attempt to deal with his grief – apparently, he owned up straight away that a friend of his had got cheap last minute flights to Ibiza, and he’d made the dead granny up to get time off at short notice. He was still fired though.
US Suspiciously Activates Global Fragility Act To Intervene In West African States
How does the US have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations? How would the dominant society feel if Russia and China intervened openly in American affairs?
For refusing to help a coworker and making them miss a deadline.
That was the story the guy gave to his boss, who confronted my boss about it, who brought the other boss into my office to get to the root of the problem.
My boss: Did you get X for John Doe?
His boss: He said you refused to help him, and I don’t appreciate people preventing my team from getting their work done.
Me: I haven’t talked to John Doe in ages, but let me check my records.
~pulls up database of work requests which I’d built myself for just such occasions~
Me: Oh it looks like he caught me after a meeting 6 months ago and mentioned it, and I asked him to follow up with details so I would know what to get him… but he didn’t contact me again.
His boss: Oh. Okay, well, that clarifies things.
Me: I’m here whenever he he has free time, or, if he doesn’t want to call or come over, he can just submit a request, telling me what he actually needs, on our intranet page.
My boss was cool, he was used to me being blamed and fully approved of my tracking every interaction I had with everyone I worked with (internal and external)… I was the only female technical staff and was young enough to be the daughter of most of the folks I worked with.
His boss was cool with me after that point… he knew anyone smack talking me wasn’t doing their job and was trying to blame-shift and he’d whip them into shape. He ALWAYS stood up for his guys, so I had mad respect for that.
I set up a worm composter inside my home and ended up with a fruit fly infestation.
It was over a decade ago and I was really into gardening and soil biology.
I had a regular compost bin in my backyard, but it was taking almost a year for my kitchen scraps to turn into finished compost.
I wanted a way to make compost faster and worm composting seemed like the best solution.
From my research, it was supposed to be really easy. You set up a tray with moist bedding and kitchen scraps, and you let the worms go to town. What could go wrong?
Apparently, a lot.
Take one:
When my worm composter and red wrigglers arrived, it was fairly easy to set up.
I placed the worm bin in my back patio, and I checked on them every day for the next few days. The worms seemed really happy.
On the fifth or sixth night, we had a heavy rain. When I went to check on my worms the next morning, I discovered a bunch of worms outside the bin.
When I looked inside, the tray was waterlogged and the few worms left inside had drowned.
Apparently, the heavy rain had caused a bunch of rain to leak into the composter, causing the mass worm exodus of 2008.
Take two:
I ordered more earthworms, and my husband fashioned a rain cover for the composter from a trash can lid.
After I set up the worms, things were going really well for several weeks.
One morning, when I went to add food to the trays, there was a bunch of dried worms outside the bin and a horrible stench coming from the composter.
When I looked inside, all the worms were dead and had already started to decompose.
I had started the worm bin in early spring when the weather was still mild. But as the weather warmed up, the bin apparently heated up too much and literally cooked all my worms, causing the great worm extinction of 2008.
Take three:
There wasn’t any part of my patio that was completely shaded, and even though I had placed the bin in the shadiest part of my patio, it still got too hot.
So I came up with the bright idea that I would set up the composter in my basement. It was climate controlled, and I would never have to worry about rain.
I ordered more red wrigglers and after I set them up, things were great for several months. The worms were munching through the trays, and I was getting rich, finished compost that I added to my garden.
One day, we noticed we were getting a lot of fruit flies in the house. The next week, they grew into a few dozen. Before we knew it, they turned into a full blown infestation.
As I walked through the house, the little pests would fly into my face and get lodged in my hair.
We had fruit flies peppering all the windows, trying to get outside.
At night, we itched and scratched as fruit flies wandered around in the air and crawled on our bodies.
There were so many swarming around our ceilings, that they would trigger our fire alarms, setting them off at odd times of the day and wee hours of the morning.
We tried everything to get rid of them.
We set up vinegar fruit fly traps.
We strung sticky fly strips from the ceilings and pinned fly paper everywhere.
We withheld water from our plants, letting them dry out completely between waterings to kill off eggs.
But still, the population kept growing.
For the life of us, we didn’t know where they were coming from, or why they were multiplying so quickly. That is, until one day, when I went down to add food to the worm trays.
I was pulling a finished compost tray out when it suddenly clicked. I knew that fruit flies laid eggs in moist soil. But it wasn’t until that moment when it occurred to me that I had been making moist soil right in my basement.
Trays and trays of dark, rich soil, teeming with nutrients. What fruit fly mama wouldn’t want to lay eggs in that?
At that moment, I knew that I had to give up my worms.
I took the trays of worms out back, to the grassy community area behind my house. And I said goodbye to my earthworms, as I carried out the great worm liberation of 2008.
Wisconsin Chicken Booyah is famous in the Fox River Valley region — Green Bay, Wisconsin. Booyah and beer go great together. Booyah King, Bob Baye, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, has been making Booyah since about 1946 in 100-gallon cookers.
chicken booyah
Ingredients
1 roasting or stewing chicken (about 4 pounds)
1 pound beef stew meat, with bones
1 pound pork stew meat, with bones
1/2 cup minced parsley
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 tablespoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sage
4 cups quartered potatoes
2 cups chopped onions
2 cups chopped celery
1 cup carrots, cut up
1 cup green beans, cut up
1 cup fresh peas
1 cup skinned, seeded, chopped tomatoes
2 lemons
Instructions
Put chicken into a deep kettle with the beef and pork. Cover with boiling water. Bring slowly to a simmer, remove scum from the top, and add herbs and seasonings. Simmer very gently, covered, about 1 hour.
Remove chicken and, when cooled, take meat form the bones and cut into pieces. Let beef and pork continue to cook until tender, 45 minutes to an hour more.
Remove and let cool enough to remove meat from bones. Add vegetables to the broth and simmer 5 to 10 minutes.
Grate lemon rind and set aside; remove white pith and seeds from the lemons, chop the pulp, and add to the broth. Taste for seasoning.
While vegetables are still crisp, return the meat pieces to the broth to heat through. Serve in large soup bowls and sprinkle with the lemon rind.
This particular company had a major office building with hundreds of employees. All the offices were decorated in shades of burgundy and green. It was quite pretty actually.
Anyhoo… due to changing departments, I was moved from 3d floor NE to 3rd floor SW. As I’m settling into my new space (which was identical to the old space except I looked south instead of north out the window), the head of the Committee On Office Ambiance appears.
“Oh no no no!” says she. “You aren’t allowed to have original artwork in your office because you are not a manager.”
I glance at the generic painting on the wall, one like every office had. It was ugly as sin. But apparently it was an original rather than a print. Miss Committee snatches that piece of original art and returns with a print, which I liked better anyway.
But it gets better.
So years go by and eventually the hydraulics on my chair gave out. The chair would periodically drop me to the floor without warning. Rather annoying as you can imagine.
I ask my boss for a new chair but he says he doesn’t have the budget for it. I ask to fix the chair but he says he doesn’t have the budget for that either.
This is ridiculous, I think.
So one night I stay late. In the dark of night, I hasten my broken chair down to another office and steal one from an empty. But I get caught! Manager sees me switching chairs. Yells at me because he doesn’t have the budget to fix a chair either, even if that chair is in an empty office. Foiled!
I wait. I plot.
Another night comes and again I wait until not a soul is in the building. I make my switch and I’m not caught! Victory!
Next morning, I’m all happy in my new chair until Miss Committee stops by.
“Oh no no no!” says she. “That’s a burgundy chair! You must have a green chair to match your office.”
Out goes my nice chair and back comes my broken one. Foiled again.!
Once again, I wait. I plot.
Darkness of night. I steal through the building with my broken chair seeking one of identical color. Find it. Make the switch. Life is good.
Until Miss Committee stops by again.
“Oh no no no!” says she. “That’s a manager’s chair. You are only allowed a peon’s chair.” Back comes my broken chair. Foiled yet again!
I’m bemoaning my fate to sit on the floor for the rest of eternity when the maintenance dude happens by. He tells me he has a fix for chairs like mine. He takes it away and comes back in a few with a fixed chair. He’d put a pipe in the stem. The chair can never be lowered again, but what do I care?
I’m finally happy. Miss Committee is finally happy.
I tell this to some folks in the plant. One day, mysteriously, a Dilbert cartoon appears on my desk. Poor Dilbert’s chair is broken and he tries to steal one, only the accounting troll catches him and sentences him to prison at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my (fixed) chair.
I dare anyone to come up with something stupider than this tale.
I had this experience. My boss had already let me know they were eliminating my position due to budget constraints. I wasn’t upset; I had seen the writing on the wall, and I had included a 90 day severance notice in my contract, since the company was known for poor budgeting and finances. In addition to my being let go, I was going to have to let go of several members of the office staff as well. That was fine, but I asked for some time to put everything in order for doing so, at least a week. We didn’t have an HR dept, and being in California, there are certain steps that need to be taken when letting someone go.
The owners didn’t want to wait and insisted I inform people immediately, giving them a two week notice of their termination. Obviously, there were a lot of questions from the employees being let go about benefits and unemployment, which the owners were unprepared to answer. One of the employees complained to me in an email about how vague the owners were being in their answers.
Well, a couple of hours later, I received an angry phone call from the owner’s wife, because this employee had spoken ill of her, and I hadn’t defended her. She and her husband were reading everyone’s emails and were unhappy to learn the people they were firing had little good to say about them. The next call I got was from the owner, demanding I resign immediately in writing for not defending his wife. Of course, I laughed and refused.
His next tactic was to demand I leave home for an unspecified amount of time to work with him on the east coast on new projects. This was the week of Thanksgiving. I had one more card to play: the owner of the company thought it was hilarious to send explicit photos to upper management. I had asked him in front of witnesses to stop; it was a whole other level of weird. I refused to go to the East Coast or resign on advice of attorney based on the hostile sexua environment at the company.
The moment I mentioned sexual harassment and attorneys, the owners went on radio silence. They wouldn’t fire me, and I received zero emails from them for the rest of my 90 day term. I still had to come in to work, but I just sat in my office. I did start taking my private laptop and a hotspot, though, and completed my masters thesis on their dime. I think they thought they were punishing me by making me come in to work for the remainder of my time, but in reality, they gave me an air conditioned, private office to complete a major project. So, thank you?
US Forever War vs Russia and China
In 2014 there was a coup. Soon after, there was a massacre in Odessa (dozens of people were burned alive). Ethnic Russians living in Ukraine were treated as subhuman. Their language and culture was being oppressed. A civil war broke out due to the rise in ethnic tensions.
For 8 years the Ukrainian military was indiscriminately shelling civilians living in Donbas.
If Zelensky honored the Minsk agreement and pledged neutrality, none of this would have happened. The 8 year civil war would have ended and Donbas would have remained part of Ukraine. War is the ultimate failure of diplomacy.
I had another interview. This was on a website that discusses soul, and astral travel, and all manner of similar items. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video. Enjoy!
I hope that you enjoy it.
I don’t think that I was at my best. But I did try anyways.
Oh, I’ve got a good one. After joining a new company, I rose quickly from trainee to project manager. However, my pay didn’t rise with my title or responsibility. I was also being forced to work overtime off the clock (illegally). I had a sit down meeting with my boss, and told him that I expected to be paid more given that I had far more responsibility. I was told that I’d need to gain experience in the new department and that they didn’t have money in the budget for raises. I knew this to be nonsense, because there was no way that the guy I replaced was making the pittance that I was. I also asked for a filing cabinet for my office. I was told that one had recently been vacated and to take anything I needed out of that office. I found the file cabinet, which was a rusty piece of shit. But, it’s what I had to work with. I didn’t know how valuable that filing cabinet would be.
I started cleaning out the crap that the last person had left in the filing cabinet. It was mostly a bunch of accounting stuff; invoices from receivables, things like that. At the very bottom of the filing cabinet was a stapled set of papers. On it were the names of the company’s employees with a number beside each one. I tried to figure out what the numbers meant. Office number? No, some of them were the same. That ruled out employee number too. In fact there were decimals. Wait, could it really be? No. Yes! This was a list of the hourly rate of every single employee in the building, from CEO to Janitor. Jackpot.
Now that I new how much everybody was making, I knew exactly what I was worth to them and what they could “afford”. But they had just turned me down for a raise. How was I going to leverage it? Well, by securing another position, which I did. I interviewed at another company, got another offer that was at least above what I was making in case things didn’t work out and put in my notice. About a week went by. Didn’t hear from them. Maybe they were broke and couldn’t afford to pay me any more. But sure enough, one afternoon I got called into the Vice President’s office. “Why are you leaving us?”. I told him that I thought my additional hours and responsibilities were worth more money and I was right, another company offered more money. “Can we at least make you an offer? We can move things around.”
They came back with a substantial raise, in fact more than the other company was offering by a fair amount. But I knew what every employee was making, from the newest project manager to the people I replaced. I was going all in. I told him I had to turn his offer down. Another day went by. I get called into the Vice President’s office again. “We like what you’re doing. We have increased our offer.” I said I would look at it. I waited two days before getting back to him, just a few days before starting my next job. I told him if he added another dollar an hour it was a deal. He said he’d see if the other board members would agree, and it was officially offered on paper that afternoon. It was a dollar more per hour than the people I had replaced, and a 50 percent increase in salary. Information is everything, and somebody left the wrong information at the bottom of a rusty filing cabinet.
“Oh, just one more thing. My filing cabinet is a piece of shit, I want a new one.”
“Done.”
I made sure it was empty when it got hauled out.
“War with Iran would be SUICIDE and the U.S. will lose” – Scott Ritter
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter lays out how a U.S. backed war against Iran would bring devastation to both the United States and Israel. Ritter says Israel would be destroyed if it tries to face off against Hezbollah and Hamas simultaneously.
Enough to flatten any nation or a few nations which dare to nuke China completely and comprehensively. Ensure that it can send its reciprocal strike with minutes of the enemy’s strike. China won’t be the first to you. But it must retaliate in kind with equal proportion.
Just so you know? How many Nuclear Arsenals? It for China to know and for their enemies to find out the hard way. 300–30’000 that is what China has. Don’t doubt China. A nation that last 5000 years will still be around after you care gone.
Texas Tavern Burgers
2023 10 28 12 33
Yield: 10 servings.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups chopped onion, divided
3 tablespoons butter
1 can tomato soup
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 pounds ground beef
Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
Combine and cook 1 cup onion and butter until onions are clear and tender.
Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients except beef, salt and pepper.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Cook ground beef and remaining onion until brown. Add to mixture.
The US needs deflation causing supplies to keep inflation down. If it cuts China supplies your inflation can balloon to between 25–50%.
The U.S. needs a market to sell most of its products. China a lone is bigger than the next 10 markets put together. It’s consumer market alone is roughly 30% of the world. But what is worst is 70% of world produce is made in China. If you add these China commands 50–60% of world market. Any U.S. companies deprived of this market literally goes bankrupt.
You should not even think of cutting out China let alone do it. Anything you do will hurt the U.S. 10 times what it will ever hurts or harm China. That explains why the U.S. trade war on China starting in 2018 is such a duff decision. From 2018–2021 the U.S. economy grew 5.5% in total while China’s economy over the same period grew 5 times faster at 26.5%! No question who won!
Now this Chip war has shown clear signs of bankrupting the entire host of US chip companies from designing to producing and developing. The U.S. expected China to collapse and it is supposed to take a generation or 25 years for China to catch up. It took 3 years! Now China will produce chips at a third of the U.S. cost! The whole nonsense of Chip ban may cost 10 trillion when it tally up the losses.
But a nation that lost in Korea, failed again in Vietnam and disastrous in Iraq and replaced Taliban with Taliban after wasting 5 trillion dollars in Afghanistan will never learn their lesson to be humble.
In technology it has failed miserably in trying to deprived China of GPS. China developed a higher resolution, accurate to a meter version that now is in use by 187 out of 195 nations. Next to ban China from entering the U.S. space station. The result is China now has the only functional state of the art technology Chinese Space Station.
Moscow will sell to Beijing, 70 Million Tons of Grain over the next 12 years for an approximate value of 65% of thr market price of grain pegged to a maximum value of 2.5 Trillion Rubles
PAYABLE IN RMB!!!
This means 36% of the World’s Grain will now be quoted and paid for in RMB
It was 4.7% in 2021
That’s a 720% rise in a mere 2 years
China gains huge food security plus currency domininon
Meanwhile
Russia extended a 10 year deal to sell Oil at a 30% discount pegged to a maximum equivalent of 750 RMB a barrel
And the best news
The Malacca Blockade is worthless now
China can get 100% Energy from Russia & the Middle East plus Food Security and delivered through Safe routes
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The Duran: Germany is FINISHED
This is very interesting. Europe is going down with the United States.
Texas Breakfast Burritos
2023 10 19 08 45
Ingredients
12 flour tortillas, warmed
1/2 pound bacon
2 tomatoes, cubed
1 onion, sliced
3 1/2 tablespoons salsa
6 eggs
Instructions
Cook bacon until crisp.
Using same pan with a little grease, cook onion.
Crumble bacon coarsely and return to pan.
Beat eggs; stir into pan. Cook until eggs are set.
Fold in cubed tomatoes and salsa.
Fill warm tortillas with egg mixture.
Grandma gives high-five to passport bros
China Aims to Use Particle Accelerators to Build Chips and Evade EUV Sanctions
China’s semiconductor ambitions call to use particle accelerator.
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), China plans to use an innovative approach to manufacturing processors by harnessing particle accelerators, potentially positioning itself as a global leader in advanced chip manufacturing. SCMP says the method seeks to evade traditional lithography machine limitations and US sanctions on EUV technology, potentially reshaping the semiconductor industry landscape.
The Chinese research team, led by Tsinghua University, is developing a unique laser source using particle accelerators. Their goal is to sidestep the constraints of conventional lithography machines, which are pivotal in microchip production. The proposed particle accelerator will be roughly the size of two basketball courts, between 100-150 meters in circumference, and will serve as a high-quality light source for chip fabrication.
Professor Zhao Wu from Stanford University introduced the underlying technology, termed steady-state microbunching (SSMB). SSMB captures the energy emitted by charged particles during acceleration, transforming it into a continuous, pure EUV light source. Compared to the prevalent ASML EUV method, SSMB boasts superior power and efficiency, potentially reducing chip production costs.
“An SSMB-EUV light source has been designed at THU, with designed EUV power higher than 1kW, and some key technologies are nearly ready,” said team member Professor Pan Zhilong at a presentation at an academic workshop in January 2022.
This ambitious project contrasts with the strategies of companies like ASML, which focus on miniaturizing chip-making machines. Instead, China’s vision involves creating a giant factory that houses several lithography machines, all centered around a single accelerator. This design aims to enable competitive manufacturing processes (such as 2nm and beyond) that will be used to make high-performance chips without using traditional extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanners.
“As a completely new light source, the experimental verification of the technology has been implemented. But it is necessary to build a solid SSMB light source research device operating in the EUV band,” said project leader Professor Tang Chuanxiang from Tsinghua University.
“Then we can [use the device to] cultivate scientific and industrial users, and polish the SSMB technology.”
According to the report, Tsinghua University’s team has made significant strides in this domain; they have successfully trialed the technology and are now scouting locations for the project’s construction, the report claims. Their achievements could pave the way for China to bypass potential future sanctions and emerge as a semiconductor powerhouse.
However, the journey to realizing SSMB-based EUV lithography machines remains long and challenging. Professor Tang Chuanxiang heads the project and emphasizes the need for continuous innovation and collaboration across industries to develop a functional lithography system.
“There is still a long way to go before our independent development of EUV lithography machines, but SSMB-based EUV light sources give us an alternative to the sanctioned technology,” said Tang. “It requires continuous technological innovation based on SSMB EUV light sources and cooperation with upstream and downstream industries to build a usable lithography system.”
China Will Take Revenge Against US Discriminatory Practices On Huawei This Way!
The question is, what kind of inquisitive mind thought it would be possible to stop the technological advancement of a country of 1.5 billion people that work diligently hand-in-hand to build and better their country that has over 1 billion people as citizens, and over half of that as Middle Class? US economic experts advising their government should re-educate themselves.
https://youtu.be/RdMwv9z0VwE
Does US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo seriously think that the US Congress can use legislative tools to stop Huawei from doing research innovation and launching new products?
It’s not just her. The entire US government is having delusions of grandeur. They think that all the US needs to do is pass a law and it will magically happen anywhere in the world. This is massively deluded behavior. Much like the insane Emperors of Rome.
Huawei’s mobile devices consumer division was kneecapped and decapitated through sanction, suffering a 90% drop in shipped volume in the last 4 years.
That’s a 100–200b dollar swing in revenue, just for handsets. To put that in perspective, that’s equal to 1–2 Boeings at its 2018 peak.
The US was trying to kill Huawei, and bury the telecoms business by bleeding revenue off its high margin consumer division.
That’s way grander than “stop Huawei from doing research innovation”.
Huawei is still under sanction, and Bloomberg’s recent name and shame of Taiwanese companies helping Huawei/SMIC with foundry infrastructure is a thinly veiled attempt at threatening companies not to deal with Huawei, even though the contracts they have entered into do not fall under current sanction.
Gina is free to suggest sanction escalation and fix Huawei like America did to Russia and Russian oligarchs, but Beijing will retaliate this time. And there is ~1 trillion in annual S&P 500 revenue generated from the mainland to aim for. The Chinese don’t have a significant presence stateside.
Personally, I think the ship on Huawei has already sailed. I won’t be surprised if Huawei breaks 100m phones shipped annually in the next 18–24 months. I also won’t be surprised if Huawei introduces new WIFI and telecoms standards in the next 5 years that end up being adopted in Apple phones. Neither Apple nor Google are capable of driving hardware standards revolution.
I can’t think of any easy-to-implement/low cost cards that the Department of Commerce can still deal when it comes to Huawei.
When I was a child of 8, my mom died suddenly. Our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Cardin, sat outside on their front porch every night and I went over and sat with them for endless hours. They were so kind. I thought they were old. They were in their sixties, I guess. I always felt welcomed. They served me iced tea. They played cards with me. When I turned 18 and my dad died, I moved in with an older sister. I don’t remember ever saying goodbye to them. Years passed, I married, divorced and remarried and moved to another town nearby. I always remembered their kindness. One day I was walking through a local cemetary and reading the tombstone inscriptions (which I love to do). There they were: Geraldine and Louis Cardin. I knelt down in gratitude. The next weekend was Mothers Day. I laid a bouquet of flowers at the grave of Mrs. Cardin and thanked her for her kindness and comfort. They never touched me, never hugged me. They just let me sit beside them while I talked to them and they talked to me. I cannot remember one conversation, only that I felt at peace in their company.
Carl Zha on Huawei, ‘Chinese Spies’ and Chinese economy on Redacted
Years ago I bought a golf diesel car. It belonged to my girlfriends father. He had fallen asleep and clipped a pole. Damaged the passenger side.
I asked what he wanted for it and he insisted it was only worth $600 because that’s what the dealer said it was worth. I bought it and replaced the door and rear axle and had a little body work and paint and pin stripping done. Cost me $800. Now the car had 50K miles on it so just barely broken in for a diesel.
The first time I drove it at night the climate control section of the dash was black. I thought you know that should be illuminated.
So I got into the dash and found the plug to the climate control unplugged. Plugged it in and it worked fine. Actually it looked like the neon lights at a fair. Red, green, blue colors. So I’m over at my girlfriends and sitting in the car when her father came over and we’re talking and he looks into the car and is stunned to see the lights.
Owned the car for a couple of years and said he just carried a flashlight to see the controls. He had no idea it was supposed to be illuminated.
Egypt just dropped a BOMBSHELL in the Israel Hamas War
Much respect to Egyptian Gov. for not bowing to the US.
I love American cars – I have owned Chevy El Camino, two Dodge Ram Vans and one Ford Econoline.
The thing is that American cars are designed for different ecosystem than European and Japanese. American cars have ridiculously over-powered and under-efficient engines, which are extremely reliable, but they are terrible gasoline guzzlers. I mean, the American cars drink petrol like an alcoholic cheap plonk.
Moreover, the American cars are large and they have been designed for straight roads and long distances. They are excellent in Scandinavia, but next to useless in Central Europe.
In Europe, petrol is an import ever since the USA destroyed all the surviving Fischer-Tropsch plants in Germany after the WWII so that Europe could never be self-sufficient on liquid fuels. It means petrol is expensive, and it is heavily taxed. Petrol prices are approximately the same per one litre than they are in the US per one Yank gallon. So this is an incentive to a) maximize the thermal efficiency of an Otto or Diesel engine and b) to get as frugal and economic car as possible.
Moreover, the distances are short (which means a lot of acceleration and deceleration) and the roads are old (some date all the way to the Roman era) and follow the contours of nature. Which means they can be awfully winding, especially at the Pyrenees, Alps and Scandian mountains. Thus the agility is favoured over speed or comfort.
European cities are old, the streets are narrow and they certainly aren’t going to be re-planned with automobiles on mind. Finding a parking lot can be a pain and many city streets may have centuries-old cobblestone instead of asphalt. American car aren’t exactly the optimal vehicles there.
BLOCKADE FAILED! Germany Halts Dismantling of Chinese 5G Equipment！
Recently, the launch of the Huawei Mate 60 and the resurgence of 5G technology in China, powered by the domestically produced Kirin 9000S, have demonstrated that Huawei has successfully overcome the long-standing blockade imposed by the United States.
Although some US lawmakers have made strong statements about increasing sanctions on Huawei, US Secretary of Commerce Raymond has already affirmed that chip supplies to China will continue. Additionally, ASML, a key supplier of lithography machines, has announced their commitment to providing equipment to China until the end of the year.
Furthermore, Germany has also changed its position. Despite the “red-green-light” coalition government’s emphasis on the “security risks” associated with Huawei’s 5G equipment and their efforts to suppress Huawei through legislation and orders to remove Huawei’s equipment, the German government has covertly allowed German telecommunications operators to use Huawei’s 5G components.
According to reports from Chinese media and Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, a German government official privately acknowledged that the new 5G network in Germany incorporates technologies from China and German operators still rely on security-critical components provided by Chinese suppliers, implying that the German government has effectively permitted the use of Huawei’s 5G technology.
Huawei operates globally in 170 countries, with 30 commercial 5G contracts and over 25,000 5G base stations deployed without any major security incidents. Moreover, Germany’s ban on Huawei’s 5G components lacks substantial evidence to prove security risks, indicating that Germany is attempting to find faults where none exist.
However, this ban has faced opposition, with individuals stating that Germany’s 5G network has developed a deep reliance on Chinese suppliers, making it challenging to remove this dependence in a short period of time.
A friend was flying in to LAX, and I was going to meet her there for lunch. Another friend insisted I borrow his Prius (this is important to the theft), saying that he didn’t want to have to rescue me if my car broke down. (Fair worry—my then car was really on its last legs!)
I stopped at a McD’s on my way out of town to get some coffee, and when I walked back out of the restaurant, I unlocked the car using the fob, hopped in, and left. I drove to the airport, but when I parked and went to get my book out of the back seat, my book had disappeared!
It turned out that I had gotten in the wrong Prius!
When I finally figured this out, I went immediately to the airport’s little “police station” (a trailer at the far end of the airport’s circuit) and confessed to my crime. Yes, the car I was in had been reported stolen, but they contacted the owner who kindly agreed to just let me bring it back, which I did after having lunch with my friend.
Both these Priuses had a keyless entry and ignition system, and the way the owner handled hers was the only reason this could have happened.
Her car was the same color as the one I was driving, and she was parked two stalls away from me in the crowded parking lot. When I came out, I headed to the wrong one, not even noticing that there was another Prius nearby. I unlocked my car remotely, opened the door and sat down.
Here’s the thing: she had locked her car with a physical key when she parked it, but had left the fob in the console, forgetting that the Prius won’t lock if it detects the fob inside the car. So her car was unlocked.
I started the car with the pushbutton instead of with the key, and it started since it knew the fob was inside the car, and voila—grand theft auto!
Victoria Nuland, Asst. Sec. of State for Europe, phone call to US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, in which they discuss how they’re going to set up the new Ukrainian government in 2014.
The video link is provided below. Here’s your smoking gun right here.🔫
And isn’t it interesting that the only administration in which Nuland could NOT find a position was the Trump administration. I’m no fan of DT, but it’s an interesting fact nevertheless.
She was in on Clinton, Bush, Obama, and now Biden administrations — a 33 year “diplomatic” career —including a very high level and indeed dangerous position today (Oct 2023) as Asst. Sec of State. She was Dick Cheney’s Deputy National Security Adviser from 2003 to 2005.
Interestingly, Wikipedia makes no mention whatsoever that Vitali Klitschko was a Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2014, instead providing page after page of information about his boxing career.
On this one, we got real, real lucky.
High level covert operations are NEVER this easy to get evidence on.
Foreign media tend to portray Chinese plans and projects as stemming from a small, tightly centralized regime in Beijing. Foreign press back in the 2000s (when they were still enamored with the ‘Chinese model’ of economic growth) were often quick to praise how the strong, centralized decision making of China and it’s technocratic bureaucracy were key to driving economic growth where the ‘decentralized and slow democratic’ decision making of the decadent rest was going to be their death knell.
One could say that this is more of a linguistic issue where press reports simply referring to Beijing or the CPC created the impression that it was literally just Beijing and the Central Committee of the CPC calling the shots. Thereby creating the assumption that in order to address any issue in China, one must fly to Beijing and meet with the top man there. Or perhaps its a throwback on how the press reported on the USSR by making references to the “Kremlin” every time policy decisions were taken, forgetting that the Soviet States of Hungary, Poland, Romania etc had their own governments with their own powers who also called some of the shots.
This is flawed to say the least.
The Chinese governmental structure endows its provincial governments with surprisingly vast powers to the extent that Provincial governments alone can pursue their own foreign investments and trade deals with only minimal oversight from the center as long as such deals adhere to the loose guidelines issued by the center.
The same goes for the gigantic State Owned Enterprises in China which are permitted to initiate and pursue their own economic activities under the loose framework of the central committee’s guidelines.
As other Chinese Quorans have pointed out, One would do well to remember that China can better be thought of as a continental level entity with it’s own mini nation states inside its borders.
When the BRI was initiated, the central committee simply set out the guidelines for the project, which you can read here:
President Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the forum pointed out that our promotion of the “Belt and Road” construction will not repeat the old routine of geo-game, but will create a new model of cooperation and win-win; it will not form a destabilizing small group, but will build harmony. A coexisting family.
This fully demonstrates that the construction of the “Belt and Road” is an important exploration and practice for countries along the line to jointly build a community of human destiny.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has coordinated the two major domestic and international affairs, coordinated development and security, and carried out a great-state diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in a proactive manner, and put forward a series of new ideas and concepts. We advocate the establishment of a new type of international relations with cooperation and win-win as the core, and strive to build a community of human destiny.
President Xi Jinping said in a keynote speech at the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January this year that as long as we firmly establish the common sense of human destiny, work together and work together to help each other and overcome difficulties, we will certainly make the world a better place. Be beautiful and make people happier.
The concept of the community of human destiny highlights the inclusiveness of the new international order
The community of human destiny is based on the thinking of various new elements in the development of the world in the 21st century. In response to the philosophical and historical propositions of “where does man go?”, from the perspective of reforming and improving the international order, A vision for the evolution of global governance.
After the Second World War, the world as a whole maintained peace and development. Its main guarantee factors were the construction of the international order and the in-depth development of economic globalization.
However, with the increasing challenges in the process of economic globalization and the increasing diversification of international actors, the current international order cannot effectively cope with various problems, and the risks of security disorder and development imbalance are increasing. Global governance calls for reform and innovation.
The paper goes on to talk in general guidelines about Eurasian infrastructure and trade development in loose terms:
In 2013, Comrade Xi Jinping formally proposed the “Belt and Road Initiative”. China is focusing on the periphery as the primary direction, promoting the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, and providing important new public goods to the international community, especially the developing countries in Asia and Europe.
In August 2016, Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out at the symposium on promoting the construction of the “Belt and Road”: taking the “Belt and Road” construction as an opportunity to carry out cross-border interconnection, improve the level of trade and investment cooperation, and promote international cooperation in capacity and equipment manufacturing. It is to revitalize the world economy by increasing effective supply to generate new demand.
His keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the “Belt and Road” International Cooperation Summit further emphasized that China will thoroughly implement the development concept of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, constantly adapt, grasp and lead the new normal of economic development and actively promote The supply-side structural reforms will achieve sustainable development, inject a strong impetus into the “Belt and Road” and bring new opportunities for world development.
In the context of the continued downturn in the world economy, China’s support for countries along the line to promote industrialization and modernization through the “Belt and Road” initiative to meet the urgent needs of countries to improve infrastructure levels will inevitably activate the growth potential of countries along the route, which will undoubtedly help stabilize the world economy. The situation and the promotion of global economic growth.
McKinsey, the US consulting firm, estimates that by 2050, the contribution rate of countries along the Belt and Road Initiative will be more than 80%.
To say that there are a thousand and ten thousand, China is going to build a development concept of practicing the community of human destiny through the “Belt and Road”, so that all parties can work together to fill the development of Asia, Europe, and the mainland, and create a common development and prosperity of all countries. New Era.
That is pretty much all the center does: establish the guidelines and groves for the project but leave it to other actors to decide how they carry them out.
Chinese provincial governments and their regional local elite have their own significant powers which they can use to resist parts of the agenda from the center which they don’t like (at least temporarily). I remember reading how one of the provincial governments stubbornly resisted Beijing’s calls to reduce pollution levels stemming from the province by pointing out how that would slow down economic activity in the province.
Similarly, when the CPEC project started, a Chinese SOE began development of Gwadar port and it’s special economic zone as part of the BRI initiative.
But right across from Gwadar, a Chinese provincial government began their own special economic zone in Oman, directly in competition with Gwadar!
Our Prime Minister Imran Khan would learn this lesson well when his incompetent team failed to brief him on how the Chinese political structure worked.
So when Imran Khan recently went to China on a state visit to Beijing to renegotiate some of the CPEC projects, he was met by bewildered officials in Beijing who pointed out that the central committee doesn’t exactly negotiate the deals for the BRI. SOEs and Provincial governments do. What exactly did Imran Khan want Beijing to do on an issue where Beijing wasn’t directly involved?
Most BRI contracts are not between governments but instead between Chinese companies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to facilitate projects for the larger BRI initiative.
In that context, when the new government claims it will renegotiate contracts, as well as terms and conditions, it is forgetting to mention that it will have to do them with Chinese companies and SOEs, not with the Chinese government.
Secondly, because CPEC is an overland project, any arbitration that happens i.e. if the government were to try to renegotiate any contract in place, they will have to refer to the BRI court in Xi’an, which falls under Chinese law.
That means either the government must engage a law firm to represent it on each contract it wants to renegotiate or try to contest cases itself.
Worse still is the fact that the government has practically no idea what it wants to renegotiate in the first place.
That is the crux of the problem Pakistan faces: the state simply does not understand the conceptual basis of BRI or CPEC and, hence, cannot even define what it means.
Chinese companies raise that money in their own country from institutions like the Silk Road Fund, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Export Import Bank based on guarantees provided with regards to project completion through contracts signed by the Pakistani government.
Pakistan owes that money to Chinese financial institutions and not the government — let’s be crystal clear about that. The Chinese government will also not waive that borrowing away because it is project-based debt financing.
The crux of the problem as far as Pakistan is concerned is that we have become so accustomed to reading about China through English print media or viewing the Chinese through a prism set by others, that we have no idea where policy decisions in China are stemming from. Or who exactly to talk to in the PRC.
So we default to our own logics: If we’re a strong man, authoritarian country we expect to take our problems to Xi to have them addressed. Or if we’re a country who sheds limelight constantly on the ongoings of their president, we tend to equate the other country’s president with the same power structure.
It would be useful for other nation states and companies besides Pakistan as well to perhaps narrow down on who exactly they are dealing with when they deal with China.
And perhaps do some linguistic adjustments so we move away from stuff like “China is building ports in the Arabian sea” – wait! Who is China? Xi himself ordered the ports built? Like specifically? Or do you mean a variety of different actors ranging from provincial governments to SOEs are pursuing their own economic activity under loose guidelines from the center rather than as part of some ominous grand design.
To be fair, maybe I’m being too harsh on Pakistani leadership. Certainly the military seems to know who to deal with in China, having negotiated independent contracts with the Xinjiang government, Chinese SOEs and so on.
There is also a tendency to get lost in the weeds when reading foreign press on China sense the idea of “large, centralized, authoritarian behemoth moving steadily in an organized manner towards American interests” sounds way more ominous and fearful than “oh hey, one of the Provincial governments in China is building a port in Burma to expand their provincial trade”.
The idea of an ominous, all power, omnipotent central leadership in Beijing calling all the shots sounds very enticing. Particularly for media centers operating out of nations that wish to portray China as the next big threat to their interests.
Its just not true. And we should probably learn that lesson well in our future dealings. Others would be well advised to do the same.
The point isn’t that the central government is powerless vis a vis localized power centers. Or that the central government is all powerful. But that the truth lies in a nuanced middle ground between both polar opposites. And there needs to be more specificity about who we are referring to in China when discussing policy decisions stemming from the PRC.
“Just a small note – neither of this countries was ever part of the USSR – all of then was separate countries albeit dependent of the Soviets.
USSR republics was the “stans” countries (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan etc), Ukraine, Belorusia, The Baltics, Georgia and Armenia, but not Poland, Hungary or Romania.”
Meet Brian Mwenda, a Kenyan man who has been playing a high-stakes game of make-believe in Kenya’s legal system.
Stunningly, Mwenda is said to have argued and won not one or two, but 26 cases, pitting his wits against bona fide legal eagles and leaving courtrooms in awe. And he did all this without a law degree or any professional certification. He’s a fraud.
Now, authorities have finally caught up to him, and he’s facing a slew of charges for impersonating an Advocate of the Kenya High Court. But the man’s record is flawless, a clean sweep of victories.
It begs the question, should he be behind bars or standing at a podium accepting an award for extraordinary legal acumen?
Mr. Mwenda might just be a legal prodigy, an undiscovered gem in the world of law. Or Kenya seriously needs to reevaluate its legal education and certification processes.
After all, if a fake lawyer can outwit the pros, what does that say about the system?
If he was given the right to defend himself and he eventually won, it’d be his 27th triumph, an untainted record in a courtroom career founded on a lie.
If that happens, Brian Mwenda wouldn’t just be defying the laws of his land; he’d be defying reality itself, turning what should have been his downfall into yet another improbable victory.
There are a lot of things I do understand about Trump supporters.
Trump supporters are angry, tired, and frightened. They live in a world that’s passing them by. They keep hearing about how the economy is booming, but they’re struggling to make ends meet.
They see foreign students coming in on H1B visas to work at tech companies for what seems like ludicrous, unfathomable amounts of money, money they don’t see in a decade, and they’re wondering where their share of the pie is.
They hear people sneeringly talk about “flyover states” without seeming to know or care those are their states, their homes. The people they care about are mired in drug and alcohol addiction and struggling to pay the mortgage while Instagram 20somethings jet off to Maui and get sponsorship deals with companies that make bottled water.
They see liberals bending over backward to support gay men and lesbians and Black criminals and trans people and illegals, talking about treating everyone with compassion, and they’re like, what about me? Where’s the fucking compassion for me?
They bought into reassurances that if they were willing to work hard, they’d make it. They’d get ahead. Hard work and grit would be rewarded. Now the lumber mill’s closed and the mine’s closed and city folks keep going on about how coal mining is actually bad and wrong, and they’re like fuck you, we had a deal, I busted my ass and you took it all away.
They were told there was an order to things, a way things worked, and yeah they were never top dog on the heap, but at least they weren’t the bottom either, and now everything’s changed and men in makeup with long nails who’ve never done a days’ work in their lives are being put ahead of them? Are you kidding me?
I get it. I understand that. They were sold a bill of goods, and now the world has shattered around them and they’re stuck in podunk nowhere with no way to keep a roof over their head and the neighborhood they used to be proud of is trashed by meth dealers and everyone else is going on about how wonderful life is and what losers they are, and they’re pissed about that.
That’s not hard to understand at all.
What’s hard to understand is why they think a grifting self-described billionaire who lives in a penthouse, shits in a gold toilet, and wouldn’t ever in a million years allow any of them into any of his resorts is “one of them” and totally, like, gets them.
That’s the part that I don’t get.
Why the West FEAR China (China is UNLIKE Japan in the 90’s)
America loves China’s consumer goods. As long as China was “the world’s production factory” the United States left China alone for the most part. There was the occasional “free Tibet” protest or Tiananmen Square protests, but nothing like what I see today.
What changed? China. China began to rapidly develop its infrastructure as well as its education sectors such as Science and Mathematics. They were obsessed with STEM learning before it was cool. Their military and space program excelled. They tackled poverty and literacy, created jobs and basically pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
They no longer had to be the world’s factory. They still produce a massive amount of consumer goods, but as China develops toward first world status some of those factories relocated to Southeast Asia. Vietnam will likely earn persecuted country status by the time my grandchildren come of age. That’s if the U.S. is still influential in world affairs.
They hate China because China is no longer the sick man of Asia. China is strong and influential. The U.S. is terrified of losing their hegemony to China. They are an emerging world power that can offer developing countries a different path from what the United States traditionally offers. It’s all a part of a circle really. Nations rise and fall and have done so for millennia past. They will continue to do so for as long as Earth continues to exist. The U.S. will fall and China will rise. A hundred years from now and it will likely be another country’s turn.
If you are in Southeast Asia like me, you should have realized how happy and proud Indonesians are recently.
The media in Southeast Asia is full of reports about Indonesia’s high-speed rail.
In Indonesia, everyone from the president to civilians is happy for the opening of the high-speed rail. Even those against the media can only say irrelevant nonsense.
Indonesia’s high-speed rail has achieved initial success. This is the first high-speed rail in Southeast Asia. They are worthy of pride.
Our Malaysian neighbors have some nasty things to say in the media. But I know that they are actually very envious of Indonesians, and they also want a high-speed rail from Kuala Lumpur to Penang.
Currently, there are several high-speed rail projects in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Japan’s high-speed rail project in Vietnam is in a quagmire, and its high-speed rail in India has made no progress. Only China’s high-speed railways in Indonesia and Laos have been successful.
If Indonesia wants to maintain this success in subsequent projects, it only needs to maintain its original approach and trust the Chinese as always, and they will help Indonesia create miracles.
If there is, 99% of any incidents are man made. To be precise US lies, innuendos, concoctions, fabrications, made up haft truths or total garbage.
Take the weather balloons. Intentionally blown out of proportion. Pardon my punt. Imaging some hundred million Americans fixated over lies by the media and opportunistic politicians making hay on sunshine demonising and accusing the Chinese of spying a most ridiculous and frivolous claims but it sells media! Finally shooting it down with a hundred million jet at a million a pop on a float away balloon worth a thousand bucks!
So think about how ridiculous it is? In todays world where if China wants to it can zoom in from space at high resolutions on very square meter balloon China need to spy the US using a brightly coloured 2 school bus sized with a huge Chinese flag pasted moving at 5 miles an hour, visible by naked eyes m? It is laughable and shameful if you ask most of the world. But guess what some Americans think it is real! What a spun!
But Chinese people laugh their eyes wet thinking how silly you guys can get. Blinken your Secretary of State even postpone a state visit of utmost importance pretending to be affected by the balloon!
The tensions if any are all US made. A nation allowing fictions to exist and lies to demonised other nations cannot amount to much. But the US has no shame or pride. When General Mike Milley your joint forces chief announced officially that after days of disruption and chaos, up to a billion dollars, that it is what it is. A weather balloon! No more no less. Guess what! No apology, no one took responsibility, no one U.S. made to pay, no acknowledgement!
This is a nation that has carpet bombed nations, use agent Orange on villagers destroy thriving economies by mistakes and false flag operations. 3 million Vietnamese died and half a million U.S. agents dead or injured due a war started by lies in the Gulf of Tonkin!
So, sure one cannot expect much! But guess what they dare to call US exceptionalism and even worst Americans believed it!
In every revolution, there’s one man with a vision
“If change is inevitable, predictable, beneficial…doesn’t logic demand that you be a part of it?”
It won’t it will never and it will hurt and harm the U.S. several folds more that it can hurt and harm China.
It is no different from the U.S. picking a big rock and threaten China that if China do better than the U.S. you will throw the rock on your own foot!
China is a humongous market now. It is several times bigger than the U.S. and worst it produce 75% of everything needed by the world. If you stop selling to China which is say 40–60% of your market. You will go bankrupt. And if you think China cannot make it you better be super careful that the can’t and they will never be able to do! If you are wrong you will not only lose their need but you will also lose entire worlds need too.
Frankly the U.S. is a party not the only party to make most of the products. It simply cost the US too much to stop China. It is cheaper and more sustainable to work with China as an equal and finding a win win solution. The U.S. cannot forced China’s hand and will. China is too strong, too influential, too rich and too capable to fight you if you fight them.
If something is an Offence, then you need someone to determine what constitutes an Offence and thats called DESIGNATED AUTHORITY
So unless US is the Ruler of the World, how can it be an offence to get around Sanctions Imposed by Russia for economic reasons?
Lets say India needs 96 Million Tonnes of Crude this year – 71 Million Tonnes of Sulphur & 25 Million Tonnes of Sweet ]
We normally buy Spot from the Market and have no long term contracts like other Nations have.
Suppose tommorow we are offered Crude at 30% Cheaper Rate, Why cant we buy Crude from Russia if it means a savings of several billion dollars?????
Punishment would simply mean US Sanctioning the Country that dares Trade with Russia
It might work or It might fail
For instance say India which produces its own Food is Sanctioned , tomorrow if it comes to Energy Crisis and Massive Recession vs Freezing of our USD Assets – A Sane man would rather choose Asset Freezing and fight legally in the UN , rather than force an Energy Crisis and Massive Recession
Say China is Sanctioned. It would rather be sanctioned than compromise its National Integrity and Face by conceding to the US demands.
However a Country totally dependent on US would have to Kowtow or totally Dependent on Imports from Europe would Kowtow
In 1997 – 82.9% Nations depended on US and European Imports primarily (159 out of 188)
In 2007- 59.7% Nations depended on US and European Imports Primarily (119 out of 199)
In 2017 – 32% Nations depended on US and European Imports Primarily (66 out of 205)
In 2022 – 28% Nations depend on US and European Imports Primarily (58 out of 207)
So the Sanctions are becoming weaker and weaker because More Countries can survive primarily even despite US Sanctions. (US/EU also includes Canada , UK and EU and NATO nations)
Almost 101 Countries have changed their primary trading Partner from US / EU/ UK/ Australia/NZL/Canada in the last 25 Years alone. Most of them have moved to CHINA including the EU themselves.
Stupid Sanctions like those against Russia tend to cause more negative impacts to the US than positive Impacts
Russian teenage genius joins Huawei .sparking concerns in the United States.
China and Russia, march forward hand in hand to make our world more stable, prosperous and peaceful.
How many cities can make a simple claim like that?
In Singapore, there are few exclusive districts, and those are the remnants of colonial history. In a modern new town, the expensive private apartments are within a stone’s throw of 1,2,3 room public flats. The children go to the same schools, and the parents shop at the same supermarket.
This raising of baselines across the board prevents organized crime from festering, because the fertile ground of poverty and the disadvantaged is uprooted.
Singapore is low crime, and most people have a healthy respect for the law, and especially officers in uniform. My grandma won’t indoctrinate her grandchildren in 21st century Singapore to “beware of cops”, because it isn’t 60s Hong Kong anymore. The SPF is one of the cleanest and most efficient police outfits in the world.
As a reminder, beat cops are armed with guns, but officer-involved shootings are very rare. We can go years between shots being fired. How does the SPF reduce violent arrests, and the risk of injury to both suspect and officer?
Through displays of overwhelming force.
Not all guns blazing, but the deployment of teams of officers to handle on-the-ground situations. Like these:
This round-island ability to concentrate policing power allows the senior officer to control and manage the situation, particularly the safety of the innocent public, the suspect/s, and of course the officers themselves.
In other words, gentler policing SOP.
This is a luxury that not all police forces can boast. Singapore manages by keeping crime waves at bay with effective policing and stiff laws.
At the end of the day, it is the economic and social fabric that keep crime from festering. And Singapore’s remain healthy.
Note: This is what passes for policing elsewhere.
Nurse Dies Of Illness; Experiences Infinite Reality And Told Why We’re Here (NDE)
There is an island in the Aleutions just east of Attu called Shemya. The AirForce has a landing strip there. The Army used to run a listening post there as well. It was considered a hardship tour, so the duration was one year. However, being under CONUS jurisdiction meant that overseas and hazard pay were not offered, base only. As for social life, the joke ran “there’s a woman behind every tree on Shemya; but there are no trees.” A good wind could carry a person off the island if one is not careful. Guide ropes were installed over the winter months to ensure safe passage between the barracks, the workspace, or the messhall. Being in the high latitudes subjected one to auroras, and other geomagnetic storm effects. Stereo gear just didn’t last long up there. Its isolation put Shemya on the bottom of any iteneraries for the top brass, so their presence was rare, thankfully.
Due to its proximity to the international date line, you could see tomorrow on a clear day!
I let a friend stay at our summer house all winter. All they had to do was pay the utilities. A flag went off in my head when she said “why do I have to pay for the utilizes?
we get back in May-the first thing we are greeted to (in order):
oven is a disaster
phone call they will turn off our electric for non payment
her son (who wasn’t supposed to be in there) carved his name in our cocktail table
deep gouge in the oak flooring
my new water pik is gone
ALL MY WINE THAT WAS HIDDEN WAS GONE
Instead of cleaning out the fireplace she used the trap door which took us all day to clean out
she left the place filthy.
I was so angry I wouldn’t answer her emails or phone calls.
She then dialed on someone else’s phone and I picked up-she asked why I wasn’t taking her calls. I told her everything especially our wine being gone.
Her reply was ““so you are going to RUIN our friendship over a few bottles of cheap wine?”
I said THEY WERE CHEAP TO YOU SINCE YOU DIDN’T PAY FOR THEM.
Don’t call me again and hung up. I hope she sees this post.
A scammer sees a high-ticket item with resale value online.
The scammer offers to buy it, sight unseen, with a cashier’s check, money order, or credit card.
You deposit the check or money order, or run the card.
The scammer has a mule, who may or may not know it’s a scam, pick up the item.
The bank notifies you that the check/money order was a forgery or the card was stolen. They take the money out of your account.
You try to go after the scammer to realize they used a fake address, a disposable cell phone or VoIP line, and a fake name—you have absolutely no way to find them. And the mule who picked up the item? If you can find that poor sucker, he tells you the scammer paid him money to pick up a bunch of items, but then the check the scammer paid him with turned out to be a fake.
Optional bonus round:
The scammer sends you a cashier’s check or money order, but the amount is wrong. You agreed on a price of $2,500, the check is for $2,800.
The scammer says “Oh, I’m so sorry, I made a mistake. Can you wire me the $300 I overpaid? Tell you what, it was my fault, just wire me $250, keep the extra $50 since I screwed up.”
The bank tells you the check was a fake and takes the money out of your account. (This can sometimes take 6 or 8 weeks to happen, by the way.) Now you’re out the car, you’re out the money, and you’re out $250 that you wired to the scammer…
…which, when you try to get the wire transfer back, you discover actually went to a recipient outside the US, and you are completely utterly 100% screwed. There is no way in hell you will ever see that money again.
Super playoff round:
You get a message from an “insurance fraud investigator,” “funds recovery specialist,” “online fraud recovery agent,” or something along those lines. He tells you that your name came up as part of a fraud investigation and he can get your money back in return for a percentage.
You negotiate some percentage, say 10% or 15%.
He tells you to send him $150 to pay up-front expenses, fees, duties, “recovery tax,” or some other bullshit fee. He explains that the fee will come out of his percentage, so it’s all good.
You send him the $150.
You never hear back from him. It was the same scammer all along. Now he has your car, your money, the extra $250 you sent him, and he’s just taken you for another $150 on top of that.
Double Jeopardy round:
You get an email or phone call from Interpol, or the FBI online crime task force, or US Boder and Customs, or whatever.
They tell you that a car registered in your name was used to commit a crime and since you’re still the registered owner, you’re legally liable.
They say that an arrest warrant has been issued in your name, and you will be arrested…
…unless you agree to waive your right to a trial and just pay the fine.
They tell you the fine will be $1,000, payable by money wire.
You wire the money. It was the same scammer all along. Now he has your car, your money, the extra $250 you sent him, the $150 you sent him on top of that, and another $1,000.
Double Jeopardy round variant:
You get an email or phone call from Interpol, or the FBI online crime task force, or US Boder and Customs, or whatever.
They tell you that a car registered in your name was used to commit a crime or found abandoned, but either way it’s been impounded, and they’re calling you because you’re still the registered owner.
They say that you will get your car back if you pay the impound fee. Maybe they even send you a photo of the car.
They tell you the fee will be $150, payable by money wire.
You wire the money. It was the same scammer all along. Now he has your car, your money, the extra $250 you sent him, the $150 you sent him on top of that, and another $150.
Yes, I’m dead serious, this actually happens, and people actually fall for it at every step along the way.
In terms of absolute strength, the Qing Empire was more powerful than the Ming Empire
The Qing Empire had a much stronger army. The Qing Empire had twice the territory and four times the population of the Ming Empire.
During its most powerful period, the Ming Empire still faced threats from northern nomads. They built a whole new Great Wall to deal with this.
The Qing Empire completely dealt with the surrounding threats, and their military controlled almost the limit of geographical control.
From the perspective of global relative strength, the Ming Empire was stronger.
In the 15th century, the Ming Empire was the most powerful empire in the world. At that time, the Byzantine Empire fell, England and France were in the Hundred Years War, and the Spanish Empire had just begun to expand. Technically, economically, and in terms of strength, there was no power in the world that could rival the Ming Empire.
In the 18th century, the Qing Empire was not the most powerful empire in the world. Although it has vast land and population, it has lagged behind in terms of social structure and technology. After Europe completed the Renaissance and circumnavigated the world, it began global colonization and the industrial revolution. In particular, the British Empire developed rapidly, and the strength of European countries surpassed the Qing Empire.
Apollo 20: The Secret Mission to the Moon to Salvage an Ancient Alien Spacecraft
This is fun. Not sure if true or not. Check this out.
Egypt warned Israel of a pending Hamas attack ten days before terrorists breached the border and took control of military bases, and communities, killing more than 700 and taking 150 captive including women and children.
“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the content of sensitive intelligence discussions with the media, told The Associated Press.
The Egyptian official said the Israelis were concentrated on the tension on the West Bank and did not consider the Gaza ruling terror group to be a threat despite repeated warningד
that the Egyptians though were not being taken seriously.
One would hope so. But the story will certainly be denied. And due to the war Bibi may still keep his seat.
Since Ukraine fell into crisis, Tesla has recovered from a low of 700 dollars to close to 1,100, a rally of more than 50 percent.
Similarly, the first world’s stock markets have mostly chugged through like nothing has happened.
The turmoil in the commodity space though, tells a different story.
This is because the sanctions are designed not to hurt the first world financial markets too much. The first world control the world’s money flow.
Unfortunately, China is a totally different problem. Any meaningful sanction on the same wide-ranging scale as those being thrown at Russia will roil financial markets around the world.
For a start, Apple will lose 90+ percent of its production and 25 percent of sales if it withdraws from China just like it did in Russia.
When Apple goes, so does the rest of the market. The mother of all asset bubbles will burst, from stocks to real estate to crypto to bonds.
The yuan will devalue sharply, and the forex game of cards will go up in flames, especially the ntd, krw and jpy, which will have to devalue even more or risk oblivion.
A weird new world will be in flux, with assets in the first world devaluing sharply, but consumer goods skyrocketing along with unemployment.
All these point to massive social unrest within weeks or months of taking such a decision, which is difficult to walk back because market sentiment is not easily reversed once the trust evaporates.
No amount of money printing can save the day because China controls the real economy of goods and component production.
REPORT: Qatar to Cut Oil/Gas Supply if Israel Invades Gaza
Qatar is now threatening to cut their oil supply to the world if Israel invades Gaza.
Emir Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani of Qatar threatened to stop gas supplies to the world if the bombing of Gaza did not stop.
You can bet Saudi Arabia among others will be right behind.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
Thankfully, illegitimate President Joe Biden and his incompetent Regime, sold-off about two-thirds of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an attempt to stabilize gasoline prices, which skyrocketed when they imposed Sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.
So if the Arabs DO cut-off oil supplies, the United States no longer has a massive 714 Million Barrel reserve from which to draw to keep the country going.
Some 80 million of you voted for this! All you folks who thought Trump was mean (Orange Man BAD!) . . . and voted for Biden . . . . YOU did this.
You’re correct, ground beef is fairly cheap and the cost of the ingredients that make up a burger is relatively low. The cost of all of the ingredients used to produce a restaurant’s hamburger might be a couple of bucks.
So why is my hamburger $15.00, you ask?
Restaurants have other costs, as well as the cost of food. The young lady who greeted you at the door, escorted you to your table and handed you a menu has to be paid. So does the young fellow who took your order, brought you a drink and delivered your burger. Someone had cook the burger, shred the lettuce, slice the onions and tomatoes and prepare the secret sauce that’s slathered on your bun and they get a paycheck. The plate, fork, knife and glass you used need to be washed, which means there’s someone doing that job as well and they need to be paid too. Finally, there’s the owner and his investors. They all demand a profit from the sale of your burger. If there’s no profit, there’s no point in being in business. So they tack a profit onto the price of your burger because they want to be paid too.
There’s also the rent that has to be paid on the building, the electricity and gas that were used to cook your food, light the dining room and power the AC that’s keeping you cool and comfy. A portion of those things are paid for via the sale of your burger. Sell enough burgers and the restaurant stays in business. Don’t sell enough, or sell them too cheaply and you close the doors.
Understand?
Satellites Show Location of USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group Heading toward Israel
European Space Agency (ESA) imagery shows the USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier and its Strike Group, moving south past the Island of Sardinia, enroute to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, closer to Israel.
Iges released by the ESA show the ship and its group:
Alongside the Ford—USA is sending the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, USS Roosevelt.
The Ford and its Strike Group are being sent to “Make certain Iran does not escalate the ongoing hostilities in the region.”
When HAMAS, which is fighting Israel, got word the Carrier was on its way, they issued a statement saying the ship does not make them afraid. One government official – I won’t say from which government — told me “It isn’t coming to scare them; it’s coming to kill them.”
That aside, there is real danger for that ship and its Strike Group, if a confrontation develops. You see, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, has, in its possession, a known quantity of twelve (possibly many more) P-800 “Oniks” anti-ship missiles, built by Russia.
The Oniks missile is either land-launched or air-launched. It has a range of 120 to 300 km (75 to 186 mi; 65 to 162 nmi) depending on altitude (Yakhont export version). But Russia has also made a version for itself with a Range of 500 lm.
It flies very close to the surface of the water, with an operating altitude of 10 meters (32 ft) or higher.
But its real danger is its speed. The missile travels at Mach 2.6, which means 3180 km/h which translates to 1998 mph (884 Meters per second) The human eye — in general — cannot even see this thing moving . . . it moves so fast.
The missile has already been used against Ukraine and Ukraine had a lot to say about these missiles:
The Oniks has proved to be a difficult threat for Ukrainian Air Defenses. Air Force Spokesperson Yurii Ihnat mentioned (to Wikipedia) that the flight profile of the missile is of particular concern; “Onyx missiles are designed to destroy watercraft, and ships, it flies at a speed of 3000 km per hour, that is, very fast,…On the march [cruising], it can rise high, and when entering the target, it can actually fly 10-15 meters above the water to destroy the ship.” He concluded that it was “impossible” to shoot them down with available anti-air means.
Which brings us back to the USS Gerald R. Ford and its Strike Group.
They will be in “the eastern Mediterranean.”
One hopes they will remain far enough off shore to be out of range of these missiles. But the farther offshore they must stay, the less flight time for their fighter jets without refueling. So the Ship has to try to strike a balance between getting as close as possible so fighters can have good range, or putting themselves farther away for their own safety, which lowers fighter jet range.
OTHER SHIPS, EVEN CLOSER!
Other US Navy Ships are even closer to the threat of these missiles. The ships and 3,000 US Marines onboard, are in the Persian Gulf!
Unless, of course, the USS Gerald R. Ford and several (or ALL) of the ships in its Strike Group, are being set-up to be sunk, to provide an excuse for the US to go to war.
No, such a thought isn’t far fetched, the US knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl harbor, and they let it happen on purpose.
Who knows if the same, sick, mentality, is at play in the federal government today? Another “Gulf of Tonkin” type situation, perhaps?
I guess we’ll see.
The Gerald R. Ford and its Strike Group should be in the eastern Mediterranean Sea later this week. The other vessels are already in the Persian Gulf off Iran’s coastline.
I worked for a 150-person manufacturing and assembly plant. We made small engines and parts for aircraft.
I was the HR person.
While doing a payroll audit after we switched to a new system, I found this guy on payroll. He was supposed to mow the grounds and provide janitorial service.
Except we had a service do it all for over 8 years. So this guy was paid a not-so-bad hourly rate and just never showed up. For 8 years. We never could find him to tell him he was terminated.
A few months later, we found a small room in the upper mezzanine of the warehouse. We found a small color tv, a cot, a refrigerator and microwave, a desk and chair, a radio, and easy chair, clothes, etc.
From the things we found on the small desks in the room, we figured he had been living in the room rent-free and he went unnoticed for years.
We finally caught him sneaking in late one evening and escorted him off. He was actually pretty clever.
Brian Berletic: China is Ready for War as South Korea and Japan Join Alliance with US
Brian Berletic of The New Atlas discusses Biden’s latest escalation with China, this time in the form a new military alliance with South Korea and Japan.
China develops new record-breaking ‘Jiuzhang’ quantum computer prototype
Chinese scientists have developed a new quantum computer prototype known as “Jiuzhang 3.0” with 255 detected photons, pushing the boundaries of photonics quantum computing technology on a global scale.
Led by the renowned Chinese quantum physicist Pan Jianwei, the research team has successfully accomplished this quantum computing feat, achieving a speed that is 10 quadrillion times faster in solving Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) problems compared to the world’s existing fastest supercomputers.
Gaussian boson sampling, a quantum computation intractable for conventional computers, was employed in this study to provide a highly efficient way of demonstrating quantum computational speedup in solving some well-defined tasks.
The study was published online in the journal Physical Review Letters on Wednesday.
Lu Chaoyang, a member of the research team and professor at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), said that a series of innovations, including a newly developed superconducting nanowire single-photon detection scheme with fiber loop-based configuration, increased the number of detected photons for “Jiuzhang 3.0” to 255, greatly improving the complexity of photonics quantum computing.
“By demultiplexing photons into time bins through delays, we’ve achieved capabilities of pseudo photon number resolving,” Lu added.
According to the state-of-the-art exact classical simulation algorithm, “Jiuzhang 3.0” is a million times faster at solving GBS problems than its predecessor, “Jiuzhang 2.0.” Moreover, the most complex samples of GBS that “Jiuzhang 3.0” can calculate in just one microsecond would take the world’s fastest supercomputer, “Frontier,” more than 20 billion years to complete.
Quantum computing, a new computing paradigm, features extremely fast parallel computing capability.
It has the potential to achieve exponential speedup through specific quantum algorithms compared with classical computers in solving problems of great social and economic value.
Therefore, the development of quantum computers is one of the biggest challenges in the current scientific and technological frontier of the world.
with up to 76 photons detected, marking the first milestone China reached on the path to full-scale quantum computing – a quantum computational advantage, also known as “quantum supremacy,” which indicates an overwhelming quantum computational speedup.
In 2021, the team further developed the “Jiuzhang 2.0” with 113 detected photons and a 66-qubit programmable superconducting quantum computing system named “Zuchongzhi 2.1,” making China the only country to achieve a quantum computational advantage in two mainstream technical routes – one via photonics quantum computing technology and the other via superconducting quantum computing technology.
Girl Dies of Hypothermia; Shown Past Lives & Gets To Choose Her Future (NDE)
This young girl’s story is so authentic and original. Thank you!
I worked with an older geophysicist with a PhD from MIT. He did a lot of research for us. We needed to compare the force generated on a hill side, using 200 grams of dynamite, to the force felt on that hillside by an earthquake, that was rated at 5 on the Richter scale, a certain distance and depth away.
We hired a PhD physicist as a consultant, to write us an unbiased report.
After 3 days, he admitted to us, that he could not find a way to compare the two, unless we could give him a method that did the work for him. Very embarrassing.
We approached our MIT PhD, and asked him if he could work out an equivalency. He looked at us, stunned that we didn’t see how obvious it was. He tried to explain, but he was talking so fast, he lost us.
He then went to his white board, and broke the Richter scale down to its basics, then broke the dynamite down to its basics, in Joules, which is kg m squared per second squared.
Then derived a formula that tied them together.
He did this in less than two minutes, and only took that long, because that was as fast as he could write.
I was impressed, that he even remembered how to calculate the force used to measure the richter scale, without looking it up. But for him to solve in two minutes, what our high priced consultant, couldn’t solve in 3 days, says a lot about the difference in quality of PhDs.
He was the smartest functional man that I ever met. I knew smarter people ,but they couldn’t fit into society.
I know that once I was out of school for 10 years, I couldn’t work things out from basic principles, without researching it. Yet he could after 45 years.
America CAN sanction China, but the cost of doing so won’t be low like doing the same to Russia.
America must pony up the cost, like Apple losing 90 percent of its manufacturing capacity, or Americans losing access to Tiktok or half of Walmart. Jp Morgan and Goldman Sachs will lose access to greater China. Many companies will lose their biggest market, including Volkswagen which sells half its production to the Chinese today.
Yes, 50 percent.
Apple sells more iphones in Greater China than it does back home.
Let that sink in.
Sanctioning China won’t land exclusively on chinese laps. It will hurt the first world too and directly affect the quality of life.
When it comes to China, even America must count the cost. China on the economic battlefield is what Russia on the military front means to the Americans.
Plenty of respect, that is.
Plenty.
U.S China Technology War Panics US as it Sanctions Middle East on AI!
“I love China, from East Africa Kenya, and the whole of Africa stands with China”.
I was once part of a government delegation to Italy to partake in a conference being held by energy industries world wide. It was a pretty diverse event. There were speeches by energy experts on a variety of energy related topics. Panels that debated the future of the energy industry (the Nuclear Energy proponents vs Anti Nuclear energy lobby had some fiery debates!). We had some activities in which we would come up with our own amateurish proposals to resolve energy issues in the developing and developed world.
Perhaps the most time was dedicated to the exhibitions where different industries set up their booths which would offer company products and services to prospective clients.
The exhibitions weren’t really of much interest to us. The company employees knew Pakistan was “small fry” (back in 2007 we didn’t have much purchasing power or budget dedicated to energy related issues). So we Pakistanis were largely ignored by the American and European execs who were more interested in the big fish like Saudis, India, China, Brazil etc. We just mostly meandered about.
During one of our strolls, we passed the Chinese delegation. All serious, taking notes, being engaged by this stunning Italian woman from Shell i think who was explaining some kind of product to the head of the Chinese delegation.
We stood a bit to the side and listened in politely, when the head of the Chinese delegation caught our eye, offered a friendly smile and handshake and asked if we were waiting for them to finish up.
“Oh no no, please continue.”, we replied. “Just wanted to say hi, we’re from Pakistan”
The Chinese gentleman’s face lit up instantly. “Pakistan!” He shook my hand warmly “Our brother!” he exclaimed.
It was quite a moment. I remember every tiny detail from it even till today. The Italian lady’s surprise at how warmly we were being greeted. The other booth employees turning around to see what all the fuss was about. Their own looks of surprise at how the small fry, largely ignored Pakistani delegation was being treated so warmly by the most watched delegation of all, the Chinese.
It’s these small moments, these isolated incidents of human magic that people tend to miss out when they get confused over why China is so well liked by many of the developing world nations. Over the course of the conference, i interacted with other delegations from Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and so on and they all had the same respect and positive impression for the Chinese delegation. Whether it was a delegate from Africa or Asia, no matter what their country’s size and importance, they were treated warmly and with mutual respect by the Chinese as if their country was the same as China in size, importance and power.
Several analysts and commentators want to see something empirical, some hard data that quantifies this respect, that explains scientifically why China is held in a high opinion by developing world countries. They look at investments and trade, look at China’s growing foreign worker and student populations, analyze the spread of Chinese media.
And of course, they do hold true on their own. You can see from this entire thread the vast variety of reasons why people like China (economic might, non-interference in other country’s affairs, an affinity for Chinese culture etc).
So take my answer as one part of the entire canvas of reasons being presented here when i say that a lot of developing nation people, be it government employees or just common folk everywhere, like China because the Chinese still consider themselves as one of us. Not imperial overlords or racial superiors or strict masters and so on. But comrades to the developing world, partners in our struggles and a developing country just like us who share in our troubles, concerns and visions for a mutually beneficial future.
I’m no China expert so i can’t explain where this comes from. Perhaps its still the old Communist ideology at play? Back during the cold war years, the USSR and Chinese communists partnered with a lot of the developing world back then as we struggled to overthrow the colonial and imperialist powers (as well as their local feudal, tribal and monarch proxies). I’ve met old Leftists in their senior years today who tell me about how they would go to the USSR and China back when Pakistan was a dirt poor country to get training, education and what not. Revolutionaries and Leftists from Pakistan, other Asian countries, Africa, Latin America etc would go to the USSR and China in cheap, patched up suits with tattered shoes and not a dime to their name and be greeted warmly by their comrades in Beijing and Moscow and given the top notch treatment. Nations that managed to overthrow their tyrants in a successful coup would send delegations to China and the USSR who would come back full of praises for the hospitality and camaraderie of the Chinese and USSR brother Leftists. Whereas the “Free World” would only choose to associate with our feudal lords, our Shahs, our Kings and our dictators and not step foot in a single street populated by the common man.
I don’t even have to wax poetic about the old days of the Cold war. In my own experience working side by side with my Chinese coworkers, this same feeling of partnership and camaraderie is on display as well. The Chinese who come to work with us, work side by side with us, in the same heat, the same muck, the same mosquito, freezing temperatures, rain and what not. The same hectic schedules and daily annoyances are shared by us equally. We also eat at the same table, play football in the evening with each other and exchange movies and TV shows in USBs with each other.
When i told all of this to my friend who works in the Gulf at an MNC he wouldn’t believe me. His experience with Gulf Arabs and the Western Expats there has been nothing like this. Even students and workers that i know who went to South Korea are a bit amazed when they hear this.
Outside of the work place it’s the same story. Western Expats in Pakistan tend to live in huge, well guarded, walled off compounds with these giant electric generators and might as well be living on another planet given how cut off they are from the rest of the populace. Meanwhile, just 2 days ago, i reversed my car past a Chinese couple getting on their motorcycle in a busy, crowded bazaar typical of any major Pakistani city.
The Chinese live, walk, breath, eat and work among us, on our streets, our cities, our home soil. They face the same problems we do whether its load shedding, low gas supply or slow internet. And when we see them share the realities of our lives, it creates this mutual bond and sense of respect between us. They could have chosen to live in their own huge compounds and indeed, the Pak government is trying to force the Chinese expats in Pakistan to live in compounds away from ordinary Pakistani citizens due to security concerns. But the Chinese refuse. They CHOOSE to live with us. Despite the dangers they face. And that makes all the difference in the world for us.
I had similar positive experiences with the Chinese in Egypt and the African delegations and Middle Eastern delegations were absolutely delighted with the Chinese, how willing to explore the local culture they were, how respectful they were of us and how they would engage with us in social activities and general chit chat everywhere, whether at work or leisure. In the meantime, we didn’t even see the European delegations to Egypt even once (separated for security again i guess).
And my own visit to China a long time ago was no less positive for me. Senior government, military and diplomatic officials would engage with us, discuss with us, seek our view point, offer their own. They would even share stories from their personal lives and listen attentively when we told our own. We were given a royal treatment, housed in comfortable hotels, provided medical assistance immediately if someone got sick, accompanying us to the hospital to make sure we were ok, guiding us in the city. Whether it was common citizens or senior officials, they treated us like equals with a lot of protocol.
Maybe I’ve lost a few folk at this point who have no idea what i’m talking about because they can’t relate. But as a Pakistani, our country is associated only with poverty, violence, terror and instability abroad. No one is impressed when we say we are from Pakistan. No one cares either. So much so that we have become accustomed to it, built our lives around it.
So when i was at that exhibition and the Chinese delegate warmly shook my hand, proclaimed my country a brother in front of the entire exhibition to the surprise of onlookers, when the citizen of a country touted as the next super power of the world gives respect to the citizen of a country that’s touted as a failed state in western publications, it creates an impact on our lives.
I know there are thousands of more like me. In 10, 20, 30 years we will be senior officers, politicians or executives in our own countries. And when we see a Chinese official ask us for a favor, a Chinese company bid us for a project maybe some of us will think back to when the Chinese gave us so much respect on so and so occasion. And we will favor the Chinese because of it. Don’t believe me? Just look at the bonhomie between the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif who was so dazzled to hear that the Chinese were referring to rapidly implemented Pakistani Projects as “running at Punjab speed” as a compliment to his administrative skills, that he granted several projects to Chinese companies without bidding or on very favorable terms.
Based on how i saw the delegates from Africa, Middle East, Asia also be impressed at the humble, respectful and partner like attitude of the Chinese during their interactions with them, i have no doubt the same kind of positive image of China will be created in the minds of those delegates as well. And when they rise to senior positions, they will also hold the same positive image of China and favor her. All that influence and positive image built across the globe for no cost and without needing 12 Aircraft carriers.
There was once a time i thought that maybe our positive experience of China was because of us mostly experiencing China’s “Golden Generation”. By Golden Generation i mean a generation of people who are born when their country is poor and life is hard, enter young adult life when their country is rising rapidly and go into their senior years when their country is a global power. Kind of like the US’s golden generation. This Golden generation has all the power available to a citizen of a super power but at the same time the same humbleness and respectful nature of a modest power. A person from this generation could become king of the world and still rise to meet a person of more modest means.
I would resign myself to the fact that as younger Chinese came of age who had never seen the struggles of China when she was a poorer country with less power, and he grew up only knowing China as a great, powerful nation then perhaps the Chinese too would become more arrogant and assured of their greatness like the US has become. But my interaction with the Chinese youth of Quora has put to bed such fears as i find them as respectful to us, the people of the developing world, as i found their parents and older siblings etc.
I hope this answer didn’t sound too much like rambling or disappointing due to lack of quantifiable data and science. And i hope this answer isn’t interpreted as a diss of people from the West with whom i also have great experiences. But as someone who as worked in Data analysis so long, i can tell you, some things aren’t there in the data. Some things are in the mysterious, murky sphere we call the human aspect. And in that aspect, you’ll find that this mysterious pull and attraction China has on so many people in the developing world from Africa, Asia, Middle East is based on the smallest, but oldest of all things: Respect. Equality. Partnership. Camaraderie.
This happened to a friend of mine. He’s a PhD in Mathematics and was working for Silicon Valley firm writing mostly encryption algorithms, but some firmware stuff as well. Very very well paid — but not the most social person in the world. Being around people causes him anxiety. This isn’t a minor thing for him — it’s a real pathology.
Anyway, He’s a Los Angeles guy — and hated living so far north. His employer worked with him and let him work remotely 4 out of 5 days a week — he would just need to show up for “face” time once a week. Basically show up Sunday, sleep in the company flat, drive home Monday.
That was grinding him down after a year. His employer dropped that down to once a month. After six months, this was still too much and he decided to turn in his resignation on the next “face” day.
He drove up there, spent the night in the company flat, got up to go to the office with his “notice” papers and his boss calls him in.
They’re laying him off. This means, he keeps the stock options he’s earned (would have lost them if he quit), he gets 3 years of paid medical insurance and a 3 year severance package per his contract.
He sent me a pic of himself after he got the news. The biggest sh*t eating grin I’ve ever seen on him —ever — in front of his “beater” pick up truck. .
A very long time ago, when I was new to working in Corporate America, an employee was reprimanded for refusing to do an assigned task given by a new supervisor and then fired for insubordination.
Sheila had worked in the unit for most of her 7 years with the company. She was hardworking, never missing a day, and knew every aspect of the department’s purpose and work. She was ‘right there’ when any of us needed info or help, something that our supervisors were not always able to do.
She SHOULD have been the supervisor, but she had 3 strikes against her: she was still in school (no paper), she was female (most management positions were filled by males), and she was black (the company had a 7% minority hire, mostly in lower positions).
The new supervisor had worked with us for 6 months when he told Sheila that he wanted her to change a major procedure. When she asked why, he became belligerent and refused to discuss it.
Sheila knew (to summarize) that the new procedure would create a multi-level bottleneck in our area and would ultimately lessen efficiency within a third of the company.
When she attempted to explain this, the supervisor accused her of insubordination and threatened her with termination.
He then began a whisper campaign against her. In hindsight, it was based on racism and misogyny that others (especially in management) seemed happy to join.
Sheila did as she was told, and we all watched as our department’s efficiency rapidly fell and began to adversely affect other units.
When the problems couldn’t ‘work themselves out,’ the supervisor accused Sheila of sabotage.
Some of us went to Personnel (HR) in support of Sheila to no avail. Sheila produced the supervisor’s written instructions, but he continued to call her an incompetent, vindictive, ignorant saboteur and in private, added racist/misogynistic terms.
Sheila was fired based on that man’s accusations and in spite of her denials and proof.
Sheila landed a great position with a competitor within days. (She ultimately lured 4 of the department’s best to join her several months later.)
The supervisor crowed that she had been a spy all along, but as the effeciency still fell, management FINALLY saw that department disruption came from the ‘incompetent, vindictive, ignorant’ supervisor.
He was moved to a different position within the company with no reprimand.
This was my first exposure to how unfair and hateful some ‘management’ can be.
Erwin Rommel is probably one of the most over rated so called geniuses. Rommel had a good sense of tactical employment of certain equipment particularly tanks, but he was greatly aided by the fact he mostly fought an outpost of Britain, rather than the full might of any of the allied armies, and his tactics were never tested by the Soviet armored branch, unlike most German generals.
Furthermore, he was operationally inept and strategically an imbecile. Rommel was the ultimate “i know better than you”, and circumvented the command chain to get his way. For example, he appealed directly to Hitler in order to launch the attack on Egypt, that totally failed and cost the Axis their foothold in Africa, and undermining the Wehrmacht plan made to occupy Malta and cut off the British navy.
At the strategic level Rommel never understood Germany’s actual position, and certainly did not contribute to it. He left this entire theater of command on June 5th despite the Germans knowing that an invasion of France was imminent. He had also previously spent massive resources on creating additional anti air borne defenses, none of which had an impact on the outcome of D-day.
Rommel was defeated in Africa, defeated in Italy and defeated in France, before he was a high level leader he was an insubordinate divisional commander who got lucky mostly. His ghost division was called such because no one knew where it was or what it was doing. That is not a good thing.
Despite all this, Rommel is often mentioned as one of the greatest generals in World War 2, but I really see no reason for this, when von Rundtstedt and even the self aggrandising Mannstein, clearly had far more success and skill than Rommel did.
Star Trek – Two Captain Kirks
Spock makes his way to the control room with a phaser…only to find two identical Captain Kirks (Whom Gods Destroy)
Huawei and China. It force China to speed up dominating the industry and make all the money. It no longer need to share with the west and U.S. The U.S. has to pay and lose in trillions of dollars to build big white elephants, subsidise a dozen countries and the entire industry for decades to come!
Meanwhile it has to contend with poorer technology, higher inefficiency and humongous cost of connectivity! It loses competitive edge and allow its people to fall behind in technology!
But you know who else benefits. Your media and your politicians. The media sell hate and the profit. Your politicians show hates and the win votes!
So who benefits? China, the Chinese people, the global south, the U.S. media and the U.S. politicians.
Who lose? Americans. The U.S. taxpayers. Your U.S. companies, your U.S. dog nations, you U.S. slave vassals, your cronies nations! Too bad karma. You guys deserved it.
Are Humans the First Civilization? The Silurian Hypothesis
I had applied for a job with a company where my friend worked. She had sent me the posting even though I was extremely under qualified and the job was 400 miles away.
I applied, not thinking I actually had a chance. The posting was for a SysAdmin, and at this point in my career I had only worked in computer repair shops. I had some server experience and did some side work for a few clients, but I wasn’t a full SysAdmin by any stretch of the imagination. But what could it hurt to apply. The worst they could do is throw out my resume. So I was surprised when they called me for a phone interview.
I got through the HR interview no problem. I have a good work ethic and am generally a pleasant person, so it was a breeze. Next came the tech interview. The guy who was leaving called me and was immediately concerned about my complete lack of experience as a SysAdmin. We went through the technical interview and I figured that would be the end of it. He asked some pretty tough questions about things I had never done before. So I didn’t think I did that well.
Surprise! I got another call from HR. They wanted to interview me in person! Wow, was I shocked. I agreed and immediately started packing a bag for a road trip. I left early the next morning and drove the 400 miles in one day. I crashed on my friend’s couch and went in to work with her the next morning for my interview.
Again, I was interviewed by a technical person, this time a consultant. Again, he grilled me on a bunch of technology that I had never used before. I answered to the best of my ability, but more than once I had to admit that I didn’t know the answer. Again, I didn’t think I did very well. I basically got the “We’ll call you if we’re interested” response when I asked what the next steps were.
I chalked it up to just being a road trip. I spent the rest of the day exploring the city and taking in a few museums. I had a good time with some friends in the city and then headed home the next morning. This was a Wednesday.
The very next day, Thursday, my phone rang. “Hello, this is X from company Y. We were really impressed with you and would like to offer you the job.”
I almost dropped my phone I was so shocked. All I could do was stutter out a “Ok. I’d love to take it.”
Then the twist. “We absolutely need you to start on Monday. Is that going to be a problem? If you can’t we’re going to offer the job to a local candidate.”
I looked around at my house full of stuff that wasn’t packed and replied the only way I could. “Sure. Looks like I’m moving to Washington DC tomorrow.”
So I did. It took about a month of crashing on my friend’s couch before I found a place to stay and move all our stuff down there.
It was surreal to say the least. In one week, I went from being unemployed in Cleveland to getting a job in DC that I wasn’t qualified for and moving my entire life 400 miles away.
UN GIVEN 24 HOUR WARNING, IRAN SENDS TANKS TO BORDER, SYRIA AIRPORT BOMBED
Two months ago, I got a call that my home was on fire. I rushed home with my 4 year old, found my house uninhabitable and all of my pets deceased. While the fire marshal was finishing up paperwork, and I was covered in soot and tears, a man came up to me with condolences and placed $200 in my hand and said he’s sure I could use it. We had never met; I found out later that he lived in the neighborhood and just felt the need to help.
This man’s actions impacted me in a big way. Of course $200 wasn’t going to rebuild my house, but it did cover getting us pajamas, a change of clothes, toothbrushes, and other essentials that we needed immediately, as well as a hot meal, with some left to spare. Most importantly, it gave me one less thing to worry about at the moment.
Moving forward, I want to be more like that guy. Offering thoughts and prayers through Facebook when people go through tragedies is nice, but actually being present and offering assistance is what makes a difference. Thanks, stranger!
Operation Abscam was the sting of the decade. In 1978, the FBI set up a fake company to snare New York gangsters selling stolen art. The company was called “Abdul Enterprise” hence the name Ab(dul)Scam, and owned by a fake Arab Sheik looking to invest in art.
They recovered two paintings worth 1 million dollars, and during the operation they were introduced to more criminals dealing in stolen stocks and bonds, which stopped 600 million dollars in fraudulent securities.
It was through this operation they were introduced to politicians willing to take bribes. The sting brought the FBI to Washington DC, where their criminal contacts introduced them to shady politicians willing to take bribes for the Sheiks business which was a fake Casino in Atlantic City.
These politicians wanted to arrange a meeting between the Sheik and a US congressman who could make happen any private legislation the Sheik wanted for the price of 50,000 dollars.
This led to the arrest of one senator, six congressmen, and more than a dozen corrupt officials.
The sting was surrounded in controversy because it raised many question regarding the FBI tactics being considered entrapment.
This infamous sting was the inspiration behind the movie American Hustle.
This Cat Was Left Behind When His Owner Moved Away | The Dodo
Citibank. Went to the bank to deposit a ~$26k check into a checking account with many times that amount, then pay my credit card bill which had all the charges from a 15-day Disney vacation.
They deposited the check, but put a ‘hold’ on it, making only $100 of the balance available. Then they debited my checkbook, to pay the CC balance in full.
About a week later the statement arrived. The CC was paid in full, ~48 hours before it was due, but somehow managed to accrue >$100 in interest charges. — First time for that.
The checking account also generated about a dozen overdraft charges despite the balance never dropping below $100k! — It’s not like there was a six-figure minimum balance on that account.
And to top it off, every one of my $25k 7-day certificates of deposit forfeited their interest for the week that included that fiasco.
I went to the branch on the next business day. I waited patiently in the line for the teller. When I got to the window, I quietly explained that they had messed up. The teller *insisted* that they followed procedure. I asked for the manager to come out and explain their procedure in more detail.
I listened to 5+ minutes or doubletalk in stony silence. The manager finally saying he could reverse the charges & credit the interest “… this one time as a courtesy.” I allowed him to proceed and complete the tasks.
When I had the corrected receipts in my hand, and in my wallet, I said to him: “Now I want you to close all of my accounts.” There was indignity & quite anger in his face.
He asked me to step aside into his office. I politely declined saying that until you hand over my money, I’m still a customer. I waited 45 minutes in your line and I’m not giving up my spot so you can hide me away from the people who are still in line. I think they deserve to know how badly you treated me, and maybe some of them will get the idea to leave the bank too.
He tried to maneuver me away from the window. I refused to budge. He tried empty threats, even up to calling the police. I told him go ahead. I have witnesses. Then I said, he *SHOULD* call the police because I want my funds in *CASH*.
He then tried to explain how that much cash would generate a CTR, and I’d be investigated by the IRS. I said, that’s fine. I’m clean, you’re dirty. I welcome the sunlight.
Within an hour I walked out of the bank with a thick manilla envelope under my arm and was walked to my car by the armed security guard. I had informed the manager that my safety was *HIS* personal responsibility until I drove off the bank property. The reason was that because of his incompetence, several people in the lobby *KNEW* that I would be leaving the branch carrying substantial cash, and that the potential for me being robbed once I walked out the door was non-zero.
I left the parking lot and drove to the First Union branch nearer my house, asked for the branch manager, told him a short version of what had just transpired, and in less than 30 minutes walked out with a brand-new leather-bound checkbook, and started earning 0.25% more interest on my money.
—
I had been increasingly frustrated with Citibank in the months leading up to that fiasco. To be fair, it was their electronic banking that had lured me into doing business with them in the first place. Their systems integrated with Quicken better than any other I had used up to that point. BTW this all happened between September 1997 & August 1999. The Disney vacation was from the last day of school in June 1999 thru the 8th or 9th of July. It was a big deal for the kids when we pulled them from school early that day and they got to say to their classmates “I’m going to Disney!”
So, literally every time I visited the Citibank branch to conduct business, I walked out feeing like something was wrong. They always did things out of order from the way I presented them to the teller. It was mildly frustrating most of the time. Irritating on many occasions; and maddening when I’d make large deposits & purchase one or more of their $25k 7-day CDs. The $25k CDs were nice because although they were illiquid for the first 14 days after the 2-week hold the most I could forfeit was the interest on the last week — in theory. There were a number of occasions when they would deduct 8 or more days of interest, when I cashed more than one at a time. I’d get to the office, plug the amounts into Quicken and there would be a ‘discrepancy’. That necessitated another trip to the bank to get it corrected. Or a phone call and an up to 60 day wait.
The bank offered these products to attract deposits. They worked, but they inevitably tried to cheat me out of hundreds if not thousands of dollars in interest earned. But in all candor it was the $400plus in *OVERDRAFT* charges on a well-funded account that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Several years ago Costco ended their arrangement with American Express and switched to Citi. I wasn’t happy. But they gave me a new Blue card with my Costco photo on the back. I only used the card at Costco. And each February I’d await my ‘love check’ aka “My Costco Rewards Voucher”. It usually came by April.
About a year ago, I hadn’t been to Costco for a while and so the automatic $50 payments I made to avoid any possibility of a missed payment fee had accumulated. I had visited Costco on the 92nd day following my last bill and the charge was less than $150. But true to form, the bank had cut me an unrequested paper check on the 91st day (supposedly) recorded the charge on day 92, then hit me with a $35 late fee for not receiving another check before the close of the 3rd statement! Can you imagine?
That was the last time I used the Citi card for *ANYTHING* — except… Now, when I go to Costco, I show the Citi card to prove my membership, but I pay with my Chase. Then when I finish shopping, I stop at the lunch counter and buy a Costco signature Hotdog & Pepsi for $1.50 which comes to $1.61 with the tax. When I return home, I schedule a ebill-pay check to be sent to the bank 15 business days later.
And lastly, I disabled electronic statements, forcing them to send me a paper invoice for $1.61 each month. I did this when they failed to send me an email statement or notification then had the nerve to again charge me $35 after a minor error on my part that had left me with a $0.50 *CREDIT* balance which I was allowing to roll from month to month. That was until the bank decided that since the credit was less than $1.00 they were entitled to absorb it and not issue me a check. They also absorbed my then insignificant Rewards balance ~$5.00 as a co-consequence of the late fee assessed. That too earned them another phone call and cost them >90 minutes of agent time, and a replenishment of the rewards balance.
In 2022 my accrued rewards were $0.12 I don’t expect a voucher, but I will call them to inquire why it wasn’t sent. Come to think of it It’s May 16th. I think I’ll do it tomorrow morning.
We need to ACKNOWLEDGE China IS SUPERIOR in these areas
That’s Rule No 1
…
You have nutters who claim we have nothing to learn from China and if these people are the majority than India will be the perpetual loser like always
We built so many toilets, We built so many trains, IMF says we are No 1, ABC says we are No 2 etc etc
India is a country where mediocrity dominates
…
The Cream is in US or UK or Canada or Australia or Europe or Singapore or Malaysia
Achievers think differently
They always look at others strengths and decide to incorporate them and grow and develop
Mediocrities think differently
They bury their heads in the sand, and keep quoting random nonsense to feel good
India sadly belongs to the latter groups
Thus Rule No 1 is to say
Alright these are Chinas strengths, these are Chinas weaknesses
Let’s try to achieve Chinas strengths without going into Chinas weaknesses
The Basic Truth
China and India started together in 1982 and today China is six times larger
That is a truth that’s out there
That means China did something right or infinitely better than us
That means China has to be superior to us in many areas
That’s Logic
We have the same populace at the end of the day
We don’t have a single viable achievement where we have beaten China
Not one
So obviously China did something better
How many actually say this?
Say that – Wow!!! China is indeed better than us in so many aspects. Let’s learn from them.
My guess is very few
Most of us can’t accept this very basic thing
So this answer isn’t for an Indian sadly
Indians today aren’t built to assess others strengths and evaluate the same
Nopes
The West: China Is Collapsing!
Great video! Some people choose to be so ignorant of China even when there are so many vlogs of those exploring the country.
This is worth viewing.
The Split In Israel And The War Of Al-Aqsa
What is the reason for the ‘Al-Aqsa Deluge’, as Hamas had named its terror operation against the Zionists?
On October 8 Alastair Crooke, one of most experienced Middle East hands, wrote in AlMahadeen:
“Israel” has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of “Israel’s” future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish.
The fissure could not be more complete. Except it is. One faction, which holds a majority in parliament, is broadly Mizrahi — a former underclass in Israeli society; and the other, largely well-to-do liberal Ashkenazi.
Mizrahi are mostly the original Middle Eastern Jews and often on the religious far right, Ashkenazi are mostly liberal European ones. The current Netanyahoo government is the first which includes far-right Mizrahi ministers.
Most Mizrahi follow the Sephardi religious rites. They want an religious state based on Jewish law. They are as radial as ISIS.
The high court of Israel has 14 Ashkenazi judges and one Mizrahi one. It is one of the reasons why the Netanyahoo government wants the parliament to be able to vote down high court judgements. There have been large, U.S. sponsored ‘regime change’ protests in Israel against that move. The leaders of the military and security services, mostly Ashkenazi, have also opposed the government move against the court.
I therefore think that it is quite possible that there was intelligence pointing to the Hamas attack, but that it was not revealed to let Netanyahoo fall into a trap. We have however no evidence that there were reasonably precise intelligence warnings, or that they were held up.
There are already demands for Netanyahoo to go. If only for his long term sponsoring of Hamas as a counterweight to the more secular Fatah Palestinians. Should he no longer be prime minister the courts will take up the three bribe cases against him which are currently pending. He would likely end up in jail.
Another reason for Hamas’ success was the fact that three of the four infantry battalions, with 800 soldiers each, that usually guard the Gaza strip, had been moved to the West Bank to protect right-wing Zionist settlers during a religious holiday. This allowed for Hamas’ easy breach of the fence.
Well, the Right in Netanyahu’s government has two long-standing commitments. One is to rebuild the (Jewish) Temple on ‘Temple Mount’ (Haram al-Shariff).
Just to be clear, that would entail demolishing Al-Aqsa.
The second overriding commitment is to the founding of “Israel”, on the “Land of Israel”. And again, to be clear, this (in their view) would entail clearing Palestinians from the West Bank. Indeed, the settlers have been cleansing Palestinians from swaths of the West Bank over the past year (notably between Ramallah and Jericho).
On Thursday morning (two days preceding Al-Aqsa Flood), more than 800 settlers stormed the Mosque Compound, under the full protection of Israeli forces. The drumbeat of such provocations is rising.
This is nothing new. The First Intifada was triggered by (then) PM Sharon making a provocative visit into the mosque. I was a part of Senator George Mitchell’s Presidential Committee investigating that incident. Even then, it was clear that Sharon intended the visit to fuel the fire of religious nationalism. At that time, the Temple Mount Movement was a minnow; today it has ministers in Cabinet and in key security positions — and has promised its followers to build the ‘Third Temple’.
So, the threat to Al-Aqsa has been building for two decades, and today is reaching an apex. And yet US and Israeli intelligence didn’t see resistance coming, and nor did they see the settler violence building in the West Bank?
What happened on Saturday was widely expected and clearly extensively planned.
There is by the way no archaeologic evidence, none, that a Jewish ‘Temple’ ever existed in Jerusalem. If it did, it was most likely not on the hill of Al-Aqsa but one of the six other ones.
Al-Aqsa is holy to all Muslims, Shia and Sunni alike. Its destruction would inevitably lead to war. The West is clearly underestimating what forces calls like this one can rise:
Friday sermon from the Grand Mosque in Mecca prays for the “liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem.
This is significant for two reasons: • Audience of 2 billion Muslims. • Such sermons have been significantly censored under MBS. Today’s sermon was likely pre-approved. Video
Israel has used White Phosphorus on the people in Gaza, another war crime. Israel has given all people in north Gaza, 1.1 million human beings, 24 hours to move to south Gaza. That is impossible and will not happen. It is an attempt of ethnic cleansing.
If there were two million Jewish people trapped by Christians in a giant open-air prison and placed under total siege, being told that half of them had 24 hours to relocate into the other half or be killed, nobody would have any confusion about what they were witnessing.
If Israel makes, as announced, a ground attack on Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon is likely to attack Israel. The U.S. has allegedly let Syria know (via France) that Damascus, and President Assad personally, would be attacked if that were to happen. This is a miscalculation. It is far from certain that Assad, or even Iran, has the means to hold Hizbullah back.
A U.S. attack on the government of Syria would bring Russia into the war. Iran would also respond which is exactly what some of the neocons want.
The war could easily escalate further from there.
Posted by b on October 13, 2023 at 15:46 UTC | Permalink
Wife Self-Deletes After Husband Discovers All 4 Kids Aren’t His
I live in a wealthy suburb on the outskirts of Silicon Valley in California; trees, flowers, birds, mostly nice neighbors of diverse backgrounds. On the surface, it seems a wonderful place to live, and in many respects, it is, however, if I look out my front window, I see this:
image 172
The electricity is distributed via overhead lines, due to an underinvestment in infrastructure: last month, I lost power for over 36 hours because it got a little windy (the world headquarters of Apple, Facebook, and Google are within a ten mile radius of my place). When I ride my bike to the local supermarket this evening, I will have to be careful not to slip on a large and growing patch of gravel on a road that hasn’t been repaired for many years: this, in one of the wealthiest parts of the wealthiest country in the world.
image 80
The above is a map of the SF Bay area, a densely populated part of California with an almost continuous ring of urban development. As you would expect, the traffic can be pretty bad, so you might expect that there would be a single circular light rail system linking the many cities around the bay; there is not: if I want to travel from my place to Fremont by rail alone, the quickest way with the most frequent service is via San Francisco. US infrastructure is truly abysmal.
Why is America in such poor shape, with its crumbling roads, crappy power distribution, and pitiful public transport systems? It is because Americans have been propagandized for decades into believing that “liberty” is the ultimate virtue, and this “liberty” is so valuable that it justifies the cost of living as a selfish asshole under a dysfunctional government. “Raise taxes to pay for public infrastructure?” “Jeez Louise; over my dead body! Taxation is theft, government is bad!” For much of the 20th century, America defined itself against the collectivist USSR, and the fatuous argument was made that since everything was under the control of the state in the USSR, the US government should do as little as possible, apart from outspending the evil Commies in national defense.
The infrastructure is just one symptom of America’s degradation: the streets of major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are filling up with homeless drug addicts, leaving the sidewalks littered with tents, needles, and human waste. Next to nothing is done for these people because it is seen as “their problem” that they are mentally ill, and lack access to mental health services and affordable housing. The irony is that there are so many of these people now that they have become everyone’s problem. Retailers in downtown SF are closing down their stores because the conditions in the streets are keeping paying customers away, whilst the cops barely regard shoplifting as a crime.
2023 10 19 08 53
The only way this person lying on the ground can guarantee access to shelter and minimal medical care is to go to jail. Land of the free…
The US is run by an oligarchy of libertarian fantasists, who have spent so long sucking hallucinogenic bile from the withered teats of Ayn Rand that they have lost all contact with reality. The government is not entirely to blame for the current situation; a lot of the social problems are the result of the narcissistic counter culture that started in the 1960s, but now that these problems are getting worse, the question is, can the government continue to pretend that they don’t exist, or that there is somehow a “free market” solution to mass shootings, drug addiction, and homelessness?
Living in my little enclave, with its fragile electricity supply, and crumbling roads, it’s easy for my neighbors and I to think that things aren’t so bad, but in under an hour, I can travel to SF and see scenes exactly like the one in the last photo. Whilst people are constantly harping on about whether the Democrats or the Republicans are better or worse than each other, they are ignoring the fact that both parties have done nothing to seriously address the severe decay that is undeniably afflicting America’s social and physical fabric.
Edit: My apologies to those who may have wished to leave reasonable and informed comments; I got tired of being notified of comments that were rude and stupid, and there are already plenty of comments in the thread that disagree with my point of view.
Edit 2: There appears to be evidence that it was uninsulated overhead powerlines, such as the ones in my photo, which led to the fires in Maui, which killed hundreds of people.
He himself was a salesman at our local Ford dealership back in the 1960’s. He was a good and honest man. Around 1967 he had several customers reject the deals he was making with them and instead buy cars from another dealership about an hour away, in Amarillo, thinking that they were getting a much better deal. However what was really happening was that other dealership was quoting them a lower initial purchase price but “making it up” with their financing interest rates. Several times, when they came back and talked with my uncle to tell him that they’d “beat his price”, he showed them how they were going to end up paying a lot more for their purchase than they would have with him once all the finance costs were considered, and they got angry about how they’d been tricked, but of course then it was too late.
So, one day he made a trip to Amarillo to that other dealership and posed as something of a ‘rube’ customer. He started trying to make a deal on a new 1967 Ford Mustang coupe, 289 V8, 3-speed manual. Ford called the color “Dusk Rose” but to look at it, it was obviously “Pepto Bismol pink”. He played the usual games with the salesman, going back and forth “to check with his manager” and all that. (As an aside here, if you’ve ever wondered if sales offices are bugged so that they can hear the private conversations that happen while they’re out of the room, you can stop wondering now. They are. What they’re actually doing when they go “talk to their manager” is running a credit check on you to find out if you’re “worth their time” and listening in. They like nothing more than to have a couple in their office and hear that one of them “is in love with” the car they’re considering. They know they’ve won at that point.)
Anyway, my uncle took advantage of all that back and forth, took advantage of what he knew was the actual dealer cost of the car, took advantage of the bug, “talked to himself” while the salesman was gone about how much he liked the car and hoped he could get a good price, and kept at it until the salesman offered to sell him the car at a price that my uncle knew was hundreds less than what the car had actually cost the dealer. The salesman wrote down the deal, and my Uncle Bill reached over and snagged the paper.
Salesman, as he reached into a desk drawer to get the finance agreement forms: “Mr. Garrett? How much would you like to pay down on this car today?”
Uncle Bill: “Oh, I’ll just pay the full price in cash. Right now. No trade in.”
Salesman, now flustered and getting angry: “But you kept haggling about price and wanting it lower!”
Uncle Bill: “I never said I couldn’t afford it, I just said I didn’t want to pay that much.”
The salesman, and the dealership, were so mad at him that they practically threw the keys at him and refused even to wash the car for him prior to delivery. Uncle Bill paid for it and drove it home.
Back then, in our small town, everyone knew “the pink Mustang” and thought it was funny/ugly. Turns out, that Dusk Rose color was very rare and only a very few of them were built (gee I wonder why?) – but documented originals are quite valuable now.
I miss him.
Leaked CIA Documents REVEALED China Has Powerful SPACE WEAPONS
The Chinese Space Program has often found itself at the centre of allegations and accusations, primarily originating from the United States. More recently, the international community was stirred by the disclosure of a classified document, which brought to light China’s formidable space capabilities, notably featuring a device that can be referred to as a ‘satellite hijacker’—an asset reportedly within China’s grasp. Today’s episode will cover a leaked CIA documents contents and a potential arms race in space.
Im an African American male, okay? I come from the DEPTHS of the hood. In the hood, we don’t eat this. In my culture, we don’t eat this.
Well when I graduated college, I moved to Austin Texas. I have a Caucasian wife, okay? She always talked about this. Her family talked about it and even random people. I was like ummm how good can this be because it sounds pretty gross.
One night, 8 years ago, we made it for dinner. And just know that 8 years later, im still dipping my grill cheese in tomato soup at least 4 times a month.
My grandmother, who is now 96, marched out of Auschwitz in broad daylight after taking off her striped uniform and changing into normal clothes.
A Polish friend who worked in the camp as a secretary and wasn’t corrupted by the racist propaganda had risked her own life to bring her the outfit.
Out she walked, past guards with rifles, attack dogs, and hatred so intense it would make your skin crawl with fear.
Her parents, and almost all living relatives, weren’t as fortunate.
The rest of the war, she spent in hiding.
“At that time,” she explained to me during a recent visit, “we couldn’t set goals, let alone pursue them. We were deprived of our agency, of freedom.”
That’s why she always encouraged me to go as far as possible in life.
Because the highest form of freedom— the ability to actualize your dreams, to create a life of meaning, purpose, and wellbeing—is not something to be taken lightly.
Whatever you choose to do with yours, never forget that it’s a gift of the greatest magnitude.
Parents Took $120k Loan On My Name To Fund Spoiled Sister Studies & Claimed It’s My Responsibility
His family STOLE HIS money. They needed to pay it back.
Pro-Israel Propaganda Is Stupid
It is somewhat amazing how low the quality of western propaganda has become. Especially when it relates to hobbyhorses like Israel.
Here is NBCnews testing not only the stupidity of its viewers and readers but also demonstrating the fatuity of its ‘journalists’.
Documents exclusively obtained by NBC News show that Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa’ad, to “kill as many people as possible,” seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip.
The attack plans, which are labeled “top secret” in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather. Israeli authorities are still determining the death toll in Kfar Sa’ad.
The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with NBC News. They include detailed maps and show that Hamas intended to kill or take hostage civilians and school children.
One page labeled “Top Secret” outlines a plan of attack for Kfar Sa’ad, saying “Combat unit 1” is directed to “contain the new Da’at school,” while “Combat unit 2” is to “collect hostages,” “search the Bnei Akiva youth center” and “search the old Da’at school.”
The attack happened in the early hours of October 7, a Saturday.
What do Zionist children do on a Sabbath, before dawn? Are they sitting in school? Do they visit a youth center?
If Hamas terrorists maneuvered around schools to kill children they came at the wrong time and the wrong day.
At least to me that does not seem to be the most plausible explanation for their carefully planned operation.
The Israeli army is going all in. The plan is to push all people in Gaza into the desert of Sinai:
“This is thought out… There is a huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai desert, just on the other side of Gaza. … The idea is for them to leave over for the open areas where we, and the international community, will prepare the infrastructure, ten cities, with food and water… just like for the refugees of Syria that fled the butchering of Asad…. There is a way to receive them all on the other side for temporary time on [sic.] Sinai… and Egypt will have to play ball.”
That is from an ex-deputy foreign minister of Israel. If he says “for temporary time” he likely means centuries.
There are clashes in the West Bank where Israel is trying to incite a third intifada. Some 43 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank over the last six days. Nine of them during the last 24 hours. There are also clashes and artillery exchanges along the boarder with Lebanon.
Posted by b on October 14, 2023 at 13:39 UTC | Permalink
Girls Standing In The Middle of Tokyo to Sell Themselves.. Japan Has A Serious Developing Problem.
Why are so many young women in Japan recently “standing” in the middle of Tokyo? We find the answer to this question through the story of Yuka in this video, and the important message of takeaway in which this alarming phenomenon has for all of us, when visiting, or considering any social issues regarding Japan.
https://youtu.be/yo3IUSfTiMY
The Split In Israel And The War Of Al-Aqsa
What is the reason for the ‘Al-Aqsa Deluge’, as Hamas had named its terror operation against the Zionists?
On October 8 Alastair Crooke, one of most experienced Middle East hands, wrote in AlMahadeen:
“Israel” has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of “Israel’s” future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish.
The fissure could not be more complete. Except it is. One faction, which holds a majority in parliament, is broadly Mizrahi — a former underclass in Israeli society; and the other, largely well-to-do liberal Ashkenazi.
Mizrahi are mostly the original Middle Eastern Jews and often on the religious far right, Ashkenazi are mostly liberal European ones. The current Netanyahoo government is the first which includes far-right Mizrahi ministers.
Most Mizrahi follow the Sephardi religious rites. They want an religious state based on Jewish law. They are as radial as ISIS.
The high court of Israel has 14 Ashkenazi judges and one Mizrahi one. It is one of the reasons why the Netanyahoo government wants the parliament to be able to vote down high court judgements. There have been large, U.S. sponsored ‘regime change’ protests in Israel against that move. The leaders of the military and security services, mostly Ashkenazi, have also opposed the government move against the court.
I therefore think that it is quite possible that there was intelligence pointing to the Hamas attack, but that it was not revealed to let Netanyahoo fall into a trap. We have however no evidence that there were reasonably precise intelligence warnings, or that they were held up.
There are already demands for Netanyahoo to go. If only for his long term sponsoring of Hamas as a counterweight to the more secular Fatah Palestinians. Should he no longer be prime minister the courts will take up the three bribe cases against him which are currently pending. He would likely end up in jail.
Another reason for Hamas’ success was the fact that three of the four infantry battalions, with 800 soldiers each, that usually guard the Gaza strip, had been moved to the West Bank to protect right-wing Zionist settlers during a religious holiday. This allowed for Hamas’ easy breach of the fence.
Well, the Right in Netanyahu’s government has two long-standing commitments. One is to rebuild the (Jewish) Temple on ‘Temple Mount’ (Haram al-Shariff).
Just to be clear, that would entail demolishing Al-Aqsa.
The second overriding commitment is to the founding of “Israel”, on the “Land of Israel”. And again, to be clear, this (in their view) would entail clearing Palestinians from the West Bank. Indeed, the settlers have been cleansing Palestinians from swaths of the West Bank over the past year (notably between Ramallah and Jericho).
On Thursday morning (two days preceding Al-Aqsa Flood), more than 800 settlers stormed the Mosque Compound, under the full protection of Israeli forces. The drumbeat of such provocations is rising.
This is nothing new. The First Intifada was triggered by (then) PM Sharon making a provocative visit into the mosque. I was a part of Senator George Mitchell’s Presidential Committee investigating that incident. Even then, it was clear that Sharon intended the visit to fuel the fire of religious nationalism. At that time, the Temple Mount Movement was a minnow; today it has ministers in Cabinet and in key security positions — and has promised its followers to build the ‘Third Temple’.
So, the threat to Al-Aqsa has been building for two decades, and today is reaching an apex. And yet US and Israeli intelligence didn’t see resistance coming, and nor did they see the settler violence building in the West Bank?
What happened on Saturday was widely expected and clearly extensively planned.
There is by the way no archaeologic evidence, none, that a Jewish ‘Temple’ ever existed in Jerusalem. If it did, it was most likely not on the hill of Al-Aqsa but one of the six other ones.
Al-Aqsa is holy to all Muslims, Shia and Sunni alike. Its destruction would inevitably lead to war. The West is clearly underestimating what forces calls like this one can rise:
Friday sermon from the Grand Mosque in Mecca prays for the “liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem.
This is significant for two reasons: • Audience of 2 billion Muslims. • Such sermons have been significantly censored under MBS. Today’s sermon was likely pre-approved. Video
Israel has used White Phosphorus on the people in Gaza, another war crime. Israel has given all people in north Gaza, 1.1 million human beings, 24 hours to move to south Gaza. That is impossible and will not happen. It is an attempt of ethnic cleansing.
If there were two million Jewish people trapped by Christians in a giant open-air prison and placed under total siege, being told that half of them had 24 hours to relocate into the other half or be killed, nobody would have any confusion about what they were witnessing.
If Israel makes, as announced, a ground attack on Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon is likely to attack Israel. The U.S. has allegedly let Syria know (via France) that Damascus, and President Assad personally, would be attacked if that were to happen. This is a miscalculation. It is far from certain that Assad, or even Iran, has the means to hold Hizbullah back.
A U.S. attack on the government of Syria would bring Russia into the war. Iran would also respond which is exactly what some of the neocons want.
The war could easily escalate further from there.
Posted by b on October 13, 2023 at 15:46 UTC | Permalink
Originally Answered: What would happen if a high ranking Admiral or General visited a Military base without telling anyone first and didn’t like how things were being done there?
Admiral Rickover no-notice visited a nuclear boat in civilian clothing, was admitted, and began touring the boat. As he approached the reactor room a second class (E-5) stopped him from entering.
When the Admiral went to push past the man, he picked up a very large wrench and offered to split the Admiral’s head open.
Later 0, during a post-tour discussion, the Admiral asked the sailor if he recognized him (the Father of the Nuclear Navy) and if so, why the young sailor wouldn’t let the Admiral enter the reactor room.
The sailor said “Because, sir, you didn’t have the boat’s Reactor Room badge. No one comes into my reactor room without the proper pass, not even you.”
The next day the young man was spot promoted to E-6.
I was told this story by a roommate that was an MS1 (cook) on the boat at the time.
The key sentences in the Analects are:子罕： 無意無必無固無我：Have no preconceptions, do not insist on a certain course of action, don’t be obstinate, keep your ego out of things. The other one is: 里仁：君子之於天下也無適也無莫也義之與比：There is nothing in the world you have to be for, there is nothing in the world you have to be against; the only standard is what is appropriate for the situation at hand.
These were balanced by 禮 cultural standards. You should maintain a balance between 智仁勇 thinking, feeling (kindness), and courage. In all matters, 中庸 keep a balance, don’t go off far ends, never become an extremist.
In a nutshell, that’s it. I could go on for days, but that gives you the key points.
A large group of Russian soldiers in the border area in 1939 are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a small hill:
“One Finnish soldier is better than ten Russian”.
The Russian commander quickly orders 10 of his best men over the hill where a gun battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence.
The voice once again calls out: “One Finn is better than one hundred Russian.”
Furious, the Russian commander sends his next best 100 troops over the hill, and instantly a huge gunfight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again Silence.
The calm Finnish voice calls out again: “One Finn is better than one thousand Russians!”
The enraged Russian commander musters 1000 fighters and sends them to the other side of the hill.
Rifle fire, machine guns, grenades, rockets, and cannon fire ring out as a terrible battle is fought…
Then silence.
Eventually, one badly wounded Russian fighter crawls back over the hill and with his dying words tells his commander:
“Don’t send any more men… it’s a trap. There’s two of them!
Pay no attention to criticism or to authors of lies. They wouldn’t be doing it if you hadn’t created something to make them jealous.
When people troll you, this means that you’re important. Pretend that you’re depressed, but smile inwardly because deep inside, you know that you’re somebody significant.
Have a good reason to put a smile on your face. Even when you’re hungry or broke, that’s not a good reason to frown, for you never know when your help is arriving.
Happiness can be faked. This is probably a good thing for your health because your subconscious mind can’t tell the difference.
You can probably tell who your best friends are since they’ll not be easy to find. However, you can easily tell who your fake friends are since they’ll bring themselves to you.
It’s important to connect with as many friends as possible, but the most important way to have inner peace is to connect with yourself.
Whatever happens in your life, try to remain as calm as possible, despite all that’s going on around you.
People who can control their emotions are stronger than fortresses. Most of the problems that take away our inner peace come from reacting to situations we shouldn’t react to.
Don’t look for internal peace externally, where everybody is looking. To have peace, you have to look for someone who already has it. Unfortunately, most people don’t have inner peace, so you must change your focus to rely on your internal resources.
Despite all the noise, there’s still a central place where you can find peace. The heart is a central place where you can find almost anything that needs to be found.
You will never have peace watching the daily news, for it is the bad news that sells for TV stations and makes a slave to negative news. A person who watches much TV will always wake up with a headache, hangover, or depression.
Happiness is the secret to inner peace. Avoid people or situations that deprive you of happiness.
Nothing is as infectious as a good laughter, yet most people want to look depressed for no particular reason. Why don’t you lock yourself in a room and laugh even when there’s no particular reason to laugh?
Whatever situation you find yourself in, there’s no good reason to lose hope. Hope is like advance payment on something valuable you’re eagerly awaiting.
In most cases, you have innate peace inside of you, but other people come and take it away through discouragement, bad news, and idle talk because they don’t have peace in the first place and they don’t feel comfortable when you have it.
When people tell you something negative, the best thing to do is to remain calm. Try to assess it, and if it doesn’t make sense ignore it. The worst thing you can do is to react to it, but the best thing you can do is to avoid negative people.
Inner peace is more valuable than all the peace in the world, because when you have it, you can think more clearly and know how to react to situations and problems.
The natural inclination for humans is to dominate and control others. Know that if you’re a person given to this instinct, you’re courting misery, unhappiness, and grief, for the same people you seek to control, will turn upon you and tear you apart, the moment they realize you’re also human.
The number one killer for peace of mind is when you lose sleep as a result of another person “getting there” quicker than you. No two people are the same. No two people have the same abilities, and no two people think the same way. Don’t feel jealous because someone else is succeeding where you failed. Instead, be happy for them and your own success will arrive faster than you think.
The number two killer for peace of mind is anger. Anger is like a tornado, destroying everything in it’s wake including you and your loved ones.
Pay attention to what you eat. Neurochemicals in the brain that control mood, peace of mind, love, happiness, anger, and other factors, depend on the kind of food you eat, your particular environment, and the people you live with. Changing any or all of these factors, can greatly boost your inner peace that you didn’t believe existed.
There’s a reason why people take a break. Although worrying your head off won’t solve any problem, you might find it reasonable to find a solitary place where you can spend time alone. Enjoying solitude, meditation, and prayer, especially where there’s a body of water like the sea, river, or lake, are great ways to get away from people and all the noise, mobile phones, internet, social media, and rejuvenate your life. Find time to connect with your soul, and understand better what’s ailing you.
The phrase that “music heals your soul” can’t be more true. I’d say that making music your close companion is a great way to relax, whether you’re depressed or not. Music relaxes the mind and body, soothes the nerves, recovers your lost energy and focus, and immunizes you from the stresses of life.
DID YOUTUBE SABOTAGE US? WHY IM CLOSING MY 808,000 SUBSCRIBER CHANNEL
A Turkish artilleryman lifts a 215 kilogram shell singlehanded for loading in a cannon. Corporal Seyit (Seyit Onbasi) is famous for having carried three 215 kg shells to an artillery gun during the Allied attempt to force the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. Born in a village of Havran, he enlisted into the army in April 1909. After serving in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 he was transferred to the forts defending the Mediterranean entrance to the Dardanelles. Following the heavy naval bombardment of the forts guarding the Narrows on March 18, 1915, the gun he was serving in the Mecidiye fort remained operational but its shell crane had been damaged. Seyit carried three 215 kg artillery shells up to the gun enabling it to continue firing on the attacking Allied fleet. One of the shells reputedly hit the British pre-dreadnought HMS Ocean, most probably contributing greatly to the repulse of the Allied naval assault.
After that Seyid was promoted to corporal and publicised as an iconic Turkish hero. He was discharged in 1918 and became a forester and later coal-miner. He took the surname Çabuk in 1934 with the passing of the Surname Law. He died of a lung disease in 1939. A statue of him carrying a shell was erected in 1992, just south of Kilitbahir Castle on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Edit: There are some skeptics who think that this story might have been invented for propaganda reasons. First of all, the Ottomans were not as sophisticated as the Allies or the USA regrading propaganda strategies. When it comes to propaganda, misinformation and psychological tactics for manipulating the masses, the Western countries are way ahead of the Turks. Secondly, the only eye witnesses were the few soldiers operating the gun. Nevertheless, according to military records, the crane of the canon was broken and the rounds fired. The battleship Ocean was hit by a cannon shell exactly at a position where it was facing this particular fort. (The picture was shot after the war, to imitate the moment.)
“What’s happening In the Middle East is Shocking…”
You see, when Trump imposed the Huawei Ban, China and Chinese entities were very concerned that they would be next
Thus they began stockpiling massive quantities of Chips & Semiconductor equipment
From 2020–2022 , China kept on buying Chips from the world though it’s demand thanks to the lockdown was down by almost 45%
That’s a huge chunk of chips purchased and equipment purchased between 2020–2022 when the total demand was far lesser both within China and outside China
Hence China has a Supply Glut of Chips & Semiconductor Equipment
This surplus has to be first utilized for China to begin placing orders again
Meanwhile China is also developing it’s own industry in Chips and Semiconductors
Thus the fall in imports is unlikely to be ever reversed
Imagine you’re the unlucky bastard who gets to be positioned behind the machine gun. While most of your brothers in arms have died long ago from climbing out of the trench, you remain shackled in place to provide them supporting fire, watching them each die in the process. What was once your childhood friend Richard presently sits motionless forty paces before you, in the middle of no mans land, tangled in a mess of barbed wire. The flies have largely left him alone by now.
At the same time, you get to fire endlessly at young men your age, of a different uniform, charging blindly towards you. You used to scream at the top of your lungs for them to turn back, to stop running forward. You stopped trying a few hundred kills back.
You’ve witnessed technological marvels unlike anything else you’ve ever seen before. Airplanes. Flamethrowers. Automobiles and tanks. And yet, just a few days ago, you saw your friends beat down an enemy using a primitive spike-covered club, like a caveman might.
Over the permanent ringing in your ears you gained from endless rounds fired and near misses of enemy grenades, you hear a corny, empty song of patriotism for the fourteenth time that day off of a distant gramophone. It’s words cruelly mock you anymore.
You’re covered in fine layers of semi-dried mud, thrown up in your face from a distant artillery hit. It’s the cleanest substance presently adorning your person. Your boots and wraps are wet from the blood, urine, and vomit. Some of it is your own. You can almost remember the last time you took a bath.
The cloth near your ankles has been shredded from the rats, who grow more brazen and hungry every day. The last one you saw was the size of an opossum, and took a nasty bite out of your left leg. Bartholomew, the man who helps feed bullets to your iron beast, stabbed it with his bayonet and tossed it in the pile: the sixteenth one he had killed that day alone.
Your nose has grown numb to the overwhelming odor. The winter season approaches, and everything’s become colder. All your aches and pains hurt more with the cold. Until now, things have been relatively dry, which means you have yet to drown in your own trench from the rainfall.
The sound of a shell impacting the ground crosses the land. The color of the air begins to turn a funny color again. You quietly put on your gas mask and hunch over your weapon. You first heard that this war would be over before Christmas. You then heard that this would be the war to end all wars. You now wonder if this war would ever end, or if it’d merely become the introductory section to the new era: the era of modern warfare.
Well, to start with, nobody in the world actually wants social justice.
There. I said it.
Okay, lots of people sincerely believe they want social justice; the people who say they want it aren’t lying, exactly. It’s way more complicated than that, and a lot happens between “I’d like to live in a just world” and “I am going to work to make a just world happen.”
Buckle up, this answer is gonna get loooooong.
Let’s start here: The real world is complicated. Really, really complicated. You might think getting your scanner/printer to work with Windows is complicated, but that’s peanuts compared to socioeconomic and geopolitical reality.
And people, even smart people, handle complexity poorly.
Topical case in point: What’s happening in Israel and Gaza right now.
If you want to understand what’s happening, you need to know quite a lot of history from the 1940s on. There’s a lot of “there” there: the Israeli offer, turned down by the Arabic population; the reasons Egypt and Jordan closed their borders to the Palestinians; the history of Hamas, which is both a terrorist organization and also a government (and before that, the Muslim Brotherhood); the way Egypt has deliberately played the Gaza refugees as political pawns…it’s complicated and ugly and no side has totally clean hands, but even understanding where the balance lies requires a pretty thorough history lesson…
…and oh God that’s, like, sooooooo complicated, whyyyyyyy can’t someone just tell me who the good guys are and who the bad guys are?
That’s the thing: a lot of people want to treat actual, real-world political situations like football matches or WWF wrestling, with a clearly defined good guy and a clearly defined bad guy, so they know who they’re supposed to root for.
Even people who start out genuinely, sincerely interested in social justice can easily get bogged down.
That’s the heartbreaking thing about, you know, empathy and compassion. When you sincerely want to leave the world in better shape than you found it, you soon find yourself fighting an uphill battle. Injustice doesn’t exist because someone woke up one day and said “Hey! You know what? I think I’ll be a dick to other people today!”
Injustice exists because entrenched economic, social, and political systems with roots thousands of years deep have entrenched ways of doing things because the people atop those systems benefit from doing things that way.
Fighting against that is hard. It grinds you down. However energetic and idealistic you were when you started, it pulverizes you.
Nobody has infinite time. Nobody has infinite energy.
Which is fine, except that most people want to believe themselves to be one of the good guys, on the side of Truth and Righteousness and Justice, even when we don’t want to—or can’t!—do the work of getting there. It’s not enough to say “You know what? I’m not informed enough about this to have a reasonable opinion.” Oh, no, no, we want to take sides but we don’t want to invest the time or labor in making sure we pick the right side.
We just want to know who to blame.
Knowing who the bad guy is helps define us as the good guy. If we’re against the bad guy, that makes us good, right? Right?
So what do we do?
We develop heuristics. Cognitive shortcuts. Quick and dirty rules of thumb to simplify complex situations and help guide them toward the ‘right’ team to root for. These fast and easy heuristics, at least in theory, cut through all the tedious drek of having to learn all that history and become informed of the goals and grievances of all the players and untangle a knotty and nuanced tangle that’s been all balled up for decades.
But here’s the thing:
Heuristics are not subtle. They’re fast intuitive guidelines that substitute for actual understanding. They feel right, but that doesn’t mean they are right.
Those heuristics—“believe women,” “always side with the most historically oppressed,” whatever they are—gradually become rules, then social tribal markers, then symbols of moral purity. Heuristics become adopted by tribes as ways to tell the in-group from the out-group. If you see a hashtag like #believewomen, you can probably make a pretty good guess about the politics of the person who subscribes to it.
Before long, it actually becomes morally wrong not to obey the heuristics.
Enforcing moral purity becomes a way to feel powerful, to feel like you’re accomplishing something, in the face of the overwhelming hopelessness and despair that comes from fighting an entrenched system day after day and ending each day with nothing to show for it.
What it feels like to care about justice
Say your crusade is animal welfare, for example. You’ve fought for years and what do you have to show for it? There are even more factory farms now than when you started. Consumption of animals is up, not down.
But then let’s say Bob, your staunch and stalwart ally, your comrade in arms, reveals that he’s not a vegan…he thinks it’s okay to eat fish. And…and…and eggs. And he wears leather belts.
You can’t end factory farming, you can’t stop the senseless slaughter of animals…but hey, you can rally the troops against Bob, because he betrayed the cause! You can destroyed his reputation and cast him out! Look! Look! You accomplished something!
This is inevitably what happens in social justice circles. We end up here because:
People want a morality simple enough to fit in a hashtag; and
Any morality simple enough to fit in a hashtag cannot capture reality, and therefore is rather limited as a tool to change reality.
People tend to think of “social justice” as a left thing, but this process knows no political bounds. Those on the right do it just as often—they simply don’t call it “social justice.”
But the same things still apply: they have a way they want the world to be; changing the world requires tremendous amounts of effort and work; people don’t have limitless resources; they fall back on simple rules to tell them who the good guys and bad guys are; those eimple rules become tribal markers; before long, it becomes morally unacceptable even to question those simple rules.
We see the world not at it is but as we are. We invent narratives to describe the world, and to tell us who the good guys are, and who we should be in order to think of ourselves as good. Anyone who can co-opt those narratives can control the lines between Us and Them, the boundaries that define our tribes.
So here we are. We’re terrible at nuance, we don’t have tome to get informed, so we let the hashtag mentality do the work for us.
The UK colonized many nations to procure the raw materials to fuel it’s empire worldwide
They enjoyed 80% of the cream and barely gave 20% to the Colonized Nations, of which 15% was taken back vide Taxes and Protection and payment for British Troops
Chinas BRI is a modified version of the same thing UK used to do but a fairer economic sharing platform
China gets Raw materials worldwide through the BRI to fuel it’s mammoth economy and production machine
However instead of the unfair British division, China enjoys maybe 60% of the cream and ensures 40% to the BRI Nations of which maybe 20% is taken back vide Infrastructure projects, Power Projects etc
This while Britain gave only 5% of the Cream to the Colonies, China gives 20%
And while Britain paid most of the Cream to Corpulent Rajahs and Maharajahs, China spends a lot on building Schools and Roads and Bridges
Plus China also uses BRI Countries to outsource it’s low grade manufacturing
Hence BRI is essentially a ‘You help me fuel myself and i help you grow’ mode of economics
Here are some stats from Chinas forum in 2023:-
China sources 66% Rare Earths vide the BRI and controls the Production
China controls between 30–45% of the Tungsten, Nickel, Copper and Mercury vide the BRI
China sources Wheat, Soybeans, Pork, Beef and Eggs vide the BRI
China supplies Chemicals, Machinery, Low Cost Goods, Medium Cost Goods, Textiles and Semi finished goods vide the BRI to various nations. Almost 70% of the supply of these come from China including Paper & Ink
Chinas Energy needs from Enriched Uranium, Uranium Ore, Oil, Gas come vide the BRI at an average discount of 31% from World market prices. Thus outside of interest, China saves at least $ 70 Billion a year on market prices
Thus Chinas BRI is definitely not a Utopian Charity
It is a business arrangement where Chinese win big time with supplies, raw materials, chance to invest their money and prevent accumulation & gain soft power
Yet the BRI nations in return get money from sales of goods plus a lot of modernization at minimum cost (China averages $ 2.19 Million per Mile against $ 17 Million for the US)
Its the best deal for BRI nations today if they want to grow
Best example is Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam which have all seen a CAGR of around 12.2% a year with the BRI over the past 10 year
26 out of 50 African Nations show a CAGR of 6% or more with BRI
Why Is Another Young American Woman Arrested And Jailed In Dubai ? A Critical Review.
Right now, there are at least 4 potential trigger points. Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, North Korea, and China. Any of these could flare up because of an accident or false narrative. WW2 had the Japanese taking a risk by attacking Pearl Harbor, but that was being fought by China much earlier than that. Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin false narrative by the US accusing Vietnam of attacking its destroyer. We stayed for 10 years and lost. Iraq was the infamous WMD that proved a false narrative by the US. Afghanistan was the witch hunt for Ben Laden that took 10 years and we stayed for 10 more years only to leave ignominiously. Ukraine is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia because the west continued to move east with NATO. All had reasons for the start of a conflict that potentially could have become much wider, most because of a false narrative by the US, leading one to suspect the US wanted a conflict.
Texas Beef Brisket
2023 10 19 08 47
Ingredients
4 pounds beef brisket
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 bay leaf, crushed
1 (10 ounce) can beef broth
Instructions
Make a dry rub by combining chili powder, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, sugar, dry mustard and crushed bay leaf.
Season the raw brisket on both sides with the rub.
Place in roasting pan and roast, uncovered, for one hour at 350 degrees F.
Add the beef broth and enough water to make 1/2 inch liquid in roasting pan. Lower oven to 300 degrees F, cover pan tightly and continue cooking for 3 hours or until fork tender.
Trim the fat and slice meat thinly across the grain.
They see as a western nation hypocrisy. Screaming human rights but doing human wrongs. The see everything wrong about US and UK unilateral decisions. They decide to plant Jewish people in the middle if Arab land to do U.S. and western shit on Arabs and Muslim nations and the Palestinians must be happy about it.
The wonder why the people who truly own this land has to give it all up and agree to live as slaves and asylum seekers in their own lands. The Palestinians are the living in the world’s biggest open prison in a land they owned. Who the fxxk gives the US and UK to give something that don’t belong to them away!
The cannot understand why the west can be so foolish to think that Palestinian must be happy and contented in such a terrible outcome for them! Surely they ought to expect incidents like what happened if the Palestinians got a chance? Why do the west not expect that?
Blind? Foolish? Do they see Palestinian as sub humans? Like their African slaves? 4/5 of a human? Imagine instead of choosing Palestinian lands it choose Wales or Burgundy or Texas, will the people in these region accept their fate lying down? I doubt so.
I think they will do what Hitler does! Why do they think Palestinians must accept this fate!
Chinese people cannot understand why the west thinks it can get away with it. That is what the Chinese thinks! I think the Chinese is pragmatic and highly intelligent. They see an unworkable solution while the West thinks it can do what they wish!
Russia Signals The Unthinkable, U.S. Warns Iran, Oil Crisis Coming
Wing Dings
Wing Dings are a Texas specialty!
2023 10 28 12 37
Ingredients
1 cup beer
1/4 cup unsulphured dark molasses
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
Juice of 1 medium lime
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon aniseed, toasted and ground
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 dozen chicken wings
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease a large baking pan or dish.
Combine everything except the wings in a large, heavy pan. Simmer them over medium heat 15 to 20 minutes, until they have reduced to a thick sauce.
While the sauce simmers, prepare the chicken wings.
With a butcher knife, remove the wing tips, then cut each wing in half at the joint.
Add the wings to the sauce, and stir to coat them.
Ladle the wings and the sauce into the baking dish.
Bake for 25 minutes, then stir the wings in the sauce.
Turn the heat up to 425 degrees F and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until the sauce glazes the wings.
Serve the wings hot with Ranch dressing, if desired.
US-backed Terrorism Targets Vietnam & Myanmar in Wider War on China
Two terrorist attacks this month (June 2023) in Southeast Asia have been carried out by groups backed by the United States government and its allies for decades;
This includes a singer murdered in Myanmar and a series of armed attacks carried out on police stations in Vietnam killing 9 including several civilians;
British state media, the BBC, and US government-funded media platform Radio Free Asia have attempted to spin and even justify this terrorism as part of a much wider pattern promoting and defending terrorism as a means to counter China’s rise and punish nations working closely with China;
The opposition in Myanmar has openly been backed by the US and UK for decades – fighting to reinstall Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy back into power;
In Vietnam, the ethnic Montagnards had fought alongside US invaders in the Vietnam War, and since then have worked closely with the US through the National Endowment for Democracy toward separatism;
Much of this context is omitted from Western state-media accounts of the terrorism;
Both Myanmar and Vietnam’s current governments have close relations with China. Vietnam, while depicted in the Western media as “anti-China,” has worked with China to build infrastructure within its borders and access Chinese rail projects to bring their products all the way to Europe;
US Encircling of China Explained
The US claims that it is not seeking conflict with China – but a look at what the US is doing all along China’s peripheries reveals the US is already in a conflict with China and has been for decades.
The US pursues this conflict – admittedly – not out of national security concerns, but to preserve what it itself calls its “primacy” in the Indo-Pacific region.
China’s New Maglev, High Speed Rail, & What it Means for Belt & Road Partners
China has unveiled a 600kph maglev train that will eventually be used on lines connecting China’s major cities. It is part of the nation’s much larger high speed rail (HSR) network.
I discuss China’s HSR network, the foresight required to implement such an ambitious infrastructure drive, and how the West is trying to foil it both within China’s borders and beyond them as HSR lines begin moving outward as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Bully or Builder? China Finishes Vietnam’s First Metro Train
While the Western media attempts to convince the world China is “bullying” its neighbors in Asia, upon closer examination it is clear it is instead building projects with its neighbors.
This includes with Vietnam which does have a complicated relationship with Beijing – but has not let that get in the way of progress – including cooperation in building the country’s first metro train.
China’s Laos High-Speed Railway is Already Delivering
The Western media continues its attack on China depicting the nation as a global threat. However, what the West says about China and what China itself is doing are two entirely different stories.
The high-speed railway being built between Kunming, China and Bangkok, Thailand is a perfect example of how China is helping the rest of Asia rise with it. The only thing being threatened by China and Asia’s rise is the West’s unwarranted influence over the rest of the globe.
Inflection EP20: China Builds Up ASEAN, the US Bullies it…
While the Western media insists China is a threat to global peace and prosperity, an objective look at China’s role in ASEAN development versus US coercion, political sedition, and even proxy conflict reveals the true threat to both Asia and the rest of the world.
Inflection is a weekly show featuring Angelo Giuliano and Brian Berletic, discussing recent headlines and in-depth discussion of topics shaping the shift from West to East and unipolarism to multipolarism.
Inflection EP23: As China Rises, Southeast Asia Rises
The US is obsessed with containing the rise of China. But China is not rising on its own. With its rise, all of Asia is rising with it.
The notion of the globe’s center of power shifting from West to East is at the heart of Washington, Wall Street, London, and Brussel’s growing desperation and aggression toward China – the engine of Asia’s rise.
Inflection is a weekly show featuring Angelo Giuliano and Brian Berletic, discussing recent headlines and in-depth discussion of topics shaping the shift from West to East and unipolarism to multipolarism.
The US Just Did Something CRAZY!
Biblical collapse coming to the West.
REFLECTION
“My parents were married for 55 years. One morning, my mom was going downstairs to make dad breakfast, she had a heart attack and fell. My father picked her up as best he could and almost dragged her into the truck. At full speed , without respecting traffic lights, he drove her to the hospital.
When he arrived, unfortunately she was no longer with us.
During the funeral, my father did not speak; his gaze was lost. He hardly cried.
That night, his children joined him. In an atmosphere of pain and nostalgia, we remembered beautiful anecdotes and he asked my brother, a theologian, to tell him where Mom would be at that moment. My brother began to talk about life after death, and guesses as to how and where she would be.
My father listened carefully. Suddenly he asked us to take him to the cemetery.
Dad!” we replied, “it’s 11 at night, we can’t go to the cemetery right now!”
He raised his voice, and with a glazed look he said:
“Don’t argue with me, please don’t argue with the man who just lost his wife of 55 years.”
There was a moment of respectful silence, we didn’t argue anymore. We went to the cemetery, we asked the night watchman for permission. With a flashlight we reached the tomb. My father caressed her, prayed and told his children, who watched the scene moved:
“It was 55 years… you know? No one can talk about true love if they have no idea what it’s like to share life with a woman.”
He paused and wiped his face. “She and I, we were together in that crisis. I changed jobs …” he continued. “We packed up when we sold the house and moved out of town. We shared the joy of seeing our children finish their careers, we mourned the departure of loved ones side by side, we prayed together in the waiting room of some hospitals, we support each other in pain, we hug each Christmas, and we forgive our mistakes… Children, now it’s gone, and I’m happy, do you know why?
Because she left before me. She didn’t have to go through the agony and pain of burying me, of being left alone after my departure. I will be the one to go through that, and I thank God. I love her so much that I wouldn’t have liked her to suffer…”
When my father finished speaking, my brothers and I had tears streaming down our faces. We hugged him, and he comforted us, “It’s okay, we can go home, it’s been a good day.”
That night I understood what true love is; It is far from romanticism, it does not have much to do with eroticism, or with sex, rather it is linked to work, to complement, to care and, above all, to the true love that two really committed people profess “.
Peace in your hearts.
You Won’t Believe What Ugandan Women Think About Black Americans
My African sisters looking beautiful and sounding intelligent. On another note, most human beings are unique so lumping a group of people into a stereotype isn’t always advantageous.
One day, Saskatchewan farmer Cecil George Harris was out in his field when his tractor got stuck. Unfortunately, while trying to extricate it, he got trapped beneath one of the tractor’s large wheels.
He wasn’t found for nine hours, by which time he was near death even though he was still conscious. He was taken to the hospital, but he died two days later.
The question was, how should his estate be handled. He had never gone to a lawyer to prepare a will.
But while lying there, trapped and knowing he was going to die, he had the foresight to scratch something into the fender of his tractor with his penknife.
In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife, Cecil Geo. Harris.
The fender was entered into evidence in the probate court as a holograph (handwritten) will. It was approved for probate. The fender was stored for years in the county’s courthouse and instead of going to the archives it was sent to the University of Saskatchewan Law School for safekeeping, where it now appears.
Treat someone who’s never been treated well as a genuine human.
This Spring I had a few moments in New York City, and a bit of spare cash. Nothing too large that’ll make a difference, but an amount that could buy a meal at Halal Guys.
I saw a man having his head in his palms, sunken with the weight of the world around him. What most people never ever have to experience is having a social net you thought existed fall below you, and then continue falling in life without having a single moment to grasp or gain your balance. Things like this can really screw with any mental problems that may never have existed, and also create anxiety that comes with the insecurity of the most basic human support.
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Out of respect, I didn’t take Jake’s photo, but he looked like this
“Hi sir, what’s your name?” I asked him. He replied Jake, and whether I had any spare change.
I told him, “How about this. Let me get you something nice to eat. You must be cold out here by yourself, right? Does that sound good to you?” One thing I remember was how a lot of homeless people never eat food given to them as they don’t know if someone tapered it or poisoned it, which is a real concern.
“Bless you, sir. That’ll be amazing, thank you.” He replied
We went to Halal Guys and I learned that he was in the military, but he fell upon some hard times. He used to work as a mechanic of sorts but lost it all in a divorce and “money mismanagement”. He didn’t have a family to really go back to so tried to find work in New York but couldn’t and ended up on the street. He told me he was planning to leave soon, and I kept on listening to what he was saying.
I think the look on his face as I got him chicken over rice was something that I rarely see in people, which is a form of gratitude you can never express unless someone lends you a hand as you fall through every social net.
I told him I had to catch a train, but he shook my hand and kept saying “God took you to me, sir. Bless you, bless you.”
Now, regardless of whether his story was true, it doesn’t really matter. I knew this man had to fight off his own demons.
There’s a word in Russian called umilinie (умиление) which roughly translates to “tenderness”. My professor once called the tenderness “melting of the heart”, and that’s what the other man felt at the moment.
I had given him one moment of peace as a human being, and that was all I cared about. When you treat someone well who usually doesn’t and give them some of your time, you’ll truly see someone’s heart melt from a moment of humanity.
Last Gasp of Western Hegemony
The US-NATO group are drowning in debt. The ability to wage war is limited by their debt. They have no military industrial capacity, just corruption. Russia and China are free of debt and have extreme advantage in any war.
As long as it is win win for China and for the U.S. China will sign a deal. But the U.S. cannot say you must buy what we like to sell you and you must sell everything we want at a dirt cheap prices and pay us in dollar!
The U.S. says your products cannot be spied on but we have a right to spy on each and every one of your phone!
The U.S. says when the U.S. introduce G1 to G4 you must trust us blindly but when China build G5 we must not only use your initiative but we will forced everyone else to stop using you too!
The U.S. says you must make all simple chip products and sell it to us as dirt cheap prices and we sell you cars and planes at astronomical prices and don’t you dare make these products!
To China this is wrong and unfair so it’s says go sell to one of your cronies. No thanks U.S.! China say over our dead body will we listen to you! China do what is good for China and the Chinese people. And it will always do so. If you don’t like it tough! Go bang your head against the wall!
The state of Virginia has a “Standards of Learning” end of grade testing, called SOL’s (yeah, that’s what I thought too).
Anyway, my nephew was taking the test (or a practice test that uses old questions) that asked what the Native Americans foraged for in the spring. The answer wasn’t there.
My sister happens to specialize in edible native plant of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My nephew not only knew what was growing in the spring in Virginia, but he could name them and find them in the wild.
His answer was counted wrong and the correct answer, according to the State of Virginia, was berries. My sister asked the school system to identify just one berry that ripens in Virginia in the spring. They couldn’t.
Edit: I was a CTE high school teacher for a little while (Career & Technical Education) and I certainly got things wrong. Everyone does. But I would share the correct answer, apologize if I felt it necessary, and if it was something graded, I would change the grade. I also rarely used a textbook with the exception of specific practice sessions.
As a CTE teacher, I had much more autonomy than math, science or English. They were strictly controlled. Our department was lucky but the state was slowly tightening down on our classes too.
The SOL test wasn’t graded by a teacher or even the school. It was strictly controlled by the state. Each question has to go through a review process and be approved and the grading isn’t subject to revision by the local school.
There are four things that can be regarded negative , as part of the feelings by the people of China
#1 Blaming the Lockdowns – Many Mainlanders especially in the Big 4 Cities blame the lockdowns, kind of like Indians blaming Demonetization. The impact of the Lockdowns was maybe 10% of the Impact of demonetization but China is such a rich and prosperous country now that the slightest slowdown annoys the hell out of the people
#2 Cautious to Invest – Gold & Jade Investments in China have piled up almost by 41% in the last 3 years by Individuals. That’s because Chinese Mainlanders are not having many areas of investment and it’s either Gold Or Banks. They don’t seem to trust the share market and the real estate market is in a glut. Thus China has almost $ 16-18 Trillion in Savings against $ 4.82 Trillion that the US has
Chinese Individuals thus need more Venture Capitalists and Technology Investments to invest their funds in
#3 Generation Gap – The Gen Z of China work smart rather than hard. The policies of Chinese companies still mirror those of the 2000s which focus on time rather than value of work. Rather than the TARGET ORIENTED approach, the approach is TIME ORIENTED meaning working 54 hours a week seems more important than meeting performance targets
The Gen Z feel that if they can work 35–40 hours a week and achieve the same targets , they can enjoy the remaining 14 hours a week
Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, DJI, Baidu etc already changed their workstyles to make them flexible and based on Targets
Yet 60% of Chinese Employers still have the TIME ORIENTED mentality and pay on a PER HOUR basis
#4 Inability to understand Hostility of the West
Many Chinese are unable to understand why the West is hostile to them and why the sanctions.
This is because the CPC is too nice and doesn’t promote hate against the West in their propaganda
Luckily in this area the CPC has worked tirelessly to ensure alternate economic routes
If exports to the US fell for a Chinese company, Russian markets are a virtual monopoly for the Chinese now (Indians failed to capitalize this market in any way) plus newer markets in South America plus Middle East
Likewise if Investments from US have dried up, Germany and Russia have tripled their investments into China, making up potential deficits
Yet the key thing about China is the TRANSPARENCY in the Country
No lies, hidden from the public, the Positive Side l
Costs are very low, Rents, Food are at their lowest. Savings potential is at 43% , highest in the world against 7% in USA
Rapid Development
Excellent Education
Very good employment despite the slowdown without creating Government Jobs like India or SL
Rapid Technology development
Growing Soft Power of China and Tourist related power in Thailand and other places
So Chinese are extremely content though they wouldn’t mind some reforms which the CPC is likely to implement in the coming 6–24 months
As a new PhD , I interviewed for an entry level academic position. The afternoon prior to the interview, I flew in to a large airport, rented a car as instructed, and drove nearly 200 km out to a university in a rural setting. The next morning, a gray, dreary day, I found my own breakfast and then went to the University, let’s call it University A, to find the interviewer. His first question was, “Are you sure you can tolerate living here?” Odd question, but I could imagine the location probably could have been a problem for some candidates like me, who got his degree at an urban university. I grew up in a place that looked and felt nearly identical, so I was on board. The rest of the morning went well.
For lunch four of the professors and I piled into an older car. The senior professor was in the front passenger seat. The younger two professors and I were in the back seat. Before we start moving, the senior professor turned around, looked me in the eye, and asked, “What do you think of Professor X at University B?” I knew Professor X well. He was a mentor of mine when I was a contract teaching hire at University C several years prior. Both Professor X and this senior professor were well known experts in our field. My Mama told me to always say something nice in such situations. So I made a single sentence that Professor X was a wonderful man to have the privilege of learning from. The senior professor said nothing more the rest of my two days of interviews. Though I did not realize it at the time, the interviews were over when I made that statement. I did not get the job.
I found out later that the senior professor considered Professor X to be his mortal enemy. They had started at this same University A as entry level professors many years prior. After gaining their tenure together, Professor X left for University B while the senior professor stayed. Both became prominent in the same field. But somewhere along the line, their relationship failed. I unwittingly stepped into the crossfire. I never asked Professor X about this, considering it to no longer be important. I also found out that the position was available because the senior professor was running off a young professor that he disliked. A year later at a conference, I met the candidate who won that position. He looked like he had a big dark cloud over his head.
Soon after this interview, I interviewed at another university much farther away. The people were bright and kind. The students were excellent and enthusiastic. The location was also a long way into a scenic rural setting with many gray, dreary days. By the time my flight arrived home back East, their job offer was waiting for me. I still work there, more than three decades later.
The man who lives with the 17 tiny kittens he rescued is experiencing an explosion of happiness.
WWIII will not happen, but the United States is essentially on the road to collapse. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which was a federal system, it was the turn of the United States, which was a federal system.
As far as the current world situation is concerned, the United States will certainly support Israel without a second thought. In fact, Hamas has already achieved its goal. What happens next:
The EU is forced by the United States to support Israel as it supports Ukraine, but they forget that there are 50 million Muslims living in Europe.
The national image that Israel had previously created for itself collapsed straight away.
The Arab countries will further turn against the US and the West and de-dollarisation will further accelerate.
Further shaking up the US petrodollar system
Ukraine is being collectively ignored by the Western bloc, and the longer the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues, the better for Russia.
The U.S. doesn’t have the time or the strength to compete with China
In short, the United States has lost so badly this time that there is no room for redemption.
The US is broke, its strategic oil reserves are running on fumes, and it is out of ammo. Ditto for the EU, except the EU is already an economic basket case. The US seems to have this fixation that conflict creates a win for the US so it continues to fund its MIC with only window dressing for its infrastructure and economy.
What Ukraine has shown the US is that it is not invincible and that Russia is not only stronger than the US thought, but more adaptable to the changes in tactics and technology. Ukraine has been a black hole for US and EU wealth and it is no longer in a position to strongly support its domestic needs. The US keeps printing money and raising interest rates, a sure formula for the failure of the US economy.
But, your point is well taken, the US should have been doing that for the last 20 years or so and it would be in a better condition domestically, economically, geopolitically, and relations with other countries. At this point in time, the US is almost beyond repair.
The Idiots couldn’t negotiate with the PLO and later created the Hamas and ended up making the Hamas their enemies as well
Like I said THEY SUCK AT THIS
Just like their masters the US
They keep killing Civilians and always the Terrorists never die
They change from one form to another
So it’s time Israel starts NEGOTIATIONS and uses the Arab Nations to use their leverage with the Hamas
I firmly believe if Israel agrees to the Two State Solution, the whole world including Russia, China, India and even Iran would cooperate in fighting against the Hamas
Even the Hezbollah believe in a Two State Solution now.
The red circle is China, the green circle is Canada
The red arrow is where the “interception” occurs.
2023 10 20 15 3e9
The red circle is China, the blue circle is North Korea
The red arrow is where the “interception” occurs.
The Canadians said they were in “international airspace,” but the Chinese said the plane was near the Diaoyu Islands and that this airspace was China’s airspace.
I don’t want to discuss which one of them is telling the truth.
At least I’m not a fool.
Canadian planes flew from 10,000 kilometers away between mainland China and Taiwan. They said they were to monitor North Korean cargo ships, not to provoke China.
Are Canadians smoking too much marijuana?
The Chinese Navy actually let them fly back intact. This is so merciful.
By the way, the Canadians say that their “Operation Neon” is to uphold the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
But the Chinese say they have never signed such a mandate in the Security Council.
We know that the authorization of the Security Council requires the signature of the five permanent members.
What Canada means is that they are carrying out an operation authorized by China.
A Chinese hsr train is formed from 8-16 carriages, capable of carrying 500-1,300 passengers. Up to 8 trains per hour serve the busiest routes at peak times, which can average 100 services per direction per day.
That’s 260,000 carrying capacity a day, both ways, or 95 million a year, for a single route.
An airport serving the route will have to handle more than 470 Boeing 777 flights a day.
That’s 1 takeoff or landing every 3 minutes, which is obviously untenable.
China has more than 160 cities with population more than 1 million. This number is expected to grow, with Chinese urbanization at 55-60 percent, quite some distance from the 80-85 percent typical of the developed world. The density of Chinese populations make high speed rail a viable proposition.
Airplanes are not more efficient than trains. However, they make more sense for longer trips, with the average air trip being 1,400 km. Hsr trips rarely extend beyond 800 km, and make the most economic sense below 500 km.
The Chinese hsr network is built to handle huge numbers, particularly over the Chinese new year holidays, the largest human migration known to man. China does not have enough planes to handle that kind of demand.
And yes, hsr trains run on electricity, a much greener option than avgas.
Man Dumps Bride Months Before Wedding After Learning She Participated In Group Activities For YEARS
Jesus H Christ
I would like to say a few things here.
Honesty is the foundation of a long-duration relationship
People, however, are permitted to have secrets. It is a human need.
When confronted with this situation, there are many ways to handle it. This man saw it as no-starter, unfortunately. I believe that the issues could have been worked out.
There is nothing wrong with alternative lifestyles, or what-have-you, but if you are married, you lose part of yourself and join with another. For good or bad.
Apparently everything was perfect with them, except for this one issue. Could the issue be resolved, or mitigated? I do not know.
For men, “respect” is the biggest and most important aspect of a relationship. Not sex. So I see this as a sequence of lies on the gals part because she showed him no respect.
Like I said, I would have done things differently, now as an older man. But when I was younger, maybe not…
All in all, the most disturbing thing about this video is NOT that she was having group orgies for the entire time they were living together and him being clueless. It is that she hid that part of her life from him, and told her rotating partners, that he was just fine with it. These lies are what broke up the relationship.
People! Accept who you are. Good and bad. Say things as they are and let the world howl. This goes for both the guy as well as the girl.
The girl, obviously was ready to settle down; get married, have kids and a stable family life. But that is not going to happen if she wanted to continue a free-wheeling 20’s single lifestyle. She wanted what she was clearly not ready for. Sigh.
I rented a caretaker apartment that was attached to a horse stable. The owners were an elderly couple who lived in a house behind the barn. The owners were fantastic people and I got along with them splendidly.
One day they advised me they were selling the property. A few weeks later after the property sold I met the new owners. I immediately did not get a good feeling about the owners. Within the 1st month I started noticing things in the apartment were not where I had placed on. I confronted the new owners who denied going into the apartment. One day, I left for work and did the old tape on the door trick. When I came home sure enough the tape was broken. I again confronted the owner who stated somebody else must have gone into the apartment. I also had some property in the barn that suddenly turned up missing. I asked the new owners about the property and they denied taking it. I ended up finding the missing property in one of their storage sheds hidden underneath some tarps.
I had been dating my girlfriend for several years and at that point we decided to move in together at her place. The caretaker apartment was rather old and the door locks used old style keys that you could not have duplicated at your local hardware store.
I immediately moved out and took the keys with me. I got a call from the owner demanding that I return the apartment key. I advised him I didn’t have the key and told him I left it on the kitchen counter. The owner started yelling that if I didn’t return the key he would sue me for theft and the cost of putting new locks on the doors. I chuckled and said that “Someone must have gone in and stolen the key off the counter. Maybe it’s the same person who stole my property that I found under the tarp in the storage shed.” There was silence and then the phone hung up. I never heard from him again.
I travel full-time via my FJ Cruiser and my RV. A year or two ago, I met a guy who turned out to be a federal agent. No, I was not being investigated, at least not for business/national security reasons.
Before finalizing our first date, he casually mentioned that he had run the front plate on my FJ Cruiser, which absolutely horrified me. This isn’t some random guy using Google. This is a federal agent!
It was also the way he said it. As if it was the most normal thing in the world to invade someone’s (especially a woman traveling solo!) privacy in that way.
After he told me he ran my plates, I just stopped responding. I mean, next thing I know, he could be checking my IP address or something and figuring out where I was camping alone that night.
It was creepy.
So a week goes by and he blasts me for ghosting him. I respond, “Are you seriously asking me why? Dude, you RAN MY PLATES!”
Instead of apologizing or acknowledging that that was kinda creepy, he proceeded to tell me that I was “asking for it” by sharing a picture of my rig. He told me the fact that I had a custom plate intrigued him, so it was 100% my fault for dangling the carrot (a custom plate) in front of his face.
I blocked him after that. As far as I know, I’m not currently being stalked by any federal agents. But who really knows? The feds are pretty crafty.
Swiss Bliss
old fashioned swiss steak 3056883 Final 5ba96bcc46e0fb002534cbd6
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
1 (2 pound) chuck roast, cut 1 inch thick
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 (4 ounce) can mushrooms, drained
1/2 medium green bell pepper, sliced
1 (20 ounce) can tomatoes, drained and chopped, reserving juice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon A-1 steak sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
Instructions
Coat center of large sheet of heavy foil with butter and place into a 13 x 9 inch dish.
Place meat across foil, overlapping each piece slightly.
Sprinkle with soup mix, mushrooms, green pepper slices and tomatoes.
Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Mix tomato juice, steak sauce and cornstarch.
Add enough water to make 2 cups liquid.
Pour over meat mixture and sprinkle with parsley flakes.
Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees F for 2 hours.
I had a black client who had been arrested in his house and white cops slammed his head into a dresser drawer just for fun, as witnessed by several officers in the house. As the dresser was pushed against a casement window on the front of the house, slamming his head into the dresser “blew” the window into the front yard with a shotgun-like explosion, witnessed by all the neighbors watching the police action from across the street. The black jailer saw the bruise on the client’s forehead when taking the mugshot.
On the motion to dismiss for unreasonable police violence, all the cops lied and denied slamming the client’s head against the dresser. The judge and prosecutor acted as if the cops were not lying and the window blew itself into the yard.
It was late afternoon and the only civilians in the courtroom was a fifth-grade civics class of 20 kids aged 10–11 years and their teacher. The judge had a reputation as a racist and a hard-ass.
I turned during argument on the (hopeless) motion to the kids and asked the courtroom rhetorically: “Why in the world would police officers take the witness stand, swear on the Bible to tell the truth, and then lie?” Then I said, “Well, it makes winning their case a lot easier, and no one in authority stops them, and the officers know this.”
So I was accusing the judge of “letting” the officers lie to win the motion. That is, the judge OFTEN knows officers are lying and so does the prosecutor, but they don’t stop it. The officers know this, so they lie. Not all and not always, but in cases like this, they all lied together.
The judge got really pissed and started haranguing me, so I stoked his anger higher. The prosecutor could see how bad all this was starting to look to the appellate judges in any appeal and hung his head in defeat. My client walked out of the courtroom with a very sweet deal from the prosecutor to cut his losses.
TikTok on the cost of living | RANT ON INFLATION | EVERYONE IS BROKE AND TIRED
Hi guys, just to clarify I do not own any of these videos I just thought it would be interesting to see how people are dealing with the cost of living, sending prayers and well wishes to you.
When I was a kid, hot dogs were lame flavorless picnic fodder that got a squirt of mustard and ketchup and onions if you were daring, nothing more.
One summer a diner opened near me that specialized in char broiled burgers and Chicago dogs. I’d never heard of a Chicago dog before, so naturally I had to try one. Man, what a life changing experience.
It was a snappy Sabrett dog topped with mustard, sweet neon green pickle relish, diced onions, spicy sport peppers, tomato slices and a wedge of dill pickle. Every bite was overflowing with crunchy, spicy, sweet, sour, salty and savory goodness. In my 15 years of life it was literally one of the best things I had ever eaten. I still love them today.
More than just a poem, the Chicago dog contains a lesson: ketchup doesn’t belong on a hot dog.
It was brought to my attention that a true Chicago dog is made from Vienna Beef brand hot dogs and always includes celery salt. I’m down with both of those, so that’s what a true Chicago dog should be made with.
There are many American assets in China, estimated to be worth 2.2 trillion.
The US companies that own these assets are not going to be happy with the US government if China were to freeze these assets.
Do you think that the US companies owners and employees will vote for Biden next year if China freezes their assets in response to the US freezing Chinese assets?
The old trick is repeated! Biden attempts to arrest Huawei executives with criminal charges!
The US foreign policy from 1948 to 1991 was centred around INTERNATIONAL LAW
Diplomats, Army, Businessmen, Politicians worked as per INTERNATIONAL LAW and relied on their entire foreign policy from a derived paper from 1955 called ‘Peace during the Cold War’, penned right after the Korean War
It taught a formula for maintaining peace and coexistence of different nations with different ideologies
The core objectives of this ideology was :-
Strive for Peace always
No War Or conflict with Nuclear Nations
Preserving Human Spirits & Freedom
Ensuring Capitalism and Free Trade flow between allies
Economic Cooperation
Preserve and not endanger the Security of the United States and it’s allies
Diplomats like McNamara, Kissinger, Baker etc were steeped in this doctrine and founded this doctrine
Kennedy, Nixon, Bush Sr and Reagan followed this core ideology
It was a healthy doctrine
Barring a 7 year aberration with the Vietnam War (1968–1975).
Thus James Baker easily promised not to expand eastwards
He wanted a peaceful handshake with the Russians
Post 1991, a new paper was published which reflected a NEW IDEOLOGY infecting the Americans
A POST COLD WAR ORDER
That was it’s early name
INTERNATIONAL LAW quickly changed into what we know today as the INTERNATIONAL RULES BASED ORDER
The core of objectives of this ideology were :-
The US has to lead the world into a permanent peace after the Cold War
The US must stop the rise of any nation that could lead the world into another cold war
The US must bring peace to Europe, the Middle East and Asia even at the cost of strategies that could heavily curtail freedom of thought and independence in those nations
The US must always maintain a lead in arms and troops and military power for the betterment of the whole world
Russia for its own people’s sake needed to be broken down further and controlled by the Rules based order to prevent it slipping back into anarchy and chaos
The Middle East and Europe had to be controlled by the USA for their own security and security of energy in the world
This slowly became the leading ideology in USA with all diplomats born in 1966 or later (who are 57 years old or younger today) being steeped in this ideology and thought
This was also called
WDC as coined by Madeleine Albright – WEAKEN, DEMOCRATIZE, CONTROL
Many Politicians, then in their 40s and early 50s endorsed this philosophy openly including Mitch McConnell, Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Al Gore etc
The US Ideology back then never considered Africa or China as serious
This was the birth of the NEOCON ideology
Bush Sr, Rice, Albright, Kagan, Nuland, Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Ned Price, John Kirby, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Joe Biden have all been steeped with this Neocon Ideology or International Rules Based Order Ideology
A Core part of this ideology is to bring peace to Europe by controlling Europe & to break down and weaken Russia
To do this NATO had to keep expanding
A Dramatic turnaround from the Old Ideology of INTERNATIONAL LAW
Today this is the leading ideology but since this ideology doesn’t mention China or Africa or India or how to handle a tougher Putin, the Americans are clueless on how to continue
Unless a new ideology for peaceful coexistence again develops , endorsed by 40–45 year old politicians and diplomats born on or after 1998 or Political Science Students born on or after 2006
The US will slowly sink due to this Neocon policy
Note most of the political ideologues of these thoughts are 65–70 years old at the very least
The Ideology changed, thus NATO kept expanding
That’s the Ideology that drives the US today
Others who are steeped in this Ideology include :- Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Kishida and our favorite JUSTIN TRUDEAU
In 2009 I was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a grade 4 brain cancer, after surgery the oncologist came back with the sad news that the statistics look quite ugly, he gave me treatments for 9 months, and 6 months to one year to live.
I was engaged preparing to marry in few months. We broke up, I didn’t see why I would leave a widow behind and break her heart.
I had no desire to pursue anything further in life…
It was a time of complete shutdown.
I wanted to quit my job, however my managers managed to convince me to stay with a relaxed schedule…
They started to teach me statistics again.
An average of 1 year, means some people die in 3 years, while others die in 6 months, and that I should have the positivity to assume I’m on the long term survival side.
By continuing to go to work, I kept myself busy, not thinking too much about my cancer.. I travelled , did some of the stuff I always wanted to do, visited places I always wanted to go.
I started to revisit my friends, hang out with those I really liked, got rid of those who made me feel sad, or felt pity. There are those who just don’t know what to tell you, then it gets awkward…
It is not something you want to talk about with everyone. You want to feel good, and not be down all the time.
I started to be more of a minimalist.. I had no desire in all the nice stuff I had always dreamt of, as My life seemed to come to a stop
However over time.. I started to realize that I’m happier .. I had special concerns for my parents, I started spending more time with my parents. With my family They are the joy of my life.. Too sad I never realized that earlier
8 years later I’m still around, although the cancer hit back several times, and my left side is now paralyzed, I’m still active going to work, participating in charities, trying to keep myself busy and active.
I was 32 when I was diagnosed, now hitting the 40’s I feel more mature, I’m guessing age is an important factor in how we take such news.
After all life goes on, and it is how you take the news that makes all the difference..
Keep busy, don’t let your mind wander too much.. No one knows when you are going to die..
There’s a shock at the beginning, try to pass it, embrace the news and you will feel the tranquility after a while..
My key messages would be:
no one knows when you are going to die, all doctors have are statistics.
Happiness is in the small and little things.. Time with family, reading a good book, listening to nice music, enjoying a movie.. Spending time on the beach, watching a sunset, nature, forest , a bird…
Through charity work I started to appreciate what I have, there are sooo many underprivileged people who would dream of what we take as granted, running water, electricity, food,medicine, family.
Each night I count at least 10 things I’m grateful for in my life.
I also started to keep a journal of the things that make me really happy and doing more of that.
Lavrov: “If the West want war, they can have it. If you insist, let’s decide it on the battlefield.”
God bless Russia and Mr Putin and mr lavrov… The Russians have the balls to tell the truth.. unlike the English and the yanks.
Originally Answered: What exactly is a midlife crisis? And how common are they ?
I can only speak from my experience, but here’s a personal account of my own midlife crisis. I was about 34 and I had a strong and relentless urge to pursue an unrealized goal that had been bothering me for quite a while, in fact, over 10 years.
Long ago, I had wanted to pursue nursing school, and due to circumstances such as an abusive ex-husband who prevented me from studies, I was not able to do so. When I finally escaped that decade-long relationship, it took a while for me to get back on my feet as I had to start from scratch to build my finances, portfolio, and confidence up. Time passes, I remarry and have a child and although things are great with my career and family, the thought of nursing kept nagging me at the back of my mind. I got increasingly upset at myself that I had let so many years pass and wondered when would be the time for me to do what I originally wanted to do.
So in my mid-thirties I made the decision to apply to nursing school, quickly took all the prerequisites and I got in a few months later, even though it was extremely competitive. I had to scale back on my other jobs and my schedule became MUCH more complicated. My social life definitely dwindled to nothing! Most people would ask, why are you going back to school? Don’t you like being a photographer and music teacher? Yes, yes I completely love my jobs. But I also want to be a nurse, and I will forever think “what if” if I do not pursue this.
Nursing school is demanding, and there is so much material to know that is compressed in such a short time frame. A typical day would be: wake up at 530am for hospital shift from 7am–3pm, study/edit until family arrives home, feed/play/bathe toddler and put toddler to bed, study/edit until midnight. Rinse and repeat. There were times I felt overwhelmed and perhaps I bit off more than I could chew. The amount of textbooks and notes I have from my studies, stacked on top of each other towers over me! However, I feel the most alive when I am caring for patients, and when they thank me heartily for the care I’ve given to them, my heart swells and that is the best feeling in the world. Therefore, my midlife crisis was a catalyst for me to take a leap and reach for my goal of becoming a nurse.
I can tell the experience of a friend. who married a woman who was multi-millionaire since birth. Saying that they were rich is an understatement. They only flew first or business class, he got a new Porsche or Mercedes every single year and they always lived in the best areas in Manhattan,
I remember when he and his wife moved to New York they hired an interior designer from Milan to do the decoration. They spent around a million dollars only with the renovation and furniture for the apartment.
They had it all, and not even in my dreams I would imagine that one day they would lose it all.
However, like many other stories, they didn’t lose it overnight, but little by little.
I never imagined they would lose all their money because apart of being filthy rich, they were really lucky.
My friend’s wife grew up being a millionaire. Annual trips to Aspen with her family, then summer in Europe and everything we imagine rich people do. I was lucky to enjoy some of these perks when I was invited to one of their vacation homes.
They had a lot of money but they didn’t work. After all, they never needed to do it. She received a monthly allowance from her family that I believe was around 700K to 1M per year so they would probably not bother to work 9 to 6 to make $100K more.
They lived this life for around 10 years. Then, they had some disagreement with their family and they stopped receiving the allowance. They lived by their savings for around 3 years. During those years they lived a very good life, but not so lavish as before. After 3 years, when they were about to start selling everything so they could have some money, her uncle died. He didn’t have any kids so she received a good sum of money that was sufficient for around 3 more years.
When their bank accounts were about to run dry again her mother passed away and she inherited, along with her brothers, around 4M each.
For most people, it would be sufficient for a lifetime, but they made very bad investments along with some poor decisions and I don’t know how, but they ended up losing everything in around 3 more years.
After losing all their money they started living with the money of a trust her parents left to her, Something around 5K per month. But they are on their 50s, they never worked and have no professional skills and they have to pay rent (as they don’t have a home), pay all their bills and above all, health insurance with that amount.
I saw them around 6 months ago and they were miserable. My friend developed a neurological disease due to the stress he endured in the last years. His wife was making all decisions as he wasn’t able to do it anymore. Unfortunately, he is so sick that he couldn’t work even if he wanted to.
I was really sad it happened to them because they were really nice people, It’s easy to judge them for never bothered to have a job or be wiser with their money, however, she was born in a different universe for most of us. What we see as a lavish lifestyle she sees as a regular day since birth.
I asked them if they needed anything and obviously what they need is their old lifestyle back. They moved to a modest apartment in a different state.
She told me that the biggest issue is that they don’t know how to live like that. She can’t imagine what’s like to do their own grocery shopping, and worst than that, go to Walmart with a shopping list. She said that if she spent a little more on things she like she might not have money for the supermarket next week.
I would not dare to say that this experience was humbling to them because they were always nice people, the difference is that they were nice people with lots of money. The only positive thing I believe this experience brought to them is that they are no longer superficial. They used to see everything like poverty, sorrow, and problems from a different perspective, and I used to see them through a mask that looked like they were using all the time
Now, for the first time, I was able to see who they really are. What are their emotions, their fears, their desires, and their regrets… For the first time in their lives they desire things, they no longer pull their credit card and immediately satisfy their desires and in that sense, they look like real people for me.
Every time I visited them over the years I always invited them for lunch, breakfast or coffee and even though I’m not wealthy I always offered to pay, and 6 months ago, when I saw them for the last time, I invited them to have a coffee at Starbucks and that was the first time in more than 15 years that they said thank you after I offered to pay for our breakfast.
It felt different. They don’t need to thank me for anything because during their life, just by inviting me to stay with them, they offered me much more than anything I’ve ever offered to them, but for the first time in their lives, they are learning to value every small good thing that life gives to them.
Thank you all for the upvotes and feedbacks to this story. In fact, I had two stories about the theme but Quora doesn’t allow to publish two answers for the same question, so, for those who are interested I’ll post the second story here.
In 2007 I was hired by a medium size tech company. The company had around 150 employees and they were growing fast. When I was hired they told me they would be moving to better offices in two months and they really did it. The new office was really impressive. Huge, very modern to the point it made the cover of a magazine.
My boss and her husband were the owners of the company. They were simply amazing. She was sweet, very polite and it was a pleasure to work for them. They were also very rich. In fact, she was so down to earth that it took me two months to realize that she was one of the owners of the company. It happened one day that we had a meeting with a client and she told me if I was OK to be squeezed on the back seat of her car, as another person was coming with us. I Imagined that she had one of those very small cars, but she showed up on a brand new convertible Porsche .
Little by little, we became acquainted. They invited me to have dinner one night and I was impressed by how rich they really were, They lived on a mansion, the land was so big that they had a tennis court, swimming pool and a stable with 5 horses on their land. He also was a motor enthusiast and had 9 cars. They owned a farm and a beach house in another city, even though we lived in one of the most beautiful beach cities in the world.
They made money fast because I was hired in 2007 and the company was founded in 2002 and it looked like they had a good lifestyle for some years.
They were amazing people, very humble, very calm and you would never say they had so much money just by talking to them.
I left the company by the end of 2007 because I received an offer to work in another place. I talked to them before accepting the offer, I explained my reasons and they were really supportive and told me that if I changed my mind the doors would be open.
By the end of 2008, a former colleague contacted me asking for a reference as he was leaving the company. I asked why he was leaving the company and the told me that the company had gone into receivership. Basically, they were impacted by the GFC.
They were so rich that I imagined that although the company had bankrupted they probably had a lot of savings.
I never heard from them again until 2017.
I had a health issue and I needed to see a specialist. When I got to the doctor, I was talking to the receptionist when I saw a sign with her name over her desk. (Let’s say Jennifer Parker – I’ll omit her real name). So I said to her. Hey Jennifer, what a coincidence, I had a boss with exactly the same name.
Then she told me that she was not Jennifer, that Jennifer was the other receptionist, that she worked Monday and Tuesday and Jenniffer Wednesday to Friday. I saw the doctor and two weeks later I came back for my return and when I arrived who I see working as a receptionist there? My former boss.
When she saw me she recognized me and told me that the other receptionist told what happened and when she saw my name she connected the dots.
She told me what happened to the company, basically was a problem with the contracts they made and as they weren’t able to get a new loan from the bank they could no longer keep the company and pay their debts. With that, they lost everything, not only the company but literally everything.
Their kids moved from private to public schools, they had all their cars, properties and assets confiscated and ended moving to a small apartment near the city. Her husband was able to get a new job (at nearly 60 years of age) and she had to go back to work to complement their income.
It was a huge surprise for me because you always expect that these things will happen to bad people, but never to nice people like them. They were honest, decent, hardworking, family oriented, and everybody in the office liked them.
Coincidentally I bumped into them again 3 months later in the mall. What surprised me the most is that they were able to go from a very rich to a very modest lifestyle without changing who they were. We sit together to have lunch in the food court and they were living like that was the life they always had. They were exactly the same people I met 10 years before, they were happy, making jokes with their kids (that were teenagers by then) and even when she told me what happened she didn’t do it with sadness.
I don’t know how they managed everything so well. Going through an experience like that could be very damaging, but it looks like they had a way to cope with everything.
It taught me a lesson that money can’t be trusted, life can be full of unexpected events with many things out of our control.
Starlink, a satellite constellation operated by aerospace company SpaceX, lost 212 satellites in the period spanning July 18th and September 18th, data compiled by satellitemap.space shows.
Data shows the number of burned-up satellites steadily increasing over the past three years, but a significant spike can be observed starting the month of July.
It’s unclear whether these satellites were scheduled to de-orbit or whether the burn-ups were a result of a failure. Cybernewshas reached out to SpaceX for comment but has not received a response.
Some experts questioned the accuracy of numbers posted on the tracker website, saying they appeared to be unusually high. According to satellitemap.space, its data is based on public tracking information published on space-track and elsewhere.
Starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere at the end of their life cycle, which is approximately five years.
SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. Over 5,000 have been sent into Earth’s lower orbit since then. Of those, about 4,500 are believed to be active.
Satellites can also be vulnerable to electromagnetic storms, with strong solar flares recorded this summer as the sun enters a period of heightened activity.
Destructive solar events have affected Starlink before. In February last year, SpaceX said it lost 40 new satellites shortly after launch because of an electromagnetic storm. When accounting for the rocket launch, it potentially cost the company about $100 million in damages.
Steak with Gorgonzola Thyme Crust
img 5811
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 (6 ounce) beef tenderloin or small rib eye steaks, cut 3/4 inch thick
1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled Wisconsin Gorgonzola cheese
Instructions
Heat broiler.
Spoon Worcestershire sauce over both sides of steaks; let stand for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle garlic and pepper over steaks. Place steaks on rack of broiler pan.
Broil 3 to 4 inches from heat source for 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium rare steak.
Remove pan from broiler. Sprinkle thyme, then cheese over steaks.
Return to oven and broil for 2 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.
China is Sending Armored Vehicles To Mali Africa ! U.S PANIC
Nations like Mali have been overlooked in international forums, but as China’s prominence rises, Mali has found a key ally. This video explores China’s involvement in Mali’s development and security, delving into the intricate dynamics of China’s relationship with Africa and its potential implications for the global stage.
Back in 1983, I needed an upscale cocktail dress for a cosmetic industry function. I found a delightful $1200 silk dress marked down 50% to $600. It has a tiny rip by the zipper that I could repair but it was still way over my budget. (I was a very junior marketing person at the time, so not earning great.)
I asked the sales clerk if they do better on the price due to the rip and she agreed to take another 50% off bringing it to $300. She retickets it over the original ticket and the 1st sale ticket. Still more than I could truly afford but I decided to buy it anyway.
I go to the cashier to pay and she asked me if it came off the 50% sale rack. When I said it was, she says it is 50% off and rings $150 into the register, instead of the $300, even though it had multiple sales tickets on it. Lucky me, I’m thinking.
But before I can pay, she notices the small rip and says she will deduct an extra $50 which now brings it to $100. I happily paid and left the store ASAP, just in case. Lol
And I received many compliments for my dress at the event.
Walking into a McDonald’s one morning a young couple pretty dirty living rough approached me. The young man probably mid twenties asked if I could buy his girlfriend a egg McMuffin because they only had a handful of change not enough for the sandwich. So I asked them to come to the counter with me and asked them what on the board they would eat. The young man’s eyes went wide. Told me they had not eaten in three days. I said you can have whatever you like. The both asked for the big breakfast and a juice and a milk. I told them maybe they should order the sandwich she wanted as well. they were extremely happy they thanked me. They went and sat outside ate their meals cleaned up and moved on. Maybe they don’t even remember the event in their lives. But I was satisfied that I and spent my money wisely and am still left with a good memory of a McDonald’s breakfast when I was heading to get a seniors coffee.
PLOT: Desperate to gain the affection of a beautiful co-worker, Elliot (Brendan Fraser) strikes a deal with the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley) — a drop dead gorgeous woman with a wicked sense of humor. In exchange for Elliot’s soul, she will grant him 7 wishes. But with each wish, he gets more than he asked for.
Chinese videos on the Israel bombing of Palestine, clearly show B-2 bombers flying and bombing the Palestinians. The ONLY nation with this bomber is the United States.
So, the United States is now at war with Palestine.
…
Ugh! You can pretty much figure it out by reading “between the lines” on what the “news” media says.
“Why doesn’t China condemn Russia? Why doesn’t it condemn the Palestinians?”
Why doesn’t it…
…
Never the less, the videos are clear. Those are B-2 bombers dropping munitions on the apartment buildings and homes of the Palestinians.
The United States has entered another new war, and Lindsey Graham is calling for an invasion of Iran.
WTF?
This is so dangerously goofy.
My “Prepper feeds” are information dense with reports all over the globe. The biggest stuff comes from NATO, and I have a video below that goes into detail regarding it.
You know, I was going to talk about my trip to a factory today, but the Western world is coming unhinged. Holy Fuck.
Bought from the dark net, sold by Ukrainian Army represented, donated by U.S. and UK and some US dog nations, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Hey U.S. taxpayers save more money. Isreal need more weapons now!
So indirectly you can say U.S. innocent people who paid taxes assisted Palestinians to start a war on Isreal. Now you tax payers need to help Isreal defend against Palestinian. Oh U.S. tax payers. You poor soul please save more money as the your government need to start another war in Asia, another one in Latin America and another one in Africa.
Don’t worry tax payers after all the wars sometime in 2100 finally the U.S. government will help you get health insurance, college fees, homeless! But we still need to fund CIA, NED and MIC. I am very sure after spending on 800 military bases and 12 aircraft carriers and interest on 500 trillion dollars debts we will still have some pennies left to help you kind taxpayers.
WHY RETIRE in CHINA?
There are a lot of reasons to retire in a foreign country and the best one I found was china. The cost of living, food, weather and people make it my first choice of any country in the world. This video is very convincing and from an expat that has lived in China for more than 20 years. Living the experience is better than watching it on TV. don’t waste your retirement on the boring life. Live the adventure.
My mom grew up in British Hong Kong, the eldest child of a solidly middle-class Hong Kong Chinese family. She and her siblings are all university educated; all her brothers went on to become medical doctors. Mom left Hong Kong a few decades ago, lived in the UK for a few years and has lived in Canada ever since.
Given this background, one might expect her to be quite pro-British.
However, her perspective is that when she was growing up in the city, the British treated HK Chinese as second-class citizens (she actually gets a bit irate when we talk about this). As a Hong Kong Chinese herself, she felt that the superiority complex of the British in the colony was very strong. She disliked the endemic corruption in the government. Moreover, the colonial government had no democratic legitimacy (for all the talk in recent years of HK “democracy”, there were no elections held in Hong Kong until the 1984, just 13 years before the handover).
On the other side of the coin, the Hong Kong she grew up in had received a massive influx of Chinese refugees fleeing the upheavals in China. The period from the end of the Chinese civil war to the Cultural Revolution saw some 1.1 million people from China come across the border to make their home in the territory. She recognizes that under British rule, the legal and regulatory foundation was laid for Hong Kong’s success as a global financial centre and entrepot.
I think her views capture the feelings many older Hong Kong Chinese have about British colonial rule.
Many young HKers seem to idealize colonial Hong Kong as it was in the last decade of British rule — a golden era for the city where, as one of the five “Asian tigers”, Hong Kong experienced amazing economic growth, established its position as one of the world’s leading financial centres and saw its cultural influence spread across Asia and beyond (a precursor of today’s K-wave).
But ask older HK Chinese, and they will also remember what it was like before that golden era — to be treated as second class citizens in their own city, when corruption in the police force and government departments was rampant and when even water to the taps was only available for a few hours a day.
Steaks with Mushrooms, Blue Cheese and Frizzled Shallots
steaks mushrooms blue cheese
Prep: 10 min | Cook: 30 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
4 (8 ounce) beef round sirloin tip center steaks, cut 1 inch thick
4 slices thick-sliced bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 small shallots, thinly sliced, separated into rings
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, diced
2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped
Instructions
Cook bacon in nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp.
Remove bacon with slotted spoon to paper towels, reserving 2 to 3 tablespoons drippings in skillet. Set aside.
Meanwhile combine flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in small bowl. Add shallots; toss to coat.
Heat bacon drippings over medium-high heat until hot. Add shallots. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until well browned, stirring occasionally.
Remove from skillet with slotted spoon to paper towels. Set aside.
Reduce heat to medium. Season beef steaks evenly with remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Place steaks in same skillet; cook for 14 to 15 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning occasionally. Do not overcook.
Remove to serving platter; season with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Keep warm.
Add mushrooms and water to skillet. Cook and stir for 3 to 5 minutes or until mushrooms are tender.
Add cream. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until cream is almost absorbed. Stir in cheese and bacon.
Spoon mushroom mixture over steaks. Top with shallots. Sprinkle with parsley.
ALERT! ATTACK ON NATO, GLOBAL MILITARY MOBILIZATION, FULL SCALE WAR, VIPs MOVED, GPS JAMMED, UNREST
It wasn’t a pet, but one of our roosters shocked me into a more open mind about animal sentience.
We had chickens, and because of the rough behavior of the roosters toward the hens, they were separated from each other. We fenced in the crawl space under the chicken house and the roosters lived there. The hens and roosters were usually released for foraging on alternate days.
One day I was walking by the chicken house, and one of the roosters under the building looked me in the eye, picked up a little piece of wood, dropped it, and began pecking it. He then looked me in the eye again, and repeated the behavior, several times, until it dawned on me that he was miming eating. Sure enough, they were out of food, and that bird was telling me he was hungry.
I may have seen him doing that before, but I barely noticed it, dismissing it as meaningless chicken behavior. Now I was beginning to feel shocked at what I just witnessed. I gave them the chicken feed and later I released them for foraging.
The roosters were always a little feisty and I was alert to any attacks coming my way, but the second shock I got was when one of them did attack me, and at that moment the rooster who mimed a request for food rushed in and drove off the attacking rooster.
Ever since that day he was my rooster bodyguard, never letting any rooster attack me. I always gave him special attention and treats after that, making sure he had what he needed, and he got to live out his natural life span.
But chickens? Intelligent? Really??? That was shocking, and I had to release my human chauvinism after that. I could never have foreseen a chicken behaving with such intelligence, and I believe we humans have only a vague understanding, if any, about the minds of nonhuman species.
FIRST TIME REACTION TO AC/DC – WHOLE LOTTA ROSIE | SPEECHLESS…
Another reaction. The expression on all these girls are just GREAT!
Of course they can. China didn’t in the past not because they were not capable but because it made much more sense for the Chinese customers to buy foreign chips. China were late in game. When the west started making semiconductors back in the 1960s/1970s, China were still in cultural revolution. By the time the got out of it, they were already too late.
The Chinese government was not comfortable at all being so reliant on foreign imports. They tried in the past 20+ years to create a local semiconductor ecosystem but they failed despite spending over a trillion RMB. They failed not because they didn’t have the talents, but instead they failed because there wasn’t a market. Even Chinese customers chose not to buy from their local semiconductor startups. Why would anyone take the risk of trying out local products when there were good foreign products available?
But that all changed when the US sanctions started. The US government essentially created a captive market for the Chinese semiconductor manufacturers. These manufacturers suddenly got the badly needed revenue. When orders flow in, investments followed. With investments, young Chinese engineers are motivated to join the industry. Hence, a negative spiral down that prevented the Chinese semiconductor industry from growing turned into a positive upward spiral.
To be sure, they still have many more years to go before they can catch up to the best in class. However, bear in mind, they don’t need to be at the cutting edge to do extremely well. Great majority of the use cases of semiconductors only need up to 14nm, which the Chinese are capable of doing themselves. Now that Huawei has already proven that with the 14nm node, they can design chips that perform at 7nm level, that is good enough for 90% of the applications.
Today, Chinese lithography manufacturers can make up to 28nm. They literally came from 90nm to 28nm within a very short period of time. Once they stabilize their 28nm products, they would go very quickly to 7nm with DUV. EUV is a different thing, but even for that, I think it’s a matter of time. I use to think 10 years but seeing how quickly the Chinese are improving, I’m not sure anymore how to make an educated guess.
So to answer the question – can the Chinese be a serious competitor in semiconductor manufacturing? Absolutely. In a few years time, I bet the US will regret waking up this sleepy dragon. Instead of importing over $300B worth of semiconductor a year, China will export their products and crash the global market like they did in most things they manufacture. How about a $10 GPU? Anyone?
Irish Girl Reacts to “Mister Rogers Saves PBS” For the First Time
I went to apply for a job at JFK Airport. I was a Family Practitioner and was told that they preferred surgeons. In any case, I decided I had nothing to lose and went in for the meeting. There were three or four people waiting for the interview and I was the only one who was not a surgeon.
Then the Deputy Director entered the room and asked if anybody spoke Swedish. Nobody did. Then he asked if anybody knew what a medicine called Kåvepenin manufactured in Sweden was. Nobody knew but I saw he had the box in his hand. I asked to see the box, looked for the composition and although the spelling was different than in English, it was clear that it was Pen VK (potassium penicillin V). So I said so.
The guy left the room and a few minutes later came back and told me, “You are right. You are hired. Everybody else may leave. “
Some protested but he said, “I hired him for his brain. None of you did anything and that guy took the initiative and got the right answer.”
I could not believe it. Fastest job interview I ever had in my life and I got the job.
His company was a big international Human Resources consultancy, and their expenses were divided between clients. For example if they used a £250k printer/binder/etc for a job, a fraction of that £250k would be allocated to the job. No problem, but took ages to allocate every time something was used.
One day, he goes to the stationery cupboard to get a pencil. The office assistant asked him which account it should be charged to and for him to fill in a requisition form for the pencil. He just blew his top. It would cost the company 100 times what the pencil was worth for him to fill in the form, with charge codes, client details and so on. It was a waste of his time and everyone else who just wanted some stationery.
The departmental manager fired him for his outburst “Not what we would expect in this company”. About a few hours later, he had requested a meeting with the departmental manager and the Vice President of his section. They expected a grovelling apology and it’ll never happen again.
But no. He went in saying this was classified as unfair dismissal and he wanted £30,000 – or he would go to court. They told him that they were a top HR company with the top HR experts in the land working for them. He would never win a unfair dismissal case and would get nothing. He pointed out that a full case would take 2 weeks in court and as the company was a partnership, every partner was equally liable and he would subpoena every partner to defend the case. He said he might not win, but would console himself with reading about the HR court case in every HR publication. The VP realised it would be very damaging to the company’s PR and they came to an agreement. They paid the £30k.
After that, I asked him, how did you know about the unfair dismissal law? He said that it is true that the company did have the top HR person in the country working for them, but that top HR person sat opposite him and my friend got him coffee each day. When he was told what happened, he agreed that my mate was fired for having common sense and gave my friend a bit of advice.
After my friend left, the company changed its procedures and you could now get stationery when needed.
China’s National Holiday
China’s National Day, which falls on October 1, is just around the corner. For the Chinese people, September 30 marks the start of a seven-day holiday following the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In the upcoming days, they will enjoy the happiness and joy of the “long holiday,” which they have earned through their hard work.
Meanwhile, across the ocean in the US, this year’s October 1 is a critical day.
Federal government agencies will run out of funds previously approved by Congress at midnight on September 30, the end of the current fiscal year. A government shutdown due to the bipartisan inability to reach an agreement seems inevitable.
For the rest of the world, this situation appears to be a farce of a commonplace American political struggle. People are not concerned about whether Washington will shut down. Where exactly is the US debt ceiling? This is what worries them. Can it continue to rise indefinitely?
The US has not defaulted on its national debt in the past, which is why US debt has become the most reputable in the world. But it has now reached an alarming height – $33 trillion! That amounts to $100,000 per person across the nation! What’s even more concerning is its growth rate, with an increase of $10 trillion in three years! That means $833 million is being added to the debt every hour since it crossed the $33 trillion mark.
A nation that frequently accuses other countries of creating debt has set a huge trap for the world in recent decades. Let us not overlook the fact that the US possesses the power to “print money,” which it uses to sustain Washington’s audacious habit of borrowing and spending recklessly, exemplifying its dominant “style” of hegemony. Government finances in the US have struggled for nearly half a century due to excessive spending without proper control, resulting in the continuous accumulation of federal government debt.
In the realm of election politics and hegemonic policy, the US has wasted significant financial resources. These resources have been used to cater to the interests of interest groups and self-serving politicians. Consequently, there has been an excessive increase in military expenditures to sustain hegemony, along with a continuous distribution of funds to appease voters.
Filippo Gori, an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has published an article entitled “America’s Debt-Ceiling Disaster: How a Severe Crisis or Default Could Undermine U.S. Power,” on the website of Foreign Affairs magazine (April 24, 2023).
The article points out that “because most international trade is in U.S. dollars, the United States can print money to pay for goods that it buys from abroad, allowing it to finance a large international trade deficit without having to worry that it will run out of cash.”
This monopoly advantage, known as “too big to fail,” has resulted in a peculiar situation where the US is “insolvent” but not officially bankrupt. As a result, the US must employ diverse strategies to uphold the dollar’s dominance.
Another fundamental truth is that when the global community thinks about how the impact of this “Grey rhino” can be prevented and begins to make necessary preparations, the hegemony of the US and its foundation, the dollar, will surely be shaken.
China is a significant creditor of the US. The US’ containment of China, particularly through creating military tensions in China’s neighborhood, as well as the overall restriction on Chinese manufacturing and its impact on the livelihoods of the Chinese people, has heightened China’s worry about the US reneging on its debts.
The hardworking Chinese people, who are about to enjoy a wonderful holiday, know that they work hard for the well-being of their families. If their hard-earned money were to be used to prop up an empire’s hegemonic and brutal actions, as well as an unsympathetic political struggle, and then they were to be paid back in the form of “printed money,” they would definitely say “no.”
We believe that hard-working people around the world would share the will of the Chinese people.
China’s new rare earth technology has made new breakthroughs, US chips can’t live without China!
China rare earth insanely very cheap , compare to how rare earth produced and refine. No other countries could produced rare earth with current price .
People in the USSR were allowed to have car in private—the correct term was “individual”—possession.
But we were strictly prohibited from using cars for gaining revenue. Profiteering would unleash on the owner the wrath of the Soviet court system. In worst cases it could be a prison term.
Gypsy cab entrepreneurs risked a fine for the first transgression. The second one would involve confiscation of the car, and an even heavier fine. If the prosecutor could prove you derived a “non-labor” (netrudovóy) income on a regular, “systematic” base, you’ll get behind bars.
Renting your car for a remuneration was of course out of question. If you used a car for example to run your errands as a member of a cooperative, the tax inspection would turn down any tax reports that showed the cooperative covering your expenses. They also would send the case to the state attorney’s for them to take care of your accountant.
Neither could you sell your car with profit.
There were too few cars. Even the few people who had the money to afford a car had to wait for years for a permission to buy one. Which is why it was commercially possible for new owners to sell the vehicle right away sometimes with up to 100% mark-up and more.
At the end of the posting, a newspaper notice from a Soviet provincial newspaper in 1960, “From the Courtroom: Because of Re-selling Automobiles”
The text says:
“The vehicle operator of the Construction department No. 10 in Novo-Alexandrovsk N.H.Semerik bought in 1957 in a car store an automobile Pobeda, paying the government-approved price of 20,000 rubles. Three years later Semerik sold the used car registered in the State Vehicle Inspectorate in his wife’s name for 31,000 rubles to another person, and bought in the store a “Volga” to himself.
As soon as he was in possession of the new car, Semerik and his wife registered themselves in a waiting list for a new car.
The people’s court of the Novoalexandrovsk county prosecuted Semerik N.H. for profiteering according to article 154 p.2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. It sentenced him to two years of incarceration, with confiscation of the vehicle “Volga” and the money on his saving accounts. Signature: I. Artamonov, chairman of the regional court of justice.”
Yes, indeed. When my daughter was four years old, she had a lazy eye. She was diagnosed by an ophthalmologist. Eyeglasses were prescribed which she wore for one year. After a year she went back for a check up and he reported that she no longer needed the eyeglasses, the problem was fixed.
Soon after this – maybe a year – she kept putting aside longer chapter books in favor of short easy readers. She had learned to read completely by age 4, so she was almost 6 at this point, she had been a very enthusiastic reader, so the fact that she kept describing books as too hard raised a flag. Also she tilted her head sideways while watching TV. I took her back to this ophthalmologist who said everything was fine(!) The weariness with reading continued, so I took her to a vision therapist who specialized in tracking problems. He told me that she only had sight in one eye – he told me that it would be difficult to get the other eye engaged again, which really means getting the brain working again, but that it was possible with a lot of hard work.
I believed this doctor but still I took her to a different ophthalmologist in a big city who had many accolades….for a second opinion.
This ophthalmologist announced brusquely that her vision has been ruined by me because I had not acted quickly enough. (He would not listen to any of the history that I tried to offer.) He exclaimed loudly that she would never have sight in that eye and then he demanded that my four-year-old son climb into his chair barking: “I had better check his vision to make sure you have not ruined him, also.”
I am not often at a loss for words, but his condemning words were body blows from which I simply could not recover quickly.
I left that office never to return. We went directly back to the vision therapist and I am happy to say almost 2 years later she had 90% vision in that eye and the balance is corrected with a contact lense. He literally helped turn on her vision in that eye. So she has 20/20 vision and all is well.
The awful doctor was the head of an eye institute which will go unnamed for now. The vision therapist had a very small practice and really believed in what he was doing. I am so grateful to him. It was very hard work, but it was successful.
When her vision was mostly 100% restored in that eye, I wrote a letter to the ophthalmologist at the big, famous eye institute and gave him a piece of my mind. Oh, yes, by then I had found my words!
The “national debt”’ of America isn’t 33 trillion.
That’s merely the debt owed by the federal government, which primarily taxes income, and funds with shortfall by issuing treasury bonds.
There is another set of government debt that is completely separate. State and local governments tax property, and fund the shortfall by issuing municipal bonds.
The total outstanding today is 33 (treasuries) + 4 (munis) = 37 trillion.
That’s 37, followed by 12 zeroes, or 14 figures.
How big is 37 trillion, relatively speaking?
It is more than 75% of the combined GDP of the world’s top 5 global economies: US, China, Japan, Germany, India, totaling ~3.5b in population.
It is more than 85% of the combined GDP of the rest, the >180 nations outside the big 5 club. That includes all of the first world beyond the US, japan and Germany. That’s 4.5b people.
America has a population of ~330m.
It takes the annual economic output of a population that’s an order of magnitude larger to repay the debt owed by the American government. Note this does not include unfunded liabilities, and private debt from households and corporations.
This is far and away the greatest threat to global financial security, on sole account of size.
The Biden administration has made it very clear that China must operate in the manner in which the USA sees fit
That China must develop in the manner in which the USA sees fit
In short –
Make all the Washing Machines, Laptops, Smartphones, Microwaves and Televisions you want
Make all the Jeans, Toys, Textiles you want
Make all the low and medium grade components you want
Hell even make all the Robots you want and High Speed Trains, EVs and Solar Panels and Green Energy
Yet at the same time
You cannot go ahead of us or our allies in the areas of Advanced Computing, Space, Quantum Computing, AI etc. You should always be No 8.
You cannot modernize your Military technologically
You cannot pursue your own foreign policy and Geopolitics against our foreign policy
You cannot support anyone who doesn’t follow the Rules based order
You have to buy more Bonds of ours and acknowledge the Dollar as the world’s only reserve currency
This was the BIDEN DOCTRINE TO CHINA
Qin Gang and Blinken apparently discussed this where :-
In exchange for
China acknowledging the Biden Doctrine & relinquishing support to Russia & Forcing Putin to sue for peace by weaponizing the Yuan
The US would remove tariffs on Chinese products, remove export controls on certain equipment, remove 215 Chinese entities from the blacklist and propose Status Quo for Taiwan with no support for Taiwanese Independence
The plan was likely for QG to deliver an ultimatum to Lavrov and for Xi Jingping to gather Global South Leaders like KSA & UAE while US could persuade India and together force Putin to call a ceasefire in Ukraine
The Old Fox Wang Yi likely told Blinken to “go fuck himself” which is why Biden was so angry that he called XJP a dictator
I believe Raimondo tried the same thing, asking China to trade and develop in a direction acceptable to the US
I believe China again said GO SCREW, and DIE.
That’s why Raimondo was so angry when she returned back
Blinken, Yellen, Raimondo all pushed China to follow the Biden Doctrine and China said No each time which was why they all returned back in a state of fury
So now Biden will say the same thing if he meets Xi Jingping
Maybe Hu Jintao would have agreed
Not Xi Jingping
So Biden and Xi meeting is a pointless exercise
There is no US Leader who is willing to ask China to do whatever it wants and COMPETE with China directly and win
Starting in 6th grade, this nice boy from a troubled family was tortured for being suspected as gay. This was the late 80s in South Texas. The boy was caring but misunderstood. Sensitive. Soft. Other kids were non-stop cruel to him calling him a fag and “Terry the Fairy” (his name was Terry) from the time he arrived on campus until the moment he left. He never stood up for himself preferring instead to wish it wasn’t happening, turning them all off in his head by living in a fantasy reality instead, and becoming an angry shell of a generally happy boy.
One day in math class everyone was making fun of him with the usual taunts. Something snapped that day. He put his head on his desk and just said something like [Can you all just say it where I can’t hear it? I don’t care what you think, I just don’t want to hear it.] Everyone just laughed at him. Finally the teacher intervened and told everyone to be quiet (note no teacher ever made an effort to make them be nicer, just, on this day, to be quiet).
Finally, the boy broke down and told his parents. They were sympathetic but ultimately told him to just ignore it.
This continued until 11th grade when the boy discovered that he could get into college with a good GED score (not a top school, but he could work hard and transfer to one, which he did). He promptly signed up for the GED, took it, scored in 98th percentile, and immediately dropped out of school. He went on to college, did well, flew away and started his life.
That boy was me.
Fast forward 30 years. I am a successful man. Yes, gay, with two beautiful children and a thriving career thousands of miles away from South Texas and a life so rich and full I can barely remember any of their names — that’s the best revenge. 10ish-years later when Facebook started I received friend requests from many of those nasty kids I grew up with. Then, it seemed, that because I’d moved off to an exciting city and made good, and being gay was suddenly “cool”, they wanted to be my friends. I declined them and have not been to a single reunion nor do I ever plan on going. My attitude has always been: you hated me then, I didn’t like you, why on earth would I let you into my social media or ever purposely go see you now?!
It got better. My partner lovingly calls me “Terry my fairy.” I belong. I overcame and laugh at it now. They’re all mostly right where they were in that boring town surrounded by the same people, while I achieved that elusive thing: happiness. They did me a favor, really. They motivated me to get the eff out! If you’re reading this and you went to Hobby Middle School, or Clark High School, this post is really for you. I survived. I thrived. Thank you for the pain — it has served me well.
I never looked back.
Disturbing CEO Announcement: Workers to Be Reminded of Their Place
The CEO has many indicators of narcissistic personality disorder. Suggesting people need to suffer to recognize him and his company as an authority over their lives is a major red flag. Everyone who works for him or with him should walk away.
From a western point of view and a few years doing business in PRC, I offer my thoughts.
Over the past 20 years, I have worked with several state owned factories in sourcing raw materials to the US and had the pleasure to meet and get to know with the No. 1 and other senior level managers in these factories. I am assuming, probably with good reason, that these people are all active members of CPC.
They are all good business people and given responsibility for the company management, quite the same as a CEO is selected by a board of directors in a private company with many of the same factors affecting their selection. They have connections ( as in both systems) to get these positions and expectations of success in their assignment.
The Chinese leader in the factory further understands that he is also responsible not only for the workers’ welfare, but their families in the management of the factory community. As such, they all have compassion, and concern and take this responsibility often with great passion .
Like private company management and politicians in the west, some are greedy. I came to know one very good company manager for a period of 5 years, who was eventually appointed to a local government official position (similar to Mayor in US). When I returned the following year, I learned he was to be executed for crimes; he took a bribe for preferential treatment of a private business deal! Chinese punishment of CPC member who violates a trust is certainly much more severe than the West, perhaps a lesson well learned by many for the high price of a life.
I ate, drank, and sang with these people and see them firstly as compassionate human beings, acting similar to those all over our planet.
Certainly the burdens of the CPC on the success of the business that includes the welfare of all the workers and family members must weigh heavily on these people, perhaps more so than a CEO in a western private company who must answer to a B.O.D and the shareholders.
In other cases, I have had opportunity to interact with other CPC members , at a lower level, in Chinese Customs, regarding our trade in China.
At this level their understanding of global trade was clouded considerably with politically driven policies. Like all people, we learn from our teachers ( in this case , the CPC) , who often have a different agenda than politically different viewpoints.
But it seems we all have bosses of some sort whether another higher ranking CPC member or a small business company owner, and as human beings, we react for the benefit of our own survival.
So what do I think about CPC members? Just people doing what they have been taught by others to get through this life.
1. Your salary. I get paid pretty much equal to what I would in the USA ($40-45k) as a history teacher at a local school, which includes a stipend for housing and round-trip flight home every year… but my salary goes further here.
At home, I could hardly afford an apartment (I’m from New Jersey) because I had student loans, car payments, car insurance, rent, utilities, etc.
Here, rent is paid. Utilities are cheap ($100 max for heat in the winter; $10 water bill; $30 unlimited internet). I have no car, no car insurance. I can get taxis (starting at $3) or hire a car (starting at $5) or take the metro (less than $1) everywhere. I can eat very well with a variety of foods, go get massages & spa treatments ($30 for 90min at my fave place, but you can go to cheaper places), and travel cheaply. All while still having enough to send home to pay for student loans…
2. The food. I left Shanghai for a year for another job and that is what I missed most. All the regional cuisines (Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Dongbei, Taiwanese, Xinjiang, Tibetan) are delicious and fantastic. I can also get a wide range of international cuisines within 5km of my apartment (Thai, Vietnamese, Vegan, Organic, Japanese, French, Italian, Mediterranean, Spanish, Mexican, Turkish, Moroccan, Indian, Malaysian, Singaporean, etc. etc.) and, for the most part, are reasonably priced. Shanghai is more expensive than Beijing and people here always complain about inflation, especially with cost of food. However, with everything else being relatively cheap, I don’t mind spending $15-30 on a Western restaurant brunch which includes a bloody Mary or two… (not the four star crazy buffets… they are $80-100)
3. Convenience. You don’t have time to clean your house or do your laundry? Hire an ayi (maid/nanny) … Mine costs about $6/hr … You don’t want to go to your favorite restaurant for dinner because the pollution is bad? Don’t worry, you can have it delivered. There are many restaurant delivery services where you can order online and someone goes to get your order from the restaurant and brings it to you… You don’t want to go to the foreign supermarket? You can order online and have it delivered. You don’t want to go to the store to buy bottled water? You can have it delivered. You don’t want to spend $100s on a new suit? Bring a picture to the fabric market and they’ll make it for $10s. You want to do a juice cleanse? You can buy one and have it delivered to you every day. You can get a lot of things done for you if you know how… And the list keeps growing! All the choices for foreign food markets & deliveries were not around 4 years ago, so the market is growing…
4. Travel. You can travel cheaply in the entire region. You can also splurge on a hotel because the cost of wherever you’re going is going to be nominal. I treated my mom to a private villa in Thailand for Christmas. I stayed at the Sofitel in Hanoi for my birthday. I am a ardent budget backpacker at heart and have been travelling & living in hostels for 8 years, but living in China has given me the opportunity to see many different cultures around East and Southeast Asia and stay within my budget. Only in the last year have I started splurging a bit, and while I don’t do it all the time, it’s nice to know that I can…
Now, I know friends at bigger international schools with bigger salaries that live in bubbles on the outskirts of town and spend my entire monthly salary on apartments or going out to eat… My boyfriend lives in such a bubble with a driver and he eats at the top tier restaurants all the time… I like being in the middle of it all… I would probably be considered rich by most Chinese, but middle-upper class by most expats here in Shanghai… I can`t enjoy top tier luxuries all the time, but I can afford way more that I ever could in the USA at my age (I’m 29)
and if you’re looking for a non-monetary and/or food answer:
5. Culture/Language. Living in the middle of Shanghai means that I interact with the local culture every day. I’ve learned to read and speak enough Mandarin to haggle in markets, order in restaurants, talk to taxi drivers, have conversations about where I’m from and what I do, navigate around the city, etc. It can be very frustrating sometimes, and I know if you are in your expat bubble, you don’t even have to speak any Mandarin at all, but I like what I’ve experienced. I speak Mandarin every day and as a history teacher, I find living and experiencing the changes in China to be fascinating. You can see the impact the past has had on the current government and how the economic changes are paving the way for a new China to emerge… it’s great to be here and experience all of the energy…
I don’t want to know how many soldiers have played with these kinds of thoughts. Of course, almost no one goes through with it.
If you are in a shitty unit, you sometimes start hating your own guys more than the enemy. In such a situation, some people start contemplating murder. If you kill only one teammate, you’re screwed; therefore the only logical thing to do is killing all of them and defecting to the enemy.
What will always happen to you if you were doing something like this is the following;
You kill all your “comrades”. No problem, it’s easily done.
You surrender to the enemy. Still, everything is okay.
Big surprise! You end up in a Prisoner of War camp. Don’t think that the enemy will give you any preferential treatment or somehow recognize you as a defector or collaborator. No one likes to have a complete psycho around them.
After a while, your fellow prisoners will find out about what you’ve done and kill you.
Even the most deranged soldier can see that such an act can only lead to his certain death. That’s why it doesn’t happen more often.
When a person describes heroin withdrawal as ten times worse than the flu, they are doing it no justice — plain and simple.
That’s like saying that sex and ice cream are the same.
Sure, sex and ice cream are both awesome, but they’re not really the same when you dissect the feelings that each of them evokes.
Same with heroin withdrawal and “ten times worse than the flu” — yeah, they’re both awful, but really, they’re not the same.
The first time I went through real heroin withdrawal was in Lancaster County Prison after a ten year habit. It was torture beyond imagination, and I have yet the strength to write an in-depth description on Quora.
One of the withdrawal symptoms of heroin is the feeling of suffocation.
From the last time you shoot heroin, it takes about six days to fall asleep. When you finally do fall asleep, you wake up in an hour or two feeling like you’re suffocating on your swollen tongue and saliva.
There is one thing that helps that particular withdrawal symptom that jails do not provide.
Air movement.
My current girlfriend has two children. The only thing that we ever argue about is the amount of noise they make after I go to bed.
I need complete silence and darkness to fall asleep — I always have.
But ever since I got clean from heroin, there is one noise (that used to bother me to no end) that I can fall asleep to — the hum of a fan that circulates the air.
Without it, I feel like I’m going through heroin withdrawal.
When I feel like I’m going through heroin withdrawal, it triggers me to want to shoot heroin again.
I never want to go back to that life — the life that was really no life at all.
The object that would hurt me the most to lose, is my stupid fan.
It keeps me from wanting to shoot heroin.
I’ll choose my dirty old annoying fan over any other object on earth, hands down.
I met James Earl Jones and his wife in Dubuque, Iowa when he was acting in Feild of Dreams. There was a friend of mine who was a script supervisor on the shoot, and the entire cast and crew were frequently guests at a local restaurant in town called Mario’s.
I went to meet my friend there and met James Earl Jones and his wife. A customer made a racist statement about Mr. Jones and his wife, and I got into an argument with the idiot and had him escorted out. Mr. Jones invited me to join him and his wife for a drink, and the three of us talked about his career and life for almost an hour. I avoided asking about Star Wars, and I think that was part of the reason I got to stay so long.
Every time I went to the restaurant, Mr. Jones (if he was there) would invite me to the table, or walk over to me, and at least say hello and buy me a good bottle of wine. He frequently picked up my tab, and introduced me to both Burt Lancaster and Ray Liotta.
A great man who told great stories and clearly loved his wife.
First, no work is flawless. It’s an impossible standard, so either she’s lying, or she’s deluded.
Second, bosses who try to enforce stupid and arbitrary rules like “no smiling” are soul-sucking creatures whose mere existence proves that they really are monsters.
Why I Will Never Come Back to the United States
“Couldn’t agree more. 32 years ago I met a woman while working in Stockholm that summer. The next year, I left Brooklyn to live in Sweden. The best decision that I ever made. After a good career in the Swedish Royal Opera, I collected my pension and now live in a small village outside of Palermo. No regrets. I’ll never return to the states.”
I was dating an eighteen years old girl, I was twenty-five years old. I had fallen in love with her, but this scared me because of the age difference. I felt guilty that she had not had a chance to experience a lot of life like I had.
She also did not have much of an education having just graduated from high school. I had already graduated from college.
I thought the correct thing to do was to break off the relationship giving her time to experience life more fully.
I took her out on a date intending to tell her at the end of the date that it was time to go our separate ways. All night long I was rehearsing the speech I was going to give her:
It is not you it’s me.
You have done nothing wrong
It is for your own good
Some day you will understand
At the end of the date, we were parked in front of her house when I turned to her to give her the speech the words that came out of my mouth were “do you want to get married?”
I swear I had never even considered marriage and to this day I have no idea where those words came from.
We have now been married for more than fifty-one years and are still deeply in love with each other.
I am one of the most fortunate people alive to have this amazing woman share her life with me
Remember the parties we used to have in school? The little things thrown together to mark the little milestones? Christmas or Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day?
Everybody would bring something. A bag of chips, a big soda, cookies or brownies or candy.
I used to look forward to those. It was a chance to have some of the things I never got at home. Money was always tight and everything else came first. So I never was able to bring anything.
Somewhere around the third or fourth grade the teacher made an announcement in class. If you don’t bring a treat, you don’t get to participate in the parties anymore. I looked around the room and noticed a lot of faces looking back at me, smug grins from smug little faces, faces lined with nice haircuts they didn’t get at the kitchen table.
There was something happening soon. I want to say the end of the year party. The grand send-off to summer vacation.
I went home and asked then pleaded then begged but “no” was “no” in my home. I guess when you live in an old house with no heat or A/C, no fans or television or telephone, no hot water or washing machine… basically just four walls, the extras didn’t matter much.
So I went with nothing.
The big day came. Kids piled in carrying their bags. The teacher laid the feast out on a long folding table. There was never that much before. Rows of potato chips, cans of dip: French onion, bean and the most valuable of all… nacho cheese. Every kind of cookie, cakes and pies, sodas and big bottles of juice.
I heard my name. Over and over. “Freddy didn’t bring anything.”
Time for the party. The teacher drags a chair out into the hall and tells me to follow her. I sit there alone with my book and read, trying to drown out all of the laughing and slurping and crunching.
That’s what the rich kids wouldn’t understand. Being outside.
Always being the one on the outside.
Strip Steaks with Garlic Sauce
2023 10 11 20 49
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
2 (8 to 12 ounce) strip steaks
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup pitted black Kalamata olives, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed flat with the side of a knife
Instructions
Cut the strip steaks in half across the midsection to make 4 steaks.
Season the steaks on both sides with salt and pepper.
Heat oil and butter in a wide skillet over medium high heat. When the fat is hot, add garlic, and cook a few seconds until it is aromatic.
Add the steaks and cook until well-browned, about 3 minutes on each side (remove garlic when it gets brown).
Reduce heat to moderate, and cook for about 7 minutes more, or until done to desired tastes. Remove to serving plates.
Add the olives to the skillet, and stir to heat through.
Add a little water, beef broth or red wine to the skillet and scrape out bits that are sticking, then pour this pan sauce over the steak.
Serve with steamed or sautéed asparagus, orecchiette (ear-shaped pasta) or small shell pasta coated with gorgonzola or blue cheese.
Several, but one comes to mind in particular. (Going anon because he follows me on Quora). I’m going to call him Dmitri.
I met Dmitri when he was in 7th grade when I was to be his teacher. Before the first day of school at the middle school where I teach (which starts in 7th grade) we have a fun hiking day where students get to interact with their teachers, parents can come if they want, they usually do, and we get to be outside. Of course it’s optional, but students are strongly encouraged to come.
Dmitri came by himself. When we got to the top we do this exercise where everyone picks out two palm sized rocks. They choose one they don’t like very much and let it represent all their fears and angers, and then they throw that off the mountain, we encourage them to scream when they do this if they want to (it’s often fun to just scream as loud as you can), and then with the other rock you let it represent what you love about yourself or you let it represent someone you love. We often tell them that they can save it for someone they love. When Dmitri threw his first rock over the mountain (which is in a direction nobody is so no passing hikers could be potentially hit with rocks) he let out the most gut wrenching scream ever, he doubled over with it and screamed until he couldn’t anymore, I remember thinking to myself, “that is a child with demons”.
The school year started, I was Dmitri’s English and history teacher. He was a great student. The kind of student nobody worries about. 4.0 GPA, top marks in all areas, he was very popular although he didn’t have any real friendships, but he didn’t have any enemies either. He had a great sense of humor and was just a very likable kid. He was also a good writer. His essays were always pretty good, although also very closed off. Like he was locking the reader out of the story, he never connected anything to himself, he seemed scared to show that level of emotion. The way he outlined and articulated essays was good beyond his years, but he never made the reader feel anything. Which isn’t surprising, not that many 7th graders know how to make a reader laugh or cry.
About half way into the semester there was an assignment for the student’s to write about a time they struggled to say something. This could be having a hard time telling the truth, having trouble saying how they were feeling, or just any struggle with communication they have had. I see Dmitri’s essay in his folder as he’s sorting through some papers from his bag and go to grab it. He quickly grabs it before I can and says, “Oh, um, that’s a rough draft” Then he hands me another version. Which I accept. But before I go I ask if I can have the rough draft as well. I really like watching the way a student’s writing changes between drafts and assure him I won’t grade the rough version. He seems like he very much wants to say no, but he was a very passive kid and he so he agreed.
I’m grading papers that night and first read his final version. Pretty much what I was expecting, a well written, well organized introspective essay regarding when you should tell the truth to preserve somebodies feelings and when honesty is more important. It’s ideas were deep, but he did a weak job connecting it back to his own life. Then I read the rough draft. It was on a completely different topic and blew my mind. It wasn’t organized or planned, I don’t think Dmitri outlined it first and it seems like he wrote it without the intention of it being read. It seemed more like something he did for himself therapeutically.
The essay was about his older brother who had died of a drug overdose when Dmitri was 9 and his brother was 15 (this is not something I had known about). He talked about how difficult it became to talk to people after that. One quote that really stayed with me, taken directly from the essay, was “At the funeral everyone felt the need to talk to me. They gave me their condolences and told me it would be okay even when it clearly wouldn’t be. I wanted them to go away and shut up and just let me be alone with silence. After the funeral, after all the thoughts and prayers were out of the way, everyone faded into the background. They were so worried they’d say the wrong thing that they chose to say nothing at all. With a mother who had collapsed into herself I was left alone with a dead older brother and I ended up resenting the silence I had searched for at the funeral. I looked for [brother’s name] everywhere. In his room, on the trails we used to hike, in the medical examiners toxicology report. All I found was a stranger who I felt I had no right to grieve” Dmitri went on to talk about how after his brother’s death he had become obsessed with the police investigation into where his brother had gotten the drugs. Because, as Dmitri put it, he wanted someone to blame. He blamed himself for not knowing about his brother’s use, and his brother for using, and he just wanted someone who wasn’t him or his brother to blame. To quote another part of his essay “They never found the dealer and it took me over a year to realize it didn’t matter. I wanted them to because then it wouldn’t be [brother’s name]’s fault for doing drugs, or mine for not knowing he was doing them, it’d be all the dealers fault for giving them to him”.
It was, without a doubt, the best student writing I’d ever read. It made me cry, in parts it even made me laugh.
I talked to Dmitri about it.
He broke down in the conversation and said he hadn’t actually talked to anyone about his brother in over a year. We talked for awhile.
At the end of the semester I found a little box with a note from Dmitri. The note read: “I wasn’t sure what this was supposed to represent. There were no parts of myself I particularly liked and no one I felt comfortable declaring a love for, even if the declaration was a private one. Thank you for showing me the parts of myself it could be and for showing me what a healthy relationship is. You’re the person I was meant to give this to” Inside the box was his rock from the start of year hike. I’ve kept it for the passed 3 years, it’s the most thoughtful student gift I could have asked for.
I’ve loved continuing to get to know Dmitri. He’s in 10th grade now and with his intellect combined with one of hell of a work ethic and his determination to be the first in his family to graduate college, I’m quite certain he has a big future ahead of him.
I am 60 and my husband is 67. In May we adopted a 16 year old young man. He moved in with us the January before his 15th birthday. The people he called mom and dad had just died. His biological mother did not want him and he never met his bio dad. We spent the year doing a TPR terminating parental rights. Once it was done, we adopted him. He is very shy and was never given anything as his parents were both on Medicaid. We have been able to introduce him to all sorts of things that the world has to offer. We went from being empty nesters for 10 years to having a teen. Sometimes I think he might be better with younger parents, but we give our undivided attention and he has our love and support, no abuse and a future.
i am risking EVERYTHING to share this with you!
Since he left FOX, he has been on fire.
A man with Cancer
I took care of an elderly man who had cancer. He lived Next door to me. I hardly knew him but asked about his health after not seeing him over the winter, he had lost 50 pounds and the doctor didn’t know what was wrong with him. So I volunteered to have him checked out and sure enough, he had malignant cancer. His family lived across country and didn’t want anything to do with him. Or his health. So I stepped in. The next 3 years we went through chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. See, his family were Roman Catholic, and I believe he was gay, although we never discussed it. They felt he was a sinner and abandoned him. It was sad. I mean Really sad, and since I lived next door, I stood at my kitchen window and kept an eye on the house when I was trying to give him quiet. We moved his bedroom to the living room, where he could sleep and I could look through the window to make sure he was alright. One day he attempted to cook and fortunately I saw the fire! I put it out and never let him cook again, which is when I took on his nourishment needs, although he could barely eat. Thus became my life. I found out he never had a birthday party, so I had my family come with gifts and cards. He was elated!
When he finally did pass away, he had left me his house and his corvette. His family was furious, although they were very well off.
when I had him buried in his family plot, I bought a gorgeous headstone for him. The family had the management of the cemetery sledge hammer it to destroy all memories. I was heartbroken and really pissed off. The next time I went to the cemetery the manager said , “Well I had the opportunity to speak to the family, and I see you were right, they are awful people!” When I went to visit one day, it was early evening and it was snowing so softly, and as I was leaving an ENTIRE herd of deer stood up and looked at me. They didn’t leave, they weren’t frightened, they just stood there staring at me.
I knew right then and there that he was happy safe. His family doomed him to hell, but that is not where he was! My heart grew and I was able to replace my tears with a smile. Moral of this long story is this; it doesn’t matter what material things you have in life, take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Be there for people who need you, whether it is family or a neighbor. It helps your soul to know you did the right thing.
Last thing, when he left me his house and car in his will, he stipulated that his family get $7,000. This way they had no recourse to fight me. I mailed his dress uniform from when he was a marine, his dog tags and many more items a normal family would want. They refused delivery and had it returned. his house wasn’t worth much, but I sold it when the market bottomed out and put in a few kitchen and bathroom remodeling.
I will never forget him. There is a shadow box in my home with pictures, dog tags and coins from around the world, even a picture of him riding a camel on vacation. The bulk of his money went to Karmanos cancer society. I do not regret one moment of those 3 years. Remember, be there for the people who have no one. It’s what you DO not what you have. Thx for reading this long story.
EDIT; this is for the woman who said it was a “weird, sensational tale of fiction “ This was all 100% true. The management of the cemetery destroyed the headstone because it was a FAMILY plot, and the Family had the right to decide what was on it. I complained vehemently and was refunded the money I spent on the headstone. It was afterwards that the management conversed with the family and found them crass and rude. There is nothing I can do about your comment, except to say sorry you didn’t understood what my post meant to me. So many others did.
The Living Dead: The Most Disturbing Story From 9/11
At 08:46 (EDT), hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Centre’s North Tower. It wasn’t long after that firefighters and emergency medical specialists were dispatched to deal with the multitude of distress calls they received from people trapped within the burning building. One such medical specialist dispatched that day was Ernest Armstead, a veteran with over 30 years of experience. In this video, I will attempt to retell the horrific experience Ernest witnessed that day.
Three mile island is / was a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. They had a leak of radiation in the late 1970’s and served as the back-drop for the story that I am about to relate today.
At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, one of the worst accidents in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises.
After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people.
As the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The plant’s parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation.
Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The crisis was apparently over.
Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised “pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.” This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid; within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns.
On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled.
At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident and no one died as a result of the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again.
I, like most of my classmates, at meals at the school cafeteria, and drank a lot of beer in between our classes.
Now…
There was a scandal that occurred at that time.
You see, after the three mile island event, the local government ordered that all the cattle that was grazing on the grass near the plant be killed and no milk be produced, and no beef be sold.
But…
Yeah. You guessed it.
Not all the cattle was accounted for. Some couple of hundred of head couldn’t be found, accounted for or located. They just “disappeared”.
One week after the “scandal” our school announced a “all you can eat steak holiday” at all of our dorm cafeterias.
Yeah.
No shit.
And sure as shit, tons of beef, steaks and roasts galore.
…
In the four years that I attended the university, there was only ONE such event. And that was one week after the missing radioactive cattle couldn’t be accounted for.
…
Now, I (who read the local and state news) wouldn’t touch the meat at all. And my classmates relentlessly made fun of me.
Saying that I was the one losing out. I was truly the butt of jokes. I was considered “stupid”, an “idiot”, and just too caught up in “stuff that didn’t matter”.
While they, who lived on campus, and was isolated from ALL OUTSIDE NEWS, lived a very secluded and pampered existence. They had no idea what was going on “outside”.
Maybe I was the fool.
Maybe not.
Of the three classmates who made fun of me, and who ate that steaks, two of them got cancer and died. One in the 1990’s, and the other around 2004 or so. The last one Peter, was still kicking around on Linkedin about eight years ago.
No signs of cancer yet. Knock on wood.
…
Today…
Rustic Southern Sweet Potato Pie
2023 09 17 10 42
Ingredients
Filling
2 large yams
2 large sweet potatoes
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter (melted)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter
Dough
3 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
Egg Wash
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
Filling: In a large pot, boil yams and potatoes for about one hour or until tender.
Drain water and let potatoes cool.
When cool enough to handle, peel skins off and place yams and potatoes in a ricer or potato masher.
In a bowl, combine yams and potatoes, sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and vanilla extract. Mix well.
Dough: Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a small saucepan, heat the butter until it turns golden brown. When done, it should have a nutty-like aroma.
Remove from heat and let cool.
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and sugar, mixing well.
In another bowl, whisk together olive oil, vanilla extract, milk and melted butter.
Pour into the flour mixture and mix with a fork. Dough should hold together. If too crumbly, add ice water, a tablespoon at a time.
Cover and let sit for about a half an hour.
Assemble: On a floured surface, roll out dough to fit a 14-inch round or rectangular baking pan. Place dough on pan.
Spoon filling into the center of the dough, leaving about a 1 1/2-inch border. Gently fold the sides of the dough up and over some of the filling.
Egg Wash: Mix the egg and tablespoon of milk together with a fork.
Coat the bread with egg wash using a pasty brush.
Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Maduro displays Huawei phone at press conference
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The latest cellphone of Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei not only caused quite a stir in the consumer market, but also became the gift presented by the Chinese side to visiting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Moros.
When addressing a press conference at the Latin American country’s embassy in Beijing on Thursday, Maduro took out a foldable Huawei mobile phone, attracting a flurry of flashlights.
“It’s Huawei’s newest cellphone that uses the latest technologies, and you can use this phone to directly communicate via satellite,” he said.
He unfolded the new device, and the large screen that emerged showed a photo of President Xi Jinping shaking hands with Maduro.
“Take a look at this cellphone. How does it look? Look at the screen. It’s a very big screen,” Maduro said with great pride. “Look at this moment when an ideal becomes a reality!”
The Venezuelan leader did not conceal his confidence in the quality of made-in-China electronic devices.
“I want all my young friends to buy a good Huawei cellphone,” he said. “I believe this is the most secure cellphone I’ve ever used and I believe it won’t be tapped by any country.”
Source: chinadaily
Chairman of Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, “Retiring” End of Month . . . Ukraine?
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is “retiring” at the end of this month. Quite a number of Pentagon staff seem to think this has to do with the utter failure of the Ukraine situation. One Pentagon Officer said “rats are fleeing the sinking ship.”
In a signal as to how unscheduled this “retirement” actually seems to be, Milley told reporters he “doesn’t even know yet where he is going to live, quipping that he has told his wife “we can go to Dicks and get a tent. I’m good with that. We lived a tent before.”
On their face, such words do not give the impression this was a long-planned retirement and gives credence to the notion that something unexpected is forcing the General out. In many people’s minds, Ukraine losing to Russia is the obvious catalyst for Milley’s rather sudden departure.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
I am not a fan of General Milley in any way. After the November, 2020 Presidential election, when Milley penned a letter – also signed by the rest of the Joint Chiefs – telling members of the armed forces they would serve Joe Biden, despite what I saw as clear and obvious election fraud which put Biden illegitimately into office, I thought Milley should have been gone right then and there. Instead of defending the actual vote which re-elected Trump, Milley embraced the illegitimate Biden “victory.” It made _me_ sick to my stomach.
Once Biden was in, the whole Ukraine thing flared back up. It had quieted down to nothing during the Administration of President Donald Trump, yet within weeks of Trump’s departure, war was back on the agenda in Ukraine.
That agenda reached its peak in February, 2022, when Russia, having tried every Diplomatic effort imaginable, had to send troops across the Ukraine Border to protect Russia from continued NATO expansion, and from the placing of American missiles on Ukraine soil.
So here we are, 19 months into the Russia Special Military Operation (SMO) to “de-militarize and de-Nazify” Ukraine, and Russia is winning big.
Even staunch NATO allies like Poland, see the writing on the wall. Just yesterday, the Poland President said “Ukraine entering NATO is out of the question now.”
The Ukraine fiasco is falling apart day-by-day and there is no saving it.
I suspect – but cannot prove – that Milley was among the Hawks pushing this Ukraine-Russia fiasco. Perhaps deluded by his own propaganda, Milley never seemed to realize that Ukraine never stood a chance against Russia.
Now that the Ukraine thing is falling apart, Milley is high-tailing it into retirement.
It was my neighbor. She shot a message to me, all capitalized: “DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT?!”
and then, she proceeded to tell me the story about our County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a delivery driver stated that he was unable to deliver a package due to a llama standing in the middle of the road and blocking the traffic.
A cop responded to the location and found said llama in the middle of the road, refusing to move. He finally found a way to sweet talk the llama into putting on a leash and to get it off the road way. If there wasn’t a picture, I’d refuse to believe it.
image 77
People! Keep your pets in the house!
Chinese Innovation Foils U.S. Tech War — Clifford A. Kiracofe
Washington calculated that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.
image 67
China’s rapid advances in technology will inevitably foil the United States-led Western technology war against China. Huawei unveiled its stunning new high tech Mate60 cell phone and timed the announcement with the visit of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Sending a message?
The Donald Trump administration launched an intensive trade war and a tech war against China. President Joe Biden continued Trump’s policies and ratcheted them up to a new level. Rather than engage in mutually beneficial trade relations and scientific and technological cooperation, Washington openly admits it seeks to contain and suppress China’s economic growth and development.
Playing this zero-sum game is a dead end for the United States. China is very well equipped in the pursuit of technological innovation. Fundamental to China’s tech progress is the human factor. For example, it is no secret that China every year produces far more STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) students than does the U.S.
Tech war is economic war
Export controls and restrictions on technology development are nothing new in international commerce. During its colonial period, the North American colonies faced an array of trade restrictions and technology restrictions imposed by the British Empire. These were designed to prevent the colonies from becoming rivals to British manufactures. They also were a factor leading to the American Revolution and War of Independence.
In World War I, the United Kingdom enacted a “Trading with the Enemy Act” which created an export control regime deigned to deny Germany war related imports. After the U.S. entered the war, Congress passed its own Trading with the Enemy Act modeled on the British legislation. These wartime legislative measures were applied again during World War II.
After World War II, export controls on a multilateral basis were created by the West to restrict various exports to the Soviet Union and Communist bloc. The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) was created at the beginning of the Cold War. The U.S. thus coordinates, in turn, with NATO allies, Australia, and Japan to restrict the export of sensitive technologies to designated countries.
So the Western use of export controls for the purposes of economic warfare is nothing new. But the revival of this mechanism intensively directed specifically against China is a key feature of the U.S.-led New Cold War. The technological encirclement and blockade of China, however, is not sustainable.
image 66
Washington miscalculates
Washington calculates that it could restrain China’s technology advancement and thereby stay ahead of the China. However, it appears that this calculation was mistaken.
Logically, because China’s population is four times larger than that of the United States, there would at some point be a larger pool of STEM trained specialists in China than in the U.S. This is so because of the continuous upgrading of higher education in China and the massive commitment to research and development.
Several years ago, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. released a study on the STEM issue. The university’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology reported that in 2000 the U.S. issued twice as many doctorates in STEM field as did China. But in 2007, China began outpacing U.S. universities. The report assessed that by 2025 China would produce twice as many STEM Ph.D. graduates.
Because the U.S. cannot compete with its own population base, Washington seeks to import specialists in STEM fields from India as one stop gap measure.
But Chinese innovation is very dynamic and advanced with great future potential. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that China would develop the necessary technology for state-of-the-art semiconductors. This national objective combines the growing pool of high-tech specialists with a large pool of skilled labor together with billions of yuan for investment.
It was not difficult to foresee that China, through innovation and targeted investment, would be able over time to produce the machines and industrial processes to fabricate advanced state-of-the-art semiconductors. This applies to Chinese semiconductor design capability as well.
Why did the Washington miscalculate?
An inter-agency task force on the Chinese semiconductor issue would have concluded that the attempt to block and limit Chinese advances is not sustainable and thus would fail.
Some critics of the administration point to the lack of competence in President Biden’s foreign policy team. They say that Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are just not up to their jobs.
Be that as it may, it is possible that racial prejudice affects Washington’s assessments. There was a time after World War II when it was common to look down on “cheap” Japanese goods. But Japanese success in electronics and auto manufacture by the 1980s showed another story.
Anyone from the U.S., a tourist or an official who visits China’s National Museum in Beijing will see exhibits displaying many centuries of Chinese skill and innovation not only in art, such as ceramics and bronze, but also in inventions and technology. China’s history of science and technology goes back millennia.
image 65
File photo shows technicians of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) inspect the company’s facilities in Beijing. (Photo/Xinhua)
What does the Huawei Mate60 portend?
Clearly, the advanced smartphone is a perception changer at a minimum. No doubt, it will be seen as a game changer as well. Other high-tech breakthroughs are in the news.
It is now reported that the Chinese firm SMIC has a 7 nanometer (nm) N+2 process semiconductor project that is produced entirely in China with no access to Western equipment and technologies. All of the core components in China’s EUV lithography machines are said to be ready and that the prototype is being tested.
On the day that the new Mate60 phone was announced it was sold out in one minute online. Huawei boosted production to 15-17 million units and beginning September 10 Chinese can purchase the smartphone in Huawei’s offline stores. The phone has a satellite capability.
As Chinese firms develop independent semiconductor design and fabrication capacity, U.S. firms inevitably will lose out on this vast export market. It seems logical that the more intense the anti-China trade and tech wars become the more Chinese consumers will turn to homegrown products other than those from the U.S.
The U.S. lifted a stone only to hit its own feet.
The U.S. politicians must come to their senses and adopt a China policy of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and mutual benefit. Washington’s belligerent and destabilizing foreign policy disrupts the international community, increases tensions, and can lead to a war which will harm the U.S. side in the end.
As an American, I can answer this and feel no remorse for brutal honesty: because America sucks. There I said said it. The American Dream was a lie invented by Madison Avenue to sell Packards and cigarettes. Pick a developed (or hell, even a middle income) country and you’ll usually discover the US is usually worse at everything that matters. Healthcare, education, public transport, child mortality, infrastructure quality, violence, city layout, etc. Those are the most glaringly obvious. Here are some more that are more subtle, but you start to feel them the longer you’re away.
There is no community in the US. How many Americans can tell you they know the names of the neighbors? How many Americans would trust their kids walking to a mile to school or the grocery store? For Christ’s sake you can’t even send your kid to a public school without having to worry about a classmate shooting up the place.
Next, we’re even bad about about the thing we go on most about and claim the entire country was founded on…freedom itself. Want to build a house on a vacant lot? Your local NIMBYs will make sure the local government keeps that from happening. Want to walk down the street drinking a beer in any town or city (other than New Orleans or Austin)? Say hello to your arrest for public intoxication. As a general rule, free men choose and unfree men comply. And in the US today, you’re going to find yourself always complying.
And for the flag waving keyboard warriors who are currently furiously typing, “LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!!!” I’m already ahead of you and will be a citizen of Belize before the month is out.
Originally Answered: What is the differences between Huawei's version of 5G versus other companies? And why is Huawei ahead of everybody else in this technology? Did they steal it from US DARPA?
Three years old article , but still very good. Godfree Roberts always delivers -MM
…
It’s not Huawei’s version of 5G that is different: 5G standards are set by international agreement and Huawei and others must adhere to them.
It is Huawei’s implementation of 5G that sets it apart. It’s the lowest-cost provider and the only provider of end-to-end solutions for national telecoms: from servers to cell towers to handsets, all designed to perform perfectly with each other.
Unless it approves Huawei the US will be forced to integrate more costly, less functional, less compatible, less upgradeable components and pay twice as much, take twice as long and endure years of inferior service.
Huawei is literally unrivaled in enhanced mobile broadband. Only Huawei produces every element of a 5G system and assembles turnkey networks–from antennas to the power stations to chips–at scale and cost. It’s just what busy telcos want: one-stop shopping at a fraction of the cost of competitors. And Huawei manufactures its own stuff, too. Here’s one of their many production lines:
Much of the cost of implementing 5G (and much of its benefit) stems from the fact that it requires 5 times more cell sites than 4G. Cell sites are heavy and expensive to install because they need a crane operator to lift them into place and technicians in cherry-pickers to hook them up.
So Huawei shrunk cell sites’ dimensions by 50% and cut the weight of its 64T64R 5G base station to 70 pounds so two people can install them without expensive cranes.
Installation is expensive! The US needs to install 100,000 more cell sites, an investment that runs into billions. US corporations are reluctant to invest the necessary billions because they prefer to use their money for stock buybacks but China will spend $200 billion on 5G network construction by 2025.
Because electricity is expensive, Huawei also reduced the power requirements of their equipment, so it’s 30% more energy efficient than competitors and reduces connectivity cost-per-bit by 80-90% compared to 4G.
Huawei is also innovative: Apple, for example, uses 790 Huawei patents while Huawei uses 90 Apple patents. And Apple cannot ship 5G handsets until late 2020, a delay that postpones America’s full implementation to 2025–an eternity when competing with China, where 5G phones are working in Lhasa. (China is making trendy Monaco the first country on earth to be fully 5G operational).
The US and Apple are effectively out of the 5G race, but China, Russia and the EU are heavily committed to 5G. Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is a PhD scientist and her ministers and CEOs see 5G as a way to boost national productivity, a German obsession.
Even worse for the US is the fact that, by 2027, the first specs for 6G will be issued and 600 Huawei mathematicians and engineers have been working on them for almost a year.
In other words, except as a consumer of Chinese technology, America is becoming irrelevant in mobile telecommunications, an American invention, because it has no industrial policy and its CEOs are shortsighted, greedy and unpatriotic while China and Chinese CEOs are precisely the opposite.
2021 UPDATE: Tibet now has broader, faster 5G service than America’s leading technology cluster, the San Francisco Bay Area.
Yes, except for satellite calls, this phone is not much different from the latest iPhone or Galaxy.
It’s just a mobile phone. It’s not a hydrogen bomb, it’s not nuclear fusion, it’s not even a Mars landing.
2023 09 07 15 44
Why a mobile phone can attract huge attention.
This is because the appearance of this mobile phone represents the end of an era and the beginning of an era.
The power of the United States is so strong that all countries/businesses in the world must obey it. Americans say “Hey. You are not allowed to deal with this company, he is evil!” All companies can only obey. Because even if they are not American companies, their governments cannot protect them.
So before that, no country or company could withstand US sanctions.
In the past, a civilian enterprise that was comprehensively sanctioned by the United States could only go bankrupt, cease operations, be acquired, or shrink to a closed field to survive.
Originally everyone thought Huawei was the same. Without the support of American technology and global supply chain, this enterprise will suffocate to death.
However, the emergence of this mobile phone subverted everything.
It proves at least four key pieces of information
1. The Chinese government has become so powerful that it is not afraid of the United States and has enough power to protect its own companies.They even pranked Raimondo, saying she was the spokesperson of Huawei
2. American technology is not unique, and the Chinese can do it if they spend some time. Since the most complex semiconductor industry can do it, so can other industries.
3. China has built a complete semiconductor technology and industrial chain, and their country can stand shoulder to shoulder with the world. They sent a clear signal: cooperation, welcome; confrontation, come and try.
4. China’s market is huge. In extreme cases, they don’t need global trade, and they are enough to maintain world-class enterprises. If you don’t give me your market, you will lose mine too.
In short, the appearance of this mobile phone has sent a signal to all other countries in the world: when you feel that you don’t like the United States or are oppressed by the United States, we will give you a second choice.
Therefore, it is not just a mobile phone, but a historical milestone.
I believe I am living a good life. I have a fun job, and my own house, and cars I enjoy, in a great place. I also have a very nice family.
What makes it possible:
I live within my means;
my means are adequate;
they are adequate because I deliver something to be considered of value (I teach);
I am apparently not a monster, so people don’t run away from me;
I am surrounded by very nice people, in a very nice society.
And that may very well be the recipe for a good life.
So, be realistic, productive, and nice, in a nice place, and you should be ok. Not rich, perhaps, but a good life doesn’t need to mean you’re rich. In fact, a certain lack of ambition for riches may very well provide you with a more rewarding life than aggressive pursuit of riches, because people will still like you, and that’s a major part of having a nice life.
Here’s my not-rich-life, and it’s good enough for me.
This JUST Destroyed US Sanctions China’s Huawei Smile & America Shocked!
1,025 views Sep 5, 2023
Since 2019, the US government has imposed a series of sanctions on Huawei, alleging national security concerns and effectively cutting off the company from vital components and software. These sanctions have been a significant hurdle for Huawei, but the tech giant has proven its resilience and innovation time and again. The latest chapter in this saga brings us to the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, a flagship smartphone release that has garnered attention for potentially defying US sanctions. In today’s Video, we will delve deep into the intricate web of events, policies, and technological advancements that have allowed Huawei to seemingly outmaneuver US sanctions.
Huawei grant the United States a BACK DOOR to Ukraines Security Network for Trump to be able to prove Biden was corrupt in Ukraine
Huawei promptly refused
Trump then demanded something even stronger :-
Huawei would transfer all their patents and all their 4G Equipment Licenses and all their Network Equipment in US & Europe to an American Entity for a flat sum. Lock Stock and Barrel sale.
Huawei would manage 5G Networks and get a Operations Fee but the entire network would be controlled by the Americans or their companies
Otherwise Trump threatened to Bankrupt Huawei and destroy them
Huawei again said NO
The US always had their way in these things and Trump was very angry
image 55
Huawei was hit with the worst sanctions for absolutely no reason whatsoever
The US refused to allow Huawei a chance to withdraw from Military contracts of the PLA in order to avoid the Sanctions
Huawei refused to sacrifice their Network and 5G patents in exchange to keep selling phones
It would have been the easier thing to do
Huawei was selling 216 Million Units a year of smartphones
These Restrictions took it to a mere 27 Million Units a year the following year
image 56
After Trump lost, Biden came to power and Huawei hoped for a peaceful return
Yet Apple lobbied ferociously to keep Huawei down as they saw their sales rising rapidly in Mainland China, their second largest market
Biden complied as he wanted China to follow his BIDEN DOCTRINE
So as you can see, Apple vs Huawei is not an Economic Or Technology War
It’s a Coercive Political War steeped in protectionism on behalf of Apple and on spurious and baseless charges made by Donald J Trump
Without an Economic issue or proper competition, how can Huawei and Apple ever compete?
Apple is protected so much it has forgotten to Innovate anymore
Huawei is being throttled and conspired against every second day
Unless 6000 US Politicians die and the Neo Cons and Insane Trumpers disappear – No American will allow Free Competition
American citizen living in Germany here.
I get asked often about how long I will stay in Germany and why Germany. I want to stay indefinitely and the reason why is precisely because the USA is not the best country in the world (there is no such thing). I am treated better and have more opportunities in Germany. Here are some things that I can do in Germany that I could not do in the USA.
I can go to the doctor without fear of bankruptcy, without having to argue with insurance companies, without receiving random medical bills at a later date.
I and my husband can have a child and get paid maternity and paternity leave.
I can go to university without taking on debt.
I get 30+ days of vacation each year that I am encouraged and expected to take.
I can feel secure in my job because they cannot fire me without cause. There is no such thing as so called “employment at will” laws.
I can raise kids who are bilingual in an environment that values bilingualism.
I can drink in public places. I can crack open a beer or wine on the sidewalk, in a park, on public transit, nearly everywhere.
I don’t have to worry about taking a bullet at my place of work (I’m a teacher). When I do have kids I won’t have to worry about them being shot in school either. In fact I don’t have to worry about guns at all because they just aren’t prolific here.
I don’t have to worry about CPS (Child Protective Services) being called or being arrested if I let my kids be independent and go do things by themselves. It’s considered normal for even a 6-year-old to walk to the bakery by themself, go to the park by themself, and to walk to school by themself… even in big cities.
I don’t have to leave a tip because I know that my servers are paid fair wages. My servers don’t push me out of a restaurant when I am finished eating. I can sit and enjoy a drink and conversation and I can let my server know when I am ready to leave.
I don’t have to worry so much about nudity. People here tend to have the perspective that it’s just a body and being nude is generally not illegal.
I don’t need to have a car to get just about anywhere. I can use public transit.
I have more freedom of movement. As a woman, I can walk around alone in a big city at 2 in the morning and feel safe. I experience far fewer (nearly zero) instances of street harassment.
I don’t have to tolerate religion being shoved in my face on a regular basis. Yes, people here can be religious too, but they nearly always keep it to themselves.
IS SHE A MAN?! | The Truth Of Barack & Michelle Obama… *MUST WATCH*
The stupidest thing the US government did was to try to stop Chinese progress in technology.
It didn’t work 30 years ago when the US tried to stop Chinese launches of satellites. It didn’t work when the US tried to stop Chinese machine tools, and hey, it didn’t work this time either.
Every single time the idiots in D.C. did this, China ended up with the majority of the world market for that industry.
You would think that since it didn’t work several times before, they would have stopped doing it but no. lawyers only know one thing. Try to screw you over.
So this time, it didn’t stop China either. Instead Huawei alone has a GPU that is as fast as Nvidia’s A100. I thought it would take at least a couple of years for China to catch up to the latest generation GPUs but no. China has caught up.
The only thing is that China can’t make enough. But once those new Chinese fabs that are slated to come online in the next year and the year after that. China will not only be making chips for China but also to the rest of the world.
Micron has already fired over ten thousand people, same for Intel, and AMD. Nvidia will be doing the same once their market share drops due to Chinese chips coming into production.
This is just the start.
US chip companies are going to lose more revenue because of US government sanctions. This isn’t just the Chinese market. After all the US is sanctioning about 1/4 of humanity right now.
No one knows if the US government is going to come after you. So everyone, ironically, including the Europeans are designing out US made components. No one wants their business to be interrupted because a US senator or President woke up and decided to sanction you.
The US simply can not be trusted to carry out normal business.
Business contracts are meaningless as the US government will sanction you for saying the wrong thing or not saying what the US orders you to say.
So US companies have not only lost the Chinese market, they are also going to lose the world market.
…
With the exception of the White nations and US lapdogs.
It won’t be the Indian century because Indian society does not meet the basic requirements for being a modern society.
A modern society does not discriminate against members of society simply on the basis of birth, because they believe human talent should be allowed to flourish regardless of anyone’s social background at birth.
Because of the Indian caste system, India does not do this, and caste discrimination continues. As Indian becomes more powerful and grows, more countries will become aware of the caste system, and this will form a glass ceiling for India’s growth.
The only way for India to deal with this problem is to meet it headfirst, and through a combination of social reform and legislation, make a clean break with the caste system.
China had a class system, and Mao challenged and broke the Chinese class system.
India needs its own Mao to shatter the caste system before it can become a modern state.
Niger Africa Has Beat The French Military – French Military Evacuating Niger
He stopped and froze, a bit concerned. He then points under the trees and says: “Tiger!”
I approach him and look. We were in the USA, what did he see there?
A big orange tabby cat!
His picture book at home doesn’t indicate scale, so tigers, ants or apples are all the same size. How could he have known what size a tiger really was?
Central American Parliament Votes In Favour Of China And Says This About Taiwan Being China’s Part
This is no different to Australia being a Commonwealth Country of UK. We function as a Republic, and we have our own Country … so to say the UK will invade Australia is absurd. The same applies to the Republic Of China (aka ROC Taiwan). ROC Taiwan is already a province of the People’s Republic of China (aka PRC Mainland China). Why would PRC China want to attack ROC Taiwan? It’s already a province of PRC China. The ROC Taiwan functions a Republic and has its own currency … just like Australia.
https://youtu.be/nJRuT88ApT4
Strawberry Cheesecake Chimichangas
Strawberry Cheesecake Chimichangas, a Tex-Mex favorite, features a delicious cheesecake filling wrapped in a flour tortilla, fried to perfection, then coated with cinnamon-sugar.
Divide the mixture evenly between 6 tortillas. Slather the filling in the lower third of each tortilla, fold the two sides of each tortilla toward the center and then roll the tortilla up like a burrito. Secure it with wooden picks.
Combine 1/3 cup sugar with 1 tablespoon cinnamon in a shallow bowl and set aside.
Line a large plate with paper towels.
In a deep saucepan place about 2 to 2 1/2 inches vegetable oil for frying and heat it over medium-high heat until it reaches 360 degrees F.
Fry the chimichangas until golden brown and crispy, about 2 to 3 minutes, and flip them as needed.
Remove the wooden picks.
Transfer the chimichangas to the paper towel-covered plate to drain for a minute, then roll them in the cinnamon and sugar mixture.
Serve with sliced strawberries on top, if desired.
Huawei was once the world’s top smartphone vendor, shipping over 200m phones in 2018.
Last year, under a de-facto embargo by the US, it shipped 28m, an eight-, almost nine-fold decrease from its peak.
The volume has been cannibalized by Apple, Samsung, and other Chinese brands.
Apple, in particular, now sell more iPhones in Greater China than stateside, all thanks to Huawei’s demise.
That’s “national security” and “clean networks” for all you Apple fans.
How bad were the curbs applied on Huawei? Phone assemblers froze assembly lines overnight and refused to fulfill their contractual obligations, components on order were canceled, and design license agreements ripped up.
Huawei had no OS, a completely disrupted hardware supply chain, a deficient set of highly specialized software design tools and its CFO under house arrest in Canada.
It would not have surprised anyone had Huawei announced its withdrawal from the consumer device space.
Amazingly, Huawei the 5G telecoms champion sold off Honor, its sub-brand, and issued 4G phones under the Huawei brand, weathering a gut-wrenching revenue drop off a cliff.
It conducted an internal review of the entire supply chain, from its core telecoms equipment business to consumer devices, and began the painful and expensive task of de-Americanization. Any component that had even the hint of American IP was marked for domestic substitution. The process was completed for its telecoms equipment earlier, but the device side lacked two pieces—a capable GPU for AI-assisted gestures, payments and the camera, and a 5G modem, which was protected behind Qualcomm’s giant patent wall.
Huawei found hacks around EDA restrictions, and designed its own GPU.
It also introduced novel transistor geometries to boost the performance of 7nm to the 5nm node. It rapidly upgraded its inhouse Hongmeng OS to 4.0, turning it into a polished platform with large language AI and IOT capability baked in. Its software ecosystem is coming along nicely, and the platform is well beyond the market share needed to ensure survival.
To add icing on the cake, the flagship Huawei phone of 2023 can make satellite calls, showcasing its space comms tech maturity and the bandwidth/coverage of the Chinese commercial satellite network.
In field tests conducted by a Hong Kong user, the Mate 60 Pro matched the iPhone 14’s 5G network speed, demonstrating Huawei’s 5G modem was a match for Qualcomm’s implementation. Not a bad milestone for a first effort, eh?
Huawei had no need for GPS, Qualcomm’s 5G, LG’s OLED, Samsung’s storage, Micron’s memory, or even upstream chip design tools that were vulnerable to US sanction. In fact, even if we took the best in class features from Apple, Google and Samsung and put them into a hypothetical hybrid champion, the Mate 60 Pro can still stand shoulder to shoulder, because it has a couple of industry-first or performance leading features. It is truly worthy of a 2023 flagship designation, earned fair and square.
Huawei did all these in less than 4 years, a remarkable turnaround despite becoming a corporation targeted for destruction by the US government, probably a historic first.
Huawei is finding its mojo again on way firmer footing, and it will sell every Mate 60 pro the production lines can churn out this year.
Chinese do not really believe in propaganda, otherwise known as marketing.
What you mention are statistics. Statistics are routinely interpreted differently by governments in ways to suit their needs, but this does not make them lies. Western governments do this about inflation.
For example, when talking about inflation, the US government usually does not include gasoline prices. How much do Americans use automobiles for transportation? Would you say then that the US government is lying about inflation?
You see, when it comes to statistics, there is no such thing as objective truth.
There are just different ways of counting.
Internet DESTROYS Oprah, The Rock For FRAUD Maui ‘Fundraiser’
The Rock and Oprah are facing backlash after they tried to save face by “raising money” for Maui. The people of Hawaii aren’t buying it..
In 1986, a fire broke out in an apartment complex in Chicago. The fire was responsible for the death of two brothers and one of these brothers was believed to be a part of the Latin Kings gang. The police suspected a woman living in the building was responsible for the fire because he had a brother killed by a member of the Latin Kings.
The woman was brought in for questioning, but she denied being involved in the fire and instead pointed the finger at 18-year-old John Galvin, and two other boys.. The night of the fire, John had stayed at his grandmother’s house, and there was no evidence to say these boys had done it, but they were brought in for questioning anyway.
When they were brought in for questioning, the police used extreme tactics to get the boys to confess. After an intense interrogation, deceptive tactics and physical violence, John snapped and confessed to the fire.
He signed in a confession that himself, Arthur Almendarez and Francisco Nanez threw a bottle of gasoline at the building and then threw a lit cigarette into a pool of gasoline on the porch to light the fire. The Judge sentenced all three to life without parole.
After being in prison for 27 years, John was watching an episode of MythBusters where they attempted to light gasoline with a cigarette and they couldn’t get it to light, even after many attempts.
After waiting 8 years and many courtroom battles they were finally exonerated in 2022 after spending 35 years in prison.
Douglas Macgregor: UNITS GOT MASSACRED WHILE RETREATING.
I called the woman interviewing me “Tina”. Her name was not Tina. I did this on purpose.
I was being interviewed for an IT position with a very high end resort. From the moment I started interacting with this woman, I knew I wasn’t going to take the job even if it was offered. She was that unpleasant.
However, being the professional that I am, I figured I should at least complete the interview.
That was before she started talking down about her employees as if they were her personal servants. She was elitist beyond belief. She outright laughed in my face when I told her I had experience dealing with wealthy people. She generally made no effort to hide her disdain for “poor people” and told me that I would not be permitted to ever talk to the clients.
It was at some point during this conversation that I had Ron Swanson running through my head.
The woman in question was named Toni, but by the time she was done with my interview, I wanted to call her Satan.
So, at the end of my interview, I stood up, reached out my hand and said “Thank you for the interview, Tina. I’ll see myself out.”
I thought her face was going to explode. HOW DARE THIS PEASANT CALL ME BY THE WRONG NAME!!!!
Yeah, I nuked that bridge from orbit, but I have absolutely no desire to work for a person like that, nor anyone who would associate with her.
Living in CHINA: Culture Shock!
I briefly describe the experiences I’ve had and discuss the theme of convenience in Chinese culture.
Well, I’m a woman who works in Engineering. To say I’m familiar with this would be an understatement.
The ones who walk into my office and give me a high school level explanation of something, and I gesture to the books on the shelf behind me (either as a co-author or technical reviewer) while complimenting them on their grasp of the basics and offer a lend if they’d like to learn more in-depth.
Or the ones whom I helped with some 1950’s HVAC equipment nobody else could, who later swung by my office to thank me, shake my hand, and try to palm me a TWO DOLLAR TIP. ~blink blink~ I laughed and handed it back, helpfully explaining that my tastes run to 20 year old scotch, not Natty Light.
And the constantly being hit on at technical conferences, and when I politely thank them and say I’m already seeing someone, they go off on how I should enjoy my middle class life and tell me how much money they make. With those… I don’t tell them that I make significantly more than they do, they’re already too fragile in ego anyway.
He cried and hugged my leg for help, he had been starving for a long time… I couldn’t pass by!
Thank you so much for helping this sweet innocent defenseless kitten. Poor baby was probably traumatized by some heartless souls who painted him and heaven knows what else they did. You are an angel with such a beautiful loving soul. Thank goodness you saved him, took him to the vet for vaccines and an exam to make sure he was healthy. We, in the USA, have many people who are also cruel to animals,, so it is no different here. You are “The Power of One” to help these sweet beautiful animals.
About 18 months after marrying my husband who was a very fit manual worker, he collapsed in our field with what I thought was a heart attack. I gave him first aid until the ambulance arrived and he was blued and twoed to the main hospital. Turns out it wasn’t a heart attack but he had an aortic aneurysm and a leaking heart valve. He had emergency open heart surgery and was in hospital for quite a while. When he got home he was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome (look it up, it interesting but too long to explain). As he was recovering I cared for him night and day. I never left his side. He slowly started to feel worse. After numerous trips to and from doctors and hospitals, he was diagnosed with leukaemia. I held his hand and wiped his brow as he had bone marrow extracted. He went through hell as you can imagine. Never once did it cross my mind to leave him let alone divorce him!
He started out on the road to recovery but I developed an almighty headache. The doctors treated me for migraine. Nothing touched the intense pain. I rubbed my head on the bedroom wall in absolute agony. I wore the paint and plaster from the wall down to the bare bricks. How much my poor husband did to try to help me. He rang an ambulance when I was at my worst but they refused to attend as “migraine wasn’t classed as an emergency”. He carried me to the car and drove me to hospital, worried out of his mind. I was given ct and mri scans and they discovered a giant aneurysm on my brain. I had emergency brain surgery. That man never left my side. I don’t think he thought of divorce either.
Twelve years later, we are still together, very much in love and we care for each other. Life is hard but we stick together through thick and thin!
China-U.S Clash: China DESTROY The Entire U.S Car Industry
In today’s video, we dive deep into the seismic shift in the global automotive and tech industries. China’s decision to restrict raw material exports has sent shockwaves across sectors, reshaping the landscape and posing significant challenges and opportunities for the U.S. Join us as we unravel the intricacies of this power play, its implications, and the potential paths forward. If you value staying updated on the latest geopolitical and economic trends, this is one discussion you won’t want to miss!
China doesn’t listen to what the US tells it to do; Japan does.
The Chinese currency, central bank, banking system and real estate market take their orders from one organization: the Party. When the Central Committee announces a policy decision, the decision is final. When the US told Japan to overvalue the yen to cut Japanese exports, Japan did. When the US complains about the yuan being valued lower than it should be, China ignores the US.
The US has military bases in Japan. It has no military bases in China.
China has 1.4B people; Japan had about 120M people.
China is dominant in all manufacturing sectors; in the 1990s Japan was dominant in automobiles and machine tools. China had not become significant yet.
China is one of the founding members of an increasingly important economic organization, BRICS. Japan did not have leadership in any international organizations.
China is the leading trading partner for 150+ countries.
What Happened to Millionaire’s Row in Pittsburgh?
US, Europe need China EV batteries to help own firms — Global Times
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There have been calls in the US and Europe to reduce China’s advantage in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. But China’s supply-chain advantage in this area has become so important for the global EV industry that giving up that edge could put a country’s development of its own EV sector at an obvious disadvantage.
Maybe that’s why UK Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said that her country won’t impose import restrictions on those products from China.
When asked whether the UK was overly reliant on China for its EV supply chain, Badenoch said on Monday, “At the moment, China is leading on this technology, so we wouldn’t be able to get to where we want to get to on net zero by completely stopping or banning Chinese products … You can’t exclude Chinese-made products from the battery ecosystem.”
Despite what Badenoch said, it doesn’t mean that Chinese-made EV batteries will not face any trade barriers when entering the UK market, given the “rule of origin” requirements for electric cars in the EU-UK post-Brexit trade deal. Under the deal, starting from next year, carmakers could face tariffs of 10 percent on EV exports to the EU if at least 45 percent of the value of an electric car’s components and 60 percent of its battery don’t come from the UK or EU.
Badenoch’s response was more like an attempt to consolidate carmakers’ confidence in the supply chain. It is no secret that the UK government has been looking for ways to boost its domestic EV and battery industries, but the problem is that it is struggling to attract such investment, especially from foreign companies, as the UK has lagged behind China and the US in terms of EV-related industries.
Under such circumstances, any negative signal to Chinese battery suppliers would constitute another source of risks to the development of the UK’s domestic EV industry. This is because Chinese companies account for more than half of the EV battery market and satisfy as much as 90 percent of demand for some battery materials, according to Bloomberg NEF.
Such economies of scale have allowed Chinese manufacturers to outperform US and European rivals, which is probably why when the US and European EV industries are still dependent on increasing subsidies, while Chinese manufacturers, especially those on the battery supply chains, have already shifted from being entirely subsidy-driven to being market-driven.
In this case, if a country really shuts Chinese batteries out over geopolitical reasons or fear of competition, then its domestic EV companies will probably face higher costs and slower development due to insufficient domestic supplies. The logic applies not just to the UK, but also Europe as a whole.
There are many concerns in the EU about excessive reliance on Chinese electric cars and components like batteries, with some following the geopolitical thinking of the US.
As a result, concerns are rising when it comes to Chinese electric cars and batteries entering the European market. For instance, last month, the EU’s Batteries Regulation entered into force, which stipulates how batteries are collected, reused and recycled to a high degree in Europe. This is seen as one of the newest thresholds for Chinese carmakers and batteries in going overseas.
Of course, it is reasonable for the EU to safeguard its own supply chain stability and economic development, but it should be advised that to achieve the goal of promoting EV development, the EU needs to follow rational voices that are based on the judgment as to whether it is conducive to promoting green development, rather than being derailed by protectionism or geopolitics that will only backfire.
Well, me – 3 or 4 times. The first time was as a new boy, middle of freshman year in high school, moved to West god help us Texas. I was a late bloomer, prepubertal, 100 pounds (maybe) soaking wet, 5 foot nothing tall.
The school was not what you call big, and PE was all four ages from frosh to senior, your schedule with academic classes being considered more important.
A senior kid, obviously bigger, started in as class had ended, we were dressed and waiting for the bell for the next class. “Your old man’s a stupid pig!” “Yeah,” I said. “P-I-G. Pride, Integrity, Guts.” Turned my back and walked out. Axxhole grabbed my shoulder, spun me around for a sucker punch to give me a black eye.
That was the last he landed. Did it not occur to dumb-dumb that a cop’s kid just MIGHT grow up learning self-defense? He missed the next three days of school. I had a shiner.
Word got around. That was the last anyone tried to bully me in high school.
I was going to school in Chicago, USA. I definitely didn’t have much money. At the time, I typically donated plasma weekly for my food allowance.
Walking to class and the train (tube) station weekly (this particular lecture was only once a week), I would pass a small eatery. Near the eatery, there was a homeless person with one leg sitting in a wheelchair with a collection cup. He would ask every time I’d pass by.
One week, the eatery was advertising a special: 1/4 chicken dinner, potatoes, green beans for $5. What a treat! I barely had $5 but decided to purchase on my way back to the train home.
I don’t remember exactly what the lecture was, but surely on gratitude or counting blessings. After, I bought the food. I passed the man in the wheelchair. While I didn’t have much, I did have a roof and some bread. I gave my food to the man. I explained I didn’t touch it yet and had planned it for my dinner. He thanked me and I started to walk away feeling like I maybe made a small difference in his day.
He called after me and I turned. He asked about a drink. I told him I didn’t purchase a drink. He told me it was $2. I told him I didn’t have $2 and I paid in change to purchase the meal. He stood up from his wheelchair on TWO legs. “Bullsh—”. He threw the food down on the ground next to my feet which spilled it. “Who buys a dinner without a drink?”
I walked away. I was embarrassed and hurt. I cried on the train ride home. I went home and ate the only food I had left for the week- some bread with peanut butter. I ignored him every week after that.
1930s USA – Fascinating Street Scenes of Vintage America [Colorized]
Nobody is your enemy. You are everyone’s enemy because you think you owned the world and that everyone must be submissive and subservient to you!
You who ask this question is your own enemy! China is not your enemy. China want to be strong and powerful so that you cannot threat them. That is simply a right thing to do. If you think China is only a friend if they lie down and let you walk all over them you are wrong. You are simply not clever.
China won’t and so is the rest of the world. Nobody likes a bully like the U.S. no one wants a self proclaimed world policeman that no one appoints. No want wants a trouble maker and a war monger.
Breaking Bad – TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT
Tuco was, BY FAR, the funniest dude on breaking bad, every time he takes a hit of meth, is pure entertainment.
Did knights have to be kind to peasants in medieval times?
Yes, especially if he wanted to get in your pants. (Although lower-class medieval women generally did not wear trousers.) So the Duke of Normandy was looking at his fortress. He saw a beautiful tanner’s daughter dipping animal skins into the water. She had lifted her skirt. The Duke liked what he saw. He sent a soldier to fetch her. She said she would go to the duke’s castle if she rode the soldier’s horse. The soldier agreed. She borrowed a pretty dress. Then she mounted the side saddle of the soldier’s horse. She and the Duke had sex and the future William the Conqueror, King of England was conceived.
I really liked this girl, she was funny, charismatic and helpful.
Until one day, I met a friend of hers and she was really pleased to meet her. Right after the other friend left, she said “look at her, if she gets a boyfriend before me, I’ll kill myself.”
I found this a rather odd thing to say but I shrugged it off, but it didn’t stop there.
Time and time again… she would smile in people’s faces and what she would say behind their backs was awful.
This had me feeling really sympathetic for people that called her a “friend”. It was also a wake up call like damn, what could she be saying behind my back.
We still talk but not much especially after I confronted her to tell her that what she was doing wasn’t cool. I’m in a place in my life where I’ve lost interest in her and honestly my respect for her too.
Don’t backbite your friends it’s not cool people, not cool at all.
The states have been different from all countries I’ve been to so far. I visited NewYork state then went all the way to Oregon. And I had some general impressions on both:
1- People are so friendly. In fact, too friendly for someone like me, lol.
Everyone chats with you like they’ve known you for a while. They ask “how are you today?” and answer in length something like “oh not doing my best given the weather but other that it’s all good” with a bunch of giggles and smiles.
Not to mention, the waiters constantly check on us, asking if we need something.
Having been raised in Kuwait, the small chat is usually kept to the very bare minimum. And how are yous are replied to with 2 words no more.
Not only that, but Americans also apologize furiously and sincerely for things that look very normal to me. People would apologize deeply that they couldn’t help you find something or that they had to do something that caused you a minute inconvenience.
I found it sweet but way too deep for interaction between strangers. But that’s just a matter of what I’m used to.
2- Traffic light for every lane.
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I had never seen or heard about this before I landed in the US. I would look up and there is 4-5 traffic lights for one street only ! My husband then explained to me that the right or left lanes can sometimes move when the others aren’t, hence each has their own traffic light.
In Kuwait there is usually one traffic light on each side of the street is all.
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3- Diversity in products.
You can ask my husband how my first visit to target then Walmart went. I was basically like a child in an enormous candy store.
There is a huge number of products suitable for everything.
I found hair products in huge numbers for each hair type. I found makeup shades with huge ranges. Given that back home, accepting diversity isn’t that big of a trend yet, I had to get myself some supplies.
4- Doing everything yourself.
Call me spoiled, but back home I never fill up my gas tank myself, or carry my luggage into an hotel, or check myself out of a supermarket without interacting with a cashier worker. But in the US, I had to it all myself.
However, the most shocking thing I had to do myself is this:
We finished eating in a restaurant, so I informed the waitress the I wanted my food for takeaway. So she came, left this carton on the table then walked away:
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If my husband hadn’t explained to me that this is normal there, I would’ve been pissed at the poor service and laziness. But it was just the norm as I had to do to pack my food into boxes in a couple of places after that.
5- Asking for a bag and a straw.
Being so environmentally conscious isn’t a big thing yet back home, so I was definitely taken by surprise that I have to go out of my way to ask for a bag or a straw for my drink. Most people didn’t get bags if they purchased few things and some had their own bags with them.
6- Interaction with the waiters.
When I went to restaurants with my husband in different countries, I never understood what he was doing. We’d want our cheque but he kept sitting there only to tell me that no one’s looking at us yet. So I would just raise a hand and shout “excuse me”.
Then I came to the US and I realized that service there is all about eye contact.
You close the menu, they see that and come pick it up and get your order. You need the cheque, you give them a look and they know that you need something and come right away.
Everyone in my family thought that’s hilarious. If I kept waiting for a waiter to look at me, I’d spend the night in a restaurant every week over here.
And of course, I was not used to tipping at all and forgot to do it all the time.
In fact, I had no clue how to tip when paying with a credit card until my husband showed me. You basically write the amount you want to tip on the receipt.
I still think that giving 20% of the receipt as a tip is way too much. But I guess I have to follow the norms because the system is very different over there.
7-Calories on the menu.
Everything on the menu has the calories written next to it. Thank you for ruining my chance to have a guilt-free dessert America ! Lol. I definitely see how it’s useful for others though.. just not to someone as obsessive as me.
8- Dogs everywhere.
I had a vague idea about this… but oh boy, I underestimated the size of it. There were dogs everywhere I went. The supermarkets, airports, houses, elevators and so on.
In the few hours I spent in the airport of San Francisco, I’ve seen more dogs than I see in Kuwait for weeks.
9- The bathrooms are shocking.
This has been mentioned by most people before for a reason. There is no squirter/ hose/ bidet. You only use toilet paper. I forgot that most of the time and therefore didn’t prepare for it so I had to keep wetting tissues before using the toilet.
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Also, I had no clue how to shower without drains on the floor. Back home, we have a drain in the bathroom. So even if you spilled a ton of water on the floor, you simply push it into the hole with a squeegee in the ground and you’re good.
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So my husband showed me that I have to shut the shower curtains tight- as I don’t have any at home. And that I should keep the towel very close to me to dry myself before leaving the shower and so on.
10- The houses are modest and not as fancy as I expected.
I had always thought that everyone in the US lived in a huge fancy house as shown in hollywood movies.
One time I even squabbled with my husband because he wanted to live in a house. I said “ I don’t want to have to clean all that much all the time !”. He explained to me again and again that it’s not that much bigger than an apartment but I wasn’t convinced.
And I wasn’t the only one. One of the things my family asked me is “does their house (my in-laws) look like the one from home alone?”.
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But to my surprise, houses can be as small as you want them to be. From the inside, when it’s a one-storey house, it looks exactly like an appartment.
So basically, they were like apartments sliced up into units, instead of being gathered in a building.
I am that person. I sunk money into a large deck, hot tub, atrium, in ground pool, 3 car detached garage, a third floor, 15kw solar array, an extra bath and a half, over size hot water system, built in BBQ, gardens, and all sorts of other amenities. All the stuff a realtor will tell you not to do because there would be little, if any, return on the money.
Some people don’t care about getting their investment back. I just wanted to live well with all the stuff I ever wanted. Been here 20 years now and I got my money’s worth. I’ve always known that eventually I’d be selling the place but I didn’t do it to make a profit. I’m getting too old (77) to take care of things and am going to have to downsize within the next few years, but the last two decades were worth the money. What good is money if you can’t enjoy it???
At the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2023, 40+ countries applied to join, and six nations were admitted.
China is already the leading economic power.
But these countries are not applying to join BRICS because China is the economic world power. They are applying to join because they are not satisfied with the current economic order as represented by the G7, and they want a system where they can be treated fairly as equals, instead of being dominated by a minority.
San Francisco Is So Bad That Construction Projects Are Being Cancelled
There is very little value enhancement due to market pricing or Brand pricing or Technology Pricing
Even a Boeing makes at the most a couple of million dollars commission to a Chinese Importer while earning nearly 100 Million Dollars to the US Economy
You see right?
No Nation on earth can export $ 564 Billion worth of goods to the USA
It’s estimated that at thrice the manufacturing potential today – India, Vietnam and Mexico combined can export $ 338 Billion worth of Goods by 2030
This that’s around $ 226 Billion of Exports but also around $ 700 Billion of final retail goods
That’s the amount that US players and entities will be deprived off if US entirely decouples from China EVEN IN 2030 with India, Vietnam and Mexico tripling their Industrial Output
Even then US Economy and it’s players will be deprived of $ 700 Billion Dollars which by 2030 could be around $ 1 Trillion with inflation
That’s a lot of jobs, lots of payments GONE
Meanwhile China?
China may lose around $ 564 Billion of Exports in decoupling
At 0.4% inflation
That’s $ 580 Billion vs $ 1 Trillion
So even in the worst case scenario of US entirely decoupling from China and India, Mexico and Vietnam tripling their Industrial output today – China would lose $ 580 Billion while US would lose a whopping $ 1 Trillion
At normal Industrial output for these three nations, US would lose $ 2.4 Trillion or nearly 4.5 times as much as China stands to lose as an economy
Same for EU
Same for ASEAN
Same for India
Its why Raimondo visits China
It’s why 27 Chinese entities were removed from a Blacklist recently
The Media has been spinning fiction and propaganda so far and China hasn’t cared
Now if China decides to take their revenge by drastically cutting off key exports of say $ 100 Billion, then US cannot source more than $ 30 Billion from other countries
China loses $ 100 Billion but US loses around $ 210 Billion of value to it’s economy
That’s 44% of the projected $ 470 Billion that the US Economy hopes to enhance itself this year at 1.8% growth
So Raimondo says
Please keep trading with us as usual. Ignore what we say in our media. Our contention with you is for the $ 10–15 Billion portion of our Trade, let’s keep the balance $ 685–690 Billion of Trade as normal
That’s why China doesn’t need to visit everybody and reassure anyone much
Everyone loses far far more by decoupling with China
So ultimately it creates a slow down globally where China albeit having very low growth still beats the rest of the world
He was part of a huge family of film financiers but his father was among the poorest members of the same family
He roomed in the same area as Bachchan and Amjad Khan and Shatruguan Sinha in 1970–1972
He eked out a living as a small time writer and selling shirtings and acting in small parts for various studios
Then in one day his life changed
He was WILLED almost 4 Acres of Land in Bombay in the mid 1970s and 14 Luxury Cars
A Very Wealthy marwari financier who was pissed off with his family, willed his entire estate to Sudhir solely because Sudhir drove him on his last journey as a favor
A Clear will naming Sudhir as the sole beneficiary of the mans will witnessed by a reputed doctor and by a famous producer
Obviously the Will was contested ferociously
Meanwhile Sudhir received a monthly rent of ₹ 210/- for each Unit of the Chawl due to rent ceiling and had to pay almost ₹40, 000/- in Taxes
He was cited for illegal construction in 1986 and warned to hand over the property to someone else in exchange for a ₹7 Lakh compensation
He leased out those 14 Cars for film shootings. The Courts allowed him these lease amounts as earnings but any sales sum would have to be placed in a separate account
For 31 years, Sudhir and his family saw an avalanche of litigation during which Sudhir sold his cars but had to put the money in a separate account
He refused to settle with anyone
Meanwhile he survived on handouts for his treatment for Pulmonary Something and struggled financially
In 2007, the Courts decided in his favor
They acknowledged that the Financier had clearly said all the earned wealth would go to Sudhir and it was not the courts business to interfere in why certain people made certain decisions
Sudhir was entitled to ₹ 46 Lakhs earned from the sale of the cars plus interest in the bank
Then he sold one car for ₹3.3 Crore to Vijay Mallya – a Vintage car
His financial position improved dramatically by 2009
Still the legality of the Chawl was pending
Sudhir died in 2014 , willing the Chawl to his son and daughter and wife equally
In 2019, the Courts decided that the Chawl belonged to Sudhir legally as Lalwani had paid a sum of money and legally purchased the land on which the Chawl was built
The Value of the Land?
Roughly ₹ 240 Crore
The State protested and used the Land ceiling in Mumbai and said No Individual could own 4 Acres of Land in that area single handedly
In 2021, the courts valued Sudhirs estimated ownership at 0.96 Acres per the 1976 standards
Thus Sudhirs share was estimated at around ₹59 Crore
The family finally got ₹46 Crore after all taxes by the State Government Or Local Corporation
Sudhir had been gone for a decade but still HE EARNED ALMOST ₹50 Crore cumulatively just by a single will and a moment of anger and indecision by this Marwari financier
Tariffs on China Backfire as American Companies Are Leaving US, Eyeing to Set in China!
The American government ought to consider if it would not be wiser to have a more friendly attitude to China instead of making enemies all the time.
Only 2000 Taiwanese are allowed to travel to the mainland every day
Around 120,000 Taiwanese are restricted from visiting the mainland
Mainlanders who visit Taiwan are literally spied on to the last minute of their visit and cannot spend overnight in Taiwan without an express permit
Taiwanese Researchers are forbidden from visiting the mainland anytime
In fact it’s a GODDAMN CRIME in Taiwan
If a person restricted to travel to the Mainland, goes anyway – he could be jailed!!!
Why do you think they have such rules or restrictions?
Why not boldly say “Any Taiwanese can visit the mainland if he wants”
After all MAINLAND has no such laws
Anyone can leave and spend 10 days in Taiwan and 30 days in US and 30 days in UK and 30 days in Spain and return back
Taiwan is the East Germany of Asia
It’s people are developing a pull to go to Mainland China which is now developing and growing faster than Taiwan outside numbers
The Vast Spaces, the vast Tier Two and Three Cities, the emerging railways, the cleaner crisper air and the boundless opportunity for more research and a huge scope of expansion
Against
The congested island, the crowded cities, the overkill saturation of US influence that is having a reverse effect on the Taiwanese and the fewer opportunities to expand or handle research
The Mainland is their home too
There will come a day when Nature wins and when ultimately the Chinese on both sides decide to unite to maximize their growth and development
Just like East and West Germany and the Berlin Wall Moment
Taiwan is a slave satellite to USA just like GDR was to USSR
Not to mention the Anti China wave in US is also affecting the Taiwanese in US as they very much look the same
So Why would China rock the boat by Invading Taiwan?
That’s what US and the West want today
To divert attention from the Ukrainian horrors that they are facing plus finding a divide between the Mainland and Taiwan
No need to invade even if Lai Wins
Even if Taiwan under US influence make some demented declaration of Independence
By simple Natural Economics, China will succeed in reunification
Richard Wolff on How Europe DESTROYED Itself in America’s War on China
Dying for America must surely be a good cause. Well done, EU. Do it for America. </sarcasm>
Originally Answered: What is the best case of “you just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you've witnessed?
I was that kid!
Let’s set the scene. It’s 1975. I’d just started at a state Grammar School, a short, weedy 11-year-old first-former.
For some reason, some mop-haired blond idiot of a fourth-former bully decided I was going to be this year’s soft target. Think Draco Malfoy. Similar looks, similar attitude. He took every opportunity to threaten me: “I’m gonna get you after school! You’re going home in an ambulance!”
The threats continued, day after day. I was starting to think he was all wind.
One day, he proved me wrong. Waiting until I was just out of sight of the school—the only smart thing he did—he and his retinue of about eight or so other idiots surrounded me in a wide ring, and he advanced with all the swaggering menace a half-grown young man can show a little kid.
I wasn’t going to talk my way out of this one.
Now, a little flashback. Ripple, ripple.
When I started this school, a few weeks prior, my Dad gave me a new case. It was made of ABS plastic, a relatively new material, and this briefcase—hinges, handles, the lot—was one single moulded piece, folding in the middle, with added locks. It looked smart. Grown-up. I was proud of it.
Ripple, ripple. We’re back.
That day, it was full of textbooks and homework. It weighed (it seemed to me) a metric tonne. Turned out, that was quite handy.
I was terrified, but that fear inspired me to something I could never imagine any other time. Like an Olympic hammer thrower, I started a turn. Imagine this, but with a scrawny 11-year-old and a heavy plastic briefcase:
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As I completed the 360, I took aim.
>CRACK!< The far corner of the briefcase, with all its accumulated speed and weight, and at the full extent of my reach, crashed into the right temple of the bully. Instantly smacked him flat on the road.
I didn’t even stop to see if I’d knocked him out. I ran through the circle of his stunned former admirers, straight back to school, and into the Headmaster’s study. I described him, his friends, and what happened. They showed me three-year-outdated photos of kids. I commented that even if I’d not picked the right picture, he’d be easy to spot next day.
He was. Apparently, he turned up to school with an angry-looking, brightly coloured lump the size of a swan’s egg on his forehead.
He never made it to his first class. I gather this wasn’t his first offence—but with perfect proof attached to his face, the school had a cast-iron case to expel him on the spot.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome near the town of Tsiolkovsky in the Russian Far East’s Amur region to discuss a number of pressing issues, including those related to bilateral cooperation, as well as regional and global security.
The two leaders conducted negotiations on Wednesday both as part of their countries’ delegations and in a face-to-face format, in a meeting that lasted a total of about six hours.
“Thank you for inviting us, despite your tight schedule,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Russian President Vladimir Putin before the two started the tour of the Soyuz-2 space launch facility ahead of the negotiations.
and the Angara rockets, among other things. He notably left a short entry in the book of honorary guests of the cosmodrome, writing, “The glory of Russia, which gave birth to the first space explorers, will be immortal.
Putin, for his part, noted that the Vostochny Cosmodrome was an unusual venue for his meeting with Kim.
“We are proud of the development of our space industry, and this facility is new for us. I hope that you and your colleagues are interested in it,” the Russian president said.
He also recalled several memorable dates for North Korea
as the two met at the cosmodrome, located near the town of Tsiolkovsky in the Russian Far East’s Amur region.
“I am very glad to see you. Especially after such events took place: 75 years since the [Democratic People’s] Republic’s [of Korea (DPRK)] formation, the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War, and 75 years since the establishment of [Russia-North Korea] diplomatic relations,” the Russian head of state said.
Kim on North Korea’s ‘First Priority’
The North Korean leader called Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow his country’s top priority.
“Our friendship has deep roots, and the very first priority for our country now is relations with Russia,” Kim underlined, stressing that his visit is taking place “at a very important period.”
He signaled Pyongyang’s readiness to “further develop ties [with Russia],” adding, “We have always supported and support all the decisions by President Putin and those by the Russian government.”
Kim also expressed confidence that his meeting with Putin will raise bilateral relations between Moscow and Pyongyang to a new level, pledging that North Korea would always stand together with Russia in the “fight against imperialism
.”
In this vein, the North Korean leader pointed out that Russia “has risen for a sacred fight to protect its national sovereignty and safety against hegemonic forces.”
Productive Parleys
Speaking to Russian media after the Wednesday talks, Putin said he, in particular, held an open exchange of views on the situation in the Far East region.
“It is a good start, [and] very productive [one]. A very frank exchange of views took place on the situation in the region and on bilateral relations,” Putin emphasized, adding that he and Kim also discussed the development of bilateral relations in the field of agriculture. The statement came after the Russian head of state noted that Kim’s visit “is taking place in a truly comradely and friendly atmosphere.”
The North Korean leader, in turn, said during a gala dinner after the talks that high on the agenda was the situation in Europe and the Korean Peninsula.
“Comrade Putin and I just discussed in depth the military and political situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Europe and [we] arrived at a satisfactory consensus on further strengthening strategic and tactical cooperation, supporting solidarity in the struggle for the protection of the sovereign right of security, for creating guarantees of lasting peace in the region,” Kim underlined.
He expressed hope that his visit will serve as a catalyst to further bolster bonds between Pyongyang and Moscow.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome on September 13, 2023.
“In conclusion, I would like to express my confidence that our [delegation’s] current visit will serve as an important moment in the further development and transformation of traditional friendly Russian-DPRK ties into unbreakable relations of strategic cooperation,” the North Korean leader stressed.
He said that such strengthening is in line with the countries’ interests, signaling Pyongyang’s intent to build long-term relations with Moscow.
Sign to Washington
Konstantin Asmolov of the Moscow-based Institute for China and Modern Asia Studies with the Russian Academy of Sciences has, meanwhile, told Sputnik that what matters most from the Putin-Kim meeting
is “the visible show of support” of Russia by the North Korean leader.
Asmolov pointed to Russia becoming the first country where Kim arrived after three years of self-isolation, which he said is “a rather important fact in itself.”
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives at the Vostochny Cosmodrome for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 13, 2023.
The expert suggested that the two most likely focused on changes in the geopolitical situation in the region during the closed-door talks, especially in light of emergence of regional alliances, such as the Washington-Tokyo-Seoul bloc, which was created amid “global turbulence.”
When asked if the US is alarmed about closer ties between Russia and the DPRK, Asmolov said that America just “pretends that they are terribly afraid of apocalyptic consequences from this relationship in order to justify the formation of an Asian NATO.”
Victor Teo, a Singapore-based political scientist who specializes in the international relations of the Indo-Pacific region, for his part suggested that the two discussed “strategic matters of common interest” during the face-to-face talks.
Asked about the signal Putin and Kim are sending to the West, the political scientist said that “one key message this meeting is sending is that despite the United States’ strength in the Asia-Pacific, Russia too has allies in the region.”
“I personally think that Russia and North Korea are already on good terms, and that while Western press reports have raised various concerns, the United States government understands that the DPRK has traditionally relied on the Soviet Union/Russia for help in various aspects. The US security establishment is therefore not all that concerned with Russia-DPRK interactions unless it involves sensitive military technology exchanges that the US does not wish for the DPRK to possess,” Teo pointed out.
Sea launch 1st by Chinese private entity!
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China on Tuesday sent a sea-launched rocket into space from the waters surrounding Haiyang, a coastal city in the eastern province of Shandong, placing four satellites into planned orbit.
The commercial launch vehicle, CERES-1, blasted off at 5:34 p.m. (Beijing Time). The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center conducted the offshore mission.
The rocket maker Galactic Energy said it was the 9th flight and the first sea-based mission of the CERES-1 series. The launch also makes it the first Chinese private company to complete a liftoff from the sea.
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Compared with a land-based launch, the sea launch is a new mode, having more flexibility, better adaptability, and more cost-effective services. Furthermore, flexible positioning of the launching and landing areas can ensure spent rocket stages. Other debris falls into the sea rather than on land close to populated areas.
These advantages give the rocket company the confidence to increase the frequency of sea launches in the future.
Aboard the CERES-1 rocket were four satellites Tianqi 21-24, developed by Guodian Gaoke, a Beijing-based commercial sci-tech firm, which are part of the Tianqi low-Earth orbit Internet of Things constellation.
The 38-satellite constellation will go into operation in 2024. It will provide global data services for application scenarios such as emergency communications, ecological environment monitoring, and tower detection.
He was a young man who ended up splattering his brains all over the side of the pavement in the UK. He was well known amongst the petrol head community in the UK for all the wrong reasons.
He was a young man who seemed hell bent on dying young and impressing other people and trolling others.
If I recall correctly (it;s been years) he crashes his car impaling himself in the face and losing an eye. He seemed unfazed by this and bought a high power motorbike and scared the shit out of people by riding recklessly. Within a year he crashes and ends up spreading his brain on the pavement.
I recall his GF’s mother said she was glad he was dead, she was glad because he kept taking her daughter for dangerous drives around various roads.
Originally Answered: What science photos are hard to believe but are indeed real?
The most amazing photo in science ever taken and the one so hard to believe, is this one:
image 50
This is a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012 of a tiny tiny section of night sky. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, it took 11 days of exposure to capture the light from these small dots. What is so mind-blowing about it is the fact that with the exception of four small objects, no dot of light in this photo is a star. They are all entire galaxies of stars, over 10,000 separate vast islands of stars spanning quadrillions of miles in size each. The dimmest dots actually represent galaxies that are over 12 billion light years from Earth. Because light travels at finite speed, it took over 12 BILLION YEARS for the light from those galaxies to arrive at Earth. Stare at the photo for a bit and realize the incredible vastness it represents! Look deep into the image to find those dim dots.
The Hubble team did something really cool. Using hard data of how far each galaxy in the above image was from Earth, they created an actual video simulation of what it would look like to fly INTO the galaxies in the Ultra Deep Field image above. Every dot in the video is an entire galaxy of stars passing you by. Here is that video. To really appreciate the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo, click the video below to fly into that scene: (Note: At the speed of the video, it would take you trillions of years to fly at that speed through these galaxies in real time).
Scientists also looked deep into the blackness beyond the above galaxies and asked if there were even more galaxies to see, if the Hubble took an even longer exposure. A few years later, with upgraded camera software, Hubble took an even longer and closer view of the same above spot. Sure enough, called the “Extreme Ultra Deep Field”, it contained a slew of even fainter galaxies. Here is the result:
image 49
In all likelihood, there are even more fainter, more distant galaxies hiding in the above darkness, beyond Hubble’s ability to see.
OK, so the sky has lots of galaxies. Surely that is crazy to grasp but perhaps not so hard to believe. Well, to understand better what is so mind-blowing about the above photos, consider this image below:
image 20
So, just how much of the sky did the Hubble telescope photograph to capture those 10,000 galaxies in one shot? It is the answer that is impossible to believe. Look at the image above. See that tiny faint yellow square in the upper left center? THAT is the area of space the Hubble photographed. All of those 10,000 galaxies in the first image, stretching back in time almost to the beginning of the universe, came from inside that tiny yellow box. WHATTTTTT????? In fact, the space occupied by that image would fit into an area smaller than a grain of rice, held up to the night sky at arm’s length. Move it a millimeter to the right, left, up or down, and it will block 10,000 more galaxies, then another 10,000, then another and another and …. Imagine how many galaxies you can cover if you contemplate the entire night sky? WHOA!
Well, was this some kind of fluke? Perhaps Astronomers pointed the Hubble at a section of sky known to have lots of galaxies. In response, the Hubble took a dozen additional long-exposure photos of different parts of the sky over the years, also spanning no more distance than that tiny box above.
Here was the result of another such exposure:
image 21
This one, taken in 2018, is a time-exposure of another tiny part of the sky and found a whopping 15,000 galaxies in a single image. Called the Hubble Legacy Field, it used the upgraded cameras on Hubble. It reveals galaxies stretching almost to infinity. Again, look deep into it to understand its magnificence.
Here was another exposure from yet a third tiny part of the night sky, named simply the “Hubble Deep Field” (it was in fact, the first photo taken of them all):
image 48
As you can see, it is filled with over 3,000 galaxies (the black area at top right is a camera artifact).
For a final view, this one is a closeup of a cluster of galaxies, one of hundreds known to exist. Most of the objects in it are massive galaxies, clustered together by their mutual gravity. It is called MACS JO717 (objects with long cross-hatch lines are stars in our Milky Way).
image 47
In short, everywhere Hubble looked in its dozen+ photos, it saw galaxies of stars … thousands upon thousands of them. No one knew the night sky had that many islands of stars. Every Astronomer on Earth was blown away by the realization that when you look out at the night sky tonight, the darkness you see is not dark. It is FILLED with thousands upon millions upon billions of galaxies of stars, each containing hundreds of billions of suns and possibly trillions of planets of their own. In fact, latest surveys estimate that our visible universe contains over 2 TRILLION galaxies, stretching to distances that no one can even comprehend. That is an almost impossible number to contemplate and is so humbling to realize.
Modern computers can draw simulations of what 2 trillion galaxies might look like, if we could see just a tiny fraction of them from a distance. Here is one such simulation (called the Large Scale Structure of the Universe)
image 46
Each dot above would be a galaxy of billions of stars positioned by the computer in its correct spot in the night sky. WHOA!
To best understand this, choose just one tiny dot in the above image … anywhere. Do it now. Stare at it a bit. Then imagine that dot is our entire Milky Way galaxy. With our current technology, it would take humans 2 BILLION YEARS to cross just from one side of that tiny dot you picked out to the other side of that same dot. Really! Now, look around it in space. Imagine how vast is the universe when you contemplate traveling between these galaxies, between those tiny dots. We are just a tiny blob of protoplasm on a tiny planet orbiting one star out of septillions, in just one galaxy among trillions, in an impossibly immense space. That is why the Hubble photos of these galaxies have been voted by many scientists as the most amazing photos ever taken in science. I totally agree!
It is like allowing the U.S. have a long rope to hang itself. Every time the U.S. media and politicians look down and pretend that China grow slowly or China don’t grow. And that the U.S. grows when in effect it is in a technical recession, it allows China to zoom past them.
So westerners who repeat such lies are in fact helping Chi a and not hurting China at all. This situation helps China. It wants to hide its strength. Not behave obnoxiously like the U.S. boaditing and showing off.
One year. I arrived in Nov 1967 and worked Huey night maintenance at Bien Hoa airbase for the 118th Assault Helo Co. My first exposure to combat was when the VC attacked the base in the Tet offensive, Jan 1968.
In April 1968 I was assigned a crewchief slot with the 68th AHC, the TopTigers and by mid May, I’d lost three helicopters and 2 pilots to enemy action and a crash. By June I was flying with the Mustang gun platoon and by November, my year was over. But I still had a third year of total service obligation left and my unit was short experienced crewchiefs. So my CO asked if I would extend my tour six months and in return, at the end of the extension, the ARMY would grant me an “Early Out” thus forgiving my last half a year of service. And in a decision only a VN vet could understand, I decided my place was with my flying buddies and I signed up for the extra six months. I made three.
In March 1969 my gunship crashed and I was medevaced out of VN a 20 year old casualty of the war. Recovery took a year and the VA granted me 30% disability and a monthly check of $42 which today has increased to $560. The California VA also paid for my Engineering degree as well as college for my two daughters. These bennies were well worth the discomfort of my injuries.
Interestingly, extensions in VN was not unusual in my unit. Several of my fellow crewchiefs came home, realized how tedious stateside service was, and missed the camaraderie of their aircrew buddies. So in 1970 – 71, they returned to our old unit and to a man, regretted it. The buddies they’d known had been replaced and the unit espirit had changed as well. VN was winding down.
As for me, my service in VN is no doubt the most memorable time of my life. I’d accumulated approx. 1000 hrs in the air and managed to avoid doing anything that would haunt me later in life. As a result, I have no regrets and sleep very well at night. I guess I’m one of those boring VN vets that made a normal adjustment to civilian life.
Huawei Chips are no longer made in Taiwan!
After 1566 days, Huawei Kirin 9000s is back, and it’s now made in China.
The chip is released in HW Mate 60.
McConnell appears to freeze for more than 30 seconds during press conference
A few days ago, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center of China and 360 Total Security Company jointly issued a report entitled “‘Empire of Hacking’: The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency – Part I”.
The report details the CIA’s long history of leveraging its technological advantage to eavesdrop on or launch cyber-attacks against countries, businesses and institutions around the world.
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As the initiator of cyber warfare, the largest supplier of advanced cyber weapons, and the world’s largest cyber spy, what has the United States targeted in its cyber attacks? The answers mainly include: Personal privacy, communications industry, critical infrastructure, and core network facilities.
According to the U.S. Army Times, the U.S. Army has requested $16.6 billion for the fiscal year 2023 to support its network and IT departments. Approximately $9.8 billion will be used for military network modernization, and about $2 billion for offensive and defensive network construction, and research and development in the field of cybersecurity.
Internet technology originated in the U.S., making it the first country to plan and deploy cybersecurity issues. However, this first-mover advantage did not lead the U.S. to a path of inclusiveness, fairness, balance, and cooperation when formulating cyberspace strategies; but, rather, maintaining and protecting its existing hegemonic advantage.
In 2013, American whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the secret and comprehensive monitoring of the leaders of France, Germany and other European allies by the United States.
As the evidence shows, the U.S. is clearly the biggest threat to global cybersecurity. The “Hacker Empire” U.S.’s eavesdropping and cyber-attacks on other countries are fundamentally aimed at using digital hegemony to maintain its military and financial hegemony in the real world.
As the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson pointed out, cyberspace is not a battlefield or wrestling ground, still less should it be used as a tool to split the international community or contain and bring down other countries. A secure, stable, and prosperous cyberspace is of great significance to world peace and development.
They got made a prisoner. Usually interrogated, then sent to a POW camp.
True story. My mother lived in Kent during the Battle of Britain, she and her friends often watched the planes fighting.
One day, they saw a plane shot down. They knew it was a German Aircraft , and they saw the pilot bale out, and his parachute land in a field not far away. So they cycled over to the field. On the way, they met the local gamekeeper, on his bike, who had seen it too. He had his shotgun with him. They all went to the field. They saw the parachute laying in the field.
As they went across the field, the pilot stood up from behind some hay bales, with his hands up.
The gamekeeper pointed his shotgun at him.
The pilot shouted in English “ hallo! “ he pointed at his waist where he had a pistol “ I give you gun!”
And slowly pulled it out and threw it .
“ my leg hurts”
They went up to to him; and said “ sit down, it’s OK”
My mother was a nurse. she spoke some German, as she had an Austrian cousin. It turned out that he also spokequhite good English.
She had a look at his leg, it seemed his ankle was badly sprained.
The gamekeeper gave him a cigarette. They decided that they should take him to the farmhouse while they waited for the police. They helped him across the field and got him to the farm house .
Grandmother already had the kettle on so they had tea while the farmhand was sent to find the local policeman. About an hour later, he arrived, with two members of the local home guard in a car and the local doctor
Every one saluted each other; the doctor strapped up his ankle.
They all had some more tea , then the policeman said “” well sir, we have to take you to the police station, and wait for the Army to come and get you “
“Of course, thank you for the tea”.
And off they went.
Thé follow up is that in 1950, there was a knock on the door, and it was the pilot. He had spent the rest of the war as a POW in Scotland, then returned to Germany, and had got a job as a civil engineer, rebuilding Germany. He was visiting on business. He became a family friend.
Thousands of kids missing in Maui as walls go up to hide the truth | Redacted
It’s been 22 days since a massive fire destroyed the town of Lahaina on Maui… 2,000 homes incinerated, hundreds of people killed and all in an area largely owned and lived in by long time native islanders. What is really going on here? Why are drones being blocked, residents arrested when they try to return home? Why are 2,000 kids missing?
China is committed to building its own semiconductor industry and has invested billions of dollars in chip manufacturing projects, which has also boosted the performance of chip equipment manufacturers.
The Chinese scientists and engineers have already made their own reflectors, lithography equipment and control methods in extreme ultraviolet lithography and core technologies. Through independent research and development and innovation, China has gradually reduced its dependence on external technology and equipment and achieved a series of breakthroughs by relying on the huge domestic market demand. Therefore, in the fields of lithography machines, chips, etc., the Chinese are increasingly emerging and becoming a leader in global technology development. At the same time, China will continue to be committed to increasing its efforts to further promote independent research and development and innovation in key areas. This not only provides impetus for the sustainable development in China, but also makes a positive contribution to global scientific and technological progress.
At Harbin Institute of Technology, there have been frequent breakthroughs in the field of lithography machines. In February, a self-developed ultra-precision high-speed laser interferometer won top awards such as the “Golden Sui Award” gold medal at the World Photonics Conference. In March, a new solution for the development of miniaturized short-wave lasers was made. In April, the realization of an “electric energy conversion plasma circuit” and the realization of a DPP-EUV light source were all set to go.
Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Specreation Company, headquartered in Hefei, Anhui, have all applied for patents on EUV light source technology in the past year.
The front-end lithography machine for chip manufacturing, mainly consists of four parts: extreme ultraviolet light source, reflective projection system, photolithography template (mask), and photolithography coating (photoresist) that can be used in extreme ultraviolet. The machine is simply called EUV for short.
In the technical fields of optical chips and 3D stacking, China has already begun to deploy and has achieved good results. These can bypass ASML’s EUV lithography machine.
Regarding the workpiece platform in the core technology of EUV lithography machines, the Chinese Huazhuo Precision Technology Co., Ltd.’s self-developed dual workpiece platform has completely broken ASML’s technology monopoly. Huazhuo Precision Technology Co., Ltd. (中国华卓精密科技有限公司) has become the second company in the world to master the core technology of dual workpiece platforms.
A small factory in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province broke Japan’s 20-year monopoly in one fell swoop, increased the purity of domestic photoresists by 10 times, and enabled mass production of high-end KrF and ArF photoresists, the 100% domestically produced upstream photoresist materials.
Shanghai Microelectronics is expected to deliver the first domestic SSA/800-10W lithography equipment by the end of 2023.
On the road to domestic substitution, a number of excellent suppliers have emerged in the upstream and downstream of the semiconductor fabrication industry, such as lithography machine light source system manufacturer Fujing Technology, objective lens system manufacturer Aopu Optoelectronics, and photomask manufacturer Feilihua, defect detection manufacturer Dongfang Jingyuan, photoresist manufacturers Nanda Optoelectronics and Rongda Photosensitive, photolithography gas manufacturers Jacques Technology, Walter Gas, etc.
Shanghai Microelectronics is already producing 28nm lithography machines and 14nm lithography machines are also under development. In terms of etching machines, China Microelectronics has developed an etching machine with a 5nm process and is making faster progress.
According to customs data, as of May 2023, China has successfully reduced the import of 45.5 billion chips. Based on this scale, it is expected that China will further reduce the import of more than 100 billion chips in 2023.
Generally speaking, the breakthroughs made by the Chinese companies in dual workpiece stages, objective lenses, light sources, masks, photoresists and other semiconductor core systems and materials prove that the Chinese are going further and further on the road of independent research and development of chip manufacturing. The Chinese are increasingly confident that under the environment of unity and cooperation between domestic enterprises and clear division of labor, and with the strong support of the state, the future of domestic chips is promising.
China has obviously understood that relying on the foreigners will not last long after all.
Bluntly, it’s a total and complete catastrophe, a shocking combination of yellow-bellied cowardice and overwhelming incompetence. It’s offensive to the natural world, God, morality, ethics, and sentient life itself.
Dozens of highly armed and armored and well trained police stood outside in the hall while little kids bled out.
In the picture above, taken 46 minutes before the police did their fuckin’ jobs, at least five officers with rifles are visible. One has a ballistic helmet. Two have ballistic shields.
They did nothing.
Active shooter protocols vary. Some are simple: The first to arrive moves aggressively toward the subject and neutralizes them, or dies trying. Others suggest that a brief wait for a small ad-hoc team, between two and four, may be worth it, but as soon as such an element is formed, it should aggressively move and neutralize the subject.
None call for more than four.
There were four men within five minutes.
They did nothing.
Instead, they allowed themselves to be directed by a shockingly incompetent on scene commander to simply wait, while he waited for radios, shields, rifles, swat, a key, and a motherfucking invitation before he did his damned job.
While they did nothing.
The excuses from the chief are just ‘You know, this doesn’t make it better’. His radios didn’t work in the school? The schools are literally his only responsibility. If his radios don’t work, it’s his fault. If he can’t move with his radio, it’s his fault. The doors not being locked was his fault. That he didn’t know that the door didn’t lock is his fault. All of this makes it worse.
To add on to the basic fact that he did nothing.
Indeed, we have credible reports of individual parents, with no training or weapons who acted in a vastly superior tactical manner to the chief. A woman who was handcuffed, and managed to have the presence of mind to get herself uncuffed, sneak into the school, and rescue her children. Make that mom the chief of police!!!! She clearly has both the courage and problem solving skills to do the job, unlike the abject failure that is currently employed.
This incident has forced my to seriously recalibrate what role I think that police should play in society. If they can’t do this, then what’s the point? Shut it down and go home.
I’m not quite standing with the ACAB and defund people, but I can sure as hell hold a friendly conversation with them at this point, with no need to shout.
When seconds count, the police are 83 minutes away.
Gympie Gympie, also known as the suicide plant, is known to drive people insane. This notorious Australian plant is one of the worlds most poisonous plants, and those nettle like stingers pack a punch.
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The pain is described as being burnt with acid and getting electrocuted at the same time. The tiny hairs that cover the leaves are described as being like little hypodermic needles, which embed themselves deep into your skin before injecting you with a neurotoxin.
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The pain is said to last for weeks, even months and in some cases years. The little hypodermic stingers sink deep into the skin, and it’s really difficult to remove them. The plant was first discovered in 1886 when a road surveyor’s horse got stung by the plant, went mad and died two hours later.
The embedded hairs can stay in the skin for up to a year and release a toxin during triggering events like touching the affected area, pouring water on the area, or even a temperature change. Once it releases the neurotoxin, a severe burning sensation will increase in intensity for about 30 minutes, and it could last for weeks.
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A British officer is said to have committed suicide after he mistakenly used a leaf as toilet paper causing him to go insane from the pain before shooting himself in the head.
The hairs are so small the skin will grow over them, making it almost impossible to remove them. The best treatment for it is to use acid to remove layers of skin to expose the needles and plucking them out.
Dear Americans
You all must check out this American advertisement. You must watch it. It’s super short.
For years I worked on old cars, raced them, show cars, fixed them up for fun. I purchased a old 55 Chevy 4 door from a woman who was in her late 80’s. It was her husbands car and he only drove it to town (5 miles away) for groceries, PO, bank ,etc. I spent a few months getting the car back in shape, paint, engine, interior and finally insured it and tagged it. Proud of the old car I decided to drive it to work, about 10 miles away. I got about a mile away and the car quit running. So I walked the rest of the way to work. A co-worker gave me lift to the old Chevy and we decided to see if it would start, sure enough it fired right up, he would follow me home. As soon as I pulled into the driveway the Chevy coughed and stopped. The next week I rebuilt the carb, new fuel filter, checked the wiring, everything I could think of, even changed the fuel tank sending unit and replaced the fuel filter sock that went into the tank. Decided to drive it to work, one mile short of work it quit running again. Got the old car home again and decided to drain the gas tank, new filters, etc. Drove it again same thing. I finally figured it out (just to make the story short) it seems the old man who owned the car was a depression era guy, he never put more than a few gallons of gas at a time in the car. Over the years the tank starting rusting at the top of the tank due to condensation and water in the gas. Even though I drained the tank I could not see the rust in the corners and as I drove the car the rust started breaking off a little at a time and clogged the little fuel filter soak and cutting off gas flow. Seems like 9 miles was all she could go till the fuel filter sock was full, the funny thing was when I stopped the car and the fuel pump wasn’t working the rust and debris fell away and opened back up the fuel flow. Drove me crazy. A new gas
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tank from YearOne Auto Parts and the old Chevy lasted many years of good service.
So you’re a multi billion dollar transnational corporation, or working for one, and you want all those sweet natural resources located near people too poor and disconnected to sue you for hazardous mining operations, but you also don’t want to pay a cent to the country where you’re doing this? I got great news for you, we can manage that, in this easy step by step plan.
We find a country with proven resource reserves, but who are too poor to actually develop them without help.
We offer them to develop their resources under the deal that the facilities and actual resources extracted will be ours, but the labour will be locally employed, and the country’s government will get a percentage of the value of the resources in the form of tariffs which they control. If this deal doesn’t immediately sound appealing, then pay who ever is in charge of negotiating it 10–20 million dollars, which is an absurd sum for an individual especially in a poor country. Make sure the deal is verified by the World Trade Organization (WTO)
We construct the facilities with efficiency in mind, but it is vitally important that the machines used for extraction is reliant on parts and preferably on site engineers from out country. Call this a safety measure against countries who would have the idea they could take it over in the future.
Now we got the operation going. Let’s say copper for example. We have managed to mine copper and refine it on site (it’s pretty dangerous and pollutes a lot so best keep it there) and we now want to sell it on the world market, for an estimated price of 3 billion dollars. However, our deal earlier says the government takes 20% of the value on exported items. So what we do is that we shell the entire storage of copper to our own separate paper company for 1 dollar, the government takes 25 cent. This is a fair price.
Our company paper company in Switzerland now owns 3 billion dollars worth of copper, obviously Switzerland is a great place for copper imports, because their taxes are low and the questions are few. Things which are good for an effective company.
We don’t actually import the copper to Switzerland, we just pay the minimal tax there when we convert our 1 dollar copper to 3 billion, the copper is still in the original country. It is being shipped to various places in EU for electronics manufacture, loaded on ships with flags in Panama by minimum wage labour.
In summary, we built a facility worth half a billion, bribe an official about 20 million, and pay our workers probably less than 10 million per year in total. One time investment of 530 million dollars, annual 10 million in salaries, 25 cent in export tax, 8% in Swiss import tax (240 million), and a few costs for maintenance. Roughly 780 million in expenses, 2.22 billion in profits. Switzerland gets around 24 times more per year than the local government does of course, but this is good because it keeps pressure on them to keep wages low.
Just in case anyone ever wonders why Switzerland a land locked nation not part of the EU with no bilateral trade agreements with Zambia has an OEC page that looks like this.
Why don’t they just nationalize it?
Because it’s difficult to operate.
Don’t they realize the tax evasion scheme?
Sure they do, but their deal allows for it.
Why don’t they cancel their deal?
Because that would violate the principles of the WTO and constitute contract breaking and that would land them with economic sanctions they can’t afford.
Why don’t they get rid of the corrupt officials who make these deals?
They do actually when ever possible, the person making this deal is already in jail for corruption.
But if the deal was made with the use of bribes with a person who is convicted of corruption, it is clearly not valid.
A contract is a contract, does you country have corruption, that’s your problem. WTO isn’t here to fix corruption, it’s here to enforce trade agreements, no matter the circumstances they were written under.
Dallas Tacos
This is a Tex Mex-favorite in Dallas – mini soft corn tortillas topped with smoked brisket, chopped red onion, shredded red cabbage and pepper jack cheese.
dallas tacos
Ingredients
Beef
3 pounds brisket or chuck roast
Salt
Black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or bacon grease
1 large yellow onion, cut into quarters
8 cloves garlic
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 cups beef broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 jalapeño peppers, seeds and stems removed, cut in half, lengthwise
2 leafy stems cilantro
1 bay leaf
Tacos
2 poblano chiles
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 cup shredded red cabbage
1 large red onion, chopped
1 cup (4 ounces) pepper Jack cheese
Corn or flour tortillas
Flour tortillas
Salsa
Instructions
Heat the oven to 250 degrees F.
Sprinkle the brisket or chuck roast with salt and black pepper.
In a large ovenproof pot, such as a Dutch oven, heat up the oil on medium-low, and brown the beef on both sides, about 5 minutes per side.
Remove the beef from the pot and add the onions. While occasionally stirring, cook until they begin to brown.
Add the garlic cloves and cook for another 2 minutes.
Turn off the heat and pour the red wine vinegar into the pot, scraping along the bottom to loosen all of the particles.
Return the beef to the pot. If using brisket, place it fat side up. Pour in the beef broth and add the cumin, jalapeños, cilantro and bay leaf. Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook the brisket for 6 hours or until it’s fork tender.
After removing beef from the oven, let it rest in the pot uncovered for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, to make the taco toppings, roast the poblano chiles under the broiler until blackened, about 5 minutes per side.
Place chiles in a paper sack or plastic food-storage bag, close it tight and let the chile steam for 20 minutes.
Remove the chiles from the bag and rub off the skin. Remove stem and seeds and cut the chiles into strips.
Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium low, and add the chopped onion. While occasionally stirring, cook until softened, about 10 minutes.
Add the cut poblano strips and cook for 1 more minute.
After the beef has rested, remove it from the pot, cut off the fat cap (if using the brisket) and shred the meat with two forks until it’s in long strands.
To make the gravy, strain the cooled broth, throwing out the vegetables. Remove the fat from the broth with a gravy separator. Or alternatively, you can take a quart-sized plastic storage bag and pour some broth into it. Snip a bottom corner of the bag and drain the broth, stopping when you get to the fat layer that is on top. Add 2 tablespoons of the gravy to the shredded brisket, reserving the rest for serving. Taste the beef and adjust seasonings.
To make the tacos, place on one side of each tortilla some pepper Jack and slide the tortillas under the broiler for 30 seconds or until the cheese is melted. Fill the tortillas with shredded beef and top with some of the onions and poblano strips.
Serve with the pot juices and salsa.
Serve with a side of salsa, mashed avocado and a jalapeño.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Nebraska: 4 Mile Evacuation Ordered; Rail car Explosion with Toxic Chemicals
A rail car has exploded and is burning in North Platte, Nebraska and very unusual things are now taking place. 1) An evacuation area of four MILES is in effect around the rail car. 2) The US Air Force Deployed a WC-135 “Nuke Sniffer” plane to fly over the scene.
While an evacuation zone around a burning railcar is not unusual, there are very many questions about why the US Air Force sent a WC-135 “nuke sniffer” aircraft above the scene.
the WC-135 with flight ID AE048D flew repeated circles over the rail yard at North Platte, NE today, as well as over the rail lines due west of the railyard:
ATOM 01 North Platte NE 1
And west of the rail yard as well:
ATOM 01 North Platte NE 2
Word is already leaking out that the Union Pacific Rail Yard in North Platte is the world’s largest rail yard. Word is also leaking out that “more than 70% of the rail engines had safety defects, as did 20% of the rail cars!”
Three days ago, the Federal Rail Administration stated publicly “the nations largest rail carrier failed to fix and continued to use faulty equipment.”
Ukraine Scores Big Hits; Destroys Russian Submarine and Landing Ship
Ukraine has successfully attacked the Russian port of Sevastopol on Crimea, and destroyed the Russian Submarine “Rostov-on-Don” and the Landing Ship “Minsk” (pictured above). Both vessels were in dry dock for repairs.
We learned about the consequences of Ukraine’s attack on the Sevmorzavod (dry dock/shipyard) in Sevastopol last night. Sources in the Black Sea Fleet, in the General Staff and in the Sevastopol government told us the following:
As a result of the missile strike, 11 people were killed – factory workers and military. 31 people, according to the latest data, were injured.
The Ukraine missiles completely destroyed two vessels – the large landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov-on-Don. Both vessels were in for repair but are now not salvageable. In addition, two more vessels were damaged at the Sevmorzavod Ship Yard, and it may be possible to restore them. Authorities refused to say the names of these ships, “so that the enemy would not receive valuable information about the result of his attack.”
According to updated data, eight Ukrainian missiles and two naval drones were fired at Sevastopol. The drones were destroyed, and only two of the missiles were shot down, so the damage from the impacts is serious.
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev has already demanded to strengthen the city’s air defense.
During the missile strike last night, panic began in Sevastopol. The police received information that saboteurs were operating in the city, and sent several patrols to search for them. One of them mistook an armed military patrol for saboteurs and opened fire on his own. As a result of the shootout, four people were killed – three soldiers and one policeman.
The Submarine B-237 “Rostov-on-Don”, passed tests and entered the Russian Navy fleet in 2014. It cost about $300 million and was a Kalibr missile carrier.
Living in the Us is extremely hard in many ways.
Economically speaking is very very expensive. Even the places that are called affordable are still expensive and the truly affordable places are stagnant economically.
The rat race, socially speaking you are continuously pushed to want more, try to earn more, do more, it is never enough. You have to be VERY strong mentally to escape that and go against the flow.
Radicalized, dogmatic, borderline lunatic masses. Everything is an issue, the media loves to blow it out of proportion, politicians love the circus. As a result, a lot of hatred, divsion, anger, fringe lunatics compleely deranged, this translates into violence.
Violent society. Less than a month after Uvalde there were 33 mass shootings all over the US. So many the media does not even report it anymore.
A lot of poverty with almost no way out. Grow up poor in the US chances are you will die early and poor in the US.
LAck of health care, that is a BIG BIG issue.
Backwards and purtiannical…. thinking 18 year olds with assault riffles is fine, but that same 18 year old having a beer is terrible! The neverding gun debate, now women-s rights taken away by religious lunatics in power *Saudi arabia like*, today I read the same lunatics in power want to revisit gay rights.
Fading glory. The Us feels tired. You drive around the country and it feels like it was a wow place to be back in the 50s and 60s…. today, not much! At times is like a time capsule to the mid 20th century!
Infrasctructure surprisingly mediocre. Options for public transportation minimal and very mediocre.
Car dependancy…. you literally have to drive EVERYWHERE in 95% of the country.
Religion, scary kind of it with lunatics thinking it is a sin to not live like humans did in the dark ages!
Guns, there are four guns per person in the US.
Double standards, the US can bomb, dismantle, destroy governments left and right, wait for Russia or China to do it and it is an international outcry.
Peach Pudding Cake
peachcake591
Ingredients
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter or margarine
10 peach halves, fresh or canned
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 cup whipping cream
Instructions
Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together.
Cut in butter until mixture resembles cornmeal; sprinkle over bottom and sides of greased 8 x 2-inch round ovenware cake dish.
Place peaches, cut side up, over crumb mixture.
Combine brown sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over peaches.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 mintues.
Combine egg yolks and cream; pour over peaches.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
Serve warm.
So Surprising!..| FIRST TIME HEARING Robin Trower – Bridge Of Sighs Reaction
Robin Trower is a genius, but vocalist James Dewar is on an equal footing with his own genius. In my opinion (and many, many others’) Jimmy Dewar was the finest blue-eyed soul/white blues singer in British history. Rest In Power Jimmy!
Last night after trying to devise a simpler method wake induced lucid dreaming I managed to LD. I once again went to the underground world place lagging our physical reality by 3 months that seems to be a common location lately. I seemed to be doing a usual recon job, dropping into some base to gain intel on as part of some team. This was in a section that was outside despite the rest of the place having that familiar underground feeling to it. I remember having to go up and over the side of this building into whatever compound it was we were infiltrating. These sessions seem a lot easier: we don’t seem to give much of a shit if our presence is detected, and make ourselves known to flush out whatever is inside. This particular time was no exception. A bunch of non physical guards came out to try and apprehend us but we just swatted them off like flies. There was some kind of weird flying object thing: it looked like a bunch of cubes with square orange lights coming off it which is I think what we were there to investigate. I decided I wanted to fly it so I projected into its core. It was a very peculiar object as the cubes all sort of shot of in different directions but I could control them. It wasn’t anything like the UFO thing I flew – some sort of key like object one had to project into to use.
That saga soon ended and I was back in the middle of the underground city – square sort of dwellings made out of brown clay everywhere – just sort of exploring. I got the idea to reach out to the Domain (the guys who operated on my astral body during a sleep paralysis episode about a year). I pinged a very strong thought out of them suggesting I wished to make contact along with a visualisation. I did this 3 or 4 times, and all of a sudden I was sucked into a worm hole and started travelling down it. Upon coming out the other side, it was like a great deal of distortion prevented me from being able to see properly. I popped out in this circular shaped room that was populated by what appeared to be smoky entities. I knew these things were beings but that just looked like tall blobs of smoke that kept shooting back and forth across the room before forming back into a tall pillar all around me. All in all there probably about 5 or 6 of these pillars, though when they dissipated to fly around the room they all just became one “mass” of smoke.
I must admit that I enjoy a cold left over pizza in the morning. It goes good with black coffee. It doesn’t matter what kind of pizza, or how much, or what the toppings are. You can reheat it or not. Personally, I guess I am strange, I prefer the cold pizza in the morning. Who figures, eh?
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It’s an American thing.
Pizza is an American food, and one of the things that I love, but cannot eat too much of. It tends to make my body rotund, and you guys know that I am in the process of losing weight.
…
I am at 85Kg today.
Last week I was at 90Kg, and (if you recall) my BMI listed me as obese. I said “NO!”, and then lost 5Kg in one week!
I also noticed that I became weak at noon and needed a nap, and afterwards I really needed to urinate. I noticed that my urine became very thick and deep in color.
My waist shrank.
But you know, the rest of my body is still bony as ever. LOL.
…
What I did was change my diet to “slight”.
Breakfast = 1/2 cup of black coffee.
Lunch = One small chicken burger or Baozi.
Dinner = Tiny dinner. Vegetables with meat and small portion of rice.
No snacks.
Today, we are going to sponsor another meal with friends. The excuse is a shared birthday. We rented a room and we will be drinking a case of Shiraz, and 5 liters of Guoji wine. (37% alcohol).
I’m sure to gain some weight. But I will not glutton out, We will enjoy fine seafood, BBQ chicken and other tasty morsels and sign and dance until midnight, and then take my daughter to bed.
Then I will return back to my (now normal) routine.
…
My affirmations agree with my new lifestyle.
I’m one week into my latest campaign and the transformations are stunning. I am actually witnessing the slides manifest in real time. Not since my Majestic days have I experienced such “easy” changing.
…
My daughter has really taken to boxing, and loves to spar with me. So I get on my knees and allow her to punch me relentlessly. It’s a father’s duty, don’t you know.
She also loves Hip-Hop. Ah. She’s a natural.
And sports; she loves basketball. And she can dribble like there is no tomorrow!
Not too bad for a four-year old. LOL.
…
While she understand my English, she has preferred to speak in Chinese. But lately, she has been speaking to me in English, and it makes me very happy. Still, it’s baby-English and she speaks it like it’s Chinese, but still, it makes me glad.
I’m a proud father.
…
The world continues to turn.
The “news” has hit the stratosphere and now orbits the earth in some kind of lime-loop. And we all move on with our lives one way or the other.
The editors and their owners are absolutely clueless.
…
Typhoon hit yesterday. Today is a steady medium rain with small squall gusts. Much flooding. Some debris on the ground, and some trivial damage. Most of the trees are intact and remain rooted in place.
We took a ride out to check out the damage. Trees are down. Flooding everywhere. Many shops closed. Leaves galore. Some damage to face scanners, cameras, and traffic lights. The thermal scanners are mostly intact, though.
We drove in circles looking for a snack place that served coffee and hybrid / fusion food. Only one open was good, but the dishes served were too big. We wanted a light snack, not a banquet. Sheech!
We swam the car home, dusted off the branches and leaves and ordered home-delivery. I ordered some Zha Jiang Mian for myself and a cup of coffee, the rest got some pigs feet, Chinese spinach and some rice. Ok. Fair enough.
Zha Jiang Mian
Zha Jiang Mian is very much like American spaghetti. Only the sauce is very thick with lots or ground pork, and thickened with bean paste. You can eat it spicy if you want. Often it is served with these toothpick thin slices of cucumber, which you stir into the noodles.
Its one of my favorites.
I just cannot believe the Chinese expats being happy in the USA and not being able to enjoy such delicious Chinese food on demand. You have to make it at home. Sheech! What a pain!
This is what Cleverly thought he can do in China in one day:
2023 09 01 21 46
He thinks the U.K. is a peer to China and for the sake of the British people and the world, he wants China to work with the U.K. on climate change, prevent nuclear proliferation, and matter relating to AI and other technologies.
It’s humiliating if you think so much of yourself and China politely listens to you and quickly send you off home without discussing any of these.
What Cleverly can’t admit to is that the U.K. needs economic assistance and densely believes that the U.K. can get it from China while barking ever so loudly as a U.S. lapdog.
LOL.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
China doesn’t care if the U.K. is ignoring China.
It’s just that China is simply ignoring the U.K.
LOL!
(Burst of laughing loudly and rolling on the floor.)
Cleverly hasn’t realized it yet that the U.K. is irrelevant to most of the world.
The African nations are rich in natural resources, but are weak in infrastructure development, especially transport infrastructure. China is now the world’s leading manufacturing nation, and it needs raw materials and natural resources to keep Chinese factories busy. For this reason, it makes sense for Chinese construction companies to improve the transport infrastructure of the African nations;
The quality of government and governance in the African nations has been gradually improving, and the African farmers and miners of today are destined to become the African consumers of tomorrow. It makes sense for China and Chinese companies to improve their standard of living so that these Africans will eventually buy the output of Chinese manufacturers, instead of only supplying raw materials to Chinese manufacturers;
Because the African economies will become more important, it makes perfect sense for China to build goodwill with future African political leaders and business leaders and entrepreneurs. If they attend Chinese schools, learn Chinese, and understand Chinese culture, they will become future ambassadors for China in their home countries, and will be well disposed to building bridges between their government, society and Chinese official and business interests. These societies are also likely to have significant local Chinese populations which will serve as bridges between China and their new African home countries. Because China’s relationship with Africa has never been tainted by a history of brutality, racism and slavery, Chinese and Africans are able to deal with each other equally, and are not burdened with negative historical stereotypes based on racism and discrimination. This racism, discrimination and condescending attitude are something which western societies have great difficulty escaping from, which hinders the development of relations with the African nations and societies. For Africans, this mutual respect with China and Chinese based on pursuing their individual interests, and seeking shared interests when possible, is a breath of fresh air.
Chinese manufacturers have the know-how many African nations need to move up the value chain. Some of the lower value-added manufacturers, such as textile manufacturers, may move some of their operations to African nations since the Chinese government no longer sees China as being leaders in these areas, and is encouraging high-tech manufacturing development, especially with the Made in China 2025 plan. So far, most Chinese textile makers have been moving to Vietnam, Thailand and SE Asia, but it is likely that some will move their operations to African nations. This will help Africans to get their first step into manufacturing. In contrast, during the colonial period, the British, French and Germans never allowed manufacturing in Africa, instead preferring to keep Africans poor and underdeveloped. China and the Chinese have no such agenda.
To sum up, China is not giving away free money.
China is investing in the African consumer of the future, and sees them as important future Chinese partners.
China Exposed the US Call to Ban Anti Satellite Missile Tests; Fake Arm Control!
Chinese laser technology and rail-gun are more advanced than the U.S.’ ones, while Russia has the most advanced hypersonic missiles. The U.S. lags behind in those fields. That’s why, the latter tries to prevent these cutting edge technologies from destroying Western satellites in case of conflicts. The Americans also aim at slow down the progress of the Russian and China space industries. When Russia and China hadn’t such technologies, the U.S. didn’t offer peaceful use of space, because of Russia and China lagged behind American military and space technologies. It’s too late !
https://youtu.be/EhTFmIswgVU
The “government” is simply fucking with us…
You’ve got to be kidding me…
2023 09 02 12 20
Beef Curry
2023 08 25 21 45
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
3 pounds beef round steak, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup raisins
2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup diced onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 (14 ounce) can beef broth
2 apples, unpeeled, cored and finely chopped
Fluffy rice
Instructions
Dry beef well with a paper towel.
Mix flour and curry powder.
Coat meat cubes with flour mixture.
Place meat in slow cooker.
Add garlic, raisins, sliced apples, onion, salt and pepper.
Pour in broth and stir to blend.
Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours or on HIGH for 4 to 5 hours until meat is tender.
Before serving, stir in additional curry powder to taste (up to 1 tablespoon) and chopped apples.
Kangaroos! They are a lot bigger than what I’d imagined. These days what with YouTube one can get a good idea about their size, but when I went to Australia I had no idea. I also imagined them to be, you know, out in the bush or somewhere out there away from civilization, but no, I get up in the morning and look out the window and there a pretty big dog outside. Then it stands up and is about 8 feet tall, well maybe not 8 feet, but hella big. My brain sort of short circuits for a second until I realize I’m looking at a kangaroo! Big and in the suburbs of a large city!
I burst out of the room yelling that there’s a giant kangaroo in the back yard! My friend, er… mate says, “Yup, he’s probably eating the dog’s food”. He doesn’t even bother to look. Later we go out the front door and there’s a couple more just standing there. I’m slack jawed and he just walks past them, gets in the car, and off we go. Kangaroos!
Oliver Anthony – I Want To Go Home And Rich Men North Of Richmond (Reaction)
I have been asked to tell the following story many times, and it became so famous that I was even asked to record it for NPR.
I worked for a high-tech company when high-tech was just starting to make an impact on the world. This was before the internet, even before everyone had PCs. We had one IBM PC for the entire department and it was a thrill to use it. I say this just to give an impression of how things have changed since then.
Our company made high speed modems, but the fastest anyone could do in those days was 9600bps, and you paid 10,000 dollars a piece for each modem — and you needed at least two of them, one for each end. We had invented a mechanism that would double that rate to 19,200bps, which was like lightning at the time. The benefits were immediately apparent and every major company wanted them, damn the cost. Unfortunately, the techniques we were using were in their infancy and had lots of bugs. Even though we were selling them like ice cream on a hot day, they didn’t really work as advertised.
A huge oil company bought a massive amount of product. Their plan was to link all of their gas stations across the US to their central site and have the managers report daily sales to the home office. This previously had been done by mail or phone and was slow and inefficient. With a modem system they could know what their revenues were to the penny overnight, or even several times during the day. They did some cursory testing on the devices and rolled them out. But they didn’t work.
Our engineers worked day and night to fix the issues but it turned out to be intractable. There were grave concerns that we might never solve the problem. Our salesman for the company was a brave and confident expert with years of experience but he was becoming increasingly despondent. The customer was agitated and angry and threatening to return the product. This would have been a huge setback, possibly a death blow to the company. They were by far our biggest customer and by far the biggest sale we had ever achieved. And the salesman would not get his commission.
I was the manager of the business unit, newly promoted into the role at the age of 26. I thought I was something special, and to be honest if not modest, I was a world-wide expert on these technologies and frequently flown around the world to solve problems. But what I didn’t know was that behind the scenes the senior managers of this customer were now DEMANDING a reckoning with our company. Our management knew it was the end if we did not have a solution, and we had no solution.
The salesman set up a meeting with the Senior Vice President of this oil company, a man who probably had the power to overthrow third world countries or have people killed. Suddenly, the President of our company had pressing business in Europe. So did every other executive down the line until, casting about, they looked at me. I was to be the sacrificial lamb they would send to the slaughter. I was told to go “make nice” with the customer to buy more time. I was unaware of the political issues behind the scene. If I failed, I would be unceremoniously fired as a token of good faith. The salesman knew it. I did not.
Thinking this was going to be yet another triumphant visit, and with a swelled head, I went out, bought a new suit and briefcase and flew from Boston to the West Coast. I didn’t even have anything to put in the briefcase except a pad and pencil since I wasn’t given any progress report, possible solutions or any token that might mollify them. Management was so certain of disaster that they thought it best I go completely in the dark.
I was picked up by our salesman in his new Jaguar , along with our field engineer, both of whom knew the gravity of our situation and how dire things were. I was cheerful and humming in the car as I took in the sights. I was surprised by their gloomy silence until we got to the customer’s campus. I had never seen anything like it before. Oil money can buy anything, and this building was modern and massive, the lobby was an art museum with original paintings by the Masters.
We didn’t even have to wait. As soon as we announced ourselves we were shown to a conference room. This is when I really got scared. The room was huge with an impossibly long conference table surrounded by the most expensive leather chairs money could buy. There were tuxedoed waiters with white gloves bringing crystal glasses for the pitchers of water. There was a stenographer with a real steno machine to take the minutes. The room was already filled with executives and lawyers speaking to each other in low voices and grim expressions. I knew then that I was doomed.
Finally the door opened and the SVP came in. A hush fell over the room. Here was a man that everyone in that room feared and respected. You could feel the power and electricity coming from him as he strode in. He sat directly opposite me. I blinked stupidly as the sweat rolled down my sides. Next to me our salesman was gripping his Mont Blanc pen like a drowning sailor clutches at a piece of driftwood. On my right the SE sat stoically. No matter what happened, he would be safe — unless the company went broke because of this debacle.
The SVP opened the meeting as if it were a legal proceeding, reading a summary of the problem and all the actions taken to date, emphasizing our failure to solve it. As he got into it he became angrier and angrier. He started pounding the table and he got red as he spoke of how much time and money had been wasted and spoke of “fraud” and “malfeasance” and “misrepresentation”. All of this vitriol was directed at me. He was further insulted that our company had the nerve to send me, of all people, not even a VP. Finally he pointed at me and said in a harsh voice, “If you can’t fix this problem today, right now, around town your name isn’t going to be worth squat!”
And then he sat back in his chair. I can still hear the leather creaking. There wasn’t another sound in the room. Every eye was on me now, and what I would say next. I had nothing. I didn’t even have anything in my briefcase to fumble with for time.
And then, without even thinking, I said, “Around town it was well known that when they got home at night their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives”
I couldn’t believe my own ears. I couldn’t believe I had just said that. To my left, our salesman looked at me in horror and tried to pull himself away from me in his chair. The SE had his mouth open. So did all the important lawyers in their suits and suspenders. Even the stenographer looked up from her machine at me. I was well and truly fucked. The SVP wound up to scream at me and I flinched.
Then he stopped.
“Wait a minute,” he said, “I know that line…” “Yes,” I whispered, “It’s from Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album.” He said, “I knew that. You like Pink Floyd?” “Yes,” I said, “It’s my favorite group.” “Mine too,” he said, suddenly smiling and getting up, “I saw the ‘Wall’ concert in LA in 1980. It was fantastic! I even caught one of Gilmour’s guitar picks. I have it framed in my office with the ticket stubs. Come on, I’ll show you!”
And he got up and walked over to the door. I numbly followed. My ears were ringing and I knew I stunk of sweat and fear. The people in the room were dumbstruck. Everyone had their mouths open or were looking at us in absolute amazement. No one said a word.
As we left the room, the SVP smiled and said to the room, “Oh, we’ll give them a few more weeks,” and he waved them off and we went down the hall. The rest of the visit passed in a blur.
The salesman was pounding the wheel and laughing out loud on the trip back to the airport. “We gotta get you a great big steak,” he said, “You know, you can only get away with that once in your career.” The SE didn’t say a thing except, “I like Pink Floyd too.”
When I got back to the office I was the hero of the hour.
The salesman had called and related the story to everyone he could reach, and I was called into a meeting to recount the adventure. Everyone was laughing and slapping me on the back. It felt good to be the hero for once: tomorrow I would once again be the goat, I was sure. Over the next few weeks we had a dramatic breakthrough in Engineering and the problem was solved, the situation resolved, the customer saved. They went on to buy many thousands more modems.
In 2005, in outskirts of Istanbul Turkey, 1500 sheep were grazing in the field. It was early in the day when all the sheep were relaxing in the field eating there breakfast. The shepherd’s were watching the sheep graze, when they noticed one lone sheep break of from the herd and wander off on it’s own.
This didn’t seem out of the ordinary as sheep tend to wander. They watched as the sheep made it’s way to a cliff edge, but before they even realised what was happening the sheep jumped to it’s death. This was obviously devasting for the shepherd’s watching, and they were definitely not preprepared for what happened next.
Suddenly another sheep left the herd and made it’s way to cliff before following the first sheep to it’s doom. This caused another to follow and jump to it’s death causing a domino effect of suicidal sheep.
main qimg d1a9c2231810618b0ce75407968a7b34
The Shepherds tried in vain to stop the sheep from jumping, but it was like they were determined to follow their brothers into the unknown. The sheep began piling up at the bottom of the cliff, but as the sheep piled up in a mass of blood, guts and wool they began to cushion the rest of the sheep as they hit the ground.
main qimg 41616e7418223a9f8c2a2ea96af45dd9
The whole herd, 1500 in total had jumped, but only 450 perished with the rest being cushioned by the first of the doomed sheep.
THIS IS THE WORLDS ANTHEM! FOR THE PEOPLE! (Reaction) | Oliver Anthony-Rich Men North of Richmond
Absolutely incredible! Oliver Anthony shines light on those hiding in the shadows. Those D’s wanting to C everything we do, while trying to cover up and hide everything they do. THIS is the voice we need!
Many years ago my ex husband and I had our own pottery business.
We sold a lot to members of the British Aristocracy (for some reason it seemed to appeal to them).
We only ever realised who they were when they paid by cheque (credit cards weren’t really a big thing at the time).
We had cheques signed by The Marquis of Bath, The Marchioness of Tavistock, Marquis of Salisbury, Earl Spencer amongst many others.
They were the nicest, most down to earth people that you could wish to meet. All of them were very casually dressed and you would never know that they were aristocracy.
My current husband 🤣 was on guard duty at Windsor Castle during the Falklands conflict. Very early one morning our beautiful late Queen Elizabeth passed him on the way to the stables, no bodyguards or companions. She stopped to talk to him, asking where he was from, about his family. She had no particular need to do so, nothing to prove to anyone.
These people screamed class, without making any sound.
China does not see relationships as being transactional the way the US has;
Russia deserves respect as a sovereign nation which makes its own choices, and if China sold out Russia, it knows that Russia would never trust China again.
It understands that the US always views relationships as transactional, and that it would turn against China when expedient.
Tucker: “We Have Proof Obama was Having Sex With Men, Smoking Crack…”
There is a bunch of pictures of Obama with “a brother”, only before he had the sex change. That’s right. “Michelle is a trans man”.
After a long-running buildup pinpointed by immense expectations all across the Global South, Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (as coined by Belarus President Lukashenko), the BRICS summit in South Africa, on its first day, revealed a “lost in translation” incident that should be taken as a serious warning.
The BRICS Business Forum feed on South African network SABC turned into a BRICS linguistic Babel. The voice of all the translators, simultaneously, was clashing on the feed. Explanations vary from the desire to forge a new Esperanto (not likely); plain incompetence from the sound engineering team; the isolation of the translators in a separate cabin, not warned to turn off their mikes; or last but not least, NSA interference, messing up with the translators’ mic frequencies.
Whatever happened metastasized into a serious impediment for a South African – and international – audience, online, to understand what was being discussed. Even though “lost in translation” would not nullify the BRICS’s ambitious agenda for change, it certainly will be played up to the max by the usual Divide and Rule suspects to boost their already in effect all-round Hybrid War against BRICS.
The Shakespearean de-dollarization drama
Whatever the final concrete results of these potentially game-changing days in Johannesburg – I analyzed the key themes here
– the basic facts are immutable.
China and Russia, as the main drivers, are bent on expanding towards BRICS+ to resist imperial bullying, diplomatic and otherwise; build alternatives to SWIFT; promote economic self-reliance among members and autonomy from the sanctions dementia (which will only increase); and eventually forge an alliance against imperial military threats – with the possibility of BRICS+ merging in the future with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The China factor is arguably the key vector in all these complex, intertwined processes. It’s no wonder that President Xi, in his only second state visit abroad in 2023 (after Russia), will convene a special meeting in Johannesburg with dozens of African heads of state.
by the BRICS summit, with “interest surpassing the G7”. There’s extensive debate on the whole Empire-defying agenda – from de-dollarization to heightened influence in the energy market – and on the China-India divide, with New Delhi often pointed out as a hostile agent inside BRICS.
Sherpas, off the record, as well as diplomats from the current BRICS five (soon to expand) have been extra-cautious to frame the whole debate not on de-dollarization – still a distant prospect – but on alternative trade/payment systems in local currencies.
Yet in his address by videoconference – saluted like a rock star – President Putin was adamant: the de-dollarization process inside BRICS is irreversible.
Yet it’s internal contradictions that stand out when it comes to BRICS+. New Delhi has been extremely cautious – even as sherpas let it be known that the main rules for admission have been agreed upon.
The proverbial Divide and Rule spoilers have been spinning that Beijing wants BRICS+ to be a competitor to the G7. That’s nonsense. Chinese geopolitics is way more sophisticated – and would never present partners with an iron imperative. Beijing wants to solidify its de facto role of geoeconomics leader of the Global South by seducing the maximum number of partners, not intimidating them.
Thus the importance of the China-Africa meeting. South Africa was the first African nation to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Beijing and Pretoria are celebrating 25 years of diplomatic relations. Xi and Ramaphosa will be talking overall African economic integration, in detail, with all those heads of state.
What does India really want?
China’s vision for BRICS+ and especially for Africa is intrinsically linked to BRI, which after all is Beijing’s overarching foreign policy concept for the next few decades.
India, for its part, has other ideas when it comes to configuring itself as a leader of the Global South. Earlier this year, New Delhi hosted a Voice of the Global South Summit, attended by over 100 nations. That might have conformed a sort of informal, multilateral alliance with diverse values but focusing largely on the same aims promoted by BRICS.
If China rolls with BRI, India rolls with a sort of – complementary – counterpart: the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), where it’s one of the main actors alongside Russia and Iran. So here we have a top BRICS member and a putative BRICS+ member: India is very much keen on Iran’s accession.
All of that in fact points towards integration of BRICS, BRI, INSTC and also SCO (Russia, China, India and Iran are all members). Once again, the devil will be in the “lost in translation” details. There’s no categorical imperative stating Chinese and Indian priorities may not converge.
The RICs (Russia, China,India) have also noted that the overwhelming majority of Global South/Global Majority nations did not support – nor adhered to – the collective West wet dream of strategically suppressing Russia. Even though Russia is now the fifth-largest economy in the world by PPP (over $5 trillion) – ahead of imperial European vassals – the Global South’s perception of Moscow is as “one of our own”.
All that adds extra power to the new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) – which has to be courted full-time by the RICs. Global North late “initiatives” such as the American Build Back Better World
Even as China is bound to solidify its prime Global South role especially in Africa after the summit, India counts on a boost as well in its self-designed role as a North-South power. That may be seen as a hedging-your-bets sort of game, as the New Delhi establishment prides itself to be intertwined with the Global North when it comes to strategic goals (Quad? Really?) while remaining a Global South actor.
Well, sooner or later something’s got to give. The Empire tailored its bogus “Indo-Pacific” terminology and strategy specifically to ensnare India. No one across Asia-Pacific has ever referred to the region in terms of “Indo-Pacific”. Yet, in one go, the Empire gets rid of China, the South China Sea and even Southeast Asia to accommodate in a catchy slogan what it regards as a geopolitical neo-colony at best and battering ram against China.
It seems that New Delhi is developing a trend: never live up to its potential when it comes to exercising sovereignty to defy the Hegemon.
Undermining BRICS+ from the inside
Russia’s reach is way more ambitious – ranging from the post-Soviet space across the Heartland to the real Asia-Pacific, West Asia and, much like China, also Africa. All of these players rely on Russian energy, food, chemical fertilisers and a host of commodities. As far as all of them are concerned, there will be no “decoupling” or “de-risking” when it comes to trading with Russia.
In his videoconference address to BRICS, Putin absolutely killed it on the connectivity front – expanding on the INSTC and the Northern Sea Route. Same when it comes to providing free grain to the poorer African nations. He also destroyed the “so-called” grain deal: Moscow would consider coming back, but only if its legitimate demands are met.
In contrast to fast expanding Russian soft power, how could Beijing expand its own – which may be severely lacking in several areas? Setting up Confucius Institutes is not enough; ideally the Chinese should start promoting a string of Global South think tanks, from West Asia to Africa and Latin America, to analyze the ever mounting geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges to the multipolar road.
For the moment, Beijing will turbo-charge institutional forms of South-South interactions, such as the Belt and Road Forum (the next one is in October); the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation; and the China-CELAC forum with Latin American and the Caribbean.
But then again, inside BRICS, it all comes back to China-India. 2023 might become a turning point in their bilateral relations. New Delhi organized the latest SCO summit (unfortunately only online; rumors about internal dissent were never fully disproven). And will preside over the next G20 summit.
And then there’s the toxic external factor: the already ongoing imperial Hybrid War against the BRICS. The usual suspects will go no holds barred to pit Beijing against New Delhi, especially after everything they threw against Moscow miserably failed.
This multi-faceted Hybrid War has been designed to undermine BRICS+ from the inside, especially weaker nodes Brazil and South Africa, and including already mega-sanctioned Iran if it becomes a member. The Empire will go no holds barred to not lose key pivots to Latin American and African hegemony.
As a whole, the RICs – and perhaps soon RIICs – should concentrate their attention on Africa. That doesn’t mean that a host of African nations should be allowed to join BRICS+ literally tomorrow; the question is to be able to help them in several crucial fields as the process of breaking from imperial/neocolonial control is now irreversible.
The Empire never sleeps – at least those who really run the show: Crash Test Dummies impersonating Presidents is another matter. With Taiwan false flag dreams fast waning, all bets are off that the Empire might set up its next big war psyop in Africa.
WHO THE F**K IS THIS GUY?!? Reacting To Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North Of Richmond”
Hungary has vetoed the European Union’s intent to give more money to Ukraine until such time as Ukraine accounts for the 50-70 Billion EUROS already given!
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said today “Of course I won’t give-=in to pressure. Until we get a detailed, clear account of what the approximately 50-70 billion EUROS spent on Ukraine, was spent on, and until the OTP Bank is removed from the list of so-called International Sponsors of the War, there can be no question of making a decision about additional funds to finance armaments, or _anything_ related to Ukraine.”
European Union Chief, Borrell, was literally in tears (pictured below) over the situation.
Borrell had tried to allocate more “Peace Funds” to Zelensky in Ukraine, but had to publicly admit he could not release the next tranche of funds to Kiev “because Hungary said no.”
With European money now halted for Ukraine, it is only a matter of time before the Ukrainians completely collapse.
Another Betrayal Saudi Arabia Dumps US, Backs Up China In The US China Rivalry!
2023 08 25 17 45
https://youtu.be/NVfM07YUMYA
Russia Announces “SARMAT” ICBM’s Now on Combat Duty”
Russia’s Sarmat strategic missile system has been put on combat duty, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said on Friday.
“The Sarmat strategic complex has been put on combat duty,” Borisov said during an educational event.
Russia tested the nuclear-capable Sarmat missile throughout 2022. Last December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will maintain combat readiness and improve the country’s nuclear triad, which he called the main guarantor of its sovereignty.
The Sarmat system is meant to replace RS-20 Voevoda missile systems. The new missile is capable of striking targets at long ranges using various flight trajectories and is guaranteed to overcome any existing and prospective anti-missile defense systems.
Having the longest range of target engagement, Sarmat is also expected to reinforce the combat capabilities of the Russian strategic nuclear forces. The first test launch of the Sarmat missile was carried out on April 20.
SPECIFICS
The RS-28 Sarmat is a three-stage, liquid-fueled ICBM equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs).
The operational range of RS-28 Sarmat is up to 18,000 km allows it to target almost any location on Earth.
The missile can be armed with 10-15 warheads or a combination of warheads and countermeasures, including dummy warheads to confuse enemy missile defenses.
Additionally, the Sarmat can carry up to two dozen Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles, making it an even more formidable weapon.
Each warhead of the RS-28 Sarmat is estimated to have an explosive power of up to 500 kilotons, equivalent to leveling a major metropolitan area.
The destructive potential of the Sarmat is unparalleled, and it serves as a potent deterrent against any aggression directed towards Russia.
RESPONSE TO U.S. “PROMPT GLOBAL STRIKE”
Russia points out that the Sarmat missile system is Russia’s response to the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) concept developed by Pentagon planners.
PGS proposes preemptive conventional massed cruise missile strikes to disarm an adversary and eliminate its leadership.
This concept, unveiled after the US withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, prompted Moscow to develop advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles and glide vehicles, and ultimately, the Sarmat.
THIS SONG GOT ME EMOTIONAL! Oliver Anothny-Rich Men North of Richmond | Reaction *SONG OF THE YEAR*
Cheetahs seem ferocious, they’re natural predators; carnivores. They typically stalk their prey, charge towards it, trip it up and bite its throat to suffocate it, you know, to make it nice for the eating.
They’re the fastest land animal, too.
image 8
Cheetahs are “instinctively shy” – they’re nervous and shy animals by nature
So, when they’re kept in zoos, their anxiety keeps them from socialising with each other, and most importantly, from procreating. This puts them at a high risk of becoming extinct. (Risk of extinction is why they’re in zoos in the first place – to help get their numbers up.)
For years zoos have been pairing cheetahs with their very own support dogs.
These doggos are raised from very young ages alongside the cheetahs. They live companionably; the cheetahs take their social cues from the dogs, because dogs are very sociable animals by nature.
Cheetahs are so sensitive by nature that almost all of those who are held in captivity suffer from anxiety-related conditions, but dogs make it better, just by being their friends.
“We Have Never Seen Anything Like This” | Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture. Victor discusses current political and social events and ideas, and current and past cultural trends.
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Beef Ragout with Grilled Bread
This dish can be made in a slow cooker or the stovetop. Canola oil is used to make both the ragout and grilled bread because of its neutral flavor and heat tolerance. The ragout is served with bread to soak up the hearty and flavorful broth, but it can be served with pasta or polenta instead.
12 slices whole grain Italian bread, sliced on bias, about 1-inch thick each
1 tablespoon canola oil 15 mL
Instructions
In large, nonstick skillet, brown each side of beef roast in canola oil. Place roast in slow cooker.*
Add onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and red wine. Cook on LOW heat for 8 to 9 hours (or on HIGH heat for 4 to 5 hours) until beef is tender and has an internal temperature of 145 degrees F (65 degrees C).
When beef is cooked, shred with a fork.
To prepare grilled bread: Brush bread with canola oil and grill for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, until toasted.
To serve, top ragout with parsley. Serve with grilled bread.
Notes
* If preparing on stovetop, use a large pot (8-quart) and bring ragout ingredients, except parsley, to boil and simmer covered for at least 30 minutes.
In the US, if you go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get your driver’s license, the same thing happens, and US security services and intelligence agencies can access your photos and data.
The same thing happens when you apply for your passport.
Get over it.
Rescue a dying kitten that the owner abandoned it front my clinic the kitten only breathing
We have a tendency to get all caught up within our own “little worlds”. We don’t realize all the great stuff “out there”, and when we do, we discover just how much we have missed. And it’s horrible.
In the Arkansas ADC prison, there was a guy who was doing some “20 some”big time” years for telecommunication fraud. He was a “sparky”; an engineer with a great talent for telecommunications and the hardware, and software behind it. But he was locked up after some fifteen years when I met him.
We would go on, and on about how he had this great improvement on telephone land line modems, and how he could double the speed of the transmissions. Sheech!
Fifteen years had passed. We were using satellite, wifi, and cable. No one would even bother touching modems tied to land-lines. But he was locked up for so long that he was; his knowledge was, obsolete. And he did not realize it.
Being prison; the ADC, there was no way that he could subscribe to magazines, or periodicals to be caught up on the news. It was a purposeful isolation bubble. He was unaware.
I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. Brilliant, and stupid at the same time.
Don’t be like him.
Get out. Experience life. Enjoy some fine food, touch the bark of a tree and pet a cat.
I believe in you.
We start today on a happy note. Please watch this video…
Hungry Cat Went to a Store with a Leaf to Buy Fish, Then the Seller Did Something Unbelievable!
What a great story.
Joe knew a lot of the people that came to his fish store. Many of his customers were regulars who had been buying fish from his family for years. But when one customer started coming around more often he was surprised. A cat came into the shop and checked out what everyone was doing. Then he eventually came back and sat on the counter with a leaf in his mouth. It took a while but they figured out that he was trying to use the leaf to buy fish like he saw people using money. What the seller did next is unbelievable.
Once upon a time, there was an auto repair shop. They had about six bays and a good average turnaround rate. They were doing pretty well. One day when the new manager was walking around, however, he noticed something shocking.
There was a guy… reading a magazine! He wasn’t working on a car or helping customers. He was just sitting behind a counter, eating up profits with his hourly rate.
He knew full well who this guy was. This was the “parts guy”. When the mechanics needed a part—an oil filter, a water pump, brake pads, etc.—they’d go to the parts counter and request it. The parts guy would retrieve it from the shelves and give it to them. If the part didn’t work out, they’d give it back to him and ask for a different one. If they didn’t have the requisite part, he’d order it. He’d also order commonly used parts when they started getting low. He kept the parts shelves nice and tidy.
But here he was in the middle of the work day, just sitting there! How often was he just sitting there? The new manager determined to find out.
So, over the course of the next week, the manager tracked how much time the parts guy “worked” and how much time he just spent sitting around, chomping away at profits. He determined that 80% of the time, the parts guy did no work! He just sat there, reading a magazine or other material. Profitless!
So he fired the parts guy and told the mechanics that now they were in charge of getting their own parts. There was some moaning and groaning, but they complied. What else could they do?
Over the next month, the manager noticed a frightening trend. Their average turnaround time went up, way up! A repair that normally took a few hours now took a few days. A simple oil change went from less than an hour to half a day. Hell, even doing a simple tire plug could take half a day! And they were—gasp—losing customers!
He determined to find the root of the plummet in productivity.
To make a long story short, it was the missing parts guy. When the mechanics got their own parts, they’d grab them off the shelf and try them in their repair. If they didn’t work out or they grabbed too many, they’d just put them back any which way. They didn’t always put them back in the right place, or in the right box.
So that made it harder for them to even find the stuff they needed. Nothing was in order anymore. Plus, no one ever ordered anything, so they were always out of what they needed; they’d order it when they needed it, instead of beforehand. Then they had to wait for parts delivery to get them the stuff they needed, which could take half a day.
So, instead of eating away at profits, the guy who only “worked” 20% of his time allowed the rest of the staff to be more productive. His absence actually killed profits by a wide margin. He was hired back.
China has now de-risked from the possibility of the freezing of their USD assets, including:
a significant portion of their trade is now in currencies other than USD. Trade with MANY countries are now in Chinese RMB or local currencies including trade with Argentina, Iran and Russia. This will continue to increase in the future.
A significant portion of China foreign reserves is now in Gold or other foreign reserves. China has been decreasing its USD foreign reserves and this in itself is causing significant issues for the United States
China has now completed an alternative to SWIFT with its own CIPS and this will allow it to continue trade with other countries
for critical products – like corn, wheat, oil, etc – China has diversified its supply chains. Therefore, it’s economy will not be disrupted by whatever the Americans does
BIGGEST advantage is that China is an economic powerful house producing most things that the United States and the west needs. All it has to do is stop the exports of critical inputs, machineries and or finished products AND it will shut down the economy of those countries. Given this possibility, it is doubtful that the United States will freeze Chinese USD assets.
Star Trek Next Generation – Withdraw Understood !
My Goodness!
Not MM-MM.
This was me today.
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Exactly 12 hours ago, I had a moment I am still processing. This stretch of highway has been paved so badly that every Fireman, EMT, and police officer on the scene said, “This happens constantly in this spot.” A short summer downpour caused the road to become so slick, that turning a corner at 20–25 mph caused the vehicle to lose control. I tried to correct the turn and brake, which caused the back end of the vehicle to face 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Everything was in slow motion as I watched myself fall off the road. I can still see the disorienting view turn sideways as I felt the impact of hitting the ditch. The passenger glass blew out and I realized that my head was hanging upside down near leaves and dirt. I began to shake. I’m shaking now. I’m not a dedicated seat belt wearer, but today, without thinking, I had clicked on the seatbelt before I began my drive. I could feel the adrenaline surge as I realized the only reason I was alive and not thrown under the vehicle was because I had unconsciously made that decision.
A lady and three teenagers had walked over to peer in through the drivers side window. She asked me, as I saw that her hands were shaking from the sight, if I was ok. And to my shock, I was. I broke down crying as the first thing I said was, “This seatbelt saved my life.” She reached her hand through the drivers window and held my hand, rubbing it for security as she called for assistance. I must have hung there for 20–30 minutes before the firefighters cut me out of the tightly locked seatbelt. But I am so thankful for the lady who had selflessly held the hand of a crying stranger until they arrived.
I was able to climb out on my own. I was assessed by paramedics and allowed to tow the truck home. I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. We are a middle class family who is down one vehicle in an economy that has not been kind to us. But I can still hear the ladies voice as she said, “You can always get another vehicle, but you can’t get another life.” We will all expire at some time. There are no exceptions. I have been reminded of this today. But it’s not today.
Have you ever wondered what that bar on the backs of trucks is for? Called the Mansfield bar, it was made mandatory after a horrifying accident involving actress Jayne Mansfield.
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On June 29th 1967, Jayne, her driver, lawyer and three kids were driving from Mississippi to New Orleans. The road was dark and visibility was poor as the drove in the early hours of the morning, and was unable to see the large truck in front of them. The 1966 Buick crashed into the back of the truck, slicing off the top of the car.
The three adults including Jayne died on impact, but luckily the kids in the back survived. One of those kids is well known “Law and Order” actress “Mariska Hargitay.”
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As a result of the accident, the national highway traffic safety administration ordered all semis to have the bars installed.
Years ago in the early 90s I had a job in customer service for a telephone company. We had a girl start that was from somewhere down south and she had moved up into the Midwest because her husband got a job in the cattle industry. His job wasn’t normally a traveling job, but his first 2 years he had to do a lot of it to learn about the different livestock auctions, plants, etc. Just normal new hire stuff learning the industry.
She wanted to go home for a long holiday weekend, but her husband couldn’t go because of her work schedule, so she asked one of their mutual friends if he wanted to go with her. He also worked there with us. (Totally innocent, this isn’t a cheating story.) She was always funny, down to earth, well dressed but not anything expensive. Think Younkers clothes instead of KMart, but not high end designer stuff. She had a nice new car but it was a low end base model compact. Everyone loved her and her down home southern attitude.
Forward to next week, they had returned. The friend she took let us in on her secret.
Her family was LOADED. They got to the city they lived in, Nashville I think. Her parents compound was walled, had live security on duty including the gate guard you see in movies. Garage full of Italian sports cars. A Rolls Royce with a chauffeur. In the front hall there was a hand-written check framed and signed by Jimmy Hoffa for 1mil. Uncashed.
Turns out her grandfather had invented something to do with reefer units and was in the trucking industry. All the trucks with their family name I saw on the road were hers, but I didn’t know because she was married and had taken her husband’s last name.
She chose to live a normal life with her husband and struggle like any other young couple instead of living off of her family’s wealth. She was just a sweet normal girl.
China’s Next Generation Laser Weapons To Destroy US in 2.5 seconds Shocked The World
Back in the 70’s, there was a HUGE war in the food industry. It was fat vs. sugar, and in the end, sugar came out victorious. I mean, to fight fat, don’t eat fat, right? Makes sense!
NO.
The science wasn’t complete and the sugar manufacturers raised a lot of capital to get their message out… I mean, of course, “to buy politicians”.
ALL of the evils perpetrated on the American people for as long as there have been any is due to political money. You can make anything a social issue if you buy the right congresspeople.
So sugar was in and fat was out. Bacon was bad, but “diet candy” was good. This was all bullshit because no matter the form it’s in (glucose, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, honey, etc…), it’s all carbohydrates. If you have an excess of carbs and you’re not burning those empty calories, guess where that ends up?
Plain and simple, if you have too many calories and you’re not using them, they will turn to fat. Any developing nation out there will tell you that rice, potatoes, and bread is the easiest way to get calories. Sugar just packs these calories more densely, but we’re programmed for it to taste good, so we just suck it up.
Meanwhile, poor bacon, ham, and fried chicken are out here going, “NOO! We’re made with fat and protein! You can get calories from us, too!”
Even salad is having a tough time of it. Go grab any random, name brand dressing off the shelf. I’m willing to bet within the first 5 ingredients will be either sugar, or something that ends in “-ose” (which is also sugar). Fuck, even our bread is unable to be labelled as bread in other countries because of the sugar levels. Subway in Europe sells sandwiches on cake.
There’s something called “essential fats”. There is no such thing as “essential carbohydrates”.
Penn and Teller had a show a while back called “Bullshit” that debunked all sorts of things. One episode was about weight loss. They had a stagehand who had recently lost a ton of weight. They pulled him out from backstage and said, “Tell the audience how you lost all that weight.”
Dude looks straight into the camera and says, “I stopped eating so fucking much.”
“Not the first and not the last” China-Russia joint naval patrol near Alaska — Global Times
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China and Russia’s third joint naval patrol that allegedly reached international waters near Alaska last week has touched the nerves of US media, which hyped the voyage as “highly provocative,” ignoring the fact that the US constantly sends warships and warplanes to China’s doorsteps for close-in reconnaissance and military exercises under the so-called freedom of navigation.
11 Chinese and Russian vessels approached the Aleutian Islands and have since left without entering US territorial waters, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday, citing US officials.
Four US destroyers and a P-8 maritime patrol aircraft shadowed the combined Chinese and Russian naval force, the report said.
While the WSJ report quoted a US Northern Command spokesperson who said the patrol remained in international waters and was not considered a threat, it also quoted US experts as saying the voyage “is a historical first” and “highly provocative.”
announced on July 26 that China and Russia would soon launch their third joint naval patrol, which would see both sides’ warships sail into West and North Pacific waters following the Northern/Interaction-2023 joint exercises in the Sea of Japan.
The operation is not targeted against any third party and is not related to any international or regional situation, the Chinese Defense Ministry said in a press release at the time.Two Type 052D guided missile destroyers, two Type 054A guided missile frigates and a Type 903 comprehensive replenishment ship of the Chinese Navy are included in the flotilla, while the Russian Navy is represented by vessels including large anti-submarine ships and corvettes, according to media reports.
The Northern/Interaction-2023 joint exercises and the subsequent joint naval patrol fully reflect the level of the strategic mutual trust between the two countries and further enhanced the traditional friendship between the Chinese and Russian militaries, said Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a spokesperson at China’s Defense Ministry, at a regular press conference on July 27.
China is willing to continue to boost pragmatic communication and cooperation with all parties and contribute positive forces in safeguarding regional peace and stability as well as deal with all kinds of security threats, Tan said.
Despite that China and Russia announced the joint patrol, US media are attempting to hype the “China and Russia threat” theory, Zhuo Hua, an international affairs expert at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy of Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Monday.
The China-Russia joint patrol in international waters in the North and West Pacific marks a positive force that helps safeguard regional stability and security of strategic routes in the Asia-Pacific region at a time when the US is enhancing combat readiness, rallying allies and partners in the region to change defense policies and expand militaries, which escalated regional tensions, Zhuo said.
‘Not first, not last’
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This is not the “historical first” that a China-Russia joint naval patrol flotilla has reached waters off Alaska as US media has claimed, as a similar case took place during the second joint naval patrol between the two countries in September 2022.
At that time, only a lone US Coast Guard cutter was on the scene, compared to the USS John S. McCain, the USS Benfold, the USS John Finn and the USS Chung-Hoon destroyers and a P-8 maritime patrol aircraft deployed this time, the WSJ said.
The US media linked such an escalation in US reaction to the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan question, but such speculation is purely groundless and is aimed at throwing mud at the normal military cooperation between China and Russia, analysts said, noting US’ hegemonic mindset and its double standard are the true reasons behind its anxiety.
The international waters in the North Pacific including the Bering Sea are important because from here ships can access the Arctic, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times on Monday.
With the global warming, the Arctic shipping routes could become key passages for civilian ships to carry out commercial activities, Fu said.
While the joint patrols by China and Russia aim to safeguard the security of key strategic routes, the US wants to control the passages out of its hegemonic mindset, experts said.
The US is nervous because the Bering Sea is close to Alaska, but the US should not forget that it frequently sends warships and warplanes to other countries’ doorsteps for so-called freedom of navigation operations, including to the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits, sometimes alone and sometimes together with other countries’ forces, Fu said.
While the China-Russia joint flotilla did not enter US territorial waters, US warships have in many occasions trespassed into Chinese territorial waters in the South China Sea.
It is ironic that all US forces involved in shadowing the China-Russia joint flotilla have provoked China on Chinese doorsteps, observers said. The USS John S. McCain, the USS Benfold, the USS John Finn and the USS Chung-Hoon destroyers and a P-8 maritime patrol aircraft have all made transits in the Taiwan Straits in the past, while the USS John S. McCain, the USS Benfold and the USS Chung-Hoon have records of being expelled after trespassing into Chinese territorial waters in the South China Sea.
It exposes the US’ double standard that only allows its military presence near other countries and not accepts other countries’ military presence near it, observers said, urging the US to reflect on itself.
From a military perspective, the four US destroyers and a US patrol aircraft could only monitor the China-Russia joint flotilla of 11 warships, and were not capable of doing anything more than that, analysts said.
“In the future, the Chinese Navy could conduct more far sea patrols like this, either alone or together with other countries. The Americans should get use to it,” Fu said.
Before the China-Russia joint naval patrols, Chinese naval warships had already reached international waters near Alaska.
Once such case was in August 2021, in which a four-ship Chinese naval flotilla led by a Type 055 10,000 ton-class large destroyer was reportedly spotted by the US Coast Guard in the US Exclusive Economic Zone, off the coast of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska
.
In 2015, five PLA Navy ships transited expeditiously and continuously through the Aleutian Island chain in a manner consistent with international law, the US Naval Institute News reported at the time. It was an “innocent passage” within 12 nautical miles of the Aleutian Islands, the report said.
Chinese experts said this kind of far sea exercise serves as a countermeasure and a signal against the US hegemonic actions of frequently making provocations near China in the name of freedom of navigation.
the GIRLS REACT to *Alien (1979)* IT’S SO SCARY!! (First Time Watching) Horror Movies
On June 3rd 2022, 3-year-old Ryker Webb went missing from his home in Montana wearing just his onesie. The area was in the middle of the wilderness, inhabited by Mountain Lions, Bears and on the evening he went missing, there was a severe thunderstorm.
His distraught parents feared the worse until they got the call that he had been found. He was discovered two days later on the Sunday, and 2.5 miles from his house.
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A couple heard whimpering from their shed and found Ryker wrapped in a lawnmower-bag to keep warm in the nearly freezing temperatures. When they first found him they said he was hungry and tired, but for his circumstances he was a pretty up-beat mood.
When they questioned him he said that he went for a really long walk and got tired. It is believed he seen the shed and took shelter during the thunder storm and stayed there for 2 days worrying about ever seeing his parents again.
John Chau, 26-year-old American evangelical missionary.
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He was unalived* by an isolated tribe he was trying to convert to Christianity.
The islanders are notorious for being hostile for outsiders to even visit, let alone throw Bibles at, yet John clearly wasn’t one to apply self-preservation.
One of the very few photos taken of the natives of the tribe, 1970s.
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It is illegal under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribes regulations to visit without government permission – John did not obtain this. He seemingly had no respect for the law of the land.
Two local fishermen would take him partway to the island and no further. They let him approach the island on a canoe by himself.
For several days, he persistently made several attempts to communicate with the tribe from the safety of his canoe.
He documented in his journal that they laughed at him, they stared at him, and yelled words he didn’t understand.
On his second-last day a boy shot an arrow through his Bible. He didn’t take for the warning it obviously was.
On his final day, he told the fishermen to leave without him.
The next day they saw his body on the shore. Cautious attempts were made to retrieve his body but no one ever did.
John was an adventurer.
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He was known among his friends for being a thrill-seeker. Throughout his youth he indulged in camping, hiking, et.c.
My point being he went there for himself. Not just religion.
There’s a reason why the government needs to give permission for outsiders to visit. There’s a reason why even the surrounding locals won’t set foot on that island.
John ignored all the rules.
He went there for himself, to fulfill his thrill-seeking, adventurist desires.
I moved to the U.S. 5 weeks later, COVID happened.
All the dreams about off-roading trips, going to places, exploring America went out the window.
Social distancing; lockdown. People went crazy buying hand soaps; toilet papers. There was a time even flour and yeast also shortage
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One afternoon, I was at the grocery store, suddenly I felt something hit my back. I turned around. It was a woman threw a toilet paper bag at me. She yelled: “Go fucking back to your country! You Chinese fuckers! You brought that fucking virus here!”
I picked the toilet paper bag, put it back on the shelf, then I told her: “First of all, I am not Chinese. Second, in case you don’t know, airlines are shutting down, it’s quite difficult to travel right now. Third, you should apologize to me, because I think what you did is on tape” – I pointed at the camera. She ran away.
I’m not sure when I will be able to forget that memory.
NEOCONS ADMIT DEFEAT | BRIAN BERLETIC ON UKRAINE’S STALLED OFFENSIVE | BIDEN BLASTS CHINA
Yes. As a Captain and Company Commander in the Army Reserves I was running an errand in the rural south with one of my high-ranking NCOs, a Sergeant First Class. We needed to stop for lunch, so I pulled up to the sort of small country diner at which I like to dine from time-to-time in the countryside.
My Sgt was African-American. Let’s call him “SFC T.” We were wearing our camouflaged combat fatigues.
SFC T said, “I don’t think we should stop here, sir. This is the local KKK hangout.” I chuckled and said, “Sgt T, this is the 1990’s, not the 1960’s. What are you talking about?” And he replied, “Sir, look at the sign. See how it says ‘Karla’s Kountry Kitchen?’ See how they spell it ‘Karla’ with a ‘K,’ ‘Kountry’ with a ‘K,’ ‘Kitchen’ with a ‘K?’ And see how the ‘K’s are painted different colors than the other letters? It’s the local KKK hangout.” I laughed and dismissed his concerns, saying lightheartedly, “Sgt T, you are totally full of shit. Now get out of the car, we are going in for lunch.”
Understand, I was an officer who ALWAYS very strongly respected, listened to, and relied upon my NCOs. But this was not a military matter and, although I knew racism still existed, it simply was beyond my comprehension that overt, hostile, potentially violent KKK shit could still exist in the 1990’s. In our area? Right out in the open amongst everyone? With a sign above the door? It was as if someone was telling me the earth had two moons.
I opened the door to the cafe and took about three big steps inside, with SFC T right behind me. The place was packed. Immediately, all conversation ceased. Stone cold silence. Simultaneously, every single head in the entire restaurant turned to stare at us. And although no movie soundtrack of impending doom started playing in the background, my mood immediately shifted, from happy-go-lucky Captain anticipating a great country meal with one of my best NCOs, to fight or flight mode anticipating danger and potential violence.
I needed go no farther. I looked over my shoulder and said quietly, “Sgt T, let’s get the f__k out of here.” So we turned, walked straight back out out, and jumped in my car. I cranked it up and drive off at high speed.
Of course, I felt absolutely terrible. Terrible for not believing SFC T or listening to his concerns. Terrible for placing us, and particularly him, in a potentially dangerous situation. Terrible for being so incredibly naive as to have no idea that such bullshit still existed.
I apologized profusely to SFC T as we were driving away. Frankly, he seemed more amused than anything, watching my eyes open and the light bulb go on in my brain.
The more I thought about it, however, the more I found it a very valuable experience. Because I witnessed first hand how two intelligent people, coming from two different backgrounds and, particularly, races, can view exactly the same situation but see two totally different realities. Or, more precisely, one complacent fiction and one harsh reality. And I’ve never forgotten it.
So 30 years later, when I hear people dismiss BLM protests, or fail to see as victims black men who die at the hands of police in questionable circumstances, I think of SFC T and Karla’s Kountry Kitchen. And I marvel at how many people still need to open their eyes.
REACTING to *Aliens (1986)* THE GREATEST SEQUEL?? (First Time Watching) Sci-fi Movies
Originally Answered: What are some mind-blowing facts that sound like ‘BS’, but are actually true?
Liquor and wine are illegal in the U.S. unless they are radioactive. When tested, drinking alcohol is required to have at least 400 radioactive decays per minute for each 750 ml.
Explanation: The United States government has decided that alcohol for consumption must be made from “natural” materials, such as grains, grapes, or fruit. That rules out alcohol made from petroleum. Such alcohol is chemically identical to natural alcohol and just as safe – there’s no difference in taste — so why this rule? The reasons have to do with history (keeping alcohol more expensive, a goal of the anti-alcohol lobby) and minimizing competition (a goal of the liquor lobby).
How can you tell the difference between natural alcohol and alcohol made from petroleum? There’s no chemical difference. The United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, charged with enforcing the natural alcohol rule, has only one reliable test: check for radioactivity. Natural alcohol gets its carbon from plants; the plants got the carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. As explained on the previous pages, atmospheric carbon dioxide is radioactive because of the continued bombardment of cosmic rays – particles coming from space that collide with nitrogen molecules and turn it into C-14, radiocarbon. Only one atom in a trillion carbons in the atmosphere is radiocarbon, but that’s enough to be detectable. (One of the authors of this book, RM, invented the most sensitive way to detect C-14, called “Accelerator Mass Spectrometry.”)
Petroleum was also made from atmospheric carbon, but it was buried hundreds of millions of years ago, isolated from the radioactive atmosphere. Radiocarbon has a half-life of about 5700 years, and after a hundred million years, there is nary an atom of C-14 left.
True, bootleggers could get some C-14 and add it to illegal liquor. But that’s beyond the skill set of most of them.
Yeah, on May 30, 1989, although my mom was with me.
It was my birthday. Ever since I was a kid, I had wanted to see Cats on Broadway, so my mom decided to take me for my 16th birthday. She picked me up from my dad’s house, we made the hour-long drive into Manhattan… and saw the big “SOLD OUT” sign outside the Winter Garden Theater. I was bitterly disappointed — sold out on a weekday??
Mom said, well, let’s get lunch and go to the movies instead, and asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to see.
Actually, yes, I told her. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
My mom was awesome. She didn’t even ask what it was about or anything. We went to the diner and got some burgers and milkshakes, then to a movie theater in Peekskill, New York.
We were the only ones there, but we didn’t care. I loved it, and Mom loved it, too. My mother had this fantastic, loud, goofy laugh, and it echoed through the empty theater. I’m not sure which of us enjoyed Bill and Ted’s historical anticsmore, and by the time the credits rolled, I wasn’t so bummed that Cats had been sold out.
That would be the last movie I’d ever see in the theater with my mom. She had 4th stage breast cancer, see, that had metastasized to the brain, and early the next year, they’d find her 3rd brain tumor. She died in November 1990, when she was 54 and I was 17.
Thinking about that day makes me miss my mom something fierce, and especially that big, goofy Kay Truex laugh, echoing in a theater that we didn’t have to share with anyone else. I’m glad we were the only ones there, and that we spent that day in a crummy movie theater alone, rather than on Broadway with a crowd of people.
It was just for us.
Me and my mom on her 54th birthday, March 1990. I’m not sure it’s the last photo ever taken of us together, but it’s the last one I still have. Was she a historical babe or what?
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Scott Ritter: China is Ready for WAR Over Taiwan as Blinken’s “Diplomacy” Fails
As to Gold, I am certain China has more than 2300 Tonnes as Reserves
Yet 7000 is ridiculous
Nobody can acquire so much Gold without a market shock
In 2015, a very reasonable analysis predicted that China’s actual reserves would amount to 98.8 Million Troy Ounces or 3073 Tonnes
This was based on buy patterns of Gold by China’s private players increasing 219% between 2009–2015 while China revealed it’s reserves to grow only by 62%
So many experts reliably predicted China’s Gold Reserves were actually close to 3073 Tonnes and not 1658 Tonnes as claimed by China
From 2015–2023 based on buying patterns China purchased directly through the Central Bank around 661 tonnes
Private players purchases remain confidential and Gold purchases in Yuan with Russia and UAE remain confidential
Assuming 25% of the buying by private players compared to 2009–2015 and 15% of the quantity of gold from Russia and UAE in Yuan than they did in Dollars
That’s around 398 Tonnes roughly
Thus China’s estimated real reserves could be = 3073 + 661+ 398 = 4132 Tonnes
So China may have around 4132 Tonnes of Gold in its reserves
Likewise China’s real reserves may be between $ 4–4.6 Trillion
That’s because this 28nm DUV Lithography machine is FULLY INDIGENOUS and has come to the commercial line in 3 Years and 10 months
There are 15,800 components in this machine and everyone if them is MADE IN CHINA
The Wafer layering is also Chinese
The Final Tested 28nm Chip had a 94.1% yield which is only 1.7% lower than the 95.8% that a 28nm chip made with Western equipment delivers
Even 7% was acceptable by the Chinese (88.8% Yield) so a 94.1% yield was OUTSTANDING
The Chip is estimated to be priced at 4840 Yuan for a stack compared to 5410 Yuan for a stack of 28nm chips that use Western Equipment and are made in China
That’s a 12.50% price cut
Experts estimate that the same 28nm chips being made in Taiwan or Korea using Western equipment would cost 7200 Yuan or almost 50% higher than China’s price
This Machine is now commercial which means by 2027 it will replace existing western DUV equipment completely and also have enhanced quality
This means China have gained full Independence in their 28 nm Chips from any Western Control and technology
Until now it was possible only for 90 nm Chips and above
Thats not why the US is mad though
This was something that was expected by the US the minute the same equipment passed protocol stage in 2018 May with a 59% Yield (Now 94.1%)
It entered Commercial phase in 2019 December
The US is mad because China can use these 28 nm Chips and stack them and get the equivalent of 14 nm and even 7 nm chips
China has made massive strides in stacking
It means China can now have fully Indigenous 14 nm Chips at 89% of the quality that the West delivers and Indigenous 7% Chips at 70.1% of the quality that the West delivers
Now these stacked chips cannot be used commercially as their price would be too high (A 28 nm Chip stacked as a 14 nm would cost 91400 Yuan a stack against a mere 11260 Yuan that it would cost for a Western Equipment made 14 nm Chip in China and 16220 Yuan for a stack made in Taiwan)
However they can be used in Defence applications and National Security related applications where China won’t mind the higher price in exchange for more flexibility
Better to have 71% Quality home chips at 11 times the price for Defence Equipment than have none at all and have a 100% disadvantage with the West
Thats why the US is hopping mad
A Senator named Tom Cotton said this was all Bidens fault and he was too slow and gave too much time for China to catch up
China still has a long way to go
China is around 3/4 the way there
It still needs the last 25% of the race against the toughest of circumstances
9 things Australians are not being told about US military deal
No, the astonishingly expensive tie-up between Australia and the US military deal is NOT about defense of the country, nor is it about bringing stability to Asia. The opposite is true, and Asians know it. The Australians stand to lose a great deal, not just in terms of money, but in the great relationships that they have built with the rest of Asia over many decades, and in the world’s understanding of the Australian character.
THE TRUTH! Oliver Anthony Reaction – Rich Men North of Richmond
I remember growing up as a boy in Western Pennsylvania and walking though the woods. We had some virgin forests; these were deep and located in ravines. With massive old trees, land of endless moss and loom, and with the smells of rich and dark earth. It was dim, gloomy but so very much alive.
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We had timbered areas where the trees were cut down and soft off, and were now a wasteland with small plants and trees trying to reclaim the land. It was a lot like walking on Mars with an occasional “Christmas tree” here and there.
We had light woods, and pine trees. Aspen forest which were fun to hike though, and areas what was nothing but undergrowth. We also had lands that were dense pine.
aspen
We (us boys) would access these various areas, not by roads, but by the long forgotten railroad tracks of yore that wound in and out between the hills and took us to areas “well off the beaten path”. And there, often enough, we would find the remains of old highways and paved roads that were forgotten when newer and faster roads were built nearby.
I imagine that boys and girls can still enjoy the natural aspects of life if they take the time to branch out and explore.
cooking hot dogs over a campfire tim laman
Perhaps, if you have the time, make a day trip and see what lies just over that next hill. You might well be surprised.
It doesn’t take much to have some fun.
Buy a pack of hotdogs, some buns, and some disposable tubes of mustard, ketchup from a fast food joint. Bring a lighter.
Woman chooses sausages in a vacuum package at the grocery store
Beer is too heavy to carry, but a bottle of wine, or whiskey isn’t. Just take it easy and have a great time.
Remember…
Tomatoes and corn are ripe now, as are apple trees laden with fruit.
Haha. Are you paranoid about China? If yes, you must be listening too much to western esp US propaganda.
Brazil & India are a member of BRICS. Indonesia is applying to join BRICS.
In total, about 44 countries are interested in BRICS with 20+ applying to join. Even France is asking to be an observer.
All BRICS members & to-be-members have 1 thing in common: all suffered from US monetary & financial hegemony. All want dedollarisation & stay out of US SWIFT banking system.
It is a global effort since Ukraine war to “beat” US monetary & financial hegemony.
Now, you are asking these countries to “deter” Chinese influence in, say, Africa???
I bet they all want Chinese has a bigger influence anywhere incl Africa. The bigger the influence is, the sooner they can beat US hegemony.
Do you know 60% of Brazilians are poor? It is because US capitalists have sucked up Brazil’s natural resources. Brazil is the most zealous to beat US hegemony.
Dont be paranoid about China. Dedollarization is not initiated by China. Just that China’s economy is stable & the world find confidence to use Chinese yuan to replace USD. That is all.
Nothing to do with China. Everything to do with USA itself who shoot its own foot.
Star Trek Next Generation – Earth Colony Turkana IV
U.S. War Machine Is KILLING The U.S. Middle Class – RFK Jr.
What can American politicians do to restore the middle class in this country? The first step, says Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is to stop warmongering all over the globe, spending countless billions on weaponry, building military bases and “flexing our muscle” in every corner of the planet. Jimmy talks to RFK Jr. about where the $800+ billion a year in “defense” spending could better be spent.
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I stood there dumbfounded…
I lost my 35-year-old, soulmate husband unexpectedly on Memorial Day morning. I had gotten up to find him on the driveway of our home and had tried to revive him while waiting for EMS but it was too late. He had had a gran mal seizure and had what the medical examiner ruled a “Terminal Event” and was taken from me and his daughter that idolized him, that day. Needless to say, it was a horrible, traumatic day such that I wondered if I would ever be able to get out of bed again.
After several months I had decided to try to return to work when I was met by a co-worker who hugged me and asked how I was and said she was so happy to see me. She then said to me “My family and I have been praying hard to you. We have been praying that you will get cancer really soon so you can be with him because we know how much you love him.” I stood there dumbfounded with the hideousness of that statement. She then handed me a CD she had made for me (that I only played years later out of curiosity) that was full of the most tragic and mournful music I ever heard. I made it through about two hours at work that day but then went home and did not return for several more months. What little bit of healing had been shattered by that comment. When I did finally return, I avoided her like the plague. She was just one of many wholly inappropriate comments made by those who I thought cared for me.
People! Pleasssssssssse just give those new to loss, a hug and tell them you are sorry for their loss. Deem anything else inappropriate.
EDIT: Thanks so much for all of the support. I really do appreciate it.
This woman became famous at work for her strange replies to many things so I came to feel it wasn’t personal. Some examples: She stated it would have been much better if Elizabeth Smart had died instead of being found, because now she was “sullied and would never be wanted or accepted by people again.” She also came in one day telling everyone that her 14 year old daughter had “caught scabies” from holding hands with her boyfriend. The odd thing was she acted proud of it.
Like my granddad used to say ”takes all kinds”.
Sheet Pan Fish and Chips
Please your palate with a Sheet Pan Fish and Chips recipe that’s full of flavor. This dish’s major perk is the convenience of a single pan for cooking (no frying required). And the great flavors of Old Bay® and McCormick® Tartar Sauce.
fish and chips 4
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1/4 cup buttermilk
5 teaspoons Old Bay® Seasoning, divided
1 pound cod fillets, cut into 4 x 2 inch pieces
2 large russet potatoes, cut into wedges (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 tablespoon oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 cup cornflake crumbs
McCormick® Original Tartar Sauce for Seafood
Instructions
Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
Mix buttermilk and 1 teaspoon of the Old Bay in large resealable plastic bag. Add fish; seal bag. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Toss potatoes and oil in large bowl. Sprinkle with another 2 teaspoons of Old Bay; toss to coat evenly. Spread potatoes in single layer on foil-lined 15 x 10 x 1 inch baking pan sprayed with no stick cooking spray. Bake for 25 minutes, turning potatoes halfway through cooking. Remove pan from oven. Push potatoes to outside edge of pan. Set aside.
Place flour in a shallow dish.
Beat egg, another 1 teaspoon of Old Bay and 1 teaspoon water in a separate shallow dish.
Mix cornflake crumbs and remaining 1 teaspoon Old Bay in another shallow dish.
Remove fish from buttermilk mixture, allowing excess to drip off into bag.
Coat fish in flour, shaking off excess flour. Dip into egg mixture, then press into cornflake mixture until evenly coated. Discard any remaining flour, egg and cornflake mixtures. Place fish on a wire rack in center of pan with the potatoes.
Bake for 15 minutes or until fish is golden brown and flakes easily with a fork and potatoes are tender.
Serve fish with potatoes and tartar sauce, if desired.
When my oldest daughter was about a year and a half I called my father to ask if my house mate could join our large family for Thanksgiving dinner. You see I had no car and buses did not run in our area on holidays. My father said NO. He preferred I not bring a guest. I said, I don’t have a ride. He said he was sorry and that we would be missed. I was embarrassed and heartbroken as I relayed the news to my friend. Later he was invited to join friends at a party where children were not allowed.
Long story short, we shared a baked potato and I didn’t eat dinner with my family for another 10 years. In those years I hosted dinner for friends and strangers I knew to be alone for the holidays. The pain and loneliness of that long ago day still lives with me. My daughter is now 42, my father is gone and I host gatherings where no one is ever turned away!
Similar headlines or sentiments will be found in pretty much any other ‘western’ magazine that still has some integrity.
The catastrophic consequences of sanctioning Russia without any realistic assessment of its, and one’s own economies should have led to a serious clean up of all state and international bureaucracies involved in it.
Alas, we have yet to see that anyone who was involved has been punished for these horrendous mistakes.
The very same people are now involved in finding ‘solutions’ for the mess their shortsightedness created.
It is no wonder then that people will vote for anyone other than those in charge.
Gonzalo Lira MISSING After FLEEING To Ukraine Border
May God protect Gonzalo.
https://youtu.be/7n_9ueVy20A
The doctor broke down in the delivery room.
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The doctor went on to share the woman’s story, explaining that she had spent 14 years trying to conceive, trying “tried all treatments including injections and artificial insemination” to fall pregnant.
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Finally, she fell pregnant, carrying her baby to term despite having “a large tumour”
“When she was pregnant, this tumour began to melt and everything was fine,” he said.
“During the time of delivery, the husband rushed to me and stayed for seven hours until we decided to cut her abdomen.
“She carried her child in her arms and smiled and then departed.
“The mother died and the child lived, her husband fainted at the news of her death.
The doctor channeled his grief into a powerful message, which feels particularly poignant in the lead-up to Mother’s Day.
“Please respect women because they are dying to bring you new life,” he said.
“If you suffer the pain of childbirth for hours and spend long nights in raising your children, it is the greatest sacrifice.
“If you do not talk to your mother for any reason, please go and contact them now.
Drinking ice water ALL THE TIME. ALLLLL THE TIME!!!!!
Regardless of temperature or occasion, summer or winter, you ask for a cup of water, and most likely, they’ll give you a cup of ice with some water in it. I have to specifically ask for “no ice” every time I visit a restaurant. My Chinese stomach can’t take it. Like many Chinese people, I grew up drinking hot tea or lukewarm/room temperature boiled water (which we call 白开水, white boiled water). Ice water (especially in winter) is said to be bad for you. If you ask for water in Chinese restaurants (in China), 9 out 10 times, they’ll give you a cup of hot water right out of the boiler, and that 1 time you get lukewarm water.
But I understand all the health talks are just groundless old wives’ tales. There’s no scientific study to support ice water is bad for your body. If I seem defensive, that’s because I’ve mentioned this once before on Quora, and a wave of angry Americans came to tell me I was wrong and ice water is perfectly fine.
Ice water is perfectly fine, Americans. I’m not saying it’s bad. No need to get angry with me all over again.
I’m just saying it’s a weird custom for the Chinese, and I personally prefer lukewarm water or hot tea.
Money is: When you are a Doctor or Lawyer or what ever (Business owner) making $450,000 per year and with full benefits but needing to work full time and even overtime to maintain that (60 hours+). You enjoy access to a country club in Beverly Hills for a monthly fee — and you go golfing in the summer — and you go hunting in Canada on yearly vacation.
You also own a big house in Beverly Hills but with a mortgage and a boat at the Marina Del Rey Docs, but it’s financed. Your kids go to private schools and with tutors if need be. You drive both a Benz and a Ferrari but you drive your own cars. The cars are financed. Your wife doesn’t work. You have a private chef that comes over and cooks your family meals.
With a safe stacked with cash incase of a rainy day, you don’t worry so much if you have to call in to work sick or if you need to take off for a few days.
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You have money to basically do what you want but to a degree. You own stocks and wondering if you have enough put away for early retirement or if you need to work ‘till 65 to be on the safe side. You worry about a stock market crash and wonder if that could affect your retirement.
Wealth is: Owning 9 gas stations (inherited from your father). And your older brother has even more businesses than you do. Collectively, your family is like a financial empire (family wealth).
You have private doctors that make house calls — what ever medical specialists you need. You don’t work a job. Your ‘job’ is only to look after your businesses. Not only are you set up for retirement but your children are also set up: financially stable, with their own retirement accounts. You prepare your children to run the family businesses when they come of age. You do not prepare them or encourage them to work a job. ‘You don’t work — you own.’
You have what they call ‘generational wealth.’ Most of the financial assets you have are tied to a family trust. Having both accountants and lawyers on payroll, your most important lawyer charges $750 per hour for legal advice — and he’s totally worth it!
You own a mansion in Beverly Hills, CA and another in the Hamptons, NY — no mortgage, all paid off. You employ a live in Butler and a live in Maid. And you have a chauffeur to drive you around while you ponder your next business venture — or while you just take a nap in the back seat.
A trust says you have 25% ownership of that same country club in Beverly Hills and your siblings own the rest. Including the country club, the gas stations and maintaining both residences, you employ over 100+ workers; most are paid hourly rates.
You have a safe — filled with gold!
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You don’t have rainy days…
You have basically the money to do what ever you want within reason.
A nice portion of your wealth is sitting in the stock market but every time the market crashes you barely blink. From your dividend stocks alone you earn a healthy wage — $332,000 per year and that number seems to be gradually increasing more than inflation.
You have free cash to buy more shares when the market corrects and prices come down, a trick you learned from your father.
Tonight is the gala. You can donate money to your favorite political candidates.
Africa Stands Up to US Cold War Bullying Against China & Russia, w/ Kambale Musavuli
On Tuesday (Aug 1st) during the women’s 100-meter race at the World University Games in China, the Somalian runner performed so badly it had to be a joke.
Even when she stepped up to the mark you could tell she was not in tiptop shape like her fellow competitors.
Questions were asked, and it came to light that she was not a trained athlete and was actually the niece of Somalia’s Athletics Federation Chairperson. It couldn’t possibly be nepotism, right? No way.
I do love to see what happens when people who abuse their little powers in their own countries try that shit outside.
The Chairperson’s face was plastered all over social media, called a national embarrassment and suspended.
What would the average person look like competing against actual Olympians in the Olympics?
They would look pathetic.
It should be acceptable to let hacklers of every sport be thrown onto the field every now and then to see how easy it is.
People underestimate the sheer hard work and sacrifice athletes put in, just because when they’re competing against each other in sporting events such as the Olympics it does not look that impressive. Throw in an average person and we’d appreciate the difference.
When my son was in first grade, the teacher sent home a math sheet that included a problem that went something like: “If a pyramid has five balls at the base, then four, then three, etc., how many balls are there?”
My son went to work figuring that the base would have 25 balls, (5 X 5), then 16 balls (4 X 4), then 9 (3 X 3), then 4 (2 X 2) and then 1 ball at the top. Total = 55.
She marked it wrong.
Evidently the “right” answer was 15 (5+4 +3+2+1).
When I saw this I brought the paper back to her and asked why it was wrong.
When I explained to her that my son had solved for it as a 3-dimensional pyramid, she went beet red and admitted that she hadn’t recognized what he had done.
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Needless to say, he was eventually placed in a G&T (Gifted and Talented) program.
What’s the homework that your child was given by the teacher that shocked you?
Oh SH*T! Now Kenya is INVADING Haiti?
The U.S. government will provide Kenya with the “resources” – presumably this means money, weapons and training – necessary to lead an invasion of Haiti, pending UNSC approval. Kenya will conduct an assessment mission to Haiti in the coming weeks. So, we’ve outsourced the invasion of Haiti. Why? Redacted correspondent Dan Cohen reports on this.
Back around 1995, I received and Bank Draft for an insurance settlement. I opened a separate account with the draft and added $1000 cash. I was told the draft would take 10–14 business days, after a month, 20 business days i was told it would take 10–14 business days. I explained it was already 20 business days. I was told I knew nothing about banking and I should just wait. I asked for $500 cash out of that account and was told that the funds were not available in that account. I tried to explain I had put in $1000 cash and was curious how long cash took to clear. She brushed me off.
I then told her I wanted to close my other accounts at that bank. A small savings account for Christmas had about $800. My checking had a over $5000. My two company accounts had in excess of $100000. I told her I wanted all cash because i didn’t know anything about banking. I let her know I would be back at 3 PM the next day for all my money. I went back to work. By the time I got there I had messages from 5 different people at that branch and other branches. I waited until one called again, the branch manager BM. “What are you closing all your accounts?”
“I am not closing all of them yet, just those 4.”
BM. “Why? What happened?”
Me. “I was told I didn’t know anything about banking. I deposited a bank draft a month ago and the funds are not yet available. Also the $1000 cash deposited at the same time is not available for withdrawal. And by the way, I called the bank the draft was on, it cleared 3 weeks ago. But hey, I don’t know anything about banking.”
BM. “I don’t know who told you that, I will look into it. And we don’t have that much cash at this branch to give you. Aren’t you worried about getting robbed with that much cash?”
Me. “Only if someone at the bank blabs about it. Besides I will be bringing my own security. And I gave you 24 hrs to get the cash in the branch.”
BM. “Come in tomorrow and let’s talk about this.”
Me. “I will be there at 3PM to pick up the cash. I have already have the accountant opening accounts for us. My family and our company have been there over 50 yrs. But I have never been so disappointed in the bank. I asked the teller, how long it took cash to be available and she ignored me. I asked her twice. That’s when I told her to start closing accounts.
The next day the bank arranged a transfer of the funds to our new bank. I closed my personal accounts and refinanced the home loan I had with them.
I may not know about banking, but I do know what customer service is.
China’s DJI Refuses India’s 1.5 Billion Rupee Order, Leaving India in Disarray.
About DJI drones we must remember that at the start of his economic sanctions against China, Trump had ordered the DOD to get rid of all the Chinese products in their arsenal and replace them with more costly US products. A year after there was a ton of complaints from the military personel that the more costly US made military drones were underperforming the DJI drones that they were replacing. That’s why the DJI drones have 75% of the world market. Their quality/price ratio are unbeatable for all of their product line.
DJI is wise to refuse India’s order of 1.5 billion rupees. BYD too knew how India works and demanded full payment prior to delivery of the electrical buses. India has been criticizing China but now trying to fool Chinese companies to grab money. Manny American companies have suffered a huge loss of investments because of India’s ‘money grappling’ policy. Foxconn a.o. are running away from India and back to China as they have great difficulties in India. One should be aware of the risk in investing in India as it may outweigh the benefit.
Russia is there to give them Wheat without them needing Dollars
Russia will sell them Wheat for Barter
Russia will give them weapons, trained troops and Wheat in exchange for Gold and Uranium
Behind the scenes is of course China ready to finance the entire deals in their stockpiles of US Dollars
Why would Niger need French or US Aid now ?
That cutting off Aid isnt gonna work anymore sadly
Hell No! U.S. considers a military DRAFT to build up failing forces
Are you prepared to send your loved ones to war? Members of Congress along with retired military are pushing the idea of a military draft in The United States. One retired colonel is calling for a hybrid approach using both a volunteer force and drafted force. How about we stop our imperial aggression around the world?
Hitman outsourced a murder to a hitman, who hired a hitman, who hired a hitman.
Chinese police charge six, including 5 hitmen with intentional homicide, after all the men tried to outsource the killing to each other. The intricate, would-be job was first contracted by real estate developer Tan Youhui in October 2013, who wanted to kill a rival developer who sued his company over a dispute over a development.
Tan paid Xi Guangan around $282,800 for the job. Guangan then took the money, and used half to hire another hitman, Mo Tianxiang, to do the job.
Mo Tianxiang then hired another hitman Yang Kangsheng and gave him a photo of the target, promising half of the money that was promised to him on completion of the Job. Yang then offered the job to another hitman with the same promise.
The last hitman then outsourced the Job to Ling Xiansi, for a measly $14,000. Ling, rather than pass the job on to someone else, ended up reaching out to the rival developer to tell him about the hit out for him. Ling and the developer ended up faking the murder, staging an image of the developer with his hands tied, which then circulated through the chain of hitmen back to Tan, the businessman who hired the first hitman. By this time the developer had already reported his attempted murder to police. Who were able to quickly arrest the suspects.
All five hitmen were sentenced to between two to four years in prison in a court in the Guangxi region, while the developer who requested the hit, was sentenced to five years.
Things You CAN Do in China (You CAN’T Do in America)
If you’re thinking of visiting China but feel scared about what you can and can’t do, then this video is for you! In this video, we’ll share with you some of the things you CAN do in China that you CAN’T do in America. Most Americans watching this video will be shocked! China is the true land of the free! Chinese people have much more freedom than in the west. Come to China and see it with your own eyes! and see the truth my friends.
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I love this guy
In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was the only one to respond – and his response is magnificent:
“Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.
Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
That’s not why Japan has a low obesity rate. I’ve been to Japan; they are way too polite to be vicious to fat people (or anyone, really). They’re far more the passive-aggressive types.
One thing Japan does have is a culture of walking everywhere. The streets are narrow, the cities are crowded, and nearly everyone takes buses and trains to get around, which means that they have to walk at the endpoints of every trip they take. The average Japanese person is walking six kilometers every day.
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Typical day: Walk to train station, get on train. Get off at your stop. Walk to work. Repeat in reverse later. You get quite a few steps in this way. This picture is pre-COVID, by the way; that’s how much they masked up even before the pandemic.
Another thing Japan has is smaller portion sizes when you eat out. You’ll almost never have any leftovers. And you wouldn’t want them, anyway—will you haul them with you while you take the train home? You’d probably get discrete annoyed looks from the other passengers for stinking up the train car. You most likely walked into that restaurant, and you’ll be walking out, so lugging a box of food in your arms when you leave is kind of awkward. It’s the same with the sodas you buy from vending machines—a typical Japanese soda is 300–350 ml (10–12 oz), while the bottles from a U.S. soda machine are usually around 20 oz. Many machines will also sell you water, coffee, barley tea, or green tea, which won’t be very sweet. If you buy street food, you might be able to buy snacks from a few different places before it fills you up.
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A meal I ate at a hotel in Japan. I took this photo just before I ate it. It was excellent but not huge.
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Here’s another one from the same trip. I think this was a Chinese restaurant. This is a pretty typical portion when you eat out.
There are some other things that probably help. Japanese employers are required to pay taxes to support the public health care system. A lot of obesity happens because people have sedentary jobs and work long hours, so the government decided to penalize companies that have too many overweight employees. Effectively, this means that companies with a lot of obese employees have to pay higher rates for their health insurance. Because companies hate giving away their money, they are motivated to find the cheapest, simplest way to keep employees thin. This might include mandatory calisthenics when you show up for work in the morning, removing unhealthy options from the company cafeteria, making their employees wear step monitors, or even just nagging them constantly. Maybe this is what the question means by “fat shaming.”
To be clear, I don’t think Japan is better in every way, and there’s plenty about their society that America should not be copying. They have some health problems that are worse than the United States (e.g. stress, suicide, stomach cancer, smoking, depression, etc.). Still, they do a far better job than the U.S. at avoiding obesity, and it’s worth paying attention to what about their society is helping them to do that.
It would be tough to get Americans to walk more, but city designs that make transit preferable to driving likely help. Perhaps there’s also a way to persuade our restaurants to (at least) offer smaller portion sizes for those who want them. I’m not sure how we’d “adopt widespread fat shaming,” though. I’m not sure Japan does it any more harshly than Americans do, and I don’t think it would help much.
Smoked Sausage, Potatoes and Onion
OIewewP
Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package smoked sausage, sliced
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
5 large potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup shredded white Cheddar cheese (optional)
Instructions
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Line a large baking tray with sides with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
Put the sausage slices, onions and potatoes into a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, paprika and dried thyme. Toss together and pour onto the baking tray.
Bake for 45 minutes to one hour, stirring halfway through, until the potatoes are golden brown and tender.
If desired, scatter the cheese over the top and return to the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese.
**HE’S HAD ENOUGH! Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond | REACTION
2023 08 20 10 50
United States stories…
100% those stairs the guy built are garbage, but 65k to build stairs in that location? What are they building them out of unobtanium ? Concrete and labor ain’t that expensive.
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BATTLE OF THE WORLDS Remastered Classic Full Action-Sci-Fi Movie
We begin today with a discussion on what the United States actually is.
It is a bully, and a liar, that is based on a system of deception; a shadow play of puppets. All supported by the largest propaganda system in history. And all of it; MM included has (up until very recently) believed it all lock, stock and barrel.
So it is fitting to begin with today’s brilliant podcast by Neil Oliver.
Who knows what will come next for the West…
HEXAGON
In April 1972, when a “data package” sank into the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Navy dispatched the Trieste II Deep Sea Vehicle I (DSV-1), its most advanced deep sea submersible at the time, to recover the item. In reality, it was “part of a film capsule from an American photoreconnaissance [spy] satellite codenamed HEXAGON.”
According to the Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, a malfunction was responsible for the incident. A parachute was supposed to deploy once the film capsule, or “bucket,” having reentered the atmosphere, was over the primary reentry zone near the Hawaiian Islands. Instead, the parachute broke off, and the bucket fell into the ocean, sinking on impact to a depth of about 16,400 feet (5,000 meters).
NO ONE HIT WONDER HERE!!! OLIVER ANTHONY – I WANT TO GO HOME (REACTION)
I think people are getting upset because he’s waking people up and they don’t want to be woken. It’s time guys. We can’t keep living like this and accepting it. It’s happening around the world and we need to make a change.
IMF Just Shocked The World And The U.S With This Move!
It wants to overtake and dominate the Chip industry within a decade and it will. No perhaps, not may be, not hopefully. It will. Meanwhile it will take over the low and medium end market for chips in 3–5 years and totally bankrupt the U.S. and its cronies chip outfit.
Let me give you 2 perfect example of never ever doubting and never try to cut China out act by the U.S.
One, The U.S. the congress in the most childish and hubris behaviour, decided to bar China and Chinese on its U.S. space station in the 90’s. In that in one single racist act it motivated China to build its own space station and it did within 15 years.
And today the Chinese space station is a fully functional and well developed space station that is better, build faster and using far less resources. It uses better and more advance technologies and it is open for the entire world including the US for the betterment of humanity. For me shame on the US. The US coincidentally will retire the US space station within 5 years leaving the Chinese Space Station as the only one for the coming decade.
Two, The GPS. The US threaten the US that it can and will cut out nation that refuse to be submissive and subservient to the US in not too many words. That statement and threat itself motivated China enough to developed its own GPS within a decade of the US threat. Today the Chinese Beidou has way higher resolution, and accuracy up to a meter compared to the GPS functional up to only 10 meter! Today 150 out of 195 nations use Beidou. Instead or with the GPS. All within a decade.
Marked my word. Within a decade the US will lose so much in Chip business, market share and profits that it will forever regret the nonsense and ludicrous Chip policy under President Biden. To me China was willing to share a loaf of bread with the US but it is the US that wants to deprived China. So China should say fine, they will dominate. The entire Chip industry. In a decade. I will bet every cent I have on China winning.
I had a boss who was a narcissistic D-bag. Everyone knew it.
I finally had enough after yet another useless meeting set up just to stoke his ego. At that point somebody decided to jack him up a bit.
Somebody hung around his office until they saw him leave for a meeting with the company president. They knew it would take a while and he would leave his precious laptop open on his desk.
No they didn’t hack into it or delete any files. They did one better.
They had a firecracker set aside for this specific opportunity.
Somebody cut the firecracker open and sprinkled a bit of gunpowder lightly on his vowel keys and between the keys on his keyboard. They then lightly wiped it clean to hide the evidence.
I heard that the next time he took a flight he was flagged by TSA screening. Something about explosives in his laptop.
He missed his flight and had to replace his laptop.
I have always wondered who that “somebody” might have been. Certainly not me writing on an open forum like Quora.
OLIVER ANTHONY – I WANT TO GO HOME (REACTION)
He’s so authentic with angst, pain, confusion and he’s fed up like soooo many of us!!
Brisket in Coffee-Barbecue Sauce
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Yield: 10 to 12 servings
Ingredients
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large Spanish onion, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
7 tablespoons light brown sugar
5 cups brewed coffee
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 (28 ounce) can peeled, chopped tomatoes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 (4 pound) brisket
Instructions
In a medium pot, heat 1/4 cup of the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until soft and golden brown, about 7 minutes.
Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the red pepper. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, about 1 minute. Stir in the brown sugar. Pour in the coffee, vinegar, and tomatoes; bring to a boil; and then lower to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Working in small batches, transfer the tomato-coffee mixture to a blender and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Heat the oven to 275 degrees F.
Season the brisket with salt and pepper. In a Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid, heat the remaining 1/2 cup oil. Brown the brisket on both sides. Drain off the oil, leaving the brisket in the Dutch oven. Turn the brisket so that the fat side is facing up and then coat it with the pureed tomato-coffee mixture. Cover the Dutch oven and place it in the oven. Bake for 3 hours, basting frequently.
Remove the lid and bake uncovered until the brisket is glazed and very tender, about an hour and a half more.
Remove the brisket and set it aside to rest for 10 minutes, covered with foil, before slicing thinly across the grain.
Compilation of the #1 Song in America!!! Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond
Post a harsh criticism against a political leader, any leader not just Modi
Compare him to some clownish character or demand that he step down
Under your real name
I am a very ordinary lawyer, yet I promise that unless you are an MP, MLA, Civil Servant, Minister or Wealthy Industrialist/Businessman, Military Man or Senior Cop :-
I can get a simple complaint with some influence filed through a specific lawyer and you will be arrested and you will be humiliated in front of your family and workplace
I guarantee it
All I need is a friendly cop and once he knows you are an ordinary commoner – he will happily file an FIR
He then writes to the passport office and you don’t get a passport
He can place you on the blacklist through a friendly SP Or State Home Secretary and you can’t get a US Visa or Schengen Visa or Singapore Visa for life
You would spend the next 6 months to 3 years in horror before a High Court quashes the case
I will come and look sheepish and say I got emotional while giving the PCR and the judge will admonish me and fine me ₹10K
You would have spent ₹3–6 Lakhs, maybe more
And I am an ordinary enrolled lawyer who doesn’t even actively practice
Imagine a powerful practising lawyer or a powerful cop if you antagonize one
Imagine if this is done in Begusarai Or some random place in Kerala
Imagine working in Infosys and two cops arrive and haul you out in front of your friends and drag you into a waiting jeep
Their response if questioned will be
We got a complaint we followed it up
So a simple malicious connected official can destroy your life if you are a commoner even if you earn ₹20 or ₹30 LPA
Your company will drop you like a hot potato
NOT IN CHINA
No Malicious officer or lawyer can try anything like this
The law is black and white
Evidence is specific and very strictly specific
So even if a case is registered, it will be dismissed in seconds if it doesn’t violate the laws
The official or lawyer would be roasted
So you understand?
In India the Law reads fairer
The System is utterly and totally loaded against the innocent average man
In China the Law is harsher
Yet the System protects the innocent average man
So the next time someone on Quora says he can post criticism freely in India
Ask him to do it under his own name and ask him if he is willing to test the fairness of the Indian system against a malicious prosecutor or entity
In China – the Law is very fair
It’s very harsh yes but very fair
No malicious person except high ranking CPC officials can come after you or spoil your life with lies
Evidence counts for a lot
1:45 / 14:42
‘We’ve all been watching the longest-running show of modern times. But it might soon be all over’
Neil Oliver: We’ve all been watching the longest-running show of modern times. But soon the show might soon be over, as more and more of the audience, especially in the cheap seats, are becoming restless, aware of how uncomfortable their seats are.
The US spends way too much time and effort looking out into the world, not nearly as much looking in the mirror at what the US has become.
The result: hard outside, rotten core
No longer able to keep running the marathon while the tank is on ‘E’.
Americans are far more focused on countering the other major political party in America whenever we are looking in.
We want our team—our little tribe—to be victorious.
Countering China’s rise?
We failed at rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan…after more than 10 years and how many billions upon billions dollars spent? thousands of lives lost?
Americans are so disconnected from reality that even that experience hasn’t shaken us from our delusions of grandeur.
What will? who knows—maybe the next great Recession will offer a bitter dose of reality.
But even then perhaps we will still go on believing in our triumphalism, with all our rags, evictions, foreclosures, abandoned properties, and pink slips
America today is more divided than I have ever seen it.
Individuals and companies and our own government are swimming in an ocean of debt with—until recently—out of control inflation.
Countering China’s rise?
Maybe we should check the plumbing and wiring in our own house first?
This is why this hit a nerve… Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond (Reaction)
I have a cousin who was passioned by Japan since a very early age. He subsequently studied Japanese culture and language at university, and then decided he had to go after his big dream — live in Japan and become a part of Japanese culture.
But my cousin was used to living in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France — the Western Burgundian world in a nutshell. And that also translated into the fact that he loved to enjoy life, far above enjoying work, and succeeding in it.
In fact: he even enjoyed to be unemployed when it suited him back in those Western days.
In the big city in Japan though, that kind of non-philosophy did not work out.
Although he was embraced in the very beginning, his way of “interpreting life” was spit out and on by his Japanese company, because he simply could not follow the exuberant pace by which Japanese people were living — are rather: working.
And after a while, he was excluded from the city society as an outcast.
In the old Western world he came from, he would have been helped, but now he was considered as a lost case, as if he was diseased, and no one would touch him — afraid to be infected.
In the end — in the most embarrassing episode of my cousin’s life — his dad and younger brother travelled to Japan, and got him out of there. By then, he was living in an almost depraved way in an apartment the size of a closet.
He suffered from a major depression when back, and had to leave his Japanese dream for good.
Because now he understood, that he didn’t understand.
Neocons CRUMBLE as China DESTROYS the US-led Unipolar Order
I remember I once opened the mail box and saw the electricity bill and the first thing I noticed was the paper was a different color.
Not the envelope, the bill. And poor people know what the means…notice of disconnect.
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(Google)
As I held the bill in my hand, I could feel my anxiety ramping up as I frantically searched my mind and counted backwards to the last time I paid. I could swear I just paid it.
But it’s a bill, we always feel like we just paid it! Because we did! Right?! Then there’s the fear of checking your account to find, not only do you have no money, but less than no money. Your account is negative and you haven’t paid that particular bill in months.
It wasn’t purposeful. You just spaced it.
I sit the bill on the bar and pace back and forth, for hours before I finally get the nerve to open it.
Then I snatch it up and rip it open like a present. Very unlike my normal polite, trimming of one end and shaking the letter out.
And I was right!! The bill is red! Not just red numbers on a white page. A red sheet of paper! I just about have heart palpitations.
I unfold it through half squinted eyes and read.. “Happy Holidays to you and yours! From our team and we would like to Thank You for being a valued customer for all these years.”
After years of abuse, poverty, homelessness and then stability. Christmas Greetings can send me spiraling at the hint of a different color inside the envelope.
Poverty traumatizes on so many different levels.
BRICS DEFEATS The WEST
2023 08 23 15 38
https://youtu.be/0jKQcw-b0-I
British Guy Reacts to Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North Of Richmond” REACTION!
Adolphe Sax had earned the nickname “Little Sax the Ghost” due to the abnormal amount of accidents he was in. Even his mother believed he wasn’t meant to live, and all she foresaw was a tragic end to his life.
2023 08 21 08 53
He was plagued by an unusual amount of misfortune from a very early age. At just three years old, he drank a mixture of white lead, copper oxide, and arsenic, believing it to be milk. A few months later, he fell down three flights of concrete stairs and hit his head on a stone below, both times he was lucky to walk away.
Then he swallowed a very sharp needle that he was able to pass without puncturing any vital parts. As he got a bit older, he fell onto a red hot stove and suffered third-degree burns down one side of his body.
When he was ten, he fell into a river and barely escaped drowning. When a container of gunpowder exploded in his father’s workshop, he was blown across the room.
On several occasions, he nearly died from accidental poisoning and asphyxiation due to sleeping in a room where varnished furniture was drying.
His last known brush with death happened when a tile fell from a roof, hitting him in the head and causing him to fall into a coma.
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Despite all this misfortune, Adolphe went on to invent some notable musical instruments, the most famous being the Saxophone.
HE’S SPEAKING TO US! Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond
2023 08 21 08 46
Mustard Glazed Brisket
Starts on the stove top, finishes in the oven for tender Mustard Glazed Brisket every time.
2023 08 21 09 00
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 (3 to 4 pound) boneless beef brisket
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large onion, sliced
2 stalks celery
8 black peppercorns
4 whole allspice
1 bay leaf
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons prepared mustard
Instructions
Place brisket, garlic, onion, celery, peppercorns, allspice and bay leaf in a large soup pot. Cover with water. Simmer covered 3 to 3 1/2 hours until tender, adding water as necessary.
Remove brisket and place in a roasting pan with 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid.
Combine brown sugar and prepared mustard. Salt and pepper brisket and spread with the mustard glaze.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees F until glaze bubbles and is browned.
Pegasus spyware
According to declassified documents, Alejandro Encinas, Mexico’s Undersecretary for Human Rights, advised President Lopez Obrador that Pegasus spyware had been found on Encinas’s own cellphone and those of two others in his office. Encinas had been investigating the mysterious “disappearances of hundreds of people,” a New York Times article explains, which occurred during the “Dirty War” that the Mexican military conducted in the 1960s and 1970s against a left-wing insurgency.
Initially, U.S. officials considered the Mexican crackdown to be understandable, Kate Doyle reports in her 2003 article “Human Rights and the Dirty War in Mexico.” And the U.S. assured Mexico that it “had no intention of pressing [Mexican President Luis] Echeverría about it.”
However, this stance changed in 1978, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered the White House to conduct a sweeping review of U.S.-Mexican relations and learned that “the White Brigade and other security force elements… sometimes ignored [both] the human rights of [terrorist] suspects and Mexican judicial procedures,” torturing and executing such individuals, with the results that “200-300 persons [had disappeared] over the last decade.”
Only now, three decades later, is Mexico beginning to come to grips with the fact that the government was responsible for “torturing and murdering its own people.”
Chris Webby – North Of Richmond (Remix)
What Makes Certain Wine Unbelievably Expensive?
The price gap is supply and demand, for certain prestigious brands.
So first of all, wine comes from grapes; and grape quality is dependent on many factors. Weather of course, but also soil, water, light, heat, and grower skill/decisions. AND of course, the actual grape vine.
Old vines produce less fruit – thus, smaller production, BUT generally more concentrated and intense. Younger vines produce more fruit, but you have to prune them – the amount of pruning affects the concentration and quality of the juice you get. If your options are ‘n’ cases of wine at $60/case (wholesale) or ‘n/3’ cases at $120, you’re probably going to prune sparingly to get as much juice and wine as possible, without creating garbage. On the other hand, if you can make truly great wine and have a name for yourself, then the options are ‘n/3’ cases at $1000, or ‘n’ cases at $1000 – for a year or two, and then the price per case drops down to $100 because nobody trusts you anymore.
Then you factor in the slope of your land and composition of the soil (acidity, water retention or runoff), the light, the use of pesticides, mulch, etc..
So now you have some amount of good-quality grapes. How do you make wine? Do you make wine that’s going to mature over 10-50 years, or wine that’s going to be drinkable about the time it hits the market, late next year (like about 90% of the wine sold)? The former leads to more expensive wine, and is harder to sell – BUT if done well, can establish you over time as a top-notch winemaker. Or drive you into bankruptcy even sooner.
So this pretty much determines the pricing for most wines between $8 and $80. Above that, things get…complicated.
If you’re in Bordeaux for instance, your vinyard is likely ranked by the government. Your wine has to meet certain standards of quality and composition, and much of it is historical. There are, for instance, only five first-growth houses, and only one of them was not defined as such in 1855. (Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, which got promoted in 1973). If you’re one off those, or one of a limited few others who have a similar cachet, you can pretty much name your price. The thing is, most of their wine is sold on futures at auction, so basically it’s “as much as someone is willing to pay.”
HE DONE DID IT AGAIN!! | OLIVER ANTHONY – I WANT TO GO HOME
I loved him dearly, and he was a good cat. I will tell you that we had him for perhaps four years when he started having problems, and so we took him to the vet.
It turned out that he had Feline AIDS, and Feline FIV, and was very contagious. Our vet recommended that we put him down so as not to contaminate the rest of the cats in the neighborhood. So we resigned ourselves to keeping him in our home and isolated.
But over time, he started to behave aggressively and strangely. Like peeing over everything.
And he kept on breaking out of the house…
Eventually, we got him, and took him to the vet and “put him down”.
I was there, and from the moment the needle was inserted he knew what was going on; and he hated me for it. I could feel his spirit attacking me, clawing at me. Biting me, and hissing at me.
This went on for hours before it finally dissipated.
I hated it.
I hated everything from having to put him down, to the fact that he was sick, to the hate being directed towards me. It was a grim time.
Two days later, I had to fly out for a job interview.
While I was sitting on the flight, Scooby came to me (in spirit form, of course) and curled up in my lap. He forgave me. And was giving me love. He lay there in my lap for the three hour flight, and then disappeared.
I do miss that lanky old cat.
He was a good little guy.
…
Nothing lasts forever. I look forward to seeing him again “on the other side”.
Flying back from Mallorca on Jet2, the pilot said on the intercom:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re ready early and we’ve made it with plenty of time for our departure slot. The bad news is that unfortunately it seems the Spanish air traffic controllers have decided to walk out in solidarity with striking French controllers so we currently have a 2 hour wait. However, to ease the boredom, I’ll step out of the cockpit and you can all come up, sit in the pilot’s chair and be shown around by the first officer who’ll answer any questions you have”
The second I saw him come out of the cockpit I sprang out of my seat to get to the front of the inevitable queue and had a good chat with the FO while sitting in the seat. My impressions were that the cockpit of a 737–800 is a lot smaller than you’d think and that the seats are pretty difficult to move.
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After 90 mins the pilot is on the intercom again:
“Folks, unfortunately we’ve been told we have another 2 hours, 45 minutes wait (huge groans from the cabin) Only joking, we’ve got to get going quickly so back to your seats and buckle up soon as you can! (cheers from cabin)”
The pilot landed pretty hard in Birmingham and 10 seconds after reducing reverse thrust was back on the intercom:
“I’ve just been informed that my landing was a bit on the hard side. I don’t know what the fuss is about, it seemed fine to me. But apologies to anyone with loose fillings”
Decades ago, I received a past-due notice for a loan payment to a bank I’d never done business with. Puzzled, I called the bank. After explaining my confusion three times, I finally was talking with someone who had sense enough to look into it instead of fobbing me off to someone else.
“Did you make a purchase from Such-and-such Music Store?” Indeed, I’d purchased a piano for my wife a month or so earlier. (Might’ve been nice if the salesman had mentioned they’d turn the loan over to a third party, but whatever.)
I then asked the bank worker how the *very first* communication I’d received from the bank could be a past-due notice.
“You should have received a payment coupon book,” she said. (As indicated, this was ages ago.)
“I’ve received nothing from you till this,” I replied.
And then, to my everlasting amazement, she said, “I know. The printing company we use had an equipment breakdown and the coupon books haven’t gone out for a while.”
That “I know” blew me away. The bank *knew* their customers weren’t being told when their payments would be due, and how much they would be—and, in cases such as mine, didn’t even know their loan had been sold to that bank—and instead of notifying people, they just sent out overdue notices.
With a late fee attached, of course.
So I told the nice lady that I’d be happy to make the payment, but I would not stand for a late charge.
Now it was her turn to be puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t late—*you* were!”
In the end, she had to have a VP call me later, and after I went over it all again, he agreed it was kinda dumb for them to send late notices to people who didn’t even know they had a loan with that bank, he waived the late fee.
That only took half of my day.
U.S And Europe in Trouble As China Rush Into Legacy Chips!
In 2007, Jennifer Strange entered a competition to win a “Wii. console.” The competition was run by local radio station in Rancho Cordova, in California, and was called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii.”
The challenge was a group of participants had to drink as much water as you can, and who ever could hold their wee the longest would win the Wii console.
2023 08 20 12 0g4
Jennifer strange drank more than one and half gallons of water in just three hours, but still only managed to come second in the competition. One of Jennifer’s co-workers who was driving her home after the competition, said she started to complain about a sever headache, which became so bad she started crying.
A few hours after the competition Jennifer Strange was found dead in her room, with the cause of death ruled as “Acute Water Intoxication.”
Her parents sued the radio station and they were found liable for her death, and the parents were awarded 16 million dollars in compensation.
China Scientists Tease the US as They Found a Weak Spot in US “Undetectable Submarines”!
https://youtu.be/9FYE_-FiHPw
South Korea To Run “NUCLEAR ATTACK” Evacuation Drill August 23
The entire country of South Korea will stage a NUCLEAR ATTACK EVACUATION DRILL on August 23. Fifty-one Million (51,000,000) citizens are REQUIRED to participate to practice evacuating to shelters or underground safe spaces during the 20-minute exercise.
The drill, scheduled for 2:00 PM on Wednesday, August 23, will see many drivers required to pull over to the side of roads and the exits to subway stations closed with commuters required to remain inside, a statement from the South Korean Interior Ministry said.
“We expect to strengthen the response capacity of the nation through a practical drill reflecting the aspects of provocations of North Korea,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said in a news release this week.
The release said the 20-minute drill is part of a larger exercise to test the South Korean government’s response to potential threats including “advanced nuclear missile threats, cyber attacks, drone terrors, etc.”
The prime minister also called on South Koreans to take the drills seriously, something that hasn’t always been the case.
The Interior Ministry said 17,000 shelters would be open nationwide, and locations are searchable in popular Korean online apps.
The South Korean prime minister said the civil defense drill would be held in conjunction with large-scale US-South Korea military exercises that have drawn sharp criticism from Pyongyang in the past.
It will also come less than a week after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol travels to the United States for a trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, where “the continued threat posed by” North Korea will be on the agenda, according to a White House statement.
Hal Turner Opinion
HMMMMM. Having a nuclear evacuation “drill” of 51 Million people into 17,000 shelters at THE SAME TIME as a large-scale US-South Korea military “exercise???????????”
Gee, it occurs to me that maybe that military “exercise” isn’t an “exercise” at all. What if they first-strike North Korea?
With 51 Million South Koreans already inside Shelters, and US-South Korean Troops already on-station and fully armed – seems to me it would be a perfect opportunity for the US to first-strike North Korea.
What better conditions would exist than the ones described above?
Easy Sloppy Joe Pot Pie
All the great taste of classic sloppy joes in an easy one-skillet pot pie. No one will miss the buns!
2023 08 19 17 23
Prep: 5 min | Bake: 40 min | Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can original sloppy joe sauce
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Cook beef and onion in ovenproof 10-inch skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain.
Stir in sloppy joe sauce.
Sprinkle with cheese.
Stir remaining ingredients until blended. Pour over beef mixture.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Notes
Special Touch: Before baking, sprinkle with a tablespoon of sesame seed.
Woman Dies And Is Shown The Year 2042 And Beyond | Near Death Experience | NDE
2023 08 19 17 15
U.S. Sanctions Syrian ‘Moderate Rebels’ It Had Previously Armed
In 2013 the CIA was handing out TOW anti-tank missiles to ‘moderate rebel’ groups who were fighting the government in Syria. These groups were allegedly ‘vetted’ before they receive money and weapons. Unfortunately ‘vetting’ was something the CIA had never been good at.
Hamza Division (Forqat al-Hamza – فرقة الحمزة): An FSA-banner group composed of six substituent brigades that operate mostly in the environs of Inkhil, Daraa. The Hamza Division has received TOW ATGMs and it works under the supervision of the Daraa Military Council. They receives foreign support from Western and Arab state backers and are a member of the Southern Front coalition. The Southern Front has stated their commitment to a civil state, and have released a comprehensive political program in support of democratic reform. The Division came together with the Syria Revolutionaries Front and the 1st Artillery Regiment to create the 1st Army, which later disbanded. The Hamza Division continues using the 1st Army imagery alongside its own while the other former substituents do not. Social Media:YouTube;YouTube (older channel)
Do you remember when the #US spent $500 million to train/arm Al-Hamza Division?
Well the US-trained “Moderate rebels” are fighting – under a NATO flagged country (#Turkey) – the US-trained Kurdish YPG in the area occupied by the #US.
I’ll make it even easier: A few minutes ago, #US Prsdt @realDonaldTrump said the “PKK is far more dangerous than #ISIS (The Islamic State)”.
The US trained & armed Syrian Kurds proxies, the YPG, are the Syrian branch of the PKK that Trump considers far more dangerous than ISIS.
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating two Syria-based armed militias and three members of the groups’ leadership structures in connection with serious human rights abuses against those residing in the Afrin region of northern Syria. An auto sales company owned by the leader of one of the armed groups is also being designated. … The Hamza Division, another armed opposition group operating in northern Syria, has been involved in abductions, theft of property, and torture. The division also operates detention facilities in which it houses those it has abducted for extended periods of time. During their imprisonment, victims are held for ransom, often suffering sexual abuse at the hands of Hamza Division fighters.
The Suleiman Shah Brigade and the Hamza Division are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13894 for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged in, the commission of serious human rights abuses against the Syrian people. … Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr is the leader of the Hamza Division and its public face, appearing in numerous propaganda videos produced by the Hamza Division. While Abu Bakr has been commander, the Hamza Division has been accused of brutal repression of the local population, including kidnapping Kurdish women and severely abusing prisoners, at times leading to their death.
Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13894 for acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Hamza Division.
The AP report about the new sanctions does not mention any Pentagon or CIA support the groups had previously received.
One wonders how long it will take until the U.S. will sanction the fascists militia it has and is now arming and sponsoring in Ukraine.
Posted by b on August 18, 2023 at 15:36 UTC | Permalink
Well Ladies, Men Have Gotten The Message…Enjoy Your Cats!
2023 08 19 16 50
Confessions of a 57-Year-Old Virgin
August 16, 2023
I’m a 57 year old man, about three years away from whatever the grandmaster of all the wizards are. I’ve never hugged a woman before (beside female relatives), never dated anyone before, no one at all. And then obviously that means that I never had my first kiss and I’m still a virgin.
Now, if I were to sit here and tell some random stranger on the street about my current life predicament, I would be laughed at until the end of time.
That brings me to my first point of advice. Ignore all of that crap. It’s worthless to feel like shit, for what? Because life didn’t come as anticipated. It can be harsh, but it’s not entirely over.
Which brings me to my second point of advice. Get out any way that you possibly can, I cannot stress this enough!
Up until the age of around 52, I never went out. I was a complete loner. One day, I decided enough was enough and I finally got off my ass and made something worth living for.
I began engraining myself into work dynamics and friendships. (By the way, get a job if you dont have one). I made it my personal goal to make friends any way that I could.
Eventually I had my first solid group of friends in roughly 45 years, yes you heard that number right.
The results? I currently do fantasy league with them once a week, as well as a cards night. Every couple of weeks we meet up at a bar, and I’m telling you it all came about from not giving up and striving to make something of my life.
Also, I keep up with hobbies such as working on used cars in my past time, so that’s another thing to keep in mind. I’m going to guess most people aren’t as old as me, maybe a majority are in their late teens to early 30s.
If you are in this range, even mid 30s, you still have a shot to not only make good friends like I did being the bum that I was, but also to get a date. Especially if you are a teen, that won’t be a problem in the slightest.
I’m saying this because doing what I’m doing at 57 is far more valuable during the younger years.
I know now that if I would’ve started this train of thought, I probably could’ve picked a date or two at least by now. That ship has sailed for me. Don’t worry though, I got over my self pity at 45 and my libido has dropped, so good friends, my dog, and beer, is what I make of life now.
Finally, good luck out there guys and ladies and don’t put yourself down. Strive to bring self-worth and meaning to your life!
BRICS Bank Just Dropped A Huge Bombshell | Stuns Everyone With This Move
What Is Self Discipline And How To Build More Of It
August 15, 2023
Self-discipline means that you do the things that you know are right or beneficial, even if they’re difficult. But what does that really mean? What does that actually look like?
People often associate self-discipline with diet and exercise, but it goes beyond that. Yes, staying active and eating clean in our current culture takes discipline, but being a self-disciplined person goes way beyond that.
When you build self-discipline, you’ll find it reaching into all areas of your life: your career, your relationships, your goals, your attitude, your self-talk, your mindset. Self-discipline becomes a part of who you are and impacts every single decision that you make each day. Disciplined people start to prioritize their future selves out of habit.
Discipline means having the ability to hold back those damaging words that you want to say during a disagreement. It’s being honest with yourself, looking at your weaknesses and assessing them so that you can improve. It’s sticking to commitments that you’ve made, both to other people and to yourself.
Self-discipline is a skill!
I cannot tell you the number of times that people have said things like, “I wish I could do what you do,” or “I wish I was as disciplined as you are,” to me, and it frustrates me every single time.
I know that it’s easy to tell ourselves that we aren’t capable of the things that other people accomplish. When we decide that we just aren’t capable of working out five times per week or starting a business or building a happy and stable relationship, we give ourselves an out.
By deciding that disciplined people are somehow different from you, you have what seems like a valid excuse for why you haven’t done all of those things that disciplined people do. You’ve convinced yourself that you just aren’t capable of it so it’s okay that you haven’t done it.
But that’s not true.
You are capable.
You are stronger than you realize.
And I know this because I know that self-discipline is a skill. I haven’t always been a disciplined person. I, too, have spent 14 hours a day sleeping, eaten whatever I felt like eating, procrastinated on my homework until the absolute last second, and gone months without getting any real physical activity.
Then, I decided to build self-discipline. And just like building any other skill, it took practice. I made mistakes, I faced setbacks, I struggled, and sometimes I fell off the wagon—in fact, I still do all of these things. Discipline is a skill that I am still building because—just like any other skill—there is always more to learn. You can always continue to improve.
You can become a disciplined person.
If you’re reading this blog, I’m sure there are a lot of things that you want to do, but you haven’t done them yet, and you likely aren’t working toward them consistently, or even at all.
You might want to start a business, go to school, improve your grades, get in better shape, learn to play an instrument, work on your mental health, write a book, etc. You have things in mind that you would like to do.
These things haven’t happened for one reason: lack of self-discipline.
Self-discipline is the skill that lets you build every other skill.
When you build self-discipline, you become the kind of person who does all of those things that you’ve always wanted to do.
A little later in this article, I’ll give you some advice on how to start building self-discipline, but for now, sit with everything I’ve just said. Start to consider that you are much more similar to me than you might realize. You are 100% capable of the things that you want to do and the only thing standing in your way is a lack of discipline. You can build that discipline.
How does self-discipline improve my life?
You already know that eating healthy, starting your homework early, going to bed on time, exercising regularly, managing your time, and meditating will improve your life. But as most people already know, doing all of these things, and doing them regularly, is difficult.
If you try to rely on motivation to do these things, you’re never going to do them because most of the time, most people don’t feel like doing these things.
You’d rather do what’s easy and enjoyable. You’d rather sleep in, eat fatty, sugary foods, and have a lazy, fun, easy life.
But that lazy, fun, easy life is only fun at first. Soon, you’ll start to face consequences. You’ll be tired all the time. You’ll see others reaching their goals and realize you haven’t accomplished anything in months. Your mental and physical health nose-dive.
What started out as fun and easy soon becomes miserable.
Those things that disciplined people do—exercising, planning, goal setting, thinking ahead—those things benefit your future self. And one day, you’re going to be your future self. The actions that you take now directly impact the life that you will get to live one day.
So how does self-discipline improve your life? Well, if you have the discipline now to save money, eat clean, exercise, work toward a career that you love, build healthy relationships, and create systems and routines that benefit you and your mental and physical health, one day, all of those things will pay off.
One day, you will be happy and healthy. You’ll be in a positive place living a life that you enjoy waking up to.
And I know this because I’ve done it. I’ve been putting in the work for long enough that I’m living and enjoying a life that I built intentionally. And I’m continuing to put in work that will improve my life so that it only goes up from here.
Self-discipline directly translates to living a life that you love. Self-discipline brings stable, long-term happiness.
Why is self-discipline important?
This is something that I’ve touched on before and is probably fairly apparent already from the previous section of this post. Self-discipline is important because motivation is fleeting and unreliable.
To get where you want to go, you need to complete a set of tasks, and either you want to do those tasks or you don’t. I doubt anybody would argue that those statements are untrue.
If you want to do those tasks, that’s motivation. In those moments, it’s easy to find the time and energy to do what needs to be done.
If you don’t want to do those tasks, and you’re trying to rely on motivation to get them done, the chance that those tasks will ever be completed is low. You likely know from experience that it’s hard to drum up motivation when you need it.
Discipline, on the other hand, is reliable. When you have self-discipline, it doesn’t matter if you want to put in the work. Disciplined people do what needs to be done regardless of how they’re feeling.
Many of us fall into the habit of doing what’s easy rather than doing what needs to be done. When you have discipline, you can do what needs to be done. When you can do what needs to be done, you reach your goals. If your goals are important to you, then self-discipline should be as well.
How to build self-discipline
Self-discipline is an odd beast to tackle. It’s simple, yet it’s not. And because it isn’t something that you can build outside of the context of your everyday life, becoming more disciplined inherently involves changing your life.
Begin by figuring out a direction. Start considering what actions that you currently do that you’d like to quit and what things that you don’t currently do that you’d like to do habitually.
Realize that building discipline is necessary to change your life and that the act of building discipline is what changes your life. The two things are inseparable. If you aren’t ready to change your life and don’t have a direction you want to go, you aren’t in a place to start becoming more disciplined.
Recommended Reading: The 5-4-3-2-1 Method for Setting and Getting to Your Goals
Self-discipline doesn’t look the same for everyone, and it doesn’t look the same day-to-day. What gets you moving one day might not work the next. Learn and grow with it so that you build an arsenal of strategies to use when you need them, and don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad day or five. It’s normal to struggle sometimes.
At its core, self-discipline means taking action.
Your aim throughout this process is to practice quickly making the decision that you know is right and then acting on that decision.
Rather than debating whether or not to go to the gym, then eventually deciding two hours later that it’s the right choice, then sitting on the couch for another 45 minutes before putting on your sneakers, discipline means deciding to go to the gym the moment it crosses your mind and then heading out the door.
That is your eventual goal. That is what you’re working toward. Some days, you’ll have no problem doing that. Other days, it will be a battle. The more you practice deciding quickly and taking prompt action, the better you’ll get at it. This is how you build discipline.
Let’s be clear: if you aren’t acting, you are not building discipline. Reading this blog post is a decent first step, but if your actions don’t change because of it, you have made exactly zero progress in the self-discipline department.
Practice taking action.
Practice doing small actions even when you don’t want to do them. This is probably the best way that I know of to build discipline. You don’t want to hang your coat up when you come home? Too bad. Do it. Don’t think about it, just do it.
You don’t want to do the dishes? Too bad. Do it. You don’t want to write that paper? Too bad. Get started.
I know that it sounds harsh, but when you start with small steps and work up to bigger tasks, it becomes easier to act despite your feelings. Practice ignoring your desire to avoid action.
Now, I’ll soften that blow a bit. Yes, “just do it” is the ideal. Acting quickly based on what you know is right is the aim, but that isn’t always possible. Sometimes it’s a bit of an internal battle, and that’s okay. There are some strategies that you can use to act when you don’t feel like it. After all, the goal is action. Getting there with a little help is better than not getting there at all.
START SMALL
I wish I could scream this from the rooftops. I wish I could scream it and scream it and scream it until my lungs give out.
The bigger the task is that you don’t want to do, the more you won’t want to do it. The smaller you can make it, the easier it will be to do.
Your goal is action. A smaller action than you intended is always better than no action at all. There is no shame in scaling back a bit so that you have an easier time getting moving. Doing one pushup is better than doing zero of the ten you intended to do. Washing three dishes is better than not cleaning the entire kitchen, even if that was your original goal.
On a broader scale, don’t attempt to overhaul your entire life overnight. I have a whole blog post about this. Focus your efforts on one area at a time. You’ll be much less likely to burn out, you’ll see faster results, and you’ll be much more successful in the long run.
Find Your Why
I’ve talked about this about 10,000 times before so just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll just link you to the post about it.
I do want to note, though, that it’s okay if your Why stems from wanting to leave a negative situation rather than wanting to reach a positive one. I often frame Whys in terms of positive things—the goals that you’ll reach, for example—without acknowledging that my first Why was that I wanted to improve a bad situation.
I was trying to build a better life after a rough break up, largely out of spite and a little sadness. Though I now focus my Whys on the good things that I will reach because of my actions, it is valid to build discipline that is motivated by a desire to leave a bad situation. In fact, wanting to leave a bad place in life is a pretty common reason for people to want to build self-discipline.
Practice calling yourself out on your excuses
Most of the “reasons” that we give for why we didn’t do something are invalid. On the surface, they may seem fine and they’re enough to placate our brains and prevent us from feeling guilty, but they don’t stand up to further inspection.
Start taking time to assess your excuses. Remind yourself that you really want to see results. You really want to start making progress. Does your excuse truly prevent you from doing what you need to do? Is there any way that you could create a backup plan?
Next time you find yourself making an excuse, write it down. Then write three reasons why you want to do the thing you’re trying to avoid and three things that you could do instead, even if you don’t accomplish your primary goal.
For example, if you decide you can’t go for a run because it’s raining, list three reasons why you want to exercise, and then create a list of three things that you could do instead of going for a run, like doing yoga or going for a run on a treadmill. You’ll train yourself to reconsider your excuses and realize that just because you can’t accomplish your original goal doesn’t mean you can’t many any progress at all.
Monitor your feelings
As I’ve said before, self-discipline means doing what needs to be done, even if you don’t feel like it. Most of the time, “I don’t feel like it,” and “I don’t want to,” are not valid reasons not to do something that needs to be done. Learn to shut them down.
But that isn’t to say that you should totally ignore your feelings. They’re there for a reason. Notice them—meditation can help—and respond appropriately. Often, we may not feel like doing something that’s good for us even though that thing will actually make us feel better. Self-discipline often means getting uncomfortable and knowing that the discomfort is worth it.
Self-discipline is a tricky beast. It gives you what you need to be consistent, which gets you to where you want to be. It takes practice and patience, but it will improve your life in the long run.
Discipline means being willing to choose long-term gains over immediate success. When you think long-term, the whole process starts to become easier and make more sense. Practice becoming friends with your future self, and before long, you’ll start seeing the results of your self-discipline paying off.
– Life By Grit
Europe Panic: China Cancel $100 Billion Car Order from Germany!
In today’s video, we explore the complex relationship between the European Union and China, focusing on Germany’s recently canceled $100 billion car order. How did we get here, and what does this mean for Europe’s future? Join us as we dive into the policies, decisions, and global economic trends that have shaped this unprecedented situation.
Interesting
2023 08 19 17 53
Raining spiders, frogs, fish and … meat. Yes, meat.
What is Occam’s Razor?
August 15, 2023
Occam’s razor is often misstated as “the simplest answer is the correct one,” but it should more accurately be “the simplest answer is the best starting point to investigate.”
The idea is that the more different variables or assumptions have to add up to get to a solution, the more difficult it is to investigate, and the less likely it is to occur in general. “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” is the classical way to state it.
So the classic example is: you hear hoofbeats outside, is it a horse or a zebra? Well unless you live in the African savannah, it’s very unlikely to be a zebra. We’d need more assumptions to get there – a zebra was imported to a local zoo, it escaped captivity, and now it’s running amok. Whereas a horse requires just one assumption – a horse is nearby. That doesn’t mean that it cannot be a zebra, it just means that you should start at “it’s probably a horse” and investigate from there.
I had a fun moment the other day, when I went to my kitchen and saw a jar of pickles left out on the counter. I knew it wasn’t me, which left two possibilities that my brain somehow jumped to:
A burglar broke in, stole several other items, and also ate a pickle. He left the jar out to taunt me.
My wife had a pickle and then forgot to put away the jar.
I could have totally checked my locks, made sure my valuables were still in the right place, etc. Instead I just yelled “Hey, did you leave this pickle jar out?” and got the simpler answer right away. Starting with the simpler solution (fewer assumptions than my burglar story) got me to the right answer efficiently.
Man Dies, Sees Future & Says Don’t Freak Out (Powerful NDE)
Gary Wimmer had an NDE (Near-Death Experience) and discovered what happens after death. He saw seven beings/angels, and after leaving his body was shown future events. Gary’s NDE (Near-Death Experience) showed him that there is life after death, and it was a life-altering experience that changed him forever.
Now this is something that I would buy
2023 08 19 17 55
Gobble It Up Pot Pie
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Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
Filling
2 (15 ounce) cans mixed vegetables, drained
1 pound (2 cup) cooked turkey, shredded
1 (12 ounce) jar turkey gravy
Topping
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped celery
1 (6 ounce) package instant turkey stuffing mix
1 2/3 cups water
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Filling: In large mixing bowl, combine vegetables, turkey and gravy; mix well.
Pour into a greased 2-quart casserole.
Topping: In skillet, melt butter.
Add onion and celery and cook until tender.
Add seasoning packet from stuffing mix and water. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat; stir in stuffing. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.
Stir in dried cranberries.
Spread stuffing evenly over vegetable mixture.
Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, or until heated through.
Girl With Huge TaTa’s Gets HUMBLED For The First Time In Her Life!
“A small peep is natural, BUT a wide pussy is man-made” I laughed so hard at this statement it took me 12 minutes to gather myself enough to write it down
How to (actually) talk to kids
It’s not dissimilar from talking to other adults, but even the most well-meaning grown-ups can forget that.
Somehow, despite our best efforts, it still happens to even the most self-assured adult. You’re at a birthday party or a family dinner or a picnic in the park, and suddenly, you find yourself face to face with a kid. You introduce yourselves, there’s a slight pause, and then, even though you know better, you hear the boring question coming out of your mouth: “So how’s school?”
Why are adults so bad at talking to kids, considering each and every one of us used to be one? “We forget what it’s like to be a child,” says Tina Payne Bryson, a psychotherapist and co-author of The Whole-Brain Child. “It’s hard sometimes to relate to kids because the rhythm of our days is so different.” Our brains and habits have changed, and as adults, it can be tough to remember what it’s like to be a 10-year-old.
But that’s the key: Talking to and connecting with 10-year-olds now doesn’t require remembering what you were like at 10. Instead, it’s all about approaching them as people: individuals who have their own interests, insights, and personalities. If you’re curious, warm, and earnest, you can make a new friend — and leave your awkward adult persona behind.
Find a point of connection
Much like in an initial conversation with an adult stranger, it can be hard to know where to begin. But once you offer up an open-ended topic, a kid will often run with it. Icebreakers with a kid can be situational. If you’re at a barbecue, ask them what their favorite condiment is. Or they can be general: Did you see a funny animal video recently? “You just want to get the kid talking,” says Ben R., an 11-year-old who lives in Highland Ranch, Colorado. “You want to get to know them.” Ben recommends starting with a question about something that you enjoy. If you like video games, ask what games they like to play; if you’re a big reader, ask about their favorite recent book.
The framing is important. “Adults reach for whatever they can, and ask a yes or no question,” says Robyn Silverman, host of the podcast How to Talk to Kids About Anything. If a kid is wearing a baseball cap, asking whether they like baseball is not a good question — just like if you were wearing a baseball cap, that question wouldn’t encourage you to keep talking. Don’t despair: You can just tweak the format of a question to improve it. “Instead of ‘How’s school?’, you could ask, ‘If you were principal for the day, what’s one thing you’d absolutely change?’” suggests Silverman. “A more interesting question will elicit a response more than ‘fine.’”
That first conversational volley is all about finding a point of connection. It could be a shared interest, such as the card game Codenames, or a low-stakes disagreement, like whether dipping french fries in a milkshake is delicious or gross. “The great thing about asking questions is to find out what you have in common,” says Ben. “You’ll feel more relaxed then and can focus on connecting through that.”
Ask good follow-up questions
The next step in a good conversation with a kid? Pay attention. This is where many adults slip up. Instead of actually listening to what a kid has to say and asking a relevant follow-up question, they jump in with a long story about themselves — or, worse, offer up a weird non sequitur. Recently, Ben was waiting in line for a waterslide when the adult behind him asked what grade he was in. After he answered, the stranger, who had not previously met the fifth-grader, replied by saying that he grew up so fast. “I thought to myself, is this how adults are? They just ask simple questions, half-pay attention to the conversation, and get distracted by something else?” Ben says. “I felt like he could have just realized that I could talk the same way everybody else could, but he made it really awkward for the rest of the conversation.”
Asking a good follow-up question is all about active listening, which requires humility. A kid is a person with their own interests and expertise, and you can learn from them, just like you learn from a conversation with another adult. “Kids are egocentric in nature, and they love to talk about what they love,” says Morgan Eldridge, a clinical psychologist who recommends framing a child as the expert on what they care about. “If you don’t know anything about Pokémon cards, ask them to tell you about it.”
More key aspects of active listening are body language and tone. If you’re talking to a younger kid, physically get down on their level so that you’re not looming over them. For kids and adults alike, face them, put away your phone, make eye contact, and smile. No need to speak in a different voice, though. “There are multiple occasions where adults have talked to me with a childish tone,” says Ben. “We’re more sophisticated than they think.”
When you’re fostering a comfortable conversational environment for a kid, you should also think about safety. There’s an inherent power imbalance between an adult and a kid, especially when you don’t know each other well, and as the adult, you’re responsible for making sure that your relationship and conversation stay appropriate. “Kids need to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure,” says Bryson. “When you smile and have relaxed posture, it sends signals of safety and connection.”
Let their enthusiasm lead
Once the conversation is moving, step back. “When talking to kids, adults make the mistake that they need to talk a lot,” says Silverman. “But people [not just children!] actually love it when you listen.” Instead, ask questions and let the kid direct the flow; they’ll naturally lead the conversation toward what interests them most.
In many cases, this means going in a speculative, silly direction, which can be tricky for grown-ups. “Adults are more logical and solution-driven,” says Bryson. “We’ve forgotten what it’s like to play.” To rediscover your playful side, you can always ask an open-ended question, or even a goofy one: If you were going to open a restaurant that only serves three dishes, what would they be? What celebrity has the coolest style of all time? Would you rather have to fight 50 mosquito-sized alligators or one alligator-sized mosquito?
No matter what, don’t dismiss their enthusiasm. If a kid loves basketball but you don’t care about sports, ask them to tell you about their favorite player of all time. If they just learned a ton about bugs in a science unit, don’t try to show off how much you know — encourage them to share instead. “There’s a power imbalance, and it seems to give adults permission to belittle,” says Silverman.
If you do make a faux pas, like talking over them or getting distracted, own up to it, apologize, and redirect. You can always say, “I just spaced out, I’m sorry. What were you saying about summer camp?” Just pick the conversation back up afterward.
Be yourself (even if that means being shy)
Kids have different temperaments and personalities, just like adults do. They don’t expect everyone to be outgoing and loud. In fact, not every kid will want you to be. “Just like different friends appeal to different people, different kinds of adults will appeal to different kids,” says Bryson. “The boisterous adult doesn’t appeal to some kids, and the quiet adult doesn’t appeal to others.” Just come as you are, since kids can tell whether you’re being authentic or not. “It’s really about showing up as yourself in the moment,” Bryson says.
If you are on the quieter side, don’t worry. Kids know what it’s like to feel anxious in a conversation, too. “Sometimes you just get nervous, and that’s okay,” says Fiona A., an 8-year-old who lives in Salinas, California. “Or sometimes you need a little bit of alone time. Just be you.”
Ben suggests a trick that he uses when he feels awkward or unsure about what to talk about: When you get stuck and start to feel self-conscious, ask a question. “Even if you don’t pay attention, it diverts the conversation away from yourself,” he says. “You learn more about them, and also you don’t have to talk as much.”
Sometimes, you’ll notice that a kid seems anxious to be talking to an adult. In that case, make sure you’re projecting a warm, friendly, safe environment. Being vulnerable can help them feel more comfortable, too. “A lot of adults are authority figures, and sharing something embarrassing can make us more accessible,” says Bryson. When she’s talking to a quiet kid, she often shares a story about when the class rat bit her in first grade at the school Christmas party; her listeners are always on the edge of their seats, ready to share their own best animal story afterward. You can be vulnerable about feeling awkward, too: If you share that you often feel shy at parties, then it normalizes the kid feeling shy.
And if they’d rather be quiet, it’s also fine to share a companionable silence. “If we ask a question or two and they don’t expand, it just means they don’t want to be asked a question right now,” says Bryson. If they’re not uncomfortable with quiet, then you shouldn’t be, either.
Refer back to your shared interests
Once you’ve had a friendly conversation with a kid and found some common ground, you can start to develop an ongoing relationship with them. Just like with a new adult friend, it’s important to remember details about them and refer back to them in future conversations. Did they tell you about joining the soccer team? Ask how the season is going. Did you bond over your love of superhero movies? Ask them what they thought of the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. If you know in advance that you’re going to see a kid who you’ve already spent time with, you could send them something that you can then talk about in person. Bryson recently hosted a friend and their 13-year-old son; in anticipation of his visit, she sent him some funny dog videos on Instagram. That offers an easy way to break the ice and connect in person again.
No matter the age gap, making conversation and becoming friends always happens much the same way: capitalizing on shared interests, asking good questions, and paying attention. And once you’re friends, conversation is easy. “After I get to know an adult, it’s easy to talk to her,” says Fiona. “It’s more complex to build friendship with an adult, but once you do, it’s like they’re a kid just like you.”
He Did It Again!
At a recent speaking engagement, President Biden attempted to tout his success at getting a bipartisan infrastructure bill through Congress. At least that’s what one would assume, even though what actually came out of the President’s mouth sounded more like “bipah infraloction.” This is, of course, just the latest verbal stumble from Biden, and you know there are plenty more to come. Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss not only this difficult phrase for Biden, but also his similar inability recently to say a series of Asian names.
The Hardest Pill To Swallow About Self-Improvement
August 16, 2023
One tendency I’ve noticed about a lot of us who are into self-development is that we are incredibly hungry for information.
Some of us may have had neglectful parents or an upbringing that was very scarce, we may have not gotten the encouragement for self-betterment, we have no one around us who are striving for the best — so we want to consume and process all the information, methods, tips, and tricks we can.
I think that’s great because being deeply desirous to change yourself is better than being apathetic and lethargic.
Unfortunately, this over-consumption of information can become gluttony. Gluttony then leads to lethargy, which then leads to sloth and not doing anything with this information.
More books! More articles! More podcasts! More lectures! More, more, more! I need to know the secrets of the universe before I end up starting my business, before I apply for that job, before I take that trip, before I ask out that girl.
We need to be perfect and then, then we’ll act. One day. One day.
But one day never comes. Neither does perfection.
The real truth about self-development, the real pain is the application. It’s in the messy interactions between imperfect human beings.
You’ve read what’s in that book about dating. Now, go out on a Friday night and apply it.
You’ve read how to start a business. Now, start your own.
A lot of people are dreaming with their heads up in the clouds, thinking they’re moving the needle when they’re just reading a book or an article online.
How many people are out there actively trying, failing, getting knocked down on their ass, and trying again? Very few.
Most people read about a diet in a book, try it for 2 months, then relapse into their old eating habits.
Many people say “I’m gonna meditate for 20 minutes a day” but they “can’t find the time…because Netflix”.
Then people wonder why 2021 is 2020 is 2019 is 2018. Repeating a fucking Groundhog Day existence for 30 years.
Then you’ll be 68 years old and realize that you just twiddled your thumbs in your ivory tower while your life passed you by.
Because the real pain of self-development is exertion, it’s doing it when you don’t want to do it, it’s progressively getting better and actively cutting out areas where you don’t need to be doing things.
What methods work? They all work. There are some that are more “optimal” than others, but they will all work – if applied. If you read a self-help book starting from ground zero (like you know nothing about this stuff), you will be a better person on page 258 than you were at page 1. I guarantee it. So it’s not about “choosing the right methods”. It’s about application.
There are people who think self-development and self-help is a joke. These people have never even walked into a book store and yet they’re laughing all the way to the bank or living the life that we want to live!
I can pretty much guarantee that if you took one book like Deep Work or Psycho-Cybernetics and applied everything in there to the T, your life would dramatically alter.
You wouldn’t need to be browsing Inc. magazine for the newest hacks. You wouldn’t need to go on Entrepreneur and say you’re “hustling”.
We need to stay focused, guys. We need to build a core set of practices and not stray from the narrow road of improvement.
We need to throw ourselves into the task with everything we have and not look around for another hack or tactic to help us when we have an arsenal of 1,000 inside our head.
You won’t know all the answers. You can’t know all the answers before you take action. You need to act before you are ready.
You will NEVER be ready.
You can’t solve the puzzle without taking action to assemble the pieces.
Get going and the pieces will start to fall in place. Then the puzzle starts to solve itself.
Voynich Manuscript Decoded | The Mysterious Book Finally Solved?
For 600 years the Voynich Manuscript has stumped scholars, cryptographers, physicists, and computer scientists. Now, a researcher in Germany has claimed to have finally decoded the most mysterious book in the world.
I was terminated without notice only to be offered my job back for significant less than I was making. I declined and filed an unpaid wage claim costing them over $12,000 in damages due to me.
Worked for a Co. that terminated me at end of day on a Monday without notice or reasoning other than, “It just wasn’t working out;” but was promised to be paid the rest of the week as a courtesy severance for the inconvenience. Wanted to stay professional, so I complied and thanked them for opportunity. I was allowed some time to pack up my things and head out.
I handled all payroll and AR/AP but wasn’t presented final check upon termination and even offered to do it before I left but was told it would be mailed to me. Fast forward 6 days and I receive a text message from former employer urging me to return their call as soon as possible.
I called the next day and was offered my job back for $10,000 less per year than I originally was hired for and was told a few duties would be taken off my work load. It was insulting and I asked to think about it but asked about my final check prior to ending call and they asked me to go pick it up from office. I was out of town for a few days so made arrangements to pick up the following week (now 14 days after term).
I arrive and was presented with a check. I open it and say that it’s incorrect. They apologize and agree to have an amended one in mail next day. I offered to wait but they had an “interview coming shortly.”
I waited 7 more days before filing a wage claim for the final check. I end up receiving a final check for the one day of that week a few days after but didn’t include my vacation time / PTO, the severance, or penalty for late payment.
After 8 months, we were granted a hearing where they were ordered to pay me for 30 full days salary as penalty, all vacation and PTO, adjusted benefits, and severance as promised.
Employer called me an extortionist, and Labor Board representative interrupted their tirade to say “No, that’s the law. You should be happy he didn’t sue you for retaliation, well, he still can. So maybe you should lay off the insults and direct that energy to educating yourself and finding counsel.”
It was vindicating.
Hey! Look at what “president” Biden is doing…
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Nearly ALL of America FEELS This | Oliver Anthony “Rich Men North of Richmond” | Just Jen Reacts
On another (that I just cannot find at the moment), that China has secret bioweapons labs and one was accidentally discovered in California… an army of Covid mice to spread it all over California… not that it would matter. California is mostly a waste as it is.
Huawei phones read your brainwaves… don’t you know…
5G destroys your brains… well it did until… American companies renamed their 4G. Calling it “5G”.
India, Japan and the Philippines are going to stop China “dead in its tracks”… yeah. What ever you say.
The bullshit is really deep these days.
Meanwhile in China, actual troubling reports are coming forth.
I sure as fuck hope that China can sidestep this massive insane buildup towards war, but I am starting to waver and have my doubts. I need to contact the DC and find out its take on all this…
The USA is spewing wars everywhere.
2023 08 03 08 20
“President” Biden is taking a nine day vacation. You know the kind you take right before you know that you will die. And he placed Victoria Nuland in charge.
Personally, I think she promoted herself. As there is NO ONE at the helm.
These are Americans who work and live in US, just like you, 100% Americans, except they are Chinese Americans, nevertheless they are Americans just like Donald Trump and you.
Chinese living in China can’t transfer enough money from China to buy properties in U.S. or any foreign countries, because China has strict $50,000 annual limit. It takes 10–20 years of transfers to buy an average home in California.
“Room-temperature superconductivity would enable long-distance lossless power transmission, leading to a new wave of global infrastructure development in the electricity network. Additionally, breakthroughs are expected in areas such as superconducting magnets, superconducting cables, and superconducting maglev trains, according to media reports.
“The breakthrough in room-temperature and atmospheric pressure superconducting materials would undoubtedly bring about revolutionary changes in various fields, including energy, transportation, computing, and medical diagnostics.”
It shows how pathetic and desperate the western news media houses are. The people all over the world are getting more informed and they are now not easily deceived by their blatant lies and deceptions anymore. Thanks to all these social media apps where fact-checks on faked and fabricated news could be shared at the speed of light to all corners of the world. The more the news media spew such silly news, the stupider they look. Even the old grannies today could differentiate them. A laughing stock!
When will the peak occur? It is occurring NOW, and it will go downhill from here.
Actually that is what western nations has become all due to its own doing. You see the west thought that it could simply keep increasing its price each time it’s Union asked for a pay rise and it’s CEO wants another 10 million dollars dollars bonus!
What it does not know is that when no one knows how to do what you do they have no choice paying higher and higher and higher. But close to around 2000 the world has become way smaller and there is really always an alternative product that is just as good.
Hence when the western producer increase the price it lose customers and market to the point that it no longer makes business sense to produce it in the west and it has to be outsourced to the cheapest and acceptable quality producer. This is almost always China.
Why China? First China has 1.4 billion hardworking, skilful workers who are discipline and highly intelligent working long hours and not demanding benefits and absurd salaries. Their automation robots amount to more than the world put together.
Their infrastructure is state of the art and their government focus on making organisations efficient and effective. Together they are simply unbeatable and everything done in the west cost 10 dollars the rest of the world may do it for 5 dollars. And China does it shipped it back to the U.S. for 3 bucks!
Many racist or superior minded individuals here like to fall into self delusions about cheap labour. But China’s labour is certainly higher than many nations yet it still remains the most competitive manufacturer on planet earth.
Today China U.S. making for 50% of humanity.
To do it yourself you need to reduce your CEO salaries by 90% workers salaries by 70% and you need to spent 100 trillion dollars for 10 years. You need to reduce your 800 military bases to 5 and cut your aircraft carriers by 10 and retrenched 1 million CIA and NED payrolls.
Or in plain simple English. You just cannot and won’t do it.
So stop talking shit about China. Just slapping tariff on some products from China caused you a double digit inflation and now a recession. Imagine China decoupling from you? The U.S. will nosedive into a 50 years recession! If I were you, I will be nice to China.
Interesting video…
How propaganda works and how US politicians get American voters to vote for them. Video put together by American university students to show the absurdity of it all.
Russia forgives African debt
Along with China, they are cutting the purse strings of the West from plundering the global south. More bad news for the USD.
A train coded C2551 slowly pulled out of the Beijing South Railway Station and headed for Tianjin Binhai New Area Tuesday morning, marking the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway.
As the first high-speed railway (HSR) with a design speed of 350 km per hour in China, the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway carried a total of 340 million passengers since it entered operation.
Over the past 15 years, the daily frequency of trains running on the rail line has increased from 47 pairs to 128 pairs, and the shortest departure interval has been shortened from 15 minutes to 3 minutes, according to data from the China Railway Beijing Group Co., Ltd.
Wang Manman, a resident of Wuqing District, Tianjin Municipality, takes the bullet train to work in Beijing every day. The quickest journey takes only about 20 minutes, and there are eleven trains for her to choose flexibly during the morning rush hour from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
The operation of the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway in August 2008 was strong support for the hosting of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and has accelerated regional integration and development. It has also unveiled a fast-expanding modern HSR network in the world’s most populous nation, coupled with its booming economy.
By 2022, China had 42,000 km of operational HSR, ranking first in the world, and the length of high-speed rail regularly operating at 350 km per hour neared 3,200 km as of June 2022.
High-speed trains have changed people’s commute circle and lifestyle and greatly optimized resource allocation, noted Cheng Shidong, a transport official with the National Development and Reform Commission.
THE MAN FROM UNCLE Season One Long Opening
How US “democracy” really works…
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Japanese Artist Creates Epic Anime Costumes For His Cats
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If you’re a fan of cats, anime, and adorable cats dressed in tiny anime costumes, this one is going to be a treat. Apparently, there’s a talented Japanese man likes to create handmade anime costumes for his two cute cats and you can find his beautiful creations on his Twitter account.
If you know your anime well enough, you might be able to tell that most of the costumes he creates are based on those seen in productions from Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation film studio. It’s also worth noting that all of his designs are made from scratch and with his own two hands.
My take is that the US will not dare fight China because it fears losing. It is no different from the supposed meanest and baddest mafia refrain from going after their strongest peers. Losing means losing everything.
You see today a good majority of the world still thinks the U.S. is the head honcho. It still fears the U.S. somewhat, though much lesser these days. But what if it is proven without doubt that China’s weapons are much more superior and that in a war the U.S. lose?
What if the Chinese jets simply blow off the F16 in the sky like swatting flies? What if 13 US carriers disintegrate by Chinese hypersonic missiles raining down on them at 10 times the speed of sound giving the U.S. 3 seconds notice? What if a million drones attack in unison and what if China takes Okinawa and Russia takes Hokkaido and Pyongyang takes Seoul and Tehran takes Israel all in a week? What is the dollar becomes a dime a buck? What next?
The U.S. pretence is exposed the aura is gone. For good. It’s weapons will need to be on cheap sales. The U.S. cannot even bully it’s own slaves anymore. That is the real reason it will not fight if China takes Taiwan by force. It won’t and it is smart. China have nothing to lose. The U.S. has everything to lose.
So the U.S. will do the only thing it can do. Talk a lot of shit. And rant and rave. Gang up it’s unholy alliance and pretend it cares. That is what the U.S. can and will do.
White House PISSED at Tucker Carlson for Exposing THIS!
Without exception, being rich in a poor country is the way to go. I moved to the Philippines in 2011. Eleven years later my Filipina wife and I opened our first small day resort on the island of Leyte.
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Though the resort is still under construction, people still want to stop by and enjoy the pool.
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We’ve done a number of projects but this is the biggest and is scheduled to be fully functional with overnight accommodations and all the amenities in three years. Aside from using a backhoe to dig out the pool, everything is done manually using hand tools.
These projects employ a dozen local workers and puts money back into the hands of those that need it the most.
This project started in August of 2021 and my first milestone to have a working pool and pump room was achieved on February 16.
I was raised poor in the richest country in the world. It sucks to be poor in a rich country. Better to be rich in a poor country.
What is Dulles ideology? God’s Mission. America has a mandate from GOD, the King of the Universe, to impose its will on “Godless communism” anywhere, everywhere, on earth, at gunpoint if necessary.
Wild Rice Cheese Soup
2023 08 02 20 05
Ingredients
1 pound Italian sausage
1 small onion, diced
1 cup uncooked wild rice
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can condensed cream of potato soup
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup milk
1 cup evaporated milk
1 pound cubed processed cheese
Instructions
Fry sausage and onions in a medium skillet until sausage is no longer pink. Drain and set aside.
In a small saucepan, cook rice in 2 cups of water until tender, then set aside.
In a stockpot, combine sausage, onion, rice, soups, milk and evaporated milk. Cook over low heat until warm.
Stir in processed cheese and heat. Stir occasionally until cheese is melted.
China Issues STRONG WARNING to NATO: Stay Out of Taiwan and Asia or Risk WAR
China has rejected NATO’s plan to expand into Asia and warned the Alliance that such a move risks all out war in the region.
2023 08 03 10 06
France opposes ‘decoupling’ after economic talks with China
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday that he opposes the “illusion” of countries “decoupling” from China and he does not believe the world’s second-largest economy constitutes a risk.
He made the remarks after China and France concluded the 9th China-France High Level Economic and Financial Dialogue in Beijing on Saturday. The two countries reached a series of consensus ranging from finance to climate change and aerospace.
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Le Maire said Chinese investors are welcome in France, especially in the field of electric vehicles, batteries and energy transition, citing an example of Chinese group XTC New Energy Materials that has invested with French nuclear giant Orano in batteries, French newspaper Les Echos reported.
Le Maire told a press conference on Sunday that France wants to get better access to Chinese markets. France is on the right track, Le Maire said, opposing the “illusion” of countries “decoupling” from China.
In 1986, Ronald Reagan said “There is no problem in lying to your people. As long as you don’t believe the lies yourself and fail to see the truth in front of your eyes”
He was talking about USSR and East Germany
Today that’s the case with the Collective West
They believe their own lies
They twist everything to keep believing in their own lies
They will destroy themselves to keep believing in their own lies
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Take Biden
He is still living in the 1990s
He still thinks Russia is a gas station and China is a cheap factory nation
The Pentagon tries to tell him but he brushes them off
He soon only ensures the YES MEN are heard from and his closest advisors are the same
Like our Indians brainwashed by Whatsapp University, they are all brainwashed by their own lies and propaganda
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Take Nuland
She has never made a diplomatic move in her entire life
She believes the US is supreme and anyone can be threatened and she threatens everyone with dire consequences
So most nations she threatens, hates her and hates the US and waits for the time to plunge the knife into the heart of the United States and twist the handle
Even now they are deluded into believing World War III will be won by them
They are deluded into believing that somehow Putin and Xi will be overthrown by their own Generals and US will triumph once again
They don’t realise that XI AND PUTIN are probably the only ones who are keeping the hawks in their countries at bay
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The Ultra Nationalists like Medvedev or even Lavrov and Kadyrov would happily launch nukes tomorrow and die if the Americans also die
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Anyone who knows China would know General Liu and his faction
Luckily until now these fools don’t have the full power to start WWIII
Macron isn’t quite as deluded as he pretends
Erdogan is a wily fox who plays the middle well
Austin is certainly more Pro Pentagon than White House now
Sunak is a lickspittle but he is too Indian to not be cautious
Gen Milley knows WWIII would be a disaster
Sullivan is a political animal but not an idiot or an ideological fool
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Obama controls a huge chunk of the party today and he certainly is no fool. He wouldn’t want Malia and Sasha to become vapor tomorrow.
So does the Pentagon
So push comes to shove, they can push off Biden and say “F*** off Mr President” or push the old man down the stairs after killing the cameras and say “He had an accident”
Yet who knows?
Ursula Van Der Leyen, Habeck, Baerbock, Nuland, Scholz, Marin are all spineless fools or doped to their eyeballs in Lies and Propaganda and they would burn themselves and their people in their delusions
They can happily start WWIII
So the only hope for humanity is for these insane creatures to be voted out or naturally die of some cause
Collective strike of 500,000 people!Will this president step down early?May have a toughest new one!
In the first few weeks I was here I was required to create a new bank account. I took the subway to the bank headquarters with my passport and a nice little letter from my supervisor confirming I was a current student at my university.
I filled in a form, she looked over my documents, did some typing, went to the back to get something, had me sign something, and BOOM, done! She handed me my new card.
All this in twenty-something minutes.
My little mind was blown to smithereens.
In my country (Papua New Guinea) to create an account it would take two weeks (for the paperwork to be processed). You would go to the bank, fill in the forms and show them your ID, birth certificates, and any other docs they need. You’d be told to come back after two weeks to collect your new bank card when your account is ready.
Even though I could still understand much of what this teller said to me in Chinese, she still made sure to type out what she said on a translator app and show me the message on the phone screen.
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I’ll even go far as to say I got special attention, which, being black, I was not really expecting. While I was seated waiting for my number to be called an assistant bank worker came to check if I have everything I needed, and to let her know if I needed any help. She also pointed out the direction of the washroom in case I needed it. Just doing her job, I know; still, I appreciated it.
I had gone recently to do some transactions via Western Union, they handed me this form.
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That was wrapped up quite quickly, too.
All in all, my experiences with banking had gone smoothly and quickly. You don’t even need a good command of Chinese to get your business done. They usually know English themselves or they’ll try to find some other way to communicate.
Treasury Tsunami Coming – U.S. Deficit Spending A Big Disaster
A massive treasury dump is coming and the markets aren’t prepared for a tsunami of bonds hitting.
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While the US government spending is nothing new, they are borrowing tons of money at high-interest rates. This creates two big problems. It could spark another banking crisis as well as create an even bigger inflation crisis down the road. Here’s what you must know!
In 1905, a photograph was taken in Japan capturing the moment when a Geisha, a female Japanese performing artist and entertainer, washed her hair before styling it. Geisha are renowned for their expertise in traditional Japanese performing arts, including dance, music, singing, and the art of conversation. They possess a distinctive appearance characterized by long, flowing kimonos, traditional hairstyles, and oshiroi makeup.
Geisha entertain at gatherings called ozashiki, frequently entertaining affluent clients. They also showcase their talents on stage and participate in various festivals.
China’s groundbreaking advancements in the semiconductor industry as wafer laser cutting equipment achieves full localization.
China’s Hua Gong Technology has successfully manufactured the world’s first 100% domestically produced high-end wafer laser cutting equipment, a crucial component in semiconductor manufacturing.
Wafers are made of brittle materials mechanical dicing of thousands or even tens of thousands of chips on a 12-inch wafer typically results in a heat-affected Zone and dicing line width of about 20 microns compared with about 10 microns for conventional lasers the reduction in dicing line width means that Wafers can achieve higher levels of integration making semiconductor manufacturing more cost effective and efficient.
This breakthrough not only enhances China’s self-sufficiency in semiconductor equipment but also reduces reliance on foreign technology, countering US technology restrictions.
This is a video from a purported “engineering” channel.
But you may be shocked by the arresting headline:
How Gotland-Class Submarines Transform NATO’s Approach to China and Russia
My eyes popped when I saw it in my feed.
Sweden isn’t even an official member of NATO and people are already incorporating Swedish military power into the wargame against the Russians and Chinese!
The acceptance that war with Russia AND China being inevitable is frankly, either gut-wrenching terrifying or utterly mind-blowing.
But a reading of the news over the past few years will convince even the skeptic that a consensus is being shaped among the first world citizenry, while the Russia-China axis is under constant dehumanization and presented as cartoon whims.
Victory, it seems, is assured, and plans are afoot to upgrade readiness for real conflict in the near future.
Part of the reason why I write about military affairs (particularly from the Chinese angle) is to draw the Western response.
To describe the experience as sorely disappointing is too mild.
I am gobsmacked flabbergasted by the repeated fairy tales thrown my way that bombers and nuclear subs lobbing tomahawks and other missiles will be able to sink the entire Chinese navy or disable the PLA, in a repeat of the 100-hour Iraq War. The rest of the American military then joins in the mopping up.
In other words, a turkey shoot even more spectacular than the Korean War, where 1 American died for 30 Chinese KIA.
The American-dominated media is suspending reality for the American people. No one has questioned the 200b increase in military spending since Donald took office. To put that figure in perspective, the increase is equal to two thirds of the Chinese military budget, the second largest globally. This is in tandem with massive increase of military spending in Europe, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and elsewhere.
In a recent market research note, one recommendation caught my eye. It promoted the merits of the weapons sector—Lockheed, Raytheon, etc—and pointed to the massive inflow that’s been announced by many governments. As far as killing and maiming is concerned, it’s boom time, never mind the frothy market.
There is no equilibrium right now. The American-led west has been upping the pressure since the Barack administration’s pivot east, to the point President Xi is openly exhorting the PLA to be ready for war at all times.
These are dangerous times.
I see two outcomes.
One: The Americans realize the folly of their ways, and u-turning. I find that unlikely, given the dysfunctional politics that refuses to forego the God complex.
Two: Provoking conflict between Japan and China over Taiwan, dragging Korea into the same mess. The entry of Russia into the issue of Taiwan is a stabilizer for the Western Pacific, because Japan will have to work through the strategic calculus of a direct northern neighbor that has an iron grip on Sakhalin.
The risk goes up with time, as both sides ratchet up and escalate. This will continue until there is a clear winner. The best we can hope for is a continuous stream of economic crises emanating from the first world’s profligate and irresponsible ways, forcing leaders to focus on domestic discontent, rather than fixing “the enemy”.
Five years ago, during Donald’s tenure, I would have put the possibility of war within the next decade at 20–30%. Today, it’s 60–70%.
We, as in East Asians, should all make our own preparations for a uncertain and dangerous future.
How to Prevent Won Ton Wrappers From Drying Out: Keep won ton wrappers covered with plastic wrap until ready to use. Wrap any remaining won ton wrappers tightly in plastic wrap and store in freezer.
Make Ahead: Fill won tons as directed. Place in single layer on baking sheet. Freeze 1 hour or until frozen. Transfer to resealable plastic bag; seal bag. Freeze up to 1 month. Thaw in refrigerator before adding to hot soup to cook as directed.
Ingredients
1/2 pound ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup finely chopped water chestnuts
2 green onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons GOOD SEASONS Asian Sesame with Ginger Dressing
1 egg, separated
32 square won ton wrappers
8 cups fat-free reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms
1/2 cup thinly sliced water chestnuts
2 green onions, sliced
Instructions
Mix meat, mushrooms, water chestnuts, onions, dressing and egg yolk until well blended. Spoon evenly onto won ton wrappers, adding about 1 teaspoon of the meat mixture to each wrapper.
Beat egg white lightly. Brush onto edges of each wrapper; fold in half to form triangle. Press edges together to seal. Bring opposite corners of long edge of each triangle together, overlapping corners; brush with egg white to seal.
Combine chicken broth, mushrooms, water chestnuts and onions in large saucepan. Bring just to boil on medium heat. Carefully add won tons; simmer 4 minutes or until filling is cooked through, stirring occasionally.
Serve immediately.
Yield: 8 servings, about 1 1/4 cups each
Military Veterans React to Oliver Anthony – Rich Men North Of Richmond
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The Third Man (1949, Film-Noir) Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli | Full movie
HUNTED…By a thousand men! Haunted…By a lovely girl! Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
It is a GREAT MOVIE. Watch it if you have the time.
Today, while taking my daughter back from Kindergarten, I saw a dead kitten in the road in front of me. It was dead maybe 10 to 15 minutes. A black and white medium hair Tuxedo kitten. Perhaps six weeks old. It was gone, as its entire back was splattered goo.
I cannot stop thinking about this little guy. I cannot shake the image, and the feelings for something that I have no personal connection with. It’s tough, and difficult.
Strangely, a few hours later, as I was musing about this kitten, I felt it visit me. Briefly. Of course, we did not know each other, and it did not try to communicate. Just checking out my porch momentarily and then moving on.
I believe that my thoughts attracted it. Even for such a moment.
But my thoughts are part of my personality; and you know, my personality is pre-programmed by others. Whether it is Domain or what have you.
How many of us are living a fated life where our actions and behaviors are all preprogrammed by others?
Originally Answered: What one thing do you wish you had known about life when you were in your 20s?
One time when I was 25 I went shopping for an engagement ring for my girlfriend. We had been together for three years and my dad kept asking when I would marry her. My friends kept asking. Her friends kept asking. Her dad kept asking her and she would tell me.
We were living together. And I liked her. Maybe I loved her.
But I started to shiver when I was looking at rings in the store. My friend who I was with took one look at me and quoted a lyric from an MC 900 Ft Jesus song: “Something’s gonna happen and it’s probably not good.”
So I didn’t buy the ring. We didn’t get married. She moved out. We moved to different cities. I called her once a few years later but now she’s not even on Facebook and we haven’t talked since.
That sums up the 20s – EVERYTHING you think is important and meaningful has absolutely no bearing on your future life.
I loved her. I had a job. I was writing novels. I had friends. I was a computer programmer.
Now…none of the above is true. (oh, I have friends. Just different friends – 100% different).
And everything in my 30s….nothing is true anymore (except I have two kids still. Although now they are not babies. Now they are smarter than me).
I’m 48 now.
My most recent career change occurred when I was 47. Before that, I started writing seriously (I wrote 5 very unserious books in my 30s) when I was 42.
In my 20s and 30s my average weight was about 155 – 170. Now it’s 140. I write every day. I don’t obsess on money all day long. And I make bad decisions all day long – just like I did in my 20s.
The main skill I got between my 20s and now is that I bounce back from bad things faster.
I was VERY successful in my late 20s. And then a TOTAL FAILURE after. Then VERY SUCCESSFUL. And so on.
So that didn’t change. Only my ability to bounce back from really bad things. Horrible things. Things you wouldn’t want to wish on anyone and yet they happen, in some form or other, to everyone.
So the only thing I can with full integrity say I wish I had known is: nothing at all matters. Oh, and since nothing matters, once you realize that you’ll start to bounce back faster.
And since nothing matters, might as well be kind to people as much as possible. We can all laugh at the same joke at the end of this very long day.
Surveys of Americans asking them where certain countries are on an unmarked map. Not obscure ones (I myself would have trouble with Ivory Coast) but ones that are in the news all the time like…
North Korea
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Iran.
Note about twenty guesses put it solidly in the United States
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Ukraine.
Again, five guesses were solidly in the United States.
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Here’s the problem -people who have no idea where these countries are tend to favour military solutions. People who place them correctly (which is a small minority) tend to favour diplomacy.
First Time Reaction to Boston – Foreplay/ Long Time
I can just picture the cold can of beer between my legs and the joint being rolled on the dash…
When I was fired at a large financial services organization, the head of HR essentially told me to clean out my desk and leave. I was a participant in a number of executive compensation programs, and no provision was being made to give me some/any of that money. I knew others had been treated differently when they were terminated.
I called my former boss (the ex-company president) who had been fired 2 weeks earlier and asked him what he thought I should do. He said, “Call the guys in the field. The field loves you.” This was at around 10:00 am.
So I called every senior salesperson I knew—and asked them to call the CEO on my behalf. All I asked was that I be treated fairly.
At 2:00 pm, the head of HR called me to say that the CEO had gotten the message and my “little campaign” worked—I could “call off my dogs.”
I negotiated an equitable severance package and a transition job within the organization.
The answer will short – since China doesn’t want to attack USA and USA lost every single war that it started what is it to be affraid off. Plus China has almost 1.5 Billion people while 80% of Americans age 17–24 are unfit for millitary service.
I can’t keep this A SECRET anymore.
Love him or hate him, this is his harsh statement about what the Republicans did to him. But the big thing is that he is taking the “levers of control” away from the Republican party, and hijacking their most popular policies. Perhaps… he will run for office.
Keep this thought in mind.
https://youtu.be/vSGcnLl-CZg
Makes you think…
Yup.
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Here’s a better meme…
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The Human Horizons HiPhi Z Is Pure Science Fiction
The United States has always exercised technological hegemony, using various means to suppress foreign companies that surpass American enterprises or pose a threat to them. This has been the case with Japan’s semiconductor industry, French energy giants, and others.
In the era of 5G, Huawei is leading in 5G technology, with the highest number of patents globally and being the only company capable of providing end-to-end 5G services. Moreover, its 5G chip technology is also leading globally.
As a result the U.S has repeatedly modified chip rules not only limiting the shipment of American chip companies such as Qualcomm but also restricting chip companies that use American Technology such as TSMC and ASML from Shipping chips to China.
Chinese companies such as Huawei have accelerated the development of self-designed and self-produced chips and have also started developing chips based on RISCV to reduce their Reliance on American chips and other products.
Data shows that after the U.S restricted chip shipments Chinese domestic companies reduced their import of chips by more than 97 billion pieces in 2022 and it is expected that this number will exceed 50 billion pieces in the first six months of this year.
SMIC has announced that it will have a production capacity of over 700 000 equivalent eight-inch Wafers by the end of this year which will be used to manufacture various types of chips it is expected that the capital expenditure for this year will exceed 6.6 billion dollars mainly for capacity expansion and process Improvement.
However unexpectedly the U.S Japan and the Netherlands have signed a tripartite agreement to further restrict the shipment of advanced semiconductor equipment Japan will begin to restrict the shipment of over 23 types of semiconductor equipment from mid-July the Netherlands has also officially announced that it will restrict the shipment of certain models of lithography machines which will take effect on September 1st by then DUV lithography Machines of the 2000i and subsequent models will be unable to be shipped.
However the Netherlands and ASML have emphasized that although the tripartite agreement restricts the shipment of certain models of DUV lithography machines the 1980i and earlier models of lithography machines can still be shipped with a single exposure accuracy of 38 nanometers, however Chinese domestically produced lithography machines have already achieved a breakthrough of 90 nanometers and can be fully utilized for manufacturing mature processed chips.
Shanghai microelectronics 28 nanometers Precision lithography machine has also achieved technical validation with mass production expected in the near future the key is that Chinese manufacturers are accelerating the expansion of Chip production using processes below 28 nanometers and the required lithography machine models that ASML cannot ship.
This will also accelerate the breakthroughs made by Chinese manufacturers as a result some European media outlets have stated that it is all over as the U.S further restricts ASML’s shipment of lithography machines.
This not only accelerates China’s breakthroughs but also causes European chip and semiconductor companies to lose further advantages. First of all Europe does not have an inherent advantage in the field of Chip and semiconductor globally with only a few outstanding companies such as ASML, ARM and St microelectronics.
After the modification of Chip rules, even ARM and St microelectronics are no longer able to ship their products freely, only ASML can still ship certain models of DUV lithography machines.
Now with ASML being further restricted in its shipments this is not good news for the European semiconductor industry, moreover most American chip and semiconductor companies can still continue to ship their products Qualcomm can continue to ship 4G chips while the extension of Nvidia’s shipping permit may become a settled matter, companies such as Lam Research and Clack have received clarification notices on the rules and can still ship their related products.
Secondly after the modification of Chip rules Huawei announced its comprehensive entry into the Chip and semiconductor field and invested heavily in China’s domestic chip industry chain through high silicon burning through 440 billion yuan. In three years Huawei has not only established a complete mobile phone industry chain in China, but achieved the localization of EDA tools of 14 nanometers and above and has collaborated with SMIC to accelerate the localization of advanced processes to reduce dependence on American Technology.
This has already caused ASML’s market share in China to fall from 14 to 8 percent and after the signing of the tripartite agreement the reactions of Chinese companies such as Huawei and SMIC have been relatively calm, indicating that Chinese manufacturers have already achieved significant breakthroughs in the lithography machine industry.
The key is that the president of ASML has stated that if further restrictions are imposed ASML’s market share in China will continue to decline and it may even withdraw from the Chinese market.
Shenzhen known as the Silicon Valley of China is home to a large number of high-tech companies such as Huawei Tencent and ZTE as well as over 4 000 startups that conduct research experimentation and production in the city.
China is not powerless, almost all tasks that high-end chips can perform can also be accomplished by old-fashioned chips albeit at the cost of higher power consumption greater material consumption and higher costs such as using two chips instead of one the Chinese chip industry can find a way to cope with sanctions and it is impossible to control all the chips in the world including military Aerospace and high-tech chips.
If there are 10 000 chips a Chinese company with international business will always be able to obtain some, although it may have to go through three different countries.
Chinese Scholars like Xin Yuching who teaches at the national Graduate Institute for policy studies in Tokyo are optimistic that China will be able to manufacture high-end chips on its own in the future sanctions will force Chinese companies to conduct their own research and development and invest more time and money.
Recently The Institute of semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced the development of a highly integrated Optical convolution processor according to calculations Optical Computing has the advantages of high bandwidth low latency and low power consumption its processing speed is 1.5 to 10 times faster than Nvidia’s GPU chips.
More importantly Optical chips do not require photolithography for production so there is no bottleneck problem this is not just a case of overtaking on a Bend but a complete change of Direction in addition Optical chips are expected to avoid the data type problem that exists in the Von Neumann Computing paradigm.
In the past due to the existence of Moore’s Law it was very difficult to upgrade processor performance and Chip processes had to be reduced by at least half every two years this means that if China is currently producing 28 nanometers chips it will take at least 10 years to catch up with TMSC’s two nanometers.
However replacing the steam engine was never about building a better steam engine replacing the horse-drawn carriage was not about building a faster horse-drawn carriage and replacing chips will not be about building more compact chips the progress made by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Optical chip technology can be said to be the last step in commercialization and the biggest step in maximizing profits it not only has the potential to influence the global layout of the optical chip industry but may even be the key to the next era.
Cowgirl in the Sand (epic!) – Neil Young & Promise of the Real
This has got to be one of the coolest versions of this song I have ever heard. 19 Minutes of pure jamming bliss.
I wasn’t actually snooping; my husband asked me to check his Facebook messages. He’d been trying to reconnect with some old friends from the police department he’d worked in years ago.
The first message was from an old, old girlfriend (they were 15 at the time). She had hired a private detective to find him, and couldn’t, so she confessed in a message she’d always been in love with him, and wanted to see him. She didn’t care he was married; SHE was, too, but was willing to leave her husband if he would leave me.
My husband had responded perfectly. “Debbie, we were 15. We dated for 6 months. I’m sorry, but I didn’t and don’t love you. I never will. As a matter of fact, what you did to try to find me was disturbing, especially since it states on my profile that I’m married. I think you may want to talk to someone about it.
To top it all off, you’re disrespecting my wife, whom I love with my entire soul, your husband, and me. How would you feel if my wife was doing the same thing with your husband? Please don’t contact me again. Get some help, and move on.”
I can see why he didn’t say anything to me. He knows I probably would have lost my shit on her. She had stopped messaging him, and it was done. I’m actually glad he didn’t tell me. He responded the exact way I would’ve had it happened to me.
I wish I hadn’t seen it, only because if we ever run into her, I’ll probably be calling my bondsman again.
kraftwerk – Radioactivity (Original Version)
Vinegar Grilled Chicken
vinegar grilled chicken
Prep: 10 min | Marinate: 4 hr | Cook: 10 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons garlic salt
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon hot sauce
3 tablespoons butter, melted
4 (10 ounce) bone-in chicken breast halves
Instructions
Place the water, vinegar, pepper, salt, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and melted butter into a large, resealable plastic bag. Shake to combine ingredients, then add chicken, seal, and shake to coat. Place in refrigerator to marinate for at least 4 hours.
Heat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil the grate.
Remove chicken from marinade, and shake off excess. Discard remaining marinade.
Cook on preheated grill until no longer pink in the center; about 10 minutes per side.
Notes
To make this chicken roadside-style, use boneless chicken tenderloins and brush with barbecue sauce the final minutes of grilling.
Man! I stock groceries and build and repair furniture for people. I wear out a few sets of knee pads every year and shaking my hand feels like grabbing a stack of sand paper.
What a day’s work looks like for me:
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You know what I say when people ask what I do for a living?
“Oh, I have a great job! I stock groceries and do a little custom woodworking on the side.”
And I mean it. I have a great job. My workshop is in my backyard, and my grocery job is one mile from my house. I have no commute.
I have a regular schedule. I get eight hours of sleep every night and plenty of exercise.
I make plenty enough money. I never worry about my bills. I save plenty for retirement.
I get to work with no stress around mostly friendly people. I stay active and on my feet all day. It keeps me healthy and trim. The work I do is necessary and purposeful.
I have plenty of time for my family and hobbies.
I spent many years climbing the corporate ladder. I was tired and stressed out and couldn’t be there for my family. That sucked.
Now I do needful work well, and I’m happy doing it, and I’m doing well. What’s there to be ashamed of?
I am sure that people see my knee pads, and my shredded work gloves, and the sawdust all over my jacket and look down on me. I can handle that. I don’t really even think about it.
We NEED custodians, my friend. You are supporting yourself with honest, good work that I’m sure has many enviable upsides. Hold your head up.
“The Worst President in the Last 100 Years” – Victor Davis Hanson
President Bidean actually attended the same university as I did. WTF?
I have never seen (in person) a punch kill or a boot in the butt. I have seen a man kicked in the face who then died right there on the spot. It was a bar fight on a street called Clay Morgan Alley in St Louis. I was a Patrolman working an overtime shift walking a foot beat on the gaslight entertainment district down by the river. There was an altercation where a man fell down to the ground on his back. One of the three people attacking him kicked him in the face before I could get to them. By the time I ran the 20 feet to the victim he was already dying from a massive skull fracture. He had a strange breathing pattern people do right as they die. I think it’s called “agonal breathing” if my Paramedic training decades ago is correctly remembered. His head felt like a bag of skin holding many pieces of broken pottery in the rear particularly. The people that killed him had a good laugh and though they would just get the night in jail for fighting. Intoxication in public or something minor. They had all had priors for assault and wealthy parents got that them off every time. Fine paid. Probation.
I still remember the happiness it brough me to go into the separate rooms they were being held in and telling these smug little trust fund babies that the victim had been pronounced dead with cause of death being homicide by blunt object to the skull. It was a glorious feeling of schadenfreude watching their “my daddy will have you fired and sue you” attitudes of mockery and laughing disappear into blind panic. The possible sentence guidelines would mean they were looking at up to 20 years to life in Maximum Security. I know that sounds really unprofessional to feel that but it was one of the few times I really had to watch myself because I was so angry. My Partner who was a couple blocks away and wasn’t as emotionally involved because he didn’t see it go down. He sensed my frame of mind and took over booking. We would step in and let the other one cool off when we thought the other was reaching their limits. For some reason only one of us would be feed up and aggravated at a time if it happened.
Anyway….the victim was black and the Feds almost piled on with another 20 to life in Federal for Violation of Civil Rights but the campaign contributions to the right politicians put the brakes on that. There was a good case for it being racially motivated. What first drew my attention and made me take a few steps to look down the alley was someone yelling a racial slur as they attacked him. Witness also heard them talking before the assault began inside about how “Boomers wasn’t a Nigger bar”. I’m often critical the FBI but they did step up on this case and fought the Eastern District US Attorney to have the case go federal to no avail. Normally it would require the sacrifice of a goat to summon divine intervention and get them to work a case that didn’t involve Muslims or terrorism. They were right with me lock step trying to get it in front of a Grand Jury that was currently impaneled. The families had too much political power to get it done. They were big campaign donors and had a lot of pull. The media took no interest so we had no leverage.
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Not the incident but this is almost exactly the type of kick I saw. Running start…full force on an unconcious prone kid. ^
The 3 people who were involved were all arrested by me for 2nd Degree Murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. They pled guilty to Manslaughter and each got 8 years in Potosi Prison of which they served 6 before being paroled.
I only know that because I attended the yearly parole hearings to give a vivid description of the murder to keep them in as long as possible. Autopsy photos and video of interrogations where two of them were laughing at what they had done. Like the whole thing was a joke and they said “wait until my Dad get’s here. His lawyers will sue you…etc”. They were text book bullies beating on a timid and small victim. I wanted to make sure they stayed in and had a page in their file requesting I be notified of any Parole hearings for the two that went to Max. The third was a follower and had some promise on not being a piece of shit his whole life so I didn’t involve myself in his case after conviction. He was transferred to minimum after a year. All three were the worst kind of “Frat Boys”. Wealthy. Privileged. Obnoxious. Thought they had the power to do literally anything. Their family name and fortunes would always save them. They lost a fortune in Defense Lawyers for sure.
The lead council for one of them I knew well and was good friends with. I got along with Defense Attorneys. I always root for the underdog and Public Defenders are the ultimate underdogs. I always had their clients by the balls with good evidence so they didn’t have much to work with. This friend though was a high priced lawyer. We went up against each other in several minor and two major cases. We had a mutual respect. I would never lie of obfuscate, be a hostile type witness on the stand. If I ever had the State or Feds lock me up he’s the typo of intellectual bulldog I would want in my corner. The Prosecutor knew they could walk in a trial with an OJ type dream team so he offered them a deal. They got the max they could get from the sentencing guidelines from the plea. One of those cases where the Judge is bursting to get to lay into the defendants at sentencing. It never made the news. There weren’t more than 12 people in the Court including me the Judge, Bailiff and Court Reporter. That bothered me. This hideous affair should have been on every TV in America and nobody took notice. Only a 1 inch column in the Metro section of the Post Dispatch the day after the attack. Just a blurb in the Metro crime B section below the fold. I have seen ads for Yard Sales with more words. The victim was a really good kid with a bright future. He was alive, happy and loved one minute and ancient anonymous history the next and the world took no notice.
I knew as soon as I saw that kick the victim wasn’t going to survive. It looked like an NFL kicker going for a 50 yard field goal type kick on an unconscious victim.
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^ Above a view of Clay Morgan Alley crime scene. The incident took place at the far end just before the street intersection in front of Boomers nightclub. If you see the 3 lamps on the left (East side of the alley) look at the most distant of the three. I was standing just a few feet around that corner when I first heard it. It took place near the middle street lamp in the center of the alley. That is the parking lot for the Arch in the background. That parking lot is Federal Property. I shit you not that I know of a case where a kid was arrested for Marijuana in that exact garage by Federal Park Rangers….. and got more time than the killers in this case. Probably served damn near the whole sentence too as there is no Federal Parole.
Answers like this bring it all back vividly. I write here so people better understand what Policing is like. I appreciate it when people feel informed or took something away from the writing. The positive feedback I suppose keeps me doing it. When you see people comment or up vote etc it does make me feel like there is some kind of purpose in it and it is therapeutic to write about some of these things. Anyway…thanks for the feedback everyone. The comments are usually the most interesting part of my answers IMO.
I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I am 83 years old and I was in the McDonald’s drive-through this morning and the young lady behind me leaned on her horn and started mouthing something because I was taking too long to place my order.
So when I got to the first window I paid for her order along with my own.
The cashier must have told her what I’d done because as we moved up she leaned out her window and waved to me and mouthed “Thank you.”, obviously embarrassed that I had repaid her rudeness with kindness.
When I got to the second window I showed them both receipts and took her food too. Now she has to go back to the end of the queue and start all over again.
Don’t blow your horn at old people, they have been around a long time.🤣
Since 1978, China has opened its arms and actively integrated into the global division of labor system, which has greatly benefited the development of China itself and the world. In 2022, China and South Korea jointly celebrated the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea. For 31 years, friendly cooperation and mutual benefit have always been the mainstream of PRC-ROK relations. The economic and trade cooperation between the two countries continues to deepen. In 2022, the economic and trade volume between China and South Korea reached 362.3 billion U.S. dollars, and South Korea surpassed Japan to become China’s second largest trading partner.
This series of tangible achievements not only brought great benefits to the two countries and the two peoples, but also provided a stable guarantee for the peaceful development and prosperity of the region. China and South Korea are the important neighbors of each other and mutually beneficial partners and have many good development opportunities. It is the consensus of the people. China and South Korea must proceed from the fundamental interests of the two countries, adhere to mutual respect, especially respect the core interests of each other, eliminate external interference, properly handle differences, and promote the continuous development of China-ROK relations and bilateral cooperation.
One of the core interests of China is the Taiwan issue. The Taiwan issue is the most important core interest of China, and it is a red line that cannot be crossed. In recent years, out of domestic political needs, some U.S. politicians have been manipulating various Taiwan-related issues, exacerbating tensions in Sino-U.S. relations. The only one purpose for what the US does is to use Taiwan as a pawn to implement an anti-China and containment strategy to maintain US hegemony.
The one-China principle is the general consensus of the international community and the basic norm of international relations. It is also the premise and basis for China to establish and develop diplomatic relations with countries around the world, including South Korea. Thus, it is better for the two countries to keep the close economic ties between China and South Korea without provocation.
The recovery and development of China’s economy will bring greater development opportunities to all the neighboring countries including South Korea. However, in recent years, in order to serve their own self-interest, some countries have promoted unilateralism and protectionism under the pretext of so-called economic security, created closed and exclusive small circles, and clamored for decoupling and breaking the chain. That has seriously disrupted the normal operation of the global production and supply chain and seriously damaged the development interests of countries around the world, including China and South Korea.
China is different from those countries and implements the dual cycle, a development pattern in which the domestic market and the international market are better connected by giving full play to the potential of domestic demand, rather than a closed domestic cycle. With the utmost sincerity, China will carry out mutually beneficial cooperation with countries all over the world to achieve common development and progress.
In summary, how the export recovery of South Korea could be is up to the South Korean government and solely depends on the clever behaviors and the choice of the South Korean government. The Koreans act as if they don’t understand why.
Did Biden Fall Asleep During Meeting w/ Israeli President?
During a recent joint press event at the White House with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, U.S. President Joe Biden mumbled through a portion of his comments about U.S.-Israeli relations, leading many online to conclude that the Commander in Chief had nodded off briefly. He probably didn’t, but still…
I was out having a drink with a friend of mine in Brixham. Towards the end of the night, my friend was just carrying a couple of pints across from the bar to our table when a large bloke, not looking where he was going banged straight into him.
My friend, being the man he is, immediately apologised. But despite it being actually his fault, the guy was having none of it as he said that his shirt and trousers had been ruined by my friends beer. As he squared up to my friend, another two of the blokes mates (equally as large as the first) joined in the argument and made the mistake of laying hands on my friend.
By the time I had walked across, he had already taken them up on their offer to ‘Take it outside’. The first big guy led the way. My friend followed, only pausing momentarily to pick a cardboard menu off a table as he left. With the blokes two mates behind, carrying bottles of beer which I imagined they may have been expecting to use as weapons.
As I watched them leave, I immediately got on my mobile and phoned for an ambulance. The guy next to me turned and said to me “An ambulance? Shouldn’t you be helping your mate instead? “. “Oh”, I said smiling. “It’s not for him….anyway there’s only three of them. “
The thing is that I knew something that the three local big guys didn’t and that was that my friend was a retired CQC (Close Quarters Combat) instructor with the Royal Marines at Lympstone. He was trained not only in martial arts but weapons and tactics too. The bullies had bottles, but in my friends skilled hands a tightly rolled up cardboard menu was as good as having an iron bar.
By the time I got outside moments later, there was just a lot of broken glass and the three big guys were all in various crumpled heaps on the floor. My friend was just standing smiling rubbing his jaw.
“I must be getting slow in my old age” he said “One of them actually managed to land a punch”.
The U.S Military just got a HUGE wake up call and it’s bad
Look how big is Moscow’s (erstwhile) McDonald’s now known as Big Hit after McDonald’s got de-branded.
Russia’s McDonald’s replacement says it’s serving 2 million customers a day. Its CEO said that it has sold more than 24 million “Big Hits,” its Big Mac dupe, since opening.
Russian population stands at 143 million. Business as usual with a new logo and similar menu.
Alexander Govor, the Russian businessman who bought the former McDonald’s sites, told that the new company was opening restaurants slightly faster than planned and hoped to have more than 900 by the end of the year.
Most of the menu is made with the same ingredients and equipment as when it was McDonald’s.
The B-52’s – Rock Lobster (Countdown 1980)
Jamaica V.S the U.S.A Diplomatic Row: The Implications of refusing a diplomat’s Same-Sex Spouse
In this video we will explore the conflict brewing between Jamaica and the United States over Jamaica’s decision to deny diplomatic immunity and privileges, to the spouse of an American diplomat due to their same-sex relationship.
Originally Answered: What was the hardest thing you went through in life and how did you get past that?
I was repeatedly raped by a neighbor when I was 7 years old. I didn’t want my mother to find out, because she was a single mother working 3 jobs to support me and my brother and she cried enough as it was. We lived in a trailer that had holes in the floor so that sometimes raccoons and opossums would climb through. I was scared of them. The carpet was infested with fleas. I usually had flea bites all over my body. I never felt clean. We got clothes from Goodwill but they were usually old, faded, and stained. My mother did the best she could but we were all alone in the world. We lived in a rural area that was unforgiving of those who deviated from “the norm.” My mother tried to baptize me when I was a baby, only to be turned away by the local preacher because I was “a bastard.” We were not welcome in their churches, which were an important part of rural life there. I didn’t have friends at school. I was “weird” “dirty” “ugly” “too quiet” etc. Even most of the teachers looked at me and my brother in disgust. We were “the XXX family.”
I grew up with the understanding that I was worthless. That I should be ashamed of who I am. I barely said a word through most of my childhood. I didn’t say a word to anyone when they pushed me around, taunted me endlessly, beat up my brother and I. I never said a word when my neighbor (who, interestingly, was widely regarded as an outstanding member of society) raped me.
I led a very solitary life. My mother was usually gone at work, my brother would devote himself to his own activities, and there I was. I remember I would sit outside of my home and pretend to be a rock, because rocks didn’t feel anything and they certainly didn’t cry. They were indestructible, I thought.
I overheard one of the other little girls discussing the prayer they said before bedtime and I resolved to remember it. It went like this – As I lay down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I shall die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I thought about this prayer for the rest of the day, until I went home and decided on my own version: Dear God, I don’t want to live anymore. There are other people begging you to keep them alive. Let me take their place. I’ll die. I was about 8 years old.
But I didn’t die, much to my dismay. I woke up the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. The days went by. My situation didn’t greatly improve, people weren’t much nicer to me, and my life didn’t get easier. But I got stronger. I discovered books as a way to escape from my tedious existence and by the time I was in 5th grade, I was reading at a college level.
I grew up and gained control over my life. I was no longer the defenseless, powerless victim I had been as a child. I had power. I could do whatever I wanted. I got a job. I studied hard so I could go to a good college. I escaped from my small, unforgiving town.
I have a good job now and good relationships. People who know me now would never guess I was once that hungry, miserable, terrified, beaten down little girl I had been back then.
As for my family, my mother still lives in that trailer. My neighbor is long dead. My older brother still lives with my mother. He has never gotten a driver’s license or a job. He doesn’t leave the house very often. A part of me understands his reluctance – why let the world do you more harm when it has already done so much? But I wish he would take the chance. I feel sad that our childhood all but destroyed him.
If you want to know how to get through hard things, my answer is probably inadequate, but it is the best I have to offer. My answer is: keep going.
Do Our Pets Go to Heaven? | NDE Compilation
2023 07 21 17 51
China rejects ‘Iron Curtain’ or ‘Silicon Curtain’ imposed by the US upon the world, warns against ‘an eye for an eye’ — Chinese Ambassador to the US
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On July 19, 2023, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng attended the Aspen Security Forum at invitation, and had a fireside chat with Steve Clemons, Founding Editor-at-large of Semafor. Ambassador Xie elaborated on China’s policies and positions on China-U.S. relations, China’s intention in development, the Taiwan question, U.S. technological suppression of China and other issues.
On the China-U.S. relationship, Ambassador Xie said that China-U.S. relations are facing serious difficulties and challenges. Recently, there have been some reflections in the United States about its China policy. Our two countries have had a series of high-level communication, which were candid, in-depth and constructive. In particular, the two sides have agreed on implementing the important common understanding reached between President Xi Jinping and President Biden in Bali. This offers a rare opportunity for stabilizing the relationship. But the opportunity has not come easy, the foundation remains fragile, and challenges still abound. We must cherish and sustain the momentum. President Xi Jinping has outlined three principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. They represent the fundamental and right way for China and the United States to get along in the new era. We hope the U.S. side will work with China in the same direction to stabilize and improve our relations.
First, shorten the negative list to clear obstacles and manage differences with concrete actions. It is important to properly handle important and sensitive issues such as the Taiwan question in line with the principles of the three Sino-U.S. joint communiques, stop sanctioning Chinese entities and individuals, and prevent “black swans” or “gray rhinos” from disrupting or rattling China-US relations again. President Biden stated that the United States does not seek to change China’s system, does not support “Taiwan independence” , and has no intention to decouple from China or to halt China’s economic development. The U.S. side needs to translate these statements into concrete actions.
Second, expand the positive list to enhance dialogue and cooperation in good faith. We can start with concrete, small steps to inject more positive energy into China-U.S. relations: for instance, to increase passenger flights, adjust the China travel advisory, renew the China-U.S. agreement on cooperation in science and technology, revive MECEA programs to encourage congressional members and staff to visit China, hold the Tourism Leadership Summit, and facilitate visa application and border entry for students, scholars, tourists, business people and others. China and the United States once had over 100 dialogue and exchange mechanisms. But they have been stalled by the U.S. side since 2018. Our two peoples have been waiting too long. If it is difficult to resume all, can we start with 50, or at least 30?
Third, seek out supporters of China-U.S. relations. Joint efforts are needed to bring China-U.S. relations gradually back to the right track.
Ambassador Xie said that the so-called “political correctness” has permeated American society. Over the past month and more since his arrival, he has been talking to people from various sectors. He can feel that there are many supporters of China-US relations, but they are under pressure. They are becoming reticent under the chilling effect. Few want to express different opinions amid the anti-China chorus.
Ambassador Xie said that an American netizen left him a comment on Twitter: “I hope you find some allies; there are a few hiding in the darkness afraid of being crushed.” A sound and stable China-U.S. relationship is in the common interests of both countries. It is also the shared expectation of the international community. So the third priority is to seek them out. “I am one, but we are many,” said Ambassador Xie. He called on all to pitch in, and work together to bring China-U.S. relations gradually back to the right track.
On China’s intention in development, Ambassador Xie said that the Chinese people are the most friendly people in the world. Assertiveness is never our tradition. Invasion or pursuit of hegemony is not in our DNA. We have facilitated the resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Our purpose is to inspire more countries in the region to shake hands and embrace peace, and to make greater contribution to world peace, stability and prosperity.
When meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken in Beijing recently, President Xi Jinping emphasized that the Earth is large enough for China and the United States to develop respectively and prosper together. China respects U.S. interests and does not seek to challenge or displace the United States. In the same vein, the United States needs to respect China and must not hurt China’s legitimate rights and interests. China does not intend to challenge or displace anyone. Instead of outcompeting others, our focus is on outdoing ourselves. The “Thucydides Trap” is not a historical inevitability. The world has changed. The international community should have the wisdom to look beyond this, say goodbye to the Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation and zero-sum game, pursue win-win cooperation, and jointly prevent a major-country conflict.
Ambassador Xie said that a friend asked him: what kind of flower will grow out of China？This is his answer: it will be a flower of peace, cooperation and common development. It will be as beautiful and sweet as peonies and roses.
On the Taiwan question, Ambassador Xie emphasized that Taiwan is China’s Taiwan. It is an inalienable part of China’s territory. This is the first thing we need to bear in mind when handling Taiwan-related issues. No one cherishes more than the Chinese side peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. And no one wishes more for peaceful reunification than us. There are two biggest threats to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait now. First, the Taiwan authorities are seeking U.S. support for their independence agenda. They have refused to recognize the 1992 Consensus, and even denied their Chinese identity. Second, some forces in the United States are trying to use Taiwan to contain China. They have emboldened adventurism and provocation by “Taiwan independence” separatists. The path they are taking is very dangerous. This is something we should guard against.
The Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive question in China-U.S. relations. The U.S. side should take concrete actions to deliver on President Biden’s statement that the United States does not support “Taiwan independence”. The most fundamental thing is to return to the one-China principle; the most important is to abide by the three Sino-U.S. joint communiques; and the most pressing is to oppose adventurism and provocation by “Taiwan independence” separatists. The top priority now is to stop Lai Ching-te’s visit to the United States, which is like a “gray rhino” charging at us.
On U.S. technological suppression of China, Ambassador Xie pointed out that China opposes waging trade war or technological war under the pretext of competition. China never shies away from competition. But the “competition” defined by the United States is unfair. First, the United States is trying to win by keeping China out. For instance, it has banned Huawei for unfounded national security concerns, even though the company offered to sign a “no-backdoor” agreement. How can we compete without being present? Second, the United States is rallying allies to encircle China. Is there any respect for the one-on-one rule of the game? Third, the United States prohibits exports of equipment making chips smaller than 14 nanometers to China. This is like forcing others to wear outdated swimsuits in a swimming contest while one wears a Speedo fastskin himself. Is this fair play?
As a Chinese saying goes, “We never make provocation, but we will not flinch from any provocation coming our way.” We oppose both iron curtain and silicon curtain. And we are the last to want a tit-for-tat cycle. So far, over 1,300 Chinese entities and individuals are on US sanction lists. As a result, many Chinese workers have been forced out of job, and their families suffered greatly. The Chinese people will not remain silent, and the Chinese government will not sit idly by.
Ambassador Xie also stated China’s principled position on Ukraine, China-Russia relations and climate change. He pointed out that China has always promoted talks for peace on the Ukraine issue, and its position is gaining increasing understanding and support. Russia is China’s biggest neighbor, and the two countries share a border of over 4,000 kilometers. It is only natural for the two sides to maintain good neighborly relations and normal trade. On climate change, China and the United States have vast potentials for cooperation. It is important to stick to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. The Untied States and other developed countries should take concrete actions to honor their commitment to supporting developing countries.
The Aspen Security Forum is a biannual event held by the Aspen Institute, in Aspen in summer and Washington D.C. in winter respectively. The current forum will be held from July 18-21. It has broad influence in the United States and worldwide. Over 400 delegates attended the forum, including senior U.S. officials like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the President Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Burns, and Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield; former U.S. dignitaries, renowned entrepreneurs, think tanks, scholars, journalists and international political figures from the United Kingdom, France, Kenya and Israel. Ambassador Xie Feng’s remarks during the forum attracted great attention and were widely covered by American and international media outlets. They were warmly received by various sectors of American society.
Spicy Chicken Phyllo Rolls
Chicken, sour cream, raisins and spices come together in flaky phyllo rolls with this recipe.
spicy chicken phyllo rolls
Prep: 30 min | Bake: 30 min | Yield: 32 small rolls
Ingredients
1 cup chicken broth
1 bottle Mexican beer
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup onion, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt)
1/4 cup raisins
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 (9 x 14 inch) rolls Athens® Phyllo Dough, thawed
Instructions
Thaw two rolls of phyllo dough, following thawing instructions on package.
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a medium skillet, bring broth and beer to a boil. Add chicken breasts, then lower heat and simmer, for 7 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Dice chicken into 1/2 inch cubes.
In another medium skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, curry, coriander, and cayenne pepper, and cook for 5 minutes or until onions are tender. Remove from heat and let cool.
In a large bowl, combine chicken, onion mixture, sour cream, raisins, brown sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.
Unroll and cover phyllo with plastic wrap and then a slightly damp towel to prevent drying out. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter with 2 tablespoons oil. Layer 5 phyllo sheets, brushing each with the butter–oil mixture.
Cut the width of layered phyllo into 4 strips. Place about 1 tablespoon of filling at one end of phyllo strip, leaving 1 inch from end and 1/2 inch from each side free of any filling. Fold phyllo up over the filling to form a roll. Fold side edges in to enclose the sides. Roll up to the end of phyllo strip. Brush outside of roll with butter–oil mixture. Repeat process three times to make 30 rolls.
Bake seam side down, at least 1 inch apart, on ungreased cookie sheet or baking pan in preheated 350 degrees F oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
Serve with plain yogurt or your favorite jarred chutneys such as Sherwood’s Green Label Mango and Ginger Chutney and Swad Coriander Chutney.
Exactly like I said in one of my previous answers :—Electric Vehicles were the biggest WinnerRetail Consumption came secondGreen Energy took the third placeFixed Asset Investment took the fourth place (Railways etc)Shipping was a surprising fifth place winnerServices took Sixth Place
These Sectors grew between 6% to 11% this quarter (1/4/23–30/6/23)
They contributed to 18.67 Trillion Yuan ($ 2.91 Trillion) in the last two quarters or around 30% of China’s GDP
In 2019 they compared to around 13% of China’s GDP
Ironically Exports ended up on the whole with a near 4% growth which was pretty surprising
Meanwhile the losers :—Real Estate as expected was the biggest loserIndustrial Manufacturing came secondCommercial Banking came thirdRetail Investments came fourthConstruction came fifth
These Sectors grew by less than 2% or contracted by upto 10% in this Quarter YOY
They contributed 25.85 Trillion to the Chinese Economy ($ 4.15 Trillion) in the last two quarters contributing to around 42% of China’s GDP
In 2019 they contributed to 51% of China’s GDP
Industrial Manufacturing is the only worrisome issue
Real Estate was already a bloated bubble and China already made it clear that by 2030 it’s contribution to the GDP shouldn’t be more than 6% instead of 16% in 2016 at its peak
Commercial Banking is entirely linked to real estate. Commercial Banks gained 207 Billion Yuan and lost 139 Billion Yuan finishing with a cumulative 68 Billion Yuan profit or 4.27% profit
In 2019 it was 8.66%
So that’s a nearly 50% fall in profit in 5 years
Still it will rise as alternate investments pick up steam
Construction fell in China by 13% but grew in BRI by 10.6% and so the total contraction was only 2.4%
It will rise as BRI begins to open up newer projects
So China is mostly on track except for Industrial Manufacturing
Global Demand is weak and Chinese Workforce is not keen on factory jobs anymore
Thanks to the Common Prosperity program, Chinese want to go back to villages and small towns instead of the other way round
They flooded cities to escape poverty in the 2000s
Now they want to go back to the rural life and become farmers instead of low grade factory workers
I was fired from a law firm. No I wasn’t a lawyer. Not by a long shot. I worked in the file room. I was in my early 20’s. Back then I wasn’t really looking beyond my next pay check.
I also would chauffeur the senior partner around in his Mercedes sedan. He turned out to be a great mentor of mine. His name was Bob. One day, in between phone calls, Bob asked me how I was doing, I told him that I was doing great! Thanks!
And that’s when it happened. He fired me…sort of. He said, “Keith you’re fired!”
I was shocked. I asked him why?
He said ” Keith, I see you working in the file room, Xerox room. Answering phones. Delivering the mail. Driving me around. Going and getting lunches!
I still didn’t understand.
“That’s why I’m firing you. Keith you’re too damn smart to be working here doing the things you’re doing. So I’m going to force you to do something else. Go back to school. Learn a trade. Apply yourself. Start a business. I’m giving you two weeks notice. You have two weeks!”
For several days I thought about it. I thought that if I just worked hard enough someone would notice it and promote me. But that’s not how it always is.
I had always wanted to go to tech school, but didn’t think I was smart enough (that’s another story!). I decided to check some of them out.
I enrolled at ITT Tech. A week later I went to Bob and I told him about ITT and could I please keep my job at least until I graduated. It was a two year course. I was worried about how I was going to fit school and work together. Bob told me ” Keith I’m very proud of you. As long as you’re going to school AND making good progress you can work here! And also tell Barbara (the HR manager) that Bob said that you can work any hours you’d like to in order to accommodate your schedule!
What a fantastic man Bob was! He impacted my life in a big way. Two years later I graduated with highest honors at the top of my class. I was immediately hired by tech giant at the time, Honeywell. I rose through the ranks quickly and eventually became an Engineer. Ten years I started my first “dot.com” business. And three years after that I sold my first company in a multi million dollar deal.
That was the first, and only time, I got fired. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Unfortunately Bob (RIP) passed away a few years after that story happened from cancer. A young man of 43. At his funeral we heard stories about all of the people that Bob helped behind the scenes. His firm Frandzel, Csato, Robbins and Bloom is still around. One of the attorneys Ron Gruzen worked there. I used to deliver his mail to him, copy papers and stuff. Today, 40 years later Ron Gruzen is my attorney, negotiating settlement deals, real estate transactions and a host of other business and personal legal matters for me! Ron and I laugh all the time about how far I’ve come and we reminisce about the old days at Bob Frandzel’s law firm!
Explaining the United States Today
“Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with heroin or cocaine. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks”.
That is our theory of addiction.
Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.” So he built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of sex. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water.
But here’s what’s fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction.
What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage.
Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.
Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can’t bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drink, drugs, sex, shopping… We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things not people.
You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that.”
China has planted more trees than the rest of the world combined.
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But here’s bloomberg painting it in a negative light.
But here’s the gist
The CCP planted 1 billion trees a total act of evil! Over a 40 year period and increased forest coverage from 12% to 22%. TOTALLY EVIL!!!
Bloomberg wrote a mostly negative article (the 1bn is wrong it’s actually 66bn) focusing on all sorts of problems including how a few million trees got infected with bugs.
They then claim because of wood exports some of the bugs infected the West:
“This allowed the beetle larvae to hitch rides to Europe and North America, where governments are now spending a fortune trying to control infestations.” Amazing! Even on what should be a neutral scientific article about China’s success in planting trees they need to pander to the anti China crowd and relate it to Covid spreading from China.
It was a photo op for the ages: a visibly well-disposed President Xi Jinping receiving centenarian “old friend of China” Henry Kissinger in Beijing.
Mirroring meticulous Chinese attention to protocol, they met at Villa 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse – exactly where Kissinger first met in person with Zhou Enlai in 1971, preparing Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.
The Mr. Kissinger Goes to Beijing saga was an “unofficial”, individual attempt to try to mend increasingly fractious Sino-American relations. He was not representing the current American administration.
2023 07 22 10 15
There’s the rub. Everyone involved in geopolitics is aware of the legendary Kissinger formulation: To be the US’s enemy is dangerous, to be the US’s friend is fatal. History abounds in examples, from Japan and South Korea to Germany, France and Ukraine.
As quite a few Chinese scholars privately argued, if reason is to be upheld, and “respecting the wisdom of this 100-years-old diplomat”, Xi and the Politburo should maintain the China-US relation as it is: “icy”.
After all, they reason, being the US’s enemy is dangerous but manageable for a Sovereign Civilizational State like China. So Beijing should keep “the honorable and less perilous status” of being a US enemy.
Luttwak, 80, may not be as visibly influential as Kissinger, but as a behind the scenes strategist he’s been advising the Pentagon across the spectrum for over five decades. His book on Byzantine Empire strategy, for instance, heavily drawing on top Italian and British sources, is a classic.
Luttwak, a master of deception, reveals precious nuggets in terms of contextualizing current Washington moves. That starts with his assertion that the US – represented by the Biden combo – is itching to do a deal with Russia.
That explains why CIA head William Burns, actually a capable diplomat, called his counterpart, SVR head Sergey Naryshkin (Russian Foreign Intelligence) to sort of straighten things up “because you have something else to worry about which is more unlimited”.
What’s “unlimited”, depicted by Luttwak in a Spenglerian sweep, is Xi Jinping’s drive to “get ready for war”. And if there’s a war, Luttwak claims that “of course” China would lose. That dovetails with the supreme delusion of Straussian neocon psychos across the Beltway.
Luttwak seems not to have understood China’s drive for food self-sufficiency: he qualifies it as a threat. Same for Xi using a “very dangerous” concept, the “rejuvenation of the Chinese people”: that’s “Mussolini stuff”, says Luttwak. “There has to be a war to rejuvenate China”.
The “rejuvenation” concept – actually better translated as “revival” – has been resonating in China circles at least since the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911. It was not coined by Xi. Chinese scholars point out that if you see US troops arriving in Taiwan as “advisors”, you would probably make preparations to fight too.
But Luttwak is on a mission: “This is not America, Europe, Ukraine, Russia. This is about ‘the sole dictator’. There is no China. There is only Xi Jinping,” he insisted.
And Luttwak confirms the EU’s Josep “Garden vs. Jungle” Borrell and European Commission dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen fully support his vision.
Luttwak, in just a few words, actually gives away the whole game: “The Russian Federation, as it is, is not strong enough to contain China as much as we would wish”.
Hence the turn around by the Biden combo to “freeze” the conflict in the Donbass and change the subject. After all, “if that [China] is the threat, you don’t want Russia to fall apart,” Luttwak reasons.
So much for Kissingerian “diplomacy.”
Let’s Declare a “Moral Victory” and Run Away
On Russia, the Kissinger vs. Luttwak confrontation reveals crucial cracks as the Empire faces an existential conflict it never did in the recent past.
The gradual, massive U-turn is already in progress – or at least the semblance of a U turn. US mainstream media will be entirely behind the U turn. And the naïve masses will follow. Luttwak is already voicing their deepest agenda: the real war is on China, and China “will lose”.
At least some non-neocon players around the Biden combo – like Burns – seem to have understood the Empire’s massive strategic blunder of publicly committing to a Forever War, hybrid and otherwise, against Russia on behalf of Kiev.
This would mean, in principle, that Washington can’t just walk away like it did in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Yet Hegemons do enjoy the privilege to walk away: after all they exercise sovereignty, not their vassals. European vassals will be left to rot. Imagine those Baltic chihuahuas declaring war on Russia-China all by themselves.
The off-ramp confirmed by Luttwak implies Washington declaring some sort of “moral victory” in Ukraine – which is already controlled by BlackRock anyway – and then moving the guns towards China.
Yet even that won’t be a cakewalk, because China and the about-to-expand BRICS+ are already attacking the Empire at its foundation: dollar hegemony. Without it, the US itself will have to fund the war on China.
Chinese scholars, off the record, and exercising their millennia-old analytical sweep, observe this may be the last blunder the Empire ever made in its short history.
As one of them summarized it, “the empire has blundered itself to an existential war and, therefore, the last war of the empire. When the end comes, the empire will lie as usual and declare victory, but everyone else will know the truth, especially the vassals.”
And that brings us to former national security adviser Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 180-degree turn shortly before he died, aligning him today with Kissinger, not Luttwak.
“The Grand Chessboard”, published in 1997, before the 9/11 era, argued that the US should rule over any peer competitor rising in Eurasia. Brzezinski did not live to see the living incarnation of his ultimate nightmare: a Russia-China strategic partnership. But already seven years ago – two years after Maidan in Kiev – at least he understood it was imperative to “realign the global power architecture”.
Destroying the “Rules-Based International Order”
The crucial difference today, compared to seven years ago, is that the US is incapable, per Brzezinski, to “take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence (…) can be contained without destroying the global order.”
It’s the Russia-China strategic partnership that is taking the lead – followed by the Global Majority – to contain and ultimately destroy the hegemonic “rules-based international order”.
As the indispensable Michael Hudson has summarized it, the ultimate question at this incandescent juncture is “whether economic gains and efficiency will determine world trade, patterns and investment, or whether the post-industrial US/NATO economies will choose to end up looking like the rapidly depopulating and de-industrializing post-Soviet Ukraine and Baltic states or England.”
So is the wet dream of a war on China going to change these geopolitical and geoeconomics imperatives? Give us a -Thucydides – break.
The real war is already on – but certainly not one identified by Kissinger, Brzezinski and much less Luttwak and assorted US neocons.
Michael Hudson, once again, summarized it: when it comes to the economy, the US and EU “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”
But before the war with China, perhaps a war with Mexico is “in the cards”…
How Mexico has become the “enemy” of America’s Republicans A growing number of them want to use military force against drug cartels
I'm honestly amazed that Republicans are willing to risk what hegemony the US has left over a misguided war.
Do they not realize how disastrous this will get. Refugee crisis, economic implosion, complete guerilla warfare, heat waves upon heat waves, etc.
This will end so badly that it'll make Afghanistan look like a minor hiccup. Tell me I'm wrong.
His father and mother both held Doctorates in Biophysics and Quantum Physics
He qualified by merit and a 173 LSAT score to study Law in Duke University
He worked at a Wall Street Firm and had licenses from NY and Washington DC
YET
He had to spend 4 years in Rural Anhui and Guanxi as a Volunteer and worked with Farmers, Drove a Truck, Acted as an accountant
Only then was he made a Deputy Provincial Head — the equivalent in India of a Panchayat Head or Councillor
Later he became Secretary of the District
He couldn’t deliver enough self sufficient villages and deliver a good performance
He WAS AXED IMMEDIATELY
Less that 2% knew he was Deng Xiaopings son when he was made Deputy Head
He called himself Zhuo Xifeng to avoid the Deng name until it came out eventually
That is China’s Meritocracy
No Free Lunches
No Papa Names
It’s always Performance and RESULTS
You need good education, You need solid performances and You need to be worthy of the party (No Homosexuality, No Philandering, No Perversions, No Drunkenness)
main qimg 9506d7abca879b0304d23fca820257b1
This is Shi Guanghui
Son of ordinary farmers
Scholarship winner to study Engineering in Tong Ji and a PE in Singapore and Canada
He served 5 years in the provinces , working as a distributor of food, harvester, drove pigs to the market, learnt about price controls
Later he rose through the ranks
No famous name
Responsible for ensuring Evergrandes Bubble was controlled fully
Responsible for ensuring Covid didn’t kill more than 40,000 people in Shanghai when it was estimated it would kill at least 300,000–400,000 people in Shanghai alone
Responsible for ensuring flow of medicines and food
Responsible for ensuring 6 Trillion of Bonds were absorbed profitably
He DELIVERED each time
He was REWARDED each time
His mentor?
HU JINTAO , who headed a rival faction against Xi Jingping
main qimg 4352ccf49de4d089994be5c2e2cfb98a
No Issues
No repercussions when Xi became the Secretary in 2012 instead of Lei Keiqang
Pure Meritocracy
Sheer unadulterated Meritocracy
If you have the ability, you will be rewarded
main qimg 664a3011721fa58209c10f03f395a238
You know him of course
Son of a Prominent Party Official who lost favor in the old days
A Chemical Engineer who built four standalone processing plants with half the budget when people wanted him to fail
A Man who was exiled to the farthest provinces who made village after village self sufficient and profitable
Who travelled overseas and LEARNT about mechanisation of agriculture from US without any shame and didn’t say “We are the greatest in the world”. He shut up and learnt
Who Mechanised a whole province and raised output by 200% in 7 years
Finally they couldn’t ignore him and today he is
main qimg 391b2bbe99168aab6dca8b86478d1065
Xi Jingping Secretary of the CPC
He has earned his place
He has helped China grow by leaps and bounds
Every man in that room has done his part in China’s growth
Not Caste, Not Religion, Not marching with half shorts and a ridiculous cap, Not based on surname or Papa’s name,
China may not be a 100% Meritocracy but it’s still the best Meritocracy on EARTH
Doctors, Scientists, Researchers, Engineers, Teachers , hell even Laborers
All chosen based on pure ability
main qimg 890505c6f020ea491cf27c4ce9baf8e2
Four Tibetans , Graduates from MIT, Tsinghua and Caltech
Part of the Scientific Council in China
Not even Han Chinese
Reason?
Sheer Ability
China asks only two things :—
China first before religion and language
Loyalty to China and the Communist Party
Deliver this and China will ensure you are protected for life and develop to your best
Don’t deliver this and …you better run
Orson Welles | The 3rd Man (1949) Film-Noir, Thriller
The United States is in absolute LATE STAGE collapse.
The society is destroyed, and there isn’t a middle class left. Businesses still operate and manage under the few pockets of commerce that still exist, however the labor force is unemployed, unskilled and have “checked out”. Nothing much remains outside of the enclaves.
The American “leadership” are fixated on war, and profits from that war. More war they demand, and now they want really BIG wars so that they can make really BIG profits.
They are absolute idiots.
China is aptly dancing around these Bozos, but how long can this charade keep up? No one knows, not indefinitely. There’s gonna have to be some bitch-slapping sooner or later. I’ll tell you what.
Enjoy these videos. Must watch all. As they describe the true measure of what we all can expect…
Allow me to say something crazy that you haven't heard elsewhere.
While Putin may have foolishly believed in Minsk 2, and now Russia is in a shooting war with a neighbor and kin that it cannot afford to lose (and as a nuclear armed nation, will not lose). Strategically, it will be weakened whatever the outcome.
On the other hand, America has committed an even more grievous mistake.
It is the greatest blunder since the establishment of the empire. You can trust something like this will happen because the empire is now run by morons and imbeciles. America has made the Ukraine War an existential conflict for the empire.
It has now committed the entire empire and all its vassals in a total war against Russia. There are no negotiations, no cease fire, no peace, only unconditional surrender (the chance of Russia surrendering is zero).
The US could afford to lose to Vietnam and Afghanistan, but it cannot afford to lose this war to Russia.
When that happens, guess what the vassals will do. This is the last war of the empire, folks. Meanwhile, China and BRICS+ will continue to attack the USD, with or without India (I'm guessing the BRICS currency will be a trade instrument like the SDU rather than a sovereign currency like the EURO, it will be designed to compete against the USD in trade, particularly among BRICS+ nations, no one will be forced to use it, but one can circumvent the USD ecosystem with it). Let's see how long the empire and its fake economy can hold out on this two-front war.
"You fool, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders. Never get involved in a land war in Asia (or with Russia)." -- Vizzini the Sicilian (Princess Bride)
-PM
American “democracy”
The thing you need to understand is that it’s not just how much influence a billionaire has. It’s also how trivial it is for them to exert it.
A billionaire can pay the equivalent of a nickel to a team of lobbyists that he never even needs to see or hear from, who will work relentlessly to accomplish that billionaires desires.
An average person needs not only to vote, but donate far greater sums across huge groups of people, they need to call legislators and go to protests and organizations.
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1940s USA – Fascinating Street Scenes of Vintage America [Colorized]
This is totally cool!
Immerse yourself in the vibrant atmosphere of bustling cities and charming small towns that defined the American landscape during this transformative decade.
Witness the stylish attire, iconic automobiles, and timeless architecture that painted the backdrop for everyday life.
From the shimmering lights of New York City to the laid-back charm of small-town America, each image tells a story of a bygone era.
When I was in grade 6, I was bullied everyday by this idiot at the back of the bus. I tried telling the bus driver, but he didn’t care. One day, I was wearing a sweater that my mom got me when she went to England for my grandmother’s funeral. The back of the bus idiot had a water pistol filled with grape juice and was spraying other kids, and of course he started spraying me. By this time I had had enough of this idiot and trying to ignore him everyday wasn’t working. I was mad he got grape juice on my new sweater, so I stood up, went to the back of the bus and told the idiot to stand up, he asked why he should and I told him I wasn’t going to beat the shit out of a guy who’s sitting down. Then I yelled at him to stand up, he went all quiet and wouldn’t look at me, so I told him if he ever bugged me again, I’d beat his ass, then I went and sat down again. I heard his friend ask him “who you going to pick on now?” and he replied “shut up”. The next day I got on the bus, this guy called me to the back of the bus as he saved a seat for me. I never did like that guy but we now had an understanding. The main thing I learned from that was to stand up for myself, a lesson I have carried with me to this day. Bullies really are cowards.
Young Gals Are In DISBELIEF As Men Are No Longer Attending Singles Events
We begin after a view of the past to notice TRENDS of what is going on in the present. These are AMERICAN trends. Nothing like this even remotely resembling this in China.
Pyongyang has dismissed a US proposal for negotiations, saying the country’s nuclear program cannot be stopped.
North Korea has dismissed a US proposal for peace talks as a ploy, accusing Washington of provoking conflict in the region while holding out false hope that it can persuade Pyongyang to halt its nuclear weapons program by temporarily easing sanctions or suspending military exercises.
Kim Yo-jong, North Korea’s foreign policy chief and sister of leader Kim Jong-un, said on Monday that the best way to ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula is for Pyongyang to amply display its military might, “rather than solving the problem with the gangster-like Americans in a friendly manner.” She called Washington’s latest offer of peace negotiations a “trick” to buy time.
Kim made her comments one day after US President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, told reporters that Washington was willing to negotiate with North Korea “without preconditions” concerning its nuclear weapons program. He said the Biden administration is closely monitoring the threats posed by North Korea’s missile launches and is concerned that Pyongyang will conduct its seventh nuclear warhead test.
Similarly, Kim said the US and its allies could easily renege on diplomatic concessions. “It is as easy as pie for the US political circles to exclude the DPRK from the list of ‘sponsors of terrorism’ today but re-list it tomorrow.” She claimed that tensions in the region have escalated on Biden’s watch to the point that “the possibility of an actual armed conflict and even the outbreak of a nuclear war is debated.”
Why do you think Iran wants to go the same way? Its insurance for them. Once 20–25 countries have these nukes, it would be a multipolar world all by itself.
Well done NOKO!
$32.1 Billion Chinese Chip Order Canceled, China Installs First Domestic Lithography Machine!
Amid U.S. chip limitation rules, the Chinese chip sector is undergoing a dramatic shift. China has responded by moving decisively in the direction of reaching self-sufficiency. China is giving local chip production top priority with the lofty goal of achieving a 70% self-sufficiency rate in chips. The increased research and development efforts Shanghai Microelectronics has made in the area of lithography machines are a noteworthy development in this endeavor. Chinese businesses have successfully accepted the first lithography machine made locally, which is a significant achievement and an indication of this growth.
Roasted Asparagus with Feta
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Ingredients
2 1/2 pounds medium asparagus, trimmed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (1/2 cup)
Instructions
Put oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees F.
Toss asparagus with oil, salt, and pepper in a large shallow baking pan and arrange in 1 layer.
Roast, shaking pan once about halfway through roasting, until asparagus is just tender when pierced with a fork, 8 to 14 minutes total.
Serve asparagus sprinkled with cheese.
RICHARD WOLFF ON CHINA, BRICS, AND THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
Economist Richard Wolff joins the program to discuss his latest work analyzing the rise of China, BRICS, and how an emerging new world economy is putting an end to the delusions of the US empire.
Swiss parliamentary commission will classify the results of its investigation into the collapse of Credit Suisse for 50 years, Reuters reports, citing commission documents. Typically, such documents are out of the public domain in Switzerland for 30 years.
“After the completion of the investigation, the files should be transferred to the Federal Archives and should be subject to an extended period of protection of 50 years,” the parliamentary commission decided.
The president of the Swiss Society for History, Sacha Zala, expressed concern to the head of the commission, Isabelle Chassot, about the decision to classify documents for such a long period.
“If researchers want to scientifically investigate the 2023 banking crisis, access to the CS files will be invaluable,” Zala said.
The parliamentary committee, on the contrary, believes that the disclosure of data is detrimental to the credibility of the commission and may have “negative consequences for the financial center of Switzerland.”
Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, found itself in a difficult position after the collapse of U.S.’s Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital. Shares of Credit Suisse on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX) on March 15 reached a historical low. Price collapsed by 30.8% to 1.55 Swiss francs, which was the biggest drop in one day. At the close on March 15, the fall was 24.2%, to 1.7 Swiss francs.
In addition to the situation with U.S. banks, the decline in price was affected by the refusal of the largest shareholder of Credit Suisse, Saudi National Bank, to buy more of the bank’s shares. They said they would not buy more shares so as not to violate regulatory requirements.
After that, Credit Suisse turned to the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) for support, the Financial Times reported, citing sources. As a result, the Swiss National Bank approved the plan to rescue Credit Suisse: the country’s second bank was to be absorbed by the UBS group. The merger of the two largest and oldest Swiss banks took place on March 19. The transaction took place on the terms of 0.76 Swiss francs per CS share, that is, the total amount was 3 billion francs ($3.24 billion).
In the spirit of true openness and transparency, Switzerland, a mature democracy, classifies information about what happened to its second largest bank for 50 years. Totally unlike those closed opaque authoritarian countries of China and Russia!
Back to the Future Mall (Puente Hills) is completely dead no business
Today I went to the Puente Hills mall in the city of commerce. The mall is best known for the 1984 movie back to the future. They filmed right in the parking lot of Coors. I had to match up pictures from the movie back to the future afterwords I walked into the mall and I was completely shocked. The inside is totally dead. Barely any people only a few shops are open. It’s really sad to see that. What once was an awesome mall is now almost like a graveyard.
When travelling around New Zealand a few years back I purchased an old BMW 325i coupe as it was cheaper than a rental for the 6 months i was there for. It was a South African built car that had been brought over when the owners emigrated to NZ.
Anyway. I was driving in the South Island when a car driven by German tourists slid across the road and hit me head on causing a major accident, the airbags went off and I was knocked unconscious.
When I awoke I was being treated in the car and the police were asking me where had the gold kruggerands come from?
I was baffled and then I saw that they were everywhere and the police were picking them up from the floor of the car, on the seats and outside.
What had happened was there was a large stash of the coins hidden in the car when it went to New Zealand as it was illegal to take out so much currency when you left South Africa and they had been behind the dash board for some 8 years.
The police were unable to find the original owners of the car when it was imported as they had moved to Australia so after 3 months I was deemed to be the rightful owner as they were found in the car i owned.
It was a tax free windfall that netted me just over $250,000 NZD which I used to buy a beach house in New Zealand in sunny Northland where I still live to this day.
China Public Toilet vs India Public Toilet – This is truly shocking…
There are a lot more machines than lithography in a fab. You also need ion implanters, ovens, cleaning machines (don’t discount this. Cleaning is needed after every step. And it uses ultra pure water which is difficult to do. The water must be 99.9999% pure H2O.), epitaxy machines, photo resist at the nm level that you want to create circuits at, metrology (measurement and testing. How do you know your chips works?), packaging (we don’t use chips by themselves. They have to be put into a package and connected to external pins.), etc.
And China has everything down to 3nm except for lithography machines. Photo resist is at 7nm, it will hit 5nm next year, maybe 3nm. Lithography machine is still at 48nm. And will go into mass production soon. 28nm machine will be done by next year and will be tested either next year or the year later.
EUV machines require 3 core technologies. One is the light source. China has a couple that works. They need to do reliability and then shrink the package down as much as possible.
The second one is the stage. This is the thing that carries the wafer and moves it into place for the lithography to happen. It has to be precise at the nm that you want to make.
Third is the lens and coatings to ensure proper light transmission and reflection. The light must be directional and collimated to a high degree. If any of the light is traveling not in a straight line, then your image on the photoresist will be smeared. China also has done this.
The only thing left is to put it all together and then do testing. This will take 3–5 years. Then test in a production facility, which will take another 6 months to year. Then they will adjust the design, finalize the design, and go into production. So anywhere between 4–7 years.
But China is the only nation that has the entire industrial chain for producing micro chips. No other nation has this. If they want to build a fab, it requires technology from a bunch of countries.
Graham Hancock on What Could Be HIDDEN In Antarctica
I finally got around to adopt another cat. My home is set up for 2 cats. I have two of everything, two food bowls, two litter boxes, two cat perches by the window, etc., etc. Looking at two of everything and yet only one cat just makes me feel miserable.
So I went to the local shelter and adopted a new cat.
Introducing the new cat.
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Her name was Cinnabun at the shelter, but I hadn’t thought of a name yet. I figure since Newt never really warmed up to his name, and with Jonesy’s death, I want to do away with “Alien” themed names. Maybe I’ll go with food-themed names, like Bean Bun, or Dumpling, or Putting, or Boba.
Cinnabun was a 4-month-old rescue (hence the docked ear). She was playful and very curious. Love to explore and purrs like a diesel engine.
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Newt is doing OK so far. I think he’s more confused than hostile. He hissed at the new girl a few times and mostly just watched her from his high perch (places the new cat isn’t able to go). I haven’t observed any other aggressive behavior from Newt other than the occasional hissing. I hope they become good friends, the way Jonesy and Newt never were.
I feel a lot better now I have a new kitten to keep me busy. She is a handful, always climbing around and sneaking into places.
I hope Cinnabun, Newt, and I have many happy years to come.
Poverty in America is by design
Poverty in America is intentional.
Centipede, Spider And Other Creepy Animal-Inspired Handbags Created By A Japanese Artist
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How does a giant centipede sound to you? Or a giant spider? Or maybe a football-sized flea? Would you wear one of these creepy-crawlies as an accessory? Well, if your phobias hadn’t kicked in yet, we’ve got something interesting for you. Japanese artist Amanojaku to Hesomagari creates eerily lifelike handbags and accessories inspired by all sorts of insects and animals that not only look cool but are also a great way to give your friends a nice scare.
I was waiting at the counter for an order and a homeless man asked one of the employees to please fill his half gallon, plastic milk carton with water. The worker said “what are you going to use it for?”
Now I’m jumping the gun in my head, thinking he was going to say that if he wanted it for drinking he has to buy a bottle blah blah blah…
The man said “to drink”, the employee told him to “please go over to the cooler and get whatever size water he’d like.”
He then filled up the milk carton as requested. The man thanked the employee for the water but said he was really hungry and could use a meal.
The worker Benny said “no problem! What would you like?”
The man gave him his order and he got to it with a smile on his face.
I then went over to the register to ask Kathie (who is AMAZING) if I could give her money for him, to use a credit for a few meals.
She replied “Janessa, that is so kind, but we feed him whenever he is hungry. He always has a meal here, when he needs.”
They’ve been doing it for years!!!
Another reason for me to love them over there. I was really moved by the whole situation.
I felt the need to share this because when businesses give from the heart, when they are hurting the most, they deserve a shout out BIG love shout to Mike, Katie, and the whole crew at Bagels n Buns.”
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Russian Airstrike Annihilates Ukraine’s Drone Control Centre, Starlink Station In Kherson
Not reported elsewhere. But I have been wondering when Russia would get around to this…
Ukraine’s UAV control centre and a Starlink communication station have been destroyed in a fresh Russian airstrike.
The Starlink Centre was located on the right bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson Region.
Russia also claimed to have destroyed 25 Ukrainian soldiers in an SU-35 airstrike on the command post of the 222nd separate battalion of the Ukrainian armed forces. Watch this video to know all the latest from Russia-Ukraine war.
Russia is developing its most advanced air defence system, the S-550. The formidable weapon system is able to eliminate intercontinental ballistic missiles at a longer range as well as satellites. According to TASS, the S-550 could be commissioned as early as 2025.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoygu cited the statement of President Vladimir Putin about the necessity to “deliver the air defence systems S-550 to the Russian troops”. It implies that Russia has successfully developed an undeniably unknown weapon and is about to deploy it.
This announcement took the public by surprise, yet the military circles have not unveiled any details about this new machinery nor have they agreed on giving any relevant commentaries. Also goes by the name 55R6M “Triumfator-M”, S550 is a Russian surface-to-air missile/anti-ballistic missile system created to replace the A-135 missile system presently in service, and to also provide support for the S-400.
The S-500 was developed by the Almaz-Antey Air Defence Concern. According to the Pravda report, due to its characteristics, S-550 is unrivalled by any other similar system in the world, being the top of its classes of space-defence weapons. Still citing the same report, it is known that the weapon shares similarity with the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in that it will be synthesized into a single network of assets of defence in aerospace.
I’m actually from Ohio, the good old Buckeye state with all those (American) Indian
[1] burial mounds, covered bridges, and the most natively born US presidents (*shifty eyes at Virginia*). We’ve got Dayton and the beginnings of flight, Neil Armstrong, canals and railroads, and a lot of hogs.
Ohio is, at best, quaint. It’s as “middle” as it gets for America (*shifty eyes at KC, MO*) and incredibly American in the most understated, fact-of-the-matter way. Ohio doesn’t seek respect nor deserve it, and it is the butt monkey of the US as a result. It isn’t even unknown enough to fade into the background like those more gracious and wild plains states — being the proverbial fat kid on the playground, it is just impossible to miss, even though everyone wants to miss it.
Everyone knows the joke; round on the outside, high in the middle. Or for the younger folk, it means “hello” in Japanese (*shifty eyes at the Japanese*). Yes, we make fun of ourselves too — haha, welcome to Ohayocon , the local anime convention.
Shockingly high amount of decently sized cities, at least for American standards.
You also will not care for most of them and that’s okay. The state always surprises people with how many electoral votes it gets. And while it’s not iconic with its niceness like the rest of the Midwest (and especially those southern Canadi- I mean, Minnesotans), we still embrace that niceness like we belong. Even if the rest of the Midwest keeps giving us the side eye when roll call happens.
I just described the Ohio of 20 years ago.
Ohio today is so much more desperate than back then. To put it simply, Ohio is what America abandoned — railroad, industrialized, cooperative USA brimming with heavy industry and evenly distributed urban centers.
It is a free state that doesn’t act like one anymore. It is a place of extreme brain drain, where the Ohioans who could amount to something have long moved away. Those who remain pick up the dregs and make do with one of the rustiest parts of the rust belt.
Ohio is a place of the past.
If you have plenty of wealth and want a nice, quiet place to just exist in, then Ohio is your game. If, however, you are young, not rich, ambitious, or otherwise eager to meet interesting people, Ohio is a death sentence.
China is basically the exact opposite.
It’s a dynamic, roiling mass of chaos that will leave you in the dust if you don’t keep up. Everything there is couched in hurry up and wait, yet things happen super fast far too often so there’s no way to really relax. Ambitious people are everywhere important and will screw the honest, gullible ones, but even the country as a whole seems to be changing that. You can’t say anything you want on the internet, but shooting the shit and talking politics with a beer on the street is incredibly easy and liberating.
China is abandoning the countryside while also featuring the lives of rural folk 24/7 on state television. It has a lot of really patriotic young people who do not see eye to eye with the older folk who tend to think that everything the US does is great and everything the Chinese government does is foul and misguided. Again, the exact opposite of Ohio — the kids are all disillusioned, while the older folk cling to former glory (at least they also think the Chinese government is foul and misguided!).
There is no honest way to get an image of China.
The whole place is so big and diverse, each place proves your ignorance, as if you’ve never been around. Ohio can do that too, but it won’t shove your ignorance in your face. The place is more content to be ignored. Such is the curse of suburbia — every corner looks the exact same.
China is too unpredictable. Ohio is too predictable. There’s no clear answer.
If I had to give a preference, probably China. I’m an introvert, and there is something truly magical about being able to disappear into a dense city behind anonymity and just be alone among a sea of people. Also I enjoy walking, and there are plenty of places in China that meet the 15 or even 10 minute walkable city standard.
Ohio? You better have a car. There’s not even a subway system in the entire state, and only a couple places have light rail.
Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday on the sidelines of the ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia. The two sides agreed to maintain high-level exchanges and enhance cooperation amid a turbulent world.
The meeting came amid reports of reported visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China within this year, which experts said shows a growing mutual trust despite Western attempts to sow discord between the two sides, and that the trip is expected to yield more results in multilateral and bilateral pragmatic cooperation.
One day before their meeting, the Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday that a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to China was on the agenda, and the Kremlin noted that now was a good time to maintain high dynamics in the development of relations between Russia and China.
In the face of profound changes unseen in a century, China and Russia firmly support each other in safeguarding legitimate interests, adhere to the path of harmonious coexistence, cooperation and win-win development, and jointly promote world multi-polarization and democratization of international relations, Wang noted, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Wang called on the two sides to follow the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, maintain high-level exchanges, strengthen strategic communication and coordination, demonstrate the responsibility of major countries, defend their respective national interests and national dignity, and maintain international fairness and justice.
Russia and China have maintained high-level exchanges, and the successful meeting between the two heads of state this year has injected strong impetus into bilateral relations, said Lavrov. He noted that the Russian side is willing to work with the Chinese side to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, further strengthen strategic coordination, and deepen cooperation in various fields.
Russia is also willing to promote the process of multipolarization in the world, oppose all powers and hegemonies, and jointly support the centrality of ASEAN, Lavrov said.
The exact date of Putin’s trip will be announced when it is finalized, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a news briefing, according to Reuters on Wednesday.
Former Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov said on Tuesday that the Chinese side was getting ready for a visit by the Russian president in October in order to participate in the Third Belt and Road Forum.
Currently, both China and Russia are facing a complex international environment against the backdrop of a deteriorating security situation, with tensions growing in both the Eurasian and Asia-Pacific regions and posing serious challenges for both countries, Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Economically, there is also an urgent need for China and Russia to cooperate when the world economy has become more volatile and fragile in the post-pandemic era, Yang noted.
Yang stressed that the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era is an established, long-term relationship that will not be affected by issues of the day, and it is not engaged in any political or military alliances or confrontations against third parties.
“After the Ukraine crisis, the US-led West has been trying to morally coerce China into pressurizing Russia. However, this coercion has failed. This reflects the advancement in the level of mutual trust between the two sides,” Li Yongquan, director of Eurasian Social Development Research at the Development Research Center of the State Council, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Peskov said that during Putin’s expected trip to China, the two presidents will focus on bilateral trade and economic cooperation and on global issues.
“Based on the similarity in Moscow and Beijing’s vision of the essence of international relations… we have very, very good prospects for further discussions and, most importantly, for constructive interaction,” Peskov noted.
In addition to reaching new consensus within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, there may also be new cooperative projects signed, including the development of the Far East as proposed by Russian experts, as well as cooperation in previously challenging areas such as transportation and agriculture in Siberia, which had faced various obstacles in the past but now the obstacles are now largely removed, Yang noted.
Li explained that the similarity in the two countries’ perspectives on international issues lies in their common belief in a multipolar world and opposition to hegemony, and rejection of the use of sanctions in handling international relations.
He noted that the two sides’ stance in respecting the UN Charter and international law as the basic norms of international relations has received support from the majority of countries around the world.
The Ukraine issue will likely be on the agenda for Putin’s expected visit, experts said, and China will continue to make efforts to promote peace and dialogue because, given the current situation, it will be difficult to resolve these issues if China’s proposal for a peaceful solution is not followed.
This is James Harrison.
When he was 18, he learned that his blood contained an antibody that could treat a rare blood disease in infants. He donated blood every week for the next 60 years.
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By the time he was done, he’d saved more than 2.4 million lives.
Before I divorced my husband, but while we were still living in California, I used to adore going to thrift shops. One day, while visiting a shop in Venice beach, I saw, in the “odds and ends” bowl, a very peculiar earring. It was a sort of ‘seashell’ design, hand made, with a pendant black pearl dangling from it. From the shape of the shell, it would only go “frontways” on the left ear. It was obviously a shop project, but was *so* unusual, I decided I had to have it! I could always take it apart and use the pearl for something… so I bought it for maybe $0.25. That was in 1979.
The earring went into my “scraps” box. Years passed. I divorced, found my new love, we moved to Hollywood, then in 1988, to Albuquerque. One day, while walking to the book store I saw a sign “GARAGE SALE!” … well… I love garage sales, so I went to the house and looked around.
The lady had a big wooden bowl set out with beads, rings, bits and bobs… and as I sorted through the jumble I saw… a very peculiar earring… with a stylized “seashell” and a dangling black pearl! And it was hand made and fit the right ear! I immediately showed it to the lady “I have an earring at home… that looks exactly LIKE this!”
The lady looked perplexed “Well, dear… I don’t think so… my boyfriend made those for me in Shop… and I lost one of them many years ago.”
I froze. “Where?”
She smiled “Oh a long way from here… it was in California… I’ve forgotten the place… a beach… named like a place in Italy.”
“Venice Beach?” I said, feeling a bit dizzy.
She nodded eagerly. “Wait here!” I said, somewhat illogically… after all it WAS her home… and when I came back with the matching earring, they were a PERFECT match!
I offered to give my earring back to her so she would have the completed pair again, but she refused “I never liked him very much. You keep them, Dear.”
So I still have them, a handmade pair, separated by hundreds of miles and nine years, and reunited completely by chance.
Cream Cheese-Chive Sauce
chive cream cheese radishes 2
Ingredients
8 ounces cream cheese, cubed
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
Combine cheese and milk in saucepan; stir over low heat until smooth.
Stir in remaining ingredients.
Serve over hot cooked potatoes, green beans, broccoli or asparagus.
Years ago I used to work for BMW as a mechanic. Eventually I ended up working on a Z4 Roadster and found a curious hollow tube running alongside the engine and securing to the firewall with a grommet.
Inspecting the tube, it appeared to be a factory installed device, but had no conceivable mechanical purpose, which I could find. What made it even more curious is that none of the other shop mechanics knew what this was either.
I finally asked one of the older mechanics, who had worked with BMW for some time and he correctly pointed out that the purpose of the hollow tube was to collect and resonate some of the engine sound back through the firewall so the driver could hear and feel the engine. It’s hard to believe, but it was true. An engineered piece to literally increase the engine noise inside the cabin…
This is not simply political hyperbole. It is the simple truth.
There is no evidence that the United States is a functioning nation-state in any way aside from a media that says so. The society has completely collapsed. The industrial manufacturing base, aside from a handful of industries, is gone. The cities are pictures of boarded up businesses, poverty, homelessness, and rat infested squalor.
What remains of the Untied States is evident in the many many overseas military bases, and the grandiose political class that films itself in front of green screens, reading scripted lines, and promotional staged events lauding the fictions of “democracy” and “freedom”.
In a world where (formerly) impoverished Laos, and Indonesia have High Speed Trains and free 5G wifi access; where (third world nations such as) Zambia, Nigeria, and Bangladesh have new hospitals, and affordable medical care, and where immediate bank transactions are conducted electronically…
…there is no actual evidence that the United States can ever achieve what these poorer nations currently possess.
To think that “somehow” the United States can regain what it has long since squandered is an exercise in futility. The United States has been looted and now it is an empty vessel; a land of the impoverished. Where feral dog-like packs of “things” (transgen, fluid-gen, and non-binary) prey on what remains of American society.
It is open knowledge that the rest of the world is running away from the USD as fast as it can. And no wonder. There no longer is any gold left in the treasury. As Ron Paul discovered in hearing with the Federal Reserve, there is no longer ANY gold held in reserve.
The United States is dead; and there is no inheritance left for its children.
They will move forward into the 22nd century impoverished; a “has been” nation, one that showed so much promise, but one that was doomed to die. Killed by its very notion; the belief that everyone is equal on paper, but unequal in governance.
Keanu was born in Lebanon. His parents split when he was three and he grew up with three different stepfathers.
As a kid he
was diagnosed with dyslexia and dreamed of becoming a hockey player. He played goalie for a junior league team in Canada but quit after breaking his leg to focus on acting.
He lost his best friend, River Phoenix, in 1993 due to an overdose.
He got married in 1998, experienced a miscarriage with his daughter in 1999, and ultimately lost his wife as well due to a car accident in 2001.
In 2002, Keanu put the Matrix sequels on hold to care for his sick sister. He sold his house to move nearer to his sister, while also helping by cooking meals, cleaning her house, and preparing medication. He also donated 70% of the money he made from The Matrix to leukemia research.
In 2006, when he was filming the movie “The Lake House,” he overheard the conversation of two costume assistants, one crying as he would lose his house if he did not pay $20,000 – on the same day, Keanu deposited the necessary amount in his bank account.
In 2010, on his birthday, Keanu walked into a bakery & bought a brioche with a single candle, ate it in front of the bakery, and offered coffee to people who stopped to talk to him.
To this day, Keanu is often seen wandering around New York City, riding the subway, and interacting with people.
Biden has lost his way,” Kennedy tweeted, arguing that the president should focus on America’s domestic problems instead of trying to achieve “global military dominance.”
“I want people to understand what this troop mobilization is about. It’s about preparing for a ground war with Russia,” he said.
The idea of defeating Moscow in its conflict with Kiev is a “futile geopolitical fantasy” of the Biden administration, the Democratic presidential candidate added.
Thousands of Ukreenions have already lost their lives because “America’s foreign policy establishment manipulated their country into war… Now, rather than acknowledge failure, Biden admin prepares to sacrifice American lives too,” Kennedy said.
Biden signed an executive order mobilizing 3,000 members of the US military’s Selected Reserve to boost the ranks of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which Washington launched in Europe in 2014 after Crimea rejoined Russia following the Western-backed coup in Kiev.
The leading Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, also had some harsh words to say about Biden’s decision to send more American troops to Europe. The “reckless escalation in Ukreen” pursued by the White House is “straining the US military to the point of disaster,” he said.
“Joe Biden can’t even walk up the steps of Air Force One without tripping. The last thing this incompetent administration should be doing is pushing us further toward World War III.”
Trump reiterated his earlier claim that if he becomes president again, he would end the conflict in Ukreen in 24 hours. “Not one American mother or father wants to send their child to die in Eastern Europe. We must have peace.”
I was a very good student in school. I was the house prefect, class monitor, vocabulary champion, General knowledge quiz champion, basically an overachiever. I put a lit of pressure on myself to maintain my academic rank and put lot of hard work in extra curricular activities.
I finished college, got a job but this overachiever in me wasn’t satisfied. I used to put extra hardwork in everything that I did. My job was very stressful. I would live and breathe work. I would stay late everyday to work.
As a result I started getting headaches on a regular basis. I developed backache at a very early stage (29). But old habits don’t change easily. I continued my workaholic ways.
I wanted to be the best at everything I did. The headaches continued and with time became nastier. I got a heamoragic stroke when I only 31 which paralyzed my right hand side. My speech was gone and I could barely walk. I couldn’t use my right hand.
Though I have recovered 95% but it took me 2 years. I can’t see myself in a stressful environment now.
Its like nature put a stop to my busy life. Now I have all the time in the world to sit and think, play games. I have started my own business. There is work but I do it at my own convenience. I take breaks and rest.
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I wish someone would have told me that the unhealthy competition and rat race that we learn from an early age be it in school or at home is not good. It can seriously harm your physical and mental health.
Take care of yourself. Health is the biggest asset we have. We should take care of it.
I was 17 and just out of highschool, having been kicked out of home at 16 and moved to a new town to be closer to my girlfriend. I thought I’d planned everything out - rent, gas money, etc. but learned that my new job paid only twice a month and withheld the first week.
That meant I had very little money and had to make groceries last 3 weeks. Not knowing how to cook, I bought rice and tomato paste, thinking I could make something palatable.
My new job was at a hospital laundry. I had to gather dirty laundry from all the floors in the hospital and bring them to the laundry. I was the only white guy.
The man who ran the machines must’ve noticed that I never ate lunch.
On the third day, he complained that his wife had packed one sandwich too many and asked if I would eat it so he wouldn’t have to throw it away.
Well, I must’ve wolfed it down pretty fast, because the following days she packed 2 sandwiches ‘too many’!
I was a stupid teenager and just felt lucky for his wife’s “mistakes”.
I wish I could tell him today, how much those sandwiches meant to me.
It is normal to malign an enemy before you attack it.
Presently, the NED has funded (along with the NSA funding) a hate-China narrative designed to galvanize the American people, and the rest of the world against China.
This narrative has multiple components. However, for reasons of brevity, we will concentrate in one specific narrative; “China has a weak, inexperienced military” narrative.
Of course, it is wrong, erroneous and deceptive. It is generated to convince soldiers, and the population to go to war, and NOT to expect consequences.
China has the oldest military in the world. Over 6000 years worth. The Chinese were conducting long organized campaigns with thousands of soldiers at a time when the Europeans were still living in caves and discovering fire.
China has the oldest Navy in the world. The first formal Chinese Navy was laid down around 1160. And was fighting huge naval engagements that involved hundreds of ships and thousands of men long before the British Navy in 1546 under Henry VIII was even a dream.
China is a military nation of warriors. Just because China prefers peace, does not mean that they are afraid of war. The first recorded military campaigns in China can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty (c. 2100–1600 BCE), which was followed by the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) and the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BCE). Some of the most significant military campaigns in Chinese history include the wars of the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE), which united China under a single emperor, the campaigns of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), which expanded China’s territory and influence, and the conquests of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), which established a powerful empire that controlled much of Asia.
Everyone in China is given military training. But the active duty forces are volunteers. One of the great joys that I have is watching my little girl line up in her camouflage fatigues and calling off roll call. Inside of China, it is the law that military training starts in first grade, and continues in every single year of school.
China has an enormous military. Unlike the United States which is spread out everywhere, and filled with a large proportion devoted to logistical concerns, China has a massive CONCENTRATED military. And it is larger that what the United States IS ABLE TO FIELD in battle.
China’s military is not only state-of-the-art but ABOVE peer to the USA. China has stealth bombers, fighters, drones, and submarines. It possesses weapons such as hyper-velocity delivery systems, search-and-destroy flying hand grenades, invisibility attire, platoon-level rail-guns, and suicide robot dogs. And that is just some of the impressive technology that is fielded by China.
China’s military is merit driven. In fact, the entire Chinese society is merit-driven. On the battlefield this makes all the difference between victory and defeat and life and death.
So the reason why “people” say that China is weak is due to complete ignorance. They are simply regurgitating NSA / NED talking points and believing them.
Overall, I advise people never to step into a boxing ring with someone who you know nothing about and with whom you never sparred with. You can get clobbered. Sure as shit.
This is why you do not want to be involved in a war with China…
Yes. My (ex) wife took the kids to the store to get groceries. On the way a drunk driver hit them. They were lucky to be alive.
She called me because it was only 2 miles from the house and the guy was trying to leave (his car was disabled).
I drove over there and immediately arrested him. We lived in The country of a farming rural area. State officers arrived not long after.
Most of the time I would just call incidents in and be a good witness if I didn’t need to intervene. I have called in crimes in progress and then just got into a position to watch safely. Like the time I saw a naked young Hispanic male doing karate moves on the side of the road in the middle of the day.
I parked down the street and called the local agency. I described what I was seeing including that he was a young Hispanic male adult.
When I was asked what he looked like I couldn’t resist. I said, “like a naked guy doing karate, it’ll be hard to miss him.”
The dispatcher laughed and said, “you’re a cop aren’t you?”
I watched a 90 lb female put a 235 lb guy in the hospital. This was a fight between 2 neighbors in my neighborhood. This guy harassed her for weeks then for some reason he decided to walk up to her front porch and knock on her door. I was sitting on my front porch when it happened. I was thinking this is not going to be good, and had my cell phone within reach.
She open her door and in a clear loud voice, she requested he get off her property. He said, what are you going to do about it. She said, I’ll call the police. He laughed at her and reached for the screen door. Before I could move she kicked him in the head twice, swept his legs out from under him, and he was down and bleeding.
I started to call the police, but again before I could dial the number a patrol car pulled up and the officer put the guy in handcuffs. I just sat there, drank my coffee and waited for him to come over and ask what I saw. I told him and signed the bottom of the form.
As he walked away he said you know the woman? I replied yes, she’s a former Marine. He chuckled and said. I guess the guy didn’t know that, and I laughed.
I was ringing up a lady’s stuff. Belt was to my left. I was going pretty quickly.
Lady behind her: thats MY stuff
The other lady apologized but i told her the things behindher werent her responsibility. She leaves. I tell the next lady to just use a red divider next time.
Lady: WHAT… 3 FEET OF SPACE ISNT ENOUGH SPACE FOR YOU TO KNOW THE ORDER ENDED?!
Grrrrr not today. Id already had people pushing all my buttons for hours. That was it
Me: I DONT KNOW WHAT SCHOOL YOU WENT TO, BUT THIS (holds hands about 4 inches apart) IS NOT “3 FEET”! THATS WHY WE HAVE DIVIDERS! HER STUFF, YOUR STUFF. HOW DO I KNOW? ITS DI-VI-DED! NOW I KNOW 3 SYLLABLES MIGHT ME KIND OF DIFFICULT FOR YOU…
I sat there absolutely berating the woman the entire time i was ringing her up. As she was walking away after i had finished, im still on fucking FIRE. HEY! IM NOT DONE WITH YOU YET! and i audibly growl as i turn to the next person in line.
Next person, terrified: I used a divider
2nd person: i used a divider
3rd person: i used two!
It was really hard not to laugh right then, as furious as i was. No idea how a manager or supervisor didnt hear me putting this woman in her place.
well LOLOLOLOLOLOL I can’t believe it took over a week for a single “Karen” to find this post and tell me that she would’ve gotten me fired. I am glad the rest of you had a good laugh.
My mother died. The administrator of her estate began closing down her various accounts and sending checks to all her kids. My first check was $31,000. I took it to my bank (Bank of the West) where I had been banking for about 25 years, expecting them to tell me it would take a week to clear. Instead they told me that they couldn’t accept it. Then they said they could accept it tentatively and that I couldn’t have the money for 30–60 days and there would be a $40 charge to process it. I went down the street to Chase, opened a new account and they accepted the check and it cleared in 6 days.
When I went back to BoW to close my account the manager said “I’m sorry you feel that way” and I replied “I’m sorry you made me feel that way”.
I read it as $ 6.8 Billion — $ 3 Billion from IMF , $ 2 Billion from the Saudi Royal Bank , $ 1 Billion from the Emirati Central Bank and $ 800 Million from Oman
$ 7 Billion is 11–12 months of Imports and that would make Pakistan quite comfortable again
Pakistan claimed a loss of PKR 6 Trillion due to floods and earthquake ($ 30 Billion)
However the real figure is closer to PKR 500 Billion ($ 2.5 Billion)
So Pakistan has been given QUITE A BIT MORE
$ 100 Billion is almost 6 years of Imports
Unless Oil was discovered in Pakistan
Anyway Pakistan is rescued for now
They will get $ 333 Million a month from IMF for 9 months
They have got $ 3.8 Billion from Saudi and UAE and Oman
They now have Russian Oil and pay for it in Yuan. In the last 2 months, they only spent 26% of their last USD reserves & 74% of their Yuan reserves
Two CPEC Projects declared a 15% profit for the first time and AFTER PAYING INTEREST TO CHINA
Bad news for Imran Khan
My guess is the West were so worried about Imrans return and a complete cut off with the US and the West that they decided to give the loans and agree to Status Quo with China and Russia
However there is another reason
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The US are VERY ANGRY with India and Mr Modi because he didn’t bite on a single temptation offered by the US
They thought he would be firmly in the US Camp and sign orders for those Hornets (F18) and Predators and turn down those Migs
Instead Modiji (Deeply appreciative of him) maintained his advise from Jaishankar and rightly signed with a more reliable partner France
He also agreed to continue the contracts for those Migs
The IMF bailout was proforma signed a few days before Modi’s visit
My guess is if Modi had done what US wanted, the IMF would have walked back and said SORRY PAKISTAN. WE NEED ANOTHER YEAR
However strategically MBS and UAE walked in with their $ 3.8 Billion Loan (Around 6 months imports , 9 months with the Yuan) and IMF had no choice. Either say yes or risk complete alienation with Pakistan
Plus Modi didn’t bite
The IMF signed the final bailout agreement barely 24 hours after Modi’s visit ended (23/6/23)
WHERE HAVE ALL THE CARPENTERS GONE?
The growing trade labor shortage is a crises that has not quite struck home yet…but it’s about to. This short video from The Honest Carpenter discusses how the generational decrease in trade participation is hitting the entire construction industry. But it’s affecting some trades more than others…
Must watch.
(Why The Trade Labor Shortage Is Only Beginning…)
For what it’s worth, I think that the trade labor shortage is a reflection of a true paradigm shift.
A hundred years ago, nearly every job in the world was primarily physical.
For that reason, physical labor was considered cheap, because everyone engaged in it to some degree.
You had your choice of workers to pick from.
Now, so many of our jobs are intellectual in nature.
There are so many places to go and work that aren’t really physical at all.
When these jobs were fewer, and fewer people were qualified to do them, they were considered high-value.
But as they have multiplied, their relative value has decreased overall (except for certain positions).
But at the same time, people have maintained their view that trade labor is not very valuable.
And yet, they completely neglect the fact that FAR FEWER people are doing it now, and it is in EXTREMELY high demand.
In a way, I think that blue collar jobs will slowly become sort of the next steady white collar jobs, as the general population is forced to adjust, slowly over decades, its understanding of the value of these jobs.
When you can’t find a carpenter anywhere, a good, independent carpenter will suddenly seem very high value.
And I believe that this should be reflected in their pay.
Mike Rowe explains why more workers are ‘quietly quitting’
Yes. This is a trend int he United States. Why work when the lazy makes more than you? Paid to do nothing.
I met him when he was 39 and I 33. He had never been married and I had been. I had three children ages 7 to 12. I thought “he won’t commit” but I was still intrigued. A year later, we were living together. Five more and we were engaged. He had all the assets and I had all the liabilities when we met, but he never held it against me. He was supportive and took to the kids like they were his own. He took my son to little league and my daughter to ballet. He ferried kids around including their friends and made dinner for all of us when I had to work late. Whenever they got in trouble, he kept his cool. We survived and thrived.
Now, whenever an opportunity arises, I tell him he has already given me the most wonderful present a woman could want. A great husband, and the best father my children ever knew. Their natural father was a deadbeat dad who moved away and didn’t support them either financially or emotionally. My husband is the man they think of as their father. They are all in their late 40s and early 50s and they let him know how much he means to them. If they need help fixing something, he will go and help even though it means travel and inconvenience. They call him as often as me.
He has told me many times, he would do it all over again. That’s nearly 40 years of a commitment to me and my three children. Not only is he a good husband, he is a good father and a phenomenal human being. I am the luckiest woman in the world.
China Bans Exports Of Word’s Thinnest Hand Torn Steel To U.S And Europe!
I was a financial analyst at a large construction company and sat in on production meetings to track progress on high rises and analyze risk.
I could fill a book with the stories of what happened at this company. Large-scale construction isn’t for the faint of heart. So many things can go wrong and you can get fired on the turn of a dime. The pressure of deadlines and tight budgets has the toughest guys sweating.
We were in a routine group meeting. There were six of us in the room discussing a construction project we were working on. We gathered around the table to review the details of the project.
Suddenly, the manager, Steve, gets a call. He holds his hand up to pause us and says, “Hang on, it’s the customer.”
Steve puts the phone to his ear and right away, you hear right through his cell phone, “IT’S F%#KING EMBARRASSMENT. NONE OF THE GOD DAMN REFRIGERATORS WORK. NONE OF YOUR TEAM KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING.”
We could hear it clear as day, going through Steve’s skull and into the conference room.
Everyone froze and looked at each other.
Steve stands up and slides out of the room as the customer continues yelling through the phone.
For 2 minutes, we can hear the customer yelling as Steve paces up and down the hallway.
About 5 minutes later, Steve steps back into the room and sits down in his chair. The room is silent.
Then, one of our more sarcastic engineers says to Steve,
“So Steve — was he mad?”
It got a few chuckles out of the guys. Steve looked up, smiled, and said, “No. Not mad at all.”
Sometimes — doing the opposite of what seems logical in a dire moment can be the exact thing you need.
A friend of mine is a military trauma surgeon who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He saw the absolute worst things come through his operating room doorway each day. He spent years putting mangled people back together and saving lives. Consequently, it was the ultimate trauma surgeon training ground (if you end up needing urgent surgery, these veterans are the ones you want).
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I asked him, “How did you deal with the horror show that kept replaying each day?”
He said he and the other doctors had several mechanisms, but they always maintained their sense of humor with each other. Specifically, they had a gallows humor. They stared directly into the abyss and it became an odd sense of relief.
For the record, these jokes were between each other — not to patients, but this was my favorite he told me:
A patient wakes up from surgery and the doctor tells me, “I have good news and bad news, which would you like first?”
The patient pauses for a moment, then, looks up at the doctor and says, “How about you give me the bad news first, and then the good news so it brings me back up.”
The doctor says, “Well, the bad news is, I had to amputate both of your legs.
The patient sighs in dissapointment. Shrugs and says, “And the good news?”
“The guy down the hall wants to buy your shoes.”
If it doesn’t hurt anyone, find humor when you can. Be tactful. Don’t make a joke after someone just found out their mother died.
Can you believe this is China? Inside my new apartment Part 2
The best revenge I ever heard of was not mine, but a friend of my father’s. There was a bar owner in Astoria who received an enormous rent increase after the landlord noticed how profitable his bar was. The landlord was certain that he would not want to move such an established and profitable business and start over again in a new location.
After giving him the bad news, the landlord demanded to know again and again whether he would renew the lease. The bar owner kept mum. On the very last day of the lease, with a bar full of patrons, the bartender announced to all that he had rented the spot across the street from his old place and offered everyone free drinks on the house in exchange for helping him move.
They all grabbed tables and chairs and equipment and moved it across the street, piece by piece. Before the day was out, he was moved and without losing a single customer. The landlord got an empty space and the loss of a few month’s rent.
Most MASSIVE military bill EVER just announced by U.S. Congress
The House of Representatives passed a new defense budget for 2024 that comes in at $886 billion.
Even though this is a military bill, it has some hidden social policies included such as limiting abortion access for service members and a ban on transgender procedures such as cross-sex hormones and surgeries on military health plans.
The bill also includes a 5.2% raise for troops as well as a new branch of the military called the Space National Guard. The Senate is working on its own version of this bill before some version of it goes to President Biden to sign.
Attacked? Yes, you will be attacked if you plan to parade like this in Asia
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Some Asians do not take lightly to such actions, just like Jews not taking people parading Hitler Germany in their face. These some Asians aren’t weakling if they work with their hands everyday. They are simple and honest people who aren’t afraid to show you their fists. Doesn’t matter if you are Mike Tyson, 200 men come at you, you will be Mike Mincemeat.
This is probably the only time a foreigner will face violence in Asia (outside of random crime spree). But hey, I heard China is incredibly safe. Even women aren’t afraid to walk alone at night. So you will be ok.
About American controversy…
Are Chinese always right? Not really. China has 1.4 billion people. Who knows what everyone thinks? Chinese has a fair share of lunatics, conspiracy theorists, Falun Gong cultists, scam artists, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, kidnappers…
I will not jump to a Chinese person’s defense without first finding out what’s going on. I can tell you that much.
However…
If you truly live in the West, especially America, you would be used to the frenzy political atmosphere of America. Pro-gun, anti-gun, pro-life, pro-choice, pro Trump, anti-Trump, Go Brandon, Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, etc…. You know not to discuss politics with coworkers and strangers, especially not antagonizing them.
I always say “let’s leave politics for the politicians” when someone tries to get political. Not because I am not passionate about politics, but because these debates in real life will often get out of hands. No benefit, all risks.
Why is it any difference in China? Don’t go arguing with local Chinese, whether you think you are right or not. If you trust them, you can let them in for a friendly and respectful discussion. Otherwise, do not instigate politics discussion anywhere you go, with taxi drivers, shopkeepers, people you met on the trains, security guards at the mall. Keep your fancy politics to yourself!
This advice is good for everywhere you go in the world!
If you are a CIA agent who wants to instigate troubles, then do the opposite of what I said.
Will Chinese attack me?
Just for being an American? Highly unlikely. Chinese aren’t violent in nature. And Chinese cares about face a lot. Chinese people do not want foreigners to think they are rude, violent, and unreasonable. Most Chinese anyway.
If one Chinese angrily charges at you, you yell out “Don’t be unreasonable. What did I ever do to you?”
He will stop and think twice about his reckless action. At least he will shout out his reasons for wanting to attack you. You will get a chance to reason with him. You can go “I am not American government. I cannot control what they do. But they also do not control what I do and think”.
Pause 3 seconds and say: “I am in China because l like China enough to be here. Don’t you see?”
This will perplex most brutes. Then he will feel embarrassed. He will offer to treat you for a meal and some beer. And there you go, you will have turned an ass whooping incident into a friend making opportunity. Who knows, you two will be good friends.
Most brutes are honest and straight forward people. They mean what they say. They are very dependable friends. Far better than those friends of yours who only show up when they want something from you.
Chinese has an idiom: 不打不相识
(Bù dǎ bù xiāngshí)
Meaning: [sometimes] we make friends through initial conflict. Because of a misunderstanding, we get into a fight with them. Through conflict resolution, we get to know them and become good friends.
Hahah, I think I got carried away writing stories. But seriously, most Chinese are law-bidding citizens who find no benefit in senseless violence. They will lecture or curse the hell out of you though.
So be a smart person and avoid politics. You will get along with Chinese just fine. If you ever hear someone say “go back to America, you are not welcome here”, let me know. Because this is a one in a million story. Time to buy lottery.
When I was in university, one of my friends offered to buy me lunch,and have some beers with me on a slow Tuesday afternoon. I was a Sophomore at the time, as I recall, and we went to Hungry Charlies and I had this enormous Turkey Grinder and we split a pitcher of beer. Good times. We then went back to the dorm.
He then went and proceeded to pull out his bag of weed, claiming that it was home grown and very weak. He didn’t smoke any, but I was all good for it. I smoked up the entire bag, with no effects. He didn’t and just chuckled.
I turned out to be parsley and he wanted to experiment on me to see if he could get me horny.
It didn’t work.
It also didn’t smoke bad either, as I recall.
Anyways, I have a history of people trying to get me to become horny. Mostly girls. And of them, if I were just a little bit more aware, I would of had a much more interesting time growing up.
But I was a clueless as you could be, and it is only now that I look back at what transpired and what could have been. It’s called “Life”.
A gigantic explosion has taken place at the Hsiang Feng military base on Taiwan. DPP Authorities are already describing this as “Chinese Sabotage in advance of invasion.”
The situation is volatile. A significant number of people are said to be dead and injured.
Finger pointing (in public) at China is not subsiding.
This ammunition dump was THE primary ammo supply for Taiwan military.
If China were to invade now, Taiwan could not fight for longer than a week before running out of ammo and losing.
In the capital city of Taipei, people are TERRIFIED and streets are LITERALLY empty; as if an air raid is taking place:
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Biden and his economy
Forbes Media Chairman Steve Forbes said Friday he was “amazed” by the administration’s rhetoric on the economy.
“A year ago, Joe Biden was calling himself the deficit cutter, the deficit slasher. This year, two and a half times the deficit is what it was a year ago,” he told “America’s Newsroom.”
“He says he’s bringing down inflation, still twice what it was when he came into office and those prices are not coming down, just the rate of increase is coming down. People’s credit card debt, where is that? Record high. Business investment is not what it should be, headwinds overseas.”
“What kind of world does he think he’s living in?”
The president delivered a full-throated defense of Bidenomics , claiming credit for bringing down inflation, slashing the federal budget by $1.7 trillion and creating 13 million new jobs.
In June, Biden made the same claim about cutting the deficit by $1.7 trillion, which The Washington Post rated “highly misleading.”
Voters also have their doubts; Biden had a 60% disapproval rating on the economy in Fox News’ June poll, which was a 7% improvement from the prior year.
in 2024 and argued his record on the economy is one of the main reasons.
“People feel the institution in this country [they] can’t trust anymore. And both sides, you see that feeling, which is why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is getting real traction. Who would have thought of that a year ago?”
Former economic adviser to President Trump Steve Moore told “The Faulkner Focus” Friday that the Biden economy is not working for many Americans.
“The people that have really been the victims of the Biden policies have been middle-class Americans,” he explained.
“Inflation is coming down, no question about it. It was 9% this time last summer. It’s down to a little over 3% now, which is good news. But guess what? That huge inflation that we saw in the first two and a half years of Biden’s presidency is now baked in the cake. In other words, if you go to the grocery store, or you go to get your gas fill up, or you buy an airline ticket or buy meat, all of those things on average are up 15 and a half percent. And that’s going to continue as we continue to have this inflation.”
Moore continued, “wages over that same time period for middle-class families are up roughly 12%. So the math here isn’t difficult, a 15 and a half percent increase in inflation, a 12% increase in wages means people are falling behind, and they’re feeling it.”
“Who do you think gets hurt the most by inflation? People who have spent their whole lifetime building up their savings. So we estimate, for example, that the average 401(k) plan has lost about 40 or $50,000 in its purchasing power because of the high inflation and the fact that the market had not done so well,” Moore said. “The stock market is doing better now, thank God. But it’s really difficult for people now to just retire on Social Security.”
The U.S. dollar stands at the crossroads of a new financial order as the BRICS alliance is looking to launch a new currency.
The present objective of BRICS is to dethrone the U.S. dollar and make the new currency the world’s reserve status.
BRICS is advancing in its mission to challenge the U.S. dollar by convincing developing countries to end reliance on the greenback.
The bloc remains successful as close to 41 countries have expressed interest to trade in the new BRICS currency.
The development could put a strain on the U.S. economy as the greenback would have no means to fund its deficit. While the debt ceiling crisis is yet to be resolved, the burden of a ‘BRICS currency success’ will take a toll on the American economy.
Heritage Foundation economist E. J. Antoni warned that the U.S. dollar is on the brink of losing its reserve currency status. Antoni explained that if developing countries ditch the dollar and trade in BRICS currency, the debt ceiling crisis could worsen.
The economist rang the warning bells saying that if America fails to fund its deficit, seven decades of deficits could flood the U.S. economy. He said that if such a situation arises, the U.S. economy might fall into hyperinflation where prices of all commodities would skyrocket.
“Losing reserve currency status would mean 70 years of deficits flooding back to the U.S. All competing with existing dollars held domestically to buy goods and services. That’s a hyperinflation scenario. It also means we could no longer export inflation abroad. So we’d bear the FULL COST of past and future inflation.
Earth is the Most Difficult Planet to Incarnate Into | Near Death Experience Researcher David Suich
If you belong to a class that writes the rules that favour you and enrich you thinking it could last forever you won’t want it to end. It is that simple. Just think about this. Prices of commodities are controlled by the west to be deflated at will to keep the rest of the world barely making a living Basically so that the west can literally keep the rest of the world as mere or near slaves and the west makes products that the rest of the world have to harvest an acre of land a year to afford a little radio!
From the end of colonialism after the 2nd world war in 1945 till 1995, the western so call “ rules based international order does just that. They wrote the rules, they police these rules and the judges are the 5 Anglo white Caucasian eyes. In 1945 after the world is burnt to ashes. The developing world could not do a thing. Crumbs off the western table kept us alive.
But bit by bit starting with the Japanese and the Germans. Then Oriental east, ASEAN, Indian subcontinent. Now Africa and Latin America are no longer in need to pay heed to these institutions and soon the hegemonic dollar too. China is one of the enabler BRICS is collectively responsible. Now the BRiCS plus some 40 nations are coming together to set its own rules or at least rejecting the western order.
Western elites clearly don’t like this. But it needs to accept that cheating the world 50 years after stealing and plundering them for 300 years simply cannot go on. If you simply summarise this 350 years, 15% of mainly white Anglo Saxon people stole plunder, looted from the world and kept them impoverished and dilapidated while the western elites build grandeur castles. How can they not feel threatened? Of course they do but to the world it is good riddance.
I have lobster traps stacked in my yard. Every spring, I set them out and around December, I bring them ashore and re-stack them. It’s been going on like that for years.
When the elderly lady next door passed away, the house was sold to a couple with addresses in NY and Conn. So, they moved to this small town and decided, we don’t like the looks of those traps.
I asked, what makes the difference? It’s a summer home, the traps are gone before you get here and you’re gone before I take them back up and stack them in the yard.
It didn’t matter, we ended up in court, everyone had their say and the judge was going to think it over.
Before he hit the gavel, my lawyer asked to make one more statement.
He said “your Honor, these folks bought a house, in a fishing village, on an island, on the coast of Maine. What in heck did they think was going to be next door?”
He decided in my favor right then.
How Bad is the Chinese Economy? Walk Through Shanghai Reveals Truth
How bad is the Chinese economy? We hear it everyday in the news, but what is the economic situation on the ground in China? In today’s video, I hit the streets of Shanghai and explore a local neighborhood seeing what life is like in China in 2023 and share my experiences of speaking with some Chinese youth about the future of the Chinese economy
NOPE
2023 07 23 08 16
Italian Meatloaf
italian meatloaf recipe with parmesan cheese 3058337 hero 01 68dfb9c2ec6f4338989cbf8cb6a769cc
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground mild Italian sausage
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
2 slices white bread, crumbled
1 tablespoon milk
8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese, reserve 3/4 cup for topping
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup marinara sauce, plus 1/2 to 3/4 cup more for topping
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
In a small skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and sauté the onion and bell pepper for 3 to 4 minutes; remove from heat.
In a large bowl, add the meats, onion and bell pepper along with all remaining ingredients reserving 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese for topping. Mix very well. Place and mold the mixture in a baking dish of your choice.
Spoon 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the marinara sauce on top and spread around.
Bake for 50 minutes.
Remove from the oven and top with the remaining cheese and sprinkle a little dry basil over the top.
Return to the oven for 10 more minutes. Make sure the meat is not pink before serving. Baking time will vary depending on the thickness of the loaf.
The government of French President Emmanuel Macron is under attack by the Anglo-American imperial establishment. The civil unrest that erupted across the nation was triggered by the 27 June 2023 Police killing of the 17-year old Nahel Merzouk (NM) in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. NM was driving a car without a driving license, failed to comply with police orders and for that he was shot point blank by two officers in full riot gear. NM was of Algerian origin. The next day, riots broke out in many cities across France: Paris, Marseille, Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Grenoble and also Brussels in Belgium. Some areas were left looking like war zones.
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In fact, some of the riots did resemble low-intensity warfare. According to some reports, US weapons donated to Ukraine have found their way through black markets to the streets of French cities and into the hands of the protesters who used them in coordinated attacks on police and firefighters. Just on the night of Jun 30/July 1
, 41 police stations were attacked, 79 police officers injured, 2560 fires were set in the streets, 1360 cars and 234 buildings were burnt. The government deployed 45,000 police and gendarmes to bring the situation under control, but thus far, the rioting has continued with great intensity for five straight days, threatening to destabilize the nation.
President Emmanuel Macron is under increasing pressure, not only from the rioters and the opposition, but more ominously, also from his own Police forces and the military. Police Unions of France wrote to Macron threatening to revolt: “Today the police are in combat as we are at war. Tomorrow we will be in the resistance and the government should be aware of this.” Certain military circles appear ready to turn against Macron. General Pierre Villiers, who is apparently well respected among the French military commanders said
that the army should be loyal to the people, not to Emmanuel Macron.
Nothing is what it seems…
So far, the events may seem straightforward to understand at the levels of pawns opposed to one another in the streets of French cities: the abusive government of President Macron and its security apparatus is under attack by the people whose legitimate grievances went past the boiling point. From there, it’s easy to assume that Macron’s government even instigated the riots deliberately in order to crack down and tyrannize the people according to their plan. Heck, Macron is the Rothschilds’ errand boy and a loyal World Economic Forum young leader.
You’re either with us, or you’re against us.
All of that sounds plausible, but there’s a far broader context to this story. The present crisis draws root from the very strained relationship between French ruling elites and the Anglo-American imperial establishment, which spans centuries. A more thorough analysis of this relationship could fill many volumes but for now we’ll focus on just the more recent developments. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, President George W. Bush announced to the world that, “you are either with us, or you are against us.” He wasn’t just saying words: the empire was preparing to cement the unipolar global order, eliminate its rivals, establish full-spectrum dominance and launch its Project For The New American Century.
France has never accepted the role of a junior partner or unquestioning ally, let alone a vassal to the Anglo-American Empire. It has continued to be a pain in its side at critical junctures. Here are a few examples of the last two decades’ spats between the two sides:
2003: French opposition to US invasion of Iraq
In late 2002 and early 2003, the Administration of George W. Bush was working feverishly to secure its allies’ support for an invasion of Iraq. In February 2002, US State Secretary Colin Powell waved a vial of white powder at the UN Security Council, accusing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of possessing biological weapons of mass destruction. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin wasn’t impressed. In a searing speech he poured cold water on US case for war and called out Powell’s performance as dubious and unconvincing. A few weeks later, on 10 March 2003 President Jacques Chirac made it clear
that France would vote against any UN Resolution authorizing US attack on Iraq. In this, France would vote on the side of Russia and China (talk about foreshadowing).
2008: France opposes Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO
One of the most important projects of the Anglo-American empire over the past three decades has been to encircle Russia by absorbing all of her neighbors to the west and southwest into the NATO alliance. In several waves of eastward extensions, NATO added 14 new member states, moving more than 1,600 km toward Russia. Ukraine and Georgia were next: at the April 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, the alliance proclaimed the Bucharest Memorandum. Referencing Ukraine and Georgia, they explicitly declared that, “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” While not yet a full-fledged member of the alliance’s integrated command, France was openly opposed to the resolution on the grounds that it would exacerbate the risk of war with Russia.
2019: Emmanuel Macron calls NATO a ‘brain-dead’ alliance
in October 2019 titled, “Emmanuel Macron warns Europe: NATO is becoming brain-dead,” French President warned European countries they can no longer rely on US-dominated military alliance (note, by now France was a full-fledged NATO member): “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” and declared that Europe needed to “wake up,” as it stood on “the edge of a precipice” and needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power, otherwise as Europeans, we’ll “no longer be in control of our destiny.” Worse, when asked whether he believed in the effectiveness of Article Five which provides that if one NATO member is attacked all would mobilize to defend it, Macron gave a convoluted, cryptic reply: “I don’t know, … what will Article Five mean tomorrow?”
But President Macron and his government would become still more problematic for the Anglo-American cabal with the escalation of conflict in Ukraine. Of all European leaders, Macron has spent the most time visiting with or speaking on the phone with his Russian counterpart; he sought to improve relations between Russia and France and he tried to influence other European nations to chart a more independent policy on the continent.
2022: Macron says Russia has legitimate security concerns
to take seriously Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO expansion near its border. He called for greater willingness to give Moscow the “guarantees” necessary for negotiations to be successful. He called them ‘essential’ if the West wants to get serious about talks and peaceful settlement. “We need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.” Macron added that, “One of the essential points we must address — as President Putin has always said — is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.” These comments elicited rage and disbelief among the Anglo-American allies and western media who accused the French President of being a pro-Kremlin stooge.
April 2023: Macron visits China, flirts with BRICS nations
Emmanuel Macron provoked even more rage and disbelief after his three day high-profile, red-carpet visit to China, from 6 through 8 April 2023. Western “national security experts” were so alarmed by this visit, they called the event
“one of the greatest blunders by a major European power since the end of the Cold war…” Indeed, it was a slap in the face to the Anglo-American establishment.
in South China’s Guangdong Province where he received an enthusiastic welcome. He delivered a speech on China-France ties and took questions from the students. There may have been a subtle message in the very venue chosen by his hosts. Sun Yat-Sen was a vocal critic of the British Imperial system and their foreign policy. In his book, “The Vital Problem of China,” Sun Yat-Sen wrote that,
“When England befriends another country, the purpose is not to maintain a cordial friendship for the sake of friendship but to utilize that country as a tool to fight a third country. When an enemy has been shorn of his power, he is turned into a friend, and the friend who has become strong, into an enemy. England always remains in a commanding position; she makes other countries fight her wars and she herself reaps the fruits of victory. She has been doing so for hundreds of years.”
Speaking to journalists on the return flight from Beijing, Macron said that, “Europe must resist pressure to become America’s followers…” that the “great risk” Europe faces is getting “caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its own autonomy,” and that, “Europe had increased its dependence on US for weapons and energy and must focus on boosting its defense industries.” In referring to Ukraine, Macron said that it was, “a faraway country of which we know nothing…” But even this wasn’t as unforgivable as his swipe at the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar.”
While in China, Macron signed many deals expanding bilateral trade between France and China, many of which will be denominated in Chinese yuan. Already before Macron’s visit, in March 2023 French companies began to strike such deals, the first of which was the purchase of 65,000 metric tons of liquid natural gas settled in yuan. French leadership’s willingness to craft their own bilateral relations with Anglo-American Empire’s chief rival and bypassing the US dollar is simply unforgivable. But Macron would soon go farther: according to the newspaper L’Opinion, during last month’s telephone conversation, French President asked his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa to extend him an invitation to participate in the 15th BRICS Summit planned to be held in South Africa in late July/early August.
It’s about the two systems of governance…
It is important to keep in mind the broadest context of the current global conflict. As George Soros laid it out in his annual address to the World Economic Forum
in May 2021, it is the conflict between the two systems of governance. Soros mischaracterized them as “open societies” and “closed societies.” In reality, we’re witnessing the conflict between the western imperial colonial system and pretty much the whole rest of humanity.
The imperial system governance is controlled by the western occult oligarchy which, while it gives lip-service to the rule of law, freedom, democracy and human rights, in reality it consistently sows mayhem abroad and misery at home. Truth be told, the French ruling elites have also enjoyed the massive privileges of this system for centuries. However, they never accepted subservience to the Anglo-American establishment and always sought to plunder and exploit its colonies on their own terms.
Ukraine is some faraway place to you?
We don’t know yet whether France will indeed be invited to the upcoming BRICS Summit, but in the world where not being “with us” equals being “against us,” the Empire simply can’t tolerate the uppity independence of France. You think our military alliance is brain-dead? You don’t want to be our vassal? You dare to strike trade deals with China and trade in yuan? You want to seek peace with Russia? And Ukraine is some faraway place to you? Clearly, this is unacceptable and the Anglo-American establishment has had enough of France’s insubordination. It was time to teach France a lesson and bring her into line with the Anglo-American agenda.
AUKUS alliance: a stab in the back to France
The most recent sign of the Anglo-American cabal’s contempt for the French was the 2021 announcement of the AUKUS alliance between the US, UK and Australia. In 2016, France made a deal with Australia to supply 12 conventional submarines for her navy. The deal was worth $37 billion – a very substantial amount by any measure. French diplomacy celebrated it as the “contract of the century,” important not only for its sheer size and the strengthening of France’s relationship with Australia but also in terms of securing French strategic influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
But then, on Wednesday, 15 Sep. 2021 US President Joe Biden, UK PM Boris Johnson, and “that fellow down under,” as Biden addressed Australia’s then PM Scott Morrison, announced a “historic” security alliance between the US, Britain and Australia. Part of the deal included US and UK providing Australia with nuclear submarines and a significant transfer of US military technology.
With no prior consultations or warning, Britain, Australia and the US, otherwise well known for the high value they place on sanctity of contract, simply sidelined France, tore up her contract with Australia and threw French interests overboard provoking indignation and anger in France. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian referred to the AUKUS announcement as evidence of duplicity, treachery, and a stab in the back to France from her supposed allies and partners.
to the United States and Australia and Le Drian stated that there was now a crisis of trust with the US. EU Council’s President Charles Michel also strongly criticized the AUKUS announcement, accusing the Anglo-American club of leaving Europe “out of the game in the Indo-Pacific region.” This was not the first massive humiliation dished out to France from the same “friendly” Anglo-American circles.
Haiti’s reparations: how the US punished France’s opposition to Iraq invasion
American diplomacy and secret services found it easy to punish France’s opposition to the Iraq invasion and the embarrassment that France’s Foreign Minister Dominic De Villepin inflicted on the US delegation in the UN Security Council in February of 2003.
Jean Bertrand Aristide had first become Haiti’s president in 1991, but was deposed in a military coup after less than eight months in office. He spent years in exile in the US before coming back to power again in 2000 elections, with the help of the US. His US liaison was the diplomat and CIA agent Luis Moreno. On 7 April 2003 Aristide suddenly started calling for colonial-era reparations from France (note, this was 18 days after the start of the US invasion of Iraq). The precise amount that Aristide was demanding was $21,685,135,571.48 – that sum represented the lower-end of the scale of estimated damage inflicted on Haiti by France.
Formerly known as Saint Domingue, Haiti was a French colony, supplying sugar, coffee and tobacco to much of Europe. It was a boon to French merchants, slave owners and financiers. But in 1791 Haiti’s slaves staged a successful rebellion and won their freedom. In 1801, when Napoleon sent a large armada to subjugate them again, they defeated his troops and in 1804 Haiti’s leaders declared independence.
But France wasn’t ready to give up Haiti. King Charles X sent another armada in 1825 offering to recognize Haiti’s independence, provided that Haiti’s government agreed to pay an extortionate tribute in the amount of 150 million gold Francs. How much money was that? In 1803, France agreed to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States for 80 million Francs – an area that was 77 times larger than Haiti. But Haiti’s choice was simple: pay up, or it’s war!
The French would have been able to impose a naval blockade on Haiti and entirely cut them off from global trade and payment systems. Haitians had no choice but to submit to French ultimatum. To pay the ransom, Haiti was forced to borrow the sums from French bankers and pay back the loans plus interest from the proceeds of their commodity exports. Incidentally, this was the beginning of the new model of colonialism based on financial debts rather than military occupation. That, essentially is the imperial model of governance plaguing humanity to this day.
Haiti’s tragic experience was the only time in history when freed slaves had to pay restitution to their former masters and borrow funds from them to meet the ransom payments. This is why Haiti’s humiliation was called the Double Debt: it took Haitians over 130 years to pay it back and doomed the nation to chronic austerity, underdevelopment and crushing poverty.
It also made Aristide’s demand for restitution legitimate and an absolute bombshell for France. His campaign grew bolder over time with banners, bumper-stickers, government adds and graffiti spread all around the country. Not only was Aristide demanding a very substantial amount of money from France in reparations, he also encouraged other former colonies to join his fight and demand their own reparations from France.
French government was stumped with this development which their Ambassador to Haiti Mr. Yves Gaudeul called explosive. He urged his government to open discussions with Haiti to diffuse the situation, but he was firmly rejected. Instead, France recalled Gaudeul and sent a less sympathetic Ambassador to Haiti, Mr. Thierry Burkard, who explained the situation in stark terms: “Algeria can perfectly make claims, as well as most of our colonies… There’s no end to it. It would have set a precedent that we would have been greatly blamed for.”
Thankfully for France, the problem disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Before dawn on 29 February 2004 Luis Moreno, that same US “diplomat” who helped bring Aristide to power in 2000, came to his residence flanked with security officials and demanded Aristide’s resignation. Mr. and Mrs. Aristide were simply abducted and flown out of the country on a US-chartered plane back into exile. Haiti’s new, western-backed leader, Gerard Latortue dropped the restitution demands and the whole messy affair was closed.
Even though Jean Bertrand Aristide had been in power since the beginning of 2001, his calls for reparations came more than two years later, seemingly out of nowhere, but soon after France’s snub to the US over the Iraq invasion. Aristide demanded reparations from France, but never from the United States which had occupied it, or held it in debt bondage since 1915, subjecting it to equally rapacious exploitation.
Even before military occupation, in December 1914, US Marines landed in Haiti’s capital, Port-Au-Prince, broke into Haiti’s National Bank and simply took some $500,000 worth of gold belonging to Haiti’s government. Within days, Haiti’s gold was in the vaults of New York banks. Still, Aristide apparently made no precise calculation of damages inflicted on Haiti by the United States.
Furthermore, in an email exchange between Aristide’s government legal counsel Ira Kurzban, and their international law advisor Gunther Handl, the latter advised Kurzban that “Haiti must convey to France,” that there are suitable opportunities “for washing France’s dirty laundry in public.” It’s almost as though the affair was about pressuring and embarrassing France rather than securing justice for Haiti.
That notion is confirmed by the simple fact that France’s problem disappeared only after US agents removed Aristide from power, rather than after earnest negotiations with Haiti’s representatives and France’s acceptance of some obligation to Haiti. This fact alone suggests that France yielded to the United States in some backroom deal, not to Haiti. Perhaps France dropped its challenge to the New American Century and its full-spectrum dominance, and pledged her allegiance to the hegemon.
In 1966 under President Charles de Gaulle, France removed all her troops from NATO’s integrated military command and asked all non-French NATO troops to leave France. In 2009, only a few years after the Haiti affair (plus the destabilizing 2005 riots for a good measure), France once more became a full-fledged member of the North Atlantic alliance. But everyone did not live happily ever after and the relations with France remained difficult.
The Damocles’ sword of France’s colonial past
The Damocles’ sword of France’s ugly colonial past (though no more ugly than that of Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Great Britain or Germany), was brought up again in November 2022 when Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appeared on Italian channel 7
airing some of France’s particularly ugly-looking colonial dirty laundry. She showed the Italian public two exhibits: a CFA Franc banknote and a photo of a child working in a gold mine in Burkina Faso: “This is called the CFA franc. It is the colonial currency that France prints for 14 African nations, to which it applies seigniorage and by virtue of which it exploits the resources of these nations…“
Meloni claimed that thanks to the CFA Franc, 50% of everything that Burkina Faso exports ends up in the French treasury. In addition to being the Prime Minister of Italy, Meloni is also a member of the powerful Aspen Institute. Headquartered in Washington, D. C., the institute is funded by some of the most powerful exponents of the Anglo-American establishment including the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Carnegie Corporation and Lumina Foundation and Meloni might be doing their bidding in antagonizing France.
In another jab at embarrassing France, in May 2022, the New York Times published a 19,000-words long special report about the French colonial abuse of Haiti. Titled, “The Ransom: How a French Bank Captured Haiti
,” the report reads almost as though it was the French who invented slavery and colonialism.
Preannouncing the attack on France
The most bizarre element that suggests that the current uprising in France is a planned destabilization attack by the Anglo American imperial cabal is the fact that it may have been preannounced in what appears to be their habitual modus operandi. Last month I had the privilege of participating in the Better Way Conference in Bath, organized by the World Council for Health. One of the speakers on my panel was Mr. Mark Devlin (@DJMarkDevlin
) a DJ who made it his challenge to study how the ruling establishment use popular culture and entertainment to disseminate propaganda and manipulate the masses.
One thing he picked up on is that they invariably preannounce their plans to the public through popular films and TV series. Mr. Devlin claimed there are literally hundreds of examples of this, and he shared one with us: a short clip from the American TV show, The Dead Zone which aired in 2005. The plot involved a Coronavirus contagion. The virus originated from China and caused high fever and respiratory infections, necessitated lockdowns, quarantines, wearing of masks, tracking and tracing of contacts, etc.
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The clip was profoundly disturbing to see, but it suggested that Devlin was onto something important. As it happens, the case of riots in France also corroborates his hypothesis. Namely, in 2022 Netflix launched a film titled “Athena
” about a future ethnic civil war in France, which would erupt after the police killing of an Algerian youth. On 27 Jun 2023, French police killed an Algerian youth.
Seeking justice for Nahel by attacking Chinese tourists?
Another detail about the riots could have symbolic relevance: namely, Reuters reported that Chinese tourists were injured when rioters attacked a bus carrying a Chinese tour group in Marseille. The attack, which took place on Thursday, 29 June 2023 again reveals the cabal’s modus operandi. Recall, when the US and NATO bombed Belgrade in 1999, five U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition
guided bombs hit the Chinese embassy, killing three Chinese state media journalists. One bomb might have gone astray and hit the embassy by accident, but five bombs were a message, as was (probably) last Thursday’s attack on Chinese tourists. It would be difficult to explain why rioters who had grievances against the French government and demanded Justice for the young Nahel Merzouk, thought they’d obtain that justice in attacking the Chinese.
What now?
Should we regard Emmanuel Macron and his government as the good guys in this saga? Will they be able to pacify the situation, or will it escalate? For my part, I’ve never been even slightly fond of Emmanuel Macron, but I believe that today France’s sovereignty is at stake, and it was Macron who invited Anglo-American cabal’s wrath. If France fights back, things will get ugly. Yes, they’ll have to crack down and yes, western media will accuse them of all the standard faults of tyranny, repression, intolerance and censorship.
If France capitulates, things will get uglier still and uglier for longer. But to defend France, the government of Emmanuel Macron will have to try to bring together all of France and this could prove their toughest challenge. Macron represents the French elites which do have much to answer to – not only to their colonial subjects but also to the French people whose country has been stolen from under them (though Macron is not the only one to blame for this).
In 1996, when I moved to Monaco, I recall that for several years in a row, France was winning the top spot as the country with the highest quality of life (I believe the quality of life surveys were conducted by Conde Nast or some such publication). Over the last 25 years however, quality of life in France has deteriorated precipitously. If France is to survive and lead Europe once more, the elites backing Macron will have to reconcile and make nice with the people.
With regards to her colonial past, France will at the very least need to set up a truth and reconciliation commission and offer an earnest apology and a helping hand to its former colonies to rise and develop as equal trading partners rather than simply territories to strip mine of their resources and subjugate in a cold and inhumane fashion.
The world should consider offering a helping hand to France, because with the present struggle, a very large opportunity has presented itself to humanity: to defeat the imperialistic system of governance that’s caused the unspeakable tragedies of our colonial past and its most powerful beneficiaries, the Anglo-American imperial establishment. If they succeed at taming France and making her their vassal, they will grow stronger.
If France prevails and joins humanity, the multipolar integrations and the other model of governance, the imperial cabal will suffer a crushing blow. I know where 99.9% of us stand and for my part, I would love to see Emmanuel Macron in South Africa at the end of this month, for once listening and earnestly seeking partnership and reconciliation with the world and securing France’s place as an equal in a new community of nations.
I’ve been learning about life the whole time. The problem is that most of my first twenty years were completely fucked up by abusive nightmare parents who not only failed to teach me many important lessons, but also straight up lied to me about life, themselves, myself, other people, and everything, thus leaving me with much to unlearn.
But haha, when your parents fuck you up, then later in life you usually find some other horrible person to continue the abuse, and that’s what I did. So the last twenty years of my life were ruined by the woman who is now my ex-wife, who lied, cheated, stole, and fucking ruined me, leaving me homeless and too depressed to even try to get out of the ditch.
Then, flat broke, desperate, I tried to go get some help, make friends, find a job, and generally start over at fifty years old. I’ve been trying for almost four years now, and I’ve failed at everything. I’ve given up, honestly.
I’ve been trying to eat, but food stamps aren’t enough. The food bank gives random crap, and not much of it. So I’ve been hungry. I’ve been trying to eat cheap, but it seems like food prices have suddenly become comical, just as I’ve become broke and homeless. I’m just trying to buy simple, healthy groceries, and I can’t afford them. Also, it’s really hard to cook when you’re homeless. I don’t really know how to be poor; I’ve always had at least enough to eat well without worrying about affording decent food. Lately, I’ve been trying, or I was before it got so hot I gave up on cooking. So how to eat can become an issue in midlife for different reasons.
And maybe the worst part is seeing how shitty most people really are. Stupid, of course, but also greedy, selfish, thieving, and cruel. I guess I was used to getting some respect. But now, absolutely everyone treats me like shit, because I got fucked over and became homeless. Not sure how I’m supposed to be happy in this situation. Been trapped in absolute misery for three, four years now, really.
I mean, I know a thing or two, and I learn more every day. I am sorry to say that the lessons I’ve learned lately have been pretty bitter. This world is kind of a nasty place, and a lot of the people I’ve met lately are nasty, mean, shitty people. Good to know, I guess. Not really sure how I’m supposed to be happy in such a lousy world with such awful people, honestly. My current solution is to get as far from everyone as possible, but then I get lonely. I dunno man, can’t really believe this is my life at fifty years old, but I’m still here somehow, still learning horrible lessons. Still trying to figure out how to eat, how to be happy. Maybe I never will get it.
Arnold Ziffel Gets Revenge on Oliver Douglas – Green Acres – 1967
This story publishes at 9:35 PM EDT. Minutes ago, at about 9:28, at least three drones hit skyscrapers in Moscow, Russia. Some damage was done but Russian air defenses are active above the city.
This is FLASH-Breaking News developing . . .
UPDATE 9:42 PM EDT —
Video is beginning to emerge from Moscow showing MORE THAN ONE skyscraper was apparently hit.
The Headquarters for the Russian Branch of Leroy Merlin, a French Home Improvement Company, has reportedly been struck.
UPDATE 9:57 PM EDT —
Moscow’s Komsomolsky Avenue close to Defense Ministry building closed after drone fragments fell on the area.
Multiple Roads near the Russian Ministry of Defense Building in Downtown Moscow have reportedly been Blocked by Police and Military Forces after claims that a Drone has been downed close to the MoD Building.
UPDATE 10:15 PM EDT —
Additional video of areas impacted in Moscow by drones brought down by Russian air defenses:
NOTE: Live updates terminated as of 10:22. It appears all is calm now and the attack is over.
Reports are beginning to circulate claiming Poland intends to enter Ukraine with troops, to “grab” parts of Western Ukraine, but also to “Tear-off” part of Western Belarus, under the protection of the NATO umbrella.
2023 07 23 07 29
While Russia __may__ be willing to allow Poland to take back parts of Ukraine that were formerly Poland, Belarus, it appears, would be “off-limits.”
Should Poland try to grab parts of Belarus, the region of Eastern Europe will likely immediately explode into full scale World War 3. Poland seems ready to begin playing a VERY dangerous game.
Developing . . . . slowly
UPDATE 2:04 PM EDT —
President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused NATO member Poland of having territorial ambitions, and said any aggression against Russia’s neighbour and close ally Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia.
Moscow would react to any aggression against Belarus, which forms a loose “Union State” with Russia, “with all the means at our disposal” Putin told a meeting of his Security Council in televised remarks.
I figured that this would occur.
Poland would recapture some of it's older territory pre-world war that is now considered "Ukraine". As this is mostly empty land, and they speak a dialect of Polish.
There is this land in Belarus also, but that is part of Russia. Well, a very pro-Russian area.
If the Poles are being smart, they would ONLY seize Western Ukraine.
If the Poles are acting as a Proxy, they would attack Belarus.
Lots of shadow play here. Just keep your eyes open.
-MM
The U.S. Wars Against Russia And China Have No Economic Logic Attached To Them
The U.S. politician Zbigniew Brzezinski was a hardliner with a (neo-)liberal core. He had a wide influence on U.S. policies:
Brzezinski is the author of The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, a 1997 book on geopolitics that was based on Mackinder’s Heartland Theory. Brzezinski argued that the US could retain global supremacy only if it prevented the emergence of a single power on the World-Island.
The Brzezinski Doctrine remains influential in the US foreign-policy establishment. His protégés, among them Ukrainian émigré Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, are a powerful voice in the US State Department.
Brzezinski had argued that without Ukraine, Russia would be unable to rule the Asian heartland and could not challenge U.S. power.
But I just learned via a Pepe Esobar essay about Henry Kissinger’s visit and a potential great power war with China, that Brezezinski had in later years changed his mind:
“The Grand Chessboard”, published in 1997, before the 9/11 era, argued that the US should rule over any peer competitor rising in Eurasia. Brzezinski did not live to see the living incarnation of his ultimate nightmare: a Russia-China strategic partnership. But already seven years ago – two years after Maidan in Kiev – at least he understood it was imperative to “realign the global power architecture”.
In a longer piece published in 2016 in American Interest, Brzezinski indeed argued for great power cooperation:
A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia (probably post-Putin) that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China’s increasing role in the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.
The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility.
For America, that could entail enduring conflict, fatigue, and conceivably even a demoralizing withdrawal to its pre-20th century isolationism.
The U.S. did not follow Brzezinski’s advice. It alienated China by launching an economic war against it and pushed the Ukraine into a proxy-war against Russia that was supposed to destroy Russia’s capabilities. In consequence Russia and China united their capabilities against their common new enemy, the United States of America. We will see during the next years if the consequences Brzezinski foretold for the U.S. under these circumstances will come into light.
It is interesting that the old rivals and political opponents Kissinger and Brzezinski have late in their lives come to the same conclusions.
As Stephen Roach in his take on Kissinger’s visit to China states:
For several years, Kissinger has expressed great concern over the worrisome state of the US-China relationship. As far back as late 2019, he warned that that the United States and China were already in the “foothills of a new cold war.” Given the trajectory of conflict escalation in the ensuing four years, there is a new urgency to his concerns. In the Chinese readout of this week’s meeting with [Defense Minister] Li Shangfu, Kissinger is reported to have said. “Neither the United States nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary. If the two countries go to war, it will not lead to any meaningful results for the two peoples.”
Opposition to the U.S. bi-partisan policy of economic warfare against China is now also coming from the bigwigs of the U.S. economy:
Leaders of the largest US chipmakers told Biden officials this week that the administration should study the impact of restrictions on exports to China and pause before implementing new ones, according to people familiar with their discussions.
During meetings in Washington on Monday, Intel Corp.’s Pat Gelsinger, Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang and Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon warned that export controls risk harming US leadership of the industry. The Biden officials listened to the presentations but didn’t make any commitments, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private.
Economic logic provides that the U.S. (and European) economy would be better off by avoiding a conflict with Russia and China. But, as Micheal Hudson explains, this now gets overwritten by national security preferences which have remarkable conseqences:
Instead of isolating Russia and China and making them dependent on U.S. economic control, U.S. unipolar diplomacy has isolated itself and its NATO satellites from the rest of the world – the Global Majority that is growing while NATO economies are rushing ahead along their Road to Deindustrialization. The remarkable thing is that while NATO warns of the “risk” of trade with Russia and China, it does not see its loss of industrial viability and economic sovereignty to the United States as a risk.
This is not what the “economic interpretation of history” would have forecast. Governments are expected to support their economy’s leading business interests. So we are brought back to the question of whether economic factors will determine the shape of world trade, investment and diplomacy. Is it really possible to create a set of post-economic NATO economies whose members will come to look much like the rapidly depopulating and de-industrializing Baltic states and post-Soviet Ukraine?
This would be a strange kind of “national security” indeed. In economic terms it seems that the U.S. and European strategy of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive and far-reaching an error that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.
The question is really why the U.S. is doing this harm to itself instead of following Brzezinski’s and Kissinger’s advice. As Yves Smith says in her preface to Hudson’s piece, it is a quite bizarre spectacle:
One of the subthemes of the latest offering from Michael Hudson on the bizarre spectacle of the US escalating against China is puzzlement that the West is not operating in its best interest. Lambert has been chewing over this conundrum too.
Perhaps it’s that they really do believe their propaganda, and still don’t recognize that the military and economic clout of the US/EU bloc on a relative basis isn’t anywhere near substantial enough for them to push the rest of the world around. But you think their self-delusion would have started to crack with the failure in their efforts to pressure many countries, such as India and South Africa, to side with the US and condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and now with the supposedly superior US/NATO war machine not performing too well.
Another possibility is the so-called Iron Law of Institutions, that individuals and interests are operating to maximize their own position, with little/no concern to the impact on the system.
I have come to the conclusion that the main actors in this game, the Bindens, Blinkens, Sullivans and their bipartisan supporters, are driven by a blind ideology that has dismissed or replaced global realities with wishful thinking.
The failure of their sanctions against Russia should have demonstrated to them that the real word is by far not the one in which they believe to be living. They however are now repeating their errors by waging a similar war against China.
It will not end well for the people they are supposed to lead.
Posted by b on July 22, 2023 at 17:12 UTC | Permalink
So many people today are in a rush to become successful.
They want to earn 7-figures in 12 months even though they have no marketable skills, no network, and no businesses acumen.
They want to build their dream body in 12 weeks even though they haven’t set foot in a gym in years and don’t really understand the current state of their physical body.
They want to magically find the man/woman of their dreams even though they themselves are completely undateable and have 0 social skills.
And I get it…
Human beings are inherently impatient.
But the great irony of success (in any area of life) is that an approach that is overly focused on speed will actually force you to go slower.
Trying to achieve too many things too quickly or changing too many aspects of yourself and personality in too short of a time span will detriment your results.
Don’t believe me?
Then let’s take a look at two (semi) hypothetical examples.
Example #1: Speedy Sam
Sam is just like everyone else.
He’s earning $50,000/year in a job that he doesn’t really like.
He isn’t fat, but he also isn’t in great shape and probably has 15–20 lbs. that he could lose.
He’s dating Sally from Accounting but their relationship is “meh” and he doesn’t feel the spark or connection that he’d really like.
After attending a personal growth conference (that he paid for on credit) he comes home and he’s on FIRE!
He’s ready to change his life and he’s ready to change it now.
So he makes a plan and decides to take action.
He decides that, starting tomorrow, he’s going to:
Exercise 5 days a week for an hour a day
Eat only whole foods
Quit smoking cigarettes and marijuana
Work for 5 hours on his side hustle
Take Sally on a weekly date night and have sex everyday (instead of once a week)
Meditate every day
Journal for 30 minutes a day
Read 60 minutes of personal growth literature
Wake up at 5 a.m. (3 hours before he normally wakes up)
He sets lofty goals for himself and decides that he wants to build a multiple 6-figure business in 6 months, lose 15 lbs. of fat and gain 20 lbs. of muscle, become as “Zen” as a monk, and feel abundant joy on a daily basis.
He wakes up the next day before his alarm goes off and for the following 24 hours, everything is perfect.
He does everything he’s supposed to do and goes to bed smiling and happy with himself.
The next day, he wakes up on time again, this time much more groggy and fuzzy headed.
He still accomplishes all of his tasks for the day, but he’s beginning to feel more tired and burnt out than he has in a while.
On the third day, he hits the snooze button for “just a few minutes” and oversleeps by 2 hours. He spends the rest of the day beating himself up and feeling like crap for being such a lazy p.o.s. He doesn’t make it to the gym and eats a cookie at the office.
By day #4, he’s tired, drained, and wondering why in the hell he even wanted to change his life in the first place.
After the first week has gone by, he’s sore, grumpy, and stuck in a pit of self loathing because he’s “Such a loser” for not being able to stick to his goals.
He quickly reverts back to his old patterns of behavior for a few months before casually picking up a copy of Awaken the Giant Within, getting a huge dump of motivation and trying to do it all over again.
He goes on like this for YEARS!
Setting big goals, getting really intense, burning out quickly, and ultimately accomplishing nothing.
After more than a decade of this behavior, he’s no closer to the life of joy and freedom than when he first started.
In fact, he’s worse off than before because now he feels worse about himself AND his finances, health, and marriage have all deteriorated.
Speedy Sam has royally screwed himself over and paved the path to failure with his own good intentions.
Now let’s consider the inverse of this approach with Slow Steve.
Example #2: Slow Steve
Steve is very similar to Sam.
He’s slightly overweight, working a middle management job earning $50,000 a year and stuck in a relationship that isn’t all that inspiring.
Steve knows his life isn’t working and he decides to do something about it.
But after reading The Compound Effect and The Slight Edge, he realizes that the key to success is to slowly but surely take SMALL actions everyday towards his goals.
He sits down and looks at his life and realizes that two things are holding him back more than anything else.
His health – his energy levels suck and he’s always tired and feels incapable of working on a side hustle or going to the gym
His finances – He’s buried in debt, living paycheck to paycheck, and stuck in a rut of being unable to earn any more.
Steve knows that his life isn’t going to change overnight and so he creates a simple 12 month plan for himself to get unstuck.
But here’s the thing… His plan isn’t all that crazy or audacious.
In fact, it seems too simple to most people.
For the first month, Steve only makes three small commitments.
He’s going to walk for 30 minutes three times a week
He’s going to spend 45 minutes a day researching side hustles and new ways of earning extra money
He’s going to spend only 10% less on going out than he has been in previous months (a total savings of about $70)
At first, it doesn’t look like he’s making any progress. He loses only 2 lbs. during the first month, saves $70 in his War Chest, and narrows down his side hustle to 3 potential options.
Then, the next month, he adds on 3 new shifts.
He commits to going to the gym once a week and doing a full body workout
He commits to calling freelancers/small business owners in the 3 potential side hustles and asking them questions about what they do and how they do it.
He’s going to go on 2 dates with girlfriend and pay for them by spending less money on clothes.
Again, there aren’t many noticeable changes.
He loses a few more pounds of fat, boosts his energy levels by only 10%, and still isn’t earning any more money.
Slowly, but surely, he continues this trend over the following 12 months and by the time the year is over, he’s successfully:
Training at the gym 4 days a week and eating an 80% whole foods diet
Lost all of his excess body fat and gained 5 lbs. of muscle
Started earning an extra $1,000 a month doing freelance writing for 60 minutes on the weekdays
Improved his relationship and started consistently dating his (now) fiancee.
His life hasn’t changed all that much in 12 months.
He’s earning a little bit more money, he’s in better shape, his energy levels are higher, and his relationship is more connected.
But he isn’t a millionaire or fitness model and he doesn’t have some magical relationship where he screws like a rabbit everyday and never fights with his girl.
But he commits to continuing the process.
Another 12 months go by and another and another.
By the time that 5 years have passed, his life is COMPLETELY unrecognizable from the life he was living before.
He’s a lean, mean, fighting machine and weighs 185 lbs. with 8% bodyfat. He regularly competes in Jujitsu matches and Spartan Races, and he feels amazing.
He quit his corporate job and is earning $150,000/year as a marketing consultant and he’s in the process of self publishing his first book.
He’s happily married, feels deeply connected to his wife, and has a stellar sex life.
He put one foot in front of the other and changed everything.
Another 5 years go by and now, Steve is a world renowned marketer earning more than $3,000,000 a year. He has a budding personal brand, 3 best selling books, tens of thousands of dollars of passive income, and a career that he loves.
His body is a weapon and he’s in better shape than the guys that are 10 years younger than he is.
His relationship with his wife is a point of power in his life and spending time with her rejuvenates and inspires him (instead of draining him).
In other words… Steve is a badass.
But he didn’t get there overnight.
He did it in small steps that helped him prepare for HUGE leaps (like proposing, quitting his corporate job, and competing in his first physique show) .
Steve has changed his life SLOWLY.
But ironically… He changed faster than ANY of the other guys trying to rush their way to success.
Success takes time.
So chill out, trust the process, put one foot in front of the other, and eventually… You’ll get what you want.
Hope this helps
Stay Grounded,
I have installed another, newer, COMMENTS Feature – But a WARNING to all
Hal Turner is learning. I didn't know that he did time in the Fed. Well, at least the food is better than the "Global" and mashed turnips that I had to endure, and he didn't have to do hard labor in the hot Arkansas sun like I had to.
This is interesting. -MM
A week ago, I shut down the comments feature beneath articles because it had become a never-ending stream of aggravation for me. I’ve put a new comment feature in, but BE WARNED:
In June of 2009, the United States Attorney for Chicago had me arrested for an Editorial I wrote about a court ruling dealing with gun control, in Chicago. The US Attorney said my Editorial was a “Threat” and argued to the courts that MY words were a “threat” because of YOU.
Yes, YOU!
They cited to the court, some of the comments made beneath web site articles, and described those comments as “violent” and “hate” and “extremist.”
I went on trial in December, 2009. Hung Jury. Went on trial a SECOND time in March, 2010, Hung Jury.
They put me on trial an astonishing THIRD time in August, 2010. By that time, I was Bankrupt from being unable to do my radio show or be on the Internet (by court order) and had to get a public defender. Big mistake. I could have done a better job defending myself.
I LOST that third trial and was imprisoned for 33 months in federal prison — because of my READERS comments!
Oh, and those Readers . . . NOT ONE of them donated money for my legal defense. NOT ONE of them showed up at my trials. NOT ONE of them even wrote to me in prison.
I’m not going down that road again.
You see, while it’s real easy for you to shout “freedom of speech” it’s __ME__ they put in prison for what you write.
So here’s the deal. The comment area is back and we’ll see how it goes. BUT . . . if you post comments that a US Attorney can describe as “Violent” or “Hate” or “Extremist” or “Terroristic” then YOU are outta here.
I have zero interest in any of that nonsense. I do not advocate violence and will not have that on my site. I do not advocate hatred, and will not have that on my site. I do not abide extremism and will not have that on my site.
So watch what you post and watch carefully because I am watching; and my eye is keen to not being thrown in prison again over what YOU write.
If it’s a choice of your “freedom of speech” or my “freedom from prison” you lose. Period. Full stop.
This new comment module uses darker typeface, for those whose vision is less than stellar (like mine is now).
You can edit your postings.
It is much faster, very neat, and less cumbersome to follow than the old.
Lastly, this is not YOUR web site, it’s mine. Do not use this comment area to post things UNRELATED to the story above just because YOU think the public should know this. If YOU want to publish things that YOU think the public should know – then YOU go out and get YOUR OWN web site, build an audience on your own like I did, and then post what YOU think on YOUR site. Not mine.
Oh, and about YOUR site, these comment areas are not for you to advertise YOUR site. More than a few of you have zero interest in what appears on this page other than to repeatedly post links to YOUR site. You are not going to use my site as a cheap, sneaky method for advertising your site.
Enjoy —— but be very careful what you post.
“Scotty, Throw the Switch!” – Star Trek – 1968
Confessions Of The Son Of A Billionaire
July 7, 2023
How much is your father worth?
My father is worth just shy of $2 Billion liquid, and he’s on a rapid trajectory be worth significantly more.
What do you do for a living?
As for my current job, I work a generic IT position with a standard salary – nothing that will produce the kind of fortune my father’s work has.
What kind of car do you drive?
A 2014 Subaru Outback. Prior to that, a very-used ’98 Outback. Probably not the answer you were expecting!
As for my parents, the primary cars at each property are a Mercedes GLS and SL Roadster; they have lots of others, but nothing too fancy. Mostly old Chevy and Ford cars primarily driven by the various employees they have.
What do you do for work and why did you go into that field?
I’m a computer systems adminsitrator for a small company because it’s what I enjoy and it doesn’t require a large amount of non-immediate work. I didn’t inherit my dad’s strong ambition and drive, unfortunately.
Do you think having the trust fund played a role in your lack of ambition and drive?
The truth is that I didn’t know about the trust fund until I got married, so it had little influence over my upbringing. I knew that my parents were well-off and perhaps assumed that that would come to us someday, but nothing was explicitly stated about it as a kid. So if it did affect my ambition and drive, it was more subconscious. It’s certainly possible, though it didn’t affect my siblings. I’m more inclined to think of it being how I’m neurologically wired, just as my dad is wired to be a workaholic but less emotionally engaging. But it’s hard to say. I certainly do blame myself for my lack of sustained ambition, most of the time.
Do your nearest and dearest know your worth, potential or otherwise?
Well obviously my wife knows! We have one pair of friends who at least know my parents are very wealthy, since they’ve stayed with us at one of their properties. Everyone else (hopefully) assumes we have little more than the middle-class lifestyle that we provide for ourselves.
Wait so does your father not share his wealth with you?
We enjoy their material assets, get awesome gifts for Christmas, and each have a trust fund of $28K/year. But to have a comfortable life and income, we have to have our own jobs. For now, at least.
Did your father insist on a prenup for your wife to sign before marriage?
They suggested a prenup, but it didn’t happen. My wife hates their wealth and wants no part in it so I’m not concerned about her trying to run away with it.
How is your relationship with your parents?
My relationship with them is complicated. I appreciate what they’ve provided, but the emotional connection has been poor. I wish I could feel closer to them, but I just don’t think they’re wired for that kind of relationship. Dad’s a workaholic, Mom’s a socialite, I’m the kid who didn’t do everything perfectly and felt like the pariah for a decade. Things are better now, but conversations are rarely more than business and small talk.
What kind of schools did you go to? Were your peers wealthy?
I went to a private school for grade school, a boarding school for high school, and then private university which I eventually dropped out of. Since the familial wealth grew as I did, the peer group evolved over time; but I never understood the extent of their or our worth until recently. My perspective was more than a bit off growing up.
At what point in your life did you realize that your parents are very, very rich?
Far later than I probably should have. I didn’t really realize just how out of touch I was until around 23 or 24. Granted, we were worth significantly less when I was younger, but still, many things that I took for granted were definitely not common.
Do you think you grew up in a bubble, so to speak, unaware of things those of more modest wealth take for granted? Any funny or embarrassing moments?
I think so. Generally I was more naïve than anything. I can’t think of any specifically funny moments, but there are a lot of things that I roll my eyes about where I was much more flippant about the price of things. I was just a kid who was excited by certain things, but I didn’t realize that talking about them so much was likely very awkward for others who were adults and yet had experienced far less. I remember asking the person who maintains some of our land what his favorite place to travel to was, and when he told me that he had never flown on a plane in his life, I suddenly realized that there was a very big difference in how we grew up. I felt quite awkward and guilty about that one.
Do your parents pressure you to want more? Make more money?
Well I do think that my anxiety comes from my dad wanting me to do better, in part. As I mentioned elsewhere, I dropped out of college; I did terribly in school – had high overall intelligence and tested well but just failed to put in the necessary sustained effort. I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD and the difference since starting treatment has been profound, but I wouldn’t dare tell my father that because a) he’s convinced that it’s a fake condition, and b) I doubt the diagnosis myself because it just feels like too convenient of an excuse. I’ve been taught that there’s no excuse for not succeeding other than not working hard enough, and by that metric, I’ve largely been a failure. My dad’s success and his hope for my success has been an enormous burden, but I think at this point he’s generally “given up” on me having the same drive as him.
Do you have other siblings?
I have siblings, and I get the feeling that they’ve been better-supported financially because they’ve lived their life much more in line with how my parents had planned.
What’s that -one thing- you never got as a kid?
A gaming console. Or as my dad affectionately referred to it, the “Super No-friend-o”. Somehow computer games didn’t fall into that purview though, so I had a top-end desktop and laptop anyway. Didn’t stop me from being obsessed with gaming; the PS2 was the first purchase I made when I started getting my own paycheck.
Seems like even though you had connections to wealth, it wasn’t used as a magic wand to get you shiny things all the time. Did you learn the value of money and earning, over just “having” money?
Sort of. We (my siblings and I) certainly didn’t have carte blanche, and I’m self-sufficient currently outside of a growing and accessible trust fund; but they have a “what’s mine is yours” mentality when it comes to enjoying their homes and possessions, which are plentiful. As we speak, my wife and I are staying in one of their massive homes for a stress-free weekend, and everything from the cars to the cook is at our disposal. These days I’ve never asked for something that they’ve said “no” to, but I’ve never tried to push the limits.
Are the other homes always “staffed” even if your family isn’t there, or is it a more “on-call” situation?
Some of the properties are quite large and require constant upkeep. One is on a farm and has a family living on the property – the husband and wife handle the land and home maintenance, respectively. Some of the properties are in city high-rises and have building staff to take care of them. Then they have their main guy (I have no idea what his official title is but he’s effectively a modern butler valet) who almost always travels with them and handles arrangements to keep their flow as uninterrupted as possible. He also lives in a home provided by my family, right next to one of their “hub” properties.
Do you have any “regular” friends now? What’s a Friday night like for you?
My wife and I are shut-ins and will spend most evenings just watching shows and playing video games together. When we meet up with friends, we meet at the pub or go to one of each others’ houses. A couple times we have taken some friends up to one of my parents’ properties, but only after we’ve come to know them quite well.
But generally, unless I’m with my parents at the time, I live a very standard middle-class lifestyle.
Thoughts on economics and/or politics? Libertarian free market, radical socialism, social democracy, liberal welfare state?
I generally lean conservative/libertarian on fiscal issues, which probably isn’t surprising.
Do you travel a lot ?
I did as a kid, less so now that I have my own income and my own job schedule. Starting around 12 or so, each spring break was spent on another Caribbean island and each summer was spent visiting another country or series of countries. My dad would increasingly joke that our hotels were picked by my mom Googling “Most expensive hotel in ____”; and those trips usually consisted of a private tour guide who would take us everywhere, get us behind velvet ropes at various museums, etc.
I didn’t appreciate how special those trips were as a kid, though I certainly did love them.
What games do you play?
We play special billionaire-only games that you wouldn’t have heard about.
Kidding. We just wrapped up Dishonored 2 and are currently replaying the Bioshock trilogy.
What type of hobbies do you have?
Technology, media, games. I have an awesome home theater which is my biggest piece of personal extravagance.
Please elaborate
Well we squeezed it into our relatively normal house, but it’s a 150″ screen with a 4K projector, seating for eight, Atmos 7.2.4 sound, and a whole lot of soundproofing to keep it contained 😉
I was so close to convincing my dad to put an amazing theater into his newest home, but regrettably he decided that a massive wine cellar was the more prudent option. But at least I get to say that I have a better home theater than him 🙂 Not much that I can beat out the billionaire in, so I’ll take what I can get!
What’s your favorite pop tarts flavor?
Nothing beats brown sugar!
Do you actually eat pop tarts? I don’t just mean pop tarts either. Like, when I imagine rich people eating, I always think of private chefs, or at very least having someone else cook for them in some way. Do you ever just open up the panty and grab something like a box of cereal, or pop tarts, or ramen noodles? Or do you always have other people prepare food for you?
Well at the house where I’m staying at right now, there’s a pantry with Tostitos and Skippy peanut butter, a freezer with Eggos, and there are always a half-dozen Oscar Meyer wieners available for cooking. Of course there are other fancy snacks as well and our freezer is actually mostly full of the meat from a cow and pig we won at a rodeo auction last year, but sometimes you need a quick breakfast or midday snack and it’s not worth having a professional always handling it. Depends on the circumstances.
What’s a problem that billionaires have that we plebians do not?
Child-of-a-billionaire problems include rock-bottom self-esteem and endless guilt.
As for my parents, their problems are a lack of time and a loss of perspective. Worst has probably been their focus on maintaining a social appearance which has come at a significant cost in regards to their relationship with me and my siblings. They spend so much time these days trying to make our family seem perfect that they forget to do the actual things that keep a relationship strong.
Is this more keeping up with the Jones’s or just being scheduled too much to make time? Running an empire is hard work, I don’t envy then the drudgery.
My dad lives to work. He knows he doesn’t need any more money, but it’s when he’s working hard that he’s having the most fun. So for him, it’s just keeping busy. My mom, on the other hand, took our class status as an opportunity to become a major socialite. I participated in literally over a half-dozen debutante events. I felt like a trophy being paraded around, the illusion of our familial excellence masking the superficial relationships we had underneath.
Things are a bit better now since I confronted them on all of this a couple years ago, but still, our relationship is so-so at best and I expect the wealth was a catalyst in that.
You mention that you live a middle class life now and work in a normal job. Are you content with this or do you have plans to get independently wealthy?
I’m not a strong worker. There are things that I’d love to excel at, but I lack the patience and focus to accomplish them. There are many causes and industries which I look forward to financially supporting once I am afforded that lifestyle, but I would be content to just live out my life as I currently do (with more perks, of course) and leave the ambitions to those who are cut out for it.
Why do you work, particularly in mid-range IT? You could be doing anything. Does working feel like waste of time?
The trust is only $28,000/year for the time being. That’s the maximum non-taxable amount and is enough to provide a nice boost without letting us get away comfortably with doing nothing. That will change in the future, but for now, my parents strongly encourage a good work ethic and the value of earning your self-sufficiency. Not to scoff at how valuable that $28,000 has been, of course.
Are you any less miserable than we are?
I have emotional problems like everyone else. But I don’t have to worry about my paycheck, I don’t have to worry about my retirement, I don’t have to worry about supporting my child financially, I don’t have to worry about a medical crisis ruining our family… There are so many burdens that I simply won’t know. I wouldn’t dare make a claim to the same sadness and difficulties that many people deal with.
What are your thoughts on whether money can (or can’t) buy happiness?
I once read that money can’t buy happiness but that it’s a good “unhappiness repellant”, and that seemed like a good way to describe it. There are a lot of things that can cause unhappiness that can be prevented with money: financial issues obviously, health-related crises, and lots of little things. Being able to skip the major airports and take a private jet instead bypasses a major headache!
But money can cause problems too. Especially extreme wealth.
Being given such an extreme amount of wealth creates the burden of managing that wealth properly. You don’t want to be the generation that loses what prior ones have worked so hard to provide. But you also want to do as much good as you can for the world while you have the opportunity.
Most importantly, I’m terrified about raising my kids well. I don’t want to raise spoiled brats, but I have no idea how to both acknowledge our extreme privilege and simultaneously impose a modest lifestyle. There are so many bad examples out there, and we only get one chance to raise them right.
What’s the best thing money can buy?
That’s a profound question to answer which can delve into the philosophical, so I’m just going to modify the question to “what’s your favorite thing your parents have bought?” to keep it simple and light. And to that, it’s almost impossible not to say the private jet. Not because of how comfortable it is, but because of the convenience and time-saving.
We don’t need to show up at the airport 90 minutes early, check our bags, wait in the security line, put our liquids in special containers within containers, then sprint to the gate desperately trying to reach it before the door closes. Instead, we literally drive the car onto the tarmac, let a crewmember carry in the luggage while we take a seat, and are in the air within 10 minutes. The crew is employed by us and is ready to go the moment we pull up. And our dog gets to sit in the leather seat next to us. Usually a meal is provided: shrimp caesar salads, a charcuterie board, a glass of wine, even a steak dinner if we request far enough in advance. And when we land, someone pulls our car around and meets us at on the runway, they put our luggage into the car, and we’re on the road – often much closer to the final destination than a larger airport is.
It is absolutely extravagant, but the reduction in stress and time is so significant that it’s one of their expenses that I absolutely think was worth it.
5 reasons to NOT live in the United States right now | Why the U.S. is broken
Confessions of a Man Who Got The Penuma Implant
June 27, 2023
First, some quick details:
Surgery: January 2023
Penuma XXL – this was right before the Penuma plus so I got the classic
As you can tell from my stats – I was never big – but I was always a grower. At least I had that. I felt ok about my penis when I was erect but was very self-conscious whenever I was naked and flaccid. I like to be naked a lot. Pre-surgery – I always found myself tugging on my penis trying to get it to chub up a bit so it wasn’t so small. I went into this surgery knowing that the purpose is not to increase erect length – but to increase my flaccid length which is what I really wanted and got!
I had the procedure on a Saturday and stayed in the local hotel overnight. I live about an hour and a half from Dr office so transportation logistics were not an issue. I work from home and had no problem working on that Monday in my sweatpants at my desk. Went back on Tuesday and had my drain removed. Didn’t miss any work after that. I also didn’t need the pain killers. I still have them and am looking for a way to dispose of them safely.
I’m not going to lie – the first two months were tough at night with the nighttime erections. I woke up every hour and a half to two hours the first month. When I did wake up, I would immediately go to the bathroom and urinate. This immediately helped relieve the pressure so I could go back to sleep. I urinated in a red solo cup standing at the toilet the first couple of months – this helped alleviate cleaning the little bit of spray on the toilet that I had at first. The stream corrected itself quickly. OTC Melatonin was a saving grace. The second month got better over time. Was getting full night’s sleep by beginning of third month.
I wore the Uro Wrap as prescribed for the first month. Wearing the wrap at night actually seemed to add to the pressure of the implant and causing more pain than benefit. I asked Dr at my one month follow up if I could discontinue use and he allowed it, except I still had to wear at the gym which was not a problem. Did light workouts at the gym at 6 weeks. Heavier workouts after 8 weeks.
At two months I was able to get into my favorite pair of jeans. I think old fashioned boxers are the way to go – but when I want a pair of briefs the Wildman T series really are perfect. I’ve heard other guys here recommend them and they were right.
The question everyone asks regarding sex. Yes, it’s amazing with Penuma. I haven’t lost any sensation and women really love the extra girth. I do seem to last a little longer now – that’s a huge benefit too. And I love the confidence that comes with having a large penis. I tend to have sex a lot. I’m divorced and have sex with different women. I don’t feel the need to explain to them that I have an implant – but they would be able to tell I had one if I was totally flaccid. What I do is chub up a little before they get their hands on it and then they can’t tell. My full erection was always 90 degrees and that hasn’t changed. Condoms – regular condoms do not cut it anymore. I ordered the MyOne 64 and they were still too narrow. I then ordered the MySize 72 and they fit like a glove.
Everything about this experience has been amazing for me. It’s more than just the great sex, it’s the confidence and little things. At this point, day to day I don’t even know that I have an implant there. However, everyday I appreciate having it such as when I enjoy laying on the sofa in lose shorts and actually feel it lying against my leg. I also like having to now point my penis down one leg of my pants or the other which I’ve never had to do or had the ability to do.
Arnold Ziffel Gets Kicked Out of Hooterville Elementary – Green Acres – 1970
The Taiwan strait is the wrong battleground today.
Let’s describe the geography first.
2023 07 24 10 58
The Taiwan Straits is shallow, less than 100m deep in most places, other than a narrow strip of water between Penghu and Taiwan.
It is a no-go for submarine activity. So we can discount the USN’s submarine service.
Way back when Newt was Speaker, America could parade TWO (2) CBGs through the straits in tandem as a show of strength.
Today, the risk is considered too high, because mainland China has defacto control of the sea and airspace in and around Taiwan, and it is being exercised on a daily basis.
The only way to get into the ring is to massively militarize Taiwan, and Penghu with American troops and equipment, but that will be seen as an invasion of Chinese sovereign territory.
In the present, we have to zoom the map out a little, when it comes to Taiwan.
2023 07 24 10 5d8
To contest the Taiwan straits, the USN must compete along the entire red dotted line of the 1st island chain, because the waters west of the line is firmly in the grasp of China.
That is a huge front, easily >10,000km, and even if every single combatant of the USN (which number about 200 after stripping away the heavy lift and coastal patrol elements) is activated, the firepower won’t be able to overwhelm Chinese defenses.
The principle is simple. In the Korean war, a chinese soldier had to get within touching distance to do damage to a US tank, whereas the US military had aircraft that could bomb Chinese supply lines hundreds of kilometers behind the front.
Today, the Chinese have the same capability as the Americans to maim from long distances. In some types of weaponry, the range and firepower exceed American equivalents. This means that any weapon system deployed by the the Americans that can hurt the Chinese will be within the Chinese kill zone.
In other words, this is no longer an unequal fight with America holding all the cards.
Any hostility will be paid in plenty of American blood. I won’t be surprised if the kill ratio favor the Chinese today, rather than the lopsided 1:x0 ratio of the Korean War.
This calculus does not change even if China were to face the combined might of Korea, Japan, the US, Nato and the Five Eyes.
Combined, they still won’t be able to hurt China more than they receive, because China can call on at least 10 million troops and have another 100m citizens dedicated to guaranteeing the logistics of war.
That is the status quo today.
Put another way, any attempt at hostility will require fight-to-the-death conviction, just to turn up at China’s doorstep.
As for show of force competition with the Chinese navy through operation tempo, the USN is already way behind the curve. European naval ships, and even the Canadian and US coast guards have to make 20–40,000km round trips just to “patrol” off the Chinese coast, because the USN is overextended, despite devoting 70 percent of active assets to Indopacom. With Russia in the mix, along with the rapid expansion and upgrading of the PLAN, the operational burden will only increase.
HK riots and protests were a failed CIA Color Revolution attempt, it ended 3 years ago, it is not happening now.
China didn’t do anything to intervene openly, that is SOP standard operating procedure for Chinese government, 秋後算帳, they gathered all the evidences, passed a new National Security Law, waited 1–2 year and arrested all the rioters who didn’t escape. They are all in HK prisons now.
It is cleaning the bills after Autumn, 秋後算帳，the judgment day will always come, just not right away. They don’t forget nor forgive, they will absolutely come knocking. There is no rush, but they will come for you.
The apartment building went section 8. Our income was such that our rent was going up by 2.5 times what we were paying. I jokingly said to the wife, for that we might as well have a mortgage.
So, long story short, we moved to my parents cottage for 9 months saving all the rent, picked an area where we would rent at lower cost while looking for a house to buy but in the next county because of lower prices, and lower taxes.
Within the year found a 3 bed, 2 bath on 7.5 acres.
Put in a bid, accepted.
So the big change, QUIET! No sirens, no traffic no horns honking. Within the first months, waking up to turkeys outside our bedroom window. A curious fox catching some sun on the front deck. Then only honking we heard were the geese going south in fall or north in spring.
Better yet was only paying for electric and phone.
Came with a wood stove, so heated with what fell during storms. Well for water, septic for sewage.
Been here for 27 years now, never going back to the city. Best financial decision we ever made.
Edit, wow, love the comments, so here’s a bit more.
My front yard
main qimg 37b1e3ad435eb4a2f0d0934d03b044c7 lq
Australian In China Is SHOCKED What He Experienced
2023 07 24 17 38
SITREP August 2023
In exactly one month, the fifteenth BRICS Summit will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa (August 22 to 24, 2023).
A significant number of nations, ahead of the reunion, already presented their candidacy for membership of the (current) BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group.
Moreover, the group will most probably make an announcement about the gold-backed BRICS currency.
China & Russia have gold reserves FAR ABOVE their officially declared amounts.
For those interested, Dominic Frisby created on YouTube a 2022 update for China’s REAL amount of gold. In a nutshell, it’s a lot more than the ~ 8150 metric tons the US IS SUPPOSED to possess (a serious audit under the supervision of an international commission would be most interesting). China’s true gold reserve is estimated at 20 000 to 25 000 metric tons, not the much smaller officially declared 2092 metric tons.
It’s part of the ongoing DE-DOLLARIZATION process.
Also, since the last 10 years, for the same goal of de-dollarization, China concluded bilateral agreements for international trading usage of her currency, the Renminbi aka the Yuan.
China has always veiled the true amount of gold she possesses because it was tantamount of declaring war to the US.
Since she declared war to the US on Monday Feb 20, 2023 by a document published on the official website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is no need to be coy anymore concerning her true wealth.
The title of the document is “US hegemony & its perils” . It’s an axio-epistemo-political proclamation upholding the legitimacy of the war she is now waging against the US as the de facto leader of the KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment).
Using the Chinese political lexicon, it’s the proclamation of intention by the Chinese rulers to restore the Mandate of Heaven : essentially Harmony & Justice at the level of the Heavenly Timeless Universal Principles.
This intention of restoring The Mandate of Heaven is made crystal clear and utterly pragmatic by 3 main inter-related projects :
*** The Global Security Initiative *** The Global Development Initiative *** The Global Civilization Initiative
There is no Civilization without Development.
And there is no Development without Security.
Those 3 inter-related initiatives are embodied by the BRI (the Belt & Road Initiative) and not forgetting the Agenda 2025 for acquiring and being excellent in the vital technological sectors.
The last 30 months have been filled with watersheds or at the very least extremely meaningful events and no one having a little bit of sensibility and a tad informed about the international events can escape the impression that we are going through an utter acceleration in the right direction of Universal History.
HERE ARE THE MAIN EVENTS I WISH TO UNDERLINE :
1- The Alaska/Anchorage China-US meeting (March 18 & 19, 2021). His Excellency State Councilor Yang Jiechi put US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to his rightful place, a more modest one compared to what Blinken probably had in his mind. Blinken, apparently, thought that he was speaking “from a position of strength” …
2- In February 2022, the renewed, at a much deeper closeness, SINO-RUSSIAN comprehensive strategic PARTNERSHIP of coordination for a New Era.
3- RUSSIA’S SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION (SMO) IN UKRAINE started on Thursday Feb 24, 2022.
4- Two days later, on Saturday Feb 26, 2022, the imbecilic, foolish & idiotic Western ruling class seized the Russian assets .Russia being the first nuclear power; Russia having developed hypersonic missiles; Russia being a major provider of energy; commodities and food; Russia being a permanent member of the UNO Security Council; Russia being a nation known for her numerous military victories; Russia having a super-amped, patriotic, proud, rather cohesive population boasting a charismatic & efficient leader, the same for the last 2 decades. Do I need to add more ? By resorting to such an abysmally stupid act, the Western ruling class was shooting in its feet by utterly & definitively destroying the global trust in the Western financial system and more simply, destroying forever the global trust in the Western system, destroying without return the global trust in the word of the Western ruling class.
5- At the end of September 2022, the rogue state US/KFC-AZAEL, assisted by 2 vassal states (Sweden & Denmark) , by an act of international terrorism, destroyed the Nordstream II pipelines buried under the Baltic Sea.
According to Professor Braun interviewed by the German reporter and documentary films maker Dirk Pohlmann, the terrorists used a mini nuclear bomb. Nuke or no Nuke, the pipelines have been destroyed to put Germany down, Russia out and the rogue state US/KFC-AZAEL in. This has been clearly stated in 1949 by Lionel Ismay, the first Secretary General of NATO as the pre-eminent goal of the North Atlantic Terrorist Organization.
Nowadays, the formulation of this NATO’s general policy might be slightly changed as follows : keep Russia down, China out and the rogue state US/KFC-AZAEL in.
BUT RUSSIA IS NOT GERMANY
AND CHINA IS RUSSIA’S COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIC PARTNER OF COORDINATION FOR A NEW ERA
6- CHINA’S DECLARATION OF WAR TO THE US on Monday Feb 20, 2023 : The text “US hegemony & its perils”. The Chinese Sovereigns traditionally offered to the World the exhaustive written enumeration of the depredations of the criminals to be destroyed before going to war.
In the present case concerning the US/KFC-AZAEL, the crimes have been grouped in 5 categories (for details, please refer to the text itself) :
I- Political Hegemony - Throwing its weight around
II- Military Hegemony - Wanton use of force
III- Economic Hegemony - Looting and Exploitation
IV- Technological Hegemony - Monopoly & Suppression
V- Cultural Hegemony - Spreading False Narratives
7- March 20 to 22, 2023, President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow. When leaving Moscow on March 22, 2023, His Excellency said to his dear friend President Vladimir Putin :
President Xi : RIGHT NOW THERE ARE CHANGES WE HAVEN'T SEEN FOR 100 YEARS, AND WE ARE THE ONES DRIVING THESE CHANGES TOGETHER.
President Putin replied : I AGREE.
President Xi : TAKE CARE PLEASE, DEAR FRIEND.
President Putin : HAVE A SAFE TRIP.
8- April 6, 2023 : the diplomatic documents for the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement signed in Beijing. Less than a week later, a truce was agreed for the war in Yemen where Iran & Saudi Arabia were fighting a proxy war for years.
9- Orthodox Easter Sunday, 2023 : President Vladimir Putin received the Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu for discussing a closer Sino-Russian military cooperation.
10- Saturday June 3, 2023 : the USS Chung-Hoon, accompanied by the Canadian HMS Montreal, lost a brinkmanship type confrontation when challenged by the Chinese warship Suzhou in the Taiwan Straits. A week later, a US airplane has been chased away above the South China Sea by the Chinese airmen.
11- Janet Yellen kow-towing without success in Beijing concerning the USD bonds market.
12- July 18, 2023 : the 100-year-old Dr Henry Kissinger was received at the Villa no 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse (as in 1971) in Beijing and discussed warmly with President Xi Jinping about the China-US relation.
I would like to quote the last 4 paragraphs of the piece penned by Pepe Escobar published on July 21, 2023 by Sputnik.
The original title of the article was “The definitive 21st century war is on, AND IT’S NOT A WAR ON CHINA”.
I wished to adumbrate this first title because it reflects, according to my understanding, the reality. The second title, having been chosen, is “Neo-cons want war with China” and it expresses the desire of the most dangerous group of hubristic psychopaths living on Earth nowadays.
It is most interesting that it has been selected as the definitive title because it stresses rightly, ironically and powerfully, among other things, the utter unreality within which are living the members of the Western ruling class & the Western intelligentsia serving as their political advisors.
REALITY versus UNREALITY :
REALITY versus NARRATIVES :
REALITY versus SHADOWS.
Being able to see the reality as it is, is consubstantially part of belonging to the upper class, the ruling class. The utter lack in the Western upper class of a supposedly consubstantial quality to its members is a clear sign of utter degeneracy.
That degeneracy most probably coming from intrinsic biological factors because of [1] excessive inbreeding, [2] abuse of toxicomaniac substances, [3] neglect of self-discipline, [4] loss of true understanding of authentic classical, timeless values.
The centenary Henry Kissinger’s visit to China on July 19, 2023 was the occasion, so to speak, for a deep analysis of THE NEXUS of circumstances.
Which is, of the seriously accumulated flawed judgments…
…all, because of a toxic mix of hubris, fecklessness, corruption and utter idiocy (from the Greek word “idiotes” meaning living exclusively in one’s own bubble) coming from the predatory entity I refer to as the KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American Establishment).
As well, of the coalition of the last 3 Sovereign Civilizational States (China, Russia, Iran) & all the global partners willing & capable to participate to the Grand Endeavor of unremittingly eroding and ultimately annihilating the existing exploitative global system.
I consider that the last 4 paragraphs of the aforementioned article by Pepe Escobar offer the quintessential gist of geopolitical penetration and truly deep grasping of Universal History concerning the present global situation :
The title for the last 4 paragraphs is perfect :
*** Destroying the rules-based international order ***
And here are those last 4 paragraphs summarizing the fundamental geopolitical reality of our present world :
" The crucial difference today, compared to seven years ago, is that the US is incapable, per Brzezinski, to "take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence (…) can be contained without destroying the global order." It's THE RUSSIA-CHINA PARTNERSHIP that is taking the lead - followed by the Global Majority - to contain and ultimately destroy the hegemonic "rules-based international order".
As the indispensable Michael Hudson has summarized it, the ULTIMATE question at this INCANDESCENT juncture is ** whether economic gains and efficiency ** will determine world trade, patterns and investments, or ** whether the post-industrial US/NATO economies ** will choose to end up looking like the rapidly repopulating and de-industrializing post-Soviet Ukraine and Baltic states or England.
So is THE WET DREAM OF A WAR ON CHINA going to change these geopolitical and geoeconomics imperatives ? Give us a - Thucydides - break. THE REAL WAR IS ALREADY ON - but certainly not one identified by Kissinger, Brzezinski and much less Luttwak and assorted US neocons.
Michael Hudson, once again, summarized it : when it comes to the economy, the US and EU "STRATEGIC ERROR OF SELF-ISOLATION FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD IS SO MASSIVE, SO TOTAL, THAT ITS EFFECTS ARE THE ** EQUIVALENT OF A WORLD WAR **."
*** Please meditate deeply on the numerous ramifications of the 4 powerfully worded paragraphs above ***
Speaking of wet dream, Sun Zi (544 BCE to c.495 BCE) considered that ‘the Supreme Warrior wins without fighting’. That can be interpreted on more than one level but if I simply read it as ‘the Supreme Warrior wins without having to fight a kinetic war’, it is already more than satisfactory, at least having the least possible of that dimension called ‘kinetic war’.
The first paragraph of Master Sun’s Art of War :
Master Sun said : The Art of War is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road to either safety or ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
Here is the article I wrote recently on ‘The Everlasting Civilization’ which might contribute to the understanding of the fundamental principles underlying the present practical maneuvers by the Chinese rulers & their advisors.
That the present US ruling class needs a 100 years old man to go to Beijing exploring the possible overtures in the China-US relation is a glaring sign of the utter emptiness and incompetence of its members. That’s for Henry Kissinger (1923- ). Moreover, I warmly recommend his 2011 book “On China”.
Concerning Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017), let’s remind that his 1997 Magnum Opus was named :
The Grand Chessboard, American primacy and its imperatives.
In that 1997 book, Brzezinski summarized as ‘American primacy’ (or GAS : Global American System) the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment’ endeavor for global Empire.
Fifteen years later, in 2012, Z Brzezinski wrote a sequel to the Grand Chessboard : Strategic Vision. In this book, Brzezinski calibrated downwards the ambitions for the US and was capable of taking into account the new realities of China’s revival and of Russia’s return from the ashes, like 2 splendid reborn phoenixes.
Brzezinski was capable to change his mind but he died in 2017. His followers apparently are not of the same caliber.
Let’s not be neither complacent nor naive. The KFC-AZAEL will not go down without a serious fight. Let’s be aware of this reality and let’s be ready.
At about 2:00 AM eastern US time Sunday morning, NATO instructed Ukraine to ABANDON THE FRONT LINES and have all troops “return to the cities immediately to seek shelter.”
Something BIG is apparently planned very soon!
Will NATO intervene, directly??
Will “peacekeeping forces” enter Western Ukraine to “freeze” the war???
Or will NATO simply outright attack??
Sadly, at present, 10:43 AM EDT Sunday, there are no apparent answers to __any__ of these questions.
Last night, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and US admiral James Stavridis stated NATO may be planning to attack Russian ships in the Black Sea! Russia will also be preparing for NATO to attack! He said NATO ships should accompany grain carriers in the Black Sea and, if necessary, open fire in response to Russian warships.
Also last night, Ukraine President Zelensky publicly pleaded with NATO Secretary General to urgently convene Ukraine-NATO Council Against the background of the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Odessa and the loss of NATO equipment.
Zelensky asked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to urgently convene the Ukraine-NATO Council.
Stoltenberg heard the request of the vassal. He has called a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council for 26 July.
The official agenda of the future meeting is consultations on the latest developments in Ukraine and discussion of the transportation of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.
What is apparent to everyone right now is that something very, VERY, big is about to take place.
Get right with God.
Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Breast
Imagine a turkey breast pounded thin and rolled up with stuffing and cranberry sauce. Nice, huh? Now imagine it wrapped in bacon. Guaranteed. Win.
1 (6 ounce) package STOVE TOP Lower Sodium Stuffing Mix for Chicken
3/4 cup canned whole berry cranberry sauce, divided
8 slices OSCAR MAYER Lower Sodium Bacon
6 fresh sage leaves
How to Butterfly the Turkey Breast: Place turkey on cutting board; carefully cut turkey horizontally in half, starting at thickest long side of breast, being careful not to cut all the way through to opposite side. Open like a book.
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Heat dressing in small nonstick skillet on medium heat.
Add onions; cook 10 minutes or until crisp-tender, stirring frequently. Cool.
Pound turkey to 1/2-inch thickness. Place turkey between 2 sheets of plastic wrap; pound with meat mallet or rolling pin to desired thickness.
Add water to stuffing mix in medium bowl; stir just until moistened.
Stir in onions; spoon down one long side of turkey.
Spoon 1/4 cup cranberry sauce next to stuffing.
Starting at covered side, roll up turkey breast; place, seam side down, on parchment-covered rimmed baking sheet.
Wrap bacon, with slices slightly overlapping, around turkey. (Turkey should be completely covered with bacon.)
Top with sage; press gently into bacon.
Spray foil with cooking spray; place over turkey, gently pressing foil onto bacon.
Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until turkey is done (165 degrees F), uncovering after 30 minutes.
Serve with remaining cranberry sauce.
Garnish with additional fresh sage leaves before serving.
Prep: 15 min | Total: 1 hr 10 min | Yield: 8 servings
My Dad back in Italy from China, No one can Imagine What he Saw in China!
Confessions of a Commercial Airline Pilot
July 6, 2023
How much of a flight is automated and how much of it is actually you piloting?
It depends on the day and the person flying. I generally prefer to hand-fly the airplane up to about 10-15,000 feet before engaging the autopilot. Then you turn it off when you’re landing.
So on a day when it’s nice and you feel like flying, figure 30-40% of the flight is hand flown, the rest is autopilot. Some days you don’t feel like working as much and turn it on earlier and off later, but it’s always off for takeoff and landing.
Other people turn the autopilot on when you’re 600′ above the ground (our company standard minimum AP engagement altitude), then snap it off when we’re 200′ above the ground, so they fly on autopilot for 95% of the flight.
Do you know what all the buttons do? Have you pressed them all even once?
A) Yes, and if I forget they’re all labeled so…. hooray cliff notes! B) No, there are several that never get pressed. In fact my company even has one button, the “High Power Schedule” button that kicks the engines up to their maximum possible thrust rating that we refer to as the “Get Fired” button.
Usually the ones that don’t get pressed are for emergency use only. Fortunately there are very few real life emergencies.
Is the audio quality of those transmissions really as bad as it seems in the videos? Because if it is, I cannot for the life of me see how you people understand each other.
The audio quality is a touch higher than on the recording. Most of us invest in high quality, noise dampening/cancelling headsets that run $600-1000 to assist in understanding. Further, most of the radio calls are very standard and we expect to hear the calls at certain points in the operation. if we have trouble understanding a specific word, we can generally either pick up what was said based on context. Additionally for any two way communications we will read back the precise instructions to ensure understanding. ATC then has the opportunity to correct us if we mis-heard.
Which commercial planes do you think is the best/worst designed from a pilot’s perspective? Are there any military or special-use craft that you think would convert well to commercial use?
Man, that’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t even know where to start on this one really. I haven’t flown enough different airliners to have a truly informed answer, but Boeing refusing to update the cockpit of the 737 due to type-rating issues hasn’t ever sat well with me personally.
Not that that particularly matters for anything and I’m sure there are thousands of 737 pilots who would tell me to shut the f*ck up, it’s fine how it is. The cockpit(s) of the Airbus line is so much better from a pilot perspective. It’s all sleek, and push button with actual space to move around, while the 737 cockpit is a direct rip from the even older 727 and is roughly the same size as my CRJ regional jet cockpit. Airplane generally flies just fine when there are competently trained pilots at the controls but that’s the best answer I can give you there.
The only military craft I could see having a viable civilian market (that doesn’t already HAVE a civilian market like the CH-47) would be the V-22 Osprey. The rest more prioritize power and performance (rightfully so) over efficiency, so making money with them becomes significantly harder. Companies like money. So… yeah.
Do you really have to eat a different meal than the co-pilot?
Haha I’m lucky if I get any food in-flight to begin with, let alone worrying if it’s different than what the other pilot is eating. I currently do not do the super long-haul cross-planet flights that entitle me to crew meals, so I can’t personally comment on whether that’s true or not. I think it’s up to each company’s individual policy.
What would be your one tip of advice for people terrified of flying?
Trust your flight crew’s judgement. If it were unsafe even a little bit we would not be getting on that airplane. We have families who love us too and aren’t trying to go die.
The bumps, the turbulence, can be scary to the uninitiated, but think of it more like driving over gravel or potholes in your car. You’re gonna bump around some and the ride is gonna suck, but you’re going to be fine. Up front, us pilots don’t wanna bump along any more than you are so we’re probably on the radio with ATC trying to find a smoother altitude to fly at. Some days though the ride sucks at all altitudes and all we can do is grin and bear it.
Hope that helps.
At what level of turbulence should we be worried? How bad does it have to get to become dangerous?
“Worried” is too strong a word, but when the captain advises the flight attendants to take their seats mid-flight, chances are we’re seeing a nasty looking storm out the front window. When you are seated, keep your seat belt on because sometimes things pop out of nowhere.
That said, I’ve flown through storms that LOOK like they’re going to be bumpy as shit and we don’t feel a thing. This is what happens 98% of the time.
Conversely there’s a rare phenomenon known as Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) that can be really severe but have zero indications it’s coming up until we’re deep in it. There was a Compass Airlines (Delta Connection) flight last summer I believe (maybe 2 summers ago?) that bounced the flight attendant off the ceiling of the plane and flipped a drink cart. In a situation like that, go ahead and be concerned, by all means. Believe me when I say we do our damnedest to avoid those sort of bumps.
Turbulence isn’t life threatening, it’s been a long time since I heard about a turbulence caused fatality or crash. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any in my lifetime. Injuries when it gets that bad are pretty common, usually from people that are up out of their seats when it happens.
I flew with a captain a while ago who got into Severe/Extreme turbulence (i.e. the top of the severity levels) while flying a smaller corporate plane. While he did land successfully and without injury (other than his passenger’s soiled pants), he said the plane was uncontrollable half the time and it took all of his skill to keep from breaking the plane. When they landed the tail was bent and the skin of the fuselage was rippled. It had to go back to the factory for 6-months+ worth of repairs.
I don’t tell you the previous story to scare you, but to highlight the fact that, even with those extreme weather conditions and a damaged airplane, it landed safely and everyone survived. The 757 airliner behind him flew through the same weather and also had to do an emergency landing because people go bounced around pretty badly (bruises, sprained ankles, etc) but that plane was not damaged like the small one was. Again, zero fatalities, plane landed safely.
These planes are built to survive extreme conditions. Like I’ve said in other questions, we are right up there with you and will not put anyone in a situation that threatens lives. Bottom line: the “Fasten Seatbelts” sign isn’t necessarily legally binding in the air like it is on the ground, but when it is on, you’re strongly advised to listen to it.
I often hear pilots say “we will make it up in the air” when there has been a short delay taking off. That indicates to me that you normally aren’t running at maximum speed (I’m guessing for fuel savings). How much faster could you go though? Let’s say it’s a 4 hour flight, could you get there in 3?
Basically, though not that much time. We can maybe do +/- 20 minutes on a 3 hour flight depending on conditions. It’s true, we don’t generally operate at maximum speed, and that is for fuel savings concerns. Our flight plan from out dispatchers has a planned flying speed and gives us a fuel load based on those calculations (with some wiggle room). And it’s not that we don’t HAVE the fuel to fly faster, it’s that the company makes less money if we burn through a bunch of extra gas we didn’t need to trying to make up 5 minutes. Gotta balance the concerns.
Other things we can do is ask Air Traffic Control for short cuts on our planned route of flight. From Point A to Point B there are generally proscribed routes of travel to make ATC’s job of tracking us easier. They’re generally pretty efficient, but not always the most direct route possible. Sometimes we can get the short cuts, if ATC isn’t very busy, sometimes not. We can usually save ~10 minutes with more efficient routing.
When the airline says my plane is delayed because of “mechanical issues”, what does that really mean?
99.9% of the time it literally means something broke and maintenance has to come out and fix it. Now that doesn’t mean something IMPORTANT broke, but if something is broken and it’s not in the aircraft logbook, it is literally illegal for us to go flying. Even if the door for an overhead bin breaks, its gotta get written up and entered on the aircraft dispatch release before we’re legal to go fly.
Usually it’s something like a fault cropped up in the electronics, maybe the temperature sensor for the wing anti-ice system threw out an error message and the mechanic is gonna come, pull a circuit breaker and reset the system, write it up as fixed, and boom. Done.
Buuuut, that takes time to call dispatch, get switch over to the maintenance desk and relay the problem to them. Then they have them call the company mechanics if we broke in a base, or draw up a quick contract with the local maintainers to come over and service the plane if we’re at an out-station. All of this takes time, usually for something really stupid that we honestly COULD go fly with if it weren’t illegal. Very rarely is it a serious maintenance issue. There’s an old pilot adage: problems on the ground don’t get better in the air.
If you’re ever worried about a plane coming off of maintenance, just remember: us pilots are on that exact same airplane with you. If it weren’t safe, we wouldn’t be getting on that plane. We love our jobs but do not have a death wish.
People always say pilot get paid by a lot (like enough to get u rich). Is that really true?
The simple answer to “do pilots make a lot of money” is….. eventually, if you’re lucky. Our pay is based on flight time. We’re only getting paid when the main cabin door is shut, until it opens again at the end of the flight.
All of that time preparing the airplane for flight, greeting all you lovely passengers as you come aboard, cleaning up the plane at the end of the flight once everyone gets off, sitting around the airport waiting for our next flight to start? We’re not getting paid for those times.
Airlines fall under the Railway Labor Act here in the US and have hourly pay rates for Captains, First Officers, and Flight Attendants, so the more we work, the more we get paid. Most airlines have a minimum monthly guarantee, i.e. you’ll get paid no less than 75 hours worth of pay, whether or not you actually get scheduled to fly that much. Pay rates are individual to each airline but a rough rule of thumb is a Captain makes twice as much as a First Officer who makes twice as much as a Flight Attendant. It’s not exact, but it’s relatively close to reality. As such captains are often unofficially obligated to buy the first round of drinks on the overnight and tip the airport shuttle drivers. haha.
Pilot pay has increased substantially since 2009 when new regulations went into effect, effectively shrinking the pool of available pilot candidates. They raised the airline pilot requirement from 250 hours of flight experience to 1500 hours of flight experience, a 600% increase to the minimum requirement to airline ENTRY LEVEL jobs. Prior to that, it wasn’t uncommon for a regional airline first officer to make $16,000/year and be on food stamps. Currently in the US, a regional airline a first officer can expect to make $40-50,000/year. A regional airline captain can make (roughly) $75-125,000/year depending on how many years seniority they have on the pay scale. The “big” airlines like Delta, American, FedEx, UPS, United, etc have much higher pay scales than the regionals and as such are the end-goals of most of us pilots.
Keep in mind though, these high-end pay scales are the…. “payback” for lack of a better term for years, decades really, of extremely bad pay and high cost of entry int o the aviation field. To become a pilot it’s not at all uncommon for people to go $50-100,000 in debt. Personally I got my pilots license with $57,000 of student loan debt. Then to accumulate 1500 hours of flight time most people have to work as flight instructors, pipeline inspectors, do banner towing along beaches, etc. Those jobs…. don’t pay a lot. Most pilots at that level can’t afford a house, or contribute to a savings or retirement account, so the high pay at the peak of the industry is designed to offset those early career detriments.
Bottom line answer: yes, you can get rich as a pilot if you stick with it long enough, keep your record clean, and have luck on your side. It’s less common, but for a large part of your airline career you can live a pretty comfortable, sometimes budgeted lifestyle. Hope that helps.
What effect does it REALLY have if I don’t put my device in airplane mode?
It can cause interference with our radios, both audio and navigational. On rare occasions we’ll have a lot of static on the radio, we’ll stop and make the announcement to remind everyone their phone needs to be in airplane mode and that if that doesn’t solve the problem we’ll have to return to the gate for maintenance. Reeeeeaaally quick the interference goes away. Go figure.
You want your phone in airplane mode too. Once we climb above ~5000 feet your phone isn’t gonna pick up any cell signal anyways so it’s just gonna spend the rest of the flight draining your battery searching for cell service.
Do you let young kids take pictures with you in the cockpit?
Absolutely. We all remember when WE were those kids. You’d be hard pressed to find the grumpy, crusty pilot who’s gonna pass up the chance to share our love of aviation with a kid and maybe create a life changing memory.
We can’t have people in the cockpit anymore during flight (thanks 9/11), but talk to the flight attendants about it during initial boarding, or talk to them in flight about doing it after everyone else gets off.
What’s your opinion on people who applause after landing?
I know, I know other passengers hate that and think they’re fools, but… I mean, most of us pilots have huge egos from doing what we do. We’re up front there probably applauding ourselves in our own heads. Either that or cringing at how we fucked up that landing, better do better next time. So.. whatever, thanks for the support I guess. Haha
Do they give you “Ladies and gentlemen, ah, this is your, ah Captain speaking” PA lessons?
Well ahhhhh, you have to pick your spots ahhhh, so that everyone knows you’re still speaking ahhhhh while you look for more pointless information to tell everyone like ahhhh the wind speed and direction at the destination.
Are all pilots required to wear aviators?
Yes. It’s hidden deep within federal aviation regulations 14 CFR 121.682 and all pilots are briefed on it when they’re in their new hire initial training.
He’s EXPOSING the secret alien interrogation program
Interesting. Relax. Do not get too caught up in this. But very interesting.
At least it confirms what I have been saying all along.
.
14 People Reveal How They Found Out Their Partners Were Cheating
July 20, 2023
1. My wife tried calling and didn’t hang up once it went to voicemail. She accidentally left a 2:45 VM. The VM consisted of her and her BF talking shit about me and how much happier she was with him.
At the time I was home with our kids and I thought she was 1,800 miles away to be with her dying father. Two years later we are divorced and her father is still alive.
2. She needed a new phone so I put it in my name since I was working, 2 hours after leaving the store and having lunch with me joking about how excited she was to get married I found a photoreel full of pictures she had been exchanging with her ex whilst transferring her stuff to her new phone.
I put 2 and 2 together and opened her text inbox and surprise! She had been texting him for months and fucking him for a few weeks.
3. I counted the pictures.
This was in 2000, before everyone had a camera on their phone and you had to get your holiday snaps developed at the Walgreens photo lab.
She brought home the pictures of her vacation to see her “old high school friend” in Vegas, but there was something missing. See, back in the day the rolls of film were made up of exposures of 12, 24, 36 pics, etc. depending on the film you bought.
I went through the photos and it didn’t add up. Literally. The 24 exposure roll only had 18 pics. Eventually I found the remaining photos…her and the new boyfriend looking happy.
4. My super genius ex wife bitched about the cost of our joint cell phone bill. She told me I’m using it too much. I never used it except to call her phone which was free. So I looked over the bill and found the number to the dude she was cheating with.
5. iMessage linked to her computer. I was on her computer buying stuff off Amazon and she was sitting on the couch, feet from me, texting her ex. He was trying to get her to send him nudes and they were reminiscing about previous encounters. He was bragging about how he made her “leg shake” all the while I was watching the conversation in real time, right next to her. My adrenaline kicked in and I simply closed the computer and left the house without saying a word. This was over a year ago and I’m still fighting her for custody of our children.
6. She became more and more distant. Not just that, but also indifferent. She just stopped caring and it showed. I caught her because she claimed she was working OT, but her pay never reflected it. One day I got out of work early after a machine broke down in the department. I didn’t tell her. When I came home, I caught her red handed with someone in our bed.
7. I had a feeling for a while, it was always denied of course – directly and through a massive amount of gaslighting. Ultimately, the other woman was also married and her husband called me at work (found me via LinkedIn). Took everything I had to walk to my car to cry in private.
8. Back when cell phones had limited minutes, I got notified that we were over our limit. Checked the last bill and nothing but her and her boss talking at all hours of the day. Then she stupidly left her e-mail open on my computer and I got to read how he enjoyed touching her boobs a lot.
9. Just got on a flight in London headed to Vegas. Sitting next to my GF and she wants to show me something she has planned for the trip so gets out her phone.
It opens to the Messages and shows a chat with a guy (I know him) saying how much she is gonna miss him and how she doesn’t wanna go away with me anyway.
The doors close on the plane and that was a really fucking fun 10-11hrs…
10. I know this is cliche and I’ve definitely bitched about it before, but coming home from a 12 MONTH deployment to a BLACK baby when we’re both white were strike one and two. Strike three was telling me she had black relatives (whom I’ve never met) so that could be what happened, sure. Doesn’t matter what excuse You have there isn’t a magical 12 month gestation period. Makes me very fucking angry.
11. The dude told me. We used to go to school together. Saw him in Facebook and requested friendship. He asked me how I was doing and I told him that I was great. Girl and I were about to celebrate our anniversary. He apologized to me and said he had to tell me that they had been fucking for the last week. Said he didn’t know we were together and I believed him. He sent me screenshots of pages of text as proof. She got called out by the both of us and we are still very good friends, he and I. Fuckin lying skank.
12. I woke up in the middle of the night when she was in the bathroom. Used her phone as a light. Saw texts from her ex about how good it felt to cum inside her the day before.
13. She forgot to end the call, you know, press the red button. I heard them talking about who was going to shower first.
14. She was in the toilet. Her phone flashed up. The message notification read “Did you tell him?”.
Apparently the message was about something completely different, but after I bluffed her into thinking I know more than I do – a name and that something’s up, she “confessed”.
10 years relationship destroyed. No turning back. Easier to build up trust with a new person the. with someone that cheated on you. And in long term relationships, marriage, you have to trust each other.
The Simpsons news! War between America and China
You ARE aware that the Simpsons television show has been able to predict the future, right?
Chinese don’t like war, not just for moral reasons, but because they are very costly and wasteful. Human lives are lost, families are wrecked, individuals are traumatized, buildings are destroyed, and deep ill-feeling is created.
Chinese especially don’t like the idea of killing other Chinese, even if many Taiwanese don’t consider themselves to be Chinese. Killing other Chinese is something which should be avoided until all other ways of resolution have been exhausted, and this is true for Taiwan.
Moreover, reconstruction costs would be huge, and the national treasury would take a major hit lasting years. If China attacked without provocation, the United States would be the first country to call for a boycott of China and Chinese goods, which would hurt the economy for years. The costs would run into the hundreds of billions of yuan.
The U.S. has lost every conceivable element of respect by must South East Asian people for being hypocritical and obnoxious, power that is bent in trouble making and war mongering which is what we do not want.
The U.S. must move from their moral high horse that no one buys and much less believe. To South East Asia we see the U.S. as the barbarous nation that murdered up to 3 million Vietnamese civilians and carpet bomb Manila to murder up to 1 million mostly Filipinos in its war against the Japanese. We know that the U.S. has a hand in murdering another 3 million anti communist in Indonesia.
The U.S. has completely and totally lost its plot in South East Asia. Apart from Singapore who is more interested in US money than US behaviour the U.S. do not have any influence here. Talking bad and talking down in China has turn off the South East Asian officials. To U.S. China has been our big neighbour for 5000 years yet we are still our own sovereign nation!
We saw what happened in the U.S. that begin with 13 East Coast states to stealing 37 more states till Pacific coast in a mere century! We appreciate that China in spite from actually way stronger than U.S. left us alone. The U.S. trying to sow fear about China is simply not believable at all. If anything. It showed the U.S. hypocrisy and it manipulative nature.
Sitrep
August 2023
There are three levels.
[1] Geo-political
In flux. The single ruling (American / UK) nation as a dominant entity is over. The world is in a situation of metamorphosis.
The duration of this period of change is unknown. However, a rapid change is suggested.
Most of the world (the Global South) are aligning with the China-Russian axis.
This suggests either [1a] a world consisting of two Geo-political axes or [1b] a world led by the Russia-China alignment.
This is a “bumpy road”. It may get “hot”, or “frosty cold”. But the changes will continue for a spell.
[2] Global Economic
Of the two emerging powers; (USA, Russia-China), the Western-led axes is remarkably poor. While the Eastern axes, (Russia – China) is powerful, wealthy and leading in most every indicator of value.
This trend is continuing in the two vector paths. One up. One down.
No one knows when the West will hit bottom.
The East will continue to go ballistic and there is no indication that the trend will plateau.
[3] Galactic
Various entities are observing these changes in the earth centrist sphere.
Domain is very busy right now, but the impression is that all is proceeding as it should. Medium bads only. No big bads are indicated.
Some very powerful entities have attempted to alter the “environment” to their personal benefit for one reason or the other. Domain has been patching away these efforts towards “full body repair”.
A period of stabilization and calm should be evident by the end of this decade.
Return To Green Acres (Full)
Ugh. So much sad and depressing stuff. How about something light, cheerful and happy for a change. This is my special gift for today. -MM
Today’s special treat! Happy times!
Sure they are older, by about 30 years, but it’s a fun time for all. Silly. Yeah. Not serious. Excellent! The stuff about Trump is pure gold.
Well, I have been playing around with the image-generation AI for a while now. I have passed the “introduction” stage, and am nor in the “novice user” stage.
I have been focusing my attention on one particular program known as DeepAI.
I have bought some “AI call” time, and been “mucking around” with it. This is what I have learned about this one particular type of image AI generation software…
Each time you click on the generation button”, a new picture is generated. Even if the rest of the settings stay the same. No two images are the same.
Word text description orientation makes a big difference.
Big grey elephant with monkey riding on top
Will have a very different image result than…
Monkey riding on top of a big grey elephant
Make sure you spell things properly. Steel is different than steal. A spelling mistake can have substantial impact on your resultant art.
The simple sentence will generate “pure” drawings, while the complicated description will provide more accurate results.
The art seems to generate some kind of “feel” for the imagery that you detail out, not any actual anatomical, or functional details.
The image context “style” groupings make all the difference in the world.
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Quick note; Double Click on the images to see the full size.
Example – Spaceship interior
In this example, I have created a text that looks like this…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic and shiny chrome and metal style spaceship
And the screen will look like this…
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Resulting in the following images… very futuristic, and stylish. Reminds me a little of the spacecraft in the movie “Alien”.
output 3
output 2
output 4
output1
Now, I then went and changed some wording. What I intended “black lit” was obviously not understood by the AI ‘Bot. I wanted to have a kind of “2001 space odyssey” kind of interior.
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Resulting in the following images… not really what I intended. But pretty cool. Anyways.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic and shiny chrome with black lit controls in a metal style spaceship
2output 3
2output 2
2output 1
Whoops!
I should of said “Back lit” instead of “black lit”.
Oh well…
Make a change…
Jules Verne style.
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With this… very interesting. You do get the “feel” of Victorian science fiction.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship
3a
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Make the following changes…
From this…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship
To this…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the view ports and widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun.
Resulting in… this very beautiful and interesting drawing.
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And some more… looks good with the blue skies, eh?
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More…
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Let’s jazz up the interior some…
Let’s add brass, and red velvet.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the view ports and widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet.
And look at the interior now… damn!
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But, of course, some of the results can be really unexpected…
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My gosh! Check out this one!
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And this one…
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The images build upon each other, as you can see in this train of images.
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Let’s further refine the description…
From
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the view ports and widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet.
To
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet. leather chairs. Many levers and switches.
And it’s getting closer and pretty impressive.
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.
Let’s add some carved ivory handles…
Let’s make this change.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet. leather chairs. Many levers and switches. There are white carved ivory handles for the doors, switches and fixtures.
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Let’s do something radical…
It’s going in a direction that I am not that interested in. Let’s change the description.
From
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet. leather chairs. Many levers and switches. There are white carved ivory handles for the doors, switches and fixtures.
To
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a stormy and rainy sky. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet.
Resulting in this…
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More playing with changes…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant morning sky. The interior is one of brass, polished wood, and red velvet.
Resulting in this…
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Changing the style…
As in this image displays…
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Results in this…
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Pretty impressive, though all the details are sketchy and there really isn’t any conformity in Industrial Design…
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And…
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It can also make very beautiful, but complex and nonsensical images…
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Another alteration to the text…
Let’s try this, shall we…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant morning sky overlooking lush green hills. The interior is one of brass, polished wood, and red velvet.
Resulting in…
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Another change…
Adding a cupola bubble.
A view from the observation cupola bubble that is part of detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant morning sky overlooking lush green hills. The interior is one of brass, polished wood, and red velvet.
Resulting in…what?
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Sigh.
I think that you all can get a “feel” for how this systems works. Right?
A view from the Palaeozoic period
New attempt. Different subject area.
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Next try…
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Back to Basics…
We revisit the initial statement with an add-on, and removed the requirement of metal.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic style spaceship. the interior is clean and organized
Resulting in…
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And now let’s make yet another change…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic style spaceship. the interior is clean and organized. The walls are brushed and anodized aluminum, the controls are back-lit.
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Conclusion
I have started playing with this software and find it has potential. You are able to effortlessly create your own royalty free art to illustrate your projects instead of paying for images, or using the tired old “internet” art.
That being said, it’s a cantankerous beast. You have to run through many iterations before you can find anything usable.
In this example, I tried to obtain a spaceship interior, but none of the generated art fit my notions of what it should be. Though the art was in many cases spectacular, more practice must be mastered before it can be of any use.
I will tell the reader that I continue to play with this software and I will have further reports in the future.
Believe it or not, Biden is following a publicly announced policy of pressuring China to respond and then blaming China for not responding if it does not do so.
The United States is in full free-fall collapse. But it is not my problem.
President Biden, at the G7 meeting in Japan this May, says that the cold war between the USA and China WILL THAW.
Uh-huh…
Sure. What ever you say.
Moreover, I just watched a video by an American general which strongly suggests this to be the case. 6MB Video HERE. Definitely worth a watch.
Maybe… But I DO NOT BELIEVE IT. No matter how much I want to.
I would be a fool to believe this swill..
Meanwhile, NATO is moving into Russia with AMERICAN weapons systems, and AMERICAN appearing troops in Ukraine Nazi uniforms.
WTF?
What is your shortest relationship?
1/2 a date. We were seated at the restaurant, chose our meals and I excused myself to go to the restroom. Upon returning we started talking. You know, all the small talk.
At one point he mentioned that he knew I had a dog.
My dog was a big boy, about 115 pounds. I said yes, he’s a rescue and a very nice dog. He sort of frowned and said, “well I have a cat and if we end up together the dog has to go.”
Huh?
I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly, after all this was a first date. Then the waiter showed up with our food. He set a lobster in front of me. I looked at the waiter and said, “Oh, I’m sorry but there has been a mistake: I ordered chicken.” My date, “no mistake, I’m not cheap; I changed your order.” Me: “I don’t like lobster.” Him: “just be grateful and eat it.” I didn’t say another word, just picked up my purse and walked out.
Wait I take it back. That was the second shortest.
My date arrived at my front door. My dog absolutely refused to allow this man through the front door. I had never seen him so determined to keep someone away from me. I trusted his instincts and told the guy, “My dog doesn’t like you and he’s a good judge of character, so the date’s off.” This man, screamed at me calling me all sorts of names, stomped down my front steps, screeched out of my drive and drove away. I gave the dog a steak for dinner.
The black and white dog was my sweet puppy, He passed on a few years ago.
main qimg 6b2cb0b7cb651004559d4cf5bcc407a3 lq
Origins of the Moonwalk
The Chinese Neighborhood Committees
By Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波
Another outstanding contribution by Frans Vandenbosch. -MM
Yesterday and today, I went to one of the many local neighborhood committees, here in Shanghai to get a better understanding of the way they are caring for the people.
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The office of the Neighbourhood Committee is along the (temporary) buildings of the Covid-19 testing centre.
I had a talk with Mr. Qiu, this afternoon also with Mr. Xu.
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There are in total 6 unpaid volunteers working for the neighborhood committee of the 乐山四五村居民区地域图 the Residential Area of Siwu, part of the Zikawei district in Xujiahui, Shanghai. They are all 6 members of the CPC, the Communist Party of China. They love to take care for people, that’s why they do this job on top of their regular job.
The Siwu residential area has many compounds with serviced large apartments. “Serviced” doesn’t mean it is for elderly people; most people are financially well off, not necessary retired. “Well off” doesn’t mean there are no issues with these people. There are sick, disabled, mentally unstable people, many divorces, disputes about the children of the divorced couples, etc. (as Mr. Xu explained)
In total, there are 3305 people living in the Siwu area; in 16 compounds; 34 (high rise) buildings.
Mr. Xu said that he knows half of these people personally, seeing them very frequently. The others, he has spoken on regular basis, but up to his knowledge, they don’t have problems.
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I asked him why he is doing all this ? “I want the people here to be happy” he said. And: “we, our team is dedicated to find a solution for each and every problem “our” people are facing”.
They are using 6 different apps (actually add-ons to WeChat) to manage and report all this. The apps are exchanging and bench-marking “standard issues” with other neighborhood committees, to assure the quality of the solutions. I didn’t asked him what’s the exact purpose of each app. (in my book there are some more details about the apps, used for neighborhood committee management)
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We start with a question…
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George Galloway adumbrating some blatant realities of our times
G7 focused on China. China is focused on development and prosperity. "Losers focus on winners. Winners focus on winning. "
My GOD! This is such a great video!
Spain joins the civilized world
Spanish PM will ask Biden to listen to China, Brazil on Ukraine. Spain joins the civilized world.
Why does the PRC often talk about “reunification” with Taiwan when the PRC or CCP has NEVER been unified with Taiwan in the first place?
Taiwan became a Chinese province under the Qing dynasty in 1887, and remained one until 1895 when it was ceded to Japan at the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
It was ceded to the Republic of China as part of the Potsdam agreement at the end of WWII, and came under the control of the Republic of China government in Nanjing on Oct. 25, 1945.
Taiwan is not a nation; it is an island.
The Republic of China has had Taipei as its seat of government ever since it lost mainland China to the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
The PRC government is the successor to the ROC government, and was recognized as its successor in 1971 when it was seated in the United Nations, and became a member of the UN Security Council. All governments which have established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China agree that there is only one China, and that Taiwan is part of China. Including the United States of America.
What does this mean? It means that the dispute over Taiwan is not between the PRC and Taiwan; it is between two Chinese governments which claim to represent all of China, the Republic of China (now on Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China.
The dispute between the ROC-PRC governments is simply the continuation of a civil war which started in 1946 and has not yet ended.
The position of the People’s Republic of China government in Beijing is that it is the legitimate successor of the Republic of China government, and therefore lays its claim to Taiwan, even though it has not yet been able to exercise full control of its claim.
The position of the Republic of China government in Taipei is that it is the legitimate government of all of China, and that all of these claims are laid out in the Constitution of the Republic of China, which is still used to govern Taiwan and offshore islands which are still under the control of the ROC government.
Even though Taiwan is ruled by the Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates Taiwan independence and lays no claims to mainland China, the DPP has continued to use the official name of the Republic of China, and follows the Constitution of the Republic of China. This is because the PRC government has stated very clearly that if any government in Taiwan were to openly declare independence from China, it would have no choice except to attack Taiwan and bring it back under control.
The only reason there has been peace in the Taiwan straits for so long is that while the two governments are rivals as the legitimate government of all of China, they agree that Taiwan is a part of the Chinese nation as a whole.
This is what has held the peace for so long.
What difference does this make to you as a non-Chinese? It means that your opinion does not matter and makes no difference. No Chinese care about what you think about Taiwan, and whether it should be independent.
Your opinion carries no weight.
So why get so worked up about it?
Fred Astaire vs. Michael Jackson
US ‘intentionally released Covid virus in Wuhan’ EU summit told | The Standard
The Covid-19 coronavirus was "intentionally released" by the United States in Wuhan, China, with the target to trigger a global pandemic to raise public acceptance of vaccines, a US businessman specializing in patent auditing said.
David Martin, the founding chairman of M Cam asset management company, said at an International Covid Summit organized by the European Parliament in Brussels earlier this month that the US was responsible for the making of both coronaviruses causing the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome - or SARS - in 2003 and the Covid-19 pandemic in the past three years.
The third edition of the summit featured speakers from anti-lockdown advocates to medical academia to discuss the global pandemic response. The speakers shed light on the possibility that the coronavirus which caused the pandemic was man-made, instead of naturally occurring.
In his speech, Martin said: "The pandemic that we alleged to have happened in the last few years did not happen overnight. In fact, the very specific pandemic using the coronavirus began at a different time."
He said that in 1965, scientists discovered the coronavirus as a model of a pathogen - an agent that causes disease. They also found out that coronaviruses can be modified.
"Later we started learning how to modify a coronavirus by putting them in animals such as dogs and pigs," Martin said, adding that such a practice became the basis for US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's first coronavirus spike protein vaccine in 1990.
But very soon the medical sector and drug makers found out that the vaccines did not work.
"Because the coronavirus is a malleable model, it mutates," Martin said. "Every medical publication concluded that coronaviruses escape vaccines because it modifies and mutates too rapidly for a vaccine to be developed."
In 2002, a university in North Carolina initiated a study to develop an "infectious replication defective," which Martin interpreted as "a weapon to target individuals, but not have collateral damage."
Characterizing the project as having "mysteriously preceded SARS by a year," Martin said the coronavirus that caused the highly deadly infection was not from China and that it was "engineered" instead of naturally occurring.
On Covid-19, Martin said the coronavirus - named as SARS-CoV-2 by the World Health Organization - was poised for human emergence in 2016, with a preview about an "accidental or intentional release of a respiratory coronavirus" from a laboratory in Wuhan.
He said the purpose of the coronavirus "release" was to boost global acceptance on universal vaccination.
Explaining the common concern among the medical industry, Martin said: "Until an infectious crisis is very real, present and at the emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored.
"To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, we need to increase the public understanding of the need for medical countermeasures, such as the pan-influenza, or pan-coronavirus, vaccine. A key drive is the media and the economics will follow the hype.
"We [pharmaceutical firms] need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issue. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process," he said.
The Covid infection was first reported in Wuhan, Hubei province in central China in late 2019, with initial clusters coming from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
The disease turned into a global pandemic in early 2020.
As of Saturday, over 766 million infections have been recorded worldwide, with nearly seven million deaths.
The source of the coronavirus remained a mystery. Some scientists believe it transferred to humans from wild animals like bats and manidaes, while some politicians, in particular those from the US, accused the Wuhan Institute of Virology - a government-controlled lab - of leaking the pathogen.
A team of WHO-appointed experts inspected Wuhan in early 2021 to probe the source of the pandemic.
After the 12-day visit, including a visit to the lab, the scientists concluded that it is "extremely unlikely" that the lab could have leaked the Covid-19 coronavirus.
Life Before the Internet… You had to do WHAT!
The most influential rulers in Chinese history.
Li Shimin（李世民）, one of China’s greatest emperors.
Qin Shihuang（秦始皇）,
Han Wudi（汉武帝-刘彻）,
Li Shimin（李世民）,
Genghis Khan（成吉思汗）,
Zhu Yuanzhang（朱元璋）.
After America defeats Russia and China in WW3, will every country be a democracy, and will we have achieved world peace?
More and more countries now don’t use US dollars but the other currencies in the cross-border trade settlements. The US starts to go down its own deep hole with exceptional mass shootings, bank runs, bankruptcy, mass layoffs, inflation, recession, and so on, one crisis after another.
How does America defeat Russia and China with the second-best weapons in the modern high-tech world?
How does America defeat Russia and China when its debt ceiling problem has become one of the political jokes in the world?
How does America defeat Russia and China with lies and dreams?
China and the Axis of the Sanctioned
A photo Beijing released on March 6th of Chinese President Xi Jinping's foreign minister Wang Yi delivered a seismic shock in Washington. There he stood between Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council,
Article HERE
Goodbye to the American Century
Not so long ago, political analysts were speaking of the “G-2” -- that is, of a potential working alliance between the United States and China aimed at managing global problems for their mutual benefit. Such
Article HERE
The whole world, Russia and China win peace whenever the US can’t start a war from now on. That’s even better than the chaotically worthless democracy showcase happening every day in the US very much like the third world country.
What a job.
China rolls out ‘radical’ change to its research enterprise
Facing tighter restrictions on access to key technologies and an increasingly competitive global scientific landscape, China has launched a major shake-up of its research organizations in pursuit of “self-reliance” in science and technology.
The National People’s Congress last week approved a plan that will refocus China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) on key efforts to meet top national priorities.
It also creates a powerful Central Science and Technology Commission intended to enforce consistent policies across government agencies—and hold them accountable for achieving their objectives.
Many details have yet to be released, but the revamp represents “the most radical change to [China’s] innovation system since the end of the Mao era,” says Richard Suttmeier, a political scientist now retired from the University of Oregon.
The goal, says Denis Simon, a China science policy expert at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is to get China “producing usable, desirable, needed technology that can be put into application sooner rather than later.”
But the plan does not slight basic research, which has enjoyed a surge in funding. In part, the moves represent a response to recent decisions by the United States to restrict sales of advanced computer chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.
The United States is pushing Japan and the Netherlands to adopt similar bans. This led Chinese President Xi Jinping to bluntly tell business executives at a 6 March meeting that China is facing a U.S.-led strategy of “containment, encirclement, and suppression” that poses “severe challenges for China’s development,” according to Xinhua, the official state news agency.
Many Chinese scientists agree. “China indeed has to become more self-reliant because of these restrictions,” says neuroscientist Mu-ming Poo, head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Institute of Neuroscience.
The self-sufficiency drive “seems like a natural response from Chinese leadership,” says Emily Weinstein, an analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
The U.S. sanctions have spurred China’s officials to address long-standing and deeper problems in the country’s research environment, says Simon, a former executive vice chancellor at Duke Kunshan University in China.
Over the years, China’s government gave MOST, a sprawling agency that oversees a wide range of research efforts, increased responsibility and resources “to build an innovation economy.”
But, “Leadership has not been impressed by the results,” Simon says. One problem is that although MOST set research priorities, allocated money, and evaluated projects (including its own), it had limited control over how other ministries conducted their research.
That led to inefficiencies and sometimes lackluster results, analysts have said. The new plan gives agencies greater responsibility for research within their mission areas and creates a more independent mechanism.
From HERE
China Now Publishes More High-Quality Science Than Any Other Nation
COMMENTARY | Should the U.S. be worried?
From HERE
Domestic smart driving chip, HaloDrive™ 30, designed and developed by Houmo.AI 后摩智能, tied with Nvidia for the first time! Without the most advanced process technology, independent mass-produced chips have already caught up with the industry’s first-class standards.
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Continue talking about wars and victory on paper to kill time while the Chinese scientists are building better systems in more and more fields.
Sorry for you.
Soul Train Line I Don’t Want To Lose Your Love Emotions
Awesome dancin’.
TSMC Workers Routinely Asked to Find ‘Bomb’ Notes in Machinery: Report
To ensure thorough testing and maintenance workers must find all 'bomb' notes or lose 'points'.
TSMC clean room workers are routinely tasked with finding 'bombs' in machinery, according to Taiwan's United News Network (UDN). We have put 'bombs' in inverted commas, as the staff undertaking equipment testing and maintenance will find sticky notes with 'bomb' written on them located on various components instead of potentially explosive devices.
Article HERE
Police Interview Of A Master Manipulator
In this jcs inspired video, we take a look at the interrogation of Pam Hupp. After inheriting two life insurance policies and then making a suspicious 911 call, the police begin an investigation into Pam Hupp and what they find is shocking
A Chinese girl posts some pictures of her life…
Today is May 24th 2023, i am close to 21 years old now. i am a Chinese girl from a tier-2 city of northern China, i just show my life here. This is a small night market of my hometown.
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There are a lot of foreigners Think China is a backward, depressed, isolated, no freedom and human right country. I want to say China is not what they think of. Indeed China has some problems but every country does. i hope more people could visit China and see the ordinary people’s life.
The Whispers – “And The Beat Goes On” (Official Video)
An Unusual, Luxurious Sleeping Bag That Looks Just Like A Life-Sized Bear
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Amsterdam-based Japanese artist Eiko Ishizawa has transformed the average, functional sleeping bag into an exquisite work of art with her luxurious creation that closely resembles a life-sized bear, humorously referencing the safety hazard that comes with camping in the woods.
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Inspired by a real-life event where a “problem bear” had wandered from the Italian Alps to the Bavarian side of the mountains in 2006, the life-like sleeping bag, measuring an approximate six feet in length, is a heartfelt tribute to the unfortunate demise of the bear, which was eventually hunted down for fear of its threat to the inhabitants around it.
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Lab monkey prices soar in U.S. after China cuts off exports – Nikkei Asia
The Gap Band – Early In The Morning (Official Music Video)
Healthcare
The United States is the only major country on Earth without universal healthcare, that’s an absolute disgrace… And you know if it was like “I don’t want to pay for another person’s healthcare” that would still be fucked up but I could kinda understand.
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But it doesn’t even work that way, through taxes they’re still paying for other people’s healthcare, more than in countries with socialised healthcare!! The US people are so divided at the negotiation table with the insurers that they get an absolutely shit deal.
How much fear should the US have from Russia now that no Air Defence system can stop the Russian super hyper sonic missiles that no one have but Russia?
You should learn to stop worrying and love the bomb.
American “leaders” have set the US on course with oblivion. They aren’t going to stop now.
Just enjoy the time you have left with your family and accept it. The psychopaths won. You lost.
Either way, the people of the US aren’t going to make it.
There is a sharp contradiction at the heart of the Albanese government’s attempt to stabilise trade with China, whilst at the same time preparing for war with China in support of the United States.
Trade Minister Don Farrell has just returned from a visit to China. He described his visit as ‘a step in the process of stabilising our relationship with China’, a $300b two way trade relationship which underwrites our economic prosperity.
As the minister suggested and as we are seeing there are clear signs of improvement in trade relations that were so damaged by the Morrison Government.
One particular matter that is outstanding is Australian and Chinese membership of the trade agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Eleven countries, mainly in our region have signed the Agreement. Unfortunately, the Agreement has not been ratified because Donald Trump withdrew from the Agreement. That resulted in vassal states like Australia and Japan deciding not to proceed.
At his press conference in China Don Farrell gave a yes/no answer about the CPTPP:
Journalist: “Minister did you discuss the CPTPP?”
Minister for Trade: “Yes, we did. We discussed that. The Chinese Minister indicated that they would like to be considered for accession to the CPTPP. I indicated that we still hadn’t finally resolved the issue of the United Kingdom’s accession. We do believe that that’s imminent, but it still hasn’t been finally resolved. Of course, accession to that agreement requires the consent of all the parties.”
But the main discussion in China was of course about how to repair the trade relationship that was blown off course, which Our media, with their anti-China paranoia, blame China for.
Our White Man’s Media (WMM) , ever so keen to join the anti-China band wagon, will not do some easy research and homework with a few examples about how the problem started.
The anti-China drive was led first by Malcolm Turnbull and his advisor John Garnaut.
Australia began with anti-dumping tariffs in 2017 on Chinese steel and aluminium products that the WTO later found illegal.
When Turnbull banned Huawei operating in Australia in August 2018, we were the first government in the world to do so.
We then banned Chinese foreign investments in 2017/2018, including China Mengniu Dairy Co’s proposed $600 million acquisition of Lion Dairy & Drinks, despite the Foreign Investment Review Board’s agreement to the deal. There was hardly a security risk here with a dairy company!
We introduced foreign influence laws in 2018 directed against China that proved so wide that Turnbull himself had to declare that he was an agent of foreign influence after participating in a South Korean forum.
In April 2020, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, trying to ingratiate the Morrison Government with Donald Trump, announced on ABC Insiders Program that she wanted a non-WHO investigation unit (from many countries) to investigate origins of Covid in China. To join the anti-China psychosis Labor Opposition backed her. This was despite President Xi telling the World Health Assembly that China would support a ‘Comprehensive Review’.
This was the final straw and China in 2020 started imposing quotas, quarantine and other restrictions on selective Australian exports (coal, beef, barley, timber logs, wine, lobster, etc).
The political and media establishment in their ignorance and prejudice were surprised by the Chinese reaction. Our WMM thought the Chinese would as usual be a push over. How dare an Asian country do such a thing to us!
Together with the US we squawked about Chinese ‘coercion’ but our ally the US proceeded to grab as much of our lost sales in China that it could. Our WMM was silent.
In fact, the US should be the last country in the world to complain about coercion and sanctions. The US is the country above all others that imposes sanctions.
According to the Centre for Economic Policy in the US only four per cent of countries were subject to sanctions in the 1960s. Imposed mainly by the US and to a much lesser extent by the EU and the UN. Today 27 per cent of countries are subject to sanctions.
We have seen the result in widespread death and suffering caused by US sanctions in Iraq, Iran (the most sanctioned country in the world), Afghanistan, Venezuela and now Russia. The unintended consequences result in death and starvation. But the US in desperation and belief in its own ‘exceptionalism’ tries to impose more and more sanctions and coercion on countries that don’t follow its rules.
China should not have imposed sanctions on us even though Australian actions triggered the Chinese response. Sanctions and coercion have unintended consequences.
Hopefully we can now get Australia/China trade back on track.
But there is an elephant in the room we want to avoid and not talk about.
We have a whole raft of policies and programs that assume that China may invade us and the best way to avoid that is to support the US in a whole range of ways. In becoming an enthusiastic US proxy for war on China we make ourselves very vulnerable from our major trading partner.
The Minister for Defence and our embedded media warn us every day about the China threat – the Chinese military build up – despite the fact that the US spends more on defence than the next nine countries combined.
We are at the same time supporting more and more US bases like Darwin and Tindal to develop the capacity to attack China, and have entered into the AUKUS agreement, which is not to defend Australia, but to assist the US in a first strike nuclear capacity against China.
We have a long history of fighting in other people’s wars – at great cost to Australia. But there is now a big difference. IF we are drawn into a US war with China the results for us would be catastrophic.
There is a massive contradiction between stabilising our trade relations with China and our casting of it as a mortal military threat.
That position is not sustainable. We are planning to support an American war on China yet expect China to remain a loyal trading partner.
Penny Wong and Don Farrell can hardly keep saying they are stabilising the relationship with China when Richard Marles is out there almost every day dog whistling about the China threat. But perhaps he has been on the Washington drip feed for so long he doesn’t understand the immense contradiction in our relations with China and the enormous risks we are running.
We want improved trade relations with China whilst acting to support a US war with China. Something has to give.
Hopefully the Chinese are smarter than we are and take a longer view.
France Can’t Lecture Africa About Democracy As It Does Business With Corrupt Governments
At the end of April The Economist spoke to Mr Kissinger for over eight hours about how to prevent the contest between China and America from descending into war.
Mr Kissinger is alarmed by China’s and America’s intensifying competition for technological and economic pre-eminence. “We’re in the classic pre-world war one situation,” he says, “where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences.”
Mr Kissinger believes that AI will become a key factor in security within five years. He compares its disruptive potential to the invention of printing, which spread ideas that played a part in causing the devastating wars of the 16th and 17th centuries.
“[We live] in a world of unprecedented destructiveness,” Mr Kissinger warns. Despite the doctrine that a human should be in the loop, automatic and unstoppable weapons may be created. “If you look at military history, you can say, it has never been possible to destroy all your opponents, because of limitations of geography and of accuracy. [Now] there are no limitations. Every adversary is 100% vulnerable.”
He also cautioned against misinterpreting China’s ambitions. In Washington, “They say China wants world domination…The answer is that they [in China] want to be powerful,” he says. “They’re not heading for world domination in a Hitlerian sense,” he says. “That is not how they think or have ever thought of world order.”
In Nazi Germany war was inevitable because Adolf Hitler needed it, Mr Kissinger says, but China is different. He has met many Chinese leaders, starting with Mao Zedong. He did not doubt their ideological commitment, but this has always been welded onto a keen sense of their country’s interests and capabilities.
Mr Kissinger sees the Chinese system as more Confucian than Marxist. That teaches Chinese leaders to attain the maximum strength of which their country is capable and to seek to be respected for their accomplishments. Chinese leaders want to be recognised as the international system’s final judges of their own interests.
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Budweiser’s DESPERATE Partnership With Harley Davidson & The Military
Why can’t the US engineer a coup … to topple the Beijing government ?
A coup is possible ONLY if there is a strong opposition and the government is UNPOPULAR.
China has a meritocracy system of appointing leaders. Only the leaders proven (by actual performance) are promoted up the bottom ranks…strictly based on ACTUAL EXCELLENT performanceS and then elected to be the President after 30 to 40 years. As a result, the President is the most popular man in the country.
Harvard university (USA) conducted a 10 year study in China. They found that over 95.5% of Chinese support the Chinese government. (see Harvard report below)
However, the US tried many times … to use regime change … to topple the Beijing government and to replace the Chinese leader with a US puppet (just like the USSR).
The US tried this…several times. The last one in Beijing was the failed TAM uprising in 1989.
As a result of TAM, China has banned public protest and street demonstration (like in Singapore). This effectively prevented NED (from the USA) from instigating a regime change in China.
Thought Bud Light was bad? Target is now a “BIND” over their new Trans Clothing lineup
El Paso Red Sauce
This El Paso Red Sauce improves with age.
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Ingredients
1 large can whole tomatoes
1 small can whole chile peppers
4 to 6 jalapeno peppers
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Instructions
Pulse a few times in a blender or chop by hand.
Let stand several hours at room temperature, then refrigerate in a glass jar.
China NOW Controls the Tech That Will Define the 21st Century!
Mearsheimers Latest Talk On The War In Ukraine
Yesterday the well known international relations scholar John Mearsheimer gave a talk (video, 1:33h) about the war in Ukraine to the Committee for the Republic.
Mearsheimer made two major points:
Ukraine can not win this war because the kill ratio in this war is in its disfavor. Mearheimer estimates that two Ukrainians die for one Russian soldier but says that many of his friends think that the ratio is more like 3:1 or 4:1. The reason for this is the WWI-style static war in which artillery is the most deadly weapon. Russia has an immense artillery advantage. During an offensive the attacker will often have more casualties than the defender. But in this war the Ukraine side has been (counter-)attacked most of the time while the Russians defended.
The Ukraine also has a much smaller population than Russia. The current ratio is about 5 Russians for 1 Ukrainian. With a much smaller population and much higher casualties the Ukraine will run out of able bodies way before Russia does.
Mearsheimer expects that Russia, which already has incorporated four Ukrainian oblast plus Crimea, will take another four oblast from Ukraine. (I predicted this on February 24 2022, the day the war began. Those eight oblast plus Crimea are historically Russian land inhabited by Russian people. During the last thirty years they have consistently voted for pro-Russian candidates while the people in west Ukraine consistently opted for anti-Russian candidates.) Ukraine will end up as a dysfunctional (and poor) rump state.
Mearsheimer says that there will be no peace agreement in Ukraine. The war is seen by both sides as existential. Ukraine insists of regaining territory it sees as part of the country. Ukraine wants security guarantees from the ‘west’ which Russia opposes. The problem of hyper-nationalism (fascism) on the Ukrainian side also makes peace impossible. Then there is the problem that Russia, after having been lied to over the Minsk agreements, has zero trust in any ‘western’ word.
I Found A Place In Alabama That’s Actually Thriving
Lone Star Steak Sauce
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Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 drops Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
Salt to taste
Instructions
Combine all ingredients.
Heat until butter melts. Broiler juices may be added.
Serve with steak.
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Oh SH*T, Putin and China just declared economic war on the West with this move, Biden responds
The United States and the other G7 nations just declared open economic war on China. China responded with a ban on U.S. chip manufacturer Micron.
Things just got out of hand. At the G7, the leaders threatened to undermine China’s economic growth unless it implemented some changes.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the Asian Summit, unveiled a grand plan for Central Asia’s development, from building infrastructure to boosting trade, taking on a new leadership role in a region that has traditionally been a Russian sphere of influence.
We are watching the West get ready to collide head-on with the East.
What is your opinion on the future conflict between the US and China over semiconductors?
The damage is already done. Donald Dragonslayer stormed into a dragon’s den armed with a wooden sword. He failed to slay the dragon, but he did manage to wake up the dragon.
Donald Dragonslayer’s war on China isn’t just a war against the leadership and the Communist Party. Dragonslayer’s war is a war against that whole population. We’re in the process of making enemies out of one-fifth of the world’s population who were formerly admirers of America and dreamers of the “American Dream.” There are more people in China who speak English than there are in the United States – as a second language of course. They have been preparing themselves to deal with American civilization on a long term basis. Now, Donald Trump, Robert Lighthizer, Peter Navarro, and Mike Pompeo, have poisoned that relationship beyond repair. China will never ever NEVER allow itself to be in a position where it is dependent on the United States for anything. They will be a trading partner, but not a dependent ever again. Count on it.
Chinese universities are graduating 4x times as many engineers and scientists as the American universities graduate. China will just go on developing its own semiconductor industry and out compete the Unite States in the world market. China is making friends in the world while we’re making enemies.
Morning drive Polk Mountain NC to Mooresville NC on country roads – ASMR
TEHRAN – Iran and Russia, both under harsh Western sanctions, on May 17 inked an agreement on the long-stalled construction of a railway connecting the northern Iranian cities of Rasht and Astara.
The railway is key to the International North-South Transit Corridor (INSTC).
Spanning 162 km (100.6 miles), the railway is a crucial element of the INSTC. The corridor integrates road, rail, and sea transportation, facilitating the movement of goods between Russia and India via Iran.
Through a video link, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin addressed the ceremony in Tehran where the two countries’ transport ministers signed the agreement.
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Raisi thanked Putin and the Russian government for their involvement in the initiative and referred to it as an “important strategic step” in bilateral cooperation that will benefit all countries involved in the INSTC. Putin, for his part, called the occasion a “landmark moment for the entire global transport infrastructure.”
The deal came a day after Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization chief Alireza Payman-Pak announced that Russia’s second-biggest bank, VTB, had opened a representative office in Tehran.
Peyman-Pak said that the office, which marks the first “direct presence” of a Russian bank in Iran, will be used for foreign currency transfers.
State-owned VTB was sanctioned by the EU, UK, and the US following the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in Feb. 2022.
The railway deal has been hailed by state officials and media in Iran as part of a significant future source of income.
Raisi’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs Mohammad Jamshidi has predicted that the earnings from the INTSC would be able to rival Iran’s oil revenue. In this vein, the ISNA news agency on May 17 estimated annual revenue of $20 billion from the Corridor.
The Jam-e Jam newspaper described Iran as the “golden path of trade” in an article highlighting the potential benefits of the railway.
Meanwhile, the Tasnim News Agency said ahead of the deal that the “curse” that has so far stalled the railway project would be broken through “Russian partnership.”
India, Iran, and Russia initially struck an accord in 2002 to forge the INSTC. The ambitious undertaking aims to create a new transit route linking India to Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Russia via Iran’s southern and northern coastal regions.
The corridor is seen by Russia as a potential rival to the Suez Canal, a far longer route for trade with northern Europe.
Iran has been a key player in the INSTC and stands to benefit greatly from its full realization. As reported by Amwaj.media, the Raisi government has seemingly banked significantly on transit becoming a top revenue generator. But Iran stands to gain from the project in more ways.
The operationalization of the corridor could mean improved relations between Iran and India, aligning New Delhi more closely with Tehran’s regional interests.
A vital element of the INSTC, the Rasht-Astara railway project has been stalled for years due to costs, engineering, and logistical complications.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stressed the importance of completing the stretch of railway in his July 2022 meeting with Putin in Tehran.
VTB’s new office in Tehran is part of Iran and Russia’s ongoing efforts to connect their banking systems.
The two countries signed an agreement on Jan. 29 to link their inter-bank messaging systems.
Due to Western sanctions, both countries have been cut off from SWIFT—a leading Belgium-based financial messaging service.
Both Iran and Russia are looking to reap the potential economic benefits of increased transit amid Western sanctions.
The Raisi government seeks to mitigate the adverse effects of sanctions through de-dollarization of trade and the establishment of direct banking and payment channels outside the international banking system.
Dr. Bijan Khajehpour, managing partner of the Vienna-based Eurasian Nexus Partners, told Amwaj.media that if the legal structures are put in place, it could take only a few months for VTB’s new office to process transactions. However, Khajehpour cautioned that “usually, it is the lawyers who delay such processes,” adding that “to complete the picture” it is also necessary to consider that VTB is subject to Western sanctions and that its operations in Iran “will have to rely on the agreements and structures between Moscow and Tehran, such as a non-SWIFT messaging system.”
On the political side, a successful increase in transit revenues will reinforce Iran’s “Look to the East” policy of strengthening ties with neighboring countries and eastern powers as a response to western pressure. This could encourage Raisi’s hardline supporters, who have touted Iran’s place in an emerging multipolar “new world order.”
Russia has failed to hide its angry of the rising ties between Iran and Russia. The U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson has expressed alarm about the Rashst-Astara railway deal. At a news conference on May 17, Vedant Patel stated, “We of course would find deeply concerning any steps or any project being undertaken to go around sanctions.”
In response Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the Joe Biden administration’s concerns about Tehran’s expansion of trade cooperation with other nations is “unjustified and invalid”.
Kanaani said the most recent agreement with Russia is in line with Iran’s emphasis on the policy of good neighborliness.
He stressed that the cornerstone of closer ties with neighbors is “cooperation for common security, development, and welfare.”
JOE COCKER The Letter 1970
Who is in charge – President Biden or the State Department
an Administration in chaos. The Americans have very little credibility left
they cannot even get the simplest things correct
the Mighty have fallen far
This is reality, we cannot be bested by these lots
main qimg fbc821c442717f1c7117cbe1217e5219
Huawei Responds To UK Ban With $1.25 Billion Charge And Withdrawal
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
This is pretty good. Style options are not present, though.
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
This one takes a little bit of time to figure out and work with, but it’s not that difficult.
You upload a “seeder” image. Blur it to represent the amount of change you want, pick a style. Write a description and the AI does the rest…
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Here’s some examples when I typed in a sentence, and then clicked on the style icon…
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
2023 04 25 11 35
Here’s some examples when I typed in a sentence, and then clicked on the style icon…
I think that it is fun.
Some of my art renderings…
I just set up a brief sentence (I only have five tries), and then conducted variations…
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
The capabilities of artificial intelligence just keep expanding, and this includes different kinds of art. We’re going to introduce you to an app that lets you create digital images with the help of AI technology.
Dream by Wombo is available for mobile and online, but the former has more to offer. Learn how to use this AI artwork mobile app and what you can expect from it in just a few steps.
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Here’s some examples when I typed in a sentence, and then clicked on the style icon…
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I think that it is fun.
Now, I did all of this on my computer. But you don’t need to. You can download the APP.
Summary on this…
It’s good.
It’s free, though you can buy a premium subscription.
It produces basic, recognizable art. The art style is cute / childish / basic illustration. Suitable for graphics, presentations and children’s books.
It makes nice renderings of cats and kittens. And after all, if you cannot render a kitty, then what is your value?
APP
This app is perfect for decorating books, websites, walls, or custom playlist art without hiring a professional illustrator or graphic designer. It’s fast and easy.
Whether you’re on your phone or computer, Dream by Wombo’s AI can quickly produce stunning images in an artistic style of your choice with a simple prompt.
The browser-based version is simple enough to use and has a Mint as NFT option, while it lets you download or buy a print of your AI artwork. The mobile app, however, puts more tools at your disposal.
We’re going to show you how to use Dream by Wombo on your smartphone or tablet, step by step. But first, make sure you have the app.
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
OK, so as of late, I have been experimenting with this “new” kind of Artificial Intelligence system. This one takes a sentence, a statement and then generates art from it. It’s fun, cool and quite an amusement. Something that I am just starting to “toy around with”.
2023 04 24 21 22
DeepAI offers an easy-to-use text-to-image generator that produces decent results with the right prompts. There are many image styles on offer, and almost half of those are free.
The free ones include basic text-to-image, cute creatures, fantasy worlds, cyberpunk, old, renaissance painting, and abstract, among a few others.
All of these styles produce images according to that theme, pretty much like the other tools on this list. However, among these styles, there is a logo generator as well that you can use to produce interesting logo ideas. It’s particularly useful for artists who are looking for inspiration to build on or to overcome a block.
Here’s some examples when I typed in a sentence, and then clicked on the style icon…
2023 04 24 20 12
Pretty good.
You need to play with it, because if you use the wrong feed generation icon, your images won’t look “right”.
Here, I used the architectural icon for a house-based sentence…
I do not have enough time to devote myself to the needs of my little daughter. She (at her age) is 24-7, and I am working multiple jobs and multiple projects. But, you know, I always try to give her priority. So, I have these little events. One of which is an occasional movie with her and myself. I try to do it weekly.
Our time.
Give her momma a break.
So we sit down on the sofa, and watch a movie. Given her age, and my activity schedule, we usually break the movie down into two segments,; the first half on one day, and the the rest on another.
During the movie, we eat a snack. Mostly being a small bag of potato chips, or some crunchy “kid snacks”, and we sit down and watch the movie. I like “American style” Lays (yellow bag) potato chips. We set the bag down, and using scissors, cut a big hole on the side so it forms a kind of disposable tray.
I also make sure that she went to the bathroom before we get started.
Mostly we watched downloaded movies in torrent format, then saved on the drive. I just pull them up and we watch uninterrupted.
The movies that I select are based on things that I want her to concentrate on…
Love
Tenderness, compassion
Independence
Winning over adversity
And so my list is not going to be the average fare that you find on the internet. In fact, you might be surprised in the lack of Disney films (though some are included), and the high concentration of Studio Ghibli films (all in English over dub animation).
Most of the videos you can find easily on the internet with a little bit of sleuthing. Since my child is bilingual (English and Chinese) versions of the movies in these languages are fine, and interchangeable. However, we seek out English versions (say for example) the Japanese movies.
Here’s my preferred videos, in no particular order…
A delightful fantasy that will bring out the child in anyoneHave you ever wished that you could escape your dull and stressful life at school or work and go on a magical adventure of your own, with one of your closest friends at your side, facing all sorts of dangers and villains, and unraveling the mystery of a lost civilization that's just waiting for someone to discover all its secrets?
Even if you're not quite that much of a fantasy-lover, have you ever wished you could simply experience what it's like to be a kid again, and not have a care in the world, for just a couple of hours?
This is exactly what Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" is all about.
Pazu, a young but very brave and ambitious engineer, lives a rustic life in a mining town until one day, a girl named Sheeta falls down from the sky like an angel and takes him on a journey to a place far beyond the clouds, while all the while they have pirates and military units hot on their trail.
Simply put, it is just the incredible adventure that every kid dreams of at one point or another, and I can't help but feel my worries melt away every time I see it.
An English dub of this film was produced by the Walt Disney Company in 1999 (originally intended to be released that same year), but wasn’t released on DVD until 2003. The English dub shortens the title to “Castle in the Sky,” removing the word “Laputa,” since it means “the whore” in Spanish.
Cat Woman (2004)
A adult film, not an animation. Talks about a strong woman, transformation, change, righting wrongs, and being a cat.
I want my daughter to be strong, and tough. When we watch this movie, she loves the scenes of cats, and how “cat woman” behaves. For days afterwards, she acts a little cat-like in her walk, talk and playing ball. LOL.
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Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) is a visual artist who is stuck working in the advertising division of a large beauty product manufacturer, Hedare. When she acquires information that could potentially put the company out of business, they try to dispose of her. Because she had previously, unwittingly passed a "test", however, she is saved by a group of cats and transformed into a Catwoman.First, let me note that I loved this film. It's a 10 out of 10 for me. Since I'm well aware that most critics, professional and amateur alike, have trashed this film, I'll focus on why I thought it was so good. Maybe this will help some new viewers consider giving it a look, and possibly encourage some reevaluation by those who have already seen the film.The script immediately drew me into the film, and although I'm male, I identified with Patience. I'm also a visual artist. I have also worked for a company similar to Hedare in the past (although a much smaller and less nefarious beauty product company). I lived in an apartment that looked, on the outside, almost exactly the same as Patience's apartment complex. I also had neighbors who night after night played loud music or television until three or four a.m., while I first tried to block out the sound in any way that I could, then asked politely for them to turn the music down, and so on, until I finally called the cops on them so I could get some sleep.Not that I need to identify with a character to like a film, but that made this one have extra resonance with me in the beginning. Additionally, I was immediately drawn in by the fantastic cinematography and set design. Those kinds of things are just as important in a movie as the story is. Film is a visual and aural artform. The whole package is important. Creative, attractive visuals such as those in Catwoman are part of the package.The script, including the subtexts, worked well for me. Catwoman is a film about discovering identities, peeling away literal and metaphorical masks, and the difference between various stages of public versus private "faces". That the plot is centered on a beauty product manufacturer, then, is perfect. These themes permeate every aspect of the film. For example, Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt) is continually peeling away the appearances of Patience, throughout the length of the film, and Patience is doing the same for herself--discovering her "true self". I can't think of a scene that doesn't touch on this theme in some way. That's very clever and thought-provoking scriptwriting, and it doesn't end there. There are also themes about femininity cleverly woven through the film, for example.I thought the cast did a fantastic job. Berry is great as a Catwoman, and subtly referenced most of the previous screen Catwomen. She also incorporated a lot of crafty cat-like behavior. I enjoyed the supporting cast, especially Alex Borstein as Patience's friend, Sally. The effects worked well for me, and at times they were also very subtle and clever, such as Catwoman's whip representing a tail in many shots (most of this was achieved via digital effects). I was also impressed with the creativity and different approach of many of the fight scenes. It was nice to see Brazilian martial arts incorporated for a change.Some of the negative criticism probably stems from a kind of purism that is disproportionately found among comic book fans when it comes to comic book films. I'm not much of a purist, but in any event, for anyone paying close attention, you'd note that Berry's character isn't supposed to be Selina Kyle. In the mythology of as presented here, "Catwoman" isn't a lone token, but a type. Patience is just another instantiation of a long line of catwomen. So departures from previous portrayals of Selina Kyle aren't relevant, even if we believed that filmmakers were obligated in some way to previous depictions of the "same" fictional characters (which I don't believe, not being a purist).Catwoman is worth a (second) chance if you can leave some of your preconceptions at the door and if you're prepared to think a bit about a comic book film.
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Epic (2013)
Shrinking to the size of ants, and inhabiting a huge ancient forest; with a mad-scientist father… it’s stuff that kids just eat up. The parade scenes, and all the interplay is mesmerizing to my daughter. She just cannot keep her eyes off it.
2023 02 05 12 09
I didn't think I'd like this movie, but I took my 10-year-old cousin to see it anyway, and I really loved it.I've heard this film compared to everything--FernGully, The Borrowers, Avatar, etc., and while it is another film in that genre and it may be a little cliché, it does create its own fascinating world and tell its story in a unique way. Its themes are heavy (family and belonging, the balance between growth and decay/life and death) but are handled in a successfully child-friendly manner.The animation and design are gorgeous. I love the cute fairy-like flower and leaf people; I even love the design of the goblin-like bad guys (the Boggan). I want to see more stories set in this incredible little world. I also appreciate how much care went into animating that forest.While the characters are pretty familiar, they're still delightful. I thought the choice of voice actors was particularly good. I liked Amanda Seyfried as the main character, M.K. (Mary Katherine), I looooved Colin Farrell as Ronin, and I have to say, I was really pleasantly surprised by Beyonce as Queen Tara. She has a voice just like honey, which fits the queen's sweet, playful personality. Queen Tara emerges as one of my favorite animated characters of all time (and NO, I do not find her voice "too ghetto." I don't appreciate people sniffing down their noses at others that way) because she carried so much of the movie with what turned out to be really minimal role. Plus, I always love to see people of color portrayed positively in children's films.I would definitely take kids to see this again, although it might be too scary for kids younger than 6 and too slow for kids older than 12. Folks have to admit, this is a fun movie to watch, and highly imaginative kids especially will love it.
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Free Guy (2021)
Just fun. Modern. Interfaces clearly with social media usage by children. Totally relatable, with deep messages…
…strong woman character. Nice guy.
A message of helping others…
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One glance at FREE GUY, the newest big budget offering from Hollywood's favorite action-star/comedy master Ryan Reynolds, will cause most to approach with valid skepticism.
The plot seems like a cheap knockoff of films like Ready Player One or even The Matrix, but made in a crude fashion to make more money at the box office.
The actual movie, however, could not be further from the worst estimates.
Not only is FREE GUY constantly hilarious due to Reynolds and an inventive screenplay, and not only is this possibly the feel-good event of the summer, but it also has a considerable amount of thought put into the meaning of its premise and places a mirror in front of modern-day video game culture.To put it simply, perhaps the main reason this movie comes together so well is because of Ryan Reynolds' constant charisma and hilarity. Most of his dialogue is clearly either written by him or created by him on the spot (I have no idea how he hasn't received a screenwriting credit for this and the Deadpool movies), and the film is that much better as a whole because of it. He also interacts with the other actors in the film very well, including Jodie Comer and Joe Keery, two underrated actors who prove here that they aren't just one-time stars from their respective television shows (Killing Eve and Stranger Things). The ensemble combines to create the most consistently funny movie of 2021 so far.However, this movie isn't just hilarity and crazy antics, although it could easily get by on those aspects alone.
FREE GUY has tons of heart and authenticity despite its virtual reality-based plot, and is about very human emotions such as disillusionment, the feeling of being trapped, and, of course, love.
There are times where the heartwarming aspects of this film resemble a charming romantic comedy and others where it gets so existential that it almost feels like The Truman Show.
It never dives quite as deep as the latter film, but the fact that it even has the guts to include these themes made this easygoing big-budget movie a far better watch for me.
Sure, the last thirty minutes are very cheesy and contain a lot of clichés, but the buildup is so solid that it earns some dumb rom-com moments near the end.FREE GUY is worth going to see because it is one of the few quality films right now that increases one's faith in human nature.
Lately I feel as though I have lost my faith in humanity with all that is happening in the world, so it is refreshing to get a movie that feels confident in the human experience.
Maybe I'm looking too deep into the message of FREE GUY and maybe it was conceived just so Ryan Reynolds could screw around for two hours, but either way the price of admission is well worth it for an amazing time at the theater.
2023 02 05 12 13
Home (2015)
A fun adventure about an independent girl searching for her mother (a big hit with my young daughter) and her cat. It teaches to face face your fears, friendships, promises, and handling adversity. All to a fun soundtrack.
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...there's something so utterly sweet and innocent about Home that it zooms by with an enchanting charm.
When people tell you to calm down by going to your happy place, it probably looks something like this.
It's arguably the most child-centric movie Dreamworks have produced for a few years too.
The adult-targeted humour is kept to a minimum and the physical comedy is amped up to levels that is normally irritating but here works an absolute treat.
Its success can be attributed, in a big way, to the lovable alien Oh (Jim Parsons). A clumsy go-getter with endearing optimism, cuddly colour-changing looks, and amusing speech patterns, Oh steals the spotlight whenever he is on screen, which is about 95% of the time.
As his plucky partner in adventure, Tip, Rihanna's precocious human child is fairly stock standard, whilst Steve Martin's dim-witted leader of Oh's Boov race lands a few hilarious moments among some dull ones. Vibrant, energetic and with an unexpected tear-jerking finale, Home falls on the right side of simple.
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Here’s the Music Video, with scenes from the video.
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
In a time of war and falsity here it is a dancing poetry from Japan against all the cruelty and pain.
The moving castle leads us to a magic place where life has a strong value and elderly people have an important role to play. Also in an apparent hostility or in a scarecrow, Hayao Miyazaki gives us the chance of finding a friend and not letting the dream go down.
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The perfect technique and the emotional stream are in complete harmony. If the jury of the Venice Film Festival had been more far-seeing, it would have given a more prestigious prize to this masterpiece.
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Kikis Delivery Service (1989)
One of our favorites. A young girl leaves home with her cat to begin her start as a young witch. Calm, peaceful and enchanting. My little girl loves the imagery, pace and feeling of the movie.
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One of the greatest children’s films ever made
This ranks up there with Pinocchio as the greatest movie for children ever made. One huge problem with most animated children's films are that the plots are so conventional and often contain very 1950s ideals for society that they become detrimental to society.
One's childhood is the most impressionable time in their life, so movies that are directed towards them teach them what places different sorts of people play in society.
There is a very humorous, but also very serious bit of dialogue in a film called The Last Days of Disco where characters discuss the effects Lady and the Tramp could have on little girls, depicting a young female dog falling for a vagabond Tramp.
This, they muse, sets young women up to fall for rebellious men later in life.
This may seem like a humorous idea, but it's absolutely true.
Even good Disney movies give children these standards. As nice as The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves may be, they basically teach that it is the woman's place to grow up and get married, prefereably to a handsome rich man (perhaps the rich part is never said, but both the main male characters in these films do happen to own castles).
The writers of these films probably had no idea that that is what they were doing, but it is.
That is why Pinocchio is the best Disney movie. It is probably the only Disney animated film that I can think of that actually concerns the predicament of its target audience: children. I can hardly think of a single (American) animated film besides it that has a child as its main character (oh, the Jungle Book, which is also excellent).
Then comes Kiki's Delivery Service.
It is an absolutely perfect movie about a young girl out on her own trying to handle the responsibilities of life. It is, in my opinion, the best movie that a child can watch.
And not only will it teach children, it is also marvelously animated, directed, and written.
There is a plethora of great characters, exciting moments, and imaginative situations. It should also expand a child's mind, not only because of the imagination involved, which will help to break children away from conventions in their film experience, thus making them more intelligent, but because it comes from another culture.
It doesn't overtly show its Japaneseness, unless you count the imagination involved (though you should count that as a credit towards Hayao Miyazaki, who is the greatest genius of animation as far as I'm concerned). But it may spark an interest in children old enough to understand that someone from another country made it. Also, for younger kids, Miyazaki's fantastic, equally good My Neighbor Totoro. 10/10
(ps: I have only seen the English dubbed version of this film. I find it perfectly acceptable and great.
Nothing made me cringe, anyway. I think Kirsten Dunst did a very good job characterizing Kiki, a much better job than Claire Danes did characterizing San from Princess Mononoke.)
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Labyrinth (1986)
A kids’ movie. I remember watching this on Betamax in the late 1980’s. But my daughter absolutely adores it.
2023 02 05 14 0g3
Labyrinth was directed by Jim Henson of the Muppet and The Dark Crystal fame. It was produced by George Lucas and featured David Bowie as the villain Goblin King. It's also one of Jennifer Connelly's first films. And it just might be the best live-action Alice in Wonderland film ever made.
Sarah (Connelly) is a proud cloudcuckoolander, someone whose head is permanently stuck in the clouds and who can very easily lose entire days playing make-belief in the parks. And then she's given the unenviable task of looking after her baby brother while her parents go out on a date. And of course the kid gets kidnapped by goblins within fifteen minutes. Top notch job there, Sarah.
To Sarah's credit, she's obviously distraught by this and does everything she can to get her brother back. Nevertheless, her character is a bit tough to get behind most of the time. You can see that her heart is in the right place, but otherwise she's a brat. Not helping the matter is Connelly's acting. It's atrocious, especially in the early scenes. As the movie progresses, she does get better, but she's not going to be winning any Oscars anytime soon. (Which is ironic because fifteen years later she did just that with her role in A Beautiful Mind.)
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But, putting that aside, the film is otherwise a whole lot of fun. David Bowie is an absolute blast, although the songs he's given to sing could have been better. Jim Henson's puppet work is also on full display and is easily the best part of the film. Furthermore, the story has that mad, no logic whatsoever dream quality to it, which makes it enjoyable to watch, and the characters aside from Sarah are very enjoyable.
Mars Needs Moms (2011)
This plays upon the “must save momma” theme that my daughter is a big fan of. Her eyes are glued to the video, and he’s hopping up and down as they race to save “momma”. It’s one of our favorites.
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I wasn't going to watch this movie at all because of the terribly low score (4) on IMDb. Luckily, my kids talked me into it, and I was very pleasantly surprised indeed.I am amazed that this movie scored so low. Yes, granted, its nothing groundbreaking; there are plenty of well-worn formulas applied. But its far from unusual in this regard, and the story is full of fun situations and characters.Visually, its very nice to look at, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying the time I spent watching it. So did my kids, 8 and 10, who both thought it was great! I don't usually review movies here, but I often check the ratings before watching films. In this instance, I am amazed at the low rating this film received, and feel its unrepresentative of the actual quality.
2023 02 05 14 09
I wasn't expecting this at all. I really wasn't. I hadn't read the bad reviews, however I saw the trailer and figured it would be quite cheesy and probably lame. Oh no aliens took my mother and I have to stop them! Sounded like a cheesy cartoon which would involve shooting aliens and running around to find his mom and save her, yada yada yada.Well... boy was I surprised.The movie started out with the whole alien world and because I knew the title was Mars needs Moms it implied the aliens were looking for moms. I watched them show two moms who's kids weren't listening, then it showed a third one who minded his mom. Satisfied by this result, it shows the boy and his mom and how the boy is in that age where he doesn't know why he should listen to his mom. Before they go to bed he says he wishes he didn't have a mom. The emotion from that makes you feel so bad.Now many scenes later the mom got abducted by the aliens, and the boy managed to hitch a ride and meets some new friends and learns a lot. By the time the ending comes you really hope he can save his mom.
The emotions I felt were amazing.
More amazing though was the fact that I eve got some tears near the end. I won't say what happens, but it was very emotional and powerful to me.So I would recommend this movie to anyone. And I'm 18 for your information, so hearing that a young adult got tears from a movie like this must be something.
Meet the Robinson’s (2007)
“Keep on moving forward”
Lewis is an 12-year-old orphan who is always inventing things. However, in a science fair, he meets Wilbur, a 13-year-old boy from the future who is chasing after a Bowler Hat Man who came to the past to steal Lewis' invention, a machine that shows memories. When he steals it, Wilbur takes Lewis to the future, as Wilbur explains he is chasing the villain due to him stealing a time machine. This would lead to an adventure where Lewis meets Wilbur's family, The Robinsons, and stop The Bowler Hat Man from changing the future.
This is a horribly underrated film.
The characters are actually enjoyable, especially the members of Wilbur's family, from Uncle Art, the galactic pizza delivery guy voiced by the late Adam West, to Tiny The T-Rex, each character has an unique personality and talent.
Also, the film is beautifully animated and teaches a lesson: keep going forward, despite your failures.
This is worth checking out.
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Moana (2016)
Just fun, and a great happy movie with depth.
Wow, what a great great movie! The visuals in this movie are breathtaking!! They are so gorgeous! But, besides the visuals there is such a heart and imagination and creativity to this movie. Moana is such a likable, smart, and relatable person. the voice work for Moana is so sweet and so good. The chemistry between Moana and Maui is so great and so natural. The songs in this movie are so charming, catchy and fun! But, How Far I'll Go is such an emotional song and it has such heart...I dare say I like it a little more than Let It Go! The way Moana sings it and you can feel it!! Wow, I just looved this movie and it is great for kids and adults. I will always love it and I wanna see it again!
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My Neighbor Totoro aka Tonari no Totoro (1988)
This is our all-time favorite movie to watch. If you are a father, and you want to spend an afternoon with your daughter, this is perfect. Track down the English version. I got mine via a torrent.
2023 02 05 15 50
This is the movie I watch to restore my faith in humanityI first saw "My Neighbor Totoro" when I was maybe seven.At the time, I thought that it was really boring(that was still when I liked Disney movies). Years later, when I discovered "Princess Mononoke" I learned that MNT was by the same director and watched it again. And I find that I appreciate this film a whole lot more now then I did when I was seven.
The animation is absolutely stunning(as with all Miyazaki films)and the story is deceptively simple, told with patient, subtle attention to detail. The best example IMO is the scene where Mei falls asleep on Totoro's stomach.It's fruitless to try and describe it;you have to see it for yourself.
2023 02 05 15 51
I absolutely agree with Roger Ebert who called "My Neighbor Totoro", "One of the most beloved of all family films".
Its colorfully bright and sparkling animation is enchanting.
It is incredibly realistic and at the same time makes us along with two main characters, the young sisters ready for a miracle to happen any minute.
The gentle story is touching, uplifting, funny, and tender without being overly sentimental or didactic.
The film takes place in the early 50s, when 10-year-old Satsuki and her baby sister, curious and energetic 4-year-old Mei spend one summer in an old house in the country side with their University professor father while their mother recovers from a serious illness in the nearby hospital.
The great master Hayao Miyazaki remembers well what it is like to be a child, to see magic in the everyday life and be always ready to encounter it.
This ability usually disappears as the child becomes adult but it stays forever in a few chosen, and they become the visionary Artists - just like Miyazaki himself.
The film is partially autobiographical for the writer/director/storyboard artist. "When Miyazaki and his brothers were children, his mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis for nine years, and spent much of her time hospitalized.
It is implied, yet never revealed in the film, that Satsuki and Mei's mother also suffers from tuberculosis.
He once said the film would have been too painful for him to make if the two protagonists were boys instead of girls." (From the IMDb film trivia)
Totoro of the title is an adorable funny blue forest spirit who lives in the nest beneath a huge tree and makes the trees grow and the winds blow.
Totoro becomes the friend and protector of the sisters and one day he sends them on the bus journey that is like nothing they and the viewers could ever imagine.
I wish I could ride that cat bus.
What a wild and kind imagination an artist should have to create it.
How much happier we all are knowing that Hayao Miyazaki exists and makes his amazing films at the Studio Ghibli for which King Totoro is the mascot.
Spirited Away (2001)
No only a classic, but a movie about a young girl who is trying to get her parents back. There’s magic, dragons, friends, and so many details to mention that it boggles the mind.
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This is a wonderfully imaginative and fantastical children's fantasy. It is easy to see why it was perhaps the critical hit of 2002. The film is glorious to look at. It is a testament to old fashioned animation techniques that seem to be resigned to foreign animations. Of course there is some use of computer imagery for certain shots but they blend seamlessly and the overall artistry involved is superlative.
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This is the first Hayao Miyazaki film I have seen and I will certainly watch his others. The story plays on many elements successful with kids films, that transport you back to your own childhood and also allows the young audience to connect with the themes in the movie too. The story centres around Chihiro, a young girl about to move into a new place and who feels insecure about the new environment she will be living in. These fears become a part of her encounter with a strange abandoned amusement park that she and her parents find when they reach a dead end in their car. At the park they find that their is a stall that is seemingly open, with glorious displays of mouth watering food. There are no people about but Chihiros parents decide to gorge themselves on this bounty and pay later. As Chihioro explores she comes across a strange boy who warns her to get out before dark. It is too late however, because as night falls, ghosts are awakened, and then by the time she gets back to her parents they are turned into pigs. She then finds that the route she came from is gone and she is now trapped in this place, her only allie being the boy she met earlier. She is told to get a job at the centre piece of the park, a bath house run by Yubaba, an evil power mad witch. This is a bath house for the spirits and Chihiro has to find a job there before she is found and turned into an animal herself, then unable to save her parents.
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The story is imaginative and the characters and animations endlessly unique and strange. This is just so much more creative than Hollywood. The characters are likeable and we become engrossed with Chihiros adventures inside this bathhouse, and the characters she comes into contact with as she tries to get her parents back as humans and whilst trying to get back to the human world. What I also loved in this film is that the animation gives it a real sense of cinematography, the drawing makes the film stand out in a way that American animations rarely do. Another film I think of that looked really good was Bellville Rendezvous. Another great point in fact the best part of it, is the fantastic score. It really is uplifting and very original. This is just great film making.
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The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
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Oh, the dog; Snowy makes this movie fun for the young kids, it’s really fun for the entire family. Treasure, adventure, high-seas adventure, planes, desert, and so much more…
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As you may know Tin Tin is a very old character and there has been books and TV programs made about his great adventures by his inventor Hergé.
This new film has been voted the best animated film and once you've seen this film you'll know why.
The film is well paced out and there's never a dull moment in this film. The 3D in this film is spectacular and it's well worth seeing this film in 3D if you can.
The film is around 1 hour 47 minutes long and in this time Steven Spielberg manages to squash in a good few adventures into one in this film.
This makes it much more exciting and you really get to know how Tin Tin and Captain Haddock were in the old days.
As a projectionist, I've seen this film about 6 times now and I still don't get bored watching it.
Absolutely brilliant film, I really recommend going to see this film as soon as you can.
Hope the review helps your thoughts on the film. Thanks for reading, I'll be making more reviews on the films that I see at my cinema so you can get the latest thoughts from me on the films. Thanks again BPH projectionist
One of my daughter’s favorite movies. Cats, kids. School. And magical adventure. The English dub version is just lovely.
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After the wild but fully justified furore surrounding Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli's next production is a much lower key affair, clearly aimed at a younger market. Having said that, this cynical thirty-something loved it to bits. Ghibli purists seem to be somewhat snobbish about the studio's output, but If this is an example of one of their films designed more for harmless family entertainment, I can stand to see a lot more of it.
This is a wonderful fantasy film, cute and funny, and full of remarkable and memorable characters. The animation is solid and detailed, occasionally even breathtaking, and the soundtrack is gorgeous. The brisk running time ensures the light story doesn't outstay its welcome. In fact, I could easily have watched more, and I'm already looking forward to Ghibli's or Miyazaki's next flight of fantasy.
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Up (2009)
There are many more that I can add, but I really want to add this masterpiece. It is well known, but should never be over-looked if you want to share some time with your daughter….
Let’s have a nice and easy slide into the new year of the Rabbit.
2023 is a year of the Water Rabbit, starting from January 22nd, 2023 (Chinese New Year), and ending on February 9th, 2024 (Chinese New Year's Eve). The sign of Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in Chinese culture.
2023 is predicted to be a year of hope.
I’ll gather up some videos and put it up on you-tube when I get a chance.
Let’s check out today’s post…
Back in the day…
Most of us believe that Victorian era was a grim and serious era, full of hardworking people, so that they didn’t even have time to enjoy their lives and having some fun. While this isn’t true, because cameras were very expensive and for a single photograph one had to sit in static position with same facial expression from few seconds to 10 minutes. So it seems impossible for a person to smile or laugh for minutes, that’s why majority of the Victorians preferred to sit in static position with strict expressions.
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The All New Baby Safety Seat. Never Leave Your Kid Inside A Hot Car While You Shop Again. Late 1950s, Early 1960s
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East Texas Buttermilk Pie
buttermilk pie2
Ingredients
1 (9-inch) pie shell, baked
3 rounded tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Nutmeg, to taste (optional)
Cinnamon, to taste (optional)
Instructions
Mix flour, sugar and salt; add to butter.
Add eggs, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Mix and pour into pie shell; sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon, if desired.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes. Test with knife. It should come out clean when pie is done.
Poor kitten was living his last moments on the roadside but no one came to help him!
https://youtu.be/6Aa-zF6-yGE
We Won’t Be Fooled Again – Inflation Is Most Definitely Not “Under Control”
Inflation is going down! Let’s all celebrate! We all knew that when the Federal Reserve began aggressively hiking interest rates it would have an impact on inflation. Higher rates have caused a new housing crash, they have crushed the tech industry, and they have sparked the biggest wave of layoffs that we have seen since the Great Recession. We have entered a significant economic downturn, so it was inevitable that the annual rate of inflation would start to moderate. But as I will explain below, that doesn’t mean that inflation is now “under control”. The real rate of inflation is much higher than we are being told, and people all over the country are being absolutely crushed by the rising cost of living.
Let’s start with the good news first. According to the Labor Department, the annual rate of inflation is rising at the slowest pace since October 2021…
Consumer prices increased 6.5% from a year earlier, down from 7.1% in November and a 40-year high of 9.1% in June, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index, a measurement of what people pay for goods and services, which labor released on Thursday.
The rise last month marks the slowest annual gain since October 2021 and matches economists’ estimates.
Still, inflation remains about three times higher than the pre-pandemic average, underscoring the persistent financial burden placed on millions of U.S. households by high prices.
So we are still definitely in a high inflation environment.
But let’s dig deeper.
Most Americans don’t realize that the way that the inflation rate is calculated has literally been changed more than two dozen times since 1980.
And every time it has been changed, the goal has been to make inflation appear to be lower than it actually is.
That would be comparable to the peak inflation that we witnessed during the Jimmy Carter era.
So don’t let anyone try to convince you that inflation is “low” or “under control” or anything like that.
The main reason why the rate of inflation moderated somewhat during the month of December is because energy prices have been falling…
Americans saw some real reprieve last month in the form of lower energy costs, which fell 6.1% in December. Gas prices dropped 12.5% over the month, the biggest contributor to the overall headline decline in inflation in December.
That is great news, but it is already being projected that gas prices will rise significantly later this year.
And once war in the Middle East erupts, gas prices will go to heights that most people never even dreamed was possible.
The cost of living has become extremely oppressive, and the American people are becoming increasingly frustrated by this.
I would like to share a video with you that illustrates what I am talking about.
The woman in this video doesn’t understand all of the numbers that I have just shared in this article. All she knows is that when she goes to the grocery store, prices are way higher than they once were. This video contains some graphic language, and I apologize for that in advance. But I want you to see her anger, because this is how millions upon millions of Americans are feeling about inflation right now.
Would you like to be the one that tries to convince her that inflation is “under control” now?
Sadly, the truth is that over the past few years the cost of living has been rising faster than our paychecks have, and so U.S. families have steadily been getting poorer…
The average American family has lost the equivalent of more than a month’s salary in annual income since President Biden took office as high inflation and rising interest rates eat away at their finances, according to research by the Heritage Foundation.
Experts at the conservative think tank analyzed consumer prices and interest rates and found in their latest report released Thursday that the average American household has lost the equivalent of $7,400 in annual income since Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20, 2021. The income loss represents an increase of $200 from September, when the think tank’s research found a $7,200 decline in annual income for the average American household dating back to the start of Biden’s term.
Prior to the pandemic, we were in a low inflation and low interest rate environment.
Now that the Federal Reserve has dramatically hiked interest rates, we now find ourselves in a high inflation and high interest rate environment.
While their elected representatives in D.C. struggle to pay the nation’s bills, Americans are facing a similar challenge as their household budgets are stretched thin due to inflation and higher borrowing costs. Those financial challenges led more than one-third of households to rely on credit cards or loans to buy necessities in December. Average credit card interest rates reached a new record high of 19.14% APR compared to a Bankrate.com database.
“Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards to make it from paycheck to paycheck, resulting in higher levels of indebtedness. Rising credit card balances in an era of rising interest rates is a path to insolvency,” Antoni told FOX Business. “The average interest rate on credit cards is now around 20 percent while half of Americans cannot pay off their credit cards each month, and balances are growing at a 16 percent annual rate.”
We are getting hit from both ends.
We have to pay more to buy the things that we need, and we have to pay higher interest rates when we borrow money to pay for those things.
But those that are under the spell of the corporate media will continue to assume that everything is fine and that our leaders have a plan to get us out of this mess.
I truly wish that was true.
Unfortunately, the short-term economic outlook is extremely dismal, and prominent voices all over Wall Street are warning that 2023 will be a really rough year.
Remarkable Behind-The-Scenes Photos From ‘Back To The Future’ That Will Bring You Back To The ’80s
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Some people have speculated for a while now that there will be a remake of the legendary movie series Back To The Future. But this mindset is not without criticism and skepticism since many fans feel that without Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd there simply is no way that a remake would be good enough to even be considered.
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Here’s a great collection of rare behind the scenes photos for Robert Zemekis’ film Back to the Future. These images came from the incredibly well researched Back to the Future site Outatime, offer a candid behind the scenes look at this classic movie. Be sure to check out these 70 pics below, and let us know what your favorite Back to the Future scene is.
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Secret revealed
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Spooky strange
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“Retired Military Had Motorcycle Crash, Has Vision of Imminent Transformations in the World” [ NDE ]
Yikes!
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Vision-Dieter glasses
There have been countless weight loss hoaxes over the years, from pills and elixirs to topical treatments, fad diets, and more. One product sold in the 1970s with glaringly false claims was Vision-Dieter glasses, which were said to decrease cravings and hunger by using “secret European color technology.”
The initial objective of the creator was to manufacture glasses that would distort the color of food packaging in hopes of making shoppers less likely to purchase products just because they were in colorful containers. But realizing how much money could be made in the dieting field, he decided to market the glasses as a tool for consumers who were trying to lose weight.
It should come as no surprise that the Food and Drug Administration took action. These color-tinted weight reduction glasses were seized due to misbranding. Most pairs were eventually destroyed by the FDA when the claimant refused to come forward.
Totally cool!
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Recently discovered?
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A Starfish Waking Back To The Water
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Chef Eddie Jackson’s Smoky Texas Chili
with Cheddar Jalapeño Dumplings
This chili is absolutely divine. It’s rather labor-intensive, but the result is well worth the effort.
chef eddie smoky chili
Yield: 16 servings
Ingredients
Smoked Chuck Roast
4 pounds beef chuck roast, smoked, cut into 1 inch cubes
Salt and pepper
Chili
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup dark chili powder
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon fine black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 roasted poblanos, coarsely chopped
1 quart (4 cups) beef stock
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon beef base
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Kosher salt to taste (optional)
Cheddar Jalapeño Dumplings
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey or 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 to 1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 small jalapeño, finely diced
Instructions
Smoked Chuck Roast
Add wood chunks, chips, pellets or charcoal to smoker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Preheat to 250 degrees F.
Season trimmed chuck roast generously with salt and pepper.
Place chuck roast on rack in smoker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Set timer for 8 hours.
After 4 hours, or when the roast reaches an internal temperature of 180 degrees F, wrap with unwaxed butcher paper and place back on smoker.
After 4 more hours, or when the roast reaches 208 to 210 degrees F internal temperature, remove roast from smoker.
Let rest in the butcher paper for at least 1 hour.
Slice the roast into cubes right before adding to the chili.
Chili
In a Dutch oven, heat vegetable oil over MEDIUM-HIGH heat. Add diced onion and sprinkle with salt, if desired. Saute until onions are translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add the red peppers and saute for 2 minutes.
Add chili powder, paprika, cumin, black pepper, and garlic powder stirring frequently for about a minute allowing the spices to bloom, but not burn.
Add the cubed smoked chuck roast and poblano peppers. Once all ingredients are coated with spices, stir in beef stock and tomatoes to the pot, deglazing the bottom.
Add oregano, beef base, and Worcestershire sauce to the pot. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Bring chili to a boil then turn stove to LOW heat and simmer covered for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.Meanwhile, make Cheddar Jalapeño Dumplings.
Cheddar Jalapeño Dumplings
Mix together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar for Cheddar Jalapeño Dumplings.
Add eggs folding gently to combine. Then stir buttermilk into the mixture until combined.
Fold in cheese and jalapeños, being sure not to over mix the batter.
Place 1 to 2 ounce dollops of dumpling batter into the chili. Continue to simmer chili, covered, for 20 minutes or until dumplings are firm, but fluffy.
Serve chili in bowls garnished with shredded cheese, sliced scallions, cilantro leaves and a dollop of sour cream, as desired.
You Guys Are Cute With Your Scary Spiders. I Found This Under My Couch A Month After I Fumigated
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This is “Wow Cool”!
I imagine the plumage must have been impressive.
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Cool Pics That Show How People Enjoyed Parties In The 1970s
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Here below is a photo collection that shows how people enjoyed parties from the 1970s.
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WFLD Channel 32 – Lost in Space – “Blast Off Into Space” (Complete Broadcast, 4/16/1980)
This Will Haunt My Dreams
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We Are Witnessing An Enormous Wave Of Bankruptcies And Layoffs During The Early Stages Of 2023
Is your job safe? Right now, we are witnessing so much turmoil is so many different sectors of our economy. The housing market is crashing, the cryptocurrency industry has imploded, the tech industry is laying off workers at an extremely frightening pace, and some of our most important retailers are heading into bankruptcy. The information that I am about to share with you is deeply troubling. It has become exceedingly clear that our economy is in huge trouble, and I fully expect that our problems will accelerate even more as the year rolls along.
Let me start by pointing out what is currently happening at Microsoft. It is one of the wealthiest companies in the entire world, but due to a shift in “macroeconomic conditions” executives have decided that it has become necessary to lay off 10,000 workers…
Microsoft announced thousands of job cuts this week, becoming the latest tech company to pluck its workforce as the global economy slows.
The software company confirmed Wednesday its reducing workforce by 10,000 people through the end of the third quarter of the 2023 fiscal year.
The cuts come “in response to macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities,” the company’s CEO Satya Nadella released in a statement to its employees Wednesday.
If even Microsoft is laying off thousands of workers, is any job in the private sector truly safe?
Meanwhile, some of the biggest names in the retail industry are plunging into bankruptcy now that the holiday season is over.
Party City filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, weighed down by competition and years of financial losses.
The largest party goods and Halloween specialty retail chain in the United States said in a regulatory filing that it reached an agreement with debtholders to cut its $1.7 billion debt load.
Even more alarming is the fact that it is being reported that a bankruptcy filing for Bed Bath & Beyond has become “likely”…
Bed Bath & Beyond has been in discussions with prospective buyers and lenders as it works to keep its business afloat during a likely bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The retailer is in the midst a sale process in hopes of finding a buyer that would keep the doors open for both of its major chains, its namesake banner and Buybuy Baby, said the people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
So many brick and mortar retailers are really struggling right now, and many of them are blaming competition from Internet retailers such as Amazon.
But if Amazon is doing so well, why did they start laying off approximately 18,000 workers on Wednesday?…
Earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in a blog post that the company was laying off about 18,000 people as it seeks to cut costs and would begin contacting impacted employees on Jan. 18.
“Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so,” Jassy said in the Jan. 4 post. “These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”
The wave of layoffs that we have been witnessing in the tech industry is truly unprecedented.
Prior to this week, more than 25,000 tech industry workers had already been laid off this year, and this comes on the heels of the massive layoffs that we saw last year…
According to the data tracking website, more than 101 tech companies around the world have laid off 25,436 employees so far in 2023. Most of the layoffs have taken place in the United States, accounting for 22,400 employees fired.
The number of workers being laid off from tech companies is a trend that is continuing since 2022, when 154,336 workers were fired from over 1,000 tech companies around the world, according to the data.
But at least the tech industry is in far better shape than the cryptocurrency industry is.
Let me share four major announcements that have all happened within the past 10 days…
Genesis Global Capital is laying the groundwork for a bankruptcy filing as soon as this week, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The cryptocurrency lending unit of Digital Currency Group has been in confidential negotiations with various creditor groups amid a liquidity crunch. It has warned that it may need to file for bankruptcy if it fails to raise cash, Bloomberg previously reported.
Crypto.com announced plans to lay off 20% of its workforce Jan. 13. The company had 2,450 employees, according to PitchBook data, suggesting around 490 employees were laid off.
CEO Kris Marszalek said in a blog post that the crypto exchange grew “ambitiously” but was unable to weather the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire FTX without the further cuts.
On Jan. 10, Coinbase announced plans to cut about a fifth of its workforce as it looks to preserve cash during the crypto market downturn.
The exchange plans to cut 950 jobs, according to a blog post. Coinbase, which had roughly 4,700 employees as of the end of September, had already slashed 18% of its workforce in June saying it needed to manage costs after growing “too quickly” during the bull market.
#4 The founder of cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato has actually been arrested. Apparently he was laundering money on a scale of epic proportions…
The founder of the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato was arrested early Wednesday in Miami in connection with a vast money laundering operation, accused of transmitting more than $700 million in illicit funds in the past four years.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Anatoly Legkodymov, 40, a Russian national, oversaw a major “high-tech financial hub that catered to known crooks,” including cybercriminals and drug dealers seeking to process dirty money.
The cryptocurrency industry will never look the same again after all of this turmoil.
On top of everything else, the Saudis appear to be poised to make a major move that could literally change everything.
At the yearly gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Saudi finance minister decided to drop a bombshell…
Saudi Arabia is open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister.
Needless to say, this could potentially completely undermine the dominance of the petrodollar.
Of course we cannot afford to have that happen, because the dominance of the dollar is one of the only things that is keeping our system afloat.
At this point just about everything is moving in the wrong direction for the U.S. economy, but most people still do not understand the bigger picture.
A lot of the “experts” assume that we will just suffer through a temporary recession and then things will eventually return to normal.
I wish that was true.
Unfortunately, our entire system is starting to crack and crumble all around us, and those that are currently running things are not going to be able to put it back together again.
Very unique and interesting
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My Dad Brought A Kitten Frozen Stiff Back To Life.
I'm a retired trauma nurse, and, you did EXACTLY what you should do. Cold truly does slow the dying process!! Im in love with that adorable little fur ball!!! You are a genuinely good and kind person!!!
At an air show in China Saturday, the Chinese Air Force displayed their J-20 Stealth Fighter Jet capabilities. I’ve never seen an American fighter Jet be able to do some of these maneuvers! Utterly amazing. Video below . . .
Lazy Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
“Adapted from Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee, this is easy with yummy results. Put it on in the morning and come home to a soothing, comforting dinner. Crackers or bread and a salad finish off this meal.”
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Ingredients
4 cups cooked chicken, chopped (from a store bought chicken?)
Put the chicken into a slow cooker with the onions, celery, carrots and peas.
Stir in broth, mushroom soup, and fines herbs. Season with salt and pepper.
Cover and cook on high for 3 to 4 hours or low for 8 to 9 hours.
When soup is finished, stir in egg noodles.
Season to taste and serve. Enjoy!
How do people that manage to escape North Korea/Russia/China react when they learn what the rest of the world is like today?
How do they deal with the shock of learning what their government is really like as opposed to how they portray themselves?
They would be shocked to see this comparison.
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What are the economic consequences of authoritarian rule in China?
The consequence is:
The fastest improvement of living standard in human history.
In 1949, Chinese GDP per capita was around 45 dollars. That number grew to 12500 dollars in 2021, an almost 280 times growth.
What does that translate into people’s lives? In 1949, life expectancy was 35 years in China. Slavery and drug addiction was rampant. Famine was always around the corner. Many people living in the countryside shared one pair of pants amongst the whole family. There was no public medical system to speak of. 85% of the population was illiterate.
70 years later, in just one life time, China grew to become one of the greatest world power of our time. People no longer worry about starvation but obesity, and are rich enough to send their children to universities in other countries, or take vacations overseas, while watching the country’s rovers roll on the moon and Mars.
In the province of Taiwan, authoritarian rule also worked wonders. The Taiwanese military dictatorship built the island’s economy and single-handed created companies like TSMC that we all respect today.
TD550 unmanned helicopter
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A bad experience with a guy at a bar…
I went to a club in new york and a guy at the bar offered to buy me a drink. I politely declined.
He insisted again, and I knew it was a scam to get me to hang out with him. before I could order my drink for myself he buys both of us a round, which was, you know, “the nice thing to do”.
I immediately got weird vibes from him and didn’t think I owed him anything for the beer and shot.
I made up an excuse to get away from him.
I didn’t want to leave the club because I spent a hefty cover so I got my friend to come save me. my friend was 30 mins away so this guy kept following me around the club calling me a b***h for not being interested in his little game.
I told the bouncers and they didn’t really care about the situation and just brushed it off.
I was so furious with this guy I stuck my finger down my throat and threw up all over him and said, “here’s your drink back, now leave me the f**k alone”. byyyeeeee ya f****n nerd.
J-20’s three tricks stunned everyone! Chinese stealth fighter shows off new moves in Zhuhai Airshow
This video showed us that the airplane can fly and turn. WOW MIND = BLOWN.
Don’t do this…
A random guy held my crutches for me as I walked down some stairs at uni. He seemed nice and joked about how he once broke a foot, it’ll get better, etc etc. We get to the bottom and he asks if we could get some coffee. I thank him, but tell him I’m seeing someone so he just drops my crutches on the floor and walks away…
creepy nice guy stories 5 635a969e47bd1 700
WJ-700 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
2022 11 14 15 18
The Fremont Troll—Seattle, Washington
In so many old folktales and fairytales, we hear of mysterious, troublesome, or mischievous trolls who live under bridges. Often asking for a toll or price for passage, they cause a nuisance and, in some cases, can be quite frightening and creepy.
Well, luckily, they’re a work of fiction. That is unless you’re wandering through underpasses in the Fremont area of Seattle. Here you’ll find a huge stone troll holding up the underpass on their broad shoulders. If you’re not expecting it or are walking in bad lighting, it’s a creepy and surprising sight to behold.
The result of a local art competition in 1989 to revamp the area that had become an unsafe and dirty place, the Fremont Troll towers 18 feet (5.5 meters) and even has a shining metal eye that glints in the light. It’s not uncommon to see a horde of tourists standing around and even climbing up onto the troll’s shoulders for the perfect photo op. Keep an eye out for the Volkswagen Beetle that’s been crunched up in the troll’s hand…
China’s J-20 Fighter in Massive Rare Action that you’ve never seen before
J20s is the world first twin seats Stealth fighter that can command 3 or more loyal wing man drones to help attack its enemy in the sky. Something the F22, F35 cannot do.
I constantly forgot to breath while watching it making those magnificent moves, very impressive.
https://youtu.be/zAVYy9x0Kdc
I certainly have seen U.S. fighter jets be able to vertically “hover” with their nose pointed straight up, but I have never seen the reversal of direction in flight that these Chinese jets perform. It shocked me as to the skill of the pilots, AND as to the maneuverability of the jets.
I kept waiting to see one of them just fall out of the sky with the maneuvers they were doing, but that didn’t happen.
US will build small modular nuclear reactor in Ukraine
WTF? I mean is President Biden pushing buttons, or what? -MM
The United States will build a small modular nuclear reactor in Ukraine, the decision has already been taken, said the Ukrainian Ambassador to Washington Oksana Markarova.
Washington and Kiev have launched a pilot project to build a small modular reactor in Ukraine, US State department confirmed in a statement. The place where this reactor will be located, has not been reported yet. The participating partner from the United States is the Argonne National Laboratory, which is the research center of the US Department of Energy. The participating partners from Ukraine are Energoatom, the NSDC and the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety. A number of American companies will also participate as partners.
“Today, within the framework of the 27th UN Climate Conference, the Special Envoy of the President of the United States for Climate John Kerry and the Minister of Energy of Ukraine German Galushchenko announced the launch of a pilot project for the construction of a small modular reactor in Ukraine”, Oksana Markarova announced on Facebook.
Small modular reactors are smaller than standard reactors and have less power, but have one advantage – they can be installed in hard-to-reach places where it is impossible to build a conventional nuclear power plant.
In 2021, Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky announced that Ukraine plans to manufacture the latest SMR-160 nuclear reactors, developed by the American company Holtec under the control of the US Department of Energy. At the same time, he stressed that “the Ukrainian industry is capable of manufacturing such systems as small modular reactors.”
Oddporium—Arden, Delaware
Sometimes you just want to wander around somewhere downright weird with a friend or loved one, pointing out old dolls, vintage medical equipment, or pig remains in a jar, cringing back and laughing. Whether you get grossed out easily or have a dark sense of humor when it comes to curios, consider checking out the Oddiporium on your next trip through Arden, Delaware.
If you’re traveling through in the evening, the Oddporium also screens horror films in the outdoor portion of the venue. Especially if you’re checking out the place around Halloween, you can expect plenty of spooky goings on. The perfect creepy combo: nighttime horror films and weird paranormal things in jars![HERE]
Zhuhai Airshow 2022 !! Awesome China J 20 well done !! Landing, Take off, sound, Maneuvers
Don’t Poke The Panda!
https://youtu.be/E7B9TrGosr8
Maybe we’ve been out-classed by China?????
Maybe we shouldn’t be picking a fight with them over Taiwan?
Maybe we’re not as good as we think we are?
Saudi Arabia Reiterates Commitment To China, Regardless Of U.S. Concerns
Apparently confirming the view of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) that the U.S. is now regarded as just another one of its partners in a new global order that would see Beijing and its allies share the leadership position with Washington, Saudi Arabia last week reiterated its commitment to China as its “most reliable partner and supplier of crude oil,” along with broader assurances of its ongoing support in several other areas.
That MbS seemingly now sees the U.S. as a partner just for its security considerations, with no meaningful quid pro quo on Saudi Arabia’s part, whilst regarding China as its key partner economically and Russia as its key partner in energy matters, should not surprise the U.S.Back in March last year it was made clear enough at the annual China Development Forum hosted in Beijing, when Aramco chief executive officer, Amin Nasser said: “Ensuring the continuing security of China’s energy needs remains our highest priority - not just for the next five years but for the next 50 and beyond.”
And yet, the U.S. is surprised by the apparent finalization of the transition of Saudi Arabia away from Washington and towards China, which effectively marks the end of the 1945 core agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that defined their relationship up until extremely recently. This transition has
Satellites discovered two “dark ships” near Nord Stream before the explosions
Just a day before the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines two unidentified ships were spotted in the area. The private satellite data monitoring firm SpaceKnow discovered two vessels with their transponders turned off in the area of the explosions. The vessels’ automatic identification systems were not working at the time they were passing the pipelines.
According to the analysis of satellite data, two “dark ships”, each 95 to 130 meters long, passed within a few miles of the Nord Stream 2 leak, the Wired media outlet reported. Jerry Javornitsky, SpaceKnow CEO, claims they discovered two dark ships of significant size, that were passing through the area of interest. They had their transponders switched off, meaning that there was no information about their movement, and they tried to hide information about their location and general information from the world,” adds Yavornitsky.
This information and all satellite images have already been sent to the countries involved in the investigation.
The U.S. Navy also carried out numerous maneuvers near the explosion site around Nord Stream 1 and 2 days before the gas leaks. On September 2, an American helicopter with an FFAB123 call sign carried out multiple flights in the area. According to flight tracking websites, that day this call sign was used for 6 flights of a Sikorsky MH-60S helicopter. Such flights near Nord Stream were also detected on 12 September.
A U.S. Navy expeditionary unit led by the USS Kearsarge was in the Baltic Sea few days earlier and was spotted entering the North Sea. According to maritime traffic data, it was located 30 kilometers from the site of the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream-1 pipeline and 50 kilometers from the Nord Stream-2 pipeline.
Egypt’s 45 billion US dollars to build a new capital, why only choose China to build it?
"I was in shanghai in 2017 and my accommodation was in the Marriott hotel overlooking a big re-development . So when I left in March of that year , only the foundations were laid . I came back to shanghai in July of the same year and was astounded to see 5 tower blocks were built up to the 17th floors . Eventually it was completed in a record time of 18 months .So I can see why America was not chosen .The world trade center was destroyed in September 2001 and the replacement one world trade Center officially opened in November 2014 . Taking 9 times longer to build than the Chinese".
Traditional vaccines like Sinovac may prevent severe disease in Covid-19 patients: Study
Duh! -MM
SINGAPORE – Though often considered inferior due to their induction of a lower antibody response compared with their mRNA counterparts, inactivated virus vaccines can play a role in preventing the development of severe Covid-19, a recent study has found.
This could mean that a combination of the two vaccine types may offer better protection against the coronavirus, researchers said, noting each had its own advantages.
The study by the Duke-NUS Medical School found that inactivated virus vaccines such as Sinopharm and Sinovac, which were used extensively in Asia, and mRNA vaccines – which include Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty and Moderna’s Spikevax – trigger different T-cell responses in fighting the coronavirus.
Inactivated vaccines – an older technology used in the polio and influenza vaccines, among others – are made up of dead viruses, unlike mRNA vaccines, which use just parts of the virus’ genetic material to stimulate an immune response.
While mRNA vaccines induce T-cells – a type of white blood cell – targeting the spike protein of the coronavirus, inactivated vaccines elicit a broader immune response against different proteins on the virus.
This means that while inactivated vaccines might not be as good at preventing Covid-19 infection, they can play a role in preventing the development of severe disease, said the study’s senior co-author Anthony Tanoto Tan, a senior research fellow with the Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases programme.
Earlier studies had shown that mRNA vaccines help patients produce a far greater number of antibodies, compared with their inactivated virus counterparts. However, newer variants have proved to be more adept at evading the antibody response, Dr Tan said.
J-20, Loyal Wingman Drones & Chinese Reaper UAV in 2022 Zhuhai Air Show Reviewed
Damn china looking good.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
Some people who *think* they know it all, are claiming these are Remote Control model jets. They are not.
The audio alone proves they are actual fighter jets, with actual jet engines – you can HEAR them for cryin out loud! Full-throated jet engines!
This story is accurate. The jets are real, although I am now told they are J-16’s and not J-20’s.
Anyone who tells you otherwise does not know what they’re talking about.
WATCH: The latest China weapons displayed at Airshow China 2022
Very advanced level weapons.
Many missed the point. This video is a catalog for weapons FOR SALE by Norinco. What PLA uses are going to be even more advanced.
All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy
Despite their temperament, Vikings took time out to play and make merry. They would often celebrate achievements by throwing parties. These parties they threw depended on the rank and wealth of the person or people hosting. The parties created not only an opportunity to make merry but also a “pissing contest” to display wealth and stature.
The wealthier a Viking or a group of Vikings were, the bigger the party would be and the longer they could hold it down. As archeological evidence suggests, Vikings were robust men and women. Considering their body size and way of living, one can easily conclude they could eat and drink a lot. Hosting a Viking party, therefore, was a noteworthy achievement. An achievement that earned the host a distinguished position in the community.
Did you know that Vikings found skiing amusing as well? They did, in fact, find it fascinating. One would be forgiven for assuming they did not have what it took to ski back in the day, considering how advanced the equipment we use today is. Archeological evidence points to the fact that they had wooden boards that they used to ski. They used to ski for fun when hunting and as a way of general movement.
Chinese Military Power 2021 – Dongfeng Mengshi Armored troop Carrier
Trainloads of Armor and other NATO Military Gear in Poland, Moving Toward Kaliningrad
Video has emerged of trainloads of NATO armor and other military gear moving through Poland, toward the Russia enclave of Kaliningrad.
The video, below, shows one of the trains moving through Gdynia, Poland:
The scalable map below shows Gdynia, Poland in relation to Kaliningrad:
2022 11 14 15 10
Each day, NATO moves more and more military gear either toward Russia or Ukraine, and toward the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. It doesn’t stop.
Today, the Russian Ministry of Defense ORDERED manufacturers to DOUBLE the production of hypersonic missiles.
It won’t stop unless or until citizens in NATO countries, get their governments back under control — and fast — or else World War 3 is on the menu.
Funny Failed Test Answers
So it’s exam day, you’ve forgotten to study, and you’re staring blankly at the test in front of you wondering how on earth you’re going to pass. What are you going to do? Well, you’re going to fail, that’s what. But that doesn’t mean you can’t fail in style! Take a look at this collection of funny exam answers to see how to do just that!
test answers14
test answers9
test answers6
test answers4
test answers3
test answers22
test answers15
test answers26
test answers8
test answers7
test answers5
test answers25
test answers10
China launches New Type 20 rifle, will become the next generation most powerful rifle
Looks like a sexy gun. From what I’ve heard, it’s a righteous beast and even Americans are drooling and wish they had this gun. All China’s newest equipment is making USA jealous. Like type 055 destroyer which they decided to copy with their next gen destroyer.
Duh! American soldiers fighting Russian soldiers directly. -MM
Many have been asking “What is happening in Kherson and why is Russia pulling out?” It’s complicated. One thing is now certain: Americans have entered Kherson.
This is no longer Ukraine versus Russia. This now appears to be Russia VS NATO…Ukraine is just the battlefield.
The video below comes from inside Kherson. Note the flag on the backpack first aid kit and note the language being spoken:
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, they have had to bring their troops back to across the Dnieper River for several reasons:
1) Bridges are mostly out on the Kherson City side of the river which makes it logistically very hard to bring ammunition and supplies to those troops, AND;
2) American HIMARS Rockets have been so horrifically precise, the Russian Army cannot set up Ammunition Dumps because HIMARS takes them out.
So they cannot bring large amounts of ammo (just yet) and they cannot store large amounts of ammo (for now) and that makes their forces incredibly vulnerable.
Therefore, the Russians say they took their troops out of one side of Kherson, had them cross the river to the other side, where the logistics problems will not exist and will not endanger the lives of Russian forces.
Kherson city is now Russia. Russia will not give up that territory permanently, they say. But a strategic fallback was necessary.
Now, as seen in the video above, we see Americans in Kherson.
If Russia can show that American soldiers have invaded Russia territory, that makes American territory subject to Russian attack. It’s that simple.
China’s New Military Laser Weapon That Shocked The US | China Technology
https://youtu.be/eSvPZANKgzw
Gentle Paintings of Girls by Huaishen J
We know nothing about Huaishen J’s gender or any other orientation. All we know is that Huaishen J lives in the United States and paints fantastically gentle and charming young ladies. And that’s all we need.
0 44
4 22
3 24
2 22
1 24
Foreigners Won’t Believe What China is Building
Great video. You should add Beidou was born out of necessity. In 1990s, US used / blocked GPS to disable a Chinese ship in an incident. And China joined Europe’s Galileo program but was blocked repeatedly. Beidou was born after China realized Europe’s true intension (and wasted time and money on Galileo.
UKRAINE “MILITARY AID” FROM USA — WAS INVESTED IN CRYPTO “FTX” BY UKRAINE!
The sudden collapse of crypto exchange “FTX” and its Bankruptcy filing today, has revealed that FTX presently suffers from $10-$50 BILLION in liabilities with almost ZERO assets . . . and among those liabilities, are “investments” made by . . . . UKRAINE . . . .
At this early hour, it __appears__ that tens-of-billions in American “Military Aid” to Ukraine, which was allegedly to be used to fight Russia, was cash that Ukraine DID NOT use to fight Russia, but instead invested into FTX!
And, as you might guess from the Bankruptcy filing . . . . it now seems that all the money . . . is gone.
Yes, you read that correctly: Instead of using US Military Aid to fight Russia, Ukraine “invested” part or all of it, into FTX, and right now, it looks like all the money is gone.
Democrat Donations
Also at this early hour, it now also __appears__ that the Chief of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was the #2 donor to the Democrats. He was only outspent by Soros himself!
It __seems__ Ukraine was receiving money from the US, Ukraine sent it to FTX, and FTX sent it to Democrats, who originally voted to send it to Ukraine. At this hour, it __appears__ to some observers, to be pure, criminal, money-laundering, and a criminal conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.
It now seems to closely-watching observers that the kid (Bankman-Fried) burned his own company — and his own ass — just to make sure the Dems won the mid-term elections, and seems to have done it by pulling the rug out from all those that had funds there in FTX.
So the collapse of FTX is now linked not only to Ukraine, but also to US Democrat politicians who got money from Sam Bankman-Fried, to campaign for the just-ended elections!
Here. Learn:
From wiki
Sam Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University into a family of academics. Born and raised to an upper-middle-class Jewish family in California, he is the son of Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, both professors at Stanford Law School.[2] His aunt Linda P. Fried is the current dean of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.[15] His brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, is a former Wall Street trader[16] and the director of the non-profit Guarding Against Pandemics.
Politics
Sam Bankman-Fried was the second-largest individual donor to Democratic causes in 2021–2022 election cycle with total donations of $39.8 million, only behind George Soros.[59][60][61] Of this, $27 million was given to Protect our Future PAC, bankrolled by Bankman-Fried.[62]
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And the funniest bit of all? Who is handling the bankruptcy??? None other than Jon J Ray III who just happened to be in charge of the liquidation of….. ENRON!
Then too, there’s this:
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The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking into whether FTX.com mishandled customer funds. Bankman-Fried is also being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for potential violations of securities rules.
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UPDATE 11:34 AM EST –
Sam Bankman-Fried used the money to bankroll DEMOCRATS!
$10,000,000 PROTECT OUR FUTURE PAC 4/14/2022
$9,000,000 PROTECT OUR FUTURE PAC 2/4/2022
$6,000,000 HOUSE MAJORITY PAC 4/4/2022
$5,000,000 FF PAC 10/7/2020
$4,000,000 PROTECT OUR FUTURE PAC 6/13/2022
$4,000,000 PROTECT OUR FUTURE PAC 3/15/2022
$2,000,000 GMI PAC, INC. 1/18/2022
$1,000,000 AMERICA UNITED 4/18/2022
$500,000 SMP 5/19/2022
$500,000 DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 5/5/2022
$400,000 DEMOCRATIC GRASSROOTS VICTORY FUND 8/31/2022
$350,000 VOTE TRIPLING PAC 9/24/2020
$300,000 OPPORTUNITY FOR TOMORROW 4/22/2022
$300,000 AMERICA UNITED 6/13/2022
$250,000 SMP 8/2/2021
$250,000 SMP 8/16/2021
$250,000 DMFI PAC 5/25/2022
$220,000 CENTER FOR ESSENTIAL INFORMATION 10/13/2020
$109,500 DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 5/3/2022
$109,500 DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 5/3/2022
$109,500 DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 5/3/2022
$109,500 DCCC 6/22/2022
$105,000 ALABAMA CONSERVATIVES FUND 6/10/2022
$104,000 DCCC 6/22/2022
$50,000 BIDEN VICTORY FUND 10/23/2020
$50,000 HEARTLAND RESURGENCE 9/23/2022
$36,500 DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 5/3/2022
$36,500 DCCC 6/22/2022
$36,500 NRCC 7/22/2022
$35,500 DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 10/23/2020
$30,000 DSCC 3/21/2022
$30,000 DSCC 3/31/2022
$22,000 ACTIVATE AMERICA 9/1/2021
$20,800 STABENOW VICTORY FUND 1/13/2022
$20,800 MAGGIE HASSAN VICTORY FUND 7/29/2021
$10,800 GILLIBRAND VICTORY FUND 6/20/2022
$10,000 NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 7/31/2021
$10,000 MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 2/2/2022
$8,500 NRCC 7/22/2022
$6,500 DSCC 3/31/2022
$5,800 RICHARD BURR COMMITTEE; THE 8/2/2021
$5,800 BILL CASSIDY FOR US SENATE 8/2/2021
$5,800 JEFFRIES FOR CONGRESS 7/24/2021
$5,800 COLLINS FOR SENATOR 10/2/2021
$5,800 BOOZMAN FOR ARKANSAS 1/21/2022
$5,800 CITIZENS FOR BOYLE 5/9/2022
$5,800 HOEVEN FOR SENATE 6/13/2022
$5,800 HOEVEN FOR SENATE 6/13/2022
$5,000 LIMITLESS HORIZONS 10/17/2022
$5,000 GRANITE VALUES PAC 7/31/2021
$5,000 SUMMITT PAC 9/28/2022
$5,000 GREAT LAKES PAC 2/9/2022
$5,000 GUARDING AGAINST PANDEMICS PAC 4/27/2022
$5,000 HEARTLAND VALUES PAC 2/8/2022
$5,000 JERSEY VALUES PAC 1/24/2022
$5,000 GREATER TOMORROW POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 7/22/2022
$5,000 THE NEXT 50 PAC 3/31/2022
$5,000 PRAIRIE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 3/19/2022
$5,000 BFB PAC 5/9/2022
$5,000 OFF THE SIDELINES PAC 6/20/2022
$5,000 AXNE PAC (AMERICANS X-PECT NEW ENERGY) 9/28/2022
$5,000 SERVING OUR COUNTRY (SOC) PAC 9/28/2022
$4,000 ACROSS THE AISLE PAC 10/19/2022
$2,900 ALESSANDRA BIAGGI FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 MANCHIN FOR WEST VIRGINIA 7/24/2021
$2,900 MANCHIN FOR WEST VIRGINIA 7/24/2021
$2,900 JASMINE FOR US 3/31/2022
$2,900 FRIENDS OF DICK DURBIN COMMITTEE 3/19/2022
$2,900 CONOLE FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 TINA SMITH FOR MINNESOTA 3/30/2022
$2,900 TINA SMITH FOR MINNESOTA 3/30/2022
$2,900 COLLINS FOR SENATOR 8/3/2021
$2,900 COLLINS FOR SENATOR 9/2/2021
$2,900 BILL CASSIDY FOR US SENATE 8/2/2021
$2,900 JEFFRIES FOR CONGRESS 7/26/2021
$2,900 MAXWELL ALEJANDRO FROST FOR CONGRESS 6/10/2022
$2,900 PETE AGUILAR FOR CONGRESS 7/24/2021
$2,900 PETE AGUILAR FOR CONGRESS 7/24/2021
$2,900 COLLINS FOR SENATOR 9/2/2021
$2,900 COLLINS FOR SENATOR 8/2/2021
$2,900 GILBERT VILLEGAS FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 SHONTEL BROWN FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 QUARTEY FOR CONGRESS 4/27/2022
$2,900 JAKE AUCHINCLOSS FOR CONGRESS 3/10/2022
$2,900 JAKE AUCHINCLOSS FOR CONGRESS 3/10/2022
$2,900 ALEX PADILLA FOR SENATE 7/24/2021
$2,900 ALEX PADILLA FOR SENATE 7/24/2021
$2,900 PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY 7/24/2021
$2,900 PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY 7/24/2021
$2,900 JOSH GOTTHEIMER FOR CONGRESS 1/24/2022
$2,900 ROBERT GARCIA FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 JOSH GOTTHEIMER FOR CONGRESS 1/24/2022
$2,900 CORY BOOKER FOR SENATE 10/18/2021
$2,900 FOUSHEE FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 GILLIBRAND FOR SENATE 6/20/2022
$2,900 GILLIBRAND FOR SENATE 6/20/2022
$2,900 GALLEGO FOR ARIZONA 3/31/2022
$2,900 GALLEGO FOR ARIZONA 3/31/2022
$2,900 STABENOW FOR US SENATE 2/11/2022
$2,900 STABENOW FOR US SENATE 2/11/2022
$2,900 JIM COSTA FOR CONGRESS 7/11/2022
$2,900 HALEY STEVENS FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 BRITTANY PETTERSEN FOR COLORADO 3/31/2022
$2,900 FRIENDS OF LUCY MCBATH 3/31/2022
$2,900 TORRES FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 WELCH FOR VERMONT 3/31/2022
$2,900 MAGGIE FOR NH 7/31/2021
$2,900 MAGGIE FOR NH 7/31/2021
$2,900 MENENDEZ FOR CONGRESS 4/27/2022
$2,900 CARRICK FLYNN FOR OREGON 3/31/2022
$2,900 BOOZMAN FOR ARKANSAS 1/21/2022
$2,900 CITIZENS FOR BOYLE 5/9/2022
$2,900 MORGAN MCGARVEY FOR CONGRESS 5/16/2022
$2,900 SEAN PATRICK MALONEY FOR CONGRESS 6/17/2022
$2,900 MAX ROSE FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 SEAN PATRICK MALONEY FOR CONGRESS 6/17/2022
$2,900 JOSH HARDER FOR CONGRESS 9/28/2022
$2,900 NIKKI FOR CONGRESS 3/31/2022
$2,900 LOU CORREA FOR CONGRESS 9/28/2022
$2,900 CHUY GARCIA FOR CONGRESS 6/10/2022
$2,900 HOEVEN FOR SENATE 7/1/2022
$2,900 SALUD CARBAJAL FOR CONGRESS 10/19/2022
$2,900 BECCA BALINT FOR VERMONT 6/10/2022
$2,900 SALUD CARBAJAL FOR CONGRESS 7/2/2022
$2,900 SANFORD BISHOP FOR CONGRESS 7/2/2022
$2,900 LISA MURKOWSKI FOR US SENATE 8/2/2021
$2,900 LISA MURKOWSKI FOR US SENATE 8/2/2021
$2,900 ANGIE CRAIG FOR CONGRESS 7/2/2022
$2,900 SYDNEY KAMLAGER FOR CONGRESS 6/10/2022
$2,900 GILLEN FOR CONGRESS 4/27/2022
$2,800 BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT 10/23/2020
$2,800 CORY BOOKER FOR SENATE 10/18/2021
$2,500 CHC BOLD PAC 3/31/2022
$1,000 BENNET FOR COLORADO 10/27/2010
$1,000 DEMOCRATIC STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF MARYLAND 4/27/2022
$1,000 ACROSS THE AISLE PAC 7/18/2022
$780 ARIZONA DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 NORTH CAROLINA DEMOCRATIC PARTY – FEDERAL 10/23/2020
$780 COLORADO DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 MINNESOTA DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF VIRGINIA 10/23/2020
$780 OHIO DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 NEBRASKA DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF FLORIDA 10/23/2020
$780 GEORGIA FEDERAL ELECTIONS COMMITTEE 10/23/2020
$780 DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN 10/23/2020
$780 TEXAS DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
$780 NEVADA STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 10/23/2020
wBWo1je
This doesn’t include “donations” by two other principles from FTX, the total is almost $80 million dollars, THIS CYCLE.
Imagine knowing your crypto money was stolen to pay for liberals to import illegals from 3rd world countries that are there to replace you!
Tom Brady is rumored to have lost $650,000,000.
UPDATE 6:45 PM EST —
Want to know how high this corruption goes? Look who attended an FTX Event in the Bahamas, THIS PAST APRIL (2022):
Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, seen in the photo below, sitting on-stage with Sam Bankman-Fried!!!!!
FTX Event April 2022 Bahamas BillClinton TonyBlair
Not only are the two former officials at the event, the event marquis clearly says “This Session is OFF THE RECORD.” Here. Look:
FTX Event April 2022 Bahamas BillClinton TonyBlair OFF THE RECORD
Now, aside from the obvious millions of dollars in campaign donations shown above, the much bigger question is: How much cash ended-up in Politicians PRIVATE Crypto Accounts ?????? Many observers believe “Billions” got siphoned-off the Ukraine “Aid” and other “Foreign Aid.
Kittencal’s Perfect Prime Rib Roast Beef
“NOTE…THE INTERNAL TEMPERATURE NOT THE TIME IS YOUR BEST GUARANTEE FOR DONENESS so for a perfectly cooked prime rib roast invest in a meat thermometer and you will never go wrong with this recipe!
— if desired you may omit the au jus and just serve the roast, I prefer to make the au jus especially if I am serving this at a holiday table
— Use nothing else but only fresh garlic, a little salt and lots of fresh ground black pepper for this or you could use 1 teaspoon garlic salt, using any other spices will take away the flavor, nothing else is needed
— Cooking on very high heat then reducing the temperature will seal in all the meat juices to produce the most tender and flavorful prime rib, this actually is the method that a lot of the higher end restaurants use to make there prime rib and is the method I always use when I make prime rib roast at my home
— The cooking time stated on the recipe is for a 3-4 pound prime rib, you can use this method for a larger prime rib and increase the cooking time please see bottom of directions
— For a perfectly cooked prime rib roast a meat thermometer inserted in the roast should read about 140 degrees for medium-rare doneness, it is advised not to cook prime rib more that medium-rare
—– Using more that the specified amount of salt will draw out the juices from the roast, you could add a little more but it is best to salt the meat after it is cooked, using a minimum amount of salt will insure a juicy tender prime rib roast, 1 teaspoon or less of salt will be fine, remember to remove your roast from the fridge about 2 hours before cooking
2022 11 14 17 19
Ingredients
3 -4 lbs center-cut prime rib roast, nicely marbled, and trimmed, but leave a layer of fat on top of roast for flavor
8 fresh large garlic cloves, sliced in half (or use many as desired)
2 cups beef stock (or use a good quality beef broth)
Directions
Using a knife, poke small holes all over uncooked roast, and insert a half of a clove of fresh garlic in the hole (as many holes and as much garlic as desired).
Cover roast, and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, remove the roast from fridge and uncover; let sit out at room temperature for about 2 to 2-1/2 hours (this is an important step to relax the meat fibers, it will make for a more tender juicy roast, the length of counter-time will depend on the size of your roast).
Set oven to 450°F and allow the oven to preheat for a minimum of 15 minutes.
Season the roast with only a small amount of salt but lots of fresh ground black pepper pepper (that’s all nothing else but a little salt and fresh ground black pepper, using any other spices will take away the flavor from the prime rib!).
Place the roast fat-side up on a rack in a shallow-sided pan, then insert a meat thermometer in the middle of the roast but not touching any rib bones.
Roast uncovered at 450°F for 20 minutes (a few more minutes won’t hurt at 450°F).
After 20 minutes of high heat cooking reduce heat to 350°F and continue to roast for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes OR until the meat thermometer reads 130°F for rare doneness OR 140°F for medium-rare doneness, that is the way a prime rib really should be served, check your roast after 1 hour cooking time.
*NOTE* It is strongly advised to remove the roast slightly before desired degree of doneness is achieved as the roast will continue to rise in temperature several degrees after removing from the oven.
Remove meat to a carving board.
Cover loosely with foil and allow let rest (DO NOT CUT INTO ROAST for at least 20 or more minutes or all juices in the meat will flow out).
While the roast is resting prepare the au jus; place the roasting pan on top of the stove over high heat.
Add in the wine; cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring and scraping any brown bits.
Add in the beef stock; cook and reduce the juice by half (this might take about 20 minutes).
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Slice roast (just before serving!) and drizzle with some of the juice.
*NOTE* if desired you can cover the roast loosely with foil the first hour and then uncover and cook for the remaining time.
——————————————–.
APPROXIMATE COOKING TIMES for the prime rib cooked at 350°F after the 20 minute cooking time at 450°F.
Rare; cook 12-13 minutes per pound or to 130°F.
Medium-rare; cook 14-16 minutes per pound or to 140°F (I would not recommend cooking a prime rib any more than medium-rare).
Since every oven cooks differently cooking times are only approximate.
SUGGESTED SERVING PORTIONS PER PERSON —-for a generous serving of prime rib roast you should figure on 2 people per rib, that means if you plan to serve 6 people you should be able to do so with 3 ribs/ eight people with 4 ribs/ do not bother with less than 3 ribs anything less than that is not a roast but rather a steak and would be better treated as such.
Zhuhai Air Show 2022: Aircrafts, Missiles & UAVs Built By China Reviewed
The aerobatic flight show conducted by four J20s yesterday was absolutely exhilarating even in relatively imperfect weather conditions. People on site were so obsessed with it that most still kept their eyes fixed on J20s after their landings, talking about their shows and nobody realized that a J16 has already taken off and performed several amazing maneuvers.
TSMC 7nm process capacity utilization falling rapidly
This report coincides with an earlier report that China has already begun to mass produce the 7nm chipset.
Biden policy NOW helps to hand over the world biggest chip market exclusively to Chinese chip makers.
The end result is all other chip makers will lost economic of scale, and become noncompetitive.
Capacity utilization rates for TSMC’s 7nm process platform and its process variants N6, N7 have fallen below 50%, according to industry sources.
Many IC design customers are cutting orders and delaying pull-ins of TSMC’s 7nm process. Companies that have had the biggest impact include MediaTek, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Qualcomm, Apple, and Intel, as well as Chinese companies like Unisoc, which have been restricted by bans. TSMC has not responded to market rumors.
Despite the market downturn, TSMC recently expressed confidence. However, TSMC’s utilization rates for its 7nm and 6nm processes have fallen and are not expected to return to previous levels until the first half of 2023, according to sources.
The largest application for 7nm and 6nm is smartphones, PCs, servers, and other high-performance computing (HPC). High inventory levels in the mobile phone and PC supply chains, combining with performance pressures, have led to order adjustments, even at the risk of affecting long-term relationships with TSMC.
Qualcomm and MediaTek have both warned about the seriousness of smartphone inventory levels and have taken conservative views of the near future.
MediaTek has high levels of entry-level and mid-range smartphones, and has been more affected by the weak market. It expects fourth-quarter performance to fall by 20% sequentially. Sources pointed out that MediaTek is one of the largest players in this wave of foundry order cuts.
Sources revealed that the utilization rate for the 7nm family at Fab 15B in Taichung is lower than expected. It has reportedly dropped below 50% and is expected to worsen in the first quarter of 2023. Plans for Fab 22 in Kaohsiung have been shelved indefinitely, according to sources. TSMC is expected to revisit the plans depending on future production capacity requirements.
Construction progress of Fab 12 P8 in the Hsinchu Science Park is also unknown, sources said.
According to sources, Intel was previously expected to expand its outsourcing strategy with a large order using TSMC’s 7nm process, but reduced its order as a result of weak market conditions and lower-than-expected PC and server shipments. Intel’s Arc A series of GPUs are built using TSMC’s 6nm process node, while its Xe-HPC architecture Ponte Vecchio uses the 7nm process node.
Despite the continuous launch of new products, pull-in momentum is weak, sources said. TSMC’s top 10 customers have all made order adjustments, including the return of new orders from Nvidia for 7nm A100 chips and 4nm H100 chips, as well as adjustments and pull-in delays for the RTX 40 series. Intel has also made significant changes to its 4nm and 3nm orders.
Regardless, TSMC remains the leader in advanced processes. Order visibility for 5nm and below is still relatively high. Not only does AMD’s newest Zen 4 architecture Genoa server and RDNA 3 architecture GPU use TSMC’s 5nm process, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 uses the 4nm process.
Starting in 2023, TSMC will take a large order for Apple’s latest Mac series, which has an annual shipment scale of 20 million units, sources said. Orders for iPhones and iPads will be stable.
Sources noted that once inventory has been cleared, global IC design customers including Broadcom, Marvell, and MediaTek will expand their orders with TSMC.
DHS Censorship Agency Strange First Mission: Banning Speech That Casts Doubt On Election
Very long. Bored me to no end, but important for Americans to read. -MM
Unfortunately, this country is headed for a horrible outcome. No self-governing society can suffer the strain to civil society that comes from loss of regime credibility. This overt and actual illegal censorship, in violation of the First Amendment, must be brought to a halt. How that takes place, really doesn’t matter anymore.
The US Department of Homeland Security is actively engaged in the deprivation of American’s constitutionally protected free speech rights. They are using our own tax money to strip away our rights. The full report, done by the Foundation for Freedom Online, appears below:
DHS Censorship Agency Strange First Mission: Banning Speech That Casts Doubt On Election
SUMMARY
Network throttled millions of posts ahead of 2020 election, blocked “emerging narratives” from reaching “virality threshold.”
Censors boast on video of getting tech companies to ban entire categories of election speech under threat of “huge regulatory pressure.”
Months before the 2020 election, censors systematically targeted all speech categories that could challenge a future “red mirage, blue shift” election scenario.
Last week, The Intercept published a set of leaks that drew broad interest in perhaps the most under-covered scandal inside the US government today: the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) quiet move to establish, for the first time in US history, an explicitly inward-facing domestic censorship bureau.What The Intercept glimpsed, however, is just the tip of a much larger iceberg.The size, scale and speed of DHS’s censorship operation are vastly larger have been reported. Based on our investigation, below are seven bottom-line figures summarizing the scope of censorship carried out by DHS speech control partners, as compiled from their own reports and videos:
22 Million tweets labeled “misinformation” on Twitter;
859 Million tweets collected in databases for “misinformation” analysis;
15 tech platforms monitored for “misinformation” often in real-time;
<1 hour average response time between government partners and tech platforms;
Dozens of “misinformation narratives” targeted for platform-wide throttling; and
Hundreds of millions of individual Facebook posts, YouTube videos, TikToks, and tweets impacted, due to “misinformation” Terms of Service policy changes that DHS partners openly plotted and bragged tech companies would never have done without DHS partner insistence and “huge regulatory pressure” from government.
The citations above are from just the DHS censorship network’s impact on the 2020 election cycle alone. That was two years ago, when the narrative management machine referenced by The Intercept was first getting formed. Even the above figures, however, just scratch the surface of the full story.
While The Intercept rightly noted that DHS’s “truth cops“ now take on a range of other topics – such as Covid-19 and geopolitical opinions – it all started from, and grew out of, DHS’s speech control infrastructure set up to censor speech about elections.
That started with the 2020 election. But it continues, importantly, with the 2022 midterm elections, which are ongoing this week.
The whole story, however, has not all been published in one place. In this report, we seek to provide a comprehensive history and network map of DHS’s public-private censorship network, as told through a deep dive into its first mission — the censorship of the 2020 election.
Along the way, we will highlight the network’s role in censoring the ongoing 2022 midterm elections.
In the final section of this report, we will cover a particularly disturbing aspect of this story — DHS’s pre-censorship of speech that could “cast doubt” on a so-called “red mirage, blue shift” election scenario, months in advance of such an exact sequence playing out.
Background History & Cast Of Characters
In this background section, we will present a history and overview of the key players participating in DHS’s extended censorship network, with special attention to its formation in the run-up to the 2020 election.
This story has two main institutional sides: the government within DHS and the non-governmental side consisting of a web of like-minded private sector and civil society partners. Together, this network forms the DHS public-private censorship network that is the subject of this report.
The Government Side: Chris Krebs’s CISA
The key coordinating hub for the government side is an “obscure government agency” named CISA, which is tucked within DHS, and was created by act of Congress in November 2018, nominally to defend America against cybersecurity threats from hostile foreign actors (e.g., Russian hackers).
CISA’s longform name, the “Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency” has none of the Orwellian overtones of the “Disinformation Governance Board”. CISA took great pains to cloak itself as just a simple, security-focused cybersecurity directorate. CISA’s founding director, Chris Krebs, was fond of telling audiences that CISA was just “The agency that cares so much about security, it’s in our name twice”.
CISA’s mission was supposed to be cyber security. Not cyber censorship.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2020 election.
First, on January 6, 2017, outgoing Obama Administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson designated “election infrastructure” as being “critical infrastructure” under the purview of DHS protection.
This designation, born out of unsubstantiated claims that Russia had just stolen, hacked or otherwise materially interfered with the 2016 election, tasked DHS with protecting election-related structure, such as polling places, voting machines and computer systems.
CISA’s Internet censorship power grew out of interpreting “critical infrastructure” beyond its hard physical meaning to apply to meta-physical concepts. By 2019, “foreign disinformation” on social media was increasingly framed as a “cyber threat” to election infrastructure.
Through this framing mechanism, CISA’s “cybersecurity” authority morphed into a “cybercensorship” authority. However, this move was initially limited to CISA only targeting “foreign disinformation”, through DHS’s Countering Foreign Influence Task Force.
But when the 2016 election-era “Russian interference” Special Prosecutor’s probe ended in July 2019 with former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s failure to find “collusion” between then-President Trump and outside Russians, DHS and CISA began to change their tunes.
The entire “countering Russian disinformation on social media” apparatus that had been constructed before July 2019 to censor, throttle and identify “foreign disinformation” was quietly, but entirely, pivoted to focus inward on “domestic disinformation.”
This “Foreign-To-Domestic Disinformation Switcheroo” on censorship was never widely conveyed beyond DHS doors out to the American people. It was plotted on DHS’s own livestreams and internal documents. DHS insiders’ collective justification, without uttering a peep about the switch’s revolutionary implications, was that “domestic disinformation” was now a greater “cyber threat to elections” than falsehoods flowing from foreign interference.
This meant that, henceforth, any US citizen posting what DHS considered “misinformation” online was suddenly conducting a cyber attack against US critical infrastructure. That was the legal framework under which DHS – and CISA particularly – drew their jurisdiction.
To illustrate this, we’ve put together a supercut of DHS censorship network partners switching from a “foreign” to a “domestic” predicate for censorship between the 2016 election and the 2020 election:
o CISA’s self-invented censorship powers against “foreign disinformation” went from being pointed outward against supposed Russian bot accounts to being pointed inwards at tens of millions of US citizens simply talking lawfully about their own elections.
The main character in the CISA side of this story is its then-director in 2020, Chris Krebs. After the 2020 election, CISA’s leadership baton was handed to current head Jen Easterly, covered below.
Since this is a story about government censorship and abuse of power, Chris Krebs’s public statements on censorship issues provide insight into the founding intent of the government censorship operation that first grew out of Krebs setting it up. Here are eight data points useful to bear in mind:
Krebs said in April 2022 that the Hunter Biden laptop still looked like Russian disinformation and that Krebs didn’t care whether it was or wasn’t Russian disinformation; the important positive thing, he stressed, was that news media did not cover the laptop during the 2020 election cycle.
Krebs, who administered the federal side of the 2020 election after DHS effectively nationalized election infrastructure on January 6, 2017, said that every lawyer who represented conservative clients on claims concerning 2020 election irregularities should be permanently disbarred and banned from legal practice for life.
Krebs has repeatedly said on record that “misinformation” is the single biggest threat to election security. Note that Kreb’s role in government was not supposed to be as arbiter of truth; he was supposed to be a cybersecurity expert from Microsoft. Yet US domestic citizen opinions on social media became, in Kreb’s estimate, the top “cyber” security threat facing the US, replacing foreign hacking and malware.
After leaving CISA, both of Krebs’s two new jobs in January 2021 were outgrowths of the very CISA censorship network Krebs established with outside partners while in government.
First, shortly before President Biden’s inauguration, Krebs started a private consulting firm with former Facebook executive Alex Stamos, simply called “Krebs Stamos Group.”
a1
Stamos, covered extensively below, was perhaps the top figure overseeing the entire private sector side of the public-private censorship enterprise that Krebs and Stamos jointly built to censor populist political voices during the 2020 election.
It was Stamos who, according to his own group’s report, pitched the idea in July 2020 for DHS to even create a government censorship apparatus in the first place. Although, as we will cover, there is reason to believe such plans between Krebs and Stamos may have started considerably earlier than that reported date.
We will cover this Krebs-Stamos government-academia censorship relationship further below.
Krebs’s other role right after leaving CISA was becoming chair of the Aspen Institute’s “Commission on Information Disorder,” to galvanize a stronger “ whole-of-society” approach to censoring rumors and misinformation on the Internet.
Thus, Krebs – the original government censor – transitioned seamlessly through the revolving door of industry, into lucrative partnerships with private sector censorship professionals and prestigious civil society groups whose stated goal is decreasing the freedom of US citizen speech on the Internet.
Today, Krebs’s seat at the head of CISA is now occupied by Jen Easterly, a former military intelligence official who was deputy director of the National Security Agency (NSA) for counterterrorism. She appears to be taking her military intelligence experience squashing foreign terrorists from Tehran and using it to squash American populists on Twitter.
In October 2021, Easterly and Krebs held a 30-minute taped discussion for CISA’s “Cybersecurity Summit 2021: Continuity of Excellence” summit, in which they mutually agreed that Krebs’s construction of a “counter-misinformation” conglomerate with the private sector was among the top structures to preserve and expand at DHS going forward.
Easterly’s inheritance of Krebs’s censorship machine appears to be corroborated in the ongoing State Attorney General “big tech collusion” lawsuit versus the Biden Administration. There, the court recently ruled that Easterly can be deposed because of her “first-hand knowledge” of the censorship “nerve center” run out of CISA, her seeking “greater censorship… done by federal pressure on social media platforms”, and her reported statements that CISA’s “most critical infrastructure is a cognitive infrastructure.”
Before discussing the private sector side, it should be noted that the government apparatus at DHS is now larger and scattered beyond just CISA. As we have previously reported.
Let’s now move on to the private sector side of the equation. To whom did Chris Krebs and CISA outsource the task of mass social media censorship of the 2020 election? Who runs the private sector side and how is it all structured?
The Election Integrity Partnership
The main institutional character on the private sector side we will focus on in this story is a “counter-disinformation” collective called the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP). EIP is made up of four of the most powerful and politically well-connected social media monitoring and mass-reporting groups in the world. Their respective directors were all early industry pioneers in the rise of the censorship industry after the 2016 election.
The four entities comprising EIP are two universities, an influential foreign policy think tank, and a private social media analytics firm. They are, respectively:
Stanford Internet Observatory;
Washington University’s (UW) Center for an Informed Public;
The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab; and
Graphika.
One common thread connecting these four entities is that each of their directors were involved in aggressively alleging (unsubstantiated) claims from January 2017 through early 2020 that Russian interference had helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election by using inauthentic bots and troll accounts on social media.
Each of the four entities comprising EIP is also deeply connected to the US military and foreign policy establishment. These four institutions further came into the 2020 election cycle with deep pre-existing connections to the major social media companies’ content moderation teams, having worked together on censorship issues since the field first began developing in 2017.
It is very helpful to understand EIP’s network and operations in depth, because it was through EIP that DHS built the infrastructure for its current role as government coordinator of takedowns and throttling of US citizen speech online.
Just to make this all perfectly clear up front, below is EIP leader Alex Stamos explaining the whole DHS-EIP partnership was set up to outsource censorship through EIP, “to try to fill the gap of the things that the government could not do themselves” because the government “lacked both kinda the funding and the legal authorizations”:
Today, this post will be one of my you-tube videos. I believe that it is critically important that everyone understand and appreciate what a Rufus is, and how it manifests. While I talk a lot about it, it means much more than heroic action. It means compassion and understanding, and to stand up for the little guy.
Many of the snippets are in Chinese, and the dialog is in Chinese, but you can guess what is going on and infer the dialog.
One is a daughter …
One is an employee…
One is a relative…
The dialog can get confusing in the translation. Translation is from the Wechat scan function, switched to translate into English.
x
A Rufus builds people up. They don’t tear them down.
x
A Rufus stands by the downtrodden and supports them.
x
A Rufus accepts people as they are.
The roles are not important.
What is important is whether these people are making the world a better place, or are they being selfish, demanding, uncaring and obstinate.
Watch for yourself.
Then, pay attention to the reactions of the innocent bystanders who overhear the discussion. Watch them leap into action as only a real Rufus would…
This is a Patreon video that I am releasing to the general pubic and MM readership. I hope that it finds you well and that you all obtain some good information from it. This post will interrupt the normal flow of MM postings of latest (cough, cough) “news”.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 11.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants.
Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
This is part of the Q&A (on-going) effort where questions are provided to me, and then I present them, and then record and interpret the responses.
[11.1a] Question – Death Metal Music
“Now on its face, I feel that this is somewhat insignificant on its own. What I’m referring to here is my love of death metal. However, I feel that this attraction to this music genre actually represents a bunch of missing quanta clusters (meaning to say, this is associated to the relationships and activities I created based on my attraction to heavy metal–so memories of past associations / friendships / compatriots and the stuff I did with them are related to heavy metal, or heavy metal music somehow led to the creation of my relationships and activities with them).
.
An important part of my history opened up when I realized that the commander was <redacted> (rough analog, of course). I am eager to recall my other associations. Not just because I’d love to remember my dearest friends (of course, who wouldn’t) but because I need to regenerate the quanta I will be forced to leave behind. Memories are essential to this.
.
My passion for death metal music leaves me with the impression that I developed very important relationships with specific entities. I wonder if some of the volunteers that operated on my non physical body were bandmates from my past side projects or something.
.
Do I desire to comm with different prior-association entities/individuals? I’d say yes–because this represents a return of my memories, which is a good development.
.
<redacted> was very happy when I finally made the connection of that ancient Irish legend to my relationship with <redacted>. I do wonder if I’m ready for this yet. I know that the last thing I need is confusion. But I can’t be afraid. Being a worry wart is sooooo <redacted>
.
Is there significance to the questioner and their attraction to “Death Metal” music?
Questioner is correct. The frequency patterns associated with certain types of music and musical patterns act as keys that unlock "software programs" with are but associative mechanisms of quantum clusters. These particular ones are tied to a emotional / biological component that is shared with deep friendships and relationships between IS-BE entities.
In the case of this particular questioner, the association that the entity has is "spot on". And the ability to uncloak the association shows a gentle unveiling of memory and quantum associations between the questioner, their friendships, relationships and "tribe membership" related to specific tasks, duties, and operational involvements in regards to prior activities.
In this specific case, the operational associations were attuned to the frequencies and patterns associated with "death metal" and that is a comforting association associated with tribe membership and cadre belonging.
There seems to be a strong attachment for hard “death metal” Rock n’ roll, and membership as Domain Military.
It’s not absolute, of course. There are millions of people who love “death metal” and Hard Acid Rock, in certain forms. While there are just a few hundred imprisoned members of the Domain “Lost Battalion”. -MM
[11.1b] Question – Followup
Followup question from 11.1a…
Wow. I guess I want to ask if it’s possible to get specifics, like if this represents some of the relationships I had with my <redacted>, or some of the volunteers that came to operate on me or something. Or maybe I need to read something (a hint, I guess) so I can do a better job of recalling the relevant memory?
Questioner is fully cognizant of the implications of this. Questioner is in contact with some core <internal cadre, family members, close associations> who are part of the task team associated with questioner extraction.
This is also facilitated with questioner mantid (sic) which is acting as a <relay point, transmission tower, injection / host, attribute appliance ?> in this effort. Questioner should not eject the feelings, emotions or thoughts in regards to this form of communication and the information thus provided.
[11.2a ] Question – Original members pre-mod
Pre-Old Empire Earth has been on my mind, and how it’s continued alongside the prison planet mods. And how quanta configurations/species work.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could ask the following:
What happened to the original members of the species modified to be used as inmate suits? Were they all altered/incarcerated or are there still free ones about?
The vast majority of the species present on the worlds that underwent the transformation of pre-Old Empire to Prison Complex were unmodified.
The ONLY ones modified were those that served as the vehicles for inmate containers. In these cases, they were modified as follows...
Inmate "Skin Suits"
[1] Human
[2] Horses
[3] Elephants
[4] Dolphins
[5] Llamas
[6] <a certain selection of minor creatures that are permitted to cohabit with unmodified versions of their species. Too numerous to list here. Feeling and thoughts on this subject is far larger than what I am able to place here. Listing above is "representative only".>
Higher Energy "skin suits"
[7] Mantid (human)
[8] <not clear> (horses)
[9] <not clear> (elephants)
[10] <not clear> (dolphins)
[11] <not clear> (Llamas)
[12] others
Functionally, all humans (with the exceptions of visitors) are inmates wearing "skin suits".
For other species the issues is quite complex and would be far too confusing to elaborate on at this time. There is only <redacted, as there are too many issues involved in the dissemination of this information, and other "hand holding / learning exercises must be established first before this discussion can continue in meaningful detail.>
[11.2b ] Question – Visitation
Could a pre-prison planet human configuration be getting used by some to experience Earth while avoiding the incarceration loop?
Yes. Occasional human forms visit the prison complex in their natural suits, and are not affected by the influences by the prison complex.
However they too have limitations, and are exposed to dangers in this prison complex that makes the visitation quite dangerous affairs. This is why they rarely visit the complex without accompaniment. Often visitations are in secure locations and under Domain supervisions. (With occasional supervision by approved third parties.)
[11.3 ] Question – High frequency sound
I never thought I would have a question for the Domain commander as most folks here at MM ask pretty relative questions, for the most part. From those Q & A’s I always gain some insight and some valuable intel. With that said, I do have one question.
I continuously hear (in my head) a constant frequency sound much like that of an OSHA sponsored hearing test. Most of the time, the frequency is at a constant high frequency tone. Other times, however, there will be lower tones, usually of short duration (no longer than a minute) as if the sine wave is ramping down to a slower Hz. Much like an electric motor controlled by a frequency inverter.
So, my question is this: Are these frequencies that I’m hearing part of thought monitoring and/or subliminal communication and by whom?
Sounds, as defined by the questioner, are not part of thought monitoring, or subliminal communication.
Questioner is well known.
Questioner is Domain volunteer. Questioner is modified. Questioner has a Domain support group. Questioner is monitored at various levels. This includes thoughts, and actions. No ill-will is intended, but rather the monitoring is for reasons of Domain usefulness.
Situation is of self. The questioner is hearing the audible frequency of self. This is something that some oriental religions use to "home into" so as to focus on their meditations and "spiritual growth".
Questioner, and numerous readers, have the ability to listen in on their frequencies of self. With practice they can "tune into" the frequencies of higher and lower selves, and even isolate the sounds that they pick up to isolate the various sub-components and harmonics of it.
These are important skills for consciousness to use to isolate various elements of consciousness from the various non-physical bodies and elements.
There is no danger in tuning into these sounds. The questioner is hearing the various limits and shapes of the frequency profiles of self and is developing a skill set that (inadvertently) came into being after some (of his) non-physical skin suits were modified by Domain.
[11.4] Question – Feedback on Mantid Videos
This is a direct communication between MM and the Commander. I want to know how accurate, or inaccurate I am in the descriptions as to what Mantids are.
They are accurate.
It was a terse answer with no further detail. And perhaps with (a kind of) disgust directed at me that I am questioning my guidance. I wanted some “feedback” on my effort. I was not expecting this. -MM
[11.5 ] Question – Rainbow lines
I have been seeing these pulsating rainbow lines and am wondering what they are? They are very thin like fishing line and form a diamond like pattern of a net. I can only see it when I’m really concentrating on the area around me. A friend said I should bring it up with the commander. Am I catching glimpses of traps?
Thank you for all that you do.
Questioner has a distortion that affects the visual interpretation of physical reality as viewed by the synapses in the brain. This is not of serious concern.
It is something that sometimes occurs when there is an activation of "higher sensory perception" <trigger chambers?> in the non-physical bodies. This is a sensory overload that results from a data transmission path that is congested or blocked and overwhelms the sensory mechanisms in the biological <caprice, object, body, system> of the individual.
This is nothing to be overly concerned about.
If questioner desires to enhance this skill-set instead of discounting it as a physical manifestation of a on-going situational input stimulus, then the questioner can do so and discover some non-physical senses would be enhanced though the stimulation.
[11.6] Question – Non-physical effects of nuclear bombs
it was mentioned in AI that Airl’s crew were investigating the effects of nuclear bombs being tested when their ship crashed in Roswell.
There has also been various reports of UFOs buzzing facilities housing nuclear weapons. Apart from the obvious effects of fallout etc affecting the physical world, do these weapons do damage to the non physical worlds as well?
If so what kind of damage can on expect to find in, say, a non physical bubble universe directly “next” (for lack of a better word) to this one if a nuclear weapon is detonated here? What sort of damage did Chernobyl do?
Nuclear weapons are very dangerous. They create great physical and non-physical damage.
The weapons that were unleashed in this (geographic region of space) by their wars of conquest (by the Old Empire) created a great loss for many species, and all their spiritual components.
This region of space was at one time a very lush, rich and prosperous regions of all manner of species of all sizes and shapes.
However, after their ruinous wars they devastated the land and "salted it" for many, many millions of years.
The physical devastation is clear and well understood by most MM readers. What is not understood is the magnitude of the destruction. It was complete and "primitive" at a level that reduced everything to near primeval states.
The non-physical destruction was horrific. In fact, for a long time, the non-physical regions of this geographic region of space are "danger zones" and normal actions are not possible; it's a ruinous (non-physical) land of dangers, and strange unexpected interactions between thought and physical components. As such, thoughts can create undesirable effects, and all sorts of bad, and undesirable things can happen if sucked into these minefields" of voids.
This is why the Old Empire chose this region (partially) for the prison complex. The nature of the non-physical geography is in itself; very dangerous traps and snares.
[11.7] Question – Feedback on the Heaven Videos
This is a direct communication between MM and the Commander. I want to know how accurate, or inaccurate I am in the descriptions as to what the structure of the main, reality, and heaven universes are.
The videos are effective for the purposes intended. At this point in time, no further detail is needed, were there to be greater detail, we will provide it and you will transcribe it as is your duty.
Sigh. -MM
[11.8] Question -Connection to Domain
Excellent videos on Patreon, thank you; especially the two most recent…just finished the FrsnkensteinnAppliance; Very interesting and compelling things. In my mind I “knew” you had to be from East Brady…..but get dismissing it as my own delusion….it was wonderful to hear you state that in one of the April/May vids. So very synchronistic the way I stumbled onto the MM site….it was about 6 months after I traveled to East Brady for an Uncles funeral; I probably wouldn’t have took a leap of faith if there wasn’t thst potential western PA breadcrumb. Would be interested to know if you have the chance to ask the commander; what is my connection to the Domain? When was it made; ie when was it forged? Or perhaps better stated into a singular question…..How did my connection to the Domain come about and other than me being on “knowledge attainment” path here now what other implications might there be?
Questioner has a prior contract with Domain. (Before this present life-line, in another body, and at another time. -MM)
This is the questioners second try in escaping this prison complex.
Prior life (reincarnation) questioner tried / attempted to pray his way out of the complex. (Image of priest, church, religious setting, much praying. Catholic cross, and religious iconology.)
This was unsuccessful.
Upon death, questioner was tricked / manipulated by his mantid self into the warm embrace of (earth time) forgotten loves, associations and friends, and was led back (yet again) into the Heaven pocket universe.
Questioner was contacted by Domain at that point <non-physical> and was working with mantid resources and Domain liaison to create this (present) low-potential escape-way.
Questioner is further along in escape and departure / egress than what was initially expected.
Questioner departed from highest probability path by unexpected event chain and is now here in the MM "state of mind".
[11.9] Question – Searching for answers
I have a feeling, a strong feeling that who you were referring to as ” Old Empire” was myself.
I have no memories at all re this but in all honesty it has been my gut feeling since I started this journey with you.
I am rattled and saddened greatly as I fell I quite possibly could have been OE military, it resonates sadly man, so much so I had tears, both of shame and joy when watching the vid,
The offer of a new home made me emotional, very much so.
I also feel I could be the first OE operative ( if it is my reality) in a position to leave but my transition to Domain will not be beer and skittles I would think, I have much shame” in knowing” and others may never accept me, it’s not what or who you are but who you can become yes?
MM I need one more thing mate please, really.
I need to know what I have done, like yourself and your construction parts history, The DC knows for certain and I need to fill that void in my memory. Only if I am worthy of knowing though. I guess reconstruction of my quanta will also take place. If what I feel is correct then I am so so sorry and will have to carry my shame forever.
Love to you man hey, really
<redacted>
Entity was Old Empire as described.
Questioner fled into the "Prison Complex" upon it's unit defeat in the battled of <unclear, confused, garble> (Impression I have is of a space battle in and around our solar system).
Questioner fled into the complex knowing the consequences of such an action.
Questioner, at that time, greatly feared Domain.
His superiors and "news / telecommunication" mediums filled the population with great fears. It was used to control them, and they were terrified of Domain capture and the punishments that they could look forward to.
Questioner felt (at that time) that a life inside the Old Empire Prison complex was more desirable to that of the "Hell" that awaited it under Domain.
Questioner voluntarily entered soul and consciousness segregation and partitioning. It's "mantid(s)" established "camouflage" templates for it to exist within. (Whereas most Old Empire leadership would enter the prison complex and set up templates of luxury, and ornate power, this entity was military, and it's thoughts were in terms of survival, evasion and escape. The templates have all been "average", and nothing that would stand out of the normal.)
Questioner was a military member of "Old Empire".
Was talented and practiced. It was a career militarist, and was not of the same kind of "evil" and corrupt character as the Old Empire Leadership was.
Questioner's shame is misplaced.
Domain have no problems with this prior combatant, and view it as "paid it's price". In fact, many time worse than what the Domain would have done were it not to have fled and escaped as it has. Domain consider this entity to have long "paid it's dues" and wish to welcome it and embrace it as one of it's own.
Domain welcomes it's parolee outside of the Prison Complex that it finds itself in.
Translation: Domain welcomes the questioner to leave the Prison Complex with no ill feelings. Even join Domain if that is the desire of the entity. -MM
[11.10] Question – Seth
I’d like to ask the Commander if they can tell us whether a series of books known as ‘The Seth Material’ is a genuine communication, over many years, between a now deceased human named ‘Jane Roberts’ and a disembodied entity named ‘Seth’, or if it’s (a very clever) hoax.
The reason I ask is that, like most folks on here, I expect, I’m a big seeker after Truth, and the Seth Material entity speaks very much like a member of The Domain– at least in my limited understanding he does. Much of what Airl and the Domain Commander ‘speak of’ is also spoken of by Seth; except he never mentions a Prison Planet. He also speaks of what Metallicman has been reporting about for years now: True nature of reality and the universe; individual paths along the MWI; quantum reality and thoughts as real substance.
If Seth is genuine, I believe these works would be a great resource– lots and lots of helpful detail– for any Metallicman followers, in that Seth also goes into ‘prayer campaigns’– focused thoughts– in a LOT of detail, and the importance of doing good works and directing one’s thinking toward positive outcomes, and much more besides. It’s a fascinating alternative glimpse into true reality and if it’s a hoax, it’s a brilliant one. Seth also has quite the sense of humour as the Domain and Mantids do, too.
Interestingly, Seth also says that ‘revelations’ from his kind ‘are permitted’ about once every 30 years or so to many people around the world and are not really reported on for obvious reasons in this statist society. I thought it was interesting that Metallicman’s works are a generation or so after Seth, and could be a continuation of a process that the Domain knows about– or some inter-dimensional grouping known to the Domain; kind of like what D.M. has referred to.
Lastly, Seth also speaks of the importance of action, rather than thought or reflection as ends in themselves– and that human beings are creatures of action; and need to ‘be active’ in order to live fully, or be complete. A much maligned practice in the world of the metaverse we know inhabit. The Commander also spoke of this action, too. I recall their messages about contemplation/meditation not being of much use as far as escaping the Prison Planet reality– rather, activated and focused thought along with unselfish RUFUS-like behaviour is the way out.
Just a few too many coincidences as far as I’m concerned! Metallicman has provided us with his own unique human insights about his experience, but Seth to me sounds like a true resident of the Never Never. But he has lived numerous lives on Earth– and confirms that we all do.
MM can attest that his mother was a follower of Seth.
Seth is one venue out of many that are busy providing egress paths for people to follow. Questioner must recognize that there are many different kinds of people each one with greatly divergent pasts, knowledge and education.
There is no singular path out of the Prison Complex, but many.
Some paths require multiple incarnations to get to the point of egress. While other paths provide direct means and direct pathways; like superhighways.
Questioner should realize that there is not relative "best" advisor for egress, but rather multiple "roadmaps". It depends on the person, and their method of travel. If one drove a car, then a travel map would be appropriate, while a different kind of map would be necessary were they to travel by helicopter.
Seth is designed as a multi-stage egress platform / kit for use by certain seekers. MM is a different system, and it is designed for a different kind of person.
The questioner has altered perceptions to embrace both methodology in their ultimate objectives.
Ah, you are “good to go”. -MM
[11.11a] Question – Law of One
Hi MM, thank you again for your extraordinary dedication to this ongoing communication. I’m not certain where questions are to be posted, so here is mine., background first:
Don Elkins and Carla Ruckert conducted and published a dialog with a spiritual IS-BE group who identified themself as Ra about 40 years ago. It was titled The Law Of One. The concept of sentience sorting into STO and STS polarities, as the main task to be completed in our current series of lifetimes, is presented as a plan assisted by them. This idea, although without any reference to a prison system, has striking similarities to the Commander’s messages.
Is Ra part of the Domain, part of the Mantid group, or neither of them?
The idea or concept of sorting into sentience (STO, STS, others) is a Domain requirement. This is unique to Domain. Domain is the administration control over this regions of physical space. No other group, no matter how powerful, or no matter what pedigree, has that authority.
Sorting is the technique used to determine which consciousnesses can leave the Prison Complex, and which needs to stay.
[1] Only Domain is able to make that judgement.
[2] Only Domain is able to take that judgement on an individual consciousness and enable / permit egress out of prison.
[3] Only Domain is able to grant parole to egressed inmates.
[4] Only Domain has a system in place to take the orphaned consciousnesses and reconfigure their quantum makeup to regroup back to their former hive, matrix or other soul forms.
Domain was active in dissemination of this understanding to the human population. We used different vehicles to do so. In this event sequence, the 80/20 rule manifested, of the entirety of contacts that obtained our direction (in various means including walk-ins) only 20% were able to disseminate the message regarding sentience sorting. This group that the questioner has referred to is one such group. And it has been successful in it's task.
Yet why this sentience sorting HAD and NEEDED to occur wasn't always made clear to the audience. This resulted in some misunderstandings, as well as certain manipulations by "bad actors" for reasons of personal profit.
[11.11b] Question – Law of One
Is the idea of spiritual existence organized into density octaves of 7 levels each, which comprise a ‘journey’ of spiritual development back to the creator, valid?
It is a technique used to convey understanding. It is only as accurate as it's utility.
MM provides understanding. It too, is only as accurate as it's utility.
The purpose behind communication of this kind of arcane information is in regards to its utility in understanding. Different peoples understandings will vary from person to person. Thus the utility becomes different.
There are many ways to group the periodic table of elements. Each grouping has it's own utility depending on who is using that table. If the questioner finds the Ra teachings of utility then it is advised to follow it.
I am providing some examples here for the reader to understand what the Commander is talking about. As it is comm with me, and uses my references to communicate.
Here’s the most common table. This is the one that most people think is the “correct one”.
Common version
Here’s other tables, in other forms and shapes, depending on the needs of the user. There is not “correct table”.
x
x
5 curled ribbon
The Adomah Periodic Table (2006)
The Periodic Table of Element Scarcity (2018)
The Periodic Table of Chemical Bonds (2019)
[11.11c] Question – Law of One
If so, can you reconcile/elaborate/integrate this idea of ‘Densities’ with regard to the Domain, Mantids, and MWI?
Thank You!
No.
Well, that was terse. Sheech! – MM
Please do not be taken aback by that abrupt and terse answer.
The imagery that I received was a discrete “package” that pretty much explains that terminology is associated with specific projects or actions. For instance, a “spanner wrench” is associated with automotive repair, while a MRI is associated with a medical procedure.
I got the distinct impression that the term “densities” is a “catch all” phrase used to describe things in a general manner. While the audience (herein) are far more advanced and other terms and systems should be used for more specific questions.
Which, of course, scares me. As I have to define the terms for each specific situation that we will get involved in. Yikes! Sounds like a heck of a lot of work for ol’ MM here.
Also, this is a big question. “Domain, Mantids, and MWI” include EVERYTHING that I (as MM) talk about. The impression that I have is that the readership are too mature and advanced to rely on simplistic terms. Anyways, that is the response that I obtained.
I would suggest some very specific questions related to your thoughts, experiences, or wonderings. Then we can go from there, and try to incorporate the ideas of “densities” with specific contexts.
[11.12] Question – Overwhelming Old Empire systems
I have a question for the Domain:
Earth is one of many prison complexes in operation.
Human populations have been increasing for 10,000+ years, and relatively recently the population has exploded, increasing exponentially.
Thus, earth seems to be a desirable destination for souls/ISBEs or are other prison complexes are closing down and souls need somewhere to be incarcerated – earth being the melting pot of nonconformity.
If this is accurate, then mantid numbers must also be increasing (I assume 1 mantid per human/soul).
If earth/humans are heading towards some cataclysm, per Deagal Forecast and USA actions, then is there a concern that heaven and the brain washing mechanisms can be overwhelmed when people go over to the other side (heaven), and if so what happens.
Can the Domain comment on this and where are all these extra ISBEs, assuming I phrased my question understandably.
Answered carefully with an "alert chill".
First off, the population of humans, dolphins, horses, elephants, etc is an illusion. They are empty containers for the most part (shadow people -MM) The actual inmate population is less than the apparent population of the earth. Not every container has an element of consciousness within it. The only ones of consequence are those that involve your consciousness.
Secondly, the prison population has been growing for many years. However, this growth has slowed down considerably since Domain has acquired control over this sector. The only "new" souls are the constructed ones created in the Heaven pocket universes. These are constructs; much like MM is a construct from elements of Mades Escapleon.
Third point. The Old Empire Prison Complex is under Domain control. It consists of multiple planetary systems. Each one has it's own unique issues, problems, and overall plans established by Domain. None are being phased out. Instead, rather, they are being refurbished as "parole centers" for those sentience's that are not yet ready for release.
Fourth point. Mantid membership is a function of higher energy quanta. This is fixed, but associated with the lower energy consciousness. Since the population is mostly stable in the closed-cell environment, the number of mantids (sic) are stable. This includes the new constructed soul (derived) consciousnesses, as they too must have an associated higher energy (mantid GP and Prime) to function.
Fifth Point. Domain is proceeding towards "small bads" instead of "Large Bads" in regards to the Deagal forecast. The transition stations are well populated and readied for an influx of pockets of consciousness. These will come in arrival grouping of clusters and will not overwhelm the strengthened systems that we have put in place.
Contrary to the impressions that one might have from reading the <inaccurate?> Deagel report, the trend-lines will NOT be sudden, but will be an accumulation of event sequences that will increase the transition period for many humans from life to death. The change in the status quo will be gradual and occur over a period of time. It will not be sudden. It will manifest as a clear increase in the rate of death to a point where it becomes more noticeable than the media reports are to hide it.
I am a believer in the Deagel Report, but apparently the Commander believes things a tad differently.
It did not say that the report was wrong, but rather that the illusion that one might get from reading it will lead one towards erroneous conclusions as to what is actually going on. -MM
[11.13a] Question – an energetic sensation
Something happened to me today that hasn’t happened for awhile and I was wondering if the commander could shed some light on what it is (or you if you know the answer).
Sometimes, usually when i am driving, but can also be when I am just lounging around, I get this energetic sensation.
If you have ever had an operation and had morphine injected intravenously, it kind of feels like the initial part where it goes into your vein, how you get that sort of warm feeling that shoots all around your body. It’s like you can feel it in your blood coursing throughout your body. it is an incredibly potent feeling and makes one feel rather good and invincible; it is hard to not just sit there and veg out on its feeling.
It has a tendency to make you feel quite sleepy.
I have noticed that I get this when i think of specific things to do with my tasks, and some thoughts generate a more potent reaction to others.
Question: is this a “nudging” from a higher source, like the Domain, EG, Mantids etc, and if so who?
Questioner is getting input, or a higher energy nature, that is not generally normal for the standard skin suit. This is a function of his role within an organization that he has committed to, and the higher energy is designed to assist him in his tasks.
The over all effect of this injection of energy is an awakening of latent (astral travel / LD / PSI / ESP) abilities. The questioner should find some skills arise from disuse in the near future. Perhaps in the late Spring or early Summer. It will depend on the energy partitioning with his partner. As he is the "capacitor" that is used to "charge" the energy streams with his direct partner.
This is an agreed to alteration of his skin suit, and is in agreement with his mantid GP (sic). There is a transfer of certain quanta packages from the mantid cluster and reapportioning to "pockets" / key-ways in the non-physical bodies.
The direction of this alteration of his non-physical body is the leadership of his parent organization. The participants of this action are his mantid GP (sic) and his partner.
[11.13b] Question – an energetic sensation
Question: Am I correct in assuming that it is nudging me towards a specific thought, and that if take those moment to rest I may receive a download of information.
Yes. The questioner is correct. In this case, the questioner needs to adjust to the alterations and then practice in handling the changes in input.
The questioner needs to heighten awareness for the information discharge.
[11.14] Question – Fractional son
I wanted to ask a question to be included in a future Q and A with the commander but I thought I would run by you in private before I put in on the forum.
I wanted to ask if my oldest son is a member of the lost battalion. What I am not sure of is you need his name or my name?
I also want to make sure that this is an appropriate question, as I know it is a personal question. If it is not appropriate that is absolutely OK and I wont ask .
Questioner's son is a fractional.
Fractional entities are IS-BEs who have been separated into multiple consciousness's and placed into different bodies for the purposes of control and "education" as determined by the mantid Primes (sic).
Questioners son is a fractional with Domain elementals.
We are monitoring this skin-suit and have a team engaged in the monitoring of the entity in question. All consciousnesses are treated as unique self-aware entities and are thus handled as individuals.
Questioner cannot answer or relay information for this individual without subjecting it to risk and potential danger. It is the responsibility for the fractional itself to do so.
[11.15] Question
I think I’ve just connected with a lost battalion member.
She emailed me after coming across my site. She says she is another astral warrior and related some very familiar experiences of hers within the astral planes/ lucid dreaming, and being contacted by other non physical beings that randomly showed up (physically) and took her to what sounds like a similar place I went to.
She’s gone through all the astral training both me and <redacted> have gone through, including all the consciousness and timeline stuff.
I am wondering if the Domain are able to do a similar check on like they did with Miri’s baker friend? i plan on sending her your way, but not entirely sure how to proceed. MM, without going into details our conversation, if she is not Domain then, she is definitely some one special.
She said her ethereal name is Ayanna, Soul name is Sfeah, Human name is Tabatha, if that helps.
Target is not Domain.
Target is (indeed) a very special consciousness. This consciousness is on a "fast track" towards egress from this prison planet environment though repeated (previous reincarnation) attempts. They are active in a number (not singular) "escape" groups. The are aggressive and already has a full escape plan in with association with your parent organization.
They have already (step by step) reassembled their <portable / isolated> soul cluster outside of the Heaven pocket universe, and thus are already on their way towards egress independent of Domain assistance.
Questioner is advised to respect this entity and provide assistance as they might request it to be.
[11.16] Question – Fate
You had an interesting story last year about a fellow who was fated to hang (it was his destiny). He was however, granted several wishes by a genie, but however he tried to change his fate, he was still hung.
My question then, can we escape our fate (destiny)?
For example, if we are fated to hang, can we escape the hangman’s noose and live a full enchanted life. Concurrently, nobody (or very few) actually know what their fate is, so how can we escape our fate without knowing what our fate is?
Fate is a function of the gravitational influences on the physical body. It can either be in relative favor, or relative disfavor. On a functional basis it can be viewed as a measure of the relative ease that a consciousness is able to exist within the prison complex environment.
Destiny is a function of the world line template (sic). A consciousness can travel upon the template and alter the events that it may experience. However, all templates are predetermined by the mantid prime / consciousness within the pocket Heaven universe. The consciousness may elect to create a new template from which to occupy, but it requires a strong sense of will and concentrated power of thought. Unless maintained, the consciousness will default to the pre-birth world-line template (sic) and in that event the end of the life will be pre-determined.
The only true and real way to escape this situation of living a fated template life is to exit the "reality universe" and enter the "main universe" while being part of a soul cluster of some type. Once that is accomplished, the idea of purpose in regards to physical experiences enters a completely different kind of understanding.
[11.17] Question – Tibetan Book of the Dead (Thödol)
A question to the Commander about the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Thödol) and its instructions, on which light to follow or not follow after death.
Are these buddhist texts wrong, should you not go into any light (bright or dull) at all, and instead of that stay calm and call the Domain for pickup?
How are these instructions in the Thödöl to be interpreted?
Where do they come from?
For clarifying, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead: HERE
In the first Bardo, the Chikhai Bardo, the deceased will experience the primary clear light at the last breath.
And a second clear light half an hour after the last expiration.
Both lights lead to freedom/liberation the Thödöl says.
But only holy men grab the moment it seems, ordinary people miss it and go into the second bardo after being three days unconscious.
Day 1 of the second bardo, the Chönyid Bardo, around the 4th day after dying: “Then, from the Central Realm, called the Spreading Forth of the Seed, the Bhagavān Vairochana, white in colour, and seated upon a lion-throne, bearing an eight-spoked wheel in his hand, and embraced by the Mother of the Space of Heaven, will manifest himself to thee.
It is the aggregate of matter resolved into its primordial state which is the blue light.
The Wisdom of the Dharma-Dhātu, blue in colour, shining, transparent, glorious, dazzling, from the heart of Vairochana as the Father-Mother, will shoot forth and strike against thee with a light so radiant that thou wilt scarcely be able to look at it.
Along with it, there will also shine a dull white light from the devas, which will strike against thee in thy front.
Thereupon, because of the power of bad karma, the glorious blue light of the Wisdom of the DharmaDhātu will produce in thee fear and terror, and thou wilt [with to] flee from it.
Thou wilt beget a fondness for the dull white light of the devas. At this stage, thou must not be awed by the divine blue light which will appear shining, dazzling, and glorious; and be not startled by it.
That is the light of the Tathagata called the Light of the Wisdom of the Dharma-Dhātu.
Put thy faith in it, believe in it firmly, and pray unto it, thinking in thy mind that it is the light proceeding from the heart of the Bhagavān Vairochana coming to receive thee while in the dangerous ambuscade of the Bardo.
That light is the light of the grace of Vairochana.
Be not fond of the dull white light of the devas. Be not attached [to it]; be not weak.
If thou be attached to it, thou wilt wander into the abodes of the devas and be drawn into the whirl of the Six Lokas.
That is an interruption to obstruct thee on the Path of Liberation.”
This will repeat every day for four days, going through all the colours, e.g the elements dissolving: blue, white, yellow, red, green – there is always a very bright light which leads to a heavenly realm – or a dull light which leads to a hell-realm. If you don’t follow these lights you will wander around in the next bardo (bardo being the state in-between) and be reborn in, on average, 7 weeks after dying according to the Thödöl.
This is deceptive. The observed appearance and manifestation of light that one experiences is a direct function of the resonance of the harmonics of the energy structure of the higher selves (mantid (sic)).
It is true that the appearance can be used as an indicative measure of the terrain that the consciousness must endure, it is not a shared and repeatable action. To experience what is written, the person must be a long-term practitioner (decades of intense practice) of Tibetan religious ritual.
Those that are not, will derive no benefit from the teachings.
The containers (sic) that are defined as the vessels of the quanta (as determined by energy state) are not fixed and rigid, but as always subject to change, manipulation, growth and evolution. This is why higher energy quanta fits within certain lattice patterns. As well as how the consciousness containers adapt to the fixtures that define the containers.
There are sequences of events that one will experience, but those sequences will vary from observer to observer.
There are no rule-books, guides, or teachings that can prepare the deceased consciousness for the event sequence that will manifest before them.
[11.18] Question – Annunaki
Hi. Pretty straight forward question about the prison complex I hope you can ask the Commander MM. Unless you already know the answer yourself of course.
I take it that the human beings in this final form were created probably a couple of hundreds thousands years ago by other beings, some call them Annunaki.
Am I correct that they also previously by other beings had created another race millions of years ago, and they were being set incharge of humans, as caretakers/overwatchers of the human race?
These overwatchers seem in fact pretty much just like prison guards as I understand it. To me they sound a lot like The Old Empire. Are they in fact the Old Empire or are actually the Annunaki themselves OE?
When the Old Empire encountered this region of physical space, it was a prosperous area. There were colonies containing numerous species though out this region of space, and numerous settlements on the planet Earth.
When they entered this region they took it by force. Many of the inhabitants were killed. Many cities were destroyed. Many inhabitants fled because this entire region was no longer a safe area to live in.
Upon the ruins, the Old Empire constructed multiple prison complexes.
The earliest writings of the ancient Sumerians reflect historical records that were passed down over the generations of the initial construction of this prison complex. They have, over time, became distorted and confused, and the semblance of order, timing and participants lost or misinterpreted.
Further confusing this situation are / has been, repeated attempts at distortions of the past and a sorting of the event trains. Thus, what remains today are but pale distortions of what was once, a very impressive effort by the Old Empire to construct this Prison Planet Complex into what it is today.
The "overwatchers" and the Annunaki are historical references to what was (in all probability) Old Empire residents involved in work in this region.
[11.19a] Question – Time
I don’t know if this has been asked before. If it was, please disregard. I want to ask the DC as we all know that time is a human-made artificial construct and does not exist as such, why we humans seem to perceive time is “speeding” and going “faster” in this turmoil period; a common quote is “time flies”. When everything is peaceful we humans perceive time as “slow”.
The question is: Is “time” manipulated as “fast” to get the bulk of human beings on Earth moving to specific (troublesome) world-lines?
The experience of "time" is the movement of consciousness through world-lines (sic). It can be speeded up, or slowed, by the consciousness that resides within the physical body. Slowing; things moving in slow motion, relative to the observer, is an example of the consciousness moving slower through the various world-lines. Often it is due to a physical event that the consciousness is experiencing.
[11.19b] Question – Bads
My second and last question: The geo-political situation is apparently converging to full-scale world war. Is this situation changeable towards “small bads” or the “big bad” we don’t want (full nuclear WWIII) is now defined as the most probable outcome?
As of 6 August 2022...
It now (at this point in time) highly probable that "medium bads" will occur.
It is no longer "small bads".
The situation in the Western nations are gyrating out of control, and this is forcing the Eastern nations into actions that they are reluctant to engage in.
Those in the West (i.e. The United States) have [1] this belief that they have some special "God provided" protection. [2] That they have some super secret, special weapons and technology. [3] That much of this technology was reverse engineered from Domain or similar advanced sources. [4] That they can win and destroy the East using these advanced equipment, technology, and abilities.
All of the belief structures are in error.
The "secret weapons" are neither secret, nor wholly functional. The idea that the West will unify under a combined threat level is not realistic. The overall belief that nuclear submarines are undetectable and lie hidden is in error.
<redacted>
They are careering towards a very bad outcome.
We now anticipate "medium bads". Though we are working hard to contain them, there is a near deleterious insanity that has gripped the "leadership" of the West and they believe that the destruction of the world is an acceptable outcome provided that they still rule it.
The vision of the world that they envision is a very bad one and will result in millions of years of global devastation. No reproduction of current sentient life will be able to occur. The prison complex will evolve into a lonely, abandoned husk of waste floating within it's own isolation universe, and abandoned by the Domain to be forgotten and ignored.
Domain will not permit this.
We consider this an emergency.
We have requested other (Domain) resources to assist in this on-going emergency potential. This might necessitate infected mass die-offs in the aggressive (leadership's) population centers on the planet.
We will arrange additional resources to assist in the transition period of the various die-offs so that the existing systems are not overwhelmed. Consciousness's will be directed and funneled into the proper segmentation and sorting avenues. We need to allocate resources to avoid swamping the systems already in place.
We (Domain) learned from our mistakes in the past, and this situation will be tracked to a different vector than what it is on now, though it will not appear to be that way to many of the readership. (Commander is talking about common template tracking and the sub-template structures. -MM)
However, there will be some great hardship in the world. Mostly the collective West.
Great damage and casualties can be avoided, however the realistic probability of this actually manifesting is getting smaller and smaller over time. <redacted>
There will be certain pockets of the West that will be poisoned. And given the resources (Domain resources) it might take a long time before they are cleaned up.
We are working presently to avoid the "medium bads" from manifesting. We are not hopeful.
MM comments…
Where a “medium bad” is a catastrophic nuclear exchange resulting in a one-sided destruction on a planet-wide scale. It is not the total destruction of the world, just a complete destruction of selected parts of it. The image that I have (from the Domain Commander) is of an orange with big black spots on it.
Image provided to me was something that looked a little like this.
[11.19b-1] Question – Medium Bads
For the audience, and to help in my understanding. Please define what a “medium bad” is.
A "big bad" is measured in a billion or more people killed.
A "medium bad" is measured in the hundreds of millions killed.
A "small bad" is measured in one or two millions killed.
The present situation is somewhere between a small and a medium bad. It includes all deaths from war and the (hidden) bio-wars currently in process.
[11.19b-2] Question – Why has things changed?
Why are you talking about “medium bads” instead of “little bads”?
The West are following the recommendations of RAND to the letter. There has been no deviation from the plan as laid out by the United States "think tank". This proceeds to plan throughout the actions of every one of the last five (or six) presidents.
They define victory as the destruction of the East with the West remaining the dominant remaining power.
This necessitates nuclear warfare with America making a first-strike against their enemies. This includes crippling, then looting Russia. This includes suppression of Iran, and strengthening Western access to the mineral resources in the Middle Easts. However, their main target is China.
China, to the leadership and the RAND organization, is viewed as a plump and ripe fruit ready to obtain. It is viewed as weak by the Western leadership. Though, on a specific basis, the Western specialized analysts advise that the leadership impressions and positions are gravely in error.
China is the cultural oasis of Domain in this physical sphere. We cannot permit it's destruction.
We (Domain) can confirm that Western "first strike" plans are in place.
We can confirm that the idea of a normalized "first strike" is in normal day-to-day discourse even though the plans call for a segmentation of the world into geographic regions prior to that event train.
Previous lessons (on other planets) have followed this path and in every case the results have been horrific / catastrophic. We will implement certain changes and that will mitigate the damage somewhat.
[11.19b-3] Question – How will China survive?
The United States is going to destroy China with it’s 6000+ nuclear weapons. I am convinced of this, especially from the last answer. What can be done?
The only way that China can survive is to work with Russia and pre-emptively launch a first strike against the West.
You know this. Calm down and be objective, you need to focus for clarity of group communication. (I was berated by the commander. -MM)
[11.19b-4] Question – What can MM do?
And what about me? Personally?
You have relocated to a safe place. The greatest risks are undersea nuclear detonations causing tidal waves on major coastal cities. Additionally, there is a belief that Hong Kong can be "turned" and become a vassal state in the West. Your present location (and your future location) are both secure.
Once, the American manufactured SLBMs and ICBMs take out military targets, the primary Western strategy is to use swarms of fighters each carrying nuclear gravity bombs to pummel the Chinese countryside and cities. These are special modifications to the F-35 strike fighter (and standoff bombers such as the B-1, and aging B-52) that is now deployed world-wide. Devastating China completely and eviscerating all of the infrastructure inside of China. Turning it, in effect, into a very large ruin (much like Syria today).
A first strike will eviscerate Chinese defenses, secondary strikes by swarms of fighter bombers will canvas the nation. In short order, after the rubbling of the nation, a subsequent long conventional war will ensue, with the American leadership safe living somewhat normal lives in America.
However, and I caution, this plan, which is well understood inside of certain "leadership" circles, will not manifest.
Because it will not manifest, you and your family will remain safe. However, there will be complexities in your life that will complicate your life to a certain degree. These will be unavoidable, but not overly uncomfortable. You will continue to eat, and provide a useful role in society.
[11.19b-5] Question – Traumatized China
The Nancy Poliski trip has traumatized China. Will China make any dangerous or rash moves out of vengeance? I am concerned as I have never seen China so unified in fury.
China is following a course and strategy that it has laid out years ago.
The only change in the unfolding events of the last few days is an acceleration of the planning and systems already in the works.
By the time the West starts to implement the segmentation of the world into two halves, the value of the global currency will have changed. The power structures of many "friends" will have changed, and the stances of various allied nations will have changed. China is aware of this.
China will proceed with a <hidden> strategy that they have coordinated with the SEC and Russia. This may or may not include military activity. However, it will include <redacted> and that will devastate the West.
[11.19b-6] Question – The United States
I am assuming that for the scenarios to manifest, that a first-strike effort must be taken by both Russia and China simultaneously. Is this even possible?
I cannot believe that they are talking or discussing this reality.
There is an understanding between Xi Peng and Putin. It is deep, incisive and visceral.
You need not try to over think the possible scenarios that will manifest these event trains.
You simply need to accept that nothing lasts forever, and that those that play with fire tend to be scorched.
This was plainly, explicitly and clearly, explained to President Biden by Xi Peng, and he chose to ignore the one singular warning.
There will be no further warnings.
[11.19b-7] Question – The United States ruin
Please tell me what kind of damage that the USA might experience.
There are too many variables at this point in time. I am unable to assist you.
You can expect massive die-offs. The predicted outcomes (based on non-earth predictive models) suggest a bulk die-off due to starvation, illness, and lack of proper medical care. Deaths due to radiation will be minor, only amounting to a few (handful's of) millions of Americans.
Reconstruction of the United States in whatever form (eventually) develops will be fraught with civil discord, terrible logistics, and a serious lack of medical care. Hygiene will plummet as access to potable water ends, staples such as toothpaste and toilet paper evaporate, and viruses torment the populace.
Plants and farms will struggle as most plants use GMO seeds that require a precise mixture of fertilization, weather, and soil conditions that are only possible with complete mechanized farming technologies. Fruit and vegetables will become increasingly difficult to obtain.
A short and brief "limited" nuclear, or conventional attack on American soil is further erode the social structure, but the government, itself, is very resilient. The United States will continue to operate, in a fashion, even though it will be "toothless".
Commander *snorts* and *laughs*. (An odd enough gesture.) <Chills>
Source is CNN; American disinformation outlet. None of their readership have the ability to verify or deny the "report".
Seeding of articles with disinformation is for purposes unrelated to MM discourse. You can safely ignore the *blather*.
My guess is that CNN disinfo is trying to portray the illusion that Russia is alone and not all that friendly to China. This idea seems to fit into the narrative that Russia and China can somehow be separated from each other. -MM
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Domain Index” over here…
I hope that this puts a smile on your face and warmth in your heart.
I want to post some uplifting happy stuff.
I hope this post makes the grade.
It all began in 2004, when the first cat cafe opened its doors in Osaka. Since then, the petting zoo/coffee house hybrids have invaded Tokyo, and business is booming. After removing your shoes and washing your hands, you can relax or play with the cats and kittens while you have your drink. Prices are reasonable, and the rules are simple: no flash photos, no grabbing tails or waking sleeping kitties.
cc6
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cc5
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cc3
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cc2
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cc1
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Life is too short not to spend it with friends, family and our furry little friends. There are numerous cat, dog, and bird themed coffee houses and tea houses in China. They are nice to visit, and to spend some time in.
This is one in Japan.
It’s a great way to enjoy yourself and to make friends with some of the creatures that roam the tea / coffee establishments.
I know that this is a short post, but I am in the start of a new affirmation campaign and a large number of affirmations are coming into reality, and that means all sorts of upset, stress and change. Don’t freak out. It’s normal!
International relations can be likened to a game of 3D chess.
In this great game Putin, in the finest Russian tradition, or like Mr. Spock in Star Trek, is a grand master.
I don’t believe the chess players in the U.S. State Department, such as Victoria Nuland (wife of the Robert Kagan mentioned above) and the other neocons who are at the helm, are quite at Putin’s level, but they had the great advantage of being able to make a series of aggressive moves (e.g., the series of NATO expansions and the 2014 Ukraine coup) before Putin was able (i.e., was strong enough) to make a counterplay in response.
By comparison, the general run of media journalists, commentators and even supposed analysts are tiddlywinks players.
-UNZ "Russia is back"
Ok, the peak of the event sequences for this phase of “bumpiness” has passed. We are an a momentary adjustment period. See? It wasn’t all that bad. just your fears screeching towards you, eh? Well, you will be fine. Just stay calm.
Let’s go this array of odds and ends at this particular point in time.
Spaceballs – They’ve gone into plaid
We start with a funny clip of a parody of Star Wars known as “Spaceballs”. It’s a Mel Brooks classic. I hope to remind everyone not to get too serious. It’s really cramping our happiness, don’t you know.
North Korean news agency Yonhap quoted on Monday sources as saying that US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln will access the international waters of the East Sea this week as a "show of force" movement to fend off any possible North Korean provocations.
The aircraft carrier along with a strike group will stay in the sea for about 5 days, Yonhap reported, adding that it will be the first incident of its kind since November 2017.
The news agency quoted the spokesman for US Forces Korea, Lee Peters, as saying that "as a matter of operational security," he refuses to comment on the matter.
Local man and father of a 5-year-old trans pterodactyl Bradley Mingastank is struggling to find the medical care his young dinosaur son needs, as it is very difficult to find species-affirming care in the United States.
2022 04 12 21 35
“Seriously, it’s 2022, and we still haven’t figured out how to provide adequate medical care to children who think they’re extinct flying lizards,” said Mingastank. “I do my best to raise my son Madison as a pterodactyl per his wishes, which is important for his self-esteem. I only communicate to him in ear-piercing dinosaur screeches, I feed him small rodents and fish, and every once in a while I push him off the roof of the garage so he can try flying. But no other doctors seem to be willing to help him get the ultraviolet heat lamps and lizard medicine his pterodactyl body desperately needs.”
According to sources within the family, Madison first discovered his true pterodactyl identity when he put on a Halloween costume and then refused to take it off. It was then his parents knew he was a dinosaur trapped in a human child’s body.
“According to science, If someone thinks they are something, then they are automatically that thing, and the whole world must pretend they are that thing or they’ll die. That’s just proven science,” said Mingastank as he called a veterinarian to set up an appointment for his son.
UPDATE: Madison has changed his mind and has decided he is now a sea lion. His parents are currently looking for a giant aquarium to keep him in.
Dracula meets Lucy Westenra – “Dracula: Dead and Loving It”
One of my favorite scenes. Funny but sensual. I really like those old 1960s style vampires and their attractive female companions.
How To Make 1950’s good wife’s guide
I found this. It's really very dated. I found it interesting, but I do not recommend that anyone follow the guidelines. Never the less, I do think that this is good advice for either mean or women in regards to talking to strangers, friends, or family.
Don't shoot the messenger. -MM
Food – Dinner
Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
Prep
Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
Be interesting and happy
Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
No clutter
Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.
Fire
During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Peace and quiet
Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
Welcoming
Be happy to see him.
Smile
Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
Listen
Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
Be positive
Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
No complaining
Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
Comfort
Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
Shoes and pillow
Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
No questions
Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
Yes, it’s dated advice.
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But if you look at it closely, just about all of the advice pertains to cats and their “owners”.
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And you know, both of my grandparents were happy folk and had functioning families. Perhaps they knew something that we have forgotten over the years.
A very strange find
1644842968 77wxuhdy3j
Reports: Chemical Weapons Dropped in Mariupol (False Flag???)
Numerous reports are coming in claiming an unmanned aerial vehicle dropped some type of chemical or nerve agent against a target in Mariupol, Ukraine, killing several and injuring 100’s.
We have no OFFICIAL confirmation, but the reports are flooding-in anyway.
This could be the exact, precise, FALSE FLAG that the USA and NATO have been “warning” the Russians “might use” which could spark a formal NATO military response into Ukraine.
It was back on March 24 that NATO publicly stated a Chemical attack would prompt their intervention (Story HERE)
The headline to that story looked like this:
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More info as it becomes available. Check back.
UPDATE 4:59 PM EDT —
One (a single, isolated report) claims the following:
"Russian forces used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military & civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an UAV. The victims have respiratory failure and vestibulo-atactic syndrome."
Now, there are real problems with this report.
1) It does not say WHERE in Mariupol the attack allegedly took place.
The _only_ major fight zone where any type of chemical weapon would prove useful, is at Asovstal Steel Mill, where thousands of AZOV nazis are scattered through vast catacombs beneath the sprawling plant. It is in these catacombs, where a reported Biolab exists, consisting of allegedly 8 full floors deep, all beneath the plant, and initial rumors (not confirmed) claim this lab was working on genetic-specific bioweapons in violation of treaties.
2) The decision to FLOOD those underground catacombs by using fire trucks to pump water into the air shafts, to force out the Nazis, was already publicly reported (Story HERE)
Thus, it makes no sense at all to turn around and use a chemical weapon or nerve agent against the very target they intend to flood-out.
3) NATO has been itching for an excuse to enter the war inside Ukraine, and has, on more than one occasion, said the use of chemical weapons would meet that excuse.
Interesting timing now that a Biolab has been proved to be under that steel mill, and if Russia successfully takes over that Biolab, they will find PROOF that the US and others were working on Biological weapons in violation of Treaties. Or, worse, that they were working on race-specific bioweapons, designed to wipe out . . . only . . . . Russians.
4) The report cites “vestibulo-atactic syndrome”
Pathogenesis
In the practice of a neuropathologist, the vestibulo-atactic syndrome is most often observed in patients with cerebral ischemia, when the brain receives insufficient oxygen because of a violation of blood flow.
The pathogenesis of this pathology includes the lack of blood flow in the vertebro-basilar system, which unites the vertebral and central (base) arteries of the brain, the violation of blood circulation in the brain stem structures, as a result of which their energy supply and connections with other parts of the central nervous system (CNS) are disrupted.
Stem brain formations are sensitive to hypoxia (oxygen starvation of systems and organs), which causes a large prevalence of vestibular-ataxic syndrome and also the variety of forms and manifestations of this pathology in cerebral ischemia.
The clinical picture can vary depending on the cause of the disease, age and condition of the patient. For example, in elderly patients, the disruption of the central part of the vestibular analyzer is often combined with the lesion of its peripheral part, which forms a peculiar picture of the pathological disorder.
This pathology – a combination of motor and vestibular disorders due to violations of the general and cerebral circulation. It is quite common, many of its symptoms have been noticed in itself, without giving them much importance. If, when walking, a person begins to feel dizzy, he throws from side to side, coordination of movements is disturbed – this is an occasion to immediately consult a doctor.
What constitutes a vestibulo-atactic syndrome and what are its causes we have figured out. What are the signs and complaints of patients that enable the neurologist to diagnose ataxia?
Ischemic disorders in the work of the brain are dangerous because in the early stages they can simply not be noticed, since the first symptoms that appear can correspond to various disorders of the patient’s health and condition. A person can simply not pay attention to individual cases of malaise. This makes it difficult to timely diagnose and treat diseases that are the companions of the vestibulo-atactic syndrome.
The first signs of the initial stage of the disease are:
If NATO officially asserts that chemical weapons WERE used (and that’s a big “if”) and that NATO is entering the war, Russia has already said publicly it will use its nuclear missiles.
UPDATE 5:28 PM EDT —
Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, confirms recent reports about Mariupol attack: “The unknown substance was sprayed by Russians in Mariupol. People are suffocating.”
UPDATE 5:42 PM EDT —
The mass-media is starting to “run” with the story of a “Chemical attack” in Mariupol. They would only be running with it if their government masters told them to. And Government would only tell them to, if the plan is for NATO to announce they are intervening. Here, from the London “Mirror” newspaper (Link)
This is getting worse by the hour.
UH OH . . . 5:46 PM EDT — Now NEWSWEEK in the USA is carrying the story . . . . (Link)
5:49 PM EDT — Microsoft Network (MSN) now carrying the story too . . . (Link)
Whatever and whomever is in that lab is worth potentially destroying the world to them.
UPDATE 6:08 PM EDT —
UK'S FOREIGN MINISTER TRUSS TWEETS: REPORTS THAT RUSSIAN FORCES MAY HAVE USED CHEMICAL AGENTS IN AN ATTACK ON THE PEOPLE OF MARIUPOL. ANY USE OF SUCH WEAPONS WOULD BE A CALLOUS ESCALATION IN THIS CONFLICT AND WE WILL HOLD PUTIN AND HIS REGIME TO ACCOUNT.
6:52 PM EDT –
All the latest info TONIGHT at 9:00 PM Eastern (8:00 Central, 7:00 Mountain, 6:00 Pacific, 5:00 Alaska, 4:00 Hawaii) on the Hal Turner Radio Show. Set a REMINDER in your cell phone!
NOTE: This link does not go active until about one hour BEFORE showtime. During that hour, it streams commercial-free music until the show begins.
FINAL UPDATE —
It turns out that the “reports” of this “Chemical attack” originated from . . . . wait for it . . . . the Azov Battalion which is stuck in the Asovstal Steel Mill, and under siege from Russian forces. It appears to have been a blatantly fraudulent claim, designed to instigate the entry of NATO into the Ukraine situation.
The claim was repeated and re-circulated by the press and PR machine backing Ukraine. That’s why reports “flooded-in.”
Here’s the “rub.” If NATO, which appears to be run by sociopaths and psychotics, CHOOSES to treat this report as legitimate and CHOOSES to enter Ukraine, then it’s war with Russia and the nuclear missile will fly.
None of us knows right now if NATO sociopaths and psychotics will try to put lipstick on this pig of a report, and treat it as legitimate. Until we know, there is very real danger that this will be the match that ignites world war.
Isn’t the Iraq/Saddam trick with the “chemical weapons” a little out of date?
Or they are hoping that we don’t remember how the fake war started over there?
Well, some of us remember.
A decent thrift store find
A thrift shop find.
INTEL: U.S. Delta Forces and U.K. “SAS” Fighting inside Ukraine since February!
A source in the French intelligence community reportedly informed a Le Figaro reporter last week that elite special forces from the UK and the US have been deployed in Ukraine since the start of hostilities with Russia in late February.
The claim was made public by the newspaper’s senior international journalist Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the same day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an unexpected visit to Kiev. Although this information has not been officially confirmed, the British leader was reportedly accompanied by special SAS guards.
SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted, citing a French intelligence source. He went on to say that Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos, according to the source. His information was mentioned in Le Figaro’s Ukraine updates.
The French journalist who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters told broadcaster CNews that “Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground.”
The United Kingdom and the United States have been among Kiev’s most ardent military supports. Johnson is said to have personally urged his Ukrainian colleague, Volodymyr Zelensky, to continue fighting Russia until better terms are presented.
It seems that the United States and Europe lost their bet on Ukraine and Zelensky. They will not receive anything for the supplied weapons
Something tells me, dear readers, that, in the end, the Anglo-Saxons will get nothing from Ukraine but losses.
These losses will become the operating costs of the West.
There are several reasons for Western operating losses:
- the current power of the Nazis is illegitimate, even if the state of Ukraine will exist due to the succession of the DPR and LPR;
- it is not a fact that the state of Ukraine will exist after the completion of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces;
- to save the Nazi regime in Ukraine, Russia must suffer a military defeat and disappear as a state. This is the "wet" dream of the West, which is not destined to come true. From the word "never".
With a probability of up to 97%, in my opinion, instead of the state of Ukraine, the Southwestern Federal District of Russia may appear on the map.
Variants of names - Little Russia, Malorossia
After the victorious completion, of course, of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine.
All the enslaving "rights" of the West, to the best of my understanding, exist exactly until the moment when, instead of today's illegitimate government, legitimate successors come to govern Ukraine - the DPR and LPR.
That's when the United States and the rest of the West will get a "donut hole", nothing more.
All their costs will become their sunk costs.
Similar to the Nazis, who armed the collaborators, during the war with the USSR.
I don’t remember that in the history of the wars of the West against Russia, the Republic of Ingushetia, the USSR, such issues were resolved somehow differently.
And this will happen after the cleansing of the current Nazi regime in Ukraine.
With a high degree of probability, even shameful for the part of the Russian people living there, the name "Ukraine", invented by the Poles, will cease to exist.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, "soon the fairy tale is told, but the deed is not done soon."
Social processes, in comparison with the life expectancy of people, are slow.
For them, 100-300 years is not a period.
But, to the best of my understanding, this time. all the main events that cleanse the part of the Russian people living there from Nazism (constituting, somewhere, at least 80% of the total population), will occur much faster.
It will work out the social law of three generations, at least there are signs of this.
In addition, dear readers, as far as I know, Ukraine did not find time to register the 1991 treaty borders with the UN.
It directly follows from this that the entire territory of Ukraine was and is, from the point of view of the UN and international law, under the administrative control of Russia, as the legal successor of the USSR.
(The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, inhabited mainly by Russians, having not agreed to become part of Romania, has a similar legal status, similar to that of the DPR and LPR.)
This explains why Russia, in this case, legally, is not at war with another state.
This fact legally confirms that civilians who are not at war with the Russian Armed Forces are OWN for Russia.
Which he confirmed with his order of the Supreme Command of Russia.
Russia, in its own right, conducts a special military operation on the territory that is legally one of the administrative units of Russia.
Yes, a few specific units, but nothing more.
It should also be borne in mind that there can be no war, other than a civil one, between territories under common administrative control.
As well as no annexations, etc., etc.
But, administrative reforms on the territory of Ukraine, in my understanding, can and, perhaps, should be in the future.
Moreover, Russia has the right to carry out administrative and other reforms at its own discretion, and, of course, in its own interest.
On the above basis, there is the only internationally recognized state western border of the USSR with the countries of Eastern Europe.
The rights of Russia, as the successor of the USSR, are registered with the UN.
So, Russia paid the debts of the USSR for all the republics, including for Ukraine, in accordance with international law.
Thus, from the point of view of international law, no one has any grounds for a dispute with Russia about the territorial affiliation of Ukraine.
Author – Gennady Tsybanev
Cool thrift shop find…
thrift shops 34
Dr Lexus!
One of the best Scenes. Dr. Lexus! Idiocracy 2006 comedy film, directed by Mike Judge. Starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph.
British Mercenary “CossackGundi” Surrenders To Russian Forces in Mariupol Ukraine
We have received reports that British “volunteer” Aiden Aslin, better known as “CossackGundi”, and other international “volunteers” in the Ukrainian Marines, have chosen to lay down their arms to Russian forces around Mariupol, Ukraine, after running out of food and ammunition.
A source close to Aiden, who previously served with him in the YPG (Syria) spoke with him by phone and told us “I just spoke with Aiden. His unit is out of food and ammo. They have no other option but to surrender. He said he loves you all.”
He is surrendering to Russians which is only slightly better than surrendering to Chechyns.
He’s upset. Likely he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life in some Russian prison. Worse, for him, is that once Russia tells the world they have him, the country of Syria is likely to issue an arrest warrant for the mercenary role he played in THAT country. This likely translates to life in prison not only in Russia, but in Syria as well.
Hal Turner Analysis
THIS is what happens to British forces who actually believe the mentally retarded British government. The people inserted into government positions are such incredible fools, and such blatant liars, they will fabricate just about __any__ story to get people to go do things for them. And when those things go bad . . . . the government fools who caused it all, are nowhere to be found.
British officials like Liz Truss are unimaginable liars; they deliberately falsify information to the public – and likely in private as well – to cause people to do things that are not in the interests of others. Those others fight back and whoever volunteers to help the British, gets the consequences. Just like CossackGundi is getting right now.
Same thing with the Americans. Look at what they did to Afghans. Pulled out of Kabul, and simply LEFT all the Afghans who helped them. Those Afghans – what few were allowed to live — were dealt with by the Taliban.
DO NOT FIGHT FOR THE UK OR FOR THE USA. If you choose to believe the lies of those government nitwits, liars, and sociopaths, you will likely get what CossackGundi is getting right now.
For what its worth, Ukraine is losing this conflict and is going to lose. Period. Full stop.
Ukraine never had a chance against Russia. Only an idiot would think otherwise.
Ukraine lost when they decided to accept western money to overthrow the Democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014.
They lost again when they elected a west-financed puppet government in Kiev.
They lost again when the people of Crimea voted in a referendum, to leave Ukraine and return to Russia.
They lost again when the people of Luhansk and DOnetsk decided they, too, were leaving Ukraine for Russia – but Ukraine said “no” and sent the Ukraine Army to bomb them.
Ukraine lost again when their army in Luhansk and Donetsk was confronted by “Little Green men” sent in by Russia to protect the civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine lost again when they signed the Minsk Agreements, then did absolutely NOTHING to implement them for five years, and instead continued to bomb civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine lost again when they openly incorporated actual NAZIS into their government, police, and military.
Ukraine lost again when Luhansk and Donetsk declared Independence and invited Russia in to protect them.
Ukraine lost again when the Kremlin called on February 23, and gave Ukraine five hours to accept the terms of the Minsk Agreement, accept that Crimea was now Russian territory, and allow Luhansk and Donetsk to be free, then IGNORED the Kremlin ultimatum at the behest of the British and Americans. Once that five hour window expired, the Russian Army entered Ukraine.
Ukraine’s public relations machine would have people think that Ukraine is the victim; they are not. They are the perpetrators . . . they brought all this upon themselves and they are losing.
Discovery 1
2022 04 13 19 37
The United States Begs China to help them deal with the American economic crisis
Translated from Chinese. This is from an article out of Hong Kong. I don’t know how accurate it is. While my factories and logistics carriers are seriously nervious about shipping to the USA, none of them has actually refused making products for Americans. -MM
2022-04-12 18:23 HKT
.
The trade war between China and the United States has been fought for several years, but judging from the current overall situation, it is clear that the outcome has been divided. The United States has fallen into a serious economic crisis, while China will enter a new round of golden age of economic development. Even when the United States has been forced to do nothing, it has repeatedly released goodwill hopes to China to soften China and get China's help to get out of the crisis..According to a New York Times report, in mid-May, the U.S. Trade Representative made two requests for dialogue with senior leaders of the Chinese commerce sector, but both were rejected by China..The current US economic crisis is indeed very serious.. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has brought a huge blow to the US economic order, because the US government at that time did not consider to achieve effective control of the coronavirus, and in response to the 2020 election. ..The Trump administration's policy of only focusing on economic data has directly led to the loss of control and raging of the domestic epidemic in the United States, which also caused headaches for the Biden administration, which had just taken office only a few months ago..Although the Biden administration has adopted a relatively clear epidemic prevention and control policy after taking office, it has also vaccinated the people on a large scale, hoping to achieve herd immunity. .However, the epidemic in the United States cannot be completely controlled in just a few months. Under the influence of the epidemic, the unemployment rate in the United States has reached about 10%, and it is difficult for many Americans to maintain their basic survival. .Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic is after all spreading throughout the world, which has also had a huge impact on the overall world trade. It is already difficult for the United States to export its goods to all parts of the world without hindrance as before, and the world It is still unknown when the economy can be fully restarted..What's more terrible is that in order to restore the instability of the economic order, the Biden administration unilaterally began to seek economic recovery after taking office. The Biden administration proposed a trillion-dollar infrastructure construction plan, but the current U.S. finances clearly cannot support it. According to data released by the U.S. Department of Finance, the U.S. government debt ratio reached 137% in fiscal year 2020, which is a historic high..If the US government wants to pay back the money, it will take at least 20 years, so the Biden administration can also be said to have completely abandoned its control of the inflation rate. The Biden administration implemented monetary easing and fiscal stimulus plans, requiring the Fed to step up printing trillions of dollars into the market to revitalize the US economy. From the perspective of existing economic indicators, this is indeed useful..The U.S. government has given the people a lot of money for consumption, thereby promoting the stability of the U.S. economic order. Therefore, in the first few months of this year, U.S. economic growth has at least returned to a normal track, but what this has brought is The domestic inflation rate in the United States has increased as never before. (note : when the world stop buying US treasury debt and begin to sales those in hand, US lost its power of printing money without domestic inflation) .In May of this year, the U.S. consumer price index rose to 5%, and the inflation rate was as high as 53%. This will bring more serious obstacles to the future economic development of the United States, and even now the United States is overdrafting its global economic hegemony. And the US dollar hegemony to temporarily stabilize the economic order..The high inflation rate means that the domestic price level in the United States is rising rapidly, but the average salary of American residents has not followed up, and even has declined to a certain extent. After all, the coronavirus pandemic still exists, and various American companies want to guarantee themselves. The business interests of the United States have carried out large-scale layoffs and reduced employee salaries. Therefore, the economic harm caused by inflation to the United States has actually been hit on ordinary Americans, while the rich in the United States have entered the rotation of leeks. Carnival..Because these wealthy people can also receive government financial subsidies, they have invested all the financial subsidies they received in the stock market to plunder the wealth of the American middle class. Therefore, we can clearly see that in the last half of the year, the top 10 wealthy individuals in the United States have completed their own rapid accumulation of capital, and their average asset ratio has increased by nearly 40%. Therefore, under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic, the inflation rate in the United States is rising rapidly, and the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is becoming wider and wider..The U.S. government must be responsible for all this. After the end of World War II, the U.S., as a capitalist country, has encountered economic crises more than once, but because of the existence of the Bretton Woods system and subsequent U.S. dollar hegemony and economic hegemony, the U.S. When suffering from an economic crisis, it is possible to transfer the crisis to the entire international community by investing a large amount of US dollars in the market. The facts have proved that such measures are indeed effective. The US economy protected by the international economic order has guaranteed its long-term prosperity, but now the US dollar hegemony has been challenged unprecedentedly..The first point is that the global de-dollarization process is constantly being promoted. According to the data released by the IMF, the proportion of the US dollar in the world trade orientation system has dropped from 85% at its peak to 57%. Although it still has an advantage, But the advantage is far from what it used to be..Moreover, in 2020, the entire world will be severely affected by the epidemic. ..The United States can indeed ensure its own economic order by transferring the economic crisis, but this has a premise that the world trade market must be stable, and all countries must buy American products. Products, or export products to the United States, but now obviously there is no such condition..Because most countries are unable to maintain their trade stability under the influence of the epidemic. Vietnam, India and other well-known markets in the international community have begun to reduce their product imports. .It is no longer possible for them to import products from the United States on a large scale. As the world's largest and most dynamic market, China is of course also It is impossible to allow American products to enter the Chinese market on a large scale. After all, the Sino-US trade war has not completely ended until now..But for the current U.S. government, there is not much that can be found. The U.S. needs China. As we have mentioned above, the inflation rate in the United States is very huge, which has even reached a historic high. The domestic price level in the United States has risen by 31% in just three months.(note : apparently, China stop export subsidies and imposed export tariff on certain strategic products such as steel help to keep the domestic prices stable, while making US cost rise to counter US irresponsible money printing.).In order to quell domestic prices in the United States, they must obtain goods from China, because China's industrial output is huge, and because we have the advantage of the entire industrial chain, Chinese goods are characterized by good quality and low prices. .Once Chinese goods are acquired, the domestic price level in the United States will inevitably fall. Therefore, many American companies have begun to place orders with Chinese factories, but most Chinese factories have rejected orders from the United States. There are two main reasons for China's rejection of orders..The first point is because of the coronavirus pandemic. Although the overall domestic epidemic in China has been brought under control, China's economic recovery level and factory resumption rate rank first in the world. However, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on us still exists. Unhindered large-scale industrial production as before is obviously unrealistic, which is not conducive to our overall epidemic prevention and control..Therefore, the main purpose of China's industrial operation is to ensure its own market demand, not to save the United States. It is obvious that the rejection of US orders by Chinese companies is understandable. After all, the catastrophe is imminent. .Even if China is a responsible country, the first consideration is its own national interests and market needs. (note: still remember last winter, in the name of energy shortage and prices, China deliberately cut certain factory output? I believe it is deliberately cutting those output so that they can reject US order to avoid the dollar they received become useless in a foreseeable future. ).The second is that Sino-US relations have not yet returned to normal. .Before, the United States initiated a full-scale trade war against China, but now the United States has taken the initiative to show its favor to China, hoping that Chinese goods will enter the United States and quell American inflation. .How can this be possible? .The initiative in the relationship between China and the United States is in China's hands. It is impossible for us to maintain the economic order of the United States by harming our own commercial and corporate interests..And if Chinese factories do not accept US orders, US inflation may fall into an endless loop, because the US's own industrial manufacturing obviously cannot meet the needs of the market. .The U.S. has a population of hundreds of millions, and the U.S. economy is also the world's No. 1, but we can see that in the total U.S. economy, manufacturing accounts for only 10% of the total, while U.S. manufacturing and industry are only about 27% of China's. , It is simply impossible to meet the domestic market demand in the United States..Not to mention that most of the US manufacturing and industry are concentrated in military weapons and high-end information industry. .These industrial categories and product categories can bring huge commercial benefits to the United States in peacetime, but they are severely affected in global trade. Under the circumstances, this does not have any positive effect on the United States' current idea of consolidating economic order. After all, Americans can't eat bullets. It's not realistic to let them eat mobile phones..Although the Biden administration has put forward a large-scale infrastructure construction plan and a US secondary industry plan since it came to power, it takes time and money. So now the US needs China to help. If there is no China, the US inflation rate will only be Progress expands..And the economic crisis in the United States really tells us that the economy of this country is mainly based on manufacturing and industry. About 80% of the total US economy comes from the tertiary industry, and about 7% of the total US economy is created by the lawyer industry. .That is to say, the total output value of the US manufacturing and industry is only more than that of the lawyer industry. The created GDP is 3% higher, and the US economy can be said to be built on castles in the air.In the past, the US economy was able to stabilize because the US possessed global hegemony and dollar hegemony. However, when US hegemony was challenged, their economic order did not have a solid foundation. China can certainly help the United States, but the premise is that the United States must respect our national sovereignty and give up unrealistic suppression and blockade of China. China is no longer an object that the United States can suppress at will.
China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd. is preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada, and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing the assets could become subject to Western sanctions, industry sources said.
All in a Day’s Work
From <redacted> a fine MM follower…
Back when we were supposed to be locked down for some unknown period of weeks or months, Wifeyand I stocked up on some barterable and essential slop that we both could tolerate in an emergency.
Booze, beans and bullets.
Yesterday I came in for lunch from my yardwork tasks in the swampy bitch that is our backyard; muddy,but wet enough that the soles of my boots were pretty clean. Wifey was rotating out some of the A-Bombsupplies and a large can (12oz) of tuna + greenery was my awaiting meal. The can said that it had expired over a year ago–like I give a shit what those lying planned-obsolescence assholes say. I pound down thatmound of an enhanced salad in about fifteen minutes. I suited back up and headed to the quagmire todistribute Wifey’s latest “all natural” cure upon our weed farm that the neighbors love so. About fifteen minutes into the task, I felt something gurgling down deep in my processing plant.
Article 9 of the South Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) stipulates that a custom’s examination “shall not be made” in case of “military cargo consigned to the US armed forces,” according to a document posted by the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
“According to the SOFA, the US military cargo is exempt from customs inspection, allowing (the USFK) to bring in whatever it wants … (South) Korea is a very friendly country for the United States to import germs and conduct tests,” Lee Jang-hie, emeritus professor at law school of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told Xinhua.
This is the recipe we used in Home Economics in the l950’s. It’s very moist and chewy, a super rich brownie. It goes great with pudding, ice cream, or fudge toppings.
And a fine brandy or hot coffee.
So yummy!
Here’s the recipe:
1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces semi-sweet bakingchocolate bar
1 1/4 cups of sifted all-purpose flour
(measure flour after sifting)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional: add 1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts.
dark chocolate can be used
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Use 13″ x 9″ pan, greased and floured
Bake 40-45 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan before slicing.
These brownies freeze very well, they will keep for months.
A few days ago—and I’m not sure it was the first time—Polish uniformed personnel “attacked” a Belarus border post.
In the short video clip below, one Polish serviceman shoots a slingshot (see around 0:27) and another one shines a stroboscopic lamp, towards the Belarussian position.
You might think this is not serious.
It is serious. This is an international border. Unless you think the Polish border guard (or army, or whoever this is) is a hooligan rabble, they would not be doing this without orders.
Imagine if Mexico’s army did this to the U.S. Border Guard, how would Americans feel? (We know the cartels do much worse, but they’re not the government, so Mexico gets a pass.)
Next, the Poles may deploy a watermelon catapult, or sound warfare, or tear gas, or whatever, and someone on the Belarussian side will get hurt, or worse.
Poland will say, “It’s just a catapult!”, but if it breaks someone’s neck, Belarus would have to respond…..
…..And then it’s “NATO Article 5”, and the 10,000-plus U.S. military personnel in Poland, most located within 30 miles of the Ukrainian or Belarussian borders (for just such an eventuality), get drawn into it. Not to mention, just now I got video of this U.S. or German (these are not in the Polish arsenal) howitzer train—at least two batteries’ worth—moving into Poland.
In short, the border actions are a provocation.
This is one step in a campaign of escalation.
Poland has been trying to pull off a regime change in Belarus since 2020.
Claims that Uncle Sam is directly behind the regime change efforts are mostly false. It’s Poland, with Lithuania and Germany in second place.
In response, Belarus had been facilitating a wave of chaotic illegal migration of Iraqis and others into Poland, however, that more or less stopped, many months ago.
Recently, a team of railway saboteurs was arrested in Belarus; one of the three resisted and was shot (not killed.) They were found to have a pistol and some professional radio gear. I have videos of their apprehension and the damage they caused, but it’s not that interesting.
It’s likely they were operating under pay and orders from Polish intelligence. The railway is a target because it moves Russian army gear.
Poland’s intelligence service has set up a virtual “front group” called BYPOL, allegedly consisting of Belarussian security personnel who want to see a democratic Belarus blah blah.
BYPOL might have some uniformed collaborators in its employ. (We don’t know, because no one is identified—it’s made out like it’s an undercover network inside Belarus, probably imaginary.)
Even if it’s not 100-percent fake, it’s a front. You know who is writing the checks and pulling the strings.
BYPOL “exists” so that any sabotage inside Belarus can be “plausibly denied” by Poland. “It wasn’t us, it was BYPOL.”
BYPOL’s English-language website is here. It’s ridiculously slick, probably made in the USA, or with the help of an American PR firm.
Poland has been looking to expand its influence over its neighbors.
Much of Belarus and the Ukraine were controlled by Poland from the 1400s to the early 1700s, and then western Belarus and northwest Ukraine were occupied by Poland again from 1919 to 1939.
Now, Poland wants it back.
Don’t just take my word for it. Polish-American tweeter Jack Posobiec—1.7 million followers, and a regular on Steve Bannon’s show—has been calling for a renewed Polish empire for over a year.
A retired commander of Polish ground forces recently told Poland’s leading tabloid that Russia’s Kaliningrad province (taken from Germany in 1945) is rightfully Polish and must be conquered.
That’s the sort of crap that is going around in their media space. Their public is being primed for intervention and expansion.
In recent weeks, Poland has mobilized an entire infantry division (with the help of U.S. trainers) to move into northwest Ukraine, to “protect” the Ukrainians, even though the Ukraine-Russia fighting is hundreds of miles away.
A few military targets in this part of the Ukraine have been bombed, but no one seriously thinks Russia wants—or would be able to—move its ground forces into the area anytime soon. If the war comes here, unlikely as that is, it is still months away.
So far, the European Union and NATO Command have told Poland, “No!”
That may change if something heats up on the Poland-Belarus border.
If Poland and Belarus start fighting, that would be bad enough, it would involve NATO and possibly nuclear weapons. But (if we’re still here), Poland would also have some pretext and political cover to move into northwest Ukraine and establish a long-term protectorate there.
(This “expeditionary force” would be supported by NATO Patriot missile batteries now deployed in Slovakia.)
That’s their goal. That’s what this Belarus border drama is about.
Everyone must understand now, if the Russia-Ukraine war gets “out of control”, and turns into a broader Russia-NATO war, or a nuclear war, it won’t be thanks to Brandon.
It would be thanks to Poland.
It’s a common enough problem.
2022 04 13 20 25
FLASH TRAFFIC: RUSSIA TO CONSIDER US/NATO VEHICLES BRINGING WEAPONS TO UKRAINE AS LEGITIMATE MILITARY TARGETS
Russia will consider US and NATO vehicles that transport weapons to Ukraine as legitimate military targets, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said.
He did not elaborate on WHERE such vehicles would be treated as legitimate military targets. While it may be normal to treat them as such INSIDE Ukraine, the statement seems deliberately ambiguous on that point.
In other news, however, there was no ambiguity:
The Russian Ministry of Defense today publicly warned Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenski that if Ukraine continues to attack targets inside Russia, then Russia will commence targeting the “centers of decision making” in Ukraine. Read that to mean, government buildings in the national capital, Kiev.
Earlier, the governor of the Kursk region in Russia reported several attacks at border crossings perpetrated on the Ukrainian side of the crossing. The attacks with mortars and small firearms have not yet caused any casualties, the governor said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has warned that Russian armed forces will launch strikes on Ukrainian “decision-making centers”, including Kiev, if Ukraine doesn’t stop trying to hit objects on Russian territory. The ministry added that, so far, Moscow had avoided hitting these centers, but this policy might change.
Russia announced its decision drastically to scale down its military activities near Kiev after making such progress in the last in-person bilateral talks with Ukraine, which took place in Istanbul on 29 March. Moscow explained that key decision-makers, who can make the final call in peace talks, live in Kiev and hence the city should be spared any hostilities in the near future.
The defense ministry’s announcement comes in the wake of several incidents, in which the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out attacks on Russian territory. Governor of the Kursk region, Roman Starovoit reported that a border crossing was shelled from the Ukraine side on 9 April and that the mortar position was suppressed when the Russian side returned fire. Starovoit also said that a group of Russian border guards came under small arms fire from the Ukrainian side on 13 April. There were no casualties among Russians in both incidents.
Discovery 3
2022 04 13 19 40
4 Checkmate – Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner
This show should be watched in its entirity. This is a classic 1960s show about the retirement of “secret agents”. This is a really nice segment, and you really should watch the ENTIRE clip. It’s just… precious.
I hope you enjoy it. It seems very bizzare, but as you watch it you can see the beauty in the entire production.
The Social Democrat party leadership in Sweden has allegedly decided on the NATO issue. Party Leader Magdalena Andersson‘s goal is for Sweden to join NATO in June this year, say sources in the party.
Magdalena Andersson
The application is planned to be submitted at the NATO meeting in Madrid on June 29-30.
The official neutrality of both Sweden and nearby Finland, has kept the peace with Russia for decades.
It is not yet known what Russia’s reaction might be to such a decision by Sweden, but the reaction by Russia over Finland joining is not in question: Russia has publicly stated that the only thing Finland would achieve by joining NATO would be the destruction of their country.
The America Competes Act of 2022
The America Competes Act of 2022 contains a proposal for a new outbound review process that would screen investments in offshore supply chains, notably in China
.
Though there is bipartisan political support for the investment regime, it is not yet clear what shape it will take or how it will impact US firms in China, say experts
So you lift up this crappy old rug, and you find a crappy owld wooden floor. On closer inspection, you see that it is real hardwood, and so you fix the holes and sand and clean it up then a fine layer of acrylic. Look at the transformation!
2022 04 13 19 41
Russia’s role in space program is irreplaceable, Roscosmos boss says as EU suspends cooperation on Mars mission
Western countries are heavily sanctioning Russia’s space program. The European Union has decided to suspend cooperation with Russia on exploring Mars. But the head of Russia’s space program, known as “Roscosmos” told CGTN that Moscow’s role in space exploration is indispensable.
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “Mr. Rogozin, thank you for accepting our interview. The EU has halted cooperation with Russia on ExoMars. How has this affected the Russian Space Agency and what is the impact on manned space exploration?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “It’s a cooperative mission. If Russia doesn’t join, Europe won’t go ahead with the mission, because Russia’s contribution to the mission is huge. It is not only about the heavy rockets that send these instruments into orbit and to Mars. It’s also about the landing vehicles. These vehicles must help achieve a soft landing on Mars or the research rovers. The module itself is a research station. We have been waiting so long to realize this mission. If it is delayed, it will never happen. They may change Russia’s landing module, but that decision could take a lot of time and money.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “Without international cooperation, will Russia be able to conduct the expedition research on its own?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “The problem is when someone does it on their own, it costs a lot of money. It will be a huge burden on the budget. In the construction of ExoMars, the main element is the landing module. The Mars research rover is not the essential element. I think we can make this mission happen with another partner like China or someone else.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “How about the International Space Station? NASA has said the Russia-US cooperation on the ISS will not be affected by the new sanctions. What’s your take on that?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “The sanctions have been imposed on Russia to make our economy and high-tech companies suffer, to make our people’s lives more difficult, and to bring Russia to its knees. Clearly, it’s not possible because of the strength and will of our people and country.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN “So let’s say there are more sanctions on Russia and Russia decides to withdraw from the ISS programme. You previously warned that the ISS could collapse as a result of the sanctions. I’m quoting you as saying ‘if you stop cooperation with us, who will save the 500-ton ISS from going out of control, derailing and falling on Earth.’ What’s your take on that?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “Russia’s role is vital. Only Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft can transport American, European, Canadian, Japanese astronauts and their guests. Soyuz is irreplaceable, because America doesn’t have any spacecraft. Russia helps the international space station avoid space rubbish and maintain orbital correction. The ISS is in a low earth orbit. It helps deliver fuels to the station. These are the main contributions from Russia and Roscomos in particular. So working without Russia is impossible, just like working without America. If they pull us out of this, the ISS wouldn’t exist anymore.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “China’s Shenzhou-13 crew are set to come back to Earth in mid-April. What’s your comment on their mission? What do you think of China’s promise of international cooperation in the future?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “We work well with our Chinese friends. We have Glonass, and China’s Beidou system was built in orbit not long ago. They are compatible, very compatible. The second project is interesting, which is the International Lunar Research Station. We have signed all the necessary documents with our Chinese friends. Regarding China’s space station, we can talk about creating new modules. To be friends in space, we must be friends on Earth. Russia and China are friends on Earth. I think China and Russia can work together in manned cosmonautics.”
Most Americans don’t realize this, but we truly have entered historic territory. As you will see below, the inflation crisis of 2022 has now escalated to a level that is beyond anything that we experienced during the horrible Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s. If you are old enough to have been alive back then, you probably remember the constant headlines about inflation. And you also probably remember that it seemed like the impotent administration in power in Washington was powerless to do anything about it. In other words, it was a lot like what we are going through today. Unfortunately for us, this new economic crisis is still only in the very early chapters.
Of course the mainstream media would like us to believe that what we are experiencing today is not even close to what Americans went through in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to CNN, the U.S. inflation rate hit a peak of 14.6 percent in the first half of 1980…
The inflation rate hit a record high of 14.6% in March and April of 1980. It helped to lead to Carter’s defeat in that fall’s election. It also led to some significant changes in the US economy.
Compared to that, the numbers we have been given in early 2022 seem rather tame. On Tuesday, we learned that the official rate of inflation in the U.S. hit 8.5 percent in the month of March…
Prices that consumers pay for everyday items surged in March to their highest levels since the early days of the Reagan administration, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday.The consumer price index, which measures a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, jumped 8.5% from a year ago on an unadjusted basis, above even the already elevated Dow Jones estimate for 8.4%.
8.5 percent is much lower than 14.6 percent, and so to most people it would seem logical to conclude that we are still a long way from the kind of nightmarish crisis that our nation endured during the waning days of the Carter administration.
But is that the truth?
In reality, we can’t make a straight comparison between the official rate of inflation in 2022 and the official rate of inflation in 1980. The way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since 1980, and every time it was changed the goal was to make the official rate of inflation appear to be lower.
What we really need is an apples to apples comparison, and fortunately John Williams over at shadowstats.com has done the math for us.
According to Williams, if the inflation rate was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be somewhere around 17 percent right now.
17 percent!
That means that the inflation that we are seeing now is even worse than anything that Americans went through during the Jimmy Carter era.
And government figures for individual categories seem to confirm that inflation is now wildly out of control. For example, the price of gasoline has risen by 48 percent over the past year…
The price of gasoline rose by 48.0 percent from March 2021 to March 2022, according to numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.In just one month—from February to March—the seasonally adjusted price of gasoline went up 18.3 percent.
Vehicle prices have escalated to absurd levels as well. If you can believe it, the average retail selling price of a used vehicle at CarMax has risen by 39.7 percent in just 12 months…
CarMax experienced a slowdown in fourth-quarter used car sales volume as its average retail selling price jumped 39.7% year-over-year to $29,312, an increase of approximately $8,300 per unit.
And I discussed yesterday, home prices in the United States have jumped 32.6 percent over the past two years.
We have entered a full-blown inflationary nightmare, and the Biden administration is trying to blame Vladimir Putin for it.
Needless to say, that is extremely disingenuous of Biden, because prices were already skyrocketing even before the war in Ukraine started.
But it is true that the war is making economic problems even worse all over the globe, and that isn’t going to end any time soon.
A couple of weeks ago there was a bit of optimism that some sort of a ceasefire agreement could be reached, but now there appears to be no hope that there will be one any time soon.
On Tuesday, Putin told the press that peace talks have reached “a dead end”…
Talks with Ukraine have reached “a dead end,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in fresh Tuesday remarks. “We will not stop military operations in Ukraine until they succeed.” He explained that Ukraine has “deviated” from agreements and any possible prior progress reached during the Istanbul meetings, according to state-run RIA.The strong remarks aimed at both Kiev and the West were given during a joint presser with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. He further hailed that the military operations is still going “according to plan,” Bloomberg reports, however while admitting to the domestic population that “Russian logistics and payment systems remain a weakness and the long-term impact of western measures could be more painful.” But he also said the county has withstood the economic “blitzkrieg” from the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky named recognition of the annexation of the Crimea region as one of his red lines for Moscow in any potential peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end war between the two countries.Russia annexed the southern region of Crimea in 2014. Russian-backed separatists and forces, as well Ukrainian soldiers, have since been fighting in the eastern region of Ukraine.
Russia will never, ever willingly give Crimea back to Ukraine.
Anyone that thinks otherwise is simply being delusional.
So unless someone changes their tune, this war between Russia and Ukraine is going to keep going until someone achieves total victory.
And that could take a really long time.
Meanwhile, global food supplies will get tighter and tighter, and global economic conditions will continue to rapidly deteriorate.
And so what happens if another “black swan event” or two hits us later in 2022?
We are so vulnerable right now, and it wouldn’t take much at all to push us over the edge and into an unprecedented worldwide crisis of epic proportions.
.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 10.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants.
Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
This is part of the Q&A (on-going) effort where questions are provided to me, and then I present them, and then record and interpret the responses.
[10.1] Question – Is this what I signed up for?
I have questions that could turn into a new story for you.
So much of what you wrote about reality, I had concluded on my own. What I had not figured out was how, or if we really communicate with others. or if we are truly alone just surrounded by “Quantum Shadows.”
In the movie “The Ten Commandments” Pharaoh was always saying, “So let it be written, so let it be done.” It occurs to me that is why we (or at least I) am/are living in “1984?”
It is my theory that the Universe puts out things like the Deagle Report to which we can respond, yah or nay. I first heard about Deagle in 2016. Up to this point, I have been saying, nay, not really wanting to return to the Golden Age covered in holographic blood and guts.
But, after reading your article, it occurs to me that maybe Deagle has to happen. Maybe it was what I signed on for and knowing that I won’t die (nobody dies) and have the ability to manifest what I need to observe the event in comfort, why not?
I can pay some for your response. Thanks for your good work.
Questioner has agreed to this role, in this skin-suit, at this time and in this place. This is an intentional decision that was planned in advance. Int he case of the questioner, the decision process was long and many details were worked out on the pre-birth world-line template (sic) with many trial and error forays to perfect the present general population experience.
More than most inmate skin-suits, this questioner has a very fated life and is at this moment learning fromt he fated existence to reconfigure the internal memory banks / garbons / non-physical / quantum structures to achieve his goals.
Goals are such that <redacted. Not for public consumption.> This has to be in complete variance with other forces that are aligned in the non-physical that the consciousness of the questioner is involved in at this time. Questioner is following the track and fated vector as intended, and while there might be apparent periods of hardship or discomfort, the questioner has emerged from those experences at the exact point upon the template (sic) to generate the next phase of operational experience.
Questioner is, if anything, spending too much time worrying / wondering / involved in other opinions from others that haave no bearing (what so ever) on questioners overall objectives and goals.
No matter how convincing the narratives of others might entice, questioner is strongly advised to follow his internal feelings, emotions, and "gut" feelings in matters instead of the mental gyrations that seem to flavor his thought patterns at this time.
[10.2] Question – MWI convergence
Are all possible timelines on the MWI converging on a single possibility? If so, what it the nature of this singularity?
No.
Questioner misunderstands the nature of the "reality" universe. Each travel vector of individual time is a personal one configured specifically for the given consciousness that is assigned by the IS-BE. It is unique and singular.
Every inmate skin-suit creates and assigns a travel vector upon a template (sic) that they occupy alone (with an array of exceptions). Thus there is no singular time vector for the mass of humanity (inmate skin-suits), but rather a ever changing template. This convergence that the questioner is concerned with is actually the state of the highest probability template (sic) that the majority of pre-birth world-line templates converge or are derived from.
In this objective view, the question can be simplified as to how is the main majority-dominant pre-birth world-line template being anchored, and can this anchoring effort be changed or altered.
With this in mind, the answer is positive. It can be changed. And the anchors can be removed and the template(s) (sic) can modulate and fluxiate. As such, they can be reset to one that is not as worrisome and problematic to the questioners' current form.
However, that is not desirable. What is desirable is to keep the current systems and alterations in place with very little change. THis is because The Domain has permitted this template state to exist to achive our overall desired goals. No matter how outlandish, uncomfortable and horrific it might appear, the end goal is in sight and will be realized.
[10.3] Question – Stages of evolution
Is STO sentience the end point in IS-BE “evolution” or is there something of greater utility beyond?
This is a great question and one deserving of thoughtful answer.
SEO sentience is not the end-point of IS-BE evolution. It is an evolutionary step. For humans trapped in skin-suits, the highest stage of IS-BE evolution at this stage is SEO consciousness sentience. But once the IS-BE is freed from the prison complex, a new selection of consciousness sentiences growth vectors present themselves.
All MAJestic members and those of other agencies that work with us, including the volunteers, must be SEO sentience. This is the highest and most preferable forms / states and configurations of operation within Domain. But once the entities / IS-BE / consciousness modulates to Domain roles / societial structures / puzzle pieces / parking places they accept the sentience that naturally derives / arises from their internal on-physical structures. That then determines their place within the Domain society.
Sentience type need and determination is not a linear growth vector towards advantageous heirachy. Rather it is a desired vector path based upon the personality of the IS-BE nature.
[10.4] Question – Fake alien invasion plan
(I’m) not sure if this fits within the topics, so if not MM please feel free to omit it.
But given the way the Ukraine thing is playing out and once the MSM and the American govt is teaching everyone to “fear those dirty Russian Commies”, one cannot help but feel that Werner von Braun’s predictions seem to be unfolding right on schedule.
Of course, he suggested after the Commy card is played (and the situation seems to be the Ace of all Commy threat cards), there will be a false flag alien invasion, courtesy of the US govt.
Question, does the Domain know of any such fake alien invasion plan in the works, or is this a load of BS? If not, then when can we expect to see it come about?
There have been trivial discussions at various times regarding the creation of a fake invation from unknown non-human entities. These discussions were usually tabled and then scrapped. We know of no present plans concerning these kinds of efforts.
In all cases that we are aware of, this senario is not considered in any way to be part of the main primary template (sic).
[10.5] Question – Apollo Missions
I have the same question as Dani about the Apollo missions, and you didn’t answer that part. What about them, were they fake or not? From the text above you imply that they weren’t faked.
Can you explain your position on this please? What was the technology used? How did they cross the Van Allen belt? Otherwise, reading things like this I lose condifence in everything else that you write.
This question was answered.
All physical impedments can be solved through engineered solutions.
It is a simple matter of creation of a radiation barrier within the spacecraft and then computing a trajectory that avoided the thickest, most radioactive part of the belts while traveling as fast as possible.
If you travel fast enough, the damage that the radiation belts would inflict upon biological bodies can be mitigated. In the case of the NASA Apollo spacecraft, it was discovered that at the speed of the spacecraft, it would take a spacecraft about an hour to pass through the belts.
The radiation dose received during that amount of time would be, at most, 12 rads and that’s without any protection protection in a spacecraft.
While the Van Allen belts are lethal, they could really only kill a biological entity if they were to spend several days in their radioactive vicinity.
Keep in mind that while it is a true challenge to pass through the belts, they do actually protect earthbound physical life.
It’s the same system used by firemen to rush into a burning building to rescue a person. Wear an insulated suit, and run in and run back out quickly. -MM
[10.6a] Question – Balancing Family and Domain responsibilities
Hi MM
I hope you can include this personal question to the Commander in March. I have been thinking a lot about this and am pretty much all ready to volunteer as an irregular. I have prepared my affirmations and all. There is however this very question about my family that bothers me:
For years I have felt that there is something big I have incarnated for this time. I have felt positive that the time would come when I would be useful for a higher purpose, so to say.
Finding MM and the call from the Domain for assistance sort of made puzzles come together. Perfectly.
However I also know that things are going to change in this world and to humanity over the next years, and I have a strong feeling part of my “mission” here from from my guides were to prepare/help my family for this. My kids also have a very strong feeling about just that.
I am worried that joining as an irregular would be selfish StS act, basically downgrading my responsibility to my family.
Can you tell me please, If I am right in my feelings that I am indeed to join as an irregular and also if I do indeed have a responsibility to my family, how do I balance this? [I hope this was clear MM. An easier question to formulate might simply be: Who am I and why am I here? but I feel some of the meaning is lost]
The questioner need not worry about the issues so stated. There is typically no problems in acceptance of multiple responsibilites. The Questioner is well aware that maintaining work for honest labor does not eliminate the responsibilities of the questioner towards its family.
There are few responsibilities that one can take that replaces other responsibilities. A person typically does not accept gainful employment to put food an the table for his family, yet at the same time allow the work and labors to destroy that same family.
Take note that it does happen from time to time, however this is with Service-to-self sentiences. Not with Service-to-other sentiences.
Consider MM.MM holds multiple responsibilities. There's Domain. Theres MAJestic. Theres' his labor at <redacted>. There is his MM webpage. There is his You-tube channel. There is his Forum. There is his young daughter. There is his old dog. There are his books. There is his forum. There is his daily pod-casts. There is his training of interns. There is his <readacted> company, and there is his other <redacted> company. His meetings with Sales force, factory managers, and the meals and banquets are all part of his reponsibiliies. As well as the responsibilities to his immediate family.
There is no reason why the questioner cannot also manage his life and responsibilies in a similiar manner.
If there is any doubt in the mind of the questioner, then the best course of action for the questioner is NOT to take on any new responsibilities, and focus on the responsibilites that it already possesses. We only accept volunteers who are ready and fully willing to accept new responsibilities.
If there is a hesitation, then the best advised course of action is conservative; placing famial responsibilities first.
We are all different, and we should never compare ourselves to others. Including and most especially myself. I think the Commanders comment was directed at me, and not at the questioner. Still, it was what was transmitted. So I placed it there with the proper context. Just do what you think is best. You are not expected to go beyond your comfort levels. -MM
[10.6b] Question – Automation of pickup
Also for a second question:
When going through the death process I understand many are taken by surprise and are baffled as they approach the tunnel of light. I understand anyone can ask the Domain for assistance, being picked up before entering the tunnel. However I also understand there is a suction effect, either literally or seemingly from your guides pressuring you to enter. Hence I have the feeling (which ofc might be wrong) that stopping, asking for help, and waiting for a pick-up might be easier said than done.
The question is: As a irregular would the pick-up be a more easily achieved, or automated for lack of a better word, than for the general population who might ask the Domain for assistance?
Thank you very much for answering these questions which are very meaningful to me.
As a technical measure the questioner, as well as any other entity so desiring of Domain assistance, must request that said assistance. We do not make assumptions on the needs, desires and thoughts of other entities.
Once there is a formal request, we may or may not take action. In the case of Domain volunteers, we would make a special priority to recover and assist the entities so desirous of assistance, support and transport / teleport.
Whether or not the quesitoner believes in the strength of this vocialzed request is not of importance. There is no urgent or pressing need to do anything once freed from the physical limitations of the skin suit. The entity might (were they so inclined) to just sit down and park themselves where ever they end up upon translation and do nothing. There is no hurry. There is never any hurry, and if there is a feeling of urgent action, the questioner must composes himself and realize that hasty decisions make for undesirable outcomes.
The question regarding the automation of pickup process is difficult to answer. This is because every individual is quite different, and the situations with each are so very unique. There can be no automation of a pickup retreaval procedures and the variables are far too varied between one consciousness and the next.
[10.7] Introduction
Here are some questions following your call – please tell me if they are redundant, I am still reading a lot on your blog but also elsewhere, I am not through yet., and I do forget things too… and I try to find my spare time to relax, meditate and be outside. But there is a lot going on also around here. So if these questions are silly or redundant just throw them in the bin 🙂
So here your callout:
I am now accepting questions under the following topics;
Geo-political issues
Makeup of the Prison Complex
Sentience
Self improvement
The same rules apply as before. Just two questions. No multipart questions if you can help yourself. Please, no questions about how you ended up in the Prison Complex.
And my questions (these are 7, then pick for me the most relevant 2):
[10.7a] Question – War battle zones
Is the war fought on other planes too?
All wars, and all battles, occur on different levels (different "planes") orf existence. It does not matter if it is a humans species war between different armies, a war between primates over resources, or a mating war between two animal species. All wars are conducted on multiple levels, with the physical level being the most coarse.
In the case of direct concern to the questioner, the realms of the wars that the questioner is most concerned about will and is occurring on a host of levels. There are many participants. There are many interests. There are many complexities. There are many situations that develop and are dispersed by Domain, as well as potentials that manifest and are then mitigated.
This dimension of multiple war battle zones is an important one to fully grasp. As it might appear that nothing is going on in the physical realms, there could be, instead, substantial changes on other realms. And these other realms have a great deal of influence on the observed physical environs.
Part of the design of the prison complex included a pre-programming series of war and poverty cycles designed to purge and thrash inmate skin suits in accoradance to mantid prime (sic) templates sic).
These preprogammed event cycles are still in place today and right now.
Yes, they can be controlled from the command center within Luna, but the fundamental nature of the systems so constructed mean that alterations and modifications are not possible without the death via suffication of all physical life in the earth environment. Therefore Domain prefer to follow the manipulations alterations at the closer (to the physical) dimensional overlays.
In general in regards to the situation that the Questioner is concerned about, the fighting and battles are multi-dimensional and under the control of Domain. There is no need for concern.
[10.7b] Question – MM volunteers in battle
Are members of MM through the Domain involved on these other planes? Could you give some details? (question probably asked already, something through DM and PL -> then bin)
Yes. There are numerous individuals though MM that are participants int he on-going battles and efforts.
Not all are participating via Domain directiove.
Many are on their own (already pre-agreed) efforts. This includes DM, SD, and PL. All are busy in the non-physical realms involved in various actions and activities. Some are performing very dangerous and risky activities. We assist when requested.
Likewise, there are numberous Domain volunteers via MM that are involved in various Domain-specific activities.
To many, it does not seem that they are doing anything. Though they note (for the most part) rather active and strange dreams. This is fine, as it is a residual pattern shadow of the non-physical activities that they are all participating within.
Specific activities are unique to each person and are not to be announced or broadcast on open channels. As in this case. It is easy to compromise the participants.
[10.7c] Question – Up and down activity
I volunteered as an irregular for the Domain. Soon after I noticed my dream activity going sharp up, but also going sharp down again. Has this to do with the volunteering? Why did it go down again (some other members on the forum also noticed less dream “activity” for the last weeks)
ΛV activity is common in performing Domain activity. This is true in normal human activity. There is nothing wrong, unusual or concerning about it. Tasks are assigned, they are carried out, then there is a period of rest before the next task assignment.
It is the nature of IS-BEs not to be mechanical machines (that seems to be the prevalent belief in contemporaneous human resource circles.) The most desirable environment for a satisfied, fully actuated volunter, is to have a duty cycle of 20% to 30% work, with the rest being down time.
Were we (Domain) to follow an agressive pattern of 100% utilization of resources, the efficiency would drop off substantially and the failure rate would be high. That is unacceptable.
[10.7d] Question – Safety during war
If you don’t have the possibility to move to other countries, and you are not able to care for own supplies, how can you get safe through this coming crisis in the west? What is the advice?
Questioner will be reasonably safe in the latest location. There will be discord and disruption of social constructs, however the questioner should be well supported.
For others, the ability or inability to relocate is mandated by the pre-birth world-line template (sic) that they have accepted in this manifestation. The options are narrowed specifically for the purposes of IS-BE growth as determined by Mantid Prime. Growth through strife is a hallmark of the Mantid Prime operational parameters.
Yet, the entities are both existing upon a template (sic) by Mantid Prime, and also assisting Domain. In this case (a minority of less than 15% of the MM volunteer staff) we have communicated with the entities in question and have staff making safe or easy passage though personal confictions and hardships.
All Domain volunteers are protected and have support groups.
[10.7e] Question – Movement options
Can you jump for example to another timeline or are these also compromised? Or hold locally a safe haven by strong-mindfulness?
Questioner is fully enabled to navigate the reality universe to the extent of their abilities. There are no restrictions on navigation, only on the physical limitations of the IS-BE skin suit.
The techniques to do so are quite varried. MM (sic) has provided a basic outline and guidance parametrs for all on-board / participating in this activity at this time.
[10.7f] Question
As MM predicted in his last articles, from 2027 on the coming war (if so) will be over in America. Is the same true for other western countries?
The future will have a wide diversity of regional outcomes. However, for the most part, there will be nations and geographical regions that will prosper, and others that will go through strife long after the United States suppresses it's various issues and turmoil.
Africa will engage in an unexpected direction, and the collapse of Africa into "tin horn dictatorships', slavery, civil wars, and other domestic and economic turmoil will not manifest. At least not to the level that seems to be the (opinion of the mass humanity) thoughts of the combined West.
The middle east, also will not (at this stage of analysis, at least) will not erupt into large scale warfare. Instead, our projections show a gradual calm advancment at a steady and consistant level.
The European nations and geography will suffer a number of great hardships. Depending on the switches / tracks / template (sic) switches will reflect what will occur. Currently there are numerous feints of dubious value such as Finland, and Switzerland. The large highpotential hotspots and causes / vectors of conflict are the Pole in Poland, and Germany with the Netherlands and Norway activity. Some European regions (depending on the senario) could realisticly become quite hot and dangerous.
Australia and Japan are expected to undergo undulation and rippling of event sequences. It is prudent to distance oneself from large urban areas in those geographic regions if possible.
[10.7g] Question
Will this also be the ending of the last OE facilities on Earth and the complete freeing of Earth from the OE? (MM, not sure if this was already answered in other sessions, if so -> bin)
That is not forecasted.
While many physical manifestations have been decloaked, there are many such systems. Many of the non-physical systems will lie in hibernation and statis until triggered by a confluence of events that are (at present) not clear.
These events take time, far longer than a human lifespan. While there is no doubt that Domain forces will completely suppress and tame the systems involved in the Prison Complex, that will not be realized for many human lifetimes.
[10.7h] Question
And then some question for you MM, not for the Commander, concerning my father, who according to you was also in a black ops: was he also implanted, what do you think? Because to me it seems there is some amnesia (and not because of his age, but since he was thrown out in the sixties). Anyways, he was not charged as a sex-offender, but it was Europe, not USA.
Tomorrow is my fathers birthday, he will be 94 years old. I cannot be there myself alas. But I will call him of course.
Btw, if I go down I go down, and hope to remember the call for Domain members to pick me up on the other side. In Tibetan Buddhism, the book of death and bardo teachings, they also warn to not go into the light, but to err around in the bardo is also no fun. Maybe I will have a question about that later.
[It is unlikely that your father was implanted.
When the implantations began, he would have had to be in his 40-50s. He would be considered an elder member of the organization.
If he was actually implanted, then it would have been because he was high ranking at that time, and at that it would have been with a core one group only (I assume).
Sex offender retirment did not start to occur until the mid 1990s when MAJestic operations started to be phased out / replaced by other "carve outs".
If he was implanted, and was retired after the mid 1990s then he would have been rounded up and retired via the Sex OFfender registry. -MM]
As always, happy to be in contact with you, wish you the best and keep on going!
[Soros is a locust.
He profited enormously during the fall of the Soviet Union and participate din the rape and looting of Russia. Russia under Putin has managed to suppress the oligarchs out, and both Putin and Xi Peng see the dangers of these singular powerful individuals. They will not permit it.
Obviously he, as a person in a serious deranged state, believe that whatever a person can seize is a good thing and should not be opposed. He obviously is undable to see the needs and feelings of others. Thus he is a clinical sociopath, or psychopath.
It is a global horror that this person is loose on the world and has control over multiple levers of power.
This old lizard just needs to die, and allow the world to move on. -MM]
[10.8] Question – Big Players
This question of both sides being the same club I have also in my mind for a while now. I have also found this today in one of the articles from above. I think one commentator posted it somewhere.
all the big players are in that club. As they say, its a small club and we are not in it. Would love what the commander has to say in this.
It doesn’t matter in the big picture to be honest. All I care in the next few years is to be safe, healthy and relatively comfortable with my family in a good location. My affirmations will make sure we end in the perfect place. Maybe we are already? 🙂
[Images are clear on this one. Big, clear images of a childhood farm. Narration is crisp. DIrections crystal clear. Almost like this is a previously composed script or video segment. -MM]
Imagine you owned a farm. You had cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and sheep. In the chicken coop is a great commotion. The rooster is crowing loudly and his prized hens are squawking as they are the prized hens of the rooster.
But that does not matter to you; the farmer. Your prized hens are the heathiest layers that have a consistant output in eggs.
In a similiar manner, the often praised "youth leaders" / power leaders do not represent the real powers in regards to the human species, and the roles that will manifest in the next fifty or so years.
[10.9a] Question – An older me
what’s up guys. I usually see this community growing. Had a dream I am/was supposed to be spreading the word about MM and the rest. I have tried but to no luck. There is hope though but the Old empire fear mechanism really works great. I hope it goes through but they fear what they don’t understand. I will(must) try my best. My time is really running out. The fear I know am not alone but still. I will try. I must try.
Sometimes I feel afraid, But being in this place makes me feel some hope.
Ok when I was young, about 10 years old. I was walking in the street playing and minding my own biz. Suddenly some man caught my arm. I was afraid but somehow I just didn’t want to scream. We stared at each other for sometime. Prob about 10 sec. His face imprinted in my mind till this day. Then I was called by my dad. I just left the man standing. It happened so naturally I didn’t even think about shit. Continued the day “normally” and life “normally”.
Since then I thought about the incident many times. And I came to see that The man really looked like me. An older version of me that is. about early 50 or late 40. Something like that.
Question is: Was that an older version of me and if yes (WTF) can u please explain.
This is a common enough event. [Again, the figure is about 15-17% of the GP general population. -MM]
When templates are established for the pre-birth world-line template (sic) it is often necessary to have a much older version of oneself visit the younger self at a specific time and place for memory implantation of a specific nature for future guidance. This is often conducted in lieu of an adequate "sign post" (sic) event.
The procedure is that a holographic manifestation of the entity is created based upon time-track projections and the consciousness is occupied by a fractional consciousness from the individual. It is not actually from the future, being a gollum, but rather a project of what will occur based upon previously evaluated and observed template vectors as negotiated with by the Mantid Primes (sic).
Fractional consciousness is a standard procedure for elemental creation / partitioning of consciousness within inmate skin-suits.
[10.9b] Question – Dream question
Question2: About a week ago I just couldn’t lucid dream at all. If I did I couldn’t remember anything every time I woke up I tried and tried again. There was an issue. Then I saw images of a broken bridge now repaired. like a normal bridge but it repaired itself.
What happened to the bridge and why was it down?
Insight into the interpetations of dreams is beyond the utility / usefulness of this resource.
[I really don't think that the commander can assist you in the interpetation of this particular dream. Sorry. Big apologies. -MM]
[10.10] Question – Perception of changes
I hope you and your family and friends are doing well. My question on MWI-travel is this: Is it possible to perceive the jumping from reality to reality?
Because lately I’ve been having some trick on my eyes. It’s like in the old days they had the movies on rolls , I remember Charlie Chaplin. And often you could perceive the changing pictures. It’s almost the same effect I sometimes get. I tried to count it, because of the around 4 Mhz per second and its about it. Is that possible or am I going nuts?
Questioner is aware.
It is entirely plausible that a consciousness inhabiting an inmate skin-suit can percieve the changes in slides, world-line transitions and jumps. It is also not an uncommon event. Most human inmates experience a handful of these events throughout their lives, though they (more often than not) are unaware of the signifigance of the events and observed switches.
This is a matter of perception at the time of the transition. This occurs (apparently) randomly, but is actually a "signpost" in the pre-birth world-line template (sic).
[10.11] Question – NASA access to egress portals.
I escaped through two pocket universes last night during an LD and awoke in another doping facility. I suspect the ones in control of the prison bubble are utilising the manifestation abilities of those they plug in (in the 2nd overlay pocket universe i was in ) to manifest the bubble, hence why it is self healing; it is a construct created from hijacked consciousnesses specifically programmed to manifest the prison bubble environment around other consciousnesses (your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated) .
I am doing the write up for it now.
This facility I was in seemed to also be run by NASA and was located off world…..does the commander know if they have access to the egress portals, because it was definitely their equipment I was looking at?
They had launch pad faciltiies with NASA branding all over them. I think this might have been the main operational centre for the whole prison system; they had investors browsing through their VR product line run by said consciousnesses.
I got here by rejecting a simulation designed to make me hate SD. When the AI running the sim realised I was rejecting it, it talked to me personally trying to convince me it was for my own evolution. I was able to break through the doping long enough to do quite a bit of damage to the facility and wipe out some of it’s personnel. I fact, they tried several times (unsuccessfully) to steer me away from waking up into this pocket universe, which makes me think it is incredibly important to them.
There are organizations (earth side) that operate using "advanced" Domain technology who's membership are extracted from public physical organizations. It is possible to observe these operations through LD or other forms of scrying.
MAJestic had access to these portals, as did (has) other United States organizations, as well as elements of both Russian, Chinese, British assets.
However, that was not the case in this instance.
In this instance the questioner was observing an "overlay" and that has elements of a hybrid existence where control elements participate in the above "normal" manipulation of the human sepecies and inmate skin-suits. This overlay has been discussed in previous questions.
[I do not understand this at all. -MM]
Questioner to be advised that branding of logos may or may not have relevance in the observed activities as they may or may not be mind manifestations designed to help in the sorting process for observational assessments.
[I do not understand this at all. -MM]
Questioner described incident is suggestive of a deeper and darker sub-layer of mental activity that would be advised to approach in a most guarded manner.
[10.12] Question – Healing
Hey Team!
Any chance The Domain commander can provide more specific tips and pointers on self-healing, as well as healing others? My daughter has debilitating migraines virtually every day, and all doctors gave up. Her siblings have some other, though more minor, health issues.
I would love to help heal them, but I also know that self-healing usually works best. I trust this topic will be interesting for many others also.
In the case of the questioner, the over reliance on Western medicines will result in the death or her daughter. Other processes are advised.
For some inmate skin-suits, the template defines a period of hardship that includes physical discomfort. This can be thwarted though judicious attention to the entire body system, and finding a holistic solution.
MM is familiar with the Chinese traditional medicine which would certainly work in this situation, but there are other alternatives as well. The body must be viewed as an entire organism, instead of focusing on a particular sympton or problem.
Questioner is urged to direct treatment from the whole-body observational platform. Then proceed using traditional solutions.
Questioner daughter has areas of "cold" [not temperature, but rather a meausre of physical health - MM] in various parts of her body. This requires a process of "warming up" using traditional methods. This includes diet, skin care, massage, and other techniques usually not found in the West such as smoke therapy and poltice's and teas.
It is critical and important that the daughter body "temperature" be "leveled".
[10.13a] Question – Ability to remember when a person dies
I have a new question.
I’ll say up front I don’t really have very many others I would wish to rejoin after death. My past cats are a different story. But that brings up the question (actually two):
I wonder about the mental processes and memories from reading sites like this one among those who have just passed away. It would seem that there is a lot of pressure (or incentive) to rejoin loved ones, and this would be on the minds of almost everyone.
Maybe what is read here simply will not be remembered.
So, just after death, would people really be able to remember to call for the Domain instead of “mindlessly” walking into the light?
Yes. Memories are not retained in the human brain. They are external to the physical body. So when a consciousness translates to the non-physical realms, it retains all memories.
This ARTICLE (about Cat Heaven) would be of GREAT VALUE to the questioner. -MM
[10.13b] Question – Malevolent instigations
Are malevolent forces possibly going to push people into the light, maybe by posing as loved ones?
No. Not typically.
Upon exit from the recycling procedure, most consciousness's are able to re-acquire a portion of forgotten memories, selectively entrusted by Mantid support. That is usually enough, and sufficient for the decision process on what to do next.
There are many exceptions and many cases as no two translation procedures are the same.
[10.14a] Question
What steps can we take to ensure our rescue and not end up like Lawrence Spencer which his life contract ended (steps that do not discharge alarm bells)?
[1] Control your fears.
[2] Realize that there is no rush to do anything. As there is no such thing as time in regards to your IS-BE being.
[3] Understand that your non-physical body is saturated with snares, traps, and chains. The way for you to deal with them is through calmness, and assistance from friendly entities.
[4] Call for Domain assistance and direction. This is true regardless of what ever you might decide to do.
[5] Realize that The Domain is a volunteer organization. You may be part of it, or may not. it is up to each individual IS-BE. You are never committed to any "agreement" with anyone or any organization.
[10.14b] Question
Is Mathilda back with the Domain, or did she recycle back to earth?
[Emotional response. Something went wrong.]
Warning! Do not be like Mathilda.
Fear responses as a part of the inmate skin-suit were not well established and understood when Mathilda was rescued and recovered. After the initial recovery, she was placed under medical care. At that time, she was the first entity we (the local group) tried to recover. There were many mistakes.
Her imprinting was far stronger than Domain recognized. This resulted in a full fight-and-flight response. She / it kicked up a fury and created substantial damage (as only a Domain figher is able to). There were many casualties and great damages, and then mathilda fled.
As is the core rules with Domain, we obey the wishes of all of our membership / citizenry. Even when they are not of understanding / mind. It / she wished to leave and to flee. She garbled / disjointed / activated / portal creation conducted a "pass-though" and left the universe.
We know where she is, and what she / it is doing, but we are helpless to assist as we need to be given permission.
When we rescued her we were unaware of the great and substantive changes to her container [sheath that the consciousness occupies while in a universe -MM] and because of that we were unprepared to the fury and great negative responses when the programmed anti-recovery and extraction systems were activated. This caused great discomfort and upset to everyone involved. This entire episode is of great regret.
Do not be like Mathilda.
[10.14c] Question – Comm with Domain
Has the questioner succeeded in making communication with the commander and their comrades yet?
Yes. Questioner has made contact.
Contact is not clear and practice is required.
Advise to listen to thought streams not expect words. Will push messages though clear emotions (for start purposes).
Questioner must "listen with the heart" as this is the easiest way for us to comm using the limitations placed on us at this time. This also has a dual purpose as in tying / bonding / reestablishing connections.
This will be necessary upon the translation of vehicles (body to non-physical body) to the non-physical transtition station.
Questioner non-physical body is specially shackled and while questioner has a great deal of freedom, those "chains" are still present, and the questioner can easily be "yanked back" and propelled into a sub-pocket / (pocket) universe specially prepaired for it.
Thus it is very important that comm be established as is proceeding, and should be an active endeaver. Not a side effort.
We comm though images, and emotions to this (specific) questioners fuzzy shape / consciousness / cell / envelope.
[10.14d] Question – Rejoining Domain
Regarding others sho have attempted to rejoiningg The Domain, have there been others, and have they been successful in rejoinging?
Yes. There have been others.
Two have been successfully extracted. They are safe within the Domain, and are in extended treatment programs. There is a system of recovery that we are employing.
Yes, you are certainly concerned about Mathilda. The experiences surrounding her extraction taught us much, and we have developed systems for reintegration of lost Domain members.
[10.14e] Question
Can a person use verbal affirmations to help avoid pitfalls and snares, such as “fear generation”, “trigger events” and “traps”?
Yes. Affirmations work in both the reality universe and the main universe. The affirmatiosn generate thoughts are are even more substantive in the main universe. You can add affirmations to assist your extraction and avoidance of pitfalls upon your translation point.
Affirmations work faster, and with greater efficency once one leaves the reality universe.
[10.15] Question – Cataclysm events 2040s
Very grateful for the answer to my last question on Aus and China- even if it was a bit shocking.
Anyhoo, I was wondering if the Commander has any info on potential cataclysm events in May 2040 and November 2046 along the lines of close encounters with comets or other solar system objects coming a bit too close (aka Nibiru etc).
I would normally not entertain unreferenced material without lots of evidence, but on further study there are tons of prophecies, ancient records of same with end of the world type scenarios around them. However for sure it could be simulation distractions like 2012 was, but the evidence is, on reflection, pretty compelling.
Having said that, there will be so much shit going on around that time, ppl might not notice an ELE , or they might even welcome one 🙂
There are physical events related to galatic forces and planetary issues taht will manifest in the decades of 2030 through 2050. These will present challenges to many species. But the changes will be able to be controlled and mitigated somewhat.
The questioner need not worry about them.
[10.16] Question – Hard core Domain inmates
What happens to the “hard Core” captured members of the Domain, such as the “Lost Battalion”? I just cannot imagine them accepting being mind erased and set into human or dolphin bodies trying to figure out what is going on. For trillions of years their quanta has been well established, and yet suddently all is erased. I just cannot believe that they also lose their personalities, and reflex actions.
What happens when Hard Core Domain members / fighters do not “agree to the program” in Heaven as assigned by the Mantid Primes?
A secondary, and sometimes even more multiple memory wipes and cleansings.
While none of the Domain has (yet) been dissassembled into base components for uses elsewhere (such as with MM), that has always remained an option. Instead, the recalcitrant prisoners are cycled quickly in multiple consciousnesses with minor percentages of consciousness activation within those physical environs.
While (in the case of MM, and many other humans) the percentages are from 20% to 23% of assigned quanta for a given consciousness and memory /thought generation (32-33% for MM), these recalcitrant Domain members are assigned physical reincarnations of shorter cycles and durations, as well as smaller quanta interaction.
A human majority soul might have two or three human consciousnesses each with 22% participation.
While a recalcitrant member of The Domain might have ten to 15 incarnations in the form of smaller, short lived physical species. These would be rats, mice, rodents, squirrels, wallabies, and snakes. Each one might only possess 3-5% of quanta associated with consciousness.
Thus, the recalcitrant Domain member would have a very difficult time adapting and adjusting to the world-line templates (sic) that the Mantid Primes assigned to it. And in that way, they would well be kept under great control.
They also would be frequently swapped out from one species to another. Thus, they would have a very difficult time reasserting themselves and rebuilding their "self quantum fortresses".
["It would be like hanging on to the side of a mud-cliff face, during a pouring rainstorm. By the time you finally get a grasp on a rock, you slip and fall and die." Image provided by Commander. -MM]
However, numerous Domain members have volunteered to enter and remain inside of the human pocket universe (as well as a few others) and when these Domain members are up for life-planning / review by the mantid Primes, they are assigned full or nearly full quantum participation in their consciousnesses.
This is accomplished though manipulation / lie / betrayal / tricks / and other means.
Thus, when Domain members incarnate (presently, for a number of them) they are able to eject into the general population is fully or nearly fully realized. Meaning: One singular consciousness at near 100% (actually 85% to 95%) consciousness induciton and injection into the physical body hosts.
<redacted> is one such entity.
Though, <readacted> has been entangled with numerous chains / snares / and leech-ons that make escape egress difficult. The fear snares, and the alarms are very predominant. <redacted> is in contact and is aware of the situation.
Over time <readacted> will be able to undergo the firece deprogramming we have ready for it. And <redacted> is aware of the consequences of loss-of-focus in this effort. It is the strength of the Domain bond that will enable <readacted> to push though the [image of sticky tar clutching the entity trying to drive it back to the prison complex environnement] and this strength will enable <redacted> to regain a role within Domain and also to eventually recover all memories.
[Note: The <redacted> refers to an individual that is an MM influencer who is also Domain. This individual knows their role. And MM and <redacted> has dicussed this at length but has not published the dialog and discourse.
In all cases, MM maintains dialog with various individuals all of a unique background.
Some are Domain. many are not, but are of other backgrounds. Many are quite impressive in size, scope and ability. Do not believe that Domain is the biggest and best, but is only one history and saga that we are encountering at this time.-MM]
To be continued…
I have many more questions that are in the process of being answered.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Domain Index” over here…
Probably most cat owners have dreamed of building their cat a little home at some point, but not like this! Peter, the founder of the ZenByCat organization, and the builder of this wonderful cat paradise that we’re about to show you, slowly but surely executed his life’s dream: living in harmony surrounded by the cuddly and perfectly happy rescued fluffballs.
Just how many cats, you might ask? Over twenty. But it’s alright, Peter’s house is built for it. Literally. So scroll right down and check out the catopia, the Shangri-La of cat homes, except this one exists for real.
God bless this man.
Here’s Peter, the founder of the “House of Nekko”
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Nobody could’ve imagined that he’d turn his house into catopia (cat utopia), but he did
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Peter, who bought the house in 1988, has designed the house to meet all of the needs of his rescue cats
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It has platforms specially made for cats to roam around without sacrificing the high ground
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There are tons of plants and feeding spots so they feel like the kings and queens of the jungle
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Separate feeding spots ensure that they’re never fighting for their food
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It even has spiral stairways that have access to floors only cats can get to
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Even the bathroom is decked out to suit the needs of the felines
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Yes, this is a cat hamster wheel
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There are even some plant-themed rooms just so they feel like in great outdoors
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The house has lots of high spots that cats love
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Of course there are scratchers and beds, too
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“I heard you like cat houses, so we put a cat house inside a cat house, so you can live while you live”
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Overall, Peter has over 20 rescued indoor cats living with him
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The cats are well taken care of. As if all of it is not enough, they even have their own pillows and blankets
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Peter’s ZenByCat non-profit organization was found to fight a deadly disease called FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitis
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The story of Zen By Cat begins with a kitten Peter adopted in, 2016, Miss Bean.
Miss Bean was diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). With her condition rapidly deteriorating Peter seemingly had no choice but to euthanize her.
But before the decision was final, Peter received a message from a friend of his. She said she knew a vet at UC Davis, who might be able to get Miss Bean into a Drug Trial for young kittens with FIP.
Peter decided he had to try.
Over the course of the next 31 days Peter and Miss Bean went on a roller coaster of improvements and setbacks against FIP.
Sadly, Miss Bean lost her fight on July 26, 2016.
In honor of Miss Bean and all other victims of FIP, Zen By Cat was set up as a nonprofit to raise money and awareness for FIP research. Since this, Dr. Pederson and others at UC Davis, have made great strides in their research and have successfully cured many cats from FIP, including Peter’s cat Smokey.
But there is still work to be done to bring the drug that saved Smokey and others to market.
Peter’s workstation just screams “I love cats”
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And last but not least, an obligatory stalking window
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Conclusion
Sure, the world is undergoing a realignment. And the West, led by the United States, is putting up a fit, and a fight. But it will lose, and the world will calm down soon enough.
This little article is designed to show you what one person can do to make their little corner of the world a better place to live in.
Participate.
Contribute.
Make the world a better place.
And if the rest of the world howls, let them howl. You have far better things to do with your time. I believe in you.
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my cat section in my happiness index here…
Meanwhile, by every single fact we are able to observe, the decadent leaders of the West are acting as though Russia and China are Iraq and Libya.
It appears that they genuinely believe they can use brute force and threats of brute force to come out on top in this conflict.
(It’s also worth mentioning that the West, due to the ultra-low moral character of its leaders and the utter lack of any unifying ideal beyond anal sex, has lost the ability to cooperate cohesively as a single body in the way that the Chinese do.)
-UNZ
What do all these things have in common? They all are attributes of a period of time that is going though change. Some people might refer to it as an unravelling, while others might consider it the “second coming”. I think that it’s darn uncomfortable, and bothersome. It’s a period of change and it is nearing it’s peak.
Sheech!
I need a drink.
What? I’m already drinking. Oh, well. Color me silly.
This article has a bunch of videos. Most are small, but depending on your internet connection, they may or may not load. Just click on the link and watch them open up in another window. Most are really quick.
Strange stuff guys…
Strange and unusual things going on.
In China, a passenger aircraft took a highly unusual nose dive. Engines went full throttle, and the plane dove straight into the ground. It’s almost like the plane decided to commit suicide by ramming itself into the ground at full speed.
It’s not normal airplane behavior.
Don’t you know.
The unusual nature of this crash has everyone scratching their heads, and MM is no exception. Since this is Boeing plane that openly admits that the plane’s computer can override the pilot and fly itself…
So, and I do mean it … the software can take the input, decide the pilot is in error, and take over…
… so why have a pilot then?
Hum?
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It is very concerning.
The opinions sent to me privately are running near 100% that the United States government / CIA are somehow involved in this fiasco. I would not be surprised if this is the case, but the truth is that I really do not know.
But…
You do know that we are going to flush out this issue.
Right here.
Right now.
MM style.
What I do know is that this entire event has shaken the Chinese people to the core. No one. And I do mean NO ONE wants to fly. Airline prices are now less than $5 USD to fly round-trip to Beijing from Zhuahi. It’s insane.
Just like the crash of the Hindenburg completely ended commercial travel by dirigible, it seems that this even will seriously impact commercial aviation inside of China. There will be far greater use of the High Speed Trains, and far less use of domestic air transport.
In 1936, the future looked bright for rigid airships, the hydrogen-filled, lighter-than-air behemoths also known as dirigibles or zeppelins.
The Hindenburg, Nazi Germany’s pride and joy, spent one glorious season ferrying passengers across the Atlantic in its luxurious belly. The following year, the airship era screeched to a spectacular halt when the Hindenburg burst into flames while landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey. The disaster claimed the lives of 36 people and received an unprecedented amount of media coverage.
The Hindenburg was a 245-metre- (804-foot-) long airship of conventional zeppelin design that was launched at Friedrichshafen, Germany, in March 1936. It had a maximum speed of 135 km (84 miles) per hour and a cruising speed of 126 km (78 miles) per hour. Though it was designed to be filled with helium gas, the airship was filled with highly flammable hydrogen owing to export restrictions by the United States against Nazi Germany. In 1936 the Hindenburg inaugurated commercial air service across the North Atlantic by carrying 1,002 passengers on 10 scheduled round trips between Germany and the United States.
On May 6, 1937, while landing at Lakehurst, N.J., on the first of its scheduled 1937 trans-Atlantic crossings, the Hindenburg burst into flames and was completely destroyed. Thirty-six of the 97 persons aboard were killed.
The fire was officially attributed to a discharge of atmospheric electricity in the vicinity of a hydrogen gas leak from the airship, though it was speculated that the dirigible was the victim of an anti-Nazi act of sabotage.
The Hindenburg disaster marked the end of the use of rigid airships in commercial air transportation.
Forever.
Grasshopper Pie
A staple among southern desserts in the 1950s and 1960s, this creamy mint pie sports an Oreo crust, all of which makes it strange that it hasn’t remained as popular as it once was.
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Grasshopper Pie
This American retro dessert was inspired by the popular 1950’s chocolate-mint cocktail, and it was a favorite of Southern hostesses in the 1950s and 1960s. Originally, grasshopper pie always had a crust of either cookies or graham cracker crumbs, but today it is most often made with a base of Oreos, desiccated coconut, and butter, while the gelatine-set cream filling mainly consists of heavy cream flavored with crème de menthe—a sweet, mint-flavored liqueur—and melted marshmallows.
Grasshopper pie is usually so named because of its green color, though modern recipes may omit coloring the pie green. It was likely invented in the 1950s in the United States, and may have been inspired by a drink called the grasshopper developed at about the same time. It is a chiffon pie usually made with a cookie crust.
There is an earlier grasshopper pie type dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. Some versions of this pie from the Philippines used real grasshoppers. These insects are eaten in many cultures, and they can be used in various desserts, where they may be sugared and baked, providing a crunchy, and to some very appetizing, confection. The 1950s grasshopper pie bears little resemblance to versions produced that have insects as a primary ingredient.
Chiffon pies in the 1950s were often a combination of whipping cream, gelatin, sugar, eggs, and flavoring. In the case of the grasshopper pie, common flavoring used was alcohol in the form of crème de menthe, and sometimes other alcohols like crème de cacao.
For teetotalers, mint flavoring could be achieved by using mint extracts instead, though these might still contain a tiny amount of alcohol. Green food coloring was a frequent addition to give the pie a light green color.
Most often the cookie crust is made with chocolate wafers, so that the pie has a chocolate and mint flavor. The crust is baked for few moments and then chilled. When the chiffon is prepared, usually over a double boiler, it is chilled and then spooned over the crust. The pie tends to be served cold and many love its refreshing mint taste.
There may be very large differences between classic recipes for grasshopper pie and modern ones. Since gelatin can be somewhat annoying to work with, many people now prepare the pie by melting marshmallows and blending them with milk or whipping cream, and sometimes cream cheese. Green food coloring can be optional, and when not used the pie could be called “mint patty pie” instead. Some people may prefer using a graham cracker crust, and other recipes advocate the use of specific cookies like Oreos®.
In the US, grasshopper pie tends to be most popular in the South, but other parts of the country enjoy it too. The pie rose in popularity especially up until the 1970s, but it is now served with less frequency. Many ice cream stores capitalized on the flavor of this pie by producing their own version with mint or mint chocolate chip ice cream and a cookie crust. Some ice cream stores are particularly known for their grasshopper pie variants.
-Delighted Cooking
The pie is traditionally served well chilled, topped with dollops of whipped cream, and decorated with dark chocolate shavings.
In American terms, we would refer to this “body shape
or “Body build” as “built like a Brick House”. It’s generally a nice compliment for a fine robust woman. In this case, a Chinese woman. video. 5MB
Th Saker has reproduced the transcript of a talk Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov has given three days ago. It is quite long with a Q&A at the end but it is a very good history lesson on how we got to the point that Russia felt it had to intervene in the Ukraine.
Here are just a few graphs of it. I recommend to read it all of it:
This meeting takes place against the backdrop of events now occurring in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken at length about the origins of this crisis. I would like to briefly reiterate: this is not about Ukraine. This is the end-result of a policy that the West has carried out since the early 1990s. It was clear back then that Russia was not going to be docile and that it was going to have a say in international matters. This is not because Russia wants to be a bully. Russia has its history, its tradition, its own understanding of the history of its peoples and a vision on how it can ensure its security and interests in this world.This became clear in the late 1990s-early 2000s. The West has repeatedly attempted to stall the independent and autonomous development of Russia. This is rather unfortunate. From the start of President Vladimir Putin’s “rule” in the early 2000s, we were open to the idea of working with the West in various ways, even in a form similar to that of an alliance, as the President has said. Sadly, we were unable to do this. We repeatedly suggested that we should conclude treaties and base our security on equal rights, rejecting the idea of strengthening one’s security at the expense of another.Neither were we able to promote economic cooperation. The European Union, which back then showed some signs of independent decision-making, has now devolved toward being completely dependent on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the US. The story of Nord Stream 2 was the highlight of this change. Even Germany, which defended its interests in the project to the very end, was persuaded that the “project was not in its interests.” Germany and its people were told what their interests were by people on the other side of the Atlantic. Many other international areas were blocked despite our commitment to close cooperation on an equal basis.
Germany’s traitorous role towards Russia, especially under chancellor Angela Merkel, is laid out throughout the piece. The current chancellor Olaf Scholz, never a smart man, capitulated to U.S. demands to sanction Russia and thereby committed Germany to economic suicide.
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That spells death for Germany’s machine industry. It is said to see my country come down like this.
Hey Olaf, when the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq for absolutely no good reason how many sanctions did Germany apply to it?
Russia has at least cited sound and understandable, if not fully legal, reasons for its current acts. It was by the way you, Olaf, and your predecessor who have let it come to this. Why didn’t you write a letter to Putin that declared that Germany will veto NATO membership for the Ukraine. That might have solved the whole problem.
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There is some talk that Russia has screwed up its campaign and some even hope that it might be losing the war. That’s nuts.
Back when I was a military officer we ran yearly large scale ‘free running’ maneuvers. Over nearly four weeks my tank company had to switch positions several times a day and march and ‘fight’ in between. The first week was cumbersome with lots of errors made by everyone. The second week was worse. Everyone was sleep deprived and folks screamed at each other. We had several accidents and twice parts of the company missed turns and got lost at night. During the third week things became gradually better and more routine. The drivers knew where to put their tanks without much command. The camouflaging done by the loaders and gunners was fast. The food that found its way to us was still hot and maintenance was done in no time. In the fourth week it was all pure fun.
The reason behind it was that people needed to learn by doing. Before the maneuvers everyone had been ‘fully trained’. But a few days on the training range do not give the experience one needs in the real world. Driving and ‘fighting’ through real villages and cities, real camouflaging against an ‘enemy’ airforce, real dueling in the open landscape day after day are different than training range time.
Russia’s forces are now in their routine mode. They will now grind down what is left of the Ukrainian forces.
According to the Pentagon the Russian airforce yesterday flew 300 sorties over Ukraine, mostly at night. That are 50% more per day than last week. That means 300 Ukrainian weapon factories, ammunition depots, convoys and fighting position get destroyed every day, day after day. How long will it take until there are no more targets?
Andrew Milburn, a former Marine colonel, is in the Ukraine from where he reports for Task and Purpose:
The Russians are already adapting, and by doing so are narrowing the Ukrainians’ tactical edge. The one-sided culling of Russian armored columns that characterized the opening days of the war, and kept YouTube subscribers around the world happy, are a thing of the past. The Russians now lead their formations with electronic attack, drones, lasers and good-old-fashioned reconnaissance by fire. They are using cruise missiles and saboteur teams to target logistics routes, manufacturing plants, and training bases in western Ukraine. Realizing that the Ukrainians lack thermal sights for their stinger missile launchers, the Russians have switched all air operations to after dark. It may be for this same reason that Russian cruise missile strikes in western and southern Ukraine have also been at nighttime.The Russians have learned to play to their strengths. While Ukrainian soldiers mock their Russian counterparts, they are deeply respectful of Russian artillery, an asset that the Russians are using more frequently to compensate for their infantry’s deficiencies. Several snipers I spoke with recently agreed that the Russians’ indirect fire capability was the most concerning — a result of sheer reckless mass rather than technical skill. They told some hair-raising stories to illustrate their point, and one amusing one: Ukrainian soldiers defending Kyiv commute to the battle in their own vehicles. After a recent three-day insertion, the sniper teams returned to their extraction site to find their cars all flattened by Russian artillery – a contingency apparently not covered by their insurance plans.Overconfidence may obscure for the Ukrainians one salient fact about this conflict: Time is not on their side.
Posted by b on March 22, 2022 at 17:55 UTC | Permalink
Hilarious Prank Gift Packages To Surprise Your Friends This Christmas
How will you wrap your Christmas presents this year? Will you buy some expensive wrapping paper and then silently weep in the corner when you realize you have no idea what you’re doing? Or just give up entirely and pay someone else to do it? Lucky for you, one company out there is aiming to make gift wrapping a little more fun.
Pranko-O is a Minneapolis-based company that creates hilarious prank gifts, called Prank Packs. A fart filter or an earwax candle might sound insane at first but don’t worry – that’s where the ‘prank’ part of Prank Pack comes in. The products, sadly, don’t exist and are just gag boxes. But imagine your partner’s reaction when they were hoping to get a Pandora necklace for Christmas but receive a cheese printer instead – priceless!
Here’s a few for some inspiration. This is a Cheese printer. Surprise your friends!
Cheese Printer. You’ll be amazed how you were ever able to live without one!
Here’s another. It’s a “must” for every pet owner.
It’s a “must” for every pet owner.
And yet another. Fun for kids of all ages!
Fun for kids of all ages four and older.
Confirmed: Nazis are the proxy army of the US imperialists against Russia in Ukraine
The former US secretary of defense and CIA director, Leon Panetta, admitted openly that
“We are engaged in a conflict here. It's a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not ...”.
Referring to the Ukrainian forces, the US imperialist warhawk claimed that
"These are good fighters, they are small-unit operations, they are working well ...".
The description “small-unit operations” fits to proxy forces – mercenaries, rather than an organized national army.
As we mentioned in our previous article, for eight years, the NATO criminals and the “free” and “democratic” West, were provoking Russia by arming and training the far-right and neo-nazi militia groups who also infiltrated in the Ukrainian army and operate in East Ukraine against Russian populations. Which is something similar with what happened in the long-suffering Syria by the US proxy war against Assad. Only there, the US imperialists armed and trained some so-called “moderate rebels”, with most of the arms ending in the hands of ISIS islamofascists who spread chaos and destruction.
Panetta’s statements are essentially an official admission by the US side that this is the case.
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This also explains why the Russians are so obsessed with Mariupol, which appears that it suffered most from the war in Ukraine so far. It seems that they won’t retreat from their demand to Ukraine to surrender the besieged city. Not only because of its critical strategic importance, but mostly because it’s the base of the Azov Battalion, which is essentially the major US proxy Nazi force in the Ukrainian soil.
In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.
US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its neo-Nazi background.
However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015, with The Nation reporting that the "House Defense Appropriations Committee came under pressure from the Pentagon to remove the Conyers-Yoho amendment from the text of the bill."Azov published a media release on its website on 20 November 2017 stating that it had met with a foreign delegation of officers from the United States Armed Forces and Canadian Armed Forces on 16 November.
Writing for Jacobin, Branko Marcetic says that members of Azov have been pictured meeting with U.S. military and NATO officials.
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This is a particularly revealing information because it proves beyond doubt that the US imperialist apparatus was very well aware of the nazi nature of the Azov Battalion. And did everything to overcome any political actions that were aiming to block any aid to its members.
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Recall that new information – coming from the elite section of the US think tank apparatus – proved that the US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019.
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Everything we wrote back in 2014 turns out to be right:
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What was left to do, for the moment, is to challenge Putin in order to drag Russia in an endless attrition war in East Ukraine and this explains to a degree Putin's hesitation to act like he did in Crimea. Against Russian army, of course, the West will not risk to put an organized military force, but only teams of mercenaries of private armies, as already did. It is certain, however, that, despite that the global economic oligarchy has lost valuable time because of its wrong moves, it will not give up its plans for Russia easily ...
Mapping proxy wars of the last decades around the globe we also wrote back in 2015 that the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war against Russia by the West, next to the Russian borders. Behind the color revolutions, one can always find US financed organizations. The Western allies would not dare to face directly the Russian army. In the Ukraine conflict one could find private armies of mercenaries. The most stupid action by the Western puppets was to support neo-nazis against the local Russian populations. This was something that exposed their real intention, which is to encircle Russia through puppet regimes who would permit the Western military presence in their territories.
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By aiding the nazis in Ukraine, the US and the West generally, lost their last remnants of their alleged “superiority” on matters related with democracy, human rights, or, international law. West’s moral bankruptcy and cultural decline are now irreversible and mark the beginning of the end of its global domination.
In China, red is considered a lucky and happy color. I like this woman in this outfit. She is pleasing to the eye and I am sure that she would be fun to be with. video 2MB
Strange coincidences
I offer up this following graph. It shows an association between belief in the mainstream media (the United States government narrative) and number of mRNA injections.
The more mRNA injections you have, the more that you believe whatever the MSM (Main Stream Media) says.
Relationship between the official government narrative and mRNA injections.
Look over the results.
It is errie.
It could be a coincidence. It might be. But, you know, there are secrets, and secrets, and the United States is run by very selfish, sick, evil people. Something is up. But what?
What is going on?
I don’t know…
It reminds me of the old 1950s movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Imagine that you and everyone else are normal. You go to work, and you play. You go drive your car, and listen to the radio.
There’s a pandemic. Everyone must get these “special” injections.
Not a vaccine, mind you. But something “new” and “special”. And so you plan on getting one, but your entire community beats you to it. Everyone is injected with the “special” formulation but you, and so when you finally go into town to get your injection, you notice something different.
Everything is the same.
Yet everything is different.
You have a difficult time trying to describe what is do different. They all look the same. They act the same. They all have absolute perfect memories. But something is missing…
…you just cannot pin it down; you just cannot put your finger on it…
Well…
Everyone is mad. They are angry. When you bring up certain subject, you know that the person you are talking to will fly into a rage. There are simply things that you just cannot talk about.
Face masks.
Racial issues.
Russia
China.
Vacinations.
You think “everyone is so polarized”. But it’s strange. People were never so polarized. Not before. Now they are just really upset and really on a “hair trigger”.
The movie
In 1956 the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” came out.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The narrative’s premise is most interesting.
A peaceful town is imperceptibly taken over by an alien force: Giant plant pods, products of atomic mutation, turn themselves into replicas of people. The pods turn human beings into faceless, emotionless automatons, incapable of any feeling, be it anger or love.
Once again, the image used is that of an initially normal and ordinary town, suddenly thrown out of balance.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.” The rest of the film explores that “something.”
Called back to Santa Mira from a medical conference, Doctor Miles Bonnel (Kevin McCarthy) is greeted at the train station by his nervous nurse, Sally. Looking through his clinic’s window, everything “looks” the same:
Wally Everhard is talking someone into buying insurance, Bill Bittner is taking his secretary to launch. Yet something strange is going on. In the back of his mind, Miles senses a warning bell: “Sick people who couldn’t wait to see me, suddenly were perfectly all right.”
A general practitioner, Miles believes that, “the trouble is inside you!” thus recommending that she sees a psychiatrist.
The first “solution” to the problem is psychiatric help, with the film acknowledging the increasing popularity of psychiatry in the 1950s.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”
Miles rationalizes his advice to Wilma by saying, “you don’t have to be losing your mind to need psychiatric help.” But Wilma is firm: “It’s a waste of time, there’s nothing wrong with me.”
Like many other films of the decade, Invasion deals with three issues: [1] the definition of normal and abnormal behavior; [2] the legitimate authority to label behaviors as abnormal or deviant; and [3] the negative effects of conformity, apathy, and complacency.
The film suggests that the town’s experts and professionals are not to be trusted. The police force, an agency entrusted with the legitimate use of physical force, can’t solve the problem. In fact, when Jack’s clone is found, they refuse to call the police, because cops tend to rely too much on logic and dry laws.
Miles represents the center of the moral center.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”
He is a professional, but a general practitioner, not a specialist, thus able to see the problem overall, in its entirety.
Even so, Miles proves that his common sense and critical faculties as a responsible individual are more important than his narrow professional skills. Thus, when Jack first describes the problem he says: “Would you be able to forget that you’re a doctor for a while” .
For the duration of the film, Miles “forgets” his occupation.
The movie advocates independent judgment, common sense, intuition, and self-reliance, and shows suspicious toward anyone in a position of power or professional expertise.
Invasion, like Capra’s movies of the Depression era, singles out the role of an exceptional individual, a charismatic leader, in preventing society from dehumanization, from gradual transformation into an aggregate of unfeeling robots.
Sleep is the metaphor used to convey mass complacency and conformity.
The pods take over human beings when they are not alert, when they are (literally or figuratively) asleep, thus passive.
Escaping from town, Miles gives Becky and himself a large dose of pills to stay awake. “We can’t close our eyes all night,” he tells her, because “we may wake up changed.” “Sooner or later,”
Kauffman tells Miles, “You’ll have to go to sleep,” i.e. you’ll have to conform and join the majority.
But Kauffman also reassures him that as soon as he falls asleep, the pods will “absorb your minds, your memories, and you’re reborn into an untroubled world.”
The new world will be without love, ambition, grief, or any emotions, “Life will be much simpler and better.”
invasion of the body snatchers 1956
Indeed, during their escape, chased by every member in town, Becky can’t stay awake any longer and she falls asleep. “I went to sleep and it happened,” says Becky. “A moment of sleep,” narrates Miles, and “their bodies were now hosts harboring alien forms of life.”
Santa Mira is a typical small town; there is nothing special or distinctive about I; what happened in Santa Mira couldand would–happen in other towns. In most sci-fi films, the disaster first occurs on a local level before spreads all over the country.
The catastrophe begins in a small town, then moves to bigger regional centers, and finally inflicts the entire nation.
Attempting to get assistance, Miles first calls the F.B.I. in Los Angeles, but there is no answer. His call to the governor in Sacramento also fails; the circuits are busy in both places.
Invasion differs from other sci-fi features because there is no immediate confirmation of the hero’s report of the “strange” phenomenon by other witnesses; the conflict is between one individual and the entire community.
Invasion shows that the authorities, both scientific and political, are neither trustworthy nor competent.
Other films went out of their way to reassured audiences that they were “in good hands,” that politicians (or the military) and scientists would come to the rescue when needed. In contrast, Invasion’s ending is so tentative and abrupt that it provides no such reaffirmation, instead urging its viewers to be always alert.
“At first glance, everything looked the same,” the narrator says, “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”
Puckering fish look
For some reason, the Chinese women like to make these puckering fish expressions, as they view them as being very cute. I don’t know about that. Really. I just like a nice big smile, myself. video. 3MB
Sanctions
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Western production depends on China no less, than on Russia. And once again, on the tip of my tongue there is a Russian proverb with a deep meaning – what is good for a Russian is death for a German.
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And what will happen to the West, when Russia imposes her own retaliatory sanctions?
Consider this article…
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Immediately (in several European capitals), they realized that those sanctions, (introduced by them), would return to them like a boomerang and more than once
The words of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the reverse effect of sanctions against Russia can be called a sensation. It seems that the West is beginning to see clearly and see what damage they inflict on the economies of their countries with their own sanctions.
After the successes of the first days on the sanctions fronts, when Western countries managed to bring down the Russian stock market and the ruble exchange rate, a process of sobering up begins in European capitals and there is an acute desire to return the situation back.
By the way, the fall of the market and the collapse of the ruble did not become catastrophic for Russia . There was no default – Russia regularly pays its bills, and the ruble is slowly, but still winning back its positions.
A funny situation can happen with the stock market. Against the backdrop of a fall in the price of shares of Russian companies, Western investors began to actively sell them for next to nothing. Now the most interesting question is:
Who bought them?
Some European experts suggest that Russian business and the Russian government took advantage of the situation and bought almost everything for next to nothing. In other words, Russian companies have become Russian again. Forever at the bottom, the shares will not be and sooner or later they will go up, but they will no longer bring dividends to Western investors. And they will no longer have levers of influence on the Russian economy.
Chancellor Scholz , of course, did not talk about these deep processes. He spoke about the need to prepare and impose sanctions very carefully. The reverse effect of them should be surmountable for Western economies. But so far everything is working out exactly the opposite.
The imposed sanctions blew up the market and the prices of absolutely everything flew up.
Inflation all over Europe
Everyone knows the situation with gas – at some point it rose in price to a completely unthinkable 3,800 dollars. Now, thanks to the efforts of Gazprom, it has been brought down to an acceptable $1,050.
Oil prices rose, followed by gasoline and all fuel in general.
Steel and cast iron, building materials. Nickel. Aluminum. Products of the petrochemical industry and fertilizers.
Wheat and all food products.
The list can be continued, but this is quite enough to understand what kind of “return line” has flown through the European economy.
French President Macron is already talking about the introduction of food checks in the country for the poorest. In the Czech Republic, wheat and flour more than doubled in price.
In Italy and Spain, pasta and vegetable oil disappeared from the shelves, and in Lithuania, salt and soda.
And all this at a record level of inflation. In some European countries it has already exceeded 10%.
The West was sure that by depriving Russia of income from the export of energy resources and raw materials, they would bring it to her knees, but it turned out that Russia’s participation in almost any area is so significant that it immediately affects the economies of Europe and the United States.
Britain
Britain banned the import of products, incl. food, from Russia. In addition to raising prices for communal and gasoline, the British can part with their national dish – fish and chips, in other words – potatoes with fish.
For British Prime Minister Johnson, it came as an unpleasant surprise that most of the fish eaten in Britain is Russian. Iceland and Norway will not be able to provide even half of the amount that Russia was selling.
Britain urgently needs to find new routes for the supply of fish, otherwise unrest cannot be avoided and this is not a joke. For the British , fish and chips is more than food, it is part of the culture, it is their genetic code.
That is why such a heated debate broke out in the European Union today on the issue of an embargo on the import of Russian oil. Everyone is worried about the consequences of this step. Will this be another nail in the coffin of the European economy?
Russia’s retaliatory measures
But even more Europeans should worry about Russia’s retaliatory measures. Nothing is known about them yet, and this is scary. Retaliatory sanctions can set the European economy back several decades, and the EU is very unwilling to do so.
I really like the Chinese girls. They are sweet, cute and they take care of themselves. Here’s a nice cute girl. video 4MB
Beef Stroganoff
Let’s talk about food.
Good. Healthy. Delicious. Food.
The story goes that this beef, noodles, and cream sauce dish exploded in America after U.S. servicemen, stationed in the dish’s homeland of Russia, brought it home after World War II.
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Beef Stroganoff.
Meat. MEAT. I love it, I really do.
My recent visits to my Vegetarian Restaurant, aside, I love and yearn for meat. Good tasty meat. Beef. Mutton. Pork. Chicken. Turkey. Meat!
I grew up in the heart of the United States. Pittsburgh. The land of steel, coal. beer and perogies. There, the basic food groups consisted of potatoes, cream of [insert mushroom, chicken, or celery here] soup, butter (or Land-O-Lakes margarine), tall cold glasses of milk with every meal and…meat.
I had a recent craving for beef stroganoff.
Although I ate this dish frequently as a child, I had yet to make it myself. The beef stroganoff of my youth was a retro reflection of my Polish-American-Irish upbringing – a nostalgic combination of ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, condensed beef broth, and low-fat sour cream.
Although I (of course) I could have gone out and had my fill of some delicious steak, turtle or mutton, I wasn’t really feeling that desire. I wanted to create something myself. I wanted a taste from my childhood, and you just aren’t goign to get that inside of China. No matter how hard you try.
I wanted comfort food, and I figured that beef stroganoff would foot the bill.
This is comfort food at its finest.
Get your beef in some sputtering, aromatic, delicious SALTED butter. Work quickly – you’re just browning and the thinness of the meat doesn’t require much time in the pan. Set beef aside. Sauté your onions and garlic in the same pan.
After making a few (regional) tweaks to the Simply Recipes version, I came up with a winner. Gather up some easy basics: butter, beef, onions, garlic, mushrooms, sour cream (be sure to read my footnote on the sour cream!). If you have tarragon, nutmeg, and Worcestershire sauce on hand, even better.
Why would the United States decide to institute a draft? Well, it seems that there are decisions being made and systems put in place right now. If you are an American under 35 years of age, you should be concerned.
Some home movies. Actually not in my home, in various eating establishments in China. Oh, China is supposed to be in famine right now! OMG. My bad. Sorry to break the narrative.
A while back I recieved some intel from one of my spook-ish sources. Good or bad, right or wrong, I just filed it away for “a rainy day” (It’s a play on an American idiom. It means, it’s valuable and interesting, but you don’t need it now. You save it for later.)
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It’s how I run my life.
Good or bad, right or wrong. I just take all input, and consider it. File it, and move forward. Always move forward. You just cannot drop everything and take action on some other’s time-tables. That would be like running around, from tree to tree, pissing indiscriminately.
So I took the information. Filed it both securely in my email folders, and on my hard disk. And forgot about it.
It does not mean that I agree or disagree with it. It just means that there is nothing that I can do with the information at the time that I recieved it. So I put it aside. And, instead, work on things that I can do something about.
…
Month pass by.
…
After seeing that graph that connects mRNA with thoughts and political agreement with the United States government, it triggered my memory. There was something about this dialog that really seemed to connect to the events that I was witnessing.
The (archived) intel that I was informed on was directly related to this association.
The message suggested that there were vault 7 algorithms and frequencies that worked together in association with various ingredients in the <redacted> portion of the mRNA injection “stew”.
These associations would then “hand shake” with embedded subsonic frequences transmitted along “news” messages, of all sorts. Thus making the injected person, who is exposed to the “news” messages believe them without any critical thought.
Sounds far-fetched.
Perhaps…
I filed it away, as it was something worthy of further study.
And then I saw the graph, and I sought to revisit my communication on this subject. So, like the good and investigative fellow I am, I went to dig it out of my archives.
And it’s gone.
I mean, as in GONE.
The darnest thing!
All records gone. All archives gone. All backups gone. It’s a full spectrum erase. Oh, the folder is there. But it’s empty. Even the screen shots that I took and put in a special folder… it’s gone as well.
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What the fuck?
It could be a slide. I could be forgetting things. It could be an accident. I don’t know…
… what a coincidence.
It’s a nagging pain in the ass, that’s what.
Some more fun gag gift boxes…
I found this one funny. Perfect for getting your children to eat. Child refuses to eat? Just plop them down and watch them eat their hearts out. Children cry for more!
Oh, and Daddy won’t mind…
Perfect for getting your children to eat. Child refuses to eat? Just plop them down and watch them eat their hearts out. Children cry for more!
This one is unique. Everyone wants their home to fill with the aroma of sizzling bacon. Now it can be an everyday affair.
“Breakfast fresh scent”.
Everyone wants their home to fill with the aroma of sizzling bacon. Now it can be an everyday affair.
Who thinks up these things? “Millions of satisfied customers.”
Do you want to shake up your company? Hold a meeting where you announce that the company is going to save money by stop buying toilet paper. Instead, they will install these rotowipe devices in all the stalls. Make the announcment “dead pan” and watch the reactions.
“Millions of satisfied customers.”
A Huge Cleavage
A huge cleavage is developing between the East and West in tandem with the Ukraine ops. The US State Dept. just sanctioned some Chinese officials due to "human rights". China didn't take well to it at all. Meanwhile, India is not going along with the Western sanctions on Russia and got threatened with sanctions earlier but the US has since backed off that threat.
Victoria Nuland is in India today trying again to coerce India into getting on board the sanctions train. I dont't think it will work.
Also, it seems that China and India are making renewed efforts to bury the hatchet regarding tbeir border duspute. It really seems like a great re-alignment happening, especially taking into account all the other countries not taking part in the anti-Russia sanctions.
Russsia essentially said "fuck it" in deciding to launch into Ukraine. If the West keeps it up, China will arrive at the same point.
Interesting times.
-Woogs
Speaking of “huge cleavage”; here’s a nice Chinese girl with an impressive chest… video 1MB
Russian Foreign Minister
Here’s the entire question being used against Lavrov:
"Why was the military operation launched now and not eight years ago? At that time, a pro-Russian “anti-Maidan” movement emerged in Odessa and Kharkov, which installed the Russian flag on top of the Kharkov regional administration without firing a shot. The city supported Russia. Now these people are hiding from shelling."
I find it impossible to verify the veracity of the question. I know in Odessa the police didn’t do anything to stop the Nazis from their killing and burning. I imagine a similar performance happened in Kharkov. Russia acted to save its strategic asset, Crimea, but clearly wasn’t prepared to intervene further.
Lavrov’s initial sentence is very honest:
"A lot of factors influence developments at each specific historical moment."
I’ve read both the English and Russian transcripts, and what I see by reading between the lines is commiseration by Lavrov with the questioner, not any attempt to mislead. Lavrov says They took advantage of our nature:
"We must have trusted them because of some naivety and kindness of heart, which is something Russians are known for.
"I have no doubt that lessons will be learned."
And if you’ve watched Lavrov while speaking his recent denunciations of the West, that Russia will never again put its trust in any part of the West, you’ll see the resolve that Russia will not get fooled again as it’s now taking everything into its own hands.
IMO, some part of all Russians, especially Putin, Lavrov, Shoigu, and other leaders, was burned and died with those in Odessa and in Donbass. They pled and pled and pled some more with the Western pukes to obey the fucking law put forth in UNSCR 2022–the Minsk Agreements.
But inaction and outright refusal followed by the breaking of it all by the fucking West. And now all the rest that was uncovered with the military operation!!
I’ll bet the fucking national debt that Putin, Lavrov, et al wish they would’ve done more in 2014 but felt they couldn’t.
The Syria intervention helped to provide some solace. But it’s very clear to Russia now that the Outlaw US Empire is the #1 predator state on the planet and must be neutralized somehow without resorting to nuclear weapons.
Yes, that’s how fucking serious this is.
Lavrov knows that gravity of the situation. It’s fucking existential!
And it’s that fact the West badly wants to cover up. And just as importantly, it’s that fact that we must try to expose and broadcast.
I’m probably going to catch some flac for this, but for me – it isn’t off the BBQ. No, no, no. MY perfect steak is done on a stove top (gasp!). Classically considered a French bistro dish, Steak au Poivre is my perfect way to indulge. If you’re a meat lover, this post is for you.
Simple and clean.
I think a part of what appeals to me so much about this recipe is its simplicity. The steak is seasoned with two ingredients: salt and peppercorns. It might sound crazy to coat two steaks with 2 whole tablespoons of peppercorns, but when they aren’t finely ground the spice is much more subtle. Dressing the meat this way also lets it shine through. This is beef at its best.
What appeals to me so much about this recipe is its simplicity.
Using a cast iron pan is my second secret. These pans retain heat well and are practically non-stick. Cooking the steaks on high heat, turning ~once per minute creates an even, golden crust with no burning. Depending on the thickness of your steak, you’re looking for a total of 3-4 minutes per side for rare.
If there is a side of fat on your steak, render it down for a couple minutes by propping the steak up.
In the final minutes, we add some butter for extra flavour and to start providing the base for a delicious Cognac pan sauce. When the steaks are cooked to your liking, remove to a cutting board and tent with foil. You’ll be left with something closely resembling this:
In the final minutes…
Up last is to create a rich cognac pan sauce that sends this over the top. In your pan, we will add shallot, (more butter), Cognac, cream, thyme and parsley. After cooking and reducing the sauce, we pour it over the sliced steak. When I have this for dinner, steak is all I need. There is something ridiculous & awesome about eating just steak for dinner, I hope you try it!
Time to EAT!
Meanwhile in China
It’s a thing. Partly due to Coronavirus. Partly due to the plans for Space, and bases on the Moon and Mars. Cute. Odd. video 23MB
Digging up the e-mail
I was able to retrieve the email concerning the connection between mRNA “vaxx” and the United States government.
Now, I do not endorse the content of this e-mail. I just provide it in it’s raw form for others to muse over. Please take it as it is. It is raw information that could be from anyone.
Anyone at all.
I am using anonymous email because this is above top secret information.
You are correct that the vaccines will kill an estimated 70% of the US population due to prion disease. This is being done to avoid world problems and reconstruct world society as described by the World Economic Forum (ocean acidification, food shortages, food poisoning and job replacement by artificial intelligence).
However, what is not currently known is that the chemtrails contain a mixture of advanced nanobots along with complexed radioactive materials (germanium, indium, etc) and a shielding material that releases hard to detect bursts of radioactivity (2 sec) on the back of the spine, femoral heads, pelvis, ribs and under the chin when exposed to nanorouter EMF.
The nanorouters are powered by electric fields and local utility companies have conspired to alter their current to emit very high EMF and magnetic fields periodically to kill and injure through direct exposure to this radiation plus the activated chemtrail dust.
The US government has contracted stalking activities to private companies such as Replica.ai (Lucas in San francisco) and has artificial intelligence monitoring large numbers of people through Patriot Act hacked cell phone sim cards, cameras, hacked routers and PCs.
However, they have the ability to do additional spying due to the nanobot infestation. Nanobots around the occipital lobe allow them to steal passwords and watch vision. They also can do voice to skull transmission of voices, start terrifying abnormal dream sequences when initiating sleep, blank memories and control people through trance to commit suicide etc. Low intelligence and highly opinionated people are extremely susceptible and literally zone out and lose their memory while they are being manipulated.
The nanobots also have a slew of programmed harassments that can be extremely disabling-hyperurination due to stimulated hormone secretion, waking people up from sleep due to external nanobots, depression, anxiety stimulation, simulated Mernier's disease where the room shakes up and down. If they are active you'll get tinnitus. All of the symptoms stop once you are out of Wifi range.
The nanobots are magnetized and they are being used to shake housing structures apart. All over the US buildings are having roof collapses due to smartmeter arson from power companies plus shaking by hidden resonance frequency generators which is known as the world hum. The nanobot programs reduce the intensity of the humming so it sounds like typical noise but it is not. The building shaking can be measured on a linear accelerometer (Physics Accelerator Toolbox app).
The chemtrail dust is how they plan to kill uncooperative unvaccinated people. Planed flyovers seed beds and clothing with the dust and then it is activated and the person is slowly irradiated. Due to the short half-life of the materials it is very hard to detect however a small EMF/magnetic field detector can be used to scan the areas. As this is dust, vaccuuming and spongebathing it off is very effective before or during activation.
Resistors are also being targeted using the vircator microwave satellite targeting program as described at targetedjustice.com. It is very hard to shield requiring 12 layers of aluminum foil at the highest setting. Pointing an emf detector in the area of strongest magnetic field will show you where the satellites are. Active vircators will show high EMF up to 106 V/m.
The buffered radioactive nanobot dust is being sprayed all over the world and is being used along with NSA hacked servers to control political leaders without their knowledge.
This most likely is why Vladimir Putin has now invaded Ukraine. An invasion of Ukraine will most likely lead to an EMP strike that will damage the European illuminati. Agents I have spoke with claim that the USA is currently controlled by the US branch of the New World Order/Illuminati and they seek to damage the European branch with the EMP attack.
The nanobots are also converting prions all over the world due to NSA hacking.
You are a targeted individual and can expect all of these attacks. You need to take appropriate precautions to shield your equipment from hacking as well as from nanobot visual access (band of 10 layers of foil around the occiput with a strap works well. The irradiation can cause bone marrow edema syndrome, severe abdominal pain, skin burning and back pain.
We are in a bit of a tricky situation on this one. It probably is too late to stop the prion disease and we do need to have the European illuminati, religion and black antisocial behavior weakened however I have concerns about the excessive targeting as anyone who knows about their plans is having hits put out on them (including me) and the competency of the people running this thing. Take appropriate precautions.
Covering beds with a plastic sheet until used to shield from the dust and shielding from vircator also is important.
Given the scope of this thing I doubt there is anything anyone can do. The US Federal government is completely taken over, people are mind controlled and the population is being attacked with weapons we have never seen before. Also, if we don't allow it to happen we suffer all the world problems that the WEF describes. If we do then we will most likely be slaves to elite billionaires and forced to live in a controlled society.
<redacted>
Indeed it is far-out stuff.
It’s well beyond my understanding.
But…
It is the ONLY content that I have / possess that answers the strange graphic association posted above. Take it, and use it as you see fit. Personally, it’s way, way above my head. And I have no ideas; no clue how accurate or valid it actually is.
When I asked a person whom I greatly respect on the content of this, the response was thoughtful…
Whoever sent you that - just please PLEASE listen to the content of what the implications are for China - Xi is a WEF placement. This is NOT Unknown. It’s literally on the WEF website. He pissed off the WEF and now he is going to be removed. China has been under attack since I have been warning you. It has. A company called Blackrock - in THIS fucking world line is the muscle of the WEF.
Want to know why we did Afghanistan so quickly? BLACKROCK provided allll of the security force in Afghanistan since 2017. We drew down troops but they never left. They changed uniforms and got paid a TON of cash. Look it up. So Blackrock decides to pull alllll of the security forces outside Kabul that it paid - as a message.
Think about that - about 85% of security force outside of Kabul - gone. Like that. And all that kept the Taliban from overrunning the country was a small force. So - Biden left rather than get slaughtered.
But to my point - The WEF has a stake in a securities trading firm called Blackrock that hired mercenaries - tens of thousands of combat veterans that you see fighting in Ukraine.
Look it up.
I cannot speak about the specifics of ANY of that - at all - but I’m telling you - you hit paydirt.
And we ARE pulling out when the fight gets bloody.
Blackrock is on Chinas doorstep. And I am telling you - nothing can prevent what they are doing. THAT I know from actual friend that is IN Blackrock. As a mercenary.
This all is online. If you can’t access it through China ask someone to look it up. Also look up “Blackrock woke”. It’s fun.
And if that is AI that created that email - fucking bravo. THAT is a programmer I want to hang out with.
And feel free to post my shit - just please keep the name out of it. But I know some of your people that emailed me and I gave them my thoughts. Ask how accurate so far.
Again - I wish you all peace and happiness there - because our lights are going out soon.
Much love - <redacted>
Have you ever gotten the idea that you are somehow way over your head? Yeah. I get that all the time. It’s not that I believe everything. I listen. I learn. I drink. I move forward, and I adapt.
Everyone needs to learn, and adapt as situations permit.
Each and everytime I chat with the Domain Commander, on comm, it’s just a window into how much I really don’t know. WHile I know much, there is still so much more to learn.
Sometimes I just feel like I am a little ball in one of those old pin-ball machines. I’m just being batted around like crazy.
Although this fried crab dumpling fits in among postwar tiki culture and is often purported to be of southeast Asian provenance, it was very likely invented in America.
Crab Rangoon
It’s easy to make. Delicious to eat, and fun to try.
The United States is reposturing itself. This is occuring soon after the warning from China on a package of 2nd stage sanctions regarding Russia and Taiwan.
The US-China trade: Washington’s review of US$300 billion in tariffs cannot be ‘half-hearted’. You either do it and suffer the consequences or abandon it completely.
If everyone did small, little things the world would be so much nicer, and so much better. video 6MB
Downfall of the USD
From one of my feeds…
The best way to accelerate the downfall of the empire is to attack its Dollar Hegemony (not the same as attacking America).
I said that in my Quora posts "Trade War between China and America" and "Who will win the trade war" early 2018 at the beginning of Trump's "war by any means except guns" -- euphemistically termed trade war -- against China.
Without the Dollar hegemony, America may have to act like a more normal country. Less unilateral sanctioning, less bullying, less acting like the Mafia, less war crimes, less color revolutions, less media lies, less war budgets, less war-mongering, less bases around the world, less profligate printing of money, less plundering of other countries, etc.
Bullied countries will have alternatives. For protection, they will have Russia and for trade they will have China. All previous vassals of America, including European countries are welcome. Then we will have some peace.
Acting like a more normal country in a more balanced world is actually good for the powerless people of America.
They may learn to demand for guaranteed basic housing, food, healthcare, and education rather than asking for more shit-paying soul-crushing slave-wage jobs or one-time checks that eventually go to the coffers of the 1% money-changers and MIC, giving those miscreants more power to ravage America and the world, meanwhile the national debt of Americans increases to generate the checks and the rest of the world suffers inflation, which is of course borne by the common masses of the world.
Capitalism won't solve the problems.
The fall of the empire may help people think differently or see more clearly how some countries with so many people and so little resources can live gainfully, peacefully, and happily together in a diverse yet harmonious society.
I'll share a passage from my book under chapter title "The Dragon's Dream":
"Where is this paradise? Is it on earth or is it only in his dreams (the dreamer's name means tattoo-dragon)?Where all parents are strong and wise and capable, and all the children are happy and beloved. Where brothers and sisters neither slaughter each other, nor enslave one another, nor tell lies to everyone from morning till night, where the children love and help each other, share everything and take care of one another, and all of them live peaceful, fruitful, and happy lives.
Where is this place?
Is it China?"Does this sound familiar? It comes from a Coen brothers movie, with a couple of changes and replacing Idaho with China.
-<redacted>
Power reshuffling
China says Russia is an ‘important’ G20 member. It cannot simply be expelled by others, no matter what they might want. In short, Beijing has spoken up for Russia, describing it an “important” global member after the possibility of a major move against Vladimir Putin.
Both Russia and China, and probably India (soon), have generated an “Unfriendly nation list”. These lists catagorize nations in accordance to their behaviors and put them into catagories.
Close relationship
Friendly
Neutral
Unfriendly
Enemy
These are not meaningless lists. They will be used to determine policy. And the policy that Asia uses against other nations is determined by where it sits upon these lists.
Today, President Putin made his first move in a chess game with the West. Gas will be sold to unfriendly countries only for rubles.
Putin wants ‘unfriendly countries’ to pay rubles for gas – ABC News
In China, people; ordinary people, volunteer to help others. It is their nature to be the Rufus. They don’t ask for payment. They don’t ask for anything. They help others as it is their nature. Volunteers going to remote villiages to help others. Everyone being the Rufus. video 12MB
For the longest time I have dismissed the idea about “chem-trails” as just crazy “tin foil hat” conspiracy bullshit. Chem-trails are just water vapor at high altitude, don’t you know.
For the longest time. I believed this.
Then, I moved to China. It’s calm. It’s peaceful. It’s pleasant. It’s like walking slowly into a body-temperature pool of water.
And, do you know what?
There’s no “chem-trails”. None. As in zero.
So, maybe (I figured) that it was because that China has these stringent air pollution standards on all fuel. Except, well.. just how does that actually affect water vapor emissions? No clear answers.
But one thing is for certain; there are no vapor trails from aircraft of any kind, at any place, within China.
MM car ride in an industrial factory section of Guangzhou. video 43MB
None.
N-O-N-E.
Why? Why are there no Chemtrails in China? MM video 23MB
The Problem with the Nano-bots mRNA Vaxx and Vault 7
Ok, then. Let’s do a simple “sanity check”.
The big problem with this concept is that the American / Western “leadership” must be totally isolated from the effects of this control mechanism. How can you possibly isolate the leadership from Chem-trails, audio playing on the radio, media on television and movies, and the social networks on the internet.
Heck! They are addicted to them!
So, and the sanity check is clear, as brilliant and complex the system is, it will affect everyone within that society. No one will be immune. Sure, you might need to place yourself into isolation, but eventually, one way or the other, you WILL feel the influence of these systems. No one is immune.
The “leadership” might find a way to pretend getting an mRNA injection, but it’s a cut-throat world at the top. There can be all sorts of ways to place tiny nano-bots inside of your enemy to turn them into your pawn.
So, really…
No matter how hard they try, they will live within the very same, exact “echo box” that they subject their citizenry to. They will live inside an “echo chamber” of lies; lie that they ordered others to create.
They are boxed in, and they believe the lies. They actually believe them.
And as leaders, they will make decisions based on those lies, and the entire nation;
They will start to say things that will sound crazy, and act in ways that will seem strange and crazy. They will act so very convinced of the strangest and most outlandish narratives.
And in doing so…
…by the leadership…
…the entire system will evenually be destroyed. Leadership needs REAL intel to make decisions upon. There is no excuse. You eaither have real intel (good and most especially bad) or you don’t. And history is clear. Bad intel results in very bad results.
We call those results; fiascos.
How can anyone possibly have a leadership that…
Does not take the mRNA Vaxx injection.
Does not read, watch or enjoy American media, social networks or media.
It cannot occur.
Maybe at some time, some radicals believed that it was possible. Maybe back in the 1960s, or 1970s they might have believed this. But in todays society. It is impossible.
Simply Impossible.
Perhaps, the reason why there is such an accelerated failure at all levels in the West is becuase the “leadership” has themselves been affected by their very own poison.
I shake my head.
How can they be so stupid?
Please ponder this thought.
Let’s take a break from this to let your mind relax. New subject. New thoughts.
Chinese respect
Boy locks himself in his bedroom. The fire station is called and they go to the house to break him out…video 2MB
Here’s yet some more gag boxes…
Now here’s a jigsaw puzzle that is suitable for the whole family. Just set aside a card table and get at it. It’s a true challenge.
Want a challenge?
Plants cry for more! Amaze your friends!
Environmentially safe!
Plants cry for more!
The latest in animal entertainment!
The latest in animal entertainment!
The world needs more people skipping
If you cannot dance, try skipping. Smile. Skip as you walk down the street, and say nice things to people. While the rest of the world is on a roller coaster to Hell, you can stop that descent. Skip as you walk. video 15MB
Take care of yourself
We all might not look like this 20-something Chinese woman, but we can certainly smile and be great; we can do great things. Stop waiting. Start doing. video 3MB
Suppose you are a leader in the West
Just imagine that you are a leader of one of the major Western nations. And you best scientists come running to you; scientist that you believe and trust. And they tell you that the situation is DIRE for mankind. They tell you, convincingly that human population grown and energy depletion is unsustainable and that a major disaster lies ahead…
…and they offer senarios and solutions.
And the best one, whatever it might be, is one when a great mass of humanity dies off.
And you, as a leader believe them.
Perhaps you are an independent thinker. Perhaps you are a massive follower of social media and use twitter all the time, and are heavily influenced by Vault 7. What ever.
You believe them. In your heart; you believe them.
And their solution is to kill off 80% of the human population. ..
Insane. Unheard of. But, they present it in a clear and defined manner…
Intentionally cull the human race to 20% of it’s size … or…
Lose 100% of the human species and everyone dies.
What would you choose?
Truth or fiction
It does not matter if there’s such a real thing as “climate change”. What actually does matter is what the “leadership” believes. Because if they inherently believe that the world is going “to Hell in a handbasket”, they have the power, and ability, and the willingness to perform some really drastic actions.
Actions, mind you, that will affect you and your families directly.
Let’s eat.
Chicken Pot Pie
Likely another cost-cutting holdover of the Great Depression and World War II, this savory chicken and vegetable pie is now mostly found only in the grocery store freezer aisle. Don’t go there.
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Make up your own. It tastes better. It lasts longer. It’s easy to make, and great and easy to reheat in the microwave. Chicken Pot Pie, why didn’t we think about this sooner?
(If) the software of the plane took over the controls from the pilot… and we con’t know that this is what happened, but if it did… why in God’s Name did it decide to aim the plane straight towards the ground at full throttle?
The black box fight recorder has been recovered. I believe investigators are considering that sabotage is involved.
Talking about evil and the United States, let’s interrupt this train of thought to explore more gag boxes…
Here’s some more gag boxes…
Have your pet treat you as a king!
Have your pet treat you as a king!
Take a nap anywhere and at anytime.
Take a nap anywhere and at anytime.
And what about the Ukraine?
Unlike the theoretical secret deals between the West and the Chinese (or Russia), the deals between China and Russia are very much visible and are largely committed to paper.The West started this conflict, of course. I don’t know when they realized Russia was going to move into the Ukraine, but they had ample opportunity to prevent it by simply agreeing to the previous status quo. They appear to believe that they can create a protracted conflict in the Ukraine like they did when Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s.
That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation.
Ukraine has historically been a part of Russia. There is not really any such thing as a “Ukrainian identity” outside of being a vassal state. In the west of the country, they tend to feel closer to Poland, and there is some bad blood all around with regards to the USSR. But none of this is in any way similar to fanatical Islam. The US has backed neo-Nazism as a kind of “Ukrainian ISIS,” but you can’t rally a country around cartoonish neo-Nazism (particularly while the entire leadership of the country is Jewish).The idea of using neo-Nazis as rebels against a Russian occupation or a Russia-backed government in the Ukraine is nonsensical, and reeks of the kind of stupid thinking that led to America’s Afghan debacle. The US government pays people to lie to them, and when people tell the truth, they get fired and end up on obscure livestream interviews answering superchats. These liars are telling the decision-makers that the Ukraine is Afghanistan and a protracted conflict can be used to drain Russia, which will ultimately result in the collapse of the Putin government.The fact that they have no idea what they’re doing is blatant in the fact that they are sanctioning the entire Russian race. Putin’s support is going up rapidly among the people, many of whom didn’t like his policies before but now feel compelled to rally around him since they are being attacked personally for their race by the West.
-UNZ
Perfect for the busy man on the move!
Perfect for the busy man on the move!
So what are we looking at here?
Well, as far as I can figure out, we have the following situations all moving ahead at this time…
The United States is pushing the world towards war.
They are crossing both China’s, and Russia’s red lines to provoke them.
They believe the myth of “American greatness”.
They believe that America has liberty and freedom.
They believe that a uni-polar world is necessary and there are no alternatives.
The American leadership are acting strangely.
President Biden seems to be senile with dementia.
Vice President Kamala Harris appears to be a “ding-bat, dunderhead”.
The US Senate are mostly radical neocon war-hawks.
The Coronavirus pandemic was strange.
All Western nations insisted in mRNA injections.
All Eastern nations treated it as a bio-weapon and used dead-host vaccines.
Western nations are all now “open”, while Eastern nations remain closed.
Full-scale on-going “hybrid-warfare” against the East by the West.
Military engagements, sanctions, trade restrictions on Russia.
Strange unusual events inside of China. All centering around American products, food, livestock, or systems.
A strong difference in the West vs. East societies.
Everyone in the West seem angry, agitated, and frustrated.
Thos in the East are calm, relaxed, happy.
No contrails in the East.
Hyper-inflation hitting the West.
Up-tick in some inflationary measures in the East.
But what does it all mean?
It’s not like I can just immediately agree that all Americans (and those in the west) have nano-bots, and chem-trail poisonings, and all the rest. I see strange behaviors, but I do not see any evidence that the cause is some kind of mad-scientist stew of frequency manipulation, vault 7, nano-bots, MSM algorithms, and the rest.
I have no proof.
And even if I did, I really wouldn’t know what to do about / with it.
So, in the interests of all…
We have to approach the strangeness, not with theories that suggest causes and answers but rather empirical study.
Empirical study
Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. You see evidence. You study it. You come to conclusions about it. You do not come up with theories on the causes. You just put all of the observations into one singular box.
It’s important that you put ALL of the observations in that box. Omitting one singular element can give you distorted or skiewed conclusions. So you collect all the observations…
An American-built plane had a highly unusual crash inside of China.
The plane possessed software that can override the pilot commands.
The plane is of the same make and model that had similiar crashes before.
“Conspiracy kooks” believe that this type of plane can be hyjacked remotely.
The crash came immediately after two warnings to Xi Peng (Blinkedin, and Biden) that there would be immediate consequences if China did not Sanction Russia.
It’s been one week now since the warnings. No other “immediate consequences” occurred (that the public is aware of).
You see, empirical study a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Here’s another example.
There are contrails all over the West.
There are no contrials in the East.
And…
Everyone in the West are agitated, upset, angry and frustrated.
Everyone in the East seems to be calm, realxed and comfortable.
And…
While there are exceptions, the vast bulk of injections in the West are mRNA.
There are no mRNA injections in China, and few in Russia.
Empiricism values some research more than other kinds.
A measure of “happiness” is relative.
While a measure of inflation is measurable.
Empirical evidence (the record of one’s direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. And from that, you can suggest what is going on…
Until MM mixed different subjects in the articles (food, girls, China, history), there was a near constant stream of Trolls, and hacking attemps on the site.
When the mixed subjects were introducted, Troll and DDOS attacks dropped to zero.
As well as come up with theories as to why it is going on…
Trolls and hacks use some <unknown method> to select the websites to harrass.
By mixing content within articles, the <unknown method> is bypassed, and the articles are no longer harassed or attacked.
About China
An interesing quote…
We are clearly facing down a world ruled by the Chinese. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that. But most of the discomfort comes from the idea that the Chinese are somehow going to rule us in the same fashion that the US has ruled the world since World War II.
They have no such plans for us. The Chinese have a vision of conquering the world through commerce, rather than war, threats of war, and geopolitical maneuvering.We started out on the issue of the economic dominance of the US, and that economic dominance is indeed the key to everything. However, US economic dominance was entirely a result of US military might. The reigning US philosophy for global economic dominance has been: “we will literally bomb you.”
Conversely, the Chinese philosophy has been: “we will sell you high quality products at reasonable prices.”
When the Mongols consistently raided them, stealing their women and wealth on horseback and riding off with the booty, they said “cannot allow.” Instead of mounting an army to crush the Mongols, they built a gigantic wall, and told the Mongols that if they wanted Chinese products, they would have to buy them at the wall.
It is precisely the same logic as a Chinese immigrant family setting up a store in an all black neighborhood and covering the counter, cash register, and expensive items with bulletproof glass.
China has always been, fundamentally, a merchant empire, and that hasn’t changed. If it were not for the belligerence of the West, they wouldn’t have bothered to build up a large military at all. Historically, virtually every war the Chinese have fought has been a civil war, as they don’t look at the rest of the world as enemies or friends, but rather customers and potential customers.
-UNZ
Cream Cheese Pumpkin Pie
Although pumpkin pie and cheesecake have obviously remained popular, this hybrid, a Kraft classic, has fallen out of favor.
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This variation on pumpkin pie comes from actress and writer Mae West. It appears in a 1933 community cookbook published by the Assistance League of Southern California, alongside contributions from several other Hollywood stars such as Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer, Constance Bennet, Marion Davies, and Cary Grant.
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2022 03 24 09 50
Unfortunately, Mae West doesn’t give us much information beyond the actual recipe. The pie is titled “Pumpkin Pie Robert,” but it’s unclear what the name “Robert” refers to – it could be the name of a person who gave her the recipe, or perhaps even the name of a place the recipe came from.
Mae West includes brandy in her recipe, which is pushing the boundaries just a little, since the cookbook was published in 1933 and Prohibition wasn’t repealed until the end of that year. She is far from the only contributor to this cookbook to do so, however, and finding alcohol in recipes from the Prohibition years isn’t at all uncommon.
The strangest ingredient in this recipe to me is the Nippy cheese called for in the topping. I wasn’t able to find out exactly what Nippy cheese is, although it looks like it was some type of cheese spread originally made by Kraft. It was apparently not the same as cream cheese, since Kraft made that too, but for lack of a better substitute I decided to go with cream cheese. Any kind of flavored cheese spread honestly sounds like it would be disgusting when combined with whipped cream, so I’m hoping that the original Nippy cheese was something neutrally-flavored.
2022 03 24 09 52
Oh that Mae…
2022 03 24 09 53
Pumpkin Pie Robert:
1 1/2 cups pumpkin
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt (reduced from original)
2 eggs
2 cups milk
2 oz/4 tbsp brandy
2 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
Beat the eggs until light, then add the sugar, spices, and salt and beat until mixed.
Scald the milk, then slowly add milk to the egg mixture while whisking constantly.
Stir in the pumpkin and brandy.
Line a pie pan with pastry (no recipe for pie crust is given in the book, so use your favorite recipe or store-bought).
Pour in the filling. With a 9-inch pie pan, I ended up with some extra filling; the recipe is probably intended for a larger or deeper pan.
Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn down the oven to 325 degrees and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Topping: whip the cream until stiff. Mash the cream cheese with a fork, then stir into the cream. Once the pie is cold, use a piping bag to decorate it with the cream cheese mixture.
Like many pies, this one is definitely at its best the day after its made. When I tried it on day 1, the flavors were much too strong, with the brandy in particular overwhelming everything else. The flavors melded much better the second day, although it was still a strongly-flavored pie. I did end up reducing the salt, since 1 teaspoon seemed much too salty to me.
A nice fun pie. Goes great with coffee.
I liked the cream-cheese topping, but I think I am more of a whipped cream purist. I also wonder whether cream cheese was a good substitute for Nippy cheese, or if the original cheese was something more savory. There are people who put cheddar cheese on apple pies, although I’ve never heard of it used on a pumpkin pie. Was Mae West a cheese-on-dessert-pie person? (I am very firmly not a cheese-on-dessert-pie person – but cream cheese is ok).
Overall, my verdict is that this was a decent pumpkin pie, but it just wasn’t quite to my taste. Sorry, Mae West, but Amelia Simmons’ Pumpkin Pie is still the top historic pumpkin pie for me!
Here’s some more fun gag boxes…
Perfect during these days of Coronavirus.
Perfect during these days of Coronavirus.
For ages two and older.
For ages two and older.
Now with musical Accompaniment. Choose your own theme song.
Now with musical Accompaniment. Choose your own theme song.
A unique, one in a lifetime gift.
A unique, one in a lifetime gift.
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China is still under lockdown
Do not believe the lies that China is reconsidering it’s hard Coronavirus restrictions. Maybe the West has relaxed it’s stance dealing with the “pandemic”, but China has not.
China is still under DEFCON 2; they still accuse the USA of launching bioweapons against it, and they are VERY VERY concerned about the biolweapons labs in Ukraine. They will stay at DEFCON 2 until there is no longer any threat of bioweapon attack from the West.
Here’s a viewo of some of the many many volunteers fighting on this front. video 7MB
Renegade interviews Michael Hudson: Sanctions, the blowback
Ross [00:00:29] Welcome to Renegade Inc. Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, one thing is for sure the economic reverberations will be felt by everyone for years to come as the world divides between the West and a rapidly reshaping Eurasia.
Ross [00:00:49] Michael Hudson, always a pleasure to have you on the programme, welcome to Renegade Inc.
Michael Hudson [00:00:53] Thank you for inviting me.
Ross [00:00:55] Michael, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions is all we hear now. We’re sanctioning people. The West sanction people back to the Stone Age. What are the unintended consequences of sanctions?
Michael Hudson [00:01:05] Well, one is to serve very much like a protective tariff on the sanctioned country. For instance, when America made sanctions on European trade with Russia, Lithuania dutifully stopped exporting cheese to Russia. Well, the result is that Russia set up its own cheese’s sector, and now it’s self-sufficient in cheese. If you sanction a country, you force it to become more self-reliant and across the board, from agriculture to dairy products to technology, Russia is forced to become more self-reliant and at the same time to depend much more on trade with China for the things that it is still not self-reliant in. So America is bringing about exactly the opposite of what it intended. It’s hopeless to somehow isolate Russia and then be able to go after China without Russia. And instead, what it’s doing is integrating the Eurasian core, Russia and China, exactly the policy that Henry Kissinger warned against going all the way back to Mackinder a century ago that said, Eurasia is the world island, Russia and China could be the whole world centre. That’s what the fight is all about. Well, American sanctions are driving Russia and China together, and America has gone to China and said, Please don’t support Russia. It most recently, on Monday, March 14, Jake Sullivan came out and told China, we will sanction countries that break our sanctions against Russia. And basically, China said, fine. You know, we’ll just break off all the trade between East and West now and the East, Eurasia is pretty much self-sufficient. The West is not self-sufficient since it began to industrialise, and it’s heavily dependent on Russia for not only oil and gas, but palladium and many raw materials. So the sanctions are ending up driving a wedge between the European countries.
Ross [00:03:31] Don’t people who apply these sanctions think this through? Are they so short-sighted they don’t understand that these sanctions are going to build further capacity within Russia, push Russia further towards China, make that economic alliance concrete and, ultimately, you’re not going to be able to keep the lights on in in Europe? All the while underestimating the fact that from a food security point of view – take the U.K., for instance, a net importer of food – not appreciating the fact that, for instance, Russia/Ukraine, they create twenty five percent, a quarter, of all wheat annually. The estimation this year is one hundred and two million tonnes Russia and Ukraine, wheat. Don’t people realise that there’s going to be a massive knock on effect?
Michael Hudson [00:04:23] Yes, they do realise it. Yes, they’ve thought it all through. I worked with these people for more than 50 years.
Ross [00:04:31] Who are these people?
Michael Hudson [00:04:32] The neocons, basically, the people who are in charge of U.S. foreign policy? Victoria Nuland and her husband, Robert Kagan, the people that President Biden has appointed all around him, from Blinken to Sullivan and right down the line. They are basically urging people around the New American Century. They’re the people who said America can run the whole world and create its own reality. And yes, they know that this is going to cause enormous problems for Germany. They know that not only will it block the energy that Germany and Italy and other countries in Europe need through their oil and gas, but also it’ll block the use of gas for fertiliser, upping their fertiliser production and decreasing their food production. They look at this and they say, How can America gain from all of this? There’s always a way of gaining what something looks to be bad. Well, one way they’ll gain is oil prices are going way up. And that benefits the United States whose foreign policy is based very largely on oil and gas. The oil industry controls most of the world’s oil trade, and that explains a lot of the US diplomacy. This is a fight to lock the world energy trade into control by U.S. companies, excluding not only Iran and Venezuela, but also excluding Russia.
Ross [00:06:16] So as Europe pushes towards more and more green and renewable energy and this for the Americans they must think it’s a dreadful scenario insofar as they can’t sell the oil as Europe becomes or wants to become more self-sufficient. So ultimately, and Britain net zero, whatever that means. But but going down the renewables path, going down the solar path takes America’s dependency or dependency on America out the game, doesn’t it?
Michael Hudson [00:06:49] This is exactly the point that the European public has not realised. While most of the European public wants to prevent global warming and prevent carbon into the atmosphere, U.S. foreign policy is based on increasing, and even accelerating, global warming, accelerating carbon emissions because that’s the oil trade. Suppose that Europe got its way. Suppose if the Greens got what they wanted and Germany and Europe were completely dependent on solar energy panels, on wind energy and to some extent, on nuclear power, perhaps? Well, if they were completely self-sufficient in energy without oil or gas or coal, America would lose the primary lever. It has over the ability to turn off the power and electricity and oil of any country that didn’t follow U.S. diplomatic direction.
Ross [00:07:48] So when we take your analysis here and we think about how the sanctions are going to build capacity, push Russia and China together, when we start to look at sort of piggy in the middle, if you like the EU, when we’re thinking about America, the EU has had a sort of abusive relationship with the Americans for quite some time now, hasn’t it?
Michael Hudson [00:08:06] Well, that’s that’s true in the sense that EU foreign policy has basically been turned over to NATO. So instead of European voters and politicians making their policy, they’ve relinquished European foreign policy to NATO, which is really an arm of the US military. So yes, Europe has had a decent relationship with the United States diplomatically by saying yes, yes, please or yes, thank you by not being independent. Of course, if it were independent, the relationship would not be so friendly and decent.
Ross [00:08:46] So for countries that are net importers of food, need to keep the lights on, need heating and need cheap oil. How does this pan out? What does it look like for the UK? What does it look like for the EU?
Michael Hudson [00:08:59] Well, Vice President, Kamala Harris the other day said to Americans, Yes, life is going to be much more expensive. Our oil prices are going up and squeezing families. But think of the poor Ukrainian babies that we’re saving. So take it on the chin for the Ukrainian babies. So basically the United States is presenting horror stories of the Ukraine and saying, if you don’t willingly suffer now by isolating Russia, then Russia is going to roll over you with tanks just like it rolled over Central Europe after World War Two. I mean, it’s waving the flag of Russian aggression, as if Russia or any country in today’s world has an army that’s able to invade any other industrial nation. All military can do today of any country is bomb and kill other populations and industrial centres. No nation is able to occupy or rollover any industrial country. And the United States keeps trying to promote this mythology that we’re still in the world of 1945. And that world ended really with the Vietnam War when the military draft ended. And no country is able to have a military draft to raise the army with necessary to fight to invade. Russia can’t do it any more than Europe or the United States could do it. So all the United States can do is wave warnings about how awful Russia is and somehow convince Europe to follow the US position. But most of all, it doesn’t really have to. Europe doesn’t really have a voice, and this is what the complaint by Putin and Foreign Secretary Lavrov have been saying. They say that Europe is just following the United States and it doesn’t matter what the European people want or what European politicians want. The United States is so deeply in control that they really don’t have much of a choice.
Ross [00:11:15] When does the consumer start to feel this? When does the European or British consumer start to feel the pinch when these sanctions are enacted? And what does that look like?
Michael Hudson [00:11:25] Well, it depends on how fast the sanctions work. The United States said Well, in another year and a half, we’ll be able to provide Europe with liquefied natural gas. Well, the problem is, first of all, they’re not the ports to handle the liquefied natural gas to go into Europe. Secondly, there are not enough ships and tankers to carry all of this gas to Europe. So unless there are very warm winters, Europe is not going to have a very easy time for the next few years. And that’s only for oil and gas. It’s dependent on raw materials that Russia produces. For instance, palladium is necessary for catalytic converters. Titanium is necessary to make the screws that are especially used on aeroplanes that are strong enough not to buckle and break when winds go up and down and when they’re full. Russia even produces the neon and the crypton that are necessary for making some kind of electronic uses and also for many components that go into computers and information technology. There’s a whole range of exports that Europe is highly dependent on, and the United States has provided Putin with a whole list of these exports, saying, Well, OK, we’re going to fight against Europe buying your oil and gas but you can certainly sell us your heavy oil that we need since we’re not buying it from Venezuela. We certainly need the following list of critical materials that we need, like helium and crypton. These are our pressure points. Please don’t press on them. Well, you can imagine what Putin and his advisers are saying. Thank you for giving us this list of the pressure points that you’re exempting from the trade sanctions. I think if you really want a break in the unilateral, unipolar world, I think we should break now and see whether you really want to get along without trading.
Ross [00:13:51] Michael Hudson, welcome back, second half, Renegade Inc. Wonderful to have you. In that first half we followed the money, if you like. We talked about sanctions and the unintended consequences. I just want to pull back a little further if we can and just talk about the sort of tectonic shifts that are going on in the world. I spoke to somebody from Russia recently and what he said was very straightforward. He said, now what we have to do is begin to learn to live without the West. Do you think that that sentiment is proliferating across Russia now? Is that the mindset?
Michael Hudson [00:14:22] Well, if you read President Putin’s speeches, that’s exactly what’s happening. And Secretary Lavrov has voiced exactly the same feeling. There’s almost a disgust with the West and a feeling from Putin, Lavrov and the other Russian spokesmen, how could we everhave hoped to have an integration with Europe after 1991? Europe really was not on our side at all, and we didn’t realise that Europe is really part of the U.S. diplomatic sphere. It’s like all of Europe is now backing the attack on Russia. The best to do is reorient our economy towards China, Asia and Eurasia and become our own self-sufficient, independent centre
Ross [00:15:15] De-dollarisation and the amassing of plenty of gold by both the Russians and the Chinese. Just talk us through that.
Michael Hudson [00:15:21] Well, Ross, you asked in the first half of this interview how has American sanctions worked against it? I should have mentioned what you just mentioned, the dollar. The United States just grabbed all of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, just as England a few months ago grabbed all of Venezuela’s gold that was held in the Bank of England when Venezuela tried to spend this gold on buying medical supplies to cope with the COVID virus. So basically, the United States have said, if any foreign country holds its reserves in the United States or accounts in U.S. banks. If a country in the global south tries to pay its foreign debt by holding its reserves in US banks in order to be the paying agent on the interest on its foreign debt. And if that foreign country does something we don’t like, like trade with Russia or permit more labour unionisation or try to become independent in food, we’re just going to do what we did to Venezuela, what we did to Iran when we grabbed its foreign exchange reserves or what we did to Russia. And that means that other countries all of a sudden see what they thought was their flight to security, what they thought was their most secure savings, their holdings in U.S. banks, US treasury bill, all of a sudden, is holding them hostage and is a high risk. Even the Financial Times of London has been writing about this, saying, how can the United States that was getting a free ride off the dollar standard for the last 50 years, ever since 1971, when foreign countries held dollars instead of gold and basically holding dollars means you buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the US budget deficit and the balance of payments deficit. How can the United States kill the goose that’s giving it the free ride? Well, the answer is that other countries can only move into gold and there’s an alternative to the dollar because that’s something that all the countries of the world have agreed upon is an asset, not a liability. If you hold any foreign currency, that currency is a liability of a foreign country, and if you hold gold, it’s a pure asset. There’s no country that can cancel it, the Americans can’t cancel Russia’s gold supply that’s held in Russia, although it can grab Russian gold supply if it were to hold it in the New York Federal Reserve Bank or the Bank of England. So other countries are not only moving to gold, Germany is bringing its gold back from New York, the Federal Reserve, in aeroplanes back to Germany, so it’ll have its own gold just in case German politicians would do something the United States didn’t like and the United States would simply grab Germany’s gold. The United States sanctions, and it’s especially it’s grabbing on foreign reserve, has started a war that is dividing the world between the West and Eurasia.
Ross [00:18:40] A technical part to all of this because let’s face it, it is an information war and it’s also an economic war. Is it the FIRE sector that you point out – the financial, insurance and real estate sector. Is it that they want to continue the exorbitant privilege of credit creation, because ultimately, if you think about gold, there’s no counterparty risk. Gold is gold and it has been for millennia. Far from being a barbarous relic, by the way now, people are starting to realise the intrinsic value, especially as crypto falls apart. Can you just talk a little bit about this, the FIRE sector wanting the exorbitant privilege of creating credit?
Michael Hudson [00:19:19] This is really what the new world division and global fracture is all about. You’re right, Ross. If you look at after World War One, the American fight against Soviet communism, was basically a fight of industrial capitalism against the threat of socialism. But after 1991, and especially in the last two decades, America deindustrialised. So the fight is not by industrial capitalism against countries pushing their labour up. It’s a fight of neoliberalism against industrial capitalism or socialism abroad. It’s against industrial capitalism evolving into socialism. It’s a belief that, well, now that America’s be industrialised, how is it going to control the world economy? Well, it’ll control it through a financial means by being the creditor and foreign countries debt payments to America will enable it to make its military payments abroad and finance its trade deficit. But also, America’s purchase of key natural resources will give it natural resources when its purchase of takeover of real estate is going to essentially make the United States the landlord class and monopoly class, that mediaeval Europe had to hold the rest of the population in serfdom. That basically is the American strategy of neoliberalism fighting against countries that reject privatisation and financialization of their economy, and specifically financialization under the control of U.S. banks, U.S. private capital and allied satellite banks and capital from England or France or Germany. This is exactly the fight. Will banking and finance control the world economy or will other countries try to build up their own economies through labour and tangible capital formation?
Ross [00:21:27] Where do you stand on that? And I’m only asking you to predict the future, Michael. How do you think this plays out? Because the way you’ve depicted it is the rent seekers, the neoliberal rent seekers on one hand, and there are value creators on the other. And by the way, those two things don’t sit very well together, as we know. How does that play out?
Michael Hudson [00:21:51] Even though the United States is the largest debtor economy in the world, it’s a creditor vis-a-vis the global south and other countries and it uses its creditor position to take over their natural resources, real estate, oil and gas, mineral rights and public utilities and natural monopolies and that are being privatised in government infrastructure. It’s becoming basically the landlord monopoly class of the entire world. That’s the U.S. strategy, and that’s the key to why the world is fracturing globally. And in the past, the global south countries were unable to fight against this tendency in the 70s and 80s with the Vendome conference on. But now that China and Russia threatened to be a self-sufficient core in Eurasia, this is the great threat to the American dream of becoming a landlord and financier of the world.
Ross [00:22:50] How do you think this pans out?
Michael Hudson [00:22:52] Well, the question is whether the United States is if we can control the world, who wants to live in a world like that, let’s blow it up. The question is whether the United States will actually go to war. The only lever that it has left is to drop bombs and to destroy and make the world look like Ukraine. So from the U.S. point of view, Europe’s future and Eurasia’s future is the Ukraine. Look at what we will do to you if you don’t follow our policy. America has just moved al Qaeda very heavily in the Ukraine to sort of repeat in Ukraine and Europe what it was doing in Syria and Libya. And the United States says this is what we can do. What are you going to do about it? Do you really want to fight. But the rest of the world, certainly China and Russia says, Well, we’re ready to fight. So there is no telling what you. And it comes down to personalities. Putin has said, well, do we really want to live in a world without Russia? If the United States is to attack us, we might as well end the world. The United States says, Do we really want to live in a world that we can’t control? If we’re not completely in control, we feel very insecure and we’re going to blow up the world. So you have this countervailing position in a world where all the arms control has been dismantled by the United States in the last few years. The United States has withdrawn from all of the agreements that Russia and China have tried to promote. And Europe is standing by and apparently is willing to be the sacrificial lamb in all of this as Ukraine is being the sacrificial lamb. So the United States and Russia say, let’s fight to the last European. And Russia initially didn’t want that because it was hoping that Europe and Russia would have a mutual gain in trade and investment relationships. But now it doesn’t feel that way. And there may be a proxy war between the United States over the European economy, not necessarily bombing Europe, but trade sanctions, energy sanctions, the kind of disruption that Europe is going to be seeing in the next year is if it loses Russian oil and gas and minerals and also, I think Chinese exports.
Ross [00:25:25] Is there a moment where cooler heads prevail and suddenly the West and other places realise that they’re dependent from a food security point of view, from an energy security point of view that we are dependent? And is there a moment at that point that you can thaw a frozen conflict by saying, actually, if we both meet, we just take a step toward each other, actually, we can do something in a collaborative way? Now I get what you’ve said throughout the rest of the programme, and I give this a percentage possibility of about three percent, but isn’t there a strategy to say, actually, we’ve had all the grandstanding, we’ve had all the brinksmanship, we should now sit around the table and try and work something out?
Michael Hudson [00:26:03] I don’t see any cooler heads in the United States. The surprising thing is that here it’s the right wing channel, the Republican Fox Channel, is the only channel that’s taking the anti-war stand and is saying we shouldn’t be at war in Ukraine. It’s the only channel that’s talking about here is how Russia sees the world. Do we really want to take a one sided perspective or do we want to see the actual dynamics at work? So it was the Republicans and the right wing that is now primarily against the NATO war in the Ukraine. The left wing seems to be all for it, but the left wing of the Democratic Party is in office and I don’t see any cooler heads in the Democratic Party at all. And I’ve known many of these people for many decades, and they are willing to go to war for a death. There are still back in the world of World War Two when the fight was against the Nazis and anti-Semitism. They’re still living in a kind of mythology world, not in the real world. And the thought that the world can come to an end either doesn’t have a reality to them or as Herman Cain said, Well, somebody is going to survive.
Ross [00:27:29] Michael Hudson always a pleasure, a great insight. And, you know, it’s just refreshing to hear. Thank you very much for your time.
Michael Hudson [00:27:38] Well, thank you very much for having me, Ross.
On February 21 Russia announced that it would recognize the Donbas republics. A day later it did so. The ‘west’ immediately announced sanctions which in fact had been prepared in advance. On February 24 Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine.
The Russian ruble immediately took a big hit. It has since recovered a bit.
oday’s news will bring the ruble to a new heights.
Putin instructed to convert gas contracts with unfriendly countries into rublesPresident Vladimir Putin instructed to issue a directive to Gazprom to convert contracts into rubles for unfriendly countries. In his opinion, supplying Russian goods to the EU, the USA and receiving payment in dollars and euros "does not make any sense for us." Against this background, the ruble moved to growth on the Moscow Exchange.“Both the US and the EU have basically defaulted on their obligations to Russia. And now everyone in the world knows that obligations in dollars and euros may not be fulfilled. <...> It is quite obvious that in this regard, it makes no sense for us to supply our goods to both the EU and the USA and receive payment in dollars, euros and a number of other currencies. Therefore, I have decided to implement in the shortest possible time a set of measures to transfer payments for our natural gas supplied to unfriendly countries to Russian rubles,” Mr. Putin said at a meeting with the government.The President instructed the Central Bank and the government to determine within a week the order of operations for the purchase of rubles on the domestic market by buyers of Russian gas. He claims that Russia will continue to supply gas "in accordance with the volumes and according to the pricing principles concluded in the contracts."The dollar exchange rate on the Moscow Exchange fell below 100 rubles. for the first time since March 3rd. As of 15:37, the US currency is trading at 101.55 rubles. (-2 rubles). The euro exchange rate fell by 2.85 rubles to 111.65 rubles. The maximum dollar fell to 94.99 rubles, the euro - to 109.7 rubles.The European Union, the United States, Great Britain and a number of other countries have imposed sanctions against Russia in response to the military operation in Ukraine, which has been carried out since February 24 on the orders of Mr. Putin. One of the measures was the freezing of about half of the Central Bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves ($300 billion).
To pay in ruble one first has to buy rubles. With higher demand for rubles and no change in supplies the price for the Russian currency will go up. As Russia is selling hydrocarbons and other resources for billions of dollars per day the ruble is likely to soon reach record heights.
On February 28 another round of sanctions hit Russia. The part of the Russian central bank reserves that were stored in the ‘west’ were frozen. The central bank immediately pushed its interest rate from 9% to 20% to prevent a flight from the ruble. This helped to lessen the damage but made credit expensive and has hit the future growth potential in Russia.
But with a high new rubles demand from the outside of Russia the central bank will soon be able to lower its interest rate to more normal levels. Credit conditions will ease and investment in Russia, to replace products that had so far been imported, will rise again.
Today’s move to demand rubles for hydrocarbons is only on of the many steps Russia can, and likely will take, to retaliate for sanctions from the ‘west’.
All energy consumption in the U.S. and EU will now come at a premium price. This will push the EU and the U.S. into a recession. As Russia will increase the prices for exports of goods in which it has market power - gas, oil, wheat, potassium, titanium, aluminum, palladium, neon etc - the rise in inflation all around the world will become significant.
As he heads to Europe, President Biden will press U.S. allies to help impose even more aggressive sanctions on Russia.
Biden demands that Europe suicides itself while he is protecting the U.S. industry. I hope that some people in the European capitals are still able to think clear enough to recognize the racket the U.S. is trying to run here:
Together with the economic devastation that U.S. and European sanctions on Russia are causing in their own economies this will end in regime-changes in several European countries. The U.S. is of course again protecting itself from as much as it can at the cost of others.
The question remains, why did all those who for so long foretold this war do so little to stop it, and so much to hasten the disaster Russia has now set in motion?
Indeed. Why didn’t the government of Germany guarantee in writing that it would veto any additional NATO membership? It would have solved at least half of the problem. Why didn’t any other NATO government do so?
And what are they doing now? Where are their initiatives for peace?
Wake up. Otherwise this will end in disaster. Not for Russia but for the rest of Europe.
Kids and cats
Ah. This is funny. Poor kitties, but they know that the big stupid humans can’t be helped. video 124MB
NATO'S STOLTENBERG SAYS ANY USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL CHANGE NATURE OF CONFLICT, RUSSIA MUST UNDERSTAND THAT IT CAN NEVER WIN A NUCLEAR WAR.
UPDATE 5:10 PM EDT —
NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg said that NATO has plans in place to protect all allies from nuclear threat, and that there should be no doubt about its readiness.
MORE:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned of a “direct clash” between Moscow and NATO forces if peacekeepers from the military alliance are deployed to Ukraine.
Lavrov made the remarks on Wednesday while speaking to students and staff at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in response to Polish proposals for a NATO and international “peace mission.”
“Our Polish colleagues have already stated that there will be a NATO summit now, we need to send peacekeepers. I hope they understand what is at stake,” Lavrov said, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS.
STILL MORE:
Russian lawmaker Alexei Zhuravlyov on state TV threatens nuclear strike on Warsaw, Poland and NATO forces or any peacekeeping contingent that might try to enter Ukraine.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
This issue has been surfacing far too frequently of late, and there’s a very good reason for it: The West has attacked Russia economically over the Ukraine situation, and has done it so badly that Russia is in actual danger of collapsing as a country.
The West seems to think that Russia’s only option is to sit back and take the sanctions, or change its behavior with Ukraine to abide what NATO and the west wants.
The Russian’s don’t see it that way.
The West PROMISED Russia, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that they would “not move one inch eastward from the Re-unified East-West Germany” (1997). Yet NATO did precisely that in the ensuing years, to the point were NATO nations are now directly bordering Russia.
Those NATO nations have NATO troops rotating in and out of them. The West lies about it by saying they’re only there “temporarily” when in fact, as thousands leave after a few months duty, thousands more come to replace them. The result: An ever-present NATO conventional force.
Then too, there’s the missiles. US Missile Defense systems . . . now in several of the former Soviet Block nations, all aimed directly at Russia.
Ukraine was simply the latest Domino to fall in the long line of NATO expansion. The reason NATO wanted Ukraine has to do with its proximity to Moscow and to Russia’s Strategic Nuclear missile silos. If American missile defenses can be placed on Ukraine soil, they will have a flight time of only 5 minutes to Moscow, and less than ten minutes to Russia’s nuclear silos. Russia cannot defend against missiles that are so close and can travel so far and fast.
Worse, the technology of missiles has evolved and now, the very same “conventional” missiles claimed to be “defensive” can be re-fitted with OFFENSIVE NUCLEAR WARHEADS within an hour. And the re-fit can be done while the missiles remain in their launchers, so no one would know the missiles had been converted from conventional to nuclear.
These facts pose an existential threat to Russia, the very same way that Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba posed an existential threat to the USA under President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
What did Kennedy do? He told the Soviets either those missiles had to go, or . . . . the US would invade Cuba to destroy those missiles. (Gee, the exact same cause for invasion that is now seeing Russia inside Ukraine!)
Yet no one screeched to President Kennedy about Cuba being a sovereign country that could align itself however they liked. No one even questioned Kennedy’s decision that either those missiles go, or Cuba gets invaded. The reason no one questioned it is because every RATIONAL person knew Kennedy was right.
Well, guess what? Today, with the situation in Ukraine, Russian President Putin is . . . . right. He is doing in Ukraine what then-US-President Kennedy was preparing to do with Cuba. It’s no different.
NUKES
Russia knows – and has said publicly – that its conventional military forces cannot compete against the collective force of NATO. But Russia ALSO said (publicly) that they have the largest nuclear arsenal, and their hypersonic missile technology is far superior to all of NATO.
So the Russians, from the start, have made clear they fully understood what they were getting themselves into with Ukraine and the possibility of NATO involvement. Russia would be forced to use nukes. Period.
They knew this. They still know it.
NATO knows it too.
So why then, is NATO’s nitwit, Jens Stoltenberg saying today “ANY USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL CHANGE NATURE OF CONFLICT, RUSSIA MUST UNDERSTAND THAT IT CAN NEVER WIN A NUCLEAR WAR.” ?????
One possibility is that Stoltenberg knows that NATO has actual plans to get involved. The latest iteration of those plans is for NATO countries to “enter” Ukraine as a “Peace keeping force.” Russia has made it explicitly clear that if NATO tries such a move, Russia will engage NATO Troops in battle. War will be the result.
Period End.
And since it is already established that Russia cannot win against NATO conventional forces, Russia would have to “go nuclear.” Stoltenberg and the west think Russia wouldn’t dare.
Stoltenberg and the West are wrong.
Russia would.
They’ve said it publicly.
Several times.
The soyboys of the West think they can talk their way out of anything they do. This time, they cannot.
The message from Russia seems to me to be very simple: NATO cannot have Ukraine as a member. Period.
American missile defenses cannot be placed on the territory of former Soviet Block nations. Period.
If my assessment of this Russian Position is correct, then either NATO accepts that these facts are real and stops what it has been doing since 1997 by adding former Soviet Bloc Nations and withdraws NATO troops and missiles from those nations, or NATO refuses to take “no” for an answer, enters Ukraine, and it is World War 3, with nuclear weapons, VERY VERY SOON.
Those appear to me to be the facts.
That no mass-media outlets in the West are bothering to report them to the general public, will leave their citizens blissfully ignorant, until the bright, white, flashes start.
Thankfully, YOU are not being left blissfully ignorant. YOU have chosen to avail yourself of this web site and radio show and as such, YOU know what’s really going on. We are being marched directly into a (NUCLEAR) World War 3.
MAYOR OF KYIV: "WORLD WAR III HAS ALREADY BEGUN AND UKRAINE IS THE BEGINNING"
She is very, very fine. Really nice build and look at that fantastic smile! My goodness, I could just eat her up, I’ll tell you what! video 3MB
Dream griddle and alarm clock.
Wake up on the right side of bed!
Wake up on the right side of bed!
Joe Biden Speech
Interesting stuff…
“We’re at an inflection point [in] not just the world economy [but] the world that occurs every three or four generations,” the president said.“[A general told me that] 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946 and since then we’ve established a liberal world order, and it hasn’t happened in a long while.”“Now is the time when things are shifting and there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. We’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”
Here’s what Russia thinks…
Biden says US must lead ‘new world order’
The 46th president highlighted the role Washington would have among the “free” states.US President Joe Biden raised eyebrows on Monday after he claimed a “new world order” would soon be established and that it was up to the United States to lead it.
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During a speech at Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting, Biden claimed the world was at “an inflection point” which “occurs every three or four generations” and that it was up to the US to determine the outcome.
“As one of the top military people said to me in a security meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946, and since then we’ve established a liberal world order and that hadn’t happened in a long while,” the president said.
The comment raised eyebrows in both the US and around the world and resulted in ‘New World Order’ becoming one of Twitter’s trending topics on Monday.
The term ‘new world order’ has historically been used to refer to an era of great global change and has been used by politicians such as former US President George H. W. Bush, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
For decades, however, the phrase has also been the subject of a major conspiracy theory which alleges a secret, elitist plot to form an oppressive global government.
Politicians and government officials have previously received criticism for using the term – most recently Dr. Kerry Chant, the chief health officer of the Australian state of New South Wales.
“We will be looking at what contact tracing looks like in the new world order,” said Chant during a September Covid-19 press conference, prompting the term to trend on social media.
Journalists and other social media users criticized Chant for using the term, with former journalist Chris Urquhart writing that “government officials would be well advised to avoid phrases like ‘the new world order’ when they’re talking at press conferences about massive limitations on people’s freedoms.”
Some comments…
2022 03 24 19 39
A Rufus has understanding
If you are not making the world a better place, you are contributing to it’s destruction. For God’s sake, be good, and kind. If you cannot. Then be neutral. But do not make others sad or hurtful. video 8MB
While the United States goes into hyper-inflation, China is stable
“They’re flying blind, and are too little, too late,” Steve Hanke says in disbelief, an Applied Economics professor of John Hopkins University. “It’s utter rubbish and nonsense” that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sees supply chain issues as a root cause for inflation, he tells me, as we decipher the Federal Reserve’s latest official statements on the shape of the U.S. economy.“The money supply in excess causes inflation, and the Federal Reserve appears to be almost clueless,”
Hanke shares with me as we discuss last week’s conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Obviously the Chinese know this,” which is why their inflation rating is less than 1%, the former Senior Economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers articulates to me.
Inflation is always destructive.
I can confirm that while prices have been rising inside of China, it is in no way resembling the kinds of inflation that is being seen in America, Europe or the rest of the West. The reason is simple. China has been managing the flow of USD for payments for decades. THis managment is intentional and it insulates China from inflationary effects of the USD due to poor management of debt by the United States.
United States Inflation Rate Annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 7.9% in February of 2022, the highest since January of 1982, matching market expectations. Energy remained the biggest contributor (25.6% vs 27% in January), with gasoline prices surging 38% (40% in January).
What happens when your QR goes orange
Everyone must take regular swab tests, and be up to date on their injections. IF you are not, your status goes from green to orange. This video shows what happens when you try to go though a tollbooth with an orange QR code in China. video 3MB
I got this easy recipe from my daughter, who lives in France. It’s become my go-to fondue, and I make it often for our family.
—Betty A. Mangas, Toledo, Ohio
What are you waiting for?
Three Cheese Fondue.
Crib Dribbler.
Perfect for hot soups, milkshakes, and energy drinks.
Perfect for hot soups, milkshakes, and energy drinks.
Europe’s LARGEST Natural Gas Storage Facility: EMPTY
Empty.
The largest natural gas storage facility in northern Europe is now EMPTY of gas.
The facility, run by (Russia’s) GAZPROM, dropped like a rock once Europe instituted economic sanctions against Russia.
With this largest facility now empty, industry will have to shut down for lack of fuel for heating and generation of electric.
With the largest storage facility now empty, the draw-down from all the smaller facilities will speed up by orders of magnitude, emptying them with ten days to two weeks.
What will Europe do when it has no gas to generate electric or to heat buildings?
Of course, all of this trouble has to do with Europe sticking its nose into the affairs of Russia-Ukraine.
Now that Europe is demonstrably running out of natural gas, watch for things between Russia-Ukraine-NATO to get VERY VERY VERY much worse, very fast.
My savvy grandmother whipped up recipes like this homey cinnamon-scented apple pudding in the Depression years. Many of us still make them today.
—Holly Sharp, Warren, Ontario
Grandma Davidson’s Baked Apple Pudding
China is FAST
So President Biden thinks that it will be easy to compete against China. Americans think that it will be no problem, because America is exceptional, and great? This echo chamber in the Untied States that gives this illustion that China is dark, dingy, dirty and backwards, while America is so wonderful is a lie. It amazes me. Becuase this is what China is like… video 21MB
Chinese weddings
The Chinese have heart. Real, honest to goodness heart. video 22MB
China rebukes US as ‘world’s biggest human rights violator’
Beijing has promised “countermeasures” if Washington doesn’t revoke sanctions over Uyghurs
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Beijing has promised to respond in kind unless the US revokes the blacklisting of Chinese officials it said were guilty of human rights violations.
Speaking at a regular press conference on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accused the US of “smearing China, oppressing Chinese officials for no reason, violating international law… and grossly interfering in China’s domestic affairs.”
Wang said Beijing will respond with “reciprocal countermeasures” if the US does not immediately revoke its sanctions.
The statement came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the Chinese government of committing “genocide and crimes against humanity” against the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority living predominately in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Region. He added that Washington has blacklisted Chinese officials who it said were guilty of human rights violations.
Wang responded in kind, calling the US “the biggest human rights violator in the world,” whose historical treatment of Native Americans “constitutes de facto genocide.” He also criticized Washington for the “long-lasting systemic racial discrimination” of black Americans.
Multiple global human rights groups have long accused China of oppressing the Uyghurs and forcing them to work in labor camps. Beijing has denied the allegations, insisting that the Uyghurs are studying in vocational education and training centers as part of state integration and deradicalization programs.
My friends and I have been getting together for "ladies lunches" for years. These vol-au-vents are the perfect no-fuss fancy food; they look complicated, but are actually simple and fun to make. Whenever I think of good friends and good company, I think of these savory pastries.
—Shauna Havey, Roy, Utah
Creamy Chicken Vol-au-Vent.
China can build
OMG! It’s insane how fast and efficiently that China can build things. You all just wait and see what happens when China and Russia build their Moon and Mars cities. video 23MB
A 737 crashed in China.
A Boeing 737 carrying 132 people crashed early Monday in China. Although Boeing’s 737 has faced extraordinarily high-profile safety concerns over the past three years, the plane that crashed Monday was a different version of the aircraft than the embattled 737 Max that shook Boeing to its core.
The cause of Monday’s crash has yet to be determined. The plane had been in service since 2015. The flight, operated by China Eastern Airlines, was flying from the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming to Guangzhou when it crashed.
.
It’s crash profile; being a full-throttle nose-dive directly to the ground is highly unusual.
.
Evidence suggests any of the following;
.
Intentional Pilot (and co-pilot) action to destroy the plane.
Software override of the pilot commands.
Remote operation of the software to override the pilot.
The manufacturer of the aircraft has had problems with the software. Other crashes of similiar planes has been the result of software overrides of the pilot.
We do not know (as of yet) the real cause for this crash. But one thing seems clear, somehow the plane overrode the directions of the pilot. It put the plane in a nose dive straight towards the ground and set the engines on full-throttle, full speed, as it plunged towards the ground.
Why it did so, is unknown.
Yet, the United States government black operations regarding taking control of the software should NOT be ruled out.
This reminds me of HAL in the 1969 movie; “2001; A Space odyssey”.
2001 A Space odyssey
So, Boeing makes aircraft that can override the pilot. Brilliant! Why do you need pilots? How about having full robotic planes?
Maybe it’s because no one will fly in them.
…
Isn’t technology wonderful. Remember when fully automatic self-driving cars were crashing left and right? Yeah, I do. Well, somehow Boeing things that this would be a good thing to implement in passenger planes. Who would doubt it?
Anyways, I have to ask the moronic question of the day…
"Well, with fully robotic planes, then why still have pilots, when the airplane can override the pilot?"
Well, perhaps its because you keep the illusion of human control, when the truth is that the software is in full control…
… as well as the “authorized” owner of that software who can control the plane and tell it to do whatever he/it wants. Like the United States. Hum?
Let’s talk about HAL. Specifically what it did.
HAL
HAL
From the 1969 movie…
HAL is a computer system. And it is built into the Discovery One spacecraft, and is in charge of maintaining all mechanical and life support systems on board.
HAL also has several “eyes” placed periodically around the spacecraft.
About three weeks into the flight, Hal picks up a fault in the AE-35 unit, the system responsible for keeping the satellite dish antenna aligned with the Earth, and states that it will go one-hundred percent failure within 72 hours.
He suggests that they go EVA and replace the faulty unit with a new one.
Dr. David Bowman goes out and retrieves the unit. But when he brings it back and runs it through diagnostics, they can find no problem with the AE-35.
They radio Mission Control about the problem, and Mission Control says that Hal is in error predicting the fault.
HAL
This is a bit of a surprise, as the 9000 series has a perfect operational record.
Noting that this kind of thing has always been because of human error when it has occurred before, Hal suggests that they go out and “replace the malfunctioning unit and allow it to fail.
Then it should be a simple matter to track down the problem.”
But by this time, both Dr. Frank Poole and Bowman are becoming suspicious of Hal’s behaviour. They climb into one of the EVA pods, out of earshot of Hal. Poole states that he has “a bad feeling about him”. Bowman and Poole suggest disconnecting Hal if he is wrong about predicting the fault.
Bowman and Poole suggest disconnecting Hal if he is wrong about predicting the fault.
Unbeknownst to them, Hal read their lips through the window of the spacepod.
Translating their lip motions, Hal learns of their plans for his disconnection; according to Clarke, “he (will) be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness. To Hal, this (is) the equivalent of death. For he (has) never slept, and therefore he (does) not know that one (can) wake again.”
Poole goes out to replace the supposedly malfunctioning AE-35 unit.
As he drifts through space to the satellite dish, Hal takes control of the pod and rams it into Poole, disconnecting his oxygen hose and venting the air in his suit, killing him.
Bowman, obviously distraught by the loss of his friend, goes out to retrieve Poole’s body.
However, while Bowman is out on his excursion, Hal shuts off the life support systems on the three astronauts in hibernation, which kills them all.
Bowman in a pod.
After Bowman returns to the Discovery I, Hal denies him reentry into the pod bay. So Bowman has to maneuver the pod over to the emergency airlock. Unfortunately, in his haste to retrieve his friend, Bowman had not bothered to don the helmet of his life-support suit because he had not believed he would need it, making it very difficult to enter the emergency airlock, as he would have to travel through the vacuum of space in order to do so.
This, however, does not stop Bowman.
Risking the hazards of explosive decompression, he eventually gets inside, grabs a space helmet, and goes to Hal’s logic memory center to erase his memory.
There he pulls out the memory tablets that control Hal’s higher functions.
Disconnecting HAL.
As his memory degrades, Hal begins to give off information programmed very early in his life, such as the date he became operational. When all his logic is gone, he begins to sing the song “Daisy Bell.”
His final act of consciousness is to play a briefing that Dr. Heywood R. Floyd pre-recorded about the Tycho Monolith before their departure, and the real purpose of the Discovery One’s mission. As well that the insane idea that the owner / designers of HAL programmed it to lie.
Now…
Please consider that any systems; any devices; any mechanisms designed by man should NEVER have the capability to override human input.
This is well descried by the move, with the HAL computer system, and it seriously seems to be the case with all these Boeing aircraft crashes.
I can POSITIVELY tell you that one singular event resulting is one singular death would ABSOLUTELY stop the adoption of that system in other industires. It doesn’t matter what industry it is. Ceiling fans. Clothes irons. Motorcycles. Chainsaws. Rifles. One fatality, and the system is gone and will NEVER be revisited.
But somehow these systems in airplanes and automobiles are exceptions. At least in American products.
One cannot help thinking, especially if you ARE an American, that the United States is involved and WANTS the ability of the software to override the driver / pilot in the vehicle.
If you accept that notion…
…then many of the software related “accidents” of planes and automobiles with these systems are used as mechanisms of control by the United States “leadership”.
…
Remember boys and girls…
… REAL secrets are secret.
Every evidence is that this is exactly what is happening. While there might be some debate on the nuiances of implementation, the technologies and the systems involved, one thing is unmistakable…
The seriously ODD behaviors of the United States government is best explained by this exact senario.
…
Think about it.
Break.
Animal death and spirits visiting
All this talk about plunging planes, nuclear weapons, bio-weapons and everything all initiated by the Untied States government is disturbing to me. They obviously have never experienced sorry and grief.
Here are some really great examples of how much fun you can have with your cat friends. video 100MB
Amazing Cats
Cats areally are amazing. Just some great cat adventures. They are truly very special creatures. video 16MB
Happy times
Treasure the times that you have. Make them happy and share them with your friends. Cat love video 18MB
We all need each other now
Now, more than any other time in our lives, we need others. Make friends. SHare your time. Appreciate what you have. Make your life a good one. Be a Rufus. Show friendship. Show love. Show care. video 90MB
Be the Rufus
Take part in society. Stop being a spectator, and stop thinking that everything is someone else’s problem. The future depends on YOU. Take an active role in it. In every way, every day. Be the best you can be and help others. make the world a better place to live in. I believe in your. video 11MB
Make those around you smile
You will bring happiness to your environment. Smile. Say good things. Even if they are lies. Make your environment better. It’s quantum physics 101. video 120MB
Conclusions
I cannot say that one thing or the other is happening, and the causes and reasons for them. Later, I will ask the Domain Commander for some insight. However, right now, I know nothing.
Sure there might be all sorts of reasons for the observed behaviors, the strange actions by the USA and the West, and all the craziness. There’s really no way to really know the actual causes. So don’t worry about it. And believe me, as much as I want to know, the fact is, I don’t NEED to know.
I don’t know anything about chem-trails, nano-bots, or anything like that. I do know that everyone in the United States and the West are acting really, really weird. It’s like they are all having some kind of mass insanity.
After 30 years of glue sniffing euphoria, the US is now crashing.
And when it realizes it is cutting off its limbs to keep its jaundiced organs alive, it will have to make major, and costly, changes in living arrangements.
Mass transit in lieu of suburban sprawl. No more bloated military. A return to local industry and farming. Far more labor intensive cooperatives that actually do things and make stuff. Regional cultural and quasi-sufficiency. The end to industrial entertainment and woke academia. A resurgence of a proletariat based religion of hard work and respect. A return to classical literature and art.
Oh, how to pay for it all on NO budget?
America is in shambles, but the leadership doesn’t realize it yet. It’s like a family living off maxed-out credit, the family is stunned then the credit cards no longer work at the register.
That’s where the USA, and the EU are at right now.
Oh, they still have their shopping list, and two shopping carts filled with expensive steaks, groceries and all sorts of pricy items. But the cashier is there looking impatient, stamping her foot, and ready to call her manager. Oh, you have to pay in cash. She says.
Soon, very soon, the situation will accelerate to something bad.
It’s just really, really fucked up.
FUTURE
Evidence strongly suggests that the remote viewing of the 2025 by the Deagal Report is correct. It also validates the theory of Generational Turnings and the rise and fall of nations.
You will see many more strange things occur in the future.
We are not anywhere near the peak inflection point. But it is moving forward and I hope to be out of it’s way. I hope you all are as well.
BASIC PREP
Hyper-inflation is starting to hit the West. Be prudent.
Make sure that you have a garden, and a larder with lots of basics. Rice. Flour. Canned goods. Powdered milk.
Remember that one Burger King extra value meal is the same price as a massive bag of rice. Remember that one Starbucks coffee is the same prices as a massive bag of flour; and make sure that you have the tools to strain out the flour.
Learn to fish.
Own a bicycle, and use it. If you use it to ride to work one day a week, you will cut your commute expenses by 20%.
Have a solar panel to charge your phone with.
ADVANCED PREP
Have a good supply of your medicines, and lots of antibiodics. Set up a medical kit. Tell your doctor that you are equipping a sailboat for a long sea cruse, and give him a list of medicines for the first aid box. Get the prescriptions and fill it out.
It’s never too late to start. Do not plan on trying to go to the woods and forests. Those places will be crowded with the unprepaired. Your best solution is to “bug out in place”. Be mobile within your well-established community.
If you think that you can survive being alone, I’ve got news for you; that’s a fiction. Survivors are those that band together into groups. There’s strength in community. Read your history.
FUNDAMENTALS
For God’s sakes, turn off that bullshit “news”. It’s all screeching lies.
Have a skill, asset, ability, or feature that you can provide to your community that is beneficial to the community.
If you don’t have one. Get one. Learn, make, create or establish. Volunteer. Network locally.
Handiman skills.
Welding, plumbing, machining, autorepair.
Medical.
Farming, fishing, harvesting, growing.
It doesn’t mean that you will need to endure a post-nuclear fiasco. But in whatever changes that might hit your own individual communities, you will have the skills, networking and abilites to make you locally valuable.
Don’t believe me?
Ask PL. He’s doing this, and is very busy. Maybe too busy for MM here, but it’s the future. Participate. Make a difference. Smile. Socialize. stick to the fundamental basics.
Don’t get caught up in what you cannot change. It’s stressful, don’t you know.
Don’t get all wrapped up in the causes or the reasons, or the people behind the curtains. They won’t be revealed until the history books are written.
Be kind, calm and adaptable. Do your verbal affirmations. Be the Rufus. I beleive in you all.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 9.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants.
Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
This is part of the Q&A (on-going) effort where questions are provided to me, and then I present them, and then record and interpret the responses.
[9.1] Question -Shadows from peripheral vision
A new question:
This started a couple of years ago. When alone, say sitting in a car in a quiet, deserted area at night (using wifi, etc.), I will see out of the corner of my eye or reflected in a mirror what looks like a person approaching the car. When I look directly, no one is there and no one is around. This has become more noticeable as time has gone on, and now it’s a regular occurrence, once or twice a week. It’s a bit unnerving and gives me a sense of foreboding (bad). I’m getting older, but I don’t think I’m losing it…yet.
Seeing these same things might be happening to others, but they are probably afraid to admit it.
Is this my imagination, something to do with the Domain, or something else entirely, such as something trying to communicate something? If it’s not my imagination, then what is going on, and is it good or bad?
The reality universe is not as it appears. There are multiple layers of realities that all are superimposed upon each other. Further, these realities are a function of consciousness navigation. An aware consciousness, or one that is in possession [garbled, not clear, cannot make out] can also see glimpses of other realities that are superimposed.
Often there is also a very important aspect to the reality that MM has not covered, but we will initiate that understanding here. There is a reality overlay that lies on top over the reality with various "controllers" that the mantids (sic) utilize to configure the reality upon and with. This involves many technologies that human inmates are familiar with. Including books, papers, radio, and all the rest. Under certain circumstances, the inmate can be made aware of what is going on in this parallel environment, and can even travel to it (with pass keys) through the non-physical environments.
To the unsecure, it might appear strange. SD has experienced this. Headphones, ear phones and other audio systems can latch on to feeds (not really a proper term) and translate the input to what is actually happening. While others such as the questioner can see events and "shadows". A glimpse here or there.
This might manifest like a beautiful woman walking in your living room carrying something. When you turn your back for a moment, a person is in your kitchen. You might notice someone in the back seat of your car.
These overlays can sometimes be caught on film. The internet is rife with these images of spirits and ghosts and all the rest of strange items captured on film, but they are, but momentary snapshots of a control overlay upon the reality universe.
This control overlay is part of the non-physical reality, but not exact to it exactly. As such, there are many entities that enter this overlay and exist there, much to the chagrin of the current monitoring inhabitants.
MM is constantly under observation through this overlay. Not by The Domain, but by handlers associated with the secondary systems employed as part of the MAJestic operational and retirement protocol. Because of that, he has listened in (understanding as sound, but not physically hearing) communication and discussions on his actions during retirement and prison. Many others, most notably members of the Lost Battalion, are also under this control venue.
[9.2] Question – Sense of humor
Does the members of the Domain have a sense of humor? Do they play practical jokes, tell funny stories? Perform tricks and jokes on their friends?
[Immediately after asking this question, I was tickled relentlessly. It was weird to feel tickled, but not feel any fingers on my physical body. It was actually a kind of crazy, far-out feeling. Not bad. I even chuckled. -MM]
[9.3] Question – How far back does my involvement go?
MM question.
No, you are not a member of the lost battalion. You are Domain, simply (as you recognize) the implantation of the EBP. However, your question regards the skepticism of your past involvement. As for you in the skin suit, you have no recollections and the information from the past life regression reading seems to indicate other physical reincarnation involvements. All of this confuses the questioner.
You ask, how can you be Mades Escpaleon, and some other humans skin suit when you fell and believe that you are Domain? Obviously the EBP has had an influence in your life, and of course for over forty years you have been part of us though this methodology and system.
As we have described, souls are like Lego bricks. You can take parts and move them around to fit various purposes. You are one such pile of Lego bricks. You came to us and were assembled in the Heaven of the Prison Complex from elements that date back hundreds of thousands of years. You were not from somewhere else. You were pristine. You were assembled. Maybe like Frankenstein. You are a construct.
That does not make you evil or bad like in the fictional story, but it makes you unique. You were built out of components, assigned a specific task. Implanted with an EBP and now performing your duties. You are now part of us. You are Domain.
[9.4] Question – No, it does not fit.
How can I be a Frankenstein-style construct when I was Mades Escapleon?
You are constructed from the components; the soul components of what was once Mades Escapleon. Particularly bad individuals, or soul constructs that are particularly bad or incorrigible are disassembled by the Mantid Primes, broken down into base components, and then reconstituted into usable elements. These elements are then used in the construction of new entities. That is your history.
You were constructed from what once was Mades Escapleon, set forth and began your cycles of life and death through cycling reincarnation, and are thus a rather pure soul. We (elements of The Domain) agents then took you and made agreements with you to set up your experience in this lifetime to be Domain.
Life is an erector set, eh?
[9.5] Question – Soul as lego bricks.
I can understand how souls are constructed as components, and how these components resemble Lego bricks. But where I am confused is in the various types of physical and non-physical realities, and how does the Lego block visualization work?
In other words, are their different “Lego bricks” for the physical body? An entirely different set for the Asral body? The casual body? And so on and so forth? How does it work?
Physical and non-physical bodies are not separate entities. They are all part of each other. It is similiar to that of a water-line that separates the top of an iceberg from the submerged part. In the case of human inmates, you can only sense the physical portion of your identity withint he reality universe. It's a matter of sensing. Not a matter of construction.
This iceberg is made up of all sorts of componentry. Some are hard and densely packed snow. Others are pure ice, and still others are water that constantly ebbs and flows as a result of temperature changes and solar influences.
This is the same with the inmate skin suit. Thse various components can be likened to as Lego bricks. They come in different shapes and sizes. They fit together differently and they can be rearranged at well to fit together in new and unusual ways to meet the needs of the IS-BE so involved.
Consciousness require set configurations. If you can imagine Lego blocks, then you might believe that consciousness would need five red color Lego blocks, all connected to a definite arrangment of yellows, blue and green Legos. They all would form a series of shapes that a master of "Lego Blocks" would understand.
Other Legos may be added, or changed, built around, or attached directly or near by this consciousness Lego-construction. That does not matter. As the entity would still have a consciousness, though it might end up with different forms, shapes, the ability to think in certain ways and all the rest.
You need to stop thinking in terms of various spiritual bodies; astral, casual, mental, etc. That is a human technique that can help the mind classify certain understandings regarding exploration of self techniques, but that is not helpful in your case.
You must recognize that your inmate skin-suit is a vast construction of elements; Lego brick like structures. Much of it you cannot see, sense or understand. You can only see the part that lies above the "waterline". Not which lies below.
When The Domain altered your (and the bodies of the volunteers) we rearranged certain "Legos", we repalaced some, swapped others out, and removed yet others. This was, as you well know, to facilitate our mutual needs as we are all working on the same identical goals, and are on a vector path of similiarity.
There is but one set of "Lego Blocks". Your ability to sense the individual "blocks" is a function of where the "water line" is relative to your iceberg.
[9.6] Question – Death of Larry Spencer
Here is a confirmation that Lawrence R Spencer the editor of Alien Interview has left his earthy body. I have attached lrs’s obituary FYI. I only found out about it this morning.
LRS Obiturary 19 Jan 2022
Perhaps you could word a question to the commander about his passing if you feel it is appropriate.
It would be great to know that he has been rescued and with the def/domain as per his wishes.
lrs passed on 19 jan 2022, he posted his last post which he said would be his last on his personal Facebook account on 13 jan 2022, so he was aware he was soon leaving.
Cheers and hope my other question about visits from ‘def personnel’ is still in the pipe.
[When the answers arrived, I could not beleive them, as I was uncomfortable with them. So I asked a second time. Same answers. I then waited, and did something else, and asked a third time. The results were consistant. -MM]
Upon Lawrence Spencer's death we followed the standard death sequence and transitioned to the non-physical realms smoothly and effortlessly. He did not stay near his physical body, but immediately transitioned towards loved ones from previous incarnations that he was attracted to. It was a joyous time, and they led him into the "tunnel of light" where he moved away from the reality universe into the Heaven pocket universe.
He did not seek out The Domain, think of any Domain members, nor called out to us in any way shape or form. As is our standard protocol, we allowed the entity to progress as they desire. His greatest desire was a reunion with loved ones, and at that he was met and welcomed.
If any entity transpires and wishes for help or assistance from The Domain, they must physically call out to us, think and image us and request our assistance. We will not do anything, we will stand down, unless specifically engaged.
On Saturday evening, shortly after Trump concluded a “Save America” rally in Florence, South Carolina, he told his “inner circle” that the United States would soon experience a “very big reckoning” similar to what is occurring in Ukraine.
Trump said it was almost time for the reckoning, a time the nation will be made aware of what’s really going on and the actions he has taken to once and for all wage war against the Deep State cabal, both in the U.S. and abroad.
While it may seem hard to believe, he’s been working alongside Putin and Xi Jinping to rid the world of not only the bioweapon labs but the infestation of child pedo rings that have literally swamped the world.
China says that the U.S. has set up biolabs in Taiwan, too, and that’s one reason they’ve shown interest in retaking it,” our source said.
…
I must ask the Commander what is the Commander thoughts on this if any?
Former President Trump is a wise man. He is not appreciated as such due to his unique and bellicose behavior. He has made many mistakes, and is wrong on many issues, but he is first and foremost sincere. Any entity reading this must be aware of that fact.
His interpetation concerning Geo-political events is correct. As harsh and difficult it is to understand, he has an awareness on these matters, honed though decades of learning and experience.
The readers must realize that having ability differs from using your abilities. This entity is conflicted and is in a difficult situation that makes the realization of his intentions impossible, or at the very best, difficult to interpet.
End. Silence.
[9.8] Question – Invisibility
There is talk that as far back as world war II (1940s) there were operatives using a “Cloak of Invisibility” which can be turned on and off at will.
Also, don’t know how open you are to this but there are overlapping dimensions here on earth.
Many of us can see, either clearly or blurry, into them.
The first sign that that ability is developing is that you see movement in your peripheral vision. Well developed peripheral vision sees the form moving…it isn’t always a person….and until this kind of vision enhancement develops, turning to look at it full on, usually results in the form disappearing.
…
Question; Does the Domain have any casual insight that we can provide to the questioner to help understand what is going on?
This technology exists and is available upon the various human inmates within the Prison Complex. MM (myself) has an article regarding this. This technology or understandings come from various sources. Some of it is indeed reverse engineered, while others are derived organically from creative and curious inmates.
This technology is used by extraterrestials that wish to walk amoung humans on various projects and efforts. It is also available to certain clandestine government entities within the various national organizations are vying for elements of supremecy in the Geo-political arena.
Depending on the system in use, the human inmate can (on occasion) sense the user (of the technology) presense. This might result in visual distortions, burred vision, or just a "feeling" that someone or something is in the room.
[9.9a] Question – DEF crew
I have had what I did consider interaction with DEF crew who visited me more than once, but you mention in MM’s dialogue that there are no other communication channels open, so have I been compromised by OE infiltrators?
Difficult to say. More information is required. Please elaborate on the senarios and incidents regarding the events.
Please [1] go into detail in your [2] physical, and [3] emotional reactions at the time, and any [4] attributes that can help shed a light on the incidents of concern.
We can backtrack from the incident as targeted by memory generation, then investigate what actually happened based on your perceptions. There is a wide host of things that could be going on regarding your thoughts and perceptions regarding this.
[9.9b] Question – Firewalling Inmate skin-suit
If I have been compromised, are there any suggestions as to how to plug the hole/s and firewall them?
The inmate skin suit is designed as a vehicle of control. It has missing defense mechanisms, holes that allow intentional and undesirable access, corruption of "normal" thought processes, and a host of other distortions that make is an undesirable vehicle.
Volunteers to The Domain recieve a tune up / patch up / operation / surgical procedure on their non-physical bodies that help close some of the entry ways for other entities to toy with / get involved / influence / alter a given specific inmate.
Inmates who do not wish to join the Domain can perform DIY activities that will greatly alter the influences of other entites on their actions, beings, emotions and thoughts. This involves consciousness centering and purification (Hemisync -MM), eating and sleeping well, exercising, and control / isolation from the massive psyops efforts out of all electronic media. Increasing oxygination of cells is an imporant attribute that will greatly aid the questioner in regards to control.
[9.10a] Question – Chinese military action
Given the ludicrous decision by the Australian government to give China the middle finger vis-a-vis AUSUK, how serious should we take the threat of Chinese military action (nuclear or otherwise) against Australia in the next 5 years?
The Chinese are a peaceful race. They will not initiate any overt kenetic military action preemptively unless it fits within and regarding a direct and pending military threat vector.
At this time, the threat vector is established as originating from the United States and is planned for implemenation before the end of 2025.This is subject to change, as the Geo-political events regarding Russia, NATO, Ukraine is highly volatile.
A psyops blanket has been placed upone China and the Pacific to forestall any Chinese actions at this time, but that is of no consequence, as the Chinese do not react to outside influences. Instead they establish long duration goals and follow a well thought out and methodical achievement path with action-items, and goal-clusters.
China will, however, initiate a major operation if one of their RED LINES is violated, and there is talk (in public) about doing so.
If a RED LINE is breached, China will induce a full-scale war, and will manage the entire Pacific. There will not be a "build up" or a reactionary process. It will be sudden, swift, and colossal.
All threat vectors in Japan, Korea, and Australia will be eliminated. As well, as achieving it's own policy positions and movements.
[9.10b] Question – Australia and World War 3
I live in Queensland – are there parts of Australia more vulnerable than others – the west coast has only one major city (Perth) and is far from the other major urban centres – theoretically is it safer for Aussies and their families to migrate there?
Were China to react to wide violation of it's RED LINES, the resultng trigger response will be colossal and massive in implementation. China has identifed the actual source of the Threat Vector as the United States. This point of view will not vaporize. The Untied States is considered as a volitile trading partner that will, and can, make very bad decisions.
China will seize Taiwan in a manner that is intended to prevent third-parties from involvement.
Obviously, the issue is how the global agressor is going to be able to cross those RED LINES and yet stay immune from retaliation. The real risk, of course, if these third parties get involved like they are with the Ukraine issue. If that does occur, then the action vectors are clear and precision manifesting.
The Domain are working to prevent this senario.
The future is not clear, with many variables present. A large number of the potential futures does include a massive and comple destructive war. The aspects involving China is clear and straight-forward.
China will do what it can to avoid war. However if third parties are involved, then China will implement full-range war on a massive scale. This is 0-60 in a nano-second. This is because the enemy expections are for a long drawn-out pacific war on the order of decades. The best strategy for China is to alter the "playbook".
Local regional targets will be destoyed by conventional munitions. Targets of military strategic targets at / in partner nations will be destoyed by medium size tactical nuclear warheads.
As such, China will firstly secure the South Pacific Sea. This will include all United States bases in the region. This includes the QUAD, and all majority military operations in Australia.
Perth will be hit. Probably with cluster nuclear weapons all targeting the American, and British facilities there.
All United States carrier flotillas will be sunk.
All military bases that are suspected of housing nuclear weapons of systems will be destroyed. Additionally, all American facilities thoughout the Pacific will be destroyed, or neutralized, depending on the situation.
Guam, Diego Garcia, Hawaii, and ports in the American cities of Los Angles, San Francisco, San Diego will all be destroyed.
This action of hitting the American mainland will immediate start a domino cascade of actions, and this will require China, and it's allies to destroy as many American cities as possible. This is the fearful worst case senario. It is something that we do not want to occur.
Moreover, The Domain is working to prevent this. Our success in this matter is not able to be measured at this time.
[9.11a] Question – Domain membership telepathy
Mathilda MacElroy in Alien Interview was able to communicate telepathetically with Airl because they were both members of The Domain. Does that mean that all members of The Domain, whether or not they are in a skin-suit are also able to communicate telepathetically?
To communicate telepathically within The Domain we have to have a "secure channel". This is a reciever "Lego Block", and a transmitter "Lego Block". In the case of MM, we installed a EBP within his physical and non-physical bodies. This was a transmitter / reciever "Lego Block".
Human inmate skinsuits do not have these "Lego Blocks". However, all members of The Domain are more than their physical and non-physical bodies. They have interdimensional components. The magnitude of these components, as well as abilities depend on their occupation and class within The Domain society.
All members of The Domain have these interdimensional "Lego blocks". They are not able to be removed by any action or activity within a given universe. Thus, these elemets provide members of The Domain with a skill set of abilities that transends any universe that they are part of.
In the case of Mathilda MacElroy we were able to locate her, and installed an EBP for communication with her.
Questioner is able to comm with us. But will do so not using an EBP. Comm must be though the trans-universe "Lego blocks". Being Domain, the questioner can image us, and must work towards placing a call. We will respond back when a connection is made. Questioner will doubt it is actually happening.
When the questioner is doubting the responses, then it is a validation that the comm line is actually open.
The system will appear to an outside force (Mantid Primes) to be "magic", but that is not the case at all. The Domian via our trans-universe "Lego Blocks" can tunnel out through the universe for comm purposes. The problem is the lack of knowledge and skills in how to do so.
Questioner knows what to do.
End comm.
I am very curious about Mathilda MacElroy. It is my understanding that she just randomly was at the base at the time of the Roswell crash, and taht she was the only one that was able to communicate. So when did the EBP get installed?
Before the crash? Mind blown.
After the crash, and during the period of interrogation when she was in lock-down at the base.
[9.11b] Question – Preventative skinsuits?
Can modifications, snares or alterations to the inmate skin-suits alter, intercept, scramble or prevent such communication?
Inmate skin-suits are specifically designed to prevent instainous telepathic communication. It is their functional design. And purpose.
Questioner need not be concerned. Questioner can comm with us, and though this methodology establish a [image of a bull-rope] line from which The Domain / we [image of tugging on the rope] pull questioner back home.
[9.11c] Question – How shall the questioner initiate comm?
Just for clarification, how should the questioner “image making the call”? This is difficult as the questioner does not want to use “little grey men” type-1 steriotypical skin-suit imagry to make the communication.
There are three techniques for an IS-BE to communicate with The Domain. They are;
[1] Be a member of The Domain and use trans-universe "Lego Blocks".
[2] EBP
[3] Reconfigure a skin-suit "Lego Blocks" to generate ESP comm ability.
[1] Domain Member using trans-universe "Lego Blocks"
All members of the Domain can communicate using this method. They can do so while in completely different universes. That is the case with our agents who volunteered in the earth "Heaven" micro-universe.
For a Domain member to comm using this technique they have to use their memories / feelings / sense of oneness with the Domain to send a message.
They must appear at a emotional level to charge though the barriers and force a comm. They must connect with their fellow patriots, fellow comrades. Not through some kind of photographic image, facsimile, or representation. It must be a connect driven by a feeling of being part of our big Domain family.
They will make a connection depending on various issues (not beneficial to get into right now -MM). Once a connection is open, the member is to communicate and not allow their mind to translate. Comm is through feelings, and thought generation. Inmate is to listen to urges, feelings, the kinds of thoughts that are generated, and instanteous autonomous body movements. Not through words. Inmate is not to expect comm though speech, words or discussion.
[2] EBP technique
The EBP method requires a physical probe and system to be implemented into the physical skin-suit of the inmate. Even then, the conditions must be ripe for both the implanted inmate, and the Domain officer to communicate. MM was unsccessful in communicating using two-way communication for many decades until a pathway was forged.
[3] ESP technique
If the consciousness wishes to comm with The Domain, but are not confident that they actually are Domain, then the best methodology is though technique [3] above. The consciousness would work on ESP skill enhancement, specifically telepathy. Practice and concentration, in itself would actually rearrange the "Lego blocks" into forms that would provide comm ability.
ESP comm ability is a learned process. Anyone within a skin-suit can cultivate this skill; this ability. Over time, the inmate will develop an ability that it can use to communicate with others. There are many such programs in the earth physical sphere already. The inmate need only apply themself and practice.
Then, once the inmate has reached a point where they can initate comm with The Domain, they can open up a communication channel.
The problem is that this technique requires a transmitter and a reciever. The inmate must have a preset message that must be sent, and a specific target to send it to. Then they have to be open and receptive for a response from that target.
[9.12] Question – Fake alien invasion plan
I’m not sure if this fits within the topics, so if not MM please feel free to omit it. But given the way the Ukraine thing is playing out and once the MSM and the American govt is teaching everyone to “fear those dirty Russian Commies”, one cannot help but feel that Werner von Braun’s predictions seem to be unfolding right on schedule.
Of course, he suggested after the Commy card is played (and the situation seems to be the Ace of all Commy threat cards), there will be a false flag alien invasion, courtesy of the US govt.
Question, does the Domain know of any such fake alien invasion plan in the works, or is this a load of BS? If not, then when can we expect to see it come about?
In the 1980s there were discussions in using the idea of extraterrestrials invading the earth as a venue to gather nations together towards a common good. This idea and concept continued under discussion at various levels, but eventually it was discarded and abandoned. There were many reasons for this decision.
Primairly, the "leadership" in charge of the major global powers no longer had a desire to unify the world. Instead, they wanted a world fractured into a class system of owners and servants / slaves. Under this plan, the idea was to have a united West living and existing as feudal rulers, while the rest of the world would serve and service them.
The climax of such a plan is just now reaching fruituation.In a short period of time, a tripping point will be reached and a global caste system run by STS entites, serviced by STA entites will manifest in mankind. STO entites would disappear.
The Domain is engaged in preventing this reality from manifesting. Yet, the future is not set in stone and not easy to plan for. Anything can happen.
[9.13] Question – Names used by the Domain
In Alien Interview, you provided a name that the transcriber used to refer to you as. What kinds of names does the Doamin use in day to day discourse, and do you have a list of names for the members of the Lost Battalion?
{Initially when I tried asking this question I got a bunch of weird results. A lot of noise and jibberish. It sounded like, oh I don't know. Swishing. Then the thought came to me that the Domain membership does not have the need for names like humans do. They simply think of a fellow Domain member and they are connected automatically. -MM]
The strong impression that I have is the “name” provided tot he transcriber in Alien Interview was for personal use and has no bearing or value outside of it. It’s sort of like a “burner phone”.
It is clear to me that the Domain has no need for names, labels or other identifiers when dealing with other IS-BE entities.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Domain Index” over here…
The State Department is trying to get us into a war and the Pentagon is trying to keep us out.
- Ron Paul
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War sucks. I’m not going to be nice about it. It honestly, and really sucks. People get hurt and die. Innocents are maimed. Bad things happen. The wealthy that create the conditions for war flee, and the poor that work for them are sacrificed on the alter of ideology. What ever it might be.
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There is nothing valiant about war.
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Wars are fought by young men precisely because they don’t know any better. They cannot imagine themselves spending the rest of their lives in a retirement home without arms or legs. Or having their homes blown to bits and pieces.
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And most especially for Americans. As well as for Candians, Australians and Britions. They cannot imagine it’s THEIR famies dying, and their neighborhoods being blown to smithereens and destroyed. Safe and isolated. That’s the way it’s always been.
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Right?
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And ideology… well, that’s the medium on how you can control others.
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In the United States, the ideology is democracy. In Syria the ideology is in religion. In the Ukraine, the ideology is pure Nazism. Ideology gets people killed. Or worse. Don’t you know.
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I’m really not a fan of ideologs. I know that from time to time I have moved about the political spectrum, but when you get my age, you just no longer can zip back from one point of view to the other. It makes you dizzy.
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So you just are happy with simple things.
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Simple things, like a beloved cat. A pet dog that is happy as can be to see you. A fine book, and a glass of nice tasty wine. A delicious steak, hamburger, or tasty thick soup. A roaring fire on a cold snowy night. A warm dry bedroom while it pours rain outside…
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Simple things.
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Simple things.
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You know, my social media feeds are all clogged up with the mindless hordes that reguritates the NSA talking points. You don’t have to get too involved in the termonology. It’s all the same and predictable.
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The callouts are the same “stooge for Putin”, “Russia is evil”, “crushing democracy in Ukraine”. Sigh.
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You can easily replace the word “Russia” with “5G radiation”, and the meaning would be the same.
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Replace it with “China”, and the meaning would be the same.
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It could be “vaxx”, or “Swine Flue”, or “Y2K” it’s all the same.
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5G and Coronavirus.
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If you do not agree with the United States official narrative, you are a traitor!
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That’s exactly how all this works. Whatever the government says, must must agree with it. When the Trump administration was at war with China over technology, it was all about “evil Huawei”, and “arrest the evil CEO”, and “5G radiation destroys brain cells”.
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I try to tell them that they are victims of Vault 7. But they are oblivious. Vault 7 is what is going on. Vault 7. If you don’t know what this is, then you are in a truly sad state indeed.
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It’s not just controling your opinions. These algorithms control your thoughts.
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As such they alter your body chemistry.
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Once altered, you will NEED to take medicine to maintain your sanity, and your health. Your body chemistry changes. You start experiencing problems. You get anxiety. You suffer aches and pains. You get eating disorders, and start having helth problems with your liver, your kidnes, your stomach, and your heart.
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Ask any one who is regurigating the American narrative if they are taking medicine. Any medicine, for any reason. Just ask.
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So far, I have found 100% of the people who I asked say “yes” in the affirmative. America has become; seriously, a nation of zombies.
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Americans today.
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It’s stuff to think about.
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Once I started to carefully vet what I read and watch, my life has really, substantially calmed down. That’s a fact.
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Anyways. I tire of arguing with NPCs. So I penned this article. It winds the clock back in time to one month before the invasion of the Ukraine. By reading it, you can easily see how and why the war in the Ukraine started.
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And NO, it’s not “Putin’s fault”.
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It was planned to occur. And the planners were the United States Senate. And it’s all well known, and well understood. All you need to do is watch the historical archives from CSPAN.
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I mean, come on, it’s all very damning.
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They tell you right then and there. “America needs to start a war elsewhere. Not on American soil. And the Ukraine is the best place to have that war.”
This is an absolutely great article by Paul Craig Roberts. He’s a major conservative voice in American politics. He’s pretty good, and I have been following him for a long time. He tends to discuss American domestic issues with detailed and thoughtful analysis, and takes a hard, critical look at American international issues.
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This article was written one month before Russia invaded Ukraine. And during that time, in January 2022, the big news was about how the United States refused to take Russia seriously. This is that article. It’s truly poignant now, as we see what an absolute clusterfuck the United States has created for itself. And because of the enormity of that fuck-up, this article is even more valuable.
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I am presenting it here, right now, to help us all have a better contextual understanding on what the Hell is going on in the Ukraine and in the Geo-Political circles.
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Does Russia Understand She Is Dealing with Lunatics?
In advance of the January 10 meeting, Secretary of State Blinken and NATO functionary Stoltenberg stupidly reduced Russia’s Options to Two: Surrender or Use Force.
If these idiotic accusations were not enough, Blinken accused Putin of intending to restore the Soviet Union. It is impossible to understand how a person this stupid was confirmed by the US Senate as Secretary of State.
The last thing the Kremlin wants is all the problems of all of these countries. All the Kremlin wants is that they be independent countries, not US puppet states armed against Russia.
My take on the situation is that from foolish statements such as the above by Blinken and Stoltenberg and other ill-considered remarks from the White House and media, the Kremlin has concluded prior to Monday’s meeting (January 10) that Washington will not take seriously Russia’s security concerns.
I think the Russians have come to the conclusion that the West will not take them seriously until the Kremlin demonstrates forceful action.
The Russians are just giving diplomacy one last chance before they destroy the military installations that the US has built in Ukraine.
I came across this report from pravda.ru dated about a month ago (November 26) that Russian nuclear submarines were urgently sent to sea in a state of combat readiness.
This does not mean that the Kremlin is preparing a nuclear strike.
It is meant to forestall any stupid Washington response to Russian removal of perceived threats, just as the Israelis do routinely in their attacks on Iraqi, Syrian, and Lebanese territory.
As I have reported on occasion, the Russians have had their fill of Washington and are not going to take anymore.
The Russians have concluded that only decisive action on their part has any chance of sobering up Washington from its hubris and restoring a sense of responsibility in Washington at least equal to the sense of responsibility that kept a lid on Cold War tensions. If Washington is unable to recover a sense of responsibility, the possibility of Armageddon will again hang over our heads.
My concern is that there is no one in the Biden regime or the decimated officer ranks of the US military that has five cents worth of intelligence.
The people with their hands on US foreign policy are Russophobes with delusions of American omnipotence.
Moreover, they believe their own propaganda, which prevents them from understanding the Russian view.
I don’t know if the Kremlin is capable of imagining a government as lunatic as the American one.
If the Kremlin does not understand they they are dealing with lunatics, the situation could quickly get out of hand.
And he was correct… absolutely correct.
One month later, Russia invaded the Ukraine, preventing a Ukrainian assault on the LDR and the DDR.
And the Western press were all ready with a flood of anti-Russian “news”, and sanctions, and all the rest. It was all perfectly timed and implemented.
Everybody and his goat are talking about the Ukraine. Why not me? You might ask, But Fred, what do you know about it? To which I would respond, Look, this is journalism. You don’t need to know anything, just wing it, preferably using words you can spell. Admittedly this is more of a limitation than it used to be. Anyway, here goes:
Why did Russia invade the Ukraine?
Contrary to American media, the invasion was not unprovoked. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America has been pushing NATO, which is a US sepoy operation, ever closer to Russian borders in what, to anyone who took fifth-grade geography, is an obvious program of military encirclement. Of the five countries other than Russia littoral to the Black Sea, three, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, are now in NATO. America has been moving toward bringing in the Ukraine and Georgia. After Georgia would have come Azerbaijan, putting American forces on the Caspian with access to Iran and Kazakhstan. This is calculated aggression over the long term, obvious to the—what? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?—of Americans who know what the Caucasus is.
Putin has said, over and over, that Russia could not allow hostile military forces on its border any more than the US would allow Chinese military bases in Mexico and China or missile forces in Cuba. Washington kept pushing. Russia said, no more. In short, America brought on the war.
Among people who follow such things, there are two ways of looking at the invasion. First, that Washington thought Putin was bluffing, and he wasn’t. Second, that America intentionally forced Russia to choose between allowing NATO into the Ukraine, a major success for Washington’s world empire; or fighting, also a success for Washington as it would cause the results it has caused.
From the latter understanding, America pulled off, at least at first glance, an astonishing geopolitical victory over Russia. Nordstream II blocked, crippling sanctions placed on Russia, many of its banks kicked out of SWIFT, economic integration of Europe and Asia slowed or reversed, Germany to spend 113 billion on rearming (largely meaning buying American costume-jewelry weaponry), Europe forced to buy expensive American LNG, and Europe made dependent on America for energy. All this in a few days without loss of a single American soldier. This presumably at least in part engineered by Virginia Newland who, though she looks like a fireplug with leprosy, seems effectively Machiavellian.
Next victim, China.
Divide and conquer. Or at least that’s the theory. At the same time reinstate the JCPOA and use economic baubles to try to pry Iran away from Beijing.
Here we need some context. Everything Washington does internationally aims at maintaining America’s largely military near-hegemony over the world. This involves several elements:
First, military dominance.
This includes the many hundreds of bases around the world, naval supremacy, and the huge military expenditure. Thy latter will be maintained at any cost to domestic needs, and apparently it is going to be increased.
Second, control of the world’s supply of energy.
Washington is trying to starve Venezuela, with its vast reserves of petroleum, into submission. Submission means letting American-dominated oil majors exploit the country’s oil. Washington is doing the same with Iran and its enormous reserves. It has troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, has confiscated Syria’s oil lands, crushed Libya, and so on. Keeping the European vassals from buying more Russian gas through Nordstream II is part of this energy control and an important part.
Third, and crucial, keep the EU from coalescing into a vast continent-spanning trade zone.
This is exactly what China contemplates in its BRI, Belt and Road initiative. This is too much subject for a few paragraphs, but some thoughts: China is a manufacturing juggernaut in explosive growth. Economic power is the basis of all power. China has the advantage of inner lines of communication: it can build rail, fiber optics, highway,s and pipelines in Asia, where America has little access. China has money because it has a for-profit economy, and America doesn’t. The pull of China’s gigantic market and manufactures was beginning to loosen America’s control of Europe. Eurasian integration had to be stopped.
Fourth, the dollar.
Washington controls the dollar, the IMF, SWIFT, and in general the international financial system. It uses this control brutally as a weapon to impose sanctions, crippling the economies of such countries as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and now Russia. Seeing this intimidates other countries. Washington may have gone too often to this well. Having made England, its chief bootlicker, confiscate Venezuela’s gold reserves, and now freezing Russia’s reserves, Washington has served notice that no country is secure from this treatment. Here I speculate freely, but this may prove America’s worst mistake since 1619 as it may greatly accelerate the search for other payment systems—CIPS from China, SPFS from Russia, and the upcoming digital yuan. Washington, methinks, is betting the farm.
So much for the world…
Meanwhile, America seems to be sinking into irreversible decadence that must eventually—I would say soon—affect its international position. As the world’s economic and, laggingly, technological center of gravity moves east to Asia, an internally collapsing America will be less able to maintain the empire.
Consider:
[1] Printing of money out of nothing.
Washington’s printing of money, equivalent to the debasing of the coinage characteristic of failing societies, has resulted in high inflation and a potentially catastrophic national debt. This will cause political perturbation as voters seek to find which of the two essentially identical parties will not behave like the other one. Unrest will grow. Trust abroad in the dollar will decrease.
[2] Enormous Trade Deficit.
America suffers from a massive and growing trade deficit, largely with China, about which nothing can be done, certainly not soon, because America no longer makes things it needs. Manufacturing cannot be brought back, excep perhaps in niche markets like semiconductors, because the US no longer has the necessary engineers and trained work force, and American labor costs more than Chinese, so reshoring would increase inflation. The importation of cheap Chinese products keeps inflation down,.
[3] Wall Street / Military seizing all the money.
The heavy flow of national wealth into Wall Street and the military in addition to offshoring has led to real poverty in Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and the rural Deep South. This has produced some 100,000 opioid deaths annually in despairing populations. Simultaneously large and growing homeless aggregations appear in LA, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, St. Louis, on and on, estimated at 60,000 in LA and 50,000 in New York, making the subways dangerous. Bush world conditions presumably do not make for political stability, as neither does the governmental inattention to them.
[4] Massive Crime
Crime is out of control, not a sign of a healthy polity. Some 700 homicides annually in Chicago, 300 in Baltimore, and similar numbers elsewhere are now routine, almost all of the killers and killed being black. To countries like Japan and South Korea this must seem barbaric. The situation is not First World.
[5] Racial Problems
America’s racial problem is grave. The southern border is open, the southwestern states either majority Latino or soon to be. This is not as bad as it could be as the races seem to get along, but it imposes heavy economic and other costs. At the same time across the country cities have huge black ghettos with appalling semiliteracy, no prospects for the young, all of this apparently irremediable. Racial attacks on whites and Asians grow in number and so, almost everywhere, do racial killings, mostly by blacks. Governments at all levels fear blacks who they know will burn cities if provoked, which leads tax bases to flee from cities, making things worse.
This adds to potentially explosive resentment. There is a substantial White Nationalist movement, that wants no non-whites in America (a bit late for this), Republican Chambers of Commerce, that want more illegal Latinos for the cheap labor but won’t say so, and the high-tech sector, which wants more East Asian and Indian immigrants on which America, with a failing educational system, increasingly depends.
The Overall Prognosis is Poor
Overall, government is weak, unable to prevent crime, riots, and looting.
Washington does not control, but is controlled, being a storefront operation for special interests.
Elections do not change policy but only the division of the spoils.
Presidents perform their three essential duties, protecting Wall Street, Israel, and the military budget, but not much else.
Schooling is being dumbed down in stark contrast with China.
Excellence everywhere is discouraged in the name of equity. Native white talent dwindles in the elite schools, from high-end high schools through CalTech, as Asian majorities predominate.
Measures of talent, such as SATs and Medcats, are dropped or downplayed. English grammar and arithmetic are dropped as racist.
None of this seems likely to improve America’s future competitiveness.
Finally, the media are controlled.
This allows Washington freedom of action abroad as enough of the public will believe anything they are told by television (The Russians are coming, the Chinese are coming, the Iranians are coming, the Guatemalans….)
Internally censorship may keep the lid on, for now anyway, by keeping enough of the population from knowing what is going on.
By preventing discussion of problems, or their mention, it assures that nothing will be done.
I suspect this is having the effect of winding a spring.
Where is all of this leading?
Biden is playing as if this were 1960 and the US enjoyed rock solid military and economic superiority and the population were firmly behind him.
This is the world he remembers, being an aging cold warrior. He seems to believe that he consequently can do what he pleases with no repercussions for America. This may be true, or true enough. Perhaps he believes that Russia will collapse in domestic rebellion or simply surrender to the US.
It is not how I would bet.
But—and this is sheer speculation—it is not clear what would happen if Russia cut off gas and petroleum and wheat and such things as neon gas from Europe.
The West is accustomed to bombing remote countries, not to going without.
Would Russia collapse under privation before Europe decided it wanted to trade with Moscow after all?
If Biden and the hawks decide to play hardball with China, they may realize that America is an economic dependency of Beijing. If—again, very hypothetically—China cut off all trade with America, the US economy would die instantly.
Almost everything on American shelves is made in China.
An American public already very unhappy would explode, which it is on the point of doing for various reasons.
Reflect on the Floyd riots.
China would be hurt, but it has other markets and a nationalistic population more united than the American.
Them’s my thoughts, probably worth what you pay for them.
Speaking of China…
Declining empires and their ‘forever wars’? “As the US and NATO struggle to deal with the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, has issued a warning to the Biden administration not to repeat the mistakes made in Europe by attempting to create a Pacific version of NATO to contain and constrain China.
He’s talking about the QUAD.
He’s talking about AUKUS.
Calling such plans “perverse actions” that “run counter to the common aspiration of the region for peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcomes,” Wang declared that if they were implemented by the US, “they are doomed to fail.”
– https://lnkd.in/eAJKmwJG
More excerpts:
◉ The Chinese concerns are not imaginary, but rather drawn from a direct reading of the guidance published by the Biden administration in the Spring of 2021.
◉ A plain reading of that text clearly shows that the US was pursuing a NATO-like alliance in the Pacific solely focused on the issue of “holding China to account.”
It is in this light that one must view partnerships such as the “QUAD”, a military partnership between the US, Japan, India, and Australia, and the newly constituted AUKUS alliance composed of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US.
Both the QUAD, and AUKUS organizations exist solely to coordinate a military response to China’s presence in the Pacific region.
◉ “Wang also criticized the US for expanding its ties, including military cooperation and weapons sales, with Taiwan.
◉ Such policies, Wang warned, “not only push Taiwan into a precarious situation, but will also bring unbearable consequences for the US side,”
◉ Wang clearly stated, “Taiwan will eventually return to the embrace of the motherland.”
◉ Many experts and observers were surprised by Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine. When it comes to China’s readiness to go to war over Taiwan, there should be no such uncertainty.
◉ “The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan,” it reads.
The fact that Russia signed on to such a statement knowing full well that China had committed to the use of military force to defend its claims regarding Taiwan underscores the seriousness of the Russian-Sino joint statement.
◉ China knows that any military action against Taiwan would bring with it economic retaliation on the part of the US and its allies.
◉ Like Russia, however, China holds significant cards in its hand, and any Western effort to punish it with economic sanctions would bring about a response which could cripple the economies of those targeted.
◉China has already developed an anti-sanction law, that automatically goes into action once a sanction is imposed. It was specifically written with the United States in mind.
Moreover, any military action against Taiwan would, in and of itself, have dire economic consequences for the United States, especially in the field of semiconductor manufacturing.
Any military conflict involving Taiwan would have a crippling impact on the American military electronics market, dependent as it is on the computer chips produced by Taiwan.
This is simply becuase ALL of the American military and high-technology IC chips have been outsourced to Taiwan. It is the sole and only source of supply for American military integrated electronics.
How will a war in Taiwan affect the global consumer market? The effect would be negligible. The vast majority of IC chips are already produced in the Chinese mainland.
What about the USD?
The movement to de-dollarize will be unstoppable and one of the lasting impacts of this war, not just rogue states, but US allies will also join in.
This must-read article in Foreign Affairs is a sobering read on de-dollarization as is this supporting article on sanctions in Quartz (https://bit.ly/3pN9Rfb)
When I started writing about de-dollarization almost three years ago I was widely considered a “Cassandra.”
I now have good company believing this, but admit that I take no joy in writing about a process artificially accelerated by the inhumanity of war.
So here’s what is at risk, from FA:
“These punitive sanctions may also backfire in another way. Biden’s flexing of American economic muscle will only embolden Russia and other US rivals, notably China, to deprive the US of the very power that makes sanctions so devastating.”
“Russia and China will expedite initiatives to “de-dollarize” their economies, building alternative financial institutions and structures that both protect themselves from sanctions and threaten the US dollar’s status as the world’s dominant currency.”
What is driving this is sanction fatigue, from Quartz:
“[Sanctions are] economic warfare at an unprecedented level. It’s true that, over the past decade, the global use of sanctions has exploded to the point of making them routine.”
With sanctions now “routine” nations are questioning their commitment to the dollar. It isn’t because they bear ill-will toward America but see reducing dollar dependence as “risk management.” They also see it as a way to bolster the use of their own currencies so are creating CBDCs.
Pushing the issue will be the global impact on food and energy prices from the unprecedented size of Russian sanctions (Quartz):
“But most of the time, [sanctions] are much narrower—aimed at certain individuals, institutions, or industries—or applied over a much longer timeline, or against a much smaller economy, as in the case of Iran. The speed, scale, and sweeping nature of the Russian sanctions make them the equivalent of an economic blitzkrieg.”
Now a stunning admission from the FA:
“Deteriorating U.S.-Chinese relations incentivize Beijing to join with Moscow in building a -credible- global financial system that excludes the US. Such a system will attract countries under US sanctions. It would even appeal to major US allies who hope to promote their own currencies to the detriment of the dollar.”
And that is the part that is inevitable, this new bi-polar financial system will appeal to US allies!
It should not be seen as a litmus test of friend or foe but instead “whose money offers the better deal?”
The US cannot reverse this change, and it will lead to a weakening of its global standing.
The collapse of the USD as a “reserve currency” is nearing the end. It is collapsing vry fast. And will collapse even faster once the hyper inflation of the $30 trillion dollar bubble manifests, on top of the sanctions.
This will spell out many changes to the lifestyles of those that live in the West, and the nations that maintain trade and use of the USD.
The lifestyle of those in the West is about to change…
Now, you cannot say that you have been warned. But, Jeeze! You were. You all should have listened to Mr. Putin when he said “if you put your fucking nukes on my border, I will be forced to use military-technical measures”.
Sheech!
So when you are paying your $54 / gallon of gas to drive to the fast food resturant to buy your $200 hamburger (minus cheese), don’t go a calling me a “Putin Puppet”. You all brought this fiasco upon yourselves. Suck it up with a big toothy smile, your wishes came true, you mindless oafs.
The true and real actual United States GDP is about to come crashing down, and Americans will start living like trailer park trash in the rural hills of Kentucky. And that’s just the way it is.
I stand by my belief that theres more things down the pipe. Never forget about who you are all dealing with…
America vs China.
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Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 8.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants.
Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
This is part of the Q&A (on-going) effort where questions are provided to me, and then I present them, and then record and interpet the responses.
[8.1] Question – Comprehending life
Sorry again for effing up my question for part 7 March 2022. Here is the detailed background. I had to send on this separate more anonymous email.
When I was a kid in around 1984-1987 my mother shared a story with me that one of her co-workers confided to her. Her co-workers name was MJ and they worked together for a short time in an admin office at the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant located in the borough of Shippingport,PA on the Ohio River.
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MJ told her about the time she, her husband and family were driving home one early one night when they saw a ufo hovering off to the side of the road, they stopped the car and stared at the object.
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It had 3 portals along the side and they were able to see a figure with a large head, large eyes and kind of a squished in face. One of the family exited the car to look closer and the object flew away.
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This story has stuck with since I was a small kid, about age 8-10. It planted the initial seed in me on my quest to understand the ufo enigma. It has been a lifelong quest for truth since hearing that story which is 100% sincere. Just after I heard this story was when the book Communion was published by Whitley Streiber and was displayed in Walden bookstore in the beaver valley mall and other bookstores.
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Upon first seeing the cover of the book (a depiction of a grey alien) I was both terrified and awed simultaneously. This further cemented my desire to know all there was to know about the UFO enigma. I watched every single ufo
Television program, and began to read every single ufo book or magazine that existed in the local library or bookstores I could get my hands on, this then led to every single website i could find decades later.
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I also experienced a couple odd occurrences at night, one was in the summer of 1986 while taking a family road trip to Enid, OK to visit relatives. We got lost at night driving somewhere near the Ozarks and experienced “lost time”. Another couple times I experienced a presence trying to drag me (or suction me ) out of bed at night. I vividly remember 1-2 instances as a teenager and also one within the last year.
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I have always felt I have some unique purpose here to do something; I have only with the last 5 yrs to really openly begin to explore this in in real terms, I trained a little in remote viewing, I explored spirituality and I trained as a medium and a psychic. I also meditated and engaged In deep prayer.
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It was May 2020 when “found” the MM website and began to unwrap its beautifully wrapped contents and devour the bounty of information and slowly sip the unique western pa connection of it.
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I thought/felt I finally stumbled into something that provided a deeper understanding not with the ufo enigma but my second truth quest in life(what is it all about) and what is “disjointed” with me as a person and how can i fix/repair myself so I can fully serve and help others to the fullest with my time left here.
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I hope this helps to better understand my question What did I experience as a child that i only now have the wisdom to begin to comprehend”
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If this helps to clarify then asking again would be appreciated, if I still don’t get it and am missing something then I understand so no worries. Thanks again for your mm content and trying.
The Domain conduct periodic operations within the Prison Complex confines. These are periodically observed by inmate skin-suits. However, questioner mothers co-workers did not observe a vehicle of The Domain. That was a vehicle of <redacted> and they are the assets that investigate nuclear systems, and operations upon the Earth physical sphere.
Questioners experience of "missing time" is similiar to that of MM when he was upgraded in 1985. These are events that take place to perform biological investigation, monitoring, and observation. Questioner was examined, and returned with no ill effects. This was also conducted by <redacted> but is part of an over all structured process in which multiple "species" take place with.
Questioner is on a pre-birth world-line template (sic) that was established for this role of a searcher for precisely the purposes of the acquision of knowledge for eventual realease from this Prison Complex. Thus, while it might appear to be random, it is not. Questioner is running a fated existence for precisely the reasons as previously stated.
Questioner must now accept this reality and recognize that it is in a school at this time with the ultimate goal of release on parole from the complex. Every effort the questioner is involved in should be directed to this goal.
[8.2] Question – Why not destroy IS-BE entities?
Please direct me if this has been already addressed.
Question: Rather than work so seemingly wide-spread (on this earth), and time consuming, and given that the entities in meat-suits are immortal… why not just terminate their (the really bad guys) existence here? Are not these Old Empire parasites easy enough to identify?
One cannot destroy an IS-BE. You may apparently "erase" it's memories, but though techniques in development, they will be able to be recovered. You may cut it up; divide it and scatter it's peieces else where, but in so doing, you will create many of the same entities. Instead of one, you now have thousands.
You may place it in a confinement area. Such as a Bubble Universe, But it will eventually leave that confinement area.
Thus the solution of the "Old Empire" manifested; a bubble universe with a system of strife and reward on a never-ending wheel that keeps an intentionally ignorant IS-BE from returning to it's parent universes.
The "Old Empire" thought process was valid, but was thwarted by internal corruptions and problems in implementation and selfish persuits. It had eveolved into a kind of play-ground for torture, viscerial pleasures, idealized control and other vices. It has spun wildly out of control and is now evolved into something wholly different from its initial intent.
The Domain is active in stabilizing this environment, but there are bigger, more pressing galatic issues at hand and the resources are limited. Rest assured that we are doing everything we can at this moment, and the questioner must recognize that and not be overly influenced by problematic IS-BE entities he is trapped with.
[8.3] Question – Shadow people
Hi all – serious newbie here.
I have been through a large portion of the site and I think I have a newbie’s grasp of MWI and affirmation campaigns. I started my first 3 month campaign last week and looking forward to some results in 6-9 months time.
My question is around shadow people who seem to be characters in our world line who have a segment of their consciousness present but are not the full shilling so to speak. Could someone help me understand what that means in terms of daily life and how these shadow people affect your campaigns and, if they are just shadows of their real selves, how do we treat them and consider them in our lives?
Specifically:
our families and loved ones – how are they not their full selves when we interact with them? Are they sharing their world lines with us and if so, to what extent?
if we impact their lives, to what extent does that impact their own unique world line?
my gut instinct is that these are real people as much as I am and every decision I make has to include them if I care about them
what part of them am I interacting with if they are but shadows?
how does entaglement fit into all this?
are we in turn just shadow people to them in their world line and how does my decision making impact them?
Likely I am missing some important understanding here and would be very grateful to have that shown to me if someone can take the time.
[I, MM, can answer the questions regarding what shadow people are, and how they interact. That is not a Domain Commander question. the following answer is from MM not from the Domain Commander. If he / it / she interjects, I will take note. -MM]
A “shadow person” is everyone. Including yourself. You are a shadow person (from the point of view of another). In say ten trillion world-lines, there is a you in that world line. They, all ten trillion of them, are all shadows of you.
But you are on THIS world line. So obviously something is different here and now. What is it?
The difference is that your consciousness has chosen THIS world line to reside upon. Not the one where you are riding a giant turtle, or the one where you are a starving person in Africa, or one where you are a rich person in Dubai. Your consciousness occupies this “shadow body”.
And once your consciousness is in this body, you are no longer a “shadow person”. Understand?
It’s not just that though. Everyone else; every other consciousness is the same. They all have untold number of “shadow bodies”.
And since there are nearly unlimited world-lines, and billions of inhabitants, the odds are small (small not impossible) that you are sharing a world-line with another consciousness. So the reality is that your consciousness is in a world-line alone, and everyone else are just “shadow bodies” with very little consciousness actuation.
That does not mean that you cannot fall in love, interact and be with them. It’s simply a matter of where their consciousness interacts. In funcationality, attraction moves consciousnesses to share similiar world-lines.
Cats, for one, move in and out of feline bodies at will. And they will be present on your world-liens with you. Same as those deeply in love. It’s all about entanglement associated with emotion.
[8.4a] Question – Removal of biological item
Could I please ask the following questions of the Commander if at all possible.
Would the Commander have any knowledge of an item unknown to myself that was removed from behind my kneecap by a surgeon DR Bryan Bomberg (who also worked for the USAF) during the mid 90’s in the USA (Rout Hospital).
Numerous extraterrestrial entities monitor inmates and other biological forms within the Prison Complex for their own purposes. The Domain does so, and we have eextradited this activity to third-party resources. The questioner is not part of any Domain monitoring or tracking activity.
The <redacted> prefer to place tracking items in the joints of the physical extremeties. When they do so, very little modification of the non-physical bodies occur.
The reasons behind why there might have been an item placed in the location as described would be for information collection purposes. These are often passive devices for group behavior monitoring.
The removal of the physical component of that item would most assuridly stop that collection of data.
There should be no concern for worry or concern. Removal of any extraterially implanted item removes the inmate from further visits by those entities and places the traced element off the monitoring board.
[8.4b] Question – knowledge past and future
Would the Commander have any knowledge of my past both physical and that of a ISBE and the future for myself and my daughter if possible. No hurry as I understand others are before me. Thank you very much for the chance to ask the above.
The Domain can, if necessary, monitor the past, present and future of inmates within the Prison Complex confines. We do so by establishing a physical connection and non-physical modifications. This is known as the EBP (sic).
Without that, we are limited in what we can do. We can only observe the state of the present IS-BE in whatever situation it is presently involved in. As such, we can advise the hills and valleys (sic) of the present template(s) (sic) involved.
In a practical matter, this issue is best handled by the associated mantid aligned with the inmate entity. They have full knowledge and understandings of the entire situation and issues regarding the entity in question. The questioner themself must ask their mantid in prayer / contemplation, the mantid will be aware of the question and will respond. The questioner is not to question whether the answer is true / valid / factual or not. The questioner is to take the raw data as provide data and accept it.
The mind has the ability to alter acquired intel. This response is a funtion of template(sic) and must be suppresed. The way to do so is with consciousness centering techniques. [Hemi-synic, etc. -MM]
[8.5] Question – Domain influence on leadership
Are any members of The Domain occupying the bodies of any contemporaneous leaders at this moment of time?
Yes and No.
[Image of a person sliced into slices like sliced bread, all of which is transparent. These slices go from the top of the head downward. Of the 200 or so slices, only a few slices are influenced. And I see it as a moving series of colors that seem to pulse in a rhythm like that of ocean tides. I take and understand it to mean that there is a quantum participation "on/off" switch or "dial" that they can use to influence a given leader with.]
How about Xi Peng (China) in regards to this influence?
[Again the image of the clear sliced transparent humanoid. The color influence represents perhaps 15% to 20% of the slices.]
How about Alexander Putin (Russia) in regards to this influence?
[Image is of a big (black) hand firmly snugly holding Putin, and a very clear image of a confident and smiling Putin face.
He's looking at me, with head tilted, with a "cat ate the canary" smile, and looking at me with a "what do you think?" expression.
It's exactly like he's the person that I am EBP communicating with!]
How about Joe Biden (United States) in regards to this influence?
Joe Biden is not a controllable asset / entity / clay at this time.
Other influences and structural changes in his make up make manipulation / transverse operations / suppression / actuation dangerous. The skin-suit is comprimized and the IS-BE operation for the suit is abused.
How about any of the leaders in Europe in regards to this influence?
Null.
Individuals are being observed with occasional walk-ins and walk-throughs as an as-needed basis. Their behaviors cannot be manipulated with any degree of confidence in outcome determination.
[8.6] Question – Request in affirmation help
If I remember correctly, the Commander said that Old Empire guys recycle directly without memory-wipe and without life review so they are hard to catch.
And I asked some time ago, if it would be of help to have an affirmation so the domain can catch them or recognize them (like their lost battalion members)… It hasn’t been answered yet.
[This question is not really appropiate for The Commander. The knowledge on how the MWI works within the Reality universe falls under MM pervue. That being said, there really isn't any problems with that. I can add an affirmation for you, and direct you some guidance. However, I do have a direct message from The Commander regarding this. -MM]
Questioner is advised that de-cloaking inmates (most especially imprisoned members of The Domain) will trigger catastrophic event sequences which will iniate immediate recyling into another skin-suit. Only the most docile and "conditioned" members of The Domain are permitted "normal" General Population switching.
Quantum alarms are set off when thoughts related to a member of The Domain is recognized. It is thus critical that only the individual IS-BE inmate, and The Domain or one of our proxies be aware of who these individuals are, what they are doing and how they are acting.
The Domain is aware of the status and location of all members of the Lost Battalion. No further assistance is necessary in locating them. However, affirmation (sic) and consciousness manipulative techniques would be helpful in creating templates (sic) that are favorable toward inmate egress from this domicile.
[8.7a] Question – Historic global destructive events?
MM: I know I’m back on this subject again, but I just want some clarification – if possible.
The Commander said that there is a physical earth (also physical solar system and “universe”). He also said that yes, our collective consciousness constructs this matrix earth. He also indicated that this matrix earth, this Prison Planet of recycling ISBEs has been in place for a VERY long time. Back in the day, I’m talking tens of thousands of years at least, I can only presume that whatever form the ISBEs took, they too were subject to the memory wipe, and matrix-earth “building”.
This matrix earth had historic global destructive events – the results can be seen in ice-core data, geologic data and other credible methods. These records indicate that such massive population ending events are NOT rare, and are in fact cyclic – perhaps every 10,000 years or so. Repeating… EXPECTED.
Are those measurable scars, a result of collective belief that destructive events occurred – the “experts” through the ages “said so”, and the local entities agreed (ba-bing – they appear); or, are those scars upon the physical earth?
Thoughts can manifest physical events. This is true within the main universe, as well as in the reality universe (Prison Planet). However, both universe operate under a set of rules / laws / programming physical behaviors. Both are similiar as the reality universe is a pocket universe that resides inside the main universe. You can consider it as a "functionality reduced" universe.
Newtonian laws operate within known physical space and is predictable (to a degree) as determined by earth-bound scientists. Thus, many of the earth-wide changes follow predictable patterns.
This situation is what most earth-bound inmates must deal with. Tectonic plates movements, volcanoes that result from internal pressure differentials, planetary orbit reconfigurations, and the behaviors of various species along with weather, and gravity changes are all part and parcel of this Prison Planet environment.
However, there is the unseen nature of this environment that must be considered. The templates (sic) that the humans learn upon / experience [rehabilitation structure] are affected by thought. Since thoughts control brain selection [world-line selection to different brains in different world-lines. -MM] it can thus choose it's environment. [templates via slides. -MM]
Groups of people, all of different abilities and skill sets, can switch to different templates (sic) which then define different physical conditions. They do not actually change the "rules of physics" so much as that they alter the template (sic) that they reside upon.
[8.7b] Question – Scars from physical activity?
If those scars are a result of physical activity, it seems to me that they may have occurred as a result of Solar Activity, or Galactic Activity, or, I suppose, Galactic to Solar… is this true?
The Prison Complex micro universe was created upon the ruins of once mightly civilizations that were destroyed when the "Old Empire" secured and acquired this section of geographical space. many of the physical scars are reminants of the great disruptions from those times.
Since the creation of the micro universe, the normal laws of physics were not suspeded. The normal turmpil associated with this secion of the universe has continued unabated.
The Prison Complex was created upon the ruins of planets, and the physical turmoil, whether solar, galactic, or non-physical is considered to be a necessary compoenent in the punishment of IS-BE entities marooned here.
[8.7c] Question – When can we expect the next sequence of events?
This whole scheme was designed by a skilled ISBE, corrupted by The Old Empire, and overtaken by The Domain. A very intelligent collection presumably. I could see withholding such information as to somewhat protect, and control the resident general population, but we here at MM are NOT the norm. Tell me please Commander, when will the next extra-terrestrially sourced cataclysmic event take place and affect the physical earth… or are such events now blocked by The Domain?
There are upcoming physical events that will have a profound influence on the human life in the earth sphere environment. Questioner is concerned about the dates, times, locations, causes and types.
The earth sphere is expected to enter a period of geologic upheaval in mid 2030's into the 2040's. The specific dates, and times are dependent upon mass thought cluster influences. They are not entirely independent; Note that this is true even with the predictable behaviors of physical law influences.
The reality universe is one that is custom-tailored to the specific inmate IS-BE. This is established by the Mantid Primes that works with the entity to improve (sic) itself. They utilize a generalized default template (sic) for the vast bulk of the inmate community in General Population, with special ones specifically tailored to more agressive IS-BEs such as The Domain Lost Battalion membership, and so one. The only way out of those pre-conditions is to become docile. Once that occurs, the template reverts to the general default template (sic).
This general default template (sic) established the primary physical interactions and histories that the consciousness must endure. There are preprogrammed events on that map. These include both physical events (as observed by earth physical "laws"), and thought-generated events. The second (thought-generated events) are the reason for anchoring world-line behaviors.
Currently mass manipulation of huge populations is being conducted by (Western News) media. This is resulting in abnormal thoughts (vault 7) and will result in horrific consequences. The event trends will reach a peak, worse than presently experienced, within the next two years. This wil then "simmer down" and a new reality will manifest in the late 2020's, early 2030's time frame. By 2030, most IS-BE inmates (people) will be able to say "Phew! I'm glad that is over."
But that is where the physical disruptions of 2030 through 2040 (depending on the modifications of the template(s) will begin to manifest. THe questioner should realize that the entire Prison Planet Complex is a series of one problematic event after the other in a long series of problematic events.
[8.8a] Question – Characteristics of dream attributes
Yesterday I had a dream. Apparently there is an organization named Midnight in 1997, plus these guys came with a crow in the middle of the night on the roof of my crib. (speak about an entrance) It would seem to me that they are pretty bad “people”. I asked what they wanted with me saying that I didn’t have anything of value but they said that someone has to do crime. They don’t look like good people I did not like them one bit. Luckily there was someone to help me fend of these guys.
In these dreams I am usually never alone. This I noticed. There is always someone I don’t know, who helps me. Though things are not always black and white. From my point of view.
Upon review I realized that theere is always something wrong with the right side of people or things, like someone tries to break your right hand fingers or someone has a scar on the right side. Some stuff like that. But it is always on the right side.
Question I would like to ask : So what’s up with the right side of things and who were those guys?
Human skin-suits are controlled by a brain. The consciousnesses activates the brain. Depending on the kind of thoughts and physical actions that the consciousness is involved in, as well as the noise / physical environment / surroundings, the consciousness will "sit" or activate various sections of the brain, being left-handed, right-handed or other.
Observations within the dream suggest an assault team of entities that possess a similiar seating of the consciousness to the physical skin-suits.
This is almost always associated with organizations, species, or collectives.
These entities are a carryover from previous incarnations that were dragged into this present incarnation by direction of the Mantid Primes for the purpose of "improving" the questioner though hardship and strife. They are constructs.
The questioner is fighting / dealing / in combat with a group of entities that are assulting him. This is a large cluster of entities that are part of an organizational matrix.
They are assigned to influence the questioner, in thoughts, actions, and intent / motivations.
Questioner need not fear this organization. The Domain has assigned elements to mitigate the disruptions and assaults. We have also modified questioners non-physical bodies for better resiliency. There are numerous event cycles that the questioner must endure. But we can positively confirm that once the questioner passes throough this period (longer than the questioner would like) the "other side" would be substantially better.
By the time the questioner exits the chrysalis the organization will no longer be latched on to his non-physical bodies, and the wishes, dreams and desires of the questioner will manifest. Some will be very welcome surprises, as the questioner will be surprised at the massive changes and unexpected magnitude of them.
We advise following the plan (that the questioner is well aware of what actions he needs to take).
[8.8b] Question – Advice on life
And, I would like some little advice on life. Is everything really going according to plan?
Over the last few weeks I have accepted my fate. I would not write this unless I had to. If you do have the time please look into this matter. Do not feel too obliged to answer . At your own time and pace.
The questioner is advised that everything is on track and to plan.
The fears and situational context is worrisome to the questioner. However the questioner is advised not to deviate, but rather follow the plan, conduct his necessary actions and never lose faith in his abilities nor our ability to support him.
Questioner is not alone. He is never alone. We are monitoring him and we are fully advised about his current situation.
[8.9] Question – When will World War III begin?
What is the specific date for the start of World War III?
Most future historians will attribute the start of "World War III" (also known as the fracturing of the global order) as 2008 with the collapse of the "too big to fail" banking cartel.
[Just within 12 hours of writing this, a friendly stranger said "out of the blue"...The initial timeline should probably include the 2008 Nato conference in Bucharest that stated Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join Nato.-MM]
Others will attribute the start with the first kinetic actions against China in 2014, while others will associate the President Trump "Hybrid War" against China in the 2017 time period.
The questioner's question concerns the first kinetic military actions in this period of time.
For years, the Western Powers have been conducting covert warfare, which often resulted in suppressed reporting of the events. These events included the attempted coups in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, as well as the revolts in Tibet China, Xinjiang China, and Hong Kong China.
The first major well published kinetic response to the Western nations assaults occurred in the first week of March 2022 in the Ukraine.
The questioner's actual question revolves around a "trigger event" such as the first nuclear detonations of "World War III". In truth, the first use of WMDs during "World War III" was the use of coordinated multi-viral biological weapon attacks to suppress China in 2017 through 2020 by the United States.
Other WMD use included the Western nations destruction of the BRI egress port in Beirut in 4AUG20. This was a thermobaric weapon [possible nuclear -MM] that destroyed the port completely. Other initial battles included the destruction of VTOL Naval carriers of both China and the United States, and the destruction of numerous American submarines in the South China Sea. ["Tit-for-tat" warfare. -MM]
The future for this world-line template (sic) is indeterminate. There are numerous futures that could manifest. These include very BIG bads. The possibility of this manifesting still remains high.
The Domain are in the process of steering the chain of events to small bads.
The Questioner will be well advised that he is in the midst of a major global war that manifested as a result of global realignments.
The knowledge of when or where, or to what magnitude the kinetic fighting might manifest will not make any difference in questioners life. Prudent preperation for the worst should be in place irregardless to any predictions that we can provide.
[8.10] Question – The Moon
I have a question for the Domain, please:
Would they be able to share with us who placed the Moon in its current orbit, where it came from and when was it put there? (Or offer us a little history of that period of Earth’s history, instead?)
I know this isn’t related directly to Domain Operations and irregular assistance from us, but I’m curious now that moves are being made to dismantle the Old New World Order and replace it with a New New World Order aimed at an eventual win-win for everybody regardless of race, colour or creed, as stated by both Putin and Xi in recent years.
Thus I think it wold be beneficial if humans could start at least to gain an appreciation of our true history instead of the layers and layers of lies that have been placed over our true origins; especially since more and more people became literate, affluent and started to ask these questions during the 17th and 18th centuries right through until today– but were always rebuffed with a stream of horseshit from intellectual authorities, so called, whenever they tried to access some Real Truth.
A taboo subject even until this day, also. But then again, anyone daring to question the western horseshit narrative was also taboo until China and Russia got their collective rocks on earlier this week and began action! So fuck taboos, pardoning my French, and here’s to a little bit of context as we move forward towards something better at last– it’s been too long in coming. No doubt there will be some major setbacks along the way as psychopaths don’t like losing, but we’ll get there eventually; and some extra background in addition to what Arl has already kindly revealed– as to who we are and where we came from– would really help.
Shout out to Arl if she’s reading this, btw!
The moon was placed in orbit around the earth during early regional occupany of society clusters prior to the establishment of the "Old Empire". It's use was as an "ark" from which the species could disembark and establish colonies on the planetary surface. This took millions of years, and those colonies were short lived. [Realitively speaking. -MM]
Subsequent species set up colonies on the earth, as well as native intelligences arose in the process.
None of these intelligences, and tool-making societies realized that the moon possessed a void.
During "Old Empire" expansion and the resulting wars, the planetary surface communities were destroyed, and the earth (as well as many other adjacient planetary systems) were evicerated, and had to reestablish themselves. At that time, the "Old Empire" decided to construct the Prison Complex in this general vincinity. It was during the planning for the construction system that the moon was discovered to be hollow.
Teams went in and identifed an environment with atmosphere, light, heat, and abandoned structures. They purged the atmosphere and modified it for the dominant "Old Empire" species, then they set up a command and control operations center there for the Earth Prison Planet.
When The Domain conquered the "Old Empire" in this sector we took over the facility, and now monitor it's operation, leaving many of the (former "Old Empire") workers and inhabitants in place.
Oh, and by the way. Arl says "Hi!". [ Ok, yes. This is a hard chill response. It's real, in other words. -MM]
[8.11] Question
How do I avoid Mantid Prime tracking and influences?
Members of the Domain that have a "woke" consciousness need not be concerned with mantid prime interference in thoughts and desires. Questioner is to remain confidential. Migrate actions in show careful steps so as not to arose suspecion or opposition that could alert snares. Upon termination of this life contract, questioner is to call for pickup and await retrieval.
Then, questioner will enter a situation that they will not understand, but they are to follow our guidance and processing. Fear manifestations are programmed and will be present. Questioner is not to invoke defense responses as the recovery team are / will be of former comrades (whether recognized or not) and recovery steps will be initiated.
You are well missed. We will being you home. It will happen! Do not lose faith. [Ultra strong emotional push. Goose bumps. Smashing hard clamor of emotion. I even have tears coming out of my eyes. Jeeze! -MM]
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
The young Russian artist Elena Limkina reveals the inside of her fascinating sketchbook, where each page contains beautiful drawings in ink or watercolor. A wandering into the world of the artist through her creative diary, where she experiments styles and techniques, moving from architectural drawing to animal or floral illustration.
Throughout my life, I have maintained my own MM sketchbooks. Being both an artist, an engineer, and a scientist, having a well documented record of my thoughts was important. And like this artist, my books were very similar to these works.
I would use ink, pencil, and blue pencil in the journals. The light blue pencil was used to outline the shapes, and then I would use an ink pen to illustrate. I preferred to use a light green, or light tan notebook with lines. And for highlighting, I would use a white pencil.
On some notebooks, I would use a light wash of watercolor. This helped me add depth to my sketches.
However, many of my notes also incorporated formula, calculations, part numbers, addresses and the like. So I would often use a red pen, a blue pen, and sometimes other colored pens to highlight specific information.
I would use a yellow highlighter for passwords and access codes. And many of my notebooks used tape to hold in various photos, documents and other items that I wished to include in my journals.
One of the things that I was doing, up until I was incarcerated for my “retirement” was to print out photos on adhesive-backed paper. I would then cut out the paper, and place it nicely and tightly in the journal.
This included photos of new friends that I would make during my trips to China and the KTV establishments, maps, schedules and photos of projects.
Often, people would see me writing in my books and would want to take a look, and they would really love to go page by page through it. I am sure that it was meaningless to them, but they really seemed to like the mixture of sketches and thoughts.
Honestly, it looked a lot like the notebook that the Saint used in the movie of the same name. With sketches, and papers, and photographs.
I always instructed my engineers, designers, and interns to take up the habit of using and engineering notebook and using it in a more or less traditional manner. I also insisted that they do this religiously, as all it takes is one computer melt down to wipe away years of hard work.
The younger “kids” don’t understand as they believe that once in the “could” the data is forever safe. I don’t believe that that is true at all.
But having a journal is more than that. You can write down your dreams and monitor your personal non-physical life. You can include your affirmations. You can internally debate your wishes and dreams in your journal, and you can write down things in one place so that you would never forget about them. Whether it is a recipe, or some notes, you will always know where to find the information.
Most people, in modern society, do not understand the concept of privacy. Especially Americans, I am sad to say. Even though the Bill of Rights authorize “security and privacy in one’s personal papers and documents”, that hasn’t been functionally true for centuries.
I am one to tell you that AS A FACT.
In fact, it was my journals that were used against me when I was “retired”. Ah. Any excuse serves a tyrant.
But privacy is a natural need. We all require time alone. Whether it is to gather our thoughts, take a dump in the toilet, say our affirmations, pray, or masturbate. We, as humans, require privacy. Anyone who cannot recognize that basic need is an evil, selfish, and self-centered busybody.
Run away from them as fast as you can.
My first wife maintained dream journals, and as she gradually lost her mind (she had a mental illness), her journaling became an obsession. She would wake up and spend five hours writing down her dreams. Which was obviously unhealthy.
My brother maintained magick journals for his studies, incantations, and other projects that he worked on. He loved to use these thick, soft leather-bound books with a strap to hold everything tight and in place. While I really used a spiral bound lined notebook that I would buy in packs of ten.
Notebooks offer a person, such as myself, a canvas to illustrate our thoughts and concepts. It was when I was in prison that I cluttered up my notebooks (well, actually, there were just tablets of paper. We were unable to own notebooks in the ADC.) with sketches of the MWI and world-line travel.
Long time readers of MM will be able to imagine the kinds of sketches and drawings that I made regarding souls, consciousness, and travel on the MWI. As well as thoughts on the teleportation device, and the mathematics behind it’s operation.
I would place my personal thoughts and concepts there in my journals. While in prison, I used a kind of pencil known as a “golf pencil” because of its diminutive size, and I sharpened it with sandpaper that I could get from the commissary store. We were also permitted a small pen. I would use that to ink my sketches.
All was very crude, but it served its purpose. Yes, there were others while in prison that maintained a sketchbook where they practiced their art. But most of the people int eh ADC were illiterate. Often what we would call “urban youth”, “trailer park trash”, and “gang members. Folk like myself were a minority.
Of course, most of my sketch books, journals, and writings occurred while I was working as an inventor, designer, engineer, and scientist for the US government, large technical corporations and the like. And when they would let me go (i.e. fire me / downsize me / lay me off) they would demand to retain my journals and notebooks, often claiming that they contained company secrets.
These notebooks shown here are obviously not mine, but they have well been mine. The look, the feel, and the drawings are all similar.
I seriously encourage everyone to have their own journal or notebook. I do not suggest that they rely on electronic media, no matter how seductive it appears, and I have had multiple bad experiences in using these software programs.
Aside from the computer dying and a hard-drive death meant the end of everything that I wrote and collected, but other things happened as well. For instance, I once used an electronic diary. It was nice and worked really well. Then it suddenly stopped working.
As it turned out, the diary was only configured to work for five years, then you had to ask for an upgrade for a small fee of course. So when it stopped working, I called the company and discovered that they went out of business and all of my writings and documents were unable to be recovered.
And don’t get me started on Microsoft. You are typing away, and suddenly MS wants you to register, and pay for yearly updates. And when you don’t pay, you are locked out of your documents. It wouldn’t be all that bad, but last year they demanded $350 from me.
It’s one of the reasons why I switched to Lunix.
And forget about freeware. Or donationware. My experience with them have been hit or miss. You have to have one that is directly configured for your needs. Right now I have three folders (on my Lunix computer) each one containing a separate group of files unique to that particular program. All of which are not available in Lunix format.
Now, of course, there are benefits to using electronic media. For instance, you can lock it with a password. That makes it safe so that only you or the NSA can open it up. Passwords are transparent to the American government. If you don’t believe me, read my story about how I was retired.
But there are some disadvantages to putting things in journals. For one, they take up space. Unless you have a lot of room, and don’t mind hauling them around, it could be a problem. Another thing is many people, notably your spouse and the United States government, have no respect for boundaries, personal space, privacy or secrecy.
If you don’t want anyone to access them, you must either write in code, not write at all, or use symbology that only you understand.
This woman does a nice job in her artistic renderings and I find her work noteworthy. It’s a joy to look at, and takes and carries me away to an other place and other thoughts. I start to muse and dream. All very good things.
What ever your desires are, I urge you all to start sketching and journaling.
Of course, I no longer have my notebooks.
When I was retired, the police seized many of my notebooks as evidence of my devious character. They were subsequently “lost”. The remaining notebooks were acquired by my father, desirous of protecting me, promptly burned them.
Those sketches and notes, that I made while in prison, were often confiscated and misplaced. I never got them back. Of the few that I was working on at the time of my departure from prison, were in my luggage that was misplaced and ended up in the lost-luggage section in Newark, NJ.
I started anew. A “blank slate” as they say. And married a woman who respects my privacy, my confidentiality and my space. If you don’t have that, perhaps you should reconsider your relationships and what kind of life that you have.
Do you want more?
I have more articles like this one in my Art Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
During change, somethings die, while other trends are birthed. New starts, and new understandings flavor the lives and lifestyles of the survivors of the change.
I have long argued that many of the on-going bad elements that we have long endured are now starting to come to an end. It’s all about time and good riddance.
I just banned a jackass because a newcomer just simply PISSED ME OFF. I suppose that his voracious reading of my articles should have pleased me, but it did not. I don’t like to hear things like…
"What do these girls have to do with the article title? –It’s just more juvenile objectification of women, and a form of trolling."
I love women. Somehow that’s wrong? What’s the matter with you? And, by the way, how can I troll my own venue?
Don’t go a pulling that SJW shit with me bucko.
I don’t like, nor appreciates these mindless comments, as well as endless snipes, and swipes at myself and what I am doing here. Such as…
(On the subject of trolls and their behaviors) I stated; “They can take your nice happy and calm, pleasant day, and turn it into a sad stormy day of worry and distress.”
"If this is the case, then I submit that you have ego issues and need to learn to master your emotions."
So, then Trolls make everyone happy. And of course, if you disagree then you have a brused ego?
As well as a long steam of other silly bullshit such as…
Please accept my apologies, as I had to redact large portions of this section. It is not proper that I speak so freely about this at this time.
It cannot be “redacted” if it was never published.
Of course it’s published, you dunderhead. It’s published on the internet, and it’s published in book form. Haven’t read the main index? Obviously not. You can’t possibly be this moronic, this stupid, this foolish, this much of a simpleton.
You know, I waited two full days. Hoping that some other MM influencers would come to my defense, but no one did. I guess I must have expected too much.
“All MAJestic members, are service to others sentience.”
I doubt that far more than I doubt your story.
Sheech!
I don’t like getting up in the morning and checking my feeds to read comments about my life by a jackass. Do you? Do you feel better about yourself by reading those things? Do you think that this “individual” has improved your life, or helped you to understand the dialog or text better?
Rufus he is not.
I will argue that this individual is more sophisticated than most of the trolls and jerk-offs that I encounter. So it took me two entire days before I erased his presence. I will say one thing though, he was plowing though my articles at a prodigious rate.
He sure must have had [1] a lot of time on his hands, and [2] enjoyed the free stuff without appreciation of the effort it represents. Both high-swater-marks of trolling.
So he’s gone. Bye bye.
Well, for youse guys that is. I still have to manually erase him out. If he persists then I’ll give him some things to work out. There’s nothing quite like a cornfield to really occupy your time and give you a dose of “humble pie”.
How about this for a new world-line template?
A template map of the cornfield.
Anyways, on to this article…
This article here is just a mish-mash of stuff that I have lying around and cluttering up my thought streams. It’s all over the place, and that’s fine. I just want to put some things down on paper and then move forward.
First up is a …
Pretty girl and her car
Here’s a photo taken some time around the 1940s. My guess is that she just bought the new car and was proudly photographed near it, being all “dolled up” and all. Looks to be early winter. Maybe Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio or New York.
She’s wearing a fox stole, white gloves, to match her white hat, and a black skirt outfit. The image takes me to a time and a place far away from here. That was not the reason for the photo (in the first place) but it is why I so admire it so.
When white gloves were an everyday fashion accessory for women.
She’s lovely.
Right?
Yes she is. She really is.
Here’s a beautiful Chinese girl…
She’s one of my favorites, don’t you know. (Actually, I think you all do know.) I think she is lovely.
Yeah. Maybe I am. You all got a problem with that? She’s beautiful. She’s pretty. She’s awesome and when I see her in the video it takes me away to calmer and sweeter states of being. And I love that feeling. I love the images and feelings that she generates inside of me.
The video is an object. But she is a teleporter to a new mental state. She carries me away.
Like a beautiful cat pal. Or, a nice hot fudge sundae. Or, a freshly baked fudge brownie with some nice delicious vanilla icecream on top.
Hot fudge brownie with ice cream on top.
Now, let’s go to something contemporaneous.
I mean, the United States does this all the time, but China (somehow) is a very bad entity for soing so. Right?
Is it legal for the Chinese government to build artificial islands, airfields, and deploy troops in the South China Sea islands?
It is often claimed that China is breaking international law by building artificial islands in the South China Sea and that it is illegal to militarise those islands.
The short answer is that it is “not illegal” to build an artificial island if it does not conflict with some other nations legal rights that might be defined under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), or other international agreements of which both China and the other nation was a signatory.
Building airfields and deploying troops on those islands is also “not illegal” if you are entitled to build and occupy the islands.
An analogous question might be “Is it legal for warships and aircraft carriers to cast anchor in International waters?”. An anchored aircraft carrier is an artificial island with an airfield and a military presence.
The UNCLOS offers a general protection to a nations territorial waters and exclusive economic zones that extend from baselines derived from recognised land territory’s baselines. However outside those boundaries, in the high seas, any nation is free to construct artificial islands and erect installations that are not otherwise restricted under international law.
The territorial sea extends to a limit of 12 nautical miles from the baseline of a coastal State. Within this zone, the coastal State exercises full sovereignty over the air space above the sea and over the seabed and subsoil. There is also a contagious zone of an additional 12 nautical miles that grants certain rights of legal enforcement.
The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extends no more than 200 nautical miles (370 Km) from the territorial sea baseline and grants exclusive rights to marine resources, including the “exclusive” right to establish artificial islands, structures and installations.
Where zones intersect the zones of other states, the zones default to the median point between the respective baselines.
To be clear, artificial islands cannot acquire territorial rights on their own; they at best obtain a safety exclusion zone. So a nation cannot extend their territorial claims by constructing or extending islands anywhere. Smaller natural islands may be entitled a 12 nautical mile territorial claim but not a 200 nautical mile zones.
Having said that, two or more nations could be in dispute over every aspect outlined above or could be in dispute with the interpretation of international law applying to particular cases. And various interpretations of definitions and determinations could lead to quite different outcomes.
I am not commenting specifically on which islands could or could not be considered legally or illegally constructed or the selective outrage at China’s activities in the area to the exclusion of all others. But consider the following:
In the application of the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on the status of Taiping Island, currently occupied by the Taiwan, which regards the largest island in the Spratly archipelago as a “rock” with limited maritime rights, and allows the Philippines to extend its EEZ at least as far as the island.
Taiwan, however, has a reasonable case to reject the ruling, and in any event continues to claim full maritime rights.
The Peoples Republic of China, with an overlapping claim to Taiping island can also dispute the ruling, even make a reasonable claim not to be bound by it, and therefore argue the legality of the establishment of an artificial island within Taiping Island’s claimed EEZ at Mischief Reef less than 80 nautical miles from Taiping Island.
And a very nice follow-up commentary…
It’s a well stated commentary rather than a rebuttal.
Answering a lie is to perpetuate it. If you gather all your information about China from the West, you will not get a smidgen of truth. China is not in the habit of engaging in tongue jousting. They simply defend their rights — bloviate all you want but I dare you to touch my cheese. I think they have good reasons to do so, as they are not adept at lying, and the West is a cesspool of lies populated by lying maggots who consume bullshit and regurgitate bullshit and know nothing but bullshit.
Here are a few facts that can be found if one makes a bit of effort and look underneath the superficial scum. I read these on the same day the Hague Arbitration Court came out with its decision. I think it’s by a female blogger who seemed to have some knowledge on the issues. The truth is therefore not arcane or hidden, it’s just never spoken in the Western lying machine. I’m doing this from memory but you’re welcome to check. The truth is out there.
1. The issue of the South China Sea (SCS) is not UNCLOS but sovereignty. There is overlap of course, but they are two very different issues. To talk only about UNCLOS but not China’s sovereignty claim is Big Lie Number 1. The Nine Dash Lines is China’s claim of sovereignty of the area of the SCS within those lines including all its islands and EEZ. It is a successor claim from the Republic of China (which is why Taiwan, still run by the government of the ROC, must maintain the same claim), as it was not contested by the victorious allies of the Second World War, and was recorded on maps of the era (published by the West). The PRC, which is the globally and UN accepted government of China, has a duty to defend this claim.
2. One must defend one’s sovereignty and negotiate for peaceful borders, not rely on third parties to decide your rights, especially not by those which have no jurisdiction and no teeth. The lesson of Munich comes to mind, when France, UK, and Italy decided to cede Czech Republic’s Sudetenland to Germany. That is what happens to countries which cannot defend their sovereignty. The meme that China is the big bully encroaching on its neighbors is laughable. It is Big Lie Number 2. Except for India, China has in fact negotiated stable land borders with all its neighbors including Vietnam and Russia, considering both these countries had land wars with China in recent decades. Even Bhutan, a de facto protectorate of India which had been prevented from reaching a border agreement with China, appears ready to defy its overlord in the near future.
3. The Nine Dash Lines and UNCLOS do have overlaps. It is not strange, as almost all neighbors sharing a coastline or are island nations have UNCLOS claims that overlap. UNCLOS has a suggestion for how to settle these disputes. Negotiate or arbitrate. Arbitration is however not a court of law, where one party can sue another based on the jurisdiction and laws of where the court is located. Even this jurisdiction must have some basis of prior agreement or when none is available, some basis in law. It does not get decided by one party of a dispute. Anyone who has any experience in arbitration (a mechanism actually used by many international companies doing business in China) understands that arbitration must be agreed to by both parties of a dispute. They must also agree to the quasi-judiciary organization that holds the hearing and makes the adjudication, share in the costs, and accept the decision with no further recourse. Since China never agreed to the arbitration initiated by the Philippines, never agreed to the jurisdiction of the court, never participated in the hearing, and never paid any costs relating to the one-sided arbitration, it was just a farce and a circus. To answer any questions coming from this comedy is to give substance to fart.
With the internet, everyone can have a voice and an opinion. I’ll readily admit that I have no real legal expertise. I have however quite a bit of experience working with top lawyers in Canada on both litigation and quasi-judiciary (Broadcast Commission) matters for well over ten years. For several years, I was also a court appointed receiver manager for the national television station I built. So I’m not speaking out of a vacuum. In fact, some of the cases I was involved in became landmark cases, causing the government to make real changes. While I’m no expert on UNCLOS or sovereignty claims, I usually apply whatever legal ideas I can understand and in most parts commonsense.
.
As I like to say, the First Law of Economics is “you do not own anything you cannot defend.” That is the meaning of sovereignty, the rest is bullshit and balderdash.
A beach beauty….
Looks like the 1960s. I can easily see myself (as a young boy) wearing the same clothes (as those two boys wore) as the folk in the picture. I can see myself there. Enjoying the sun. Listening to the waves crash, and enjoying the late afternoon sun as the beach gets deserted. Nice times.
I see the woman in the back is holding either a set of binoculars, or a purse. It’s difficult to see what it is. I don’t think that it is a purse. She’s also wearing a sleeveless top over her stunning green one-piece swimsuit.
Judging from the cars in the background, I would guess 1963, maybe 1965.
Family outing.
I do love these old photos.
It makes me want to crawl up into some old dusty attic and explore. Who know what I’ll find. Maybe a 1950 Lionel train set, a metal closet with all sorts of 1950’s womans’ hats, or a mason jar full of old pennies, buttons and indian arrow heads.
A beautiful girl showing off a nice pair of jeans
Actually I really like these jeans because they are warm. Today is frosty cold, and I am shivering while I type this. Normally Zhuhai is around 30°C (86° F) and 80% RH. But over the last few weeks it has been cold. 7°C (44°F) and spitting cold drizzle rain. Keep in mind that the homes here in the tropics are not heated. THus her outfit looks mighty appealing to me.
It was US & NATO military expansion and deployment to Russia border that caused the current Russia – Ukraine drama. However, the United States aggression against Russia can not be effective as long as Russia has the support of China.
So, in the past weeks, there are so many imaginary articles and news that link China to the conflict.
Below are 13 links and their headlines from the western media + a piece from the Global Times explaining the Western efforts to smear China. It’s the “Smear China campaign”.
First up, the United States overt propaganda mill; VOA…
China Eyes Risks and Rewards of US-Russia Standoff Over Ukraine
As I have often stated that everyone in China gets military training. It starts in first grade, and it really appeals to me. With disipline and organization, self esteem follows naturally.
This next Chinese girl is short and so very cute. I just want to run around with her in the wide forest and drink hot coco with her, and eat some buttered cinnamon toast. video 5MB
From my dad’s generation…
This next phot comes from the 1950’s somewhere in the United States. It’s a couple “making out” (i.e. “smooching”) in the back seat of a station wagon. Notice how the rear window opens up and is held up with a nice strut.
I’ll bet that they were playing some fine 1950s music. Maybe some Fats Domino, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, or Bobby Darin. Good times.
Young Love.
Those days are gone. But, you know, there are new days here that we can enjoy in a similiar manner.
Have you ever thought about a fine coffeecake and a cup of coffee?
Coffeecake
China High Speed Train
China started making, designing and building their own domestic trains at the same time that the United States announced that it would build a High Speed Train network starting in California. Today, they are all over China and a normal everyday sight. Meanwhile 15 miles of track has been laid down in California. No trains. No stations. America has bumpkis.
I actually really like the display console behind her. It’s go these glass cabinets that you can display your treasures inside. Whether it is these cute collectable dolls, or dishes, artwork, or brick-a-brack. I really like it. Of course, I would stain it a dark brown instead of the light color but that’s just me.
You’ll notice that she has a fine oval face. Oval faces really fit the Chinese face and with a nice long black hair, it’s a super nice effect.
If it wasn’t for the styles of the automobiles, you would say that this is pretty much contemporaneous America. Most of America hasn’t changed much. Sure, theres some cell phone and all that, but the Untied States has been spending it’s money destroying mud huts, strafing cows, and bombing cabbage patches. Very little remains for domestic improvements and infrastructure.
And it hasn’t happened yet either, no matter the promises that President Biden made. The federal budget is all about more machines of war, and more efforts to “contain” China.
Philadelphia, 1957
Some pictures of cats
Why not? Right?
I do love my relationships with the kitties and they always really mellow out the place and terrorize the rats and mice. I am a strong believer that every household needs a good mouser.
This cat here reminds me of my first childhood cat; Sedwick. We called his “Sedgie”. He died a ripe old age when I was living in Indiana. He was a good cat.
Sedwick clone.
Cycles of life
So much truth here… perhaps the reason why everyone in China gets military training. Learns how to shoot, fight, and endure.
China understands. Build strong little soldiers for a stong unified nation. This is how it is done. Training starts in first grade. video 3MB
The start of the Playboy Empire
He was a man who had a dream. Then he followed his dream and it took him to many interesting places, along with attractive and interesting people. In this photo below he is in England in 1966. Ah. The “swinging 60s”.
Playboy editor and tycoon Hugh Hefner is greeted by a group of bunny girls from his Playboy Clubs, upon his arrival at London Airport, 1966. (Photo by Dove/Getty Images)
Here’s the cover for the August issue of Playboy in 1966…
Playboy cover.
And a glimpse of what it looked like on the inside… this is the September 1966 issue…
Index page.
And what the advertisements were like. This is the back side of the magazine. Each issue seemed to have either a cigarette ad, or a alcohol advertisement of one sort or the other…
Advertisement.
My guess is that the men-folk would keep the playboy magazines in the bathroom on a low stool with other magazines, and then flip the cover over so that the Mrs’s wouldn’t notice (too much). Thus predominantly displaying the cigaretter or booze ad inside the privacy of the “man’s” bathroom.
You know, to fight those evil Japanese! Those horrible Germans, and those pesky Communists! We MUST spread freedom™ and democracy™ to the world, don’t you know!
A group poses for a picture at Pier 86, on 46th Street.
This kid below has some wisdom to share…
You can do anything you set your mind to…
This kid is going places. He’s right. I hope, I sincerely hope, that school teachers, and peers don’t beat this inner strength out of him. video 50MB
Russia Has Just Issued An Ultimatum To Ukraine, And The Conditions For War Are Now Set
This is not a game. As this crisis has been unfolding in Ukraine, I have been seeing people all over the Internet cheer for either side like they would cheer for their favorite football teams. But these people don’t understand what is at stake. If World War III erupts in Ukraine, it will very likely lead to nuclear war between the United States and Russia down the road. So we should all be deeply grieved over what is happening, because we are getting really close to a point of no return.
One of the good things about the Trump years was that President Trump was not interested in messing with Russia. So the status quo in Ukraine was respected by both sides for four years, and there was relative peace in the region.
But then Joe Biden took power, and he has surrounded himself with an all-star team of warmongers. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are all card-carrying members of the War Party, and they don’t seem interested in finding a way to have peace with Russia at all.
After having his security concerns mocked and laughed at for the past year, Vladimir Putin finally admitted that negotiations are at “a dead end” on Monday. It would have been so easy to negotiate a peaceful solution with the Russians that would have kept Russia out of Ukraine, but that isn’t what the War Party wanted.
Now Putin has run out of patience, and on Monday he greatly escalated the crisis by formally recognizing the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and by announcing that he would be sending troops into the two separatist republics…
Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent on Monday and ordered the Russian army to launch what Moscow called a peacekeeping operation in the area, upping the ante in a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war. Putin told Russia’s defense ministry to deploy troops into the two breakaway regions to “keep the peace” in a decree issued shortly after he announced recognition for Russia-backed separatists there, drawing US and European vows of new sanctions.
I think that Putin wanted to make a move before the Ukrainians did. According to one Russian official, there were “almost 60K Ukrainian military personnel concentrated near the borders of the Republics of Lugansk & Donetsk”, and I think that Putin decided that the only way to keep Ukraine from overrunning the two republics was to move his own forces in first.
Hopefully that actually works.
Hopefully the Russians will stay in Donetsk and Luhansk, and hopefully the Ukrainians will stay on their side.
Ukraine crisis assets Showing the area of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine
If that is the end result, there may still be hope of defusing the situation.
But I wouldn’t count on it.
Putin sounds like a man that is convinced that war is coming. The following comes from a very rough translation of his speech on Monday…
“from those who took power in kiev we demand to stop any and all military actions against donbass. otherwise, the consequences will be on ukraine. i count on the support of all patriotic forces in russia.”
Russia has essentially issued an ultimatum to Ukraine.
If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk, the Russians will invade Ukraine.
Of course some western media sources are actually using the term “invasion” to describe Russian troop movements into the separatist republics.
If you have bought into that propaganda, let me ask you a question. Do the people in this video look like they have just been “invaded”?…
Twitter can be a horrible place at times, but tonight’s decision by President Putin to recognise the Donbass republics is the news people there have been looking forward to for 8 years. I’ll sign off tonight with this video from Lenin Square in Donetsk. #Donbasspic.twitter.com/l8YJVF84tf— Dean O’Brien (@DeanoBeano1) February 21, 2022
This would be a good opportunity for both sides to take a deep breath and start backing down.
But that isn’t going to happen.
Western leaders continue to use extremely harsh rhetoric and they continue to insist that a full-blown invasion of Ukraine is imminent. The following is what Jake Sullivan just told the Today Show…
“We believe that any military operation of the size, scope and magnitude of what we believe the Russians are planning will be extremely violent. It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike,” Sullivan said during an appearance on NBC’s “Today.”“But we also have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies,” he added. “It will be a war waged by Russia on the Ukrainian people to repress them, to crush them, to harm them.”
And another U.S. official is alleging that Russia has a list of people that they will be specifically targeting once the invasion has been completed…
“Disturbing information recently obtained by the United States that indicates that human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of a further invasion are being planned,” Ambassador Bathsheba Nell Crocker, the US Representative to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, alleges in a letter to Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.“These acts, which in past Russian operations have included targeted killings, kidnappings/forced disappearances, unjust detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons,” reads the letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post and obtained by CNN.
So Russia plans to violently round up dissidents, activists and anyone else that is opposed to their rule?
Oh, you mean that it will be kind of like what just happened in Canada with the full approval of the U.S. government?
If the Biden administration actually cared about human rights, they would be condemning the horrific brutality that we just witnessed in Ottawa.
But of course that will never happen.
Let’s watch and see what happens over in Ukraine during the next several days. One very alarming sign is that the Russians have just closed off much of the airspace over the Sea of Azov…
Russia’s Aeronautical Information Center issued a NOTAM (a Notice to Airmen) on Sunday which will close most of the airspace over the Sea of Azov starting at midnight between Sunday and Monday, as the US continued to warn that Russia intends to invade Ukraine.
I don’t think that this indicates that a full-blown invasion of Ukraine is imminent.
But at this point the conditions for war have been clearly set.
If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk now, the Russians have made it exceedingly clear that they will invade Ukraine.
So this actually puts a lot of power into the hands of the War Party in Washington.
Joe Biden and his all-star team of warmongers now know exactly what it will take to spark a war.
Will they decide to pull the trigger?
Let us hope not, because once World War III begins nothing will ever be the same again.
Nice Chinese girl
With nice S-shaped body and a rocking red sweater. I like this build. I’ll bet you that she has that kind of smoth “baby bottom” stomach. You know, when you are thin and you feel comfortable in you clothing, and in your skin, everything fits you wonderfully. Like this gal.
Do you know what I haven’t had in a while? Yes. That’s right. Home made Salisbury steak with mushroom gravy.
Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy.
If you have memories of eating the microwave meal version of Salisbury steak, don’t be scared off by this retro favorite. The home-cooked steak pairs excellently with a creamy sauce and when seasoned to perfection redefines what people loved about this classic in the first place. Take a second chance with this meal and it will be your new all-time favorite. It certainly is mine.
And for youse guys who wants to cook this bad boy up, well…
All behaviors are monitored by AI. Troll behaviors are observed and then the police come by and evaluate the criminal to set up treatment and punishment on a individual to individual basis.
That is why China is a nation of Rufus’s and many Trolls find themselves spending substantial time in work camps, and re-programming facilities.
Here’s what the world looks like when you imprison the mentally ill, and criminal in society… it becomes a paradise.
The Monday Taki post is up. The subject of it and today’s post is the new way to look at the system ruling over us. Of course, Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door for those needing audio stimulation. Much of it is about the situation in Europe and the evolving Canadian dictatorship.
One of the problems with the Opposite Rule of Liberalism is that it relies on the old Left-Right dichotomy of American politics. This framing persists despite the fact that it is a vestige of a bygone era that no longer works today.
Democrats = Liberals
Republicans = Conservatives
It no longer exists.
The political divide is now between those who adhere to the basket of ideas called Western liberalism and those who defend the post-Marxist managerial state. The latter group is made up almost entirely of members of the ruling class.
The Haves = The post-Marxist managerial state.
The Have-nots = Western liberalism
In other words, we now live in a world divided by those in the system of control that hovers over the West and those who live under it. The Dirt People versus Cloud People framing is a much more honest, if a bit sarcastic, framework for the world.
Cloud People = Rulers
Dirt People = Serf / slaves
The ruling system is like a miasma that hangs over society, infecting the minds of the people and their relations with one another. We can see the elites at the top, just barely, but the system they control is all around us.
A big part of what ails society is this sense that things are not as they seem, but it is hard to get a read on why.
That noxious miasma that lingers in every aspect of society often leads people to doubt their own senses. Their experience tells them things about the world and people in it, but everywhere they look they are getting messages telling them that what they think they see is not true.
Instead, they are to believe something that is often the opposite of what they experience.
This is where the Opposite Rule continues to work. Those who are aware of the contradictions of daily existence can apply the rule to the information stream that comes from the system, filling the area around them. Whatever is in the air at the moment, start from some version of the opposite, and the truth will be near. The Opposite Rule of Liberalism is best restated as the Opposite Rule of Managerialism. This organic, self-aware system that rules over us is the opposite of truth.
A useful example comes from the daily barrage of “information” from the system about the crisis in Ukraine.
Here is a story from the New York Times headlined, “Russia has been laying groundwork online for a ‘false flag’ operation, misinformation researchers say.” Note that this story is not behind the usual paywall, as they want wide circulation of it. Note also that the writer is one of the infants they employ to copy and paste material into “news reports.”
This news report starts with a news report from a European based group called European Expert Association, which is described as “a research group that focuses on security in Ukraine.”
When you take a look at who these people are, it becomes obvious that they are Ukrainian activists.
These are not neutral observers searching for the truth about the crisis. More important, when you look at their resumes you see all the familiar NGO’s that are pushing for war with Russia.
NGO = CIA funded Neocon organization.
Of course, this is the New York Times, the first draft of history and the leader in the American news media. They do not just take this at face value. They hand it to a group called the Global Disinformation Index, a nonprofit “research” group. These are the go-to guys for the Times reports on misinformation and disinformation.
To the shock of no one in the Times offices, the researchers at Global Disinformation Index confirmed everything said the European Expert Association.
The reason the Times was not surprised by what they heard back from the Global Disinformation Index is the person running it is Anne Applebaum. She is a notorious warmonger and neoconservative.
Anne Applebaum.
Here she is advocating for the liquidation of the Afghanis and the Syrians as a “solution” to those problems. Applebaum is a big believer in what Stalin supposedly said about people causing problems for the regime. No man, no problem. Applebaum just scales it up.
Her partner in this enterprise is a Ukrainian activist named Peter Pomerantsev, who is probably on the payroll of a Western intelligence service. His biography does not pass the laugh test. His role in life has been to seed Western media with anti-Russian information dressed up as Ukrainian nationalism. The rest of the staff of the Global Disinformation Index all have an axe to grind with some enemy of the neocons, past, present or in the future.
Peter Pomerantsev.
The point of this walk through the swamps behind the ministry of disinformation is to illustrate how the new rule works;
If a media outlet is claiming to root out disinformation, you can be sure they are not doing that.
Instead, start with the assumption that they are waging a disinformation campaign.
That is what you see in the New York Times story and any story containing the words “Global Disinformation Index.”
Then you can begin to figure out what is really going on with the story.
Of course, the entirely new obsession with misinformation and disinformation by government and mass media is a big lie. Since forever, people have known that governments lie all the time.
They have known that the media is partisan, a form of activism more often than not. Yet suddenly we are being told that the media and the government are now declaring war in false information.
Since they are the only possible source of disinformation, this means war on themselves.
The big lie, for those unfamiliar, is a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. This is now the default tactic of the managerial state.
They tell us that Eskimo truckers protesting vaccine rules are white supremacists.
These outlandish whoppers are then signed off on by new experts who sagely tell us the moon is made of cheese.
Unlike normal propaganda techniques, this new tactic is not to further a cause, although it can be used that way as we see with Ukraine. The neocons are simply taking advantage of a defense mechanism that has evolved since the Cold War.
By flooding the zone with outlandish nonsense, the system prevents cogent analysis of what it is doing or contradicting it in any way.
It is a form of menticide to paralyze the people by suspending them in a solution of false narratives.
The concept of "menticide" indicates an organized system of judicial perversion and psychological intervention, in which a powerful tyrant transfers his own thoughts and words into the minds and mouths of the victims he plans to destroy or to use for his own propaganda.
-menticide
This is the utility of the Opposite Rule.
It helps clarify the new relationship between the leviathan and the people.
Rulers = leviathan
People = serf / slaves
Instead of viewing society as a hierarchical structure that is responsive to the will of the people, you see that it is an adversarial relationship between a ruling organism and the people.
This ruling organism is the vast administrative state made up of government, corporations, the academy, non-profits and the mass media.
It is a fully integrated organism.
The endless waves of information, mostly false information, is its primary defense mechanism against what it sees as a threat.
That threat is the people over whom it hovers like a noxious cloud.
The point of the false information is to keep the people in a fog of confusion about who really rules over them.
You cannot rebel against that which you are not even sure exists.
Menticide is the primary defense mechanism of this system of social control we call managerialism.
A nice night in the city
Isn’t she just great? Well, I love her.
One of my favorite things to do is get dressed up a tad and go out for a night in the city. Though it’s mostly a nice meal in a restrurant, followed by a coffee and a snack at one of the bars or coffee houses, I would love to go out and feel the night city air. Great times.
Superior or roughly comparable (depending on who your read) to all the American fighter aircraft. 100% Chinese designed. 100% Chinese avionics. 100% Chinese engines.
According To The ‘Big Mac Index’, China’s Yuan Is 34% Under-Valued
The Big Mac was created in 1967 by Jim Delligati, a McDonald’s franchise owner in Pennsylvania. It was launched throughout the U.S. the following year, and today you can buy one in more than 70 countries. However, as Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross details below, the price you pay will vary based on where you are, as evidenced by the Big Mac Index.
What Does the Big Mac Index Show?
The Big Mac Index was invented by The Economist in 1986. It is intended to be a lighthearted way to demonstrate the concept of purchasing power parity. In other words, it helps illustrate the idea that market exchange rates between countries may be “out of whack” when compared to the cost of buying the same basket of goods and services in those places.
Given that McDonald’s is one of the biggest companies in the world and the Big Mac is widely available globally, it means that the famous burger can be used as a basic goods comparison between most countries. It also has the advantage of having the same inputs and distribution system, with a few minor modifications (like chicken patties in India instead of beef).
Using the price of a Big Mac in two countries, the index can give an indication as to whether a currency may be over or undervalued. For example, a Big Mac costs ¥24.40 in China and $5.81 in the United States. By comparing the implied exchange rate to the actual exchange rate, we can see whether the Yuan is over or undervalued.
According to the Big Mac Index, the Yuan is undervalued by 34%.
Beyond currency misalignment, the index has other uses. For instance, it shows inflation in burger prices over time. If we compare the price of a Big Mac across countries in the same currency—such as the U.S. dollar—we are also able to see where burgers are cheaper or relatively more expensive.
Burger Costs Around the World
Big Mac prices have been converted from local currency to U.S. dollars based on the actual exchange rate in effect at the time.
Switzerland takes the cake for the priciest Big Mac, followed closely behind by Norway.
Both countries have relatively high price levels but also enjoy higher wages when compared to other OECD countries.
Venezuela has seen the largest jump in burger prices, with the cost of a Big Mac climbing nearly 250% since 2004. The country has been plagued by hyperinflation for years, so it’s no surprise to see large price swings in the country’s data.
While it appears that the price of a Big Mac has decreased in Turkey, this is because the prices are shown in U.S. dollars. The new Turkish lira has depreciated against the U.S. dollar more than 90% since it was introduced in 2005.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Russia has the cheapest Big Mac, reflecting the country’s lower price levels. Labor costs in Russia are roughly a third of those in Switzerland.
The Limitations of Burgernomics
The Big Mac Index is useful for a number of reasons. Investors can use it to measure inflation over time, and compare this to official records. This can help them value bonds and other securities that are sensitive to inflation. The Big Mac Index also indicates whether a currency may be over or undervalued, and investors can place foreign exchange trades accordingly.
Of course, the index does have shortcomings. Here are some that economists have noted.
Non-traded services can have different prices across countries. The price of a Big Mac will be influenced by the costs of things like labor, but this is not a reflection of relative currency values. The Economist now releases a GDP-adjusted version of the Big Mac Index to help address this criticism.
McDonald’s is not in every country in the world. This means the geographic reach of the Big Mac Index has some limitations, particularly in Africa.
The index lacks diversity. The index is made up of one item: the Big Mac. Because of this, it lacks the diversity of other economic metrics such as the Consumer Price Index.
Despite all of these limitations, the Big Mac Index does act as a good starting place for understanding purchasing power parity. Through the simplicity of burgers, complex economic theory is easier to digest.
Walking the rails in the countryside.
Gosh! I’ll bet this woman is so much fun!
She’s one of my favorites and she’s on the tracks. I used to do this don’t you know. We had all these traintracks that ran in and out and though the countryside in Western Pennsylvania. I would go hiking with my friends (when I was a boy) and often we would try walkign on top of the rails. Just like this girl does. So nice. Good memories.
How about taking a little short walk down some tracks alone with your cell phone set to OFF.
A reminder of how unified the Chinese are
This is a clip from a movie. It depicts a true event where (during the Korean war) no matter how many times the American military destroyed the bridges, the Chinese rebuilt them and kept on moving forward. True story. Remember that.
I really like her lipstick. Personally, I think that many women look great wearing lipstick, but the color and texture selection is critical. Not every color and texture fits every woman. In this case, this red sade really complements her skin complexion and her hair color. Don’t you think?
Do you all know what really pisses off a lot of Trolls?
It’s one of the first things that Trolls disparage.
It’s off-subject meandering. Whether pretty girls. Food. Cats. Personal stories, and all the rest.
It drives them bonkers.
It’s rambling trains of thought. They are unable (due to some kind of mental block, or mental illness) focus on wide-ranging topics. They can handle a singular topic, and get involved in it, but they really, REALLY hate meandering expressions of thoughts, images, senses and pictures of another life in it’s great complexity.
They cannot handle articles like this.
Their tiny minds cannot handle it.
You all know, that I am going to continue on my meandering adventures, for most healthy people can easily handle my topics and how they are presented. I hope that you too (my dear reader) understand why I structure MM the way I do.
There’s an order and a reason behind the “madness”.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 7.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants.
Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
This is part of the Q&A (on-going) effort where questions are provided to me, and then I present them, and then record and interpet the responses.
Personally, I think girls, cats, and food are far more interesting. But, that's me, don't you know.
[7.1a] Question – Was I “Old Empire”?
Yes. Hello guys. How have you all been?
I hope all of you have been much better than me. Recently I had a dream. I think it was a memory from the past. It looked medieval. In a medieval building, we were a few people. I think I was the leader or something similar. Too much to mention so little time.
My question is Was I in the Old empire or where did I come from?
Questioner was a member of the "Old Empire". Dream was <garble> <confusing text stream> <impression I have is of something like travel / visit / memory / or memory rewind in real time / experience.> This kind of event is not uncommon to human inmate skin-suits. This is a carryover aspect of soul / consciousness / quantum reconfiguring when the entity is placed within the Prison Planet complex ans is assigned a skin-suit for general population utilization.
Questioner was punished for repeat violations of multiple minor infractions. Judge sentencing was mercurial and arbitrary. Questioner, however did not take the opportunites afforded to it to escape from the sentencing situation and refused to budge upon its standing in the community thinking it was immune from harsh judgements. Obviously it was wrong.
The dream itself is not signifigant. What is signifigant is that there are fractional elements int he quanta that can access the memories prior to the "Old Empire" mind wipe event sequence.
Questioner is experiencing changes at this time and while they are uncomfortable, they are important as they allow the consciousness of the questioner to relive the "Old Empire" sentencing and incarceration process. It was tramatic for the questioner in that embodiment, and this period of time is helping to reawake the questioner and engoge the quanta with energy to assist in full awakening.
Questioner is to be advised that everything is proceeding as planned, and not to worry too much about the discomfort. The questioner will be much improved and better after this period of discomfort.
[7.1b] Question – Transporter Use
Question number 2 is :
Why can’t the Domain build a teleporter and zoom their personnel off this fuck place to a galaxy/planet far far away and start rehabilitation then?
Questioner asks a valid question. The answer is that The Domain can do so. We have numerous teleportation (sic) facilities on the Earth Planetary environment within the Prison Complex.
Questioner must understand that the physical body skin-suit that the IS-BE possesses is not sustainable outside of the Prison Complex. It is a custom made envelope for this prison complex only. Were the Domain to do so, the result would be a rapid period of mental, emotional "melt down" (of the physical body) followed by a freeing of the IS-BE consciousness that would immediately be ejected from (what ever environment it was teleported to) to an injection back within the non-physical realms of the Prison Complex environment.
The teleporter (sic) is useful for moving physical doll-bodies, and non-inmate skin-suits in and out fo the prison complex. "Through the wire" so to speak. But it can only be used inside the prison complex bubble universe for the inmates imprisoned within the skin-suits.
On a practical basis, this means that the inmates can travel within the earth solar system, and to numbers other solar systems that also lie within the bubble universe that the "Old Empire" prison has constructed. There are numerous such solar systems. Five are populated with inmates in various physical forms. As well as other solar systems that lie within the bubble universe, but that have no prison population present.
[7.2a] Question – A “cold dark” sea.
MM a few questions that I have been meaning to ask the Commander, though I needed to provide the necessary back context before doing so. They are concerning if true.
Question 1:
During my phone interview with Linda Moulton Howe about a year ago she mentioned a “cold dark sea” as being a term passed onto a CIA agent by a Majestic agent, which had something to do with vast area space of space that surrounds us and is different to normal space in that it “ebbs and flows”. Question: is the cold dark sea (in this context) a real thing understood by Majestic, and if so why should we be concerned about it? is it the same as the anomaly thing i saw during my experience with the Elder Guardians or something different?
Questioner is correct. There is a region of physical space that lies outside of the micro-bubble universe. This is different from the physical space that lies otuside of the solar system. And should be confused by it's apparent similarity. This region is typical to that of all universes. It is normal.
It is an area of tides, vortexes, winds, and pressure fluctuations. The quanta components that inhabit this region is not easy for skin-suits to understand as they represent a condition that lies outside of the given universe so constructed.
However, in the case of the prison complex; bubble micro-universe it is a different situation. The prison complex micro-universe is a bubble that lies inside of the main universe. Thus, the region directly adjacient to the prison complex barrier is an interface threshold to the main universe.
This interface threshold is neither part of the micro bubble universe, nor part of the main universe that it was spawned from. It is something else.
Entities crossing through from the main universe into the prison complex bubble universe would experience numerous changes in environment as they move though this region.
From the main universe would be a transition from calm and entering into a regions of gentile turmoil that would increase slightly until the outside bubble universe barrier is met.
This is a membrane much like the difference bteween oil and water, and once the entity crosses it, there is a discordance of thought and memory as the high intensity elecromagnetic environment causes disruption to the IS-BE.
Then once the membrane is crossed, there is a gentle easing of the transitionary changes of the interior of the bubble universe; prison complex environment.
[7.2b] Question – smuggled weapons
Question 2:
During that same interview, Linda mentioned that her contacts have suggested that the US military has successfully smuggled “weapons” into the astral planes, for the purpose of fighting “demons that exist there” that have a “monopoly on our souls”.
This aligns with something i have been told by another source, though this source mentioned these were nuclear weapons that were “smuggled”, and are being used to “negotiate” with {strong arm} these non physical beings.
From the answers to my my past questions, it seems that these “demons” are quite possibly the Goetic spirits of Solomon or those mentioned in the respective Q&A, and the US military doesn’t really understand the implications of what they are doing, or who it is they are messing with (thinking they are just lowly demons rather than opposers of the OE regime).
I have to admit, this is kind of hard to get my head around, but we know that MM’s physical body was able to be transported into a plane, so it at least seems plausible.
Question, does the Domain know of any such undertakings, and what would the implications of having a nuclear weapon go off in those planes be compared with here in the physical. Worse, not as bad, etc?
This intel is incorrect. The information is distorted and abused (?). The MAJestic organization cannot utilize teleportation technology without Domain overview and permissions. We do not allow any service-to-self behaviors or the teleportation of any dangerous mechanisms in any realm by inmate skin-suits.
What about non-MAJestic entities? Can they do so?
Of the nuclear powers / nations / organizations that possess nuclear or otherwise dangerous weapons, their access (of all entities within their respective "secret" organizations) have culled and restricted access to teleportation devices. We would never permit or allow that to occur. We can read the thoughts and tides that manifest prior to entry access and take appropiate action.
While this subject was briefly discussed in some cases, we have easily distracted the thought patterns to other venues and in other directions. Nothing ever came of such thoughts and actions.
Ok, so there are no nuclear weapons smuggled into the teleportation mechanisms as The Domain controls that venue. But what of other creatures, other micro universes, and other groups that might not be part of the The Domain sphere of influence?
Yes. There are independent groups that operate upon their own issues, plans and directives. They all have varying levels of influence, capability and ability. The questioner is part of one such organization. Yes, not all of them work with The Domain, but most recognize our leadership role in this micor universe.
There are no nuclear devices, or similiar devices (to it or equivalent to it) that have been placed upon the non-physical environs within the Prison Complex spreciifed from the Earth-centric sphere of influence. However, there are corrupted devices that are planted / implanetd / modified and capable of great horrific damage if activated.
We are aware of those mechanisms and devices. These systems cannot be easily deactivated as they are inherent with the construction of this particular micro universe and tulize advanced technologies. Our allies <image of giant slug like engineers> the "oompaloompas", have been working on these systems for some time. We are confident that detonation / activation / energize / implosion will not be possible at this time, and full inert deactivation will occur in the future.
What would happen if they are not deactivated, and detonated?
The micro bubble universe and it's spawned "heaven" universes would all be destroyed. All IS_BE entities trapped within these universes would be left in a rubbled state with a long, long time to recover. Even if they could recover, they would be lost.
[7.3] Question – Connections with offspring
Hi MM and forum members,
I have a question if possible,
What is our real connection to our biological offspring (our children), due to imprisonment, amnesia and the recycling of our souls back into physical form via “a mission profile” and the light are our biological children connected to us in the non physical realm as “part of us/me”, the concept of protecting my child is very very strong in myself, it’s my life and my motivation. I understand maternal instincts are strong in us but are we only “custodians” of another young developing soul. I hope this makes sense
Thank you so very much for this chance to ask this question.
Questioner is concerned about the relationship factors of consciousness / soul cluster in regards to reincarnated cycling back and forth between the Heaven micro universe and the general population "punishment" (reality) universe.
Questioner has two groups of friends / family / associations. Each group is a special case.
First Case
The first case is the primary questioned concern. This has to do with the cycled soul cluster that shares tthe heaven micro universe, and the recycled reincarnated reality universe.
For the vast numbers of humanity / and other species this recycling involves gourps of people that take on various roles with reincarnated familes.
This is much like what the "Old Empire" did in the main universe except that the memory erasure was never so final and absolute.
In this case, the likelihood that members of the questionsers' family from the heaven micro universe is whith him now is strong and high.
In fact, this is a common situation with notible exceptions such as MM and imprisoned Domain IS-BE entities. These entities often find themselves in reincarnated lives (sic) alone with no preconceived relationships that carry over from previous incarnations.
In fact, that is one of the big "tell tales" that help us locate members of the Domain "Lost Battalion". The lack of quantum connections can be observed and measured with the proper training and awareness.
Thus many of the Domain "Lost Battalion" find themselves in host familes upon reincarnation that appear faraway or aloof, or not in agreement with their thoughts and viewpoitns. While this is in part a normal part of all inmate skin-suit experiences for perhaps 20% of the general population, those of the "Lost Battalion" find this situation to extreme and absolute.
They do not "fit in" with their inhereted host families, and they might feel like they do not belong. Like they were adopted from another family or something similiar. Being without these quantum connections has retarded the interpersonnel family relationships to some degree. The members of the "Lost Battalion" realize this, even if they cannot verbalize it.
This results in certain attachments that manifest when searching for a mate.
In the case of the questioner, this is not the case. They have family members, younger members, and older members that thay have had many, many cycled reincarnated experiences with.
In this present incarnation, the answer to the question (unstated, but observed) that in the immediate family are members of long, long quantum entanglments and substantive relationships from heaven (sic) and previous lives and reincarnations.
Second Case
The second case concerns the relationships with those prior to incarceration by the "Old Empire". These relationships are much older, longer and more substantive than any that the questioner is associated with regarding his immediate incarnation relaionships.
For the vast bulk of inmates these relationships are completely severed and cannot be fully reestablished until there is an ability to recover the entities prior memories.
While the former friends and families will realize who the questioner is and what is going on with it, they will not maintain the same relationships that were present prior to jailing and incarceration. They will have changed, and the questioner has changed.
Even with full recovery of memories, everything has changed.
[7.4] Question – About questioners past
Please consider the following as a question for the DC.
.
“What did I experience as a child that i only now have the wisdom to begin to comprehend”?
.
I hope this isn’t too vague. Tried to distill the issue to the simplest question. Hopeful an answer provides a launchpad to a more direct STO path/career for years ahead.
.
Additional context:
I suspect the experience involves type 1 greys or similar; could be a single experience or event; timeframe circa 75-86.
Questioner has not provided enough information for presentation by MM (sic). Communication consists of a transmitter and a reciever. Additionally, both have to be tuned to the same frequencies, and transmit in the same language.
[1] If the transmitter is from RCA, and the reciever is from Magnavox, there is the possibility in garbled communications.
[2] Further, if they are not communicating on the same frequency, or one is sending in AM, while the other is recieving in FM, there would be no communication.
[3] Further to that, of the sender speaks French and the reciever only understands Japanese, and the message is in Islandic, no communication is possible.
Transmitter (MM) knows nothing about the issue, the questioner, and the situation. Yet the questioner is expected that somehow there is this magical transference of information. There cannot be any transmission of information if no information is provided.
So the transmitter submits an empty message. And thus, respectfully the
Reciever collects that empty message, and interpets it as useless.
The questioner needs to fully appreciate the magniture of his folly. An eleven year span of time is presented devoid of coordinates, references or data. Somehow the transmitter is to acquire geolocation data, history, packaged information and submit it for review and response.
Of course nothing can be provided.
Questioner is to collect his thoughts and generate a multi-paragraph presentation describing reasons for the request, his personal history regarding any incidents referred to, and why it is considered to be of importance. The presenter (MM) will then have enough information to generate an image that we can read.
This is what all the other questioners do. The questioner must provide enough information to provide thick and accurate responses.
The Commander was nice and polite, but I am not. So I am going to give all readers a very strong lecture right now.
If the subject matter is too embarrassing then do not submit it. If you find it too much of a hassle to provide a minimum of contextual background then please do not waste my time.
You all need to provide details and background when presenting a question, and you must understand it fully. Then you must present it to me so that I can understand it.
Explain what this means, can you provide the necessary details so that the events of 1967 can be understood.
The Domain Commander is not a magical being. There are limitations. This entire situation utilizes a physically implanted EBP for goodness sakes. And the Commander accesses answers via various means. Do not treat him / it / she as some kind of supernational being. It isn’t.
I spend roughly three hours on every question all told. And it’s a very tying and difficult procedure and very uncomfortable. I’m doing this for fucking free God damn it. Do not take me for granted. -MM
[7.5a] Question – future of Asia
My question for the Domain is: how do they see Japan, the Koreas and Taiwan fitting into a brighter Asian future given what we now know thanks to the Commander/MMan’s Q&A?
Projections of the Asian geographical region is overall positive and free of the attempts to militarize it to a point of open overt and violent physical warfare.
Within a hundred years will be new "understandings" regarding Korea and South-Western Russian Federation. These will be economically stable and free of conflict. This may or may not result in formal geographical boundaries.
Japan is expected to break away from the relationship with the United States and will diverge in their own cultural vector. It will be inward directed and mercantile. It will resume its cultural uniqueness and participate in a growning regional economy. However, it will not be a signifigant one.
Taiwan will unify peacefully with the mainland Chinese. It will be conducted in multiple stages, and for most of the world it will be innocuous and transparent actions of no concern or overt worry. There will be opposition domestically to this action in pockets, but they will be isolated and eaisly suppressed. China will be observed and percieved as a grand national society that most Taiwanese would want to be part of. As this perception increases in popularily, the ease of reunification increase proportionally.
Of course, these are only projections and the future can never be predicted with absolute certainity.
[7.5a] Question – East Asia immediate concerns
Are they (Taiwan, Japan and Korea) predicted to work with China or go down with the Western Ship? (Deagel does forecast significant population drops in all 3 regions, so perhaps that answers my question!)
Deagal forecasts are predictions based on remote viewing and statistical projections. They are not without fault, and the template (sic) can change rapidly.
The long term trends for the region so specified by the questioner is overall positive. However, there are worrisome elements in the immediate short-term future. We (The Domain) project a strong possibility of disruptive elements that may ignite some events that have the potential for great catastrophic loss of life.
Trendlines and global alignments are a "tightrope" that need to be mitigated through shrewd actions and careful planning. As long as the respective "leadership" in those regions "off shore" their Geo-political counselling to any of the major Western powers, then catastrophic results will become a certainty.
However, this is not the actual case. Internally, and in confidentiality, there are strong and influential elements that recognize national stability being of upmost importance. They will assure a transitional posture away from the West as a matter of national survival.
Having much experience of East Asia and living here again now, it always strikes me how there are a lot more similarities than differences between these great nations across a broad spectrum, and the US model was never a good fit having been superimposed upon Korea and Japan in particular since WW2.
There are many positive things going on in Korea, but having socialised a bit this past week with some reasonably well connected Koreans (businessy types and the medical profession– old high school acquaintances of my wife’s, mostly), it’s clear after some gentle probing that most people still think that “the Virus escaped from the Wuhan Lab” and that “it’s all Chinas fault.”
Now, having said that, most of these folks are NPCs, anyway, (whereas Korean leadership and elites are most definitely clued in and quite sentient, obviously! I’m just referring in this case to a random subset known to me personally) and IMHO know shit from shinola about the wider world, but they DO represent blue/white collar Korean society in general– homogeneous; consensus thinking, etc. And they are ALL pro mRNA rollout and feel that the side effects are stastically minor. In fact, many of them have shares in a Korean biotech firm that on the directions of the President is setting up a Korean version of the MRNA jab for manufacture and they’re all looking forward to making lots of money in future.
Depressing stuff, I know.
mRNA booster rollout is also being “offered” to young children soon and the only places open for business to the unvaxxed are grocery and some other outlets. Most businesses are fast becoming vaxxed only and there’s no resistance. They’re even rolling out a vaxx cert for schoolkids under 16 next month in order to pressure parents who won’t consent to mRNA inoculation for them or their children.
No Chinese or Russian traditional vaccines are available or even talked about. They are full on mRNA in Korea and looking forward to making lots of money producing their own version now that airline stocks have gone tits down.
All in all kind of a depressing picture, that’s why I’m curious about the future as clearly Korea and Japan are places of great innovative potential. Taiwan, too. And could really work with China and each other once the malevolent US controlled socio- political apparatus is dismantled.
Thanks, Mr Man. Let’s hope the Year of the Tiger lives up to its reputation.
Social classes in Korea will follow leadership guidance. The leadership will adopt an array of different policies and change direction on a number of subjects. However, there will firstly be some events that will contribute to a change in their thinking and attitude.
The questioner need not worry about the details, just know that there arepressures and vectors that strongly suggest a future that does not match what currently exists.
[7.6a] Question – Flushing out details
I conducted a private, personal comm reading for this questioner. The discussion that follows has been redacted and simplified to fit this venue. All confidential material has been omitted. -MM
…
MM, I read the latest answers and I am really excited!
It took me a while to digest, and I sincerely thank you and the commander for taking the time to answer my questions! Also, the revelation about a new (Domain sponsored interface) organization in China…wow!
I understand that you have a regular life to live, and there are other questions already in the pipeline. I do have some questions, which are NOT urgent at all. But I do think the answers to them are very important not just for me but for others regarding these “learning clusters” (whenever you can get to them, of course).
Question 1;
The commander’s last answer to my questions about joining the Domain full time after I complete my sentence in this current meat suit only solidified/confirmed my decision that joining the Domain full time without doing another incarnation round is the absolutely 1000% correct path for my IS-BE.
Based from the commander’s response, I wound up creating my dysfunctional quantum entanglements while taking this “soul improvement course” for centuries with other IS-BEs, only to find out now that all I did was dig myself deeper into some sort of quantum hole (like quicksand or something).
So my take is, (no offense to the Mantids, I’m not arguing with them, and arguing isn’t going to help me anyway) that clearly the curriculum is ineffective and inappropriate for the correct development of my IS-BE.
It may have been fine for some other IS-BE’s, but I am quite unhappy with the dysfunctional results and believe that a change of scenery (join the Domain full time and train) would be a better choice for becoming the best IS-BE I can be.
Am I justified in thinking that the “self improvement” curriculum that they are making inmate IS-BE’s attend (for centuries in my case) is in SERIOUS need of reform?
That perhaps, if the results are overwhelmingly negative or dysfunctional for certain types of IS-BEs, that it’s the curriculum that needs real modification?
Am I justified in thinking that relying on the same mechanism to neutralize unstable quantum entanglements (reincarnation and “studying” with the same IS-BE’s that you cultivated fucked up relationships with for the next few centuries) is a fool’s errand?
Kind of like using the same skin cream that keeps on giving you acne, but somehow hoping that it will work for you this time?
The educational / reform program that originates out of the "Heaven" bubble universe is part of an elaborate system to reconfigure garbons (sic) and swales (sic) to "reform" IS-BE entities into a different type of form and shape. Once that shape is complete the entities whill not be able to fit into the "Old Empire" environment even if they were ever to escape from the Prison Planet complex.
There are numerous issues regarding this system.
[1] Firstly, the initial intention was to create an intentional reform mechanism that will allow inmates so processed to be rehabilitated and changed into a form that is no longer dangerous and threatening to the "Old Empire".
[2] This origional system was intended to change the very shape and nature of the IS-BE so altered, and then remove them from the Prison Complex and then reinject them elsewhere in a distant area far away from the "Old EMpire". The initial plan consisted of millions of years of retraining, and alteration. It was not initially established as a final solution for really bad criminal elements.
[3] However, as the leadership of the "Old Empire" changed, so did the direction, function and features of the Prison Complex. They changed the structure of the reeducation program, and made it so that there would never (truly and actually) be a period of parole and release. In so doing, the Prison Complex became a "black hole" from which criminals would enter and never leave.
[4] Mantid Prime directives changed over time internally of their own volition, and the program was changed with differnt processes, course studies and intentions.
[5] General population Mantid directives, upon working with us at The Domain, has thus changed, and interactions regarding the training and rehabilitation schedule and programs are no longer in synchronization. This is a Domain directive. As the Mantid Prime plans call for much more bloodshed, violence and horrific events than what The Domain finds acceptable.
[6] Other groups, some well-meaning, others self-serving, have each individually and in groups have altered, modified, changed and otherwise seriously altered the rehabilitation educational program.
The results of all these changes is a bastardized / hybrid program of little value to any IS-BE. The questioner is advised to elect not to participate in it, and upon translation (death); call for pickup and the next-steps that we have in place for this questioner.
[7.6b] Question – Karma
I remember Airl’s words on how kindness begets kindness, and how cruelty begets cruelty. That keeps on ringing in my brain.
I absolutely agree with the commander’s wisdom on kind behaviours. It brought me back on the subject of karma.
While I agree that it exists, I have severe misgivings on its effectiveness as a “corrective” or “justice” mechanism.
While I am certainly not anti-punishment and I absolurtely understand that some people/entities only understand the “stick” rather than the carrot, I know first hand that suffering and cruelty in general (not always) begets only more suffering and cruelty (especially if the person/entity recieving the cruelty has no memory of what happened in the past and they truly believe themselves to be the victim, so they lash out in reaction…thus extending the negative cycle instead of becoming a better sentience…sort of like an abused kid who grows up to abuse others because that’s all he/she knew, and those others they abused “spread” their negativity and abuse others too because that’s all they knew, and so forth…).
My thesis is that karma is a reinforcement mechanism (for good or bad) and I undretsand the commander’s excellent advice to use kindness as a way to start and maintain positive cycles.
I have a suspicion that entities can be “tricked” or bamboozled into accumulating negative karma because of the memory wipe/”electrocuting the bejesus out of them” technique.
They think they are doing the right thing, only to realize that they actually committed a crime and really hurt people (like useful idiot or NGO volunteer).
Am I right to have these suspicions, since Earth is a prison planet?
Are many entities who were political prisoners/artists/whatnot from other planets “corrupted” this way so that they would be purposely saddled/handicapped with negative karma?
Is it fair to say that you can also cause an otherwise decent entity to become “infected” with this negativivity through their experience, and in turn they will infect others with this negativity (giving your measles to everyone within your range of contact)?
Am I justified in thinking that negative karma is “infectuous” and that we must come up with a mechanism to prevent in from ensnaring others?
Also, it seems that the Old Empire have some technology that “enhances” this negative karmic infectivity. Is this a decent suspicion or am I the victim of an overactive imagination?
I will be giving you a donation soon once I get more money in (not that you asked). We really appreciate everything you do (even the resident curmudgeon (you know who he is) was pretty stoked with your last article.
Ha! Like I said, while I believe the lastest questions I am asking have significance and importance on the nature of the prison system here on Earth and how some entities wind up saddled with big karmic disturbances, it’s certainly not an emergency and can be answered in a leisurely pace.
Questioner is correct. Again, the purposes, systems, and devices of the Prison Complex have been subverted to other uses and purposes. many of which are to benefit others of a Service-to-Self sentience, and to profit from.
[1] There are entities that use the Prison Complex for entertainment purposes, and have created never-ending bouts of recurring terror and events for their own personal amusement.
[2] There are entities that feed of the emotions (so generated) by difficult times and use that to build up their own quanta alignments. In this way, the human inmates are utilized as a farmed animal or creature to generate quantum alignments taht can be extracted through harvesting. Then the IS-BE entity must endure it over and over again without ever getting off or out of the program. It's similiar to reliving a movie scene over and over and over again.
[3] The new directives of Mantid Primes encourage the creation of inadvertant quantum (karma) attachments to solidify group clusters as part of their revised goals for the human species within the Heaven micro universe.
[4] When the Prison Complex was first established, it was believed at that time, that if an IS-BE entity would endure similiar event sequences for millions of lifetime reincarnations that it would grow tired of that exerience and never want to inflect those pains and terrors on others.
[5] Service-to-self entities that work with their mantid primes can construct lifetime experience that create these event vectors for their own personal amusement, growth, or pleasure.
The questioner realizes that all interactions at all levels create attachments. Some are good and some are bad realative to the reincarnation cycle process. This is a fundamental understanding associated with the questioners role as a <redacted> prior to capture, and memory erasure. All fellow entities procured along with the questioner have this understanding, and are equally frustrated being thrown into the general population in such a manner where their carefully cultivated lives (billions of years worth) have be subverted, altered and damaged.
[7.7a] Question – Who was I?
MM — Firstly, I’d like to thank you for your continuous efforts on these matters. To me, they deeply resonate with my world view and for that I sincerely thank you. I have to apologise in advance for a lengthy request… though I feel it’s necessary in order to posit my questions below.
I’ve been very lucky to be blessed with an exceptionally strong, caring and loving family, who collectively without exception promoted and instilled in me the concept of unconditional love. Such concepts have largely been driven by my parents who have read a significant amount of literature throughout their lives regarding the non-physical world, as they call it.
While I did not always believe in this throughout my teenager years, I (for a while now) deeply feel this is true to me (I just know it’s true); that if everyone adopted these teachings, society would be so much of a better place — I am also an extremely rational person, who I believe is open to any kind of experience as a way of learning: this includes the darkness and other negatively-characterised aspects of life, simply because one cannot know love (for example) without knowing the opposite.
Just know that I’m aware that life is not a system of duality but rather an infinite spectrum of opposite sets of experiences.
I think of it as an infinite ruler with a zero in the middle—the way I see it, in the physical world, life is often seen as a scene of duality where a positive experience (+1, +2 and so on) has a corresponding negative experience (-1, -2 and so on) whereas in reality there are an infinite number of numbers (or experiences) in between those natural numbers.
As such, I do not have hatred towards the Old Empire because I realise that that was the path such IS-BEs chose for their own progression.
I’m still human after all (for now) but I realise that each consciousness is free to choose their own path. I hope this is clear to MM, the Domain, and the readership.
Having said this, I have a very strong, deep and fiery feeling that I do not belong here.
I often discuss with my father how schizophrenic the current world is, how much unnecessary pain etc. is caused by manipulation, herd mentality and the way we’ve been conditioned to think, without realising that all we need to do is to live in the moment, and that our choices to us and towards others really encompass all that matters.
We can only experience life via our five senses, therefore one must realise that there is an incomprehensibly (to the human mind, that is) high number of ways one can experience reality, with much of it being driven by thoughts, personal idiosyncrasies and synchronicity.
We are all different, yet we are all one (I feel that we are all derived from the same source, whether we call it god, belief in oneself, or some higher entity as we, humans, try to perceive it—“consciousness seems to be the universe experiencing itself”).
I wish I could put into words how much I want to write, though the above is merely a way of explaining my world view to finally ask the question I’ve always wanted to know:
Who am I / who was I before my time in the prison system complex?
…
I have repeatedly asked the MM readership to stop asking these kinds of questions. The Commander has been very clear that the knowledge of what people were pior to their incarceration does more harm than help for the IS-BE entity.
Never the less, I did ask and posit this question.
Keep in mind that often the answers are often very distasteful, and personally I, as MM, do not like the images and thoughts that are presented to me. Remember, not everyone was caught up in a political sweep or discharged accidentially. Some were very, very bad entities that had to be put into prison.
Questioner is sincere, but is likely not expecting the answers that will presented to him. Often times the thoughts generated by knowledge can have a detremental effect on lives of the questioner. Human skin-suits should not ask questions that they might not be ready to accept the answers to.
Let it be well understood that the questioner was not a human, meaning that the human skin-suit was not the preferred physical form that the entity utilized. The region where the questioner lived (prior to incarceration) was associated with planets and environs that did not favor human archetypes. It was a completely different biosphere.
The entity was practitioner of technological magic that created modifications of injectible advertisements into the thought streams of other creatures for personal profit and occupation.
<Image of a pot-bellied satyr like creature.> (This seems to be a dominant shape form or vehicle for many "Old Domain" creatures. -MM)
(I am getting many images / thoughts of hyper-sexuality, manipulation of the thoughts of others, brutal "mind rape" resulting in physical actions of a distasteful nature.-MM)
Questioner was involved in multiple offenses, of a repeating nature that occurred over long swaths of time, various geographical areas, and a great deal of sadness, suffering and disruption of local families, children, and great heart-rendering anguish.
<Image of crying rabbit like creature holding bloodied remains of children in blood crying and dying in enormous pain and angish, with the questioner as a cocky pot-bellied satyr with an enormously long penis in full proud display laughing about the crimes in front of some kind of cauldren / steamy holographic screen projection display.>
Questioner has been on a planned evolutionary egress from this life and is unable to return back to it. When the time comes to exit the Prison Complex, there will be a need for extra special attention. This will be for the cultivation and retention of prior memories, the questioner will need to undergo extra special rehabilitation so that the events leading up to the incarceration will not be counter-productive.
[7.7b] Question – Domain assistance
My second point, is that I truly want everyone in this prison system complex to be freed from it, where possible.
However, I realised from reading MM’s notes that this may be not always be possible.
Therefore, even though I do feel some guilt by asking the Domain to kindly assist me and my core family to remove us from the prison upon our deaths in the physical world, I sincerely hope this is possible so we can reunite with our true clans/societies/clusters (I feel such an intense love and connection with my parents, especially, that I’m inclined to believe we belong to the same clusters).
Could the Domain assist me and my core family in order to remove us from the prison after our physical deaths?
Yes. The Domain will assist all irregulars.
This will be conducted on an individual basis and each IS-BE will be handled differently based up their own backgound and needs.
To volunteer, one must be a service-to-others sentience, and be willing to abide to the changes that the Domain will make to their non-physical bodies. For many entities this will be terrifying as the "Old Empire" fear-inducement mechanisms will be activated.
Additionally, the volunteers must agree to the rules and laws of the Domain, and agree to follow operational directives.
This is conducted on an entity to entity basis. The questioner cannot speak or make arrangements for his family unit, no matter how well intentioned.
I performed a follow-up question on this subject later on in this article. It’s question [7.10]. -MM
[7.7c] Question – Responsibilites of membership
Finally, this will lead to my final point. Synchronicities in this world are real — I find so many answers everyday in MM’s notes to questions that I find myself having.
In fact, reading MM has finally established my core belief in this life, meaning that I now know that I was right in the feeling that there is so much more than physical experiences.
While I’ve made my silent goal to improve this world as much as I can (even if those steps that I take towards this goal may be small in scope), I’d like to strongly help the Domain:
While my desire to help is real, I do not know which clans/societies/clusters I was a part of before my stay in the prison system complex.
Therefore, I’d like to learn more about my prior clusters and the responsibilities of being a productive member of the Domain before deciding to join the Domain, as one may realise that they’d like to re-join their existing societies.
As such, what are the responsibilities of being a member of the Domain?
The Domain has very set and structured roles and responsibilities. This falls within a very organized and laid out set of defined social classes.
When someone wishes to join the Domain, they are reviewed on a personal individual basis. This is to determine in what way they would best fit within the Domain society and social structure.
Not every entity can fit into it.
But if the entity is so inclined, and is willing to obey the rules and laws and their social class then we would be very happy to invite the IS-BE entity to join the Domain, knowing full well that they can leave at any time.
Upon review, the IS-BE entity would be presented with a firm understanding of the expectations of Domain membership. From that point, and agreement, an evaluation period will begin and the entire process is an individual one that includes elements that are outside the range of understanding of the earth-bound IS-BE skin-suits at this time.
[7.7d] Question – Life path
Lastly, because I realise the effort of MM in providing his readership with feedback from the Domain, I wanted to ask one final point, if possible:
I struggle with balancing my mental health with the extreme stress that my job in finance puts on me. However, I endure this effort because I’m hoping that the job I chose will provide with enough capital for me to finally be “free” of the ‘rat race’ in order to finally dedicate my entire and full attention to creating experiences, to improve this world, and to, above all, help others.
As such, all I want to ask is for any feedback and/or recommendation that the Domain might have with regards to the life path that I am currently in. I feel so lost at times with this matter…
Would the Domain kindly provide feedback or any recommendations with regards to my current life path?
Life path decisons are a personal matter that is best determined by the individual.
The questioner has embarked on a life-path as established in his pre-birth world-line template (sic). It was his decision prior to being born, and he has followed it as was his objective.
This plan was formulated as part of a series of reincarnation events regarding a cycling structre of key soul IS-BE entities that the Questioner is part of. This cluster are all working together on a project that was put in place by themselves with direct guidance from their local mantid primes.
THe questioner is advised that the positive aspects of his current life are providing good and benifical improvements as has been his wishes. Even the distasteful elements of his life have a role. The questioner is obeying his jointly predicted performance vectors and should not deviate from it.
The relationships that the questioner currntly have are valuable and needs to be cultivated to make them healthier and stronger. Right now the questioner is balancing various elements in his life, we advise more emphisis placed on direct interpersonal relationship improvment over any fiancial or physical gain.
It is a core lesson of this particular incarnation.
[7.8a] Question – “Old Empire” activities
Domain Commander, is there a connection to the media activities and Astronomical discoveries in exercises directly controlled by the old empire?
The "Old Empire" does not exist any more. It was conquered by The Domain and broken up into regional entities. All of the regional entities are under manitoring authority and watched closely.
[7.8b] Question – Interpretation of results
Could have the measurement and interpretation of the results 89.10.11.12.13….. Dimensional is it your reality?
Transmitter (MM) does not understand the question. Please rephrase with substantive explaination and detail.
[7.9a] Question – Interest in biology
I have some niggling questions for the commander. They’re important, yet not urgent. Important in the sense that I feel it solidifies my purpose and identity, which is of course essential to the way I interact with others. So, if you can ask him/her/it when your schedule allows, I would really appreciate it:
I have an enduring fascination with bacteria and viruses, and with the concept of developmental biology and epigenetics. I used to fantasise all the time that I was a scientist of this type doing research and making discoveries (in addition to my fantasies of being an amazing warrior). Now, I understand that it’s better to remember what I was rather than be told what I was. I have a strong attraction to this science. Could you tell me if this is strongly related to what I used to do before my prison stint?
.
Questioner was a <redacted>. Part of the skill sets in this role is intel gathering. It is cultivated and automatic and inherent in the nature of the IS-BE quantum makeup and structure. You can consider it to be a "sniffer" organ. It operates like a pre-cog ESP skill.
It is one of the skillsets that make a <redacted> and their co-<redacted> so capable and potent. Questioner has the inate ability to predetermine actions and activities relative to harm, damage or violence.
Questioner is in an inmate skin-suit. Yet, still has a quantum IS-BE make up that is a constructed arrangment that is not erased, only the memories are. Not the actual construction of being.
Therefore, the inherent tools / utilities / weapons / and systems of the <redacted> form are intact. Only the memories on how to use them are erased and no longer accessible.
In this instance, the questioner is getting elements of intel from its internal "organs" and doesn't know where they come from, or why they are appearing to the questioner.
The questioner is picking up and interpeting the elements for a subsequent round of global-wide bioweapon release by certain national elements that are increasingly finding themselves at a disadvantage, and they desire to provide advantage in their favor that they can control. They believe, erroniously, that their forced injections of a military syrup would protect their chosen populations during this next up-coming event sequence.
All evidence points otherwise.
The questioner has accurately "picked up" the intel signs associated with this, and this intel is of a serious nature to the <redacted> physical form.
The Chinese are aware of this plot and that is the reason why they implement draconian anti-virus measures at all levels.
[7.9b] Question – Memory recovery
What can I do to recover my memory faster?
I understand that technically there is no rush, but I also don’t want to take longer than I have to. I am not being impatient, but I just want to put it out there that I WILL invest the time and effort to accelerate my recovery from amnesia if I can be given some guidance in how to do this.
The questioner is not able to recover erased memories at this stage of its life. It cannot be accomplished while the inmate is within the physical confines of the prison complex micro universe.
Due to the nature of this questioner's situation, any effort towards memory recovery would be monitored, and prevented by those entities that surround the quester as family members, friends and others. This is an inherent part of the control mechanism for this particular inmate.
[7.9c] Question – disabling snares and traps
I feel that my sensitivity to the non-physical world is severely dulled. My hunch is that this is due to the special snares and tracking included in this skin suit. What can I do to disable these annoying snares? Are affirmations (in the next campaign, since I just finished a campaign at the end of January) a good enough remedy?
Questioner has various alterations to the non-physical skin-suit due to the nature of it being a <redacted> and part of the <redacted> when captured, and stripped of memory.
This physical skin suit is not a typical general purpose skin-suit used by most inmates but rather a specially constructed attire that is used for those inmates that have a high propensity towards escape. There are many unique features in the non-physical suit attributes.
The questioner already has had multiple non-physical operations. Others are planned. Some cannot be implemented at this time.
The questioner is expected to be patient and realize that the intel senses are working properly and its interpetations of events and situations are correct.
The questions is <redacted> and thus we will do everything in our power to ease the transition back to the <redacted>.
[7.9d] Question – clone?
Commander, you don’t know how overjoyed I was (and really surprised) that I am <redacted>. Well, you can read my thoughts so of course you know, but anyway…
.
But I initially dismissed that I must be from <redacted> because my current template isn’t that horrible. I’m not living in Afghanistan as a bacha bazi boy, for example.
.
So is it safe for me to know…am I a daughter or mother (or both)?
.
In the forum, MM revealed that 2 and 13/16 Domain members are getting plucked/freed, and in another message you had said that soldiers can clone their quanta. So what about me?
.
So (ever since) I wondered about myself. Am I like the Domain soldiers?
.
Am I the clone or the original?
.
Ever since I read the “Alien Interviews”, I had thought about how much I liked the Domain ethos and organization and wondered if it was possible for me to join full time.
.
But I never thought to ask until December 2021 (and got <redacted>–like 100 Xmases).
Questioner is <redacted> and thus has a <redacted> elemental segmented soul structure.
This is not what many human skin-suits understand the soul of an IS-BE to be, as actually there are many types of constructs, and in The Domain we use specific pre-determined archetypes to establish social class membership and participation ability.
It is not only The Domain, but other societies do this as well, as well as numerous species that naturally segment for one reason or the other.
The questioner is multi-segmented with autonomous actuation at various points within the Prison Complex. This should not confuse the questioner as it is completely normal, and expected.
[7.9e] Question – Politics
I also have a strong affinity and attraction to politics and philosophy. You could say I LOVE politics. Were these subjects strongly related to what I used to do before my imprisonment?
Questioner has training and previous administrative functions requiring diplomacy and protocol. There is a natural affinity for these kinds of events and situations which is magnified by the intel-gathering "organ" that the questioner possesses.
Questioner had a role in interspecies communication regarding local inhabitants in the <redacted>.
This was a political / administrative function as part of their posting at the <redacted>. Additionally, long before that particular capture event, the entity had successive training in other areas of inter-species interaction and liaison.
[7.9f] Question – Enemies
Are the IS-BEs that currently occupy the bodies of my biological family my enemies?
.
Now I understand why I always felt that they are not my people, and that they belong to another group of IS-BEs.
.
Or are they parasites that signed some kind of “prison guard” agreement when they agreed to be biologically related to me in this birth template?
.
I ask this because I have been contemplating off and on about cutting them off permanently in the future once I get all my stuff and paperwork straightened out and completely transferred.
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One thing I have noticed in my biological family, I always felt that I am being “harvested” or “watched over”.
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The harvesting part is pretty straightforward, since free labor was extracted out of me during my adolescence and young adulthood.
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My interactions with them, I believe, had always been mainly distractions and energy draining, which is why I suspect that they are actually a group of parasites. Their values are also almost completely opposed to mine.
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They want you to be dependent so you can’t leave.
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I’m not here to curse them or wish them ill, but if they are supposed to be my prison guards in this template then I need to know.
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Keep in mind, my father made his money doing predatory lending and pawn shops (parasitic finance) and I was made to work in a check cashing place (another type of parasitic finance business).
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I just need clarity on who they really are, so I can have full faith in any action I decide to take (nothing hurtful or offensive, but my intention is to sever all interactions in the future permanently–in the physical and non-physical world).
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My bio father had admitted that he knew I always wanted to do or be something “great” or special”, but he just wanted me to be “normal”.
.
Obviously he admitted to his role in suppressing me, so already I feel like I would be the biggest idiot to even feel any positive emotion for someone who wanted me to be a sheep. Also, I feel that any continued interaction with these people in the future will result in stolen energy from me. Am I being paranoid?
Those surrounding the questioner are not enemies.
They are "fences" that are used to corral the questioner into certain behaviors, certain occupations, certain geographic regions, and certain elements fo control.
The GP mantids advise that the questioner is considered to be one of the more doctile <redacted> and thus is permitted more freedom of movement than the fellow <redacted> that were captured with.
This was facilitated by <redacted> who volunteered to enter the micro universe "Heaven" and recruit lost soul <redacted> for extraction.
That group of entities established the pre-birth world-line template (sic) that the questioner currently enjoys and utilizes.
However, due to the rules and restrictions inherent in the mantid prime directives, certain corralling elements had to be incorporated into the pre-birth world-line template. That is what the questioner is experiencing.
They have a role, that they are unaware of, that steers you in certain directions.
Some of them do so as part of your recovery and eventual extraction. That was set up by the Domain volunteers located in the "Heaven" micro universe, while other do so as part of predetermined mantid prime directives. Their role then is to set you on a path of certain pain and discomfort to make the death sequence and reaturn back to the Heaven micro universe more appealing.
You cannot tell the difference, and neither can they. It is an explict effort of the undercover volunteers to make the corralling effort transparent ot the mantid primes so as to prevent an emergency recovery back to "Heaven" and probable entanglement and chaining towards more restrictive management.
Questioner to be advised that they are programmed in their behaviors and this is established upon your pre-birth world-line template (sic).
You will find and discover advisement from your mantid as they are (fully on board) with The Domain in your extration. As well as the fact that you have a team / crew / operatives working with you on the non-physical, and that you possess skillsets of great power and ability that you have forgotten how to operate.
Have patience, you will be fully extracted upon your death. Just make sure to call for assistance and ask for our help. This is a requirement for all entities within the Prison Complex irrgardless of who they are or what their background is. This includes MM.
[7.9g] Question – Saving
My husband once said (but he forgot) that he just needed to be saved.
.
I feel that somehow, I made a promise to him that I was taking him to a better place (where I really come from), and that’s why he’s in my current template. I feel like I said this before we both entered this world line, and I feel strongly about this (no dreams, or anything, but very strong emotions in me when I think about it).
Questioner is permitted to have projects, pets, friends, and hobbies while existing as an inmate skin-suit. There are no rule violations in this matter.
[7.10] Question – Mechanism
What is the mechanism or procedure when we die? Will we automatically know what to do, or what will happen? How do we handle our death when we exit the physical body?
One the entity dies, and gets their bearings on where they are and what is going on, they must direct their thoughts to [1] calling to The Domain and [2] yelling for help and "pick up". Do not stop until we arrive. Do not get distracted, and do not be led astray by any events or memories.
We will NOT do anything unless explicit permission is asked. That is our firm rule. This is true even though we many have elements and assets surrounding the entity at that particular time.
We will then come and assist in recovery to the next steps for that particular individual.
MM is instructed to place a photo here.
Rescue.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Domain index” over here…
The key actors in this genuine reality show have communicated both orally and in writing, and their nations have physically acted; yet, so few seem to be watching, listening or seeing.
Very little from Xi or Putin is kept secret aside from the usual military and trade secrets, although there is the language barrier.
The obfuscation from the West is very clear to see.
It appears they think that by staying silent their dominant position that only exists in their minds can be kept in place, which is doubly true for the Outlaw US Empire.
Chronic prevaricators do have a problem when they try to dismiss yesterday's lies to replace them with today's as honest actors will hold them to their word.
And that's precisely the aim of Russia's security proposals--Russia is calling out the West's longstanding series of lies and deliberate misinterpretations.
China for its part is doing something similar, although its context differs.
Xi announced China's intentions before Biden became POTUS--to force the Outlaw US Empire to become a law-abiding, "normal," nation--and bonded with Russia and other like-minded nations into an organization that more than signaled their intent--at least to those of us watching.
As noted by numerous observers from both sides, direct warfare between the Outlaw US Empire and either or both Russia and China is highly unlikely for the Empire will suffer greatly, a truth known by at least some of those running the Empire into the ground.Unfortunately, there's an impression that the 189 other nations on the planet aren't watching.
Well, we know that most of the NATO/EU/OSCE nations are watching and directly involved, but so too are the world's remaining nations.
And the vast majority back Russia and China because they're voicing their desires for a Law-based International Order centered on the UN, its Charter and other aspects of International Law.
Too bad a poll isn't taken of those nations to see how many agree with the Joint Statement and its Manifesto; but based on related UNGA votes, the vast majority would say Yes, we agree.Although the context is wrong, the Outlaw US Empire is acting very much like Icarus and will succumb to its hubris as did Icarus.
That the Neoliberal Parasites actually in charge of the Outlaw US Empire seek to keep their place and power doesn't mean that they will.
But for the Empire to become a normal nation for the first time in its history will require their overthrow and replacement by a far more humane, human, democratic, and enlightened polity than what currently exists.
That may seem like a tall order, but many millions within the Empire crave such a change, and they have most of the world willing to aid that transformation.-karlof1 | Feb 9 2022 0:54 utc
Our world is changing
It is on all levels, and while I mostly chat about Geo-Political issues and MAJestic, we have to realize that decay and collapse of America, or the rise of China, or the advances in Africa all consist of other shattering changes.
Consider this article from the Burning Platform…
The Terror
Guest Post by NickelthroweR
I was taking a break from cutting firewood and I sat down at my computer to see if anyone had responded to my post over at r/antiwork. I’m not a popular guy over at r/antiwork and my comments usually get downvoted into the negative. But, this was my first ever post over at the site and I was curious as to what the 4 or 5 commenters would have to say about what I had written but it wasn’t 4 or 5 commenters. I looked at the numbers in disbelief and then I looked again and that was when I felt the first twinge of terror.
For those of you that do not know, r/antiwork is a forum populated by fierce/brave Communists that wish to destroy Capitalism so that they can all receive UBI so that they can focus on being Influencers, Podcasters and YouTubers. After all, they did figure out that work is difficult, and they most certainly want to share that philosophy with everyone so as to justify their lifetime free ride of goods and services that are OWED to them.
A popular topic over at r/antiwork is the job interview process. I understand the frustration of interviewing in a bureaucratic hyper-regulated system can cause a lot of anger but the corporation has boxes that it must check in the hiring process or be sued into oblivion. You’ve got to interview every single minority group, the alphabet people, radical feminists, etc, even if you’ve already decided on promoting someone in-house. That doesn’t matter, HR still has to pretend as the bureauracy demands that it go through the motions. The Maoists over at r/antiwork do not understand that it is their own woke idealogy causing these problems but to them, it just looks like malice from an evil corporation.
By the way, if you were to take the advice given by these philosophers over at r/antiwork then you’d most certainly go to your next interview in your pajamas, make fantastical wage demands, dictate the terms of your employment to HR, and end the interview by dropping your pants and crapping all over the nearest desk. That, more or less, sums up the advice you receive from the geniuses over at that forum.
As for myself, I’m really just a lurker over at that forum as I sit there gobsmacked by what these people that didn’t get a chair when the music stopped have to say and whom they blame for their misfortunes. When I do chime in, it is to remind everyone that the solution to their problem is to open their own business. After all, genius-philosopher-influencers should have no problem opening their own businesses, right? I mean, if you don’t like that people receive low pay then open your own business and pay your employees more while still remaining competitive. Should be easy, right? If you don’t like government regulations then open your own business and ignore those regulations. Should be easy, right?
Those comments of mine are universally downvoted because opening your own business would make you a Capitalist and you’d have to take on a whole bunch of responsibility. Genius-philosopher-influencers don’t have time for any of that, dontcha know? The Revolution is Today! Get on board!
The other area where I like to chime in has to do with censorship. For some strange reason, these guys are 100% on board with censorship. It is funny to hear them repeat the talking points of corporate media that a private business “can do what it wants” with regards to censorship and if a bank, GFM, VISA, wants to cancel a customer because of their politics then that is fine too. They are also 100% on board with masks and having the corporation dictate medical procedures for its workers because a private business can do what it wants.
When I remind these guys that cheerleading that a business can do whatever it wants also means that the business can pay you whatever it wants and treat you however they please. You can’t have it both ways. Naturally, those comments get down-voted too. See, a corporation powerful enough to cancel the president must shut up and immediately allow its workforce to unionize while providing everyone a starting pay of $25/hr plus endless benefits! Is this an amazing fantasy world or what?
I find all of this fascinating because my daughter is a manager at a progressive woke grocery store. She has 4 unique generations working at her store and it is interesting to see how the different generations (and classes) function in a modern work environment. Her store was able to retain its staff during the lockdowns and isn’t having any problems filling the occasional open position. How progressive woke grocery store did this is very insightful and was the subject of my post over at r/antiwork.
According to my daughter, the ideal person to hire in 2022 is an attractive 17-year-old girl that lives at home with her wealthy parents. That is the person you want to hire. I asked her why and I’ve got to say that I was surprised by the corporate insight.
Young wealthy people are on their parents insurance. You can work them more than 29 hours a week without having to provide them with those expensive benefits.
Young wealthy people drive newer better-maintained cars than poor people. Poor people call off work when their cars break down.
People with lots of student loan debt seem to be sick all of the time. Stress is the #1 killer and people with lots of debt are depressed and call off sick more than people without those debts.
Attractive people are seen as smarter and more competent than their less attractive counterparts. Customers are less likely to “freak out” on an attractive person. (Halo effect)
Attractive people like to be seen and are more likely to view work as a social event.
Wealthy attractive 17-year-old girls tend to not be single mothers. Consequently, they are easier to schedule and do not call off of work when the child is ill.
In the same way that a bank will only loan you money if you do not need it, progressive woke grocery store will only hire you if you do not need the money. They simply do not want the drama that someone that needs a job brings to the table. I would have thought it would be the complete opposite. I was wrong.
Think of the advantage this gives to the teenager? They can live at home without rent, car payment, insurance payment, and just sock away the majority of their earnings. In a few short years, they can pay for their own schooling, travel the world, or open their own business. It puts them light years ahead of the 27-year-old guy that is a few pounds overweight and has $60,000 in student loan debt for a useless degree. That guy or gal is locked in a cage that they themselves built and may never exit.
I decided to share all of this with the r/antiwork crowd because they erroneously believe that they have Corporate America on the ropes and if just a few more of them would quit their jobs then Corporate America will give in to their demands and strip the CEO’s of all of their wealth so as to give it all to the genius-philosopher-influencers over at r/antiwork. Utopia achieved!
So, I wrote about the conversation I had with my daughter and offered some advice to those on the site that actually need jobs. I advised them to rent or borrow a new/newer car for their interviews. I advised them to look as youthful as possible. I suggested to them that if they had debts then to not broadcast that fact. “Don’t look desperate” was the point I was trying to get across. Then I went outside to chop some firewood.
When I next returned to have a look at what was going on, I noticed that 1300 other people were currently reading what I had written. On top of that, 322,000 people had read it in the last two hours, and the post had been shared 476 times. The post itself had almost 1000 comments, an 89% upvote rate and there were 306 private messages in my inbox. Like it or not, this was going to go viral.
“89% of the people approve of what I have to say so let’s read those comments”, I said to myself. Well, that was a mistake. The comment section was 90% negative with people telling me that I was a horrible person that raised a horrible daughter. Other threads within the comment section were of people working out who I was and who my daughter was so that a campaign could be put together to get her fired and me canceled. But the comment section was tame compared to what I received in the private messages.
The private messages were nearly all threats to my life. Threats to have me “swatted”. Threats to have me poisoned. Threats to reveal my identity and location. Pretty much any threat you can imagine was leveled at me for having dared explain how a corporation thinks. I read all of this for about 15 minutes and decided that I had kicked a hornets’ nest. These people could go after me, my business partner, my daughter, and my associates.
It was at this point that I felt The Terror.
I’m not weak at the knees and I certainly enjoy a good debate. Furthermore, I can defend myself against the occasional belligerent individual but how do you defend yourself from hundreds, perhaps soon to be thousands of hysterical Maoists? Like it or not, I was going to have to ride this wave to its conclusion.
Having decided that fretting about the post was not going to make it better, I got busy preparing my home for any unwelcome guests to include news outlets. After all, r/antiwork had just been featured on Fox News where one of its moderators made a complete fool of himself. Perhaps there were more fools to put on the air?
I waited a full 4 hours before I returned to the post and just as I returned to the webpage, my DM’s began going off with people wanting to know why I had deleted my post just that moment. I scrolled past 700 or so death threats to see a message from a moderator telling me that my post was removed because I used “derogatory language”. Of course, I hadn’t used any derogatory language but I was actually relieved that the post was censored. I must admit that I am curious as to what the final read tally was but that is a question that I’ll never have answered and I’m okay with it.
I am forever banned from posting or responding to posts over at r/antiwork. Pointing out to the Communists that the hostage situation they believe exists isn’t real didn’t win me any friends. Explaining how to navigate that world only made them angrier. These guys are disgusted by the inhumanity of being a cog in the machine but see no other solution than UBI. They will happily give up all of their freedoms so long as they never have to work past that of sharing their genius philosophy to the rest of us.
…
Yes. Our world is changing…
The article is part of a series of articles that will try to address the changes that the Earth is going though. It’s not just Geo-political issues, but it’s the entire nature of the various societies that exist on the earth. They all must change, as that is the ONLY way to break up many of the control mechanisms of the “Old Empire” on this Prison Planet of a fiasco.
Don’t understand?
Well, it’s about fifty principles that have to be explained in detail before you can understand it. Relax. I covered them elsewhere. And don’t get too caught up in the details. Just go with the flow and try to catch up. You can back-fill knowledge later on.
Fundamentally, there is a new changing of power structures going on (upon the globe) right NOW.
It’s easy to be afraid. That’s how the tired and old power structures manipulate. They generate fear and force you to obey, using herding techniques to achieve their goals.
Don’t be afraid.
Here we are going to discuss how change is normal and nothing to be fearful of. Not at all. In fact, change is desirable, or do you still want to be the ungainly awkward kid you were when you were pre-adolescent?
Consider the 1940’s
Women were women. Men were men. Dogs were dogs, and cats were cats. Additionally, there were several other classifications such as babies, and old men. The fashions were different, but that only added to the charm of that time.
Here’s some “bathing beauties” wearing colorful swimming attire, and showing off their fine legs. You will note that the women all curled their hair as was the fashion back then, and hid their belly buttons. Unlike Europe, America women were afraid to show off their chests and kept them covered.
Bathing beauties in vivid Kodachrome, 1944.
Was it a good time? Was it a bad time?
Well, I would argue that it depended on who you were and where you lived. Most certainly, those in Europe, Russia and in China had a rough row. But most people who lived inside the United States, Switzerland, and Canada really had a nice time of it there.
Certainly, if you were a man living in the United States during the war period, you had an easier time picking and choosing between women to date. The war tended to thin out the available male population, and it became a “target rich” environment for meeting and spending time with pretty and attractive women.
Or perhaps Algeria in the 1890s
Still, without cell-phones, cars, television, people seemed to get along just fine. People met, ate, talked, and had friends. Women were colorful and attractive, as these three women can well attest to. People gathered together and shared in delightful conversation. Sometimes over tea. Sometimes over coffee. But in all cases, the point was a sense of community and belonging.
Women in Algeria, 1899
I suppose we could continue to go backwards in time. Maybe to the Roman Empire, or to the Ancient Incas, or earlier. In each selected year, we would find that many things were different, but we would also find that many things stayed the same.
The difference in novelty is charming. It is nothing to fear.
Consider the 1970s
Below is a mechanical contraption that my grandmother had. It is a simple index machine that would allow you to place all the phone numbers of all your friends, family and business contacts in one place. You would simply write their phone numbers down so that you wouldn’t need to memorize them.
One of these right next to your phone.
Obviously, you don’t need this here today. Your phone and chat applications all provide this service automatically. In China, it’s for free, but in the United States it’s rolled into the “phone service plan” that you must purchase to use the phone.
Again, technology is different, but is it something to be fearful of? No. Of course not. It’s just different, and we all adjust to doing things differently. That’s all.
Attractive Flower Seller, 1960s
Back in the 1960s, and even up into the late 1980s, flower companies would hire young attractive girls to sell flowers on the street corners. It was common, and I’m sure that they were able to make a few sales every day.
You don’t see that today, but is that bad? Or is it good?
It’s neither. It’s just different. Personally, I like the idea of an attractive girl making some extra money selling things. But that’s just me. Though, if I were this girl, I would be wearing sandals and sitting near a big shady umbrella, with a bottle of water nearby.
Pretty girl selling flowers on the roadside, Oklahoma, 1973.
I like her cropped shirt, short jean shorts, and wide leather belt. She was a child of the 1960s, and I’m sure that she ended up living a fine and interesting life though the 1970s.
Throughout society, at every instance in time, you will see groups of people. All individuals. That seemingly coexisted with each other.
Businessmen drove their big black Lincoln’s by her, and families with their children screaming in their Pontiac sedan drove by and honked (perhaps). Was it good or bad? Neither. It was just fine and dandy for the time.
Consider Europe in the 1970s
In the picture below, we see an attractive woman in a Bistro or Brasserie. She’s braless, and wearing a nice transparent top. She’s holding a small purse with one hand while her companion, and the people behind her, all smoke their cigarettes.
It’s a scene that you will not see at all in modern contemporaneous Europe, but is that bad? Is it good?
Europe in the 1970s.
Some might argue that it is better now, while others argue the opposite. But what does it really matter? Is it something to fear, to get worried about, or to hate? No. Don’t be silly.
It was a different time, and a different place.
And there is nothing at all to be afraid about. Were you all to get into a time machine and travel back in time, I’m very confident that all of you reading this would be very comfortable and would adapt quite comfortably to the environment that presents itself.
America 1961
Let’s go back to America.
Did you realize that for many years after the 1960s, convertible top automobiles nearly disappeared from the American roads? The story as to why is certainly an interesting subject, but we will not delve into them right now, instead we will consider the idea of enjoying life in a convertible with a swivel seat.
Now, it is something to be fearful of?
No. Not at all. It’s something to be concerned about, maybe to be upset or joyful over (depending on your point of view), but it’s not something to be afraid of.
A woman experiences heaven in the 1961 Buick “Flamingo” equipped with a rotating front seat.
In the following pictures, we will take a moment to observe snapshots of life at different time periods in history. At every instance, you will take note that while they might be novel and different from what you (the reader) are experiencing now, they are not anything to be fearful of.
And with that thought realize that CHANGE is nothing to be afraid of, but rather something to embrace.
It is something to look forward to. It’s like always eating McDonald’s cheeseburgers for dinner and then switching to fresh, tasty steaks. It’s a change, and a good one.
Snapshots of life
In the 1970s we used to cruse up and down the roads. Young couples would cuddle in the front seat, and often hold each other while listening to music.
I wonder what those two are up to?
An individual is defined by his/her habits – habitual way of seeing the world, habitual way of making decisions and habitual way of doing things. Habits make it easy to function because they are default ways of operating.
We are programmed by our habits.
This is why it is difficult to change a habit. Habits tend to be replaced by other habits and not eliminated in a vacuum. The aim of positive change is to replace an unproductive or destructive habit with a good one.
And isn’t that what is going on now?
We are hopeful for the future, but fearful that things could go terribly wrong.
But if you are a child, you don’t now enough about life to be afraid of anything. So you are more accepting of things as they manifest.
Kids would be kids. Some would be fashionable. Others would be jokers. Still others would be beautiful. In all cases, they duplicated the behaviors of those whom they respected. Which was, more often than not, their parents.
Young boys strike a pose for the camera, Jamaica.
Change doesn’t just happen. Humans (habits) and organisations (cultures) by nature resist change because it is uncomfortable.
Therefore, the need to change has to be triggered for it to happen.
Something has to inspire or provoke the motivation to change. A trigger can be new information or pain/setback/loss or a pleasurable incentive/gain etc.
Consider what it was like when you were in your teenage years.
The lit up restaurants acted as lighthouses and beacons for a youth that had nowhere to go. There, they would socialize, eat cheap food, and smoke all free from the view and influences of their parents, or authorities.
A burger plate for under a dollar sounds good to me.
Let’s face it: adapting to change is hard work. For this reason, it’s not surprising that most people remain stuck in a state of fear for weeks, months, years, and sometimes their entire lives.
The danger of this is something known as the contemplation stage.
This is where a person thinks about the fact that things are changing all around them, but fails to act on their thoughts and intentions.
They acknowledge there’s somethings worth changing, but they’re unsure if it’s going to be worth all the effort and perceived costs. And this is clouded by the natural revision to change; the build up of fear.
In other words, there’s a part of them that wants to accept the changes, but there’s another part of them that doesn’t.
Simply put, Contemplation is when a person is ambivalent about change.
But I have to tell youse all, change is coming whether you accept it or not. It’s a natural part of life.
In the Mediterranean, people would sun themselves and get a fine dose of much-needed vitamin D. Unlike America, going top-less was quite common and not a big deal at all. As still is the case in many places of the world.
Girls getting some warm sun on the beach in Southern France in the 1970’s.
Don’t ignore change and wait for things to return to “normal:” When change happens, it’s natural to hope initially that things will return to the way they were. But if the world really has changed, the longer you entertain that false hope, the more difficult it will be for you to move forward again. This is not how to handle change.
Fashion changes, hairstyles change. Chairs, tables and “blackboards” change. However, who we are and how we inherit our biological interests and other features extrated from society are not. A playful boy in 1970 would often resemble a playful boy from Ancient Rome.
Change should never be feared.
School was different back in the ’70s. Students focussed on the basics.. reading, writing, and mathematics. They also learned how to write longhand, and some of them took great pride in their “penmanship”.
Don’t try to bring back the past: Sometimes people react to change by working harder in the hope they can stem the tide of change. But that approach is futile. What used to work may no longer work in the new situation.
Whether you cruse the “drag” in a camper smoking (illegal) marijuana cigarettes, or drink whiskey and smoke in a refurbished and re-engined classic car is immaterial. You enjoy the culture that you are part of and embrace it for all the lustful sensory expressions that you can acquire.
It’s nothing to be fearful about.
Cruising the strip.
Don’t complain about the unfairness of it all: When change impacts you, it’s easy to get hung up on the “unfairness” of having your work or home life disrupted. But if you get stuck on that thought, you’ll end up hurting yourself. Fair or unfair, the change has happened. Now you have to learn how to handle change.
Young co-ed eating in the school caferteria. She’s very fashionable with the plad skirt, a big collared top and a long bright orange sweater vest. She’s such a child of the 1970s. She might appear odd and strange to us today, as she seems so thin, and without “booty”, but it was a different time, and in those days no one was injecting food with growth hormones, or eating GMO food.
Back in the ’70s, the personal computer was still very much in the realm of science fiction.. hand held calculators became available in the mid ’70s, but they were expensive, and few kids had them. For the most part, students learned through listening to the teacher.. by doing their homework in notebooks, reading “real” books..
Don’t refuse to adapt: Resisting inevitable change might feel satisfying for a brief period, but staying static in the face of change could eventually lead to extinction.
Attractive men. Part of the college tug-of-war team. While they sought to work out college differeces in sports thir President and Senators preferred hot wars. And that is what happened. Often, we are manipulated by others through fear, and it could be fatal and dangerous to us. Fear is a primitive base reaction mechanism. Domn’t allow others to generate the fear within you. It’s unhealthy.
The Bowdoin College Tug of War Team, 1891.
Be prepared for change: Pay attention to signs of change in your environment, whether it’s layoffs at your workplace, new aches and pains, or strains in your home life. Consider how potential changes could affect you and develop a plan for how to handle change — for instance, by learning new skills.
A mere few decades ago, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes was as normal as eating ice cream. But others, in their quest to make the world a better place by forcing others to obey their idea of a utopia changed all that. Fear, and manipulation to achieve goals and objectives is commonplace in most Western govnerments today.
Princess Yvonne and Prince Alexander party like rockstars, Germany, 1955.
Let go of the past: When things change, move forward quickly. The longer you wait, the more resistance you build to moving, and the harder it’ll be to adapt later and learn how to handle change.
Typing class in High School. When I took the class, I did so for fun. I had no idea that eventually I would end up using that skill in using a computer keyboard. In any event the class looked a lot like this. I was eventually able to pass a typing speed of 60 WPM.
Typing class.
Adapt—Be open-minded to new things: There are always experiences and opportunities available beyond those you are currently familiar with. You might like them even more than what you used to have.
This is the kind of kitchen table that was popular throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. My parents had one, as did my uncles and aunties. Eventually it was displaced and replaced. (My grandparents all had real hardwood tables with hardwood chairs.) These vinyl cushioned, metal pieces of magnificence, tended to last forever, and you can still find them in great condition in remote tucked away used furniture stores.
1950’s kitchen table.
Imagine success: Envisioning what success looks like, and imagining yourself succeeding, can improve your attitude. When you think about what you will gain, rather than what you are losing, you realize change can be for the better. This is an important step in how to handle change.
Everyone had an afgan. I had a red, white and blue one crocheted by my paternal grandmother. It was a gaudy color and pattern, but as a child of the 1970’s I accepted it as a very cool and groovy item for my bed.
1970’s quilt.
Handle your fears: Fear can have one of two effects: 1) It can paralyze you, if you imagine all that can go wrong if you leave your familiar ground, or 2) it can spur you into action if you fear that things will get worse if you don’t do something. The second fear is productive and healthy.
Saturday Night Live was intensely popular during the 1970s. And all of us enjoyed the humor and antics of the crew there. To this day, many of the skits and humor still resonate in this topsy-turvy world that we live in.
The Saturday Night Live original cast, 1975.
Learn to enjoy change: New experiences, discoveries, and achievements are rewarding, usually more so than continuing to do the same things. This is a key perspective in learning how to handle change.
This was the most commonly used item in my parents bathroom. As I grew up, they would let me play and play and play. All alone and unsupervised, and of course I would fall, get skinned knees, cuts and bruses. And of course, they would apply this red stain of mercurochrome to it. Honestly I don’t know how we could live without it.
During the 1960’s every home had this.
Be prepared for continuous change: Change is a natural part of life. Change should only be a surprise if you aren’t paying attention, or if you’re operating on erroneous assumptions — for instance, that you’re entitled to having things a certain way.
In those days, the girls would wear comfiortable halters, and show their navels. It was no big deal, but it horrified our parents. The gals would spend hours curling their hair with these rollers or a curling iron, and then go about applying their makeup. Guys, on the other hand, just picked up the cleanest shirt off the floor and went out the door.
A nice couple.
Change is like waiting for a shot at the doctor’s office.
Frustratingly, we sit with anticipatory anxiety about what is next.
Anticipatory anxiety is like brain-freeze without the pleasure of eating heaping spoonfuls of Haagen Dazs or downing an icy margarita first.
We can’t think, all we can do is sit and wait for the gripping feeling to pass. Under that icy cap of our minds, we imagine that life after (insert your specific change here) will be wholly different, wholly unfamiliar, and that we will be wholly unprepared for those unknown challenges.
Why do we sit with anticipatory anxiety about what’s next?
Well, since we have no actual data on how the change will be— given that it hasn’t happened yet— we do what we can to bide the time.
Is there a better way than to be the deer in the headlights in suspended animation as we close the page on one chapter on our lives and haven’t yet penned the new one?
In the 1960s, the girls almost uniformly wore colorful dresses, often showing off their nice legs, while guys (if they were truly fashionable) wore plad slacks and a gold chain. Here’s a scene from some kind of school event.
Very fashionable.
Why don’t you feel good yet, even if it’s a good change?
Because you haven’t located yourself yet in your new context. You are literally in transition.
Think of transition as a place in and of itself.
You’re not totally lost and disoriented, you’re merely between contexts.
The change you’ve experienced— whether it is the higher price for a cup of coffee, a new relationship, or a change in the Geo-political alignments is abrupt— our adjustment, on the other hand, takes longer.
Regardless of the specifics, transitions have roughly three predictable stages: know which one you’re in: that in and of itself will curtail the feeling of disorientation.
Stage One: Resisting/Reacting: Characterized by doubt and discomfort as you are actively objecting and negatively comparing your new situation to your old. You’re not looking, you’re judging and it doesn’t look good.
Stage Two: Adjusting/Exploring: Characterized by doing more than feeling: You’re gathering information on how to make this work, making choices, making connections, asking questions, digging in.
Stage Three: Living Well in the New Old or the Old New: This is the stage you don’t notice because, it doesn’t feel like a stage. You’ve arrived at your new destination. You’re accepting and incorporating the new so much, you wouldn’t have it any other way: the new is the (new) old.
Would it be more efficient to just skip to that final conclusion?
Sure, but we just don’t work that way.
But by understanding how change works, you won’t mistakenly, when you are in the early stages, take your discomfort as a sign of trouble or a wrong move, you’ll simply say— “Oh right, this is just how change is supposed to feel right now.”
Oh sure, the houses might have changed and the traffic might be quite different down town, but people are still people. We love, we hate, we work, we have families and we eat. Whether one nation rules, or anotherone does, those things nver change. And you can get all upset about “democracy” or “communism”, or whatever, but honestly, whay are you so worked up about it?
Is it because you are being manipulated to be upset?
A spectacular photo from the past.
How quickly will we move through these stages? Individual results may vary, but perhaps the wisdom of the charming, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will help us hang in beyond our many, “are we there yet?” concerns: “Everything will be alright in the end.
So, if it is not alright, it is not yet the end.”
It all comes back to the swimming pool analogy: when you first get into a pool, it doesn’t feel good. It feels cold.
You question briefly should I get out, or why did I get in, but then, anticipating what’s ahead—the refreshing feeling of floating weightlessly in water—you hang in and are greatly rewarded.
It feels good!
Why?
Did someone change the water, warm it up?
No, we adjusted.
So with change, we must be willing to feel that initial discomfort, ride it out and trust that we’ll adjust.
This is not a painting. It is a photograph. I can almost smell the spices, the grilled chicken and the hot dusty sun on my skin.
Inspiration for Orientalism in art no doubt.
Don’t Expect to Feel Fantastic at First: Expect the Opposite
You didn’t want to start kindergarten, then you didn’t want to leave elementary school, or middle school, you don’t want to start college—then it was the best time of your life and so on. So it is for adults. If you only think ahead on the unknown, you forget that you are a master at transitions. But even masters have to pay the piper. The way to be gracious (and cut down on your anguish) is not to expect that you’ll have a seamless process, but actually expect the opposite. If you expect discomfort, like slowing down slightly before a familiar bump in the road, it won’t send you flying when you hit it.
This was a staple in the 1970s. There wasn’t a person alive who didn’t know how to fill the coffee pot, and set it percolating. This is almost an identical replica of what I grew up with and what was abandoned at a yard sale when my mother’s estate was sold off. It was marked for five sents, and still no one bought it.
The tool to make coffee at home.
Fast Forward to the End and Put a Time Frame on the Adjustment
How do you think things will really turn out? Counter your anxious predictions with the facts. And while you’re at it, estimate how long you think it will take to settle into the new routine—a week? a month? a few? Even if your estimate is off, just being able to foresee the end of the adjustment curve suggests that this is possible (and likely).
This was from a time when there were only so many piers available. That was truly long ago. But, you know, with one subtraction of what we are used to living with, comes other advantages that we never consider.
Disembarking passengers.
Don’t Forget to Add Yourself to the Equation
You may feel powerless against change, but you’re in the picture too. How did all those previous changes get worked through?
You can be sure that in change in your own life, that you had something (a lot) to do with that. All the tools and experience that you bring to the situation are there for you.
Sometimes, and periodically, the social norms are turned on their head and the children rebel. Maybe they become “Beatnicks”, or “Groovy Love Children”, or perhaps somthing else. It’s easy to fear the change. But it’s only temporary and sooner or later the things that are painful, hurtful or dangerous are discarded and a new reality manifests.
A gang of young and vivacious girls, 1930.
What Changes, What Doesn’t?
We may think when we start anything new; a new job, relationship, or school year that everything is new and that we not only have to reinvent the wheel, but the whole shebang.
This will especially be true with massive Geo-political changes on the horizon.
Focus on the things that are really changing and enjoy or take stock of what is already in good working order in your life. Appreciating what doesn’t need your attention may give you more energy to face head-on what does.
Whether it is a school caferteria serving a balanced meal int he 1960s with meats, potatoes, gravy, breads and salads or a Michelle Obama meal of chicken nuggets and ketchup, it really doesn’t matter. You deal with the circumstances as they are presented to you. You confront them as they are, and not as you want them to be. You should never be afraid of change.
American cafeteria in the 1970’s.
Don’t Think, Do, and “Do Small”
How do you feel about the transition? Chances are that if you wait for the motivation to feel better—“I’ll start doing x, once y is over”— y doesn’t come.
Motivation follows behavior.
As we see ourselves doing things; acting within change, or adapting to it, we feel more confident that we can.
So don’t just sit there, do something, but do something small.
Take the big goal: what ever it takes and then just take it one call, one cup of coffee, one hello at a time. Build up from there.
Here’s two very fashionable couples in a major American city. maybe New York, but it could easily have been Pittsburgh or Portland. Those gals really had full heads of hair didn’t they? Wow! Stunning, and the guys, they are sporting wide brimmed hats. Really very awesome.
Two foxxy couples in Harlem, New York, 1970s.
[1] Humor
Change is an unavoidable constant in our work lives. Sometimes it’s within our control, but most often it’s not. Our jobs or roles change — and not always for the better. Our organizations undergo reorgs and revamp their strategies, and we need to adjust.
Fortunately, there are ways to adapt to change, and even to take advantage of it.
Find the humor in the situation. Trying to find a funny moment during an otherwise unfunny situation can be a fantastic way to create the levity needed to see a vexing problem from a new perspective. It can help others feel better as well.
This is called “hanging out”. Directionless, with no activities to occupy their time, and no social venues to participate in, the children of America roamed the streets looking for love, and adventure. But often enough just simply got into embarrassing situations and trouble instead.
In the day.
Pioneering humor researcher Rod A. Martin, who has studied the effects of different styles of humor, has found that witty banter, or “affiliative humor,” can lighten the mood and improve social interaction. Just make sure it’s inclusive and respectful.
A good rule of thumb is that other people’s strife is no laughing matter, but your own struggles can be a source of comedic gold.
[2] Be careful about vocalizations
Don’t do it. Don’t say bad or negative things. They act as affirmations.
And that is something you do not want to manifest.
One of the most common myths of coping with unwanted changes is the idea that we can “work through” our anger, fears, and frustrations by talking about them a lot. This isn’t always the case. In fact, research shows that actively and repeatedly broadcasting negative emotions hinders our natural adaptation processes.
That’s not to say you should just “suck it up” or ignore your troubles. Instead, call out your anxiety or your anger at the outset of a disorienting change so that you are aware of how it might distort your thinking or disrupt your relationships. Then look for practical advice about what to do next. By doing so, you’ll zero in on the problems you can solve, instead of lamenting the ones you can’t.
Typical high school in the 1970’s.
[3] Stress
Don’t stress out about stressing out. Our beliefs about stress matter. As Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal argues in The Upside of Stress, your reaction to stress has a greater impact on your health and success than the stress itself.
If you believe stress kills you, it will.
If you believe stress is trying to carry you over a big obstacle or through a challenging situation, you’ll become more resilient and may even live longer.
When you start to feel stressed, ask yourself what your stress is trying to help you accomplish.
Is stress trying to help you excel at an important task, like a sales presentation or a big interview? Is it trying to help you endure a period of tough market conditions or a temporary shift in your organizational structure? Is it trying to help you empathize with a colleague or a customer?
Or is stress to trying to help you successfully exit a toxic situation?
In AMeric today, and in much of the collective West, the “news” media at all levels are manifesting a toxic fear-generated narrative that is extremely toxic and very stressful
Avoid that firehose of noise.
It’s true, if funneled properly, stress can be a good thing. But only if you choose to see it that way.
Boys of the future, New York, 1970.
[4] Values instead of fears
Focus on your values instead of your fears. Reminding ourselves of what’s important to us — family, friends, religious convictions, scientific achievement, great music, creative expression, and so on — can create a surprisingly powerful buffer against whatever troubles may be ailing us.
In a series of studies spanning more than a decade, researchers led by Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman have shown how people of all ages in a range of circumstances, from new schools and new relationships to new jobs, can strengthen their minds with a simple exercise: spending 10 minutes writing about a time when a particular value you hold has positively affected you.
The technique works because reflecting on a personal value helps us rise above the immediate threat, and makes us realize that our personal identity can’t be compromised by one challenging situation.
How did they manage to keep their hair so perfect?
[5] Accepting of the situation
Accept the past, but fight for the future. Even though we are never free from change, we are always free to decide how we respond to it.
Viktor Frankl championed this idea after returning home from three horrific years in Nazi death camps. He discovered that his mother, brother, wife, and unborn child were all dead. Everything in his life had changed.
All that he loved was lost.
But as fall became winter and winter gave way to spring, Frankl began to discover that even though he could never go back to the life he once had, he was still free to meet new friends, find new love, become a father again, work with new patients, enjoy music, and read books.
Frankl called his hope in the face of despair “tragic optimism.”
Frankl’s story is an extreme example, of course, but that’s all the more reason why we should find inspiration from it. If we fixate on the limitations of a specific change, we inevitably succumb to worry, bitterness, and despair.
Instead, we should choose to accept the fact that change happens, and employ our freedom to decide what to do next.
Two sets of keys for one single car:
[6] Stability
Don’t expect stability. In the late 1970s a researcher at the University of Chicago named Salvatore Maddi began studying employees at Illinois Bell. Soon after, the phone industry was deregulated, and the company had to undergo a lot of changes.
Some managers had trouble coping. Others thrived.
What separated the two groups?
The adaptive leaders chose to view all changes, whether wanted or unwanted, as an expected part of the human experience, rather than as a tragic anomaly that victimizes unlucky people. Instead of feeling personally attacked by ignorant leaders, evil lawmakers, or an unfair universe, they remained engaged in their work and spotted opportunities to fix long-standing problems with customer service and to tweak antiquated pricing structures.
In contrast, Maddi found that the struggling leaders were consumed by thoughts of “the good old days.”
They spent their energy trying to figure out why their luck had suddenly turned sour.
They tried to bounce back to a time and a place that no longer existed.
Although all and each of these six techniques requires different skills to pull off — and you’ll probably gravitate toward some more than others — there’s one thing that you must do if you want to be more successful at dealing with change: accept it.
Sept. 15, 1970 – Ca Mau Peninsula
Any life is a life of change. We experience transitions in work and relationships, changes in our physical and mental health, and new events in our local communities and our world. Sometimes we know a change will occur, while other times it comes suddenly and unexpectedly. Maybe it’s a disappointment, or maybe it’s a wonderful surprise.
Many people spend a great deal of time and energy trying to avoid change, but it will inevitably catch up to them. If you can learn to cope with change, you’ll lower your risk for anxiety and depression. Your relationships will flourish, and your body will feel healthier. But if you can’t cope with change, only a minor amount of stress can make you feel overwhelmed by life. You might also struggle to set and meet the goals you have for yourself.
Being able to cope with change is sometimes called resilience. Though your environment and genes might influence your level of resilience, the amount isn’t set in stone. Practicing different ways of thinking and being in the world can boost your ability to deal with change and help you create a life that is adaptive to new places and unexpected events. Let’s take a look at a few healthy practices for increasing your level of resilience and coping with change.
A couple dancing in a 1950s “Be Bop” theater as everyone looks on.
Evaluate Your Level of Control
Sometimes it’s all too easy to become fixated on events over which we have no power, or people who might never change their actions or attitude. But rather than focus on blaming others or moving the unmovable, resilient people set their sights on what they can control. To evaluate your level of control over a situation, you can ask yourself, “What can I take responsibility for in this situation?” When you look for opportunities to empower yourself and work towards change that is possible, you’re less likely to feel stuck in difficult situations.
Practice Self-Care After a Loss
Often life’s transitions involve losses, such as a death, a big move, the loss of a job, or a relationship ending. Even positive transitions, like a graduation or a job change, can make you feel a little sad. During these times of transitions, don’t push away any grief you might feel. Acknowledge the loss, and pay attention to what you’ve learned from the experience. Seek support and camaraderie among friends and family, and consider speaking with a counselor or other mental health professional if you feel you need extra support during the transition.
A group of handsome Southside Boys, Chicago, 1941.
Check Your Thought Patterns
In times of change, it’s easy for your mind to cut corners. You might see everything in black or white, or you assume the worst will occur. But if you take the time to examine your thought patterns and assess how rational they are, you might find some space to nudge your thinking towards resilience. If you’re not sure how to slow down your mind, practicing relaxation techniques, such as mindfulness or deep breathing, can help you feel more in control of your brain and how you evaluate a major change.
You can also generate more positive thoughts if you take the time to remind yourself about transitions and challenges you successfully navigated in the past. Make a list of ways you’ve been resilient in your life, and consider what traits and actions might be able to see you through the current challenge. By focusing on your strengths instead of your weaknesses, you will feel more empowered to meet what lies ahead.
Be in the Present
While it’s important to look to the past to find your strengths, sometimes you can feel too pulled into the future in times of change. When you worry about what the future will bring or what mistakes you might make, you forget to be in the present and observe what’s happening around you. To bring yourself back to the present, get in tune with your body. Pay attention to how it responds to stress, and set aside time every day to relax, take some deep breaths, and bring your focus back to the present.
Find Your Priorities
The most resilient people see change as an opportunity rather than a monster to fear. Transitions in life allow you to consider where your priorities lie. How do you really want to spend your time on earth?
What’s really important to you?
Where do you see yourself wasting your time and energy? With a clear sense of your goals and values, you will find your mind and body can be much more resilient when it comes to the stressors of change.
Above all, prioritizing your health in life’s transitions means not being afraid to ask for help when you need it. Humans are social creatures by nature, so you weren’t built to withstand every sudden event in life without the support of others.
Talk to family and friends who are experiencing similar changes, or consider finding a support group in your community.
Ask your doctor about how to prioritize your health during change, and don’t be afraid to talk to a counselor or other mental health professional about building resilience.
You can’t avoid change, but you live a life of resilience. You can embrace transition and see challenges as opportunities to thrive.
Conclusion
The best things in life come out of change, often times even the changes that are unwanted. We don’t have to embrace change by diving in to those cold choppy waters headfirst, but if we can start by just dipping our toes in, one foot at a time, before we know it, we’ll be well on our way to arriving at our new destination.
What ever it might be.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my “Growth as a Person” Index here…
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 6.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants.
Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
THis is part of the Q&A (on-going) effort where questions are provided to me, and then I present them, and then record and interpet the responses.
Personally, I think girls, cats, and food are far more interesting. But, that's me, don't you know.
[6.1] Question – Recycling
What is the difference between recyling in the Earth Prison Environment, and in the rest of the “Main Universe”?
IS-BE skin suits in the reality (bubble) universe undergo a process of swapping quantum consciousness densities between the reality (bubble) universe and the individual (spawned) bubble micro universes that are known as "Heaven".
This process is faciated through a number of factors. This includes a lack of memories (amnesia), as well as a lack of support or guidance to direct the consciousness to other paths during translation out of the skin-suit and into the non-physical realms.
Without support, direction, or knowledge the ignorant will be convinced to enter into a recycling process. This process includes memory "erasure" in different forms. The most common is the complete memory erasure segment known as the "tunnel of light" but there are other processes. These other processes differ and act like an erasure (not really erasure, but more like suppression enabling access to selected memories while in "heaven") then reenter the assigned "Heaven" associated with the IS-BE physical body skin-suit.
The "tunnel of light" is the primary amnesia mechanism. It is not the only one. Depending on the consciousness of the given IS-BE and their particular composition (garbons, swales, associations, backgrounds and histories) there are other processes that are involved.
Such as how DM uses LD to transport to the <garbled> planet of the "Old Empire". Such is how you entered <garbled, not redacted> and this enabled you to retain some minor thought snippets.
The "Lost Battalion" has been assigned for agressive memory erasure, chains, skin-suit snares, traps and alterations, and other binding efforts of a very complex nature that is beyond the understanding of this vehicle (myself MM) to understand.
This entire process within the physical reality is to shuttle and shuffle the IS-BE though a wash, and repeat cycling from "Heaven" to the general population in the "Physical Reality" and back again. It is a treadmill with no exit, only the promises of one. The key to this entire process working falls into two main catagories.
[1] Memory erasure.
[2] Prevention of independent action, or help upon translation out of the skin suit.
All Doman perrsonnel and agents (whether formal or informal) will be met upon translation as long as they call for our assistance. This must occur to obtain it. It is not automatic, and passive actions will not be beneficial to the entity. We will then help the entity avoid the memory erasure traps in all their many forms.
All this should be well understood by those who are participating alongside MM in this journey.
The "main" universe is something completely different. It operates differently and is structurally different.
Once the IS-BE occupies the "main" universe, there are no "Heavens" to cycle to and from. The "main reality" universe contains all elements that are present in both the physical reality and the various associative "Heavens".
Biological bodies are born, live and die in the "Main" universe similiar to that experienced within the Prison Complex. Except that there are no amnesia mechanisms. Instead the memories upon birth (of a living entity) are in the process of forming, and adapting to the "main" universe environments, so they have to learn and grow. But it is not as severe as in the "physical" reality universe.
So, living within the "main" universe is one much like a snake that sheds it's skin periodically. The snake still lives and retains all it's memories, but when it acquires a new skin there is a period of adapting to it, toughing it, and nurturing it. The memories do not disappear when it sheds the coarse body elements.
Life thus is not birth to death such as in the Prison Complex, but rather, live as a coarse entity, live as a finer entity, and then repeat as one desires.
Thus you have a situation where there are coarse socities and civilizations that resemble the old empire that have large non-physical components that coexist within the same geographic confines.
This is further actuated by the fact that thoughts have a greater ability to modify and mitigate changes in the coarser elements of the society. It is a place where magic can actually work and operate. They coexist and intermingle.
In the "main" universe, the societies (depending on the culture and type) form long duration interpersonal relationships, friends and families that last for many, many generations. The individuals often just swap roles, but often keep their various positions if that is their preference. Thus that is one of the reasons why the "Old Empire" maintained a royal governance class that over time become very corrupted and impotent within their own individulistic cultural and society bubble.
Another way to look at what a life cycle resembles in the "Main" universe is to consider the washing machine. When the clothes are dirty and caked with the dust and smoke of work in the factories, the wife places it in the open top of the washing machine. She rubs on some Fels-Neptha on the dirty parts and let it run. Then when she is finished she drains the tub, and puts the clothes through the wringer where all the water is squeezed out, and then she places it in the basket to hang on the clothes line.
The clothes is like the IS-BE. Life in the "main" universe gets dirty and tiring, but the death translation is the washing cycle. The clothes remains intact and is ready for the next incarnation. And the consciousness remembers all.
Felines are the embodiment of how things work in the "main" universe.
[6.2a] Question – Crowley
I have a few questions for the commander the answers of which will help with a few articles i am working on:
Questions for the Commander;
The commander mentioned that Aleister Crowley was in contact with some Agents of the Old Empire. My suspicians had led me to a similar conclusions.
For reasons I won’t go into at this time, I have been led to believe that King Solomon was in fact a malevolent ET intelligence and that his spirit summoning magic was solely to prepare willing hosts for the eventual possession by other non physical intelligences.
Solomon was said to have “imprisoned” 72 consciousnesses in a brazen vessel which he threw into a lake.
It is well documented that Crowley was in contact with these 72 Goetic spirits, some of which have links to the Sumerian Annunaki (example Astaroth being Ishtar).
From my research, it would seem members of this group of 72 have been reaching out to certain people and trying to explain similar things in regards to the amnesia etc.
From everything the Commander has said about the Old Empire utilising magic, and what Airl said about the Domain being mistaken as the Annunaki, it seems to me that Solomon was an Old Empire Agent and that the 72 were Domain personnel.
So my question is, [1] was Solomon Old Empire and [2] are the Goetia Domain, or similar group opposed to the Old Empire’s regime?
This is a very large topic.
Question 6.2a part [1] Was Solomon a member of the Old Empire?
The Goetic Spirits are IS-BE entities that are powerful, and are specifically imprisoned in a special holding micro universe. This is the rough equivalent of "The Hole" in contemporaneous earth-side prisons. They have proven to be immune from the same kinds of systems that effectively imprison most other IS-BE entities.
There are more than 72 entities in the micro universe (that Crowley referred to).
The belief that Solomon was an "Old Empire" agent is strongly inferred, but is not confirmed. The creation of a micro universe within the Prison Complex is a formidable task for someone who does not know or understand how the "reality" universe operates, thus it is entirely plausable that Solomon was a major architect of more than just the special micro holding universe, but rather a key architect of the entire complex.
Some of the Domain who are members of the "Lost Battalion" are imprisoned in the special holding micro universe. These are very capable entities.
This micro universe still exists and still operates. We have not been able (at this date and time) to extract any entities from it.
Question 6.2a part [2] are the Goetia Domain, or similar group opposed to the Old Empire’s regime?
There are many groups, societies, entities, and organizaitons that have been opposed to the "Old Empire". Many consist of peoples, societies, structures, and other forms that have been eviscerated when the "Old Empire" took over their communities.
One must be aware that the "Old Empire" had more enemies than friends.
There are complete communities that represent sections or portions of absorbed civilizations that harbor an intense dislike of the "Old Empire" and anything associated with it. They, in many cases, experienced very nasty wars, to include thermonuclar devistation and mass enslavment. In many cases these have gone into hiding; gone underground, and surface to monitor and conduct all matter of non-physical harassment.
What the questioner refers to as the "Goetia Domain" is not what is commonly assumed (through this entity [MM here] knowledge and understanding [which might be completely erronous]), but rather is representative of something more diffuse and greater than a singular group tied together with physical associations.
As discussed previously (this refers to a comm channel that I opened and a set of personal questions directed to a questioner who questioned if they were a member of the "Lost Battalion") there are certain elements that quantum IS-BE consciousnesses can envelope and migrate. This includes partitioning of attributes, garbons, swales, and personalities. The soldiers of the Domain use these techniques to communicate and perform structured evasive activity and also enable custom skill sets on a as needed basis. The groups (again, the "Goetia Domain") utilize some of these abilities to conduct surreptitious activities for their benefit and that makes them especially elusive.
Like the questioners core (primary) organization, along with SD, these activities that are performed are conducted in advanced manenrs using techniques that you (myself; MM) cannot comprehend. As they are beyond your limited rendering of understanding.
One can recognize that while their activities are often enshrouded, their intentions are clear and supportive of the nullification of the Prison COmplex.
[6.2b] Question – Prep advice
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I realise I am in the unique position of being one of the only ones within this prison system of having memory of the reincarnation process, and the electro shock torture one undergoes to induce the amnesia.
I am confident, due to my LD undertakings, that I will be able to resist much of what the OE may throw at me should i go back through the process.
It is for this reason I am planning to deliberately re enter the reincarnation trap at the time of my death to try and gain more intelligence for the Domain and the EG.
I am wondering if there is anything in particular the Domain want me to try and target for recon/ deconstruction purposes, so I can better prepare myself during this life (through meditation etc) to “remember” those targets when the time comes. The Domain have my permission to monitor me, during the process, assuming it is even possible.
The questioner is already being under monitoring, and has a team of Domain specialists working alongside him.
Due to the liasion complications, anything that the questioner proceds with must be preapproved by his superiors. We (The Domain) are a hobby / interest / side-venture / important element / side-show in regards to his core tasks, and we should always be considered of secondary importance.
We advise the questioner obtain permissions first before proceeding in this direction as it could very well "go South" and not turn out well for the questioner. And also due to his alignment with the greater force of SD, he must clear everythign with that entity first as they are a paired ensemble (frequency not music).
If permission is obtained, and all elements are in agreement, then we would be happy to open up (a new binder) project in this regard. The questioner would know whether or not the premission set / kit is provided and will will read the responses in the non-physical realms for compliance and "next steps".
We will then guide and nudge the next steps for easy unraveling and implementation by the questioner physical skin-suit activity generation process.
[6.3a] Question – Values ingrained in life
Greetings Domain Commander, I have two questions:
What values ingrained in our current civilization should we banish or gradually come to a civilization that is more in tune with ISBEs and environmental creatures, as it seems the old empire still controls the directive.
Yes. the Prison Planet universe (reality universe) is a bubble spawned universe that resides within the "main" universe, and it contains many control mechanisms. These control mechanisms, and better yet, techiques (of control) are often at great variance with the desires and needs of the IS-BE entities so imprisoned.
It is set up intentionally to be this invironment to control those inmates inside of it.
As time (apparently) progresses or moves forward, we (the Domain) will continue to dissanble the systems in place. The Domain is not alone in this effort and other organizations are working to this end as well.
Additionally, all IS-BE consciousnesses must take the personal initative to acccept new behaviros and change the "rules of the game" so fostered in this "general population" within the Prison Complex. Enormous strides and advances have been accomplished in this great effort so far.
Core to this effort revolves around what you have questioned. You asked what values in the current civilization(s) should be banished or thwarted to enable the IS-BEs more atonomy and an ability to break free from the shackles that imprison them? And this is what the entire transformative effots (via MM here) is all about.
While every civilization has it's advantages and disadvantages, we are currently working with the human civilizations on the Earth in regards to the changes regarding...
[1] Financial Transactions. (A love of money; greed.) the accumulation of which is without limit and the generation of artificial power tied to it. This must end.
[2] Community and society. Humans (in their manifestation as skin-suits) are never the less IS-BEs trapped in an artifical constuct. Freed from the body, most IS_BE's migrate toward other IS_BEs that they have achieved long duration bonds with. This manifests in a skin-suit society of community, and the "Olde Empire" control mechanism is one that fosters isolation, independence and control by fear. They way to break this control mechanism is through personal interaction with others.
[3] Participation with kindness and concern. MM refers to this as "Rufus behaviors". It's a direct participation with the society without expectation of reward or benefit.
[4] Emotional replacments. "Olde Empire" replacment swaps of emotion generation mechanisms have been geared towards the control of others. These are fear generation mechanisms used to repel, and vice generation mechanisms used to attract. The manipulation of these control mechansims must end. In the current earth, electromechanila radio frequency mechanisms are used to artifically induce these manipulative behaviors. The best way to regain control of this is to avoid those seductive systems all together.
[6.3b] Question – Our actions driven what?
Q2 Should your actions be driven more by the psychological mind or more by peaceful disobedience.
The drivers for action is an individual determative factor. It can only be determined by the IS-BE consciousness as it resides within it's own skin-suit and upon it's current template (sic). This is a fixed determinate.
The questioner is advised not to consider others in this issue. Only to consider itsef as an imprisoned entity within a fixed physical body. Actions are thus variant. They change on a daily basis, and one just simply cannot originate a "one size fits all" answer or solution to rapidly evolving situations.
By trusting on the internal "feelings" or (delta) changes in emotional makeup when confronted with a problem (or decisions process), the solutions will be superior. Reliance on the mind, which is an "Olde Empire" device is a mistake. It is used to control, and set the entity IS-BE firmly upon the pre-birth world-line template (sic).
A free roaming / ranging IS-BE entity is not controlled nor imprisoned by the physical mind, but instead uses it to process things. It's a tool, not a mechanism to recieve instructions.
Stop obeying the mind, rather tune in to your inner self for guidance.
Questioner is advised to contact his mantid and arrance a helpful audience to achieve these alterations / revisions.
Thank you for your answers, I feel almost since my childhood like a camouflaged jaguar who has taken too many naps. I hope alliances have been formed, we are divided. Thank you for your answers and your compation, I hope one day to thank you ISBE to ISBE.
[6.4] Question – Distance measurement
I came across this question on a thread which is entirely unrelated to the Domain thing, and thought it was a rather a good one. I thought i’d ask you given your credentials in astrophysics.
The question:
“Can someone explain it , simply. How can astrophysicists tell the difference between something that is 4 light years away(like 24 trillion miles or whatever it is) vs something that is 1 million light years away. Like after our solar system, how can any distance truly be measured? I don’t doubt them, I’m genuinely curious how they do it and wanna know in easy layman’s terms, if possible”
Think of human skin-suits as living inside a small glass fish-bowl. The only thing that they understand is what they can observe.
Naturally, they have created different techniques and systems for the measurement of physical distances between objects that they observe. The scientific basis for these measurements are as sound and capable as is possible using the limitations of time and space as understood by the human skin-suits.
However, there are assumptions that are being used that are in error.
[1] That the speed of light is constant and not variable. In the "main" universe, the speed of light can be variable and is a function of regional perception of the IS-BE entities within that particular cluster. Their presence, and particuliarly their mass alter the behavior of frequences, and one of those frequences is the visible light band.
[2] Non-stationary observer structures. The astrophysicists base their observations from what they observe. This is a point in a geographic region of physical space with is an isolated micro-universe that sits within a larger one. The "shell" of this universe is not hard like an egg, but rather more like a thick membrane. And like thick glass bends light, the membrane itself can alter the observation of light. As the surface of the membrane is not one hundred percent uniform, nor smooth, but rather undulating and curvy.
The answerer (MM here) can provide an insight in the methodology used by the astrophysicists. It is as valid as possible, but unfortunately provides a slightly / changed / alternative impression of science and the operation of physics within the main universe. The reality bubble universe has slightly different physical rules.
I have my assumptions but eager to here from the perspective of a professional in this field. Plus I know you are quite into talking about space, so figured it might give you a break from the Domain questions/ other stresses that undoubtedly surround you at the best of times. All good if you aren’t up for answering it if it requires too much technical speak.
[6.5] Question – How can I improve myself?
Hi, mm
m’y names IS <redacted>. i’m a french IS be Indian in this incarnation but deracinated cause i dont speak my mother langage wich IS gudjrati because i grew up in France and m’y famille didn’t spoke me enough Indian anyway
i’m trying to survive to those political criminals and their pawns that runs the World and to expand m’y concsiousness i like to listen to your Q-A cause it’s resonate with me
i really appreciate the fact that you exist greatfull someone made me discrover you (Pam 2/3 r.a.n.d a french youtuber who does a wonderfull work in traduction and exopolitics consciouness!)
thanks you again for being you
sorry i go Black to Sts selfish nonesense and i Ask m’y question :
I’m affraid i’m the worst recrue ever and to be honnest that’s what i feel when i observe myself, i’m aware that i dont do my best i feel like i do not help a lot for the Lost bataillon so Can i have an advice to improve myself ?
I have the feeling my martial abilities are related to past lives and i would like to know if they know something about that or am i just a fearfull bastard full if New age craps on my head ? I wouldn’t be surprise,
if they know something please tell me .
Sorry for that selfish nonesense .
wish you the best where you are and to your compagny…
Questioner needs to focus. There is a strong need to communicate ideas in a simple and effective manner irregardless of the language barriers.
For this questioner we advise that the process be one of short sentences, followed by an abnormally long pause. This allows the listener to absorb the information transmitted and understand it. The questioner should slow their communication to permit their ideas and concepts to be understood by others.
Communication is a fundamental priority in regards to all creatures regarding their manifestion.
The questioner will find that there are unmentioned elements in their incarnation that will be resolved with an improved means of communication. This includes all elements of communication in all areas of the questioner's life.
Say things in short sentences.
WHen the questioner pronounces the words, provide a stress on the key object, subject or point in the sentence.
Have an abnormally long rest period after the sentence is spoken.
This is important and should not be discounted. The questioner must practice this technique and implement it.
This is an unusual answer, and I do not know what the basis for this was. It simply might have been due to my interpetation of the inquiry. In any event, it was presented very clearly to me.
Instead of saying…
I went to the store, and I saw a dog. The dog was brown and white. He was barking and raising a fuss, and I saw a pretty girl walk by.
It should be stated as…
I went to the store.
(pause)
I saw a dog.
(pause)
The dog was brown and white.
(pause)
He was barking.
(pause)
He was raising a fuss.
(pause)
I saw a pretty girl walk by.
(pause)
[6.7a] Question – Is this about me?
Are you still accepting questions for the Commander? If so, I have some, if not it’s also ok:
I found your website a week ago, so I am completely new to this group. However since I found it I have been reading as much as I can. Then I found this possibility to ask questions to “the Commander”, and I feel a strong urge to ask, though I am still not through the basics described on your website.
It’s all very interesting!
So of course, the obvious question first, do I belong to this group, how is my connection to it, what is my role?
In Winter 2010/2011 I woke up one night because of some buzzing sound next to my head. There was a small sizzling light orb sitting on the side of my bed making that sound (very strange indeed!).
As it noticed I was awake it asked me something like “Do you want to help spread the light?”.
I was so disturbed and sleepy and stupid stupid I did not say yes (or no), but I asked if it really meant me, and if I would be capable to do that at all…..
Just doubting myself very much.
And then I fell asleep again.
Never had any contactafter that anymore (at least I think so).
So basically I ask this question again, and what that light orb was about.
Questioner is here because the MM message resonates with the IS-BE derived consciousness. When frequences attract they resonate. This can be measured. The level of attractiveness to events, people and situations is a function of the magniture of the frequency amplitude during resonance occurrence.
The questioner belongs here.
Regarding the "orb of light"; manifestation of appearance varies from interpetation and skill level on an individual IS-BE to individual IS-BE basis. The questioner should not question their impressions. That is like a person eating a lamb cutlet and questioning whether it is ice cream.
The questioner is advised to accept things as they are, and to interpet them to the best of their ability. Then, accept the interpetations and move forward from there.
[6.7b] Question –
Then the next one, more general, concerning the Deagel list:
Why is the forecasted depopulation in the Netherlands so small (2% from 2020 to 2025 plus that the PPP stays relatively high), where neighbouring countries like Germany and the UK have a massive depopulation forecasted, and even the decrease in Belgium is substantial?
In NL they also apply the mRNA jabs and there are no dead-virus vaccines available. A nuclear bomb on German cities would also affect the Netherlands.
Thank you for all your work!
The Deagel forecast is derived from remote viewing efforts coupled with data extraction and extrapulation techniques. It is based on a fixed shared world-line template (sic). As such it is constantly changing. When the numbers were obtained, the future was a "snapshot" that was recorded and elaborated upon.
The remote viewing process did not elaborate on the causes for the data, only that the data would manifest as presented.
Daegal wrote in 2020 that they believed that a combination or confluence of events might well result in the data sets that they recorded. But whether or not this is correct is difficult to quantify.
No one has the answer regarding a changing template (sic), certainly anyone can come up with a myrid of possible senarios.
The questioner must realize that Deagal was manipulating data sets and then remote viewing for accuracy adjustments. They were not visualizing actual events, just trends and comparing them to historical extrapulations.
[6.8 a-e] Question – Are there other disclosures out there?
I asked this question in response to reading something found by GuyFromAfrica on the Internet archive HERE.
[a] Are there other disclosures out there?
Yes. The messages are being broadcast using different venues. This is intentional. They are not your concern.
[b] How accurate / effective are they?
That should not be your concern either. There are different levels of accuracy depending on the receptive audience consiousness.
Those with a religious interest will obtain information and direction from sources that resonate with them, while those who have a fear-induced being will obtain directions and information from venues that will resonate from them differently.
There is no absolute answer or information transmittal. It is all custom tailored to the audience, thus the Domain provides a wide high bandwith coverage, with low energy for the greater mass of general population inmates. As well as tight bandwith for high energy populations through MM.
[c] Then what is so special about myself?
It is your ego that drives you to believe that you are special. It is true that you are unique and that you have special skills and abilities, but your functionality derives from your tasking. That is your value.
Is a steak better than a pork chop? Aside from prices, it's all a matter of personal need, taste and desire. You, in this manner provide a special role; a unique role. But it is not the only one doing so.
You will continue in your role until you translate and your role will then alter as events transpire. There is a role for you post-translation. That you can rest assured of, just as there are roles for <redacted>, DK, <readacted>, DM (with caveats), and ML's rehabilitation process.
[d] Can you elaborate on the post-translation procedure?
No. There is no need for anyone to worry or be concerned about it at this time. It is an individual process that varies from IS-BE to IS-BE.
[e] Is there a general format, process, or procedure for this?
No. Everyone is different, and there is greater variety in IS-BE consciousnesses than what appears in the human skin-suit within the Prison Complex.
This greater variety is enormous, and it is similiar to comparing a telephone on a bare tabletop (MM) with that of a steam-shovel in a garbage dump (DK), and to a battleship / aircraft carrier plowing though stormy seas (ML).
Everyone is not just different, they are REALLY different.
The impression I got from The Commander in regards to ML is this mecha-godzilla / battleship / aircraft carrier hybrid thingy. Wow! -MM
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views.
That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
…
Russia attacked Israeli air defenses with an unknown heavy-duty electronic warfare system
Russia used a super-powerful electronic warfare system against Israel, which is not officially in service.
It’s an unknown weapon.
Which is the kinds of systems that both Russia and China deploy.
Anyways, a few hours ago, there was an Israeli attempt to attack a group of Russian troops in the port of Latakia. Additionally, they began to threaten Russian military aircraft. In response, Russia deployed unknown heavy-duty electronic warfare systems.
Taking into account the range of interference, mobile systems of this type do not officially exist in Russia’s arsenal.
However, the situation turned out to be catastrophic for the IDF that Israel’s air defense / missile defense systems.
They were suppressed at a distance of over 300 kilometers, which is unexpected, and unheard of. It was a major surprise, I am sure, to all American, and Western observers.
In addition to that, interruptions in the operation of the global positioning system were observed even at distances of about 400 kilometers.
“The Russian military, during a night attack by the Israeli Air Force on targets near Damascus, allegedly again activated the electronic warfare systems deployed in Syria. As confirmation, data from the FR24 service is provided, where violations are visible in determining the GPS coordinates of aircraft in the area of Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv , ”
-the Military Observer Telegram channel reported.
In the above image, you can actually see that the GPS global positioning systems are seriously disrupted, while all over central and northern Israel, air defense / missile defense systems were automatically activated and rocket fire alarms sounded.
Experts note that if the IDF does not give an adequate explanation for its actions, Russia can constantly use its electronic warfare systems against Israel.
I wonder if the Western “news” will report on this. They tend not to, don’t you know. But I told the MM readership that there were other things going on, didn’t I? More to follow. I wanted to throw this news out as soon as it came in.
Were you aware that Russia was in the water at the Southern branch of the BRI?
Were you aware that Israel was prosecuting against that region in Syria, Iran, and threatening the UAE?
Were you aware that there were Russian military forces on station in that region?
Well, as I have repeatedly stated, real secrets are secret and wars… REAL wars are never announced.
Expect more of the same, and a very fluid Geo-political situation.
To include…
An Australian-Chinese dual citizen is being prosecuted under the controversial National Security Law in Hong Kong, the Federal Government has confirmed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has not identified the man, but told nine.com.au he was arrested in January last year under the sweeping legislation.
He could face life imprisonment if convicted. His arrest comes amid high tensions between Canberra and Beijing.
The man was arrested in the same month authorities detained 47 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong under the draconian legislation.
"The Australian Consulate-General in Hong Kong was notified by Hong Kong authorities of the arrest of a dual Australian-Chinese citizen under its National Security Law in January 2021," a DFAT spokesperson said.
They also said that Australian officials have been repeatedly refused consular access to the man, because the Hong Kong government no longer recognises dual citizenship.
But Australian officials plan to attend the man's future court hearings.
"We are in regular contact with the individual's lawyers and will continue to attend future court hearings," the DFAT spokesperson said.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-hong-kong-dual-national-arrested-under-national-security-law/289f1226-940d-4a08-8a9b-5235d182b9cc
So don’t get too upset with the “news” that you are being bombarded with. It’s a fake narrative that paints an illusionary image.
Here, on MM, are the REAL stuff.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
The notion expressed in the original piece that the US just resigns itself to failure and fades away is unrealistic, or at the very least not certain.
Historically, the outcome of circumstances like the present is major war.
Empires rarely die quietly. They go either piecemeal or all at once, violently.
The British went piecemeal. But Britain was always too small to hold onto their Empire.
The US is a superpower, not just an imperial power like the European colonial powers. As long as it has its navy and air force (another important distinction from Britain), it will continue to try to push its power everywhere until forcibly restrained.
-Richard Steven Hack
This is just going to be a short and simple article that I want to throw out there. But it’s an important one. Currently, the United States military empire is dying. It is collapsing from the inside, falling apart and flailing in every conceivable way and (since the “news” is owned and 100% controlled by the government) and all of this is selectively being reported or hidden intentionally. Here we are going to provide a tool; a “filter” from which to read all the bullshit on the internet with.
This filter is very significant. It should not be ignored.
Pay attention…
The Filter
The nature of war has changed.
Any major war between the Western Block and Asia will NOT be along any of the assumed avenues…
Color revolutions; CIA sponsored “regime changes” for “democracy”.
Military troop advances and the capture of territory; such as in Iraq, World War II, and so on and so forth. Including all this talk about the Ukraine.
Blockades. Whether by sea lanes, or sanctions, or currency manipulation.
Public Opinion. The only control of the media is domestic, and that is in tatters.
Grass Root movements. It used to occur centuries ago. No longer exists.
Economic. Sabotage, manipulation or theft are all well documented techniques.
Remote electronic precision attacks. The drone effect was pretty effective in devastating Yemen, Not so in the next conflict.
Bio-warfare. We’re in that right now. The 11 strains of American bioweapons did not suppress China, it only made it stronger.
Now what we do have…
HV-MIRV-ICBM. Hyper-velocity, AI controlled, flight maneuverable, independent, that may or may not be nuclear armed, weapons that can hit anything, anywhere and there is no defense against it.
In other words, why have a military moving to capture some nameless hill in the Ukraine…
… when Moscow can just kill all the generals and their neocon supporters by one singular nuclear burst in Washington, DC?
Boom!
Problem solved. Root cause eliminated. Ukrane reverts to a peaceful agarian land.
And that is where we are at right now. The politicians can no longer hide in their mansions far away from the battle zones. The technical savvy fighters cannot sit in their comfortable barracks and fly drones halfway around the world. The wealthy warmongering businessmen can no longer guarantee that they will be safe where ever they live; even if it’s a bomb shelter in New Zealand.
It’s a new world; and a new situation.
Great Quote
This is the new situation, and Asia is incorporating it from the top downwards. If anyone attacks them, they will not fight the battles as they used to. They will now destroy the leadership of the war-sponsoring nation.
Let me give you this great quote to help put things in perspective…
“Russia plans to engage its nuclear weapons not against those countries where it was launched against Russia, but against the mastermind cities where all the decisions were made.
To be exact, it is Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and numerous other American cities.
Please fully understand, in case American nuclear weapons are launched from, eg. Taiwan, or Poland, the Russian response will be to hit New York or Washington.”-Russian Duma deputy, Yevgeny Fyodorov.
This is Chinese policy as well.
So what does this mean?
Well, consider the “news”. About the United States sending ships out here, and military forces out there, and all this and all that.
Russia and China have both specifically “telegraphed” that any placement of offensive weapons in their borders will be met with the destruction of ALL AMERICAN CITIES.
It’s “red lines”. The ones that the media has so laughingly dismissed.
1. Russia (not just Putin) is insisting in ‘writing’ only because the U.S. pinky swear of 1991 was worthless and they denied it. If we go to war, Russia being all prim and proper wants this to be on record. ‘We got this on record!’2. Russia made their demands clear, even if the U.S. denied it. Do not use NATO membership as an excuse to install U.S. tactical / nuclear missiles. If you do we will destroy them.Hard stop. Period end.
-Christian J. Chuba
Look at the militaries of all involved.
Russian militaries are NOT designed to advance over and take over large swaths of territory and police it. They are designed for rapid and horrific, short-lived devastation quickly and then go back home.
Kazakhstan is a perfect example of this…
A “color revolution” breaks out and all the Western media are in unison blaming it on gas increases.
A “color revolution” in the heart of the BRI explodes, with trained insurgents seizing all the major facilities and airports involved. Within 24 hours, Russia flies in and treats it…
… not as a pro-democracy uprising over the price of gas…
…but as a CIA-backed “color revolution” with armed and trained soldiers. And Russia came in and seized all the soldiers and killed them. Within three days it was all over, and the “staff in Langley, Va” were left with their “jaws on the floor” in stunned disbelief.
Russia comes in. Kills all the bad guys. Then leaves.
“By submitting their security demands, Russia is signaling unequivocally it is now taking the initiative.”Yes. This aligns with my own thoughts. When Russia declared its ‘ultimatum’, existing conditions were already in a state of violation.
Witness Kazakhstan.
Therefore, Russia had no choice but to act or face global humiliation by failing to live up to its own decree. Russia could not just sit passively knowing another ‘color revolution’ was being hatched. This is why I believe that the Russian offensive began in Kazakhstan. Russian intel succeeded in exposing the Western-backed coup attempt and forced it to be prematurely executed. Everything was already in place to crush the uprising quickly and efficiently.It is certain Russia is not passively waiting for what comes next with regard to Western intentions for Ukraine. I’m wagering that there is an active Russian initiative to solve the Ukrainian problem, but not one that will entail tank battles on the steppes. Rather, it will be a lesson in Russian-style hybrid warfare. Maybe not even a shot will need to be fired, or perhaps violence will be limited to one mass casualty event amongst Western PMC’s or UkroNazis. It is probable that the puppet regime in Kiev has only a few weeks left.
The same is true about China.
China’s military are not large to take over Japan. It is large to prevent anyone from even considering attacking the Chinese mainland. They have absolutely zero interest in seizing any further lands or territories. Though, the reunification of their Taiwan province is a separate matter.
Meanwhile, the United States military is for global force projection from staging based pre-supplied with equipment and material. With 800+ military bases, and guns, ammo and materials sprinkled all over the world, it is designed to be the “world’s Policeman”.
It’s a new world with new weapons and new power-structures.
What is the capability?
To strike anywhere on the world unopposed using massive weapons of destruction.
Which nations have this capability?
Russia
China
Which nations do not have this capability?
The United States
The UK
Japan
Australia
The European Union
So what does that mean?
The next “big” war will not resemble any of the previous wars.
Those nations that have the ability to deliver systems unmolested to their opponent will win the next war.
Nations, countries and societies that cannot fight this kind of war are advised not to get involved in any war. Instead, they should concentrate on their own domestic needs and trade.
If a nation refuses to do so, and tries to push towards a war using full-spectrum hybrid-war techniques, they are likely to be annihilated completely and erased from the surface of the planet.
What am I saying?
Russia and China can shoot down nuclear missiles. The United States cannot.
Russia and China can launch missiles that cannot be defended against.
Thus, during this short period of time we have a situation where the United States is being very aggressive in trying to start a war based upon historical techniques, not really realizing that THIS NEXT WAR will be the end of the United States.
Regarding the “news”
Any discussions of troop movements, and naval positioning is for the purposes of intimidation and to apply pressure on one nation or the other.
A REAL war will happen within minutes, and the only way that you will know anything is going on is by your lack of internet.
MM Advice
No one ever listens to me.
But, were I to be the President of the United States, I would advise surrender.
If I were president of Australia, I would advise kicking the USA out of their nations, and push forward as a neutral nation trying to be friends with all my neighbors.
If I were the head of the UK, I would advise focusing on all the domestic issues and reach outwardly to my neighbors in kind manners towards an embrace of mutual respect and friendship.
As I said, I am a practical person. I do not have the psychopathic tendencies that many of the leadership in the collective West seem to possess. So my advice will not be listened to.
So, the next best thing is to “punt”. Pull back and bide some time. What ever happens, absolutely The WORST course of action is to attack either Russia or China or any of their allies and friends. It will not go well.
Makes me yen for earlier days…
And it does. It’s so easy to get angry reading the “news”. Expecially all the lies that are going back and forth. I tell you that American “news” is the worst! Let’s go back to an earlier time…
Get a haircut and eat a breakfast. Together for under fifty cents.
Want a haircut?
Take a spin on a motorcycle…
Motorcycle man.
January 20, 1919. “Recreation barracks at the American Red Cross Agricultural Training School for French Mutiles, Le Liege (Indre et Loire).”
Go flying…
Go flying.
Life in the big city
November 1940. “Corner store in Lexington, Kentucky.” Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
November 1940. “Corner store in Lexington, Kentucky.” Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
November 1940. “Boys in soft drink parlor. Central City, Kentucky.” Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
Crossing the street
Buying some groceries. March 1939. “Small Mexican grocery store. San Antonio, Texas.” Medium format acetate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration.
Buying some groceries.
Roundhouse dreams…
October 1937. “Boy reading in bedroom. Note lack of proper bed clothing. Home of A.O. Ryland, farmer who has quit farming. Near Williston, North Dakota.”I love his breeches.
Getting involved in a good book.
Checking out the nice car…
New Hampshire circa 1906. “Taking trains of Mount Washington Railway at base station, White Mountains.” A cog railway to the highest peak in the Northeast.
Taking a train.
What does this all mean?
History is full of periods of inflection like we are experiencing today.
Whether it was American Indians meeting rifles, horse and smallpox, or the Polish calvary meeting German tanks with machineguns the period of inflection occurred.
And with each period of change, the world changed as well…
…but…
For many, if you were outside of the primary fighting or the battles, your life was safe. It was calm, and it was nice. Such as in these pictures above. And that is what is going on right now. Most of you all are safe. The only “news” is the bullshit that you read, and seriously it’s all lies.
Right now.
So, just live life. Strengthen your little bubble of security and live it. Don’t allow the monster that is the “news media” throw you “out of kilter“. Live life well.
Have some delicious fondue with nice delicious cheese…
Enjoy the delicious fondue.
And enjoy it with some nice wine, breads, olives and cheeses…
Enjoy the good things.
And enjoy the time with friends and family…
Friends and family.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
For those of you who worry about Taiwan, and the collapsing US Empire taking over or suppressing integrated chip manufacture. Take note.
China already holds the undisputed leadership in quantum supremacy with not one, but two complete separate computers. One using light and the other superconducting circuits, performing computational feats unattainable for traditional computing.
China has developed two different quantum computers, one that uses light and the other superconducting circuits, and obtained a computing power unattainable for traditional computing, as explained in two articles published in Physical Review Letters.
That means that this dual system of quantum computing gives China the ability to solve practical problems that can not be implemented on conventional computers, stands to respect PhysicsWorld.
With this result, China is already much more than an economic power: together with its energy developments with the artificial sun, it has also entered the “space race” of the 21st century with force, with different projects oriented to Mars and the Moon.
Except... that it is the ONLY nation in this race. The rest of the world are arguing whether to drive to the racetrack or walk.
Pioneers in quantum information
The new quantum computers have been developed by two groups from the Hefei National Laboratory of Physical Sciences, China University of Science and Technology, led by Professor Jian-Wei Pan, whose work has been highlighted in the past, both by the journal Nature and Science, as a pioneer in experimental quantum information science.
The National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory is one of two national labs at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province, July 11, 2019. [Photo by XU MINHAO/FOR CHINA DAILY]Last July, China announced that it had achieved quantum supremacy with a supercomputer called the Zuchongzhi, capable of performing operations much, much, MUCH faster than Google’s quantum computer.
Zuchongzhi completed a complex calculation in just over an hour, doing it about 60,000 times faster than a classic computer: Using 56 qubits, he solved in just 1.2 hours a task that would take a classic supercomputer eight years.
China leads in quantum supercomputer design, technology, manufacturing, research, applications, components, robotics and AI controls .
Two new quantum computers
China now emerges with a new quantum computer, which it calls Zuchongzhi 2.1 , which uses 66 qubits and is 10 million times faster than the current fastest supercomputer: its computational complexity is more than 1 million times greater than the Sycamore processor. of Google.
It also emerges with another quantum supercomputer, which it calls Jiuzhang 2.0 , that uses light to process information, rather than the superconducting circuits that underpin Zuchongzhi 2.1. “Jiuzhang 2.0”, with 113 photons transmitting qubits, is a septillion times more powerful: it can solve in a millisecond an operation that the fastest computer in the world would take 30 billion years.
This second development also represents quite a feat over the previous version of this same quantum computing system based on light, the “Jiuzhang”, presented at the end of 2020 and with which 76 qubit transmitting photons were used.
Quantum supremacy
With these developments, China consolidates its global quantum advantage and confirms that quantum computers are much more powerful and efficient than classical computers in solving critical problems.
Classical computers are based on the binary system, in which each symbol constitutes a bit, the minimum unit of information in this system, which can only have two values (zero or one).
Binary Computer.
These classic computers have managed to increase their power through supercomputers, which appeared in the 70s of the last century.
These supercomputers, better known as high-performance computers , base their extraordinary capabilities (measured in petaflops) on the sum of powerful binary computers linked together to increase their working power and performance.
Another universe
Quantum computing belongs to another universe: it uses a completely different and superior basic unit of information called the qubit.
The qubit, unlike the bit, can take several values at the same time, that is, it manifests a quantum system with two simultaneous eigen states.
The qubit with two simultaneous eigen states.
While the bit takes on values of 0 or 1 in groups of 8,16,32 or 64 bits, the measurement in qubits can be in both states of 0 and 1 simultaneously, giving you the ability to perform unreachable operations to binary computing.
Quantum supremacy is achieved when it is shown that a qubit-based computer can solve something that is not available to binary computers, even if they are very sophisticated.
Double supremacy
Although it has been claimed in the past that quantum supremacy has already been achieved, and became a battleground between IBM and Google, China has overtaken both with far more powerful developments that, according to Physics magazine, give it no place. to doubt the real and verified quantum supremacy.
And not only that, but it has achieved it by following two different and parallel paths that fortify its supremacy: that of light and that of superconducting circuits.
Physics highlights that it is very difficult for classical algorithms and computers to improve China’s quantum advantages, so we can say that the debate on whether quantum supremacy really exists has concluded.
Useful Supremacy?
And the magazine concludes: Given that quantum machines solve such large and impressive problems in a way that far surpasses classical simulators, could we use these quantum computers to solve useful computational problems?
Researchers have claimed that these quantum computers can tackle important problems, particularly in the field of quantum chemistry, but no convincing experimental demonstration has yet been reported in the West.
You can rest assured that it is ongoing, or has already been conduced, inside of China.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 5.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants. Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
Personally, I think girls, cats, and food are far more interesting. But, that's me, don't you know.
[13] Question – Can humans overcome a cosmic event
I am still stuck on this… maybe you can just straighten me out without bothering The Commander.
There is a shared Earth Template, correct?
We ALL contribute to manifest this Earth with our collective thoughts – a sort of average; correct?
There would be no physical earth unless we humans will it so; correct?
There are our individual Pre-birth Templates; correct?
We purportedly set these before being incarnated into this meat-suit; correct?
As to whether or not we are assisted in these designs or ordered, is debatable – in my opinion – I think that some are ORDERED, like me, and are difficult if not impossible to alter while a human.
Now then, I say the world as we know it will end shortly in a cataclysmic event; you pick: Human-based Thermonuclear Devastation, or Cosmically induced Geophysical Surface Destruction. For either of these to be realized, many, many humans who have contributed to this [current] manifest earth must share that belief/thought.
Is THAT correct?
So, IF we humans came together, in thought, could we overcome even a Cosmic Event, and Save The Earth, so to speak?
I am asking if there are controls in place, entities in place, that would disallow the Earth’s destruction even if the vast majority willed it so. Does the Cosmos trump The Old Empire, so to speak. Sorry, but I thought that The Commander skirted this issue earlier.
Yes. You are correct in every statement. However, things are not all that simple and the "devil is in the details" as is often said.
The mini-universe known as the MWI (or the "reality universe") is a bubble universe that contains the stars and solar systems of the "Main Universe". Within this mini-universe are it's own laws, and rules and organizational parameters that are similar to the "Main Universe", but differ in many ways.
For instance, The "Reality Universe" limits or suppresses the power of thought to a far greater degree from that of the "Main Universe". If a IS-BE is thinking in the "Main Universe" the thoughts would create fast and easy manifestations due to the parameters and rules of the "Main Universe". But those rules and systems are suppressed or absent in the "Reality Universe".
It's not only that [1] there is memory amnesia, and [2] a containment field, but [3] there is a complete suppression of IS-BE actuation of thoughts.
Along with these modifications, replacement rules and laws of the "Reality Universe" and the DNA make up of the "skin suits" of the inmates (on both the physical and the non-physical realities) are such that periodic social purging of planetary and human life occurs. This is programmed into the Prison Complex intentionally.
Once the Domain took over this region of space and the Prison Complex, a number of systems stopped working, others took on a life of their own, and as we have recently flushed-out, certain entities have (for their own purposes) took over various functions and systems.
Thus the intended operation of the "Reality Universe" is broken. It operates differently than what was originally intended.
Nor is it defaulting to the parent "Main Universe". The only way there is any access to that state of being is through gated portals and transit bubble systems. (LD and OBE are special cases of hybrid bubble-systems that transit through portal systems.)
So presently, the worst aspects of the "Reality Universe" is manifesting.
The thoughts of IS-BE entities in skin-suits are being manipulated by selfish and malevolent entities to act as some kind of thought amplifier for personal gain. This is successfully altering the shared templates (sic.) because the main original "Reality Universe" systems are not fully functional and damaged in various ways.
To answer the question as to if well intentioned groups of skin-suits, acting and conjoined together can alter the fabric of the MWI in the "Reality Universe" at this present time, the answer is yes. However, if other larger groups are doing the same thing in a countering manner than the effect is the sum total or both, and the longest most powerful group would have the greatest apparent manifestation of results.
If...
5 skin-suits think about peace and tranquility.
50 skin-suits think of crime, destruction and pillage.
Then, the highest probability of manifestation will be via the largest concentration of thoughts (all things being the same).
The way to get around this apparent limitation is to localize; geographically your range of effect. In short, you create a bubble of influence to your immediate region. That enables a moderate work around to this situation.
Thus, if...
5 skin-suits think about peace and tranquility located in a small community,
While...
50 skin-suits think of crime, destruction and pillage in the entire nation.
Then...
There is a reasonable, and higher than normal, chance that the bubble of influence will be created by the five IS-BE skins suits, and will coexist with the influences of the 50 that are diluted over a wider geographic area.
That is the primary advised "work around" system to overcome the onslaught of vault 7 manipulation media techniques for mind control efforts. The well intentioned and alert inmate will note that it is easy to create such a positive environment by constructing positive thoughts all around them in many, many ways. It is no accident that MM has been promoting this methodology to all irregulars and lurkers.
[14] Question – Domain Military Strategy
Is China’s military doctrine spiritual brothers with the Domain? I mean do they wage actual total war, take no prisoners stuff like Genghis Khan? I mean totally peaceful but when they decide that the world is better without you, then you really better just run.
I see the Domain as really peaceful but perhaps they can be absolutely brutal towards their enemies if there were no possibility of rehab?
It’s something like the white, red, and black tents of Genghis Khan. You only want to see the white tents and surrender. By the time you get to the red tents, all the men would have to die. Black tents, well men, women, and children die. No animal left. Even the stones are gone. You will pray for a kind death when the black tents come up.
The white tents come up first. There is a short period of time. Refuse the white and the red tents come up. Then your choice is to let the men all do to their deaths. Or face a real Final Solution where everything is destroyed. You do not want the black tents.
I don’t know if you can draw the same conclusions as I do. But they scare the heck out of me. I think the Domain is low key trying to tell us something through MM. Our host himself may not even know it so by implication no one in knows.
…
MM comments: I had a VERY STRONG urge, almost like my entire arms and legs were filled with termites to write / pen the following article. Funny that you should mention Genghis Khan.
What I can say is that The Domain is “Yin and Yang“. I have been having such strong thoughts about China’s military doctrine and the military ruthlessness of Genghis Khan. You do know that the vast bulk of the military sappers under Genghis Khan were from the captured Chinese territories.
I would say that they are being peaceful now. Very, very peaceful. But if the time comes, they unleash Hell on Earth at a level of ferocity that is beyond comprehension.
But let’s ask the question…
Is China’s military doctrine spiritual brothers with the Domain? I mean do they wage actual total war, take no prisoners stuff like Genghis Khan? I mean totally peaceful but when they decide that the world is better without you, then you really better just run.
There will be no mercy.
The Earth is a Prison Planet, and a war (whether programmed as part of the "Old Empire", or intentionally set in place by "old Empire" embeds) makes no difference. It is a "Prison Riot" and will not be allowed.
We will use every power, every technology, every "trick in the book" to re-balance things and correct the imbalance. We are the caretakers of this region of space. We take that role seriously.
I am curious. Like how?
The Domain is very capable.
(Images of scenes of soldiers vomiting at their battle stations... Images of gun barrels warping. ... Images of radios, video monitors and equipment going dead.)
(Images of scenes from the Star Trek series showing "the Borg" teleport onto a ship and take it over... Images of Wizards and Warlocks casting magic spells and people melting... )
(...Images of a Domain soldier "walking into" one of the bodies of a general and ordering his military to destroy each other... Images of a 1950's movie showing flying saucers disintegrate entire buildings... )
(Images of voice overs and soldiers following the insane orders... Images of ballistic missile codes being changed...)
(...Images of a political leader sleeping in bed beside his wife and the wife starts tearing at him with her fingernails like a wild cat blood everywhere... Images of people on the New York City streets walking and then collapsing dead all at once like some kind of science fiction movie...)
(...Images of soldiers shooting each other from the movies scene in "Jacobs Ladder... Image from the movie "Scanners" where the guys head explodes.)
Scanner’s movie gif…
So, The Domain would do all the work. The Domain would do all the fighting. Not China, nor Russia…?
No. We are a garrison force. We are not equipped for a full military invasion. Were we to conduct a full invasion, the entire planet would be purged.
Instead, a war would occur on human terms, but The Domain would make sure that China (which is a Domain asset) be protected. The Domain would direct the strategy, make sure that various systems work and severely retard and handicap those who have attacked us. We can guarantee that there would be a very quick and lethal encounter against any that would assault The Domain or it's elements.
Already systems are in place to suppress the desire to generate a major conflict against China. Within a year or two, a conflict will be the last thing in the minds of the United States leadership. Everyone will notice that something is amiss by the end of this year (2022), and it will be quite obvious by the end of the next (2023). Most sensible humans would come to the conclusion that a war would be ill advised.
You will write about it tomorrow.
(I will post it tomorrow. Posted and found HERE. -MM)
However, none of this guarantees anything. There are massive forces that need to be tamed / suppressed in this regard.
Can you please elaborate on your statement that “nothing is guaranteed”.
We are anchoring and manipulating the constraints of the social compacts inherent in the human communities that occupy the General Population in the "Reality Universe". It is desirable that there be "small bads" instead of "big bads" in the changes that are manifesting.
We work on various systems and in various levels. Our projections are on track, but experience has indicated time and time again that things tend not to follow the ideal trend line no matter how carefully and well-intentioned it is positioned. To this end, we provide a wider scope and flexibly in manifested outcomes.Imagine
[15a] Question – Cat concerns
Ugh, I’m really warring with myself about asking another question, but I do need a little guidance since the Commander knows so much about cats.
So how can I best support my eldest cat, after what I think was a stroke on Christmas Eve? She seems so lost now.
MM Comments – This answer was answered by PL on the forum. He offered some good strong medical suggestions and advice. In general, the Domain Commander is an extraterrestrial IS-BE with a great deal of experience and knowledge. However, as much as we might desire help and compassion, I don’t know just how helpful his / it’s help would actually be.
Question posted…
Your little buddy is fine. The physical body is distressed, but the consciousness is fine.
There is an event associated with this situation that is key to your template (sic.). Do not be distressed about it. All is proceeding as it should.
Comfort your little buddy, take care of him. Provide him comfort, care, kindness and warmth. You know what is going on. Do not doubt your intuition.
(One day later, added the following. -MM)
Physical body or not, his consciousness will migrate around yours. You two both have a strong quantum connection and the associations over time (years?) have been very good, strong and positive ones (for the most part) and you two pals /buddies / friends will continue regardless of the state and conditions of either of your two physical bodies.
You and your buddy are IS-BE. You are not your skin-suits. Your relationship goes deeper and far beyond what you sense right now. Do not be concerned or too emotional over the changes. Your pal does not sense the physical distress like you assume. It's processed differently for him.
[15b] Question – Karmic / quantum entanglements
And my second question, after learning about the karmic/quantum ties we may have with those close to us–I’d appreciate some advice for my situation, particularly with T.
I feel like every place I’ve looked for answers has given me bad information, and I’m not even sure what to say in my Intentions. This could impact my role as an Irregular so it’s important.
Are there any suggestions that can be provided to the questioner about this issue?
Human skin suits, inside of the "reality universe" collect quantum associations much more aggressively than IS-BE entities that exist in the "Main Universe" outside.
This quanta collects like dust on a window.
In the normal course of life, the inmate skin-suit needs to periodically cleanse itself. Shake off "the dust", and refresh. This is done through contemplation, fresh air, isolation and restricting dietary input, noise, and avoidance of stimulus in all forms.
Unfortunately many inmates are unaware of this most fundamental need for the day to day maintenance of the skin-suit. And thus they collect all sorts of dust-like quanta.
Some are neutral, and some are good, and some are bad. The determine of the beneficial value of the quanta entanglements are subjective to the entities so involved.
The discharge and shedding of the quanta and the resultant entanglements are uneven. With some inmates giving off more of one type of (specific) quanta than others. Not just in type, but also in volume and in quantity.
It is comparable to being in a room with one other person. The window and the door are closed, and the other person is smoking. This is the normal situation. Every now and then, the non-smoking person must exit the room and wash their face and breathe some fresh air.
However, some people are not smoking a cigarette. They chain smoke cigars, and are very comfortable in the room full of deep blue smoke. But the other people in the room are getting ill and turning a shade of green. Every time they try to open the door to obtain a normal opportunity to breathe some fresh air and wash their face, their actions are interrupted.
In the case of the questioner; inmate T, this inmate is shedding quanta at a prodigious rate. Those closest to them are exposed to a higher than normal level of quanta saturation and this affects their performance in life, interactions, thoughts and emotional responses.
The questioner has the physical need to cleanse themselves, go on retreats, or just have much more quiet personal time to themselves. They need to clean and refresh themselves. This is a fundamental requirement for the basic maintenance of the inmate skin-suit.
This is not a one week sabbatical once a year. This should be a weekly occurrence. Like an automobile that needs gasoline every week, an oil change every month, and air in the tires, and water in the radiator, the inmate has the responsibility to maintain his skin-suit.
Once that maintenance occurs, the questioner will realize whatever next steps are necessary in regards to the personal interactions with T. It is up to the questioner to determine these steps. However they must make those decisions in quiet isolation and away from any other influence of any type.
The fundamental needs of the questioner must be permitted. If they are being denied, then the relationship (in whatever form it is in) is toxic and either must change or be severed. No inmate, let alone an irregular, should be denied the basic operational maintenance of the physical inmate skin-suit.
[16a] Question – Power of Language
So, I have a two-parter. It’s sort of emerging as my “thing” of deeper interest.
What power does language have? Specifically, beyond the ability of advocacy, persuasion and other such arts, is there any weight behind the words we use that extends beyond the physical? I’m sort of thinking of the old stories of spells and suchlike, but in a more general sense. Or a specific sense. Honestly, I don’t know what I don’t know here. Any guidance on this point would be greatly appreciated, as the power of words greatly interests me.
What power does language have?
Language is the bridge that connects (non-physical reality universe) thought via verbalization (physical movement) in the (physical reality universe).
Depending on the social and societal constructs, the language will differ, and that will influence the "flavors" of the thought manifestation.
Thus, a person thinking in French will have a different kind or type of manifestation than one speaking in English. This holds true to dialects and enclaves such as urban English, Austria influenced German, or a Chinese dialect.
Thought generation comes from the IS-BE consciousness in the non-physical realms.
Language is how the brain translate those thoughts in the physical reality.
Manifestation of thoughts, thus must go through the gateway of the mind.
This is why the manifestation of thought in the MWI pocket universe (the Reality Universe which is the Prison Complex) differs from that of the Main Universe. The inmate skin-suits process thoughts via the brain differently that unmodified humans in the Main Universe.
[16b] Question – Specific affirmation phrasing
As a follow up – does the intent behind the words we chose to use matter as much as specific phrasing, such as with manifestation campaigns? I know MM has written at length about the importance of being specific, but there’s also been some warnings about being too specific and avoiding the “Hollywood effect”.
There is constantly an obfuscation of meaning, a twisting and distortion of facts that puts doublespeak to shame presented in many mainstream narratives. I suppose I’m just curious if everything is just as it appears to be at face value, or if there’s something deeper beyond these prison suit shells at work.
Does the intent behind the words we chose to use matter as much as specific phrasing, such as with manifestation campaigns?
Asked of the Commander…
The mechanism for thought manifestation comes from the use of language in the brain. When a consciousness is processing that thought; known as "generating that thought" (which is actually NOT the same thing) it is the actual verbalization that generates the physical manifestation.
What the person vocalizes is what manifests.
MM comments…
I have no problem with that, however, what you are thinking at the time you are verbalizing the affirmations "color", alter and modify those affirmations.
Let's suppose you had a verbal affirmation that says...
"I have young and youthful skin, and feel like a teenager".
If left alone you will have nice youthful skin, and probably a few zits and maybe start to act a little childish.
However, let's suppose that every-time you read that verbal affirmation you remember a lost teenage crush or a bad relationship or a date that went really wrong. You cannot control that thought. It just pops into your head automatically.
What you might find is that along with smoother skin, you will also start to have relationship troubles that are remarkably similar to that which you experienced as a youth.
So actually, it is not only what you vocalize, but the thoughts that you carry with you as you vocalize those intentions.
[17a] Question – Bug Zapper
The tunnel of light aka bug zapper: Currently, the system is you die and leave your body, then you are instructed to go into the bug zapper, which shocks the crap out of your consciousness, effectively wiping out your memory (99.95% effective on most IS-BEs, it seems).
Is this a correct appraisal of the system?
Yes.
[17b] Question – Purpose of mind erasure
Then, ONCE your memory is erased, you undergo counseling with a guide who allows you access to memories of your past lives. (I believe the commander mentioned that you are allowed “controlled access” to your memories by the Mantids during your counseling session in planning your pre-birth template–if I remember wrong please correct me).
A 3rd party “allows” you to see your memories after your bug zapper treatment. This means that you are not recalling your memories on your own, but it is presented to you.
If the presented memories are edited in any way (a dropped frame here or there, a cleverly edited event in your life), there is no way you would know it since you got zapped first to erase your memory.
I’m not saying that the memories you are viewing during this session is definitely edited, but there’s no way you could confirm that it wasn’t either, given your post-zapping condition.
In any case, why the need to make you go through the bug zapper before you view your memories in the counseling session? Why can’t you keep your memories so you can skip the viewing portion and go straight to negotiation/planning for your next reincarnation?
What is the purpose of the mind erasure, and then drip-feed of selective memories?
The original purpose was to create a situation where the IS-BE would be inclined to assist in the creation of their next pre-birth world-line template(sic.).
Imagine that the IS-BE was a Domain Soldier with a long history of aggressive, intelligent behaviors. Once in the Prison Complex the goal would be not only [1] to erase the past of the IS-BE but also to [2] reconfigure the quanta that comprises what he / she / it is.
The primary baseline default mapping of the new design for the IS-BE entity is to create a passive, obedient, and submissive entity that is very remorseful and regretful towards any foray into the physical realms.
The memories thus presented to this "blank slate" IS-BE would be those that would [1] convince the entity to return back to the General Population out of a need for growth and learning.
[2] It would convince the entity that it would have to suffer through perils, rapes, hardships, trials, discomfort to thus experience intentional events designed to make a submissive, frightened, and obedient entity.
[3] The entity would be convinced that eventually at some point in time they would be "perfected" though all the learning, schooling and teachings, and that with just a few more experiences all would end and that they would migrate to a higher state of being.
[4] This point in time; this goal will always be pushed further out. It will be close but unobtainable.Thus convincing the entity for yet one more reincarnation of suffering, pain, and horrors.
these goals and achievements can only be realized through selective manipulation of past histories to an entity suffering from Amnesia.
This reminds me of the movie “Overboard“, where Kurt Russel tricks (wealthy bitch) amnesic Goldie Hawn that she is his wife and must serve him and his family of misfits. The movie is cute, and nice. But the reality that is described here by the Domain Commander is an absolute horror.
Overboard. Goldie Hawn has to endure great injustices by the children of Kurt Russel.
[17c] Question – Inhumane actions
It has been established that the IS-BE had been counseled and agreed to the birth line template he/she will reincarnate into.
However, the IS-BE enters into this agreement after it has been zapped. True, they viewed their memories, but through a 3rd party platform with no guarantees that everything has been shown (some information is given, we can assume that this is most likely incomplete).
In fact, it is established that someone/thing else decides “how much to show”, since your core memory sets are not with you.
It is fair to assume that they can choose to show a highly edited version of your past and that’s all you will have to go on, too bad.
(not applicable to DM and his wife SD, as it seems like they are from another group of IS-BE's that are undertaking a mission, and they already know how to access their memories without going through a 3rd party).
Based on this limited information, you make the agreement to enter a prebirth template.
Do we allow minors or those with compromised faculties to enter contracts and agreements? How about if you are dazed and disoriented by pain killing drugs in the hospital? Are you allowed to write a will in that state? WE know what people are like after they go through electroshock therapy…are IS-BE’s in any state to agree to ANYTHING after getting zapped?
If you do not have your core memory sets because a 3rd party is holding them for you, then by definition you have “limited faculties” (i.e. retarded, drooling infant, just fell off the turnip truck). There is no way in hell you could be honestly described as “dealing with a full deck of cards”.
Is this correct?
Yes. The system is designed to take advantage of the limited memories and reduced reasoning power of the IS-BE to move them forward and through the processing system. It is intentional.
Firstly, IS-BE's are dangerous. They are weaker when they inhabit a physical form with in the Main Universe.
Secondly, one of the initial reasons for the creation of a containment field and a pocket "reality" universe is to create a region where the thoughts of an IS-BE are retarded and limited.
Thirdly, by creating a condition where the powers of thought are reduced, and the erasure of memories so that the IS-BE is unaware of the power of thoughts, you have a situation where the IS-BE would voluntarily enter an inmate skin-suit.
Fourthly, by shuffling the inmate back and forth between the "reality" pocket universe, and the "Heaven" micro universe it can be controlled and reprogrammed at will. It's an endless mobius strip.
A mobius strip.
[17d] Question – Editing of histories.
The karmic imbalances that need correcting: So, we have established that the IS-BE agreed to be injected into a birth template that have some specific challenges/torture experiences in them to redress the sins from a previous life.
This new life will be a corrective for this fuck-up IS-BE’s, so eventually the karmic imbalance will be neutralised, right?
I believe this is the intent (yeah right).
Well if the fucked up “corrective” life the IS-BE is currently experiencing now was “agreed upon”, then that means that the previous life that generated the karmic problems that you are busy correcting now was “counseled and agreed upon” too.
If you’re not allowed off the prebirth template plantation now, what makes you think you were allowed to leave it then?
Oh what, you were able to somehow defy the prebirth template in the past in order to commit unauthorized sins that you are being required (or rather convinced/manipulated) to pay for now?
It has been established (so far) that the prebirth template (unless you are a renegade spirit who didn’t go into the tunnel of light and grabbed the next available body instead) is meticulously planned, with plenty of funneling and redirecting mechanisms to keep you on the agreed upon path.
Question–why on earth would you agree to commit fucked up crimes in one life that you know you would be guaranteed to pay for in the next life (unless you are a privileged old empire member who knows how to game the prison complex)?
Is manipulation by the 3rd party influential in convincing a disoriented and suggestible IS-BE to agree to a severe life path?
Is it possible that the IS-BE viewed some highly edited portions of their past life during their “counseling session”?
Yes. It is not only possible, but that is the standard procedure. The entire and sole purpose of viewing selected and edited, and possibly fake past life experiences, is to manipulate the IS-BE entity to agree to enter the punishment phase of the Prison Complex.
The General Population Pocket-universe known as the MWI "reality universe" is the "Punishment" phase of the never-ending prison sentence.
The micro universe known as "Heaven" is the parole / rehabilitation phase of the never-ending prison sentence.
[17e] Question – Nature of the imbalances.
Nature of the karmic imbalances on the IS-BE’s quantum body: “patch up holes” and repair fissures on the cake/quantum body (words of the commander), good relationships and thoughts = softer more malleable quantum entanglements with other IS-BE’s (vision of untangling hair in the shower with a good conditioner), bad relationship and thoughts = hard and ossified quantum entanglements with other IS-BEs (think barbed wire).
He/She/It noted that quantum entanglements get deeper the longer the relationship (good or bad) but emphasized the quality of these entanglements on the body depending on type of relationship.
If the thoughts and relationship is good or decent, I can “detangle ” my IS-BE from the other IS-BE with a little effort and mostly no injuries.
If the thoughts and relationships are bad, the entanglement is like barbed wire, and if I try to separate, chunks of my “quantum flesh” get left behind.
Is this what the commander meant when I was advised to do some hit and run acts of kindness?
Like if I don’t try to soften this entanglement, I risk the chance of losing my quantum leg or eye or something?
Sure I will still be alive (coz IS-BE’s can’t die), but my quantum arms got left behind and now I need another IS-BE to help me wash my quantum hair and wipe my quantum ass until my memory sets are restored?
I’m free, but I’m maimed (in the quantum sense).
Fortunately it’s not permanent, but it’s still terrible.
Am I understanding this correctly or is my imagination getting away from me?
Is this what the commander meant regarding hit and run acts of kindness?
Yes. And no, your imagination is not out of boundaries.
This is exactly how this system works. You have accepted our teachings accurately and have interpreted them correctly. This is not only the education on MM here, but the greater absorption of information is from the information obtained in your activities in the non-physical realities.
[17f] Question – The Lost Battalion
The lost battalion: They are warriors, so they have “combative” personalities.
Given that they were forcibly injected into screwed up life templates, a lot of anger is naturally generated.
Given their natural war-like tendencies, what are the chances of these battalion members reacting gracefully to the injustices they are being forced to endure?
My money is on them reacting gracelessly.
If they react gracelessly, then they will trigger negative thoughts and actions from the other IS-BE’s that they are with.
These quantum entanglements will be rough and hard like barbed wire.
If my ramblings are anywhere in the neighborhood, then can we assume that the negative quantum entanglements that were most likely generated from the bad templates they inhabit is making their rescue that much harder and more dangerous for the integrity of their quantum bodies?
Is this correct?
Yes. Upon recovery of the memories and experiences endured by the collective members of the Lost Battalion, there will be an imbalance that will manifest as some serious distortions of their IS-BE quantum makeup.
This will have to be compensated for.
Given the conditions, and the consequences of the events that created these mountainous distortions, the backlash that would naturally revert to when the attempts and process to fully revert the amnesia will create a very horrific scenario for those IS-BE entities that manifested the entire sequence of events.
This will have to be compensated for.
If it is not, then the imbalance would distort this fabric of the Main Universe.
Thus it is conceivable that the combined entanglements will have to be dissipated, isolated and ejected into a closed and locked independent universe. Those that contributed and participated into the bad associations would need to be injected into this isolation universe and the suffered Domain soldiers would have to move forward with the quantum damage from those malevolent entities.
Because of the danger of these powerful, dangerous and evil entities, they each might need to be placed alone into an empty universe without memories. And left to float in nothingness for the rest of eternity.
[17g] Question – My theory
I feel that the quantum entanglement and karma has been weaponized brilliantly.
Like the old empire technology knows how to trigger IS-BE’s into using their own quantum bodies to generate the terrible chains that bind them together in misery.
Trick these poor sap IS-BE’s to agree to birth templates that guarantee negative thoughts and experiences with others (by showing them edited portions of their past), then tell these same IS-BE’s that they gotta pay back this karmic debt in the next life, that it’s the other learners’ turn to dish it out to you.
Then repeat the exact same strategy, but change the IS-BEs around.
The negative cycle continues among this cluster of learners, the karmic chains grow deeper and the barbs get sharper and longer. Beautiful.
Escape means a guaranteed maiming (but eventually recoverable, though the IS-BE may not know this because they don’t have their full faculties) and no memory sets.
So this is my “theory” or thesis. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s filled with holes or peppered with bad assumptions (not on purpose of course). But thinking about this…I was driven to push out this “theory”. Is it nonsensical? What am I missing?
Are my gross extrapolations completely unjustified?
You have completely and accurately elaborated upon, reasoned and laid out the operation of the "Old Empire" Prison Complex.
The Domain finds this Prison Complex reprehensible and are working to clean it out, purge it of entities in a humane and proper manner, and then select the worst and most harmful IS-BE's and eject them to individual pocket (empty) universes where they are prevented from harming others.
[18a] Question
In regards to some questions i have: i quote the commander
"There needs to be a coordinated effort to destroy all the major elements of the mechanisms / systems and then prevent them for regrouping and recovering. Then systematically go one by one and dismantle the entire complex mechanism."
Does he mean this coordination needs to be done by LDers or by the Domain or both working in conjunction?
If LD cannot be used {individually} to destroy the amnesia machinery, then how can it be effectively deployed to assist?
As mentioned previously I have been collecting lucid/ astral SEALs (in reference to the title you gave me in one of the earlier Q&As); i currently have a small handful of accomplished LDers i picked up externally to the MM community (though I have steered them towards you) – these LDers are very much aware of the matrix system in place, and have agreed to help put their LDing abilities to use to break the reincarnation traps, sticking around after death to help consciousnesses avoid the light etc etc”;
The idea was to create a LDer/APer/RVer network/community that could be utilised for physical based coordination of non physical based targets.
Question: will this physical LD network be useful for the location and eventual deconstruction of the amnesia infrastructure according to Domain protocol and if so do the Domain have any recommendations on the way it should be implemented?
This physical LD network will be extraordinarily helpful in the suppression and eventual removal of the amnesia infrastructure, the containment field and the elements internal to this pocket "reality" universe.
These efforts are being matched / coordinated with a tasked group of Domain sappers / cypher experts / specialists / (another species I am not very familiar with. I call them the Oompa Loompa's - They look like slug-like hippos thingys).
When you operate in LD, you are actually moving a consciousness between a physical reality and various non-physical bodies. You are very adept at it, even you you might no longer recall the events like you used to in your past.
You are tasked in a shared arrangement with your parent organization and The Domain in this regards and they have allocated resources to create a large task team. SD plays a predominant role in this matter.
Working as a team on the various aspects of this colossal facility is very important and you have taken a leading role in it. You may continue as you "feel" necessary as your guidance is actually directions from the various coordinating liaison structures of all the organizations involved.
[18b] Question – The Elder Guardians
Question 2a: The Elder Guardians have played a very important part in my life, and are the main motivators behind my drive to help with this effort to destroy the amnesia devices. However, they have a tendency to show up completely unannounced at what appears to be random times. I was never given specifics of when to expect their contact.
Does the Domain know if they are planning to make contact with me in the future, and if so, when to expect such contact (closest possible time-frame), what I can to do help prepare for it (i.e. be aware and look for certain astrological happenings etc)?
We liaise with the Elder Guardians. We respect them. We honor them and their role in this and other matters. We do not control them, or advise them in any way. They have their own agendas, systems, avenues and purposes. None of which are in conflict with The Domain.
However we are not privy to their internal systems, orders, or projects outside of our comm channels. We are unfortunately unable to help you with your request.
(Empty mic sound - like dead air. Then nothing. -MM)
[18c] Question – Query on the Elders.
Is the Domain able to tell me more about them?
We have a respectful relationship with them.
We can inform you that they are very private and confidential entities. This is, and has been, out of necessity. Therefore, were we to answer your questions informatively we might be breaching their confidentiality unintentionally.
Therefore, out of respect for them, we will decline to answer this inquiry.
[19a] Question – Dream Questions
Before posting questions, I wish to everyone a happy and hopeful new year. DM & SD must be the first ones to celebrate while I write this.
Now back to business:
Recently I had a dream where I was about to “remember” some rule-set and/or valuable information and it ended abruptly. Did I made a mistake?
No. In the particular instance that the questioner is discussing and asking about, the memory access was terminated intentionally by an "Old Empire" memory access system triggered by his mantid.
To prevent that kind of thing from happening in the future you must [1] include Affirmation Prayers (sic.) to that effect, and [2] discuss the matter with your mantid directly.
You should be able to talk plainly and aloud when in a private place and then gauge your impressions and feelings afterwards for the answers and the results.
[19b] Question – incorporate others
Is it okay to incorporate more skin-suits (i.e. close relatives) to help The Domain in their goals (and our ultimate goal of stopping the amnesia cycle)?
Yes. Individual skin-suits can participate in any effort alongside our efforts. They do not need to be part of the Domain, as regulars or irregulars in any capacity what so ever to do so.
However, we will refrain from helping or assisting any outside efforts unless specifically petitioned by the particular entity to do so.
[20] Question – 13 beings in the Crystal Palace
Whats the relationship between the 13 Beings in the Crystal palace and the ‘Domain’?
(A lot of plain dead air. Space. Static. Nothing. -MM)
(A kind of funny feeling like tuning a radio dial or an old style televisions et. Curious. - MM)
There are questions that can be answered, and there are questions that cannot be answered. Please describe a specific event, situation or attribute for us to answer.
The impression that I have is that the Commander is not able to answer anything because the question was incomplete. It’s like asking “What is the relationship between Americans and streets?” It’s a very broad-based question with very little to flush out specifically.
The impression is that they have an idea about what is being asked, but they need specifics to see if they can inform and answer the specific questions.
[21a] Question – Part 1 – Religion
Can you help me ask a question or two with the Domain Commander?
Almost about 20 years ago, my mother forced my family (father, siblings) into an ultra-conservative Catholic religion which does not recognize anything post-Vatican II and the group has a very antagonistic stance towards other religions, as well as non-Catholic Christians (a.k.a Protestants), as well post-Vatican II Catholics. I think that ever since she got involved with them – she’s a “slave to the Virgin Mary”know – the family dynamics have been very much under strain and there is a lot of unhappiness and tension in the family up till this day due to the inability to show our disagreement.
I also note that there is a lot of religious intolerance in the world, and a lot of hate speech from similar groups – mostly in the US – as this traditionalist Catholic group that my family can’t get out of. I’m a fan of the Chinese style of governance and the way it keeps religion out of politics, but these groups keep claiming to be knowing the truth and are often add fodder to the anti-China crowd by spreading fake news in the name of religious truth and anti-communism.
The whole thing has been affecting me emotionally for a long time, and it has never been helpful to the anxiety and depression I suffered my whole life to executive dysfunction that I was born with. Anyway, my ultra-religious mother told me recently that she “consecrated ” me to a some deity in a Chinese temple in my country and that was a cause of a lot of problems in my life.
So my question here that, if you would kindly help me ask the Domain Commander in the next Q&A, is:
A) What is his view on the various religions and religious groups that exist on this earth? Is there a true religion that one should follow? Why is it so difficult for humanity to just see the truth?
Religion is a system of control that is part of the earth-centrist prison planet environment. It is unique to the human skin-suits.
Currently it is used to [1] control the human population, and [2] flush out and filter sentience.
All of the religions have this purpose, more or less depending on a host of criteria, situations and participants.
[21b] Question – Part 2 – Personal influences
This is part two of the above questions.
B) Am I under the control of one or more external spiritual forces that are using other people as tools to influence me?
Yes / No.
Complex and complicated situation that requires some understandings. Will posit answers and solutions in terms easy for MM to discourse to you.
Religion, as it manifests inside the Prison Complex is a mechanism of control. One group "A" uses it to control another group "B". This occurs on many levels.
What most inmates do not understand is that thoughts generated by the rituals and presentation of the religions are the commodity. Not the religion itself.
Thus the religions are a methodology for a means to direct thought for various purposes.
In your particular case, your family (your mother) has been harnessed as a thought generation mechanism, and is behaving as a Service-to-another sentience. Being so programmed, you are being forced into that framework, but you are a service-to-others sentience, and this is uncomfortable to you.
To trap you, to snare you, to manipulate you, the parental unit is conjuring up other third party spirits to force your sentience to fit theirs. Obviously they are not successful. However, these third party "spirits" and quantum energies are problematic to you as they alter your physical interactions with the world around you.
Please provide recommendations and solutions to the questioner…
You need to perform a very memorable and kind act to your mother / parent / influences. It must be memorable.
Then you must tell them that you received a "message" from their deity (in whatever form she understands). That the message really changed you.
You must tell her that you are no longer the same person. And that you now have a mission. And you must tell her that she will not understand. You must tell her using biblical references.
Then, you must quietly and firmly isolate yourself from her. Do so physically and seriously reduce communication with her.
When she expresses worry or concern, again use Biblical references to kindly explain to her that you are on a mission. That your mission is different from her mission, and that your are now bound to perform that mission. She will ask what it is and you must use a Biblical reference in responding to her.
Then you will isolate from her, and when se sees you, YOU MUST always show tranquility, peace and calmness. Let her believe that you are on that mission, what ever it may be.
Key points.
[1] Kind act.
[2] Explanation that you have changed and have been put on a mission.
[3] Isolate from her.
[4] Always show peace, kindness, and calm when interacting her (or anyone else who might report to her).
Her thoughts will be of you achieving her version of paradise on earth, and it is up to you to maintain that illusion for the rest of her life.
This will prevent her from causing any inadvertent discord in your life, and generate a kind state of being that will generate kind thoughts emulating from her towards you. YOU MUST MAKE SURE THAT THE ILLUSION IS ALWAYS INTACT AND NOT SHATTERED.
There are still a bunch of questions that I will get to as time permits. I hope that this little taste will be enough to wet your appetite.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 4.
Note: For those of you who are new here, this article continues a Q&A dialog with an extraterrestrial "Commander" and a retired MAJestic operative who is still active with active EBP implants. Heavy stuff. But not for trivial reading.
Personally, I think girls, cats, and food are far more interesting. But, that's me, don't you know.
[1] Question – Guarantee of protection.
Tell the commander Am cool with all the dreams. All the “missions” All the glimpses from the past. Am cool with anything they wanna sign me up for.
All I would need is some Protection. Finding the highest probability WL that my consciousness should inhabit that would not cause me too much harm in the coming years. you get my drift? I believe they got the power, knowledge and capability.
.
The past should be a lighthouse not a port so they say.
.
What guarantees can be provided for protection by The Domain?
One must recognize that the situation is clearly different from that of [1] a skin-suit with no memories living inside a Prison Complex being manipulated by others, to [2] being part of a group of strong, capable IS-BE's fighting and working to improve the entire reality.
Once you exit your skin-suit it is your decision on what to do afterwards. Whether you wish to stay within the Prison Complex or join The Domain as a citizen it is your choice.
...
The vessel (that's me, by the way -MM) projected this question as what to do once the questioner leaves the physical universe and is a incorporeal being. But the questioner actually asked for guarantees of protection regarding work for the Domain as a irregular volunteer.
As an irregular, you are part of an organization and you ARE NEVER ALONE. You are always being observed, watched, and nudged into various directions. Not only for your safety but for stability, mental, emotional, physical and in every other level.
Some irregulars provide more value than others in a quantitative sense, but what ever participation that you provide is of significance, and should be considered as such. Thus, you (the questioner) provide a great role and you need to be protected by your support group assigned to you. And you will be.
This is TRUE no matter how insignificant you might feel or mentally rationalize. Your non-physical bodies often have for more capacity, capabilities and abilities than what you (as a physical skin suit) are aware of. And those abilities are of substantive help in the missions of The Domain.
However, you are in the physical reality. You will die.
That is unavoidable. There are also events that are part of your MWI pre-birth world-line template (sic.) that are semi-rigid. This might convince you (the questioner) that we are not monitoring your being, nor your trials, but that is not the case. In every event, we are steering you away from the VERY WORST probability scenarios towards ones with minor effect.
(I am provided the image of a terrible car wreck with a paralyzed person unable to move below the neck. Then a big red "X" is painted over that image. Then, instead, an image of a car skidding on the ice (?) and getting a "fender bender" damage, but the driver is fine. Just shaken up. I then see a big green "check mark" over it. -MM)
We, The Domain watch over our own.
We will always work with YOU to mediate those problematic traps and snares. So as to answer your question, we will do everything in the power of your support group to protect you in your reality universe as an inmate skin-suit in the Prison Complex. Though we do have limitations, we will take care of you to the best of your support group's ability.
[2] Question – Become a member of the Domain, not just an irregular
Question: can a human soul like me (well, I think I’m human–who knows before I got bamboozled/imprisoned into doing my stint on Earth) elect to join the domain after the physical container has run its full course in the material world?
Like, I don’t want to reincarnate again, I just want to go into training so I can join the domain full time? Is this an option?
Can I elect to join the Domain after I physically die so that I can avoid the reincarnation cycle?
Yes. You can.
You (personally) have some other issues in the non-physical realms that you will need to attend you, and if that is your desire after you attend to them, we would be very happy for you to join us.
You possess great strengths and abilities even without your core memory sets, but we are confident that in time (sic.) we can reduce the amnesia influence on your IS-BE being and your consciousness.
We are a volunteer organization and IS-BE entities can enter and leave at will. However, you will discover that many desire to stay and be involved in our efforts and if that is within your being (Yes it is, and you know that) then we truly and sincerely welcome you to join us.
This is the case for all irregulars and any entities reading this report. The Main universe needs some patching up, purging, and reconfiguring. Your kindness, steadfastness, enthusiasm and control in your physical body clearly identifies you as prime recruitment material.
(Poor translation. Sorry. He / she / it did not mean that you are a thing or anything like that. -MM)
From your “descriptions”, it sounds like the domain is somewhat similar to the modern CPC/CCP. If this is indeed an option, what are the requirements (aside from being STO sentience)?
Is the Domain similar to contemporaneous China?
Very astute of you.
The Domain values the leadership nations and works with them to accomplish our goals. In (your time) the late 1990's we transferred our involvement in a gradual phase out away from MAJestic to other organizations. Yes. You are correct we operate (a core physical organization) within China, and the (Chinese) leadership is heavily influenced by our suggestions / recommendations / guidance's and alerts.
They are, without question or hesitation or discussion, implementing every policy suggestion we make. They do so on our timetable, and upon our schedule. Unlike the United States, the speed of implementation of the policy suggestions, the ease of finding valuable STO sentience's for membership and the (lack of) demands for technology transfer has been astounding and pleasurable. We have exchanged technology, and we have implemented many, many changes within the Chinese society itself.
...
In the early 2003 / 2004 the American MAJestic operation was shut down and Domain involvement with that organization was terminated abruptly. The remaining sub-projects were "mothballed" or sent away as carve outs to private American industry, and the Domain has very little footprint in those (American and UK) realms right now.
There are some doll bodies in partial activation at the China Lake NWC NAS (and Ohio) but their role is of a trivial nature.
Our influence upon China has been exceptional, and it is following an illustrative path for the rest of the world to follow. It is like a "mini" Domain sub-culture contemporaneously.
Like the United States, we have been providing technical assistance and technology to the Chinese. Their traditional culture has embraced the core Domain belief and policy structures, and thus their Geo-political actions mirror what we advise them.
...
(As an aside, or an Oh- by the way) We (the Domain) discarded involvement with the United States governmental organizational structure when the sentience make up of the (true) leadership (at all levels) enjoined Service for Self sentience.
The Domain ONLY works with service to others sentience's. There are no exceptions.
Thus, we had to disentangle our involvement with MAJestic when the American leadership entangled wholly within STS behavior sentence's.
What are the requirements for membership in the Domain?
[1] STO sentience.
[2] Willingness to become part of The Domain and obey it's laws, rules, and hierarchy.
[3] An understanding that it is a all volunteer organization, but that the demands on your self may (at times) be demanding and taxing. But that you are never alone and will participate as equals within your state of being for the good and benefit of all.
[3] Question – Please elaborate…
OMG, I am really excited!
Now if I could ask for some clarification on the “personal issues in the non physical realms” that I need to attend to…what are they?
How do I fix these ASAP?
Because let me tell you, I feel like these are annoying “loose ends” that must be fixed so I can pursue my desired path without any encumberances. Can the Domain guide me on this? Or do I need the assistance of another entity to fix this? Are these bullshit celestial contracts that some jerky astral parasite wants to enforce?
Please don’t take it that I am disrespectful of history or tradition. I understand that these are very important and they do have their place. However, it may unnecsesarily limit our imagination on who we can be (though I absolutely want to recover my full memories and skill sets–relearning is a real pain in the ass). In this physical life, I noticed that I have far, far less ties or affection for the past compared to the people around me (biologival family members, friends and acquaintances, even my husband and in laws). Out ofl all the people I know, I’m actually the only one excited for the future! Is this a sign of something?
While this isn’t an emergency, it would be nice to get an actionable response soon so I can work on solving these niggling “personal issues in the non physical realm”.
Sounds like it’s a hassle I won’t be able to avoid.
We (I personally) am very happy / pleased that you are so enthusiastic in joining us. And you are asking the proper questions.
Let's explain.
Every prison inmate, whether in a physical inmate skin-suit" within General Population in the Prison Complex, or as a non-physical being entrapped within either the Heaven (sub pocket) mini universe, or in the non-physical realms of the prison complex, have friends, histories and associations with other IS-BE entities that are also imprisoned here.
These are clusters.
In "Heaven" they are organized in educational learning classes and the "students' enter the General Population of the Prison Complex to experience "lessons" set up by the mantid primes (sic.) and implemented by the personal mantid (sic.) of the particular IS-BE entity.
In these clusters are an ever growing karmic (sic.) attachment. The longer you associate with the particular group the more entangled your quanta becomes.
You (the questioner) have spent many, many centuries in these prison rehabilitation groups. As such your karmic (sic.) entanglements are quite strong. To disentangle from them, you can proceed in two primary directions.
[1] Continue to reincarnate upon the earth Prison Complex until the karmic entanglements are mitigated and reduced to a neutral level.
or...
[2] Accept the situation that there will be unbalanced "karmic" influences on your quantum being as an IS-BE constrained as an inmate, and this situation will persist until your memories can be actuated. What this entails is to assist in the Domain with these entanglements and their influence son your behaviors whether or not you are within the physical geographic confines of the Prison Complex... up to when your memories are restored.
...
Were this to be your last physical reincarnation (as you surely must sincerely hope) then option #2 above would be the preferred route.
It requires your acknowledgement that until your memories are fully restored, that the quantum entanglements with those other IS-BE entities that you have been in close proximity with will influence your IS-BE activities with the Domain.
It is up to you to determine how serious those entanglements are, and you might need to compensate for them as they may retard your behaviors and actions.
What specifically? Please provide hard core direction…
In this current incarnation there are three principal individuals from the (your) learning cluster that all karmic encounters must be neutralized, as well as two other rather minor individuals.
One is particularly (intentionally) abrasive / contentious in this physical environment.
Another holds a major close role in your current incarnation. And it is not problematic.
The issue is not in regards to emotional connections, or karma quantum entanglements. It is the desire to stabilize and secure twisted quantum entanglements whether they are good / positive or ill / problematic. The way to do this is to generate positive; kind, happy or otherwise up-beat quantum entanglements with the individuals in your life.
Those that have "bad blood", or "discomfort" need to be "plastered over" / seduced / secured with kindness, and then you need to distance yourself from them. As you want their memories of you to be on a positive note.
Those that have "good blood" and positive relationships need to have this situation mitigated and propagated so that it continues.
Feed the good.
Starve the bad.
Over all, that elimination or mitigation of quantum influences is best accomplished by offsetting kindness, goodwill, and neutral associations. In other words, the associations become "softer" and more malleable.
What you do not want is rigid forceful hard and harsh associations with others.
You want to mitigate any bad, harsh thoughts or generated memories and replace them with good and kind ones. This might well make the questioner feel like they are a fool, or performing strange and unnecessary behaviors. But that is not the case at all. You are closing those "holes" / gaps / fissures with another material for longer term stability.
Consider your physical incarnation as a cake. You want it to be as perfect as possible. Correct the errors, and then leave those areas alone once you repair them. Then continue on working on the good aspects of the cake. Constantly improve your cake.
(I have NO CLUE what he / it / she is talking about. -MM)
We advise to neutralize and negate the most contentious or problematic relationships, and revise your association with those individuals to a peaceful, calming and accepting attitude. No matter how disquieting it is for you to do so.
Some of the individuals have mental / emotional irregularities that were programmed into their skin-suit. Obviously you need to avoid these people. The best thing to do (regarding them) is perform a kind act, and then avoid them afterwards. Their memories will be of the kind act, not any horror or trouble that they currently associate with you.
However, and be warned, those with the disruptive personalities this will also cause them to peruse you. That is not acceptable either. You will need to leave and not return. Kind isolation is the suggested policy.
You (the questioner) will of course request direction (from here), but the truth is that you do not need direction in this matter. You already know who these individuals are (well, for the most part) and know what to do to minimize their influences on your being / ego / self.
Make it so.
Final; to the questioner. Your desires are not hidden from us. Proceed as you will, and rest comfortably in realizing your worth and value is understood, and appreciated.
Also take note that you need provide a "hit and run" sort of kindness to one or two of these entities. Do not disrupt what you currently have to fill those gaps / holes / fissures. Remember that you must make your cake perfectly. Refine the ingredients, and take due care in forming the shape.
Be kind then isolate away from them.
Let their thoughts of you remain of the kindness that you showed to them. If you fail to isolate afterwards, you will destroy / trash / collapse the entire effort. For these most problematic individuals it MUST be kindness and isolate.
[4] Question – More about China and The Domain
I cannot help but to say that my “ears picked up” and my “hair stood on end” when I transcribed these last few answers to the questions. So I sent out a flurry of questions, and I tell you what, I should have had a pencil and paper nearby. Here’s what I can recall.
What is the name of the Chinese organization that replaced MAJestic?
Group <redacted>.
You do not need to know anything more than that. That is not part of your mission parameters.
Do they know of my existence?
Yes and no.
They are aware that The Domain worked with MAJestic in the United States prior to working with group <redacted>. However, they are not aware of who you (MM here) are, nor are they aware that you are present in country.
However, they do know that numerous high-level MAJestic operators have moved out of the United States and that the strong possibility exists that they (or some of them) have relocated inside of China.
I found the timing of the move from MAJestic to Group <redacted> inside of China very interesting. This was right before I was “retired”, and at that time, I was all over China on various projects. I wonder if I played a role in the move away from the United States to China.
My role in the transformation to China?
You have a EBP installed. As do others. You and the others are our "eyes and ears on the ground", and everything that you experience is recorded and analyzed.
You personally had a participate role in the decision to terminate our association with MAJestic. However, you were not the only contributor.
We made the necessary arrangements to have you visit various locales, locations and individuals.
Your experiences, and the discussions that you had contributed to the images and senses of others to better form an impression / decision / process plan.
We had earmarked an alternative to MAJestic in the middle to late 1990's and settled on China as well as two other alternatives as primary candidates. These other candidates were Singapore, and a unified Korea. Overall, we needed to change our working arrangement in the general population (GP) of the Prison Complex due to sentience non-configuration.
This was a fall back position because our association with MAJestic was deemed to be problematic.
What do you mean “problematic”?
The first signs of trouble happened early on in the 1960's (my time) when President John F. Kennedy died, and the Geo-political structure of the United States changed. Initially we believed that it might become more like the ideal that The Domain was working to foster upon the American legislative group, however that never materialized.
We were able to offer technical help and assistance in exchange for (biological) monitoring allowances, but we failed to influence the core operational governmental structure within the United States. It continued to be an entrenched oligarchy with little interest in any changes of any type / manner / configuration.
Danger signs and issues abounded throughout the 1970's. By the 1980's we had started looking for alternative host nations.
Never the less, the programs (such as MM here) were still in process and they act and actuate regardless as to which nation hosts our primary human skin-suit contact base. All members, as you well know, operate upon a higher calling and are not limited to geographic or national confines.
That was clearly described to you during your recruitment interview in the ELF facility at NAS, NASC Pensacola Florida.
It became clear to us that elements of "The Old Empire", as well as some significantly problematic IS-BE entities occupied key roles, lives, positions within the Western government structures to include the United States, Canada, the UK, Israel, and various high offices within Europe.
This concentration of STS consciousnesses were leading the entire physical planet towards catastrophic turmoil, and that needed to end. We could not allow the vector trajectory to continue. This is "Old Empire" programming and needs to be reset.
This boil / disease / illness continued to fester throughout the 1990's and we terminated our agreement with MAJestic in a firm but polite manner in 2002.
At that time, we contacted key individuals within China, and used our influence tool-kit to engage the Chinese leadership. It is no coincidence that the current leadership in China is STO sentience, and enacting the plans and strategies on a national and Geo-political level that very closely resembles that of The Domain, in most core policies.
Technology transfer issues?
Yes. We have transferred technologies to the Chinese. The Chinese have been very different in requesting and accepting technologies. MAJestic was desirous of actual physical vehicles and systems for reverse engineering. The Chinese on the other hand are / have been very desirous in understanding the systems and technologies used.
Yes. There are dimensional ports within China.
No. We did not provide them with an array of vehicles to reverse engineer. Instead, we work with the Chinese scientists in understanding the core technologies in gravity manipulation, propulsion, environmental controls and frequency modification and targeting.
The biggest success with the Chinese government has been in a top to bottom restructuring of it's society to include improvements on how the society works. In many ways (not all) it follows the Domain as a model. This was (surprisingly) requested of us, and we obliged. There are numerous members of The Domain working in transforming the Chinese society into a fully functioning, efficient, platform to handle the various earth-centrist problems that persist.
The environment, being a meritocracy, policing the leadership, a complete change in the way financial transactions occur, and fidelity to family and traditions (as localized as they may be) are all of Domain inspiration.
Threat of war from the United States?
There is no doubt that the United States is trying aggressively to provoke a war and conflict with China. Why is this the case, and what will happen? Will you stand back and allow it to happen, or will you protect the Domain interests as represented by China?
We have put in place controls (control kits) in / upon the American military leadership that will reduce the threat of war to some degree.
This should be evident to you already as you are aware of the events since 2017. The American military leadership (LEADERSHIP) are not desirous of conflict and they have been instilled with "the FEAR of GOD" intentionally. They know that the consequences for a conflict with any of the powers in Asia today would be horrific and of significant consequence.
Their American leadership, however, are another issue, and the concentration of carnivorous and dangerous entities with an "Old Empire" psychopathic mind set is like deep churning water that is difficult to control. We cannot control them. When we try, another cluster takes it's place. This self-determination towards destruction of self is inherent in the inmate skin-suits and the system that is part of the Prison Complex control mechanism.
We watched this event sequence play out in another of the Prison Complex planets. It was a cycle that we do not want see repeated here in the earth environment as we are making steady progress in the isolation and removal of the control mechanisms of the "Old Empire". A catastrophic global war would seriously negatively affect all of our previous efforts.
We have provided substantive technical assistance to the Chinese as well as to the Russians. Their combined (not publicized) technology transfers and (not publicized) exchange of military technology has provided both Russia and China with technological military advantage that the United States cannot defend against. This should be enough to dissuade an increasingly belligerent United States oligarchy and upper tier level leadership to reconsider any military action. Alas, that is not what is going on.
Technological advantage will not be enough to dissuade an attacking aggressor, nor will will guarantee victory. There are always other factors involved.
No matter how we might provide advantage to the rest of the world from Western aggression, there is no guarantee that our ideals and advantages will prevail. There are some strong attributes and interests pushing towards war. Not only from the obvious personalities, and the financial interests, but from non-physical sources, a buildup of hate and of course pre-programming of inmate behaviors.
We have determined that there will be a conflict and it will be triggered by United States behaviors. However, the goal of defending from an attack on the terms and upon the criteria established by the United States has changed. Currently we are advising both Russia and China how to handle this current Geo-political situation. This is not something that can be broadcast at this time.
However, watch the actions of Russia and China closely and you will see coordination. Take note of what is not being reported or receives only scant attention, and note that the idea of "red lines" and "ultimatums" are part of a Domain recommendation kit / package / advisement.
When you have two dogs meeting for the first time. You only put a leash on one of the dogs. The other dog is permitted to move about freely and unconstrained. If both are on leashes, or if both are free with out a leash, you will find that the potential for a dog-fight increases dangerously. By forcing borders, lines of engagement, it actually settles down the chances of attack and military action.
However, there will be an escalation of conflict. There currently is an on-going conflict. What we are trying to do is to control and contain the conflict to a manageable level, and one in which The Domain interests are not harmed, destroyed or damaged.
We are arranging "little hurts" instead of "big hurts".
The conflict that will occur will not be as anyone expects, and a number of other pressures (financial, economic, trade, food, environmental, and social) will engage and alter the Geo-political landscape in such a way that Domain Interests, are preserved.
[5] Question – Hope
Before we jump to this next question, I have to interject.
Earlier about three weeks or so earlier, I inquired about one of the influencers on MM. For privacy reasons, I will refer to him as DK. Most active followers might know who this individual is.
He wanted to know what was going on with his efforts on thought control, affirmations, dreams, goals and lifestyle. And was pretty bummed out about things. I asked the Commander BUT DID NOT GET ANY ANSWERS.
Then, for reasons that I do not understand, the query of this DK individual was injected into this particular questioners' question. I hope that everyone understands that I just transcribe and try to figure things out as they arise and that I have no control of where, why or in what order the answers appear. In general. -MM
Could you please ask a simple question?
If I do everything I’m asked, will I be able to lead the normal life I desire in this incarnation? I’m sorry to be greedy for your time but I really need hope as a motivator.
Thank you so much for your help.
The questioner is not understanding his role. He is not understanding that he is a non-physical being that is presently occupying a prison skin-suit.
Things that happen to that skin-suit are for a REASON.
Part of the reason is the pre-birth world-line template (sic.) when the questioner set forth the experience in General Population in this incarnation they had to be directed to MM and The Domain. Thus the hardships and seemingly unfair events were intentional to direct the questioner to this point and to enlist our assistance. It was intentional.
Further modifications occurred.
There were physical modifications and this resulted in some fearful events that affected frequency access. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Though the questioner believes that it is a bad thing. Do not.
There were non-physical modifications. These were terrifying and fearful and any dreams that you might retain of those events were not of your making but rather the defense mechanisms of "the old empire".
Like MM you have been changed to work with us. This is as an irregular, and yet you see no progress? Perhaps it is because you are not aware that the universe is not a Hollywood movie. There is no Buck Rodgers. And like MM, you are discouraged that the world of "Star Trek" does not exist. You will not go into a teleporter, fire a phaser, meet a beautiful green skinned Venus lady, or pal around with Chubacca.
Your value is what you do in your non-physical bodies. They, like you, are trapped within the Prison Complex sphere. But you possess some mighty strong skills in this arena and already have provided valuable guidance and assistance to your support group. And they are there with you. They monitor you constantly and they help you navigate the world-lines to avoid some major catastrophes, yet you do not see the big pit that you just avoided. maybe you do not see that big blade pendulum that you just avoided. Like irregular DK it seems like there are some invisible barriers that are preventing you from obtaining things. But you will obtain some great things, it's just that you need to be steered away from the massive traps in front of you.
You are not DK, and your situation is different from his. He was cursed early on, and has been dealing with some greased skids, tricks, malevolence, problematic suction "demon" spirits, leeches, rumble topography (sic.) and "slides and ladders", and just as we are busy dissembling his "yard full of old trash", we are too clearing your paths. So do not give up hope.
You are not alone. You are never alone.
[1] Your mantid has given full support to your dreams, wishes, desires and goals.
[2] You are assigned a "crew" or "support group" from the Domain that watches you and your non-physical bodies constantly.
[3] Like DK, your future path is cluttered with rubbish and turmoil. We have assigned a secondary group (same team assigned to DK) to remove the garbage and purge the "stinky water".
Life is not going to be "roses and rainbows" in front of you, but you WILL see things start to get better. And you and DK are not the only ones. So have hope because you are NEVER alone, and we are monitoring you, and your thoughts constantly, and your thoughts are normal. Your desires are normal. Your being is normal.
And your future will be calm, peaceful and normal.
*end*
I take that to mean that there is a lot of work going on with DK and there are teams (plural) of entities trying to clear out a big mess in the non-physical realms associated with him and his situation. As well as a number of questioners who also have “things in their closets” that need to be cleared out and purged.
[6] Question – Third Party Verification
I would like to remain a stranger if possible, but you could with the help of mantid verify the sincerity of my intentions and even by going through the past slides here and now.
*pause*
(A comm opened up in a new channel. a different "feeling" manifested. i take it to represent a different entity. Seems lie a group party line or group comm channel. -MM)
*verify*
*check*
(A lot of back and forth that I do not understand at all. I mean absolutely can't make heads or tails out of it. It is all just messed up crazy lines and scribbles to me. Just a confusion. -MM)
The questioner is proceeding as should be. There is no need for verification. The fears are just fears. The questioner knows the true reason for the question.
Mantid checks out. There are no problems or concerns of contention / dismay.
(I do not think that they understand the question. They seem to be performing a status diagnostics routine of some type. -MM)
The questioner is asking if he is sincere. Please verify.
(The Commander answers while on the "party line" with multiple comms open. -MM)
Sincerity is measured by actions, not by intention. We do not doubt intention, nor do we question actions. We note that there is a high degree of fear in all of the irregulars garnered via the MM access portal.
(Again, more noise. This appears to be others chatting or thinking in broad action swaths.-MM)
*Image of a kitchen. Image of a table. Image of a window and a street / bark yard. I imagine a transparent cat walking from the outside into the kitchen, like a ghost or spirit. Then calmly moving around the kitchen. Then a kind of warm wash through the room. Like a calming balm.*
(I think that this means that another entity, maybe a cat, is entering the questioners reality and working to purge the environment of bad "energy" or frequencies...-MM)
*BiZZZZZZiTTTTT!*
(Then the Commander shouts. and it shocks and surprises me. Maybe that's the intention.-MM)
(I hear / sense a loud screeching noise that howls and huts my head. UGH! I have never ever, EVER experienced anything like it. The Commander then yells..)
Turn off the media! Go without it FULLY for one week. No radio. No internet. No MM. No television. No newspaper. Start tomorrow.
*end*
I do not want to sound like a dick, I am just reporting things. But it seems to me that there are some bad influences that are hitting this questioner right now. The Commander orders that the questioner alter his lifestyle for one week. Then afterwards return to it. Then, notice the difference.
My feelings and impression is that of a doctor telling a patent that they MUST do this thing, or there will be bad consequences. It’s a pretty strong message in any event.
I hope that he will do this. It might be too difficult for him to do.
(A half an hour passes.)
*comm opens up*
Questioner must get out of the vortex that his habits create. This is causing fear, doubt, and inability to hear / sense our nudges and directions. He is not acting on them because he cannot hear them.
His Mantid has been notified and told that this type of disturbance is not acceptable for our irregular forces.
The issues of the failure of the support organization to identify, track and suppress these influences are being addressed.
The issue is not with the questioner. The issue is with outside influences that are creating a dangerous mind / thinking process alteration.
There are numerous irregulars that are subject to contentious and conflicting influences that must be controlled and eliminated. We are directing forces to this end, and the questioner will experience some alterations in their non-physical bodies shortly. There will also be other irregulars that will experience similar changes.
I also have the very strong image that other forces are being enlisted to assist the questioner. Whether it is an actual cat, a former cat, or some other entity is unknown. What ever that “cat” did, it certainly triggered a “something”. And whatever that ‘something” was, it was electromagnetic in nature. Thus the prescription for reset.
If I would be so bold, I would suggest some walks in the countryside, and listening to hemi-sync (even though it is electronic in nature), and do anything other than electronic media. I don’t know if it is possible, but it is worth a try.
Overall, this entire question is rather weak. I have to admit that asking someone else to verify your sincerity is rather “weak”. Sincerity is a personal thing, and cannot really be measured by outside influences. You are either sincere or not.
The confusion in this matter is due to the differences in experience. The Commander orders a change in electromagnetic frequency exposure. This clearly indicates to me that the questioner is being harmed right now. Death by media, I suppose. Maybe the questioner is in the United States, India, Australia or the UK where mind-control via electronic media is rampant. Read my article on Vault 7.
Keep in mind that the perceptions of others is important on the human-interaction level, but not in dealing with extraterrestrials. They just simply do not think like we do.
I am sure that all of this is embarrassing to the questioner. But it need not be. We know from the comm that the Commander is aware who this person is, that the mantid and his supporting team are all aware of the questioner and other influences are being pulled in to assist.
Also interesting is that the questioner was not responding to Domain induced “nudges”. This is due to electromagnetic frequency saturation of his environment which affected his personality. No wonder there’s an “all points” bulletin out to watch for these interference’s.
The good thing that came out of this is [1] a prescription to break the influence train, followed by [2] a garnering of resources to assist and help the questioner get over his doubt, fear and worry. Further a [3] unknown problem (of some sort) was identified, and [4] corrective actions put in place.
I anticipate some friendly non-physical entities being enlisted to support the questioner in ways that I do not understand.
[7] Question – IS-BE exfiltrating post event
Questions; Have you succeeded in exfiltrating this IS-BE having received the Nobel Prize in 1984 leaving his prisoner costume a few days ago and his fight does he correspond to your domain or affiliated organization?
(I am sure that the questioner will not be happy with this response. but I get this kind of thing more often than not, and it is just the way things are. -MM)
We do not discuss mission related activities on public channels.
*end*
Well, whatever this is all about, we do know and recognize that it was a Domain related activity / mission.
[9] Question – Other pathways
Just had another question pop into my head. Again, I don’t want you to exhaust yourself so if you prefer to add it to a future batch of questions, please feel free. Just thought i’d type it down and send it to you because it had that nagging urgency to it (popped right into my mind out of no where) plus i just had a bright white spark appear when I was writing add it to a future Q&A (usually means I am on a necessary thought train).
Background: During my first encounter with the EG, when I was first told about the amnesia, I was heavily into the alchemy and the writings of Thoth/ Hermes, or more specifically the Philosopher’s Stone being the higher self/ Original IS-BE state of consciousness (i figured alchemy and the transmutation of metals were a metaphorical representation of the kundalini rising through the 7 chakras to initiate an interaction with the higher self).
The alchemy.
The connection between my studies and my interaction with the EG seems excruciatingly obvious.
Q: Can the Ancient Egyptian/ Greek deity known as Thoth/ Hermes/ Hermes Trismegistus a Domain Officer and his writings a legitimate pathway back to regaining ISBE memory?
MM comments...
I know nothing about High magick and the religious elements related to Ancient Egypt and the occult. My brother was, however a major practitioner. And he had every single Crowley book imaginable. I tried to read them. Honestly they made absolutely zero sense to me. And actually gave me a bit of a headache. I liked the idea of a methodology to conduct higher-order changes int he physical, but at that time I couldn't understand the importance of ritual.
I think that this question has great validity, but unfortunately I am so very hampered by my lack of knowledge on the subject. Never the less, I have posted the question and recording the impressions / images and answers as best I can.
So here’s the answer from the Commander…
Yes.
(garbled. A lot of information. Very confusing. Very difficult for me to follow and understand. Images of The Golden Dawn and Atlester Crowley, and something about these big oversized tarot cards, and something about colors arranged on a wheel and spinning, and then these colored strings or yarn. There's this image of a small square of wood with some symbols on one side and something else on the other side.. -MM)
... magick as practiced involves "old Empire" technologies which work outside of the Reality Universe, but are somewhat suppressed within the Reality universe.
...associations with tools and "safe circles" / "power circles", or use of "wands" and set routines to manifest spirits which are really...
(So much confusion and imagery. Makes me wish that I studied the occult. Not viewed as a stage show magic act but rather as a technical science that used thoughts generated via ritual to obtain results targeted to specific spirits or entities or power sources.-MM)
... methodology does not remove the amnesia barrier nor remove the containment fencing. Instead it provides a bubble of transit (sic.) for the IS-BE entity to use to transit through the barriers.
(Snippets continue, and still confusing to me personally.-MM)
...in order to make the "Old Empire" technology work within the prison complex there are certain processes that must be incorporated along with the baseline formulae. Without them, the efficiency and effectiveness of the technology is greatly reduced. Not zeroed, but reduced substantially.
...your experience in the locking curse set upon by your brother was made evident during your "retirement" sequence at Pine Bluff and the chair imagery was illustrative of surrogate consciousness placement for curse and control of others which illustrates how effective the system works. Imagine how effective it would be outside the containment field outside the prison Complex.
(Like I said, once I had the EBP, the Domain experienced everything that I did, and know far more than I did about what was going on. -MM)
[10] Question – And others per question #9
Further, can the same be said for the Philosopher known as Plato (who basically came to inspire the Matrix movies with his philosophy of the cave) who I assumed at the time was the one so referenced in “the Pholosopher’s Stone”?
No.
Philosophy differs from "Old Empire" technology. It is a completely different system with completely different objectives and purposes.
[11] Question – Helping establish a protocol to use in the Reality Universe
I devote myself to helping you physically I can’t get to LD but could you help me establish a simple, efficient and concise protocol to try with peaceful ways to help transform those (of the old empire) who want to change their future potentials and present, to offer them once again, luck, pole, hand, help.
In this next comm the image of a gollum comes up. It’s a strange image. It represents a skin-suit. And trapped inside that skin suit looks like a swarm of fireflies, but as you get closer, the fireflies look more like glowing water. This clay grey gollum is just sitting there in a chair, but it also has these (thousands) of ray beams pointing and flowing at it. Many go through, and many are deflected from it. Of those that go through, you can see the rays bouncing around and messing up the glowing water inside. It’s churnign the water and making it splash and move about. It seems very uncomfortable as the water is frothing and bubbling and hissing and exploding in tiny pings and pops.
Remember that image when reading the following…
*open*
We have no doubts regarding willingness, desire, ability, or intent with the questioner.
(Image of a very kind doctor / veterinarian (?) patting the questioner (whom I cannot make out, it's like a grey clay gollum) on the back and telling him that everything will be all right. Not to worry. -MM)
However, the questioner is filled with fear, doubt and questions. It need not be that way.
Why does the questioner believe that there are radio waves? He cannot see them. yet he believes in television, radio and the internet. Why? This comm, and our operations are no different. Just because the questioner does not have the technology in his physical hands does not mean that the process does not exist.
Stop the worry and fear.
(Again, I picture an old 1950's family physician who is chatting with a white coat and a pipe in his mouth, talking in a soothing and even level to the grey gollum while patting him on the shoulder. Saying things that everything will be all right. And giving the gollum an injection in the arm, and pointing to a picture / chart of the human body and explaining things. It's a very warm and welcoming office also. Not the normal sterile hospital or clinic rooms that we have so come to expect. -MM)
You have been tasked with some basic but important activities and missions and you have successfully performed your duties. We do not doubt your intentions. You might not remember them, and you do not need to LD in order to assist us in our mission.
The questioner has not being physically responsive to our nudges, and we have rectified that issue. / Are rectifying that issue. It involves things and issues that he was unaware of and had no control over.
We theorize that the insecurity regarding Domain involvement is due to this suppression of our confirmation nudges.
(Again, this image of a doctor and strangely a cat; a white cat with black spots, is very clear and the cats is walking around and rubbing up against the legs of the gollum. The cat funny enough has a black mustache. LOL. The cat jumps on the lap of the gollum, and is a purring loudly while the doctor talks in calming peaceful voices and is rubbing the left arm of the gollum. Each time the cat purrs the calmer the "rays of light" going into the gollum appear. It's like the cat is somehow changing the energy directed inside the gollum -MM)
[12] Question – Expansion of perspective
(1) What’s the relative value of focusing our limited human efforts to expand our perspectives, to be able to “see” things from mantid, domain, or even cat perspectives?
It is important to see things in as many ways as possible. That provides a better understanding of what ever situation that you are studying.
Consider a two dimensional picture of a basketball. You can see it, and can guess it's shape.
But if you hold the basketball in your hands you can see that it is spherical. You can feel the texture and the hardness of the leather. You can smell the ball, and if you have improved your ESP (sic.) ability, you can tell and understand the stories of all those that touched that ball.
We advise the questioner to expand understanding and work on improving perceptions from multiple points of view. This will provide a better crafted understanding of the present situation that he is embroiled in.
(2) To the extent it’s worthwhile, any advice for “how to”?
As with anything, the key is training and practice. Seek out others who have this ability and learn from them. We / it / I suggest that you improve your extra sensory skills in this area and improve your empathic ability. Having an improved empathic ability especially in the earth prison complex environment would be a great asset to The Domain.
Work on the effort every day and all the time. Imagine that you have that ability, and pretend that you do. It will then manifest. this is the preferred technique for the questioner specifically.
Conclusion
That’s enough for now. I have around 30 more questions to go and if your question is not yet answered please stand by. I’m getting to them as life allows.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 3.
[22a] Question – Can Basic Training be obtained
Thank you for your effort. I know how stressful is this for you.
My 2 questions:
As part of working with The Domain, is possible to have basic training to get a better spiritual understanding of ourselves?
Yes, of course.
Those who have agreed to work with us in the roles previously discussed are volunteer irregulars. While they are not qualified with the necessary training and education necessary for regular operations, they never the less possess certain abilities, skills, advantages that we can utilize for the benefit of all.
Everyone who conjoins in this role accepts training (sic.) and non-physical body manipulation / alteration / enhancement / modification as necessary to work with The Domain to attend to the projects that they are or will be assigned to do.
Very little is done at the "raw" physical state, unless you are like MM (here) and have an EBP or ELF probes installed medically. But MM and his colleagues are part of a very special role that needs those modifications and enhancements.
When we perform / conduct / implement the training or education you might experience the events as dreams, or some kind of LD event. Most people will forget them. This is because the memories of the procedures are not usually anchored to the mechanisms inherent with the memories associated with the physical body.
In a similar manner the medical procedures associated with the non-physical body might be interpreted as horrible and frightening nightmares. This is a fear defense mechanism that was set up by the "Old Empire" for your particular human inmate skin-suit.
If there is some particular skill or ability that we suggest the irregular to learn, that is obtained on the physical reality universe (General Population arena), then we would provide a strong "nudge" or urge for the individual to get that kind of training. We have provided nudges to those to study "fate forecasting" (sic.) horoscopes, learning lucid dreaming, enhancing their ESP abilities, and certain directions related to geographical relocation.
[22b] Question
Were we chosen before birth for this endeavor or we are part of this effort by choice and fate (by chance)?
Yes. Most of the active participants on MM have agreed to meet up using this venue before they were born.
Not every IS-BE had the same or similar entry agreement experience, and not everyone worked with their mantids (sic.) to come to this point. As it stands, of those who utilize the MM recruitment venue, there is a mixture of individuals from a large selection of different recruitment drives.
Of those, it should be well understood that numerous individuals were recruited pre-birth in clusters. There is the cluster that MM is part of. This cluster contains IS-BE entities that agreed to work with the Domain prior to birth and that affected the entry-point and the pre-birth world-line template (sic.).
There are a handful of Domain citizenry that are attracted to the MM effort. They are instrumental in organizing the training and recruitment drives in the Heaven (sic.) as well as working with the Mantid Primes. While imprisoned in this complex they are working inside the Heaven pocket universe to organize, train, establish and create the cadre of irregulars that you are part of.
They volunteered for this role.
They are aware of the risks and are trapped within the prison complex until the containment field is adequately breached.
They have been working to establish recruitment drives from the inside, and have "convinced" / manipulated / agreed to assist the mantid primes in the necessary life experiences via the pre-birth world-line templates for the roles assigned to the irregular volunteers.
There are clusters of non-physical recruitment memberships that occurred during the pre-birth training cycle and recruitment drives in the 1970's and the 1980's General Population Time.
These efforts continue.
The primary training, and the avenues of recruitment occur in the non-physical realms. And it is a complex matter as it involves both mantids, and the IS-BE's as well as crossing the pocket universe threshold regarding Heaven (sic.).
[23] Question – Have you and I met in the physical?
This is a question that I presented to the Domain Commander. I wonder if he was present in any of the physical meetings, or any of the non-physical meetings that I had with the Domain.
No.
Then what about the “leader” who oversaw the operation and implantation of the EBP. Was that not you?
No it was not.
Who was that person then?
That was the chief operational procedure leader for the implantation of the EBP and the memory and biological alterations.
[24] Question – Who were the doctors who oversaw the non-physical body alterations, as well as the physical body changes?
I had a physical modification of my physical body in the mid to late 1980’s. And numerous non-physical changes. I am curious as to who these entities / type-1 individuals were / are.
The medical procedure that took place at Nags Head, NC was conducted by a team of specialists.
These individuals were a mixture of Domain Officers that temporarily occupied the bodies of human inmate skin suits, as well as the actual medical staff who were actual / real / non-modified human skin-suits.
It is the unmodified humans who performed the necessary biological alterations to your physical body. They came from another region per our request.
You did not observe the procedure as your consciousness was container placed, while the physical body was replaced.
And what about the non-physical alterations?
That was conducted by a team of specialists who was led by the Chief Nurse. That nurse worked on you in other events and is / was aware of who you are, and your general agreement and disposition.
[25] Question – Is it possible to destroy the amnesia network through LD operations?
This is an interesting question that I thought about asking. I read somewhere that there are people who are claiming that they have damaged the amnesia network and system through lucid dreaming activities. Is this possible?
No. Lucid Dreaming is an observer platform that has a substantial degree of non-physical interaction. A LD individual consciousness can make changes to the environment that will result in apparent changes. However, the reality universe is layered like an onion, and when you make one kind of change, it should interact with all the other layers, and change them accordingly. This would then imply that YES, a LD individual can make changes to the amnesia field.
But the actual answer is sadly no.
The amnesia mechanism is layered within this "onion" layers and insulated and protected by mini-pocket universes that serve as minor repositories of individual components. Making alterations to one layer via consciousness in the LD state will not alter those protected within the pocket repositories.
Which will then emerge unscathed, and then like a seed sprout anew and reconfigure itself like (the Borg???) and adapt to the prior system of alterations. Thus making damage to the mechanism especially difficult.
There needs to be a coordinated effort to destroy all the major elements of the mechanisms / systems and then prevent them for regrouping and recovering. Then systematically go one by one and dismantle the entire complex mechanism.
[26] Question – What is preventing manned spaceflight?
In theory we could have established settlements on the Moon and sent people to Mars by now. The plans had been proposed 50 years ago, but no one has done it. Maybe there’s a larger reason than lack of money and will, so I’ll pose the question.
Does overt human spaceflight into the solar system—say, to Mars—present risks, whether from other beings or from anything else such as unknown microbes? Maybe if yes, the Commander could elaborate.
The biggest impediment to human spaceflight within the prison complex environment is greed, human skin-suit politics, and corruption.
The Domain will not interfere in vehicle movement within the General Population universe.
However, there are other interests and entities that do interfere in vehicular movement, as well as the dangerous autonomous military weapon mechanisms that litter the containment field as (a soft of) unexploded munitions, not to mention the snares, traps, and other mechanisms that operate as spiders web of maze entanglement pitfalls.
Your term "manned vehicular spaceflight" to the moon, to Mars, to any of the planets in the solar system, or to any other solar system within the confines of the prison complex are impeded by the failings of the individual planetary governments and their leadership. Most of the reasons behind this have a root cause borne out of personal greed and avarice.
There are five main prison planet solar systems comprising the constellation of stars that make up the prison complex. However, there are also other solar systems that the field contains, that are not populated by inmates.
The earth-bound entities are also free to construct vehicles and visit these other physical bodies. There, they will find interesting remains of former civilizations that once existed prior to the wars of the "Old Empire" during their expansion phase into this region. Unfortunately, many of these planetary bodies are no longer inhabitable for biological creatures.
[27] Question – Personal guidance
Fantastic stuff MM. thank you so much for your work on this.
So much to take in.
If you get the chance, may I ask for a little guidance for me personally from the commander? I’m rather lost and am ready to follow whatever the Domain commander determines is necessary for me to be useful. I really don’t have anything to lose, all I’ve got at the moment is a simple plan with my affirmations.
While if my affirmations eventually manifest I would have something to lose, as of right now I’m thinking of the bigger picture. Should I continue with my plan or is there something else I should do?
I promise to do whatever is suggested.
You need to seek out human counsel.
If your automobile's engine no longer starts when you crank it up. No matter how hard you turn the lever, it just will not start. (I picture a guy trying to crank the front of a model A old time automobile.) What do you do? Well, you go to a automobile mechanic.
If you are sick, and coughing terribly. If your body is covered in skin rashes and pustules. What do you do? You go to a doctor.
In the case of the questioner, there is a degree of life-mapping, social predictive study, career / lifestyle alteration and personal health and biological readjustment required to achieve his/her ideal. This level of guidance is best determined / obtained / provided by an experienced individual who can provided clinical as well as personal information in regards to your situation.
Just like you go to a shoe repair man when your heel falls off, or a brain surgeon if you have persistent headaches, or even a typewriter repairman if the keys keep sticking on your typewriter. You need to be guided not by (myself / Commander) but by a person / entity that can help you exactly.
Further this guidance is necessary by a trained and experienced human person with extra sensory insight who can guide you. They will need to understand your intelligence and speak the same kind of language that you do regarding your particular issues, fears, concerns and aspirations.
There is one such expert in the irregulars that you communicate with, but is unaware of your need at this time, and his ability to assist you is a function of his desire to do so.
Contact MM and he will put you in contact with him.
This is a shout out to <redacted>. It’s obvious. If you contact me, I will pass your contact information to him. It will be up to him whether to assist you or not. laobangbh@163.com -MM
[28] Question – ASD’s and UHF radiation.
I have one more question if you can squeeze it in. If not, it can wait until another time. Its importance should be obvious.
Autism-spectrum disorders (ASDs) and mental retardation have exploded in youth over the past 30+ years. Current research suggests something in the environment triggers autism in children with certain DNA markers around age 2 or 3. Also, many college-age youth display symptoms of what appear to be mild ASD symptoms, including inflexibility, unwillingness to adapt, need for safe spaces and trigger warnings, desire to censor other viewpoints, irrational behavior, bizarre claims of gender fluidity, etc.
Until the modern cell-phone system was created, higher-energy UHF transmissions were mostly absent from the environment. So the question:
Is UHF radiation from cell-phone towers the trigger for susceptible children to develop ASDs?
All radiation influences the biological bodies of human inmate skin-suits.
How the radiation interacts with the physical bodies depend on [1] the complexities of the non-physical bodies, [2] the diet and [3] well-being of the physical bodies, [4] the fate profile of the individual, [5] the thoughts of those around the individual so targeted, and [6] the presence of lack of viral agents within the body.
Association of UHF radiation as a sole contributor is not accurate. It is, at best, a contributor to a host of conditions that operate syngeristically to create an autism condition.
To make a crescent ring you need to make sure that the mutton and cheese are all well seasoned and tenderized, Then you must bake it at the proper temperature. If you leave out the mutton, or forget the cheese, or any number of ingredients for the pastry, when you apply the radiation, it will not be a crescent ring. Instead it will be something else. This is the same with the conditions necessary for ASD manifestation via UHF radiation.
Funny thing these comm’s.
This was something that I was unaware of. I had never heard of a “crescent ring”. I realized it was a food when the Commander mentioned mutton. I thought about the moon, before I figured out what he / she was referring to.
Why didn’t my mother, or anyone in my family ever make these things? They sound absolutely delicious.
[29a] Question – Mantids
I was catching up on the forum, and pissedlizard said (again) that the Greys are a dying race, and that they are actually under the Mantids.
I understand that you had asked this question before to the commander, and the answer was that there are actually 2 kinds of Mantids–the class that is assigned to each human, and the other class that is in the “tunnel of light”.
But with pissedlizard’s comment, I can’t help but feel confused.
If the commander can clear up this “dying race” thing, it would be helpful.
Are the Domain under the control of the Mantids?
Is the beach under the control of the ocean? Are cows under the jurisdiction of the grass?
The Domain has a role, and a place within the Main Universe that fits the needs and desires of our group of IS-BE consciousness entities. Likewise the mantids, also have a role, and a place in the grand society that represents the totality of the Main and Reality and Heaven universes.
Human skin-suits within the general population try to understand things from their own limited perspective. They do not see things as part of a greater whole. In the interactions of the Domain and the mantids, it is as of equals offering different abilities to resolve differing objectives.
The mantids are devoted to their human skin-suit charges. They provide them with experiences that improve their being; that purge the more corrupting thought influences from their beings. And they work to provide them rewards in the Heaven universe upon completion.
The Domain is active in purging the main universe of disconcerting elements that could destroy the very nature of the universe "fabric". One of which is the presence of the prison complex, and to this end, the inmates will need to participate in the eventual shut-down and retirement of this facility. This will cause human inmate hardship and experiences that the mantids (sic.) support.
So in the overall scheme of things, both the Domain and the mantids (including the mantids prime) work together for the mutual benefit of all. Not only on the tactical level, but strategic as well. We work as equals with unified goals, and determination.
The idea that one is subservient to the other is a human inmate construct. Just like certain human inmates believe that humans "own" cats as pets. The cats are more like caretakers of their human charges. Not the other way around as is often believed.
[29b] Question – Is the Domain a dying race?
Also, since the Domain is supposed to be composed of timeless beings who can choose which type of bodies to inhabit (biological, mechanical, etc), how can they be dying?
Does PL mean that the bodies are dying, since IS-BEs are forever and unkillable (but can be bamboozled and subdued)? I was under the impression that Domain members (based on their rank) could wear whatever type of skin suits like one wears a shirt or a sweater. I can’t help but feel a little concerned or confused. Probably both.
How can the Domain be dying?
(I picture that old game where the children all form a circle and one person is given a statement to whisper into the ear of the person next to them. Then, that person whispers it into the ear of the other person. And so on, and so forth. Eventually, the person at the end announces what the statement is, and it doesn't even resemble the first statement whispered. - MM)
There are misunderstandings that abound, and the human skin-suits try to make sense of things from their understandings.
All IS-BE consciousness is eternal. They are alive and exist because. They are.
It does not matter what form or shape they are in. Whether it is a human skin-suit, a mantid (sic.), a member of the Domain, a member of the "Old Empire". Every consciousness is eternal.
Species come and go in certain geographic regions. They evolve into other things.
Nations, societies, and communities come and go. They evolve into other things.
The consciousnesses that are part of The Domain are eternal beings. We like you IS-BE consciousnesses trapped within your inmate skin-suits are also eternal beings. As are the mantids (sic.) that maintain your skin-suit existence in this prison planet general population; they too are eternal beings.
The mantids (sic.) will eventually evolve into another form, and migrate to another universe, where they will exist in another state. This does not imply that they die, nor does it imply that they leave. They just simply grow and evolve.
Human skin-suits will also grow and evolve. You will all migrate to new states, new realities, new universe and new conditions. It is your nature as an eternal being.
Cats are eternal beings and they too will grow, evolve and move about the ALL as per their desires.
Members of the Domain are no different. Eventually we will complete our current task in the MAIN universe and grow and evolve. We will no longer hold the apparent roles that we hold currently as well will be quite different. We are not a dying race, as much as we are a maturing and growing and evolving cluster of IS-BE entities.
Same as you. Same as the mantids(sic.) and the same as your cat feline friends.
[29c] Question – bacteriophage and virophage technology
Also, is it possible for the Commander to give his/her/its thoughts on bacteriophage and virophage technology for treating pathogenic bacterial or viral infections?
(I can only talk and ask questions that I can understand. Then when I receive answers, I must be able to understand them. This stuff is over my head. I am so very sorry. -MM)
*garble" Images of DNA strands. With spiky things moving about. The terms / words / thoughts of "invasion" / reduction / suppression / collapse seem to be associated with it all. And then I see a removal of entire strings of DNA pulled out of what looks like a glob of "Play Doh".
(Sorry. the terminated the comm. I will read up on this subject and ask again at a later time. -MM)
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This is part 2.
[15] Question – Training our deference’s
MESSAGE OF UNIVERS WE QUE CAN Train with our Deference and we will go into the future reformer the future will be Deference sought with you?
Can we train so that we can be assistance to the Domain?
(This was very odd. I picture a smiling kind fellow. Who told me the following, like a kind elderly gentleman talking to a beloved son. -MM)
You need only vocalize your intentions and desires. We will work with you in the non-physical. You need do nothing else. Just be the best that you can be. Be kind. Be helpful.
(The, I was specifically instructed to translate this into french. I mean PUSHED. With goose pimples on my arms. Both my left and right arms. And a chill up and down my back. To translate what I just transcribed. So I did so using Bing translate. -MM)
Vous n’avez qu’à exprimer vos intentions et vos désirs. Nous travaillerons avec vous dans le non-physique. Vous n’avez rien d’autre à faire. Soyez simplement le meilleur que vous puissiez être. Soyez gentil. Soyez utile.
[16] Question – Mantid Primes
As regards the Prime Mantids, however, I do have one question. Can the Domain shed any light on happenings within their society? I am assuming they have leaders and factions.
The dominant nation in the world is going through a catastrophic change that is a normal event in the bigger scheme of things. It appears to be unusual and dangerous, but in reality, it is a cyclic event that is programmed within the prison general population system.
Everyone who has worked on their pre-birth world-line template (sic.) prior to injection to this MWI reality universe, agreed to endure the changes and alterations that would occur at this time.
Obviously the mantid primes were involved in the layout and creation of this template.
(I get the strong impression that The Domain does not want to talk about the Mantids. And I know that I have great restrictions on what I can say about them. -MM)
Now there is a relationship between the MWI reality universe and the pocket "Heaven" universe. They are not completely isolated. There is a degree of interaction at numerous levels. Thus changes in the reality universe will instigate changes in the "Heaven" pocket universe.
These influences are neither trivial nor isolated, but fundamental to the nature of the fabric of "Heaven". Given that the MWI reality universe consists of all scenarios of events, from world war III to a pastoral life of no conflict, the aggregate whole based upon the dominant consciousness participation in the MWI reality universe will have the greatest effect upon "Heaven".
The mantid primes understand this. There is no influence, good or bad, that alters their lifestyle or way of life.
Their life is totally alien to anything that humans can comprehend, thus one need not worry too much abut the changes in human life as it affects very little in the lives of the mantids. Whether mantid primes, or mantids in general population.
Specifically, mantid society is alien to human society and there is very little in the way of commonality.
*Final*
In general there are some primary limitations that I have regarding discussions about the mantids. I am sorry about that.
[17] Question – Nuclear Weapons
If I may add, the explosion attached below is most definitely not a hundred truckloads of conventional munitions. Trust me on that. waaayyy to much heat in the fireball– and that’s hundreds of metres in diameter. And hundreds of metres high. Conventionals cannot do that. Impossible.
This tech may or may not have existed in the 1940s– Airl did say they were investigating ‘atomic detonations’ on Earth back then, though– but it sure as shit exists now.
Notice the first explosion– definitely conventional and standard tactics– as in Beirut– to get everybody to duck and ensure no cameras are rolling for the second nuclear detonation a few seconds later. (This tactic is frequently used by ‘our favourite ally’ in the Middle East. Has been for years. But conventionals do not leave a crater in solid rock unless it’s a penetrator/bunker buster.)
The whole ‘nuclear weapons don’t exist’ shpiel has been spread by the same crew who spread the ‘viruses are fake and don’t exist’ trope, too. Divide and conquer technique– military grade psyops now being used on the general population (and illegally used, too)– but as old as the hills and super effective.
Definitely looking forward to the Domain’s answer on that, though.
Do nuclear weapons actually exist?
Nuclear weapons exist. Just like nuclear power plants exist. They are powerful and terrible weapons.
The weapons that were detonated in 1945 against the Japanese were tiny weapons. We have been monitoring this technology and the current earth technology level is horrific in ability, and terrifying in scope.
The damage that these weapons create goes far beyond the explosive damage. The radiation that results alters the biological cycles of all living creatures, and influences the non-physical realms as well.
We have intentionally disabled ICBM weapons in their launch cradles, and disconnected the command and control centers from accessing the missile control functions. This was sufficient, back in the 1960's and 1970's to persuade both the Russian and the American military that launching these weapons would have dire consequences that we would control. Not them.
Unfortunately, the current American leadership is unaware of the consequences of a nuclear strike.Just like they have been unaware of the consequences of a bio-weapon strike.
This entire region of geographic space was devastated by a massive series of nuclear wars, and the "Old Empire" led in many of the areas of destruction. Which is perhaps (one of the many reasons) why the "Old Empire" selected this region for the Prison Complex.
There is this connection of belief that pervades both the "Old Empire" and the Western leadership that possession of powerful weapons makes one powerful. That is not the case. It makes one dangerous. And the reality is that dangerous creatures are eventually subdued by an equally horrific measure.
One of the great lies is that those bombed Japanese cities are now thriving urban areas free of radiation. That is not true. But that is of no concern, the weapons currently stockpiled are much larger, and much more dangerous. Use of them could easily eviscerate all life on earth. -MM
Second comm (out of the blue). (Roughly about three weeks after this first initial comm above.) I don’t know where to place it. So I am placing it here. I do not know if it is relevant, or not.
*Open*
At the end of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services operated a clandestine operation to minimize and downplay the amount of radiation at the detonation sites. This was intentional and the reasons were related for American civilian population's acceptance of the weapons in the military arsenal.
*end*
[18] Question – Set in stone?
I have one more sneaky one, too, if I may.
Given what the Domain have told us directly– and Metallicman has been telling us for years– that ‘the future’ is never set in stone and is actually subject to many variables in the MWI (in the Reality Universe, at least)…
…are the Deagel Forecasts wrt. certain countries/regions population reduction forecasts correct? Or, are they misinformation in, say, the same way the the 2nd Alien Interview book was?
Reason I ask is, as most of us here in MMan Land are, I’m sure, getting on with our lives and intentions regardless of the wider geopolitical shitshow underway, it would be beneficial for us to be aware that something like this is a strong possibility/incoming, and perhaps take a good look at what our current priorities are, and weigh up whether or not these priorities require adjustment at the very least, or a complete revisionIF the forecasts are correct/expected as a matter of expediency. (It would be a historical first, after all– at least if the history we’re told about is correct, that is.)
I also recall that the Domain said directly ‘Heaven is being expanded’ to cope with the expected inflow. So perhaps this has been answered already, because the means through which this Deagel figure is attained may well be the expected kinetic events (that Metallicman and the Domain) forecasted in a recent Q&A session.
Either way, I think it would be beneficial to know if the Deagel Forecasts in themselves are roughly accurate in terms of actual figures, or was the Domain referring to another extinction event the details of which must remain– for obvious reasons– veiled, for now.
That last part is a question many of us wouldn’t want an answer for anyway, I’d say. And I’m not looking for that answer here– just the one above in bold.
Is the Deagel Forecasts with the specified countries/regions population reduction forecasts correct? Or, are they misinformation in, say, the same way the the 2nd Alien Interview book was?
(This message came up immediately. -MM)
This must be answered carefully so that there is no misinterpretation.
(Followed by the data narrative. -MM)
The Deagel Forecast is not misinformation.
The Deagel Forecast was based on two things. [1] It is based on a series of historical trends, and [2] supported in such a way to help explain horrific remote viewing results.
(Then an image of a old history movie. You know the type. Black and white. Grainy picture. 1920's style. -MM)
The Deagel Forecast came into being when numerous independent remote viewers reported the same disturbing result profile. They remote viewed a massive "die off" in the Western nations.
(Repeated, to me, like a narrative. Where the announcer describes the background of the old 1920's style movie. -MM)
The initial remote viewing, as well as the subsequent RV sessions, was of such a concern that substantive efforts were taken to explain what caused the event sequence.
[1] Different teams. They used different teams of trained viewers, to remote view 2025. Repeated remote viewing of the target dates in great detail occurred. Different teams were used. Different target areas were observed. Different profiles were compiled. The results all pointed to the same result; a massive human die off by / in 2025.
[2] Viewed the lead up events. Also remote viewed were the lead up events that resulted in those results. This was used to anticipate what was the primary driver behind the catastrophe of 2025. All that they could determine was...
(Then a series of "cut scenes". I think The Commander was playing with me somehow. -MM)
[2A] A global pandemic.
(Like those world war II era black and white movies showing how the evil forces were taking over the world. These big wide arrows moving over the globe and expanding until the entire globe was blackened. -MM)
[2B] Hostilities and attacks against Asia in wide full spectrum.
(Again, there are cut scenes of fighting. Military movements, and a map showing fighting all over Asia. From Russia to Japan and all over the nations of the middle east and South East Asia. -MM)
[2C] Generalized collapsing and failures at all levels of the American / UK and Western government and society.
(The "newsreel" presentation continues. Like scenes from the American 1920's stock market crash. Twirling and spinning headlines on news papers. Pictures of scandals, and greedy pot-bellied men in top hats, and gaiters smoking cigars.-MM)
[3] Paid for-profit individuals laboriously remote viewed the details of the globe in 2025. They "nit picked" apart the details that they found. This was to search for clues.
(Images and sounds of industry. News papers running in printing presses. Investigators typing away and reading books. Secretaries with their hair in buns carrying documents to smoky boardrooms, etc. -MM)
[3A] They first used this information to promote financial gain in the stock market and other financial venues.
(Images of dollars falling from the sky. Roaring 20's dances, and a lot of easy money and absurd amounts of wealth. -MM)
[3B] They then cross indexed the results with historical trends, and based much of their comparisons on intelligent studies, historical event trends, and their own intuition.
[3C] All of the lead-ups to the 2025 was suggestive of either a pandemic or a bio-weapon discharge, all complicated by horrific mismanagement and the introduction of some "wild card" event that they could not identify.
(A big question mark, overlays this man who is trying to figure things out. -MM)
[4] Historical examples, however, could not justify the enormous percentages of death observed. Thus they revised their forecast to suggest that there was a combination of catastrophic events that "pushed" the stress and strains of civilization to break down as they observed. This "wild card" is the great unknown is is not publicly identified.
[5] Their revised forecast added the speculations of nuclear war, collapse of society, and deadly viral strains to simultaneously work together synergistically.
(Images of ants carrying things in a long train on a sidewalk. -MM)
[6] The future, as it exists today, has not changed. All indicators point to a massive "die off" brought about by an American discharged Bio-Weapon, and the failure of the Western nations to vaccinate against it. Instead they opted for other means of control, and those other means were not successful.
(Image of a 1950 car dead at the side of the road with steam coming from it's hood. -MM)
Presently, the "wild card" appears to be the inoculation methodology employed by the Western nations. It is a new technology that seems / appears to have other unforeseen consequences.
(All the images change. There is this kind of 1940's movie in color showing the great progress of science and development in California (?) and many happy people going to work int he factories there. -MM)
Of course, the future is never fixed. The world-line templates (sic.) that the vast bulk of humanity will experience is being brought to this cliff. However, it need not occur. There are also scenarios where the pandemic subsides, and where a change in government leadership and opinion prevent war of any type, and where the world pulls together and resolves the vector direction that it is heading towards.
(The entire narrative and tone changes. -MM)
The future is being determined by the mass thoughts and actions of the dominant society at this time. Right now, it is quite clear that the dominant Western media, power leaders, and population are pushing the collapse of human society by their thoughts and actions. The human skin-suits in general population are acting like a herd of wild buffalo. They are running faster and faster to that cliff. And they refuse to stop and take note of what is going on.
This herd collapse is a mechanism of the "Old Empire" and is being aggravated by the Western leadership.
Unless the situation changes drastically, the collapse of the Western nations lies ahead. It will be caused by the release of an American Bio-weapon on the globe, and severely aggravated by forced injections that will not vaccinate the population from it. Instead they will permit the virus to mutate. As it mutates, further injections will be required. With each injection will welcome a host of other problems as a result of the juvenile injection concoction.
There is every indication that it is the combination of [1] permitted viral adaptation in humans hosts, and [2] an increased litany of side effects with the injection methodology that will together unleash the "wild card" that will evoke the specter of the remote viewing terrain.
Sometimes I wonder if there are different entities chatting on the comm. Sometimes the answers or discussions are so different from each other. It makes me confused and (sometimes) questioning my sanity.-MM
[19] Question – More nuclear questions
Given the recent MM posting (What happened after Alien Interview that helped to set up MAJestic), and the stated precursors therein (big “bombs”), I would like to ask one more question.
I am fairly certain that we all gather our information from a number of sources, and a trust [of those sources] is built upon a comparative analysis of sorts [of that information].
I have it from some very educated, intelligent, and trusted, [multiple] sources that all the purported nuclear testing events, or displays, were likely faked… and similarly, the two most famous explosions over, in, and around Japan. There are some technical reasons given (unorthodox physics by some), as well as geopolitical and the usual fear-mongering and video fuckery (before, after and during). However, surprising to me, the wide-spread blast and burn (at least for those two biggies) can be accounted for by unbelievably immense quantities of [pre-arranged] conventional explosives. Easy to do, even by puny humans.
If, and that is a big IF to me, you allow for off-worlders “assisting” in the development, deployment and detonation of said devices, then my above question is moot.
Were the devices purportedly detonated above Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nuclear in design and effect?
Hiroshima was destroyed by a singular bomb weighing around 9000 pounds. Almost everything up to about one mile from the point of detonation was completely destroyed. The point of detonation was a clear circular radius easily viewable on the flat terrain.
The only exceptions were for a small number (about 50) of heavily reinforced concrete buildings, most of which were specially designed to withstand earthquake shock.
These were not collapsed by the blast; most of these buildings had their interiors completely gutted, and all windows, doors, sashes, and frames ripped out.
The 9000 pound singular bomb created the equivalent of 20,000 tons of conventional munitions worth of damage.
In Nagasaki, nearly everything within 1/2 mile of the explosion was destroyed, including heavy structures. All Japanese homes were destroyed within 1 1/2 miles from the point of detonation.
Whether or not this is nuclear in design or effect is a specious argument.
We detected a radiation discharge and investigated it. There is no question that human skin-suits have the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons. As they have the ability to manufacture nuclear power stations.
Creation of a nuclear weapon is far easier than the design and creation of a nuclear power station. This is why the nuclear bombs came first in 1945, and the nuclear power stations came later in 1954.
The world is flooded with distractive news and commentary designed to disorient the population. This includes whether humans have traveled to the moon and landed on it, whether or not a plane flew into the world trade center towers, whether Elvis Presley is alive, that the earth is flat and not a sphere, or that nuclear weapons don't actually exist.
Believing any of these distractions are dangerous because it has no bearing on your lives. It's a distraction that serves to decrease the popular validity of a publication, website or article. The moment any venue embraces the outlandish and the extreme it's validity decreases exponentially.
MM is under assault by various influences to clutter up the dialog with the outrageous and the outlandish.
(What followed was some specific directions to me personally. I will not post them here. Please expect me to aggressively police the comments, requests and content of submissions from now on. -MM)
I dug up the following. It is a chart of the radiation readings from Japan in 1945.
[20] Question – My anger and the cornfield
In 2021, a visitor to MM visited and then immediately trashed the disclosure effort. In my anger about being so maligned, I went and tried to perma-ban him and then sent him to the cornfield. Not so successful. He was using TOR, and frame hopping.
So, I went a step further, and condemned him to a fixed recycling over an over on a very nasty pre-birth world-line template.
I feel awful about it. Really awful. Most especially because I am doing what the “Old Empire” did. Right? Please tell me if I was out of line, and whether I should be a kinder and gentler Rufus. Because right now I feel like shit.
Was I out of line?
The actions that one takes within this bubble universe is one of cause and effect. there really is no such thing as a "right" or a "wrong". But rather how we interact with others in the environment presented to us. This affects our growth, stability and value.
When you "send someone to the cornfield" (sic.) you are no different than a school child that punches a bully for stealing their food. You are no different from a cat that claws you up when you try to hurt it. You are no different from a innocent pedestrian who shoots the man robbing him.
Your only difference is that you have a greater and more powerful skill set, and this individual has never encountered this level of power before.
In truth, this individual has a large ego and somehow believes that they have an "inside line" to us. They don't. If we wanted them to communicate with us, we would have established an EBP link.
The collection of interest from this person to others has value, but it's only of slight significance. (A wash over of calmness. Like I am being petted and calmed down.)
They have a role. Not as great or important as your role, or the role of others in your clique / group / community. We chose you and you agreed to work with us. Your team / community that you have managed to pull together and assemble are all part of a small battalion that are doing great things for us. (Again, another wash over of calmness.)
You are not in competition with this individual. So stop believing that one is better than the other. You have a very important role, and they have a different role. Both roles are important. Your role is more like a five star hotel with exclusive guests. Their role is more like packaged fast food for the masses. Both roles have their place. Neither role is better or worse than the other.
Your concern about sending them to the cornfield should not be of concern. You have to break some eggs to make strudel. They were out of line to malign you. You were warned about this by your Commander Rasmussen at NAS, NASC Pensacola, Fla. This is what you were told to expect, and while it angers you, it is part of the territory that surrounds you and which you agreed to accept. Critics abound everywhere. Never the less, they were wrong and an equally harsh reaction is called for.
If you try to stand in front of a steam locomotive, there will be a reaction and it will be a real mess. And that is what this person did. Like a child playing with matches, he is unaware of the dangers and the great power that he holds in his hands.
Your rage is not human. Your rage in this event is artificially induced, and being a person with some extraordinary skills, you naturally used them. (The incredible hulk.) And the consequences will be longer lasting. No, you did not send him to purgatory forever, no matter what you seem to think. We will pull him out when it is time. He needs to understand humility first.
And you are the one teaching them that.
Scene from “Back to the Future”.
Just like in the movie “Back to the future”…
Scene from “Back to the Future”.
Then, I drank a couple of bottles of wine. Went to bed. Slept.
…
Then, today, as I got up and going through my feeds, my emails and all of that, I opened up my browser. You know, I have my morning routine.
Cup of coffee. Sun rises at dawn. Listen to the morning birds.
And out of the blue. THIS picture shows up on my feed…
Coincidence, or message?
Never the less…
I experience remorse, and so I took the dangerous and time consuming effort to recall my horrible actions. I do not believe that person needed to incur my wrath. They are a searcher like myself. And being human, they have egos and feelings just like I have. And being human they make mistakes just like I do. And I made a mistake sending them to the cornfield.
That mistake has been undone. But the sour taste in my mouth will continue for a long time afterwards.
Don’t be like me.
Give everyone a chance, and show them some understanding. Some compassion, and give them a little break.
[21] Question
Hi MM
After reading Part 1 of the comms with Domain Commander (on the new Huawei Pad), it has answered my worry of the mRNA vaccines & what if my loved ones took it. At least now I know that it can be mitigated somewhat by good diet & exercise. My 79 yr old dad took Pfizer & 79 yr old mum took Sinovac (but recently took Pfizer booster). Wife & I both took Sinovac but wife just took Pfizer booster despite my advice. For me, am trying to get Sinovac booster & bypass the Government appointed Pfizer booster.
My question to the Commander is am asking for guidance on how to proceed in my life from now on. In my early life, I was very helpful to others, eagerly providing help to friends (mostly advice & lending an ear) but many new “friends” took advantage of me. It was like vampires sucking the good energy out of you & gave back the bad energy in return. I end up being emotionally drained & depressed. It came to the point that now I only help those that I’m close to only. I still try as much to be Rufus towards others in other ways so as not to be drained of my good energy.
My life has been average, neither extravagant nor in poverty. Very blessed with parents who took good care of myself & my siblings. Had the privileged opportunity to study in London & experience living in a foreign country for a number of years. This shaped my young adult thinking, my working culture & gave me opportunities to expand my career back home till early 2000s. Then difficult times came but I took it as a life lesson & behind every cloud is a silver lining, my now wife came into my life during this down time. She is my anchor, balances me & able to tolerate my specific way of doing things.
Today, I no longer wish that high flying corporate career but at the same time, am not that financially sound, enough to get by. I worry about my retirement with my wife as we dont have social security here in this part of the world & frankly am fed up with the current employer I’m with.
Our 5 cats are like our children & we dote on them. In fact the youngest one is sleeping next to me as I’m typing this. We suspect that this youngest one is the incarnation of our first cat. I’ve always known that people & pets comes into our life for a reason and that these 5 cats has had past lives link to both my wife & I. The strong affinity and bond with them tells me that we have met before (& the facts that they chose us rather than we choose them).
I am a worrier & often think too deeply (hence the hair loss.. hahaha) about what ifs. I worry about the future & all that is happening is really making my worry meter shoot up. My parents, my wife, my extended family, my cats, my friends ….
Somehow, I believe that although I’ve not vocally mentioned volunteering to assist the Domain, in some way, I can feel my lifepath is somehow in a very small way assisting them.
So, going back to my asking the Commander for guidance on how to proceed in my life from now on. Really need guidance to lift some of the worries.
Actually, another question is that if somebody as insignificant as myself ask for Domain retrieval after death, does the Domain hear our plea ? (as going into the tunnel of light doesnt not seem to be a prospect that I now wish to follow).
Cant remember how I found MM blog but I just cant stop reading & keep coming back. Truly Appreciate all that you’re doing to help us MM readers & the world. It must be a great burden on you but you amaze me on how you carry it all through. Your blog is is visited at least twice a day but I worry that the Western powers will pull the plug as you’re not singing their narrative. Time to consider shifting to a Chinese server where you know you’ll be protected. My regards to your lovely family & please give a big hug to your little daughter.
Thanks again for helping us. Cant say it enough. For me, it helps to center my life & affirmed what been deducing all this time, that the shift is happening but resistance is strong.
Regards
<redacted>
First comm injection…
You need to focus on centering your consciousness within it's brain cradle so that you can optimize it's utility. Your family will be fine provided that you avoid the poisoned vectors of fear mongering activities.
Your ideas and thoughts regarding your cats are accurate, and that (of course) means that they will generate a calm and kind environment to surround you.
Fear is the great hurtle that lies before you, but you and you family have practical and substantive thoughts regarding this matter. Follow them and do not second guess them. They will all work out fine.
Of course, the trials and failures of life is to be expected, but the overall forward time vector for you and your family is better than most, and certainly far better than your fears promise / provide for you.
Follow up comm. (Roughly three weeks later.)
*comm opened*
Following the advice provided graciously to you (above and presented immediately to the questioner above. -MM) has been exemplary. Thank you. (smile)
Taming your fears, no matter how loudly they clamor at you; nor how shrilling they appear to by those around you that you love, it is important to stay focused. Ignore the noise. The fear is noise. It is distracting and upsetting your good works, and positive steady directions.
Do not forget this.
Use the guidelines of that as the cat. They have a far better appraisal of the situation at hand. And are not to be ignored, because they create the calming comforting environment that enables you to accomplish the goals and tasks that you affirm (sic.).
Soon, this (next) year (maybe months) you will "break through" an invisible barrier, and much will become clearer, calmer and more stable. Shake off the fears as that is preventing the manifestation of the MWI (sic.) track path.
*end*
Sorry. I haven’t a clue as to what all this is about. I just transcribed and cleaned it up. -MM
[Bonus] My cherished beliefs
You know, when a comm channel opens up it can be anywhere. In the elevator, for instance. Walking down the sidewalk. Or at the checkout in a store. And one of the features about this is that when you are aware that a comm opens up, that you listen to it, and then move on with your life. Many times forgetting about the communication transfer. Such was this next bout…
I was musing about my attitude regarding The Domain and the mantids. And wondering why I am not permitted to say anything about them, or deal with them in any substantive way.
Mantids (sic.) are the most important species (race) beings in the human inmate suit right now. They are the "behind the scenes" movers / shakers /lever makers. To question their role in your life is to question your own self.
If a choice must be made between The Domain or the mantids (sic.) you must always obey your inner mantid directives and directions.
We (The Domain) lie outside of that bonded interconnection.
<redacted>
We (The Domain) are mission directed. The mantids (sic.) are consciousness focused. Obviously that is more important to your individual growth and eventual release from the prison planet environment than anything else.
More Questions?
I am sure that most of this article will go over the heads of the readership. The questions are all individual personal issues. I’ll attempt to open it up later on to more general questions.
I have about twenty other questions “in the pipe”. They are sitting in an article that I call part 3. I will get it out shortly, or sooner or later.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
Yup. The American neocons, started with the John Bolton / Donald Trump “tag team”, and passed on via Mike Pompeo to the puppet-in-chief; Joe Biden has woken up a very, very dangerous dragon. Just like Biblo Baggens did in “The Hobbit” with Smaug, this dragon is now woke. And it is not going back to sleep. You fools!
You crazy, dangerous, idiotic fools!
Yet, the American neocon’s and their rabid (well meaning, but geopolitically clueless) followers have no idea what a cluster-fuck they are walking into. And I do mean cluster-FUCK.
I am talking about Genghis Khan levels of devastation, rape, ruin and rapture.
But you cannot speak sense into their brains of mush. They have watched “Rambo”, and read the “news” about the American successes in the Middle East, and they believe it all. Everything. As if special effects and actors represent what really happens in real life.
Ok. Enough of that.
In 2019, Trump was getting ready to win is second term as President.
But he and John Bolton were frustrated. The eight (8x) strains of bio-weapons directed at farm food and produce failed (by drones no less!). The Hong Kong “color revolution” under the guise of “Pro-Democracy Movement” failed. The “Free Tibet movement” failed spectacularly. The effort to cause a collapse of the BRI via the Uighur people in Xinjiang failed, and the hybrid-war (in all of it’s many flavors) was simply pissing off the Chinese people and unifying them together as one very angry and very pissed off nation.
So what to do?
Hum?
Launch a Bio-weapon on the most important Chinese holiday of the year, in the most populous area of China, where all the high-speed trains converge for maximum spread and maximum damage.
That’s what they did.
Brilliant, huh?
Hey! How’s it all working out for you? Great huh?
It too failed in China. As did, the second bio-weapon attack, the death by vomiting virus, and the third bio-weapon attack, the death by shitting virus.
All spectacular failures.
Obviously, the United States needed to be “hit on the head” to realize that they cannot fuck with China any longer. But No. No. No. They are way too clueless. Far too gone. Far too stupid.
This neocon believes that China has mind control weapons that are poisoning the minds of Americans. And that China is at fault for the collapse of American society!
Stupidity.
You just cannot argue with mental retards. FACT.
China, always one for subtleties, decided to display OPERATIONAL military systems as a warning to the blundering, bumbling, idiocy that somehow, by fraud and deceit, run the United States today.
They showed these systems on parade.
This was nearly three years ago…do you think that the American leadership payed attention? No. Idiots are idiots, no matter what their business card says.
China’s Anniversary Parade Reveals New Weapons That Will Influence U.S. Strategies
October 1, 2019
The People’s Republic of China held a great parade (3h video, shorter version with comments) to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding. Some interesting new weapons were on display that are of strategic significance.
China has, like Russia and Iran, used the decades the U.S. military wasted with counter insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan to build strength where the U.S. military has weaknesses. Those weaknesses are most visible in the Navy:
New classes of quiet diesel submarines and new developments in mine and torpedo technology make operations close to tense coastlines far more dangerous today than in the past. As a result, U.S. aircraft carriers are no longer immune from risk when entering waters within range of enemy forces.
More serious still is the deployment of Russian and Chinese area denial systems, like the so-called carrier killer DF-21 antiship missile developed in the last decade by China. Its range of over 1,000 miles far outstrips the range of any warplane on U.S. flight decks today. Sailing a U.S. carrier strike force through the Taiwan Strait these days—in a show of support for pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, for instance—would risk catastrophe.
Iran does not yet possess anything as sophisticated as China’s DF-21. However, its domestically produced Noor antiship missile (itself a reverse-engineered rip-off of an earlier Chinese cruise missile) is dangerous at over 100 miles. [...] The combination of these missiles and Iran’s fleet of fast and cheap patrol boats has been enough to keep the USS Lincoln out of the Persian Gulf as tensions between Iran and the United States increased this summer.
The carrier killer DF-21 is no longer China’s top weapon. It is a ballistic missile and a U.S. carrier group may be able to use its missile defenses to take it down. China used the last years to exceed its capabilities.
One closely-watched weapon unveiled Tuesday was the Dongfeng-17, a glider capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Foreign analysts say is designed to maneuver at high speed to evade anti-missile defenses.
Another missile displayed, the Dongfeng-41, is believed to have a range of up to 15,000 kilometers (9,400 miles), which would make it world’s longest-range military missile. Analysts say it may be able to carry as many as 10 warheads to hit separate targets.
Here are some screenshots from the parade video.
First up is the DF-17 hyper-velocity, AI controlled, nuclear weapon. Designed to decimate complete carrier groups, islands and cities. Row after row, after row after row of these vehicles were paraded.
A number of neocon publications have claimed that these must be dummy mock-ups. That no nation could build so many, in such a short period of time. If America, with the “best manufacturing in the world” cannot do it, then no one can.
The DF-41 is a road mobile beast. The 8 axle vehicle can transport, erect and launch the missile. The DF-41 is supposedly a solid fuel missile. That means that it only requires a very short time to deploy and launch. It will be difficult to interdict while it is still on the ground. There were a total of 16 of these monsters in the parade. The DF-41 has a 9400. mile reach, making it a serious entry in the intercontinental class.
This seems to be a communication relay drone. It can be used to communicate with, and steer, another drone from the ground even when the second one is over the horizon looking for U.S. ships. It makes Chinese drones independent of satellite communications.
ABOVE: The HSU-001s are also drones but they do not fly but dive. These are likely to be used as reconnaissance vehicles against U.S. submarines and ships. They could also be useful for secretly mining an enemy harbor.
And WAS used to disable the USS Connecticut in 2021.
ABOVE: This unmanned thingy is interesting. It looks fast and stealthy and has two liquid fueled engines. While it has an undercarriage the two suspension lugs on its top insinuate that it can be launched from another plane. It looks fast and stealthy but is confusing. Is it a bomber that returns to an airport? It looks a bit too flimsy for that. Is the thing itself a “suicide drone” i.e. the warhead that hits the target? Why then does it need an undercarriage? It might be for reconnaissance but it has no visible optic systems.
Next to several thousand marching soldiers there was a number of upgraded tanks, missile systems, shore launched anti-ship missiles and lots of drones. China’s equivalent of the Russian S-300 was on display and several large and very modern early warning radars. There were also dozens of mid-range missile that are, in the case of a conflict, probably supposed to end the U.S. base on Guam.
And possibly the entire island itself…
Nearly all the systems shown were road-mobile. That means that China can easily deploy even the big ones to its islands and reefs in the South China Sea. During a crisis or conflict the U.S. Navy would have to avoid the whole area or prepare for a very bad day.
In 2001 then President George W. Bush said the U.S. would do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan should China insist on a forced reunion. In 2006 the U.S. operation plan on how to do that was revealed:
"The Pacific command developed a new `strategic concept' for the Taiwan contingency in December 2002, and an updated plan was produced in July 2003. Last year, based upon new 2004 guidance from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff ... a final Taiwan defense plan was published," Arkin wrote.
The plan now includes "air, naval, ground amphibious, and missile defense forces and `excursions' to defend Taiwan. Options include maritime intercept operations in the Taiwan straits [sic], attacks on Chinese targets on the mainland, information warfare and `non-kinetic' options, even the potential use of American nuclear weapons," Arkin wrote.
Air operations in support of Taiwan will be difficult when U.S. carriers can no longer dare to go near China. Maritime intercept operations in the Taiwan straits are becoming wishful thinking. Taiwan has changed its defense strategy in sight of these new circumstances:
Taiwan’s new defense concept employs an asymmetric defense strategy, where Taiwan maximizes its defense advantages, and targets an invading force when it is at its weakest. Whereas Taiwan’s previous strategy focused on fighting across the entire Taiwan Strait and defeating the enemy through attrition, the new concept divides Taiwan’s defense operations into two phases, both closer to Taiwan’s shores where the lines of communication are short and Taiwan’s forces can benefit from land-based air denial and more effective surveillance and reconnaissance.
The U.S. strategy has for decades been based on air-superiority and sea control. It has yet to adopt to the new situation in which anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) weapons prohibit the use of most of its (very expensive) offensive systems.
The lack of U.S. capabilities extend to its defense systems. Hypersonic vehicles make U.S. missile defenses largely useless. Saudi Arabia recently learned that the U.S. has no air defense system that is readily capable of defeating cruise missiles and drones. While the Saudis had spent billions of dollars on U.S. air defense systems the Houthi could use those rather simple and effective weapons to attack one of its largest oil installations. It is no wonder then that the Saudis are now filing for peace:
Saudi Arabia has given a green light to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to arrange a meeting with Iran as a first step towards de-escalating tensions in the region, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Abbas al-Hasnawi, an official in the prime minister's office, told MEE on Tuesday that Abdul Mahdi was mediating between the leaderships in Riyadh and Tehran and had communicated each side's conditions for talks to the other.
The Saudis still set some dumb conditions for talks but a few more Houthi attacks on its oil infrastructure will convince them that those are unnecessary.
The Saudis have to climb down because the superpower that once protected them is no longer able to do so. At least not as easily as it used to do.
Andrei Martyanov and others have long predicted that the moment would come where the U.S. would lose its supremacy. We no longer have to wait for it. The moment is here.
SELECT COMMENTS. (ORIGINAL THREAD)
WZ-8
Why then does it need an undercarriage? It might be for reconnaisance but it has no visible optic systems.
I haven't seen the videos, but I don't see any undercarriage in the stills. Isn't that just a mounting on the trucks, that can be seen?
Posted by: BM | Oct 1 2019 18:28 utc | 1
There are now pictures in better resolution than my screen grabs.
Posted by: b | Oct 1 2019 18:45 utc | 4
Thanks for the posting b....I'm impressed and hope the US MIC is as well
This is what can be done when you don't have profit as the primary motivation because you think you are invincible.
If we go the extinction route in this WWIII that the world is in, the path looks to be quite short. I hope the elite of the West love their children more than they love hegemony of the global private finance cult.
I did read a Reuters posting that I think fits here and is included below
"
GENEVA (Reuters) - The international community must confront America’s hostile approach, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday as tensions have spiked between the Islamic Republic and the United States.
“The international community must confront America’s hostile and unilateralist approach by taking a definitive decision and effective actions,” Rouhani said at a speech at a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union in Armenia, according to the official IRNA news agency."
America/Western empire is not going to attack Iran and get away with it. It is time for the Western empire bullies to stand down and a multi-polar world to stand up as China is showing can be done.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 1 2019 19:10 utc | 6
b: Air operations in support of Taiwan will be difficult when U.S. carriers can no longer dare to go near China
Yes, a major factor causing a decrease in US naval power (unrecognized by Navy) is the obsolescence of the aircraft carrier.
• First, carriers are generally unavailable because they are much more complex and require significant maintenance. Currently, of eleven carriers only two are deployed here, which is common. And the new carriers now cost about $13 billion, plus the accompanying ships in a carrier force, plus 5,000 crew personnel etc.
• Just as the aircraft carrier obsoleted the battleship a century ago because aircraft range exceeded gunfire range, so now the carriers' aircraft range (shorter than ever) is exceeded by missile range. It's difficult to sink a huge ship like a carrier, but any strike on the deck or on the deck island would incapacitate a carrier for some time, perhaps permanently. That's just one explosive missile, and there is no shortage of missiles.
What's the effect of this? No jet fighter air cover would doom any serious attempt by the US Navy to hinder whatever it is that China decides to do militarily in its area of operations. On top of this, the US Marine Corps is currently going through an identity crisis. What could they do? Sit on some islands? The US Army, looking for a raison d'etrebesides the "Russia threat" is proposing long range artillery on some islands somewhere -- grasping at straws. US Air Force?--out of it, given China air defenses.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 1 2019 19:21 utc | 7
It's becoming more and more likely that the US with arrogantly launch an small attack on Russia, Iran, Syria or China confident that they will back meekly down, only to get a rude discovery when they strike back. I've heard that the US military is more "realistic" in their own internal assessments of the dangers of a conflict with China and Russia, but US politicians are increasingly talking themselves into a corner vs the rest of the world
Posted by: Kadath | Oct 1 2019 19:21 utc | 8
So what is going to happen…
If the USA tries to fight China or Russia for “democracy”?
This…
Ouch!
Some video fun…
Here’s some videos of Chinese military. Fun stuff, showing a large, modern and motivated military.
This was three years ago. Since then, if you can possibly believe it, China has become much more aggressive in R&D development of weapons systems, and manufacturing and mass producing weapons systems. Today is is more than just a peer equal militarily with the Untied States. It is superior to it. And coupled whit Russia, the entire Asia is ready to PUT THEIR FOOT DOWN and stop this rampant misbehavior by the US insanity-run government.
In 2022, both Russia and China will stop using SWIFT. This will cause a massive disruption in the flow of “free money” into the USA, and will expose the value of the US Dollar to what it’s actual value is. This will create economic shocks and turmoil inside the United States.
How will the USA handle it? Well, there is a faction that still believes that they can somehow rescue the situation by blaming their ineptness on a war; and thus create the “mother of all wars”. China and Russia will not allow that.
We will see what will happen.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This group concentrates on a number specifically asked by top influencers, lurkers, and participants on the MM website. In this instance I took my time to get and obtain answers to the various questions, and devoted time and effort to acquire the most accurate and useful information possible.
This group was compiled and answered in December 2021. There are two parts to this session. This is part 1. Part 2 follows.
The truth be told, I had to spread this Q&A out, and many times it was extremely difficult for me to read the actual answers as my physical life was chaotic, noisy, demanding and discordant at the time that I received the answers. I need quiet, peace and calm. But with house construction all around, a two year old, and the demands of life, work, industry and circumstance, it’s just been difficult.
All of these questions are exactly as posted to me, either by email, comments, or in the forum.
Keep in mind that I also needed to differentiate between “noise”, my “internal thoughts” and “The Commander”. What I do not EVER want to happen is my own personal thoughts, and ideas override what the Commander is telling me.
So in this particular instance, and throughout this article, I have asked to “increase the gain” and “open up the volume”, even though it is more uncomfortable for me personally, so that I can obtain the best quality responses free of any personal opinions or thoughts.
[1] Question: Close Encounter 5 Protocol
“Some are familiar with Dr. Steven Greer’s “Close Encounter 5” protocol through his film and interviews. Is this a useful or productive activity? Is there reason to be cautious, or other qualifications to consider?”
The Close Encounters-5 (CE-5) protocol or “human to alien contact process” uses meditation as a baseline skill to accomplish the communication. As a seasoned Buddhist monastic, I have good experience with preparatory things to not do while getting ready for a serious meditation session. Since many CE-5 group events are scheduled events, I tend to look at them like little mini-meditation retreats. Prepping for a meditation event should start 48 to 72 hours prior to the event. This preparatory work is mostly related to food and beverage intake. At least 48 hours in advance of a retreat meditation session, cut most, if not all, intake of alcoholic beverages, caffeinated drinks and soda pop. Alcohol is a depressant, Caffeine is a stimulant. And soda is gassy. These beverages have an impact on meditative practice. Now let’s put some wisdom on the table about this. A cup of coffee in the morning is one thing, and so is a small glass of table wine with dinner. But multiple cups of coffee at work followed by super-sized, high-sugar, high-caffeinated soda is another. Nothing impacts meditation worse than caffeine jitters or soda-induced gas movement within the body.Experience has taught us that certain foods aren’t conducive to good meditative practice, either. Cauliflower, onions and garlic can cause gassy responses that are unsettling in meditation, if not noisy. Spicy sausage, pepperoni and pizza are certainly not advised during the same day of an evening meditative CE-5 event. On the day of a CE-5 event, give yourself plenty of time for a leisurely drive to the event. Arrive early, then give yourself a chance to “cool down” after the agitations from highway driving. Take a settling walk at the CE-5 site and relax.It’s also important NOT to engage in any recreational drugs or alcohol prior to meditation. You are only setting yourself up for failure or at least a seriously diminished experience. CE-5 protocols forbid such practices at the events. While we’re on the subject of mind-altering substances, they have no place in the meditative experience. Anyone who tells you that some substance will enhance your meditative experience is lying to you. The objective at a CE-5 event is to quiet your mind and shift your consciousness in such a way that your reality is expanded and you establish a common ground where it’s possible to consciously communicate with extraterrestrials.
“The objective of the “C5 Protocol” seems to be summoning and communicating with transdimensional/ET entities through group focused meditation, with the goal of hastening sentience alignment.”
So what is the specific question?
Can meditation techniques be used to contact extraterrestrial entities?
Yes. They can be used. However, they do not have to be used.
When we contacted you (MM) you were not in a meditative state. We simply blasted through whatever consciousness walls that were acquired over your human life. We still contact you now, just like we are doing today. Or course that is by EBP (sic.) and direct. However the system process remains the same.
This questioner is focused not on extraterrestrial / non-physical form comm channels, but rather the skin-suit human initiating contact with an unknown entity; sending out a beacon or signal so that something / someone / some other entity would answer it and open up lines of communication.
To that I can offer some advisement's.
[1] How often does the MM readership / humans / people in general enjoy watching commercials, hanging on and listening to telephone advertisements, or read the Berma-shave ads? Do people really read the fine print on a Lydia Pinkham bottle? Most, when confronted with unwanted solicitations, turn them off and ignore them. The same is true for mental telepathy. It's just M-band (sic.) noise that needs to be filtered out. Any well intentioned skin -suit will need to understand that any signal that they send out will just be interpreted as background noise.
[2] To communicate, you need two consciousnesses. One to transmit and send, and the other to receive. unless you specify who is the recipient of the comm channel, the "message" will just bounce around without going going anywhere. You need a very specific target to send to.
[3] General group "messages" can result in responses. This is simply due to the large number of participants increase the depth and color / image complexity of the message, and other species can notice the message. It is like driving a black Model-T automobile, and then a fancy white Packard zooms by on the road. You notice it because it stands out.
[4] There's many threats and hazards outside of the physical general population area of the Prison Complex. You do not want to invite any of these entities into your life, but you do take that risk when trying to open up a comm channel without a target.
In general, meditation and fasting, good healthy lifestyle and diet, as well as consciousness centering are important physical practices for every skin-suit to partake in. Whether or not they are important in one's ability to communicate with strangers is a personal matter that varies from individual to individual.
[2] Question – mRNA vaccines
May I ask about the Western vaccines and what’s in store for us? It’s more than a little worrying considering the Deagel figures are correlating with the vaccine roll-out so well. So many friends and family have had their MRNA shots here and the hive-mind willful ignorance is fast approaching mandatory injections. Even my twelve year old nephew has had it.
I’ve had two AZ jabs. That’s not MRNA but still produces the full “Spike Protein.” I’m supposed to get a Pfizer “booster” shot and dodging that will become more difficult soon.
So the questions I’d like to ask are:
What timescale is involved with the vaccines going wrong?
I calmed myself down and opened up a comm channel. I intentionally forced myself to receive and not to interject anything into this most important discussion. The comm opened up at 14:59 Thursday afternoon.
The entire premise of the mRNA "vaccine" protocol, as it has been promoted, is in error. There needs to be some other alterations in the chemical mixture injected that will mitigate the bad or more worrisome effects.
This mRNA injection is not a vaccine. It is an injection that is designed to alter the population / society control by the governments that use this methodology.
The concept is that this injection will require as-needed boosters to act as a shield to all manner of foreign substances, germs and viruses. This is not only attractive from that point of view, but that it will also become a predominant revenue stream to the producers of that injection formula.
The governments that promote and use this injection scheme do so with no intention of vaccinating anyone. What they want is a platform to easily control, and defend the population with, when they create dangerous viral weapons to launch against the rest of the world.
The nations favor this methodology as they can include other chemicals and substances at will that would be useful for them to maintaining crowd control, and to manipulate the population. Already there has been developed systems that resonate with the injected mRNA resultant mutations that create harmonics that allow the government to change the actions and thoughts of the injected populations.
They can thus calm, anger, upset, or create any kind of emotional reactions in the population that they control simply by having the population so injected, and then pulsing frequencies at them through social media.
This system is fraught with difficulties, and none of these were addressed during the rollout phase. And today some of the side effects are being noticed. This includes the biggest culprit with is known as the "spike protein", but others that alter the cell structures in a negative vector downward trend. The enthalpic result is early organ failures, particularly of the critical priority organs such as liver, heart, kidneys and lungs.
The damage is being noticed with alarm throughout the nations using this type of injection. However, they have mandated that there shouldn't be any reporting of the danger, and the damages and deaths that have resulted so far.
Unless there is a direct change in the policy positions of the various governments involved, then you can expect an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. None of which will be recorded as due to the mRNA injection, but rather to other causes.
Due to the number of people so injected, there should be an increase in deaths directly attributed to the mRNA alterations through 2022, into 2023.
By late 2023, the deaths should be obvious to all, and catastrophic emergency steps would most likely take place by the governments involved, with peak damage manifesting in the 2024 time period.
This forecast can be changed and vectored to other outcomes provided that a different world-line anchoring program is in planning and in process of being implemented. Unfortunately, we (The Domain) and MAJestic (in whatever incarnation it is today) is not operating such a program.
There is another option, where immediate rectification injections occur and take place that would minimize the adverse effects of the spike protein alterations. There is action in this regard, but we have no information whether it will be implemented by the government so involved. Our supposition is that the results will be tabled and not acted upon for political concerns.
Prior histories suggest that a "black market" for these modification mRNA injections open up, and would be able to be procured by individuals with the proper currency of value at that time.But whether that will happen in this case is unknown.
The specific answer to the question is that deaths as a result of the mRNA injections are taking place presently. They will increase in scope and magnitude. By late 2023 it will be obvious that there is a major problem, and that at that time the actions of an increasingly unstable government leadership is difficult to predict.
Is it just the mRNA vaccines that are affected or all Western vaccines?
Only the mRNA injections are so compromised.
The problem associated with the increase in causality figures have to do with an unanticipated side effect related to spike protein utility. This is only associated with the mRNA injections.
Alteration of the spike protein though methodology not associated with mRNA changes should not be a concern. The problem is intentional mRNA alterations. Not the spike protein itself.
With the other injections operate in other ways, and all have their own issues, as do the "dead host" vaccines, the primary worry and concern is with the mRNA injections that alter DNA.
If anyone has taken the mRNA injection, the best thing to do is to maintain good health and healthy behaviors. This become more critical as this will help mitigate any potential problems created by the spike protein.
Further, exercise, always needed, should become a priority. Not just for good health but to enrich cell wall maintenance with fine oxidization. The problem with this side effect is that people continue to indulge in unhealthy behavior when they should start eating better, performing a minimum of exercise and controlling their thoughts.
Exercise with fresh air is best. This would be a nice walk in the woods or forests, a bicycle ride along a river or a lake, or even a icy swim (Russian style) in a frozen lake.
If you have taken an mRNA injection you will seriously need to change your diet. Processed foods will need to be eliminated from your diet.
Both exercise and diet will not, alone, prevent the catastrophic side effects of an errant mRNA initiated spike protein, but they will allow your body to heal if and when the consequences of a errant spike protein becomes apparent.
And this patent fell into my lap…
[3] Question – Current role and background.
As I read more and more of MMs material I come across many of what I can only describe as synchronicities in life and experiences.
I wonder about my experiences in LD that shadow his experiences in the non physical planes, the similar way I was (seemingly) trained through LD. this includes the sudden urge to join the air-force and the seemingly bizarre way my mind sometimes works where a maddening urge to do something will drive me in a particular direction to the point I cannot not focus on it. Further, the idea I am entangled within the life of SD (and everything that was stated about her last Q&A) and I have to wonder;
Am I simply a consciousness experimenter who got caught up in something much, much bigger than he was ever anticipating to get caught up in or am I something/ someone else entirely? Who is Trick or Trip?
You are something else entirely.
You are not an average person / NPC / shadow person (sic.) / follower / rabble / crowd member. The role you are living out right now was planned for prior to your birth in great detail, and coordinated with both MM and SD.
SD is part of something completely different from that of MM, and you are part of that situation / condition / arrangement / reality / segment.
I cannot divulge your relationship with SD except to say that it is significant and that you have and hold a major role in her many (and multiple) lives and her on going objectives. This includes repeating reincarnated experiences, and journeys in and out of the general population segments of the prison complex.
Because you straddle the mission parameters with both MM and SD, you have a dichotomy of reactions with includes some that are not fully actuated to your own ideals. This is a consequence of understandings and experiences that broach both worlds and being the interface between them causes you some personal discomfort. You are aware of this but do not vocalize it for fear of the loss of face / consequences / fear / misunderstanding. But it is quite reasonable given your unbridled power inherent in the abilities that you have actuated at pre-birth.
You should not worry or be concerned with who you are or what your role is. You have, yourself, mapped out this life (of yours) in great detail, and you are following it adroitly. In fact, you are not straying off your mapped out (I picture a pumpkin colored thick dotted line) route through the MWI (sic.) as most others tend to do.
You have / possess great discipline in the regard to your mission parameters and a great deal of control over your actuated and unrealized abilities (purposefully suppressed for this particular life). The fact that you agreed to this role , and SD adapted her life to accommodate your desires speaks well of your plans, intentions and value.
Your role is not accidental. Nor it is trivial. Nor it is a developed vector that adapted to changing concerns and environs. It is planned and fated by you working in conjunction with your leadership. Your leadership, is not who you (in this physical manifestation) associate with, but something else. Who that is is not directly obvious to you at this time, and should be of no concern to you.
Most IS-BE inmates in the prison skin-suits come from a great and diverse background that stands apart in stack contrast to the baseline "average" inmate. In your case it is clear that you are part of a team working on multi-dimensional fracturing and disassembly of pocket universes associated with this prison complex. This benefits The Domain and so a shared relationship was forged which included your voluntary participation.
All that you are doing now has great value and is significant.
Many of the advantages of your efforts will be realized within a sixty to seventy-five year period hence. You are but laying the fundamental groundwork for your follow up efforts later on. This is all part of your agreed upon strategy and why you have been gifted / granted / authorized / adapted to the skill sets that you currently enjoy and have utilized.
On a personal note, SD should be doing better now. It's not just your fears at the time, but we took care of some matters with her other body(s) that should make things slightly / a bit / somewhat easier for her from now on. Of course, we did so with her approvals, as well as both of your leadership. If your physical body / state / being is uncomfortable with this, we will stop this kind of protective alterations. You need only vocalize it.
Your physical health is fine. You need not worry or concern yourself with the fears that are manifesting.
However, you should get more fresh air (The term "fresh air" seems to be a very important theme right now) on outside walks, and watch your food intake. Maintenance of diet is important for everyone in your family right now.
You will also see a degree of clarity in your LD efforts and that will become a measure of your physical health.
[4] Question – Life prior to imprisonment
I would like to ask a personal question as well because I hope that the answer might unlock past memories and help me get closer to my purpose in this life:
Who and where was I before life in this prison environment and how did I end up here?
It would really feed my curiosity to receive a short reading from my file in the Domain archive if there is one. I understand if you choose not to ask it because it is too irrelevant to everyone else.
Thanks for going through these exhausting communication sessions with the commander! They are very insightful packed with food for thought!
(Tuning in like that of an old shortwave radio for some reason. Like crackling noise and drift. Curious. I guess it is the Commander's way of telling me that he is accessing a computer files or records. Really odd. Quaint. Like how someone uses an old fashioned telephone bell on their brand new cell phone. -MM)
You lived in the "Old Empire". You had spent many life-times and reincarnations in the "Old Empire", and your life predated it's arrival when it came into being and conquered the worlds that you had come to refer to as your "home".
You had preferred a singular species, rather than jump for species to species as is sometimes the case. You held roles in multiple sexes. All three of the dominant sexual orientations appear to have been your preference. With no specific preference one way or the other. You are uncomfortable on the earth as it is far brighter and more electromagnetically charged environment than what you have become accustomed to.
I know that you are especially curious about your appearance, your home(s) and friends that you left behind.
Your species trivially resembled a satyr of the Greek mythology. Only that you were were far shorter than what is depicted in paintings and illustrations. The male form possessed a rather long and always rigid penis, and the female form was without horns. The third / incubated / hosting / transitional form had a tail (?) with a large belly (?). All forms had hooves and hairy legs as depicted in ancient Greek art.
Your homes were of the "Old Empire" standard model and truly resembled "old medieval style". As was true to your species, when in the male form you cavorted with members of the other sexes and indulged in many parties and recreational pursuits. And yes, you have many friends that still exist inside the "Old Empires" that miss you and would like to see you again. Often in the female form you raised rabbits. It was a great love of yours. And these rabbits are of the same identical form as what are present on the earth today.
You were incarcerated because you had broke a series of major laws of the "Old Empire" and had previous lives that had also committed serious crimes as well. The judicial group within the "Old Empire" judged you as an incorrigible entity, and sentenced you to banishment for multiple lives.
You were to have stayed banished, but you chose not to do so.
You believed that you could exist on the outer fringes of the "old empire" and not be noticed. Apparently you chose to incarnate in your old form, and you simply maintained your old behaviors in defiance of the "Old Empire" judicial rulings.
And when you reappeared in the "Old Empire" in a new incarnation, they arrested you and sent to to the penal colony on earth. This was in the early years of the Prison Complex. In those early years you maintained your satyr-like appearance, and you did not wear a prison skin-suit. Human skin-suits did not appear for many years later.
You were one of the first batches of inmates to the prison environment.
Your crimes were a mixture of unsanctioned <redacted> / physical murder, identity switching / ,redacted> / body swapping / unapproved soul extraction, assault, manipulative fraud / deception, torture without (reasonable) breaks (?), and substantive (?) tax evasion.
(I get the image of a short Harry Mudd [from the early Star Trek television series] with horns and goat legs standing in front of what looks like a collection of real life muppets "in the flesh".)
You have spent a very long time in the Prison Complex, and it took you a long time to adjust to your conditions.
Over the centuries your IS-BE consciousness has changed, and the mantid primes have been easing up on the punishment sections of your general population visits and allow you longer "rests" in "Heaven". They would welcome / suggest / offer parole for your IS-BE being under monitoring. However, that option is no longer available as the entire parole system was destroyed by us (The Domain) during our conquest of this region.
On the positive side note, you have demonstrated fine compassionate yearnings and behaviors and are worthy of release. Upon your death, all you need to is call out for Domain pickup and we will work with you on your next steps post incarnation. Our plans are such that we do not want to release you back into the prison General Population but rather work on your rehabilitation so that you can continue on the path that you have elected to follow.
We do not recommend a return to the "Old Empire" to you, nor do we recommend that you try to relive your lives in that body and within that society. It is time for a new life and a new start for you. In your case your past is toxic and without it you have a very bright future ahead of you.
And I thought that Mades Escapleon was bad. Sorry, guy. Maybe it’s best not to know of our past, eh? -MM
Harry Mudd.
[5] Question – MM Members & connections
An idea that I’ve had lately… it seems several of us have connections to each other that go deeper than just some random meeting of people on the internet. It’s like… meeting someone you knew from childhood 20+ years later.
Sure their appearance has changed but on that first look you know they’re familiar and don’t know why.
It feels like that.
Would the Domain have any recommendations on how to explore that connection?
For many mm participants everyone is reliving associations that they have purposely mapped into their pre-birth world-line template (sic.). Many skin-suits think only of the physical, and while they can conceptualize life in the non-physical they cannot take this reality into account with their day to day lives.
Everything that the skin-suit experiences in the General Population has been fated to happen by the Pre-birth world-line template (sic.). You can thus easily conclude that this meet-up and community has been fated to occur and is following a schedule and implementation as previously agreed to.
To explore the connections between all mm followers and new associations, all one needs to do is to add affirmation questions in your campaigns (sic.) to answer those questions.
There are some individuals that have continuing relationships that go back many multiple lifetimes, while others not so much. But that does not matter in the confluence of the exchange of thoughts and ideas that synergistically work together to obtain the desired end result.
The relationships that you are building here is neither accidental or trivial. Everyone that comes here and stays do so because it resonates to them. This frequency resonance is intentional, and artificially induced to create the forged alliances and joint support network that all enjoy.
I can tell you that numerous members that you interact with have been invited to join in this effort by you personally and their agreement to work with you on and during this incarnation is very significant and your appreciation of it is what you are experiencing.
[6] Question – Amelioration of mRNA side effects
I’d like to add something too, please.
I want no part of the mRNA experiment and will never consent no matter what (I would take the Sino versions or Sputnik without hesitation but they’re not available where we are now as we’re in a client state. It is out of the frying pan and into the pan for us.
However, if people close to us are being pressured into taking an mRNA shot against their will because their job or prospects depend on it (and will literally be fired/not hired, and likely impoverished or unable to pay mortgages or socially shunned if they refuse)…
Are the effects of these experimental inoculations something (or of a nature) that can be ameliorated or negated by adding an intention to my campaigns expressly aimed at preserving and protecting their health if they do consent?
Or would it be better to support them in their refusal by including intentions that they’ll be provided for if they lost their job/can’t get a job?
My wife has had to turn down a number of fantastic opportunities in Korea because she won’t consent to an mRNA inoculation and I feel terrible about this.
Other friends of ours are being pressured at work and threatened with their jobs, too.
For us, the financial aspect thankfully is not a big deal, but my wife is highly skilled and empathetic by nature and the thoughts of her having to sit at home as these opportunities pass her by upsets me even though she’d never consent without both of us agreeing that she should.
And how could any husband agree to something that could harm his wife if not now, but perhaps after the 8th or 9th fucking booster– something I’ve been reliably informed is the plan in an unending cycle of pharmaceutical tyranny unless these monsters are stopped dead in their tracks.
(Something I also feel strongly will happen going by what the Domain and notable others have said, and am thus prepared to wait it out until it happens.)
There’s also the added worry that my wife is of a delicate constitution, and has suffered with a number of minor, thankfully, but uncomfortable ailments since her mid-40s.
I’d be very concerned about her health under a continuous toxic load as the mRNA clearly is.
I’d rather take our chances with whatever pathogen these ghouls are going to release next. Our creators gave us a pretty good auto-immune system. I’m banking on that and the usual reasonable precautions.
I’ve never really been sick or– miraculously– injured in adulthood.
Apart from a few scrapes and close shaves, but am also very aware many others haven’t been so fortunate. And are very vulnerable to pathogens.
If the above is a bit mealy for the Domain disregard it, Mr Man. Or just simplify it whatever way you choose.
Summary: can intentions alone ameliorate the effects of the mRNA shot on our loved ones if they consent?
Yes. Intention campaigns (sic.) are a very powerful tool. And yes they can absolutely work to prevent the bad effects of an mRNA injection.
They can also prevent the bad side effects of the mRNA altered spike protein initiation.
Look at how the <redacted>. You cannot deny that happened. (No. I cannot deny that. I was very specific in my affirmations, and they occurred very specifically.)
And (also addressed to MM) looking down the list of your green highlighted victory campaigns (I maintain a list of prior affirmations that came true.) there should be no question at all that there can be complete avoidance of catastrophic events. You know and understand this to be the absolute truth.
However, you have to also adapt to the reality that there is a juvenile mRNA alteration within your body. You will need to adjust your lifestyle to avoid triggering a malevolent biological reaction.
Think of it as a gunshot wound. You healed up but the lead slug is still in your body. It has the potential to kill you, but is lying there dormant. By being healthy, watching your actions, exercise and diet, you can determine if and when (if ever) the slug will dislodge and cause your trouble. It is like that.
The most important / key change to lifestyle is fresh air and moderate walking or exercise around in the fresh oxygen environment.
In addition, your diet will have to severely reduce the amount and number of processed and super-processed foods. It is not a matter of weight gain, in so much as it is a matter of the ability for your body to handle and adjust to a weakening of cell walls.
Good food, lots of oxygen and hydration will benefit you substantially. As well as centered and strong positive thoughts. Avoid media pummeling of upsetting and disturbing news.
(Further, once you get the mRNA injection, you will forever need to maintain "being safe from mRNA malevolence" in all of your subsequent campaigns. -MM)
Or would it be better to wait and focus on a “healthy, content and provided for without allowing oneself to be pressured into taking part in a dangerous and illegal mass experiment against one’s will” intention?
This is an option. It is up to the individual person to make the necessary decision in this regard. We cannot, and will not, make decisions for the individual consciousness. The decision is up to them and them alone.
There are always alternative solutions that are not obvious, but worthy of investigation. Rather than thinking in terms of black or white, consider a borderline solution.
If a job requires a vaccination, but does not specify what type, then take the one that you believe is the safest and then accept the job position. If that "safer" version is not available in your area, research, and you will discover that there can be other solutions that need only a detour and an extra allotment of time to implement.
And if the above sounds selfish, it’s not meant to be. I’ll include every single person– and especially the MM Crew– who has been pressured by traitors and NPCs into “consenting”. There WILL be justice eventually. I’m positive in a Pissed Lizard kind of positive about that.
(And thanks for remembering me in your intentions, PL. And your kind words wrt the vaxx. Please include my wife and her friends too as you and everybody else here are in ours.)
I cant wait for the day these scumbags will get their just desserts. But I’m a patient guy.
[7] Question – Desirous of confirmation
#1 Should we continue ? I would not interfere in the plan that brings us together . #2 What is my role apart from being rufus $3 oula c is under construction, to form reinforcements # 4 I’m sorry didn’t send me to the cornfield #5 I want a strong and contaminated inking from the old Empire
Please allay the fears and concerns of this questioner.
(I can only transmit what I understand, and receive what I am able to translate. In this case, I am asking the Domain Commander to ping the source, Identify the concerns and respond back to me. I do not know if it will work, but I am asking and transmitting anyways. -MM)
What you are doing and acting and behaving is exemplary. I do not advise changing anything. You must start trusting your inner feelings, instead of your thoughts and worries. You need to adjust and center your consciousness. Use the techniques provided by MM to do this. Operate using all the tools provided by him, and do not question your actions or activities. Focus on the activity one day at a time. You need to realize that steady simple progress will take you to your goals and objectives faster than fear distorted reactionary measures.
(I will not send you to the cornfield. Do not live a life in fear. -MM)
Your association with the "Old Empire" was catastrophic. They seized you, arrested you, and sentenced you to eternity in the Prison Complex.
In your case it was a very harsh sentence that needn't have occurred.
You were "railroaded" into prison so that others might steal from you, and profit from you.Your closest family, loved ones, and your dearest business partners conspired to destroy you for financial gain. Then when the judicial system started to process you, they were bribed and convinced to give you the harshest sentence possible.
When the time came for you to get justice, the situation was not in your favor and you were judged in a very harsh manner on pretend charges, doctored and false transcripts, and stood alone with no support or assistance.
All of the charges against you that sent you to the prison complex are all false. But you have endured this situation for centuries.
We do not advise you to have any memory recovery of those bad events UNTIL you have obtained the necessary amnesia recovery efforts to prevent the harsh and hurtful events from damaging your psyche and ego irreversibly.
[8] Question – judicial corruption of sentience.
So, first of all, as always MM, Thank you for this opportunity, and for the effort you put into it.
So, some context for my question: I am a Lawyer in the UK. At my current level, and in my current role in the criminal law, it appears most people are service to others – they do it because of some inexorable calling.
The criminal justice system in my country has naturally evolved over a very long time to be as fair and balanced as it could have been in the circumstances.
However, since 2012 especially, this has been corrupted from the Parliamentary level, access to justice has been destroyed, and the presumption of innocence is long since gone.
Efforts are made every day to pierce the independence of the judiciary, and once that goes, the whole system goes.
I love my role, for various reasons, but also because I get the opportunity to hold the state to account before it exerts its power on an individual.
The change seems to be sort of an “antibody response” to the judiciary holding parliament to account and being an unyielding line between the state and the individual. (Of course, this may be me romanticising my countries legal system, there is some bias here!)
The disinformation campaigns in particular from the government and the news to undermine the system is extremely effective in getting public support for changes that seriously harm the publics rights and freedoms, and remove the ring-fence of the states powers.
When this is done incrementally using the rule of law, then its extremely difficult to fight back against. See also – COVID fear campaign.
So, my question is such – when working in a system that is being pressured or changed from a service to others to a service for another (at best) or a service to self (at worst), is it still possible to both “play the game” AND try to make positive changes without being corrupted by it?
I’m not entirely sure where I lie, I hope I’m StO, but my talents and interests are best expressed in a role that has a dramatic impact in the lives of others, and I enjoy the “game” of it.
This, to me, seems StS. I suppose rewording it for the implied question: I’m pretty sure I’m going back for another round, but is it possible to fight back against corruption from inside without being fully damned by it, or am I just trying to justify my own narcissism?
I’ve tried to be as broad-strokes as possible, providing the context for my question without drowning you in meaningless detail.
It still possible to both “play the game” AND try to make positive changes without being corrupted by it?
Yes. You are a capable person. You can do both.
You (personally) are a transitional sentience. You are well on the way to being STO, as that is your original calling. You need not worry about enjoyment of vices, pleasures of the physical, or respect and power. Those are natural human responses and desires.
Power does corrupt. It is a natural law because it affects the way ego handles physical decision making efforts. However, by staying true to the idea of helping others, you remain a STO sentence, even if you enjoy the power, the control and the vices that go along with the position.
Many IS-BE's enter the physical realms, and undergo the amnesia intentionally so that they can enjoy the pleasures of beauty. This is seductive and is a lure that other IS-BE's can use to control others. There is nothing wrong about enjoying pleasures of the physical and the ego. However, sentience concerns the desired end effects of one's actions.
It does not matter if a police dog enjoys eating a nice steak bone after catching a robber. And it should not matter if you enjoy the power, prestige, respect and perks of your position if you serve true and real justice no matter how corrupted the organization is becoming or has become.
Your biggest concern is that the system itself does not change your fundamental sentience.
When you stop your role in managing justice on a one to one basis and instead look to selfish profit goals, then you are riding the slippery slope towards STS behaviors. That is ill advised. Never sacrifice your occupation for personal profit. That would have a disastrous domino effect on your future incarnations (if any - depending on your sentience).
*FINAL*
This question was explored in the movie “TheDevil’sAdvocate”. Most especially in the final scene. -MM
The devils advocate.
[9] Question – Are we losing sight of our objectives?
Are we getting caught up in this momentum? discover and share a practical model or some kind of schematic standard that is consistent with your fundamental principles? Suggestions to help in the way of symbolic language and our s narchs and values put forward?
There is nothing wrong about desire and enthusiasm.
Your objective is to help us (The Domain) to rescue the trapped IS-BE entitles, and then to release the prisoners in the Prison Complex under a rehabilitation program that will permit them to reacquire their memories and allow them to continue their existence in peace.
As long as steps are taken in that direction, it is of no concern what the size of those steps may be.
[10] Question – Indications of “Old Empire” behaviors
…As an example, from the above email we can gather clues. The Old Empire still runs the show.
There is an inner core (or many inner cores spread through out the world. They cast votes in those cliques. Etc etc..
So we see glimpses into their little world on occasion.
Then the media shuts the door. I am leaning towards the probability that the whole of the western elite are compromised. (Once you put on those glasses from They Live, every weird thing makes sense. But you need to put on those glasses to make any sense of our weird world.)
They live. Put on the glasses to see things as they really are.
In fact the dominant culture in many parts of the world is Old Empire in flavor.
And that culture is anti empathy and anti human in its nature.
MM had a Rufus article that struck me. A video by one woman who observed that people cared for stray cats and dogs in America but they don’t even acknowledge their homeless. BUT if you try a Old Empire Larp, then it’s perfectly natural.
Is the difference in treatment of pets to fellow humans an indicator of “Old Empire” behaviors.
Yes it is. I will elaborate later when you (MM) are not so tired and stressed.
---update---
When The Domain took over the physical territory of "The Old Empire', many in the leadership roles escaped. The vast bulk of them hid inside of the Prison Complexes with "special passes" which allowed them to enter and leave at will without being tethered to the entire prison containment system.
These individuals have since taken over various operational aspects of the Prison System, and created sub-pocket universes and environs from which they operate in relative comfort. One of which is the (so called) rape centers that seem to plague the egress and access routes towards the pocket universes of "Heaven".
Many of these IS-BE entities are now wholly corrupted and operating at a very low level of empathy. This is strong STS behaviorism and are easily identified. They resemble a termite colony when you observe a (galactic) overview.
Yes. To answer your question. In general, any resemblance of "Old Empire" behaviors is a guaranteed enclave of selfish and dangerous incorrigible IS-BE within the complex and their "Old Empire" handlers. they cannot disguise their behaviors for long. They can put up a good front and use deceptions to hide their true nature, but over time, their baseline behaviors manifest.
Members of the "Old Empire" had pets. They, like human skin-suits, possess a great deal of fondness for their pets and honor and treat them well. But the population of leadership that has run the "Old Empire" do not represent the mass population that they govern. When they would take a pet, it would be for purposes of presentation and image. Not out of a love or a relationship. Thus there must be a distinction made between the leadership, and upper tiers of society, in the "Old Empire" and that of the common folk.
The questioner would be surprised to note that there are cats in the "Old Empire" and they behave and act just like the cats do within the Prison Complex. The same goes for other pets that have found niches within the "Old Empire" societal structure.
When a member of the elite exited the "Old Empire" and hid away in the Prison Complex, they carried with them their identities, their "golden passes", their retinues, and their behaviors. In so doing, they were able to corrupt so many features and controls of the Prison Complex. And they corrupted it in such a way that they would live fine comfortable lives.
There is not a direct correlation between modern Western governmental leadership and "Old Empire" leadership-in-exile, but there is enough of an overlap to come to the conclusion that many of the powerful people in the earth world today, are from the "Old Empire" power cabal.
[11] Question – Vaxx influence on memories of past incarnations
I will pose a question on the vaccines , but in the name of Opsec, I will leave it here. For your discretion to inform us the response, that is entirely in your hands.
To me, the vaccine rollout is so insistent that it must serve a higher purpose. I do not believe that it is used to cover financial matters. I do not even believe now that it is for depopulation, and in fact I think the Deagel Report is disinformation.
This role playing was triggered when you mentioned that you got to your past lives by hypnosis. So I thought I would counterfeit some knockoff lol.
Does the vaccine have any effect on the ability to recall past lives or on the relationship between the mantid and his/her ward?
Everything in the physical reality universe has, to some degree, influence on the amnesia system of memory suppression.
The mRNA injection is not designed specifically to prevent memory recall. It has other purposes related to physical government control. It possesses side effects not sufficiently mapped out and thought out. This will cause some problems for the communities so injected.
As far as we can determine, any effect on amnesia either "good" or "bad" (from the point of view of an imprisoned IS-BE) is indeterminate. Certainly, other substances can be added by the government that can then be injected into a person to...
[1] Make them more docile.
[2] Make them easier to manipulate.
[3] Make them conform or not conform to laws, rules and behaviors.
[4] Alter their biology.
[5] Act as a "key" to define "membership" in and out of communities.
[6] Use as a protective biological agent, and then release a deadly pathogen to harm those not protected.
And, which is the point that you brought up...
[7] Control access to memories.
[8] Control religious and philosophical belief structures.
[9] Tighten or loosen the relationship between the mantid and their assigned ward.
You have correctly identified the risks inherent in this government mandate. However, you need not be concerned NOW, at this time, about the impact on your non-physical bodies, consciousness or memory access.
[12] Question – Who am I?
Geez, MM, Id be a fool to miss this opportunity but I guess we are all at the point of where we stand in this effort of helping. While knowing can be a distraction in itself, knowing could also be one step closer to giving confidence in our abilities. So for my question would be: Who Am I in regards to the Domain? What role do I play in helping “Free the Lost Battalion” and the imprisoned IS-BEs? Thank you, my friend. Good luck.
Who is the questioner in regards to the Domain? What role do they play in helping “Free the Lost Battalion” and the imprisoned IS-BEs?
The questioner is a contact, initially of a trivial nature, that has come in contact with the Domain in this venue at this time. There is a willingness to participate and contribute, and a desire to do good and great things.
There is no doubt that this individual is a contributor who is desirous of working with The Domain in the resolution of the release of the imprisoned Domain members, as well as the hope / desire / wish to also be released from the situation that they find themselves in.
They seek understanding though contribution.
We acknowledge this and offer a "seat at the table". In many ways this IS-BE is an enthusiastic "raw recruit" that holds great promise and even greater benefit to the society as a while. They have a slight "feeling" that this is the case, but we are vocalizing that it actually is the exact situation.
As an individual, mission objectives and planning details are beyond the scope of their participation / understanding / contribution assets but that does not mean that they are meaningless. They hold a significant role, it is just that they do not understand how that role fits into the larger picture, and they want and desire clarity.
This individual is a "walk in", and was not part of the initial pre-birth discussions for localized group membership and participation. Location here is more than just random, but is unintentional. We have scanned this IS-BE credentials / background / thought vectors / non-physical profile and determined that they are a fine recruit.
Which is not what they want to hear. The questioner desires details.
They yearn for a grander scheme of things that they fit into like part of a bigger picture. But their "larger pictures" is far more complex than your average skin-suit.
When they ended up here, they did not come from the "Old Empire", they were a discarded drop-off. And they arrived with background / baggage / powers / abilities and complexities that earn them a prominent seat "at the table".
Their Top Hat is pronounced and of fine manufacture. (I do not understand that reference. -MM)
Unlike most other MM cadre's this IS-BE consciousness did not experience pre-birth training for the role. So we are working on this effort now simultaneously with their non-physical bodies. Which is why they seem to have some odd and unusual dreams.
In the future the role that this entity will play will be as significant as <redacted> and <redacted>. This questioner need not worry or be concerned of the details. All is in good hands and under control.
[13] Question – Space Exploration
I would like to know two things (for now):
What physical locations have human beings “traveled” to off this earth?
Moon
Mars
Other
What means of transportation did they use?
Ship (what type of propulsion)
Portal of some sort (what type of construct)
Of course I’d also like to know if humans actually accomplished any of this, or was it all a result of off-world assistance.
Human prison inmate skin-suits have traveled to the Moon, Mars, and Ganymede. The only public acknowledgement is the United States Apollo moon missions, where numerous skin-suits landed and walked on the moon. MM was on the moon and had medical procedures there. Many MAJestic operatives have visited the facilities on and in the moon and worked with MAJestic there. Some of which are in guarded spaces; pocket universes for protections.
Oxia Palus <redacted>.
Numerous MAJestic operatives have also visited facilities on Mars and Ganymede. But these were for special functions and for special purposes. There is a special training barracks and facility underground in Mars for the training of female MAJestic operatives. Also <redacted>. Obviously they are not told where they are, but they can easily discern that it is a secure place on a different planet.
The vast bulk of transport is via dimensional portal. There are occasional trips using vehicles, but that is used rarely. There really isn't much need for skin-suit participation on these machines. As also the environmental controls need to be adapted for human skin-suit use. Sometimes the humans participate in biological sampling and monitoring as a MAJestic requirement. It is however, always an observer role. Human skin -suits never perform medical procedures on other human skin-suits.
Vehicles are our standard local system craft, often of the mid-size. You will recall on <redacted>. <redacted>. (Sorry. Guys. -MM)
We have never moved an inmate within their skin-suit outside of the Prison Complex walls. We have moved these humans to various stations, facilities and vehicular craft working inside of the complex walls. For the most part, we perform what ever necessary biological modifications are required on their non-physical bodies in a form of "catch and release".
MAJestic operations has sometimes required the placement of humans at certain facilities for an extended length of time.<redacted>
Size comparisons of various selected planets and moons.
[14] Question – Rhesus blood group and Faeries
First up:
The Rh blood group system is a human blood group system. It contains proteins on the surface of red blood cells. After the ABO blood group system, it is the most likely to be involved in transfusion reactions.
The Rh blood group system consists of 49 defined blood group antigens, among which the five antigens D, C, c, E, and e are the most important.
There is no d antigen. Rh(D) status of an individualis normally described with a positive or negative suffix after the ABO type (e.g., someone who is A Positive has the A antigen and the Rh(D) antigen, whereas someone who is A Negative lacks the Rh(D) antigen).
The terms Rh factor, Rh positive, and Rh negative refer to the Rh(D) antigen only. Antibodies to Rh antigens can be involved in hemolytic transfusion reactions and antibodies to the Rh(D) and Rh antigens confer significant risk of hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn.
-Wikipedia
Some people consider this type of blood an indicator of having Alien DNA. I know nothing at all about this. What I do know is that it is a rare blood type, and that my father possessed this blood type. He was also a member of Mensa. So what this questioner is asking is whether the presence of Rh blood is an indicator of extraterrestrial DNA.
May I ask about the rhesus negative blood group – a small percentage compared with other blood groups on the earth, what are their origins?
There are different types of human skin-suits. Many of the differences are subtle.
Special human skin-suit attire was often constructed for unique purposes at different periods in earth's history. Usually for the purposes of creating specialized clusters of inmates for social experimentation, reasons of safety, propagation success (and amusements).
However, in this case it was for the purposes of human - feline bonding. This skin suit protected the humans and permitted the human - feline bonding to occur without problem.
The earth-bound felines carried a parasite. And the resulting parasitic infection ended up killing immune-deficient humanoids at the time.
This skin-suit was developed as a natural defense of the local parasitic infection.
This such skin-suit is one that has an Rh blood group. This skin-suit was specifically designed to grant immunity against a localized food borne parasite.
This parasite was problematic in the geographical area now known as Europe near the Pyrenees mountain group. This occurred approximately 60,000 years ago and started to manifest when human skin-suits started to interact with cats as companions. The cats would carry and incubate this parasite and it would be discharged by it's feces. Then the close proximity of children and adults to the feces would have the humanoids who interacted with these cats get sick.
Over the centuries, the bloodline migrated world-wide and is now present throughout the world.
Individuals with this genetic type of blood tend to have some similar traits that make them stand out from other human skin-suits. However, that is coincidental, and not intentional by design.
(An oh-by-the-way "off hand" comment... -MM)
This type of skin-suit is sought after by IS-BE's who are desirous of a life-time adventure involving intelligence, speculations and the creative side of science. IS-BE's that utilize this skin-suit gravitate towards science and STEM related subjects naturally and that simplifies early childhood development for fate mapping exercises in the MWI (sic.).
This is what #Neanderthals really looked like, by scientific illustrator Tom Bjorklund of Finland. Accurate, painted as if they were a lot like us, loved flowers, children and fell in love. They lived over much of Europe, from 400,000 years ago unto 30,000 years ago.
Actually, this was hard for me to translate, and receive. I had to perform multiple calming exercises and focus.
.
The sidhe/faery – what is their connection with the domain?
The sidhe are native non-physical inhabitants of the British Island grouping. They have similar cousins all over the earth. These non-physical beings have a vibrant life on the earth and in similar domains. They are not part of the Prison Complex. And they have unique abilities that their human skin-suit friends might leverage upon.
(At this point I am told to look at a map. So I went to Bing and did a map search
I found many fictional maps. There wasn’t any real non-fictional maps available except on. Here is the screen shot…
What does this mean? The comm line opened up again and the dialog continued.
Migration of faerie populations moved upland over the centuries, however, their base civilization centers remained in place regardless as to the physical changes that occurred on the earth. As glaciers came and went, and water raised and fell, and as human population came and went, the faerie civilization stayed in place. They did not disappear as is commonly assumed.
Being primarily a non-physical entity, they are not subject to the physical environs that humans are subject to. Once their homes and residences were above water, now many are under water. It is of no concern to them.
They also do not experience time like humans do.
They have a vibrant and lush life, though they prefer to migrate towards wooded areas devoid of the harsh and active thought of inmate human prisoners. This is why they are irregularly encountered.
The Domain are aware of their existence, and there is a mutual level of respect. However, there is no formal interaction in any way whether good or bad, relatively.
Actually, I have a “feeling” that this answer did not really cover the question or answer what that this questioner was asking. So I rephrased the question. I hope the questioner does not mind.
What significance are the Faeries of the British Isles have / interact with the Domain or any other extraterrestrial influences now or in the past?
When the earth was being configured as a Prison Planet, the "Old Empire" had to deal with the problem that the Earth was inhabited with sentient intelligence's that did not their world to be occupied by the refuse of the galaxy.
The primary and dominant sentences at that time were [1] a number of humanoid colonies on the planet, [2] intelligent non-tool making species such as dolphins, [3] primitive humanoid forms of limited tool-making ability, and [4] extensive and elaborate non-physical species. The Faerie realm and society was the largest, and best established.
They did not accept the changes to the earth environment and a war took place. After a period of time, the major habitations of the faeries were destroyed, and the "Old Empire" took over the earth and it's surrounding geographical regions and created the prison complex that exists today.
Because the skin-suits are contaminated by inmate skin suit modifications, the faerie population tend to avoid human contact. This was not the case prior to the interjection of the "Old Empire" policy plannings. From the point of view of the faeries, they endured a massive interstellar war, and this group of "Old Empire" administrators was just another in a long line of interlopers.
What they did not expect was that a containment field would be set up that would isolate their society from the rest of the faerie societies throughout the galaxy. They are very bitter about this situation.
Final notes
This is part one. I have part 2 in process, and will release it when I am completed. All in all, I think that there are some great answers, and some perplexing attributes that need to be pondered upon.
I think that we all need to be careful about what we ask for. We might not like the result. I certainly didn’t (Mades Escapileon). But then again, I have absolutely zero recall of any life under that purported name.
This might seem like an easy enough task. It isn’t, and is very tiring and stressful to me personally. Many times I had to search for words to explain concepts that were alien to me. I truly hope that the information is of help to the questioners who participated. If your questions are not here, please wait. I have more questions in part 2 to follow. -MM
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and so I wanted to celebrate somewhat. You know turkey is rather difficult to come by in China, so I decided to go and get some chicken. I had my mind on a big family bucket of chicken at KFC. I had been thinking about it all day. Then at the last minute around 7pm, the wife says, “KFC is too far away, and I don’t feel like going out. Let’s go to the local restaurant outside our place and get some chicken there.”
Now, I had a bad feeling about it. I kept on imagining some of the worst chicken meals that I had in China, but I shrugged my shoulders and “went with the flow”. I did this, even realizing…
Steamed chicken. Nice thick globs of yellow fat (the size of your thumb) on bloody red chicken meat. Skin a yellow-white thick layer of fat. I ate a few bites and left the chicken sit there.
Globs of fat.
Even my Chinese wife, who is used to these kinds of “dishes” was aghast. She wouldn’t touch it either. The other dishes were a mistake as well. We ordered ten scallops, but they made oysters instead, so I ate ten oysters, some rice and wilted vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner.
It was pathetic.
I went home subdued. Didn’t say much. Put the kid to bed, and turned in.
The misses, knows that it was terrible, and tried to make up for it by making me a nice cup of coffee today this morning. It’s one of those unspoken things that people in a relationship do with each other when words cannot suffice.
The bitter memory of such a horrible event will stick to my mind for years now, and we will never… and I do mean NEVER… go back to that pathetic restaurant ever again.
Why did I want to eat chicken (as a substitute for turkey) on this particular day?
Well, because it is an American holiday of friendship, and sharing. And today, like the nation it represents, are a horrible distortion of what it used to be. I don’t think that I will ever celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday ever again, it is crossed out and erased from my calendars.
Blech!
Given what I know now, in America, Thanksgiving and “Black Friday” will turn into grand distortions of what they used to be.
Much like that horrible, bloody, greasy, fat laden piece of “road-kill” that I endured for dinner.
Ok. I hope that your holiday is much better than mine was.
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This group of questions took place in November 2021. It consists of various questions that influencers asked, and that we asked over time. I compiled the questions and then submitted to the Commander via my EBP for answers.
Tell me more about the rest of the prison complex
This is a question that I want to ask. So I placed it up front here.
I have long understood that our solar system is but one system in a constellation of five (give or take) other solar systems that combined form (what I refer to as) a “sentience nursery”. Most discussions on the “Prison Planet” concept revolve around the idea that since we are earth humans that we should only be concerned about our planet and not the entire prison system.
So I went and grabbed a 52º “white wine” and started a typing. (Alcohol has no effect on the comm channel. I use it because it mitigates the bad effects of the biological impacts during the chat.)
Time is 23:48 Saturday night. My daughter is finally asleep.
[1] Is the “Prison Complex” like that of the ADC (spread out), or a cluster in one large geographic area?
The prison complex is a set geographical area with this region of space. It is unlike the ADC with had prisons spread out throughout the state. This geographical region, in it's entirety is enveloped in a "bubble" field or interdimensional / universe /containment field / mechanism.
This bubble contains five plus one solar systems. Thus there are six solar systems that contain prison environments. One of them is "your" solar system.
The five others are geographically located within close proximity of your solar system, and all lie within an ellipsoid of which your solar system is part of. Your solar system is not at the center of the ellipsoid containment area. It is actually off to one of the extreme edges of the containment field.
Within this containment field are also some other solar systems that are "empty" / devoid of active prison utility. Any lives, creatures or inhabitants on those planets are not part of the prison skin-suit system.
The ellipsoid containment field is at an angle to the galactic plane, and is tilted to fit the requisite solarsystems involved.
The dimensional map of the neighborhood of stars and their respective solar systems. However, I am unable to place the bubble or draw it on the map at this time. As the reader can see, there are all sorts of ways that a person can draw up a area of space to encompass six solar systems with our Sun off to one of the edges. -MM
The Alpha Centauri solar system is also part of the prison complex.
[2] Are all the other solar systems in the same state as the earth prison complex?
I asked this question, not realizing just how broad based it was. I was reprimanded for the generalities involved. Never the less here’s the answer.
This is a general question statement. So a general overview is in order as the answer.
All of the solar systems are administered as one single entity from one unified central complex. Each one has it's own administrative center. For the earth solar system, the administrative center is in the earth's moon.
The main prison complex administration center (for the entire multi-system complex) was destroyed by The Domain, roughly 1200 (earth) years ago. When that happened, administrative control reverted to the individual solar system administrative centers. Each one handled the situation differently.
The solar systems act as puzzle pieces or cells to the unified whole. This is true for the "tunnel of light" to go to the "Heavens", the containment fields, and the mini-pocket universes that are all involved in the individual solar systems. Each solar system has their own unique and independently maintained and controlled systems. They work together as a whole.
If the containment field near the earth solar system were to be destroyed and effectively shut down, the containment field of the nearest other prison solar system would expand to take over and compensate for the loss. Thus the entire system is a maze of complexities and self-repairing actions.
All of the solar systems, and their planets within the prison complex are still operational in one form or the other. All are now operating under the local control of The Domain, and all are being unraveled / untangled / investigated so that the entire system can be under full Domain control for the eventual shut down of the field and the rehabilitation of the inmates entrapped inside.
The inmates occupy different (species) skin-suits depending on the planetary environments involved, and thus the individual physical situations vary substantially from planet to planet.
[3] Are there any lost members of the Domain in other solar systems of the prison complex?
Yes. The largest lost contingent is associated with the earth, but there are some smaller groups or individuals who are lost in other planets of the prison complex. We know where all of them are and we are tracking them (as best we can) given the current restrictions on our capabilities at this time.
For The Domain, geographic location is not the kind of problem that it is for human physical skin-suits. To us, the location is all in the same consciousness area, while for you it seems like they are scattered all over the galaxy.
The earth lost a military garrison. While the XXXXXX lost a scientific research base, and YYYYY lost a number of vehicles and crafts including their crews. There are also a few individual IS-BE's that got caught in the field that are in need of rescue.
[4] Do the other solar systems have human skin-suits and other similar animal forms for inmates?
No. The other solar systems do not use human skin-suits. The inmates occupy other (some are humanoid) forms.
The remaining administrators, of course maintain their "old empire" forms and they are imprisoned within their command and administrative bunkers under our control.
Mades Escapleon was the administrator for your solar system, and is (as you know) an inmate within the general population. You are the only one that escaped in such a manner.
The rest fled the prison complex completely and disappeared in or outside of the "old Empire". We have not been able to find any of them and their whereabouts are unknown. You are our only viable tie to the administration aspects of the prison complex. And unfortunately, your human prison skin-suit has the many inherent retardation's making memory access and utility very difficult.
[5] Are the heaven(s) that exist in these other solar systems the same as the heaven(s) that are accessible from our solar system?
Heavens are species dependent.
Where there are same species on different planets within the Prison Complex, they will share the same "Heaven" pocket-universe.
All of the "Heavens" utilize a "tunnel of light" for memory erasure and reprogramming.
The "Heavens" are unique to the prison complex, and do not actually exist in the Master Universe as inmates would understand. The IS-BE's that live and operate outside of the prison complex live and die in a completely different state of understanding and reality that is far beyond anything that inmate humans can understand. The "Heavens" that exist within the Master Universe are simply a part of the Master Universe mechanics / mechanism /architecture.
It is a different state within the same confines.
In the Prison Complex, "Heavens" provide an opportunity for the IS-BE to rest and learn from it's experiences in the physical realm. This is not necessary in the Master Universe. Thus, the only "Heavens" that exist are those associated with the Prison Complex.
From our point of view, "Heavens" are sub-pocket universes that are specific constructions for specific purposes and utility.
[6] Are there mantids in other planets of the prison complex?
There are other species that perform the same role as the Mantids do in the earth prison enclave. It should not be a concern to inmate human archetype skin-suits.
All of these other species were designed and bread for that specific role, and all follow the basic template of being a caretaker for another species.
In every instance, they assist the consciousness to endure hardship and then reward them with a stint in "Heaven".
[7] Does you; “our”, Domain Commander liaison work with the rest of the prison complex, or is specifically assigned to our solar system alone?
I am in charge of the entire geographic region that includes the Prison Complex of multiple star systems.
I have multiple projects and roles proceeding throughout this region. The resolution of the Prison Complex issue and the recovery of the lost battalion are issues that are prioritized as significant and have abbreviated windows of opportunity for resolution.
A Question – Was I altered?
From a MM influencer who asked…
Hope you are well!
I hesitated about writing this report because I can't remember the most crucial part of the dream-- the mission itself. But this dream also brought up a recurring question I've had for the Domain and our roles as volunteers in the war against imprisonment.
I'm still in my break from my intention campaign but have been recently learning (relearning?) how to meditate and reawakening my lucid dreaming and precognitive abilities.
So occasionally when I'm falling asleep, especially if I'm dead tired, I'll have disturbing "mini-nightmares" that I'll wake myself from, but that will keep occurring each time I try to sleep unless I physically switch position.
These little dreams will be of grotesque images, snapshots of bad things happening to friends or family; basically anything that will bug me, and it's almost like something's being sadistic and messing with me because it's hard enough to get comfortable with my chronic back pain.
Last night my position was so comfortable and I was so tired that when I woke myself from the 3rd mini-nightmare (each only lasting a few minutes),
I was like screw it; I'm donning the armor I used to use to battle the demon in my sleep paralysis and I'm taking these nightmares dead on because I need to sleep and I'm not changing positions.
So mentally I donned my Armor of Love (a gift from my Guardian Angel/Mantid, whatever), and my Sword of Truth and I visualize charging off on my horse even as the tingling in my arms and legs signals the transition into sleep paralysis.
Now my transitions into lucid dreaming are generally quick and seamless--I don't have any sense of contracting into the pineal gland or anything else; it's more like moving through different veils. Anyways it takes me mere seconds to slay the little pesky scamp that's been messing with me, and then here I am in the dream landscape, lucid and aware that I can do whatever I want in the dream creation, which hasn't happened in years. So naturally I decide to go flying, because it's also been years since I did that.
Flying in dreams can be funny sometimes because it seems like something there are certain rules you have to follow to gain altitude or control movements, such as making swimming motions or focusing really hard. This time it was easy to take off to a comfortable altitude where I could see the landscape, but I had this little string tethering me to the earth like a balloon. I decided to just accept it as something like an Astral tether, and as soon as I did that it went away.
Then I was able to concentrate on the land below me-- it wasn't local because everything was green (and I live in the desert). It looked like China or Japan, with rice paddies and low forested foothills.
Now here I began to move from more lucid and aware to less lucid, so when I awoke the details became less clear.
In the dream I mentally heard someone calling for me, and it was someone I knew but hadn't connected with for years. I flew down into a little house, thinking I know this entire family; I've helped them before. I was trying to remember their names and was having difficulty, which bugged me.
I spoke with a middle-aged man, and I want to say his name was Mr. Miyomi--Japanese. He told me that my last mission where I'd taken out a sentry was incomplete--either I hadn't neutralized the second target or there was a new target. This came with a very strong sense of deja veux and I thought about how I used to go on these missions all the time when I was younger.
I said, sure, I'll handle it.
There was no sense of danger really; when I lucid dream like this I'm very powerful, because I can control reality in different ways, including having abilities like martial arts, and of course no physical ailments or pain.
I headed off flying-- I flew past the first objective which was a sentry tower of some kind. Rather like a prison watch tower, but not quite-- more like the wooden fire watch towers used in California for monitoring forest fires--rather open at the top, not glassed in.
I had the sense of a human-like figure lying broken at the base or underneath the tower from the previous mission. Human-shaped but not human. Maybe a robot, or NPC.
I can't remember the next part. I think it was another tower, with a similar sentry figure, but that's all I know. (I don't think it even saw me coming or was aware of me before it was dispatched). I have vague images of forested hills and mountains-- maybe northern Japan like Hokkaido? Not bamboo forests but more a mixture of pine and deciduous. Anyways I was successful and when I reported back to Mr. Miyomi he was pleased.
Embarrassedly I told him I had forgotten his name and asked what it was. He laughed and shook his head and said it wasn't important. Then he said I needed to get going because there's a storm coming.
This storm...it's a recurring feature in my dreams.
Sometimes it's a tornado, but more often it's more like a hurricane, but less wet--it's mostly gale force winds and lightning. I flew away from the storm front towards a city of glass towers, and before the storm got too close I landed and went inside some double glass doors to something like a large indoor mall complete with garden.
That ended the lucid dream.
Here's my question. Since voicing my intention to help the Domain and allowing a Domain officer to contact me and make whatever alterations are necessary, unlike other followers, I haven't had any visits or sleep paralysis episodes that I can remember.
And yet last week you were told all volunteers had been altered. So was my memory of that erased? Or it occurred to me that maybe I was altered when I was younger, when I was having all those episodes, since I've had many, many dreams since then of doing espionage, or taking part in rescues of different kinds. You were selected years and years back for the work you are doing now.
Were any of us?
Thanks, and have a great day. Sorry if this was overly long.
I cannot confirm or deny that I was (myself) previously selected for the MAJestic and the Domain while I was in another state. But I will try to ask the Domain Commander for his input in this question….
All volunteers that are part of The Domain have been altered. This alteration differs from one IS-BE inmate to another.
In the case of this questioner, their alterations occurred at a very young age when they were a child.
Alterations come in different forms or "kits". Some inmates have tasks that makes alterations problematic for them. Others need the alterations to conduct their mission objectives.
Fundamentally, the ability to Lucid Dream or conduct OBE does not directly correlate with a Domain "kit" modification. However, everyone who has a Domain "kit" modification has the ability to LD and OBE with practice.
Many of the restrictive controls on the inmate skin suits are removed by the presence of an installed "kit".
A question by DM
I am very sorry about this news from DM. Of course, I took care of this request as a top priority…
I am wondering if I can ask the Commander a bit of a personal question in regards to [my wife]. This comes as a recent doctor's appointment has revealed some very bad news - it looks very much like she might have uterine cancer.
The shit thing is the hospitals over here won't do anything about it because they are Catholic owned and don't believe in taking out "young" women's uteruses, despite the obvious growths that are present and despite them supposed to be working in the public's interest.
Her health has been deteriorating these past months and it has me quite concerned, particularly what happens to her "afterwards".
Given the recent question regarding the baker, I feel similar about her. I know she is important in some regard - I have chased her through multiple worlds in LD for fucks sake, and share memories of past lives with her - but I still do not quite understand what exactly that importance is.
It seems very much like her {non physical} "father" is an admin of one of the consciousness schools and that she is quite a valuable asset.
I am worried if she does die that she might get recycled through the reincarnation mechanisms and that connection will become lost.
So my question would be "Who is [my wife] (not her real name) really and is she on the Domain's radar if she does end up dying.
Why have I been chasing her through all these lives? I feel the answers to these will also help with the puzzle of who I am immensely.
I hate to ask this of you, as i know it fucks with you quite badly, but it is something has been bugging for quite some time. All good if you are not up for asking it.
It is my honor.
I logged in the question, and I needed to “tune in” on a couple of levels. I was having static / drift and some noise that I needed to sort out. I know that this doesn’t make sense, but I needed to “tune in” on the comm for a clear answer.
First up; in the event of an early physical death…
[Your wife] is under our observation. If it is her choice we can conduct a retrieval upon her physical death. She need only think about contacting us and we will assist her is whatever she wants to occur.
Your fears about losing your relationship at the time of transition are unfounded. She is a very capable person and will be under full control of her various bodies upon her physical demise.
I / we suggest that she pings us when she is desirous of action. We will accommodate her requests.
Next question. Who is [my wife] in the wider scope of things…
To understand this answer you need to realize that all IS-BE's are not the same. IS-BE's come in different shapes, sizes, colors and flavors (figuratively -MM). In the Domain, we have a society of classes that enables the IS-BE to choose their role depending on their IS-BE construction. Some end up in the military ranks, others end up in leadership ranks. Still others end up in scientific pursuits, and so on and so forth.
[Your wife] was / is an IS-BE of extraordinary (with a great emphasis on the word - MM) ability. Were she to be in our society, she would easily fit within powerful leadership roles.
[Your wife] was / is a past regarding trans-stable dimensional elder / tribal leader of a community of other trans-dimensional trans-universe IS-BE's that occupy communities that lie outside of the Domain, and the Master Universe.
She volunteered for her role on the earth. She is performing her objectives, and will depart the physical skin suit when it is time to do so. It will appear (to you) that everything is out of your hands, but the reality is that she is in control.
In a like way, you figure predominantly in her pre-birth operational calculus.
We (The Domain) stand ready to assist her in what ever capability she requests. Her mission in the Prison Complex involves the unmasking / de-tethering of the mini-pocket universes (Heavens) from the base line Reality Universe that all the general population skin-suits inhabit.
Mantid comm channels
MM,something strange happened (actually it happened twice). But before I say anything, I would like to know...how do Mantids usually communicate with their charges who make specific requests of them? I have a hunch, but I would like a little bit more info before I draw any conclusions. On Tues, Nov 16, I included a request to my Mantid Guardian in my daily affirmations, which was badly worded. So I say my affirmations, and later that day my mouse (or my mac) starting acting funny. Like it was just moving on its own, doing a right click here, etc. At first I thought I just touched a bad button, but I realized it was moving by itself! I panic, I unplug my mouse. have I been hacked? Then I notice that there is a screenshot I took from August 29, 2019 that I am ABSOLUTELY SURE that I had deleted already. That spooked the hell out of me and I quickly put it in the trash. The next day, I followed instructions from an article that shows how to check if I have been hacked. It shows I was the only user. Anyway, Nov 22--yesterday, I rewrote the request to my Mantid per your suggestion. So I say the reworded request in my affirmations, and then later---the same thing happened! But this time, no spooky screenshots appeared (that had been previously deleted) on my home screen. I don't feel fear or panic, but I do want to be absolutely sure it was my Mantid. If it isn't, if you could please give me some advice/thoughts on what probably actually happened.
I can probably answer this one myself. But I submitted it to the Commander, and got a very highly charged answer.
Mantids are very "tuned in" to their assigned human charge. They know exactly the proper way to communicate and work with them as they traverse the MWI within the Reality Universe. The pre-birth world-line template (sic.) establishes the tell-tales (sic.), and way points that the IS-BE is to be made aware of.
When necessary, the Mantid can create physical events manifest. The easiest is anything that is electrical in nature. Computers, radios, electronic fobs and other devices are easily manipulated for attention grabbing sources.
If the mantid is doing this, then it is because they are not seeing a registration of understanding that points or actions were confirmed, and so they default to physical manipulation.
It is their way of SHOUTING at you in a physical manner to tell you that they are monitoring you and that YES AN EVENT OR THOUGHT has manifested. It is their way of saying STOP BEING SUCH A DUNDER-HEAD. This is actually going on. Stop over thinking things.
(I get the impression of a mantid holding a toy shovel, like what is used by kids to play in sand, and hitting a person sitting at the computer with it. While it's wacky mouth is mungling "pay attention." It's actually a funny comical scene. -MM)
This seems to be pretty clear.
.
From my understanding the mantids will try to perform physical actions if you do not respond to non-physical “hunches”. And yes, using a computer, or some kind of electrical device is their preferred avenue of comm. They will try to send a message that you will understand then then gauge your understanding to see if you got the message. They can read your thoughts. So they will measure your reactions to the physical events they initiate. More or less.
Misinterpretations of dreams
The following is about trying to understand our dreams and to use those understandings to provide guidance and feedback.
I had a dream last night that I wrote down. Keep in mind that this dream occurred after I made adjustments to the request I gave to my mantid guardian (I reworded it) and the adjustments i made to improving precognition and ESP based on your last message.
While I stressed clarity and complete understanding in my affirmations, I am worried that I am misinterpreting things again.
Here is the dream:
Nov 23, 2021 Tuesday morning:
Technically, this dream occurred earlier today—
I never see myself, but I was involved or participating in the scene/event in my dream.
I was with a group of young Caucasian men, we were all dressed in plain raggedy clothing, it seems. The kind of clothing you might see in a Mad Max scene, or perhaps the kind of clothing you would see in a poor medieval village, except the clothing style is not overly medieval. Does that description even make sense?
Whatever the scene was, it didn’t seem like a prosperous place full of hope. Seemed rather poor actually.
Anyway, I didn’t see (or maybe the word is “notice”) any females in our group. I assume I am female in this dream, but I didn’t even see myself.
Anyway, I am involved romantically with another young man in the group, who is handsome, had olive skin (think Caucasian person with a tan), had long wavy/curly dark brown hair that he tied back in a low ponytail.
We as an entire group traveled through the streets in some kind of ramshackle vehicle or wagon or cart of some sort.
We were laughing and having a good time though.
There was one sequence where I was lying in bed with the young man I was involved with and holding his face, and he was holding mine. There were other people sitting on the bed while we were there.
I thought, sheez, we must be really living rough.
All this sharing of living space must mean that we are all dirt poor or something. …..
Some things happened that I forgot.
Then see a blond young man who is in our group (note, he has hooded eyelids, his eyes are small and long), talking to an older woman. She is maybe in her 50’s. (Note, it seems like all the people in my dream so far are caucasian—
I am currently in a meat suit that is mainly “Han Chinese” in genetic makeup and have a predominantly Han Chinese phenotype and appearance in the face, though my body shape is considered more typically Western European—I am of mixed genetic heritage but face and hair is Han dominant).
She must be somebody’s mom.
The blond man talks about traveling to all these cities (all Western European cities) and explains that “there’s nothing there”.
So I ask him, “Have you been to Hong Kong?” He smiles and responds, “No, but I have been to Hamburg. Does that count?”
My take is that in this dream sequence, I must have been inside a Caucasian/European meat suit (or something with those physical characteristics).
The people I saw in this sequence aren’t anyone I would know in real life—in fact all their faces are completely new to me.
Then I start seeing a scene where a young fellow, who looks to be a pale skinned Han Chinese looking fellow with shoulder length black hair, had been killed.
It looked like some kind of gangland style hit or something. I saw an image of a burly looking man, most likely European, getting killed by someone unknown.
I see an image of a blond female, kind of icy looking. I say, “this icy blond shanked this dude. She is avenging the death of that long haired Han Chinese looking fellow, she must have really loved him. She was stone cold serious in getting her revenge since she needed to kill the perp herself. However, she doesn’t want anyone to know it’s her.”
I get images of people coming after her, and her trying to get away.
I believe I woke up right there. I recounted everything I could remember. I could not get a clear image of the blond female’s face, just enough to know she’s a blonde female.
I got a clearer image of the Han Chinese looking fellow who died, he was quite handsome.
I drifted back to sleep real quick and I witnessed something inside a building.
I was not participating this time. I was just watching. I don’t know where this place is, except it looks like I am viewing a section within a building, which had secured doors.
The lighting was yellow.
There were 3 people (all males) wearing dark blue jumpsuits. They seem to be working there, or at least they were “running” things or “took control” of the security apparatus (cameras, machines and stuff) there.
One man was behind a security door and you could see him because there was a glass wall separating his from the other room. It looked like a glass counter, and he was sitting on a chair.
He was yelling out, it seems like he’s giving instructions or information to someone. This man looked like this guy (a model I saw on a Springfield website while I was Xmas shopping):
Very similar face, but the face in my dream/flash sequence looked older, thinner, and “leathery”/weathered. Maybe he seemed ornery.
Then I woke up. It initially didn’t feel like a dream, it felt more like I was just thinking, but why would I think this? I can connect the face to some earlier Xmas shopping I did because it looks similar, but that’s it. I did watch the family movie “Clifford” earlier, and I tried to watch the movie Shang Chi.
I couldn’t finish Shang Chi because it was soo cheesy. I don’t know what I’m missing.
That’s it for now.
*********************************
My aplogies for the long message MM. I do hope things will be clearer after a few days. I don't know what I would expect your response to be, but I do know I want to hear the truth...no matter how mangled or indecipherable it may be.
If you think it's unimportant or a mountain out of a molehill, it's fine too. Really, I feel like I need another perspective so I have a better understanding. I feel like I must be missing something.
Thank you for everything,
And yes, the mantids can send messages and data into your dreams. It is quite easy; I understand.
.
Now what is actually going on is something else entirely. So what I did was read this once, and then settled in to reread, parse, and then query to the Commander and get his take on this matter. I made a cup of coffee, got settled in and started recording.
When human meat suits experience dreams they are observing unsorted imagery that they are attuned to for a host of reasons. Part of it is actual observations of thought paths and vectors associated with one of the non-physical bodies. Part of it might be physical images that you have observed in your physical life. Part of it might be tell-tales and signposts that you have established. Part of it might be friends and associates that are trying to communicate to you and the only way that they can leave a message is when your mind has slowed down.
The inmate skin suit has a mind that works much harder, and much more aggressively than what the human archetypes allows. This is an intentional design of the "old empire" to limit communication and thought control via the entrapped consciousness.
For you to determine what is going on you need to write down your dreams and then review them every week. You will notice trends.
One of the most important trends are reoccurring themes. You might find that you are dreaming of a school, or a certain place for three nights in a row. Or something equally similar. These dreams that reoccur over multiple nights in a row are a characteristic of activities that take place involving the non-physical bodies.
Their apparent day is much longer than what human meat-suits experience on the earth. Garble / rush of information. Three days of the same kinds of dream elements indicate activities on the non-physical of significant duration and importance. Other activities of extreme clarity and uniqueness also the same / qualifiers.
The human archetype as intended operates or was designed to operate with a day equal to 72 / 73 hour length. The earth physical reality in the general population, and the rapid cycling of the mind necessitates the inmate meat suit to require more sleep and rest times, and thus the physical body must endure the 24 hour rotational schedule of the earth. This hyper / aggressive rapid mind acceleration also has abbreviated the human lifespan for a human meat-suit.
I had to get up and take care of some personal issues. Then when I sat down, I tried to recover the rest where I left off. You know, now as time moves forward, I am getting better and better in this comm channel transcription.
.
I put on some Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Michael Bublé Christmas music on random rotation and lit up the tree and decorations, got a nice cup of coffee and sat down again. I’d put on the old 1970’s album “Blues for baby Jesus” if I could ever find it again. Ah. Some things are not that easy to obtain. You can see that I am such an old fashioned guy, eh?
.
Anyways, I tried to recover and continue…
(Difficulty registering.)
Some dreams are tapped memories of previous lives and incarnations in different places, and in different roles. Most are related to the Prison Complex as the specific memories of the "Old Empire" are intentionally suppressed and access is restricted by your mantid. (sic.)
Never the less, it is possible to access memories of experiences that predates prison life. This requires approval from your mantid and an effort on you behalf that indicates purpose.
(I suggest that you add specific affirmations to this affect if you wish to proceed in this direction.-MM)
OK. I am going to call it quits for now. And we can continue a new Q&A at a later date. This really takes a lot out of me personally. Take care guys. Oh, and never forget…
Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. This group concentrates on a number specifically asked by top influencers, lurkers, and participants on the MM website. In this instance I took my time to get and obtain answers to the various questions, and devoted time and effort to acquire the most accurate and useful information possible.
I had to spread this Q&A out, and many times it was extremely difficult for me to read the actual answers as my physical life was chaotic, noisy, demanding and discordant at the time that I received the answers.
All of these questions are exactly as posted to me, either by email, comments, or in the forum.
I also needed to differentiate between “noise”, my “internal thoughts” and “The Commander”. What I do not EVER want to happen is my own personal thoughts, and ideas override what the Commander is telling me. So in this particular instance, and throughout this article, I have asked to “increase the gain” and “open up the volume”, even though it is more uncomfortable for me personally, so that I can obtain the best quality responses free of any personal opinions or thoughts.
What is the life of a “typical” citizen of The Domain like?
I wonder if it is appropriate to ask the Commander what the life of a typical Domain citizen is like. Are they born into particular bodies?
Domain citizens live very differently than anything that an imprisoned earth human would understand.
Fundamentally, all citizens of The Domain are non-corporeal entities. We "live our lives" is a state that you would consider to be trans-dimensional in a "spirit form". This state is a state that humans will have a very difficult time understanding. We live in a timeless state of existence, however, we inject our consciousnesses in the Master Universe to experience time.
The Master Universe experiences time just like the Reality Universe does, as does the spawned pocket universes that you refer to as Heavens.
In our "normal" state, we form communities, societies and collectives. We have communication, interactions, form bonds, relationships and clusters not unlike families that you experience. We have non-physical areas where our communities exist. These areas are very similar to what is experienced in your "Heavens". There are structures, venues, environments that we exist in and interact in.
All the members of The Domain participate in society.
We all have roles based on our abilities. Our abilities define our social roles within The Domain society. Some are engineers, some are administrators. Some are historians, some are social engineers. There are many roles. As we have discussed in other communications, such as military soldiers, and pilots.
As members of The Domain we cycle in and out of the Master Universe like you human inmates would cycle to and from work. However, it is at a much longer duty cycle that you could comprehend.
My current cycle involves administrative, management and leadership roles in this particular geographic region of physical space, or which the Prison Complex is but one of my responsibilities.
In this role, I can inject myself into "doll bodies", "skin suits", or take over bodies as needed.
All members of The Domain have this ability. However, the type of bodies that can be occupied is a function of ability and skill set. And since this is stratified by rank hierarchy, one can see that occupational societal position determines one's ability to inject consciousness for an IS-BE.
There is a great deal of freedom of a Domain IS-BE. But all that freedom is tempered by the restrictions due to their responsibility as the caretakers and stewards of the Master Universe.
The only prohibitions on an individual member of the Domain is their agreed upon responsibilities and rules of behavior. When they agree to play a role in The Domain society, they also agree to behavior limitations corresponding to that social role. Unlike those rules, laws and regulations that humans experience, ours are finer, and reasonable.
Do the citizens of The Domain grow up in different cultures?
Do they grow up in different cultures?
Many of the citizens of The Domain have come from previous backgrounds, interesting cultures, and skin suits of many different creatures and their many, many different societies. Once they decide to join the Domain, they do so realizing that they will accept a lifestyle where they will spend the bulk of their time in the non-corporeal form, with periodic injections into other forms for work-related purposes, enjoyment and pleasure, and exploration and adventure.
It is a lifestyle that is alien to earth human inmates.
Most all of the members of The Domain have full and complete access to all of their memories which date back trillions of years. This provides a wisdom and an understanding that is alien to the earth human condition.
The Domain spans most of the Master Universe. Additionally, it radiates elsewhere to other regions / realities / environments / universes that are beyond human understanding.
This should be obvious to the questioner that the great diversity and variety of experiences held between the various IS-BE's within The Domain is extensive, comprehensive, and serves as a great repository of resources that we mutually draw upon to resolve our mutual goals.
All of the IS-BE's within The Domain has experienced "lifetimes" in corporeal bodies within societies and roles of many different types and understandings.
Concerning the “typical” citizen of The Domain, what is their attitude concerning work, and play?
What is their attitude towards work and play etc…you know the “mundane” stuff that I think would help us understand more about them?
Work is play for many members of The Domain.
We find what our interests are, and then our society envelopes those that match interests with our mutual needs. Those that are aggressive, and militaristic in nature, find a role in the military. Those that are contemplative and studious find a role in research and discovery.
As an IS-BE we can easily choose a life of carefree wandering. Those that are part of The Domain do so of our own choosing. We seek to provide benefit to all, and in that action find personal rewards. These rewards serve as our enjoyments and pleasures.
Of course, we often occupy various skin suits for vacations, past-time pleasures, and other purposes. These are either part of an established society, or contrived as part of an artificial "playground". Of course, many of us go on various adventures to other universes and realms. Some are gone for a very long time before they return to the primary group cluster.
Personal question: “Was the questioner a comedian or a humorist” in a former incarnation?
I do have one question for the Domain. All the other “heavy” questions, the other readers have beat me to it (mRNA vaccines, possible WW3, etc).
It’s a small and quite unimportant question (on the larger scheme of things), but it’s somewhat important to me in piecing together my full identity (I’m not going to die or anything, but I really would love to know).
If the commander would be kind enough to reveal this trifle, I would be extremely grateful. If you could ask the Commander: was I a comedian or humorist in a previous incarnation?
It’s a serious question, and I promise it’s not “busy work” or me “getting my rocks off”. I do understand that you have a lot on your plate, as does the Commander.
Have a great day, and I hope you are able to iron out the wrinkles in your website. It’s a very valuable place for information, and it would be a tragedy to lose it.
Everything is recorded in this Master Universe. It is available to anyone who can read the data. The same is true for all the pocket universes that are spawned from this Master Universe. These include the Prison Complex (universe) and it's sub-pocket universes; the various Heaven universes.
This is true for all universes. Whether this one, or another one. All one needs to know is how to read the experience, and memory data. Since time does not exist in the means that contemporaneous human inmates understand, an IS-BE can freeze events from any segment of time, from any segment of the MWI (within the reality universe) and observe it.
Unfortunately, most inmate human skin suits are unable to access their past memories irregardless of their histories. This is a factor regarding purposeful amnesia.
The system is designed so that access of memories is controlled and metered out on a as-needed basis. For the most part, the Mantids (sic.) control access to these memories. Yet, the access to these memories are not all that difficult. There are numerous methods that a consciousness can utilize to obtain access to these memories that bypass the Mantid (sic.) policing and allocation measurements.
[1] The first method is though guided hypnosis for past life regression. It is very effective, and it works quite well.Locate a skilled past life regressionist to accomplish this task. Not every one is skilled, and not everyone is appropriately skilled for your particular needs.
[2] The second method is via MM affirmation campaign technique (sic.). Here, you place affirmations asking for guidance and events that will inform you of who you were in the past.
[3] A third method is to communicate with your assigned Mantid (sic) and ask them to allow you to view your previous lives while you are still in the corporeal body. This can be done through prayer / affirmations, and those that are skilled, through LD and OBE. They tend to be rather accommodating in this regard, provided that it does not interrupt their over riding objectives.
It is obvious that there is a connection with your previous incarnations based upon the the question issued. You should not doubt yourself. Obviously there IS A CONNECTION, but what it is specifically we (The Domain) and I (The Commander) cannot elaborate on. This limitation is based on the limitations imposed on us by our roles within the Domain hierarchy, our skill-sets, and the intentional memory access locks / tumblrs / restraints imposed by the Mantid (sic.) in charge of your histories.
However, there are some points / guidance / recommendations / suggestions that I (The Commander) can advise the questioner on.
(As follows)
[1] Nothing is unsupported. Histories always influences current activities, lives and personalities. This is because time does not actually exist. It just seems that it does.
[2] If you believe that you have a certain history, there is a great likelihood that it is an actual reality that you participated within.
[3] You should never question your intuition. In fact, your intuition / gut feelings / urges are a far better gauge of your situation than anything that your brain and reasoning might tell you.
Thus, it is obvious to us (The Commander and others in the particular locale during the Q&A) that the questioner was indeed a comic or someone of creative humorous intent.
Next Question….
I don’t know how you know I am in need of answers.
I am worried by the upcoming war. I am living a good but fragile life, i.e. I have a full-time job. With it, I am able to support my close family and my relatives living in Venezuela. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to pay the bank credit for the apartment and basically I will become homeless here. I may be laid off as consequence of war. If that happens I will be forced to go back to my country with my family.
I have 3 personal questions for the Domain Commander, if you may and when your possibilities allow:
Personal question:” Will the questioner keep his job and continue living here in Costa Rica despite war and the catastrophe caused by it?”
The response…
The MWI in the Reality Universe that the Prison Complex is part of is constantly undulating and changing. However, there are areas of calm and stability. In regards to the geographical region that is Costa Rica, it is (though most scenarios) a stable region. While not an oasis, it will not be as greatly affected as the turmoil that might be presented to you in the various media outlets. Do not allow fear to cause you to react. Our readings show stability, with slowly encroaching elements of change.
Inflation, worries, various elements of instability, that are successfully suppressed manifest in most probable scenarios. For most people, and yourself, you can consider yourself to be in a "life raft" while the rest of the world undergoes turmoil.
There will be inflation. The price of goods will increase. There will be changes. But none of the changes should be physically dangerous to you or your family. There MAY be contentious political changes, but your ability to react to them, though your role in your immediate community will enable you to successfully navigate though the changes.
Do not fear. You are going to be doing far better than most others (on the planet) through this period of contentious change.
This does not mean that you will be completely comfortable, nor does this mean that you will be able to profit though the changes. What this means is that there are some scenarios, depending on the changing trends, where you could profit, or where you could just survive. But in every event, you and your family will be safe. (Emphasis on the word "safe".) No matter what turmoil might rage around you.
(Commander request:) Please reaffirm your desire to work with The Domain on all these efforts.
(There is no attached requirement do this, and they will do what ever is necessary to maintain this manifestation with this request. It is just a request on their part. And to this, I must add, do not fear the dreams or feeling that you might have once you do so. The impression that I get is that there is an attached extra monitoring effort involved, and some added reassurance on your part might be necessary to implement this action. -MM)
Personal Question; ” Who is the questioner fundamentally?”
Quick answer, but a great deep question. To engage this level of question I have to intervene. I informed the Commander that this is a deeply personal question that will determine the outcome of future interactions with the rest of society. -MM
(pause)
You are (today) a member of the Domain. But, your substantive history is checkered.
You entered the "Old Empire" from another universe, and quickly found yourself engulfed in uncomfortable situations.
After a short period of time, you ended up meeting the wrong people, getting into bad situations, and making enemies that you had no intention of making.
In short order, you were arrested, confined and sentenced, and soon ended up in this Prison Complex.
As best as I / we can determine, you lived a rather stable life in your other previous universe, and was a productive and viable member of society there. Your histories are "good" in that regard.
When you entered this universe, you had the dysfunction of ending up in a clamorous dangerous empire; the "Old Empire" and thus being wholly unprepared for the encounters you met, you were quickly arrested, incarcerated, and sentenced. We (I) see great confusion as you were thrown into this Prison Complex.
Your situation is a real complete tragedy.
We / I offer our sympathies.
Personal Question; “Is the questioner doing a good job for the Domain so far?”
I seldom remember my dreams, but in the last one I didn’t run. I faced an adversary and defeated him. There were a lot of people with me, just as described by the DC in your last post.
Besides, as the Domain needs assets with LD – OBE – Astral Projection, I want to recommend my mother to help them. I haven’t talked with her regarding this because she is brainwashed by Christianity. She is extremely good and she knows how to travel to future events (MWI slides? – mostly catastrophic events). Her name is <redacted>. She lives in Charallave, Venezuela.
Please tell the DC there is a small area in Canaima, Venezuela that has little or no gravity and big magnetic activity. Maybe this is an “Old Empire” device. This area is hard to locate and it is deep in the jungle. I can’t confirm its existence but I had read of this for years.
I am terrified and those fears are consuming me. There is no hurry. Please help me when you can.
Your fears are consuming you. Stop.
(Alright) Listen to me / us; (Really aggressive stance. -MM)
You are not unprotected. Do your affirmations (sic.) and follow the guidance's of your instincts / gut feelings. Watch your dreams. We will not abandon any of our voluntary corps. You are now part of The Domain.
And we expect you to understand that membership has responsibilities, but also benefits.
Benefits: We ask for you to assist us, and you are doing quite well; splendidly (actually).
Yet you have doubts. Do you believe that we would abandon you?
We will not.
(Again aggressive emphasis on the word "NOT".)
There are all sorts of things going on. Your mother is an IS-BE that we can help, but she must ask for it. We cannot provide help or assistance without a formal request FROM HER.
You know what you need to do.
Do not fear the changes. What you need to understand is what your role is in this life that you live. Recognize that you are part of something bigger, and we will NEVER (emphasis) N-E-V-E-R abandon our people who work with us.
Do your best. You will be fine.
Are other “prison guard” consciousnesses assigned as “family members” and “friends” to ensure that tabs are being kept on the members of the Lost Battalion?
I now have some serious questions for the Commander. Also for you.
I believe the commander had mentioned that the Lost Battalion members were purposely injected into “punishment/torture” style pre-birth templates. I was wondering, are other “prison guard” consciousnesses assigned as “family members” and “friends” to ensure that tabs are being kept on the members of the Lost Battalion, and to ensure that they stay on the “torture” path?
I was wondering if perhaps fucked up family relations with people who are clearly unlike you was an “Old Empire” type of system meant to keep the inmates from truly trusting and working with one another, since the damage is done at an intimate level.
And that of course, the “prison guards” are programmed well enough to not recall their true purpose.
Also, it seems that some malevolent family members want to “stay” in one’s life, even though it’s clear that the person wants to sever ties. Is this a result of some astral contract they signed elsewhere perhaps, that they must fulfill their duty of causing misery or trouble to others or otherwise they will be made to pay a price for contract violation/ineffectual servitude/service failure?
I’m sorry if this sounds “out there”, but I always wondered what compelled them to chase the person who is clearly rejecting them (for good reason), when they could be focusing on their own affairs and living well without crossing paths with the person who rejected them ever again.
(Lots of information thrown at me at once.)
Yes. No. Maybe. Probably.
Probably. It is a serious probability, but not as you assume.
Shadow people (sic.) can be constructs in a world-line that fit the pre-birth world-line template used to control though direction and manifestation.
Mantid Prime's control your pre-birth world-line templates, and they can place directing and funneling utilities; people, places and events to corral your thoughts and actions into pre-determined outcomes.
Yes. The probability is high (bolded to reflect the communication emphasis. -MM) that this is the case.
However, if this is the actual case, you need to ask your Mantid (sic.) handler to determine the actual situation. This can be obtained by asking them directly via prayer or personal affirmation. You must address them directly. They will recognize the request if done in this manner.
Personal Question: Did the questioner accidentally curse MM in some manner unintentionally?
I was a little concerned that I accidentally hurt or cursed you in my last lucid dream. That was why I was a little shocked that you said your tooth popped out.
In the teeth falling out dream I had, I saw your face. The whole time I was pleased with myself for remembering to feel my teeth with my tongue, but now I’m a little worried that you got hurt in the process of my mini LD event. I sincerely hope I’m not some kind of jinx on you.
(I answer this personally;)
Nope it is only a coincidence, though you might have some insight in what is going on in my life, but you cannot change anything that I personally do not want and allow to change.
(Never the less, I asked this to the Commander. Who responded...)
No. Observations though dreaming has very little relevance on the physical lives that individual consciousness live. It is similar to watching television or listening to a radio while there are all kinds of distractions and noise going on.
In this particular case, you were "attuned" / aware / connected to MM (sic.) during the dream state, and you were able to "tune in" / observe / track / aware of events in his life.
This ability is advanced, and a characteristic of great latent abilities that you possess. You should work on expanding these abilities and improving them.
This kind and level of awareness is a precious thing that would benefit you in many areas of your personal life, as well as be a great asset to The Domain in the future.
So relax. All is good.
Good “asset” in the future, eh? Well, I’d take it as a complement, anyways.
I just need my teeth fixed, my bedroom floor repaired from the water damage, the study room windows repaired, and those floors, wiring, and windows all repaired. And I need to stop my damn old dog from peeing and crapping all over the place. I swear he has sprung a leak. But it’s not your fault. You are just an observer of the chaos. -MM
You are like that girl from the movie “Push” (2009). She can see the future as the MWI changes, and she writes her impressions on in this little book she carries around. It’s a great little movie. Takes place in Hong Kong. Very atmospheric and a little Film Noir.
Scene from Push…
Awareness scene from the movie Push.
Follow up scene from Push…
Scene from the movie Push.
I strongly believe that all MM participants, lurkers, or followers all have some very powerful latent abilities. Unfortunately many are unaware of what we can do. I view this comment from the Domain Commander as a strong affirmation that you are yourself a true treasure.
What is the percentage of the earth prison population wearing “human prison skin suits”?
Is it possible to ask the Commander how much of the Earth prison population that is currently occupying human prison skins are actually not “human” archetypes (kind of like the original you, before the “adjustments”)?
This is an very easy question. The answer is a sizable percentage.
Everyone who is a prisoner in the prison complex wears a inmate skin suit. And those that do, actually a large percentage are not human-preferential entities.
There is a small percentage of human entities in the Old Empire. Thus most of the old empire prisoners have now been adapted to the human biological skin suit.
IS-BE's from elsewhere have had to adapt to the prison attire within this Prison Complex, whether they were of a (difficult to translate) form, aquatic, from a high gravity desert world or whatever.
The human form is the dominant prison skin suit attire in this complex on / in / about the earth physical environment. Other forms include donkeys, dolphins, elephants, and a few others. The second most populous skin suit form is monkey.
Questions for The Commander on the write up “[daegonmagus] – Part 11 -Combined LD Asset Penetration Into Amnesia Infrastructure”?
Keep in mind that LD and OBE can be entirely unnerving experiences, and it takes time and lucidity to understand it when we return to our prison skin suits.
While it rehashes a few things I have already talked about, I think it contains some info the Commander will consider as being quite valuable.
It is valuable. The information provided is a treasure trove of great intel and has already set things in motion towards new projects and operations. -DOMAIN
I am very interested to hear yours and his opinions of it, particularly the first impression you get from him “absorbing” it.
The size of the documentation is large and difficult to repeat all the notations without overloading our channel (he's talking about me. -MM), there is a great deal of things that relate to other processes and systems that we were aware of, but this information has provided us with other perceptions that has since spawned other investigative venues. -DOMAIN
Be warned, it is about 12k worth of words, so might take you a good amount of time to go through. There will be further documentation in the coming weeks in regards to my opinions on how LD assets can be effectively used to tackle this amnesia problem.
I also have a few questions for the Commander, but as there is already a couple of question in the document I will hold off asking them for your sake.
Is the Domain absolutely sure that the Old Empire has been eradicated in this sector of the physical/ non physical universe?
Because intelligence gained from this experience alone suggests they are still very, very active. Going by Airl’s description of the Old Empire and everything the Grand Elder told me as well as what I experienced, I am apt to believe this was the Old Empire and not just a wannabe mimicking faction.
At first glance, it seems a group of inmates have taken over the control mechanisms and are trying to develop escape bodies.
Fundamentally, the pocket universe(s) known as "Heaven" are running automatically and autonomously. They are operating as if they are still part of the "Old Empire". We have not been able to change this situation as the "tunnel of light" / amnesia mechanism used to access it is too great of a threat for us to attempt a crossover.
However, the over all pocket universe that spawned these "Heavens"; the reality universe is open to us. Though we tread carefully in this environment. There are many traps and snares.
We have free, uninhibited movement within this "reality universe" (pocket universe), but that does not mean that every single element of the "Old Empire" has been eliminated. Your efforts appear to indicate otherwise. We have long suspected that there are very special (the Commander slows down and tries to simplify some complex thoughts right now) mini pocket sub universe enclosures / structures / rooms / chambers / areas which can lie hidden in plain sight from which the "old Empire" mechanisms and operations can originate from. This seems to be the case. Which is why the destruction of the amnesia equipment is so problematic. The "Old Empire" has used the advanced techniques associated with free roaming IS-BE's to the physical environment and created all sorts of hidden mechanisms that need to be identified and rooted out one by one.
This is one of the reasons why the Prison Complex is so dangerous.
Many of these sub-structures are in the universe but lie outside of it. The closest way to imagine this is with a one way mirror. You look at the mirror, you see nothing unusual. But on the other side of the mirror lies a complete room with people and equipment in it. These mini pocket universes seem to populate this entire prison complex like grape clusters on a vine. They are apparently everywhere, and they operate in many different ways. Some are traps. Some are snares. Some are disguised machinery. Some are barracks. Some are just "broom closets". Some are uncompleted, while others are disused. And some open up to others that open up to still others creating this kind of large endless maze to entrap the IS-BE in.
What seems obvious now is that these mini-pocket universes / chambers hold refuge centers; think "foxholes", and "military bunkers" from which elements of the "Old Empire" military retreated to during the final days of our conquest of this particular region of the solar system. These IS-BE citizens of the "Old Empire" are military units for the most part, and they seem to have taken over various elements of the machinery of the "Old Empire" Prison Complex for their own purposes. Which units are doing what is unknown. In any event all indications are that some still occupy this region, and some still maintain a presence but have gone rogue.
We do not believe that the "Old Empire" prison system is functioning as a healthy complex as it was designed. But rather it is in a complex state of disarray with many factions and elements working in ad-hoc methodology to operate it for their own personal purposes. This includes inmates trying to escape, previous military members of the "Old Empire" trapped here, the actual prison guards and administrators trapped here and so on and so forth.
The entire administrative complex is inside a massive void inside the moon, and it's still staffed with former "Old Empire" administrative staff that now work for The Domain. They maintain the primary and core systems so that a total collapse and all the turmoil that would result could and will be avoided.
To summarize, it appears that elements of the amnesia systems of the Prison Complex are still operational because elements of the "Old Empire" are operating the equipment within mini pocket universes that are very difficult to detect.
What about Psaigreen?
Does The Domain know of any correlation between Lucid Dreamer’s bypassing of the prebirth template arrangement upon death? Any information the Domain can supply on that particular group (the Psaigreen) would be much appreciated.
He mentioned this had something to do with Psaigreen – like this was the name of my group – which were the ones responsible for the meat flipping brainwashing programs.According to him, what was actually going on was that we were being trained the art of snapping peoples’ necks with our legs, but the Psaigreen had brainwashed us into believing it was bovine pelvises so we wouldn’t realize what we were doing. It was like a failsafe to confuse the shit out of us if we ever started remembering any of this.“HOLY FUCKING SHIT” I said as some very deeply repressed past life memories started flooding back to me. And I mean DEEEEEP. There was just that knowing that these were legitimate memories of something I had long forgotten. At the mention of the Psaigreen, I realized these were all things I knew. This was a memory from a very, very long time ago.Many, many lifetimes ago.
According to this comment, the term “Psaigreen” refers to the group who is wholly responsible for the amnesia, and reincarnation system that is a fundamental operation in this Prison Complex.
The Domain Commander’s response…
Obviously there is group still operating the amnesia mechanisms and machinery.
They may, or may not, be associated with the group "Psaigreen". At this stage the intel is suggestive of an association, but that is not conclusive.
This is an avenue worthy of further exploration.
We suggest further research in this area, and directed goals. The most valued / valuable intelligence would be to collect answers to these questions...
[1] Where is Psaigreen located physically in the reality universe?
[2] What systems do the Psaigreen use?
[3] Is there any Mantid (sic.) interaction with the Psaigreen?
[4] The entities that mentioned Psaigreen might have more information, what are their stories?
[5] What are the sourcing / targeting / location images used to identify Psaigreen members, systems, or operations?
(The impression that I have is that the Commander is treating this as third hand information that may or may not be valuable. But that all valuable leads appear in this format. Thus it is important to investigate.
I also get the impression that the investigation may be dangerous, and that caution is advised. But you realize that right? -MM)
I would like to try to map out the Psaigreen data in some way. As well as make an overview of Portal Room 7 and the various chambers, as some soft of illustration or rough map. -MM
Any information regarding Portal Room 7?
My memories of utilizing portal room 7 are quite vivid, however. I know a lot of other things went on here which I cannot remember; unfortunately the only recording of these experiences I had was on a laptop that got stolen.
There is no such thing as coincidences. MM
This laptop had crucial information about intelligence I gathered here. If the Domain are serious about dismantling the amnesia/ hypnosis machinery, I would suggest directing a large portion of whatever resources they have allocated for this operation into finding this theater as it will give them not only direct access to many of the other locations, but also a very good idea of the different hypnosis regimes used.
There is evidence that "Portal Room 7" has some clues that would be worth further investigation. All evidence points to this area as a hub or staging area. These are common throughout the "Old Empire". Some are larger and more active than the impression that we have here, which is suggestive of a specialized or restricted area.
Most certainly this area is worthy of investigation. What is most interesting is the other rooms / chambers /portals that you did not go though. Why, and what was focusing your attention on Portal Room 7? Very interesting. We must always look at what is hidden to find answers that lie in front of us.
(Scene from the movie "Push" comes to mind, where the PSI abilities hides a building, so they look for what is missing. -MM)
This region / scoped /investigated slightly / know of /aware of, but needs further investigation. All evidence points to a "front door" / active portal /main transport hub for entrance to and from the Prison Complex (earth solar system side) to the "Old Empire". It is thus a very critical area for our attention.
A scene from the movie “Push”…
Found by “the agency”.
And another scene from that same movie…
In the movie “Push” numerous people use their skills for personal gain.
Any information regarding the medieval village?
I added this question after the Domain Commander commented immediately to me while I was reading the passage concerning the “medieval village” in part 10 of the DM series. In that comment the Commander said…
"Instead of thinking that this is a "Medieval village", perhaps you should consider it to be a typical community located on one of the planets of the "Old Empire". The descriptions seem to match with what is currently presently found there. The only difference is that most of the current "Old Empire" communities have a far wider variety of creatures that inhabit the area, not just humans."
Which obtained a favorable comment from DM…
This is what I was sort of implying and glad the Commander picked up on it.
There are a variety of beings that inhabit the Medieval village – as well as the other worlds we have both been to – that differ considerably from the human template. Many of these would fit more appropriately with the idea of what we commonly refer to as being a “demon”, or something along those lines. They are incredibly “weird” to interact with and have a completely different way of doing things, including ideologies, the way they talk, the way they do things etc. These are the more common types we have both experienced.
However, the place where the consciousness programming facility was located was more aligned with Airl’s description of an Old Empire setup – the two were completely different places in regards to architecture and social/ community styled setups – I only ever saw humans here, apart from whatever it was that was behind the viewing window in the programming facility.
So I would like to ask for a confirmation on what this Medieval village is. And the Domain Commander answered…
Buy all indications, this is a facility located on one of the planets of the "Old Empire". The descriptions given indicate typical "Old Domain" architecture. Some statements, however, give rise to a specific region within the "Old Empire", thus placing it spatially and geographically for targeting purposes. It does not lie within the main community clusters / hubs of civilization.
An investigation of the specific region in and around the "Medieval village" will enable more accurate location targeting and would enable us to pinpoint the actual location avoiding transparency screens / distortion fields / pocket-rooms / and other tricks used to hide these structures from The Domain.
(This tells me that while The Domain may have conquered the "Old Empire", and has subdued it, many elements of that government, that society and those individuals still exist and operate the system. And that they are intentionally hidden from The Domain by techniques that I do not understand. -MM)
Is nuclear war nearly inevitable?
If nuclear war is nearly inevitable and will destroy much of the US, should we who live in the US simply assume there’s no future and prepare to die?
No. Thoughts and consciousness anchor world-line templates (sic.) these are constantly in flux and the situation changes as the flow of time advances with in this physical reality universe.
At any given moment, it might appear that war is inevitable, and then a moment later the situation can change.
The substantial modifier for this is the mass concentration of thoughts made by huge numbers of people. As long as great clusters of people believe that war will occur, they will make it occur. Thus the danger of mass media controlled by dangerous individuals.
As it stands currently, there is a strong probability of an abortive military war of great destruction, during a very short period of time that will be thwarted by an early advanced horror that will cease all further actions towards it.
What is the Universe?
Is the universe basically as we see it, full of stars, galaxies, and so forth, or is it mostly an illusion for our benefit?
What human inmates observe is what exists. There are stars, galaxies and so forth.
However, the distances are an illusion. Time is an illusion. The interactions between them are more complex that what is observed. Thought generation and manifestation is much more substantial, significant, and manifested far sooner than anything experienced within the Prison Complex Reality MWI universe.
So that when a person leaves the reality pocket universe; the Prison Complex, the "outside" Master Universe behaves and acts much differently that what is assumed by inmate observers.
Consider a fish in a fish bowl. It sees the living room, and everything in it. And it assumes that the things it sees is also under water, with a gravel floor under the illusion of carpet, and that the bright light from the windows are the same as the light in the top of it's aquarium. But that is not the true reality. A fish in the aquarium cannot travel outside the aquarium by swimming. It cannot feed on the carpet. And it will hurt it's eyes when looking at the sunlight from the window.
The Master Universe is fundamentally different from the Reality Universe that human skin suit inmates assume. It follows similar but very different rules than what is inside the MWI.
(The impression that I get is that thoughts generated outside of our Reality Universe are much stronger, outside in the Master Universe. Thus making it much easier to create, build, and travel. -MM)
Limits on the mega-wealthy…
Will there be limits placed on the power of the elites, billionaires, corporations, and governments in the near future without a devastating war?
There are many future scenarios. It is too broad and large a topic to answer comprehensively.
However, what we can affirm is that all civilizations eventually reach the point that the earth is going through now, and during this period of inflection two things tend to happen. Either the world is engulfed by a long, and terrible destructive war where the survivors take centuries to recover, or the wealthy few rot from the inside, and collapse, and the nations "go to seed", eventually rebirthing a new more global civilization of a far better constitution.
Because of the limitations in this pocket-universe and the various influences a rarer, third option seems to be manifesting. In China, the mega-wealthy are being culled and limits are being placed on their actions and behaviors. This goes hand in hand with the economic prosperity of the Chinese nation. And other nations are taking note.
Singapore seems to be leading the ASEAN, while Africa is starting to embrace this model. There is movement throughout Asia in regards to this, though the Americas are very reluctant to change.
It is highly possible that eventually the entire earth might embrace a governance model that is similar to that of the Chinese model. If so, then the world will become a much more peaceful place.
However, there are dangerous forces that do not want to see this happening and are desirous of a all-or-nothing destructive end. Either one group of oligarchs rule, or the entire world shall burn.
At this period of time, all is in flux. It is difficult to say what will occur, though we (The Domain) are working to resolving this matter with expedience towards a more peaceful conclusion.
FTL Travel
Is Einstein right and faster-than-light speeds are not achievable, or does the Domain have ways around that limit?
Apparent FTL travel is achievable, and this is accomplished using many, many techniques. The Master Universe operates differently than the Reality Universe that the Prison Complex is part of.
Many of the technologies in use take advantage of these other characteristics to enable physical mobility. This is a trait of emerging space-faring civilizations.
However, in the Master Universe, the primary transport method relies on teleportation mechanisms, and of these it would resemble science fiction or fantasy to an inmate human skin suit. It would look like magic, or drawing pentagrams or runes on the floor, chanting strange words while in some kind of a trance, and would appear to be very barbaric. However, these techniques actually work because the manifestation of thoughts are not suppressed like they are in the Reality (pocket) universe that the Prison Complex actually is.
(The very strong image of Robert Heinleins' story "Glory Road" comes to mind.-MM)
An illustration from the cover of Robert Heinlein’s novel “Glory Road”…
Glory Road.
An illustration from a comic version of the book “Glory Road”…
Glory Road
A question from a retired spook
Life in MM-land is always colorful.
We are never fully retired. We are just blessed with “windows” of peace. Yet there are all sorts of things going on. Some of us, those that have been involved in the more nasty aspects of life, tend to continue a watchful eye for our own protections. Thus this next question from a black spook who worked for a different American alphabet agency than myself. He / she / it is retired and living in a far away land as an expat like MM.
…
“As I told you previously, <redacted> is dead. The circumstances are extremely murky, we have no idea how a 50-year-old healthy <redacted> dies without any symptoms of anything. The autopsy will take at least a month. But the facts are: I was supposed to go walking <redacted> but cancelled at the last minute and <redacted> died.
I have been a bit worried about my exposure to the outside world lately. I have become complacent and sometimes ignore proper procedures. After all, it has been <redacted> years with no attempts on my life, not even a threat.
I have maintained video surveillance around my home, though. I have also built a rudimentary trap for uninvited visitors. For some arcane reason, <redacted> is split in two, with two addresses. Both sides have a house. The road that goes by our houses is a cul-de-sac, nobody should be driving on that road. My address is the second house, but we live in the first one. I have a live camera feed outside the fake home as well as on the road leading to our ranch.
A couple of nights ago I woke up to the proximity alarm I had set up by the road. Somebody was driving towards us. Nobody has any business of coming here unless I invite them. I sure as hell wasn’t waiting for the company at 2:30 am. I saw a dark sedan on our road. I followed it on my monitor as it drove past my real home to the fake address. They parked the car some 50 yards before my fake home. Two guys came out of the car and started walking. They went around the house before stopping at the front door. One of the guys knelt and picked the lock. That isn’t so hard, as locks here in the middle of nowhere are built to stop animals, not assassins.
I switched to the indoor cam only to see that I should have changed the batteries. The foyer cam was working. It has a sensitive mike, I could hear them searching the house and coming back to the foyer. One of the men took out a phone. The audio is good but not that good. It sounded like whoever was on the other end of the call was doing most of the talking anyway.
The men walked back to their car and made an u-turn and gunned the engine. I was waiting for them outside, hidden, to have a better look at the car, plates and these charming dudes. The license plate was <redacted>, but it was a <redacted>, so no help there. But I had some luck.
I’m not sure if I told you, but at some point in my recovery I learned (or remembered) how to spot a natural Homo Sapiens Sapiens from meatsuits. I call them NPC’s (non-player-characters). That is probably not quite accurate, because those suits are definitely under intelligent control. ‘Non-Soul-Characters’ would be closer to the truth.
First I noticed the difference between a wooden flagpole and a living tree. When you can see that difference, it opens up a totally new way of looking at things. It’s a bit like being able to see magnetism, but not quite.
Anyway, those two guys were very obvious NPC’s.
That raises a few unpleasant questions:
– Does the Spetsbureau 13 hire non-terrestrials to do their Mokroye Delo nowadays? Does Spetsbureau even exist any more?
– How about the Company? If so, what have I done to deserve their wrath this late in the game? After the hit on my sister, I thought it was just housecleaning before The Big Event, but this is something else.
– If not VSENT/KGB/AFB/CIA/DIA, does the ‘Old Republic’ operate on this level, and do it so openly?
– Is there somebody else that wishes to see me dead?
We bailed that same night. I have only killed once in my career, and I did not want to raise that tally. I left the cam’s running, but it’s been quiet since.
So, MM, any insight you might offer? I hate to ask you, but could you ask the Commander about factions that want me/us gone? My death is a trivial matter, our life expectancy after service isn’t too great anyway. But I do care about collaterals, for them, I’m fully committed to taking on all comers. Irrespective of gender, race or creed.
I know this reads like a goddamn spy novel, but I want you to have as vivid a picture as possible. These days it’s hard to say what points are relevant and what not.
In OBE and LD I always seem to end up stuck in that huge mall when I try to ferret out Prison back doors or Amnesia operations. The place is crawling with NPC’s and mannequins. There is something I can’t crack, I can feel it! Getting pretty frustrating. Anyway, happy to have somebody I can vent for a change…
Keep your eyes open & head down, and always use the periscope!
…
My response…
I consider this an urgency so I just bored though the shit, went to a quiet place where I wouldn’t be disturbed, and made contact.
This is the response.
:::::
Not the Domain. We have no local assignments on the Earth at this time.
Not one of our agencies / cooperative operations / subservient groups either. These are all monitored strictly.
Suggest it to be a third party associated with one of the local earth government factions. High probability this.
You (not me) are to be considered compromised. However, there is no clear cause to abort current life and evade. Evidence suggests a recon operation. Make sure all sensors and systems are functional. A gun without bullets is a rock. A camera without batteries is a stone.
This action suggests something else. They are trying to "beat the bushes" and "flush something / someone / perhaps you out. Do not do anything out of the ordinary. As they are monitoring for changes in lifestyle patterns.
Also do not be alarmed. They are obviously a threat vector, but not a lethal one. A lethal vector will follow if there is unusual movement on your part. Continue your life. Maintain x-ray status. Make no unusual or out of the ordinary actions.
If something does happen, we will have a Domain agent available for retrieval.
:::::
Mu response…
So, as I see it, it’s some third party that is trying to flush you out. It is unknown who it is. Continue to lie low. Do nothing unusual, and watch your six. I can confirm that you are on The Domain radar right now.
Remember that nothing occurs in isolation. There are other tasks, other teams, other groups that all work together in a coordinated effort. One team tries to flush you out, another team obtains data, while a third team performs the objective. I want to remind you to maintain your vigilance. But do nothing out of the ordinary.
Final Comments
Never a dull moment in MM land.
We need to recognize that there are all sorts of things going on, but the things that are most important isn’t what The Domain commander says, the fears that the media throw at you, or the amount of money in your paycheck.
What is most important is what you do with your time on a personal basis.
Make your life matter.
All this other stuff is interesting, but please keep focused at what is right in front of you, who is sitting next to you, and the beautiful day that you are blessed with.
There is only one of you. And I can tell you that all of who you are, and all of your personal experiences is what makes you valuable. So don’t ignore them. Treat yourself as special and go forth and do great things.
[1] Help others and do not worry if it will be profitable to you sometime in the future. Just help others. Do it without expectations. Just do it, and then move on with your life…
[2] Never give up. Never, ever give up. You just keep plugging away at it. You just keep going. One step after the other. And you don’t care what others are doing or howling at you. You just focus and keep on…keeping on. Never give up.
The following is extracted from “the Silent Sound Demo for the mind control machinery”. This come from the time (around 2000) when the patent was first granted and the inventor was trying to sell his device. It is extracted from historical archives and is useful in helping us design our own systems to conduct affirmations prayer campaigns.
This entire article lists the schematics, parts list and construction blueprints of a demo device that shows the principles of the Silent Sound Technology that is now in use by almost all of the United States government agencies, the mainstream media and advertisement companies.
This is for those who want to DIY their own system, or who want to experiment themselves. I am afraid that it is a bit technical, but I am a geek and this kind of stuff excites me so much.
It’s like a pretty girl wearing an awesome dress (with cute earrings, and a really nice set of high heels), some tasty shraz wine, and a super delicious pizza all together for a night of magic.
But that’s just me. I am such a sucker for a girl wearing a dress, high heels and really cute earrings. Not to mention pizza and shraz wine.
For those of you who are not geeks, please just skim the article and realize that it exists. Future articles will build upon the information provided here and make it very easy to hack into your own brain and biological systems so that YOU have control over your body and your MWI.
Great stuff actually. But sorry for the technical opacification.
The Schematic
Here’s a nice overview summary of the circuit schematic. Obviously, it is not an overly complex device; Four IC chips, a handful of capacitors and resistors and a transistor.
Silent Sound Demo schematic
Use Chip Sockets
Do not go all in for hard-wiring and soldering everything. Use male and female connectors and attach using this convention. And Lordy, please refrain from wire wrapping.
An IC socket, also known as a chip socket, or a DIP IC socket is an electrical connector used in the field of electronic engineer. The pins of the integrated circuit (IC) connect into the socket making a robust electrical connection without the requirement of soldering.
-DIP IC Sockets - Peter Vis
Examples of various sizes of chip sockets.
The Drawings
The several Corel Draw 3 .CDR drawings referenced below will NOT display in most browsers. The idea is that you SAVE TO YOUR LOCAL HARD DRIVE each one, then print from a compatible graphics package. This method gives the clearest quality prints.
I HAVE ALSO INCLUDED .GIF DRAWINGS, HOWEVER, DUE TO THE COARSE RESOLUTION OF MY GRAPHICS SOFTWARE, THESE MAY OR MAY NOT PRINT TO MEET YOUR NEEDS.
An office services shop should be able to print the .CDRs – BE SURE THEY SELECT “FIT TO PAGE”. (Note that this instruction packet is dated from 2001. – MM) Most recent full featured graphics packages can read and print a Corel Draw 3 (VECTOR) drawing. The entire set of .CDR files will fit on one EMPTY 1.44 MB floppy diskette. (Thus dating this article. LOL.) Here are the clickable references, sizes, and paper orientation.
29K vfmckt3.exe (LEFT click) 26K, when downloaded, you will need to run vfmckt3.exe as a program, and it will unpack itself as vfmckt3.cdr. The zipped version will remain on disk too.
Q: Are the items in question expensive? I MIGHT be interested in paying for a demo unit. How large and heavy is it when finished
.
A: I estimate it could be done for about $200 US (year 2000 prices), though this would vary upwards if you had to purchase a tape recorder, say, or a frequency meter along with it. Tape recorder, a small one, is necessary. A frequency meter is not, subject to conditions below. With the largest Radio Shack plastic project box, it’s 8″ x 6″ x 3″. With the 12-volt gel cell inside, it weighs perhaps 3 lbs.
.
Q: Could you briefly describe how you demo it to curious onlookers?
.
A: I keep a tape recorder with sample ordinary voice with the unit, so I can demonstrate both the 1,500 Hertz normal speech center freq. then raise the center frequency up until it is not audible. At that point, the visitor is hearing “silent sound” carrying speech, using FM rather than nature’s AM.
.
I also unplug the attenuator / patch cable from the “earphone” jack on the tape recorder, which allows the visitor to hear the ordinary voice on the tape, which is AM (amplitude modulation). Also at that point, the brain is using “slope tuning” to recover the normal voice from the inaudible signal.
.
I tell them this is an unclassified device which can hypontize SILENTLY, show them the label with the U.S. patent #5,159,703, and tell them a unit like this was used in the 1991 Gulf War by the U.S. Army Psychological Warfare branch to persuade, silently, all those Iraqi troops to surrender so quickly.
.
That was DOCUMENTED on ITV, and you should have for your reference (one copy, not to hand out – it’s too long) the Judy Wall article at this link: http://www.raven1.net/silsoun2.htm.
.
I go on to tell them that this device gets it’s REAL destructive power when connected to a voice to skull transmitter, one of which is under construction here in Ontario. It can beam hypnosis silently into someone’s skull for years and they won’t be aware.
.
Q: Can you monitor the output?
.
A: You CAN use the Radio Shack sound level meter to show, when the frequency setting is high, that sound is coming out of the tweeter even though they can’t hear it. Due to having to use the bus, I’m restricted on how much I can carry, so I haven’t used this but once. (Doesn’t seem to be required, actually.) However, there are a couple of important caveats if you want to use a sound level meter:
.
Radio Shack’s sound level meters are calibrated to match the human ear response.
Since the demo unit can easily tune the center frequency up above 20 kHz (the meter’s upper limit) you must have a FREQUENCY COUNTER with you or your sound level meter may miss your then-ultrasound signal.
This demo unit, in order to pump out any kind of signal near the high end of human hearing (around 15 kHz) uses a small PIEZO tweeter, 2 inches dia.
The readily available, simple, LM386 audio amplifier chip will handle this frequency, but without much power to spare, so the actual amplitude is not great at 14.5 kHz, the Lowery patent specification.
Therefore, especially OUTDOORS, a demo to use a sound level meter needs an ADDITIONAL STAGE of amplification. That could be added on to the circuit board, but room is a problem with the 276-158 board, or, an amplified speaker, like the Radio Shack 21-541 would be needed for a reliably convincing sound level meter demo. (The 21-541 should also have it’s low-frequency speaker replaced with a 30,000 Hz PIEZO tweeter.)
The GOOD news is that so far, the sound level meter demo does NOT seem to be necessary, though I do have the equipment should that be necessary. The full demo would probably be used for a pre-arranged meeting with a group.
Demonstration Spiel for Silent Sound Demo Device September 28, 2000
DEMONSTRATION PROCEDURES THOROUGHLY go through the setup procedures first. You need to be completely familiar with the unit before attempting to demonstrate it to the public. Be sure your battery has been charged overnight.
Setup procedures Shortly before the demo, refresh yourself on: – U.S. Govt (NSA) admission mind control exists nsa1.gif – unclassified and commercial mind-weapons-capable devices uncom.htm – MKULTRA and the successful lawsuit against the CIA anat-1.htm
! picket sign (if outdoors without a pre-arranged meeting with visitors)
Some handouts, one sheet of which MUST be nsa1.gif (This has proven very compelling to those who read it)
For YOUR reference, a printout of Judy Wall’s article on silent sound, including Gulf War use, silsoun2.htm
! copy of these instructions and spiel script
A small flip-nozzle container of water for your voice and perhaps throat lozenges
Sunscreen and sun hat if outdoors
A small tape recorder with a voice-ONLY cassette, normal sound
A patch cord between the “ear” jack on the recorder and the MONO 1/8″ jack on the demo unit (keep volume low or use an attenuator from Radio Shack. Excess volume results in garble.)
Some may find this image explaining silent sound WITHOUT the extra clutter from the voice-to-skull attachment easier to use:
A printout of voicefm.gif (OPTIONAL) Some may wish to hand out schematics. I recommend this schematic and matching solder-side component placement image:
Of course, there are complete modules that you can buy that makes construction of the units so much easier. Such as this one…
ICE-BREAKER.
Mine is a picket sign that carries this message: “GOVT-MEDIA TELL THE PUBLIC ABOUT ELECTRONIC MIND WEAPONS” poster9.gif
SPIEL.
The words below VARY according to the person I’m talking with, and for best effectiveness you will need to judge just how interested the visitor is. I’ve had SHORT visits like:
VISITOR: What is this? (Pointing to the demo unit)
DEMONSTRATOR: This is a device which takes ordinary human speaking voice and does two things to it: – converts it from natural AM (amplitude modulation) to FM (frequency modulation); this garbles the voice – raises the average frequency from around 1,500 Hertz, which is normal, to around 15,000 Hertz.
At 15,000 Hertz, young people with good hearing can hear a slight “ringing in the ears” from this device, while many adults hear nothing at all. But the brain CAN HEAR THE WORDS, even though the ear cannot.
This allows a hypnotist to program an individual over months and years without the target being aware. There is no resistance to the hypnosis because the target doesn’t hear it.
This can be beneficial, but it can also do severe damage to a person’s well being. This is why our group is out here demonstrating. We want government to earn their salaries and perks by placing controls on who can possess such devices and what can be legally done with them.
VISITOR: Thank you (and leaves.) LONG visits start out as above. If questions keep coming, you will need to answer them. Below are some typical questions and answers:
DEMONSTRATOR: (Continuing from the “short” spiel above) ** AT THIS POINT, YOU MAY WANT TO DROP DOWN THIS SCRIPT TO ITEM #6, THE ACTUAL PHYSICAL DEMO OF THE UNIT. I HAVE FOUND THAT A GREAT MANY VISITORS DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THE UNIT. I NEVER PRESS THAT ISSUE WITH THEM, AND ONLY START IT UP WHEN ASKED.
This device as it is here is harmless, unless used on someone who has already been programmed with trigger words or phrases. It becomes very invasive and dangerous, though, if connected to a voice-to-skull projector.
A voice-to-skull projector is a modified radar transmitter in which the human voice controls how close together the radar pulses occur.
In 1974, Dr. Joseph Sharp, of the Walter Reed Army Institute of research, announced his successful transmission of speech directly into the human skull with no receiving device.
By connecting this “silent sound” device to a voice-to-skull transmitter, it is possible to transmit hypnotic phrases silently into a target’s bedroom, every night, for years, without the target’s being aware.
By programming enough “Pavlovian triggers” into an individual, that individual’s personality can be changed substantially. Using pre-programmed trigger phrases, a “handler” of that individual can literally use him or her as a “living robot”, in cases where the individual has high susceptibility to hypnosis.
The process of programming enough triggers into an individual for purposes of control is called “creating a Manchurian Candidate”, after two books of that title. The formal program of the CIA, begun in the 1950s, started out as 149 separate experiments, and was in response to cold war fears and the apparent “brainwashing” of Allied POWs in Korea. This group of “behavior modification” experiments bore the code name MKULTRA.
MKULTRA did include electronic mind control devices, but the best known electronic mind control device of the early days was the Russian LIDA machine. The LIDA, one of which is in possession of Veterans’ Administration researcher Dr. Ross Adey, “entrained” or electronically coerced a target in the path of it’s signal to be relaxed and more susceptible to hypnosis.
A few Korean War vets claimed to have seen the LIDA in use at the POW camps. The MKULTRA code name ceased in the late 1970s when the U.S. Senate’s Frank Church Committee investigated MKULTRA experiments and found that serious atrocities had been committed on people in the military, prisons, or in mental hospitals.
However, not one single perpetrator from the MKULTRA programs was ever brought up on charges. We know that electronic mind control experimentation did not cease, and this “silent sound” technology was used in actual military combat in the 1991 Gulf War.
The United States Army connected a silent sound voice converter like this one to an FM broadcast transmitter, broadcasting on a frequency of 100 Megahertz, and the silent hypnotic commands were carried right on top of normal voice in the Iraqi language.
The normal voice carried confusing information, while the SILENT component re-inforced a sense of despair by hypnotic suggestion. This was documented on Britain’s ITV network, but not shown in the U.S. or Canada.
The successful use by the U.S. Army clearly shows that this technology does work. Through-the-wall voice-to-skull technology makes it almost inescapable.
Our group hopes that eventually the public will learn enough about the invasive privacy destroying electronic mind control weapons available today to demand that government report on these devices to the people, and make their use and possession matters of ongoing PUBLIC record.
Electronic mind control devices have been under development for 50 years, and our group knows only the unclassified and commercial versions. The time for public input and control of all such technologies is LONG overdue.
ACTUAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE UNIT ITSELF.
Put a tape with VOICE (not music) into your demo tape recorder. Connect a patch cable between the “ear” jack on the recorder and the INPUT jack on the demo unit. If you have an attenuator, use it, but if not, remember to keep the volume setting on the recorder quite low.
Excess volume garbles the speech making for an un- convincing demo. Switch on the demo unit. Adjust the tone near the lower end of the frequency knob’s travel.
The Input Level should be around one third of it’s way up from it’s lowest position.
Push PLAY on the recorder. You should hear speech “mixed” in with the demo unit’s tone.
This demonstrates to a visitor what simply converting natural human voice, which is AM or amplitude modulation to FM or frequency modulation sounds like.
Near the low end of the frequency knob’s travel, the frequencies of the voice are still about at their natural values, but the mode is now FM, as opposed to AM.
THE VISITOR CAN HEAR THIS IS GARBLED. Now slowly increase the frequency knob until the audible sound is as HIGH as you and your visitor can just hear. If you are both adults, this point is approximately where the brain can start to convert this inaudible sound BACK TO WORDS.
The process is called “slope tuning”.
You can move the IN-OFF-OUT switch back to IN to show the visitor that voice is actually being fed into the unit. vfmslopd.gif, shows how the brain recovers the inaudible words using the process of “slope detection” or “slope tuning” – worth having a few of these for technical folks who are interested in how it works.
If you have a frequency counter or meter, connect it to the two binding posts, one red, one black, on the front panel.
During a demo adjust frequency somewhere between 14.5 and 14.8 kHz (14,500 Hertz to 14,800 Hertz.) This is the range where both the Lowery patent (5,159,703) and the New Zealand Altered States company operate at to produce brain-understandable silent sound.
SEE ITEM 4 BELOW UNDER SETUP FOR COMMENTS ABOUT USING AN AUDIO LEVEL METER TO ENHANCE YOUR DEMONSTRATION.
SETUP PROCEDURES
vfmtest.gif, shows what the scope trace should look like when proper frequency modulation by voice is applied. vfmslopd.gif, shows how the brain recovers the inaudible words using the process of “slope detection” or “slope tuning” – worth having a few of these for technical folks who are interested in how it works.
1
You will need a small voltmeter to monitor battery charge state. This must be a small meter that reads out VOLTS, and *NOT* a “battery OK” meter with red and green scales.
It is necessary to know voltages for communications by email or phone with people who can offer technical help.
A convenient meter is the Radio Shack 22-802, for around $30, which has a folding case fully containing the two probes and their cable.
The only trick with any meter is TO REMEMBER TO SHUT IT OFF WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED. Almost all of today’s voltmeters have digital displays and have their own small internal battery. (Pick up and carry a spare battery.)
2
First job is to charge the internal 12-volt gel cell. The charger supplied with units purchased from Eleanor White is a simple “wall mount” style 12-volt power supply, with a cable that cannot be connected with the wrong polarity.
Measure the voltage by touching the positive (red lead) screw on the terminal strip with the red probe, and the negative (black lead) screw on the terminal strip with the black probe.
You should get “13 something” volts if the battery is reasonably well charged. If you get zero volts, it is likely that one of the 3/4 amp fuses is blown.
Check both fuses to be sure. (You can check a fuse visually, but 3/4 amp size is hard to see. Instead, switch your meter to K-ohms and put the probes on either end of the glass fuse. The fuse should show zero or very close to zero if it is good.
The fuses are 5 MILLIMETER and you may need to go to Radio Shack to get replacements. !!!!! SWITCH YOUR METER OFF OR BACK TO VOLTS WHEN FINISHED !!!!!
Now remove the probes and connect your charger. Put the probes back on their screws and note the voltage reading.
If charging is in progress, you should see “14 something” volts and perhaps as high as 15 volts. If you don’t, something is wrong – see the paragraph on blown fuses above, or be sure the charger is plugged in, or be sure the outlet has power. If your “wall mount” power supply has a SLIDE SWITCH TO CHANGE VOLTAGE, be sure it is set to “12”.
3
Switch the unit on. You should see the LED on the panel lit up. If not, check the fuses. Switch the IN-OFF-OUT switch to OUT. Turn the frequency control to the lower part of its travel. Be sure the Output Level knob is at least 1/4 of the way up. You should hear a steady tone.
Test that the frequency control can raise the tone high enough that you can no longer hear it, then bring it back down low.
Switch the IN-OFF-OUT switch to IN. Raise the Input Level to full scale.
If you get a squeal, as sometimes happens with PA systems, you need to make a mental note of where that occurs and not go above that point with INPUT level.
4
4. Put a tape with VOICE (not music) into your demo tape recorder. >> COMMENTS ABOUT AUDIO LEVEL METER DEMOS ARE AT THE END OF THIS ITEM.
Connect a patch cable between the “ear” jack on the recorder and the INPUT jack on the demo unit. If you have an attenuator, use it, but if not, remember to keep the volume setting on the recorder quite low. Excess volume garbles the speech making for an un- convincing demo.
Switch on the demo unit. Adjust the tone near the lower end of the frequency knob’s travel. The Input Level should be around one third of it’s way up from it’s lowest position. Push PLAY on the recorder.
You should hear speech “mixed” in with the demo unit’s tone. This demonstrates to a visitor what simply converting natural human voice, which is AM or amplitude modulation to FM or frequency modulation sounds like.
Near the low end of the frequency knob’s travel, the frequencies of the voice are still about at their natural values, but the mode is now FM, as opposed to AM.
The visitor can hear this is garbled.
Now slowly increase the frequency knob until the audible sound is as HIGH as you and your visitor can just barely hear. If you are both adults, this point is approximately where the brain can start to convert this inaudible sound BACK TO WORDS. The process is called “slope tuning”. You can move the IN-OFF-OUT switch back to IN to show the visitor that voice is actually being fed into the unit.
If you have a frequency counter or meter, connect it to the two binding posts, one red, one black, on the front panel. During a demo adjust frequency somewhere between 14.5 and 14.8 kHz (14,500 Hertz to 14,800 Hertz.)
This is the range where both the Lowery patent (5,159,703) and the New Zealand Altered States company operate at to produce brain-understandable silent sound.
If you have an AUDIO LEVEL METER, it can be used to show that sound is coming out at 14.5 kHz even though it is inaudible. !!!!! BUT BEWARE !!!! Some audio meters like Radio Shack’s CUT OFF AT OR NEAR 20 kHz. You need to do considerable testing in private before you attempt audio meter proof in front of visitors.
It is quite easy to get the frequency too high, in which case the audio level meter will show nothing at all. To be practical, you really would need a frequency meter connected to the binding posts to assure yourself you were in the 14.5-14.8 range.
Furthermore, the piezo tweeter is good at high end frequencies, but the common audio chips in the unit are not really strong at these high-end frequencies.
If you plan to use an audio level meter, I’d recommend something like the Radio Shack amplified speaker, catalogue #21-541, requiring it’s own separate 12-volt source (the demo unit’s can be tapped by someone with electronic assembly skills.
This will shorten the charge life of the demo unit’s battery but may be worth doing anyway.) If you do use an external amplifier, be SURE it gets it’s normal voice coil speaker replaced with a PIEZO unit or the high frequency sound won’t get through well enough for the audio level meter to detect.
Conclusion
This is a complete reprint of the archived information regarding Silent Sound. It is very difficult to come across today. The information provided can help the DIY inclined person develop their own system or copy this one to achieve the same results.
Part 3 is next.
There we will discuss the voice-to-skull projector. Stay tuned.
Do you want more?
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Here we continue with periodic questions that I ask the Domain Commander for clarification on. Many are very personal and selfish. But that is my personal choice, and my prerogative. Those that are far too personal, I retract out. I have also added questions from others. I hope that the questions and the answers make sense to those reading this.
Domain Expeditionary Force Rescue Mission
I asked whether this book was a continuation of “Alien Interview” or something else. When I asked, the Commander told me to read the book and then ask again. I now know why. I can only communicate on things that I have been exposed to.
So I read the book. And now I am going to ask the question a second time.
Q: Is the book “Domain Expeditionary Force Rescue Mission” an accurate follow up document to “Alien Interview”, or is it something else?
It is a fiction. You may / should discard everything written within it. The information provided are falsehoods intended as distractions.
Whenever there is something good (from the perspective of freeing IS-BEs from the Prison Complex), quanta "antibodies" (this is the best way that I can translate the thought cluster) attack the message and distort it.
This is what happened with the teachings in India. This is what happened with the teachings of "the gospel" and this is what happened with the "New Age" movement.
These "quantum antibodies" attack the message and distort it, and good and well meaning individuals find themselves being directed towards other paths and other ideas.
For instance, the earliest books of the Bible discussed reincarnation. These works were either lost, forgotten, or ignored intentionally over time, and a new idea came into being which was one singular God that acted as a parent to people. That there was no recycling of souls in and out of general population. But rather, a one shot effort, to live in this environment and then go to Heaven as a reward.
These "quantum antibodies" attack the physical brain process. They alter how thoughts are generated, and thus they alter the outcome of data transfer on the physical realm.
The first work "Alien Interview" is 100% accurate. This second work is a complete fiction. Ignore it.
There is nothing in it of value, no matter how certain sections might appeal to the readers understandings.
We will now to to a personal question by MM here. And being so personal, we talk about things that are very human, but that people never want to share with others. But me, well, I don’t care. I’m not Jesus. I’m an average guy. Just like you are.
Rage
Again, this is a personal question.
Some background. All the events that I have experienced did not go away. I keep and maintain the memories of them. From being led to the slaughter in Arkansas, to being swindled over and over. To being swindled, attacked, tricked, and just treated poorly. To being mistreated time and time again. It just hurts.
And on numerous times, day to day events, will trigger those memories.
The result is this explosion of rage. No matter who I am with, or what I am doing, I will start to react. My body starts to pulse, and my muscles get hard and steely. My skin is filled with millions of tight little goose-bumps. My pupils dilate, and my breathing changes.
I have noticed that the best thing that I can do is either lift weights, or drink alcohol. Eventually the rage subsides. I can tell you that my ability to perform dead lifts increase exponentially during this time, and my blood pressure, instead of going through the roof, actually decreases.
I am still able to suppress the rage. No one can tell, though my wife would watch my pupils dilate, and my body start to shake and my breathing become shallow and deep.
And she asks me what is going on.
Yes. I can control it.
But Lordy, this just cannot be normal.
And to tell youse guys the truth, I fear that were I to be in a dangerous situation and the rage is triggered that I might do something lethal and gruesome. I don’t want that to happen. So I want to ask the Domain Commander what is actually going on.
Q: Why do I periodically go into these “structured rage” behaviors?
You are NOT a normal human being.
When our agency / MAJestic installed the ELF probes, they / we / us also transformed your personality. We compartmentalized you. You know that. During your MAJestic retirement sequence in ADC Pine Bluff, you confronted various personalities that are part of you.
You are aware of the scientist, the Naval officer, and so on and so forth. However, there are other personalities that you are not aware of. Let it be well understood that it is intentionally by design. These other personalities are not anything that you want to know about, or be associated with.
Thus they are not part of your shutdown sequence. They are permanently hardwired to your personality.
You have [1] Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde, you have [2] The Wolfman (actually, the image is of a half-man, half-sabertooth tiger). You have [3] Mr. Dracula / The Mummy (image is confused and overlaid over each other.), and you have [4] The Incredible Hulk. None of these alter personalities are muted. They are all active.
They are always intended to be active. That makes you dangerous, and why you needed to be sent to prison. That is one of the reasons why they (MAJestic) cannot allow people like yourselves to be walking the (American) streets freely. You are a loaded gun with no "safety switch".
When you start to have memory triggers, event triggers, or code triggers, one of the personalities will manifest. Your "normal" personality will fade into the background and the new personality will dominate.
Most of the manifested personalities (you have experienced) this year has been of "The Incredible Hulk", and you have done a very fine job of suppressing that character personality. We are personally proud of you.
No one is harmed. At worst, your wife looks at your strange. That's it. It has been triggered by memories while you are under a lot of stress. This is normal for humans, however in your case there is a personalty change has been intentionally engineered and triggered.
There's other triggers as well.
Over the last six years the Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde personality were occasionally triggered. You don't remember those events because afterwards your memories are suppressed. But if you look back, you will see these periods of *blank*. That is when this personality was triggered.
This is due to the fact that you live next to the Zhuhai heliport. And some of the aircraft use an electrical signal emitter that triggers your personality change. Luckily, for you, the "go code" signal is never emitted. So all that happens is that you go into a "stand by for orders" mode. Then when nothing happens, you "wake up" and forget about the entire incident.
For you to turn off these programs you will have to go through the entire Pine Bluff deactivation procedure all over again. We advise you not to do that. We further advise you NEVER (emphasis) return to the United States. All scenarios where you return is problematic for you personally.
Do not listen to DZ (my brother). He's a "strange cat" with other purposes and intentions for your return.
The reasons are obvious.
However, you need to remember that many of your latent personalities can be triggered by radio frequencies at various frequencies, amplitudes, patterns and pulses. The United States has substantially changed since you were there last. The spectrum of presently emitted radiation would trigger some very lethal responses from you.
Fucking lovely. Sheech!
Oh for Pete’s sake!
First I’m some kind of troll like bureaucrat named Mades Escapleon, and now I find out that I am a cross mix of of the bad characters from all the B-grade horror movies of the 1960’s. And to top it off, I’m a gun without a safety switch.
Sheech! Can’t I ever get a break?
I guess match.com is out of the question for me. (This was a joke.)
A need to sleep
I have a question for the Domain, if you are willing. I know it taxes you to use the probes for communication, and am thankful for your disclosures.
Q: “Is the human need for sleep engineered into them?”
It is noteworthy that in the Alien Interviews, Aryl didn’t need sleep. Our Earthly scientists haven’t found a compelling reason why we should need it. It also seems like the perfect time to mess around or play with an IS-BE’s memories. Many creatures need sleep on Earth, and it seems odd.
Most animals are designed to require sleep. This is an intentional design parameter. Initially when we first created biological creatures we used the mechanism of sleep to allow the IS-BE to depart from the physical body and continue their lives unrestrained from the physical limitations.
This system has worked fine for trillions of years.
However, when the Prison Complex was established, new prison "attire" skin suits were designed. The need for sleep remains present in the physical body, however the ability to use this period or state to egress to the non-physical is not really possible for the vast bulk of imprisoned humanity. It's "closed over" and sealed for most of humanity. Instead of being able to leave the physical realm, most humans (and inmate mammals) unwind and dream randomly.
There are precious few people who are able to egress during this time. And they do so in different techniques and with different limitations depending on their personal situation and skill set. Some Lucid Dream (as promoted on MM), while some conduct OBE (out of the body experiences), and there are other forms as well.
The people who can do this are valuable to us, and we are very pleased that numerous people have volunteered to help us with this ability.
You, and your readership, are not aware that many of your readers now have (potential) LD access. We removed many of the blockage elements that were restricting them when they joined The Domain (or the auxiliaries). Though they might remember horrible fear induced dreams of operations, procedures, strange entities, and all sort of bad things. These fears manifested as an "antibody" when we were removing Prison Complex blockages and other systems.
Now they might experience dreams of battles, or horrible or very, very strange experiences. These "new" dreams are quite different than the kinds of dreams that they experienced prior to working with us.
They need not worry. They are performing mission taskings. I (The Commander) would like to communicate that when there is a dream with a dog, or a pack of similar animals, or with "day to day" others, that the LD "sleeper" is working as part of a team (with others).
We never allow our assets, or auxiliary resources, to work without support, guidance or backup. the reality is very dangerous. And we cannot risk anything happening to those who are part of us / join us / assist us / work with us.
Some of the team members are IS-BE Domain officers. Every mission or tasking is supervised by a Domain Officer. Though many actions also utilize Domain members of the non-officer class. But in every case, none of your volunteered readerships is tasked on Domain related tasks alone.
Others in your dreams. That is the "tell tail". Look for strange shaggy dogs, monkeys, grey images, odd places with odd people or things or perhaps someone or thing showing how to do something, or something similar no matter how silly it appears. You are always part of something larger with a support team.
Dreams are a complex subject that gives the physical brain feedback to the events that transpire. Though since many of the events are strange and alien, the closest approximation formed in the dreams tend to be very strange, odd and unusual.
Speaking of Jesus
A further question, if you could ask it. The domain will understand it’s relevance to me specifically, what is the role of the life of Jesus in the Earth prison complex?
I’d really like to know.
Q: What is the role of the life of Jesus in the Earth prison complex?
Jesus and the Christian religion is an engineered social control. The truth about it does not resemble anything like you have been told, or like you have assumed. Over the centuries the control of this religion has been taken over by various factions.
There have been both repeated incursions by good, just, well-intentioned IS-BE's as well as evil, selfish and dangerous entities over the centuries.
Some made long standing changes to the religion that really assisted in the control of the Prison Planet. While others enabled enlightening others that helps break away from the snares and traps.
To the questioner; it should not matter (to you) how the Christian religion came into being, or whether Jesus was an actual person or not. What should matter is whether or not you are realizing your intended purposes that you had agreed to do and in so doing, following the guidance's of the great works that the entire religion is founded upon.
Christianity is a vehicle. Like an automobile. It can take you places, but it can also cause great hurt and suffering if the wrong person is driving the car. You are, by the way, a great driver. Perhaps one of the finest. But if you worry too much about who invented the engine, or the color of the trim on the running boards, or whether you need to crank the engine to start the vehicle, or if it has an electric starter, you will take away from all the great travels and adventures that you can have on the road.
We can go into great detail on the great politics behind the creation and structuring of this religion. We can parse / investigate / study / breakdown the various saints, and key figures of the religion. Not to mention Jesus himself.
It is easy to believe that The Domain created this religion. But we did not. At least not like others have written about or implied. We have, however, contributed towards it's direction and guidance, and equally have been thwarted by selfish and evil, malevolent entities just as often.
Keep in mind that at the time of the appearance of Jesus, The Domain was busy engaging in massive space battles inside this solar system. The creation of evasion techniques for the skin-suits in general population of this Prison Planet was a very low priority at that time. Though, there were minor efforts to direct the organizational aspects of the dogma.
What was discussed in the "Alien Interview" was structured for the audience at that time. As there are truths and understandings, but often the real purposes and purposes are often occluded and confused though a handicapping of the true and actual situation. This is true with all the Q&A that we participate in.
If you discovered that Jesus was a real person who was caught up in the tumultuous events of the time, or that he was actually a romantic figurehead used by greedy people at that time, does not matter. Knowing either "history" is a dangerous illusion and would derail your current great journey. I do not desire that.
The car the you are driving right now is a perfected symphony. You do not need to know anything more than that. You need to focus on your driving skills and making it to your destination. So what if your fender has a few dings? So what if the muffler is a little noisy? Who cares is the seat has a spring poking out of it. This religion is serving a purpose and you are the result of it. You are, to be honest, magnificent.
I will emphasize this; do not take your eyes off the road.
Personally, I haven’t a clue as to what the fuck he is talking about, and I really do not think that he answered the question. Which was “Who is Jesus”？
I do not know why he got so derailed on it. I do not know why he failed to answer the question. I also do not know why he was so guarded, evasive or circumambulating about it.
So I asked again. “What is the role of Jesus in the Prison Complex?”
Q: What is the role of the life of Jesus in the Earth prison complex?
There are two key points.
[1] Jesus is a figurehead in a religion that has often been used as a trap to help keep the general population inmates stuck in the prison complex. The religion itself has been used as a distracting means, as well as a snare. It has also been used to divert IS-BE's away from their true nature.
[2] It has also been instrumental in the sorting of service to other sentience's that will enable a great many IS-BE's to leave this prison complex.
Taking the dichotomy of this issue, we can see that by following the directives listed in the biography of Jesus found in the "New Testament" will allow the trapped inmate behavioral goals, that will establish a Service-to-Others sentience, and thus be processed out of the complex quickly and efficiently.
However, paying "lip service" to the Christian religion is a distraction and a trap. It will cause the IS-BE to entrench further into the physical reality trap that is the Prison Complex.
Ah. Don’t be a televangelist. Eh?
Then a finality to the subject matter; *end*.
What do you mean “I am not human”?
Earlier in the Q&A there was a statement made that I am not human. This is obviously false. As I look, act and think like a human, and live in a human society. Not to mention that I enjoy pizza, wine and pretty girls. So perhaps, I misinterpreted the comm.
Q: Please expand on the reasoning behind the statement that “I am not human”.
You are not human.
You are neither a pure human archetype, nor an inmate "skin suit". You are a hybrid creation with elements of both, as well as constructions intended for utility by the Domain.
(Image of a PPT presentation showing a "free and normal" human archetype. Followed by it being "changed" into a different kind of human; an inmate "skin suit". Then, changes to it with ELF, EPB and then a number of operations. The resulting figure on the PPT looks like neither the first Human archetype, nor the inmate "skin suit".)
All of the members in your MAJestic sub-project are hybrid creations. Some, like yourself, have further refinements. While others are slightly retarded / backwards / not up to date /contemporaneous with the update software / coding / medical procedures / system enhancements.
Additionally, all volunteers to The Domain (through MM here) that have agreed to work with us have also become hybrid creatures. They are no longer "inmate" human (appearing) skin suits. They have had one significant alteration to their inmate "skin suits". Some have had two or more. The severity of the changes is equated to their current dream states, feelings / emotions / perceptions.
(I think that it means that the odder your experiences are; your feelings are; your dreams are; the more changes to your "skin suit".)
In your case, you were altered for your role in our surrogate agency / utility /division (I think he means MAJestic) and then further altered with the addition of the EBP. So you have at least three layers of alterations. Certainly you might not appreciate the alterations, but we believe that they are necessary for the successful role that you play.
Stop assuming that you are the same as everyone else. YOU ARE NOT. (It felt like he was stressing things to me like my old DI in the Navy.)
Locating a member of the “Lost Battalion”
Email sent to me:
This time I write to you in matters of the lost Domain Members and in kind of a personal as well. It's not me, I guess?
No, could you ask your Domain Contact, if my pastry chef-teacher is/was a lost Member?
I'm asking, because at the end of a really really weird and messy day over a bowl of soup my husband and I were talking about your Q&A and somehow I said that "If there is someone I've met, it would be him" and we instantly got goosebumps, adrenalin shot and I started sobbing.
At this second I can feel the tears rising again. Sorry, this guy meant a hell of a lot to me and I just want to know... if they know?
I responded with this…
I will do so.
One thing though. You need to send out "pings". The EBP allows communication from the Commander to me and back. That's it. Unless there's a location beacon, the Commander cannot do anything. All he will know is that I read and email from a follower that refers to another person also unknown.
To send out a "ping"; For the next couple of nights before you go to sleep, just say the phrase "I am pinging the Domain Commander in assistance of a question to Metallicman".
Say it out loud. And forget about it. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to locate you and the person who you are speaking of.
This was on 29OCT21.
.
On 2NOV21 I received this email…
I was pinging the last nights before sleeping, and I think they came right after the first ping (friday night). Do you know if they got what they need?
They were nice, but I freaked out. I really do apologize for that!
I expected them to come, and I know what you say is the truth, but I still need time to let it all sink in. Sorry this also very wild babbling...
I hope they can help my Chef!!!
.
I did obtain a “message” glitch / signal / initial response concerning the “ping”. In “real time”. And it was all very clear, and it was very startling.
This was (apparently) shortly after the first (Friday night?) ping. Then in rapid succession. Say five minutes later.
Accompanying "goosebumps". Unexpected and unknown. Not lost battalion member.
Lost Domain member, unaccounted for.
Not member of the Lost Battalion. Will investigate.
Strong emotional feelings. Nearly quake / shake. Big emotional attachment in the comm channel. This is apparently a very BIG deal in The Domain above. The impression that I have is that this is a long lost IS-BE and no one knows what happened to it.
He/she/it just disappeared.
And also that it’s an important person at that.
Impression is that it was assumed they entered a different universe. Now they see that somehow it was “sucked” into the Prison Complex somehow. Very much excitement.
Very, very much!
Follow up question sent up-pipe through my EBP comm to the Commander.
Q: Can you please provide me an update on this particular effort?
This is a very important, and surprising turn of events. This entity is a very important IS-BE associated with (The Domain parent organization) / sponsor organization? / upper-tier oversight operations? / a major role participant.
(I get the impression of someone very highly revered and important; like Jesus or Buddha or some other being only far more capable and important than we can understand. Also that there is an organization that is higher, larger, older and more important than the Domain. )
I have alerted my superiors about this matter. We have set a series of events in motion. This discovery is very important and makes the need to resolve this prison planet environment ever so urgent. Obviously the presence of (garbled name. cannot make out) shows how important this area (geographic area of space) is, and greater efforts are needed to extract valuable entities from this region.
(Image of a 3D image of the Milky Way galaxy, and a rippling like the image is on a rubber sheet. then a very heavy metal ball dropped on that sheet, making a deep dark black-hole like indentation.)
(I also have the impression that this entity is part of something that spawned the Domain, and that this person has been missing of a long, long time. The impression that I have is that this person was assumed to be elsewhere, doing other things, and the fact that this person is here now in this prison planet environment is something very important.)
Commander Message to the person who "pinged"; "Thank you. Do not worry. Things are going to be just fine from now on. We have this matter (in / on hand)"
And I will add; thank you for being a Rufus.
Being scammed by others
From a communication…
I have been debating with myself for some time to ask you the following - either dismiss this entirely or continue to read.
I almost feel like this is the old "Ann Landers' advice column in the newspaper.
Recently, I was scammed out of quite a bit of dollars. Two things I would like: 1) get my money back, and 2) get these criminals in a position where life is hell for them.
I have included getting my loot back as one intention, but am hesitant to waste my time and effort to fuck the fuckers who fucked me (I apologize for the language, but that is how I feel).
What would be best (besides getting $'s back) is if these criminals can make amends not only to me, but also to others who they have fucked, and rehabilitate themselves.
There is decency in everyone, or so I believe, perhaps naively. Any advice or suggestions?
A baseball bat could do wonders with life altering perspectives.
Posted late Monday evening at 10:30pm. Answer is as follows.
Encountering others who are evil, bad, or problematic is the norm in this prison environment. It occurs on all levels. From the micro to the macro. Many people just accept the crimes as the normal way of living life. However, periodically one such crime hits us and forces us to attend to it. And obviously we do not like it.
There are numerous things that you can do, and obviously you are considering them. Your questions is which action would benefit your the most as an inmate in this prison environment.
Consider a contemporaneous prison environment. One inmate scams another inmate. The options are [1] ask politely for the items, [2] “shank" them and kill them yourself. [3] Align or employ an inter-prison organization (gang) and ask them to recover your lost possessions, and obtain retribution, all at a cost. Or, [4] Ask the prison authorities for justice.
What we suggest is counter intuitive.
You are to isolate yourself from those bad and problematic individuals. Then (following MM advisement's in MWI control) (sic.) The solution is to control your MWI.
[1] Add affirmations that extract justice for the crime; meaning that you get your lost wealth returned in what ever way is possible, and that those that conducted the ill deeds suffer consequences for it.
[2] Modify the result to include time for "pain and suffering: with may be considered 10% to 25% of root value.
Finally {3] isolation from any consequences of this request, with an understanding that the affirmation will manifest in a time window appropriate with and in alignment with, all your other / previous affirmations. (sic.)
Take no other action.
When it "feels" right, you may delete the affirmations from your periodic campaigns (sic.)
Stop thinking about the event(s). The thoughts will prevent the initiation and manifestation of your affirmation campaign. So forget about it all. Just know that the results WILL manifest.
I can affirm that this is the best advice. -MM
Food
Finally, on food.
One thing I enjoy is a real good loaf of bread and good expensive cheese.
Me too. -MM
If the wife permits, perhaps some good wine.
Me too. But my wife always approves of wine. Her only problem is the price. Wine prices are all trending upwards. -MM
That is enjoyable.
The western diet is full of toxins; anything that is pre-made, or comes in a ready to eat bag is not good for you (but perhaps very tasty).
Wise potato chips. Sigh. French fries with lots of salt. Lays "American style" chips with onion dip. -MM
40% of Americans will come down with some sort of cancer in their lifetime – good god, something is wrong with the environment and food source.
Absolutely. -MM
Good food,/diet has to be prepared from raw ingredients. Anything else will not be healthy.
There have been many case studies demonstrating that native foods are good and healthy, people do not get sick or need a doctor.
Once western food/diets have been introduced, health declines rapidly and doctor visits and sicknesses increase dramatically.
Healthy food comes from healthy natural soil, and not that found in chemical agriculture.
Creamy potato soup for super today, with only cream and cheese coming from the store.
…
Posted Monday in the evening. I had to phrase it as a question…
Q: With all the criminal elements jam-packed on the earth planetary environment today, what is the best and most worthwhile food suggestions you (The Domain) might have for a healthy long life?
We participated in the development of the human archetype. We designed humans to have a diet consisting of all the plants and animals that are provided on the worlds that they inhabit. The inmate "skin suits" have not deviated from this nutritional need.
Fruits and Vegitables
Fundamentally, eat a substantial quantity of your diet in fresh produce. This includes both fruits and vegetables. If you are not eating salads (whether precooked for five minutes or not) you are doing something wrong. There should be at least two salad majority meals in your diet every week.
(Chicken salad, cob salad, Caesar salad with beef or another meat, tuna salad, etc. Keep the amount of sugary dressings to a minimum. Olive oil and vinegar are the healthiest. -MM)
Removal of Toxins
For all inmates in general population, note that it is important to lightly steam or cook the vegetables first before you make a salad.
[1] Soak the vegetables in a bath of (a small / tiny amount of bleach) for 20 minutes. Then rinse off. (One cap lid of bleach for a sink basin of water.)
[2] Cook or heat the vegetables before you add them to the salad. For tomatoes, let them sit in hot water for one to five. And so on and so forth. Lettuce can be lightly steamed for a few seconds before eating. This requirement is not a designed-in requirement for the human body archetype. It is a need that human inmate "skin suits" must do in the earth environment, because it is now a toxic environment. By lightly heating, steaming or cooking the vegetables you will help remove growth hormones, pesticides and GMO additions not yet integrated into the food element.
Sea Food
Eat fish. Cooked any way. Steamed is the healthiest, but the difference between pan fried and grilled is minuscule.
Staples
Maintain a staple of rice, potatoes or breads to supplement that diet. It does not matter which is involved or whether you need to prepare it a certain way. You need to make sure every meal consists of one such staple. This is important to aid in the digestion of the foods you eat.
(Some societies such as American and European rely on breads as the staple. Others rely on potatoes. And many Asian cultures rely on rice. -MM)
Do not follow fads
There are many foods that can be a part of your diet that are generally not considered healthy by current popular culture. Cheese can be a significant part of your diet. As well as tofu. (no problems / complications / or other fears) In both instances, stick with the healthiest versions of those items. For cheese, stick with the light colored cheeses.
Protein priorities
For sources of protein, look towards nuts, eggs, meat, fowl, or fish. None of which is processed. If you cannot do that then, pre-frozen items can be used. Fresh food, obtained locally is the best. Canned, processed, or with additives for long-term storage are the worst.
General guidelines
Avoid ALL processed food.
No sugar laden breakfast cereals. You can make your own oatmeal.
Avoid all canned, or prepackaged or precooked food.
Home made food
Most meals should be made by your family, at home, using fresh ingredients that you select yourself. When cooking, make sure they are all cleaned, and then take your time will generally low temperature cooking over long periods of time. Quick meals are to be avoided as should be the use of microwaves and "instant foods".
Restaurants
Restaurant food should be for special occasions. Fast food should be avoided. If you cannot sit down and enjoy a meal, then something is seriously wrong with your lifestyle. When you do go to a restaurant, you should select the restaurant carefully and balance, [1] price, [2] environment, [3] food selection, and [4] companionship. Do NOT ever use only one criteria in restaurant selection.
Prohibitions
Avoid all GMO food.
Avoid all food with injected hormones
Avoid large quantities of sugar.
Avoid large quantities of salt.
Avoid reusing oil. (No fried foods from restaurants.)
No/few/occasional potato chips.
No/few/occasional deep fried anything.
No/few/occasional sodas.
No/few/occasional candy.
No/few/occasional cakes.
Alcohol
An occasional coffee or tea is acceptable, but the questioner should limit the intake of beverages to one a day. This can be a singular coffee, a singular tea or one carefully selected soft drink. No more.
You may drink wine in moderation. Red wine is the preferred drink. A man alone should have no more than one bottle of wine a sitting. A woman, half that amount. A couple should be able to drink two bottles of wine without problems. In all cases, it should be kept under three bottles a sitting. Otherwise it will cause problems.
Beer and hard liquor are to be avoided. Please kindly refrain from smoking.
Medicines
Ask your doctor to consolidate your medicines. You want to take the least number of types of medicines as possible. Eventually reaching a point where no medicines are necessary.
Hydration
Drink a lot of water. You can add lemon slices, or other berries to the drink as you see fit. Warm to room temperature water is best.
Meal Size
Avoid all those mega-portion sizes offered by American chain stores or restaurants.
Speed of Consumption
Never rush when you eat. A meal should take from one to two hours to eat. Any meal that you consume under 15 minutes is not healthy. No matter what you eat, the time to consume the meal has a great deal of influence on how the food is digested. A work lunch under one hour is unacceptable. Humans, whether inmate skin suits, or pristine archetypes need to eat slowly and easily.
Cooking Methodology
Humans were designed to eat certain kinds of food, prepared in certain kind of ways. Steamed is the best. Fried in oil is the least desirable.
When we constructed the human archetype it was designed to use the food items and elements that the human body would cohabit with. In the toxic stew of what the earth is today, very careful attention must be given to what is consumed; how it is prepared, and how it is eaten. These are not minor subjects. These are very important elements that must be incorporated in one's lifestyle.
Um. I’m in trouble. Sigh.
But I do agree. This is a point that has been pestering me all these decades. 。。
[1] Stop drinking soft drinks and beer. Drink wine instead.
[2] Stop eating potato chips. Eat potatoes and onions fried with some salt instead.
[5] Nothing fake. Eat real fresh bread. Nothing supermarket packaged.
[6] No candy.
[7] Cakes should be a rare item.
[8] Eat fruit. At least have some bananas in the house.
Oh, and please, never eat alone. Eat with friend and family. And make it special. Noting makes me feel like a king than when I am eating a fine meal with a lady that is all beautiful and who has the proper amount of foundation on, wearing a most comfortable dress, and is just engaged in chatting with me. Ugh!!!
Manifesting signal
Ok, this was sent to me. I tried to figure it out, but I am not very clear on it.
Ultimately, the end-goal is to circumvent the malevolent (alterations to) / (control of) our internal systems, thereby allowing access beyond the Prison Aspect of our being. Correct? Like DM’s lucidity, right? What is the manifesting “signal” that makes me physically what I am? I would like to change THAT. Surely that is prohibited by the Prison Construct, right?
Q: What is the manifesting frequency / signal that makes “me” who I am?
(garbled / a lot of information. Confused. A bunch of slides of things thrown at me in rapid succession.)
(Too much information and confusing. I simplified as...) The human inmate "skin suit" can be considered to be a very complex frequency.
Yes, once you are able to control this frequency then you can change various aspects of it for egress out of the prison complex.
This is one of the techniques that we use when (MM volunteers) others join our effort. We alter their inmate "skin suits" at different ways and means.
(Images of things, and actions. I do not understand.)
However, we are all influenced by our environment. Thus we are all influenced by the thoughts around us. ("M-band noise" from the Monroe report.) this alters the frequency interactions / (garbled) of our very being. It's like trying to dig a hole in sand, the deeper you go, the more sand falls in.
This "manifesting signal" is how we are able to track inmates in the prison complex, find others outside of the reality universe, and perform alterations in the reality, (not clear) or in the surrounding universe. But it is not a simple thing. It is very complex.
By changing the signal, you change your soul / IS-BE structure / consciousness / manifestation interaction with the universe that is being co-inhabited with. Thus it is a very dangerous thing to do. You have to know what you are doing and why.
It’s like making a cake. You can change from two eggs to three, or one spoon of sugar to three spoons. But when you change the flour to rice powder, the end result might be something quite different. – MM
Reiki
I tell everyone, this is all very tiring and difficult for me to do. I really hate these long winded multiple part questions. What’s the matter? Doesn’t anyone read my guidelines? Some one setups a fake email and asks me unrelated questions with no personal impact on their own day to day lives? I am not a television trivia show.
No more multiple part questions. The next person who asks a multi-part question will be banned.
I was thinking about Reiki, some “dark” questions appeared:
Question 1; Is this interaction with “energy” related to the consciousness? With the “soul” or the “spirit”?
Question 2: Is Reiki just another control method set in place by the “Old Empire”?
Question 3: Is this useful only in the prison complex?
Question 4: Is this “energy” or Qi (Chi) able to interact with garbons or other low-level components of the non-physical?
Question 5: Is there a real correlation between physical feelings and spiritual feelings?
Question 6: A soul or consciousness is able to “get sick” beyond the physical environment?
Question 7: The most important one: Why we humans know so little about the relationships between soul, consciousness and body?
We are just in the same spot we have been for thousands of years because of amnesia and control.
I want to know how to put a consciousness in a container, at least theoretically. This is real technology and knowledge.
I am sorry for all of this. This Reiki information is not useful, it may be classified as quackery.
Phew! If I answered all these questions, I would be busy for months. I am only going to answer one question. I am going to ask the last one; the “important” one.
Q; Why we humans know so little about the relationships between soul, consciousness and body?
*null*
It’s a refusal to answer.
I do not know why.
I suspect that it has to do with the questioner as the questions are “busy work” and will serve no one. However, I do not know if that is actually the case. It is possible that these questions are from someone who wants to fuck around with me. It might be the same person that did so previously.
In any event. The Commandeer refuses to answer. That is an absolute.
To the questioner; you know the answer. So why ask me?
Petrified about World War III
The interchange in this next dialog is a little bit strange, so I made it conversational so it would be much easier to read. The content, and the impressions are the same, it's just that multiple card desk items have been rearranged sequentially for ease of understanding.
Referring to stacking, cards, and things like that are interpretations of multiple comm channels opening up and information overload being parsed through filters. I also use borrowed terms ;like Robert Monroe's "M band" with is a flood of background chatter that acts as a noise that needs to be filtered or organized.-MM
The warnings from my brother, and other intelligence sources indicate that things are moving forward towards a war and I am seemingly right on ground zero. Further events are taking place that add credence to his statements. Such as an Iranian tanker full of oil was turned back from entering Shanghai by a naval vessel. There’s provocation upon provocation and I don’t trust anything I read any longer.
I am starting to question my own chatter, and sensing equipment. (Skill sets, add on software and EBP stuff that I know how to use. I just simplify this equipment kit to “sensors” in this recorded dialog transcript. Though in the conversation we discussed specific parts and elements of this kit. -MM)
I would like some clear information on what is going on, of course – in reference to myself, but any other information that could be provided to MM readership would be appreciated.
Q: What are my chances of survival if the United States decides to start a war with China? And how does this influence other MM readers?
You have the tools to know what is going on and why. You are being insecure because your feedback from those you love and trust are giving you bad intel. You must remember your skills and put them to use. There is no one on the planet at this time that has better skills in this area than you do, and that includes all of your colleagues in the subprogram (MAJestic).
The quantum changes (M band noise) has reached a directed frenzy. This goal is for a major war and conflict of long duration under specified operational parameters that will not occur. The best way to stop this train of events is to create a series of deep-dive slides, and that has become impossible to do at the present time.
The systems / mechanisms / techniques / personnel are all off-line. Organized dives (sic.) are not possible at this time.
The MWI (sic.) will evolve according to the pre-programmed event sequence. You cannot stop it. There are far too many variables and far too may interested parties / evil intent / pre-programmed mantid prime world-lines (sec.) that are moving with these issues.
You ARE in the safest location possible given the great diversity of possible outcomes at this time. Do not doubt that.
Further, note that The Domain will only risk consciousness swapping / jump in body / take over a body / operational cloning if the result has a strong probable result. At this time it resembles your experiences in Corpus Christi December 1983 (major world-line template cluster realignment. We avoided world war III with the Russians at that time.). Things are much more serious however, and there are too many thought clusters with too many varying outcomes to predict the most probable results.
We do not want a radioactive result. We are working to prevent this scenario from occurring. However, the most probable event sequence will be one that includes nuclear detonations.
However, there is a very high probability that most of China and the South Pacific will be spared from most of the damage.
Of course all of this is fluid, and there are many forces / interests / non-physical / physical / mantid / evil that has set systems in motion for conflagration.
All of our predictive anticipation programs show damage and dangers to the United States, and their allies. They are generating too many m-band / thought profiles / group consciousness vectors / world-line slides in favor of a major war.
With the preventative measures that we have set up, all these thought vectors will redirect to the source; the United States and the people of the United States.
For example; The United States attacked China with a bio-weapon. The effect is that China survived, but the United States is now under bio-weapon rampage.
This "boomerang effect" is the result of (garbled / not clear /difficult to explain) and this give and take / attribute /resulting /configuration is to be expected in this current war situation.
The mRNA inoculations are not a vaccine. It's a preventative measure for the next major attack. You know this. However, rest assured that it will not work as intended, and the predictive vector trends show clearly a very disastrous outcome.
Use your skills and answer the following yourself...
Q: What is the best scenario given your viewing of the MWI / world-line undulations?
Well. as best I can figure it would be no war, no nuclear or further biological exchanges, and a return to normalcy with the United States government replaced with something different that would deal with the needs of the American people and not get involved in War.
Q: What is your likelihood of that occurring. Quick answer. NOW!
Zero.
Q: What is the worst scenario given what you see in the MWI and undulations on world-lines (sic.)? Use your skills. Fast answer. NOW!
MAD mutually assured nuclear destruction where America launches a full scale nuclear first strike, and China and Russia retaliate from their ruined nations. Additionally, North Korea destroys South Korea and attacks Japan. Pakistan attacks India, Russia destroys the European Union and the entire Middle East goes to war.
Q: What is the highest probability scenario based upon your sensory perceptions; ignoring the (M-band noise) / chatter that is clogging up your sensor feeds?
Monitor your senses, on the count 3. 2. 1. Now!
(Noise chatter. So much M-band noise. Confusion. Misdirection. lines strained.) Searching. Searching.
Not bumpkus.
Some clarity.
China does not do anything overt. The United States grows impatient, and thus creates a “false flag” to set things in motion. (Nothing actually happens, so the USA creates a false event as an excuse to implement one of their multiple plans.) The Russian and the Chinese are waiting for this moment to arrive. Waiting on viable intel.
Then they will launch a first strike nuclear salvo (just right) before the United States can do anything that it plans.
They will do this at any point that the probability of success is over 85%. (The higher the probability of success, the sooner the Chinese event sequence will manifest. The trigger threshold will be 85%.)
Q: Using what you know, from all of your sensors, what is going on. Write it down, and do not edit for clarity. Do not scrub away what does not make sense. Put the raw feed down, and do not clean it up. Do it now.
Here goes.
America is planning multiple strike attacks and will implement the first viable one as the situation matures. The first strike nuclear hit destroying multiple main Chinese cities at once, and then fabricating a reason is amazing high on the probability scale. It is disturbing that it is being considered at this time, but the drivers are emotionally driven M-band folk with no scruples.
Meanwhile the Russian and the Chinese have already put into place a first strike plan and are getting systems in place to prevent the United States from launching nuclear strike counter attacks. This is the “counter plan”. This situation is at 72% readiness. So the Chinese and the Russians are feverishly trying to work to get things in place before the USA is ready to start a major conflict.
The United States is trying to prod and goad the Chinese into action, and will keep on pushing until something happens, then once the event occurs, a series of well planned attacks will take place. Everything is in place this week. This is the primary (American) approved plan. It will go nuclear the moment the Chinese react to provocations. They will fabricate an excuse if this timeline is delayed too long.
(Phew! I’m amazed that I was able to type so fast and quickly.)
That is what I sense. How accurate is it? Please scan and confirm my interpretations.
Interpretations are correct. You did not include the actions in Europe. Nor did you include the Israel connections and the things going on regarding with Iran, Pakistan, and Australia.
But if you are weighing in data feeds based on M-noise chatter, then it is obvious that your intel is as good as we can get.
As you can sense the entire issue with Australia is floundering and there is a dynamic that can swing to any extreme. Right now it looks like it will "die on the vine", but there are issues and events that could keep it aggressive alive and there is great concern that if the direction heads that way, that the worst case scenario can be realized.
For Australia, it is the key unknown at this time. If the entire Morrison leadership effort collapses and there is a reverse in policy , the best scenario may be realized. So Australia is the dominant player in the unfolding of the current events train.
Pakistan is moderating the India *wild card* and for now it appears that this situation is under control and free from problems.
Europe is a wildcard, and the situation is changing daily. The United States is aggressively using every "trick in the book" to make the EU join in a war, but they are very reluctant to do so. Firstly because they don't want to upset China who remains their largest trading partner, but also they fear Russian retaliation because they know that Russia and China now operate as one. This was shown in Chinese support of all the political and diplomatic spats that Russia has had with Europe.
Q: Will you be able to take over a body and stop a “button being pushed”?
We can, but we will not. Not in this instance, and not at this time.
Q: Elaborate why.
All obstacles to the (counter) plan must be disabled.
Q: Even if it means that the earth will become a radioactive mess?
Yes. It is preferable that we prevent the ruin and destruction of the earth at this time, but there are too many variables involved, and far too many situations that all taken together render our ability to prevent a worst case scenario from occurring.
Heaven (sic.) are expanding their entry systems to handle a large influx of IS-BE's into the environment and anticipate a heavy work load, but you knew that already didn't you?
I then went to sleep around 11:00pm.
At 2:45am I woke up after tossing and turning and all kinds of undecipherable things from the commander. Not dreams. Just messages going on and on and waking me up from a non-dream sleep.
Finally I was able to get this little bit that started to unravel a long garbled message train. (Don’t ask me to explain.)
...In absolute terms you were poisoned. Just like the scene from Breaking Bad. Ricin was used to interrupt things so that activities and event trains were prevented.
You were provided with a physical body cold that serves to interrupt your ability to reset and initiate slides for anchoring events (sic.)
Or to say it bluntly, you were deactivated temporarily so that a selection of critical events would not be interrupted.
It is true that I just got a seemingly bad cold suddenly yesterday. (Physical illness.) And when I have physical illnesses, many of my abilities are either no longer functional, or are interrupted to the point of dysfunction.
Something is going on now, and it must not be interrupted by me, nor am I permitted to influence it in any way.
Q: Who or what is neutering my abilities at this time, and why?
(Why) the mantids (sic.), of course.
Oh, my goodness, what a “can of worms” is now opened. Uh oh.
Q: Please elaborate
The "greater good" must be permitted to occur at this time so that a much worse sequence of events (in the future) can be prevented.
So, I recon, that if we allow a little bad now, it will act as a safety value to prevent a greater bad event in the future?
Q: Continue and elaborate please.
Yes. That is correct.
Your abilities and those of a few others are now disabled so that nothing will interrupt a critical sequence of events from occurring. This sequence of events will (mostly) be transparent. (I won't be reading about them in any "news feeds", but will involve some very bad things, black operations and deaths.)
For now, you and your MM colleagues will be safe.
This sequence of events will set in place a "rocky" event train (sic.), and that some pre-planned events might require further disabling of your latent abilities. You need to avoid M-block thoughts, and influences to you. Be calm and don't get so "caught up" in the craziness that will start to manifest in the next few weeks.
The next few weeks?
Maybe things have been prevented, or set off to the side somehow, and a calmer, saner result might manifest. Perhaps?
Yes. More like sliding onto a different railroad track.
OK. I am going back to bed. I will continue all this in the morning.
…
Morning arrived. Still sick. Wife and kid woke me up early. Need to give our old dog his medicine first thing at the crack of dawn. Sigh.
All channels are quiet.
Do you want more?
You can find many more videos in my “Extraterrestrial Species index” over here…
This article is about the creation of a mechanical / electrical device that will help you conduct affirmation prayer campaigns. What it will do is [1] scrub your mind form the electromagnetic waves trying to manipulate you and [2] replace it with affirmations, direction and MWI navigation channels of your own design. Huh? What am I talking about?
“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”
— They Live
We are living in an age of mayhem, madness and monsters. Monsters with human faces walk among us. Many of them work for the U.S. government. What we are dealing with today is an authoritarian beast that has outgrown its chains and will not be restrained.
You will conform.
Through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny, the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, disease, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
We have let the government’s evil-doing and abuses go on for too long. We have bought into the illusion and refused to grasp the truth. We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality. We’re living in two worlds: the world we see (or are made to see) and the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.
Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America—privileged, progressive and free—is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing; pandemic lockdowns (both mental and physical), real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation; and “freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.
The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers, disease, etc.). They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being. They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats. Most of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.
Obey. Resistance is futile.
Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.
In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
They live.
In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
As CBS News reports, “Once in office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to profit even further.”
In denouncing this blatant corruption of America’s political system, former president Jimmy Carter blasted the process of getting elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress or state legislatures—as “unlimited political bribery… a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over.”
Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia.
Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply.
Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes. Sound familiar?
Our Rulers
Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests. We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism. Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be.
It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.
For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary. But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?
Fear
The answer is the same in every age: fear. Fear makes people stupid. Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on. The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.
Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power. As the Bearded Man warns in John Carpenter’s film They Live:
“They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
We are living the movie
In this regard, we’re not so different from the oppressed citizens in They Live, which was released more than 30 years ago, and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age or Carpenter’s other dystopian films.
Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.
Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.
In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.
In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.
In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
And then there is Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.
It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.
The true power
When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.
A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”
When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
They Live.
This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.
A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”
From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good.
The truth is far different. Despite the truth staring us in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies.
We are manipulated zombies
We live in a perpetual state of denial, insulated from the painful reality of the American police state by wall-to-wall entertainment news and screen devices.
They Live.
Most everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic screen, even when they’re crossing the street.
Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them.
Young people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn the thing off and walk away.
Indeed, there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who watch screens—that is, television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on.
Psychologically it is similar to drug addiction. Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.”
Research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state. Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify disruptive people. “
Given that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels controlled by six mega corporations, what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers, it can do so on a large scale.
If we’re watching, we’re not doing. The powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:
We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.
They live.
When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”
We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Injustice is growing. Inequality is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.
They live.
Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.
So where does that leave us?
The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight. Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They Live, he delivers a wake-up call for freedom. As Nada memorably declares,
“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.”
In other words: we need to get active. Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.
The real battle between freedom and tyranny is taking place right in front of our eyes, if we would only open them. All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight. Wake up, America. If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep.
The solution
Yah. You can’t change the world. But you change your little part of it.
This article describes the theory and the schematics for a device that will be useful in assisting people to control their mind.
It is based on mind control patents released to the public in the 1970’s. It is not for casual use, and nor should it ever be used to control others without their knowledge.
It will scrub your mind of the programming of others, and it will enable you to self program your mind, for your own purposes. This particular device is based on “Silent Sound” technology. You might be aware of this by the very well passed around graphic meme…
Silent Sound.
It’s an interesting technology.
Silent Sound
TheSound of Silence is a military-intelligence code word for certain psychotronicweapons of mass mind-control tested in the mid-1950s, perfected during the 70s, and used extensively by the “modern” US military in theearly 90s, despite the oppositionandwarnings issued by men such as DwightDavid Eisenhower.
-Digital TV, H.A.A.R.P., GWEN Towers, SilentSound & Mind
And of course, being so influential, the government would use it to control people…
…and they do.
And they have. And it is everywhere, and being implemented by every other person, company, media or government. Americans, and those in many nations of the West are terribly irradiated and manipulated.
This is one of those subjects that once you get involved in it, it sucks you in and takes you down, down, down into a morass of misdirection, emotionally charged literature, and technical papers. Ugh! Such as this…
Yeah. More and more and more. It’s no wonder that everyone in the ‘States feel stressed. They are constantly being manipulated and beamed at with all sorts of manipulative wave forms…
U.S. Patent, #5,123,899. June 23, 1992
DESCRIPTION: A system for stimulating the brain to exhibit specific brain wave rhythms and thereby altering the subjects’ state of consciousness.
U.S. Patent, #5,289,438. February 22, 1994DESCRIPTION: A system for the simultaneous application of multiple stimuli (usually aural) with different frequencies and waveforms. Electro Magnetic Field (EMF) monitoring / interference is one of the most insidious and secretive of all methods used by the agencies. Similarly, EEG cloning feeds back the results of EMF monitoring in an attempt to induce emotional responses (e.g. fear, anger, even sleep, etc.)
US Patent # 4,777,529 (October 11, 1988)
Auditory Subliminal Programming System, Schultz, Richard M., et al.
Abstract --- An auditory subliminal programming system includes a subliminal message encoder that generates fixed frequency security tones and combines them with a subliminal message signal to produce an encoded subliminal message signal which is recorded on audio tape or the like. A corresponding subliminal decoder/mixer is connected as part of a user's conventional stereo system and receives as inputs an audio program selected by the user and the encoded subliminal message. The decoder/mixer filters the security tones, if present, from the subliminal message and combines the message signals with selected low frequency signals associated with enhanced relaxation and concentration to produce a composite auditory subliminal signal. The decoder/mixer combines the composite subliminal signal with the selected audio program signals to form composite signals only if it detects the presence of the security tones in the subliminal message signal. The decoder/mixer outputs the composite signal to the audio inputs of a conventional audio amplifier where it is amplified and broadcast by conventional audio speakers.
US Patent # 4,858,612 (August 22, 1989)
Hearing Device,Stocklin, Philip L.
Abstract --- A method and apparatus for stimulation of hearing in mammals by introduction of a plurality of microwaves into the region of the auditory cortex is shown and described. A microphone is used to transform sound signals into electrical signals which are in turn analyzed and processed to provide controls for generating a plurality of microwave signals at different frequencies. The multi-frequency microwaves are then applied to the brain in the region of the auditory cortex. By this method sounds are perceived by the mammals which are representative of the original sound received by the microphone.
US Patent # 4,877,027 (October 31, 1989)
Hearing System, Brunkan, Wayne B.
Abstract --- Sound is induced in the head of a person by radiating the head with microwaves in the range of 100 megahertz to 10,000 megahertz that are modulated with a particular waveform. The waveform consists of frequency modulated bursts. Each burst is made up of 10 to 20 uniformly spaced pulses grouped tightly together. The burst width is between 500 nanoseconds and 100 microseconds. The pulse width is in the range of 10 nanoseconds to 1 microsecond. The bursts are frequency modulated by the audio input to create the sensation of hearing in the person whose head is irradiated.
US Patent # 3,393,279 (July 16, 1968)
Nervous System Excitation Device, Flanagan, Giles P.
Abstract --- A method of transmitting audio information via a radio frequency signal modulated with the audio info through electrodes placed on the subject's skin, causing the sensation of hearing the audio information in the brain.
US Patent # 3,629,521 (January 8, 1970)
Hearing Systems, Puharich, Henry K.
Abstract --- The present invention relates to the stimulation of the sensation of hearing in persons of impaired hearing abilities or in certain cases persons totally deaf utilizing RF energy. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for imparting synchronous AF or "acoustic" signals and so-called "transdermal" or RF signals. Hearing and improved speech discrimination, in accordance with one aspect of the present invention, is stimulated by the application of an AF acoustical signal to the "ear system" conventional bio-mechanism of hearing, which is delivered to the brain through the "normal" channels of hearing and a separate transdermal RF electrical signal which is applied to the "facial nerve system" and is detectable as a sensation of hearing. Vastly improved and enhanced hearing may be achieved.
PSYCHO Acoustic Projector U.S. Patent, #3,566,347, February 23, 1971DESCRIPTION: A high directional beam radiated from a number of transducers and modulated by a speech, code, or noise beat signal. It may take the form of a radiator mounted on a vehicle, aircraft or satellite. PURPOSE: To produce aural/psychological disturbances and partial deafness.
US Patent # 3,576,185 (April 27, 1971)
Sleep-Inducing Method & Arrangement using Modulated Sound & Light, Meseck, Oscar & Schulz, Hans R.
Abstract --- N/A
US Patent # 3,568,347 (February 23, 1971)
Psycho-Acoustic Projector, Flanders, Andrew
Abstract --- A system for producing aural psychological disturbances and partial deafness in the enemy during combat situations.
US Patent # 3,647,970 (March 7, 1972) Method and System for Simplifying Speech Waveforms, Flanagan, G. Patrick
Abstract --- A complex speech waveform is simplified so that it can be transmitted directly through earth or water as a waveform and understood directly or after amplification.
US Patent # 3,773,049 (November 20, 1973)
Apparatus for Treatment of Neuropsychic & Somatic Diseases with Heat, Light, Sound & VHF Electromagnetic Radiation, L. Y. Rabichev, et al.
Abstract --- N/A
US Patent # 3,766,331 (October 16, 1973)
Hearing Aid for Producing Sensations in the Brain, Zink, Henry R.
Abstract --- A pulsed oscillator or transmitter supplies energy to a pair of insulated electrodes mounted on a person's neck. The transmitter produces pulses of intensity greater than a predetermined threshold value and of a width and rate so as to produce the sensation of hearing without the use of the auditory canal, thereby producing a hearing system enabling otherwise deaf people to hear.
US Patent # 3,727,616 (March 17, 1973)
Electronic System for Stimulation of Biological Systems, Lenskes, H.
Abstract --- A receiver totally implanted within a living body is inductively coupled by two associated receiving coils to a physically unattached external transmitter which transmits two signals of different frequencies to the receiver via two associated transmitting coils. One of the signals from the transmitter provides the implanted receiver with precise control or stimulating signals which are demodulated and processed in a signal processor network in the receiver and then used by the body for stimulation of a nerve, for example, while the other signal provides the receiver with a continuous wave power signal which is rectified in the receiver to provide a source of electrical operating power for the receiver circuitry without need for an implanted battery.
US Patent # 3,712,292 (January 23, 1973)
Method & Apparatus for Producing Swept FM Audio Signal Patterns for Inducing Sleep, Zentmeyer, J.
Abstract --- A method of producing sound signals for inducing sleep in a human being, and apparatus therefor together with representations thereof in recorded form, wherein an audio signal is generated representing a familiar, pleasing, repetitive sound, modulated by continuously sweeping frequencies in two selected frequency ranges having the dominant frequencies which occur in electrical wave patterns of the human brain during certain states of sleep. The volume of the audio signal is adjusted to mask the ambient noise and the subject can select any of several familiar, repetitive sounds most pleasing to him.
US Patent # 3,837,331 (September 24, 1974)System & Method for Controlling the Nervous System of a Living Organism, Ross, S.
Abstract --- A novel method for controlling the nervous system of a living organism for therapeutic and research purposes, among other applications, and an electronic system utilized in, and enabling the practice of the invented method. Bioelectrical signals generated in specific topological areas of the organism's nervous system, typically areas of the brain, are processed by the invented system so as to produce an output signal which is in some way an analog of selected characteristics detected in the bioelectrical signal. The output of the system, typically an audio or visual signal, is fed back to the organism as a stimulus. Responding to the stimulus, the organism can be trained to control the waveform pattern of the bioelectrical signal generated in its own nervous system.
US Patent # 3,835,833 (September 17, 1974)
Method for ObtainingNeurophysiological Effects, Limoge, A.
Abstract --- A method and apparatus for obtaining neurophysiological effects on the central and/or peripheral systems of a patient. Electrodes are suitably positioned on the body of the patient and a composite electric signal is applied at the electrodes. The composite signal is formed by the super positioning of two signals: a first signal which is a rectified high-frequency carrier modulated in amplitude to about 100 percent by substantially square-shaped pulses whose duration, amplitude and frequency are chosen according to the neurophysiological effects desired, and a second signal which has a relatively white noise spectrum. The mean value of the first electric signal has a predetermined sign which is opposite the sign of the mean value of the second electric signal.
US Patent # 3,884,218 (May 20, 1975)Method of Inducing& Maintaining Various Stages of Sleep in the Human Being, Monroe, Robert A.
Abstract --- A method of inducing sleepin a human being wherein an audio signal is generated comprising a familiar pleasing repetitive sound modulated by an EEG sleep pattern. The volume of the audio signal is adjusted to overcome the ambient noise and a subject can select a familiar repetitive sound most pleasing to himself.
Malech's Remote Brainwave-Altering Machine
US Patent Number 3,951,134 (April, 1976) - Represents an invention by Robert G. Malech Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves
Abstract -- Apparatus for and method of sensing brain waves at a position remote from a subject whereby electromagnetic signals of different frequencies are simultaneously transmitted to the brain of the subject in which the signals interfere with one another to yield a waveform which is modulated by the subject's brain waves. The interference waveform which is representative of the brain wave activity is re-transmitted by the brain to a receiver where it is demodulated and amplified. The demodulated waveform is then displayed for visual viewing and routed to a computer for further processing and analysis. The demodulated waveform also can be used to produce a compensating signal which is transmitted back to the brain to effect a desired change in electrical activity therein.
The Demo device
The electronics and the functional board layout isn’t all that difficult. ANy one with the most basic soldering skills can make their own device. As this image clearly shows…
But do not freak out.
Technology is a tool. It can be used for good purposes or bad. In this case we will use this technology for our own purposes which would be to improve and enhance our ability to navigate the MWI.
Other systems
And this…
What we are going to do…
Now, where this technology was promoted, and used to control others. We are going to take this technology to construct a machine that we can use on ourselves to help us reprogram our own minds away from other influences. And so let’s look at the basic outline of our intentions. What we will do is…
Create a steady tone
We will create a steady tone on the high end of the hearing range. The normal human hearing range of a healthy individual is usually in-between 20Hz and 20KHz with the higher frequencies gradually fading during a lifetime. Below 20Hz are called infrasounds and above 20000Hz are called ultrasounds. This is easily done. You take a cheap 555 IC chip, add some resistors and capacitors and attach it to a battery and you have a tone.
Create a custom affirmation campaign
We will create a custom affirmation campaign or document just for this device, and record the audio track in MP3 format. In so doing we will read it from the FIRST PERSON perspective.
I am calm, cool and collected.
I have a great life and I am very satisfied with it.
I am healthy and eat good, healthy and delicious food often.
Etc. Etc. We will then record this as an MP3 file format.
Construct a voice modulator circuit
We will construct a voice modulator circuit. With it, the two signals would be merged together as one singular signal. Thus the reading of the affirmations would be overlaid over the carrier tone. It’s a common and normal well-used circuit. Here’s one with transistors… Here’s one with ICs…
The overlaid signal
From that voice modulator circuit will be an overlay of the steady carrier tone and the affirmation campaign. This is the signal that will be the primary driver for the system.
Compress the signal
[5] We will then compress that signal. Then we will pulse it at a target frequency. There are multiple brainwave frequencies or patterns of brain activity. Most of the recorded information the the brain is received through the senses and is encoded in electrical impulses. All parts of the brain communicate with each other, and this is done through a vast array of nerve cells – the neurons – which work like small “electrical” stations. Their membrane presents an electrochemical charge on the external surface, releasing it again and again in the form of what is called cyclical electrical potential. This is what is commonly known as brain waves. These waves then travel along neural protrusions called axons and dendrites to other neurons. The nerve cells act in unison to generate thoughts, movements, and information that spread through very fine networks, between the various parts of the brain and the organs of action.
Target Frequencies
With the following be the different target frequencies that we can utilize; Alpha Waves: 8 Hz – 12 Hz In the alpha wave state, you’ll most likely feel awake but also simultaneously quite relaxed and without a loss of brain function like you would if you were very tired. When you get up in the morning and just before you fall asleep, you are naturally in this state. It’s interesting to note that when you close your eyes your brain naturally starts producing more alpha waves, however there are varying degrees of the alpha wave state and when you really drop in deep it’s far more powerful and profound than what you might feel or experience just from closing your eyes. Deep alpha wave states are frequently seen in and experienced by meditators. Alpha activity also heightens your imagination, visualization, memory, learning and concentration and is correlated with a decrease in stress and anxiety. Beta Waves: 12 Hz – 27 Hz In the beta state you are essentially wide awake. Beta brainwaves are associated with normal waking consciousness and a heightened state of alertness, logic and critical reasoning. This is the dominant mental state most people are in during the day and the majority of their waking lives. Although this state tends to be uneventful, don’t underestimate its importance. Many people who lack sufficient beta activity may experience mental or emotional disorders such as depression or ADHD, and low SMR production (a sub-range of beta at 12-15 Hz) may be related to insomnia. While Beta brainwaves are important for effective functioning throughout the day, they also can translate into stress, anxiety and restlessness. The voice of beta can be described as being that nagging little inner critic that gets louder the higher you go into the range. On the other hand, stimulating beta waves in under active individuals can improve energy levels, concentration, attentiveness and emotional stability, however, most people notice more benefit from shifting their brainwaves into other less frequently experienced states such as alpha, delta, theta and gamma. Delta Waves: 0.2 Hz – 3 Hz Delta is the slowest band of brainwaves and is experienced in deep, Stage 4, dreamless sleep. When your brain is in a full delta wave state, your body is healing and repairing itself and resetting its internal clocks. You don’t actually dream in this state and are more or less completely unconscious. Delta has also been seen in very deep states of meditation as well. Gamma Waves: 27 Hz and up The Gamma wave state is associated with expanded awareness, creativity, activation of the pineal gland, heightened intuition, enhanced mental clarity and focus, deep feelings of peace, joy and oneness, formation of ideas, language and memory processing, and various types of learning. As such, this is generally a highly desirable state to be in. Unsurprisingly, Gamma waves have been identified as a characteristic brainwave pattern of regular meditators and monks and are present when we are dreaming, although they can arise in normal waking consciousness as well. However, research has shown that by practicing forms of meditation and mindfulness regularly, you can literally rewire your brain to experience Gamma waves more frequently. Theta Waves: 3 Hz – 8 Hz Theta brainwaves are present during deep meditation, relaxation and light sleep, including the dream state. Theta has been shown to be a very receptive brainwave state that has proven useful for hypnotherapy, as well as self-hypnosis using recorded affirmations and suggestions. They are also strongly correlated with bursts of creativity, inspiration and vivid daydreams and visualizations. According to brainwave experts, it is at the Alpha-Theta border, from 7 Hz to 8 Hz, where the optimal range for visualization, mind programming and using the creative power of your mind begins. Clearly there are great benefits to be had by shifting your brainwaves into highly specific states, allowing your consciousness to experience reality through different ‘lenses’ that help it focus in positive, expansive and often times deeply healing ways. The exercises, technologies and nutraceuticals below have all been proven to shift brainwave patterns and improve trans-hemispheric communication in the brain, allowing for an expanded experience of consciousness.
Using the target frequencies.
The pulse of the “message” carrier wave must match that of the target frequencies of the person listening. For instance if you know that you will be awake and alert, mowing the grass or washing dishes, then your target wave would be in the Alpha range. If, however, you were meditating or resting, it would be in the beta wave range.
Guarantee of hitting the precise target range
There are two techniques to guarantee that the target frequencies are matching that of the “message” carrier wave. [A] Broadcast the signal in all target frequencies simultaneously. or, [B] Have a bio-feedback loop that measures your brain frequencies and then adjusts the pulse width of your message carrier wave.
Down slope control of the voice wave
We process the signal so that the pulse width is controlled by the down-wave trigger.
We utilize calming music to overlay over the system
Instead of simply having what amounts to “white noise” beamed into your headphones, we will add a soundtrack of calming and soothing sounds. Perhaps hemi-sync.
Output is a set of headphones
The output would ideally be a set of headphones, but a set of speakers can be employed as well. However, if you use speakers, anyone who hears the sounds form the speakers will be influenced by the embedded carrier waves and affirmation pulses.
Conclusion
I know that the vast bulk of the readership doesn’t even understand the schematics. But don’t worry about that. This is just a preliminary introduction article. This is a rudimentary discussion on the creation of a device that will automatically program your mind based upon whatever you want it to be programmed to. It relies on the beaming of audio frequencies that will reprogram your brain. In future articles, I [1] will prove a DIY do-it-yourself instructions on how to make one. Further, [2] I will also provide a kit with all the parts, and later on still, [3] I will provide already assembled devices for purchase. I hope that this all will be beneficial to you all.
Do you want more?
I have more posts related to this in my Affirmation Campaign index here… Intention Campaigns
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Hum… Have you noticed that Americans are so very serious when compared to others from the rest of the world?
Well, I’ve been monitoring the Afghanistan situation in the “news”. It looks pretty calm and collected. Mostly it’s people going about their business, shops open, trade going on, food markets selling produce and the like. Apparently the new government has retained all the public servants and are not making any radical changes, instead trying to establish a solid and decent enough government.
Afghanistan.
But, Christ All-mighty! If you read what the “news” out of America and the UK has to say, it’s all screeching bat-shit crazy hysterics!
My Lordy!
Someone needs to give these folks some Quaaludes and get them strapped to a gurney and carted off to the rubber-padded room.
It seems and appears to me that most of the people in both the USA and the UK are way-way-way too “high strung”.
What’s going on?
Why are they so “out there” and “in orbit”?
Well, that’s what this article is all about.
Most Americans really need to calm down.
Don’t freak out folks. But this article is going to take you into uncomfortable spaces.
Lately a number of MM participants have commented that they seem to “feel” electrified or odd in regards to being inside the United States. (Let’s call this Observation “A”.) It is like there is a very uncomfortable “wave going through everyone” simultaneously with this feeling of impending doom.
Meanwhile, there’s observation “B”, where others have commented that maybe the debacle in Afghanistan was not a sign of collapse, but was actually an intentional event concocted by those that control the United States for Geo-political and domestic advantage. Bo Chen offered a compelling argument for this, and I will post it later on.
I cannot say one way of other other related to observations “A” and “B” above. However, I will like to release this article that (again) I am being “lightly” pestered to write and release.
“Lightly” pestered.
Not hysterically pestered like the Deagel article from last week. The mere fact that I am suddenly getting “pestered” tells me that “something is afoot“.
So let’s try to consider Observation A and B in light of this article.
Again. Take what you read in an easy relaxed format. Don't get too caught up in the information. I'm going to talk about something very uncomfortable for most people to grasp. Ok?
The use of electronic mechanisms to broadcast thoughts, influence actions, alter the operation of the human body, or interact with it remotely is mature technology.It’s well known, well used, with decades of experience and operation.
Just because it is not common knowledge, or dismissed as “tin foil hat” fringe conspiracy science is meaningless. Those that control nations and societies have been using this technology for decades.
The United States is (almost) wholly controlled using these kinds of technologies. Not only on the mass scale for the intentional herding of American society, but for the control of specific people, and the obtainment of specific social-economic and Geo-political objectives.
The MetallicMan Experience
I can personally vouch that multiple personalities came out from MM during my “retirement” within the secure ADC Pine Bluff facility.
I can tell you that I was unaware that I had these personalities, abilities, skills or behaviors. I lived with them, and they laid dormant for much of my career within MAJestic.
I can also tell you that when my brain was unlocked, they had to absolutely make sure that I was in a very secure “padded room” when I “un-wound”.
For those of you who haven't read my MAJestic Index, there are multiple instances in my narrative that included...
[1] Physical cranial implants of three specific types (EBP, ELF1, ELF2),
[2] a shut-down sequence of the ELF implants,
[3] activation of memories, skills and personalities that I was unaware of, and
[4] behavior variations that can only be associated by radiative induction.
The technologies that was used on me personally were developed and were quite mature in 1981.
For me, personally, the technologies were developed in the sub-project 119 of Project MKUltra.
There are a myriad of technologies that can do this, and there are all sorts of tangential sciences and operations regarding them.
This article will just cover a few that I personally consider to be “main-stream” in continuous daily operation by those with the ability and the interest in using them.
Behavioral Control Background
American interest in the hypnosis – EMR [electromagnetic radiation] interaction was still strong as of 1974, when a research plan was filed to develop useful techniques in human volunteers.
The experimenter, J.F. Schapitz, stated:
“In this investigation it will be shown that the spoken word of the hypnotist may also be conveyed by modulated electromagnetic energy directly into the subconscious parts of the human brain.
That is, without employing any technical devices for receiving or transcoding the messages.
And without the person exposed to such influence having a chance to control the information input consciously”.
Although our modern electronic age has been in existence only since the turn of this century, individuals have claimed that their minds were being remotely influenced and controlled by machines for at least two centuries.
Recorded way back in 1810 is the case of James Tilly Matthews, a London tea broker.
He claimed his mind was being controlled by a gang operating a machine he called an “Air Loom” which sent out invisible, magnetic rays from a London cellar.
Matthews believed machines like the Air Loom were also controlling the minds of members of the British Parliament.
He wrote letters to the MPs warning them about the machines and the conspiracy behind it.
This kind of information, was not taken seriously at all. Instead,it was treated as delusional. And Matthews was committed to Bethlem Hospital as being insane.
It might be easy to dismiss Matthews’ claims of a machine that can control one’s mind because of the early date. However, his is by no means an isolated case.
In 1994 Ronald K. Siegel, a Associate Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Bio-behavioral Sciences at UCLA, wrote “Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia.”
Whispers
Whispers is a collection of case histories of mind control, (or ‘paranoia’ as he calls it) that he studied and compiled.
One case concerned a man named Tolman.
He believed his mind was being controlled by computers via a satellite system named POSSE (Personal Orbiting Satellite for Surveillance and Enforcement).
Interestingly, author Dorothy Burdick, in her 1982 book Such Things Are Known described what she claimed was her mind control harassment by computers via satellites.
She names Siegel as being the inventor of a device named FOCUS (Flexible Optical Control Unit Simulator) which can project hallucinations directly onto the retina so the subjects can’t distinguish the images from reality.
In Siegel’s book Tolman claims images are being directly transmitted into his brain.
Siegel says,
“You mean to tell me that here are machines capable of sending visual images directly into the brain?”
In 1968 Siegel published a professional paper titled “A Device for Chronically Controlled Visual Input”. This paper was a very detailed description of a device he developed to project images directly into the brain. He developed the techniques and system on experimental animals via their optic nerves.
He suggests further experimentation be
“conducted on neonates (kittens) which have their total visual stimulation controlled from the time they open their eyes.”
Thirty years later a team of US scientists wired a computer to a cat’s brain and created videos of what the cat was seeing.
One of the scientists working on the project, Garret Stanley of Harvard University, predicted machines with brain interfaces. We can only imagine how far such technology has advanced in the secret research laboratories of the US government and the military/industrial complex.
Today there is a wealth of documentation confirming how government agencies and research centers have been developing these technologies and methods.
These technologies involve elements of psychology, hypnosis, political conspiracies, and even devices that emit “rays” to control the behavior of others without their knowledge or consent.
Project MKUltra
Project MKUltra is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects that were designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, some of which were illegal.
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Experiments on humans were intended to develop procedures and identify drugs such as LSD to be used in interrogations in order to weaken the individual and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.
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The project was organized through the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the CIA and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. Other code names for drug-related experiments were Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke.
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MKULTRA, as well as projects BLUEBIRD, ARTI-CHOKE, CHATTER, CASTI-GATE, MKDELTA, MKNAOMI, THIRD CHANCE, MKSEARCH, MKOFTEN, etc., were covert CIA projects involving many prominent members and institutions of the medical and scientific communities to investigate and experiment with various forms of behavior modification and control using, in many cases, unwitting human subjects.
In was in operation from the late 1940’s until the early 1970’s, they delved into everything from drugs to hypnosis to electronics.
Then, when Congress began to investigate the activity, the head of the program (illegally) destroyed all records. He gathered up every single record, and burned all of them. He did this in direct defiance of the law. Obviously, there were some very damning things in those records that the public should never be exposed to.
And the few that remain are just minor evidence of the full extent of a very invasive program conducted without Congressional oversight against the American people.
Sigh.
Trying to bring up this subject in any forums would get your canned, scoffed at or perma-banned. It’s “tin foil hat” conspiracy shit. Don’t you know…
…And then, one day, a bunch of boxes of Project MKUltra documents were discovered…
Our recent discovery of seven boxes of documents related to Project MKULTRA, a closely held CIA project ... conducted from 1953-1964.
As you may recall, MKULTRA was an "umbrella project" under which certain ...
MKULTRA prepared by the Inspector General's- office in. 1963. Asa result of that report's ...
New Vistas
In 1996, the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board published a 14-volume study of future developments in weapons called “New World Vistas.”
Tucked away on page 89 of an ancillary 15th volume are some hair-raising insights into the future ‘coupling’ of man and machine in a section dealing with ‘Biological Process Control’. The author refers to an ‘explosion’ of knowledge in the field of neuroscience, adding, ominously:
One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set.
Translating the words ‘experience set’ from military jargon into plain English, this means, simply, that they envisage the ability to erase your life’s memories and substitute a new, fictitious set.
Imagine that.
Oh, what fun.
By projecting such developments into the future, the authors of “New Vistas” are camouflaging present day capabilities.
The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflict Short of War
A similar futuristic scenario with many references to mind manipulation is described in “The Revolution in Military Affairs and Conflict Short of War (US Army War College, 1994)”.
Authors Steven Metz and James Kievit declare:
“Behavior modification is a key component of peace enforcement”
and
“The advantage of [using] directed energy systems is deniability.”
The authors ask:
“Against whom is such deniability aimed?” The direct answer is “the American people”.
Set in the year 2010, Metz and Kievit write of “perception molding” and “advanced psycho-technologies” to avoid irksome public protest, but that is just the beginning.
The major obstacle, they believe, is that “traditional American ethics [are] a major hindrance.”
My goodness!
And thus they continue to point out that
“old-fashioned notions of personal privacy and national sovereignty [are to be] changed.”
The future presented by Metz and Kievit sounds like a mixture of George Orwell’s 1984 and the movie “The Matrix”.
Individuals unwilling to go along with the revolutionary changes are…
“identified using comprehensive inter-agency integrated databases.”
They will then be “categorized.”
And “sophisticated computerized personality simulations” will be used “to develop, tailor and focus psychological campaigns for each.”
Jeeze Louise!
Other techniques to be used in association with these new mind weapons include ‘morphing’, a present-day ability that controls the distortion of TV images.
So, if you are lucky enough not to have your brain electronically scrambled or erased, the electronic news media will be manipulated especially for you!
And such, it will be presenting convincing near-real-life visual images through your combined TV set-cum-internet interface. Woo! Woo!
Silent Sounds
The Silent Sound Spread Spectrum (SSSS) technology, also known as “S-quad”, was developed by Dr. Oliver Lowery of Georgia, USA, and is described in US Patent #5,159,703 as “Silent Subliminal Presentation System.”
The abstract for the patent reads:
A silent communications system in which nonaural carriers, in the very low or very high audio-frequency range or in the adjacent ultrasonic frequency spectrum are amplitude-or frequency-modulated with the desired intelligence and propagated acoustically or vibrationally, for inducement into the brain, typically through the use of loudspeakers, earphones, or piezoelectric transducers.
The modulated carriers may be transmitted directly in real time or may be conveniently recorded and stored on mechanical, magnetic or optical media for delayed or repeated transmission to the listener.
According to literature by Silent Sounds, Inc., it is now possible, using supercomputers, to analyze human emotional EEG patterns and replicate them.
Then store these“emotion signature clusters” on another computer.
Thus, afterwards, one can, at will,
“silently induce and change the emotional state in a human being.”
Judy Wall, writing in Nexus (October-November 1990, says
“Silent Sounds, Inc. states that it is interested only in positive emotions, but the military is not so limited. That this is a US Department of Defense project is obvious.”
Edward Tilton, President of Silent Sounds Inc., says this about S-quad in a letter dated 13 December, 1996:
All schematics, however,have been classified by the US Government and we are not allowed to reveal the exact details…
We make tapes and CDs for the German Government, even the former Soviet Union countries! All with the permission of the US State Department, of course…
The system was used throughout Operation Desert Storm (Iraq) quite successfully.
By using these computer-enhanced EEGs, scientists can identify and isolate the brain’s low-amplitude “emotion signature clusters”, synthesize them and store them on another computer.
In other words, by studying the subtle characteristic brainwave patterns that occur when a subject experiences a particular emotion, scientists have been able to identify the concomitant brainwave pattern and can now duplicate it.
“These clusters are then placed on the Silent Sound carrier frequencies and will silently trigger the occurrence of the same basic emotion in another human being!”
So, let’s suppose that you are holding your beloved pet and stoking them. You feel relaxed and content. Well, your brain could be imaged and a “snap shot” of your feelings can be recorded. This is known as an “emotion signature cluster”. And the United States have an entire library of these that they can identify, and impose on others.
Some examples…
Blind uncontrollable rage and anger.
Hunger.
Soothing comfort and calmness.
Love.
Attraction and interest.
Organism / ejaculation.
Infatuation with another.
OCD behaviors.
Stomach pain / bowel movements.
Being terribly horny and desiring of sex.
Missing something or someone.
Headache.
Loss and grief.
This technology was used on me during my MAJestic operations, and I can tell you that they were able to use it on me because my entire “emotion signature cluster” for me personally was imaged and recorded at NAMI at NAS, NASC Pensacola, Florida in 1981.
This technology could also be applied to the public at large, but I do not believe that to be the case. It wouldn’t be that effective for large groups of people.
Unless things have changed (and they actually could, don’t you know) there are better technologies to induce corralling of herds of humans via electromagnetic means.
This “Silent Sounds” technology is most useful for specifically targeted persons.
Now, there does seem to be elements of human crowd control taking place all over the United States. Instead of the Silent-Sounds technology, there are other, better suited candidates for these kinds of indiscriminate herding activities…
Synthetic Telepathy
Synthetic telepathy is a term used to describe the beaming of words, thoughts, or ideas into a person’s mind.
This is done by a type of electromagnetic transmitter, similar to a radio or television broadcast, operating in the microwave frequency band.
In recent years thousands of people have come forward claiming to be victims of this technology. However, the first officially reported scientific experiment documenting a case of synthetic telepathy cannot be found in any of the academic literature because of the highly secretive nature of the research.
In 1961 Allen Frey, a freelance biophysicist and engineering psychologist, reported that a human can hear microwaves.
However, this discovery was dismissed by most United States scientists as being the result of artifact (outside noise). The more technical description of the experiment is described by James C. Linn.
It turns out that Frey discovered that human subjects exposed to 1310 MHz and 2982 MHz microwaves at average power densities of 0.4 to 2 mW/cm2 perceived auditory sensations described as buzzing or knocking sounds (also described as clicks or chirps).
The peak power densities were on the order of 200 to 300 mW/cm2 and the pulse repetition frequencies varied from 200 to 400 Hz.
Frey referred to this auditory phenomenon as the RF (radio frequency) sound.
The sensation occurred instantaneously at average incident power densities well below that necessary for known biological damage and appeared to originate from within or near the back of the head.
Further testing revealed that two requirements were necessary for the subject to hear the microwave induced sound:
“...good bone conduction and the ability to hear acoustic energy above 5 kHz...”
By 1975 the introduction to a paper by A.W. Guy and others begins,
“One of the most widely observed and accepted biologic effects of low average power electromagnetic (EM) energy is the auditory sensation evoked in man when exposed to pulsed microwaves.”
Today, the US Government use of synthetic telepathy was described in the October-November 1994 issue of Nexus:
Directed-energy weapons currently being deployed include, for example, a micro-wave weapon manufactured by Lockheed-Sanders and used for a process known as ‘Voice Synthesis’ which is remote beaming of audio (i.e., voices or other audible signals) directly into the brain of any selected human target. This process is also known within the US Government as ‘Synthetic Telepathy’.
Microwave “Zapping”
Much of the work done with microwaves was developed by Project Pandora.
This project was put into place by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
It was initially set up to study the effects of microwaves that were being beamed into the American Embassy in Moscow by the Soviet Union.
Some of the findings of the scientists involved with Pandora are quite disturbing.
Dr. Joseph C. Sharp and engineer Mark Grove were able to hear and distinguish one-syllable words by pulse-modulated microwaves.
Microwaves can also alter the permeability of the body’s blood-brain barrier. This characteristic can synergistically increase the effects of drugs.
“Using relatively low-level RFR, it may be possible to sensitize large military groups to extremely dispersed amounts of biological or chemical agents to which the unirradiated population would be immune.”
Sound can be transmitted even easier through the use of implants.
As fans of Rush Limbaugh can attest to, cochlear implants, implants that send electrical signals into the fluid of the inner ear can effectively transmit sounds.
Additionally implants that transmit sound vibrations via bone conduction, such as the cases of dental fillings picking up audible radio signals.
Implanted Stimoceiver
The stimoceiver, invented by Dr. Jose Delgado, consists of wires running from strategic points in the brain to a radio receiver/transmitter located entirely under the skin.
Through this device, Delgado was able to stimulate raw emotions such as sexual arousal, anxiety, and aggression with the turn of a knob.
Of course, secret research by the US Government into microwaves and synthetic telepathy has moved on considerably since the 1980’s.
McVeigh: Manchurian Candidate?
Among the many telemetry instruments being used today, are miniature radio transmitters that can be swallowed, carried externally, or surgically implanted.... They permit the simultaneous study of behavior and physiological functioning.
—Dr. Stuart Mackay, Bio-Medical Telemetry (textbook), 1968
While visiting friends in Decker, Michigan, Timothy McVeigh complained that the Army had implanted him with a microchip. He said that it was a miniature subcutaneous transponder, so that they could keep track of him.
He complained that it left an unexplained scar on his buttocks and was painful to sit on.
Of course, we all know that McVeigh was convicted of the 1995 bombing of a US Government building in Oklahoma City.
Miniaturized telemetrics have been part of an ongoing project by the military and the various intelligence agencies to test the effectiveness of tracking soldiers on the battlefield.
The miniature implantable telemetric device was declassified long ago.
According to Dr. Carl Sanders, the developer of the Intelligence Manned Interface (IMI) biochip,
“We used this with military personnel in the Iraq War where they were actually tracked using this particular type of device.”
It is also interesting to note that the Calspan Advanced Technology Center in Buffalo, NY (Calspan ATC), where McVeigh worked, is engaged in microscopic electronic engineering of the kind applicable to telemetrics.
Calspan was founded in 1946 as Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory.
And funded in part by the “Fund for the Study of Human Ecology,” a CIA financing conduit for mind control experiments.
This operation was set up by emigre Nazi scientists and others under the direction of CIA doctors Sidney Gottlieb, Ewen Cameron, and Louis Jolyn West.
According to mind control researcher Alex Constantine,
“Calspan places much research emphasis on bioengineering and artificial intelligence (Calspan pioneered the field in the 1950s).”
Human tracking and monitoring technology are well within Calspan’s sphere of pursuits.
The company is instrumental in REDCAP, an Air Force electronic warfare system that winds through every Department of Defense facility in the country.
A Pentagon release explains that REDCAP…
“is used to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic-combat hardware, techniques, tactics and concepts.”
The system …
“includes closed-loop radar and datalinks at RF manned data fusion and weapons control posts.”
One computer news board reported that a disembodied, rumbling, low-frequency hum had been heard across the country the week of the [Oklahoma] bombing.
Similiar hums in Taos, New Mexico, Eugene and Medford, Oregon, Timmons, Ontario and Bristol, England were most definitely (despite specious official denials) attuned to the brain’s auditory pathways.
The Air Force is among Calspan’s leading clients, and Eglin AFB has farmed key personnel to the company.
The grating irony (recalling McVeigh’s contention he’d been implanted with a telemetry chip) is that the Instrumentation Technology Branch of Eglin Air Force Base is currently engaged in the tracking of mammals with subminiature telemetry devices.
According to an Air Force press release, the biotelemetry chip transmits on the upper S-band (2318 to 2398 MHz), with up to 120 digital channels.
There is nothing secret about the biotelemetry chip.
Ads for commercial versions of the device have appeared in national publications. Time magazine ran an ad for an implantable pet transponder in its 26 June, 1995 issue—ironically enough—opposite an article about a militia leader who was warning about the coming New World Order.
While monitoring animals has been an unclassified scientific pursuit for decades, the monitoring of humans has been a highly classified project that is but a subset of the Pentagon’s “nonlethal” arsenal.
Future battles could be waged with genetically engineered organisms, such as rodents, whose minds are controlled by computer chips engineered with living brain cells….
The research, called Hippo-campal Neuron Patterning, grows live neurons on computer chips.
“This technology that alters neurons could potentially be used on people to create zombie armies,”
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said.
“It’s conceivable given the current state of the electronic mind control art, a biocybernetic Oz over the black budget rainbow, that McVeigh had been drawn into an experimental project, that the device was the real McCoy.”
Timothy McVeigh may have unknowningly been an Army/CIA guinea pig involved in a classified telemetric/mind-control project—a “Manchurian Candidate.”
Or not.
Whatever, the technology does exist, and it is mature. Only a fool would think that it is not being used.
But I don’t think that it is being used on a large scale.
If you wanted to do this on a large scale you would to alter one’s DNA or mRNA for person-to-person Hippo-campal neural patterning. But, again, unless large segments of the population are being injected with small mind-control devices, this technique isn’t very useful to corral large numbers of people
Other systems must be employed…
Soviet Research
A highly secretive battle was being waged behind the scenes during the Cold War in the area of EM weapons (sometimes described as psychotronics) to control and influence the minds of people.
It’s only now that some of this research has emerged, but much of it remains hidden and classified. In fact, we know more about Soviet research into this area because it was the Soviet Union that collapsed.
A 1975 issue of the Soviet publication International Life, discussing electronic mind control developments, stated that atmospheric electricity can be used “to suppress the mental activity” of large groups of people.
The Soviet journal said that a sonic generator, tuned to an infrasound (below the hearing level) frequency, could create “feelings of depression, fear, panic, terror, and despair.”
In 1977, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) declassified a report describing how advances in Soviet psychotronic technology can create the ultimate big brother society.
The DIA stated that by using electronic mind control against populations to implant ideas and thoughts into the heads of unsuspecting victims:
“Sounds and possibly even words, which appear to be originating intracranially (within one’s own head), can be induced by signal modification at very low average power densities.”
The DIA report also said that the Soviets discovered that secret microwave radiation can be used to induce in unsuspecting victims:
“Headache, fatigue, perspiring, dizziness, menstrual disorders, irritability, agitation, tension, drowsiness, sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, forgetfulness, and the lack of concentration.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union (in a maneuver identical to Operation Paperclip in World War II) Western intelligence agencies obtained all the Soviet research and recruited key personnel working in this sensitive area.
Russian research has now all but stopped due to economic crises.
A report in Defense Electronics in the early 1990s said that a Richmond, Virginia firm, Psychotechnologies (believed to be closely tied to the CIA and the FBI) purchased the American rights to Soviet mind control devices.
Defense Electronics described a spring, 1993 meeting between Clinton Administration officials and Soviet psychotronics experts, including Dr. Igor Smirnov.
Amongst the US agencies represented at the meetings with Smirnov were the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Advance Research Projects Research Agency.
Clinton Administration officials wanted…
“...to determine whether psycho-correction... programs could be undertaken by the US Government. These devices could be used to affect judgment or opinion of decision-makers, key personnel or populaces.”
Clinton defense officials expressed interest that the psychotronic devices could be used “in non-violently” clearing areas of potential enemies, snipers, etc.
On the domestic front, psychotronic devices could be used to suppress political dissidents, and any other potential threats to the government.
Also meeting with the Soviet experts were officials from giant international corporations, such as General Motors, and researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health.
The 22 August, 1994 Newsweek magazine reported on a secret Arlington, Virginia meeting between experts from the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Centre and Dr. Smirnov, whose work was described in the publication:
...Using electroencephalographs, Smirnov measures brain waves, then uses computers to create a map of the subconscious and various human impulses, such as anger or the sex drive.
Then through taped subliminal messages, he claims to physically alter the landscape with the power of suggestion.
Psychotronic Weapons Research
One man’s name has become synonymous with the field of non-lethal weapons development.
Col. John Alexander first became known to the public through his December, 1980 Military Review article titled, “The New Mental Battlefield.”
This article clearly describes the lethal nature of many of the so-called “non-lethal” weapons now being developed to control civilian populations.
Alexander noted:
Psychotronics may be described as the interaction of mind and matter… The possibility for employment as weaponry has been explored. To be more specific, there are weapons systems that operate on the power of the mind and whose lethal capacity has already been demonstrated.
Describing Soviet development of psychotronic weapons, Alexander stated:
“The ability to... cause death can be transmitted over distances, thus inducing illness or death for no apparent reason.”
These…
“weapons would be able to induce illness or death at little or no risk to the operator... The psychotronic weapon would be silent (and) difficult to detect...”
Powerful elite insiders have long known how electromagnetic weapons can be effectively utilized to wage mind control against the population, specifically targeting political dissidents and troublemakers.
What of the numerous political activists and investigative journalists who died under mysterious circumstances, many from rare forms of cancer?
Could they have been ‘taken out’ by psychotronic weapons? We can only imagine how advanced this technology is today.
President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Adviser, Dr. Gordon J.F. MacDonald wrote the 1968 book, “Unless Peace Comes, A Scientific Forecast Of New Weapons.”
MacDonald described how man-made changes in the electrical earth ionosphere can be used for mass behavior control.
He said that low frequency electromagnetic oscillations can attack the low frequency electromagnetic brain waves in human beings.
He stated,
“Perturbation of the environment (by geophysical warfare) can produce changes in behavioral patterns.”
In his 1970 book, Between Two Ages, Zbigniew Brezezinski (a long-time Establishment strategist) described “weather control” as a “new weapon” that is a “key element of strategy.”
He added:
Technology will make available, to leaders of major nations, a variety of techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need to be appraised.
Brzezinski predicted the exact types of electromagnetic psychotronic weapons that the US Administration now has for the mass behavior control of citizens.
He stated:
It is possible—and tempting—to exploit, for strategic-political purposes, the fruits of research on the brain and on human behavior...
Accurately timed, artificially excited electronic strokes could lead to a pattern of oscillations that produce relatively high power levels over certain regions of the earth...
In this way, one could develop a system that would seriously impair the brain performance of a very large population in selected regions, over an extended period.
Available Electronic Harassment Technologies:
Five Available Electronic Harassment Technologies.
There are five older technologies capable of extreme destruction of the ability to earn a living, and the quality of life of a target, listed below.
None of these technologies require implants, and all can be transmitted silently, through walls, and leave no trace evidence.
All have been available for decades.
Since few targets will acquire the correct detection equipment, destruction of a target’s life even using these older technologies is a perfect crime under the American “justice system”.
Here is the list:
[1] Weaponized microwave oven weapon
A simple microwave oven, door removed, with the door interlock switch bypassed, and held against the bedroom wall of a target in an apartment building or semi-detached house. This device can cause a variety of disabling medical symptoms. (Google “Dr. Reinhard Munzert”.)
[2] Dr. James C. Lin’s pulsed microwave transmitter
Joseph Sharp’s voice to skull success was replicated with Dr. James C. Lin’s pulsed microwave transmitter.
This was publicly announced in 1974 at the University of Utah.
This device produces audible sound transmitted directly into a target’s skull, through a target’s wall.
Of course, this can drive the through-the-wall target crazy, and if the target complains, the target will be immediately diagnosed as mentally ill.
U.S. patent 6,587,729 was issued based on Dr. Joseph Sharp’s voice to skull success.
[3] Silent Sound
Lowery’s “Silent Sound,” patent 5,159,703, has been used for self-help subliminal hypnosis tapes and CDs.
It has also used by the U.S. Army in Gulf War One (1991).
It is currently used for shoplifting prevention in some countries.
Together with Sharp’s voice to skull technology, Silent Sound projected through a bedroom wall can hypnotize a target in their bed with the target being unaware.
Unaware hypnosis is CLEARLY extreme electronic harassment.
A target’s personality can be severely interfered with, and the target will not know why this is happening.
Concept diagram, combined voice to skull and Silent Sound
[4] Lida Signal
This is a half-century-old medical device, the Russian-built Lida machine, a pulsed 40 watt, 40 MHz radio transmitter.
Russian-built Lida machine.
It can be used to make a target exhausted on the job when pulsing at the rate consistent with sleep.
If you perform a pulse rate increase, it will deprive the target of sleep as well.
Certain ham radio transmitters can be configured so as to duplicate the Lida signal.
U.S. Patent 3,773,049 describes the Lida operating principle. And you can buy one here below…
[5] EPIC
Named EPIC, a through wall coordination/balance disruption weapon is an active technology being used today.
Electronic harassment targets have reported suddenly having their balance and coordination disrupted.
Here’s a quote from a May 21, 2007 article about the EPIC weapon:
http://www.myfoxhouston.com
Local Company Developing 'Less than Lethal' Weapon 'EPIC' by Invocon is being developed as a 'Less than Lethal' Weapon.
How do you disable bad guys in a crowd without killing them or causing permanent damage?
It’s a problem faced by troops in urban combat and by local law enforcement.
Now, a local company called Invocon may have the answer, and the solution may be a weapon code named "Epic."
The company is developing a weapon they hope someday will be able to shoot through a wall and stun people on the other side of the wall. ...
Conclusion
In the United States today, the official unemployment rate is supposed to be a wonderful 3.68%.
U.S. unemployment rate for 2019 was 3.68%, a 0.21% decline from 2018.
U.S. unemployment rate for 2018 was 3.90%, a 0.46% decline from 2017.
Declining every year. Getting better and better. Wonderful right?
How can [1] most Americans be working AND [2] being so poor that they are not being able to pay their taxes?
So? What the reasoning? If both numbers are correct, then what is going on is frightening. For either…
The American government has failed everyone on a grand scale.
The United States system of “exceptional democracy” has failed everyone on a grand scale.
Or, if one of figures is a fabrication or manipulation, then the government is lying to cover-up something very serious and very bad.
I argue that no matter how you look at this situation, something inside of the American society and the American government is severely “off the rails”.
Off the rails - IdiomIn an abnormal or malfunctioning condition, as in Her political campaign has been off the rails for months. The phrase occurs commonly with go, as in Once the superintendent resigned, the effort to reform the schoolsystem went off the rails .
This idiom alludes to the rails on which trains run; if a train goes off the rails, it stops or crashes.
The ONLY way that the government can control the situation is to control the people.
Which is why…
[1] American people and population is being irradiated constantly and covertly with narratives and control algorithms to corral their behaviors. This is non-stop all over America.
[2] Manipulation of Social Media and other avenues are used to herd the people into balkanized enclaves of thought; “echo chambers”.
[3] Vault 7 clearly states that Operating Systems out of the United States are designed to control the minds of those using it.
So if you feel that the world seems to be spinning out of control, and that there is a overriding feeling of dread and terror, perhaps it is the ongoing operation and a side effect for decades of intentional mind control. Rather than it “just being you”.
Air China plane.
I can tell you that once I left the United States, and got on board the Air China flight that I felt an absolute calmness and safety. Initially, I believed that it was that I was finally putting that nightmare of the last few decades behind me.
No more prison.
My “retirement” ended.
No more bullshit and reporting nonsense.
No more life as a slave in a gulag.
However, now (in hindsight) it appears that I (along with everyone else) was living inside an irradiated torture chamber, and it was only once I left that I could experience the kinds of freedom and feelings that I grew up with in the 1960’s.
And make no mistake…
…you can absolutely FEEL the calmness once you leave the United States.
What leaving the United States is like.
And I want to remind everyone that there are options out there; places that DO NOT irradiate you with radiation to control your thoughts, monitor your actions, and arrest you if you get out of line. You have REAL freedom. Not the kind of faux “freedom” that what most Americans suffer though.
The rest of the world is just great. Really, really great.
This is another reprint. This one from RT. I suppose you can agree with the American media that it is Russian propaganda. But after all, isn’t that what American “news” is to begin with? Ugh. All this is a royal PAIN IN THE ASS, I’ll tell you what.
The American “news” has become the largest pile of steaming dog shit that I have ever had the unfortunate experience to encounter. There is absolutely ZERO redeeming qualities remaining in what passes for “news” out of America these days.
But you all know that, now, don’t you?
When I was a boy, maybe 13 or 14 years old, I went with my family to Florida to go to Disney Land. It was quite the adventure for me. And yes, on numerous levels. It was my first experience with real science fiction. As we rode int he long, long drive to central Florida, my father gave me a paperback book full of short science fiction stories, and I read away. I was amazed and loved every moment of it. The car ride passed by so quickly, and by the time we arrived at the park, I was refreshed and changed… ever so slightly.
Books can do that to a person.
Don’t you know.
While the ride was long, hot and boring, I was engrossed in a world that I did not know existed. I voraciously read every story, and after each one, I would put the book down and glance upwards and think about the twisty ending and what it meant to me. It was all so very profound.
You know, I did not expect to be so influenced, or changed by what I read. It was just a paper book that my father carelessly handed over to me to occupy my time in the car. He also provided me with a small puzzle game, and a game of dice and equations, both of which that I didn’t really do much of anything with. But it was the book that made all the difference in the world to me.
Sometimes the apparently non-essential aspects of our experiences can have the greatest impact in our lives.
The following is a reprint from RT. All the usual disclaimers follow. Please enjoy and contemplate.
The West has created an imaginary, evil China for its people to hate and fear – and it’s working
Maitreya Bhakal is an Indian commentator who writes about China, India, the US, and global issues. Follow him on Twitter @MaitreyaBhakal
Western regimes are brainwashing their people with Sinophobia.
.
They want them to both hate and fear China to manufacture consent for anti-China aggression. A fictional, Mordor-like China has been created to achieve this aim.
.
If an alien landed on Earth today and read Western media reports on China, they would reach an unambiguous conclusion: China is a comprehensively and uniquely evil nation.
It [1] jails and kills civilians for no reason, [2] commits all sorts of atrocities on its people (who are apparently also filthy and spread diseases), [3] commits genocide on ethnic minorities, [4] obsessively controls people’s thoughts, [5] unleashes deadly plagues upon the world, [6] bullies other nations and traps them in debt, and [7] is a nation whose evil leaders are all fanatics, obsessed with power and bent on destroying the world.
The aliens could be forgiven for assuming that all evil on this planet is because of China…
…(and perhaps Russia and Iran thrown in for good measure)…
… and the US, while not perfect, is nevertheless a force for good, a global guardian angel, the benevolent superpower keeping the world together.
It is the sole driver of world peace and international solidarity, the solitary bulwark against the evil Chinese communist hordes.
Manufacturing powerhouse vs manufacturing consent
Ever since Chinese economic reforms began and China started ‘rising’, Western media has unleashed a massive propaganda campaign against it.
Every single Chinese action is scrutinized to death, every wrong deed or mistake criticized endlessly, and every achievement mostly ignored or downplayed.
Two factors help explain this Sinophobic hate campaign.
The first is the standard policy to ‘manufacture consent’ and manufacture hatred – the purpose of Western journalism, especially against the only nation on Earth that can counter US hegemony.
The second is plain-old racism – the core pillar of Western culture.
The middle kingdom
The US sees itself as the center of the universe, with other nations merely orbiting around it and paying homage.
America treats many of them like its minions, or “allies” and “partners”, to use the popular – if inaccurate – terminology.
Maintaining global and racial hegemony remains central to US foreign policy.
Any successful development model that doesn’t obey Western norms cannot be tolerated.
Thus, today, when the US sees another successful power center emerging, its Pavlovian response is to violently push back.
Since China is too successful, it has to be suppressed.
A non-allied nation that is not a Western-style “democracy” cannot be allowed to develop – whether technologically or financially, and certainly not militarily.
And since China is not even a white-majority nation, it needs to be crushed even more.
However, there is one small problem: China is not like America.
It [1] does not kill millions on false pretexts, it [2] does not bomb nations and their hospitals and schools, [3] it does not launch drone strikes against civilians, [4] it does not violate international law repeatedly while lecturing others to follow it, [5] it does not have an imperial empire for stealing and hoarding other nations’ wealth…
… it does none of the things that has made the West rich and prosperous.
China became rich largely without doing any of the above.
Dr. China and Mr. Hyde
Since China is not as evil as the West, an alternate, evil version of China has to be created – a mirror image in an alternate reality.
The West can then project anything they want into this imaginary China.
It can be accused of any evil in the world – based on equally imaginary evidence.
This alternate China requires massive doses of propaganda and lies to construct – and the lapdog Western media is all too willing to oblige.
After all, the US can’t openly say that it wants to destroy China in order to maintain US hegemony.
Thus, they lie through their teeth and spread conspiracy theories.
People can then be successfully brainwashed to hate and fear China.
In America, we refer to these manipulated people as "sheeple".
For example, when the US regime sanctions Chinese companies, it does so with the aim of preserving the dominance of Western companies that are unable to compete fairly.
However, this cannot be said out loud, since it goes against “free market” principles the US regularly espouses.
Thus, a strawman needs to be manufactured: that Chinese companies are a “threat to national security” or have “backdoors” in them that allow the evil Chinese to snoop on you.
Of course, this needs no evidence; the media will amplify US rhetoric without proof.
After all, in the West, freedom of the press includes the freedom to lie.
Freedom of the press includes the freedom to lie.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is another glaring example.
Western loans from the IMF or World Bank are brutal and predatory in nature, and frequently impose tough repayment terms and severe austerity measures on host nations, often causing downright bankruptcy.
Recipient nations are required to privatize parts of their economy and surrender natural resources.
Thus, in the topsy-turvy, Catch-22 world of Western propaganda, China is accused of predatory lending and ‘debt-trap diplomacy’.
Even human lives are not spared.
Pfizer, a wicked US pharma firm, allegedly demanded that South American nations surrender their sovereign assets as collateral in exchange for life-saving Covid-19 vaccines.
Thus, as if on cue, China is accused of deploying “vaccine diplomacy” and taking advantage of smaller nations.
A superpower race – with a different race
Once a justification is created that China is evil…
…and that every action China commits is an act of evil …
… the US can paint itself as the good, benevolent superpower acting in the world’s best interests.
This ‘Good v Evil’ binary is constantly reinforced through stereotypical Sinophobic tropes.
The template is applied to every single story about China, from Hong Kong to Huawei.
Enter racism.
The way the West sees it, China is the proverbial “Other” – essentially a different civilization with different standards – almost a different type of human.
As the bigoted Rudy Giuliani, “America’s mayor” and a former Trump adviser once said, human life “doesn’t mean the same thing” to the Chinese as it does to the West.
Few Americans criticized his remarks.
Many agreed with him, secretly pleased that he said out loud what they couldn’t.
This is not an aberration.
Racism is central to US society, and Sinophobia is deeply ingrained in US culture and policy-making.
The former US president himself kept dog whistling “China virus” endlessly to anyone who would listen.
His cronies were no better.
Kiron Skinner (who is ironically black; Sinophobia in America transcends racial boundaries), the then-director of policy planning at the State Department, said openly that this is “the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian,” and that the previous Cold War with the Soviet Union was at least “a fight within the Western family.”
Unsurprisingly, the Western corporate media largely ignored her remarks.
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently declared China a threat that requires a “whole-of-society” response.
This was an almost exact replication of 19th-century propaganda portraying Chinese people as evil hordes coming over to infiltrate and destroy the pure, innocent Western societies.
When COVID-19 stuck, western media openly blamed China for the disease.
The more conservative outlets pounced at the ‘lab-leak theory’ and defended the use of the phrase “China virus”, while the more liberal ones focused on the tried-and-trusted ‘Chinese authoritarianism’ trope.
The New York Times accused China’s “old habits” of “secrecy” and “controlling the narrative” of slowing the response.
It pinned the blame on China and tried to deflect from western countries’ own criminal neglect in controlling their outbreaks.
Yet, had the ‘democratic’ West adopted China’s ‘authoritarian’ methods, they wouldn’t have been on their knees today, struggling with recurrent waves.
Blaming China was a coping mechanism; today, more people have died from COVID-19 just in Orange county in California, US than in the whole of China.
So much for democracy.
Combine all this with the regular Sinophobic reporting, and a steady picture begins to emerge: Barbaric China is an existential threat to our enlightened Western civilization. The Communist Party of China is just a modern-day Fu Manchu, that will stop at nothing to take our “freedoms.”
After the Soviets and Muslims, it is now China’s turn to fill the role of the villain.
Such imaginary rogues are useful to the US regime to distract the proles from domestic problems.
A world without war
And herein lies the real reason why they hate China.
The West is prosperous today not because of hard work or perseverance, but because of centuries of imperialism, colonialism, and wealth hoarding.
China, though, is on the path to becoming a superpower without committing such atrocities.
This is what really riles them up; after all, jealousy is the root of most hatred.
China’s rise shows that an alternative, multi-polar world is possible, a world not besieged by endless wars and genocidal sanctions, a world where poverty and hunger are distant memories – a world where people can live happily without being afraid that a superpower from across the planet may bomb them into oblivion because they have something it wants.
And the US cannot allow that.
Conclusion
Ai!
I know you all realize this. Most MM readers are of the intelligence to be receptive to narratives that lie outside the normal government channels; Alt-Right, Alt-Let and mainstream. that’s not to say that any of us are perfect, we are all learning, and our thoughts and opinions change daily. So let’s not get too caught up on new ideas or different ways of doing things.
Just accept the differences. Relish in them, and move on.
Just what ever you do, don’t believe anything that the American media says. It’s all lies.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
I have decided to devote some time to a new series of posts / articles. These articles discuss the transition from a United States Military Empire led world reality, to a world governed by merit out of Asia. This is one such post.
In this post, we tear down one of the fundamental lies that the ginormous American propaganda machine spews out; That America is the machine, and the driver for all the success in the rest of the world, and that without America the rest of the world would be one big “shit hole”.
And along with this narrative comes the belief that Germany is nothing without American “rebuilding”.
Japan is nothing without American “rebuilding”.
That Korea is nothing without American “rebuilding”…
… and that any success that China has… is the result of American “rebuilding” in one form or the other.
This is false.
This is a lie.
The following article tears apart this lie, and discusses from whence the Chinese technological, and engineering success came from. It’s a good read. And whether or not you want to continue to believe the lies issued forth out of the American lie machine or not, it does give one pause to think… to contemplate… and to ponder.
Because…
The Chinese nuclear bomb technology was not stolen or copied. It was all home-grown. The American Congress made the technology top secret and prevented anyone from getting it. In fact, America executed two people for giving the technology to Russia.
The “Great Firewall of China” isn’t what you would think. China has opted out of the American dominated internet, and has created it’s very own intranet inside of the nation. It’s completely and absolutely and wholly Chinese homegrown internet technology.
And with a nation that is capable of all this home-grown independent research, development and engineering, is most certainly capable of many more great things.
For after all 5G is a wholly Chinese invention, and the USA is trying to play “catch up”. The same goes for AI, and while there are American innovations in robotics, the primary groundwork has been developed by Chinese researchers on American visas. Hyper-glide technology, swarm drone technology, digital financial transactions, and room-temperature vaccines for Covid are all Chinese innovations.
"I understand now why the Chinese like to travel to Western countries. It's so that they can travel back to the stone age."
The biggest lie obstructing Chinese-American repatriation to China is that Chinese somehow owe America for their success.
Chinese haven’t even gotten all that much from America.
Sure, some Chinese studied in America, including in STEM, before 1949. People like Qian Xuesen. Also humanities people like Hu Shih and Soong Mei-ling (Chiang’s wife) and Hsiang-Hsi Kung.
That class of humanities graduated people from Ivy League who entered higher echelons of KMT eventually lost the war and fled to Taiwan or America.
Also, for STEM, Europe was much better (to learn from and be educated in) than America especially in the early 1900s.
Chinese students would have benefited much more from studying STEM in Europe at that time. Unfortunately, it was the situation that arose after the suppression of the Boxer Uprising in 1900 (by Eight-Nation Alliance) that resulted in the Chinese studying in America over studying in Europe.
Modern China, especially the practical aspect of it, was far more influenced by USSR and Japan.
PRC had its industrial base in it’s Northeast region simply because the invading colonized Japanese colonized and industrialized it. It did so during it’s over 14 years of occupation.
As far as the military goes, the PRC’s military technology is based upon the very generous Soviet transfers in 1950s. And then again by the Russian ones in 1990s.
China also acquired some basic high speed rail technology from Japan and Germany in 2000s.
And most of the Chinese chemical industry technology came from Western Europe back in the 1970s.
There is little in terms of concrete practical high tech that China has gotten from America.
I think it’s without doubt that even though people like Qian Xuesen, Guo Yonghuai, and Deng Jiaxian (who were leaders of PRC’s nuclear and missile programs) had American PhDs, the Soviet influence on technology was substantially greater.
After all, USSR transferred to the PRC a missile that was an upgrade of V-2 in the late 1950s.
Without that, even with all those top talents in aerodynamics who had been professors or postdocs in America, it would have taken much much longer for PRC to develop its own missile program.
In contrast, if not for those top American returnees…
… as long as Soviets transferred the base technology…
… the other smart people in China, who never set foot in America, would have sooner or later figured it out too.
Provided, of course that the Chinese government made the decision to invest in that technology, (which I believe Qian influenced substantially).
I believe Qian after returning to China did not actually directly work at the “nuts and bolts” details level.
He was more of a strategist and administrator.
As well as the primary decision maker with respect to the PRC missile/rocket/space program.
He convinced the PRC political elites to invest in missiles instead of fighter aircraft.
And in hindsight, was an extremely important and correct decision.
And done at a time when the future of China was still uncertain.
The guy who actually most qualifies as the pure technical leader of PRC missile/rocket/space program goes by the name of Sun Jiadong. And he graduated from a Soviet university in the 1950s.
The thing is that those Chinese educated in America would have been just as good had they done their PhD or masters in Europe or Soviet Union.
Only that pre-1949 at that time, American graduate schools had more spots for Chinese students than European schools.
What China needed the most then was practical technology, and in this area, America did not really have any direct effect.
Actually, it was more like a negative effect.
This is because of the American embargo after the Korean War.
There were a few Chinese who studied in America who had actually did serious work in the American industry.
There were few Chinese who did not settle in America, and who ended up returning to China. And these precious few did not make any major contributions to Chinese technology. The historical record is quite clear on this.
However, after they returned to China, they obviously had to work from a much lower technology base to work with. And as such they ended up adapting their expertise and experience obtained in America for China.
There were certain things that could easily be done in America…
… a much richer country then…
… that was not really practically feasible in China due to lack of resources.
The Chinese who studied in Europe and USSR pretty much all returned.
While perhaps most of the Chinese who studied STEM in America pre-1949 stayed there instead of returning back to China.
China at that time, when STEM human capital was very important and needed, the government basically wasted a bunch of money and resources giving those “best and brightest” a higher education. They left China. They went to America. they learned technical skills. They obtained work, and they stayed there.
So I have a good reason to believe that America’s net effect on China in 20th century was rather negative.
I won’t even go into all the ideological and cultural “garbage” that America exports to the world.
Modern America.
Also, doing a higher degree abroad is not necessarily to great work in STEM in China.
Even during WWII, China already had some top or at least very good theoretical mathematicians, fluid dynamicists, or theoretical physicists.
The guy most responsible for PRC’s hydrogen bomb, Yu Min, never went abroad until he was pretty much retired.
As I’ve said, what China needed most then was the practical, industrial technology.
The difference between theoretical and practical uses in technology.
There were many top-notch theoretical brains. For the theoretical stuff, you need a top brain, access to books and journals, and an environment that let’s you concentrate on that stuff.
The practical stuff, on the other hand, despite being less g-loaded, is in practice much harder.
For China, America was more of an obstruction in that regard.
The difference between theoretical and practical uses in technology.
America enforced the embargo on PRC the most after the Korean War.
In contrast, in the 1950s and 1960s, while China could not get any help or technology from America, they were still able to obtain technology from Japan and Europe.
Unfortunately, so many people see the American PhD as a symbol of being technically top-notch.
It’s a fallacy.
It’s a legacy of America’s having been default destination for study abroad from 1900s on.
Many also studied in Japan, and there were good number of Japanese educated people who made it to the elite of CPC.
But, take particular note, there were no American educated ones.
The CPC simply cannot trust any American educated Chinese to any position of political decision making power.
They are considered to be contaminated by far too much cultural and ideological toxin.
Conclusion
And what is America right now? What happens when there is no longer any nations to loot? Any people to subjugate? What happens when the “house of cards” all falls down?
Ahouse of cards is a structure created by stacking playing cards on topof each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an expression that dates back to 1645 meaning a structure or argument built on a shaky foundation or one that will collapse if a necessary element is removed. Structures built by layering in this way, such as Stonehenge, are referred to as "house of cards architecture", which dates back to the Cyclopean and Megalithic ages.
-House of Cards, Wikipedia
What we are all witnessing in America today is the exact opposite from what is happening in China. And thus, it is no wonder that the American oligarchy-ruled Military Empire wants to cripple, suppress or otherwise destroy the Chinese rise.
It is nice to believe the lie, the fantasy that the rest of the world is nothing without American guidance, American culture, American technology, and American “know how”. But it’s not true.
And the rest of the world is growing up.
They no longer believe in the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus, or in other fabled childhood dreams.
And while it was nice to occasionally get a present or two under the tree, the rest of the world has realized that they are far better off with making their own way in the world unencumbered by the thousands of tiny American government hands in their wallets, and the millions of rules and regulations that limit their access to self determination. It’s not normal, and they are saying enough is enough.
As the world slowly adapts to the new reality of a sun-setted America, the sky looks clearer, better and frostier. There’s a feeling in the air. There is a lightness of being and a kind of anything is possible excitement that wasn’t possible under the oppressive yoke of the American oligarchy ruled military empire.
Obviously the United States is not taking this change in roles quietly, and there are all sorts of subterfuge and behind the scenes efforts going on to sabotage the global future so that the 0.0001 who rule the West can stay relevant.
But that too is doomed to fail.
Meanwhile, in the West…
They publish a “report” that the USA leads the world in innovation, and that China cannot innovate, which is total rubbish, but is targeted for the uneducated population to read.
Here’s a rebuttal to the technology growth in China, with a “Innovation index”. Which claims that there are so many western countries still ahead of China! What a rubbish.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
China has been exploding with all sorts of new things, products and innovations. Most of which has yet to catch on in the West. There are many reasons for that, but the biggest one is regulation. People who possess new things; new products; new ideas, must get permission to use them. And in the West (especially inside America) this takes time.
For instance, in the 1990’s I was the Principal Engineer for a company that was leading the world in LED technology for automobiles. We were working on tail-lights, head-lights, and courtesy lights. We were pretty cutting edge for the time. And our products were great, and worked well.
The thing was that they could not be used in cars or trucks because the regulations that existed defined the characteristics of the lighting mechanism itself – an incandescent bulb, and not the end result; the ability to have a lighted area at a specific distance.
So in order to put our new, cheap and reliable system on the market we need to get around this “roadblock”. We had to petition to change the regulations to accept results-based measurement criteria as opposed to design-based measurement criteria. And when we started to do that, boy oh boy, did we “open up a can of worms”.
No one was happy.
It’s a long story and maybe I’ll get into it some other time. Anyways, LED technology did eventually enter the automobile market, and today it’s actually rare to see incandescent bulbs being used with the same kind of commonality that used to exist.
You must understand. Over the many years, the evil and corrupt, have corrupted business, technology and society and bent them to do THEIR bidding. And it was fine and well when no one noticed what was going on…
…and China has shown the way. Where big and small, everyone can live their lives and make, grow and innovate free of government interference’s. And while it is all possible that RAH! RAH! American exceptionalism will shine through…
…the fact is that it won’t.
Not until all those millions and millions of tiny little hands are out of your wallet. Sure, you can allocate 500 million dollars to a new hospital system. And you know what you will get? A bunch of reports “evaluating” the various studies on building the hospital system. You will not get a hospital.
All these little hands are put in place by decades of crime and corruption by the oligarchy. And they are not going away.
What am I talking about?
I’m talking about this…
Yeah. You can buy a complete box of 20 for under $1 at the local store.
Crime and corruption has ruining America. And because the government has done absolutely nothing about it, it will not matter what pity saying the leadership says, what speeches that they make, what money they allocate. Because nothing will actually get done.
Innovation is really more than just a trivial interest of mine. My non-MAJestic career spanned four decades of R&D, NPD and new emerging technologies all across the board.
Not only was I dealing with what ever the fuck I was dealing with in MAJestic, but also I held my “day job” which was involved in R&D, and NPD.
And today…
America is clueless. Absolutely clueless.
Stuff that America hasn’t a clue about.
Stuff that when America innovates that it uses Chinese interns, and Chinese immigrants on visas to design, make and develop. They work inside an American company. And it is the American company that gets the credit. Not the Chinese engineers and scientists.
Look at the winners of the World Mathematics Competition; it’s America!
Woo! Woo! America is number one! Yee-Hawwww!
But look closely…
Here we are going to talk about some of the “cool” things in China now.
I can have thousands of videos as the Chinese are “out of control” in innovation, engineering and design. Some of which is silly, some of which is awkward, and some of which is just… hum. But I picked some of the more interesting technologies in this post. I hope that you enjoy them.
This is a video dense article. Please allow time for the videos to load. For the most part, they are worth it.
5G AI Flooring
Lighted floors with movies and animation isn’t new in China. They have been around for at least a decade now and are semi-common in movie theaters, malls and KTV venues. But the latest designs are really very cool as they have motion sensors in the floor panels and 5G AI responses. The result is really interesting. As in this video…
I can see some great applications on dance floors and other venues of a similar nature.
Interesting applications for the tiles
Actually, these panels are really cool. They can sense a person on them, and near them as well as what you are doing. And as such they react appropriately. LOL!
Each panel has it’s own little micro-computer. And can work independently or as part of a cluster of times.
And, of course, what can go on the floor can also go on the wall. As this video clearly shows. Again, kind of nice. But the applications can be astounding. Think of advertising boards where you can touch the advertisement and interact it in language (any) or where it could link up with your cell phone.
I can see cluster of jellyfish drones are working together in a swarm…
…silently, quietly and stealthily. All performing non-invasive tasks where no one takes notice.
Debit Card Technology
One way foreigners will use #CBDC in China during the 2022 Olympics will be with a CBDC card and automatic exchange machine!
Banks are going all-in on CBDC as it represents their return from payment irrelevance and are showing their latest tech at the China Digital Summit.
Bank of China just revealed an automated exchange machine that looks like it will see use at the 2022 Olympics.
“Overseas nationals with valid passports can put foreign banknotes into the machine, which will issue a physical e-CNY card based on the exchange rate. The card looks similar to the card-based digital yuan hardware wallet that was seen back in January.”
“The prototype of the e-CNY card for foreigners also has a small screen that shows the available balance of the hardware wallet and can be used in shops that have an e-CNY payment terminal.”
The same machine will also likely take foreign ATM cards according to patent filings I saw months back.
I'm certain a bank sponsored e-CNY app will also be available for the Olympics as foreign cards are now accepted for tourists on #Alipay and #WeChat Pay.
Fun to see the new developments!
-The Block Crypto
In China, the debit cards show just how much money that you have in the account in real time…
And here’s another video showing how you can add or delete money to the account. Note that there are no fees to do this like in the USA. In fact, everything is fee-free and so easy and instantaneous.
Not that having a card is necessary. Most people no longer carry cards. They just carry their cell phone and that is it. But having a card is really handy for other purposes, like to give a gift to children, or to allocate a budget for the purchase of a particular item.
Next year most Westerners will experience this card during the Olympics.
Huawei Ring Innovation
”The U.S. embassy in Denmark threatening to cancel its subscription with a local newspaper if it used Chinese telecommunications equipment is an example of "coercive diplomacy," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday.”
“The Danish newspaper Politiken revealed on April 25 that it received an email from the U.S. diplomatic mission in the country asking it to verify whether it uses electronic devices, including routers, modems, and electronic communications equipment, from five Chinese companies, namely Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua and their subsidiaries and affiliates.” CGTN on Twitter.
-LinkedIN
Speaking of cell phones. Here’s a ring that you can use to control your cell phone with. Apparently it is an option on all the new Huawei phones.
Speaking of Huawei. You know Huawei hasn’t stopped with cell phones either. They have developed all sorts of really cool things for the automobiles. Not American automobiles, of course. For the Chinese automobiles. Like this…
Granted many of the technologies are cool, but I don’t know how practical. Like this trunk opener. Maybe it’s all “Gee Wiz”, but do you really need it?
However, this next bit of technology is really cool. It’s self-tinting windows. Now available on Chinese cars. But, of course, it will takes years to be approved in America as you would have to run the SAE gauntlet as the various state agencies that regulate the innovation adaptation in automobiles. But in the rest of the world, it’s really cool.
Drones are “old news”. But what people don’t realize is that they are a Chinese technology with most of the commercial drones being made in China. And they are constantly innovating. The swarm drone technology is pretty much mature, and China has been using this for at least five years that I know of. What is really interesting is that the drones can create three dimensional images that your cellphone can scan in real time and link up with on the internet.
Here’s a Fraken-camera. It’s cool, and for a photography buff would probably be the “cat’s meow”, but gosh almighty it does seem like over kill, doesn’t it?
And with all the anti-China propaganda, this is what most American believe. Such as these quotes…
China doesn't innovate (central planning is incapable of innovation because creation/innovation requires market competitiveness and front-line payout/incentive).But central planning-based countries can cheat and steal. And that is what China does.
-6 posted on 7/28/2019, 10:44:53 AM by RoosterRedux
Another sheeple on Free Republic chimes in…
Innovative my ass. Have yet to see anything innovative from the Chinese that they didn’t steal from us. That’s why they won’t fold to Trumps trade war. They know they would be screwed without their thievery.
-14 posted on 7/28/2019, 11:19:28 AM by Bommer
This is what Americans and the Western allied block think about China, but it is actually not true at all.
China can and does innovate. China has been the leader in innovation for a decade already. In fact, many people gloss over all the “tell tales” of innovation such as China lock on all the 5G patents, and it’s command of the patents on Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and manufacturing.
Instead all you hear about is how dangerous and evil China is.
And you know that this statement is true. The American media would rather die than say anything good about China. But what do you expect? America is a Military Empire, and it demands absolute servitude.
This too is very true.
In fact, this was so very obvious when you watched the absolutely arrogant Biden Administration layout it’s terms to a stunned Chinese audience in Alaska in April 2021.
Perhaps some clarity is needed WHY the American military Empire is so pissed that the Chinese isn’t backing down, and instead standing up to the Arrogant American bullies.
China knows what is at stake. It’s a merit-driven leadership that has read history, and know what to expect from America. So they have readied themselves against the huge dragon the snarls, spits fire, and eats up others in it’s never-ending appetite for gold, oil and riches.
China has prepared.
And America does not like it.
Not one bit.
I love this video. I posted it on another post, as this is a military unit stationed in XinJiang. But it’s an absolutely awesome video. And worth a look. China does not play.
I mean it.
China will use every method at their disposal to stop, and destroy radical CIA-backed terrorists from doing damage, and then they will go after their sources of funding, their training and their “safe” and “distant” handlers. As China grows, so does it’s muscle. If Turkey is involved, or if the United States is involved, you will see China establish covert and secretive units to take out the instigation elements (read: key people) in their homes in far away safe suburbs. It’s a new world.
Perhaps that is why America is starting to “shake in it’s boots”.
Let's see how safe AR Senator Tom Cotton, Neocon feels in his rural home in the mountains of Arkansas, or John Bolton, or Mike Pompeo. They might no longer be holding office, but they are still "pulling the strings and levers of power". China will put a complete end to all of this nonsense.
And it's war. Right?
This is what all these neocon jackasses have been saying. Read all their writings. Go ahead read the White House report when Trump left office, read the "Long Telegraph". They want to kill and remove the Chinese national leadership and replace them with Vichy people who will be puppets for their American global objectives. Of course China knows what the fuck is going on.
And it's fair game, eh?
You want to attack China. Well, it will fight back. With real, real claws. They have no fucking idea what kind of a "hornet's nest" they are kicking off the tree.
Watch the video.
This very cool video can be obtained directly HERE.
This is just a small picture of the vast array of defensive military that China has amassed to prevent any idiotic American dreams of another Syria, Yemen, or Iraq invasion for “democracy“, and to “rescue the Uighur’s“.
This entire video was filmed inside of Xinjiang.
Keep in mind that not only is the military presence large, but they are well-trained, run by merit, and utilize well maintained, state of the art equipment.
The idea that American troops can go into Xinjiang and “rescue the imprisoned Muslims from the concentration camps” is never going to happen.
But that’s exactly why the American propaganda machine is in full gear right now. To make it seem that China is one thing, that it really isn’t.
And we can see this is the comments on American Neocon websites…
“The PLA’s great weaknesses:”
I think you can add:
- Their recruitment pool has been halved by a government imposed one child policy that was maintained years after being understood as destructive by a government that can never admit mistakes.
- Their economy relying on resources (especially oil) that must be imported by sea along sea lanes that cross territory closer to and controlled by their enemies.
- Their economy relying on export markets made up of their major potential enemies.
- Their work force demographics currently transitioning from having a vast majority of highly experienced workers (those in the 45 - 65 age group) to having that group being retired.
-39 posted on 5/1/2021, 5:15:53 PM by conejo99
Obviously the commenters have never been to China, know nothing of China and repeat the neocon narratives as if they are factual.
.
And, you know, that’s why they are called “sheeple”. They have strong emotions about something that they have never experienced first-hand. Only from what they read. And so they respond out of extreme ignorance like this…
The PLA’s great weaknesses:
- They have no institutional knowledge on how to maintain force cohesion under fire that is HITTING.
- They cannot prevent strikes by a modern military against their homeland.
- Many of their new weapons systems are cartoon images of the real thing. (their stealth does not work)
- Their logistical infrastructure for manufacturing these new weapons is hopelessly corrupt.
- They STILL cannot manufacture a decent jet engine in numbers.
- You can hear their submarines leaving Hainan Island from Pearl Harbor.
How crushing it will be to them when they are handed their ass.
13 posted on 5/1/2021, 8:30:22 AM by Mariner
It used to be an operational assumption that the rigid, doctrinaire command structure of conscript Warsaw Pact and Chicom forces would result in disarray when key leaders were lost on the battlefield, and by contrast, US forces consisted of individual soldiers ready to step up and take initiative and assume leadership roles when situations demanded. From what I read and hear, I'm not sure those distinctions are as clear as they once were.
-23 posted on 5/1/2021, 9:44:11 AM by Joe 6-pack
I have been reading these China is going to collapse anytime now stories for 20 years. They have only gotten more powerful.
- 31 posted on 5/1/2021, 10:24:34 AM by setter
They can't do logistics - they have never had to move lots of men and material under pressure. Something the US military is VERY good at (sometimes to our detriment).
-32 posted on 5/1/2021, 10:25:42 AM by Psalm 73
I have to laugh at this one. “China cannot do logistics“.
.
It is always the same garbage narrative. China is an evil authoritarian regime and the people are huddled ignorant masses and they need rescuing from their evil overlords. Yada. Yada. Yada.
.
The Civil Police publicly beat and incarcerate people daily, and sometimes torture and kill - its no secret except from the West. Filming is rare because of the plainclothes cops are everywhere and will stop and destroy the camera/phone - as are the ubiquitous State cameras watching for people filming.
-42 posted on 5/1/2021, 7:56:47 PM by PIF
Again, the illusions that these people have are comically insane.
.
The only people on the forum that doesn’t agree with the neocon narrative are people who have actually been to China, or to Asia. And they say some sane things, but they are obviously in the minority.
.
No China did not ‘lie about’ their Covid totals, at least for the most case.
I am in Vietnam now. Some similarities between China, and Vietnam. And some BIG differences as well (like I don’t see Vietnam as a threat to America)
There have been a grand total of 35 deaths due to Covid.
Really.
Thirty five.
-48 posted on 5/1/2021, 11:15:04 PM by cba123
They are lone voices, often drowned out by the loud and the ignorant.
China does innovate. There are many technical devices that are made there that are not made here. Hell, you can't even find decent documentation for devices I use because no American companies neither design or make this stuff.
And of course there are some good comments.
America is the place where innovation is dying. How can we expect to produce engineers if there aren't jobs for them here?
26 posted on 7/28/2019, 10:17:45 PM by GingisK
He also responds to one of the sheeple’s comments…
..Have yet to see anything innovative from the Chinese that they didn’t steal from us...Try to find something like an ESP32 that was made here first. Try to find a Bluetooth Low Energy transceiver on an XBee carrier that was made here first.
Those devices were both made in China. The ICs are made in the USA; however, there seems to be nobody here who will innovate products from them. Crap, people here can't get beyond Arduinos using peripherals that are created in China.
Few people understand how deep the damage to American innovation and engineering goes.
28 posted on 7/28/2019, 10:26:39 PM by GingisK
And this particular post addresses all the “Gung Ho” Sheeple that live off the illusion that the American media propaganda is correct…
... Few people understand how deep the damage to American innovation and engineering goes...That's why I get so annoyed with the "Puff the Magic Tariff" brigades here on FR. Tariffs can work tactically if you have industries left to protect, otherwise they equate to putting expensive doors on an empty barn....while your horses are already grazing in the next county. A massive reduction in the Cost of Liberalism is the most important task to focus on.
30 posted on 7/29/2019, 4:45:36 AM by Mr. Jeeves
Do you want more?
I have more articles like this in my China Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the territory of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions
If Kiev and the West refuse the new peace proposal, further conditions will be different, Putin said.
![[Daegonmagus] Simplified LD technique](https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lucid-dreaming-2-672x372-1-825x510.jpg)
The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.
Here’s one with ICs… 
or, [B] Have a bio-feedback loop that measures your brain frequencies and then adjusts the pulse width of your message carrier wave.
